fae-renjun

[fae-renjun]

millennium bug – e. sohn

pairing: eric sohn x fem! reader

genre: 90s au, twenty-five twenty-one au, brother's best friend au, childhood friends au, fluff, slice of life, coming of age. older brother! sunwoo. essentially just eric being baek yijin. oct-nov scenes inspired by weak hero class 1. no plot just vibes im sorry

warnings: minimal swearing and thats all lol

word count: 19k

a/n: posting a fic for a new fandom is always so scary pls be nice to me deobiblr bc im literally abt to cry. also yes i am calling this a 2521 au bc the plot is so heavily inspired it might just be one. a special thank you goes out to @csenke for dragging me into stanning this group i am enjoying myself 🤞

there are some pros and cons to not having friends growing up. cons: you're always forced to tag along with your brother and his group wherever he goes. pros: his childhood best friend is kind of hot.

JUNE OF 1999

Being Kim Sunwoo’s younger sister is no bed of roses sometimes.

Sure, you get the occasional excitement of having him bring you rollerskating with you down the hill or the ever so rare moments of him defending you in front of your mother when you two have done something wrong (while never saying he was in on the bad act as well, of course), but more than often, you are met with his disgusted looks and insults whenever the two years older boy passes by your room and casually bangs at the door just to spite you.

His snarky looks are especially ones to remember. Maybe it’s because he offers them to you often– much like in this very moment, completely unprovoked, and completely not by your fault.

“But mum–”

“I already told you, Sunwoo,” your mother looks at him with a stern look in her eye, the one that makes chills run down your spine, “you can go if you take Y/N with you.”

“But nobody’s bringing their sister! Mum, come on–”

“Take it or leave it, young man.”

And see, your brother may be 19 years old, but he’s still in need of getting permission to leave the house if it includes an overnight stay. It’s an unspoken rule he always follows, since he’s usually granted the right to leave, but the result of his conversation was different than what he expected this time. And see, you may be just two years younger than him (one year left until you are an adult), but even though your mother is too busy to take care of you and entertain your slowly adultling self on most days because of her highly demanding job, she always makes sure that you don’t stay alone for long, and that’s exactly why (you realize, contrary to your brother) she insists on making you tag along on Sunwoo’s trip to the beach house with his friends.

The male grunts and turns on his heel, not giving your mother another response– and with this, you know she won. And that means you’ll have to pack your bag soon, because you know that there’s no way Sunwoo would miss going to the beach house with his friends– even if it meant making his little sister tag along.

And sure enough, Lee Juyeon’s minivan pulls up into your driveway only a few hours later, and the sound of the honking outside is enough for your older brother to aggressively drag you outside of the house, shutting the door behind you and hollering an angry “Bye mum!” to your mother. Your figure is handled with the least amount of care possible as you’re thrown towards the white van, the door opened and 5 heads already peeking out with expecting eyes, waiting for your brother’s arrival.

“My mum made my stupid sister go with me, so I hope we have space for one more,” Sunwoo huffs as he throws his bag into the trunk, slamming it with more force than was necessary (boy does he know how to throw a scene), an encouraging voice of none other than Juyeon– the driver himself– landing in your ear. 

“Sure, just hop in!”

With that, your feet finally unglue themselves off the ground and bring you into the vehicle. You’re familiar with his friends– since a scenario like this hasn’t happened for the first time and you had to spend your fair time with Sunwoo’s circle growing up, mainly because you never really had many friends yourself. You’re not close with any of them, though, and you’re sure you haven’t seen half of them for ages. 

Lee Juyeon is the responsible one of the group. You’re comfortable with the fact that he’s the driver, since you’re not entirely sure if you’d trust any of the other men in this space behind the wheel (you fear the day your brother gets a driver’s license. You'd bet a million dollars that he’ll die while driving recklessly one day). Next to him on the passenger’s seat is Choi Chanhee, his best friend, carrying a map in his hands and twirling it in all possible directions to get his friend on the right track. In the three-seat behind those two is Ju Haknyeon, Ji Changmin and your brother himself, and in the very back of the whole van, almost in the trunk, you’re sat next to Eric Sohn– your brother’s childhood best friend.

“Hi guys,” you offer a greeting to all of them, settling into the uncomfortable leather seat (that’s peeling off, just by the way), watching as the rest of the men pay you no mind and ignore your voice, falling into a comfortable conversation with each other.

Sighing, because this always happens– your brother gets too annoyed because he has to bring you with him all the time, and you imagine his friends aren’t fond of the fact either– you settle deeper into the seat and cross your hands on your chest, looking outside of the window. You can’t imagine enjoying your trip now, since you feel like you’re a nuisance, a child they have to take care of (yes, it embarrasses you just the tiniest bit, you have to admit. Although, you do enjoy getting out of the house from time to time), and the fact that your feelings were probably more than justified and also true has you pouting, an unsatisfied feeling weighing at your lungs.

“Hi,” a voice resonates from your side, the sight of a smiling Eric peering at you taking you off guard. You didn’t expect anyone to react to your greeting– not so delayed anyway– and the sight of your brother’s best friend carrying on in the conversation with you has you shocked beyond belief. “Excited?”

Finding yourself hum in agreement– how much you are still excited for the pool and for the sun, you’re not really sure– and although you are upset, something about his open and nice demeanor has you visibly relaxing, the sparkles inviting themselves back into your eyes. “I’ve never been to the beach,” you admit, seeing Eric gasp at you in surprise.

“Really?” he asks. “I go every year with my parents.”

“Well,” you hum, “you know how my mother is…” you sigh, chewing on the inside of your cheek. It’s easier to joke about it than to actually let the fact get to you– with your mother being the main news anchor, she is too busy to actually go on trips and form bonds with her own children sometimes. That’s why you spent most of your childhood at Eric’s family’s house in the first place– this is what made you the closest with Sunwoo’s same aged friend. His parents were nice enough to let you stay over and have sleepovers whenever your mum had to leave suddenly and take week-long trips abroad, or have emergency shifts during late evenings. 

Eric hums, sympathizing with you. “Well, at least you get to experience it now!”

“Yeah,” you awkwardly nod, playing with the hem of your jean shorts. It’s the shorts you made yourself by cutting the legs off your favorite pants after you grew out of them and they got too short, and they’re starting to look a little worn-out now. Maybe you should beg your mum to get you some new clothing.

The conversation between the boys grows in volume, doing nothing to help you to relax in the crowded vehicle. You can’t really find a place to fit yourself in and talk, the topics too unfamiliar for you and the feeling of not even being welcome in the discussion sitting heavy on your chest, when a finger bears itself to the flesh of your thigh, making you snap your head around to gape at the source of the contact. Eric looks at you with a boyish grin, sparkles evident in his eyes.

“Wanna see something?” he asks.

“Sure.”

The male digs around his backpack, hands searching through the contents of his bag for only a couple of seconds– since he’s the neat one, contrary to your messy brother– before he takes out a small gadget: a square with a little screen on top, a silver, circular button space sitting big in the very middle of the device. Eric throws the thing into your lap, smiling when you take it into your hands and examine it with curious eyes.

“Have you seen one before? My dad got it for me last week,” he boosts, satisfied with your reaction to it. 

Your mother’s job pays quite well– meaning that you usually have the latest gadgets, the latest trends– but if you’re being honest, you haven’t seen one of these in real life before. Yes, you caught a glimpse of an ad for it in the town center, on one of the big billboards while passing by to get to school in the morning, so you know that it’s an MP3 player, but still; this was your first time touching one and examining it in real life. 

“How does it work?” you ask, watching as the boy scoots from his seat to the middle one, so he is now sitting directly next to you, before he takes out wired headphones from the first department of his backpack and turns the little square over in his hands, finding where the jack goes.

“You put those in,” he says, plugging in the headphones, “and then you press this…” he explains, taking the device out of your hand and pushing on the power button for a few seconds, “and then it should play.”

Watching him with expecting eyes, the boy finally puts the MP3 player back into your hold. Then, his fingers swiftly put the respective earphones into your ears– like you’d do to a little kid that has no idea how they work, making you a little flushed at the action– and after that, you’re left with the sound of an unfamiliar song playing in your ears, making the sound of the chatter in the van completely tune out. Eric keeps on watching you, a sense of pride in his eyes as you nod at him, all excited with the new explory, before he takes one of the earphones out of your ear, grinning.

“Cool, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “The song is good,” you dumbly say, watching as the boy next to you pridefully nods at the compliment, resting his back against the car seat. 

“It’s the H.O.T album. My dad says they’re good,” he mumbles, moving the headphone he took from you and placing it into his ear, making you nod at him in acknowledgement. The action has your insides bubble with disappointment, thinking that the fun is over as you reach for the other earphone as well, offering it to the male.

Eric looks at you with a shocked pout, shaking his head. “No, we can share!” he says, pointing towards your ear. “If you want, of course.”

The action has you smiling, a shy nod escaping out of you as you reach and put the earphone back into your ear, letting yourself fall deeper into the car seat, listening to the song from Eric’s MP3 player. You’re grateful for his presence– he didn’t have to keep up a conversation with you. He could ignore you, just like the rest of his friend group always has. Maybe it was something about the two of you growing up together that always made the boy at least a bit more affectionate towards you than the rest.

You spend the car ride to the beach house with Eric leaning on your side, listening to music and his occasional blabbering about how his previous days went. 

Somehow, you're glad the seat beside him was the only vacant one when you arrived to the vehicle.

YOUR SEVENTH BIRTHDAY, 1989

You don't quite remember when you met Eric for the first time, if you’re being completely honest. The first memory you have of him is of your seventh birthday party, although you’re almost certain the boy’s been present at some point of your life before– at one point, you think you saw a picture of him and Sunwoo, two chubby toddlers, watching you as you laid on a blanket on the ground somewhere in your photo album. As far as you’re concerned, he may as well have been there when your mother brought you back from the hospital– although you think he must have been too young for that back then.

The first memory you have of Eric Sohn is the day you turned seven– a gloomy, sad day that in the moment, you prayed you wouldn’t have to remember in the first place.

It was already established that while your brother is the social butterfly, you don’t have a big friend group. Actually, you could count the number of your friends on one hand, and since the amount wasn’t as big, your mother allowed you to invite them all over to your house to celebrate your birthday with you. 

She baked a cake, she decorated the living room, hell, she even took a day off from work– something you deemed special, for it doesn’t happen often– and as you sat on the floor of your living room, the cake standing proud on the small coffee table, waiting for your friends to arrive, you hummed a song under your breath, the clock slowly passing the time you agreed for them to come over and celebrate.

At first, you didn’t mind it– everybody gets late sometimes, it’s okay. It was just a birthday party, and you had a lot of time. Not everything had to be set on schedule.

But the closer the clock moved to being one hour, than two after the time your friends were supposed to come, you grew worried. Your mother’s nervous pacing around the living room and her heavy sighs as she sat next to you on the floor, smiling at you in what you can only explain as sad way made you more and more anxious about the fact that you only had three friends, but all three of them seemed to not care enough to come celebrate your birthday with you. And as your mother finally took the final bow in the form of a soft hand on your inner thigh, her tone gentle as she called your name– “Y/N, I think we should light the candles,” you began to tear up.

You were supposed to eat the cake with your friends. You were supposed to hear them sing the birthday song to you. You were supposed to turn on the radio and dance around with your classmates, eat the sweets and unwrap the cheap, but heartfelt gifts they brought along with them to celebrate your birthday. 

But none of these scenarios were happening, and you felt incredibly, incredibly lonely and sad. Forgotten, if you will. Not cared for, definitely.

Hiding your face into your hands, you started to cry. This disappointment was too big for your small heart to take, and you no longer cared about the cake, the candles, the seaweed soup your mother cooked for you to celebrate, the gifts, or the party. All you wanted to do was hide in your room and never come out– something about the whole situation felt deeply embarrassing, and to this day, the moment before the whole day turned around still makes you feel a bit ashamed of yourself. 

Too busy crying, you didn’t notice your older brother watching you with big bambi eyes, a worried glance sent your way each time your sobs grew louder and louder. And maybe the boy only wanted to taste the cake (he’s been bugging your mum about it since the very morning, but he was always sent off with a scolding look telling him that he’ll get a slice when everyone arrives), but no matter what his true intentions were, his actions still managed to pull your seventh birthday party together in a way you never imagined.

The sound of the front door faintly resonated in your brain somewhere in the middle of your aimless sobbing, but you paid it no mind, thinking it was just Sunwoo going out to the yard to kick the ball. See, your older brother had never really known what to do when you cried growing up– it didn’t matter if he was the reason for your tears or if anyone else was. If he was the reason for your emotional outbursts, he tried to shut you up with his palm and get you to stop crying before his mother found out and gave him a scolding, but if someone else was, the small boy sometimes turned angry at the source. Kicking his classmate that once made a snarky comment about you and made you tear up or punching his friend when he was too harsh with you was all he knew to do in these situations, so he wasn’t the one to comfort you with words or hugs. It was only natural for him to escape in this situation.

You were brought to a state of shock and surprise when a hand landed on your shoulder, a familiar voice breaking you from your emotional turmoil.

“Why are you crying? We have to eat the cake!” you heard, your big, sad eyes meeting the small figure of the boy living next door, your brother nervously stepping from one side to the other right behind his best friend. “Can you light the candles, Mrs?” Eric politely asked your mum, pointing towards the cake waiting sadly at the coffee table, the figure of your mother leaving your side only shortly to get the matches from the kitchen and illuminate your face with the small flames.

Confusion mirrored your features as you watched your brother and his best friend sing the birthday song to you while your mum lit your candles, both boys clapping and dancing around, acting silly just to get a laugh from you. You didn't know how Eric got there, but you guessed there are some good sides to having him as your neighbor. The energetic boy did his best to brighten up your mood a bit, and when you blew out the candle, making a wish, Sunwoo even went as far as smashing your face into the cake to bring in the full birthday authenticity.

That got him a slap to the back of his head from your mother, as well as made you stand up from your position– no longer making you look like a disappointed bulk of pity– and chase him around the room, icing falling off your nose to the laminated floor. You got your revenge and smeared the chocolate all over his forehead (he let you chase him down only because it was your birthday and he really, really hated to see his sister cry, but he won’t ever tell you that) and as the three of you sat back down to the floor, watching your mother slice the cake and offer it to you on small white plates, you realized you suddenly weren't as sad anymore.

“What did you wish for?” Eric asked you, mouth full of cake and face messy with chocolate.

“I can’t tell you,” you hummed, eyebrows furrowed. “Then it won’t come true.”

“You probably wished for that doll you saw in the store the other day,” Sunwoo snickered as he swallowed, having you glare at him and send a sharp kick to his shin, unwatched by your mother (thankfully), as the boy fought you back, having no mercy.

Music suddenly filled the room as Eric stood up and put the radio on, his 9 year old brain smart enough to know how the device worked, his small figure dancing away to the songs playing on the single radio station you could play without carefully sorting out the antenna so it faced the north, and truly, you didn’t know how it happened, but it had you standing up and dancing around, exactly how you'd imagined doing with your friends from school.

The day wasn’t ruined– quite the opposite, really. It was one of your favorite birthday parties, and ever since then, Eric was invited to every single one you had after. And while Sunwoo may act like he doesn’t hate anything more in this world than having a younger sister, every time you feel like a burden to him, you remember this very afternoon.

You will never tell anyone what you wished for that day– but just to let everyone in on the secret, 

it was to somehow, just like Sunwoo, find someone like Eric for yourself as well. 

JUNE OF 1999

Standing at the side of the pool, eyes squinting from the inevitable force of the sun, you’re starting to regret your decision of coming along just a little. See, you usually don’t protest whenever Sunwoo aggressively drags you around and brings you everywhere he’s supposed to, because even though you love to see your brother angry (especially when you’re the reason behind the emotion), you’d also hate to see him miss out, but now, as the scorching hot sun is having no mercy on every exposed inch of skin– and believe me, there’s a lot of it, since you’re wearing your swimming trunks– and the sweat on your forehead is no longer culminating in beads, but rolling painfully slowly down your forehead, you do admit you’d be a little bit happier in the shade of your little room than here, watching the guys play volleyball in the comfort of the freezing cold pool.

And as the only female around the house, you settle with the patriarchy and bring out a small folding chair and a camping table alongside with a big, sharp knife, struggling to hoist up the giant watermelon you got in a grocery store on your way to the beach house, with the intention of cutting it and serving it to the guys later. Who knows, maybe they’ll like you a little more after that. 

The knife sinks into the thick green skin of the watermelon easily, and so as you accompany yourself with the excited (and not so excited screams coming from the losing side of the game– mainly your brother himself), you cut up the fruit into halves, then quarters, and as you stare at the moon crescents settled on the camping table, you decide to play nice and cut up the fruit into smaller triangles as well, to really get on everyone’s good side.

The yearning for male validation awakes in a woman pretty early on in life. It’s an inevitable misfortune.

“Told you Sunwoo’s all talk but no game!” you hear Haknyeon yell out as the game seemingly ends, the younger boy lunging at him in the pool, fighting him for the truthful words. Glancing at the commotion, you notice the guys slowly getting out of the pool, making you heave out in victory– you’re finally gonna have your turn in the pool. Well, if they don’t decide to occupy it again before you even get a chance to get in.

“Y/N! You cut up the watermelon?” Eric asks a very obvious question, walking up to you with beads of water all over his half-naked body. His dark hair is damply sitting against his forehead, making him look like a wet puppy, but as the male gets closer to you, he drags his palm through the locks and pushes them back, revealing his forehead– a sight sweet to your eyes, but you refuse to pay it much attention in the heat of the moment. It’s just the sun making you delirious as the idea of finding him attractive flashes through your brain, that’s all. 

“I did! Take one,” you smile, watching as the rest of the guys walk over to your little stand– while also obnoxiously swatting out water out of their hair like dogs, refusing to use towels like normal people– and finally, there it comes: appreciative smiles appear on their faces as they each take a piece, biting down on the fruit with delighted sighs.

Sunwoo walks up to you with a surprised look on his face, sighing as he messes with your hair. “If I knew you’d be our servant, I wouldn’t have even minded you going in the first place.”

“You do something nice for people and they jump on the chance to exploit you,” you hum, shaking your head in disbelief. “That’s just like you, Kim Sunwoo.”

“No, that’s just me having older brother privileges.”

“I hope you choke on that, you know,” you bite at him, pointing towards the piece of sweet watermelon in his hands, the smile on his face turning bitter. There’s a satisfied look on your face when your brother does, indeed, choke on a watermelon seed a few seconds later– and they say dreams don’t come true.

“You didn’t have to,” you hear Eric speak up from the other side, your head turning to face the male, his features appreciative and warm. “Thank you,” he beams. There’s redness on the tip of his nose and his forehead, signaling his quickly approaching sunburn, and you can’t help but laugh out at his clueless, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer self. 

“What’s so funny?” he asks, furrowing his eyebrows at you in question.

“Nothing,” you peep, “you just look like you forgot to use sunscreen,” you mumble, watching as the male gasps and touches his face, a horrified expression overtaking him when the skin under his fingertips burns to the touch. 

“I didn’t forget! It must have rubbed off in the pool,” he mourns, “I must look stupid!” 

“Only a little,” you tease, a grin overtaking your features. See, there’s something about the fact that you’ve known Eric for the entirety of your whole life that makes you more prone to teasing him– you’re familiar with your dynamics and just how far you can go, so his next actions startle you just the tiniest bit as the male looks sternly at you, throwing the half-eaten watermelon slice to the camping table. You thought you had the risks calculated– apparently, you didn't.

“What did you say?”

Examining his features, seeing no signs of anger– just the stoic, fakely-offended face of your brother’s childhood best friend– you shrug. “That you look a bit stupid with your face like that.”

“Oh, okay,” he nods, “you’re going down for that.”

“What do you mea–”

Your words are cut short when the male lunges at you, his arms enveloping your thighs and holding you up. The contact of his cold skin from the pool and your heated figure makes goosebumps appear all over your body, your hands instinctively reaching around him to support yourself as he walks closer to the pool– his intentions are suddenly painfully clear and you start to panic. 

“This will teach you to respect your elders,” Eric huffs, the turquoise surface of the water slowly coming into your point of view.

“Stop! Stop-stop-stop,” you squirm, kicking your feet and trying to take down the predator, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, alright?”

The male takes a halt for a split second– making you foolishly believe he’ll let you off– before he breaks out into a devilish grin and continues to walk to the edge of the pool. “Too late.”

“Eric!” you scream, the volume of your voice resonating through the whole beach, your heart thumping wild against your ribcage with the awaiting process. You’re not even sure what you’re scared of anymore– you can swim and you bet the water will feel nice against the scorching sun– but still, you’re absolutely terrified as the male has no mercy on you, carrying you steadily towards the water. “At least let me tie my hair first! You can dump me in after, I promise,” you mourn, trying to buy yourself more time.

“Alright,” he nods, waiting at the very edge of the pool, leaving you to take the purple scrunchie off your wrist and gather your hair together, preparing to tie it into a bun so it doesn’t get in your way when you’re in the pool. The hair tie is just at the tips of your fingertips, the first loop over the hair ready to be done, when a scream cuts out of your throat.

The feeling of falling suddenly overtakes your body, leaving you no time to prepare yourself for the impact of the cold water against your skin and all up in your nose, since you didn’t pluck it when you were dumped into the pool. The fall only lasts a split second until you’re below the water, the force of it resonating in your ears, and when you finally act on your instincts and stand up in the pool (it wasn’t even that deep in the first place, only reaching to your upper stomach), you cough out all the water and pray to gods you don’t throw up chlorine into the freshly cleaned pool. After you’re done catching your breath and getting oxygen into your lungs again, you do your best at getting all the hair out of your face. 

There is laughter landing into your ears as soon as you manage to get all the water out of them by leaning your head to the side and violently slapping each one, and when your eyes look up, you see an amused Eric Sohn bending over in his waist at your disheveled appearance. 

Grunting and pointing a finger to the criminal that almost made you drown, you huff out. “I’ll kill you! Just you watch.”

Your scrunchie nowhere to be found, forever lost somewhere outside of the beach house, you think, as it flew off your hand in the impact of the attack, shock makes your figure shake alongside of the coldness of the water, making you audibly sigh. 

Yes. You do regret coming along just a little.

JULY OF 1999

Somewhere along the way, Eric Sohn starts acting as if he’s your second older brother. Sure, you’ve known the male your whole entire life and he’s seen you grow up, but it took him 17 years of your life to come to a point where he gives you equal amount of attention whenever he’s over at your house than he does to your brother, and even asks Sunwoo if you’re coming along with them whenever they leave to hang out somewhere else. It’s a change that comes naturally and slowly, and you welcome it unknowingly– the revelation shocks you on a hot summer day, though, when the idea finally comes to you in full force.

You would even argue and say Eric acts more like your brother than your actual sibling does– he asks if you’ve eaten and listens to you when you talk (which Sunwoo never does, well, except from when he’s arguing with you). Eric even compliments your outfits sometimes and lets you borrow his MP3 player from time to time– Sunwoo would never share his things with you, no matter how hard you pleaded and threatened to tell your mum. Yes, your brother's an adult and you’re one year away from becoming one– you still resolve your conflicts through your only parent, though. Some things, you never grow out of.

“I wanna try using the skateboard now, Sunwoo,” you order sternly when the boy finally reaches your destination. You’ve been sitting on the sidewalk for quite some time now, since your brother and his friend decided that they’re gonna try out their new skateboards on the hottest day of the year. Your town doesn’t have fancy skateparks and ramps like the ones you’ve seen in the music videos on TV, so you don’t really know what initially made the two buy those things, but you do admit that even driving up and down the road in front of your house does seem a little fun– so much you’d love to try it.

“What a shame we all wish for things we can’t have,” he shrugs ironically, shaking his head at you from his position above. The male reaches down for his bag, taking out a water bottle and putting it against his plush lips, all while you glare at him from below, still seated in your initial position. Eric comes up to you two, squishing at the soft plastic bottle in Sunwoo’s hold, making the water splash your older brother in the face, leaving a winning grin to be shared between you and the shorter boy, an expression that makes you all warm on the inside. See, at least Eric always has your back.

“You can try mine, if you want,” the latter shrugs, offering you a smile.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “why not?”

“I don’t know,” you shrug, “I just didn’t expect you to offer, since as you saw, my dear brother just refused when I asked…” you mumble, standing up from the sidewalk and taking the skateboard into your hand. Eric offers it to you with an outstretched arm and watches as you put the board on the floor, squinting at it with much examination.

“Do you know how to ride it?” he asks.

“No,” you shake your head, “but I mean, if Sunwoo can do it, how hard can it really be?” you joke, seeing as the said boy glares at you, finally finishing his water and dropping the bottle to the ground. 

“I’ll remind you of that statement when you eat shit on the pavement,” he shushes you, rolling his eyes. 

Not paying more attention to the grumpy being that is your own brother, you relocate your attention back to the skateboard on the heated road. You’re lucky you live on a street where cars don’t often drive by, since your neighborhood is on the very edge of the town, so you don’t really fear being run over by a pickup truck. What you do worry about, though, is your lacking sense of balance, which you discovered when you learned how to ride the bike for the first time. While your brother was a professional in no time, it took you weeks to get it right, and so with the idea of riding a board that provides you zero sense of security, you get a bit worried for your own life.

Dragging your hair out of your face and aimlessly trying to tuck it behind your ears– there’s no use in trying though, as the strands slip out just as fast as they found their place– you keep staring at the board only a few centimeters away from your feet, mentally calculating your next move. There’s a noise of a backpack being opened and rustling around in the background of your miserable thoughts, and when you look up to see what’s going on, you notice Eric offering you a small, purple bundle of fabric. 

“What’s that?” you ask, even though the answer is clear as the day– you recognise your own scrunchie with no problem. You’re just surprised to see it in his hold. You thought it was forever buried somewhere in the beach house, since you weren’t able to find it after you got out of the pool, no matter how hard you tried.

“Oh,” he shrugs, amidst a little too nonchalantly, “I found it and figured it was yours, but I forgot to give it back to you then… it seems like you need it now, though,” he offers you an explanation, lips pressed into a thin line that slightly signifies a smile.

“Ah,” you gasp, nodding as you take the hair tie out of his outstretched palm, gathering your hair into a bun and tying it up on the crown of your head– the staring contest you’ve been having with the board is much clearer now, when you don’t have your messy strands in the way. The idea of Eric keeping your scrunchie after finding it at the beach house makes your stomach do a weird kind of turn– you guess it made you a bit weirded out, if you’re being honest.

“Want some help with that?” he asks, pointing towards his skateboard.

Nervous, cracking your knuckles as you meet his eyes– he looks a bit amused, but still genuine– you nod, admitting defeat. There’s no way you’re getting on top of that board without help and not falling down. It’s always better to be safe than to be sorry, and so when Eric laughs airly at your composure and takes a few steps closer towards you, you let the male lead you, finding comfort in his secure words and actions.

Eric offers you his arms to hold when you try to get on the skateboard. He is peering at you from under his eyelashes when you put one of your legs onto the wood, his grip on your forearm getting firmer when you try to get your other foot on as well– and you must admit that you suddenly don’t feel like you might die anymore when there’s someone holding you and standing by your side. 

“See? It’s not that hard,” Eric mumbles, his voice low and reassuring from the proximity. You notice your hands sweating a little when his palm envelopes yours– damn the sun and its unbearable heat making you embarrass yourself– but he doesn’t mention it as he firmly holds you and meets your eyes. “I’m gonna drag you around a bit so you get used to it before trying yourself,” he says before taking a few steps forward, preparing to be your own type of personal driver.

Having him instruct you and help you around makes you feel more comfortable on the board. Sunwoo would never do such a thing for you– he’d enjoy watching you fall down and break your neck and possibly die– so you’re more than happy to have someone in your life that takes care of you in ways your older brother refuses to. 

The skateboard moves forward a little, starting slow, but then picking up speed as Eric jogs a little, making you laugh at the action. He does not have to go above and beyond, but he still does– but you guess it’s good for him to let out his energy somewhere. After a while, he looks back at you and meets your eye with a warm gaze, making you nod at him reassuringly and hold up a thumb of the hand he’s not holding right now, signaling that you’re okay and enjoying yourself. That has the male let go of your hand and let you take the road with the laws of physics, moving forward by yourself with the force he created. 

It’s nice. It’s fun. 

Yes, you totally understand why Eric and Sunwoo wanted skateboards after seeing them on TV. Hell, you want one now.

