GIRL!! I just read your Lino fic and 🧎🏻♀️
I see your rqs are about to close so I was hoping maybe you could do a little sumthn sumthn angsty for my boy YangYang? I'd prefer F!reader and sumthn like you broke up and get kinda really jealous seeing him at a party with some girl and maybe you get back together maybe ya don't I'll leave that up to your creative mind? Could you also add Renjun and Xiaojun in as well, like a friend group type thing? I know this is a lot and maybe too detailed but like I NEED more angst from you plz and thank you 😩
Take care and stay hydrated 🤍
Scorched Auroras
PAIRING - YangYang x F!Reader (ft. Renjun & Xiaojun)
SYNOPSIS - You've had your regrets over the years, it's a part of the human experience. But nothing will ever compare to the pain of Him walking out of your life.
WORDCOUNT - 4.4k
WARNINGS - All around Angst, Cheating, Lies, Descriptions of Anxiety Attack, Heated Arguments, Exes to ???, Mentions of Alcohol, Reader wears feminine clothes (dress, heels, etc.), Renjun's kind of a dick in this... he's just trying to help, YangYang is also a dick but it's well-deserved || Let me know if I've missed anything!
A/N - The way I've been wanting to write more angst after that Minho fic, but I've just not gotten around to it... 😔 Thanks for the request, Darling! ngl I spent more time rereading this than I did writing this to the point that I have no idea if this is as good as I originally thought it was, (we love inconvenient writers block) so feedback would be greatly appreciated. And to all you YangYang girlies 👋🏻 I'm sorry for this.
“Huang Renjun, when I find your sorry ass…”
Your heels reverberate against the floors of the house, quick and staccato as you seek out the host of the party. This was supposed to be a chill little get together with mutual friends; all put together by Renjun. Same people. Same place. But when you walked through the front door, you’d been paralyzed.
Through the hall - between the mass of bodies that danced and conversed with each other - you had spotted Liu YangYang sitting pretty on the leather sofa, strumming away on his six-string. His eyes had found yours, and that genuine smile on his face had faded, his brows knitting as he blinked and looked away. He was surrounded by mutual friends, but you couldn’t take your eyes off the group of girls that sat like a pride of lions around him.
Funny enough, looking around the house… this party? Not so little or so mutual. In fact, you’re almost certain there’s friends of friends here, migrating up the stairs that you’ve just traversed. And the majority of them have been gathered around your ex-boyfriend for the past hour like he was the main entertainment of the evening.
So here you are, with a handful of drinks in you and your patience dwindling. You huff, sparing glances through open doors and knocking on others down the hall until you’re finally directed to Renjun’s bedroom by a random party-goer.
“Renjun!” your knuckles rap on the door, calling over the back beat of the blaring music. “I know you’re in there! Open the damn door!”
When there’s no answer, you grunt and knock louder. There’s no doubt he can hear you, your fist aching with every hit to the wood grain. The door opens, a very buzzed Renjun appearing before you.
“Fuck, where’s the fire!?”
You shoot him a glare, leaning against the door frame.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m a little busy at the moment.” He chuckles, glancing over his shoulder. It’s now that you notice the wrinkles in his clothes, his dark hair an unruly mess that he attempts to fix by carding his fingers through the tresses. The smear of red at the corner of his mouth has you narrowing your eyes. You scoff.
“Yeah… busy.”
Renjun stumbles, your hand darting out to snatch at the collar of his white tee. His protests fall on deaf ears as you pull him down the hall towards his makeshift studio. He knows he’s not going anywhere, even as he attempts to wretch your fingers from the fabric.
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” The heavy bass drums steady in your chest as you yank Renjun into the room. The moment your past the threshold, you let him go, slamming the door behind you.
“Hey, easy!”
“You lied to me.”
Renjun lets loose an exasperated chuckle, smoothing down the fabric of his shirt.
“I wish I knew what you were talking about.” he says, raising his brow. There’s a ghost of amusement playing on his face. He knows. It only fuels your aggravation.
“Oh, YangYang won’t be there, I promise.” You mock the words he’d told you over a FaceTime call just a few days ago. Renjun meets your glare evenly, seemingly unimpressed. He rolls his eyes when you cross your arms.
“I didn’t know he’d come. He told me he had something planned tonight.”
“Right, fucking fat chance that he’s sitting right where I’d catch him cozied up around a bonfire of girls.”
“The perfect place to play a guitar.” he quips. Your eyes narrow, following his movements as he turns toward the random clutter in the studio.
