#I hope this doesnt look to bright??? I am not near my computer to check ahhh

[saltedbiscuiit]

Orange Soda

[yoon-kooks]

Witch Hazel- Pt.4

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: FanficWriter!Jungkook, Idol!Reader, College!AU, Angst, Fluff

Summary: There are two students in your art class with a secret: you and the quiet Jeon Jungkook. You’re a problematic idol singer, infamous for your ice cold reputation and perpetual resting bitch face; he’s the artist and author behind the viral comic series based on a certain ice queen idol. After a blowup of destructive rumors, lost motivation and inevitable solitude, you stumble upon Jungkook’s comic and find a new and unexpected light.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: none

Parts: 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // ?

A/N: my hope is that the idol industry can one day become a safer place for those who have dedicated their lives to making others happy ❤️

-

“Let me guess, you’re the type who needs to feel needed but also pushes people away?”

“How would you know that, Bunny Boy?”

“It’s my power.”

“You have powers too?” Snow blinks her pretty blue eyes. “Can you read minds?”

“I certainly can’t read minds,” Bunny Boy laughs. “But I am pretty good at reading hearts.”

“Oh yeah? What’s my heart feeling right now?”

“Well for starters, you seem to be annoyed by me prying too deep.”

“You are annoying.”

“And you also think I’m kinda cute.”

“I do not!”

You giggle into your phone screen for the hundredth time as you read through the latest Witch Hazel update. With the reveal of another character with secret powers, you wonder what Snow will make out of him. A friend? An ally? Or perhaps just someone who gets her.

Beneath the last comic panel of Snow rolling her eyes at the unofficially named Bunny Boy, you find cute little comments from the author.

“all i hope is for snow to take care of herself during this hiatus”

“even if it’s only a tiny amount, maybe witch hazel can help supplement as new snow content for now;;;;;;”

“ah i didnt mean to sound as if i were anywhere near snow’s level or anything;;;;;;”

“i just hope she knows she doesnt have to carry any burden all on her own”

“she has people on her side”

Your face doesn’t know whether to smile or shed tears, so you do a combination of both. It’s true, you’ve always felt alone. Always. No matter how many staff members it takes to produce an album or how many fans buy that album, you’ve never once felt that people could look beyond your idol music, your icy eyes, your mask.

But that’s exactly why you’re taking a break. You need to separate your worth from the music attached to your name. You need to prove to yourself that you’re more than what the critics and magazines say. And you’re only realizing it now that you can’t do it alone.

If only you had your own jk.seagull in your life. You’re sure the two of you would mesh well together.

-

“Where is that kid?” Taehyung pats the empty seat next to him before class starts. “He never skips class. I remember one time he literally rejected a date with a super cute girl because he ‘had to get to class’. Can you believe that?”

“Knowing Jungkook, I’d believe it,” you shrug. It does feel oddly empty without his presence, though.

“Oh really? You know all there is to know about the mysterious phenomenon that is Jeon Jungkook? It sounds like you guys got real acquainted on that date the other day.”

“It wasn’t a date, Taehyung. It was a meeting for a group project that you didn’t show up to.”

“Well it all evens out since Jungkook didn't show up today. Who knows, maybe you won’t show up tomorrow.”

“I’m sure he has a good reason for being absent. Unlike you.” You have to admit, it does worry you a little. Especially after the hints of doubt Jungkook expressed about his own beautiful art. You wish he knew how amazing of an artist he really is.

“What are you talking about? My reason was valid.”

“Having your cock sucked for five hours straight is not a valid reason, by the way.” You roll your eyes. “Let me guess, today you have a threesome scheduled after class and dinner date at 5?”

“Ouch, you don’t have to be so harsh, Y/N.” Taehyung pretends to be offended, but he doesn’t deny your comment either. “You’re really his type, you know.”

“I’m whose type?”

“Jungkook’s.”

“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?”

“I’ve said this before, but you’re a lot like Snow.”

“How?”

“In how you present yourself,” Taehyung says. “You and her both come across as cold and heartless, but somehow I don’t buy it.” He doesn’t buy what? That you’re just as much of a bitch on the inside too? Ha.

“Jungkook must have weird taste then,” you shrug. Because in your opinion, you’re not exactly an easy person to love.

“But-” Taehyung is cut off by the professor starting class. You don’t know what more he could’ve said to make you change your mind anyway.