“Try it yourself now!” Eric encourages you as the board naturally comes to a stop under you, and his smiling face is enough for you to take initiative and nod, relocating one foot off the wood and placing it on the floor, then kicking it and making yourself move on the simple vehicle.

A moment of surprise envelopes you like a warm hug when you manage to not fall off and keep your balance, the joy of it making you try to go faster on the board, kicking once, twice against the pavement with the sole of your old, beaten up shoe. “I’m doing it!” you yell, glancing back at Eric standing on the sidewalk, watching you with excited eyes. The male offers you a victorious holler, something that makes you break into a laugh, makes your confidence blossom in marvelous ways.

Confidence rises in you so much you try to take a U-turn and go back to your teacher– perhaps showing off that you really got the hang of it now, or something– but as you try to maneuver the board and turn right, there it comes: the moment where you realize that you were, once again, too overly-confident in your abilities that are, sadly, very poor. Your body sways from side to side, your poor balance laughs at you and points an accusing finger at your attempts, and, well, to put it frankly, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes and the moment plays in slow motion as you lose the board from below your feet– the wood flying somewhere to the opposite side of the road, not at all where you meant to go in the first place– and your body inevitably comes crashing to the ground.

Awaiting the hard pavement meeting your nose and breaking it, you brace yourself with palms outstretched in front of you, the last remains of self-perseverance entering the sane parts of your brain in what you think are the last seconds of your miserable life. Another moment of surprise greets you when your yelp is muffled against something soft and your hands don’t hit the hard pavement, your ears filled with a grunt that belongs to another human swiftly chiming in and catching you before you fall.

Firm hands hold your waist– the touch somehow familiar, enveloping you in a strange sense of deja vu– and even though your body goes limp in terror, the male has you back on your feet in no time, his palms on the exposed skin of your stomach. The realization has you burning up as you look up and meet Eric’s eyes, gasping at the closeness of his face to yours. 

“You okay over there?” he asks as you unconsciously study his face– you never noticed his nose looked this nice up close– before you wake out of it and nod urgently, breaking away from his hold. You’re not gonna try to calculate the effort he must have put in just to chime in and catch you from where he was standing in such a short moment, but something about the passing thought of it has you weak in your knees from gratefulness. 

“Uhm- yeah,” you nod, kicking the pavement with your stained shoes, “I just… miscalculated my skills, that’s all,” you sheepishly hum, hearing the boy snicker at your shaken-up composure.

Watching him take off and retrieve his skateboard from where it wandered off against the curb– much to his golden retriever energy– you sigh and prepare to go sit back on the sidewalk, having enough of new experiences from the shock still lingering in your fingertips. You take a glance down the road, seeing your older brother cruising on the street– when and how he got there, you truly have no idea– when you hear Eric, who seemingly has different ideas for your next actions, call at you from the middle of the pavement.

“Where are you going? Come back!” he asks, having you look at him in surprise, mouth agape and eyes big, staring at him. He now has the board under his shoulder, but puts it back on the road and points at it, shrugging to himself. “I’ll push you down the road, it’s gonna be fun!”

“Eric, I’m literally going to die–”

“No, you’re not. Come on, I promise,” he says, but still, he doesn’t have you convinced. Your feet move against your best conclusions, though, and when you come to a halt right in front of your companion, he offers you a boyish grin. “Sit down on it, that way you’re more balanced. I swear you’re not gonna fall off, okay? I got you.”

“You promise?”

“Yes,” he nods, determined.

“Pinky swear,” you mumble, holding up your pinky finger– all thoughts of seeming childish pushed to the side in the desperate moment– and the male in front of you shakes his head in disbelief, breaking into a laugh.

“Cute,” he huffs, “yeah, okay. Pinky swear,” he nods, interlacing your pinky with his and bumping his thumb against yours, the seal foolishly making you feel more secure as you follow his order and take a seat on the skateboard, your hands gripping the bottom of the wood so hard your knuckles turn white.

“Okay, ready? 3, 2, 1–” he chants as he pushes you, two steady hands coming in contact with your shoulder blades, force making you move on the board, wheels taking you down with gravity. The sound of Eric’s shoes hitting the pavement fills your ears as you go faster, and as you finally get to the part of the hill that takes a downwards slope, he offers you a final push, sending you down the road. 

Wind makes your hair fly back, your surroundings blurring as you yelp and scream, but you can’t say you’re not enjoying the ride. Eric was right– it was fun, you liked it, and something about the gesture had you all warm on the inside. The breeze has you cool down a little in the summer heat, and the board continues to move even as you pass your older brother standing at the bottom of the slope, away from your trajectory. 

Body relaxing when the skateboard finally slows down, you let out a heartfelt laughter. Turning back and seeing Eric jog down the road with a humongous grin on his face, you offer him two thumbs up above your head, watching as he returns the gesture and makes his way back to the two of you on the bottom of the small hill.

The truth is, this was the day you realized Eric Sohn has always found his way to make you feel included and safe. 

You can’t help but feel grateful.

AUGUST OF 1999

“Sunwoo, you have to tie a knot here and then– no, you dumbass, you’re doing it completely wrong,” you mourn as you watch your older brother with a mess of thread in his lap, a focused scowl on his face. There’s a fan standing across from you, blowing cold air into your face, but you still feel yourself grow heated with frustration as Sunwoo just can’t help but not understand the art of making friendship bracelets. It’s not like you’re forcing him to do them– he was the one that asked you to show him how to, muttering something about offering one to his classmate Yeji once he’s back in school– so in theory, he should be putting in effort, no? 

Or maybe he is. Maybe he’s just… incompetent.

“I don’t get it,” Sunwoo hums under his breath, sighing as he leans against the sofa in your living room, the two of you sitting on the floor accompanied by his best friend squinting at you from the opposite side, a comic book in the latter's hand. The myth of men not being able to multi-task is quickly thrown into the bin as you watch Eric pay equal amount of attention to the comic book and the dialogue between you and your brother, and when Sunwoo seems to give up on the art of making friendship bracelets, his best friend can’t help but laugh.

“You’re giving up already? This is how you want to get a girlfriend?” you poke your brother to his side and take the threads off his lap, examining the mess of a safety pin and meters of yarn, all knotted up and not coming along in the shape you taught him to at all.

“It’s not to get a girlfriend, I just-”

“Sure,” you roll your eyes, huffing as you roll his poor attempt at friendship bracelet into a ball and throw it to the corner of the room, making a mental note to pick it up and throw it to the bin later. “You know what, just give her this one and pretend you made it,” you mutter, taking a bracelet you'd already made to demonstrate in between your fingers and throw it into Sunwoo’s lap, the older one catching it and examining it under his nose.

“That looks pretty good,” he hums, making you snort at his appreciative comment. The bracelet is pink and red, the colors just screaming romance and cute energy, which is exactly what a girl needs to be swayed by your brother. You can’t really believe a bracelet will make her swoop into his arms, because truthfully, with your brother’s face and manners, every living thing is keeping a fair distance, but hey, it doesn’t hurt to try, does it? Maybe his classmate is… majorly blind? That might do it?

“Of course it looks good,” you scoff, “that’s because I made it,” you nod, averting your gaze towards your lap, threading your fingers through the yarn you attached to a safety pin on your sweatpants to keep the growing friendship bracelet in place. 

“Then why is the one you’re making right now so ugly?” Eric asks, pointing towards the creation. 

Glancing up at the male slowly, mentally throwing all different kinds of curses at him for daring to talk badly about your craft, you huff. “What do you mean, ugly?”

“The colors… they don’t… they don’t really go together,” Eric sheepishly admits, scratching the back of his neck, quickly averting his gaze from you and gluing it back into his comic book. You think that if he doesn’t stop being a smart-ass and throw jabs at your artistic choices, he’s gonna have to protect his comic book with his own body– and you bet he’d do that, because he borrowed it from the library. The fees for damage are high.

“That’s just… not true at all,” you muse, but groggily take a look at the creation once again, but now, thanks to the remark, seeing it in a completely different way. Shades of orange, brown and purple stare back at you amidst a little disappointedly, and as you thread the yarn and make a couple of knots to end the bracelet, you can’t help but feel a pout growing on your face from the realization. Eric might be right. It does look a little bad…

“Whatever. Your taste is just bad,” you snap as you finish off the craft piece, unclasping the safety pin and sliding the bracelet off the inside, freeing it from the hold. Eric laughs a little at your frustrated state– similarly to what you do when you manage to get Sunwoo upset– and with that, you sigh and put the bracelet on the coffee table.

“I’m going out to the store to get some chocolates,” you say as you stand up, goal clear in your mind, “have fun, losers.”

“You’re still collecting the stickers from these?” Sunwoo asks, a mischievous smile growing on his lips. The teasing is inevitable and coming very soon, and there’s nothing you can do about it– you’re fully aware, which only further makes you want to escape the situation more quickly. Rolling your eyes at your brother’s antics, you move towards the door. 

“Yes, Sunwoo, I am. They’re cute and make me happy, do you have a problem with that?” you point an accusing finger at the male, having him shrug, tongue poking the inside of his cheek.

“You’re such a kid,” he huffs, averting his gaze from you when he lands the comment, the jab coming straight at your fragile heart.

“Okay, then,” you note, “I’ll just have my pretty and cute bracelet back, and you can get your girlfriend something else-”

The male quickly regains his previous composure, swatting his hands in hurry just to make you halt in your sentence. His eyes are big and his mouth is a little agape in terror as he tries to save his ass, plea written all over his face. “I was just joking! Don’t be so petulant… go get your cute stickers, they’re so fun!”

Humming to yourself, your face is tugged up into a victorious smile. “That's what I thought. So, as I was saying, have fun, losers.”

“Wait!” Eric suddenly calls for you, making you turn on your heel in the middle of your escape, eyes peering at the male. “Don’t I get a bracelet too?”

The request catches you off guard. There’s a certain kind of spark in Eric Sohn’s eyes as he asks the question, and you can’t really place it in any category, but it has you nervously shrugging at the preposition. You’re not really sure why Eric would want a bracelet from you, but to avoid confrontation and also the weird leap of your heart surely leading you into cardiac arrest, you only shrug and move back inside of the living room, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you scan the surroundings, searching for something.

“Sure,” you nod, taking the ugly bracelet off the table and offering it to him, “you can have that one.”

You hold a staring contest with the older boy for a couple of seconds, his head undoubtedly swirling with arguments and comments about the apparel of the friendship bracelet, but he’s smart– he must know the survival of his beloved comic book must be at stake. So, he only nods and smiles at you, outstretching his hand to you and nudging his head in its direction.

“Okay,” he hums, “tie it for me?”

A second comes by– a heartbeat, really– in which you chew on your bottom lip and gasp at the request, but still, you nod and come closer, crouching down to be at his level and taking the thread into your fingers. You wrap the bracelet around his wrist, making sure to leave a bit of wiggle room before you tie a knot, bringing the ends together, all while feeling the eyes of Eric glued to your face, watching every micro expression flash through your unsettling composure.

When you’re done, making a move to hide your hands behind your back and standing up, your limbs bump into each other and send an unspoken sense of electricity all through your body. The sensation is so strange you don’t meet anyone’s eye before you leave the room, yelling out a goodbye as you hurriedly open the front door and run out to get fresh air (it’s August, though. The air is humid and only makes your head spin more).

You clear your throat before you take off to the grocery store. It's only when you're halfway there that you realize you'd forgotten to bring your wallet with you. It's okay, though– you take this chance to walk around, regaining your casualty.

You bet Eric will take the bracelet off in a matter of a week.

SEPTEMBER OF 1999

The leaves start turning orange and the weather a bit colder when you become hyper-aware of your shifting composure whenever Eric Sohn is around. The way you feel heat rushing to your cheeks whenever he calls you cutie, a nickname he’s had reserved for you since you two were little kids, the way you feel weak in your knees whenever he casually brings his arm around your shoulders or when he bends down to tie your shoelace in the middle of the sidewalk. You don’t really know what those sudden changes are, yet, you feel a bit embarrassed by them whenever they take place. You don’t think it’s normal to feel this way around your brother’s best friend, and the more you hang out with him, the more you wish you read less books as a child– because now, you’re also hyper-aware of the title those feelings may have. 

Still, it only comes to you on one September afternoon– you wake up from blissful unawareness and jolt with the quickly opening pit in your stomach at the strange revelation.

“Eric! Sunwoo isn’t home, though?” you mumble, confused as you notice the boy standing on your doorway, a plastic bag in his hand and a red Nike jacket enveloping his frame.

“I know, he said he’s hanging out with Juyeon hyung today,” he nods, “I brought you something, though,” he says, holding up the bag and making sure you get a chance to see it, offering you a boyish grin.

“Oh?” you gasp, furrowing your eyebrows at the male. When you do nothing to invite him inside, he does so himself– slightly nudging you in your side as he passes your figure and enters your house. He acts like he owns the place, and by the amount of time he’s spent in your home, you’d think he does– he doesn’t, though. The only thing he owns is just a lot of audacity.

The male takes off his shoes in the entryway and walks his way over to your room– a surprising act, considering he’s spent the least amount of time in this very place– and when he’s sure you’re following his every move, he empties the contents of the bag to the middle of your freshly made bed. Watching as approximately ten items fall out of the plastic, your eyes widen with surprise as you recognise your favorite chocolate– the mini bars with stickers inside, the ones you collect and stick into your journal and look at in the middle of the night, giggling to yourself and kicking your feet at the adorable pictures in your make-shift collect book.

“Woah,” you gasp when the male looks at you, seemingly awaiting your response, and when he gets the wished outcome, pride overtakes his features, shrugging to himself.

“My mum got some for free because she bought a lot of cabbage for kimchi yesterday,” he explains, “I thought of you when I saw them, so I bought you some more.”

“I- you-” you stutter, emotions too big for your own good swelling all inside your fragile, little self, hands running into your hair and tugging at the roots to wake yourself up from the dream. “You didn’t have to!”

“We got them anyway, and I know you like the stickers,” Eric shrugs, scratching the back of his neck, completely ignoring the fact that he said he bought you some more, your heart skipping a beat at the sentiment. Clearing your throat, you tentatively take a step closer to your bed, gathering a bar of chocolate into your hand and opening it, taking a bite.

“You can have the stickers if you give me some chocolate,” Eric says close to your ear, almost as if he was creating a masterplan, to which you eagerly nod and plop onto your bed, moving the bars of sweets into one pile. As you continue to munch on the first one, you unwrap the sticker and look at it, praying to yourself as if you were checking if your lottery ticket was worth any cent– hoping you get a sticker you don’t own yet.

The image of a cute panda would cheer anyone up even in their darkest moments– not you, though, as you mourn and sigh, disappointment clear in your features. 

“What?” Eric asks, eyes big pools of worry.

“I already got that one.”

“Ah,” he nods, seemingly understanding– much to your surprise, “well, we got 9 more tries, let’s get to eating.”

Wrappers are rustling in your bed sheets as you and Eric eat the concerning amount of chocolate, gathering the stickers in a little pile on top of your notebook, promising each other to not look at the stickers as you go and just make a grand reveal at the end. Eric’s full cheeks are a sight you enjoy, telling him he looks like a squirrel– to which he sends a light flick to your forehead, telling you you don’t look much different– and soon enough, the nine bars left disappear from your plain sight (you only had 3 and Eric ate the remaining 5. He’s a growing boy, though, so you understand. He needs to get his undying energy from somewhere.).

“Ready for the reveal?” you ask, locking your gaze with Eric.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

With that, you get to the pile of stickers in the middle of your bedsheets. Looking at the first one, there’s a happy squeal cutting out of your throat, the image of an adorable yellow duck warming you up with euphoria. 

“You don’t have that one yet?”

“I don’t,” you nod, “this is just perfect.”

Eric nods and watches you with a certain kind of warmth in his gaze as you open up your notebook and stick the newest addition to your little sticker farm– or a ZOO, however you wanna call it. The next sticker from the pile is added as well– a brown, big bear– and the next one too, the most adorable colorful parrot slapped to the corner of your page. 

The rest of your stickers are the ones you already own, though– a displeased look takes over your features at the knowledge, but still, you can’t help but beam at the fact that you have 3 new additions to your collection, and they were a gift from Eric Sohn himself. Someone who doesn’t make fun of your childish habit. Someone who feeds your little interest, watches you with excitement in his eyes as you indulge. Someone not like your brother. 

Someone you could never see the way you see your brother.

“What do you do with the duplicates?” Eric asks, pointing to the sad pile on the top of your notebook. His figure is closer to you now, since he wanted to watch you stick the animals into your notebook, his crossed legs almost pressed against yours on the small bed.

“Well, usually, I just throw them out,” you shrug, “but since you’re here…” you muse, the idea plopping into your head like the newest discovery you should probably patent, peeling the back of one of the dog stickers off and swiftly turning towards your companion, mischief sparkling in your eyes.

You put the sticker on his left cheek, making the boy jump. “Hey!”

Giggling, taking another one of the stickers and pressing it to the middle of his forehead, Eric starts to fight you, your bodies wrestling on the bed. You don’t think he puts much effort into getting you off him– that, or he’s insanely weak– and in no time, his face is adorned with all different kinds of animals, his hair messy from tussling in your bedsheets. The image has you laughing before you realize you’re basically straddling him on your bed, his big eyes gaping at you from below, his appearance enough to make something in your brain short-circuit and make you leap off him, clearing your throat.

Heat rushes into your cheeks as you take a seat next to him, playing with your fingers. You pray for anything to come and ease the awkwardness you caused, and sure enough, today must be your lucky day. “Hey, look here!” 

You call for the boy as you swiftly take your polaroid camera off your bedside table– the one that belonged to your dad, the one you fought with Sunwoo about, the one your mum said was yours because Sunwoo is too careless with his things to keep it safe– and snap a picture of the puppy-like boy, laughing at the fact that now, you have the image of him looking dumb and covered in stickers forever. Or at least until he doesn't take it away from you– which he attempts quickly.

“Hey!” he yelps again, huffing as he lunges at you, trying to take the picture out of your grasp as you drop the camera into your soft sheets. Your feet take you to the living room, navigating through furniture, and when you don’t hear footsteps follow you, you think you’re safe– Eric does have a lot of energy, but chasing you around gets tiring for him quickly when he knows you'll never let him win.

Entering your room once again, prepared to find him on your bed like before, you’re taken by surprise as a shutter sound goes off right after you open the door, a polaroid picture taken of your face making you temporarily blind at the flash.

“Eric!” you whine, hating that there’s a picture of you standing shocked at your doorway now forever in the universe– not really caring that the boy just got you back with the exact stunt you pulled on him just a few minutes ago. Before you get a chance to blink out the blind spots in your vision caused by the flash and run after him, though, you feel him gently press you out of the doorway and slip outside, the sound of the front door opening and closing after him resonating along his slowly disappearing, amused laughter.

Serves you right, doesn’t it? 

Sighing, you shake your head and take a seat on your bed, the picture of the boy still in between your fingertips. You only take a look at it when your vision comes back to normal, and as the image of Eric covered in stickers, hair messy and cheeks rosy below the animal print comes into your sight, the revelation arrives the same second a starstruck smile plays with your features.

And with that, you’re absolutely terrified. 

Throwing the polaroid picture onto the bedside table and lunging yourself into the sheets, you scream into your pillow and wish for the feelings to disappear– because in what world does a crush on your brother’s best friend ever come to a happy ending?

OCTOBER OF 1999

Once October hits, you find yourself home alone more often than you’d like. Sure, you don’t mind having some me time to read comic books or watch the TV uninterrupted in the living room, but still– alone turns lonely pretty quickly, and somehow, you start to regret the fact that you’ve been relying on your older brother and his friends for so long instead of making some connections on your own.

Sunwoo started to play soccer at school– something is telling you that he might go far if he keeps it up– and that’s why he’s been stuck at practice every single day, coming home late in the evening all tired, but happy, so you’re not really complaining. Eric works in the little bistro downtown now, since he wanted to make some money and not rely on the allowance Mrs. Sohn gives him every month, and it’s not like you were that close to begin with, but the fact that the boy is now too busy to meet you is making your spirit fall just the tiniest bit. And with your mother always being at work, you find yourself alone in your room, laying in your bed and staring at the ceiling. 

Sometimes, you journal. About anything and everything, really. You don’t really think you’re ever gonna read back the entries once you’re older, since they would just be a reminder of how miserable and boring your teenage years really were, and that’s why you allow yourself to be authentic. On most days, you write about your assignments for school. Sometimes you bad mouth a classmate or two– gossiping with the diary pages, because you don’t really have any human beings to do so in real life– and seldom, you allow yourself to get into topics that evoke the slightest bits of existential crisis in you.

Topics like college. Growing up. Your lack of hobbies and social interaction with the outer world. The newly found crush on Eric Sohn…

Okay, maybe you do write about the boy with brown hair and dark eyes a little too often. You can’t help it, though– when he’s not giving you any new interactions to dwell on, you have to just pick apart the old ones. You think it’s a natural reaction.

And that’s exactly what you’re doing one October afternoon, the lamp in your room on, since the evening comes faster when the weather is colder, as you’re laying in your bed and kicking your feet back and forth, chewing on the end of your pencil. The sound of your doorbell resonates through the house suddenly and startles you, making you jump awake from your delirious delusions.

Mentally going through the list of possible visitors you could have– because it can’t be your mother or your brother, since they never forget to carry their house keys– you’re lost, not really finding any fitting candidates. Furrowing your brows, lost in thought and frankly, a bit confused, you plant your socked feet onto the wooden floor and walk over to the front door just in time for the bell to ring again. Scratching the back of your neck in nerves, thinking of precautions you could take for your own safety– since your front door doesn’t have a peep hole and you don’t want to open the door to a complete stranger– you clear your throat and yell over the door.

“Who is it?” you ask.

“Delivery!” a voice calls through the door, making you huff. 

“I didn’t order any food?” you yell back, confused. “Sir, there’s another house behind ours, sometimes the mailmen get confused and we get their mail. Maybe try there?” 

“The address is right, though?” the voice calls again, and somehow, it sounds kind of familiar… no, it can’t be, you dumb goose. You’re just imagining things because you’ve spent the last 20 minutes writing about the curve of his nose into your diary.

“There must be a mistake-”

“Come on, Y/N, open the door,” the voice on the other side mourns, the mention of your name making you jump, completely startled. The tone the man says it in is sweet like honey, though, so familiar in your ears, that you mentally want to slap yourself– so you weren’t dreaming. It is him.

Dragging your hand through your hair to smooth it down, praying you look at least a little presentable– although in your stained sweatpants and the Pokémon shirt you inherited from Sunwoo when he grew out of it, you doubt that’s even possible– you open the door and try to offer Eric a warm smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Food delivery,” Eric shrugs, pointing with his thumb in the direction behind his back, where his bike undoubtedly stands up against your gate.

“Oh…. but I already told you I didn’t order anything,” you mumble, confused. Studying his face– because a girl can indulge when she has the opportunity, am I right? – you notice his hair has grown a little longer, falling into his eyes. You bet it’s hard for him to see, but you must admit it looks nice, and you almost tell him, before you catch yourself and break away from the sentiment. 

The male snickers. “I know, I was just joking,” he says, “I did bring you food, though.”

“Why?” you ask, confused when he bends over and picks up a plastic bag off the ground, a container of food inside, the warmth of the contents making condensation appear all over the red sack. 

“We made this by mistake and it was just gonna be thrown out if nobody took it,” he shrugs, “and I figured you haven’t eaten yet– or if you did, you just had those cold kimbap rolls from the store– and I wanted to get some warm food into your stomach.”

“Ah,” you gasp, nodding at the explanation. It does explain the source of the food really well, but truthfully, it explains nothing about the fact why Eric thought of bringing you the food instead of taking it home with himself– he’s a foodie if you’ve ever seen one. The idea of him worrying about if you were fed or not is equally as strange and interesting in your head– still, you clasp your hand around the bag and take it, the smell making you involuntarily hungry. “Thank you.”

Eric only nods at you, a smile beaming at his face. “Well,” he sighs, “I’d love to stay longer and hang out, but I’m still on the clock, so…” he mumbles, taking a hesitant step backwards towards his bike, eyes never breaking contact with yours.

“Oh, right,” you nod, “that’s okay. Have a fun day at work!” you muse, watching him as he grins and finally retrieves back his bike, opening up the gate to your property and escaping, waving at you as he gets on.

“I’ll see you soon!” he calls as he rides off, your eyes following him until his figure disappears behind a corner, your ears buzzing with excitement and your lower lip trapped between your teeth with the innocent promise.

Walking back into the house, you grin as you close the front door behind you and carry the food into the kitchen. You quickly get the containers out of the damp bag, putting them onto the wooden table, and gasp when you find a sticky note on the very top one, a messy handwriting scribbled in a rush, but stuck to the food with care.

Eat well and don’t skip meals, Y/N-ie!! – Eric x

Not being able to battle your smile anymore, you decide to open up the containers and stuff your mouth with the food instead– only to find your favorite dish inside, staring back at you in what seems to be a dream that’s too good to wake up from. 

And sure, you are delusional, but are you delusional enough to believe that this wasn’t all a coincidence? You’re not so sure.

Still, you eat the food with feet kicking back and forth as you sit in the silent kitchen, the empty house no longer feeling so lonely. When you’re done, you throw the trash out– everything but the sticky note, which you glue into your diary a few minutes later, hoping to keep the memory forever.

NOVEMBER OF 1999

The world around you is dark as you step outside of cram school, your eyes are tired and your skin is prickled with goosebumps in the chilly air. You despise going to cram school, but your mother told you you have to– since you didn’t have any athletic features that could get you far in life like Sunwoo, you had to be good at studying, or else you won’t get into university. There was a lot of work ahead of you, but since you didn’t really have anything else to do in the day, you didn’t protest and went anyway.

The days are usually very long and you get off very late, resulting in you being tired almost all the time. When you get home, you undress yourself and change into your sleep clothes and doze off until the morning, when you have to wake up and go to school again– it’s an exhausting cycle, but you know you have to endure it for your own sake.

Walking down the steps that lead out the cram school building, you stretch your body and huff, cursing at yourself for the fact that you didn’t bring a jacket– you forgot that evenings get really chilly, and frankly speaking, you didn’t have much time to think when you were rushing to get ready in the morning. You’ll just have to get through it, you think to yourself as you walk in the direction of your house– the last bus to your neighborhood already left an hour ago, when you were in the middle of revising division– your sneakers kicking the stray rocks below your feet as you tug the sleeves of your hoodie lower, desperately trying to feel more heat.

“Do you never watch where you’re going? That’s gonna get you in trouble one day, you know,” you hear a familiar voice say, the joking tone making your heart skip a few beats as you place the owner of the saccharine voice to its face. Looking up, slightly alarmed at being caught in such a distressed state, you gasp.

“I was… watching my step, I guess,” you shrug as you come into a halt in front of him, shivering both under Eric’s gaze and the cold weather at once. “What are you doing here? Deliveries?”

“I just got off,” he says, “so I figured I could stop by. Sunwoo said you’re going to cram school, I thought you might enjoy some company on your way home.”

Gaping at his explanation, you nod, completely startled. The idea of your brother talking about you in front of Eric, the boy you have a very embarrassing, very big crush on scares you, to say the least. See, it doesn’t really matter that the boy grew up with you, pretty much seeing you at your lowest whenever he was around over at your house when you were both just little kids– the image of Sunwoo telling Eric about finding you sobbing at your comic book (the scene got too sad, nobody can really blame you) or about how your favorite jeans ripped right before you had to go to school one morning is terrifying. You don’t really want him to know about these things. He may act like your brother sometimes, but you never really saw him in that light in the first place.

“Well, then,” you clear your throat, “it’s… it’s good to see you,” you say. Eric shows you his boyish grin as your lips utter out the words, and you can’t help but mirror it, your eyes locking with the male. As if you just took a step back, your eyes see him in a light you’ve never seen him before– as if this was your first time meeting your brother’s best friend– and something about the sentiment has your stomach feeling all uneasy, heat rushing to your face. His hair is styled in a way that tells you that he didn’t really style it (or if he did, it looked truly effortless in your eyes, so props to him), pushed back a little and revealing his forehead, a few of the strands carelessly falling into his eyes. His jawline is sharper than how it was when you first met the boy, and with the realization of a foolish teenage girl, you have to admit that Eric Sohn grew up to be a very attractive, attentive man.

“You’re cold?” he says, although the sentence sounds more like a statement rather than a question, before he shakes his head at your antics and heaves out a sigh. “You should’ve taken a jacket with you when you went, you know it gets cold in the evening,” he scolds you. In those times, he reminds you the most of your brother– because although you and Sunwoo act like you hate each other sometimes, you know the older male still cares about you. He just hates showing it, which translates in his scolding tone whenever you do something wrong or against his wishes. 

