axlvyy

[axlvyy]

bubblegum aesthetic>>>

[axlvyy]

THIS OMG???

howlers of love - ksn 🎐

; pairing - sunoo x gn!reader

; synopsis - in which sunoo starts receiving howlers from an anonymous student, professing their love for him in his face for the whole school to watch.

; tags - one shot, fluff, a teaspoon of angst, hogwarts au, hufflepuff!sunoo, hufflepuff!reader ; warnings - none

; wc - 3.3k

; author's corner! this was requested! i just love hogwarts aus and sunoo

it was a normal morning. it was.

walking down to the great hall with your best friend, sunoo, for breakfast - it was your daily routine. it had been for the past 4 years.

you'd wait for each other in the common room every morning, then make your way to the hall for breakfast. sunoo would be complaining about some teacher or classmate while you speed-run some homework due the other day.

then, you'd leave for your classes, but not without sunoo stuffing some toast up your mouth, because you never actually eat much in the mornings. not when you're completing work you should have done earlier. this morning was just like every other - until an owl dropped a red envelope at sunoo's plate.

suddenly, the other students sitting nearby you guys silenced, eyeing the howler in front of your best friend. howlers were never a good thing to receive. they were often sent by parents to their children who had been particularly naughty.

"are you in trouble?" someone asked, but no one could believe it. after all, sunoo was a good student, great even. he was a ball of sunshine, and did well at school. he had no enemies, not when a smile from him could send anyone melting on the inside.

so what the hell was a howler doing in front of him?

"you should open it soon," you told him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. his eyes remained fixed on the letter. "to get it over with."

it seemed like the whole hall leaned away as sunoo slowly reached for it, confused and afraid of what it might contain.

a moment later, the envelope exploded, and a distorted voice started roaring from it, garnering everyone's attention.

"DEAR SUNOO, YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THIS IS, BUT I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOW.

"I LIKE YOU. I HAVE FOR A WHILE NOW, AND IT'S SO HARD KEEPING THESE FEELINGS TO MYSELF. NOT WHEN YOU'RE SO PERFECT, AND AMAZING, AND BRILLIANT, AND TALENTED.

"I'M NOT ASKING YOU TO RECIPROCATE MY FEELINGS, BUT I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW, THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO CARE FOR YOU - LIKE ME.

"SINCERELY, YOUR NOT-SO-SECRET ADMIRER."

a silence fell over the hall, as the howler burst into flames and ashes.

everyone had heard, and everyone was now staring at your best friend - who remained stunned in his seat, a hand over his mouth.

"sunoo?" you asked tentatively. the hand you placed on his shoulder seemed to wake him up.

he was about to say something when everyone burst into chatter about what had just happened, whistles echoing throughout the hall.

"whew!" jake, another of sunoo's friends, clapped his back. "now that's one way to confess." sunghoon nodded with a grin, holding his chuckle in as he stood slightly behind his fellow ravenclaw.

"no," sunoo whined, hiding his face completely behind his hands. "a good way of confessing is telling me who they really are. only cowards hide behind anonymity."

you rubbed his back comfortingly, trying to form words in your head.

"everyone's going to be talking about it for the rest of the day," sunghoon remarks.

"don't remind me," sunoo said, his voice muffled.

"are you okay?" you ask him, bending to try and get a look at his face. he turns his head slightly, and you see his face flushed red.

"oh!" you laugh. "did you like that?"

"of course he did," jake chuckled. "you know our sunoo, he loves the attention." he reached out to ruffle the boy's hair, but sunoo fought his hands away before jake could do anything.

"stop doing that!" he whined. "i'm just a little embarrassed. now everyone's in my business," he mumbled, sitting up and putting his red cheeks on full display.

"i think it's cute," you say, reaching up to comb his hair with your hand. you heard jake grumble about how sunoo only ever lets you touch his hair.

"ah sunoo," sunghoon sighed, patting the younger boy. "ever the lover for grand gestures, aren't you?"

sunoo huffed. "whatever. me and y/n are going to class now. i'm not listening to you two idiots any longer."

and then he up and left, taking you with him by the wrist.

the next week, another howler arrived for sunoo. everyone was curious now.

"DEAR SUNOO, I HOPE YOU'RE SMILING WHEN YOU GET THIS NEXT MESSAGE. IT ALWAYS BRIGHTENS UP MY DAY.

