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sunishake · 2 days ago

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req vol 1 . — 𝐄𝐍 𖹭 이희승 : but you were mine first

You need to breathe that's why you end up in front of the same rusty door after every successful date with your fiancé.

ᝰ song recommended : back to the old house

𖹭 note: for the anon who requested hyung line angst based on 'when I was your man' by Bruno Mars , I'm kind of scared I couldn't write what you wanted but I tried a different way and I hope you like it (this was my first request ahhhhhh)

𖹭 thank you for 500 notes in datre me not (^.^)

ʚĭɞ if you liked this don't forget to check out my other works in library

The restaurant’s crystal chandeliers cast a warm, golden glow across white tablecloths and silverware polished to a mirror shine. Soft classical music drifted in the background, mingling with the quiet hum of conversations and the occasional clink of wine glasses. You sat there, a splash of red in a sea of muted tones, your satin dress flowing over the curve of your legs. The subtle sheen caught the light each time you shifted, the fabric glistening with elegance. Your makeup was soft peach-toned lips, a faint sweep of blush warming your cheeks, and eyes defined just enough to draw his gaze without stealing the attention from the quiet intensity you carried. Your hair was gathered in a sleek bun at the nape of your neck, not a single strand out of place, and the minimal jewellery you wore, slim gold hoops and a delicate chain, glimmered whenever you moved.

Across from you sat Yudai. Your fiancé. The love you had known for a while.

His dark hair framed his face in effortless waves, his jawline sharp yet softened by the warmth in his smile, when his eyes met yours, the rest of the world faded into the background. He reached across the table, brushing his fingers over yours in a touch so careful it felt sacred. Your hand found his instinctively, curling around it.

You laughed softly, the sound making his eyes crease at the corners. There had always been whispers about the two of you. From childhood acquaintances to an engagement arranged with familial blessings, everyone had seen it coming. Perhaps that was why it felt both inevitable and unreal like stepping into a dream you had been told you’d have since you could remember. Over dinner, conversation flowed with easy familiarity. You spoke about work, about mutual relatives, about the trip his parents were planning for the end of the year.

After the last course, he stood and offered his hand to help you from your seat. Outside, the night air was crisp, carrying the faint scent of flowers from the landscaped garden at the restaurant’s entrance. The streetlamps cast elongated shadows across the pavement, and the purr of a waiting car engine filled the quiet. He opened the car door for you, stepping aside but keeping his eyes on you as if the sight alone anchored him. “Careful,” he murmured. As you moved to get in, he bent slightly, making sure the hem of your dress didn’t brush the ground. His hands were gentle, almost reverent, and you caught the faint smile tugging at his lips.

You rested a hand lightly on his arm for balance as you adjusted your stiletto heel. The contact was brief, but it left a lingering warmth. “Thank you,” you said quietly.

“Always,” he replied, his gaze meeting yours for a moment longer than necessary before he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.

The drive back was calm, the city lights streaking past your window in a blur of gold and white. The car finally pulled up in front of your apartment building. He stepped out first, moving to open your door. You gathered the folds of your dress, stepping onto the pavement with care. The building’s front light flickered faintly above you, a stark contrast to the soft, golden world you had just left.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The quiet was thick with something unspoken hope, perhaps, or the delicate weight of anticipation.

“Goodnight, love,” he said finally, the word ‘love’ rolling off his tongue like it belonged there. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. The warmth of it lingered, seeping into your skin. “I’ll see you next time.” You only nodded, your eyes lifting to meet his. You tried to pour all that you felt your longing, your quiet certainty, your fragile hope into that gaze.

As he turned to leave, you watched him go, the sound of his footsteps fading into the hum of the city. You stayed there for a moment longer, the night air cool against your skin, your heart still beating in the rhythm of something missing.

You turned toward your apartment building, heels clicking softly on the polished pavement. Inside the lobby, the overhead lights stripped away the fragile calm you held during dinner. At your door, you tapped the digits of your passcode into the glowing screen, your fingers moving automatically until you stopped halfway. You erased it. The numbers vanished, leaving a dark, waiting screen. Your thumb hovered, then you typed it again.

And again, you hesitated.

You bit your lower lip, tasting faint lipstick and the metallic hint of nerves. Your heart was beating strangely fast, uneven, like it couldn’t decide whether to race or slow down.

Was this what you truly wanted?

All this the luxury restaurants, the carefully arranged dates, the champagne smiles. A man who told you he loved you before you even realized he was your father’s business partner’s son. A life wrapped in affection and attention, neatly packaged with gold trimmings. You told yourself it was supposed to be enough. That this was the dream everyone expected you to live. But standing here, with the passcode screen blinking at you, it didn’t feel like a dream at all.

It felt suffocating.

The red satin dress hugging your frame, the jewelry catching the hall light, the perfume that had cost more than your first paycheck, the makeup you had applied with precision hours earlier all of it seemed suddenly heavy. Pointless.

Useless.

You exhaled slowly, the breath shaky. Your fingers slipped away from the keypad and you turned from the door, your heels striking the floor harder this time, each step echoing sharp in the narrow hallway.

You needed air. No more than that you needed to breathe. You needed your breath.

Outside, the night wrapped itself around you like a worn coat. Your steps took you without thinking, down streets you once used to avoid. The dark alleyway loomed ahead, its shadows pooling in corners, the dim light from a single flickering bulb unable to push them back. You remembered when this place used to scare you, when the sound of laughter from unseen mouths made your stomach twist, when the sight of tattooed silhouettes leaning against graffiti-covered walls sent you crossing to the other side of the street. But tonight, you walked through it without slowing. Their eyes followed you, sharp and unblinking, but you didn’t flinch. You were an intruder here, a shard of red satin and polished heels in a place that had no use for either. But they weren’t the danger anymore. Not compared to the war you carried in your own chest.

You passed them without a word. Without a glance.

Your pace quickened as you approached the old building. The narrow, creaking staircase greeted you like a memory you didn’t want to keep. You climbed, your heartbeat loud in your ears, every step making it thump harder against your ribs. The air grew stiller as you reached the landing. And then you saw it, the pale blue door with its peeling paint, rust bleeding from the edges of the hinges. The sight hit you like a sudden drop in temperature.

You stopped.

The silence here was different, dense, pressing in from all sides, amplifying the faint hum of the city far below.

Why did you come?

After everything, the nights spent crying until your voice broke, the screaming matches that left your throat raw, the promises you had sworn to yourself in the aftermath that you would never do this again, never crawl back, never let yourself be pulled into the same orbit. And yet, here you were. You stood frozen in the narrow hallway, the smell of old wood and rust in the air, your mind racing back to every moment that should have kept you away. You told yourself you had healed. You told yourself you had outgrown this place, outgrown the person you became inside it.

But some part of you some stubborn, traitorous part had guided your feet here tonight without your permission. Your hand twitched at your side, not quite reaching for the door, but not pulling away either.

Why did you keep running back to the very thing you had promised to escape?

And worse what would happen if the door opened?

You raised your fist, ready to knock, a thousand thoughts ricocheting inside your skull. You already knew how this would end. There were no alternate versions of this story, and yet, your feet had carried you here anyway, betraying the logic you’d clung to, ignoring the quiet voice that whispered there was someone out there better for you.

Your knuckles hovered just inches from the weathered blue paint.

And then, before you could touch the rusted surface, the door creaked open.

There he was, your whole youth standing in the doorway as if time had never passed.

Lee Heeseung.

The sight of him was a punch and a balm all at once. His black tank top clung to his shoulders and chest, grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips. His hair was messy, tousled in a way that looked accidental but achingly familiar. His lips were split at the corner, bruised and healing, twitching slightly as his expression shifted. Confusion flickered across his face, but it couldn’t dull the fact that he was as handsome as ever. When his gaze locked onto yours, something in the air thickened, heavy enough to drag the breath from your lungs.

His eyes widened. “What?”

Just one word. His voice was rough, hoarse as if he had just woken or hadn't spoken in hours. But beneath the rasp was something else. Something warmer. Something you’d been searching for in all the wrong places.

Your throat felt tight. You swallowed. “Hi.”

Silence swept in again, but it wasn’t empty. It was loaded. Charged.

He was still staring, still processing the fact that you were here, standing in front of him in a red satin dress. Your hair had slipped loose from the bun you’d worn earlier, tumbling around your shoulders the way he’d always liked. The blush on your cheeks had faded, melted into your skin, and your lipstick was imperfect, smudged from the evening. You must have looked like an unfinished dream he once tried to hold onto but could never quite caught.

And yet, here you were. His gaze dipped, lingering for just a second too long, before climbing back to your face.

“You got beat up again?” you asked, your voice softer than you intended. Your hand lifted without thinking, fingers aching to trace the cut on his lip, to feel the familiar heat of his skin. But before you could touch him, his hand shot up, wrapping around your wrist. A barrier.

The contact sent a rush of heat through you anyway, his palm warm, his grip achingly familiar. For a moment, neither of you moved. You stared at him, pulse hammering against your skin where his fingers held you. His eyes searched yours, as if looking for the reason you were here.

His voice dropped lower, almost a whisper. “Why are you here?”

You wanted to say you didn’t know. That you’d been walking and somehow ended up at his door. That you’d tried to breathe in a life that looked perfect on the outside but felt like drowning from the inside. But the truth lodged in your throat, heavy and raw: you were here because no matter how much you’d sworn you’d never do this again, your heart hadn’t learned. It still beat in his rhythm.

You didn’t answer him. He didn’t push for one.

Instead, his gaze softened just enough for you to see the man you had loved since before you knew what love really was.

His thumb shifted slightly on your wrist, brushing against your skin. That was all it took for the world outside this doorway to vanish, the satin, the perfume, the candlelit dinner, the perfect fiancé — all fading into background noise.

Because here, in this cramped hallway with peeling paint and rusted hinges, you felt more alive than you had in months.

Hungry.

Hungry for him. For his voice. For his warmth. For the love that was messy, bruised, and utterly consuming.You didn’t know if it would save you or destroy you.

His hand tightened around your wrist. You could feel it, the frantic beat of your pulse beneath his palm, the way it seemed to match the irregular thud of his heart. His grip wasn’t harsh, but it trembled faintly, betraying the storm brewing beneath his calm exterior “Go away,” he whispered. The words were quiet, but they cut through you. You shook your head once, sharply, as if the motion alone could silence him.

His brows pulled together, his eyes glinting with something dangerously close to breaking. “Stop ruining yourse—”

He didn’t finish.

You used your free hand to hit his chest, not hard, just enough to push the words back into him. “You don’t get to say what I do to myself,” you muttered, your voice low and frayed, your gaze fixed anywhere but his face. His chest rose sharply under your palm “baby, you can’t—” He stopped mid-sentence, sucking in a sharp breath as if the word had burned his tongue. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to. It’s a habit—I…” He cut himself off again, a broken sound following. “Fuck.” He lifted a hand to his face, covering his eyes, his fingers pressing hard into his brow. He’d always done that shielding his expression when the cracks began to show, hiding the way his jaw clenched, how his eyes shimmered just before the tears came.

You reached up, curling your fingers around his wrist, trying to pull his hand away. “Stop hiding yourself, Heeseung,” you murmured “crying doesn’t mean you’re weak.” “I know,” he choked, the words raw. The tip of his ears flushed crimson, a telltale sign he was slipping past the point of holding it together. “I just… I don’t want you to see me like this.”

Your chest twisted, a slow, grinding ache that seemed to dig under your ribs. You stepped forward before you could stop yourself. Your hands loosened from his wrist, sliding instead to his waist, your body closing the space between you. You leaned into him, resting your head against his chest. His scent wrapped around you, faint soap, worn cotton, the faint musk of a room kept too warm.

“Heeseung…” You could hear your own voice shaking, breaking in places you couldn’t hide. “I can’t do this.”

His hand hovered in the air before settling hesitantly at the small of your back.

“Stop sacrificing yourself for my sake,” you whispered, the words muffled against him. “Can’t you see it’s ruining me?”

His chest expanded beneath you, the breath he took so deep it pushed against your cheek. He didn’t answer right away. You felt his heart pounding under your ear, each beat sharp and unsteady. The hallway around you seemed to shrink, the walls pressing closer until there was nothing but his body against yours and the heat radiating from him. The flicker of the hallway light above cast shifting shadows across the side of his face.

When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible. “You think I’m doing this for you?” You pulled back just enough to look up at him. His eyes were rimmed red, his lashes damp. “I’m not.” He swallowed, his throat bobbing. “I’m doing it because if I don’t… I’ll lose you. And I can’t—” He stopped, his jaw tightening, the muscles working under his skin. “I can’t watch you walk away again.” You searched his face, tracing the lines you knew by heart, the faint scar above his brow, the curve of his mouth, the sharp edge of his cheekbone. He looked like a man on the edge of something irreversible.

“Heeseung,” you breathed, your hand sliding up to cup the side of his face. His skin was warm, the faint scratch of stubble rough against your palm.

His eyes closed at your touch, as if it was the only thing holding him upright.

“This will destroy us,” you said, barely above a whisper. “You know it will.”

“Then let it,” he murmured. “I’d rather be destroyed with you than safe without you.”

The weight of his words settled between you, thick and suffocating. Somewhere deep inside, you wanted to believe them. You wanted to sink into him and forget everything outside. But another part of you the part that remembered the fights, the bruising silences, the way love could turn sharp knew this wasn’t the first time you’d been here.

And it wouldn’t be the last. Still, you didn’t let go.

His hand slid from your wrist to your fingers, threading through them as if afraid you’d vanish if he loosened his grip. Without a word, Heeseung stepped back into the dim apartment, the door creaking wider. You hesitated, but his eyes stormy and unsteady pulled you forward. The hallway light faded as you crossed the threshold. He closed the door behind you, his movements slow, deliberate. For a moment, neither of you spoke. You stood in the middle of the small living room, the red satin of your dress catching the light, while he lingered near the door, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.

Finally, he exhaled, the sound heavy. “You don’t get it. I can’t be who you want me to be. I’m not polished. I’m not safe. And I’m not—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “But you're the only one who’s going to stay. Even when you hate me. Even when I'm … like this.”

Your brows knit. “Like this?”

He looked at you, eyes dragging over your dress, your hair falling loose around your shoulders, the smudged lipstick. “Like you’re pretending. Playing perfect. Wearing someone else’s life because you think it’ll keep you from ending up here, I can't do the same, I can't pretend to be the good guy and....a good lover”

The words stung, but worse was the way he said them, not cruelly, but as the undeniable truth. “You think I’m pretending?” Your voice wavered, part anger, part disbelief.

“I know you are,” he said, stepping closer. “You hate it. The dinners, the jewelry, the smiling until your face hurts. You hate him.”

“Don’t talk about him,” you snapped, though you weren’t sure why whether you were defending Yudai or defending the fragile version of yourself you’d been trying to build. His jaw tightened. “I’m not saying it to hurt you.”

“But you are hurting me.”

He stopped mid-step, his hand falling to his side. “I’m telling you the truth. Isn’t that what you always wanted from me?”