In those times, Eric reminds you the most of the way your brother treats you, and you somehow hate it. You despise the fact, because that means he must only see you as someone like his younger sister– he never had one, so maybe he just likes to compensate for it by taking care of you all the time. Maybe he feels responsible to do so because of Sunwoo. The thought makes you equally as nauseous– you’d never want him to hang out with you just because he feels like he has to. 

“I didn’t have time in the morning,” you grunt, rolling your eyes at him. You avert your gaze from the male, for it makes you slightly uncomfortable after your previous thoughts, so when the noise of a zipper being pulled down and the weight of fabric on your shoulders brings you back to reality, you snap your head around at him all alarmed. 

“What? Wear it,” he says, head shrugging towards the direction of his jacket on your figure. “You’re gonna catch a cold if you don’t.”

Trying to wrestle out of the red material, you squirm in the hold of the windbreaker– Eric’s hands gripping each side of the jacket, as if predicting your next moves, making sure it stays on you and doesn’t fall down. His strong arms tug you closer to him to make your fight more difficult– and he’s successful with his efforts, because the proximity of him and his smell engulfs you and unarms you, heat rushing to your cheeks as you halt in your movements.

“Stop,” you mourn, “I don’t need it.”

“Yes you do,” he insists, “so stop being a baby about it and wear it.”

Staring into his eyes, as if to mentally tell him to stop what he’s doing– to stop how he’s treating you, how he’s making you all weak in your knees and sleepless at nights because of how much you think of him and hope he’s doing well each day, to stop being so gentle with you and taking care of you, because it brings all sorts of both doubts and delusions into your head– but he doesn’t back down. You’ve known him for quite some time, you should already be aware of just how stubborn he can be.

“Arms in,” he hums, holding on to the jacket and waiting for you to wear it properly. One thing about you– you can always admit your defeat. So, with a sigh, you put your arms through the sleeves of Eric’s red windbreaker, shrinking a little under his firm gaze. He looks at you with a look full of something you can’t decipher, and it’s all making you so, so insanely lost in the many thoughts and feelings swirling around your head, not helping your current state.

“I already have a brother, y’know,” you mumble in a moment of weakness, looking at your feet– your dirty white sneakers almost touching his from how close you are standing right now, “so you should stop treating me like one.”

A moment of silence overtakes you two, and you suddenly feel like you’ve done something wrong. Still, Eric’s hands are holding on to the sides of the opened jacket, keeping you close to him. “Hm?” 

Clearing your throat and shaking your head, you snicker to yourself. “Forget it.”

“No- I mean,” he blurts out, tone of voice a little nervous, “do you see me as your brother figure?” he asks, tone of voice more quiet now, more gentle.

Breathing in the crispy air, taking a moment before you reply, you shake your head in disapproval. “No,” you say, “no, I don’t. I- I don’t think I do,” you say, scared of what your answer will bring out of him. You don’t really know why, but at this moment, you feel insanely fragile– as if any bad move could make you break in his hands, waiting for him to glue you back together. 

Metaphorically, he does just that. “Good,” he nods, leaning down towards you, hands gripping the zipper of his jacket and zipping it together, making sure no cold can get to your bones as his fingers tug it up towards the very top, under your chin. “Because I’ve never seen you as my sister either.”

His answer once again startles you– but when you take a step back from the situation, you think it was in a good way. His hands grip your shoulders for a second as his eyes meet yours and he offers you a warm smile. “Come on, let’s get you home,” he says, tugging you towards the fence where you find his bike, his motions guiding you like a rag doll sucked out of all life.

“Hop in,” he motions towards the back of the bike, where the basket would usually be– Eric moved it towards the front, though, leaving enough room for you to sit at– and as you do, he takes a seat in front of you and looks back at you over his shoulder. “Hold on tight so you don’t fall.”

Like in a trance, your arms sneak around his middle– this was the first time you had this kind of physical touch with him, and just the thought of it makes you want to scream your throat out– before the male takes off on the bike, riding towards your neighborhood. With the cold wind slapping your face, you foolishly rest your cheek on his shoulder blade and close your eyes, enjoying the closeness of his body keeping you warm. 

If anyone asked you about the action, you’d tell them you were just tired.

DECEMBER OF 1999

Socked feet make their way through the room, the sound of footsteps resonating on the laminated floor, as the short male comes up to you with a bowl of potato chips in his right hand and a bottle of soda under his left arm. Eric Sohn sighs at you, shaking his head in disbelief, before he places the items onto the coffee table and takes a seat next to you on the floor, opening up the bottle and pouring the three of you drinks.

“Can’t believe I’m spending New Year’s Eve with you losers, of all people,” Eric snickers, having you roll your eyes at the male and grumpily furrow your eyebrows at his sentence.

“No one’s stopping you if you wanna go, y’know,” you grunt as you take the filled glass off the table, taking a sip of the sweet drink and sighing at him. If he’s gonna take a leap into the new year with you while making you annoyed, he may as well leave now and do whatever his initial plan was– once again, no one’s stopping him if that’s what he wants to do.

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs, “it would’ve been so much more fun if we all went to Juyeon hyung’s. Everyone’s there celebrating, but we’re stuck here in your room.” 

“Well, Eric,” your brother smiles ironically at him, shrugging to himself, “it’s not like it’s my fault you’re not over at Juyeon hyung’s right now. You chose to spend the new years here with me. My mother prohibited me from going there, not yours.”

The argument has the male shrug, his eyes averting your brother’s gaze once his comment gets a bit too honest and realistic. It’s true and he’s right– it’s not like Eric’s mum told him he can’t go celebrate with his friends, because she didn’t. Eric’s mum trusts him and wants him to have fun and do what all the kids his age are doing. Your mum, on the other hand, is making you and Sunwoo stay home for New Year’s Eve to celebrate with your family, because, as she quoted, New Year’s Eve the only time she gets time off work, and she wants to spend it with her kids– forget the fact that you’re currently sitting locked in your room with your friend, protesting the family time just because you can– and when Sunwoo told her she has to stop treating him like a little kid, she told him she has all the right to do so, because he is her kid. And that’s how the party he was supposed to attend with Eric (the party you foolishly thought you’re gonna have to tag along to, not hating the sentiment as much as before now) got canceled from your brother’s plans.

“Well,” Eric chews on the inside of his cheek, “I did it for you two. Be grateful.”

“Whatever,” you hum, “let’s turn on the TV. I bet there’s some variety show on.”

Eric heaves out a sigh as he reaches for the TV remote, clicking the power button and making the boxy device in front of you light up. Your mum got you a TV in your room when you complained about being too bored one November day, and although the box of entertainment didn’t really help like you imagined it to, you’re glad it’s of service at least today. Instead of the expected variety show, though, there’s news on– the face of the old announcer looking at you with a serious look on his face, the professional tone making chills run down your spine, for he reminds you a bit of your mother when she scolds you. You think that’s a common news announcer trait. 

“As the year 2000 approaches, computer programmers realize that computers might not interpret the 00 in the software as 2000, but 1900. The softwares currently running only use a two-digit code for the year, excluding the 19. The data was excluded because the data storage is costly and takes up too much space. Activities that were planned on a daily basis could be damaged or flawed,” the announcer says, making the three of you look at the screen with interest. Maybe it’s true that when you get older, you get more interested in news– you think it’s good to know what’s going on around you, although the topic discussed right now might not even concern you in the slightest.

“Banks, which calculate the interest rates on a daily basis, could face real problems. Interest rates are the amount of money a lender, such as a bank, charges a customer, such as an individual or business, for a loan. Instead of the rate of interest for one day, the computer could calculate a rate of interest for minus almost 100 years!” 

“Oops,” Eric lets out next to you, a reaction so far away from what a real adult would think of the situation. See, you are all just kids, after all.

“Centers of technology, such as power plants, are also threatened by this issue. Power plants depend on routine computer maintenance for safety checks, such as water pressure or radiation levels. Not having the correct date could throw off these calculations and possibly put nearby residents at risk,” the announcer continues, the information coming out of his mouth suddenly making you hyper aware of the reality you’re experiencing right now.

“Do we have a nuclear power plant nearby?” you ask in a hushed whisper, watching as the men next to you almost comically widen their eyes, shrugging.

“I’m not sure,” Sunwoo peeps.

“The worst of all, this software and hardware issue could cause such a big problem in nuclear energy facilities, where nuclear bombs and missiles could be set off, causing the world to go into utter chaos, or worse, an end,” the announcer concludes, the last word making you gasp in terror. 

“An end?” you chirp, sitting up straight in your seat as you look at the two men, now equally as terrified. There’s something in Sunwoo’s gaze that makes chills run down your spine, the reality crushing down on you with heavy measures. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have fought with mum. What if the last words the two of us exchanged before we die are the harsh words I had said yesterday?” your brother mourns, seeing as his best friend chews on his bottom lip, lost in thought.

“What did you say to your mum?”

“That- that I’ll never forgive her for ruining this for me,” he mumbles, his voice breaking at the end, “and… other things,” he adds, the hint of incoming panic making his best friend frantically wave his hands around and try to make your brother relax before he has to deal with the breakdown. If the world is ending, this is not how any of you want to go.

“It’s okay, don’t worry,” Eric says, clearing his throat and pointing to the TV, “look! The show is on, we should watch before the year ends,” he proposes, taking the remote into his hand and turning the volume up to hopefully drown out Sunwoo’s thoughts and have him focus on something else. And it works– noting that your brother has an attention span of a 5 year old– he can hardly remember what he was worrying about just 30 seconds ago.

Still, the thought keeps bouncing around your head like a child in a bouncy castle. The words of the news anchor keep repeating in your brain, making your ears ring as you look at Eric from the corner of your eye, watching his angelic face. Oh how you hate disturbing the peace now that you’ve all calmed down– but still, you can’t deal with the worries alone. Checking the clock hung above the TV, noticing there’s at least 5 minutes left before midnight, you clear your throat, feeling your whole body on fire.

“Do you really think the world is gonna end?” you ask, cracking your knuckles in a nervous manner. Looking at Eric, pupils shaking, you find your brother’s best friend seemingly lost in thought. The music of the variety show program serves you three as a background sound now, none of you paying attention to the TV anymore, instead, focusing on all the things you've done wrong in your life and how somehow, this feels like karma for all of it.

“I dunno,” Sunwoo shrugs, “I mean- they said it’s possible! It was on the news, and they wouldn’t lie on the news…” he nervously mumbles, scratching the back of his head. 

“That’s what’s worrying me,” you sigh, “we shouldn’t have turned on the TV.”

“It was your idea in the first place!”

“And I’ll carry the burden into my grave,” you admit, gulping as you press a forced smile onto your lips.

Momentarily looking back at the TV, you desperately want to keep the thought of the world being over out of your head before you spend your last minutes on this earth going crazy– but now that you started, you can’t keep thinking about it. “Man, the world can’t end yet. There’s so many things I haven’t tried yet! I’m too young to die!”

The men don't reply to that– you presume they’re too busy trying to find other things to occupy themselves with instead of the inevitable– which has you dissatisfied as you throw your body back into the sofa, heaving out a sigh. Seconds go by painfully slow but also painfully fast at the same time, given the circumstances, as you listen to the cheerful song playing in the background and nudge your friend into his upper arm with your pointer finger, feeling his arm encircle your shoulders and pull you closer to him. The contact of his fingers on your upper arm makes you squirm and break out into a smile, feeling a particular lightness in your stomach at the action, a sensation that has you in shock. 

“I’m gonna talk with mum before we die,” Sunwoo suddenly calls as he stands up from his seat on the floor, sighing to himself, “I can’t go with the thought of her being upset with me,” he sentimentally adds before he’s out of the door, rushing towards the living room.

The space falls into momentary silence now that your brother is gone, having you chew on your bottom lip with nerves. You think now is the time to beg for forgiveness with the higher forces– I'm sorry for not studying well. I'm sorry for being rude and ungrateful towards my mum. I'm sorry for being greedy– when the sound of Eric’s voice resonates through the place as he speaks up again, waking you up from the anxious slumber, the clock now striking 2 minutes before midnight. “What would you wanna do before you die?” he asks.

The question is simple. You presume he wants simple answers– things like getting into college, getting a good job and making a lot of money, growing old– but as you lean away from him and get back to your place on his left, your eyes locked with his, you’re left clueless. There are so many things you have yet to achieve, and the idea of not being able to pushes a burden to your chest, but at this very moment, you can’t really name one. 

Shrugging, you chew on the inside of your cheek as your eyes scan his face. His firm eye contact has you a bit flustered, making you shrivel in your seat, and as the sound of the TV morphs from the song into a countdown from 55, you’re overwhelmed with the thought that your friend is insanely pretty– and he always has been, you just hated admitting it to yourself for the past few months, despite still being fully aware– and that now, when the world ends, you’re dying unkissed and alone.

Well, not completely alone, since Eric’s here. And he’s always been here– your whole life, since you can remember, and he’s here now as well, even though he should’ve been at Juyeon’s house. As the clock strikes 30 seconds away from midnight, your eyes involuntarily travel down to his chapped lips, all air knocked out of your lungs, the thoughts in your brain picking up on speed the closer you come to the end.

You’re dying soon. You’re dying in 30- now 29 seconds, and you’ve never kissed anyone before. You’re dying before you get a chance to hold hands with someone and have a partner, and you’re dying before you get a chance to tell Eric how you feel about him. There’s 28 seconds left until the end and you’re just staring at him like a coward, because you don’t really let yourself indulge in the silly warmth of your heart whenever you’re around your friend, but god, you can at least admit it to yourself before you die.

And as the clock gets closer and closer to midnight, now only giving you 20 seconds before it all ends and a missile lands on the top of your house, blowing up the whole town and making you all disappear, Eric’s question repeats itself in your brain. What would you want to do before you die?

The answer is suddenly painfully clear as you take action– leaning towards the boy on your right, face closer to his than it’s ever been before, your eyes counting all his eyelashes and focusing on his surprised, yet unmoving face– and as you hear the countdown reach 15, you close your eyes and press your lips against his. 

The contact makes you weak in your knees as your hands reach to his face to steady him, your own firework show erupting in your stomach, and suddenly you’re completely content with dying tonight– because at least you’re with Eric, at least you did something. You kiss your friend with something close to an unsaid confession, your lips staying on his throughout the rest of the countdown, the taste of soda you’ve both been drinking the whole evening mixing in the contact of your skin. You’re not sure you’re even doing this right– again, you’ve never kissed anyone before– but it doesn’t matter to you much as you let go of your worries, aware of the fact that in a few seconds, nothing will matter anymore when neither of you are going to be around to say anything to each other after the kiss is over.

The countdown rings in your ears– coming down from 5 as you scoot yourself closer to Eric, 4 as you run the pads of your thumbs along his cheekbones, 3 as you still in your movements, 2 as you notice your knees bumping into each other on the ground and finally, 1 as you get ready to die, kissing your first and only love– when the sound of cheers and fireworks from the TV fills your ears instead, the world around you stilling and completely unchanged.

Your kiss started in 1999 and ended in 2000. Your love for him passed a century.

Eyes fluttering open and your mouth letting go of his, the image of the boy with his lips slightly parted, eyes closed and cheeks rosy comes to you in the yellow light of your room, making your heart fall down to your stomach. He looks absolutely angelic, his hair slightly messy and the fabric of his shirt a little disheveled in the front, and even though you’d love to indulge in your foolish desires and kiss him some more, you’re quickly taken aback with the noise of the door to your room opening and making you jump away from Eric, your brother appearing out of thin air in the presence of your room. It serves you like a weird kind of reality check, Eric’s eyes opening and looking at your brother, and even though you two haven’t been caught, the male clears his throat and bites down on his lower lip, looking almost guilty.

Oh no. What have you done?

Suddenly, you feel insanely silly.

JANUARY OF 2000

“You’ve been awfully quiet the whole day,” Sunwoo mumbles from beside you, his whole body engulfed in a pile of snow, “not that I care, but are you okay?”

“I thought you liked it when I don’t talk,” you mutter, playing with the frozen white all around you, seated on the red plastic sled at the top of the hill. You got tired after dragging it up from the bottom, and when you noticed that the rest of Sunwoo’s friends– Eric included– are still on their way up, you figured you could use up the time to relax and sit around for a while. It’s been quite some time since all of Sunwoo’s friends gathered to hang out at the same time, which made you surprised to see that your own brother invited you to tag along with them as they decided to go sledding on the second day of January, using up their break to best of their abilities. Which is also why you didn’t say no to the invitation– you thought sitting at home and moping around wouldn’t help you much.

“I do,” he says, nodding, “that’s why I’m asking what’s up– so I know what to do when I need to shut you up later,” Sunwoo hums, making you roll your eyes at the masked worry.

Shaking your head in disbelief, you scoff. “It’s nothing.”

“Sure,” he shrugs, “so you’re just going through puberty?” he teases, to which you take a handful of snow into your palm and lunge the white at him, satisfaction running through your veins when the snowball lands into his unsuspecting face, the male coughing and swatting his arms around to defend himself.

“Hey!” your brother screams at you once he gets the ice out of his eyes and his mouth, his body jumping into a standing position before he chases you around, the bubble of a laugh escaping your throat for the first time these days– they’re not wrong when they say malicious joy is the best kind of joy.

Running at the top of the hill, not really looking where you’re going– instead looking over your shoulder to see Sunwoo’s actions, preparing yourself to duck if he decides to turn your small quarrel into a snow fight– your legs get tangled with the red sled you left before you started a war with the angered man, a yelp cutting out of your throat as you get prepared to fall over and knock your teeth out.

Your body comes in contact with something half-firm, half-soft, and as your feet slip and the snow-covered ground disappears from below your legs, two arms wrap around your waist and steady you, making sure you don’t get hurt.

Turns out Eric Sohn is there to catch you every time you are about to eat shit. You hate this kind of deja vu.

As you open your eyes (that you had closed on instinct, not wanting to see your own death) once you’re sure you’re safe and sound, the world around you invites itself into your ears in an overwhelming noise. The laughter of Sunwoo’s friends– some hollering at your fall, some at the redness and last remains of snow covering your brother’s face– and the hushed arguments over who’s going down first– with Haknyeon screaming that he’s stealing Sunwoo’s (yours) sled and Juyeon following him. After all those happening in the matter of a few seconds,  you realize you’re left on the top of the hill alone with the male, terror shaking through your insides.

Clearing your throat and taking a step back from him, you tuck your hands into your pockets and avert your gaze from Eric. You two haven’t spoken since you decided to kiss him on New Year’s Eve, and with the awkward tension in the air, you don’t feel like doing so ever again in your whole entire life. 

“Thanks,” still, you hum.

Eric seems a little more light-hearted than you, shrugging as he replies to you. “Haven’t I told you to start watching where you’re going?”

“I’m not good with listening sometimes,” you mutter, huffing. Taking a look around yourself– noticing that there are no sleds left on the top of the hill, therefore, if you wanted to escape the situation, the only way down would be to roll around like a human version of a snowman, you once again admit your defeat, standing around nervously and shifting your weight from one foot to the other.

The silence is uncomfortable. It makes you want to dig a hole in the snow and bury yourself alive, to suffocate under the weight of the icy cold and never see Eric’s face again. You know that you ruined whatever friendship you had with the male– by being stupid and foolish, not really thinking about consequences (because there were supposed to be none and you were supposed to be dead), and the weight of the guilt makes you want to puke and hide away. 

Still, Eric comes out of his way to talk to you. Honestly, you’re kind of surprised– he should be disgusted with you. Realistically, he should be the one avoiding you, not the other way around.“They’re gonna take long to walk back up,” he notes, “wanna get hot chocolate with me?”

“I’m good, thanks,” you shake your head, not once breaking eye contact with the overwhelming white of the hill.

“Come on,” he sighs, “it’s just around the corner. They built a hot chocolate stand because they knew kids would come sledding here. Honestly, it’s an astute business tactic, but I promise the hot chocolate actually tastes nice,” he says, nudging you slightly with his arm, as if to make you look at him and change your mind.

“Thanks, but no,” you definitely say, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asks, tone of voice casual– as if it was the most normal thing in the world, as if nothing ever happened and he was genuinely curious about the reasoning behind your actions.

“I’m not, I just don’t really like hot chocolate,” you sheepishly mutter, trying hard to avoid the topic.

“So you are avoiding me,” he hums, as if it wasn’t obvious before– and not only because you’re a bad liar. Plus, you love hot chocolate. Somehow, you think Eric knows.

“Look, Eric,” you sigh, running your hand through your hair, “can’t you just drop it?”

“No,” he shrugs, shaking his head, “and that’s why we’re talking about the reason why you’re avoiding me over a cup of hot chocolate. Let’s go.”

His persistence is terribly overwhelming sometimes. You wonder how the male does it. “I already told you-”

“You owe me for the stickers and the meal and everything,” he corners you, and you know you can’t argue with that. He’s kind of right, you suppose– you never paid him back for all the chocolates or for the free meal he brought you that one evening. And that’s exactly why you find yourself sighing as you follow him, mentally preparing yourself for the talk.

You hate how he can always get his way. Walking up to the stand, you crack your knuckles in the pocket of your jacket, nervously coming up with possible arguments to tell him. I didn’t kiss you on purpose, it was an accident. I only did it to know how it feels. We are both supposed to be dead, it’s not my fault the world didn’t end like it was supposed to! Each sentence sounds more stupid than the previous one, and so with that, you shake your head, wiping the thoughts away, smiling at the elderly lady in the stand. You’re just gonna have to be honest, you figure. 

“Two hot chocolates, please.”

Rummaging through your pockets to find your wallet– you do owe Eric, so it’s only natural for you to pay– you’re caught off guard as the male next to you swiftly takes out his own and unzips it, preparing to pay for you. 

“I thought I owed you?” you mumble, hand reaching to tug at his forearm to stop him, to which Eric only grins at you and sighs.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay,” he says.

“I think that’s exactly what that means.”

“Just take it,” he huffs as he brings out a note from his wallet, the force making something else fly out and fall to the ground with it, having the boy swiftly crouch down and pick the item up, attempting to hide it before you get a chance to see. And now, you don’t have 20/20 vision, but you recognise your face when you see it– that, and you also recognize the small white sheet to be a polaroid picture, and as far as you’re aware, you’re the only one who has a camera in his circle.

The boy hands you the drink with red-tinted cheeks. The idea of him carrying a picture of you that he took back in September makes you flush as well, and when your gloved fingers accidentally meet as you take the cup from him, he forces out a laugh. “We can talk about that after you tell me why you’re avoiding me.”

His nonchalance has you relaxing only for a few seconds. The boy walks with you as you try to heat up your cold hands on the boiling surface of the cup, and when you see a bench a few meters away from you two, you instinctively take a seat.

“So?” he becomes you, eyebrows rising as he takes a sip from the melted sweetness.

Sighing, you try to come up with the best way to go around this. Do you apologize? Do you promise to never do it again– and you won’t, even though you want to so badly and his lips look surprisingly soft today? Furrowing your brows at the war in your head, you place the cup on the bench next to you and put your head into your hands, hiding away from him when you realize the only way to do this is to be completely, utterly honest.

“I’m just so embarrassed, Eric.”

The only noise meeting your eardrums in the moment is the faint yelling of the crowd sledding in the background, your companion remaining quiet for a bit. When he sees you won’t explain yourself, he goes ahead and asks the question. “Why?”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” you sigh, not believing his so casual composure.

“Maybe,” he laughs, the airy sound taking all breath away from your lungs.

Well, not all of it, since you have enough oxygen to go on a tangent, it seems. “Because I kissed you, goddamnit. And- and I don’t even know why I did it, honestly, I’ve never thought of kissing you before! It’s just- when I heard the world is ending, I realized I hadn’t had my first kiss yet, and that just felt like such a miserable way to die, and then you asked what I wanted to do before I die and I couldn’t think of anything else,” you say, progressively taking out your head from your hands and facing the male, big eyes staring into his soul. 

To your surprise, he doesn’t seem mad. Or disgusted. Or any of the reactions you expected, really. Eric stares at you with a soft, but amidst a little star-struck look in his eyes, and you’re suddenly painfully aware of every slight shift in his composure.

“Did you kiss me because you wanted to kiss me, or because you thought the world was gonna end?” he asks, awaiting your answer.

And if you’re being honest, 2 days after New Year’s Eve, you do admit the thought of the world actually ending sounds a bit stupid. Why did you even believe that theory? Why did they talk about it so seriously on the news? They tricked you into ruining your own life. 

But still, nothing can be done about it now. “Both,” you admit, shrugging, “I… I kissed you because I really didn’t want to die unkissed, but also… I wanted it to be you, y’know? Like… I thought we were really going to die, and so I thought kissing you might be a nice way to go. I really wanted to spend my last moments with you, I guess,” you sheepishly say, averting your gaze from the male.

Eric offers you his silence again after you’re done explaining. While you do admit you feel a little tense to hear what he has to say, you also realize you feel lighter now that it’s out in the universe and out of your system. A major weight was taken off your shoulders with the confession, and suddenly, you’re kind of glad that your friend was so assertive and insistent on talking about this– who knows how long you’d go before managing to face him. You think you could honestly go on… forever.

Taking a sip of the luscious liquid, you feel your body warm up once the anxiousness slips away from your bones. The boy next to you hums, making you face him with expecting eyes. “Then why were you avoiding me?”

Sighing, you shake your head. “I just told you. I’m starting to think you’re the one that’s bad at listening.”

“No,” he laughs, “that’s still you. Because if you were good at listening, you’d remember me telling you that I’ve never once seen you as my younger sister.”

Shrugging, kicking the pile of snow in front of you with the tip of your winter boots, you’re not quite following. “So?”

“So you should’ve realized that I’m not doing all of this,” he theatrically swings his arms around, “for nothing, you know?”

“All of what?”

“Taking care of you. Feeding you, helping you collect those stupid animal stickers, walking you home…” he mumbles, sighing. “Keeping your picture in my wallet,” he adds with a playful tone, making you smile.

“I thought you were just being a good friend,” you shrug.

“I don’t keep a picture of your brother on me at all times,” he says, tugging off his gloves. The sleeve of his jacket rides up a little as you watch him take his cup of hot chocolate off the bench, surprised (and flooded with warmth) to see the ugly friendship bracelet you made still adorning his wrist.

Grinning to yourself, excitement welcoming itself into the tips of your fingertips, you shrug. “So?” you mirror your own question from a little while ago, wanting him to say it to you instead of relying on your own brain– you think there’s still a possibility of you just being too delusional to see the reality for what it really is. You need to make sure you’re not imagining things.

“So,” he starts, sighing to himself as he turns a little in his seat to face you, “you should stop avoiding me, because I liked the kiss. And you. And we should probably do it again, because I didn’t get the chance to kiss you back the first time,” he says, once again taking all oxygen out of your lungs with the casualty of his preposition.

Locking his eyes with you, having you two staring at each other like two rays of sunshine warming up the cold January, he grins. “How does that sound?”

“Good,” you breathe out, “very good.”

The male takes it as an invitation as he scoots himself closer to you on the bench, his body turning a bit to face you. His free hand cups your cheek, leaning closer to lock his lips with you like he asked you to, your eyes fluttering close at the proximity, the fuzzy feeling in your stomach already expecting to kiss him again. The situation feels a little too idyllic to be real, though– you should’ve expected it to get ruined again.

Something cold and wet comes into contact with the side of your face, and when you sharply open your eyes, you see Eric staring at you with shock and terror in his eyes, the snow dripping down the side of his face as well. Whoever threw the snowball has good aim, you think– managing to target two people at once (even though your faces were that close to each other that it probably wasn’t even that hard), and before you get a chance to look around and see who cut off your kiss, there’s a scream coming from the left side of the two of you, the sound of feet quickly darting in the snow landing into your ears.

“Eric Sohn, what the fuck do you think you’re doing with my sister?” the voice hollers, and before you get a chance to react, the said male fastly stands up from the bench and runs to the other direction, laughter resonating all throughout the place as Sunwoo and his friends chase their shortest friend down.

Snow starts falling as you watch your brother tail his childhood friend, and with a foreign sense of warmth, you get reminded of the birthday wish you made while blowing out the candles on your seventh birthday.

You wished for someone just like Eric. You didn’t know the universe would be so kind to give you him instead.

[fae-renjun]

i'll love and support you forever my seunghan

[fae-renjun]

if you can debut him as a soloist why not put him back in riize? what's stopping you sm?

