#I see a lot of y'all's posts hours before I rb bc I want to make a response

[brooklynisher]

I FOUND IT OH M,Y GODD

IDC IF SHE DIDN'T SAY YES

"IT'S POSSIBLE" IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!

WE REJOICE

[x]

[1kook]

epiphany

Pairing: Jeno x (F) Reader

summary ⇢ “You know he likes you, right?”

word count ⇢ 3.8k 

tags ⇢ fluff, soft romancin’, confession through text bc why not, some soft high school luvin’, crushes and shit

notes: i wrote this back in august but never wanted to proofread, and guess what y'all, i still aint proofread shit so here u go

!! there is a read more but it doesn't come up unless someone rbs this post I AM SO SORRY

The day of your enlightenment had been on a Friday night, the bright stadium lights that surrounded your school’s multipurpose field blindingly strong, the cheers of your peers deafening. Your senses were attacked on multiple fronts, and your fingers shook from the cold, late October chill that seemed set on freezing you to death, the scent of hot chocolate and leaves swarming your nose. You’d watched Jeno and his friends walk across the bottom of the bleachers, chocolate eyes scouring the crowd of students and families, as if he was looking for someone. He was looking for your little gang, you realized, the one that you’d all hastily forged towards the end of junior year, when you’d all had a large outing at some laser tag place, celebrating your ascension into the senior class. 

The summer following that had flown by much too quickly, filled with even more group activities where you’d spent whole days at the mall, evenings in each other’s back yards, just basking in the unsaid fact that this was the last summer you had before you’d all start worrying about things like college, and working. But as warm days dripped away into the now chillier nights, your friendship with each other had remained as solid as a statue. 

It was inevitable that your friends wouldn’t have every single class with you, and you’d honestly dreaded senior year for that reason alone. Yet as the first week passed by, your new friends slowly found each other, and you’d found every class was more enjoyable. 

Jeno and his friends were always a party to be with. Whether it be on Saturday nights or in the middle of your english class, they were always a source of entertainment for you and Jeno, himself, was an enigma. 

He was probably the most calm out of the group, you deduced, and though he had has random bouts of goofiness, for the most part he was pretty lax. He was one of those attractive guys, the ones who are seemingly unaware of their own godly appearance, and like to believe that the kindness they receive from girls is out of the generosity of their own hearts, and not because they really want to kiss him. Despite his obliviousness, he was an absolute sweetheart, and when you dragged behind the group, he’d always drift his way back to make sure you weren’t alone. 

It’s with this memory of Jeno that you raise your arms up, and shout his name, winning his attention despite all the other screaming spectators. Your gazes meet immediately, and his lips pulls into the cutest smile as he points you out to the rest of the guys, before stumbling his way up the nearest steps. 

It’s when you’re watching him climb the steps with his long legs (you’d been teasing him about joining a modeling agency for weeks now), eyes never leaving his gaze, that your friend nudges your arm and says, “you know he likes you, right?”

★

It sticks in your mind for a few days, and despite how unbelievable it sounds, it causes you to overanalyze every single interaction you’ve had with Jeno, starting with the very first time you’d officially met. 

The laser tag had been mostly planned by one of your friends, and though you’d been excited to go out and play, you hadn’t been too invested in any other details. All you really knew was one, you were going laser tagging, and two, some other people were coming. 

Seeing Jeno, the captain of the soccer team had been like a splash of cold water to your face, and you’d suddenly been made very aware of how under-dressed you were. Yes, you were going to be doing something that called for a lot of physical activity, but that didn’t mean you could show up in your dad’s old shirt, ridiculously large and faded, and a pair of shorts, for gods sake. 

Jeno was looking as dashing as you’d always caught him looking in the hallways, a plain t-shirt snug against his broad shoulders, legs encased by those Adidas track pants every single soccer player seemed to own. Though your outfits were picked with similar consideration, he looked a thousand times more put together than you.

Whatever, you’d thought, the arena was going to be dark anyway, and you were here to kickass, not ogle the cute boy in your trig class.

Yet as the evening progressed, you’d found yourself in a randomized assortment of teams every round. Once, you’d been paired with your best friend, which you thought was the absolute worst because you hadn’t done anything but laugh and wheeze for a good portion of the beginning, and then gotten eliminated two minutes into the speed round.

But apparently there was worse, and you only realized it when the random team generator paired you with Jeno, who had slipped to the back of your mind until then. You’d been nervous from the get-go, and all your competitiveness had faded at the sight of him fixing the straps of his chest plate as you waited to be allowed into the arena. He’d flashed you a smile then, and though his intention had been to relax you, it’d only made you a hundred times more uneasy.