“You know how much I hate this version of Renjun.”
“Which one?” he asks, a teasing lilt in his tone. He stops at his desk, rearranging strewn journals and crumpled pages that have nearly landed in the bin beside the workspace.
“The one that plays dumb just to get out of answering me.”
“I do not-”
“You do!” you bite, feet situating themselves under your weight. You level the brunette with a pointed look.
“You’re holding out on me, I can tell. So, are you gonna spill or what?”
You watch the cogs turn behind his eyes, bringing a hand up to rub at his brow, clearly frustrated with the way this conversation is going. Brown eyes shift from the far wall, dropping the journals on the desk. He turns to you, a look crossing his face that you can’t pinpoint.
“I already told you, I had no idea he was gonna be here, okay? I asked him if he was coming and he said no.” Renjun glances to your form and the way you’re seemingly guarding the door like a well-trained hound. “I didn’t openly invite him. He showed up on his own. Any reason you’re so pissed about that?”
The question catches you off guard. Any reason you’re so pissed about that? What, with the way things ended, you certainly have no right to be. Ignoring the stabbing in your chest, you lick your lips, nails digging into your forearm. He catches the way you shift, spine straightening against the wall.
“What kind of question is that?” you ask, voice clipped.
“A valid one.” Renjun replies, leaning against his desk. There’s that casual air that he exudes as his eyes rake down your body. Observing. Your choice in outfit; that little black dress, the time you put into your hair and makeup, those stilettos. Renjun knows you don’t put that amount of time into going out unless it means something.
He clicks his tongue, blinks. Bourbon swirls with some kind of intent.
“You’re the one who broke up with him, remember? Although I’ve gotta say, if looks could kill, those girls fawning over him would be dead at his feet.”
“Watch your words, Huang.” you warn, a sharpness to your tone that leaves the guy unbothered.
“I haven’t said a thing… it’s called observing.” His voice is cool as ice, arms coming to cross over his chest.
“You’re implying.”
He laughs, snake eyes pinning him where he stands.
“I’m just stating the facts.”
“You want facts?” You close the distance between you and Renjun so quickly, he doesn’t have time to react before you’re right in his face, “You know exactly what the hell you did. You knew how much I didn’t want him here, it’s why I asked you when you invited me. You made a promise that you blew to the wind.”
Your voice is calm but tight - like a rubber band pulled to its limits. You can’t bring yourself to care about how you come across at this point. Not when there’s seven vodka shots warming your veins, clouding all rationality. Your patience is gone as you glare up at the man, watching as a dark brow twitches behind stray tresses. You’re done playing his stupid little game.
The tink of plastic against metal hits your ears as Renjun swipes a broken guitar pick off the desk into the trash bin, eyes deadlocked on the sneer that’s prying at your lips. For a second, he mulls over his actions that led up to this point. Perhaps he’s being a bit of an ass, but you’ve put off talking things out with YangYang for months. He's felt the strain it's put on the group dynamic, and he’s sick of hearing you both say everything is fine. How can two people be fine when they can’t tolerate being in the same room together? And now you come to him like he’s done you wrong, like what he’s done is unforgivable… Renjun doesn’t get it.
A knock at the door pulls him from his thoughts.
“Renjun, you in here? Some jackass is-”
The door opens, Xiaojun stopping short at the sight before him. The tense charge in the room hits him like a tidal wave, and the scowl that etches your face doesn’t give him much room to speculate.
“Uh, sorry to interrupt.” he says, looking between you two. Renjun scratches at his neck, clearing his throat.
“What is it, man?”
“There���s some guy starting shit by the pool. Thought it’d be a job for the host.”
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.”
Xiaojun nods, giving you both one last fleeting glance before the door closes. When the footsteps fade into nothing but reverberating bass, Renjun slips out of the space between you and the desk.
“Where are you going?”
“To take care of damage control, as you just heard.” He turns toward the door with a finality that says this conversation is well over. If you weren’t buzzing, were in your right state of mind, you would have let him go. But the addition of alcohol only egged on your unbridled emotions.
“No, we’re not done talking.” You hiss, a hand darting out to catch his wrist. Renjun groans, and you hear your name slip off his tongue like a bad omen as he aggressively shrugs you off him.