[fae-renjun]

JENO When I’m With You, 2024

[fae-renjun]

and FUCK everyone that made nct dream feel the need to apologise

[fae-renjun]

♡ ⋆˙⟡♡ ⋆˙⟡♡

[fae-renjun]

extra cheesy — e. sohn

pairing: eric sohn x fem! reader

genre: pizza boy! eric, very mild childhood friends to acquaintances to friends to lovers au. college au, fluff, the tiniest bit of angst. mutual pining, slowburn, jealous eric, oblivous reader, the whole lot... includes pizza boy! sunwoo and eric's older sister! lisa manoban.

wc: 31k (31.071)

warnings: alcohol consumption, swearing, mention of throwing up, mentions of jealousy, the reader and eric are the same height bc i wrote this for and about myself, talks about the ex-gifted kid burnout syndrome lol.

listen to: so american - olivia rodrigo, love - wave to earth and stuck with u - ariana grande and justin bieber

being a wingman is not always the easiest task - especially not when your roommate's target is best friends with someone taking your attention away from the main goal.

a/n: thank u so much best friend @csenke for beta reading as always and thank u best friend @from-izzy for hyping me up and listening to me ramble hours upon hours about this fic (oh and also for stepping in as the reader's roommate HAHA).

“Come on, we deserve a little pizza for dinner!” your roommate, Izzy, shakes your arm as she clings to you on the sofa the way she always does when she wants you to do something. And although your dear flatmate isn’t usually the one to order in, much preferring to cook meals at home and save the leftovers for another day, you wouldn’t find her desperation for pizza as strange, if it wasn’t for the batting of her eyelashes and her pleading voice.

Surely, she doesn’t need the pizza that much, right?

“I’m not saying we don’t, I’m just saying I have leftover soup from yesterday that I have to eat tonight or else it’s gonna go bad,” you justify your protests, “but you can get one, if you want. I’m not stopping you,” you say, furrowing your eyebrows at the girl in confusion before reaching for the TV remote.

“Oh come oooon, Y/N,” she pressures, pouting at you in disappointment. More weight is put into your body as she clings to you, acting like a child throwing a tantrum. “You deserve to have delicious pizza for dinner today, because you finally bagged that internship! Isn’t that a reason to celebrate?”

“We can just pop the champagne, if you wanna celebrate–”

“Y/N, can we please just get the pizza tonight?” she turns serious for once, the smile disappearing off her face, replaced by a much more stoic expression. And see, that’s a little scary– desperation can make people do bad, bad things. You’d be a fool to turn down your flatmate’s request– you’d have to sleep with one eye open tonight…

“Okay, fine,” you grunt, shaking your head at her ridiculous antics, “from the usual place?” 

“NO!” the girl chimes, making you jump in your place on the sofa with the loudness of her voice. If she wants to scream, she should move further away from your ear, goddamn it. After sending her a look full of anger, she offers you an apologetic one before she reaches for her laptop resting on the coffee table in front of you, opening it and pressing in a new Google search. “There’s this place I found with Yizhuo after class one day,” she says, scrolling through the browser and finding the site of the place she wants to order from today, “and they make pretty good pizza. So just choose one and then I’ll put it through the online order.”

“They have online orders?” you hum, interested. “Twenty-first century, this is. Online shopping for pizza…” you snicker, shaking your head in disbelief. Maybe you’re getting old– and it’s not like you don’t enjoy the comfort this gives you, not at all, you just find it a little strange to order food over the internet. What happened to phone calls?

“Yes, grandma,” Izzy sighs, “that’s like, a normal thing, I fear.”

Rolling your eyes at her irony, you scan the menu before deciding on your usual– margherita, extra cheesy. After pointing your finger at the pizza of your choice, your roommate takes it upon herself to add the meal to her cart (while also adding one she likes as well) before she proceeds further with the order. Your eyes stay glued to her, interested in the way this whole thing works– because let’s be real, ordering a pizza without having social interaction is every introvert’s dream– and watch as she hesitantly clicks onto the “add a note to your order” section of the website.

Confusion fills your veins as you stare your roommate down. What more could she possibly need for this order? Does she not just want to eat? Does she need her pizza sliced in a special way, or does she want the pepperoni in the shape of a flower, or something? You really wouldn’t be surprised, with how peculiar Izzy could get sometimes, but still– wasn’t she the one mourning about how hungry she was just a few minutes ago? Surely, she would want her food to get here the fastest it can, with no additional requests that would take up too much time.

“Don’t say anything,” she mumbles as she starts typing, and finally, it all starts to make sense.

The desperation in her voice. The determination. The need to have a pizza tonight, right now. Because after reading out the words she’s written down, you realize that it was never about the pizza itself in the first place. Knowing Izzy, you should’ve known– after the months of sharing an apartment with her, you should’ve been able to predict her antics.

There, proud, black on white, shine five words saying: Send your cutest delivery boy :)

“Izzy what the fuck–”

“I told you not to say anything!” she cuts you off, clicking through the rest of the order hurriedly, as if worried you were going to make her delete her embarrassing request.

“Okay, miss, ‘I don’t chase no man!’, I see that you’re living up to your motto. What? You ate there with Yizhuo last week and saw a cute guy doing deliveries, so you thought you’d drag him to our house instead of asking for his number like a normal person?” you grunt, shaking your head at the lengths your roommate is willing to go to– while also making her own life twice as complicated as it needs to be.

“Well, pretty much, yeah,” she peeps as she closes the laptop after paying for your pizzas– you’re not paying her back, just for the record. Not after she just publicly embarrassed you by making that stupid request with your address attached. 

“Are you crazy?” you scoff. “Why didn’t you just talk to him back there?”

“He was busy!” she mourns. “Look, this is me shooting my shot. You’re getting a pizza out of it, so I don’t see the problem here.”

“The problem is you doing all of this when you could’ve literally just walked up to him last week and introduced yourself,” you say, watching your roommate physically crumble under your scolding, but truthful words.

Izzy slides down further into the sofa, as if to shield herself from the attack. She puts her hands over her face, hiding the blush on her cheeks as she mourns into the silent apartment. “Look, I was shy, okay?” she says.

“But not shy enough to be so bold over the internet, huh?” you mock her, feeling your roommate’s hand slap your upper arm in frustration.

“You should’ve seen him, Y/N! There was no way I was going to walk up to him after the whole day I spent at uni. I looked like a dead rat, that’s not how you pull men,” she mutters. “And he looked so perfect, so adorable, it’s… I keep thinking about him and his plump lips and his dark messy hair, and he was so tall and–”

“Okay, okay,” you cut her off, a hint of annoyance tinting your tone. “I’ll see him with my own two eyes in a bit anyway,” you comment, “if he’s really the cutest out of them, as you requested,” you snicker. 

“He is! I swear. There is no way he isn’t going to appear on our doorstep in a few minutes, trust me.”

Little did the two of you know that you caused havoc on the other side of the town. It was a slow day in Sohn’s Pizza, leaving the two part-timers on duty scrolling through their phones, awaiting any new customers. It was the middle of the week, 2 hours before their closing, and so the sound of the new online order coming in surprised the two boys, having the owner’s son sit up from his place in the corner of the room and click through the system.

“Dad, it says one extra cheesy margherita and one pepperoni!” Eric yells out into the kitchen, followed by a loud acknowledging hum from the cook himself. Sunwoo looks up from under his chocolate bangs, pausing the game he’s been playing on his phone, licking his lips.

“Do you wanna go?” he asks, obviously too lazy to move from the pizzeria. See, the two part-timers had many responsibilities. One wasn’t just a delivery man or just the server. Because Eric’s father didn’t really trust anyone with his business, he relied only on the people closest to him– which caused this place to operate mostly as a family business. Sunwoo only got the job because he was Eric’s longest friend, and that made the Sohn family consider him as one of them. 

That meant the pizzeria was almost always short on staff, though– which was a problem Eric complained to his dad about more often than not, being too busy with deliveries and also wiping down the tables, serving the customers and helping with the sides. The poor boy already learned that his dad won’t do anything about it from the sheer discomfort of having to go through the hiring process with anyone, though, and so after a while, he just stopped trying.

“I dunno,” he shrugs, eyes scanning the order. “It has a note, though.”

“What does it say?” Sunwoo asks, voice barely coated in any interest. Eric would argue that the boy doesn’t really care, but is just asking to seem mentally present.

“Send your cutest delivery boy, smiley face,” Eric hums, snickering to himself. Now, that’s a request he hasn’t gotten before– and the pizzeria has been open for quite some time now.

“Oh, so I’m going,” Sunwoo says, already standing up from his place in the camping chair behind the counter even though the order isn’t ready yet, full confidence flowing through the man’s veins.

“Didn’t you just ask me if I’m going?” Eric jokes, eyes darting towards his coworker.

“Yeah, but that was before I saw the note,” Sunwoo scoffs, “we obviously don’t want our customers to be unhappy, so I’m going to do my job, and as the cutest one, go deliver these pizzas.”

“Where did the confidence come from?” Eric clicks his tongue. “Well, that being said, I am going to deliver these.”

“So you think you’re cuter than me?” Sunwoo looks at his friend with a stern face, and to be honest, it’s kind of funny how serious the matter is for the boys. They would both blame the 8 hour shift getting to their brains, but in reality, it’s clear as day that they both want to win this argument. 

“I’d say so,” Eric nods. “Didn’t you say you were more sexy than cute the other day?” 

Sunwoo looks at his friend suspiciously. He doesn’t really remember the full context of the conversation, but he does remember stating the fact– and although he’d argue it’s true, he also doesn’t want to lose to Eric. Because look– the job is taking up the majority of the boys’ time, so looking for a girlfriend has gotten severely more difficult. 

Why not take the opportunity at work? And besides, everything is more entertaining than sitting around and waiting for the place to close for the day.

“I did,” Sunwoo carefully admits, “but that was more to do with the general attractivity. I’d say those two go hand in hand, and therefore me, as the objectively more desirable one, should go deliver these.” 

Eric blinks slowly at his friend, trying to process the self-absorbed words spilling out of the taller one’s mouth. “Are you calling me ugly right now?”

“No–”

“I’m pretty sure you just called me ugly.”

“I would never–”

“I’d say I’m the cuter one,” Eric snaps back, shrugging. “I have this aura around me–”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous. You know the note was obviously for me, so why don’t we stop this and you let me make this delivery? You can always do the next one–”

The argument is growing more heated. Who would’ve thought such a simple note would lead to two men trying to advertise themselves as the cuter one? The room is filled with testosterone, although the objective of the fight was somewhere completely else– the question was who the cuter one was, and if they had to be truthful, they had to go with facts, no?

Small things are cute. Eric is shorter than Sunwoo. Logically, it should be him– but he won’t say this comment out loud in fear of carrying the burden of admitting to his laughable height in front of his spiteful friend’s ears. 

“How can you tell it was for you?” Eric scoffs. The arguments were starting to get ridiculous.

“It was the energy, I swear, the note is calling for me–”

“Boys, the pizzas are ready!” the voice of Eric’s dad calls from the kitchen, making both of them snap their heads towards the source and hurry. Never in a thousand years have either of them reacted to an order so quickly– not even in the highest of rushes– when they reach for the two boxes with grabby hands, like it was some sort of a prize.

It felt like everything was on the line. Eric Sohn prides himself in being a fast runner, but when he senses the taller boy breathing down his neck, he breaks all rules of safe workspace and also friendship as he outstretches his leg towards the right, tripping the boy– all to win the title of the cutest delivery boy.

Snatching the pizzas and also the car keys, Eric pays his coworker a victorious smile. Sunwoo glares at him from the ground, breathing heavily, anger roaring inside of his body. Eric finds this as his cue to hurry out before he’s attacked– while he’s a good runner, he was never quite good at combat– and so he jogs out of the pizzeria and unlocks the door to the Honda Civic parked outside, hopping in and typing in the address into the GPS on his phone.

Back over at your place, you try to pass the time by watching the TV. Netflix failed you with its poor selection of things to watch– mainly because you’ve already seen most of the true crime documentaries that you could find– so you just let yourself get pulled into the doom of teleshopping, your brain quickly getting used to the flashing images and over-exaggerated voices advertising the newest sumo slicer. You had a long day at university today– while also finally managing to get the internship with the company you dreamed of working for– and after all of the stress, your brain decided to simply turn off.

You’re only taken out from your trance as the doorbell rings, making you jump slightly at the loud noise. Dinner must be here– your stomach churning at the premise of a good pizza already (you have to give it to Izzy. She was right and you do deserve pizza tonight)– and so you stand up from the sofa in the living room, calling for your roommate.

“Izzy, the pizza’s here! Come get the door if you wanna see the guy!” you yell into the depths of your apartment. 

You get no response. Did she fall asleep? “Izzy!” you call again, this time louder.

“Coming!” you hear her reply. You wait a few seconds, standing in the hall, when the doorbell rings again– after not opening the door for at least 2 minutes, you’re starting to get worried that the delivery man will just turn on his heel and take your pizzas away from you. 

And you can’t let that happen– not when you were finally persuaded into eating them– all because your roommate is seemingly getting ready to open the door and see the newly found love of her life, probably putting on some cute clothes in her room.

“I’m just gonna get it!” you say, reaching for the door handle.

Opening the door, you are met with the sight of a delivery boy standing on the other side, two boxes in his hands, shifting weight from his heel to the tips of his toes. He sends you a soft smile before he raises his eyebrows at you so high they almost touch the red cap adorning his head, opening his mouth to speak.

“Eric?”

“Y/N?”

Both of you shock the other with the recognition. You haven’t seen Eric Sohn since elementary school– and while you must admit that the son of your parents’ friends grew up to be mildly attractive, you must say he hasn’t changed a bit. Now, this whole interaction grew even more embarrassing for you– you completely forgot about the note.

“Hello?” your roommate calls from behind you, walking up to the door in– you guessed it– her finest clothes. She always wears this outfit out, which makes you roll your eyes at her. She is trying too hard. And for whom? Eric Sohn, of all people?

“Izzy, here’s the cutest delivery boy you asked for,” you awkwardly say, trying to save your face. You won’t allow her to embarrass you like this– yes, you are completely content with throwing her under the bus in this situation. This is the boy you were forced to hang out with the whole entirety of elementary school, after all. You won’t let her humiliate you by making him believe it was you who found him so attractive.

Because let’s face it– he wasn’t. Well… 

Maybe he was and you’re lying to yourself. But still– you won’t let him think you’d be so pathetic to shoot your shot by an online order. The boxes in his hands have Sohn’s pizza written all over them– maybe you should’ve paid more attention to the name of the pizzeria you were ordering from. 

“Ah,” Izzy hums, and something in her composure shifts. Her shoulders drop and her smile dims– and that’s when you realize Eric is not the delivery boy she was hoping for. You have to laugh at her.

Izzy makes no effort to move or take the pizzas from the boy’s hands, and that’s when you take charge. Sighing at her, you move her out of the way before you send Eric an apologetic smile, freeing him off your order. “Thank you for the pizzas,” you say, watching as the delivery boy nods at you, offering you an awkward smile.

You push the boxes into Izzy’s hands, ordering her with your eyes to take them into the kitchen. As she slowly moves out of the hall and disappears into the apartment, you face the boy again, still standing at your doorstep. You scan him all over– from the top of his red cap that’s hiding his honey blonde locks to the black cargo pants covering his legs– before you nod to yourself, the awkward atmosphere making you tense under his gaze.

“Uhm…” you hum, not really knowing what else to say to diffuse the atmosphere. This is embarrassing. This is humiliating. Why did your dumb roommate do this? 

Now she got the poor boy disappointed. Couldn’t Izzy at least act like he’s the one?

“Well, I’ll.. see you around, I guess…?” Eric says, nodding to himself. He scratches the back of his neck as he looks at you– one short glance up and down that doesn’t go unnoticed by you, making you instantly regret getting the door in your sweatpants and the pink socks with hearts and a single hole on the toe on them– before he takes a step back from the doorstep and starts walking away from your apartment.

“Yeah,” you clear your throat, mentally punching yourself with how pathetic you sound, “see you around. And… and thank you again! For the pizzas, I mean…” you hum. Now, you’re mentally kicking yourself. Scratch that, you’re throwing yourself down the stairs. Why are you so awkward? You’re only making it worse.

He flashes you a smile, not oblivious to the shame you feel. If you really think about it, the situation is kind of funny, isn’t it? 

“Bye, Y/N,” he says, waving at you as he walks down the stairwell, sending you one last glance over his shoulder.

“Yeah, bye!”

Closing the door behind you, you try to take deep breaths to steady yourself. You will murder your roommate with your own two hands and use her blood as the sauce for your pizza. Slowly walking towards the kitchen, you see Izzy munching on the pepperoni slice, sending you a look full of innocence.

“Well, that didn’t work out,” she says, trying to make light of the situation, ignoring how embarrassing this situation was for both parties involved. Without a word, you sit down at the table, opening the box of your pizza of choice, taking a bite. 

“Are you okay? You seem a bit–”

“Shut it.”

“How was it, bubs?” Izzy asks you once you get into the car while simultaneously reaching for the volume button on the radio, turning the music down so she can hear you talk.

“Terrible,” you mourn, sighing as you buckle your seatbelt and watch your roommate back out of the parking lot. She was nice enough to offer to drive you home after your first day of your new mandatory internship, and although you told her over and over how you didn’t need a ride and could just walk home after, you’re actually very grateful for her act of kindness now– for your feet hurt like a bitch and you’re so mentally tired you think you could get lost on your way home, had you not paid enough attention.

“That bad?” she hums, voice full of consideration. Izzy only pays you a short look full of undeniable worry before she gazes back at the road– thankfully, because she is not the best driver and you think her not paying full attention to where she’s going would significantly lower the chances of you getting home safely today– subtly allowing you to vent about the day you had.

A grunt escapes your mouth. “Yeah,” you agree, “it’s just– god. The place is full of morons, my boss is demanding a marketing project from me until the end of my internship, everyone keeps using me as their coffee delivery person because I’m new, and I forgot everyone’s names already…” you complain, furrowing your brows in concern. How are you going to survive going there weekly?

As a business student, you have to go through an internship in order to successfully graduate. Getting one was already hard enough, but the responsibilities that come with doing all the stuff you’re not even educated enough to do yet are only making the weight on your shoulders heavier and heavier to the point where you suddenly start to doubt if you’re even good enough for your major. Hell, you barely have any interest in it in the first place– hence why you lack the enthusiasm your boss would surely love to see from you.

“Can’t they just not make it easier for you?” she shakes her head in disapproval. “You’re a mere student, not the new hire,” Izzy grunts, sympathizing with you.

“Apparently not,” you roll your eyes. “I’m so tired, man…” you sigh, resting your head against the window, letting your eyes close for a bit. “Thanks for giving me a ride, Izz.”

“No worries,” she innocently replies. Almost too innocently, you think– but with the amount of hours you slept last night and the mental overload of new information you had today, you choose to not pay much attention to it. Maybe you’re just making it up…

If the drive was a bit longer, you’re sure you would’ve fallen asleep. The car comes to a halt in a few more minutes, though, and the sudden silence of the vehicle as the engine turns off and the radio goes silent has you opening your eyes, scanning your surroundings.

And you were right. Izzy was almost too nice in giving you a ride home. You should’ve known she always had different motives.

“Why are we here?” you ask, choosing not to face her so you don’t have to look at the dumb smile on her face again, for you think that if she dared to force innocence on herself right now, you’d seriously punch her.

“Oh,” she hums, “I thought we could get pizza for dinner.”

“We had pizza last week,” you deadpan, tone of voice only a bit hostile.

“That’s correct,” she agrees, “however, I am in the mood for some pizza right now. And we don’t really have any groceries at home, so I think this is the best alternative to end your bad day–”

“You’re not dragging me in there after embarrassing us so much last week, Isabelle,” you grunt, pulling out the full name to act more tough and get your point across. “I am never going there again. You simply can’t force me–”

“Oh come on! You’re ruining all fun.”

“That’s because I am not having fun right now,” you note, already too tired after the long day.

“Then let me cheer you up! I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it,” Izzy glares at you, sighing. “Besides, the last time I checked, you owe me pizza, and I would like to redeem that now.”

“Since when–”

“Don’t think I forgot that you didn’t pay me back last time,” she cuts you off, sending you a stern look.

If you were closer to home right now, you would’ve left the car and just walked back to your apartment, leaving your dear flatmate to get her pizza alone. You both know you’re not here for the pizza itself anyway– so why does she need you there? As an excuse? It’s already embarrassing enough for the both of you. Why won’t she just drop it?

But since the circumstances are given the way they are– you’re tired, hungry, frustrated and full of worry about your internship– you figure there is really no need to argue with your roommate right now. When she sets her mind on something, she is going to get it, no matter what. You know her well enough.

“Fine,” you sigh, getting out of the car and slamming the passenger door with as much force as you can humanly conjure in yourself after the long day, satisfaction flowing through your veins at the sound that’s loud enough to make your roommate jump in surprise.

You’re going to give her what she wants, but you’re not going to act happy about it. You’re just gonna get the pizza and leave. That’s the plan.

Walking up to the building of Sohn’s Pizza, you push the door open, ears instantly catching the low music coming from speakers situated in the corners of the room. You haven’t been here before, so you take your sweet time looking around– noticing the neat-looking interior, admiring the wooden furniture– before you walk towards the table in the corner of the middle-sized restaurant, sitting down. Izzy follows you like a lost puppy with its tail wagging because she got what she wanted before she sits down opposite of you, offering you a giant smile. She is like a kid under the Christmas tree with the toy she always desired securely in her grasp. Which is weird– the cute delivery boy hasn’t even shown up yet.

After scanning the menu for a bit– since you already know what you’re going to get– a server walks up to your table, a big, welcoming smile on her face. She is short even when wearing heels, hair pulled up into a ponytail, straight-across bangs sitting on her forehead. It’s been years since you last saw her, but the resemblance is undeniable– it’s Eric Sohn’s older sister.

“Hello! What can I get for you today, girls?” she asks as she takes out a notepad. Her eyes land on you for a bit before she gasps, even a bigger smile appearing on her cheeks, if that’s possible. “Oh my god, Y/N?”

“Yeah,” you nod, grinning. “It’s me.”

“How are you?” she asks, beaming. You and Lisa were never really close– since she was so much older than you back when you hung around the Sohn’s house, but she was always really kind to you. You remember her making snacks for you and Eric to eat in afternoons or taking you two out to get ice cream, your heart squeezing at the nostalgic memories.

“I’m good, what about you?” you ask, genuinely interested.

“I’m fine,” she nods. “Well, just rotting in here, if I’m being honest, but other than that, I’ve been good,” she laughs, making you mirror her actions.

“Well, it’s really pretty here, if that makes you feel any better,” you smile.

She shrugs at your compliment. “I did most of the decorating, so it should be,” she snickers before she looks back at you after scanning over the entire room. “What will you get today, then?”

“Just a margherita is fine,” you note, “could I possibly get extra cheese on that?” 

“Anything for little Y/N,” she hums, making you roll your eyes at her teasing– yet the grin never leaves your features. “And for your friend?”

“I’ll get pepperoni,” she peeps. It’s unusual for your roommate to be so quiet in a conversation– you guess she was caught off guard at your sudden acquaintanceship with the staff in her new favorite restaurant.

“Coming right up!” Lisa smiles, walking away from your table.

After the server leaves, you are left with a few seconds of silence from your roommate. You raise your brows at her in question, mocking her change in demeanor, waiting for her to get back to her usual, chatty self. “What?”

“You know her?”

“Obviously,” you snicker. “Our families used to be close years ago,” you note, shrugging.  “We lived in the same neighborhood.”

“Wow…” she hums. “So you know that guy who dropped our pizzas off last week as well?”

“I do,” you nod. “We are the same age, so our mums forced us to hang out often.”

“Interesting….” Izzy says, lost in thought. If you didn’t know better, you’d suspect she was scheming something up. Actually, you think you know her well enough– just give it a few more minutes.

The door opens again, making you two look around and watch the people coming into the restaurant. Instead of new customers, you are met with two men obviously wearing work uniforms– white shirts with a pizza logo in red on them– the shorter one with a cap on, the taller one with baggy jeans adorning his long legs. You recognise one of them instantly– and even despite the nature of the restaurant, his presence still shocks you and makes you feel alarmed.

You feel something come in contact with your shin as your roommate kicks your leg under the table. “That’s him, that’s him, that’s him–” Izzy chimes, whispering, making you furrow your brows at her in question. Yeah, of course that’s him. Eric’s dad owns the restaurant. Who the other guy by his side is, though, you don’t–

oh.

So that must be the cute delivery boy your roommate has been thirsting over for the last couple of weeks. She has a lot of determination in her, you’ll give her that. If it was you, you would’ve forgotten about a random mediocrily attractive server after a day or two. Not her, though. What a strange woman…

“Y/N!” you hear for the second time today. Your heart skips a beat at the tone this time, making you remember the events of last week, heat instantly creeping up your neck at the memory.

“Hi,” you peep, watching as the two men make a bee-line towards your table.

“Hello,” he greets. He wears a bright smile on his face– one that makes his cheeks look fuller, something in his eyes glimmering (you think it might just be the reflection of the lights). He is wearing a blue cap today, covering his honey locks– which leaves you wondering if he has a fucked haircut, or if he really just likes to wear hats that much– but other than that, his attire is the same as last time. “What’s up?” he asks.

Casual. Friendly. Like nothing happened– like this whole encounter isn’t totally embarrassing. 

Or is it not? Are you just being overly-dramatic again? You really don’t know at this point. 

Still, you act nonchalant. “Oh, not much,” you hum, “just got off my first day of internship, so we decided to get some pizza to comfort myself.”

“Didn’t go well?” Eric asks, a sympathetic look on his face. Somehow, his concern seems genuine.

“You could say that,” you note, shrugging.

“It will be better next time,” he says lightly, smiling at you all encouragingly. For the first time in the last couple of seconds, you pay attention to your roommate again– seeing her eyes glued to the taller boy. If this was a cartoon, there would be hearts drawn in her sockets and she would be drooling. Izzy seems to be totally enchanted with the delivery boy currently standing to Eric’s right, and you can’t stand the view any longer.

“Oh, this is Sunwoo, by the way,” Eric says, introducing his coworker. 

“Nice to meet you,” you smile, shaking the boy’s hand. He sends you a boyish grin, greeting you back, before he moves towards your flatmate, holding her hand in his.

“Izzy,” she introduces herself, tone of voice a few octaves higher than usual. “We’re roommates.”

“I gathered as much,” Eric notes– almost a little awkwardly– making your body electrify with a full body cringe. Why can’t he just pretend last week didn’t happen?

“Yeah,” you hum, nodding and scratching the back of your neck. “She pretty much dragged me here, haha…” you vocalize the laughter as a word, mentally slapping yourself. Haha? What’s so funny? Y/N, you’re only making it worse.

“Well, it’s nice seeing you again,” Eric says. When your eyes meet, he averts his gaze, an awkward cough battling its way out of his throat. “Uhm… we better get back to work, or else my sister’s gonna kill me–”

“Oh, but it’s not busy!” Izzy suddenly utters out, making you snap your head towards her with shock, a look worthy of many words burning a hole into the middle of her forehead. What is she thinking? “Why don’t you sit with us for a while? It seems like you and Y/N have a lot to catch up on,” your roommate sweetly says, throwing the burden onto your shoulders again. 

Why are you suddenly forced into the role of a wingman? You really didn’t sign up for this.

“Oh, I–”

“I could use a little break,” Sunwoo grins, not even waiting for his coworker to immediately deny the idea. You swear you can mentally hear your roommate's excited squealing on a telepathic frequency as the dark-haired boy takes a seat right next to her, sprawling his legs wide and resting his back against the chair, seemingly tired. “Come on, Eric. Lisa has a soft spot for me, she won’t eat our heads off.”

Eric meets your gaze. You hope your brains match at frequencies with the boy as well as you send him mental apologies, the atmosphere once again getting too awkward for you to handle. He seems to be the victim of his friend’s terrorizing strategies as much as you are, though, so you think there is silent understandment hanging in the air over the two of you as he reluctantly sits on the chair next to you.

You’re starting to think Izzy has a death wish. You’re also starting to be fairly certain that you will be the one to fulfill it.

The passage of time is weird. It’s a strange construct to you, finding yourself dwelling on it at times when it’s the least suitable to– especially when you have things to do and a workload to get through. See, it’s incredibly bizarre to you how when you’re doing nothing, time is passing by quickly without you even noticing it: a few episodes of your favorite TV show go by and you’re suddenly well into the evening. When you’re working on assignments, though, it seems like time has stopped. 

