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leesolbeesol · 3 months ago

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LIGHTWEIGHT

univeristy!au taesan x fem!reader (ft. the rest of bonedo!)

SUMMARY: Meeting Taesan at a basement party doesn't go as planned, what happens when you can't get rid of him? Do you even want to?

GENRE: fluff, slightly suggestive in one chapter, university!au (mentions of fraternities, classes, lectures, dorms, etc.) WARNINGS: Taesan gets punched, he doesn't deserve it but everything is okay | swearing | mentions of moaning but it doesn't get too crazy, reader makes fun of Taesan for it | fem!reader | heavy mentions of alcohol in the first chapter | EXCESSIVE flirting | ends with a confession!! NOTES: I have never been to a frat party. I have never participated in Greek life. I do not drink for personal reasons. I have never dated Han Dongmin (unfortunately). In other words, this is likely very unrealistic because my information comes from speculation, reddit threads, and other fanfics on tumblr dot com. This was so fun to write WC: 16.2k, divided into 6 "chapters" of varying length

RIDE OR DIE

You shift on your twin bed and feel the crinkly sheets shifting under your weight. You glance at the egg-shaped off-white clock on your wobbly, school-provided desk. The clock hits noon, your roommate will be home any minute and you’re hoping to power through the end of this report before then. Since you chose her as your roommate freshman year (because of maybe five instagram messages), Jen’s been your best friend, your literal ride or die, but she’s not the best body-doubling partner for cranking out assignments. When she’s with someone, she needs to provide commentary on whatever's going on, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse when it comes to being someone’s study partner.

The wooden door opens in an instant, and Jen’s frame appears in the doorway, flanked by about three bags. “Oh, dear roommate!” She greets you in song. She lets the bags fall from her arms with a thunk on the floor, and a couple papers scatter on the floor out of one of many of her partially-zipped backpacks. She marches towards you, waving her phone in your face. “Look at this! One of our sisters invited us to a party Sigma Chi’s is throwing this evening!” She says excitedly before steadying her gaze on you. You back up as a carefully manicured finger stretches out towards your face. “We need to go.” She always refers to her sorority sisters as your (plural) sisters, which you think is sweet. It’s her way of including you. You figure that, at some point, she decided ‘my sisters this, my sisters that’ got a little bit exclusionary.

“No.” You answer her and turn back to your computer, entering the link for a hopefully-penultimate citation. This is the one thing you’re maybe not so “ride-or-die” about with Jen. You like parties, sure, but you aren't going to give up a good night’s sleep (without midterms, and all) so easily.

“What do you mean? It’s going to be so much fun!” She whines. “We just finished our midterms, we need to celebrate! What could you be even working on anyway?”

“There’s a presentation after midterms for some fucking reason, I don’t know. Plus, it's a totally bad idea to bring me. Nothing good happens at frat parties.” You tell her, pointedly. You do this dance with her semi-frequently: she invites you, you say no, she asks why, you say why, she asks again, you (sometimes) give in. You’ve got this waltz down to a science.

“Can you finish it later? Come on, please? You skipped out on the last three.” She looks at you with pleading eyes, ignoring your advice. You wonder if this was how she got everyone to do her bidding; pouting at them with her big brown eyes. You eye her suspiciously. It was true: you had denied her invitation to the last three events and probably the last three hosted by Sigma… what was it? Sigma Key? Whatever. You don’t particularly like most frat boys. In your experience, they tend to be on the annoying side… the very annoying side. The avoid-at-all-costs side.

You look at her as a smile grows on your face, “Will you do my laundry for a week when we get back from break?” At this point, you were considering going anyway, but you were going to try and milk it.

“And I’ll take out the trash.” She smiles back. Now… maybe hanging out in a dingy basement flanked by drunk college kids doesn’t sound that bad, right?

“Promise?”

She raises her hand as if to be sworn in to lawyerhood—or whatever they call it. “I, your loving, adoring roommate, solemnly swear to do your laundry and take out the trash for two weeks when we get back from break.” You suppress a laugh.

“What time is the party?” Satisfied, you surrender, albeit happily. She does manual labor for a couple weeks and you only have to go with her for a couple hours? Sounds like a dream.

“11pm.”

BUDDING ALCOHOLIC

The faint taste of tequila on your lips is your only reminder of your promise not to get the fuck out of dodge. If you hadn’t pregamed this party, you would have been regretting coming right about now, even if it means two weeks worth of chores being eliminated from your future. The music is noise-complaint worthy and not that good, even as far as frat music tends to go. Your best guess for timing is that it’s about midnight, and a couple of your peers are already drunk by the looks of it, making out by the window and stumbling on the grass out front. It already smells like vomit as you walk through the front door. To be fair, you’ve never been to a frat house in the daytime, so maybe the smell of vomit is just a permanent feature.

“You’re the best! Thanks for coming!” She swings an arm around you, at least a little tipsy. You shift in your Jen-approved outfit: a (very) tight black tank top, light-wash jeans, and a pair of Jen-borrowed, frat-designated, almost-destroyed sneakers. You’ve gathered from your brief excursions into the world of Greek life that this is the frat uniform.

“Hey, Jen-fer!” A guy, clearly a brother, comes up to the two of you with a cheeky smile on his face. It seems like every time someone greets Jen, she has a new nickname. Or maybe he’s just drunk and slurring his words. The guy looks like “people call me Chad but you can call me tonight” personified in his khaki shorts and impressively only slightly wrinkled t-shirt, sporting your school’s mascot with ‘VARSITY BASEBALL’ across it in loud, chunky lettering. “Who’s this?” He inquires as a girl swings her arm around his neck. The smile never leaves his face as he leans down to peck her. You watch as the girl and Jen have some sort of telepathic conversation by exchanging big smiles and little waves — she’s a sister, maybe? You really only know the girls that Jen’s closest to: Madelin (spelled like mandolin), Avery (who you thought was a boy for a couple months because you only know one other Avery, a boy), Elliann (whose name you remember how to spell only because you wrote Ellyanne once and you got a talking-to), and Gene (whose contact you have saved as the jeans emoji).

“Ugh, Jay! She’s my roommate, I told you about her.” You smile weakly as she points her attention towards you, “this is Jay. You remember Jay, right? From Econ?”