“There won’t be any lecture for today’s class.” Your professor is busy typing away at her computer, perhaps trying to get caught up on paperwork and grading old assignments. “Instead, I want you all to take this time to work on your group projects. You may leave the classroom if you must, but remember to stay on task!”

With that, your classmates jam out of the room as if they were just freed from prison. You hear a couple of friends deciding which boba place to try out. Another group, the overachievers of the class, head somewhere outside to actually work on the project. Taehyung, too, looks as if there’s somewhere else he needs to be.

“So I-”

“Go ahead and get laid,” you sigh, shooing the boy away with your hand. “We’ll work next time when all three of us are here.”

“Thanks, Y/N! You get me,” Taehyung waves bye before dashing off.

You wave back as the hall clears out around you. It seems everyone else has found somewhere to go. Everyone except you.

But it’s fine. You’re fine.

Buzz! You jump at the sudden phone notification that seems to echo off the walls of the empty hall. Oh look, it’s a text from your only friend.

10:32AM jinnie❤️ “good morning ^O^// just checking in on you”

10:33AM jinnie❤️ “how are you holding up with everything?”

“I’m fine!” you mumble rather aggressively to yourself, sliding your ass down onto the filthy hallway floor before texting back. Your chunky guitar case sits in your lap like a baby so it doesn’t get dirty.

10:34AM Y/N “i miss seeing you at work everyday :((((”

10:34AM Y/N “lololololol jk”

10:35AM Y/N “fuck work, am i right”

10:36AM jinnie❤️ “Y/N”

10:37AM Y/N “😒”

10:37AM Y/N “im fine”

10:38AM jinnie❤️ “thats exactly what people say when theyre not fine”

But you are fine. You’re completely fine with sitting all alone in an empty hallway, texting your only friend who also happens to be your manager.

10:39AM jinnie❤️ “what are you doing now?”

You pick up your guitar and start walking away. Obviously, you can’t tell him what you were actually doing because it would worry him too much. But you can’t lie to him either.

10:41AM Y/N “if you really must know”

You wait until you arrive at your new location before answering Seokjin’s million-dollar question. You’ve found your place.

10:45AM Y/N “im practicing in the music room before my theory class starts”

He sends you the Surprised Pikachu meme but also a few supportive comments.

10:46AM jinnie❤️ “good luck!”

10:46AM jinnie❤️ “and if you ever need something, please reach out to me!”

10:47AM jinnie❤️ “ill be checking in on you every now and then, but please enjoy your time off~”

10:48AM Y/N “thank you seokjin”

With your manager off your back, you settle into the empty music classroom and pull your trusty guitar out of its case. The flat and out of tune strings remind you of how long it’s been since the last time you touched the guitar. Because despite carrying it around wherever you go, it’s all for show.

In all honesty, you’re too afraid to let others hear, and yet, part of you wants them to know. You want them to know you’re an artist in your own right—without the judgment. But that’s asking for too much from this cruel world. Especially when you know you aren’t there yet.

One by one, you turn the pegs on your guitar, fine tuning each string by ear. That’s always been your secret talent, and maybe that’s how you’ve never been off-key since the moment you said your first words. If there was one thing you had going for you as an idol, it was that.

Once all the strings are tuned, you just sit there, staring at your fingers curved naturally in the C chord position. The muscle memory is still very much ingrained in you, but so are the scars. The last time you actually held your guitar, you were told you weren’t good enough. So you ended up settling for something else.

Today, however, you want to change that. You shouldn’t let several people’s opinions determine what you can or can’t amount to just because they were the professionals of the industry who supposedly “knew” what they were doing. They didn’t know you then, and they certainly don’t know you now. They don’t even know your real name.

But that’s okay. Having a secret identity makes you feel as though you can someday become a true superhero, someone who makes the world a better place from behind the scenes. In that sense, you want to be someone like your current favorite person on the internet, jk.seagull. You don’t know him, nor do you know his real name.

All you know is that his craft makes you happy.

With the funny fanfic boy in mind, you glance up to make sure the coast is clear before taking your first strum. Despite the dullness of your old worn-out strings, what your ears hear is crisp and bright.

-

You aren’t sure how much time has passed since you began singing along to a melody only you know, but you’re suddenly pulled back into reality with a single mention of her from outside the classroom.

“What do you think about the Snow news?”

“It’s honestly sad.”

“With how little she contributes to her music, I really don’t think she deserves a break.”