Your chest felt tight. “Not like this. Not when it’s just another way for you to push me back there, to make me feel like you don't want me anymore”

“what do you think?” he asked, his voice low. The question landed like a blow.

You blinked, the sting in your eyes immediate. “God, you’re so—” You broke off, your hands curling into fists. “Selfish.”

His lips parted, but no words came. “You don’t care what it does to me, do you?” you went on, your voice trembling harder now. “As long as I end up back here, standing in your apartment, in your mess, you’ll call it love. You’ll call it saving me.” He flinched, not visibly but you knew him. You saw the twitch in his jaw, the way his fingers dug into his own palm.

“That’s not—”

“It is,” you cut in. “You say you’d rather be destroyed with me than be safe without me, but maybe that’s because you’ve never had to watch yourself fall apart in the mirror every morning. Maybe you like watching me break.” His breath hitched, but his eyes didn’t leave yours. “I’ve never wanted to see you break.”

“But you don’t stop it,” you said, your voice breaking now. “You just… stand there and tell me I belong there, when you know this is the only place I should be.”

Silence followed, heavy and jagged. He looked down, his shoulders lifting and falling with the weight of his breathing. “Maybe you’re right,” he murmured. The admission didn’t sound like surrender. It sounded like the end. Something inside you gave way. You stepped back, your heels clicking softly against the floor. “Heeseung...why can't you just hold me tight?”

“Y/n—”

You shook your head, the movement sharp. “No. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.” You turned toward the door, your fingers already reaching for the handle. Behind you, you could feel his eyes on your back, the air between you stretching thin, threatening to snap.

“Don’t walk away,” he said, barely above a whisper.

You stepped out into the hallway, the cooler air rushing over your skin like a slap. The door closed behind you. And never opened again. You stood there for a moment, your pulse still loud in your ears, before forcing yourself to move. The stairs groaned under your weight as you descended, each step taking you farther from him, from the heat of his apartment, from the version of yourself that couldn’t stop running back. Outside, the night had deepened, the streetlights casting long shadows. You pulled your dress tighter around you, the satin suddenly feeling too thin, too cold.

Somewhere behind you, in that pale blue doorway, Heeseung was probably still standing there, watching the empty space you just left.

But you didn’t look back.

The pew creaked beneath him as Heeseung shifted his weight, keeping to the shadowed edge of the small chapel. No one noticed him there. No one ever would, he had learned long ago how to disappear when the world insisted on moving without him. The aisle stretched like a wound down the middle of the room, lined with white flowers. He kept his eyes forward because looking around meant risking someone recognising him. But it didn’t matter. His gaze had only one destination anyway.

You.

You stood at the far end, hand laced with your father’s arm, veil trailing behind you like a final, fragile thread. The light from the stained-glass windows caught your face. And you smiled. It should have been beautiful. He knew that smile every shade of it, every truth and every lie. But the one you wore now was the kind that lived only on the surface, crafted to look real from a distance.

Yudai was waiting for you at the altar, sharp suit, sharper jaw, the image of a perfect groom. The man you were marrying. The man who wasn’t him.

The vows blurred. He wasn’t listening, not to the officiant’s steady voice, not to Yudai’s practiced promises. Instead, the memories came, uninvited, brutal.

Your laugh when he’d lifted you into his arms that rainy night, the hem of your dress soaked but your eyes bright. The way your head had fit against his chest when you’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat of his car. The quiet mornings when he’d found you in his shirt, making coffee you never finished. And the fights. God, even the fights. Because they had ended with you in his arms again, whispering that you’d stay.

You were always supposed to stay. But he did not know how to keep you.

The applause broke his thoughts. It took him a moment to realize the ceremony was over, Yudai and you walked back down the aisle, fingers intertwined, like you’d practiced. And when you passed by his row, just close enough for him to see the tremor in your lower lip, he gripped the edge of the pew until his knuckles went white.

He didn’t stay for the reception. He couldn’t.

By the time he became a private bodyguard for one of Seoul’s richest families, he’d grown used to his life being a series of guarded routines. Every afternoon, he picked up Minjae, the family’s six year old son, from kindergarten. It was simple. Easy.

Until it wasn’t.

The first time he saw her, she was crouched by the sandbox, concentrating fiercely on building something out of damp sand. A little girl, hair tucked back with a pale pink ribbon, eyes dark and familiar in a way that hollowed him out. She looked up when Minjae ran over to her. And there it was that smile. Smaller, unpracticed, but so much like yours that his breath stalled.

Her name was Haerin. He learned that from the way Minjae said it, like it was a name he spoke every day. From then on, he found himself lingering longer at the pick up gate, letting the children chatter. Haerin was talkative, endlessly curious. She asked him once why his hair was “the color of the rainy sky,” and another time if he liked strawberry milk. He never asked her who her parents were.

He didn’t need to.

Every tilt of her head, every wayward curl that refused to stay pinned back, every glimmer in her eyes, it was all you. Even the way she crossed her arms when pouting was a perfect echo. Some days, it hurt enough to make his chest ache for hours. Other days, he welcomed it, let the pain curl up beside him like an old friend. Once, when Minjae’s nanny was late, he stayed with the children on the kindergarten bench. Haerin had been drawing with a stubby red crayon, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. She showed him the picture when she was done, a messy, lopsided flower.

“For you,” she said simply.

His fingers shook when he took it.

He liked the not-knowing. It kept you intact in his mind the version of you he had loved, untouched by time or the bitterness of reality. In his memories, you were still laughing in the rain, still falling asleep in his passenger seat, still reaching for his hand in the dark. On his last day working for the family, Minjae clung to his arm, pouting about how unfair it was. Haerin stood beside them, holding a small, worn hair ribbon, the pink one she’d always worn.

“You can keep it,” she said. “So you remember me.”

He took it, nodding once, because his voice wasn’t steady enough for words.

Later that night, he set the ribbon on his nightstand, beside the old photograph he’d never been able to throw away. In it, you were smiling at him, sunlight in your hair.

He didn’t cry. But when he closed his eyes, he pictured Haerin’s grin and your face overlapped perfectly, and the ache in his chest felt almost…. gentle.

Like maybe, in some small way, he had found a way to keep you.

THE END

𖹭 sunishake siging off — ©sunishake

110 notes · View notes

sunishake · 2 days ago

Text

Heeseung one shot????

req vol 1 . — 𝐄𝐍 𖹭 이희승 : but you were mine first

You need to breathe that's why you end up in front of the same rusty door after every successful date with your fiancé.

ᝰ song recommended : back to the old house

𖹭 thank you for 500 notes in datre me not (^.^)

ʚĭɞ if you liked this don't forget to check out my other works in library

Across from you sat Yudai. Your fiancé. The love you had known for a while.

You rested a hand lightly on his arm for balance as you adjusted your stiletto heel. The contact was brief, but it left a lingering warmth. “Thank you,” you said quietly.

“Always,” he replied, his gaze meeting yours for a moment longer than necessary before he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The quiet was thick with something unspoken hope, perhaps, or the delicate weight of anticipation.

And again, you hesitated.

You bit your lower lip, tasting faint lipstick and the metallic hint of nerves. Your heart was beating strangely fast, uneven, like it couldn’t decide whether to race or slow down.

Was this what you truly wanted?

It felt suffocating.

Useless.

You needed air. No more than that you needed to breathe. You needed your breath.

You passed them without a word. Without a glance.

You stopped.

The silence here was different, dense, pressing in from all sides, amplifying the faint hum of the city far below.

Why did you come?

Why did you keep running back to the very thing you had promised to escape?

And worse what would happen if the door opened?

Your knuckles hovered just inches from the weathered blue paint.

And then, before you could touch the rusted surface, the door creaked open.

There he was, your whole youth standing in the doorway as if time had never passed.

Lee Heeseung.

His eyes widened. “What?”

Your throat felt tight. You swallowed. “Hi.”

Silence swept in again, but it wasn’t empty. It was loaded. Charged.

And yet, here you were. His gaze dipped, lingering for just a second too long, before climbing back to your face.

His voice dropped lower, almost a whisper. “Why are you here?”

You didn’t answer him. He didn’t push for one.

Instead, his gaze softened just enough for you to see the man you had loved since before you knew what love really was.

Because here, in this cramped hallway with peeling paint and rusted hinges, you felt more alive than you had in months.

Hungry.

Hungry for him. For his voice. For his warmth. For the love that was messy, bruised, and utterly consuming.You didn’t know if it would save you or destroy you.

His brows pulled together, his eyes glinting with something dangerously close to breaking. “Stop ruining yourse—”

He didn’t finish.

“Heeseung…” You could hear your own voice shaking, breaking in places you couldn’t hide. “I can’t do this.”

His hand hovered in the air before settling hesitantly at the small of your back.

“Stop sacrificing yourself for my sake,” you whispered, the words muffled against him. “Can’t you see it’s ruining me?”

“Heeseung,” you breathed, your hand sliding up to cup the side of his face. His skin was warm, the faint scratch of stubble rough against your palm.

His eyes closed at your touch, as if it was the only thing holding him upright.

“This will destroy us,” you said, barely above a whisper. “You know it will.”

“Then let it,” he murmured. “I’d rather be destroyed with you than safe without you.”

And it wouldn’t be the last. Still, you didn’t let go.

Your brows knit. “Like this?”

The words stung, but worse was the way he said them, not cruelly, but as the undeniable truth. “You think I’m pretending?” Your voice wavered, part anger, part disbelief.

“I know you are,” he said, stepping closer. “You hate it. The dinners, the jewelry, the smiling until your face hurts. You hate him.”

“But you are hurting me.”

He stopped mid-step, his hand falling to his side. “I’m telling you the truth. Isn’t that what you always wanted from me?”

Your chest felt tight. “Not like this. Not when it’s just another way for you to push me back there, to make me feel like you don't want me anymore”

“what do you think?” he asked, his voice low. The question landed like a blow.

You blinked, the sting in your eyes immediate. “God, you’re so—” You broke off, your hands curling into fists. “Selfish.”

“That’s not—”

“But you don’t stop it,” you said, your voice breaking now. “You just… stand there and tell me I belong there, when you know this is the only place I should be.”

“Y/n—”

“Don’t walk away,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Somewhere behind you, in that pale blue doorway, Heeseung was probably still standing there, watching the empty space you just left.

But you didn’t look back.

You.

Yudai was waiting for you at the altar, sharp suit, sharper jaw, the image of a perfect groom. The man you were marrying. The man who wasn’t him.

The vows blurred. He wasn’t listening, not to the officiant’s steady voice, not to Yudai’s practiced promises. Instead, the memories came, uninvited, brutal.

You were always supposed to stay. But he did not know how to keep you.

He didn’t stay for the reception. He couldn’t.

Until it wasn’t.

He didn’t need to.

“For you,” she said simply.

His fingers shook when he took it.

“You can keep it,” she said. “So you remember me.”

He took it, nodding once, because his voice wasn’t steady enough for words.

Later that night, he set the ribbon on his nightstand, beside the old photograph he’d never been able to throw away. In it, you were smiling at him, sunlight in your hair.

He didn’t cry. But when he closed his eyes, he pictured Haerin’s grin and your face overlapped perfectly, and the ache in his chest felt almost…. gentle.

Like maybe, in some small way, he had found a way to keep you.

THE END

𖹭 sunishake siging off — ©sunishake

110 notes · View notes

sunishake · 2 days ago

Text

req vol 1 . — 𝐄𝐍 𖹭 이희승 : but you were mine first

You need to breathe that's why you end up in front of the same rusty door after every successful date with your fiancé.

ᝰ song recommended : back to the old house

𖹭 thank you for 500 notes in datre me not (^.^)

ʚĭɞ if you liked this don't forget to check out my other works in library

Across from you sat Yudai. Your fiancé. The love you had known for a while.

You rested a hand lightly on his arm for balance as you adjusted your stiletto heel. The contact was brief, but it left a lingering warmth. “Thank you,” you said quietly.

“Always,” he replied, his gaze meeting yours for a moment longer than necessary before he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The quiet was thick with something unspoken hope, perhaps, or the delicate weight of anticipation.

And again, you hesitated.

You bit your lower lip, tasting faint lipstick and the metallic hint of nerves. Your heart was beating strangely fast, uneven, like it couldn’t decide whether to race or slow down.

Was this what you truly wanted?

It felt suffocating.

Useless.

You needed air. No more than that you needed to breathe. You needed your breath.

You passed them without a word. Without a glance.

You stopped.

The silence here was different, dense, pressing in from all sides, amplifying the faint hum of the city far below.

Why did you come?

Why did you keep running back to the very thing you had promised to escape?

And worse what would happen if the door opened?

Your knuckles hovered just inches from the weathered blue paint.

And then, before you could touch the rusted surface, the door creaked open.

There he was, your whole youth standing in the doorway as if time had never passed.

Lee Heeseung.

His eyes widened. “What?”

Your throat felt tight. You swallowed. “Hi.”

Silence swept in again, but it wasn’t empty. It was loaded. Charged.

And yet, here you were. His gaze dipped, lingering for just a second too long, before climbing back to your face.

His voice dropped lower, almost a whisper. “Why are you here?”

You didn’t answer him. He didn’t push for one.

Instead, his gaze softened just enough for you to see the man you had loved since before you knew what love really was.

Because here, in this cramped hallway with peeling paint and rusted hinges, you felt more alive than you had in months.

Hungry.

Hungry for him. For his voice. For his warmth. For the love that was messy, bruised, and utterly consuming.You didn’t know if it would save you or destroy you.

His brows pulled together, his eyes glinting with something dangerously close to breaking. “Stop ruining yourse—”

He didn’t finish.

“Heeseung…” You could hear your own voice shaking, breaking in places you couldn’t hide. “I can’t do this.”

His hand hovered in the air before settling hesitantly at the small of your back.

“Stop sacrificing yourself for my sake,” you whispered, the words muffled against him. “Can’t you see it’s ruining me?”

“Heeseung,” you breathed, your hand sliding up to cup the side of his face. His skin was warm, the faint scratch of stubble rough against your palm.

His eyes closed at your touch, as if it was the only thing holding him upright.

“This will destroy us,” you said, barely above a whisper. “You know it will.”

“Then let it,” he murmured. “I’d rather be destroyed with you than safe without you.”

And it wouldn’t be the last. Still, you didn’t let go.

Your brows knit. “Like this?”

The words stung, but worse was the way he said them, not cruelly, but as the undeniable truth. “You think I’m pretending?” Your voice wavered, part anger, part disbelief.

“I know you are,” he said, stepping closer. “You hate it. The dinners, the jewelry, the smiling until your face hurts. You hate him.”

“But you are hurting me.”

He stopped mid-step, his hand falling to his side. “I’m telling you the truth. Isn’t that what you always wanted from me?”

Your chest felt tight. “Not like this. Not when it’s just another way for you to push me back there, to make me feel like you don't want me anymore”

“what do you think?” he asked, his voice low. The question landed like a blow.

You blinked, the sting in your eyes immediate. “God, you’re so—” You broke off, your hands curling into fists. “Selfish.”

“That’s not—”

“But you don’t stop it,” you said, your voice breaking now. “You just… stand there and tell me I belong there, when you know this is the only place I should be.”