“Yeah… from Econ.” You mumble something unconvincing because you very much do not remember Jay from Econ. There are about a million Jay’s at this school. There’s Jason’s and James’s and Jongseong’s and Joshua’s and Julian’s who all go by Jay. Hell, there’s even a Jachariah (pronounced exactly like Zachariah but substitute the Z) who goes by Jay in your English Comp class. You think it would make sense to go by Jack (Like Zack) because there are less Jack’s, somehow, but whatever. When you return from zoning out, Jen starts talking at you. Some people are touchy drunks, some people are sad drunks, but Jen is a very, very talkative drunk. To be honest, she’s a talkative sober too.

She asks you to choose between the two drinks in her outstretched hands, naming both, though you can’t identify the taste or ingredients either, even with the name provided. Both looked like water.

Fuck it, what’s the difference? “Um, that one.” You say, pointing to the red cup in her right hand.

“Great! Are you okay on your own? I’m going to talk to Ellen!” She smiles big. Who’s Ellen? You have no idea. “Oh, hey! Meet my friend —hic! This is Tay!” She waves to someone behind you, and beckons them over with a finger. Great, now you have a Tae to keep track of. Her goodbye is sonorous, “Bye bye!”

“Bye, Jen-fer.” You tease her with the drawling nickname, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she waltzes off. You break into a slow smile as you see her leave. If you could remember what feeling sober is like, you would know by the drowsiness alone you’re a little more than tipsy. If Jen is a talkative drunk, you’re a sleepy drunk. You take a big swig of the red cup and it burns as it goes down, making you cough instinctively to get rid of the sensation. After taking a moment to compose, you shotgun the whole cup. Aside from the burning, you’re left with the distinctive aftertaste of artificial sweeteners sticking to your throat.

You back up a little, and bump right into a wall. You curse, thinking you probably looked stupid doing that… that is, before you nearly jump out of your skin when the wall puts a hand on your shoulder. Sufficiently scared, you jump right back to where you started like a tennis ball.

In your inebriation, you're pretty sure it might be the worst mistake of your life to look at the wall when you land eyes on the definitely-not-plaster you bumped into.

You realize that she was saying Tae, not Tay. Tae, though you know him as Taesan, is the name of a—kinda emo—guy in your World Literature class who you decided was cute one time when zoning out in a lecture and have been a little shy around ever since. Why is he here? A frat does not seem like his scene. Your drunk self agrees with your sober self on the former issue, however. He is cute—really cute. His hair is straight and black and his bangs fall just above his eyebrows. You were definitely catastrophizing, because bumping into Taesan is maybe the best thing you could have hoped for at this Greek-whatever party.

“Oh… it’s Taesan!” It doesn’t even cross your mind to suppress the giant grin that spreads across your face as you say his name as you sway. “Can I call you that instead of Tae? Too many ay’s around, I think.” You mumble, feeling as cloudy as ever.

He shrugs, “Sure, I mean, I call you by your full name, usually.”

Mostly ignoring him, you continue, focusing on the way the edges of his lips curl like he’s suppressing a smile. Squinting at him, you monologue. “You’re cute. But you’re bad at…” You squint harder, circling your finger in front of his face as if to cast a spell. He looks a little confused with his straight eyebrows raised, but he doesn’t look scared—yet. If you were in your right mind, you would have been amazed and totally terrified that you hadn’t scared him off with the wiggly finger. Maybe the slipped compliment at the beginning helped build some rapport? “You’re bad at… analysis.” You decide on pinpointing a weakness of his. Now, his analysis is actually pretty good. Sure, he's not going to win any awards with it, but who is in an undergraduate World Literature class taught by a less-than-enthusiastic professor nearing retirement? The alcoholic fog is just a little much, anyway. Maybe you’re more of a lightweight than you care to admit.

“I think my analysis is pretty good, actually.” He frowns, but doesn’t seem offended in the slightest. He’s always quiet in lecture, you’re surprised he hasn’t made a quick excuse to get away yet.

You part your lips as you squint harder and point up at his face again, grasping for words that don’t come all that easy to you. “You… should kiss me.” As the words fall out of your mouth, he seems to look around a little bit in surprise. To your luck, he still doesn’t run screaming.

It’s his turn to point a finger at himself and his cool, bad-boy act slips, “kiss—kiss me?” He stutters, going wide-eyed and glancing around like this is a big reality TV-style prank and there are cameramen waiting in the shadows of this sticky, stinky basement, itching to catch him off guard. Perhaps you’re subconsciously practicing rejection therapy.

“Yeah… you should analyze kissing me.” You attempt a smile as you try to keep your eyes open. The music is pounding in your ears as you stare into the gap between him and the wall to his left.

Still dumbfounded, he tries to find words, now staring at you staring off into space, “well, uh… you… that would be cool, but… I don’t… I don’t think you actually want to kiss me. You smell like tequila.” The alcohol is definitely taking its toll on you, evidenced by the way you lean forward and slump onto the boy in front of you, closing your eyes. His words don’t even go in one ear and out the other, they go over your head entirely. You could feel his body heat even through his thick navy tee. You hear his heartbeat and—you’re no medical student—it’s loud. With your eyes closed, you hear the DJ switch the song to something with less bass and you feel a warm hand come to your shoulder blade, patting it awkwardly. You hear an attempt at words coming from his vocal chords, but you hear nothing identifiable as human language. Just a few um’s and maybe an uh.

“Hey, Tae!” You hear Jen approach behind you, calling out to the boy who you’ve designated as your new mattress. You open your eyes for a second, and you’re kindly greeted with a view of his chest. Slowly analyzing your field of vision (which includes a fuzzy wall and his shirt), you blink once, twice, and then, the third time you close them, they stay closed. As fast as that, you’re gone: disappeared, asleep.

Before you can open your eyes again, you’re assaulted by a pounding headache. You haven’t felt a headache like this since the first time you got drunk with Jen. You’d assumed you’d learned your lesson. This time, it’s not a good thing that you exceeded your own expectations.