"I HEAR YOU THINK I'M A COWARD FOR REMAINING ANONYMOUS. I THINK SO TOO. BUT, IF YOU WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT ME, I'LL TELL YOU ONE.

"I LIKE YOUR SOFT, FLUFFY HAIR, AND THE WAY YOU STYLE YOURSELF. IT ALWAYS AMAZES ME HOW YOU CAN MAKE OUR BORING UNIFORM INTO YOUR OWN. YOU INSPIRE ME.

"SINCERELY, YOUR NOT-SO-SECRET ADMIRER."

sunoo scoffed, but a smile tugged at his lips anwyay.

"is that even a fact about themself?" he asked you with a pout. "everyone likes my hair!"

the other students resumed their previous chit-chat, some trying to guess who the anonymous sender might be. you just shrugged and continued to eat your food, frantically trying to complete an essay for charms later that day.

"your admirer doesn't seem to have any plans of actually revealing who they are, huh?" sunghoon asked sunoo. him and jake had decided to sit with you two at the hufflepuff table this morning.

"no," sunoo sighed. "cowardly on another level - giving me hope, only to pull that on me!"

"maybe they'll reveal more in their next letter?" you try to comfort him.

"they better," he grumbled. "i need to know who it is."

"maybe it's someone you know!" jake says. "if they feel the need to distort their voice so they won't be recognised, maybe you know them."

"that barely narrows the pool of possibilities down! i know practically everyone at hogwarts," your best friend whined.

"it's only the second letter. you can't exactly guess much from two howlers," you tell him, still focused on your essay. you groan as you scribble out a whole paragraph.

"oh my god," sunghoon gasped, staring at your textbook from the other side of the table. "i totally forgot about that assignment."

"you idiot," jake smacked the taller boy's head. sunghoon reached for your textbook to look at the content, but you pulled it back.

"i can't let you see my textbook - i've written notes all over it," you say, embarrassed. sunghoon wouldn't be able to read much over all the post-it notes you've stuck on the pages.

"more like you've doodled all over it," sunoo laughed.

"listen - drawing cutesy little stars and hearts on the page is more interesting than professor kim drawling on about the goblin rebellion of 1612, okay?" you defended yourself.

jake raised an eyebrow. you could tell he wanted to laugh.

"whatever, just let me finish this essay. i'm almost done."

"i'm not! i haven't even started," sunghoon groaned. the three of you laughed as he leaned on jake's side, dragging his hands down his face with a whine.

over the next few weeks, sunoo would continue to receive howlers, garnering everyone's attention every time the owls swooped into the hall to drop off mail. in fact, it's become something the whole school started looking forward to - the only thing that had them excitedly running for the hall at the beginning of another hellish week of school.

waiting for another red envelope to plop onto sunoo's plate had become regular. the usual screaming into his face had become your normal monday mornings.

you realised that there were now several students sending him howlers, because he would receive 2-3 howlers every week, all with distinctly different voices and handwriting.

"seems like your original sender has got competition," jake giggled as sunoo rubbed his ear.

"i'm going deaf with all these letters screeching at me every week," he rolled his eyes, feeding you some fish from your own plate. you were working on more homework that you'd missed out on recently (what's new?). "and besides, none of them will ever beat the original."

"even riki's?" you asked, laughing. the second year had latched onto sunoo on his first day at hogwarts, and somehow joined the group of boys, despite being a lot younger.

he'd joined the trend of sending sunoo howlers one morning, although it was obviously him without the distorted voice. none of the other senders had bothered to cover up their voices.

"riki's 'confession' was him thanking me- actually, more like exposing me for bringing him some butterbeer from our last hogsmeade weekend!" sunoo cries in exasperation. "i had to put on the biggest puppy eyes i could when professor jeon pulled me aside to ask about it."

"i told you it was a stupid idea," sunghoon said solemnly, but the twitching of his lips betrayed his amusement.

"he threatened me to! that brat."

"i heard that!" riki's voice yelled from the slytherin table, next to hufflepuff's.

"that kid's crazy," you gasped through your laughter.

"he's going to ruin the fun," sunghoon sighed. "after his letter, the professors started talking of banning students from sending howlers to each other."

"what?" sunoo gasped. "how am i going to receive letters from my secret admirer?"

"they can just send you normal, written letters," you suggested.

"but it's way more interesting when their deformed voice is screaming about how much they love me," he pouted.