“Stop! Just-” He turns his back to the door, looking at you like you’ve lost your mind. You look on with wide eyes as he takes a deep breath, brows twitching. “You both said that you broke up because things weren’t working out. Something about schedules and other conflicting shit…”
He shakes his head, optics flickering over your face, searching for some sort of answer as to why you're reacting this way. When your shoulders sag, he knows enough. You’re closing off, and as much as Renjun wants to be the friend that mothers you back to good spirits with a gentle hand, it seems that isn’t gonna work. The way you approached this tonight has him clutching at his last straw.
“It’s not my business but-”
“You’re right, it’s not your business-”
“But you decided to make it my business when you pulled me in here and fucking interrogated me! That alone tells me there’s more to the story than you two have let on.” You press you lips together, optics locking onto the far wall. You hear the steady release of a sigh, the rattling of the door knob under his palm. “You’ve been friends for years. You never let the simple things interfere back then.”
“Romantic relationships are different, Renjun.” You don’t need to meet those eyes to know he’s unconvinced.
“You’re impossible…” He mutters. The floorboards groan under his feet as he turns back toward the door, shoulders tight under the fabric of his shirt.
“This conversation is going nowhere. I don’t know why you dragged me in here and grilled me about the one person you don’t want to talk about, but I have a party to host.” His fingers grip the door knob and twist, amber eyes meeting yours over his shoulder.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on between you two, but you need to talk to him. Before the fallout ruins this friend group.”
The door slams shut, and you blink as Renjun’s heavy footfalls fade down the hall. His words sink in. He’s right. You sag against the wall, letting your head fall against the drywall, trying to process everything that just happened. Releasing the breath you didn’t even realize you were holding as the liquor takes another round through your hazy mind. The threat of tears infect your vision, burning even as you attempt to blink them away.
“Fuck.” you hiss, fingers coming to press against the junction of your nose bridge and the corners of your eyes until the pressure conjures rainbow static behind your lids. “Fuck. Fuck!”
You’re ready to leave. Ready to leave this party, block phone numbers and move out of the country if it means you don’t have to face the one person you regret hurting. Selfish, really, but in your current state of mind, it sounds like heaven. You’ve let this situation hang over your head for the past eight months, praying it would go away on it’s own. It’s obvious no God will let you off that easily.
God damn…
Your feet are moving before you can think any further, the studio door left ajar as your figure strides down the hall and descends the stairs. You need a glass of water to clear your head, something to prepare yourself for what’s about to happen. Optics dart to the sofa, where YangYang has been most of the evening, but he’s no longer there. The guitar leans against the wall, propped up with the help of the sofa's armrest. You bee-line for the kitchen.
The main space between the living room and kitchen has significantly dwindled to a small group of people, and you remember what Xiaojun had said about the shit starter by the pool. A simple glance to the back patio tells you that’s where everyone has gone. Empty cups and snack trays are left behind, alongside a few couples making out in the corner, and the few people conversing near the kitchen island, including Xiaojun. He greets you with a soft smile, offering you another drink that you graciously decline.
“You good?” he asks, smile fading into furrowed brows.
“Yeah, I think I’m over the alcohol for tonight.” you mutter, taking an chilled water bottle from the cooler. “Do you know where YangYang ran off to?”
“Last I saw him, he looked like he was leaving for the night.” he replies, taking another swig of his beverage. You blink, cracking the cap on the bottle and bringing it to your lips in one swift motion. Despite the amount of alcohol you’ve had in such a short amount of time, the water you take down washes away your brain fog, and you turn toward the front door with a newfound clarity.
YangYang isn’t gone. You know him well enough. And you’re ready to face him. You have to be. Because you aren’t leaving here until you set things right.
You pat Xiaojun on the shoulder as you leave, a quiet thanks uttered as you force yourself to move toward the exit, fingers latching on the handle.
The cool night air washes over your skin, but you welcome the instantaneous sobering up it provides. It’s quiet out here, as quiet as a house party can get for the chatter and music, crickets chirping in the protection of well-manicured shrubs. With a quick scan of your surroundings, you find who you’re looking for.
Liu YangYang stands at the far corner of the porch, leaning against the railing with his back to you. He’d be unnoticeable by most people, shrouded in October shadows.
You’re not most people.
It’s as if the world falls still in the time it takes you to walk over, your stomach swirling like a blender on full power. He’s by himself out here. That makes it easier, right? You let out a shaky breath, the sudden urge to bolt over the railing and disappear into the woods like a spooked fawn flooding your veins. But you don’t. You can’t.