“Y/n—”

“Don’t walk away,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Somewhere behind you, in that pale blue doorway, Heeseung was probably still standing there, watching the empty space you just left.

But you didn’t look back.

You.

Yudai was waiting for you at the altar, sharp suit, sharper jaw, the image of a perfect groom. The man you were marrying. The man who wasn’t him.

The vows blurred. He wasn’t listening, not to the officiant’s steady voice, not to Yudai’s practiced promises. Instead, the memories came, uninvited, brutal.

You were always supposed to stay. But he did not know how to keep you.

He didn’t stay for the reception. He couldn’t.

Until it wasn’t.

He didn’t need to.

“For you,” she said simply.

His fingers shook when he took it.

“You can keep it,” she said. “So you remember me.”

He took it, nodding once, because his voice wasn’t steady enough for words.

Later that night, he set the ribbon on his nightstand, beside the old photograph he’d never been able to throw away. In it, you were smiling at him, sunlight in your hair.

He didn’t cry. But when he closed his eyes, he pictured Haerin’s grin and your face overlapped perfectly, and the ache in his chest felt almost…. gentle.

Like maybe, in some small way, he had found a way to keep you.

THE END

𖹭 sunishake siging off — ©sunishake

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sunishake · 3 days ago

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Omfgdgdhdgsgsg YOUR DESI??? YES QUEEN

YESSSS 💋💋💋💋💋💋

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sunishake · 3 days ago

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NOM NOM NOM NOM (⌒‐⌒)

He's so Jaehyun.

#ish at it again #park sunghoon #ugh i love him

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sunishake · 4 days ago

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SJY. ᝰ is writing — "I dare you to kiss me and keep it in your pants...hah! Get off me loser—"

vol 9 . — Y/n swears no one compares to Park Sunghoon. The campus heartthrob, department topper, and possibly her guardian angel. Her world spins on his orbit.

Jake swears he can’t stand Y/n. She’s awkward, invisible, always leaving curly hair in his textbooks. He'd rather share a class with Tora, his flawless senior crush.

Amongst the push and pull of unsaid words and obviously said insults they find their life getting tangled in bizarre way.

𖧧 ָ࣪ 𖧵ֹֺֽ໋໋݊ rom-com, angst, coming of age, enemies to lovers, college chaos, one-sided crushes, accidental friendship

note: there's no comedy.

Y/n didn’t ask to fall in love with Park Sunghoon.

He just… kind of glowed. Even under those hideous fluorescent hallway lights, he looked like he walked out of a K-drama with pink aura, flower petals falling on him and was about to change someone's life with a smirk and a backhug. It was criminal, honestly.

She always walked three steps behind him on campus — not literally, but emotionally. Her eyes trailed him like a soft background music she couldn’t turn off. Hands busy to press down the disobedient folds of her unironed clothes, running fingers through her unruly coiled brown hair, trying to pull them to a more simpler straight form, biting her chapped lips and hoping if he ever turns around he would look at her big brown eyes and not the pre pubescent acne scars all over her cheeks.

He laughs and she looks up. He fixes his sleeves and she adjusts her breath. He sneezes once in the cafeteria and she, a devout atheist, thanks God.

Every day, Sunghoon nodded at her when she passed him by the vending machine. She lived for those nods.

“Can you stop staring at him like you’re writing Wattpad chapters in your head?” a voice muttered from her left. She didn’t even flinch it was always him. Jake Sim. The resident campus know it all, emotional cactus, and king of side eyes.

He was currently glaring at her like he’d just set his thesis on fire. Meh whatever.

“I wasn’t staring,” she whispered, straightening in her seat. “I was looking through him. Big difference.”

Jake scoffed. “You were drooling.”

She clutched your notebook, cheeks warm. “That’s just how I breathe.”

He muttered something under his breath, something with the words “hopeless” and “loser” in it. Jake sat diagonally behind her in class, but he made his presence very known. Every time she tripped on a chair or dropped her pen, she could feel his judgy laser beam eyes burning through her skull.

She was pretty sure he hated her. He was the only person who borrowed books from the library before they were assigned. He always had a pen in his hand, three tucked behind his ear, and he once asked the professor to recheck a paper because he got a 97.

Jake Sim was not normal.

But even he wasn't immune.

Because every time Tora walked into the lecture hall, second year, ethereal, angel of a kind. Jake turned into static.

She noticed it the first time Tora waved at someone across the room. Jake, who had been scribbling equations like his life depended on it, dropped his pen and didn’t even pick it up for a full five seconds.

Then, he turned crimson.

Y/n was stunned. Jake Sim, the emotionally unavailable nerd with the personality of a sock... blushed...?!

One day she couldn't keep quiet anymore and asked, “Do you like her or are you just clinically allergic to good looking people?”

Jake gave her a 'are you serious?' Look at her while adjusting his glasses. “I’d rather dissect my own brain with a spoon than explain anything to you.”

Classic.

Still, he had this very specific habit of fixing his hair every time Tora entered the room, so like… okay, sir. You’re not subtle either.

The first time Jake noticed y/n, she was untangling her headphones like it was a life or death situation. It was during one of those 9 AM lectures, where half of the class still smelled like sleep and the other half faked alertness with caffeine and borrowed notes. Jake, of course, sat at his usual spot, second row from the front, near the window, precisely five feet away from the only functioning plug point in the room. He had his laptop open, his glasses fogged from the humidity outside, and a new pimple forming under his jaw. Life was great.

And then there was her.

In the back row, left side. Hair like curly alphabet noodles spilling out of a careless ponytail, wearing a too big hoodie with a fraying cuff she kept picking at. Her face was mostly hidden behind books and the hood she tried to disappear into. Most people wouldn’t notice her.

He did.

Not because he wanted to. He just kept finding her hair.

There was a strand on his desk last week. Another stuck in the Velcro of his pencil pouch. One had somehow landed on his mechanical keyboard. He had theories. Maybe she shed like a cat. Maybe the wind liked her hair more than it liked gravity. Or maybe, just maybe, the universe was playing a cosmic joke on him.

He noticed, to her , Park Sunghoon was a walking sonnet. A poem in a pressed white shirt and neat handwriting.

She was, quite tragically in a coma.

Jake saw all this. The stolen glances. The quick head turns. The pathetic heart eyes she made at Sunghoon when she thought no one was watching. He wasn’t judging her. Okay — maybe a little. She just seemed so... awkward. Always tripping on her own shoes or spilling tea on her sleeves. And then sitting in silence like a background character who wasn’t sure if she had lines.

Jake didn’t dislike her. But he didn’t particularly like her either.

His attention was currently reserved for one person and one person only, Tora Choi.

Tora, the senior with the swanlike grace and poetic presence. She was always seen in floral tops, nude lipstick and blush blindness suited her. She read in the cafeteria. Voluntarily. She walked like the hallway belonged to her. Her voice had that musical lull of someone who probably spoke French at some point in her life.

Jake, who could barely remember to apply sunscreen, was hopelessly smitten. And every time Tora passed by their class, Jake transformed into a crash dummy blinking too much, straightening his hoodie, then immediately regretting straightening his hoodie. He was a wreck. A nerdy, overthinking, emotionally constipated wreck. One time, Tora had smiled in his direction. Jake had to go drink two bottles of cold water and recalibrate his breathing patterns.

So no, Jake did not have time for some hoodie-wearing backbencher who got nervous around her own shadow. And yet, there she was again, trying to open her juice box without spilling it across her notebook. He rolled his eyes so hard, he almost pulled a muscle.

Jake turned his gaze downward. He needed to stop doing this. Acting like a fool every time Tora acknowledged his existence. They’d known each other for years. She lived two houses down. They shared the same school bus in middle school. She once gave him cookies after a bad test. And yet, here he was, fully prepared to faint like a 19th century heroine at the sound of her voice.

“Alright,” Professor Lim said, finally entering the room with his usual stack of unreasonably annotated papers. “Let’s begin.”

Class moved slowly. Something about Plato and false narratives and truth within fiction. Y/N scribbled furiously, her wrist moving like a motor. Jake side eyed her again. It was like watching someone take notes for the entire student body. And it was annoying how she didn’t even blink when the professor cold called her.

“Y/n,” the senior professor drawled, pushing his glasses up. “You look like you’re writing a thesis on this. Tell me, what did Plato mean by the allegory of the cave?”

She froze. The room did not.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then stuttered out, “Um, it’s—it’s about like, uh, shadows? And reality not being real?”

Someone snorted in the back. Jake didn’t even need to turn to know it was probably the Huening twins. They always laughed the loudest at things that weren’t funny. Professor Lim smiled. Not kindly.

“How poetic. Truly. Shadows and reality and—what, dreams? Fascinating. For someone who apparently studies fourteen hours a day, I was expecting an actual answer.”

That got a laugh. A ripple across the classroom.

Jake winced.

Y/n ducked her head. Her curls framed her face, hiding the worst of the blow, but her ears were red. Crimson, actually. “Sit down,” the professor said, dismissively. “Sunghoon?”

Park Sunghoon stood up and delivered an articulate, practically textbook-perfect explanation. Of course he did. People clapped, even though no one was supposed to clap in this class. She did not lift her head.

Jake looked away, annoyed.

People like her were always weird about things. Cry in the bathroom, write poems in margins. Talk to pigeons. I bet anything she would write some cringe journal entry about this later with lines like “I bloomed like a wound in a world that hated weeds.”

God.

The period ended, and everyone began to shuffle out. Jake packed his things slowly, even as the class emptied. A part of him expected her to run, awkward girls always ran. But she didn’t. Y/n stayed glued to the chair, head ducked, fingers twitching at the hem of her sleeves. He watched her from the corner of his eye. She looked like a kicked dog.

A pathetic part of him wanted to feel something. Empathy maybe. Guilt. Even annoyance. But the only thing he felt was second hand embarrassment.

It made him want to walk faster just in case someone thought he might talk to her.

So he left.

Y/n looked at her shoes.

She always did. The world was easier to handle when it was reduced to soles and laces. Faces were harder. They held too many judgments, too many half-hidden sneers and raised brows. She didn’t stop walking until she reached the back staircase, the one nobody used much. It always smelled faintly of wet cement and the occasional cigarette. Here, she let her body fold against the wall, backpack slipping off her shoulder. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

It wouldn’t be the last.

But that didn’t make it hurt less.

Y/n didn’t move from the back staircase for a while. The quiet was comfortable here, the hum of distant footsteps, the faint scent of damp concrete, the occasional echo from the hallway above. She could almost convince herself the rest of the world didn’t exist.

Almost.

When she finally pushed herself up and started toward the courtyard, voices drifted to her before she saw anyone. Laughter, high and light, like sunlight through a glass of water. She turned the corner and there they were. Tora stood in the middle of a loose circle of classmates, her shoulders slightly hunched in that modest way that somehow made her seem even softer. The light caught on her hair, turning it into strands of gold, and her lips shone with a faint, warm pink gloss. The color looked effortless, as if it had been made for her, the way flowers are made for spring.

Tora laughed at something one of the boys said, tilting her head, her voice carrying like a breeze.

She slowed her steps without meaning to. For a few moments, the noise around her faded, and she let herself slip into the kind of daydream she usually kept for late at night. If she had Tora’s gloss...that exact shade of dreamy pink would it make any difference? Would people look at her differently? Would they stop seeing her as the awkward, clumsy thing that tripped over her own sentences? She pressed her lips together lightly, then touched them with the tips of her fingers, as if testing the thought.

It was silly. Lip gloss couldn’t change bone structure or erase the history of every humiliation she’d collected. But still…

The sound of Tora’s laugh broke her trance, and she turned quickly, heading in the opposite direction before anyone could notice her lingering.

Exams crept closer like a slow moving storm, and with them came the strange transformation of the library. It became the campus’ unofficial capital. Every table claimed, books, matcha drinks , colorful highlighters scattered, every chair dragged into formation, the air heavy with the scent of paper and stress. Jake spent most of his days here now, his textbooks spread out like battle plans. He wasn’t the kind of student to normally invite company, but exam season brought a shift. People came to him for notes, for summaries, for diagrams, for the condensed wisdom of someone who actually paid attention in lectures. It stroked something in him, that small spark of pride. He liked the way they leaned over his notes, the way they asked questions in hushed voices, the way they looked at him like he was the difference between passing and failing.

He didn’t like, however, that Y/n was here too.

Every day, without fail, she sat at the table directly across from him.

It wasn’t like she was copying him or trying to talk. She never even looked up. But the fact that she stayed there, head bent over her books like she had any hope of understanding them, grated at him in some small, inexplicable way.

Jake figured that if anyone in this building needed notes, it would be her. She seemed like the type of student who’d take one look at an exam paper and forget everything she’d studied. And yet, she never asked. Not once.

It was almost offensive.

Did she think she didn’t need his help? Or was she just too awkward to ask? Either way, it didn’t make her look smarter. In Jake’s mind, it made her even more clueless than he’d thought.

By late afternoon, the library began to empty. People packed up their things in waves, leaving behind a faint, dusty silence. By five o’clock, only a handful of students remained. Jake was deep in his notes when he realized it had gotten too quiet. He glanced up and immediately paused. Y/n had slumped forward, her cheek resting against the crook of her arm, the edges of her notebook pressed beneath her. Her mouth hung slightly open, a tiny smudge of drool glistening in the corner.

Jake’s lips twitched before he could stop himself. A quiet snicker slipped out.

He leaned back in his chair, studying her. In sleep, the tension she carried like armor had fallen away. The curls that had been tied back this morning were now coming undone, framing her face in messy spirals. The late afternoon sun streamed through the tall windows, casting a golden light across her skin. It softened her, made her glow in a way he hadn’t noticed before. His eyes lingered on her cheeks, rounder than he’d realized, dusted faintly pink. For some absurd reason, he felt the urge to pinch them. He stopped fidgeting is pencil and caught off guard by the thought.

Before he could decide whether to act on it, she stirred. Maybe it was the weight of his stare or the faint scrape of his chair, but her eyelids fluttered open.

Her eyes met his.

Jake froze.

Up close, they weren’t the dull brown he’d lazily assumed from across the table. They were deep, warm, flecked with something lighter a kind of amber that caught the sunlight like liquid. For a split second, the air between them shifted, like someone had pulled a string taut.

Her expression flickered from confusion to alarm. She sat up abruptly, wiping at her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “I—sorry,” she said, voice low, as if she’d done something wrong by existing in his line of sight.

Before Jake could think of anything to say, she was already stuffing her notes into her bag. Her movements were quick, jerky, like she couldn’t get away fast enough.

He watched her walk out, the library door swinging shut behind her.

For a moment, he just sat there, staring at the spot she’d left empty. Then he realized his heartbeat was the only thing he could hear now.

Y/n rarely went to the mall.

The polished floors, air-conditioned coolness, and distant hum of chatter felt oddly comforting. But malls were for people who knew what they were doing, who walked with purpose, who knew which store sold the best lip gloss or where to find the perfect shade of blush. And she was definitely not one of those people. Still, here she was, standing in front of the largest display of lip products she’d ever seen in her life. Rows upon rows of tubes glistened under the warm studio lights pinks, reds, browns, corals, sheens, mattes, shimmers. Each one looked like it had been made for someone else, someone who knew how to choose.