You open your eyes and see a rather unwelcome sight of Jen who has her hands on your shoulders, shaking you. It’s certainly not helping your headache. As you come to consciousness, you become aware of the damp, suffocating sweat that clings to your body and the aching that you feel in each and every of your muscles and joints. You can’t even lift a finger.

“Hey. Wake up! Don’t worry, you’re not dying. It’s just a hangover.” She consoles you, but she doesn’t stop pushing you, however. “You drank way too much.” She laughs, drawing out her words and turning her head to the side as her hair falls in front of her face.

You muster your words, “what?” Your voice is grainy and low. You feel like pure, unadulterated hell. The pounding in your head doesn’t stop, it just migrates from one side to the other. Back to left to front to right and back again like a cue ball bouncing around the table.

“You… are… hung… over.” She says like she's trying to teach a baby to say mama. You groan and roll over, freeing yourself from her manicured hands and burying your head in your sheets. As you roll over, you feel the familiar and deeply uncomfortable scratch of the seam of your jeans. You were still wearing the clothes you wore to the party, hooray! “And,” she continues, “you’re going to tell me why Han Taesan is at our door.” Her voice sounds half like she’s scolding you and half like she’s waiting for you to spill. Processing this information, you scrunch your eyes and groan again.

“He’s not.” You deny with a murmur despite the knocking that you hear on the door. The person at the door, reportedly Taesan, knocks one, two, three times.

“He is. He wants to know how you are… tell me what happened between you two!” She urges.

“You’re lying. He is not at the door.” Maybe if you say it enough he’ll go away. Manifesting, you know? You want to know nothing about why he’s here. The party last night was a blur. You remember drinking, seeing a couple familiar faces, bumping into Taesan and then it’s dark and you wake up in your bed with Jen shaking you.

“He is.” She says solemnly. She cocks her head and continues in a more sympathetic tone, “do you want me to tell him to go away?” She asks.

“Yes.” Regardless of whether you want to see him, specifically, you don’t want to see anyone at all. You’re still in your clothes from last night, your whole body hurts, you feel like total crap, and you doubt you showered last night. You do not want to see Han Taesan, and that’s final.

“Yes, ma’am.” She says and jumps off the tall bed. Through half-lidded eyes, you see her crack the door and exchange words with the visitor. You confirm it’s Taesan when his stupid face appears in the crack. Almost involuntarily you close your eyes. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Even with a foggy mind and a throbbing headache, you know nothing good can come out of talking to him, or even seeing him, when you’re so wildly hungover. You feel like a ghost haunting your body. You hear the door shut, and you open your eyes to see Jen shimmying over to you with her eyebrows raised and a disbelieving smile across her face. You close your eyes again, you do not want to see or hear what she has to offer unless it’s an ibuprofen.

“I can’t believe he came to check up on you! Isn’t that sweet? I have no idea what was happening with you two before I got there, but he was so cute about you. He looked so nervous! It’s not like him at all.” You can practically hear her dancing around in excitement. “Your love life never goes anywhere, this is so exciting!” You grumble in protest at her jab at you. She’s been begging to let her set you up with someone, but the only people she knows are frat bros and sorority girls, neither of which are your type, usually. Is Taesan part of a frat? Doesn’t seem like him.

“Jen… advil… please.” You reach out for her with a weak hand.

“You’re not dying.” She assures you, but dutifully returns to your bedside with two little red pills, a bottle of water, and a bag of goldfish. This is how Jen is, you’ve learned; poking fun at you while still looking out for you. “Come on, take them.” She says, holding out the pills. “You’re lucky it’s a Saturday. For a hangover, you need water, food, and sleep.” She recites. Maybe hangover care is a required class for members of the sorority known for the most functions.

“Thanks…” You mutter, bringing a weak hand to your still pounding forehead. “What happened?” You ask. It might help to know what you’re up against in terms of embarrassment.

“Before I got there? No idea. After I got there? Well, you were passed out,” she laughs, “I had no idea you could fall asleep that fast. He looked crazy confused, having you slung over him and all, you know? Anyway, he was dry sober, he just got there. I had the car, obviously, and so he offered to give you a ride back to the dorm in my car. Now, I went with you, of course. For one, I’m always going to come with you when you’re asleep and being taken care of by some man. Two, there’s no way I’m letting any man drive my car without serious supervision.” Now, this elicits a stifled laugh from you, after which you immediately wince in pain. Laughing isn’t good medicine for hangovers, apparently. “Anyway, he picked you up bridal-style, it was really cute, and brought you to our car, and then drove both of us home. I put you to bed, and he left after.” She states, "I wiped your drool, don’t worry.” She nudges you with an elbow.

“Ugh, Jen. Don’t joke with me right now.”

“No, seriously, you did drool. It’s one of, like, five reasons I’m never going to put you in a room with alcohol ever again.”

“I told you it was a bad idea to bring me.” You lament. You don’t like the idea of drooling in the vicinity of Taesan. And he carried you to the car? Seriously, not a high point for your ego. It’s not even about your germinal maybe-crush on him. “Give me some goldfish.”

“You always say that it’s a bad idea, but okay.” She hands you a handful and you shove it into your mouth. It doesn’t mix well with the morning-breath taste and somehow lingering tinge of alcohol. Your head is pounding and if the headache doesn’t kill you, the embarrassment might.

THE ILLUSION

Dr. Woo claps his hands together as the final undergrad enters the lecture hall. The long tables that act as desks proceed away from the central board in stairs.

“Yeah. Big project coming up, right?” He says with a hint of fake enthusiasm. “It’s going to be a group project, if two people count as a group. Hooray.” A resounding groan emanates from the student body. Dr. Woo is visually unphased by this. “Despite the fact that choice is an illusion, you can pick your own partners. This is college. I don’t care.” He waves a hand dismissing any rebuttal, not that any was coming. Regardless of any other feelings about Dr. Woo, everyone knows he’s a great (read: easy) grader. “Anyway, go crazy. You all know the topic.”

Your heart drops as the room immediately erupts in chattering. Your circle was small at best, and you knew no one in World Lit except for… oh no. You feel a tap on your shoulder. Almost in slow motion, you turn around and see Taesan’s damned handsome face.

“Hey,” he says, very, very casually, “do you want to be my partner?” Oh, what the fuck.