You promised yourself you’re going to stay in the library and work on the project you were assigned in your internship until at least 6PM. You arrived at 3 o’clock– three hours should be easy, right? Not that much time.

Wrong. Because you swear you’ve been aimlessly searching around the internet and writing things down for at least 10 years now, and it’s only been an hour and you still have two more to go. Time is weird like that. It’s fascinating– at least when you hypnotize the numbers in the right corner of your screen, sucked into the doom of your laptop. Maybe you should’ve taken Physics instead. You’d love to learn about this.

(The fact that this has nothing to do with Physics and everything to do with your focus and attention is a completely invalid argument to you at this moment, so you don’t even let yourself think about it.)

Something finally pulls you out of the hyper focused state that you put yourself in while staring at the time on your screen (as if to mentally push the clock to go faster), and that is a figure moving right opposite of you, resting their hand on the back of a chair.

“Hi,” you hear, making you snap your head up and face the intruder, “can I sit here?”

“Hi…?” you mumble, watching the boy in front of you not wait for your answer as he pulls the chair back and settles his body onto it. He empties his pockets in the true manly fashion– putting his wallet, his phone and his keys onto the wooden table– all while letting you absorb his existence for a bit before you have to react to it some more. 

You spent years not seeing Eric Sohn. Now, you bump into him at least every other week. Strange.

He is wearing a simple white hoodie, his hair now not covered by a cap. You glance over the honey blonde locks, noting to yourself that he does not have a messed up trim, which means he just must like hats a lot. You feel like you should probably say something– start up a conversation– but the shock of seeing him is still settled deep in your bones, stopping you from every attempt.

Looking around the library, you note that it’s half-empty– meaning that Eric could’ve chosen any seat, any other seat in the whole entire place– yet he chose to sit right opposite of you at one of the long tables in the middle of the room. Nodding to yourself as you absorb the information, you open your mouth to say something– anything– before the boy beats you to it, acting in his true, nonchalant casualty.

“What are you working on?” he asks. “I mean… you seemed quite miserable when I arrived, so I assumed it was for the best to take you out of the frozen state before you go crazy,” he jokes, having you close your mouth and awkwardly smile at him.

“Yeah,” you hum, shrugging. “I was mainly just trying to force the time to go quicker with the sheer power of my gaze, but I think it doesn’t work like that…” 

“You set up a timer for yourself?” he asks, laughing.

“Kinda,” you nod. “I knew I had to hold myself accountable and do work, or else I’m going to leave things until the last minute and hate myself even more for not doing anything sooner, so I told myself I’ll work on my assignments until 6, but it’s… easier said than done.”

Eric nods at you, acknowledging your struggle. He takes out his own laptop and presses the power button. As he waits for it to turn on, he looks back at you, his gaze making you nervous. 

It’s not that you don’t like Eric– not at all, you have your fair share of fond memories with the boy when you were little– it’s just that you haven’t seen him in ages, haven’t properly talked to him since you were kids. You know nothing about the man he is right now– aside from the fact that his father owns a pizza place now. You don’t even know what he majors in. Hell, you didn’t even know he went to the same university as you up to this point– which makes everything just a little bit too awkward for you.

How to navigate the conversation? What to talk about? Why does he not just… ignore you? It’s not like the two of you were that close in the first place.

“What do you major in?” he asks. You wonder if it’s sheer politeness, or if he really just wants to know.

“Business,” you say, tone of voice hinting that you’re not really satisfied with your own answer. “I’m actually supposed to be working on a project for my mandatory internship right now.”

“Damn… what is it?” he asks. 

Scratching the back of your neck, you lick your lips before answering. “It’s like… I have to make a pitch about a new product for them to sell. I work in the sales section for Trust, the insurance company, so I have to do a lot of… market research… and then also marketing… it’s… kind of a lot, actually…” you nervously laugh, trying to diffuse the fact that you’re genuinely scared of the very project you were assigned.

Eric stares at you with interest, a look of acknowledgement settling onto his face. “Wow. That sounds hard.”

“I mean, I don’t know…” you shrug. “Maybe I’m just too stupid for this–”

“No you’re not,” the boy instantly cuts you off, shaking your head. “I’d say they just have high demands from you.”

His words do a bit to soothe you. You avoid asking your classmates about their internships in fear of being the only one that’s finding things hard and being overly-dramatic. Talking to someone who doesn’t really have the same experience as you makes things a bit easier– you can complain and they won’t judge, because there’s no way they know how it feels. Eric won’t judge you for finding your business internship hard, because he doesn’t know what it takes– at least not on his own skin. But if you’d complain to your classmate Yeji, for example, she might find it weird– what if your tasks are the easiest thing to do in her eyes?

“Thanks,” you hum. “What do you major in, though?” you ask him, somehow committing to keeping the conversation going for just a little more time.

“Communications,” he laughs. “I just… write a lot of papers, I guess.”

“Ah,” you nod in acknowledgement. 

You feel like you should add something. Maybe you should comment, sympathize, ask more questions, but in the moment, no fitting words reach your mind. After a heartbeat of silence, Eric’s eyes finally leave your figure to focus on his laptop, and the only thing resonating through your brain is the fact that the last two times you met him, it was painfully awkward and maybe a little strange– which leads you to questioning the fact that he still chose to approach you today.

“Look, Eric, we… you don’t have to act like we’re friends now,” you say, refusing to meet his gaze. Somehow, your blank laptop screen is much more interesting. “And I’m sorry about last week,” you note, tone of voice lighthearted– trying to mask how much you actually think about the encounters and how they make you wish they never even happened. Somehow, you worry about how you’re perceived by him. “My roommate just kind of likes your coworker– Sunwoo–” you call him by his name, “so she has been doing all of this to get his attention, and it’s…”

“It’s okay,” Eric laughs, making you glance up from the blank document and finally meet his eyes. There is no stern look on his face, no signs of disappointment or disgust on his features. It helps you calm down a bit. “I’m used to girls being all over Sunwoo, really,” he says, shrugging.

“Yeah…” you sigh. “Sorry for making it all awkward, and stuff. As I said, you don’t have to feel obliged to–”

“I don’t, though,” he hums. The sentiment silences you. You offer him nothing but a nod, suddenly at a loss for words. “Look, we used to be close when we were kids,” he shrugs, “so don’t even worry about it.”

You’re not really sure what his words are meant to imply. Does he mean that you’re friends now again? Does he mean he doesn’t find this whole thing absolutely awkward? Are you supposed to hang out more often now? Do you get his number? 

After trying to clarify everything, you’re left even more confused.

If there’s one thing about Eric Sohn that you remember from your childhood, it’s the fact that he’s friendly. And also… pretty fucking competetive. “It’s almost 4:30. Whoever gives up on their assignment first pays for coffee later, yeah?” he challenges you, looking at you with mischief glimmering in his dark orbs.

You guess both of these qualities stayed with him until adulthood, and although you were awkward with him just a few minutes ago, you don’t really have it in you to overthink the interaction any longer.

“Deal,” you nod.

As if this was all the motivation you needed, you get back to working.

“Jokes on you, drinking is not a forfeit for me,” Jake, the underclassmen you see around the campus sometimes says after a round of spin the bottle in which he refuses to make out with the person to his right (that was friend Sunghoon from middle school, just for the record), “I actually enjoy it. So–”

“You should stop drinking, dude…” the said friend nudges him to his shoulder, looking at the boy with a concerned look in his eye. It’s no secret that both of them are light drinkers, but one of them is clearly handling his alcohol worse– and it’s the shorter one of the two. 

“Why? You wanna make out with me?”

“I’d rather not carry you home again, that’s all–”

“That sounds a bit sus, Hoon–” Jake snickers before he downs the shot of whatever alcohol is passed to him, “y’know, if you wanted to kiss me, you could’ve just said so…” he slurs, making Sunghoon sigh, closing his eyes for a second to collect himself in time before the frustration in him turns into anger and he swings at his friend.

You can’t help but laugh at the commotion. You don’t really go out to party much– since you and Izzy are introverted, you don’t really search for these types of gatherings– but you figured that doing something other than watching the TV on a Friday evening would be nice. Especially when you were invited by the guy you met in your internship. 

It felt rude to deny an invitation to a party by Park Jihoon, given the fact that you wanted to make friends and connections during your stay with the company. He is an intern just like you– maybe a bit more energetic and extroverted, that’s all. Which you welcome with open arms, just for the record. It’s been a while since an extrovert extroverted the way they are supposed to and adopted you– it’s always a pleasant experience.

You’re also not really the one to participate in a game of spin the bottle. You find such games embarrassing and nerve-wrecking. They induce anxiety in you from what you have to do, and it’s not the good kind. The adrenaline in your veins is enough for you to call it quits, but then again, you’re always good at falling for peer pressure and your roommate’s battling eyelashes are ones you don’t find yourself resisting too often. 

There’s alcohol running through your system, warming you up. Wearing a cropped top and shorts surprisingly didn’t really help you to cool down as you soothe yourself with alcohol after another week of stressing yourself over your damn internship project (which Jihoon offered to help with, but you’re too much of an individualist to let anyone partake in even just the smallest task of your assignment) and after careful consideration, you realize you haven’t had that much to eat before turning up to the party.

Which is always a mistake. Drinking on an empty stomach is one of the biggest flaws you bring with yourself to social gatherings.

“Maybe I should eat,” you suddenly comment, perking up the attention of Jihoon to your right. He looks at you with considerate eyes and nods.

“There should be pizza coming soon, actually.”

“Really?” you gasp, excitement suddenly flowing through your bones. It’s been at least a month since you last had pizza, and you’re slowly starting to crave it. Did Izzy give up on that cute delivery boy? Maybe you should remind her… the pizza was worth it, you must admit.

“Yeah–” 

And as if you wished it into existence, the sound of the doorbell suddenly brings you out of the conversation and has people closest to the door standing up to get it.

It seems like randomly running up to Eric Sohn is your newest hobby. It’s strange how life works– you haven’t seen him in ages, and suddenly, he finds his way to randomly walk back into the plotline of your life casually, as if it was fate. It’s kind of laughable, really. 

Because there he is– standing behind the door with boxes of pizza in his hands, accompanied by his friend Sunwoo holding up even more. The amount could feed a whole village, you think, and you’re suddenly glad you aren’t the one paying for the food, since you’re sure it would add up to a big check. The crowd hollers at the two boys at the door, and it takes you a few seconds to realize it’s not because of the feast they just brought into the building.

“Eric! Sunwoo! Come in, you two!” Jihoon suddenly calls from next to you, waving the two over with a motion of his hand. This has the shorter boy look into the spacious living room, eyes scanning the surroundings. His eyes fix on you for a second, offering you a smile, before they move back to the host.

“Can’t, we’re on the clock, actually,” Eric snickers awkwardly, shrugging.

“Oh come on!” Haechan, the boy that was introduced to you today as Jihoon’s best friend, joins. It seems like everyone around knows exactly who Eric Sohn is, and it leaves you wondering just how you managed to unawarely avoid him for all those years. “Just for a bit!”

“Yeah,” Jihoon adds. “Just stay for like 10 minutes, or something. Actually,” the tipsy boy has a million-dollar idea, “I’m not paying y’all until you stay for a bit. How about that?”

“Great, dude,” Sunwoo laughs, shaking his head in disbelief at his friend’s tactics. “Let’s go in, then.”

The two get ridded of the pizzas they brought, walking up into the room. You feel Izzy poking your leg with her pointer finger repeatedly, and when you look at her, she is staring at you with eyes that remind you of someone slowly slipping into a manic state. You think it’s the effect of Kim Sunwoo entering the room with a smirk on his face, but you’re not really sure at this point.

“What are we playing?” Sunwoo asks the obvious as he sits down, dragging his friend with him. Their spot is currently straight across from you. After more careful examination, you realize Eric’s eyes are glued on your figure, making you smile at him and wave silently before he moves to scan your new friend sitting close to your right. 

The last time you’ve seen Eric was that day at the library. That was almost 2 weeks ago now, and although you went for a coffee after you declared that you ‘simply can’t do it anymore’ and ‘would rather die than to work on this project any longer’, he insisted on paying for both of your drinks instead of making you do it, as was previously agreed on. You exchanged numbers after chatting and walking around for a bit, and although you waited for him to text you the same week, he never did, and you never tried to make conversation either.

Somehow, you simply didn’t know what to say. Then again– it’s not like the two of you were friends in the first place.

The game proceeds like before even with the new members added. Some of the people hanging out around the living room move to eat the pizzas, but if you’re being completely honest, the idea of eating was long forgotten to you the moment Eric and Sunwoo walked through the front door. Admittedly, maybe you did have a considerate amount to drink this evening, because everything is starting to turn into a bit of a blur from this moment. You watch the game absent-mindedly, not really taking much in, as your eyes sometimes subconsciously move to Eric sitting leisurely on the sofa opposite of you.

After a round where Jihoon is asked to suck on Haechan’s toe and Yizhuo is told to confess the last person she hooked up with (which was a guy to whose name everyone gasped, but left you clueless, since you didn’t really know who it was), your biggest fears are proven to be reality as the bottle lands on you. Heartbeat instantly picking up at speed, making you hear your own blood in your ears, you look up from the cursed item and wait to hear your ordeal.

Who would’ve thought playing spin the bottle would feel like a near-death experience?

“Truth or dare?” Yizhuo asks.

After a second of consideration, you blurt out: “Dare.”

Big mistake. At least you can lie when you pick the truth, goddamn it. What was drunk you even thinking…?

“Okay,” she nods, contemplating for a bit. As the gears in her head start working and the idea comes into her brain, a smug smirk appears on her face, hinting that this whole evening was a bad, bad idea. “I dare you to sit in the lap of the hottest guy here for three rounds.”

The crowd goes crazy. 

Girls gasp, guys whistle, and your brain– it completely shuts off. Alcohol should logically make you feel more courageous and daring, no? That’s what they all say. 

You’re the one to prove the sentiment wrong as you gulp and contemplate your next decision. Given the fact that you’re one shot away from throwing up, you decide to not drink to protect yourself– making sure you save your image and don’t embarrass yourself by showing the contents of your stomach to everyone on Park Jihoon’s beige rug.

Scanning the circle, you watch the men situated right in front of you in the living room. It resembles window shopping a bit, except you’re feeling really fucking miserable while doing it. You know it’s all fun and games and that if you take the situation with enough nonchalance, everything will turn out fine– hell, some might not even remember this moment in the morning, so it’s really not that big of a deal– but the more you contemplate the object of your dare, the more nervous you’re starting to feel.

Kim Sunwoo is a clear no go. You and Jihoon are close enough where it wouldn’t feel awkward, but somehow, you know you would be lying to yourself if you picked him. Your eyes smoothly drift past Haechan, Jake and Sunghoon, all the way past Renjun and Jeno to Eric sitting right across from you, eyeing you with interest in his dark orbs. 

The circle is starting to rush you. Jihoon nudges your side, telling you to ‘just pick one,’, making you briefly glance at him with a stern look in your eyes. After your gaze lands back on Eric– whose eyebrows slightly furrow when he notices you paying attention to your new friend– you come to a downing realization of the fact that somehow, your eyes keep landing on the short boy, not really wanting to look away.

It’s alright. It’s nothing. Eric Sohn is conventionally attractive– you’re sure it’s not that big of a deal. 

Standing up from your spot, hearing the crowd pick up the excitement, you walk over to the other side of the circle– while trying not to trip over your own foot and fall over in the process. Eric looks up at you with big eyes glimmering, expecting your final answer, making your palms sweat and voice a little shaky as you awkwardly let out.

“Do you mind…?”

The question is laughable, really. You audibly hear Yeji and Yizhuo squeal in excitement at your action, while Haechan hollers out a laugh from the back. Trying to ignore the reactions, faking nonchalance, you watch as Eric shifts slightly in his spot and moves his hands to his sides, as if to make some space for you, before he shrugs. 

“Go ahead.”

Nodding to yourself, you scratch the back of your neck before you turn your back to him and slowly settle yourself onto his lap. 

And here you thought the delivery boy incident could simply not be beaten on the scale of awkward and embarrassing moments with Eric Sohn.

It’s now your turn to spin the bottle, you realize– which you try to focus on instead of the fact that you are currently sitting in the lap of the guy you grew up with– making you bend to the ground and proceed with the game. Only three rounds and you can move back to your initial spot, you think. You just have to survive three rounds of this stupid game before you’re free.

Watching the empty wine bottle spin in circles before it stops, your eyes move to the side with the opening, trying to see who it landed on. When you look up, your roommate is staring back at you with a suspicious look on her face, not even waiting for you to ask the question to determine her fate. “Dare,” she spits out. 

Her eyes bear into you with such intensity you think she’s trying to tell you something, but right as you try to match her brain frequency and decipher what exactly she wants from you right in this moment, you feel Eric’s hands land lightly onto your sides. 

They don’t move, nor do they put any pressure into your skin. They just lay there, fingers on the skin of your bare midriff, sending an electric shock into your brain that completely shuts off your telepathic communication with Izzy, making you blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind.

“Uh… prank call your latest hook up and tell him you want to get together with him,” you say.

She immediately throws darts into your skull, making you regret your decision. 

What? Is it not spicy enough? Judging from the reactions of the rest of the players, you’d say you did a good job– which makes you believe she just didn’t want to expose hooking up with Jaemin in front of everyone.

Nonetheless, she moves on with the dare. You don’t really pay much attention to it as a wave of sickness comes over you. You’re genuinely left seeing things twice, which leads you to close your eyes and rest your head in your hands for a second before a low voice lands into your ear.

“How drunk are you on a scale of 1 to 10?” Eric asks.

“Like… 8, I think?” you snicker. “I’m okay, I just need to–”

Before you get a chance to finish your sentence or even barely think of what would help you in this moment, you feel Eric’s hands on your sides lightly tug your body towards him, leaving you to fully glue your figure onto his. Your back meets his front, sprawling out onto the sofa, leaving you to settle your head onto his shoulder. 

You can’t say your stomach feels less crazy at the moment, but you also can’t say this isn’t strangely nice. “Better?” he asks. 

You think you lost your voice for a second, so you only offer him a nod. 

His next actions leave you wondering if he’s always been this touchy and affectionate. While one of his arms sneaks around your waist and holds you to him, his other palm leaves to take its new place on your thigh. The rational side of your brain is telling you that this is just the most comfortable place to let your arms rest when you have someone sitting in your lap, but it’s still enough to have heat rising up your neck, slowly warming up your face.

A few seconds pass before Eric absent-mindedly starts to draw circles onto your quad, your brain hyper-focused onto the feeling of his forearm on your bare midriff. When he laughs at the way Izzy’s prank call is going– to which he earns a warning look from your roommate to keep quiet and not break the facade– you feel his body vibrating under you, making you realize that you’re the only one out of the two that is so affected by this simple gesture.

It leaves you feeling silly. It must be the alcohol, surely– but god,

Eric Sohn surely has hands that make hell seem cold.

You’re woken up in the morning to the sound of your roommate screaming, yelling at you. Not only do you already have a massive headache from the hangover you surely accidentally threw yourself in, now you also feel like there is someone cutting parts of your brain off with a knife. (Which sounds contradicting, because you do know the brain can’t be in pain. Why does it feel like that, then?)

“You had the perfect opportunity to think of something that could make me and Sunwoo closer. You could’ve said anything! But no, you chose to–”

“Why are you screaming?” you ask, voice hoarse and quiet, your throat scratchy as you utter the few words.

“–lay in Eric’s lap like a princess and do nothing–” she continues, making you wince. It’s not that you don’t remember the moment, no– you do. The memory is almost painfully crystal clear in your brain, you just didn’t really mean to think of it the first thing in the morning.

“Isabelle,” you grit your teeth and put your pillow over your eyes to shield them from the sunlight that is only making your headache worse, “I’m gonna need you to shut. the. fuck. up–”

“You’re a terrible, terrible wingwoman, I’ll tell you that,” she accuses you.

Suddenly, the cause for her telling looks and annoyed huffs throughout the last night make total sense. Hell, you’re smarter than this– you shouldn’t need explaining for such a simple task. It was your turn to dare your best friend to do something, and the object of her desire was right there. You will blame the shortcoming on your alcohol-infused brain– in Izzy’s eyes, though, it doesn’t really change the narrative.

“I’m sorry,” you mourn, “I wasn’t thinking properly.”

“Yeah, I could see that,” she grunts, tugging the pillow off your face. “At this rate, me and Sunwoo are never gonna be a thing, and I hope you know it’s completely your fault.”

“How could it be my fault?” you grunt, suddenly frustrated with your roommate. She is the one that isn’t sending him obvious enough hints, and it’s your fault he isn’t catching on? Why are you suddenly blamed for something that is completely out of your control? This is getting a bit ridiculous.

Wanting to sit up on your bed and fight against your roommate, but failing to do so before she escapes your room– sensing that you would throw the pillow onto her as soon as you’d get the chance– you sigh and reach for your phone sitting on your bedside table. There is a notification shining at the top of your screen, and when you unlock your phone and absent-mindedly click on the message, you’re taken off guard by the view in front of you.

Eric Sohn [1:21 AM]: hi, just checking in to see if you got home okay?

You read the message over once, then twice, before you decide to reply. Clearing your throat, as if you were going to record a voice message, you think of the most appropriate answer. 

If you’re being honest, you don’t really remember much about how you got home last night– all you know is that after three rounds of spin the bottle, you reluctantly climbed off Eric’s lap, to which him and Sunwoo escaped the party and trailed back to work with excuses of Eric’s sister killing them if they didn’t show up soon. You’re fairly certain that you and Izzy just took a cab home, but since you notice you’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes, you assume you weren’t really with yourself at that moment– which is also the sole reason for you not replying to Eric’s message when you first got it.

You [11:10]: hello!! yes we did :) You [11:10]: sorry for replying so late, but as you could see last night i wasnt rlly checking my phone haha..

Surely this is good enough to play it off. Not suspicious at all! Eric Sohn will never know you were drunk off your face and hardly made it through the front door of your apartment. (Except he does know, and you’re also painfully aware.)

And all of this for what..? A bad week at your internship? You’re one of the weak ones, for sure.

Switching apps and deciding to scroll through Instagram for a bit before you get up and face the day– which includes making lunch, because you didn’t have any leftovers left in the fridge– your phone buzzes in your hands, showing you a new message.

Eric Sohn [11:15]: good to hear :) Eric Sohn [11:15]: are u feeling well? 

God. You feel like throwing up– surely the cause of the alcohol still in your system.

 Well, it’s not like he didn’t know before. And you’re a grown woman! There’s no shame in a bit of a hangover. You’re fairly certain he gets them all the time– you two are in university, after all. 

Faking nonchalance, once again, you text back.

You [11:16]: yeah, just a massive headache that’s all :// You [11:16]: im sure lunch will fix it lol

Eric Sohn [11:16]: speaking of… do u wanna get lunch w me? im sure eating out is a better option for u rn haha

Something inside of you panics at the message. You don’t know what it is, but somehow, you always feel a bit awkward with Eric at first. Maybe it’s the fact that you always remember how you grew up together and then vanished out of each other’s lives– without each other even noticing– or maybe it’s the fact that you always feel like you only embarrass yourself in front of him. 

He seems to be casual about things, though. He doesn’t make fun of you for anything– rather, he takes those moments as opportunities to get closer to you and maybe even build back the friendship you were forced into in childhood, but chose in your adulthood. 

There is no reason to overthink his words or actions. It’s Eric, after all.

Eric Sohn [11:17]: me and sunwoo that is, btw. u can bring your roommate if she’s down!:D

Oh. 

Well, at least you have a way to fix things with your butthurt friend. Clearing your throat before calling into the depths of the apartment– because Izzy left your door open, seemingly hinting that it’s time for you to get up and cook lunch– you slowly start getting out of bed.

“Izzy, do you wanna get lunch with Sunwoo, Eric and I?” you ask, a grin slowly appearing on your face. She rewards you with a few seconds of silence– as if trying to tease you– before she gives you the obvious answer. 

“Yeah.”

“Thought so,” you chuckle, sending Eric back a text agreeing to his invitation. 

After a few minutes spent showering and making yourself look presentable, you walk out of the building with your roommate by your side (that’s currently smelling a bit like she just poured the whole perfume bottle over her), nearing the building you decided to meet in over text messages. It’s a small Korean place just down the street, making you wonder if it’s the boy’s favorite, or if he just chose something that was nearby for you out of convenience.

When you open the door and walk into the place, you’re immediately hugged by the smell of delicious food making your stomach churn in hunger and the low music playing in the background. It doesn’t take you long to notice the two boys already sitting at one of the tables, chatting to each other. Sunwoo is very passionate about something, waving his arms around, but the moment you two arrive at the table, their conversation dies down a bit, replaced by warm greetings.

“Wow, you look terrible,” Sunwoo lets out when his eyes meet your figure. The comment makes you shrink in yourself– truth be told, you know you don’t look your best right now, given the fact that your headache was still very much present and you didn’t put any makeup on– but still, it isn’t the best experience to hear someone say it out loud.

“Thanks,” you nod, watching as your roommate eagerly takes a seat next to Sunwoo, her body in respectful, yet close proximity to his, “I feel like it too.”

“Auch–” the said boy lets out, glaring at Eric sitting opposite of him. You’re not really sure what happened, but you don’t pay it much mind as you slowly settle yourself in the last spot possible– next to Eric in the little booth.

“Did you order already?” Izzy asks, clearly more joy and cheerfulness in her body than in yours. You don’t really know how or why she’s not currently dying of a hangover like you are, but something is telling you that maybe, just maybe, you were the only one that took the drinking too far last night. (You and Sim Jake, that is. The poor boy had to run to puke only a few minutes after the game of spin the bottle ended, and it was not a fun sight.)

“No,” Eric shakes his head, “we were waiting for you to get here. Wanna check the menu? We already skimmed through it.”

You nod at his preposition, taking the laminated paper into your hand. You’re always indecisive when it comes to ordering food– never really knowing what to get, because everything is either foreign to you or too appealing, nothing in between, leaving you on the fence about what you’d like to eat at the given moment– and the lengthy list of options in this place isn’t really helping you. 

A sigh escapes your throat at the sight. Truth be told, you’re not even gonna read the whole thing– so you opt to look at Eric to your right with a begging expression on your face.

“Do you know what you’re getting?” you ask, watching him nod.

“Ramen.”

“Is it good?” you inquire, having the boy nod at you casually, replying to your question.

“Pretty good, yeah,” he answers. “Also, I’d argue that it’s the best for a hangover.”

“Perfect. I’ll have that, then,” you note, putting the menu back to its place on the other side of the table, not really wanting to think about it any longer.

When the waiter comes and asks for your order, you notice Eric taking charge and saying your choice as well, ridding you of the burden. Grateful for his initiative, you turn to smile at him in return, before you choose to rest your head in your hands on the table, still not relaxed enough after the long night you had. 

There’s a soothing hand rubbing your back in just a few seconds, pressing comforting circles into the middle of your torso. You think you can’t really blame Sunwoo for making fun of you today– you surely must look like absolute shit.

“Did you two go to the same party?” Sunwoo chuckles, pointing out the obvious difference in your composures. “How come do you not look dead?” he addresses the question to Izzy, curious.

“I can handle my alcohol well,” she hums.

“That’s a lie,” you grunt, eyes still glued to the wooden table, “she just didn’t drink much last night.”

“I think that’s a part of handling my alcohol well–”

“No it’s not,” you squint at her, shaking your head. “Abstinence is not ‘handling alcohol’, you moron.”

“Okay, well, I’m just saying that’s the reason why you look like you have some sort of disease, while I look fresh and beautiful,” she sings in half-seriousness, half-irony, going as far as posing like a flower, offering the whole table her bright smile.

“I mean, you always do,” a low voice echoes around the restaurant, making you snap your head up to gaze at the boy opposite of you that is now refusing to meet anyone’s eye. Eric’s hand freezes on your back, stilling, as a chuckle leaves his throat at his friend’s comment.

Interesting. Sunwoo’s usually cocky demeanor changes as he blushes, scratching the back of his neck. The air gets a little tense as you allow yourself to look your roommate in the eye, a hint of surprise playing with her face. She looks taken aback, but pleased with herself– and you have to give her that. Her magic is finally working.

“So, anyways…” Eric breaks the awkward silence, arm slipping off your back and resting on the table. The absence of the soothing circles on your clothed skin makes you miss it only a little bit, but you won’t really dwell on that any longer or mention it out loud. 