Her fingers hovered over a pale peach shade before she quickly withdrew them. She didn’t even know what “undertones” meant. It wasn’t like she hated makeup, or was too lazy to try, she just…. never had anyone to guide her. Tutorials online always felt like they were in another language.

She was so caught up in the silent war between her curiosity and insecurity that she didn’t notice the tall figure walking toward her until she bumped into him.

“Oh— sorry—” she mumbled, stepping back.

“Y/n?”

Her head snapped up. Park Sunghoon stood there, holding a small gift bag. His sharp features softened into a polite smile, and just like that, her brain promptly stopped working. “S–Sunghoon… hi,” she stammered, her voice a pitch too high.

Before she could recover, another voice cut in. “Oh, it’s you.”

Jang Wonyoung appeared from behind him, glossy hair cascading over her shoulders like she’d stepped straight out of a commercial. She wasn’t smiling exactly, her lips were curved, but it was the kind of sweetness that stung.

“What’s a nerd like you doing here?” Wonyoung’s tone was light, teasing, but the edge was sharp enough to draw blood. “Finally thinking about a glow-up?”

Y/n felt her face burn. She gave a small, awkward laugh, trying to shrink into herself. But then… an idea.

Maybe this was her chance “Um… actually, I was looking for a lip gloss,” she admitted, fidgeting with the strap of her bag. “Do you think… you could help me pick one?”

Wonyoung blinked, clearly not expecting her to ask. Her gaze slid briefly to Sunghoon, who was distracted, scanning a rack of accessories nearby. With a faint shrug, she pointed lazily toward a tube on the far end of the shelf , a bright, almost blinding shade of fuchsia.

“This one,” she said absently, already turning away.

Y/n didn’t know much about makeup, but she knew that shade probably wasn’t for her. Still, the idea that Wonyoung, tall, radiant, effortlessly beautiful Wonyoung had chosen it made her chest swell with something close to pride. “I’ll take it,” she murmured, clutching the tube like it was a secret key to some prettier, better version of herself.

Sunghoon turned back then, a small box now in his hand. “Birthday gift for my sister,” he explained casually to Y/n, his voice warm. It made her throat tighten.

“that’s so nice,” she replied, and she meant it. But Wonyoung was already stepping forward, looping her arm through his. “We should get going,” she announced, her tone lighter now. “Don’t want to be late.”

Late for what? Y/n wondered. A date? The thought made her stomach twist, even though she knew Sunghoon was probably just being polite. Before she could say anything else, Wonyoung gave her one last honeyed smile the kind that didn’t reach her eyes and steered Sunghoon away.

She stood there for a moment, staring at the empty space they’d left behind. Then, with the kind of fragile happiness that blooms from the smallest scraps, she walked to the counter and bought the gloss Wonyoung had chosen.

She imagined herself wearing it tomorrow, maybe catching Sunghoon’s attention in the hallway. Maybe he’d notice. Maybe he’d smile. Clutching the tiny shopping bag like it held something far more precious than a tube of lip gloss, she made her way home, her heart just a little lighter than when she’d left.

Jake lay sprawled across his bed, one arm flung over his eyes, the other holding his phone loosely. The room was quiet except for the low hum of the AC, but his mind wouldn’t shut up.

It was her again. Stupid curls, boring acne scared chubby cheeks. Dumb Y/n.

Those big brown eyes of hers, wide, unguarded, that seemed to hold onto everything and nothing at once had been stuck in his head ever since that afternoon in the library. And it wasn’t the first time she was terrorising his consciousness.

He remembered the first time he’d noticed her, though he would never admit it to anyone. It was months ago, when he’d opened his physics textbook and found a few stray strands of curly hair tangled between the pages. She had been sitting at the desk before him that day, and somehow, that tiny trace of her had followed him home. He’d tossed the hair away, but the image stuck.

Then there were the stupid games his classmates played. Heeseung and Jay once teased each other over a lost bet, saying the punishment would be kissing Y/n. The way they laughed, loud, careless had made something in Jake twist uncomfortably, though he’d masked it with a smirk. He never knew why he was always there when she was getting clowned on. Always in the background, watching like a default backgroundcharacter. Like the universe was making sure he saw it every time.

Y/n was… ridiculous. Clumsy, socially awkward, stuck in her head more than the real world. Stupid. Dumb. Weird. He told himself that a lot, like a shield. Because why would she have a crush on someone like Park Sunghoon?

Jake knew for a fact Sunghoon didn’t care about her. The guy barely looked at her in the hallways. And yet, every time Jake caught Y/n gazing at Sunghoon with that soft, almost stupid smile that said she was somewhere far away in her head, something hot and ugly flared in his chest. It made him want to shake her and yell, No one cares. He doesn’t care. Stop looking at him like that.

But that would mean admitting he cared.

And somewhere, deep under all the annoyance, he understood her. Because Jake was a nobody too. He only admitted it when he was alone, but it was the truth. He wasn’t the guy girls like Tora noticed. She was too far out of his reach, and he knew it. That’s why he’d always turn around before entering the same room as her, easier to avoid the humiliation than face it.

So maybe that’s why Y/n bothered him so much. There was something reckless in the way she still dared to dream about someone like Sunghoon. Something he couldn’t do. And every time he saw her try even silently, even just with her eyes — it reminded him of how much of a coward he was.

His fragile ego hated that. So he did what he was best at, he cursed her in his head, turned her into a joke. It made him feel like he was the one in control.

Except now, lying in the dim glow of his bedroom, he wasn’t so sure he had control over anything.

Because why the hell was he thinking about her again? Why was it her face replaying in his mind and not Tora’s?

A thought crept in, uninvited, unsteady. Do I… like her?

Jake sat up abruptly, as if that would make the thought fall out of his head. He grabbed the AC remote and dropped the temperature from twenty four to sixteen, the cold air hitting him sharp and fast. Still, his skin felt warm. Too warm. He reached for his phone, fingers tapping before he could think about it

' can you like 2 girls at once '

The search results were instant, a flood of half baked answers and random forum threads. Some were serious long paragraphs about “emotional compatibility” and “differentiating infatuation from genuine affection.” Others were… not.

One comment caught his eye

' kiss one of them and find out lol, good luck bro '

He scoffed under his breath but for some reason, the words didn’t leave his head. Instead, his mind supplied an image he hadn’t asked for: leaning in toward Y/n, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her eyes, close enough to—

Jake froze.

It was like his brain had defaulted to her, skipping past Tora entirely. The image was so clear, so vivid, that his chest tightened and heat crept up the back of his neck.

What the hell?

His body felt suddenly restless, energy sparking through his limbs. He shoved his face into his pillow and let out a muffled, frustrated groan. The cold air from the AC blasted over him, but it didn’t matter. His skin still burned. He pulled the pillow away, staring up at the ceiling like it might give him an answer.

“What the fuck am I doing?”

The next morning, Y/n walked into campus with a thin layer of glossy pink shimmering on her lips. At least, it was supposed to be pink on her, it looked a little off. Too pale, almost like she’d just eaten something greasy and forgot to wipe her mouth. A couple of girls near the gates noticed instantly. They leaned toward each other, trying to stifle their laughter, their voices pitched low but not low enough.

“Is she serious?”

“It’s… not her shade.”

“Poor thing.”

They weren’t being cruel exactly, if anything, their tone carried a hint of pity but Y/n still felt the sting. She walked past them with her usual downward gaze, eyes fixed on the ground, hands gripping the strap of her bag.

Still, she kept the gloss on.

She even timed her route to pass the bench where Sunghoon usually sat before first lecture. Sure enough, there he was, leaning back casually, scrolling through his phone. Her heart rate picked up, her fingers twitching at her sides. She tilted her chin just enough for the light to catch on her lips, waiting for him to glance up.

He didn’t.

Not even a flicker of his gaze in her direction.

Her chest tightened. She kept walking.

It wasn’t until she reached the corridor that someone else’s attention caught her off guard.

Jake.

He was leaning against the wall near the library entrance, arms crossed, his gaze flicking toward her as she passed. For a moment, she thought she’d imagined it but no, he was looking right at her mouth. Her lips to be exact...

That looks so ugly, Jake grimaced, the words sharp in his head.

But even as he told himself that, his eyes lingered longer than they should. He didn’t know why. Something about it — about her looked different. Wrong shade or not, it was still a change. And not in a bad way.

By the time Y/n sat down in the library later that day, she’d mostly forgotten about him noticing. It was the same as every other afternoon she took the seat across from Jake, opened her books, and they didn’t speak. They never spoke. Until he cleared his throat.

She looked up, startled, her brows knitting slightly. “That shade looks hideous on you,” Jake said flatly, not bothering to soften the words.

There was no flicker of offense in her face. No glare, no muttered insult in return. Instead, Y/n’s eyes softened into something almost apologetic, big, round, and too trusting. Without saying a word, she dug into her bag, pulled out a tissue, and began wiping the gloss off.

Jake blinked in disbelief.

“You’re just… gonna take it off?” he asked, almost incredulous. She gave a small sheepish shrug. “I knew it didn’t look good. I just… wanted Sunghoon to notice.”

Her voice was quiet, matter of fact. Not even embarrassed, just… honest. Jake leaned back in his chair, staring at her for a moment. Was she actually this dense? Or just that straightforward? Either way, it made his chest feel weird. He exhaled through his nose, dragging a hand down his face. “I know someone who can help you. With makeup, I mean.”

Y/n’s head lifted instantly. “Really?”

The change in her was almost blinding, her whole expression lit up, like someone had just turned on a light inside her. Jake felt something in his chest jolt. His palms were suddenly warm.

“Yeah,” he muttered, forcing his gaze back to his notebook. “My high school friend, Sunoo. He’s doing a makeup course now.”

He scribbled a number on a sticky note and slid it across the table. She took it delicately, as if it were something valuable. “Thank you,” she said, her voice so genuinely grateful it made his ears burn. “You’re… so kind and helpful.” Before he could respond, she reached into her bag again and placed something small on his desk, a strawberry lollipop, still wrapped in shiny pink plastic.

“For you,” she said simply, before saving Sunoo’s number in her phone.

Jake stared at the candy for a second too long. It wasn’t anything special. But the fact that it came from her the fact that she’d felt the need to give him something in return made warmth creep up his neck. The rest of the study session passed without another word between them, but when Jake left the library, the lollipop was in his pocket. He didn’t even like strawberry flavor, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away.

Walking home, he realized he was smiling. It curled slowly at the corners of his mouth and stayed there, refusing to fade.

She had called him kind. She had thanked him.

And for some stupid reason, that meant more to him than it should have.

It was a breezy Saturday afternoon when Y/n finally met Sunoo in person. They’d exchanged a few texts since Jake gave her his number, but now, standing in the bustling makeup aisle of sephora, she realized how different he was from anyone she’d ever met. Sunoo radiated energy that could light up a dead room in seconds. His hands moved almost as fast as his mouth, pointing at palettes, testing swatches on the back of his hand, tapping his chin dramatically when something didn’t meet his standards.

Y/n, in contrast, followed him quietly, clutching a small basket. Every now and then, he’d glance over and beam at her as if they’d known each other for years.

“You,” Sunoo said, holding up a lip tint like it was a rare jewel, “need this. Perfect undertone, won’t wash you out, and—” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “—it’ll make you look expensive.”

She blinked. “Expensive?”

“Like you drink overpriced coffee and ghost people after two dates,” he teased.

Y/n stifled a laugh. “I… don’t think I could pull that off.”

“Yes, you can. Leave it to me.”

Over the next hour, Sunoo guided her through every essential, the right foundation shade, a soft blush that wouldn’t make her look sunburnt, mascara that lengthened but didn’t clump, and, most importantly, glosses that didn’t resemble cooking oil. He didn’t oversell. He didn’t overwhelm. It was just the right products, the right shades, in the right amounts.

When they finally stepped out of the store, Y/n’s bag was neatly packed with her small but perfect starter kit.

“I’ll make a demo video for you,” Sunoo said as they strolled down the sidewalk. “My classes are insane right now no break except weekends but I’ll send it online. And if you’re lost or stuck, video call me anytime. Even if I’m in the middle of dinner.” Her chest warmed. “Thank you… seriously, thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said with a playful smirk. “Wait until people start staring at you in the cafeteria.”

They ducked into a cozy café afterward, settling into a booth by the window. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon and espresso, and Sunoo wasted no time launching into his stories. He told her about college, the good professors, the terrible ones, the one classmate who ate pickles during lectures. Then he spiraled into his high school years, his brief but dramatic dating history, and somewhere between a rant about cafeteria food and a tangent about a professor’s bad haircut, a familiar name slipped into the conversation.

Jake.

Y/n perked up instantly. “You know Jake from high school?” “Know him? We were in the same class for three years,” Sunoo said, stirring his iced latte lazily. “Jake was always… well, Jake. Smart, yes. But unnecessarily cold and introverted. Like he thought speaking to people would take years off his life.”

She tried to picture him that way. Cold, yes. Introverted, yes. But smart? Somehow, that made sense.

“Don’t tell him I said that,” Sunoo grinned wickedly.

Y/n giggled, and Sunoo, seeing her reaction, leaned back in his seat like he’d accomplished something. “But to be fair, he’s always been the kind of person who helps quietly. Never flashy, never asking for anything in return.”

She tilted her head, curious.

“There was this time in high school,” Sunoo went on, his tone softening, “when I used to get bullied by some senior boys. You know, for being ‘too feminine’ for a guy. Jake… he didn’t say much, but he always showed up. Sat next to me, walked me to class, made sure they backed off. He’s probably the reason I didn’t lose my mind that year.” The words sat heavy in Y/n’s mind. Her fingers curled around her cup as she remembered the library, Jake sliding Sunoo’s number toward her.

Jake was… actually cute. Not in the obvious, polished way Sunghoon was of course...

Sunoo, however, wasn’t done. “Has Jake ever said anything that hurt your feelings?” he asked suddenly, raising an eyebrow.

Her lips twitched into a pout before she could stop herself. “He… probably hates me. The way he looks at me sometimes—” She scrunched her nose, mimicking his signature disgusted expression. “It’s like I’m a bug on his desk.” Sunoo threw his head back and laughed. “Oh no, that’s not hate.”

“It’s not?”

“That’s his coping mechanism.”

She blinked. “…Coping for what?”

“For existing near people without combusting, obviously,” Sunoo smirked.

Y/n tilted her head, unconvinced. Sunoo leaned forward across the table, his eyes glinting like he was about to share a state secret. “Next time he says or does something annoying…” He paused for dramatic effect.

“…look him dead in the eye and say...........”

Her eyes went wide before a burst of laughter escaped her, so sudden she had to cover her mouth. Sunoo grinned triumphantly. “Oh, I like that laugh. Keep it. Use it on him, too — it’ll drive him insane.”

She wiped at the corner of her eyes, still chuckling. “You’re evil.”

“I’m effective,” he corrected with a wink.

The next week, Y/n followed Sunoo’s advice down to the smallest detail.