“Um…” You furrow your eyebrows. It’s not that you don’t want to be partners with him, really. It’s just that you don’t want to recoil in embarrassment every time you work on a project worth 20% of your grade.

He cocks his head to the side, “so?” You’re pretty sure his face could bring world peace. Have him try to convince a warlord to stop fighting by flashing a smile and they’d be a pacifist in under ten minutes.

You sigh, “yeah. Sure.” You try to smile, it doesn’t work that well. Fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen? Do it for the plot, right? Choosing to partner with him is definitely for the plot. You’re not entirely convinced that he’s pure in his intentions to partner with you; maybe this is part of a bigger frat boy scheme.

“My analysis is actually good, I swear.” He says as he pulls back the chair next to you to sit down. Is that a reference? To what? You are thoroughly confused, clearly remembering very little of that fateful night. He tucks his hands behind his head and leans back.

“What?” You laugh a little, if only out of awkwardness.

He presses his lips together and they contort as if a laugh is threatening him. “Nevermind. It’s nothing, really.” He is utterly unconvincing when he lies. Maybe he couldn’t convince the warlord.

“Taesan, what?” Your arms cross as you lean back in your chair. Around you, there’s a buzz of new partnerships and dates being set to meet. You two, however, are alone in your own world. In your periphery, Dr. Woo is staring you down. You’re pretty sure he can sense when work isn’t getting done. You can’t tell if he’s just a salty old man or a teenager with a gossip itch trapped in an old professor’s body.

Taesan notices, “Dr. Woo is creeping me out. I’ll tell you in the hall.” He picks up one of your pens and hands it to you in a non subtle suggestion for you to pack up.

You sling your backpack over one shoulder (despite how you’re told it’s bad for your back) and lead Taesan out of the lecture hall.

“So, are you partners with me just to make fun of me?” You probe him as he catches up to you. “I’m taking you to my dorm, by the way. We can get started on the project.” There’s a silent addition of ‘even if you’re being an asshole, I chose to be stuck with you for some reason’ when you give him a purposeful glance. Maybe Dr. Woo is right. Maybe choice is an illusion. He looks completely lost.

“No, no. It’s not like that, really. I didn't mean to make you feel bad, I just thought it was funny.” He turns around and shakes his head to punctuate his point.

“Is it better if I don’t know what happened at the party?” One eyebrow raises and you stare him down with some weird level of confidence. Maybe knowing that he’s seen you drooling, drunk, and looking crazy makes you feel like you don’t have much else to lose.

“No, nothing bad happened. You were just drunk. It happens to the best of us.” He shrugs as you enter onto the green.

“Don’t drag this out, let me bite the bullet if I want to.”

He laughs a little, “alright. In summary, you backed into me, told me I was cute, told me my analysis sucks,” so that’s what that was about, “and told me I should kiss you and I told you that you were too drunk,” oh, what the fuck, “and then you fell asleep on me and Jennifer came over. I carried you to the car and drove both you and her home because she had a couple drinks and I had none. I checked up on you because I knew you were going to have one hell of a hangover.” Great, you’re stuck with this fucker you borderline harassed while blackout drunk.

“You were right. It was one hell of a hangover.” You grumble, looking at the floor to avoid any eye contact with him.

“Don’t be embarrassed. You’re not the first person to tell me I’m cute when they’re drunk.” He teases and you roll your eyes. In your heart, though, this is deeply, deeply embarrassing. The thought of what happened stings like a blade in your heart and in your mind. It’s not as bad as the hangover, but it’s pretty damn bad.

“Yeah, right. I was drunk, okay?” Your words are biting. “Why are you partners with me, then? I wasn’t that great the one time you met me.” Maybe you don’t want to know the answer, but the words are already out of your mouth. You scuff your heels as you walk, still avoiding contact with the one and only Han Taesan.

“You’re cute and you’re smart.” He shrugs and you break your rule of avoiding his eyes because now you’re staring at him in disbelief. “Plus, you’re great at keeping me humble.” He meets your eyes now and you’re immediately regretting thinking anything about the previous compliment meant anything at all.

“If you keep being a jerk, I’m going to keep you humble as hell.” You grumble.

“Sorry,” he frowns mildly, “the first part holds more weight.” And now, you’ve flipped. It does mean something… maybe. You face forward again to hide a smile that he totally catches anyways. You’ve made great time alongside Taesan, you’re almost to your dorm.

“Thanks?”

“My pleasure.” He postures. “Why were you there in the first place? No offense, but you don’t strike me as an alcoholic. An alcoholic can handle being drunk better than that.” It’s sort of a compliment, you guess.

“None taken, I don’t believe that being an alcoholic is in the cards for me.” You snort. “Jen dragged me there. I told her it was a bad idea, but she convinced me to go anyway by bribing me with doing my least favorite chores for a week or two.” You explain, crossing your arms and he laughs. “No offense, you don’t seem like you’re part of the frat nor do you seem like an alcoholic. So, what were you doing there?” You redirect. It’s true: he doesn’t seem like a brother nor a drinker.

“I lost a bet. Riwoo bet me that I couldn’t fit fifteen grapes in my mouth and I wanted to prove him wrong because, well, he’s Riwoo, but I lost the bet.” A laugh bubbles up from your chest imagining the situation. Not only did he try, but he tried and failed. “My punishment was either to go to a frat or to do mine and six of my roommates’ laundry for a semester. I picked the frat, obviously. I’ve lived with those guys for long enough to know that all of them stink like hell.” He adds, grimacing. “Plus, ‘doing laundry’ meant changing the sheets and picking up laundry, too.” He looks at you, pointedly.

“You’re lying, no way.” You laugh, partly with him and partly at him.

“You clearly haven’t met my roommates, this way?” His finger points to the building that you’re rooming in with Jen. You pray she’s not there or you’re going to be met with a litany of highly invasive questions.

You nod at his direction, “yeah, there are like seven thousand people here and I can recognize about thirty faces max. That’s like nothing-percent.”

“Good for me, then. I don’t think I’d be the first person you’d be calling cute if they were there with me.” The tone of his voice is light, but in his eyes you see that he fears it’s the truth. Huh, Taesan is just like the rest of us, who’da thunk?