But all this was unbeknownst to Jeno, who seemed content with playing another game of laser tag sans any emotional partners dragging him down. So you’d set all your inner turmoil aside in favor of being the best laser tag partner Jeno had ever seen, focusing your attention on how badly you wanted to win, and not on the way the sweat dripped down the nape of Jeno’s neck when he chased Jaemin through the arena. 

And it’d paid off in the end when the lights suddenly flashed on, and nearly everyone around you had chest plate’s with red glowing LED lights, and yours and Jeno’s were still an obnoxiously neon green color. You’d both been ecstatic at the win, and when Jeno hollered loud enough to burst your eardrums, it had been easy to push past his sparkling aura, and see the dorky boy hiding beneath. 

★

It comes up again when you’re all sitting outside the local corner store after school one day, lazily slurping down the contents of your juice boxes, which have long since gone warm under the blazing heat. Your uniform was a horrible addition to the temperature, and you’d felt sweat building up from the itchy material of your clothing. It was disgustingly humid, and you’d began wondering why you were all sitting here when you could easily be inside someone’s air conditioned house having the exact some conversation. 

Your question is answered when Jeno and another one of your friends come strolling around the corner at the other end of the street. Your friend beside you waves and makes a general racket until their attention is on you guys, and the cute smile Jeno sends your way sends the blood rushing to your ears. 

“It’s hot!” Chenle complains, and gives a feeble kick to Jeno’s legs as he nears the group of you. “We’ve been waiting for hours,” he adds on, as if trying to gain the most out of Jeno’s tardiness, his aim probably to coerce Jeno into inviting you all over to his place. 

You’re desperate for a reprieve from the heat at this point, and dumbly nod along with whatever Chenle’s saying, your focus only returning when Jeno stretches a hand out towards you. “C’mon,” he says, and already the rest of your friends are shuffling down the street, talking too loud and too much in a way only high schoolers seem to do. 

You take Jeno’s hand in yours, and he pulls you up without even straining a muscle. When you’re on two steady feet again, he places a hand on your shoulder, and you instantly meet his gaze. 

He’s too close and it’s too hot, his minty breath fanning across your face, as he leans closer and offers you a chilled water bottle, a thin sheen of condensation building up against the plastic surface. “Thanks,” you murmur, and when you grab the drink from his hands, your skin brushes, and once again you feel like you’re on fire.

You stumble behind your group, and though he’s beside you, Jeno feels a million miles away, talking animatedly with the rest of the group, not sparing you even the tiniest glance. You feel awkward, because it’s a huge transition from the intimacy he’d shown you only a few moments prior, when he’d leaned close enough you could smell his shampoo and the earthy scent of his body spray. 

There’s a whizzing sound from behind you, and you barely manage to catch the tinkling of a bicycle bell as the cyclist quickly closes in on you, and more specifically, Jeno. He’s strayed off to the edge of the sidewalk, by the unofficial bicycle lane, and you only have a second to grip his elbow and tug him back towards you. 

“Careful!” You yelp, and jerk him too hard, until he’s tumbling into your personal space, one hand placed delicately on your shoulder, the other hastily placed on your forearm. Someone from the front yells something like get it together, man! at Jeno, but the call falls deaf on your ears. 

Jeno’s close again, similar to how he was earlier, yet this time, his composure has flown out the window. His breathing is harsh and ragged, both from the surprise he’d felt from a near accidental experience, and your sudden proximity. “Are you okay?” You ask, only vaguely aware that you hold the upper arm now. 

Jeno mutely nods, wide brown eyes flickering from your gaze to nearly every other visible part of you. “Yeah,” he mumbles, and suddenly, his face heats up. 

The rosy color begins at the apples of his cheeks, so faint you almost confuse it with exertion. But then it slowly blossoms across his face, until his ears are a bright red, and continues crawling down his neck, and up to his forehead, and his face is a nice pink shade. 

“Jeno?” You poke, and he jumps in your hold, dark hair shifting with his movement, as he pulls away from you. He’s a stuttering mess then, assuring you he’s okay, and that it was his fault, and he’s normally not this clumsy, he isn’t sure how he didn’t hear, but the heat was really beating down on you now, right, maybe we should catch up to the others? Before tearing his jittery gaze away from you and jogging towards the rest of the group. 

You’re left thinking about Jeno’s sudden restlessness as you trail after the group, eventually catching them at a stoplight. Though he’s long since calmed down, his ears still peek through his messy hair, and the shade is even more obvious amongst all the onyx strands. 

★

You’re not sure how you’d never noticed before, Jeno’s apparent infatuation with you, but now that you have, it really is obvious. 