The food comes just in time to diffuse the weird atmosphere, making all of you thank the waiter for the meal and get to eating. You can’t say ramen is your favorite meal on the planet, but you must admit that the way they prepared it here really gets your taste buds on Cloud 9. You’re enjoying every bit of it, salvaging the salty taste and chewing on the noodles, looking like a person that’s been starved for five days with the way you’re just inhaling the food like it’s oxygen.

“Feels nice to finally eat somewhere else than at work,” Sunwoo grunts in pleasure, throwing his head back and letting his eyes close, fully enjoying the moment. 

Eric nods in agreement, having you furrow your brows at them. “You must work a lot.”

“Yeah,” the boy next to you nods, “I do it to help my dad, but the more I work, the more miserable and absolutely boring it gets.”

“I would imagine it to be kind of fun, I dunno,” you hum sheepishly, noticing the boys eyeing you with a deadpan expression on their faces.

“I mean, everything’s better than a corporate job, in my opinion,” Eric throws a jab at you, a smirk playing with his lips. He’s not wrong.

“Don’t even remind me…”

“Still no progress on that thing?” he asks, genuine interest lacing his tone.

Shaking your head, you sigh. “I mean, I did a bit of market research, but nothing to show my boss, that’s for sure. It’s just been rotting my brain for weeks and I feel like I’m frozen with stress that I can’t actually pick it up, y’know?”

Eric nods in acknowledgement, swallowing the last bits of food in his mouth. “Maybe you just need to think about it less.”

“Yeah,” Izzy joins, “take off some steam. Maybe you just need a little break from it.”

“But if I take a break from it, I might never actually start it–”

“That’s ridiculous,” she cuts you off. “You know you work well under pressure.” You sigh at her comment, shaking your head in disapproval. Procrastination isn’t really your favorite thing under the sun, but it’s something you can’t really control during most projects you pick up.  “What do we say we all hang out together when you’re free? To chill, do something fun, get your heads off work…?” 

You look around the table with questioning eyes. You’re not really sure if you crawled across the bridge to the friendship side yet, or if Izzy’s efforts are what is going to do just that. Not really knowing where you stand with the boys– because they did invite you to lunch, but you also hadn’t spoken in a long time before that– you don’t push them for an answer. You’re going to go along with whatever they choose.

“I’m down,” Sunwoo nods, “I bet that if we tell Lisa in advance, she can do the deliveries. There’s a new Deadpool movie coming out next week, wanna go see that?”

You’re not really a fan of Marvel movies nor have you seen the first two parts of the series. The same could be said about Izzy, but she grasps at the invitation like a thirsty woman seeing water after 20 days spent on a desert, nodding eagerly at Sunwoo. It’s almost laughable how easily she agrees to everything the boy has to say. 

You guess you can’t really blame her, though– he is giving her subtle signs of reciprocation with today’s compliment, isn’t he?

You think about it for a while. Looking to your right, facing Eric, you lock eyes with him, as he was already gazing at you and expecting your answer. The boy shrugs at the eye contact, seemingly down to the offer. 

You guess seeing a movie with them isn’t such a bad idea, right?

“Yeah, okay,” you say, “what day is that?”

Foolish. That’s what you are.

Foolish for thinking you could get everything done in time and actually enjoy your time with your friends. Foolish for thinking you could have a day off when you don’t have to think of all the responsibilities that adult life is throwing at you– because as you realize exactly one day before you’re supposed to see the new Deadpool movie in the cinema with Izzy, Sunwoo and Eric, after a discussion with your boss about how he needs some spreadsheets done before the next day, you realize don’t have enough time in your schedule for both.

Frustration, anger and also a bit of sadness fills your bones as you announce to your friends– in person to Izzy and over a text to Eric– that you probably won’t make it. The boy tells you that if you do end up being able to come after all, you should, which makes you only feel worse at the realization that you are now missing out on what could’ve been a chill afternoon.

The frustration only grows in you when you decide to do your work in the library the next day, not even walking back to your apartment after class– because you realize you not only don’t enjoy any minute of your internship, but you also feel like a failure after not being able to finish any simple task with no bigger issues.

After sending one last message to your friends about how you’re stuck in the library for the time being, you try to drown yourself in work– while simultaneously trying to ignore the clock in the corner of your screen telling you the exact minutes you’ve spent missing out on the plans.

You don’t really know how much time passes before a hand lands on your shoulder, making you jump violently in your seat. Your heart starts beating a thousand miles an hour as you turn your head to make out who is the cause of your heart attack, preparing yourself for the screaming match you’re very well mentally ready for.

Up until… you notice who’s standing behind you, offering you a gentle smile.

“Sorry. Did I scare you?” he asks, laughing softly at your shaken composure.

“I almost died, dude!” you scold him, shaking your head at the boy. Something inside of you lights up at the idea of a distraction from your workload, your heart squeezing on itself when you scan your visitor over– from the bottom of his feet cladded in simple Nike pandas to the top of his head covered not only by a beanie, but also the hood of his gray sweater.

“Sorry,” he once again apologizes, eyes glimmering in amusement.

“What are you even doing here?” you ask, furrowing your eyebrows in confusion and checking the time on your laptop. “The movie starts in a few minutes!”

Out of all the people on the whole entire planet, Eric Sohn is the last person you’d expect to appear in the library exactly at this moment. The sheer presence of him right in front of you makes you blink a few times in hopes of figuring out if his existence is not a fata morgana, watching as the boy only shrugs at you in nonchalance.

“Ah, that…” he hums. “I actually brought you a treat, since you said you will be stuck in the library the whole day,” he says, offering you a bag containing something sweet-smelling.

Once you take a better look at what he’s holding in front of you, your stomach churns and your tastebuds yearn for the sugary dough he must have gotten in the bakery at the corner of the campus on his way here– pink glazing and colorful sprinkles, almost bringing tears into your eyes in appreciation. “What? Why?” you ask. “You didn’t have to…”

“I figured there was no use going to the cinema if you’re not going,” he explains– his words making a nervous little bug fly around your stomach. “Since I’m sure Sunwoo and Izzy wanted to go alone anyways, I didn’t wanna be a third-wheel.” 

Oh. Right. You forgot about that part.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave them alone together, to be honest,” you say, making Eric chuckle at your comment.

“This might either be the best, or the worst thing on the whole entire planet.”

“Agreed,” you nod.

Eric sends you a prolonged look in which you realize you haven’t accepted his offering yet, making you reach for the bag containing the donut and placing it onto the table, right next to your laptop. “But really, thank you,” you nod, “you didn’t have to. I’m sure you have other things you could be doing…”

“I wanted to make your stay in the library more pleasant,” Eric says, shrugging. His figure is still towering over you– as he’s standing and you’re sitting down– something about the fact making you wish he would take a seat next to you and maybe even stay for a minute. “I imagine it’s gonna be a long day for you…”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “All thanks to my stupid internship and my stupid boss and this stupid assignment…” you ramble, watching as Eric’s lips turn into a soft smile. What he’s smiling at, you’re not really sure– the topic of the conversation is already miserable enough for you without actually doing any of the things you’re complaining about– but you drop it as the boy crouches next to you, putting his arm around your chair.

“What do you need to do?” he asks, interested.

“I just need to finish this spreadsheet,” you hum, “which isn’t that hard, it’s just a lot of tedious work that no one wants to do, so of course it falls on the intern.”

“That’s the beauty of an internship,” Eric jokes.

“Do you even intern?”

“No,” he laughs, shaking his head. “But I’d like to see what it’s like. Want help with that? I can read the numbers out for you so you don’t get lost in all those rows and columns,” he suggests, pointing to the amount of reports waiting at your desk, waiting to be digitized.

“Oh, it’s okay,” you sheepishly say, although touched with the offer. He’s probably only saying it to be nice– but that’s still enough for appreciation to grow in your chest. “You don’t have to stay and do boring things with me just because we were supposed to hang out today. Actually, you should hurry so you can get to the cinema on time–”

In your peripheral vision, you watch as the boy stands up from his crouched position only to pull out a chair from one of the empty seats, placing it next to yours so he has a view of your laptop. Before you get a chance to protest any longer, he’s sat in the seat with one of his legs popped up and resting on the bottom construction of your chair, hands reaching for the papers that you could physically drown in sprawled all over your desk. 

“Don’t be silly. I’d rather do anything else than to watch Sunwoo embarrassingly try to flirt with your friend,” he chuckles. “So, which numbers do you need?”

“Eric, really–”

“These ones?” he persists, not even giving you a chance to protest any longer. 

Eyes meeting– his big and honest, a warm pool of honey– yours a little tired, but still filled with tender appreciation, he waits for you to answer and explain how he can help you. He patiently awaits your instructions, wanting to make your life a bit easier– and something about that makes your heart leap in your chest.

You guess you’d say you and Eric are friends now. Yeah, you definitely are.

“Look, the sooner you’re done, the sooner you can get out of here and get another donut with me on your way home. Because trust me, I thought I could resist, but the more I look at the one I brought you, the more I kinda want one for myself…”

Laughing, you shake your head at his boyish antics. He looks so casual right now– like someone cut out of your everyday life, like someone you’ve known for years and are destined to know forever. 

You show him which row he should read out loud for you. You share the donut with him. It takes a bit longer than you expected and the donut place is closed when he walks with you home, but he assures you it’s okay– you can get one another time.

“Five iced americanos, two lattes, one iced tea– do you want anything?” Jihoon turns to you with raised eyebrows, getting a look of your sulking face.

“No,” you bite back, anger getting the worst out of you. 

“Okay, so we’ll also add another americano and a flat white, please,” your coworker slash friend turns back towards the barista, smiling at him and paying with the corporate card.

After the two of you move into the line waiting for drinks, you continue on with your little tangent. 

“So they think they can make me do all the dirty work, leave me with no time to do anything and announce tasks at the last second, only to be bitchy and don’t even say thank you when I do everything they tell me to?” you snap, scowling at Jihoon. “And then they decide that oh, maybe I’m not good enough to do all those fucking spreadsheets for them, so I am demoted to a coffee runner?!” you yell out, having the heads of the rest of the customers turn to you with annoyed and concerned looks on their faces.

“Okay, so we are going to calm down–” 

“I don’t wanna calm down!”

Jihoon laughs at your little outburst– which only makes you more frustrated– before he puts a finger against your lips to silent you, an amused expression taking over his face. “Don’t scream when we are inside, at least.”

After his finger leaves your lips, you are left staring at him with a sharp look– like a child that is mad because it didn’t get a new toy it liked in the store. You acknowledge that you might be acting a bit overly-dramatic at the moment, but you also still think your feelings and thoughts are justified. 

You hate the corporate lifestyle. You despise how you have to be a stuck-up to climb it, and how hard work never truly gets you anywhere if you don’t have connections.

Which is why Liu Yangyang is currently helping your boss with all major tasks, getting the experience he truly needs for his degree, while you and Jihoon were sent to get coffee for the whole office. Amazing, isn’t it? The way you can feel so looked down upon, even though you’re aware this is the place you’re supposed to be in, this is how you’re supposed to be treated.

You’re just an intern, nothing else. But sometimes, the uneven weight of responsibilities you get at work makes you stressed and nervous that one day, you’ll have too much on your shoulders to bear while all the other time, you aren’t even worthy of a normal task.

“I hope each and every one of them burns their tongue on that fucking coffee,” you grunt, making Jihoon only laugh harder.

“At least half of them ordered iced americanos, babe.”

A sigh escapes your throat at that. “Okay, so I hope they all spill the drink onto them,” you refute, making Jihoon grin.

“You’re so petty,” he points out as he stands close to you, suddenly deciding to use you as his own personal armrest. “Besides, I think you should appreciate that you don’t have to do a lot today, don’t you think? It’s nice to get a breather. I know I wouldn’t wanna be in Yangyang’s shoes right now.”

“I guess so,” you sigh, looking up to meet the tall boy’s eyes. “But it makes me feel like they don’t think we’re good enough for anything else.”

“And if that’s my crime, then so be it,” he playfully shrugs. “At least I’ll have the experience on my CV and I can graduate.”

“I’d love to have your mindset,” you muse.

“It’s quite easy, actually,” he nods. “You should get it into that pretty brain of yours,” he says as one of his fingers points to the side of your skull, making you scrunch your nose at him and try to avert the contact. 

Jihoon is persistent, though, as he suddenly makes it his quest to ruffle your hair to tease you and make it all disheveled. The two of you get into a play-fight of some sort, consisting of you trying to wrestle the boy off and him trying to make your life a living hell in any way he can, when he abruptly stops and raises his eyebrows at someone behind you, offering them a wave.

“Yo, dude! Hi!” he greets, making you turn your head to see who he is addressing.

There, standing just a few meters in front of you in the line, is Eric Sohn wearing cargo pants and a loose shirt, earphones hanging around the base of his neck. After being greeted by your friend, he moves closer to the two of you, smiling.

“Hi!” he says, paying both of you an up-and-down scan. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” Jihoon replies for the both of you, settling to his previous position of resting half his body-weight against your shoulder. You’ve grown used to his nature– playful and friendly, much like an older brother would act– so you don’t really mind the casual touch and teasing from him. “We were sent here to get coffee for the whole building, so we’re just doing that while Y/N here complains about everything–”

“I don’t complain about everything, just the systematic oppression of interns in the workplace–”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” Jihoon cuts you off, snickering. “What about you?”

Eric watches the two of you bickering with furrowed brows before he clears his throat, shrugging. “On my way to class,” he says, “I’m late already, so I figured a few more minutes while I get my coffee won’t hurt me in the long run.”

“Very responsible of you,” you joke, watching as the boy in front of you laughs, paying you a short look.

“Look, I don’t have any big responsibilities like the two of you do, so…”

“Y/N, on the contrary, doesn’t think getting coffee for the corporate people is enough of a responsibility,” Jihoon chimes in, making Eric’s eyes shift towards the taller boy, sending him a look slightly different to the one he gives you.

“She just doesn’t really know how to chill out,” Eric nods. 

“Hello?” you snicker. “I’m literally right here.”

The shorter one looks at you with glimmering eyes, shrugging. “It’s something you have to hear,” he notes. “Truth hurts, but it’s better than lying to yourself.”

Just after that, an order is called that makes Eric’s attention perk up, turning around to the barista. “I think that’s me,” he says, taking a step back towards the counter to retrieve his coffee. “I better get going, but it was nice seeing you two,” he nods.

“Us two…” Jihoon whispers next to you, making you look at him with furrowed brows, confused.

“It was nice seeing you too!” you nod instead, smiling.

“I’ll see you around!” Eric says. Before he completely disappears to the top of the line and out of the coffee shop, he turns to you one more time. “Oh and Y/N, we should hang out again sometime… Text me?”

“Oh, sure,” you agree, your stomach fueled with a strange kind of sensation at his words. You know you should’ve had breakfast in the morning– surely it’s just you being hungry. “I’ll- I’ll text you.”

Only after Jihoon waves at him, finally ridding you off the burden of being his personal armrest, do you realize how hot you feel in your cheeks and how you’ve spent the last couple of seconds carefully, intensively watching Eric get his coffee and step out of the building. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, the atmosphere suddenly too quiet to the one there was between the two of you before Eric Sohn arrived, you feel Jihoon elbow you in your side.

“So,” he starts, already hinting that this is going to be a difficult conversation, “what’s up with you and Sohn?”

“Hm?” you snap your head around to face him, almost breaking your neck with the force. “What do you mean, what’s up with me and Eric? There’s nothing up between the two of us.”

“Sure… and he wasn’t staring at me like he wanted to personally kill me with his own two hands just now, correct?” he teases, making you stop in your tracks.

Was Eric looking at him like that? You didn’t even notice.

“Correct,” you agree. “I don’t really think he was…”

“And my name is not Jihoon–”

“Stop being so difficult to talk to all the time, dear god–”

“Okay, miss ‘I find Eric Sohn to be the hottest one in the world’–”

“When have I ever said that?!” you call out again, suddenly feeling a little too hot in your cheeks, ears, and the back of your neck. What’s up with this visceral reaction? You swear you were nonchalant about these things!

“Oh, sorry, let me correct myself. It was the hottest one in the room, actually, but I think that speaks for itself, since Lee Heeseung himself was present–”

“Are you jealous, or something?” you choose to counter attack, leaving Jihoon to laugh at you in amusement.

“As if,” he shakes his head at you. “I just think it’s cute how whenever I see you two interact, he acts like a lost puppy following you and you’re too oblivious to do anything about it.”

“No, he doesn’t,” you furrow your brows at him, the words not even fully registering in your brain. What does he even mean by all of this? You and Eric are friends– that’s all there is to it.

“Sure… stay being like that and end up a bitchless loser forever, then,” he shrugs. You’d react more to his pointless arguments– because let’s be real, he is just making all of this up to stir some drama– but your awfully long order is called right in the moment you open your mouth to come up with a clever comeback, and so you choose to drop the topic, because it’s quite meaningless in your eyes anyway.

Walking back with two cup holders in your hands, fulfilling your one and only task of the day, you turn to Jihoon with a teasing grin. “Wait, did you just call Lee Heeseung sexy?”

“It was purely objective–”

“I really hate this, y’know?” you mutter as you stand in front of the gates of the amusement park, your cheerful roommate standing by your side bouncing on her feet as she waits in excitement.

“Shut up,” she says, a smile never leaving her face despite your gloomy expression, “don’t ruin this for me.”

“Well, it’s either you or me that is going to have their day ruined, and I think that judging by the fact that I’m already here, we know which one is going to turn true,” you say as you aimlessly look around, watching people going in and out of the premises of the park, some with goofy headbands on, some holding balloons– all of them sickly in love.

“It’s not like I invited you to a funeral, y’know,” Izzy grunts, “you could just act happy for me. It wouldn’t hurt you, y’know–”

“I would act happy for you if you didn’t feel the need to drag me to your dates with you–”

“Stop being such a party popper, dude. You’re going to have fun if you just allow yourself to,” she rolls her eyes at you. Yeah, she might be right about some parts of her argument– you got free tickets to the amusement park, which you love, just for the record– and you also have a day off from your internship and classes, which makes any day basically the best day on earth for you, but there is one thing about this whole situation that is making you doubt it just the tiniest bit.

That being the fact that you’re tagging along to a date. And you’re not alone in it– which automatically makes this whole thing seem a little too similar to a double date.

“I just don’t want him to think I see this as a–”

Your argument is quickly shut off as your roommate physically squeals into your ear before running off, feet automatically taking her to her sweetheart. Sunwoo is quick to catch her in his arms when she jumps into his hold, excited to see him despite hanging out with him two days ago, and you’re left walking slowly to the two approaching figures alone.

The moment you see Eric Sohn wearing tan cargo pants and a red windbreaker over his figure, your throat goes dry. His eyes light up a bit when they land on you, which makes the reality of not being able to run away anymore settle deep inside of your bones, and suddenly, you feel strangely nervous in his vicinity. 

This hasn’t happened to you yet around him– if you don’t count all the moments where you embarrassed yourself in front of him, feeling painfully awkward. However, the fact that this whole situation is too similar to a double date is making you feel slightly weak in your knees simply because of the fact that you don’t want Eric to think you want this to be a double date. You only went because Izzy promised to wash the dishes for you for two weeks if you did, and that’s an offer nobody should turn down, you think.

The idea of Eric Sohn thinking you want to go on a double date with him makes you feel agonizingly embarrassed. You two are just friends– nothing more, nothing less– and you wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea. You would never think of yourself as someone Eric would invite over for a date in the first place anyway– you don’t want him to have a feeling that you suddenly have high thoughts about yourself.

“Y/N! Hi!” Your thoughts are quickly cut off when you hear the boy himself greet you cheerfully, walking up to you to envelope you in a short hug. 

His arms sneak around you only for a moment, but you feel yourself automatically reciprocating the gesture before it even has a chance to register in your brain. You don’t really know when the two of you passed to the level of friendship where you greet each other with a hug– maybe the few text messages you shared since you last saw him in the coffee shop might have done the work– but you try to not question it when he pulls away, leaving you awkwardly standing around and watching Sunwoo and your roommate gaze romantically into each other’s eyes.

“Today’s gonna be tough,” Eric notes.

Chuckling at his words, knowing he’s referring to the honeymoon stage your friends have somehow ended up in– because you still can’t believe Izzy managed to date the boy after her embarrassing attempts– you just shake your head and move towards the entrance of the amusement park, not really wanting to pay any more attention to the couple than you have to.

“It is,” you agree, “I wouldn’t have agreed to go for this exact reason, but the idea of rides persuaded me,” you hum.

“I only went because this was the only way I could get a day off at work,” Eric mutters, “my stupid sister insisted I come with Sunwoo or else she wouldn’t cover my shift.”

“That’s strange,” you chuckle, furrowing your eyebrows at him. “Why would she care?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs, “said something about ‘enjoying my youth’, or something,” he grins. “I don’t really even like amusement parks, if I’m being honest.”

“You don’t?” you gasp, shaking your head at the boy. “Damn. I would think you’re an adrenaline junkie, if I’m being honest.”

“I am!” he agrees, nodding. “The other day, though, I saw a Tiktok about a ride breaking down somewhere in Japan, and that was the same day Sunwoo invited me here, so I think it might’ve been a sign from the universe to not go on any of these rides, or else I will die.”

Laughing at his words, shaking your head, you lightly slap his arm at the comment. “Don’t say that,” you tell him, “you’re just being a scaredy cat, admit it.”

“No…” he suspiciously shakes his head, very obviously lying.

“Yeah, right…” you snicker. “I mean, it’s okay, dude. I won’t laugh.”

“You’re already laughing, though?” Eric points out, an accusing finger in your face. His actions make you burst into even bigger giggles, eyes meeting his. When your gaze lands onto his face– the upper half shielded by the shade casted off his cap, yet still having his eyes crinkled up and cheeks full as he grins at you wide and warm in the sunlight– your stomach does that weird thing again, completely ruining the moment.

Clearing your throat, trying to keep your composure, you turn your head to search for Izzy and Sunwoo. The moment you catch them in makes your eyes go big and a grunt leave your throat involuntarily– the PDA making you even sicker to your stomach. While Sunwoo is standing in front of your roommate, his arms securely around her middle, she is gazing up into his eyes with a pout decorating her lips. The boy holds her cheeks in his hands for a brief moment before he leans in and gives her a short kiss that makes the girl stand up on her tippy toes, chasing for another one.

“Oh wow,” you let out, making Eric sigh next to you at the sight.

“Now that’s…”

“Yeah,” you nod while you turn back forward, trying your hardest to not look at the two of them any longer than you physically have to. “I knew they would be like that if they started dating. It’s like my worst nightmares came true.”

“Sunwoo can’t stop talking about her either. I’m starting to think I will know more about your roommate than you do, at this rate.”

“You might,” you agree, laughing to yourself. “With how many nights she’s spent at his place, I’m starting to think she’s going to move out soon.”

“Well, that’s only good for you then, no?” 

“Yeah,” you agree, joking. “The only reason why I still keep her around is to pay half the rent, if I’m being honest,” you chuckle, having the boy shake his head at your playful antics.

The two of you move forwards slowly while looking around the place, trying to see what you should do. The sun is strangely aggressive today, making it hard for you to see as you squint in the brightness– since the amusement park doesn’t really provide you with much shade– only making you a bit more frustrated with your choice of plans today.

“Should we get some drinks first?” Eric asks, pointing towards a stand that sells coffee, milkshakes and other beverages.

The line is long, but you don’t really see a reason not to wait. You have the whole day in front of you, after all, and since it seems to you that Sunwoo and Izzy have taken it upon themselves to ignore you two completely, acting like this was their own date, you choose to stick to whatever Eric wants to do. 

As you move to stand next to him– while also moving out of someone’s way– the back of your hand comes in contact with the boy’s next to you, having a slight wave of electricity run through your spine as you clear your throat and move away from him, wishing he didn’t notice. You take it upon yourself to look around to see what your next choice of plan should be.

After ignoring many couples walking around– since it seems that you chose a day when no other visitors were around, just teenagers holding hands and kissing in front of the rides (much like your friends are doing right now)– you opt to point your eyes at the horizon, looking at the tall constructions and rides. You have to shield your eyes from the sun with your hand to really see them, but the sight of them excites you a bit, so you guess it’s worth it. Squinting at the Pirate ride or the big rollercoaster twisting and turning like a caterpillar in the distance, you make a mental note of all the attractions you want to visit today.

Slowly moving to the top of the line to get coffee with Eric, you continue gazing behind him, blissfully unaware that he’s been watching you the whole time, noticing your little struggle. 

“After we get the coffee, I wanna go on that roller coaster there,” you hum, “and I’m bringing you with me, because Sunwoo and Izzy–”

Your words get caught in your throat as the man suddenly moves the hand you’ve been resting against your eyebrows to shield your eyes from the sunlight down, replacing it by taking his cap off and making you wear it. Your heart jumps at the action, eyes finally relaxing now that they’re in shade, making you gulp and stare at Eric.

“You don’t have to–”

“I have my sunglasses with me, so it’s fine,” he says, tugging the peak further down your head in a teasing way, a smile adorning his face.

You forgot what you were even saying in the first place– the idea of Eric’s hat on your head making your brain overheat a little with the added fabric on top of your hair. It’s the same cap you see on him often– his favorite one, you think– and your stupid, silly brian is starting to make connotations around the action that you’re sure are not correct.

You can’t say you’re not happy about wearing it, though. It does help your eyes.

“You were saying?” he asks, making you look back at him with big eyes, trying to think of what you were talking about before.

“Oh,” you hum, while also simultaneously reaching to fix his hair– since he hasn’t bothered to after taking off his hat for you– not even thinking about your actions as you run your fingers through the honey strands, “I was just saying you’re gonna have to go on some rides with me, because the lovebirds are ignoring us and I am not going alone,” you repeat.

When you’re done moving the blonde locks to their supposed place, eyes drifting back to Eric’s– now big and watching your every move, making you falter a little under his gaze and heat creep onto your cheeks– it’s his turn to clear his throat, shrugging.

“You’ll have to hold my hand when I get scared, though,” he says. The casualty of his tone shocks you, having you watch as the boy averts his gaze from you and presses his lips together into a thin line, not even paying a second thought to the implications of his words.

You pay them a second thought, though.

You keep repeating the words in your brain over and over, fingertips buzzing at the preposition, hands sweating at the mental image. Do you mind the thought of it?

Well, no. You don’t.

Not a big deal, after all…

“What did you want again? Flat white?” he asks, completely ignoring the previous conversation. You didn’t even realize you got to the top of the line, too deep in your thoughts, and before you have a chance to take out your wallet to pay for your drink (or maybe even Eric’s, since he paid the last time), he is holding the cup up to you already.

As you take it from him, your fingers touch again. It makes a warm pool of honey glisten in the pit of your stomach, foolishness creeping up your bones.

The boy takes it upon himself to shock you even further as he swings an arm around your shoulders, tugging you close to him. “Let’s go back to the lovebirds before they forget about our existence completely.”

You choose to ignore the fact that you forgot about their existence yourself.

When you get on the ride a few minutes later, Eric holds onto your hand. Your heart beats a thousand miles an hour, but you will write it off to the adrenaline– you do, however, foolishly wish he was scared more often. 

Turns out having Park Jihoon as your coworker isn’t as bad as it seems. Sure, he is good at making the atmosphere lighter in the office and also amazing at gossip in the workplace, but he is also surprisingly very good at his job– and with the date of your presentation fastly approaching, you had to get all the help you needed. 

Which is why you made the boy sit with you in the park as you went over it again and again, showing him your laptop and rehearsing your speech, taking notes of every little thing Jihoon said you should fix or add into the whole thing. You genuinely appreciate what he’s doing for you, which is why you also remind yourself to get him something after the internship is done– but after at least two hours of working on your laptop with him, he gets tired and his attention span seems to get shorter and shorter– and you don’t really blame him. 

Actually, you welcome the distractions he offers with open hands. Even more so, you add on to them and fuel them with more conversation, the laptop opened on your thighs long forgotten as you search through your gallery and show the phone screen to your friend, talking about the cute pillows you found at the store last week.

“See? They’re like… sea foam green, but Izzy says they wouldn’t go with our couch,” you hum, furrowing your brows at him, trying to see a different opinion on your newest choice of furniture for the already overcrowded flat.

“What color is your couch again?” he asks as you keep swiping, showing him all the angles of the pillows.

“Brown.”

“Oh, hell no,” Jihoon shakes his head, “that’s a Perry the platypus type of combo, I’m with Izzy on this one– oop, that doesn’t look like the pillows anymore–”

Swiftly turning the phone towards you again, worried of what picture you accidentally revealed to him (while you don’t have any nudes on your phone, you’re sure any selfie would be just as much embarrassing), you’re left with heat rising to your cheeks and shame drowning your system. 