No glitter, no mismatched tones, just a light sweep of blush, a touch of mascara, and soft nude pink gloss that caught light in a way that looked effortless. It was the first time in a long while she walked into the building without feeling the need to check her reflection twice. Most people didn’t seem to notice. Her classmates breezed past her as usual, heads down, mid conversation about weekend plans or exam dates.

But Jake noticed.

He noticed from the second she stepped into the lecture hall. His eyes followed the curve of her cheek when she turned her head, the subtle shine on her lips, the faint curl in her hair.

And he hated himself for noticing.

Because then he noticed something else, the way her eyes, big and almost shy, sought out one person in particular.

Sunghoon.

Jake had seen that look before. Soft. Hopeful. Like she was waiting for something she never got. And when Sunghoon didn’t even bother to look her way, Jake’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. By the time the class ended, his frustration had reached a low, simmering boil. He wasn’t even sure if it was aimed at her for looking at Sunghoon like that… or at Sunghoon for not looking back. He left the lecture hall without waiting for anyone, cutting through the east wing toward his next class, Modern Literature. The one he shared with Tora.

His mind was a mess.

He didn’t know what he felt anymore.

Maybe this was it. Maybe he needed to talk to Tora, clear the air, tell her exactly how he felt so he could stop spiraling like this. Stop whatever this was with Y/n. When he pushed open the classroom door, it looked empty at first. He stepped inside, adjusting the strap of his bag and froze.

Tora wasn’t alone.

She was against the far wall, kissing a guy Jake vaguely recognized from class...Jay? His arm was braced above her head, her hand resting lightly on his chest like they’d done this before. The sound in Jake’s head went sharp and white, like static. He didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Just stood there long enough for his stomach to twist into something unrecognizable before turning on his heel. His breath was uneven as he slipped out into the hallway, shutting the door as quietly as if he’d never been there. He didn’t want them to know. Didn’t want her to know.

He walked without thinking until his feet carried him to the one place on campus where no one usually went the back staircase.

Except someone was already there.

Y/n stood leaning against the far wall, her bag still slung over her shoulder, fingers fidgeting with the strap. Her posture was awkward, like she hadn’t decided whether she wanted to leave or stay. Jake stopped halfway down the steps. “…Seriously?”

She looked up.

“This is my spot,” he said flatly, moving down the last few steps. “I’ve been coming here for years.”

She huffed. “Your spot? Pretty sure the building belongs to the university, not Jake Sim.”

“Well, you’re in it,” he shot back.

She crossed her arms. “So what, I should just leave because you said so?”

“Yeah. Exactly that.”

They stared at each other, the silence thickening in the narrow stairwell. He could see it now, her eyes slightly puffy like she’d been holding back something all day, the way her mouth pressed into a thin line. “What happened to you?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

Her gaze flickered away. “Nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing. Not with the way her voice dipped at the end.

Truth was, she tried her best to get Sunghoon’s attention today, same as always. But instead of meeting her halfway, he hadn’t spared her a glance. And to make things worse, Wonyoung had said something cutting loud enough for a few people to hear, sharp enough to make them laugh. Sunghoon had been there. He had laughed too. Not cruelly, maybe, but enough to sting.

She came here to shake it off. To hide where no one could see her face and apparently, Jake didn’t count as “no one.”

“Look,” she muttered, “I’m not moving. You’re not moving. Let’s just… not talk.”

Fine.

Jake didn’t feel like talking either.

They both sank into their usual defensive positions. Her leaning against the wall, him dropping onto the last step, elbows braced on his knees. For a while, it stayed quiet. Just the distant echo of voices from the hall, the hum of pipes in the wall.

But Jake’s gaze wandered despite himself.

He noticed the way her curls framed her face today, soft and light. The faint sheen on her nose when the sunlight caught it. The way her lashes, longer than he’d realized, brushed her cheek when she blinked. And her lips —

He looked away fast, swallowing. It hit him all at once, the hollow in his chest wasn’t from Tora kissing someone else. That hadn’t hurt the way he’d expected it to. What hurt was this. Sitting here, looking at Y/n, and feeling something twist tight in his gut without knowing what the hell to call it. And maybe that’s why the words slipped out, sharper than he meant.

“Stop creeping out Sunghoon like you want to kiss him every time he looks at you. Maybe that’s when he’ll finally notice you.”

Her head snapped toward him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

She let out a long, slow sigh that carried exhaustion more than anger. “It’s none of your business who I kiss or not.” He leaned back, crossing his arms. “Who would kiss you anyway?”

The jab landed and she turned at him properly “I dare you to kiss me,” she said, voice steady. “And keep it in your pants… hah! Get off, loser” tone carrying out exactly how Sunoo taught her.

Jake was star struck.

Her tone wasn’t flirty. It wasn’t shy. It was daring that prickled under his skin, made his pulse trip. His eyes flicked to her lips again, unbidden. She was still looking at him like she knew exactly what she’d just done — and maybe she did. Neither of them moved closer, but the air felt heavier now, charged.

His throat was dry, and his chest felt too tight, and for once, he didn’t have a quick retort. Somewhere above them, footsteps echoed in the stairwell. The spell broke.

She looked away first, brushing a curl behind her ear like nothing had happened. “Thought so.” Jake forced a scoff, though it came out weaker than he wanted. “You wish.” But when he left the staircase a few minutes later, his ears were burning. And for the first time, he wasn’t sure who had actually won.

Over the next two weeks, it became a pattern. He bumped into her in any way possible. It was almost like someone set a love trap for them in every corner of the university.

Vending machine. Library staircase. The cramped little photocopying room. He’d turn a corner and she’d be there, half-flinching like she’d been caught somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. It was never intentional.

At first, Jake chalked it up to campus being small.

Then… he started wondering if it was something else. By the time exams were over, Jake had a strange, simmering awareness of her. He told himself it was just because she was everywhere, like an inconvenient shadow. But there were moments, fleeting, uninvited where he caught himself watching the way she brushed curls out of her face, or how she always chewed her lip before answering a professor’s question.

He liked it.

He liked the feeling of noticing her, the way it made something unfamiliar twist inside him. It was addictive almost.

Yeonjun’s parties were legendary. Not as wild in the way movies liked to exaggerate though there was always a flood of alcohol and at least one person crying in the bathroom and everyone wanted to be there. He was rich, charming, and the type of host who remembered your drink preference even if you’d only mentioned it once in passing.

So when his “End of Semester Blowout” invite dropped into the group chats, the campus might as well have been issued a mandatory attendance order. Jake didn’t care much for big gatherings, but Heeseung convinced him.

“You need to loosen up,” he said. “Besides, everyone’s gonna be there. You don’t want people thinking you’re hiding.” That last part was bait, and Jake knew it but he went anyway. The house was glowing when they arrived. Lights looped across the fence and up the porch railing, music thumped low from somewhere inside, and the smell of something sugary and alcoholic hit Jake as soon as they stepped through the door.

There were clusters of people on couches, leaning against kitchen counters, spilling onto the backyard deck.

Laughter and music blended into a dizzying haze.

Jake spotted her almost immediately.

Y/n was standing near the living room’s edge, a drink in hand, talking to a girl from their department.

She looked… different.

Her usual boring hoodie was replaced with something softer, still pastel, but the fabric caught the light in a way that made her seem almost luminous. Glossed lips, loose curls falling over her shoulder and yet, she still stood with her weight shifted back, as though ready to retreat at the first sign of trouble. He told himself he was just observing.

Noticing, because noticing was unavoidable in a place this crowded.

And yet, every time he moved through the room, his gaze found her again.

The spin the bottle game started in the den. It was Nicholas’s idea, which meant it was guaranteed to be just cruel enough to keep people entertained. Jake didn’t sit down to play. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching the circle form on the rug. Bottles were always dangerous things in rooms full of bored college students.

It started harmlessly.

Two people kissed, everyone whooped, someone took a shot.

Then the bottle spun and landed on Y/n and Sunghoon. Her name rippled through the group like a lit fuse.

Someone giggled.

“Lucky draw, Sunghoon!” another voice teased.

Jake’s eyes narrowed. Sunghoon’s brows shot up. “What?” “She’s a virgin, right?” someone else chimed in. “Careful, man.”

The laughter that followed was sharp edged, the kind that made Jake’s stomach knot. Y/n’s cheeks were already pink, but she smiled, that tiny, brittle smile she wore when she wanted to pretend words didn’t sting.

Sunghoon didn’t lean in.

He shook his head, still smiling like it was a joke, and said, “Nah. I’ll pass.”

The room erupted laughter, mock groans, a couple of “Oooooh, burn!”s.

Jake didn’t join in. Neither did Y/n. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. It should’ve ended there.

But Nicholas, grinning like a cat who’d cornered something small and trembling, said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t she kiss Jake? Both losers. Perfect match, right?” The laughter this time was louder. A chorus of ooohs and do it, do it! filled the room.

Jake’s jaw tightened. It wasn’t just the whole setting.It was the way they said it, the glee in watching someone flinch.

Y/n didn’t even try to laugh it off this time. Her throat bobbed, and her eyes darted to the floor.Then she stood too quickly and slipped through the crowd.

Jake pushed off the wall before he’d even decided what he was doing.The air outside was cooler, but she wasn’t slowing down. He followed the sound of her footsteps down the street until she stopped under a flickering streetlamp.

“Y/n,” he called.

She didn’t turn.

Only when he caught up and gently grabbed her wrist did she look at him. Her head jerked back toward him, eyes wide, but not startled.

More… tired.

Tiredness from carrying the weight of other people’s words for too long.

“Y/n—”

“Let go.”

Her voice wasn’t sharp, just flat.

Jake didn’t.

Instead, he stepped around her so she had to stop. The streetlamp above them flickered once, buzzing faintly, casting light and shadow across her face in unsteady intervals. He didn’t have a speech prepared. Didn’t know why his chest felt too tight, or why the thought of her walking away made him feel like he was missing something crucial.

“I’m… sorry,” he said, and the words felt strange in his mouth. Her brows pulled together, just slightly, before she forced a small, practiced smile.

“Why are you saying sorry?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Because what was he supposed to say?

Sorry that people are assholes? Sorry I didn’t stop them sooner? Sorry I didn’t punch Nicholas in the throat? Sorry that I… noticed you tonight more than I’ve noticed anyone else?

Instead, he just stood there. And in the space between them, he noticed the tremor in her hand where his fingers still rested. She was shaking, he felt it when he shifted his grip, thumb brushing her knuckles.

“Hey,” he said quietly, tugging her closer. Not enough to close all the distance, but enough that she had to tilt her head up to look at him.

Her eyes were glassy in the half-light.

And for a moment, he thought she was going to laugh on herself, that deflective humor she always used when things got too real.

Instead, she whispered, “Do you think I’m… that ugly?” It hit him like a sucker punch.

He blinked, certain he’d misheard. But she was still looking at him, searching his face like she expected him to confirm it “listen I—”

“I know I look ugly, okay?” she cut in, voice starting to wobble.

“I know I’m a loser, and no amount of makeup can fix me, but....I wanna be loved too.”

She didn’t say it with drama.

She breathed out the word that had been stuck in her throat as a lump for so long, her voice worn thin at the edges. And Jake who had always had something to say, some sharp remark or savage comment couldn’t find anything. Nothing that wouldn’t sound pathetic or wrong.

“Y/n, stop… please.” His voice cracked halfway through, and he hated that she might’ve heard it.

She took a shaky step back, pulling against his grip, but he didn’t let go. “Go away, Jake. You were right, I was infact creeping him out...for someone who knows how to embarrass myself in every moment I don’t deserve Sunghoon, I don't deserve you. I’m not stupid — I know you don’t like me, so you don’t have to pity me—”

Her words died when he closed the space between them in one step. He pulled her in gently, movements slow, deliberate, that gave her every chance to push him away. One hand slid to her hip, fingers curling loosely against the fabric there. The other still held her wrist, and now, with careful pressure, he guided it upward until her palm rested flat against his chest. She felt it immediately

the heat under his shirt, the quick, uneven rhythm of his heartbeat.

Her breathing stuttered.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she could’ve pulled away. But her fingers stayed splayed against him, feeling the thud of his pulse. Jake’s eyes were locked on hers. Not scanning, not drifting, just there, unwavering, like he had finally decided to stop looking anywhere else. When he leaned in, it wasn’t to kiss her.

Not yet.

He pressed his forehead to hers, and she felt the faint brush of his breath against her lips. His voice was low, almost a restraint whisper.

“Don’t dare me to kiss you so hard ” he murmured, “that you fall on your knees right here.”

What the fuck.

Her mind was a blur, throat painfully dry, chest tight, and pulse pounded so loudly in ears it nearly drowned out the silence around them. The street was still, the flickering lamplight catching on the faint glimmer of her teary eyes. She absolutely swore that throwing herself into Jake’s arms and kissing him until the world stopped spinning was the only solution that made sense right now. The air between them was loaded, fragile. No words, just the sound of their breathing, soft, uneven, a little hesitant. Somewhere between that and the erratic rhythm of their hearts, something unspoken was pulling them closer.

Jake could feel it too. The weight of her hand still pressed against his chest, the warmth of her body just inches from his. His brain was screaming at him to move, to say something, to do anything, but his mouth was frozen. The only thought looping through his head was ' I’m done for. '

But he didn’t regret a single word he had said. Not one. If anything, he wished he’d said more. Her shoulders, which had been trembling moments before, softened under his hold. The tension slowly bled out of her body, and before Jake could register what was happening, she tilted her chin up ever so slightly.

Her lips brushed his in a fleeting, tentative touch, a peck. It lasted less than a second.

But to Jake, it might as well have been an eternity. His stomach twisted, a strange cocktail of adrenaline and warmth shooting through him so violently he swore he heard fireworks in the distance. His knees felt weak, almost gelatinous, and his chest… God, his chest was a mess of chaotic thumping that felt both unbearable and addicting. She pulled back instantly, her face flaming red. “I—sorry, Jake, I—” She stammered over the words, her voice shaking. “You’re—I couldn’t stop myself—”

Her eyes darted downward, avoiding his entirely as she stared at the tips of her shoes, biting her lip like she was about to spiral into a full blown panic. The night air nipped at her cheeks, but she was too flustered to notice.

thump

Her head shot up.

Jake was no longer standing in front of her instead he was on the ground, sprawled out on the cold pavement, the faintest dazed look on his face as if the kiss had knocked the last coherent thought straight out of his skull. “Jake?!” Her voice pitched higher, panic flooding her veins. She dropped to her knees beside him, gripping his shoulder.

He blinked once. Twice. Then a slow, lazy smile tugged at his lips. “fucking finally,” he mumbled, almost dreamily, before letting his head fall back again.

Y/n’s jaw dropped, her heart doing flips she didn’t know were possible.

Her nemesis, apparently, had just passed out from a kiss.

“Oh my GOD. OH. MY. GOD. Did you kill him? ”

The moment she answered, her eardrums were assaulted by Sunoo’s high pitched voice and she held the phone an inch away from her ear.

"About that....well..." she blushed, a small giggle escaping her lips.