“She should just keep going. How hard is it to sing a few songs? I hope she knows she’s letting a lot of people down just so she could relax.”

“Or better yet, she should just retire early.”

You set down your guitar on the piano bench. You’ve heard quite enough and you’re ready to slam the door on the noisy group passing by. But by the time you peek your head out from the crack, the group is already at the other end of the hall. You do, however, find a surprise sitting right outside the music room.

The boy who was supposedly too sick to come to class is too busy sketching away to notice you staring at him.

“How long have you been sitting out here?”

The tiny hairs on the back of the boy’s neck stand up as his drawing hand freezes at the sound of your voice. He turns around, looking up at you as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.

“Since I started sketching.” Jungkook shows you a simple yet pretty drawing of a flowery spring field. By his art standards, it couldn’t have taken him long to draw that one page.

But it isn’t until you start flipping through the rest of the pages in the sketchbook that you realize he’d been sitting there for quite a while. Each page is similar to the last with only slight differences in between. When you fly through the pages like a flipbook, you see the whole picture.

From the first sketch of spring flowers, snow slowly covers the field until only a single flower remains in a winter wonderland. If you go in reverse, you can watch as the snow melts away until that one flower disappears amongst its brethren.

“What kind of flower is that?” You point to the one that somehow managed to blossom through the thickness of the snow. Maybe if it were colored in, you’d have a better idea.

“A strong one?” Jungkook shrugs as if he’s not the artist who knows the the answer. You hate yourself for cackling along at his lousy joke. He closes his sketchbook as a way to change the subject. “Why aren’t you in class?”

“Funny you should ask. The professor dismissed our class to work on the group projects. And then Tae ditched to go do his usual skirt-chasing shenanigans because somebody in our group didn’t show up.”

“Sorry,” the boy bites his lower lip with a hint of regret. “I didn’t really feel well enough to sit in class today.”

“Then why didn’t you just stay at home?”

“I still had this project to turn in and finish for my other class.” He raises his sketchbook. “And besides, music is the best medicine.”

You feel your cheeks burning up. The last person you expected to catch you messing around with your guitar in the music department was the art student who was supposed to be out sick. “How much did you hear…?”

“All I heard was one song…” He assures you for a slight second before going in for the kill, “…that you kept replaying over and over and over-”

“I get it. You heard a lot,” you hiss. “You better not tell anyone! Not even Tae.”

“I won’t,” he promises, chuckling at your distress. It seems the kid’s gotten comfortable enough around you to start clowning you. “It’s a nice song, by the way.”

“Really?” You want to believe him, but you have a hard time doing so. When all you’ve heard was brutal criticism for the past few years, it’s difficult to accept any compliment without feeling like there’s ill intent behind it. It feels wrong to feel good about yourself.

Besides, maybe he’s just complimenting you out of obligation. Like he’s trying to be nice, even if he doesn’t actually feel that way about your song.

“I’ll burden the pain so you don’t have to,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s a line from the lyrics, right?”

You nod.

“It’s a very Y/N thing to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jungkook shrugs and swirls his Sailor Venus keychain around his index finger. “Just take it as a compliment, Y/N.”

If not for his soft teasing smile, your mind would still be filled with doubt. Instead, you accept the compliment and gain a tiny bit of confidence back.

“Come in for a second,” you start walking back inside the music room. “And close the door behind you.”

Jungkook does as he’s told, his eyes glued to your guitar as you pick it up off the piano bench. There, you do something you’ve never practiced but had always hoped to perform as Snow—your own acoustic version of one of your songs.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve never practiced or touched your guitar in years. You know the key, the chords, the strum pattern. And you know how to make it your own. Not Snow’s or anyone else’s.

When you’re done with your mini acoustic performance, the boy can’t help but chuckle. He’s about to clown you again. You can feel it.

“What??”

“It’s nothing.”

“Jungkook.”

“It’s seems like you don’t hate Snow as much as you lead on.”

“I was only trying to show how I would’ve done the song if I were her.”

“Ah, so you criticize Snow so much because you think you can do better?”

“Not necessarily better… just differently.” You hope that answer is enough to satisfy the boy. But it’s not. He only nods with an awfully suspicious smirk. “What now??”

“It’s cool that you want to be a songwriter.”