“Where did your cool guy act go?” You tease, leading him up the stairs to your dorm, distinguished by the handmade felt pennants, spelling your’s and Jen’s names. “Drunk me wasn’t lying when she said you were cute, seriously.” You assure him. “Now, I just have to learn if your analysis is as bad as she said it was.” You push open the door with your back, mostly so you don’t have to face him after calling him cute to his face. Last week, you would have run away on the spot; Taesan has you acting like a bad ATM—all out of order.

ENTOURAGE

You hated to admit it, his analysis was great. By spending hours writing and rewriting scripts to memorize for your oral presentation, you watched Taesan connect dots you didn't even know were there and recall obscure details from lectures that happened to be integral to the coherence of your project. You can practically see the cogs turn in his head, the way he bites the inside of his lip when he’s really focused, the way his face lights up when he gets an idea, the way he slides his thin wire glasses up his straight nose with a knuckle when they slip down because he furrowed his eyebrows too much.

This is how you find yourself at four on a Wednesday afternoon, weeks after your first incidental meeting with him: admiring his work on your dorm floor.

“Damn, Taesan.” You still kept to calling him his full name instead of Tae, you felt like it meant something. “This is amazing, I would have never thought to connect those passages, we read that first book ages ago!” You shook your head, his analysis was that good. Maybe not award-winning, but definitely worth an A, even in your harshest grader’s class. He smirks as he laughs a little, taking off his glasses and stretching his hands up, grasping at nothing while trying to stretch his back. You two had been sitting for hours on the hard floor of your dorm room; you told him to sit on your chair, but he refused, demanding he sit next to you so that he can ‘see what you’re writing’ better.

“You brought up At the Bottom of the River in the first place.” He deflects your praise. You’ll gladly take the compliment even if you had no part in his discovery. As you shrug his deflection off, you feel his arm come down around your shoulder and you jump a little, not expecting the touch. Of course, his hand feels nice where it rests, but you’re still not quite used to the way Taesan evidently shows affection. The first time he pulled the classic ‘I’m-just-stretching-actually-I’m-putting-my-arm-around-you’ move, you didn’t expect it in the slightest. You had finished a part you were putting off and he moved to stretch, suddenly putting his arm around you and shaking you while cheering you on about your victory. The laugh you let out when that happened was something entirely unprecedented for you, you laughed until your stomach hurt and your eyes watered, and you couldn’t even pinpoint why.

“Yeah, sure.” You look at him, exaggerating your skepticism with your one raised eyebrow, his arm still around you.

“When’s Jen getting back? Do we have time to mess around or should I go before she starts pestering you?” He asks, half-joking as he tilts his head towards yours. Jen had taken a liking to him, if not too much of a liking to him… for you. Whenever you and Taesan were together and Jen spotted you, she made the least subtle comments possible telling you to get together, wiggling her eyebrows and full of exaggerated winks. It wasn’t surprising in the slightest. Hey, look at the position you two are in right now: foreheads so close they’re almost touching, alone in your dorm, with his arm wrapped around your shoulder. Still, you’ve gathered that’s just kind of how Taesan is with his friends. From what you’ve heard, he’s like that with everyone. It’s not unique to you.

“She said she’d be back at five, so…” you check the egg clock, “like, thirty minutes?”

“Nice.” He purses his lips. “Are you nervous for the presentation? It’s tomorrow, you know?” Taesan has his sensitive moments, for sure. He sounds—he is—genuinely concerned about how you’re feeling about it, you can hear it in his voice. He’s not great at hiding things like that. Even when he’s making fun of you, it’s never malicious.

“I’m fine. I’m nervous, but it is a big presentation, after all. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” You tell him, flexing an arm to prove your point, though the action is inhibited by his arm still around you.

“Never doubted you for a second, Miss Independent. You can still be nervous though, it’s okay to be nervous.”

“Are you nervous? You sound like you’re projecting.”

He exhales, “yeah, I’m nervous as hell.” He laughs a little after the admission, but it’s not a humorous one.

“Hey, text me if you get nervous before, right? Doesn’t help to keep it to yourself. And, no offense, but I think I’ll be better at commiserating with you than your roommates, however lovely they are.”

He exhales. “Yeah, thanks.” He’s being surprisingly soft, and you can’t help but seize the opportunity to connect a little with the sensitive side of Taesan instead of the cool, nonchalant Taesan. From what you’ve gathered, his Nirvana-decorated headphones, monochrome black clothes, and his sullen resting face makes him less approachable to your peers.

“You’ll be fine. As you said to me when we were partnered, you’re cute and you’re smart. You’ve got it.” You tell him, leaning your head onto his shoulder. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating out of your chest. Can you feel someone’s heartbeat through their shoulder? Probably not, but the human body is full of surprises. One surprise is how hard you can see his pulse through his carotid artery, pulsing in his neck. Good God, this boy is going to get high blood pressure if his heart is always going a million miles an hour. “Tell me about writing music. I’m tired.” You tell him, closing your eyes.

You’re brought back to what you were told about the first time you met him. This time, however, you falling asleep on him isn’t so much of a surprise. Your knowledge of composition contrasts Taesan’s, you know little more than the basics. Asking him to talk about it is an easy route to a one-sided conversation where you get to listen to him talk, which is always a good time. He gets so animated, it’s hilarious and adorable.

“Your wish is my command.” He laughs, and you feel the vibration against your head and he starts on a critically tangential spiel.

Before you can get too comfortable leaning on Taesan listening to him talk about rhyme schemes, the door swings open. Jen walks in after opening the door with her signature slam. Why you haven’t gotten any complaints yet, you have no idea.

“Oh… my God.” You can practically hear her freeze in the doorway. Out of sight, out of mind, so you keep your eyes closed.

“Jen, no one’s dying.” You assure her, suddenly deeply uncomfortable, shifting on the floor.

“You’re right, no one’s dying. My heart is so happy, look at you!” She almost giggles.

“Is this a good time for me to go?” Taesan starts to ask the pivotal question that’s going to determine exactly how embarrassed you are going to be this afternoon.

“Yes—” “No—” You and Jen say in unison. You open your eyes just to glare at her, seeing her standing over you.