“You KISSED him and the man collapsed like a Victorian widow! This is literally better than any drama I’ve watched!” Y/n groaned, dragging her hand down her face. “It wasn’t—stop making it sound like—ugh—it was just a peck!”

“That’s the point!” Sunoo howled through the line. “A peck did that to him! What’s he gonna do when you—” He cut himself off, letting out a scandalized gasp. “No, actually, don’t tell me. I’m pure.” She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out. “You’re the farthest thing from pure.”

“True,” Sunoo admitted without shame. “But please, you have to tell me if he passes out again. I’ll start bringing smelling salts to campus.” She hung up before he could escalate further, tossing her phone onto the bed while letting out a scream mixed somewhere between highschool girls finally kissing their crashes and a breakdown.

Somehow, despite the chaos of that night, she and Jake slipped back into their usual dynamic.

If you could call it “usual” anymore. The insults were still there. He still called her a loser every other day, and she still found new, creative ways to tell him he looked like a dog when he stared at her pretending to look at the white board. But there was something different in the way their banter lingered now like their words were a thin veil over something neither of them wanted to name just yet. Sometimes she’d catch him staring at her from across the cafeteria. Not the hostile, “I’m trying to figure out if I hate you” staring from before, this was softer, distracted, like he’d forgotten anyone else existed.

And sometimes, when they were alone between classes, their arguments didn’t end with just throwing insults. They ended with him backing her into the wall, his mouth on hers, five whole minutes of kissing like the world was going to end before the next lecture.

“You’re still annoying,” Jake mumbled between kisses, his hand sliding to the back of her neck.

“You’re still a loser,” she shot back, breathless, not moving away.

“Yeah?” he smirked, brushing his lips against hers again. “Guess we’re perfect for each other then.”

It was ridiculous. It was stupid. And yet… they didn’t hate it.

Sunghoon and Tora were… well, they were still there, somewhere on campus. But to Y/N and Jake, they had become distant memories. They were still losers, by most social standards. Jake still made enemies with professors for making them check his answer sheets 5 times. Y/n still found new ways to trip over her own shoelaces in public. But being losers together somehow made college feel less like a battlefield.

Sometimes they wondered when exactly things had shifted between them. Was it that night on the street? The moment his forehead pressed to hers? Or maybe even before that when they were still pretending to dont know each other but kept finding themselves in the same places anyway. None of them didn’t seem too interested in figuring it out either. He just kept showing up sometimes with coffee, sometimes with sarcastic remarks, sometimes with both.

One morning, as they walked to class together, she bumped his shoulder.

“You know, if anyone saw us, they might think we actually like each other.”

He smirked. “Let’s not ruin my reputation like that.”

She snorted. “Your reputation’s already trash.”

“Yeah,” he said, glancing at her with that infuriating softness in his eyes. “But it’s our trash.”

And for the first time since she’d set foot on campus, Y/N realized she wasn’t counting the days until the semester ended.

College was still exhausting. People still made snide comments sometimes. But now, she had someone to sit with during boring lectures, someone to sneak off with for five stolen minutes, someone to laugh with when they both inevitably embarrassed themselves in front of the entire class.

They weren’t perfect. Far from it. But they were in this together.

Two losers, making it work.

THE END

©sunishake

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sunishake · 4 days ago

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enha hyung line angst? maybe inspired by when i was your man - bruno mars. love your work(s) btw ^^

Omg thank you for requesting and reading my works, I'll post it soon 🥹🫶🏼🩷🩷🩷

#requests #reader appreciation

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sunishake · 4 days ago

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hi!!!!! as a fellow filmy desi diva engene who js watched saiyaara in theaters (one of the best films ever btw, killer acting from both of em and KRISH KAPOOR MY POOKIE 🤩🤩) i’m not even done reading ur newest heeseung fic im like 1/3 way or smtg but i already know it’s based off of it YESSSS QUEEN EAT!!! 💜💜💜💜

YESSSSS 😝😝😝😝🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

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sunishake · 4 days ago

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ʚĭɞ 𝐏.SH ᝰ is writing ──── "pushing me away will not work because I was yours to begin with"

vol 11 . — 𝐄𝐍 𖹭 박성훈 : the string theory

The string around your pinky finger confused you because as everyone had their fate bounded with that one person by the red string your string developed an odd brown shade. But you could not care less, why should you? when Park Sunghoon was entangling himself with you in his way. Doesn’t matter if the string theory worked or not.

𖹭 childhood sweethearts, fluff, angst, tragic romance, unrequited love, drama

note: brace yourself ig...

ʚĭɞ if you liked this don't forget to check out my other works in library

In your world, the red string theory wasn’t just a pretty bedtime story. It wasn’t a metaphor parents told their children to give them hope. It was real, tangible, undeniable. Every person was born with a thread tied to their pinky finger. At first, it was a soft, pale pink, a tender promise. As you grew, it deepened into a vivid, unmistakable red, the shade of certainty. It meant fate was in motion, carrying you toward the one person meant for you.

You wished it wasn’t true.

Because for some godforsaken reason, the string around your pinky never turned red.

When you were small, you didn’t notice the difference. You thought maybe it was just slow, that it would catch up eventually. You told yourself it didn't mean anything. That your friends weren’t really staring when you showed up at school with a thread the color of wet earth, dull and plain, as though someone had drained all the magic out of it.

You thought it might be hormonal, which your aunt had suggested once, trying to comfort you. But as you grew, the truth became harder to ignore. While the strings of others bloomed into brilliant crimsons, yours faded to a warm, muted brown. It wasn’t ugly, exactly but it was wrong. It didn’t hum with the same unshakable destiny.

You didn’t know what that meant. And you didn’t care to find out.

Because you had already chosen who you wanted.

You were five years old when Park Sunghoon moved into the house next door. The first time you saw him, he was standing on the porch with a carton of milk in one hand, his other hand waving shyly as his mother urged him to greet you. He was the prettiest boy you had ever seen, clean lines, soft eyes, a quietness in his posture that made you want to be near him.

And from then on, he simply was.

He was the inevitable thread woven through your days, long before you thought about what the one on your pinky meant. He was in the summer afternoons when you caught dragonflies together, the winter mornings when you shared hot chocolate before trudging off to school. He was there when you cried after scraping your knee, when you celebrated your seventh birthday, when you stood in line for ice cream on the hottest day of the year.

Sunghoon had no string.

That part baffled everyone. Some whispered it was a deformity that his string had been invisible from birth, or cut somehow. But he never seemed to care. If he noticed people’s stares, he ignored them. If he felt different, he never said.

But to you, it mattered. It mattered a lot.

Because in your head, the answer was obvious, if his string didn’t exist, then yours could be tied to him. Maybe the brown meant something different, something special.

When you were ten, you decided to make it official. You sat together on the curb outside your house, trading candies you’d bought from the corner store. You tugged at your brown thread absently, feeling its slight resistance. Then, with a decisive little huff, you held the end of it out to him. “Here,” you said, looping it around his bare pinky finger. Your voice was matter of fact, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re mine forever.”

Sunghoon glanced down at the knot you’d tied, then up at you. His lips curled into a smile, just soft amusement.

“Forever’s a long time,” he said. You grinned. “Then you’re stuck with me forever and ever.”

He didn’t untie it right away. He just let it hang there, the rough little knot resting against his skin. You didn’t know it then, but that moment that tiny, childish promise would root itself so deeply in you that even as the years passed, even as the brown thread frayed and thinned, you would keep believing it was the only one you wanted.

Because you didn’t need the universe to tell you who your person was.

You had already decided.

Your friends never stopped talking about their soulmate. In the cafeteria, in the locker room, in the quiet corners of the library where the librarian pretended not to hear them whisper all of them gushed about their first kisses and the day they finally met the person at the other end of their glowing red thread.

You listened, smiling when you had to, nodding when appropriate. But each story pressed a hollow ache somewhere in your chest. It wasn’t that you were jealous. It was just…..you didn’t fit in their world. There was practically no one nearby who shared your strange brown thread. And if fate was real, your match wasn’t anywhere close. Still, you weren’t worried. Why should you be?

At sixteen, you were already experiencing the rush, the dizzying excitement, with Park Sunghoon.

It had started like an experiment. Just one kiss. You remembered the way his breath had ghosted over your cheek before your lips met, the electric shock that jolted through your body. You thought you’d stop there that you’d laugh awkwardly and pull back. But the moment you tasted him, all soft warmth and something faintly sweet, you didn’t want to stop. Neither did he.

One kiss became two, then five, then more than you could count. Somewhere in that hazy stretch of time, you forgot about the hollow ache, forgot about strings entirely. Your underdeveloped frontal lobe was flooded with oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, pure chemical euphoria.

And who were you to complain?

Sunghoon never hesitated to touch you, to let his fingers skim your jaw, your waist, your hair. He didn’t flinch from your closeness in fact, he seemed to savor it. You could tell by the way his mouth quirked when you pulled back just enough to catch your breath, your face flushed and eyes shy. He liked seeing you like that.

“What if your future soulmate jumps on me for kissing you?” you whispered once between breaths, lips still glistening from the last kiss. You could feel his heart against yours, your hands drawing slow, restless circles on his back, the faint warmth of his skin under the thin fabric of his shirt. His dark eyes locked with yours, the light in them not entirely serious. He laughed that familiar, low sound you’d known since childhood and tapped the tip of your nose with his knuckles.

“Last time I checked, the one with the weird-ass string situation is you,” he said. “I don’t even have one… and even if I did? So what?”

So what?

The words slammed into you like a wave, stealing your breath for a moment. They were careless to him, a throwaway remark, meant to tease but to you, they were everything. They were permission. They were a declaration.

Yes… so what?

So what if the universe disagreed? So what if your thread wasn’t the right color, if it didn’t hum with the same magic as everyone else’s?

Sunghoon was yours.

In that moment, your sixteen-year-old self believed it completely, with the kind of absolute certainty only teenagers possess. You didn’t think about the future. You didn’t think about the possibility of regret. You just thought about the way his mouth found yours again, the way your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, the way his laugh lingered against your lips.

You thought things would stay the way they were sweet, familiar, unshakable.

But time was strange like that. It could give you everything, and just as easily, it could sweep it all away without asking.

Sunghoon grew into himself, and the boy you’d known since you were five became a boy the world noticed. A pretty boy. The kind of pretty that got whispered about in hallways and giggled about behind locker doors. And the fact that he had no red string made him even more dangerous. A mystery. An open invitation for fantasies. “Guess who helped me with my homework yesterday?.... Park Sunghoon,” one girl would say, her voice bubbling with delight.

“Oh my god, he’s so hot. We had, like, five minutes of eye contact last week, and I swear I was going crazy,” another would confess, fanning herself dramatically.

You’d hear it all. The sighs. The little gasps. The almost reverent way they said his name. You told yourself it didn’t matter. It never had. None of those girls knew Sunghoon the way you did the way his hand always found the back of your neck when he kissed you, the way his laugh curled up at the edges when you said something ridiculous, the way his gaze softened in that barely there, private way when it was just the two of you.

But you forgot something important time isn’t just a thief. It’s a sculptor. It changes people while you’re busy pretending it won’t.

It happened slowly, then all at once. Sunghoon’s missing red string became a fascination for girls who hadn’t met their soulmates yet. It meant he was available, unclaimed, untethered. They swarmed around him like moths, their fingertips grazing his shoulder, smoothing the crease of his collar, brushing lint from his sleeve. They gave him the kind of smiles that spoke a language you didn’t want to understand.

And the worst part?

He didn’t rejected the touches.

The hands that once traced the curve of your waist now rested casually on other girls’ elbows when he leaned in to talk to them. The same fingers that had once threaded through your hair became a topic of discussion in your class.

“He has such pretty fingers, oh my god. When we held hands—”

You didn’t hear the rest. You’d already stood up in the middle of the conversation, your chair scraping against the floor, your chest tightening like it had been pulled too suddenly by your own brown string. You left before anyone could see the look on your face.

You hated yourself for caring.

Growing up, you learnt there was nothing more humiliating for a woman than to be just one of the girls orbiting a man. You swore you will never be that girl. But there you were, feeling small, watching him from a distance, wondering if you’d been demoted without even knowing it. You wanted to confront him. The words pressed against the back of your teeth every time you saw him with one of them. But the other voice in your head the crueler, colder one always cut you off.

Who do you think you are? You’re not his girlfriend. There’s no claim here. No commitment.

Still, you tried. You asked him one afternoon, casually

“So… are you already moving on from me?”

He looked at you, the corners of his lips twitching like you’d just told a harmless joke.

“Move on? Move on from what?”

It was a single sentence, but it was made of glass. And it came straight from his pretty mouth, shattering something inside you as it landed. True, you thought bitterly. Move on from what, exactly?

There had never been a label. Never a confession. No strings attached, at least not between you two. Just the brown thread around your finger, frayed at the edges, and your own foolish belief that it meant something more than fate had given it credit for.

Cool.

If that’s what it was, then that’s what it would be.

You sat in your room, quiet except for the soft hum of the fan and the faint rustle of your curtains. That low, dull ache had settled into your chest again, not sharp enough to make you cry, but constant enough to make breathing feel like work. Your fingers fumbled absently with the brown string wrapped around your pinky.

You needed to clear your head. The trouble was, you had no idea how. This was new — the storm your growing mind didn’t yet have words. Feelings stacking on top of feelings until they pressed against your ribs, leaving you restless, a little breathless. You stared at the string, the thin thread of fate you’d once thought of as harmless, and you cursed it.

It was all the string’s fault.

Maybe if you had a proper soulmate a red string tied to someone permanent you never would’ve gotten tangled up in Sunghoon to begin with. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, you hadlet yourself fall into something undefined, something that now felt like a void you didn’t know how to climb out of.

Frustration prickled at your skin. Your eyes fell to the scissors lying on your desk.

Without giving yourself time to second guess, you grabbed them. You had tugged at the string before, tried untying it, even yanked it hard enough to leave your pinky sore but it always slipped back into place like nothing had happened. This time, you pressed the blades to it and squeezed.

There was a faint snip.

A tiny piece of thread fell to the floor, curling against the wood like it didn’t belong there. You stared at it for a long moment, the smallest flicker of satisfaction burning in your chest, before you scooped it up and tossed it out the open window.

Your string was shorter now. And strangely, that made you feel… calm. Lighter, almost.

You didn’t know it yet, but you’d just found your first way to quiet the noise in your head. You also didn’t know the cost.

The day you cut your string was the day Sunghoon stopped appearing being your constant. He was still there in person, of course still walked beside you to school, still lingered by your desk between classes , but something had shifted. You both tried to talk like you used to, throwing out the same half jokes and passing comments, but the tension was louder than your laughter.

“Hey, I…” he started one morning. You slowed your steps, curious.

“I don’t know,” he muttered after a pause, rubbing the back of his neck. “Suddenly I feel… self conscious around you.” His ears were red the kind of red from embarrassment.

You didn’t know what to say, because the truth was, you felt the same.