"oh, he's down bad," jake shook his head.

sunoo ignored him. "i miss them," he sighed instead. the original secret admirer hadn't been able to send a howler in 2 weeks, much to everyone's disappointment.

"look at him! he's missing someone he doesn't even know!" jake gawked in disbelief.

"i'm trying to figure it out."

"really? how?" sunghoon asked.

"i have a list of things they mentioned about themself, and other things i've figured out, on my phone."

"can we see?" you asked, curious.

"no!"

"why not?" jake pouted.

"i don't want you guys to figure it out. i want to be the one to do it," sunoo huffed stubbornly.

"but you'd figure it out sooner with all of us!" sunghoon says.

"with you?" sunoo gaped at the tall boy. "you may be ravenclaw, but you do not have the brains to actually be of any help."

"touche," sunghoon folded his arms and shrugged. "but hey, jake can help! and y/n!"

"the answer is no."

"well, you better figure it out soon, before the school actually bans us from sending howlers to each other," you tell him. he stares at you intently for a moment, then nods.

just then, another red envelope is dropped onto his plate. sunoo sighs as he shifts forward to open it, expecting another confession from a newer sender.

"DEAR SUNOO, I HOPE YOU HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ME YET."

it was the original sender. sunoo switched his full attention onto the howler; everyone else quietened to listen in.

"I'M SORRY I HADN'T BEEN ABLE TO TALK TO YOU THE LAST FEW WEEKS. YOU KNOW SENDING YOU THESE LETTERS ARE MY FAVOURITE THING TO DO.

"YOU SEEM TO BE DOING WELL. I SAW YOU THE OTHER DAY, WITH CUTESY BOWS IN YOUR HAIR THAT YOUR FRIEND HAD PUT IN. THE SMILE ON YOUR FACE WAS HAPPIER THAN I'D EVER SEEN IT. I HOPE ONE DAY TO BE THE CAUSE BEHIND SUCH A PRETTY SMILE.

"ACCORDING TO THE RUMOURS THAT THE SCHOOL IS BANNING HOWLERS, THIS MAY BE MY LAST LETTER. IF IT IS, I'M GLAD THAT I GOT TO TELL YOU HOW I FELT, EVEN IF I'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU LIKE ME BACK.

"LOVE, YOUR NOT-SO-SECRET ADMIRER."

even after the red letter set on fire and burned to ashes, your best friend's eyes remained fixated on the space in front of him. he stared into nothing, seemingly in a daze after the (possibly) last howler he'd ever get from his favourite anonymous admirer. you wondered what he was thinking.

"sunoo?" you prodded. he turned to look at you, eyes blown wide open.

it's like something clicked. his siren-like eyes pulled you in, engaging you into a staring contest. while the rest of the world continued, you two were stuck in your own timeless little space.

his eyes were always your favourite feature. you wished you could see the world through his beautiful eyes, even if for just a moment.

"hello?" sunghoon tapped you on the shoulder. you finally broke away from the hold sunoo had on you. "we've got to get to class."

"oh, right."

for the rest of the day, you couldn't seem to look directly at your best friend, still replaying the events of that morning.

it was clear sunoo had taken quite a liking to the anonymous sender, no matter how silly it sounded. in the weeks following their first letter, he would talk about them nonstop. his eyes twinkled and his cheeks got especially rosy whenever he did, and he also loved to speculate about who or what the person was like.

you listened whole heartedly, his voice soothing you after a long day of school. even if he was talking about someone else, or at least an illusion of a person he'd created.

sunoo had gotten frustrated with you for avoiding him all day. so he resorted to cornering you in the hufflepuff common room before you two went back up to your dorms.

"y/n. stop it."

"stop what?" you asked innocently.

"don't play dumb. why have you been ignoring me all day?"

"no i haven't."

"you're a terrible liar."

"how would you know?" you crossed your arms.

"you fiddle with your thumbs whenever you lie. you also comb your hair with your hands, fold your arms, stand up straighter, scrunch your nose-"

"okay, okay. i get it," you shook your head. "i'm sorry."

"you should be. i've been missing my best friend all day," he pouted.

you fell apart at his expression, and engulfed him in a hug. "i'm sorry, i didn't mean it. i hope you're okay."

"i would be better if you shared this hot chocolate with me by the fire place. i brought both mugs from the kitchens all by myself - and they're really hot!"