“Well, anyways, so the pillows–”

“We’re not talking about the pillows anymore, girl–”

“We are–”

“No,” he keeps interrupting you, making you grunt and sigh as you rest your head against the trunk of the tree behind you, banging it against it in frustration.

“Shut up,” you mutter. The thing is, you know you won’t escape the teasing now– because Park Jihoon watching you swipe through your gallery to a high-angle selfie of Eric Sohn in his work uniform, pouting, is surely a very incriminating image. “We text on Whatsapp and he sent the pic, so it automatically saved–”

“And you just never deleted it, naturally,” Jihoon hums with a shit-eating grin on his face. 

“I forgot–”

“You just didn’t want to–”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” you sigh again, locking your phone and throwing it into the grass. 

You and Eric have grown close since the day you spent together in the amusement park. So much to the point where you get lunch together sometimes and he sends you selfies when he’s bored at work, it seems. You don’t mind the subtle shift– hell, you welcome it with open arms– you just wish Park Jihoon (and Izzy, at this point) would stop teasing you about something that was not even vaguely true.

There is nothing going on between you and Eric Sohn.

And nothing ever will be– not a chance.

“I think the denial is being a little embarrassing now,” Jihoon chirps, making you swat his shoulder. You are not in denial– there is nothing to deny.

“You are being a little embarrassing.”

“You know I’m right,” Jihoon shrugs, grinning. Does he not have enough drama in his own life to stick his nose into yours? Not that there is any drama between you and Eric– but you bet Park Jihoon would love to create some.

“You’re never right.”

“Sure,” Jihoon hums. “I’ll mention this on your wedding speech–”

“I’ll kill you before I get married,” you grunt.

“But you didn’t deny the identity of the groom–”

Launching at the boy again, a threatening fist almost landing to his cheek, you watch as he wrestles you away with a loud laugh resonating through the space. Something about how lightly he takes the situation makes your stomach churn in an unknown emotion– you really don’t see why everyone thinks there should be something going on between you and your childhood friend.

“Look, all I’m saying is that if you want this to be a thing, maybe you should finally make a move, since the guy seems to be dull as fuck–”

Interrupting, never letting him finish a sentence when it comes to this topic, you try to finally prove your point. “I don’t want this to be a thing. I don’t even know what you’re talking–”

“I should go before I’m killed,” Jihoon suddenly hurries out, making you furrow your brows at him.

“What?”

“See you on Monday!” the tall male waves, scattering to his feet. He doesn’t give you much explanation as he runs off to the other side of the campus, making you watch him with confused eyes. Where has he gone so quickly? He doesn’t want to be killed? 

By whom? Should you be afraid? Should you run as well?

Somebody clears his throat next to you, making you jump as you turn your head to see who is disrupting your peace. The moment your eyes meet the intruder, Jihoon’s comment finally settles in– god, you’ll kill him when you see him again.

“Eric! What are you doing here?” you ask, watching as the boy shrugs, taking a seat next to you on the grass.

“Just got off work,” he says, “and you said you’ll be here, so I thought I’d come and say hi,” he hums, yawning and stretching his arms above his head.

The sentiment makes you mentally coo– the emotion going as far as reaching your face in a form of a gentle pout– as you dwell deeper over his words. You didn’t think that complaining about how you have to do work would make Eric think of visiting you after finishing his own, but something about it makes you all warm from the inside.

“You didn’t have to,” you hum. “You seem tired.”

A gentle smile is sent your way, so illuminizing it makes you look away. “I know, but I wanted to,” he says, “I also brought you leftovers, if you want some. It’s almost dinner time.”

An involuntary gasp leaves your throat as you watch the male take out an aluminum wrap from his backpack and offer it to you alongside his bright grin. You waste no time in taking the pizza slices into your hand and carefully unwrapping them, allured by the smell.

“Why did Jihoon run so fast, by the way?” Eric asks, laughing.

“Oh, he said he was late for something…” you hum. (You’re not even convinced of your own excuse. You don’t know how Eric doesn’t see right through your lies.)

“Ah,” the boy nods in acknowledgement, scooping closer to you so his back is now resting against the tree, his eyes gluing themselves onto your laptop screen. His piney smell fills your nose, making your stomach feel like it’s on water, before his soft, tired voice lands into your ear. “Did you make a lot of progress?”

“Mhm,” you nod, clicking through the slides and showing him. The boy makes an acknowledging sound after each new information you tell him– something that makes you find him immensely endearing– as you simultaneously reach for the pizza and mindlessly offer the slice you’ve already bitten into to him, watching as his straight teeth chew down into the dough, sharing one piece with you.

“Are you done for the day? I’ll walk you home,” he says, tiredness completely seeping through his tone now. You can tell he needs sleep– which makes you feel slightly bad about making him take a detour just to meet you.

“Almost,” you hum apologetically, closing your laptop. “I just need to read a few more articles Jihoon recommended for me and then I should be done,” you say, reaching for your iPad as you put your computer away into your bag. 

“Okay,” he nods.

“You can go home, Eric,” you say, “you don’t have to stay for me.”

“No, it’s fine,” he shakes his head, smiling at you. 

Watching him, eyes meeting for a heartbeat, you see that he won’t budge no matter how harshly you’d tell him to go– so you figure that quickly getting through the articles and going home is your safest bet in this situation. Tapping on the screen and finding the email Jihoon forwarded to you, you open the first link in the message, subconsciously registering as the boy next to you gets comfortable sitting in the grass with you.

You only get through half of the (lengthy) article before you see Eric’s head lolling forwards, sleep taking over him. The motion wakes him, but not for long as he just can’t keep his eyes open anymore– the combination of a long shift, classes in the morning and finishing up his assignments late in the night getting the worst out of him and making you feel immensely bad for the boy. Not focused on the words in the article anymore, you watch as your friend scooches further down in the grass, acting on instinct as his head suddenly rests against your shoulder, soft hair tickling the side of your neck. 

Heart leaping in your chest and whole body freezing– begging the universe to not make the boy wake up from his half-asleep state right now– you try your hardest to pay attention to the business tactics described in the article you’ve been reading for the last couple of minutes. It seems to be the hardest task you’ve ever set your mind on, though, as you notice the screen of your tablet getting dark, mirroring Eric’s relaxed face.

His neck is craned and his eyes are closed shut, making you turn your head to watch the sight first-hand, mentally counting all the eyelashes kissing his cheekbones and his puffed-out lips. Something about his pose doesn’t seem the tiniest bit comfortable, though– although it makes a strange wave of satisfaction run through your veins– and so, like any other decent person, you gently cradle your fingers through his hair, waking him up.

“Hmm?” 

“Your neck is gonna be sore,” you quietly say as you put your arm around his shoulder, “just lay down, yeah?” you say, doing your best at adjusting his position.

The male lets you navigate him with half-lidded eyes as you make him scooch even further down into the grass before you pull his upper body towards your lower half, essentially making the boy lay his head into your lap. Eric looks up at you from his new position for just a few seconds, eye contact reminding you of a small, shy puppy you just brought home from the road, making you smile softly and treat him as one when you instinctively reach out and pet his head, running your fingers through his soft strands and gently scratching his scalp.

After a few seconds, the male closes his eyes again, seemingly drifting off into the dreamland. Your actions soothe him and simultaneously bring you into some sort of trance you can’t bring yourself out of– eyes glued to his face, studying it.

The angle of his nose and the slope of his upper lip is much more enjoyable to study and memorize than the sales statistics of your job’s concurrency. You find his long eyelashes to be nothing far from angelic, his light hair like a crown of gold under your touch. Everything about him is soft and gentle in this state– with the golden hour shining down onto his features, making his skin glisten like honey– the view so pretty you’d like to take a picture to remember it forever.

Your head spins and your stomach does that weird thing again. This is not the first time you are acknowledging Eric’s attractiveness– just the first time you are appreciating his beauty, his prettiness to the point where you are enchanted by it, not able to tear your attention away. You can’t deny the fact that it affects you anymore.

You can’t deny the fact you feel around him lately. It makes you feel strange and embarrassed, but not to the point where you’d want to keep away from him.

Your iPad is thrown next to you on the grass, forgotten and abandoned. You’re jealous of the sun– for it’s able to kiss his cheeks without fear, without judgment– the boy turning into a putty under your touch, subconsciously leaning into it when you drag his light bangs away from his forehead. 

You admit the fact that you stopped working on your project the moment he arrived, not able to put your attention elsewhere than to his presence. You’re also aware he’d sleep better and more comfortably in his own bed, but for some reason, you selfishly want to keep him there– looking like a painting, something akin to a poem you wish you wrote.

Just for the moment, you let the reality down on you– that maybe Park Jihoon was right and there is no use denying the obvious anymore. Just for the moment, you let the feeling consume you, eat you alive. For now, though, the boy in your lap is all yours to admire. Blissfully unaware and painfully beautiful, soft and gentle all around.

The feeling inside of you is too raw, too real and so much different to anything you’ve ever known before.

When you’re satisfied with the dose of skinship, you wake the boy up and let him walk you home. You pretend for a moment the feeling is reciprocated and not left scared and lonely out in the open as Eric helps you carry your stuff for you and pulls you into a bear hug in front of your doorstep. You don’t tell him that you had the scariest realization while he was soundly asleep in your arms– it’s too scary and too real and you’re not ready to get your heart broken just yet. 

You pretend everything’s like before. Normal. 

You convince yourself that it will pass.

Once you enter the place, you’re instantly surrounded by the sound of people talking amongst each other, forks and glasses being put down, resonating through the whole place, the phone ringing somewhere in the distance, and a cold shot of liquid coming in contact with your stomach, making you gasp out in surprise.

“Oh shit!” Sunwoo grunts as he registers the mess he just caused, looking up at you with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry!”

Noticing the rush everywhere in the pizzeria and the amount of customers he has to take care of, you can’t really blame him for not watching where he’s going. Still, your face slowly morphs into a subtle frown at the realization that there is now a dark stain on your favorite white T-shirt, your outfit for the evening ruined– meaning half of your confidence disappeared just as fast as the Coca-Cola did from the glass Sunwoo has been holding. 

“It’s okay,” you sigh, shaking your head. “It’s nothing–”

“I’ll get you a towel! I’ll be right back,” the boy urgently says as he makes you hold the half-empty glass of the beverage he just spilled all over you, making you shrug and question if you should just drink the rest of it as a price of consolation.

“Dude, this place is packed,” Izzy grunts from next to you, “can’t even blame him for being all over the place, at this point.”

“Yeah,” you absent-mindledly nod, eyes searching in the crowd to find the figure you came here for in the first place. Not that you only want his presence, no– it’s just that Eric was the one who invited you to the festival your university is throwing as a celebration of the end of the semester. Supposedly, he knows the guy that’s playing in the band that’s headlining it, and even though you tried to refute his arguments and invitations with the fact that you have nothing to be celebrating just yet– the final season is surely going to kick your butt and the presentation for your internship is in just two days, which means you should be preparing for it really hard right in this moment, but his pleading voice in your speaker as you talked to him on the phone on your way home from class was strong enough to convince you that maybe you do need some time to wind off before the responsibilities sweep you off your feet again.

Once you find the boy himself walking away from one of the tables in the corner, his eyes find yours– as if knowing you’ve been looking for him, sensing your presence. His face is outstretched into a smile as he practically skips towards you and Izzy, but the grin leaves his features swiftly once he notices the ugly stain on your shirt.

“Damn, what happened?” he asks.

“Sunwoo spilled a drink over me,” you shrug, watching as his coworker rolls his eyes in frustration at the new information. You laugh at his fakely mad expression, shaking your head at him. “It’s fine, he was in a rush.”

“Yeah, we’re kinda behind, so I don’t know if–”

“No, it’s fine!” you hear a female voice call out, making you snap your head towards the direction of the counter behind you, noticing the presence of Lisa, Eric’s older sister. Her face is adorned with a wide grin that gets a teasing hint when her brother sends her a questioning look, making you watch the interaction with interest. “You said you’re leaving at 7, so you’re leaving at 7. I told dad my friends are coming up to help today, so you just go and enjoy your time out!”

“Really?” Eric asks, tone full of disbelief. You think he spends more time at the restaurant than he does in his own bedroom, and suddenly, you’re happy his sister is being so kind towards the poor boy.

“Yeah! You have more important business to take care of anyway, so…” Lisa says, wiggling her eyebrows at Eric. The boy sends her a look full of fear– which might be justified, since you don’t really know what’s going on at the moment– before he clears his throat and turns his attention back towards you.

“Anyways…” he starts, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “You can change into my shirt, if you want…? I have a spare one in the back in a case of emergency, and this surely looks like one, so–”

“Oh, it’s okay, you don’t have to–”

“I mean, the stain is pretty noticeable, so I was just–” he says. 

“It’s fine, Eric, I’ll just wash it in the sink, or something.”

“Or you can take my shirt that does not have a stain on it. I swear it doesn’t smell, I only wore it once! I’ll wear the one I forgot in my locker the other day,” he says, looking at you with wide, expecting eyes. Your heart does a flip in your ribcage.

You have to mentally restrain yourself from freaking out over this. He’s just being nice. He’s offering you his shirt because he probably knows that you want to look good– he is offering you his shirt because he knows the stain on yours is bothering you and that it wouldn’t come out as easily in the sink if you don’t wash the shirt properly with laundry detergent that you don’t have on hand right now– and when you weight all the positives and negatives of the offer (which you find far less pros than cons in, just for the record), you realize you don’t really have a reason to decline his offer.

“I mean, if you’re sure…”

The boy only nods, gently takeing you by your forearm as he leads you towards the back. You’ve never been there before and you also don’t really know where Izzy disappeared to, but you stop worrying about those the same moment Eric opens his locker and hands you his black shirt, a tight-lipped smile adorning his features.

“I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Thanks,” you nod. You wait for the door to close before you quickly drag your sticky T-shirt over your head and discard it off your chest, glad you’re ridded of the nasty feeling of it against your skin, fastly putting on the soft material that Eric draped onto your hold before on your upper body. 

The smell of his cologne instantly hits you in the face stronger than a baseball ever could, making your head spin and your stomach feel like it’s floating in the middle of the sea. Taking a quick look at yourself in the mirror on the wall next to you, you admire the way the garment fits you just well– since the height difference between you and Eric is barely existent. It makes you wonder if you could share wardrobes– the mental image of him in your favorite oversized graphic T-shirts making a foolish smile creep onto your cheeks, one that you forcefully wipe off the second you see it in the mirror. You smooth down the fabric before you tuck one side into the waistband of your jeans, satisfied with your new outfit. 

Giddy, you walk out of the storage room. It takes you a few moments to find your group of friends standing next to the counter, chatting. You notice that Sunwoo has already changed out of his work uniform into his regular clothes– a black band tee and camo cargo pants– one arm around Izzy’s shoulders.

“Ready?” your roommate asks, watching you nod.

“I’ll just go change and then we can go,” Eric says, swiftly turning on his heel and disappearing into the room you just came out of.

Izzy and Sunwoo talk amongst each other before they turn to you, finally deciding to include you in their conversation. “Excited for tonight? Eric said you need to destress,” Sunwoo raises his eyebrows at you, making you shrug.

“I guess,” you hum, “I think I practiced my presentation so many times I could recite it in my sleep now, but it also strangely feels like I don’t know it enough, y’know?” you say, shaking your head. “It’s driving me crazy.”

“I just think you need to take your mind off things, babe,” Izzy chirps, sending you a comforting smile. “You worked hard enough.”

“Well, we will find out soon if it really was enough,” you snicker, making your roommate glare at you with disapproval. Before she has a chance to ridicule you for your self-deprecating thoughts, you choose to change the topic instead, picking one that’s interesting her enough to forget all about your worries. “I heard from Izzy you wanna go bowling?” 

“Yeah!” Sunwoo perks up, excitement swirling in his dark orbs. “I haven’t been in a while, actually. I was thinking us four could go after exams are done? As a celebration?” 

You four. You find the fact that this is your new usual strange, but also welcome. How you fit into the group, your presence always counted on. Somewhere along the way, you fell into the causality of the friend group– and you can’t say you hate it as much as you thought you would. 

“Yeah, I’m down,” you shrug. “I’ve never played, though.”

“Dude, you and Eric go so well together, then. He’s actually shit at it, so I would even go as far as saying you will be better than him after two tries,” Sunwoo laughs. 

You and Eric go so well together– your brain repeats like a mantra. You know he didn’t mean it in that way. You can’t help but wonder– if you’d ask, would he further support his point?

“Speaking of Eric, what’s taking him so long? We’re gonna be late for the concert, at this point,” Izzy hums, checking the time on her phone.

“Should I go tell him to hurry?” you ask, receiving a pair of nods ushering you to go get him.

Taking a few steps towards the staff-only room, not thinking much before you pull the doorknob, you peep inside– regretting it immediately.

You’re met with the image of Eric turning towards the door to see who it is, shirtless. Your eyes can’t help but wander over the angles of his defined arms and stomach, making heat rush into your cheeks faster than you’ve ever felt it before, a broken noise escaping your throat as you pathetically try to both apologize and pretend you didn’t just have a visceral emotion to the sight of his bare body right there, a few meters away from you.

“Shit, sorry, I just–” you say as you turn on your heel, your body moving by itself and on its own accord as your brain flashes a few red exclamation marks right in front of your eyes, “they just– we should hurry, they said,” you mutter out, blanking.

“Coming!” Eric hums, the shuffling of clothes behind you making you believe he is now fully dressed. You won’t test your theory and look over your shoulder, though– you fear the dreams you’d have tonight if you saw him shirtless even for a second longer. You don’t take the initiative to leave the room either, though– feet glued to your spot right behind the door.

You hear the locker slammed shut, the sound of footsteps approaching making you all alert. God, you feel awkward. You feel embarrassingly awkward.

You find comfort in picking at the fabric of his shirt on your body, playing with it in between your fingers. After a moment, you feel his palm come in contact with your shoulder, his arm reaching around your figure as he leads you out of the storage room once again, completely ignoring your flustered state. You’re not sure if he’s uncomfortable or if he truly didn’t mind– but the moment he utters out his next comment, your knees almost buckle, making you breathless at the sight of his cheeks dusted a light pink.

Tugging at the sleeve of his own shirt adorning your body, he admits: “This looks really good on you, by the way.”

When you arrive at the festival, the band isn’t playing yet. You and your friends decide to hang out in the back of the crowd, not really wanting the music to blast straight into your ears from the speakers on the podium, and before you even have a chance to ask Eric who is the friend that’s singing in the band you’re here to see, the male disappears to find the toilets.

Chuckling at the fact that he couldn’t take care of the business before you left the pizzeria, but also suddenly too bored without him (since Izzy and Sunwoo don’t count as proper company when all they pay attention to at this point of their relationship is each other), you decide to get in the line for drinks, announcing your departure to the love birds before you go. You figure you should probably get a drink for Eric too, since he always makes it his quest to pay for yours before you even get a chance to take out your wallet, and you suddenly see his departure as the perfect opportunity to do just that– he won’t have a way to stop you this time. 

Standing promptly at the end of the line, you people-watch and listen to conversations of the fellow students hanging around the field. The drink stands are the most occupied out of the whole festival, the crowd of people waiting for a beverage accumulating half the population waiting for the concert, making you almost regret going here alone, since it’s pretty boring to just stand around, doing nothing.

“Damn,” someone hums from behind you, making you turn around to face the stranger, “I’m doomed.”

Instinctively, you raise your brows in question at the male, only prompting him to speak more once you make eye contact. 

“I’m playing on stage in a bit, but I wanted to get a beer before we start,” the guy states, chuckling. “At this rate, I’m gonna be late for my own set!” 

The fact that one of the band members that are supposed to perform in just a few minutes is currently standing behind you in line for drinks is a little amusing, to be honest. You’d say it’s kind of irresponsible to get to your own gig late, but you guess the boy is living the lifestyle of a punk star already, despite bagging only a mere university concert.

“You should try skipping the line and saying you’re VIP, then,” you joke. 

“And get killed? No, thank you,” the boy laughs, shaking his head. “I’ll just see if I can make it in 15 minutes. If I don’t, I’ll just make a run for it.”

Laughing, you nod in acknowledgement at his comment. You don’t really expect the conversation to go any further after that, but the stranger surprises you as he offers you his hand to shake, a lazy smile appearing on his face as he introduces himself.

“I’m Yeonjun, by the way,” he says.

“Oh, nice to meet you. I’m Y/N,” you smile, shaking his outstretched palm.

“How come I’ve never seen you around before?” he hums, making a step towards you as the line moves, making you walk back a step to close the gap in the crowd. Still, he follows you a step further and invades your personal bubble, standing too close for someone you’ve just met.

“Maybe you have,” you shrug, “and you just don’t remember it.”

“I’d remember a pretty face like yours,” Yeonjun comments, making you bite back a laugh. 

Is he flirting? Wow. You scan the male up and down, his self-assured stance making you believe that he is very confident in his persona. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s very attractive– plump lips, tall, shoulders broad– or maybe it’s the social status that comes with being in a band. Nonetheless, you can see the act working on many women. 

Not you, though.

“Well, I study business, so maybe that’s why.”

The male nods, shrugging. “Maybe I’ll have to hang around the business building more often, then.”

“Maybe,” you nod, chuckling. “There's a bunch of weirdos majoring in Accounting out there, though, so I’d watch my back, if I was you.”

“Well, if it means I get to see your face, I can put that past me,” Yeonjun smirks, making you mentally roll your eyes at the cheesiness of his words.

You don’t really get affected by obvious pick-up lines like these. Not that you hear them often– quite the opposite, really– but you much prefer more natural dynamics. One where conversations feel easy and casual, not forced and with deeper intentions. You can’t deny Yeonjun’s attractiveness, no, but you also can’t really say it’s doing much for you.

Not really knowing what to reply, you awkwardly shrug. “And what do you major in, then?”

“Communications,” the male replies. Something in you clicks– is this the friend Eric was mentioning? You should ask him about Yeonjun after he comes back.

Before you even have a chance to open your mouth and say the words, the male cuts you off after taking a quick glance at his phone. “Look, Y/N, I’d love to get to know you more, but I really have to run now. But if you give me your number, we can get a drink together after my gig is done?”

“Oh–”

“That won’t be needed,” you hear a low voice coming from behind you, making your eyes snap towards the source. Your eyes go wide as you recognise the owner of the voice instantly, your heart hammering in your chest at the close proximity he puts between the two of you. “She’s with me, actually.”

“Eric, dude!” Yeonjun beams– confirming your suspicions. “Sorry dude, I didn’t know that was your girl.”

Your girl. The two words echo in your ears, making your world tilt slightly on its axis. It’s not even true– you’re not together and you’re not Eric’s in any way, shape or form– but something about being called that by other people while wearing his clothes makes you feel like you just shifted realities into one where you’re with him and not so scared of his rejection. One where you’re dating and you get to be called that all the time– one where the words are true. 

You’re being foolish again.

You look at Eric in shock, noticing him already staring down at you with a panicked expression on his face. You don’t really know what’s going on in his head behind the shaking orbs of his, a tight-lipped smile offered to his mate as the tips of his ears burn red, a hesitant tone of voice making it known that the possessive words caught him off guard just as much as they did to you. “Well, not exactly…”

The male trails off. Your stomach does that weird thing again. You’d say there’s a soaring hint of hope in your chest, swimming around your intestines, that you want to simultaneously help and also drown in fear of holding on to something that is not even there in the first place, as you look back at Yeonjun. He is now staring the two of you down– shifting his gaze from one of you to the other, a knowing grin appearing on his lips as he processes the situation. 

“O-oh… Okay, I see what you mean,” he nods, laughing. “Well, see you two later! I’mma head to the stage,” he pats Eric’s shoulder and waves at you before fully disappearing from the never-ending drink line.

A suffocating silence engulfs the two of you after his departure, making you nervously chew on the inside of your cheek. The thoughts running through your brain almost suffocate you before Eric brings air into your lungs again, making your inner monologue stop as he casually speaks up again, showing you that nothing has changed in your dynamic after this interaction and there is no reason for you to feel awkward with him right now. 

You just need to silence your thoughts and feelings more efficiently. These slip-ups can’t keep happening.

“What will you have to drink?” he asks.

“I’m not telling you, because then you’ll get it for me and I decided I’m paying today,” you say, batting your eyelashes innocently at the male.

“I can just pay anyway, you know?” he laughs, making you shake your head.

“You don’t have to do that,” you hum. “Actually, I don’t want you to. You keep getting things for me, so I think this is the time to repay the favor.”

“Damn it,” he sighs. “That was me paying the Y/N subscription, though. How will I manage to make you keep hanging out with me now?” he jokes, shaking his head.

“Stupid,” you giggle, teasingly pushing him out of your way. “What will you get? And don’t say nothing, it’s my time to pay the Eric subscription fee.”

“I actually get paid in hugs and cuddles, so this doesn’t work on me,” the male shrugs, avoiding eye contact with you. 

“Damn,” you hiss through your teeth, acting distraught. “That payment is long overdue, then. Wonder if they’ll come and take my house, or something.”

“I heard they won’t if you pay back what you owe,” he states casually.

How can he say such things with a straight face? Does he not realize just how much his sweet words affect you? Does he not know you feel like he has a magnet inside of him at all times that is begging to pull you in and glue you to his side, always and forever? Is he unaware of the effect his arms have on you whenever he puts them around your shoulders in public, or to the way your hands sweat whenever his fingers mindlessly drag themselves along the length of shoulder while doing so?

Or does he know and only wants to drive you crazier, more insane? Does he enjoy your misery?

“Hope it’s not a lot, then,” you joke, watching as the boy finally looks at you, eyes soft and glimmering, shoulders shrugging.

“I’ll hand the accounting over to you,” he says. “I trust that you’ll figure it out.”

Punching him in the shoulder lightly, you shake your head at his antics. “Peach iced tea, then?” 

“How did you know?”

“You always get that one when you’re driving,” you say, walking up to the counter.

He lets you pay for the drink this time, eyes glued to your figure. You’re unaware of the way he watches you in the crowd, just as much as he is of the fact that he doesn’t have to fear an older, taller band guy stealing your attention away from him. 

You come back to your friends with the drinks in hand just in time for the show to start. You watch the stage and grin at the sight of the frontman you just met having the time of his life during his gig, while the boy next to you watches your face every time a love song appears on the setlist.  Neither of you are bold enough to dance together to the slow beats the way Izzy and Sunwoo are, lovingly gazing into each other’s eyes. You share knowing looks instead– growing shy when you hum the lyrics off the well-known songs Yeonjun’s band covers and the words get too intimate. 

In the tune of love by wave to earth, though, when your heart skips a beat as Eric’s hand accidentally brushes against yours, you decide they wrote the song about him– not that you’ll ever admit that out loud.

The doorbell rings. Alone in the apartment, but knowing exactly who you’re expecting to see on the other side of the door– well, at least who you’re hoping to see– you shuffle towards the hall in your socked feet, taking your sweet time, your pace slow. There is not much energy stored in your body after today, and even though you wish to just bury yourself under the covers of your bed and sleep until you regain everything that your internship took away from you– until you don’t feel so bad about yourself and so defeated with your efforts– your small, fragile heart yearns for the presence of one person in particular, making you sheepishly order pizza through their website, because you know he has work today and there is no other way for you to see him.

Reaching for the handle, you open the door and reveal your busted appearance to Eric Sohn standing at your doorstep with a box of pizza in his hands, a light pink hoodie covering his figure, eyes big as the moon staring at you all expecting.

“So? How did it go?” he asks, genuinely hopeful. The boy has been suspicious of your mood ever since you got the final presentation on your internship over with and you didn’t instantly text him, telling him how it went– and the look he finds on your face only further proves his suspicions.

Your face morphs into a deep frown, trying to bite back your tears. His cheerful demeanor drops the moment he sees you struggling, not wasting a second as he shifts towards you and makes you back up into your apartment, putting the pizza box onto the coffee table in your hall before throwing his arms around your body, leading your grabby hands to hold on to the fabric of his sweater.

“It was terrible,” you sniffle, feeling the palm of his hand cradle your head into the crook of his shoulder, petting your slightly matted hair. A few tears escape your eyes and roll down your cheeks, making your whole body shake and tremble in his hold. 