“Is this just… what happens when you grow up?” you asked lightly, masking the unease in your chest. Then, to make it easier for both of you, you punched his arm gently and laughed. “Guess it’s normal, right?” He smiled faintly, like he was glad you’d given him an answer he could agree with. But for the rest of the day, neither of you talked much. It was as if every topic you used to fill the air with had evaporated overnight.

After school, you spotted him waiting near the front gate like always. Your chest warmed at the sight, maybe you overthought everything. Maybe he wasn’t pulling away.

Then you noticed he wasn’t alone.

A girl stood beside him, her long hair catching the light. You recognized her immediately Sooha. She was leaning close, saying something that made Sunghoon laugh, his eyes crinkling in that way you’d always secretly claimed as yours.

Except they weren’t yours anymore.

Even from a distance, you could see it, the way his gaze lingered on her, soft and unguarded. Heart eyes. It was rare, seeing Park Sunghoon look at someone like that. You didn’t know why you stopped walking. Maybe it was awkwardness. Maybe it was the quiet, painful need to watch him unravel for someone else.

That same dull ache returned to your chest.

You pulled out your phone and typed a quick lie about having an extra class, then slipped toward the back gate instead. You told yourself you didn’t want to be a bother.

That night, you cut your string again.

The snip was cleaner this time. The relief was immediate. Every time you did it, the weight in your chest seemed to lift, even if only a little.

Sunghoon didn’t text you back.

And you didn’t expect him to.

Almost a week passed without a single real conversation between you and Sunghoon. No teasing comments. No casual “good mornings.” It was as if someone had built an invisible wall overnight, tall enough and solid enough that neither of you could find a way around it.

At first, the silence gnawed at you. But eventually, your days began to arrange themselves around the space he left behind. You assumed it was the same for him.

The next month, your parents’ anniversary arrived, a small but important tradition in your household. Sunghoon, being the constant in your life since childhood, had always been there to celebrate. So you weren’t shocked to find him in your kitchen that evening, sleeves rolled up, helping your mother frost a cake like it was second nature.

What did shock you was the faint pink glow circling his pinky.

Your chest tightened instantly.

No way.

The dull ache you’d been managing so carefully came rushing back, hot and restless. Had Sunghoon found someone? You wanted to ask, wanted to demand answers, but the words stayed caught somewhere between your throat and your pride.

Dinner came and went. Cake was cut. Laughter filled the air, but you sat at the table like a guest in your own home, smiling at the right moments and pretending your gaze wasn’t drifting toward his hand every few seconds. When the plates were cleared, you excused yourself under the pretense of studying for finals. Graduation loomed closer with each day, and it was strange to think that barely four months ago, you and Sunghoon had spent hours sprawled on your bed, tossing around college names like they were pieces of candy. Now, that memory felt like something from another timeline some warped, too bright dystopian version of your life.

You sat at your desk, a book open in front of you but your mind miles away. That glowing string kept flashing in your head. Your eyes fell on the scissor lying beside your notebook, its metal glinting under your lamp.

Your hand reached for it.

But before your fingers touched the handle, a faint knock rattled your door. You froze. A part of you hoped, desperately, stupidly that it was him. You stood, stealing a quick glance in the mirror. Running your fingers through your hair to smooth it down, you took a slow breath and pulled the door open.

Sunghoon stood there.

His cheeks were red, not from the winter air but from something heavier. His eyes were pools of things he wasn’t saying, a quiet weight pressing in around you both.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The silence wasn’t empty, it had a rhythm. Silence of two people who had been in each other’s lives so long that even stillness felt like a conversation. Then he stepped forward, pushing the door shut behind him with a quiet click.

You swallowed. It had been years since Sunghoon was in your room. The last time was on your sixteenth birthday, your fingers laced together, his lips brushing yours in a clumsy but unforgettable first kiss. The memory swept over you before you could stop it, painting the moment in colors you weren’t sure you wanted to feel again.

He let out a breath, scratching the back of his head. “I just… I wanted to see you. I mean, it’s been a while, you know?” His voice was unsteady, edged with a nervousness you weren’t used to hearing from him. You laughed lightly, hoping to cut through the awkwardness. You weren’t sure it worked. A bead of sweat trickled down your spine, and your skin felt too warm.

What is even going on right now?

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again, his gaze flicking away. Whatever he was trying to say seemed stuck somewhere deep. Finally, he closed his eyes and drew in a breath.

“I’m going out with Sooha—”

“I saw the string around your pinky—”

The words crashed into the space between you at the same time and both of you froze. Weight of what had just been said sat heavy in the air, too dense for either of you to move through. Neither of you spoke, and yet everything was suddenly, painfully clear.

A small congratulations slipped from your lips, brittle and hollow, carrying none of the warmth the word was meant to hold. It landed between you like a shard of glass, sharp and cold. “Mm,” he hummed back, a sound dry enough to crumble in the air.

Silence followed, not the comfortable kind you used to share, but one heavy with things unsaid. You didn’t know what to do with it neither did he. Why was Sunghoon even in your room? He asked himself the same question, searching for an answer in the fog of his mind. He had no obligation to tell you who he was dating. No unspoken rule bound him to share that piece of his life. And yet, here he was, standing in a space that used to be familiar but now felt lined with invisible edges.

You let out a sigh, louder than you meant to, the sound slicing through the tension.

“Sunghoon… it’s late. I think you should go back,” you said, your chest tightening with every word.

He nodded, as if the decision had been made for him. Maybe it had. Being here wasn’t helping either of you. Without another word, he turned toward the door, his hand reaching for the handle, his profile already retreating from you.

“...W–wait.”

The word caught in your throat before it escaped, trembling enough to make him pause. Your hand shot forward before you could stop yourself, closing around his. His skin was warm, the faint pink string curling around his pinky glowing like a quiet betrayal.

He turned, startled, his brows knitting together.

You held his hand more carefully now, your thumb brushing over the thin strand of light, tracing it like it might vanish under your touch. “I’m sorry…” you whispered, lifting your gaze to his face. That was when you noticed it, the darkness gathering in his eyes. Not anger, not exactly, but something heavier. Something tangled between longing and restraint.

The air shifted. It was as though the tension had been waiting for this exact moment to bloom, filling every corner of the room until there was no space left for words.

You didn’t think, you just moved.

One second you were standing apart, the next you had pulled him toward you, your arms winding around him like muscle memory. His scent, his warmth, his nearness it all came rushing back in a dizzy wave. Your lips found his. It was quick, barely two seconds, but it felt like falling and catching fire all at once.

When you pulled back, the look on his face broke something in you. He looked like a kicked puppy, wounded, confused, and achingly vulnerable.

“Y/n… what the fuck,” he murmured, his voice low but trembling with something unspoken.

His eyes held a storm, but his next words were what knocked the air out of you.

“Stop making it unbearable… more than it already is.”

Oh.

The world tilted slightly, your breath catching in your chest. You froze, the echo of his voice clinging to your skin.

“What?” The question was barely a whisper, but he didn’t answer. He only looked at you for a moment longer, like he wanted to say everything, like he wanted to say nothing and then he was gone.

Gone from your room, the door clicking shut behind him and maybe, gone from your life too.

You and Sunghoon met again after almost five weeks. The air between you felt different now, heavier, laced with the unspoken knowledge of what had happened and what hadn’t. Word of his breakup with Sooha had traveled through the school like wildfire, whispered between classes, posted in group chats, dissected over cafeteria lunches. You didn’t know the details, but a quiet, unshakable guilt had taken root inside you.

Still, guilt, sadness, pain, none of it could compete with the heat of Sunghoon’s touch.

Inside the storage room behind the gym, the door clicking shut behind you before you even had the chance to ask why you were there. His hands cupped your face like they had every right to, pulling you into feverish kisses that left no space for thought. The faint pink thread once tied to his finger was gone now, like it had never been there at all.

“I missed you…” he murmured against your skin, lips trailing from your cheek to your jaw, ignoring the storm that had raged between you the last time you’d met.

You were breathless, the sensation ticklish and overwhelming all at once. Pushing at his chest gently, you rested your head there instead, listening to the rapid beat of his heart. “Sunghoon… we can’t keep on doing this. I—”

He pulled back enough to look at you, a frown forming. “Don’t you want me anymore?”

Your gaze wavered. “No… it’s not like that. I just… there’s no future.” The words tasted bitter on your tongue.

Silence stretched between you. Then, with a slow, deliberate step back, he let the distance grow. “Fine.”

And just like that, Park Sunghoon slipped from your grasp again.

Finals arrived like a storm, sweeping away every free moment. You were days away from graduation, the countdown to adulthood ticking louder with each passing day. Sunghoon had shifted from being the subject of school gossip to something more untouchable, a campus icon. He was the boy everyone wanted, girls who watched him from the bleachers, boys who envied his effortless charm, and people who never stopped talking about his perfect smile.

But to you, he was a puzzle you couldn’t solve anymore.

He gave you looks that lingered too long, followed you with his gaze even when he was surrounded by friends. Sometimes he trailed after you when his latest girlfriend wasn’t around, a shadow you both noticed and pretended not to. Each time, it left a knot of frustration twisting in your stomach.

That day, you’d barely stepped out of the library before it happened again.

“Stop—what are you doing?” you yelped as his hand caught yours. His grip was firm, insistent, pulling you down the empty hall. The sound of your shoes echoed against the polished floor until he shoved open the door to the gym.

The air inside was cool and stale, dust motes drifting in thin beams of afternoon light.

“Who was that guy earlier?” His voice was sharp, almost demanding.

“What?” you asked, still catching your breath.

“That guy you were talking to by the lockers. Why was he smiling at you like that?”

You stared at him, caught between disbelief and amusement. “Why do you care?”

His jaw tightened. “Should I not?”

You opened your mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Because the truth was, he shouldn’t care, but part of you wanted him to. Part of you wanted him to care enough to break the rules, to ignore the strings, to stay. Your silence filled the room, heavy and fragile. His eyes searched yours like he could read the thoughts you weren’t ready to speak. And you wondered, not for the first time, if you were both trapped in a game you didn’t understand, one neither of you knew how to win.

Park Sunghoon confused you just as much as your brown string did. Both were unbearable, both addictive in ways you didn’t want to admit. The string you could snap when you were frustrated you had done it enough times to know the sound, the relief of that clean break. But Sunghoon… no matter how many times you told yourself it was over, no matter how many times you tried to cut him out of your life, he came back.

And he never came back when you needed him. He came when his girls didn’t give him attention anymore, when there was a gap in his carefully curated life for you to slip into. You hated yourself for still letting him in. This time, you were already on edge when you saw him.

The class was nearly empty, the afternoon light slicing across the hall in golden stripes. You’d been on your way out when he appeared, leaning against the wall like he’d been waiting. That lazy, unreadable look in his eyes always made your chest feel too tight.

“Sunghoon,” you said flatly.

He didn’t bother with a greeting. “We need to talk.”

The words burned before you even knew you were going to say them “Stop being a fucker.”

He didn’t flinch. Instead, a slow, nasty smirk curved his lips. “Yeah? Why are you annoyed?” His voice was almost casual, but his eyes were sharp, calculating. “Months ago, no one even looked at you like anything. I was there. And now you’re telling me to go away?”

Your stomach twisted, but he wasn’t done. He took a step closer, the sound of his shoes echoing in the quiet gym. “You think I don’t notice your gaze burning holes into my girlfriend’s back?”

It felt like the air was knocked out of you. He was right, and that stung worse than any insult. But the shame lit up into anger so quickly you couldn’t stop it “That’s none of your business,” you shot back, stepping forward until you could see the shadows under his eyes. “Because last time I remember, it was you who comes back to me like a horny bitch.”

The words hit, and for a second his smirk faltered, replaced by something harder.

It was ugly after that. Neither of you held back. Voices rose, your words tangled together, both of you throwing truth like it was meant to wound. You didn’t remember every sentence, only the heat of it, the way his jaw tightened, the way your throat ached.

Finally, you spat the words that felt like they could shatter something permanent. “I don’t wanna ever see you again.”

He laughed, sharp and humorless. “Yeah, fuck off like I care.”

That was it.

You didn’t wait for him to say more. You turned and ran, your shoes pounding against the floor, the sound ricocheting in your ears. The door slammed shut behind you, but it wasn’t enough to keep him out of your head.

By the time you reached the gate, your chest was tight and your eyes burned. You clutched at your bag like it could hold your heart in place, but it felt too heavy, too fragile, as if it might spill out onto the floor if you loosened your grip for even a second. You told yourself you just ended it for good. That this was closure. That the sting in your chest would fade if you stayed away long enough.

But the image of him stayed, Sunghoon standing there in the golden light, smirk gone, eyes darker than you’d ever seen them. You didn’t know if you’d broken him or if he’d just let you think you had. All you knew was that, in that moment, something had been cut between you, not cleanly like your brown string, but jagged, uneven, leaving threads hanging loose. Threads you weren’t sure you could ignore.

You swore to yourself you’d never see his face again. You told yourself you’d mean it this time. But even as you walked away, you couldn’t shake the sick, sinking feeling that promises like that didn’t stand a chance against Park Sunghoon.

You hadn’t heard about Sunghoon for months. No texts, no sightings on social media, not even a casual mention from mutual friends. It was as though the world had swallowed him whole, and for a while, you had convinced yourself you were fine with that. But then he reappeared.

It happened at your college’s annual ceremony, a blur of speeches, music, and too many bodies in one hall. He was standing across the room, framed in the spill of stage lights, and your breath hitched before you could stop it.

He looked like a ghost.

Or maybe a dream.

More beautiful than you remembered, but carved thinner, sharper, as if the months apart had stripped something from him. His skin was paler, his shoulders slightly slouched, and his eyes… God, his eyes still had the power to find you in a crowd. They carried something they hadn’t before sadness, heavy and unspoken. He had people around him, of course. The same type of effortlessly magnetic faces that always seemed to orbit Sunghoon, laughing too loudly and touching his arm like they had a right to. You could barely hear over the pounding in your ears. Your throat tightened, the same dull ache crawling back into your body like it had been waiting for this exact moment.

He still got under your skin. And your body still refused to forget him.

Your fingers found the sleeve of Heeseung’s shirt, bunching the fabric in your fist without thinking. He turned to you immediately, concern flickering across his features.

“babe you okay?” he asked, his voice low, careful.

You nodded too quickly. “Yeah… I just need some air. I’ll be back.”

You didn’t wait for him to offer to come with you. You slipped out of the hall, your heartbeat too loud in your head. The cold air outside hit your face like a slap, sharp and bracing. You dug into your pocket and pulled out a cigarette. The flame from your lighter danced briefly before settling into a steady burn. You inhaled deeply, letting the smoke scrape your lungs. It was harsh, but it was familiar, and it forced your thoughts into slower, more manageable shapes.

Your college life was already a mess. Deadlines slipping through your fingers, friendships kept alive on shallow conversations, nights spent chasing distractions that never lasted. Your dating life wasn’t any better. Red strings knotted themselves around your heart over and over, only to fray and snap before you could believe in them. Heeseung was the third guy you were dating in the past two months. A good guy, objectively. He didn’t believe in red string fate, always said it was just a way to keep people chasing someone who might not even be good for them. He told you he loved you. He said it with ease, like it was the most natural thing in the world. But his words, sweet and sugarcoated slid off you like water. They didn’t sink in. They didn’t anchor you.