"fine," you laughed, and took a mug from one of his hands.

you two settled into the couches by the warm fire place, and you watched the flickering light from the flames reflect onto his hazel eyes.

"you always look at me like that."

"like what?" you asked.

"like you're obsessed with me," he grinned.

"sounds like you're obsessed with me," you retorted with a giggle. "to the point you even notice the way i look at you."

"why wouldn't i be?"

your smile dropped. you looked down at your cup, your reflection in the drink swirling.

"you can't just say things like that."

"why not?" you stayed silent.

he continued. "why can't i talk about how much i love my best friend? why can't i tell you the little things i notice about you? why can't you just look at me?"

"because!" you exclaimed suddenly. you cleared your throat awkwardly when you garnered a few looks. you spoke again in a lower tone.

"it makes me feel things- things i shouldn't be feeling for a friend."

"well, i would hope not. i'm not just your friend, i'm your best friend."

"but that's the thing, sunoo," you sighed. "sometimes, i feel like i don't want to be just best friends. i look at you and see someone with a sweet smile, and with an even sweeter personality. i've never met someone who's as pretty on the inside as they are on the outside.

"when i look at you, it feels like the world is clearer, easier to bear. when i look at you, i see someone i want to spend the rest of my life with - someone i love."

sunoo was silent for a moment.

and you were so scared that you messed it up, your friendship. you couldn't stand the deafening absence of his voice, overtaken by the crackle of the flames and background voices.

just when you were about to stand up to go hide in your room, he finally spoke up.

"are you the original anonymous sender?"

you froze in place.

"you are, aren't you?"

"how... how did you figure it out?"

"i wasn't entirely sure at first. but like i said earlier, i've been trying to gather details from your previous letters.

"in the second letter you'd sent, you mentioned my hair was soft and fluffy. i don't really let anyone touch my hair, because they'd definitely ruin it," he rolled his eyes. "well, except you. but i figured the sender probably meant it looked soft and fluffy, so i just brushed it off.

"but then things started to add up. one time, the letter smelled like dittany, which we had made in herbology just that previous friday. another time, i noticed that the 'addressed to' writing at the front used navy blue ink, instead of black or blue. you're the only person i know who uses that colour.

"and then, when you fell sick recently, the letters stopped. but i was so worried for you that i didn't even notice, until you mentioned it in your letter today.

"i realised it was most likely you when your letter said the word 'cutesy' in your howler today. i've known you for years, you think i wouldn't have noticed the way you speak?" he laughed quietly.

"so.. you knew this whole time?"

"i suspected it, but not definitely."

"and you never told me."

"i didn't want to force a confession out of you," he admitted. "i wanted you to tell me yourself."

"so now what?" you asked. you still weren't sure where his own feelings lay. sure, he knew that you were the not-so-secret admirer, but did he like you?

every time you saw him smiling at another letter (even if it was howling in his face on a monday morning), you felt even more scared to tell him how you felt. you watched as he came to like the anonymous sender, and not you. he had created his own persona for the sender, and it was definitely not you. you were scared that he would be disappointed to find out it was you after all, and not his dream person.

"you're over thinking again," he said simply.

"can you blame me?"

"for the record, i love you too," he said, setting the cup down and taking your hands in his. "you didn't have to resort to howling at me to get my attention, or something like that. i've only ever looked at you. and i will only ever look at you; in my world, you're the only one in it."

tears leaked out of your eyes. "so i did all of that for nothing?"

sunoo laughed and wiped your cheeks, caressing them with the soft touch of his thumbs. "no, nothing like that! i realised my feelings for you when i got that first howler, because when i pictured who might be behind those red letters, i could only imagine you. the thought of it being anyone else made me cringe."

"what if it wasn't me?" you pouted playfully.

"then i would have rejected them, if they ever confessed to me for real. and i would have loved you with my whole being, even if you never liked me back."

"you would have cried yourself to sleep every night," you laugh, a croak in your voice from crying just moments ago. you know him too well.

"you're right! so thank god that wasn't the case." sunoo hugged you tighter, and you wrapped your arms around his middle. a satisfied sigh escapes your lips.

right then, you also thank whatever being out there let you meet your best friend. and you're grateful that you can give sunoo all of your love without holding back - not-so-secretly anymore.

; taglist - @kflixnet @lovelovelovebts @miyseung

[axlvyy]

LMFAO HELPsA

what manhwa is this