“I never said that I did,” you say with a slight pout and hmph. You’ve never once mentioned your true dreams to anyone besides maybe some random kid at camp when you were ten. You’d hate to announce your bold aspirations with the utmost confidence, only to flop and fail before achieving anything. You’d rather keep it a secret until you perhaps “pop-off” as the kids say.

“Sure.” He doesn’t believe you.

“Are you always this sassy when you’re sick?”

His long locks flow as he shakes his head. “I’m feeling better now, actually. Thanks to your medicine.”

Maybe the kid was faking his sickness all along. Then again, Taehyung did say Jungkook wasn’t the type to skip class under most circumstances. Perhaps there was something else that was bothering him.

“Wait, you weren’t upset about Snow’s hiatus, right?” You remember the gossip from the noisy group that had passed by earlier. The beating you took from their words still stings.

“To be honest, I was worried about her at first with everything that went on,” Jungkook says. “But I think she probably just needed some time away from all that.”

“Probably,” is all you say, doing your best to downplay the amount of relief his words gave you. He isn’t upset or let down; he just wishes the best for your well-being. And as an idol, that’s all you’ve ever asked for. “You know, you’re the nicest Snow fan I’ve ever met.”

“You know a lot of other Snow fans?” Jungkook tilts his head at your odd statement. Oh right. You’ve only really met other fans as Snow, not as Y/N. Now you sound suspicious.

“Oh yeah, for sure. My friend, Seokjin, reads Snow smut all the time,” you force out a laugh while making a mental apology to your manager. Then you decide it’s best to change the subject before you blow your cover. “Speaking of fanfiction, I need your opinion on Witch Hazel!”

“What about it?”

“The new bunny character.” You whip out your phone for direct reference of the comic. “He’s funny, right?”

“He’s good at teasing Snow,” Jungkook looks at your phone screen of the bunny saying that Snow thinks he’s cute. “I wonder if he’ll make her fall for him.”

“I want him to.” Your eyes light up without knowing. To have Snow fall in love is wishful thinking, but a large part of you craves romance deep down—even if it’s only for the fictional version of yourself. “But at the same time, he’s not Snow’s type.”

“What’s Snow’s type?”

“Huh?” You somehow managed to fuck up again, so you shrink yourself and hope to disappear. “I don’t know… Why would I know what Snow’s type is…? It’s probably not a playboy like the bunny, but I wouldn’t know that…!”

“So you think she’d like someone more… considerate?”

You nod. “Probably just someone who takes the time to get to know her.”

“I guess we’ll see in the upcoming chapters.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” You can’t quite hold back a smile. After all, your day always feels a lot better when it involves your favorite little comic.

Jungkook must’ve noticed your face because he makes a comment. “I am curious, though, as to why you like Witch Hazel so much when you clearly don’t care for Snow herself.”

“For me, it has nothing to do with Snow.” To mask your smile, you make a cute duck face instead. “Reading it just… makes me happy.” As much as you’d hate to admit it, it’s been a long time since anything has given you good vibes the way that one comic does.

“That’s good,” the boy says, gathering his things to head to his next class. “It’s the same for me with Snow’s music… in case you were wondering.” And with that, he leaves you with something to think about.

If Snow’s music is Jungkook’s medicine, Witch Hazel is yours.

-

By the time you get home from school, you’re still smiling like an idiot after what Jungkook had said. Snow’s music makes him happy, and the mere thought of that makes you happy. It’s in (very rare) times like this that you remember why you chose to become an idol in the first place. It’s why you endure the pain.

With your mind clouded in an unfamiliar wave of emotion, you pull out your phone and tap on Jungkook’s contact information. After changing his contact name to something cuter, you start composing a casual message just to say hi.

Jungkook. What if I told you a secret?

Delete. You’ve never deleted a message so quick. You don’t even know which secret you would’ve told the boy. That you’re his crush, Snow? Or that he’s yours? Not that you have a huge crush on him… You swear it’s just a tiny one!

Regardless, you shouldn’t be sharing any of your deepest secrets with him—at least not for now. It’s not that you don’t trust him. It’s just that it’s a tricky situation to be in.

Your eyes move from your guitar, to the stacks of handwritten sheet music beside it, to the album that won you your first award—where the pain all began. Even the most supportive fan could not imagine what you’ve given up to be the idol that you are, to be someone with a name.

The only thing you can do now is take it all back. And only then will you let Jungkook in. But until that time comes, you don’t belong to him or anyone else.

4:44PM Snow “Are you free to talk?”

4:46PM Jimin “Yeah”