You don’t usually show how affected you are by disappointment. You feel a bit humiliated, a bit embarrassing for both flunking your presentation and also for showing your weakness in front of Eric, but his gentle nature and the comfort you feel in his sheer presence is enough for you to forget about the hurt. You try to focus on the warmth of his skin instead, on the way his arm soothingly runs down your back, making you ground yourself. There is not much you can tell him in your current position, words getting caught in your throat, but it’s still enough for him to understand.

“I worked so hard on it,” you mumble, “I tried so- I tried so hard, and then they said it w-was bad and–”

“Shh, it’s okay,” he hums, holding you closer to him. 

You’re not used to not being instantly good at everything. It’s something you have yet to come to terms with after getting into university. You’re no longer the top of your class and you aren’t the best at all assignments and final exams you take anymore– and it’s a big kick to your ego. It makes you feel useless. It makes you feel stupid.

And that’s world-shattering. The image you once had of yourself is now taken forcefully away from your hands, replaced by disappointment and shame from the fact that you’re only mediocre and everything you thought about yourself up to this point was just a mere lie.

“Y/N, you tried your best. And I know you feel bad now, but I’m still proud of you for working so hard– it’s not your fault your efforts weren’t appreciated,” he says close to your ear, trying his hardest to be the calm after the storm for you.

After a few moments spent breathing in his scent, anchoring yourself to his presence, you force yourself to pull away from his chest. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, averting his gaze– because still, this is all so new to you and you don’t really know how to let yourself feel less foolish for your sudden outburst– you shrug and clear your throat.

“Uhm… thank you,” you mumble, “sorry for…”

“No,” he shakes his head, suddenly moving to take off his shoes. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“You’re… Eric, you have work, you can’t just stay. I don’t want you to get in trouble–”

“They can’t fire me,” he chuckles, trying to make light of the situation. After you watch him with worried, guilty eyes– because even though the logical part of your brain is telling you to throw him out of your apartment and just go eat the pizza you ordered as you bite back your own tears, the emotional side of you really wants him here, it really wants him close. He moves towards you again and ruffles your hair, gentle eyes watching you, preventing you from protesting any further. “It’s okay, Y/N. You need me here more than they do tonight, trust me.”

“I feel bad now,” you mumble.

“I know,” he playfully notes, “that’s why I’m here. Besides, you’re more important than work anyway.”

“That’s a pretty fucked up list of priorities,” you laugh airly, trying to mask the way his words have your heart squeezing on itself, nervous gold swirling in your stomach.

“It works for me,” he shrugs.

The moment you move back towards your room, the realization of the fact that Eric’s never seen it before sinks in fully, suddenly making you nervous about the act. Everything feels strangely natural as he enters the space, though, feet shuffling towards your bed as he takes a seat on the comfy mattress. However, your eyes still nervously scan your room, chewing on your bottom lip as you wonder if the perception of you has changed after seeing the state of you, the state you live in. “I’m sorry, it’s kinda messy–”

“Y/N.”

Looking at him, noticing the encouraging, gentle gaze he offers you, everything around you shifts in its axis– the world stops, giving you a chance to breathe, a chance to exhale, and the weight slowly disappears off your shoulders. 

“Relax,” he laughs softly as he reaches for your hand, tugging you towards him. Taking your place in between his legs, towering over the sweet creature in your bed, you feel like you can finally breathe more easily now that he’s here.

It’s okay, you realize. Magically, today no longer feels like the end of the world. 

His thumb gently swipes across the back of your palm, making your insides turn into a putty, a soft smile slowly mirroring his appearing on your previously frowning face. 

“I’d like to, uh..” you clear your throat, shying away from his gaze, “pay back the missed subscription fees then, if I can.”

Your bold statement has the room fall into an overbearing silence. For a moment, you forget it’s Eric who you’re with– the man that never judges you, the only one that makes you feel safe– as you go into a momentary panic. When you dare to look at him again, though, you notice him eagerly searching for your gaze, a boyish smile playing with his lips showing you that he doesn’t mind you asking– quite the opposite, really. He enjoys the preposition.

The male leans back in your bed and watches you as you climb next to him. For a moment, you don’t really know what to do, being too shy to hold onto him the way you truly want to, but the male wastes no time as he shuffles a bit in your sheets and moves to his side. One of his arms sneaks around your middle, pulling you to him, as his leg carelessly swings over your feet, trapping you in. His whole body weight rests against your figure, but it does nothing to suffocate you or take air out of your lungs– quite the opposite, really. 

You feel content in his hold. Your hand instinctively holds onto his forearm, keeping him close. If you could, you’d crawl into his skin, make a home in his chest and stay there, protected from all bad. What you don’t realize is that there’s a little fort in his heart reserved as a house for you already– one he guards and lets no one into– the unspoken, tender words now hanging everywhere around the corners of your room.

“The pizza will get cold, though,” he mumbles, tone of voice low from the close proximity of him next to you, the desire to protect the intimacy showing through the hushed out words.

“I’m not hungry,” you say lazily– exposing him to the fact that it’s not the food you needed tonight when you were ordering. “I kinda feel sleepy, though” you admit, letting your eyes rest a bit. You’ve been restless ever since you came home from work today– you didn’t know all you needed to finally turn off your endless stream of thoughts was Eric’s presence.

“Sleep, then,” he hums. “I’ll heat it up for you when you wake up.”

You let out a disapproving sound.

“You need sleep. And also food,” he scolds you, his other hand somehow sneaking itself under your figure and into your hair again, playing with the strands and scratching at your scalp. “You’ve been stressing out for so long, no wonder you’re so worn out right now.”

You feel like you’ve been laid bare, exposed right in front of his eyes. You feel naked and fully vulnerable, but you make no effort to shield yourself from his gaze, for it’s not prying and unwanted, but gentle and caring– so much to the point you feel like it’s going to consume you. Your head spins and your heart aches with deep yearning– it’s strange. 

You already know what that feeling is: 

You’re falling, falling, and falling.

All there’s left is to hope he won’t drop you. All there is left is to hope he’ll catch you on your way down.

Your body shifts so it’s facing him, your breathing mixed. Your faces are inches away from each other, making you afraid to open your eyes and study him from up close– for you think he knows how to read you too well by now, and your lingering gaze would tell him too much. Eyes don’t lie, after all– they never do.

“You did well,” he hums. 

The shattered pieces of your tender heart spill themselves into his outstretched palms. You watch as he mends them together, sewing them with an invisible, red string. The boy silently leans into your face and his lips press a gentle kiss to your cheek, only further strengthening your decision to stay blind in the moment, not wanting to reveal just how much you’re affected by the tender action. 

It’s been a long drop– a slow one, one you could get used to. Still, you’re falling, falling and falling,

And even though you’re unaware, he’s there all this time, waiting at the bottom, his arms open wide. 

The idea of celebrating the end of the exam season with Izzy, Eric and Sunwoo by going bowling is quickly and forcefully taken out of your hands when you arrive at Sohn's Pizza to pick the boys up, all dressed up and ready. The place is full of people, there is screaming coming out of the kitchen, and while usually, Eric or Sunwoo would be greeting you by coming out of the back and welcoming you in, there is no one in your sight– which makes you just the tiniest bit suspicious.

Sharing a concerned look with your roommate, the two of you curiously walk through the place and peek behind the counter, being met with emptiness as more screaming resonates through the kitchen. You don’t mean to intrude or listen in on a conversation you’re not exactly invited to, you really don’t– but you just can’t help it as the sound of Eric’s angry, frustrated voice cuts through the space, catching not only your attention, but also everyone else’s in the restaurant.

“I don’t care that dad is too scared to hire someone into our sacred family business!” he huffs. “I don’t give a single flying fuck, because now, our plans are ruined again, all because they decided to go on a surprise holiday and they left us three to deal with the whole place!” Eric ironically sings the words ‘surprise holiday’ as he expresses his frustration, showing how much the whole situation bothers him.

“Eric, calm down, people can hear you–” you hear Lisa muttering, making you chuckle at the interaction between the siblings.

“So if dad wants to go on a holiday ever again, he either hires someone so we don’t have to be here 24/7, or I quit!” he finishes his little rant. 

There is a moment of silence behind the thin walls, making you and Izzy stare at each other with a blank look– a look empty, but full of understanding that there is no bowling happening today and there is nothing you can really do about it– before the sound of dishes hitting the floor hits your ears, making you wince. The fall is followed by a pained voice full of misery.

“FUCK!”

Izzy chuckles, opening the door to the kitchen without much hesitance, inviting the two of you into the chaotic situation. Taking a step towards the room behind the staff only sign which you ignore because Izzy thinks she’s basically a part of the family now, you look around a bit anxiously, being met with the sight of Eric picking up bowls and pans from the floor and throwing them back into the sink to wash, Sunwoo adding topics to a pizza with furrowed brows and his bottom lip jolted out (clearly sulking), and Lisa checking up on the food in the oven.

All three pairs of eyes are glued to you the moment the sound of the door opening fills the space, two sets lighting up and the third one looking at you with pure curiosity. 

“Need any help around here?” Izzy chuckles, looking around. The place is messy– covered with sauce in some places, flour all over Sunwoo’s apron, soap and water dripping down the cleaning station. It’s clear as hell the three of them aren’t handling the after-exam Friday rush well by themselves, and although you mourn the idea of relaxing in a bowling alley with your friends after the hard weeks of finals, you can’t say you’re too disappointed.

You can’t play bowling, after all, and you still get to see your friends– so it’s no big deal.

“No, you don’t have to–” Eric starts, ever-so considerate.

“It’s okay, we just–” Sunwoo follows, the two boys not wanting to share the responsibility that’s not yours.

After hearing each other interrupting their dismissive words, the two look at each other and chuckle. “I’m afraid we can’t hang out today, though. As you can see, our parents left the place to us and went on a holiday–”

“We heard,” you cut the owner’s son off, a teasing grin on your face shutting the boy up instantly, to which he offers you a shy look as he drowns his hands in the sink again, trying to tackle the dishes. 

Walking over to the poor boy reminding you a little of a wet dog now, since his bangs are damp as well, making you believe he’s been running his hands through in frustration mid-washing up– you take a kitchen towel off one of the shelves and decide to dry off the plates he’s done scrubbing, putting them away neatly on one of the trays situated next to the sink and getting them ready for the next customers. You don’t really ask what to help with, since you’re sure Eric and Sunwoo wouldn’t tell you either– feeling bad for making you work with them instead of taking you out like they promised they would– you only tackle what seems to be the most important task in the moment, helping out the best you can.

“Izzy, I’m really sorry for exploiting you,” Lisa starts out, making the whole room laugh out at her joke, “but for a free pizza or maybe even two, would you mind doing the waitressing for a bit? I fear people out there are mad as hell, but maybe if you tell them we are short on staff today–”

“I’m on it!” your roommate nods and salutes to the older girl, disappearing back into the main area of the pizza place. Since she has some experience with waitressing and working in the food service, you doubt there is anything to worry about.

The kitchen quiets down, the only sounds heard being from the sink, an occasional sigh escaping Sunwoo’s throat– he really must have been looking forward to this day– the atmosphere growing less heavy and hectic with two more pairs of hands in the building. You know they don’t want to admit it, but the boys are secretly glad for the help– it makes working so much easier and less nerve-wrecking to the employed youngsters.

“I’m sorry,” falls out of between Eric’s lips after a while, low and sincere. You look at him from your place to the left of his figure, furrowing your brows at him in question.

“Huh?” you voice out, watching him shrug.

“Well, we were supposed to hang out today and now we can’t, so…” the boy trails off, making you chuckle and coo at him, touched with his sincerity.

“That’s not really your fault, so I don’t see why you’re apologizing,” you say, “besides, we are still hanging out now, no? I don’t mind the location change,” you smile, slightly bumping your hip into his, the kitchen towel now getting damper and damper with the amount of dishes you’ve dried off with it in such a small time frame.

The two of you continue on with the task, all while playfully bumping hips from time to time, trying to catch the other one off guard with the contact, grins shared between the two of you. You barely register Izzy coming in and out of the kitchen, telling the cook– Sunwoo– the new orders, Eric and you pulled into your own bubble, attention focused mostly on each other, then at the otherwise domestic act accompanying you in your interaction.

“Exams went well?” Eric asks. 

Nodding, you hum in agreement. “Some were harder than others, but I didn’t fail any, so that’s a win. You?”

“About the same,” he grins. “I mean, the grades aren’t great, but I passed all of them, so…”

You laugh at his comment, shaking your head at his attitude. You wish you could take school and all of its responsibilities with as much ease as your friend does– too bad you’re an anxious over-achiever and don’t really know how to relax ever.

“Academic weapon,” you joke.

“Oh, that’s your title,” he says as he finally scrubs off the last plate and turns the tap off, placing it into your hands to dry, “I don’t even try, because I don’t wanna take it away from you,” he jokes.

“So considerate,” you muse, rolling your eyes at him. The boy wipes his hands on the towel hanging off your arm, the two of you sharing a playful look– Eric’s eyes swirling with honey and gold inside, making you all warm and fuzzy. You find it hard to look away.

The noise of someone suddenly clearing their throat catches you off guard and pops the soap bubble you’ve been trapped in with your friend, making you look at the source, curious what his sister has to say. She is looking at the two of you with a teasing smirk on her face that instantly makes your cheeks burn– for you know you were caught staring too much, too long at her younger brother– before she points to the pizza boxes in front of her, towering so much they almost topple over and drown her in the baked dough and cheese.

“I need you two to do the deliveries,” she muses, “if you don’t mind, of course.”

Shaking your head, showing that you’re completely fine with the task, the two of you walk over towards the impressive pizza tower. Eric takes the bigger half into his hands while Lisa puts the car keys onto the box on top of your smaller stack, sending you a knowing look that you try to ignore. 

Walking out of the place, noting that one person could very well do the deliveries alone after loading up the car, but also realizing that even though you could be more needed inside, you kinda wanna spend more time with Eric, you wait for him to shut the car door and tell you the next instructions.

“I think the most efficient way to do this is one of us driving and the other one going up to the doors with the orders,” he muses, watching you nod in understanding. “I can drive, if you want?”

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, not really happy with the mental image of talking to so many people tonight, you huff. “I kinda wanna drive, though…?” you peep. 

The male stares at you for a few seconds– as if contemplating if you’re safe enough of a driver, or something– before he places the key into your hand and closes your palm, entrusting you with… pretty much his life, if you really think about it. In his defense, it only takes one wrong turn and both of you could be dead– but he seemingly believes in your abilities.

After you get into the driver’s seat and adjust it to your liking, making sure you can see in all of the mirrors, you pull out of the parking lot with ease, turning with Eric’s directions. You see him watching the map on his phone, making sure you know where to go in time to not turn this drive into an amateur redemption of The fast and the furious: Tokyo drift. You drive smoothly, getting to the destination in short time, stopping in front of the targeted house and watching as your friend gets out of the car with a few pizza boxes, jogging up to the front door.

The sight makes you remember how you met him a few months ago. It makes you chuckle, noticing how much has changed– you didn’t even want pizza that night, but today, you’re driving him in his car, watching as he makes the deliveries. 

“No strange notes asking for cute delivery boys?” you joke when he gets to the car and tells you to drive straight until he says to turn right, making him chuckle.

“No, not really,” he shakes his head, “but I think it’s funny how Sunwoo didn’t get to go, yet it still landed him a girlfriend.”

“I mean, they were both pretty desperate,” you admit, chuckling. Your foolish brain can’t help but wonder– what if it could land both of them a girlfriend? What if you were bold enough to confess your feelings one day? 

“True,” he nods, “they go well together.”

“It’s still miserable to watch them interact sometimes, though,” you joke.

“I’m sorry, I tried my hardest to prevent it,” he muses.

Furrowing your brows, you look at him in confusion only for a second before you focus back on the road. “Huh?”

“I physically fought Sunwoo so I could go deliver those pizzas to your house back then,” he grins. “Back then, it was because I genuinely believed I was the cuter one, but I think that somehow, I kind of felt it, y’know? Like, intuition. It was telling me ‘Eric, don’t let Sunwoo deliver those pizzas, because then your friend will get into a relationship and make every second with him miserable, because he can’t shut up about his new girlfriend–”

You cut him off by laughing, shaking your head at his antics. Eric points towards a street, hinting that you should turn, having you follow his orders. 

“I like your confidence,” you say, “but to be fair, seeing you show up at my door was kind of crazy, after all these years.”

“You make it sound as if you disagree with me,” he casually utters out. 

Your hands sweat on the steering wheel. Maybe you should swerve off the road and drive into a tree so you can avoid this conversation.

“Maybe I do,” you shrug, thankful that driving makes it easier for you to avert your gaze from him and not make it seem like you’re forcefully avoiding him.

“So we’re just gonna ignore the fact that you called me the hottest–”

“If you don’t shut up, I’m crashing the car–” you threaten, your voice coming out a bit more miserable-sounding than you intended it to, showing just how not casual the whole situation was for you.

“Look, you don’t have to be shy about it, we both know–”

“Okay, passenger princess,” you shut him off, watching as the boy next to you has a visceral reaction to your comment.

“I literally offered to drive!”

“Whatever you say,” you muse as you make the car stop at the next destination and let Eric out to complete another delivery.

After the boy jumps inside of the car again, he ignores the previous topic of the conversation. That fact makes you happy, since you don’t really know if you’re ready to face the problem at hand– the problem being the very obvious and strong, magnetizing feelings you have for the boy– so you only continue to drive, listening to the radio he puts on and his occasional humming that he slides in through the directions he gives you.

He continues to deliver all the pizzas they baked when he announces that you’re approaching the last destination. You can’t say you’re happy about the fact– since you started to quite enjoy the comfort of the drive, but you guess you can’t really prolong the moment any more and force it to last forever, no matter how much you’d like it to.

Eric walks out of the car with the last three boxes in his hands, knocking on the door. The commotion lasts longer than usual, making you suspicious of the interaction he has with the man at the door, before you see the boy shrugging and walking back to the car, one pizza box still in his hands. To say you’re confused would be an understatement.

“What happened? Did we mess up somehow?” you ask, motioning towards the pizza box in his hands.

“I don’t think it was us who messed up,” Eric snickers, “apparently, they only ordered two pizzas, so I think Sunwoo accidentally made three.”

“Oh,” you hum, nodding in acknowledgement.

“But that’s fine, because that means we can have this one for free,” the boy grins at you as he puts on his seatbelt. “Let’s move a few blocks so we don’t just stay in front of this dude’s house, though.”

You furrow your brows at him, but still start the engine nonetheless. “Shouldn’t we head back? I bet we should hurry, from how packed it was, they surely need our help–”

There is a lack of worry in Eric’s face as he shakes his head in disapproval. It seems that neither of you really want to go back to Sohn’s Pizza and work– because it’s not as fun as driving around together, singing along to the radio– but the lack of empathy towards his sister and his friends surprises you. “I’m sure they will survive a few more minutes. Come on, Y/N, the bowling didn’t work out, so let me make it up for you at least this way.”

His pleading voice does enough to persuade you as you drive down the street and then a few more blocks to the left, trying to find a calm place where you could park the car and won’t bother anyone as you eat the remaining pizza, while also trying to forget about Lisa, Izzy and Sunwoo alone in the pizzeria working their asses off. You feel a bit guilty with the idea in your brain, but you try to push it back with the image of spending more time alone with Eric– and suddenly, the previous is almost too easy to ignore.

Little did you know that this was Lisa’s plan all along. While you may be a bad wingman, Eric’s sister surely isn’t.

Stopping in front of one of the houses that seems to be empty, turning the engine off and undoing your seatbelt, you spin around to face Eric as he opens the pizza box and gasps at the sight of the cheesy dough. “I’m pretty sure this was fate, man,” he shakes his head in disbelief. “There’s no way we are left with your favorite. Extra cheesy too, damn...”

“This is unbelievable,” you agree, playfully clasping your hands together in prayer. “Thank you universe for the sign. You were right, we were supposed to stay out longer.”

“I’m always right,” he nods, watching as you eagerly take a triangle off the greasy cardboard and bite down into it, your taste buds cheering in joy as you chew on the treat.

Eric is quick to follow as he takes one for himself as well, the two of you falling into a comfortable silence as you eat. You didn’t even realize you were hungry before– your intentions being to eat at the bowling alley– and so you welcome this idea even more now that your stomach is less upset. Crossing your legs on the seat, not really caring about getting the car dirty– which in retrospect, you should’ve– you hum before you speak up again, already on your second piece.

“If you were a pizza, you’d be this exact pizza right here,” you hum. You don’t really know where that idea came from, but you think you’re speaking the truth– in your mind, it makes total sense.

Eric stares at you like a confused puppy, a slight grin appearing on his face showing you that he’s trying to see where that came from. “Why?” he asks. “Because you love me?”

Here it is again– the heat appearing on your cheeks from the panic, embarrassment filling your veins. You feel like you were caught in the act, like he sees right through you– with how he’s been acting the whole evening, you think he might have some sort of intuition. Still, you won’t admit to your feelings out loud– because there’s no way they’re reciprocated, and you won’t cause such a heartbreak to yourself willingly. 

Eric is just social like that. He is sweet, playful. There is no undertone to his actions– it’s just who he is as a person, and there is no way he likes you back.

“No,” you cough out, almost choking on the pizza. “You’d be a margherita, because it’s a safe choice. Everyone likes a margherita! It’s fun, and it’s–”

“Tasty?” he interrupts you, a shit-eating grin already plastered onto his lips. “I taste good too, wanna check?”

You think he might be teasing you just for the fun of it now. He loves to feed on your misery, because he sees right through you, he knows you’re absolutely, incredibly enchanted by him, and it strokes his ego to rile you up and make you flustered. You’re sure of it now. “Oh, shut it!”

Eric laughs out loud before he swallows another bite, shrugging. “If you were a pizza, you’d be hawaiian.”

“Hm? Why?” you ask, busying yourself with chewing on the cheesy dough in your hold. 

“Because you are both salty and sweet,” he starts, “and I didn’t expect to be so into it.”

His words make you stop in your tracks. He didn’t expect to be so into it. Does he mean he’s into you, or are you just reading too much into his words? Trying not to seem too affected by his words– trying to play it casual, nonchalant– you clear your throat and avert your gaze from him, continuing to chew. The pizza in your mouth loses all its flavor the longer you focus on it, turning into a mass of nothing to your taste buds. After the last bite, you’re left mortified with the realization that you have nothing to focus your attention to now, if you don’t want to face your friend again and take another slice in between your fingers from the pizza box resting in his lap, and so you just continue to stare ahead, beaten up by the awkward silence.

Play it cool, Y/N. Be normal. He must think you’re weird now, because you wondered even for a second if his joke was serious, and now he won’t want to hang out with you ever again–

“So, uhm, just checking,” Eric awkwardly laughs, something about his tone sounding nervous in your ears. “Are you really still that oblivious, or are you just pretending you didn’t catch that to not hurt my feelings because you don’t like me back…?” he asks.

Your heart does a somersault. Hell, you think you just went into cardiac arrest– your ears are ringing, your stomach is floating on water and your breathing quickens with his words. Having a full visceral reaction does nothing to help you speak back to him, but your body reacts on itself as you snap your head to the side and finally look at him, gazing into his big, honest eyes.

He looks at you in a similar way he did back at that party– expecting, hopeful. You didn’t catch it back then– the eager, desperate look in his orbs, wishing, praying you chose him in a room full of people, picked him in a row of anyone who would like to have you. It leaves you weak, it leaves you feeling like you were just punched in your face with the realization that you’ve been foolish to ever think that this was just how Eric acts and there was nothing more to his acts of care and affection.

“I-  uh… I just didn’t expect you to like me back…?” you say, making it sound like a question, still uncertain about the whole situation. “I thought you were just…” you trail off, pupils shaking as you watch the boy’s face morph out of nervousness into a bright, amused smile.

“Look, I’m– I just–” you stutter, not really knowing what else to say, how else to express yourself. 

Eric was always much quicker than you, much more clever in social situations. He takes your lack of words as a hint as he holds onto your honest, surprised state and takes it upon himself to solidify the reality for you, to show you what the two of you’ve been missing for the last couple of months. Reaching over the gearstick, he gently glazes your cheek with his palm before he sends a one last look to your eyes, watching out for any sign of discomfort. 

His lips lock with yours. You’re convinced the world stopped turning.

Eric Sohn is sweet like cherry cola. He is a taste of familiarness with something more to it, something new and fresh, sugary and addictive. He is gentle, with an exciting aftertaste, leaving you breathless and wanting more. He is like a hint of home, a memory of your childhood, all safe and loving and tender. 

The kiss is short. It has you leaning towards him, a handful of his hoodie filling up your fist as you desperately, foolishly drag him to you and press your lips to his again, as if to check if the last kiss was real and you didn’t just make it up in your mind by wishful thinking.

You guess you finally reached the bottom after the long, slow fall. You don’t even feel the landing as his arms hold you up and spin you around instead, showing you that falling in love doesn’t have to be all that scary– if the one you want is caring, if the one you want is nothing short of an angel in your eyes.

After you pull away from him, he rests his forehead against yours and enjoys the proximity which he doesn’t have to hide the need for anymore– now that he’s all yours to keep and you’re all his to hold.

“You really thought I didn’t like you back? Hell, Y/N, you’re all I ever think about,” he scoffs, showing you the ridiculousness of your own beliefs, his ever-so playful tone only further solidifying the sweet aftertaste of his confession. “I like, have butterflies in my stomach and all,” he confides, grinning at you. 

Rolling your eyes, finally easing into the new territory, you tease him for his words. “That was extra cheesy.”

“I thought you liked that?”

Gazing into his eyes, feeling your own heartbeat hammering against your chest, you can’t help but chuckle at the subtle irony of it all. 

“Maybe I do.”

[fae-renjun]

scaredy cat ★

boyfriend!maki 0.2k words

notes! requested! happy early halloween

▸ 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺?

at a haunted house, boyfriend!maki would..

🎃 stand at the front entrance of the house, his hands intertwined with yours. he gives you a squeeze as he flashes his prince charming smile, giving his usual speech on how he’ll protect you and yatta yatta. what he forgets to leave out, though, is that he’s feeling a little nervous himself, maybe even more than you. will he tell you that? of course not :)) 

🎃 play a random game of rock, paper, scissors. “loser steps inside first!” he’d force out a chuckle and you would think he’s joking to lighten up the mood but no, he’s dead serious 💀

🎃 use your body as a shield, his hands holding onto your shoulders so hard that you’re sure it’ll leave marks

🎃 scream at the slightest movements. you step on something and it makes a small crunch, scream! the lights flicker, another scream! he sees something moving in the shadows, yet another scream! 

🎃 make so much noise that he scares all the workers away from him and effectively you. it’s kinda ironic considering it’s their job, yet maki seems to do it better than them. 

🎃 give you a big ‘ol sloppy kiss on the cheek once you exit the house and head home. he’s like “ehe, *twirls hair around his finger* you saved your babygirl, your princess!! 🤭” and then you stare at him like he’s lost his mind (he has)

︴bonus! requests are closing november 1st just so i can prioritize my 1k event. they should open up again once the event is done. speaking of event, go vote if you haven't already!

▸ taglist 📬 @rizzkisworld , @cherrycolaberry , @slytherinshua , @enhacolor , @lakoya

🎬 navi

@chiiyuuvv on tumblr . do not steal works/headers/line dividers

[fae-renjun]

just saw jaehyun bald pics this enlistment shit is getting too real i'll sob

[fae-renjun]

[fae-renjun]

mark lee could write a midsummer night’s dream but could shakespeare write “i wish to stay uncorrupted but the gaslight of the century is that being human is a good enough excuse to let ourselves be evil.” ????????

[fae-renjun]

how it feels stanning riize this year

[fae-renjun]

LIFE IS MADE OF SMALL MOMENTS LIKE THIS

[fae-renjun]

johnny goldstein (producer that is israhelli and an ex iof soldier) is once again in the credits of kpop songs and specifically on the credits of illit, txt and enhypen songs.

he was recently in the credits of illit's new song from their new mini album "i'll like you" (tick-tack)

he is on the credits for two txt songs of the new album "the star chapter: sanctuary" (heaven and danger)

and today it was revealed that he is on the enhypen repackage album "romance untold: daydream" in two songs as well (daydream and no doubt)

this man has officially infiltrated the kpop industry with ease and hybe has welcomed him with open arms and i need people to talk about this and spread this around! if you are on twitter please share this thread about him made by moa4pali which contains the background info on this man and what he is about

[fae-renjun]

2 companies ruined the future and mental health of a 19 year old. keep boycotting. there are no excuses anymore.

[fae-renjun]

if you're booping anyway, don't forget to do your daily clicks for palestine