“We need to talk.” you pipe up, clearing your throat in an attempt to hide the tremor in your voice. Black hair falls into brown eyes, a grunt of your name passing his lips at the sound of your voice. You never want to hear him say your name like that again. Like you're the scum of the earth.
“Heard you were pretty pissed about my being here.” he says. Even under his sweater, you can see how taught his back muscles are, how he's trying to hold himself back. Your eyes slip shut.
Renjun… He must have caught up with YangYang before you could make it downstairs. You let the curses slip to the back of your mind, focusing on the matter at hand. You know this doesn’t have to be hard. Just a short, civil conversation between you and your ex. With a lick of your lips, you try again.
“YangYang, I’m-”
“You know, it’s really fucking insulting to hear that.” He brings the half-full solo cup in his hand to his lips, taking the rest of his drink down in one go. Dark optics stare blankly toward the dimly lit street. “Especially when you’ve avoided me for the past eight months. When no one else knows the truth about you.”
You swallow hard at his comment, staring at the foot that he can't stop tapping against the porch.
“I don’t wanna fight with you, YangYang.” you say, taking a step toward him, “I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I need to talk to you.”
You hear the huff of a scoff, and he turns just enough to lock eyes with you from over his shoulder, pupils digging into you from the corners.
“Better eight months late than never.”
“YangYang-”
“What?” he interjects, snapping like a cornered fox, “Too busy with them to come to me sooner with your bullshit excuses?”
YangYang doesn’t need to face you to get his emotions across. You’ve never had trouble deciphering whether he was emotionally six feet under or floating on cloud nine. But now, you feel like you’re Gaia up against the raw power of Helios; a violent storm of solar particles slamming against you in his attempts to protect his heart from freezing over.
The auroras of scorched and unspoken truths. Your magnetic field is battered and bruised too significantly to sustain such a blow.
That’s on you, you know. You’d come to the realization eight months ago when you took that sledgehammer to a decade of friendship. A decade of trust that transformed into so much more. An angel of a boy that you threw away - tore his wings from his back for good measure.
You shake your head, that fire burning behind your eyes.
“You’re not being fair, here.” You whisper, and as much as you don’t want this conversation to escalate, you know there’s no stopping it. You flinch when he whips around, wild eyes boring into yours, a snarl threatening to break the crease of his lips. He points a finger at you.
“You cheated, Love! You!” The term of endearment is anything but; poison on the tongue that used to serenade you and whisper sweet nothings in your ear. He is the ferocity of a rabid dog in the form of gnashing teeth and beady eyes, panting and growling in warning when you try to console it.
“Two years together! Thirteen years of friendship and trust that you so easily struck a match to like that?! Fucking treated me like I was an afterthought in your daily schedule while we were still together! The nights you came home and lied through your teeth, telling me you were working late… that you were out with friends… Fuck, I even felt you pulling away and I still tried telling myself that I was crazy. No, no, you wouldn’t do that to me. We’ve been through so much together. Fucking fool, I am!”
You watch him through the glaze of tears as he stalks toward you. The hurt in his eyes burns like a serrated knife, slicing away at the worn and ruptured threads of your relationship that scream with every threat of the blade.
“So, no, you don't get to tell me I'm being unfair! I saw the way you watched me tonight. You probably don't realize how many drinks you had because you were too busy raising your hackles at the girls that I was talking to. Ran off to light a fire under Renjun's ass because things didn't go your way.”
Your heart pounds against your breast, your pulse violent in your fingertips. In your head, this conversation played out with less hostility. You expected some anger - it’s only fair with the pain you put him through - but this was another level entirely. In all your years of knowing YangYang, he’d never blown up like this.
Never at you.
Never because of you.
This isn’t the boy that you would race to school every morning, who dried your tears and rubbed the rocks from your knees when you tripped yourself. The one who would send you dumb memes in the middle of class, and took accountability so you weren't sitting in detention alone. Who bought you a promise ring for your ten years of being friends, and another when you celebrated two years of dating.
Your rock in the toughest situations and you threw him into the ocean with little thought. Didn't even watch as he sank to the depths.
You blink, feeling the tears track down you cheeks as you speak.
“I never wanted to hurt you like I did, and I should’ve talked to you about this months ago. I’ve…” You hesitate, “I’ve been think about that night a lot.”
“Good.” He doesn’t miss a beat.
“It was a mistake, and I can’t even give you a good reason for it.” you whimper, breath catching in your throat, “I’m so sorry, YangYang. I-I wasn’t thinking straight. I never should’ve-”
Words fail you, your composure breaking with a burst of tears that hits so suddenly, it's impossible to breathe. You hug yourself with trembling arms, nails digging into your palms.