“No… I’m going to get to know my best friend’s… group project partner.” She winks very not-subtly at you. Taesan looks at you just as you look at him, and he shrugs.

“The more the merrier, right?” He asks. The rhetorical question becomes immediately very literal as Jen continues.

“Oooh… I like the way he thinks, girl.” She says, pointing to you. “Taesan, invite your roommates over, too. We can have a party!” She’s almost clapping with how excited she is, rolling back on her heels.

Taesan lights up, “oh hell yeah! I’ll see who’s available.” Oh, Taesan. Always the extrovert.

You groan, but it’s futile to try and stop the scheming. How did this get so bad so fast? “No drinking.” You instruct them.

“Half of them can’t even drink legally yet, plus, do you seriously think I’m going to drink the night before our presentation? No way.” He assures you, and you groan again in hesitant acceptance.

“I’m never letting you drink again. Don’t worry about that.” She promises you quietly before switching back to hyped-up Jen mode. “Oh, this is so exciting! When can they get here?” She’s sitting cross-legged in front of you two now, rifling through contacts on her phone in its sparkly case.

“Well,” Taesan pauses, “If they’d answer my texts—” ding! Almost like he scripted it, he gets a notification. “And there we go. Turns out they’re just hanging out at our place, all of them are free. Do you want them here now?”

“Hell yeah, I do! We should watch a movie… what movie should we watch? Don’t tell me they like horror…” She pushes her eyebrows together in what sounds half like a threat and half like a plea.

“Yeah, not that I know of.”

“We should watch 10 Things I Hate About You.” You suggest.

And that’s how you got to be sitting in a circle on your room’s floor with Taesan, Jen, and every single one of Taesan’s five roommates. You’d only briefly met a couple of them in passing before. Right now, you’re even managing to not cut each others’ throats out while playing UNO! What an achievement!

“And the color is… wait for it!” Taesan’s roommate with the light brown, almost orange hair and rounder, blueish-green black glasses says, leaning around to intimidate the others with a giant smile on his face. Everyone erupts in laughter at him. You remember that this is Riwoo, the one who dared Taesan to stuff 15 grapes in his mouth in the first place. “Blue!” He announces.

Your last card was red. Damn it.

Jaehyun immediately slumps over, Sungho frowns, Leehan stares at the card deck and Woonhak stares, terrified, at Jen when she jumps up, screaming “Uno!” as she slams her blue five on the pile. Shouts resound from the boys around you. Taesan is laughing.

As the room erupts around you, Taesan nudges you with his shoulder, showing you his card. His last color was red, too. “We’re both winners in my heart.” He tells you with a wink. What a sap. You push his face away with a hand, stifling a laugh as you feel a heat come to your cheeks. Your light push makes him dip away from you like the inflatable tube men outside gas stations.

“You’re so corny.” You tell him as you take in the scene unfolding around you. Inviting Taesan’s friends over was a great idea. Jen is yelling at Jaehyun, Jaehyun looks terrified. Woonhak and Sungho are yelling at Riwoo, Riwoo is laughing at them. Leehan is laughing at Riwoo laughing at Woonhak and Sungho.

Taesan catches you smiling at the camaraderie, “if people yelling at each other was all it took to make you smile, I’d have invited them over way earlier.”

“Taesan,” you laugh, “I don’t like schadenfreude. It’s nice to see Jen let loose sometimes. I don’t think she gets to argue with anyone very often.”

“If she wants anyone to argue with, I’m available.” He spreads his arms to punctuate his point. At this, you laugh even harder. As you look around again, you see everyone laughing and collapsing on the floor, except for Jen, who’s pretending to fume and sulk on her bed. You know her well enough to catch the smile that pulls at her lips.

“It’s like watching kids at the park.” You motion towards Taesan’s friends, who’ve clearly become very comfortable around you and Jen.

“This weird authenticity is kind of their whole M.O.” He smiles, very clearly adoring their antics. “Imagine having to do their laundry though. I’m glad I chose to go to the party instead.” He pretends to shiver which draws out a laugh from you.

“Yeah, if you had chosen to do their laundry you also wouldn’t have been able to see me drool on you when you carried me to the car.” You snort. You’ve made peace with your drunken night. After all, you’ve already lost your dignity and he’s still hanging around.

“It was so cute though!” He contests and you roll your eyes at him. You have sworn up and down that he doesn’t like you like… that. Even if he did like you, you’re pretty sure no one likes anyone else enough that their drool is cute. Therefore, Jen’s points are null. Simple as that.

“I’m just soooo adorable,” you roll your eyes, “you don’t have to rub it in, dude.” you smile incredulously at him, throwing one of your legs over the other, just short of taking out Riwoo’s leg.

“I’m not joking!” His tone is defensive in ultimate Taesan fashion.

“Yeah, sure.” You tell him as Jen reaches out to you and pulls you to your feet, leaving Taesan alone on the floor.

Jen whispers to you, “so, when’s the wedding?” You roll your eyes.

“Shut up, you always do this.” You groan. “Do you get some sadistic joy from seeing me uncomfortable?” You cross your arms, almost elbowing Woonhak. This room is not big enough for eight people to fit in comfortably.

“Can I be the maid of honor?” She ignores your complaints and you let out an exaggerated groan in response.

“Don’t make me regret not making him go home.”

“Fine, fine.” She looks to be backing down. That is until she smirks, meeting your eyes again. “I’m not the only one who sees something!” She says cheerily before bouncing off as far as one can, which is about a foot. She looks back at you and winks before (lightly) punching Woonhak in the back to get his attention. She’s immediately drawn into some debate of some sort or another. Earlier, Leehan had assigned you both fish and Jen had been assigned a ‘Cherry Barb’ and she immediately took issue with the name for some reason or other. It was very cathartic for Taesan to watch someone contest Leehan’s fish opinions. He was totally dumbstruck; it was hilarious. Then, of course, you got an informational speech from Leehan which quelled Jens’ argument. Now, she’s a Cherry Barb.

Maybe this is how it should be, friends arguing with friends and laughing about it after, cramped in a too small room. When you meet Taesan’s eyes, you see the sparkle in them tell you he thinks so too. Maybe your friends will become the opposite of children of divorce, gaining family instead of it being separated. Is that just children of marriage? Ugh, Jen’s infected you.