Though he’s composed for the most part, he seems to develop a nervous twitch around you, so subtle and minuscule that you nearly don’t notice that either. But the way he strays away from your gaze and toys with a bracelet around his wrist is there, and you find yourself pushing the limits to see how far he can withstand. 

It’s during your third little staring match of the night, you dead set on holding his gaze for more than fifteen seconds and maybe enjoying the tiny flush that dusts his cheeks, when your friend nudges your side, completely knocking your attention off of Jeno from where he is across the backyard. 

“What are you doing?” She warily asks, and you blink at her, before motioning for her to elaborate. “You’re being weird,” she sighs, and you find yourself shaking your head at her absurdness. 

“What? No, I’m not,” you defend, taking a sip of your can of soda and shifting your attention back towards where Jeno is now engaged in another conversation. “I’m just looking.”

She snorts. “You’re looking like you want to eat him,” she points out, and you choke on your drink. She pats your back sympathetically, as if she knows something you don’t, and for a moment, you think she just might. 

“I-I just wanted to see if what you said was true!” You blurt, but your own embarrassment is revealed by the way your voice breaks, and your cheeks flare. 

“If you like him, you should just tell him,” she advises, and returns to the conversation she’d been having before she’d decided to further confuse you. You’re left dazedly staring at the grass below your feet, but it’s not long until your traitorous eyes wander back towards Jeno, who is, coincidentally, also looking your way. 

When your gazes meet, you suddenly feel like the last of the sheet is pulled away, revealing the feelings you’d been trying to suppress. Jeno sends a soft grin your way, as if he, too, is suddenly aware of your vulnerability. 

★

Jeno approaches you one morning before classes, rests his stupidly handsome head against the side of your opened locker, and you nearly yelp in surprise. He’s all soft smiles and twinkly eyes as he watches you grab your books, asking about your day, and if you’re going to the movies with everyone on Friday. Despite your sudden epiphany and the following self-analysis you’d given yourself in the mirror as you’d gotten ready that morning, you’d like to think you still held a semblance of control, so you answer Jeno as you always have, trying to reveal as little as possible about your interest in him. 

Unfortunately, it all comes to a head on Friday night. 

Recently, your friend had befriended a girl from one of her classes, and she’d taken to hanging around your already big group, so the past few outings had been harder to coordinate. You’d had an even number of friends before, so reserving tables at restaurants had been easy, and car arrangements had never been a problem because you all got along with everyone. But your friend’s friend only knew a select few of you, and frequently preferred sitting by the one’s she knew, which you completely understood because it was hard being around people who knew each other inside and out, while you didn’t. 

Apparently, Jeno was one of those people she knew better, so of course, she’d ended up drifting towards him more often than not. 

You hadn’t minded, because if you had, you’d come off as rude and selfish. But also because Jeno wasn’t yours, so you had no logical reason to complain about their closeness other than the fact that you were jealous over someone who was very obviously not your significant other. 

The ice cream run you’d gone on prior to the movie screening was filled with screaming and laughter, just the way you preferred, and Jeno had even sat next to you inside one of the booths, his presence consuming your thoughts, which he knew, if the tiny smirks he’d send your way were anything to go by. He was becoming increasingly straightforward with his advances on you, which both excited and terrified you. 

The only thing holding him back from full on confessing his feelings to you is the new girl sitting in front of him, who likes to laugh extra loud at his jokes, and grab onto his hand whenever she recalls a memory of something else. 

The movie goes somewhat similar to that, Jeno trailing beside you through the theater, offering to share a large popcorn with you, and occasionally making a sarcastic remark in response to someone else.

But he’s quiet with you, listens to you give your opinion about the last superhero installment of the film you’re watching today, soft brown eyes zeroed in on your face. Every now and then he’ll push the popcorn container into your lap, claiming he’s sick of popcorn, before snatching it back a few minutes later. 

Your new friend is sitting on his other side, and though she’s mostly preoccupied with the person on her other side, she still interrupts you two here and there, placing a hand on Jeno’s knee to get his attention. 

He’s considerate of her, and they laugh about something that happened in their art class while you watch the final trailers roll through, before the movie starts and everyone shuts up. 

It’s a damn good movie, you think, but it’d be even better if you didn’t have to hear the soft giggles Jeno shares with his friend, and the way she constantly reaches for his knee whenever he so much as glances at you. You’re not jealous, you think, maybe just a little salty. 

But you remind yourself of your relations to Jeno, and how, as much as you’d like to believe he was, he isn’t your boyfriend, and even if he was, he wasn’t required to ignore everyone else just for you. So you settle on whispering with Jaemin, who sits quietly on your other side. Despite usually being the mood setter of your group, he’s oddly quiet right now as he doesn’t understand the movie’s plot. You occupy yourself with filling him in instead. 