“I don’t want this to be it for us,” you say, your words strangled as you try to wrangle in your tears, “there has to be a way to fix this!”
He’s close enough to touch, and you reach out with little thought, pulling him into you, wrapping your arms around his torso. Your fingers grip into the back of his sweater as you sob into his shoulder, your body shaking with every strangled hiccup.
YangYang doesn’t move, doesn't push you off. He just stands here. There’s no warm embrace enveloping your frame, no tears to share with you. It’s like you’re hugging a stone statue, the body heat that he exudes being some sort of sick joke when all you feel is the chill of a vacant shell.
“Please, tell me what I can do to fix it!” The plea hangs over you like a specter, ghastly fingers wrapping tight around your throat. The silence grows long, nothing more than faint strains of music drifting through the cracks of the windows and doors of the house, carrying some hint of life beyond the two of you. You almost wish he’d begin to yell again, growl about the extent of which you’ve hurt him. Anything but this indifference, this apathy towards the one girl he’s given everything to. But this… this feels like him finally giving up. Like he’s finally decided that you aren’t worth the trouble anymore. You don’t want to accept it, but every second that ticks by is like another nail in the coffin.
You pull away, fingers twitching as they come up to cradle his jaw. The muscles under the flesh tenses, and he recoils from your touch like it’s physically hurting him, looking off across the street with a hollow gaze. It’s a tortuously long moment before he levels you with those brown eyes. They’re dull when they look at you now; worlds away. A fresh grave, its soil rejecting any and all growth, no flowers, no grass. Seeds greedily plucked from the ground by songbirds and rodents. No one to care for the plot when the soul’s story is made up of little white lies. He watches from the corner of his eye as the tears collect on mascara-laden lashes, the makeup mixing with the liquid as it trickles down and off your chin.
“I don’t want it to be over either,” he admits. A stray tear falls from his lash line, but there’s a void of emotion in his tone. “But…”
There’s that pause again, and you can’t handle it this time. The knot in your chest tightens like a vice, brows pulling inward when he goes to take a step backward. You shake your head, his name sputtering from your lips like it’s the only thing that could offer a modicum of comfort.
“I love you, YangYang,” you say the words quickly, desperately, clinging to his arms as he spares you nothing more than a glance. “I still do, please, please don’t- don’t do this! I’m sorry!”
“That’s the same dress.”
You look up with wide eyes, jaw slack as you sniffle.
“What?”
“You wore that dress the night you came home drunk with them.” he says.
You glance down at the fabric hugging your figure, the memories from that night coming back to you in what little fragments you can remember. Clinging to their shirt as you both laughed between kisses, the clumsy fumble of your key in the lock. You had woke up to them in your bed, a raging hangover, and your boyfriend sitting on the couch in silence when you went searching for a glass of water and an Aspirin. You don't remember doing anything more than kissing, but cheating was cheating. And YangYang had been livid.
He shakes his head, laughs incredulously. “You’re insane. You're dead to me.”
“YangYang, I-” is all you can get out before he’s pulling away again, shoving you off him with enough force to send you staggering to your knees. For a moment you sit there in a stunned stupor, your hands splayed over the wood grain of the porch, gasping for breath as you openly sob. Composing yourself at this point is impossible, anxiety clutching at your lungs like a serpent’s stranglehold. Your legs tremble, eyes burning with unspent tears. He hasn’t walked away yet, and for a moment you think maybe there’s some semblance of salvaging this until-
“Don’t come crawling back to me when they put you through the same shit you put me through. Fucking cry yourself to sleep.”
It’s the last thing he says, storming off as he passes your heaving frame with little more than a glance. Down the front steps. Down the path to the side walk. It’s over. You choke back sobs as you fight for oxygen, numb to the feeling of warm hands on your back. Through the onslaught of tears, you recognize the shoe beside your knee as Xiaojun’s.
You try to focus on his voice, listening to each syllable as he murmurs your name in your ear and his attempts to guide you out of this frantic head space, but all you can focus on is the black hole manifesting within your chest. Your heart is like lead at your feet, your lungs burn, and your ears ring to a fever pitch.
YangYang’s words ring in your head like a death knell. The bell’s final toll signaling the end as the shadow of the man you knew disappears down the street.
You have no one to blame but yourself.
Psst!! If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read my work 💕 I appreciate you!
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