“So, when’s the wedding?” Taesan wiggles his eyebrows, clearly having heard the conversation. You roll your eyes.

BREAKING CODE

Jen is passed out on her bed on the opposite side of the room. The egg clock greets you with the time in blaring white: 11:32 pm. Head in your hands, you groan. No amount of free-on-youtube reality TV was going to calm your nerves. None of your favorite episodes are helping, even the one you have open on your computer.

After the boys had left, you guaranteed yourself that everything would be fine. Your presentation would go great, no questions asked. Now, sitting in your room practically alone, you feel way less optimistic.

Thoughts of Taesan cross your mind and you furrow your eyebrows, trying to shoo them. You wonder if he’s awake right now, if he’s anxious like you. You try to calm yourself by thinking that it could be worse, the presentation could be 30% of your grade. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t help. Your phone, thrown aside earlier and laying on the bed, is practically inviting you to make a bad decision with its open, empty screen.

You stare out the window, contemplating whether or not to take the risk and text him. Your window opens up to a view of the door to enter your dorm building, and you can see the freshly fallen snow settling around it. The snow covers the creaky benches and even the overhang above the door. It’s while you're doing this contemplating that, to your fortune or maybe misfortune, the risk decides to take you with a ding from your phone.

On your home screen, you see a contact pop up and you freeze. You read the name again, it still says MOUNTAIN. Taesan put that as his contact name.

You look again, you weren’t hallucinating. It’s Taesan texting you. Is he nervous? Did he seriously take you up on your offer? You were simultaneously hoping that he would text you while hoping that he would never, ever even think to.

You steel yourself and open your phone, that’s when you get your answer.

[MOUNTAIN]: are you up [MOUNTAIN]: i’m nervous are you

You did tell him to text you if he was nervous. That offer, however, happened when you were feeling a little bolder. You are not feeling especially bold right now.

[you]: i might be [MOUNTAIN]: meet me lets go to the convenience store [MOUNTAIN]: chills me out before midterms usually and this is like the same thing

You didn’t need to even try to make a bad decision, the bad decision came to you, enticing you with the lure of a convenience store and a chance to escape your stuffy dorm.

Resting your phone on your chest, staring at the ceiling like a corpse with the way your hands are positioned, you weigh your options. Mentally, you make a list.

PROs:

You see Taesan

You get a snack probably

CONs:

You see Taesan

It’s been established that crazy shit goes down when you see Taesan past like nine pm—it’s like your friendship is a vampire but night-intolerant instead of day-intolerant

The last time you made a for the plot decision it didn’t turn out that bad. Yeah, partnering with Taesan could have sucked, but it didn’t. Going to the party was a kind of yolo-esque decision, too, and that was kind of a blessing in disguise. You rationalize your preference for meeting him with the fact that you know him better now. He’s not a rando and, as far as you know, he’s not evil.

You only live once, right?

You pick your phone back up and text him before you can rethink it.

[you]: meet where? [MOUNTAIN]: outside your dorm building in 10

You squint at the screen. His place is like a twenty minute walk away and you’re pretty sure he doesn’t have a car, that would be weird for him. You can’t pinpoint why, but you don’t like the idea of him owning a car, despite the fact that he’s driven Jen’s with you in it. Ugh.

[you]: okay

You are totally chill about this.

Looking over at Jen in her bed, you decide you don’t want to be interrogated about this decision yet. She will not let you hear the end of it, and that’s not going to calm your nerves. It’s kind of against customary law safety recommendations to not tell your roommate where you’re going at night, but you decide that’s not applicable here.

Taking your computer off your lap and swinging your feet over the side of your bed as quietly as possible, you assess the situation. The nice thing about totally embarrassing yourself the first time you met him is that you now don’t particularly care about how you look. You’re wearing Jen’s mother’s giant Hartford Whalers hockey team brand shirt and some irritatingly red plaid pajama pants that totally crash with the cool blues and greens of your shirt.

Tiptoeing to the square, wooden-framed mirror hung in the entrance you check how your hair looks. You pull on your oversized puffer jacket as quietly as possible from the command hook-provided coat hanger adorning off the back of the exit door. The zipper is cold in your hands as you check to make sure Jen is oblivious to your impending excursion. She is still fast asleep, evident from the way her chest slowly rises and falls and the faint snores that you hear from her.

The door handle is freezing to the touch. You expected as much from a dorm building with as little central heating as it tends to cater, but it’s still unpleasant. The door opens with a loud creak. You stand assured that no one has successfully snuck out of any single one of these dorms because the floorboards creak and the doors practically announce over the loudspeaker when anyone opens them.

Thankfully, Jen is none the wiser as you glance back at her, she’s in the same sleeping position you last saw her in: lying on her stomach with one leg thrown up closer to her chest and an arm flung over her head. It’s completely bizarre and totally adorable of her.

You make your way through the straightforward yet somehow labyrinthine halls of your dorm building. As you approach the glass entryway, you see Taesan illuminated by the orange streetlight, leaning against the red brick of the adjacent building standing on a recently-hardened layer of snowfall. He’s layered an unzipped black puffer jacket, similar to yours, over a gray hoodie and accessorised with a hat that makes his head look round like an egg. He’s rubbing his gloved hands together to keep them warm. He sees you before you even open the door, and his face lights up when he does.

After suppressing a smile, you scold him, “I can’t believe you called me to meet you at this hour!”

“You told me I could!” He defends. You notice how you can see his breath against the cold air. It’s colder than you thought, you push your bare hands further into your pockets.

“How did you even get here so fast? Do you secretly live in the next building, or something? Are you my tropey boy next door?” You nudge him, wiggling your eyebrows as if this was some plot straight out of a fanfiction.

“Yeah, right.”

“Come on, you’re not secretly pining for me?” You tease him, sinking deeper into the collar of your coat on account of the biting wind that hits you once you leave the sanctuary of the protected building and, though you’re not willing to admit it to yourself, because the boy next to you makes your cheeks hot.