You took another drag, watching the smoke curl up and disappear into the dark.

The door creaked open behind you. Footsteps. You didn’t turn right away. You didn’t need to.

“Still killing yourself with those?” The voice was the same as you remembered, deep but lazy, like every syllable was dragged out for effect. You turned, cigarette between your fingers. And there he was, leaning against the doorframe like the past months hadn’t happened. Sunghoon.

“Still in everyone’s business?” you shot back. Your voice came out sharper than you intended, but you didn’t regret it.

His mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Some things don’t change.”

You looked at him properly. He was thinner, yes, but not just physically. There was something in the way he carried himself, slower, heavier that made you think of winter trees stripped bare.

“Why are you here?” you asked finally, exhaling smoke. “Why are you?” he countered, and that infuriating spark in his eyes was still there, even under the weight of whatever had happened to him.

You scoffed. “I’m a student. This is my college. You, on the other hand…”

“I was invited,” he said simply, pushing off the doorframe and stepping closer. The night air shifted with him, carrying his scent, faint cologne, familiar enough to twist your stomach. “Didn’t know I’d run into you.”

“Liar,” you said before you could stop yourself.

He tilted his head, studying you. “Maybe.”

Silence stretched between you, only broken by the sound of your cigarette burning down. You flicked the ash, your pulse hammering too hard for someone who’d sworn they were done with him.

“I heard you have a boyfriend,” Sunghoon said finally, his tone unreadable. You glanced away. “I do.”

“And?”

“And what?”

His gaze pinned you. “Does he make you feel anything?”

You hated that question. You hated how easily he could cut through the layers you built for everyone else. You took another drag instead of answering, but you knew your silence was already an answer. Sunghoon’s eyes softened, just for a second. “You used to look at me like that.”

You let out a humorless laugh. “You used to deserve it.” That landed. You saw it in the flicker of his expression, the way his jaw tightened.

“Guess we’re both not the same anymore,” he murmured.

You crushed your cigarette against the wall, the ember dying in a hiss. “Guess not.”

But when you brushed past him to go back inside, you felt his gaze follow you the same way it always had. And even after months apart, you still hated how much your body noticed. The night air felt sharper now, each breath scraping your lungs. You had almost reached the door when fingers closed around your wrist.

That familiar touch burned through you like a live wire.

“Y/n, I—”

Sunghoon’s voice faltered, the words catching somewhere in his throat. His grip wasn’t tight, but it was enough to keep you there, suspended between the urge to pull away and the part of you that didn’t dare to move. You stared at his hand around yours, veins and tendons shifting under skin you knew too well.

Then, slowly, he let go.

You almost wished he hadn’t. The moment his touch left you, something in your chest ached, like you’d been bracing for impact only to be left swaying on your feet. The walls you had been building for months careful brick by careful brick cracked. Sunghoon’s gaze was different now. It was quieter than his smirks, heavier than his teasing. He looked at you as though he was desperate to tell you something but couldn’t find the right shape for it. Your other hand twitched without your permission. The index and thumb tugged at the thin brown string looped around your pinky a nervous habit, one you didn’t even realize you still had. The cord was warm from your skin, the fibers slightly frayed from years of absentminded fidgeting.

Sunghoon’s eyes flickered to it for the briefest second before he exhaled. And then, like he’d been holding the words back for too long, he said it.

“I’m moving to the U.S. for my master’s.”

The air seemed to still between you. You didn’t know what to say. The crack inside you only split wider, sharp edges pressing in from the inside. You heard yourself answer before you had time to think.

“Yeah, and? Good for you, I guess.”

Your tone came out dry drier than the thin, brittle air that clung to the night and you hated the way it sounded. Like you were unmoved. Like you hadn’t just been hit in the chest. Sunghoon’s lips curved into something soft. Not the arrogant smile he wore in crowded rooms, not the mocking twist you’d thrown insults at before. This one was gentle. It made your stomach pull tight, unsettling in its tenderness.

“I… want you to see me o—”

Snap.

The sound was barely audible, but you felt it like a jolt through your bones. The brown string, the one that had sat stubbornly tied around your pinky since you were old enough to understand what it meant, fell away. It drifted down between you, twisting in the cold air, before it landed against the pavement like nothing at all.

Your breath caught.

Sunghoon’s words died mid-sentence. His gaze dropped to the fallen thread. For a moment, neither of you moved. Neither of you dared to breathe. Then his face shifted, something unreadable sliding into place.

“Actually… never mind,” he murmured.

The softness from a second ago was gone. He took a step back, then another, retreating into the shadows like he couldn’t get far enough from what just happened. His head hung low, his hands buried deep into his pockets.

You didn’t stop him. You couldn’t.

Your hand felt strange without the string, bare in a way that wasn’t just physical. He walked away, each step pulling him further into the dark until the only proof he’d been there was the faint echo of his heat on your wrist. You stared down at the thread lying limp on the ground, but you didn’t pick it up.

Why don’t you ever stay, Sunghoon?

Sunghoon disappeared from your life again. He was simply gone like the thread between you had been cut twice, just to make sure.

And you moved on. Or at least, that’s what you told yourself. You threw yourself into your routines, into work, into faces and names that blurred together. You learned to laugh at the right times, to smile when people asked about your love life, to say, “I’m fine,” even when his ghost lingered in the quietest corners of your mind. But every now and then, in the still moments between night and morning, his face would come back to you. The sound of his voice. The warmth of his hand closing around your wrist.

And every time, you pushed the memory away. The way he left was unacceptable. That was the phrase you repeated when the ache started to creep in. It didn’t matter. It was for the better. You told yourself this so often you almost believed it , until the question came, soft and poisonous

What exactly is better for you anymore?

Years slipped by. The pressure to settle down grew heavier. Relatives began to speak in careful, pitying tones, and your parents’ subtle suggestions turned into gentle demands.

You were tired. So you gave in.

You told your parents to choose for you, handed over your independence like a possession you no longer had the strength to protect. A person like you someone who had never believed in fate, in soulmates, in strings that bound hearts forever would not find their partner on their own. At least this way, you could stop thinking about it.

And then, like a cruel joke, he came back.

Not when you were lonely. Not when you might have wanted him. But now when you were days away from binding your life to someone else’s.

Or maybe… maybe you did want him.

The day of the wedding arrived faster than you could process. You sat before the mirror, silk and gold draped across your shoulders, makeup soft enough to make you look like someone else. Voices buzzed faintly outside the door laughter, music, the shuffling of shoes.

Then the door opened.

A figure stepped inside, tall and familiar, and closed it with a quiet click of the lock.

You froze.

For a heartbeat, you thought this was another one of your cruel daydreams where he appeared just long enough for you to feel the old pull before vanishing again. But no. Park Sunghoon was standing in your dressing room.

Your pulse roared in your ears.

He looked at you the way he used to, like you were the only person in the room worth noticing and asked, “How are you?” Your mouth opened, but nothing came out. Instead, you stood, each step toward him slow, like you were afraid he might disappear if you moved too quickly. Your vision blurred, and you only realized you were crying when the warmth slid down your cheek. Up close, you saw it, the dullness in his eyes, the way his skin seemed paler, the faint slump in his shoulders. Like someone had drained the life out of him.

You tried to break the heaviness in the air with a weak joke. "was the master’s program that bad?”

But Sunghoon didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile.

Instead, he stepped forward, erasing the distance between you, and cupped your jaw with one hand. His palm was warm, familiar, grounding and dangerous all at once.

“I missed you,” he said quietly.

The words crashed into you like a wave. For a moment, you stood there, unable to breathe. The urge to collapse into him was sharp, almost unbearable. But you remembered the months of silence, the way he’d left without explanation, the way you’d been forced to patch yourself up alone. “I didn’t miss you,” you replied, your voice steady but your hands trembling at your sides.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. You had not missed him not the version of him who left, not the absence he left behind. But the truth sat heavy under your ribs, you had missed this. His presence. His voice. The dangerous way your heart reacted to him.

Sunghoon’s thumb brushed your cheekbone, his expression unreadable. “You’re lying.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

Outside, the sound of music swelled, a reminder that the world was still turning, that people were waiting for you to walk down the aisle. The dress felt heavier now, suffocating. The air between you felt like it might burn if you stayed too long.

“Why are you here, Sunghoon?” you asked finally.

“I couldn’t stay away from you,” Sunghoon said, his voice low, almost trembling. “Not when you’re handing yourself over like this to someone you don’t even love.” The nerve of him sent a bitter scoff spilling from your lips. “It’s none of your business.”

But before your anxious fingers could reach the brown string coiled around your pinky, he stepped forward. In a sudden, breathless motion, his hands closed around both your wrists firm, unyielding.

Then his mouth was on yours.

It was a collision — a desperate, bruising reunion that tasted like longing and old wounds. His lips moved against yours with a hunger that made your knees weaken, his breath hot, his grip on you unrelenting. You gasped, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue sliding past your lips, claiming, searching, as if he could map every corner of you he’d missed.

Your heart thundered, traitorous, matching the fever of his movements. The taste of him was intoxicating, familiar, yet sharper now, like time had only concentrated it. You felt the press of his body, the heat of him seeping through the layers of silk and fabric. His teeth grazed your lower lip, pulling a sharp inhale from you before his tongue soothed the sting, tangling with yours again in a messy, breath stealing rhythm. The kiss was all consuming.

You could feel your lipstick smudging, your carefully done makeup melting beneath the heat of his mouth and the dampness of your mingled breath. His hand slid up, cradling your jaw, tilting your head to kiss you deeper, like he wanted to drown in you. And in a way, you let him.

Until you didn’t.

With a burst of clarity, you shoved him hard. The force caught him off guard, sending him stumbling back a step, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.

“What the fuck—” The words came rough, but before you could gather yours, his composure returned like a tide, swift and unstoppable. He closed the space between you again, his arms snaking around your waist, pulling you flush against him. His hold was tight, almost desperate, as if loosening it even slightly might mean losing you forever.

“Stop pushing me away when you want me too,” he said, voice cracking under the strain.

And just like that, the dam inside you broke. Tears welled, spilling down your cheeks in hot, relentless streams.

“I don’t want you,” you sobbed, your fists finding his chest in weak, trembling blows. Each hit landed above where you could feel his erratic heartbeat hammering against your palms. “You can’t just come back like this and ruin my life!” His breath shuddered. Then, softer, steadier than you expected, he replied, “Then ruin me too.” The words tore something open inside you, and another painful sob clawed its way out of your lungs.

“Sunghoon, you’re not getting it,” you cried, shaking your head. “You’re not— we are not fated—”

Before you could finish, his mouth was on yours again, silencing your protests. This kiss was slower but no less intense, a seal, a refusal, a declaration he wasn’t ready to speak out loud. When he finally pulled back, his gaze locked onto yours, his dark eyes carrying the weight of years you’d both spent apart.

“I was always yours,” he said, his voice raw, unwavering. “And no matter what happens, you’ll never be able to run away from me.”

A bitter laugh scraped from your throat. “How can you be so selfish, Sunghoon? Are you doing this because you want me, or just because of your stupid needs?” You saw it then, the flicker in his expression, the way your words stole the air from his lungs. He looked at you like you’d struck something vital.

But you didn’t stop. Your voice was a blade, cutting through the charged air between you. “Go away, Park Sunghoon. I hate you. There wasn’t any string between us. And it’s fated.”

The lie tasted like blood in your mouth.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. His hands remained on you, not tightening, not loosening. His gaze searched yours like he was trying to find the truth you’d buried under anger and exhaustion. But whatever he found or didn’t find seemed to drain him.

Finally, he stepped back.

The space he left behind felt colder than it should have. Outside, the sound of your name being called echoed through the hallway, pulling you back into the reality you’d almost forgotten existed. You turned away from him, wiping at your ruined makeup with trembling hands, refusing to meet his eyes again.

Because if you did, you weren’t sure you’d be able to walk out of that room at all.

Time was cruel, but destiny was worse. It did not ask. It did not bargain. It simply dragged you to the end it had already decided, leaving you no choice but to clutch the shards it left behind pain, agony, and whatever fragments of love survived the wreckage.

When the news reached you, it didn’t feel real. The words stumbled into your ears, jumbled, meaningless. A name. A location. You sat there, listening, but the meaning refused to click, like your brain was protecting itself from what it already knew would ruin you.

You told yourself there had been some mistake. That it was someone else. That you would walk into the hospital and see him standing there, whole and breathing, with that faint, infuriating smile tugging at his lips.

But when you finally did walk in, the sight before you shattered that fragile denial.

The sterile brightness of the hospital room was unbearable, everything too white, too clean, too unforgiving. On the bed lay a body, still and unnaturally pale, as if someone had drained the warmth and color from him. His lips were slightly parted, but no breath came. His chest lay unmoving beneath the thin sheet.

Park Sunghoon was gone.

The sound of his family’s sobs filled the air, thick and raw. It wasn’t just noise, it was a wound made audible, a sound that clawed at the walls of your chest until you could barely breathe. But it wasn’t the crying that broke you. It wasn’t even the sight of his lifeless face, peaceful in a way that made you ache to shake him awake.

It was his hands.

Both of them were marked. Lines. Dozens of them, thin and deliberate, carved into his skin like he had been trying to recreate something only he could see. The cuts ran across his palms, over his fingers, winding like threads etched in flesh.

Strings.

Your knees buckled. The room tilted and blurred as the weight of understanding struck you. He had done this, marked himself, over and over, as though trying to bind himself to you in the only way he believed was left.

The brown string you’d always thought of as a nuisance, a reminder of a bond you swore didn’t exist, wasn’t fate’s work at all. It had been his. Every time he reached for you, every time he came closer despite you pushing him away, it wasn’t some unbreakable cosmic thread pulling him, it was his own stubborn, self inflicted devotion. You felt the air leave your lungs. Your vision darkened at the edges, the sounds of crying muffled as if you’d been submerged underwater. Then the floor rushed up to meet you, cold and merciless, as your body gave in and collapsed.

You told him there was no string between you. You’d told him you hated him. Sunghoon took the matters in his hands. You told him to go away. But he had not gone. He reached you anyway, clawing through the walls you built, cutting himself on the sharp edges you left for him. And still, he reached.

And now, no string theory, no fate, no cruel twist of the universe could change the fact that you had lost him. Not because destiny took him away, but because you had refused to let him stay. The brown string haunted you because it was not real, because every knot and tangle you thought fate had tied was just him, weaving himself into your life with sheer will until he could no longer bear the unraveling.

You visited him one last time before they took him away. The room was quieter then, the air heavy with the finality of what was coming. You stood beside him, your hand hovering over his before finally daring to touch it. His skin was cold, but you traced the carved lines anyway, your fingertips following each mark as though you could read his devotion in them like a language.

“I was yours too,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “I just didn’t know how to be.” And maybe somewhere, wherever he was now, he heard you. But in that room, with the silence pressing in and the scent of antiseptic in your lungs, you knew that no matter how much you wished otherwise, it was too late.

THE END

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