When the ending credits roll by, you’re feeling ten times more serene than when you’d been two hours ago, and happily follow your friends out of the theater. 

Someone suggests going to corner store, but you’re feeling a tad bit tired, and opt out instead. Jaemin’s also a little tired, probably from all the plot lines you’d stuffed into his head, and offers to walk you home, along with a few others. Your group separates into the going home club and the out all night party, bidding each other goodbye until you round the corner. 

A few minutes into the walk, Jaemin says, “huh, Jeno texted.” 

For a moment, your steps stutter, and though you’re currently involved in another conversation, you try to discreetly focus your hearing on whatever Jaemin is telling his buddies. You don’t hear much, just that he seems to have decided to go home last minute and was wondering if you were all nearby still. Jaemin tells him no, and you think about Jeno walking home alone until you reach your house and bid everyone goodbye. 

Truthfully, it takes a while to muster up the courage to text him, and you wash your face and put in your retainers before you pace your bedroom for five minutes, building yourself up. Though you’re desperate to text Jeno and ask him if he’s okay, he’d really only told Jaemin of his situation, so you texting him out of the blue would be a bit creepy. But at the same time, you guys are friends, you tell yourself, and friends regularly check up on each other. 

[10:17] ____: did you get home safe?

He texts back ridiculously fast. 

[10:17] jeno: yeah you?

You sigh in relief, before filling Jeno in on all the tomfoolery that had occurred on your walk home, trying your best to not convey the absolute adoration you had for him. Jeno asks if you enjoyed the movie, and you tell him you did. Then, he throws you for a loop. 

[10:29] jeno: did jaems like it?

You blink. 

[10:30] ____: yeah, he was just confused a lot so i had to tell him what was going on lol

[10:31] jeno: oh lol

Suddenly, it’s stilted and awkward, two words that don’t mix well with Jeno. He was always the more suave between the two of you, frequently spitting lines that were on the border between friendly and romantic, and somehow saving himself from any weird situations. But Jeno being the stiff one only made you feel ten times more out of place. 

It goes on like that for a few moments, you desperately trying to fill in the gaps Jeno is leaving open, until he finally throws a bomb at you. 

[10:40] jeno: do you like jaemin?

You blank, and for a moment all you hear is the running water of your mom washing the dishes downstairs, and the soft murmuring of the television. Is this what had brought on this awkwardly formal conversation?

[10:41] ____: well, he’s my friend so i kinda have to 

You play it safe, locking your phone shut in an attempt to regain your senses. Your best choice of action right now is remaining calm, so you rush off to wash your face. After rushing through the steps of your skincare routine you find you’re still a little frazzled by Jeno’s question, so you distract yourself with brushing your teeth. 

When you come back, there’s two new messages waiting for you. 

[10:42] jeno: oh yeah lol 

[10:45] jeno: actually can i tell you something?

Your heart feels like it’s stuck in your throat, and your hands tremble with anxiety as you shakily type out a quick sure, before setting your phone down again. Your face feels hot, you realize after pressing your palm to your cheek. Your phone dings, and you nearly jump out of your skin. 

[10:50] jeno: i like you

★

You notice it from the way he holds your hand in the morning, fingers laced together over the center console of his car, his lips softly curving over the words of his favorite song, eyes still a little droopy with sleep. He’s ridiculously soft at this hour, his voice mellow and sweet when he pulls up to the drive-through of your favorite coffee place and orders your drinks.

He’s barely flickering to life when you arrive at school, balancing his coffee and his bag in one hand as he pulls the door open for you. His friends greet him as you trek towards your locker, and it’s probably Renjun’s reminder to finish the pre-calc homework that finally shocks him awake. 

“C’mon,” he whines at your locker, rushing you to grab all your things. Its mixed in with his, so you have to grab two blue notebooks before you finally manage to find the one thats yours. When he deduces you’re down, he shuts your locker, hand finding yours as he tugs you towards the library. 

You notice it as you watch him rush through his math problems, your own attention primarily focused on the literature book in front of you. Occasionally, his eyes flicker towards you, his pencil obnoxiously tapping against the table. He nudges you beneath the table, and when you look up, you’re immediately trapped by his gaze. 

He blinks those long lashes your way, the corners of his eyes still winged with sleep. He’s inexplicably beautiful, you think as you watch him speak, his words going completely over your head. He kicks your shin then, and you yelp in the library, much to his own amusement. 

“Are you even listening?” Jeno whispers, his hand crawling across the table until the tips of your fingers are touching. You shake your head, and he clicks his tongue. Your heart thunders in your chest, and nearly stops when he murmurs, “aren’t you supposed to listen to your boyfriend when he talks?”