“Yeah, I’m secretly hanging off of your every word, just waiting for the moment I can confess my undying love for you.” He rolls his eyes. Noticing your hands shoved in your pockets, he changes the subject, “are you cold? I brought some extra gloves, do you want them?” His words are surprisingly considerate considering the incessant teasing you subject him to daily.

“Yeah.” You laugh, freezing as he takes the knit black gloves out of his pocket. Taking them from him and putting them on, you adjust them carefully. They’re far too big for you, but it’s the thought that counts, right? The “thought that counts” is definitely keeping your hands warmer. As you examine your new apparel with a smile, you feel a pressure over your head. Somehow, you hadn’t noticed him taking his hat off and now he is pushing it onto your head. You jump back, “hey! You could have lice!” Your smile disappears in favor of a pout. The hat does feel nice on your ears though.

Taesan bursts out laughing, “I do not have lice, I promise.” Still laughing, he elaborates, “plus, you’re cold. Your ears were so cold they were getting red.” You glare at him as he only laughs harder. Instinctively, you throw up your hands to cover your ears

“Point me to the convenience store or I’m going back inside whether you’re nervous or not.” You grumble.

“Okay, Miss Grump. Just follow me.” He says with a stupidly charming smile and grabs your wrist before picking up the pace. To him, picking up the pace means speed-walking, but for you, it means jogging.

“Ack!” You jump at the sudden movement, “Taesan! You can’t do that!” You try to free your wrist and, when you succeed, you cross your arms, standing solid in place as he turns around.

“If you don’t come with me, I’ll yell that you think Heath Ledger is super sexy during the presentation!” He yells, running backwards. Your jaw drops open. You want to trust Taesan enough to think he wouldn’t do that, but you also know Taesan well enough that he totally would do that. It was a bad idea to watch 10 Things I Hate About You with him, Jen, and his roommates after the Uno game. You do not need your personal preferences aired out to an auditorium of your peers and Dr. Woo. Plus, the only thing you like about Heath Ledger is that he essentially serenaded Kat Stratford!

Damn it. Stuck between would and would not, you narrow your eyes and start sprinting after him before he can turn a corner.

“You’re so on, Mr. Mountain!” He turns to look behind him, seeing you gaining fast on him as you run as fast as your legs will take you towards him. It’s his turn to be surprised, and he speeds up. After all, he wasn’t going that fast in the first place. As you close the gap between the two of you, you can hear his infectious laughter that makes you press down a swelling in your chest. You do not like Taesan, you assure yourself. It’s all in good fun. It’s only good fun. Focusing on the challenge ahead, you see Taesan just ahead of you, about to turn down a sidewalk.

He’s right behind a snowbank. If you’re the sun and the snowbank is the earth, he’s the moon in a solar eclipse.

It’s impulsive, your next action, truly. Presented with the right circumstances, however, you like to take your chances. With a shout that’s more primeval than you intended it to be, you grab onto his puffer jacket and tackle him onto the earth that is the snowbank.

It’s almost like slow-motion when you, with an evil smile, keep your eyes focused on Taesan as you see the world around you slowly become more horizontal as you fall, yourself falling on his back as he falls flat on his chest.

When his front compresses the snow enough to stop his descent towards the obscured grass, you hear him let out a moan. A moment of silence passes as both of you process what just happened. You’re propped up on your hands (gloved, thanks to Taesan) and he’s lying on his back, hands thrown above him because of his attempt at stabilization during the fall. His lips are slightly parted in shock, and his eyes are wide open, staring at you. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. He totally moaned when he fell. At least you can play teasing offense on him instead of having to defend why you tackled this man that is in no way, shape, or form your boyfriend. To be fair, men whimpering is hot. It’s just that you didn’t expect the man whimpering to be Taesan. It doesn’t really fit with his image.

You hold yourself up with one hand, clutching your stomach as you double over in laughter. “Oh my gosh, this is hilarious! I’m going to tell Riwoo that you moan when you get pushed around by women. He’ll never let you hear the end of it!” Taesan looks completely scandalized. His mouth is open and he looks totally terrified, you almost feel bad for him.

Almost.

He covers his eyes with his gloves, “don’t you dare say anything.” Tears form in your eyes as you attempt to suppress a laugh to try and spare any more of his dignity. That doesn’t extend to teasing, though. It’s simply too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“What if, during the presentation, I yell out that you moan when someone pins you down?” You theorize him, sitting down on the dry ground next to him, throwing your legs over his stomach.

Still holding his hands over his eyes, he mutters a defensive response, “it’s not like that!” Flat on his back, he looks, somehow, handsome with snow visible in and contrasting against his darker hair, and his gloves covering his reddening face in embarrassment. If you’re lucky, maybe this is how he felt watching you fall onto him when you were drunk the first time you met. It’s more adoration than disgust.

“Aw, there’s no shame in it.” You coax. He is completely and totally embarrassed, you can tell by the way his ears are bright, cherry red.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay? What do you want?” He whines, refusing to look at you even when you try to pry his hands away from his face.

“Whatever we do and wherever we go together, it’s on you. Monetarily, I mean.” You push a finger into his chest as he finally frees his eyes from his own grip, daring to look at you face on.

“You serious?” He groans, he’s still red but looks to be over the initial shock. Either from the biting wind swirling around you or because of your teasing, his cheeks are coated in a dusting of red.

“Yeah, unless you want everyone to know about your sexual preferences.” Releasing him from your pushed finger, you cross your arms and shrug innocently.

“This is blackmail. This is extortion!” He complains, covering his eyes again.

“So… yes or no?” You grab his wrists and rip them from his face, revealing his angsty stare.

“...Yes, I’ll pay. Will you let it go now?” His words are harsher and he’s sulking, glaring at you. Maybe you pushed it too far.

“Hey, I meant it when I said it’s nothing to be ashamed about.” You let go of his wrists, opting to rub his shoulder instead, in an attempt to reassure him. “Listen, I lost my dignity by falling on you and drooling when we met, and you lost your dignity just now. Let’s just say we’re even.” You smile optimistically, hoping it will psych him into believing you because what you say is the truth, even if it’s a touchy subject, apparently.

Once he’s reminded of your not-so-cute meet-cute, he seems to relax a little. “You did drool like crazy. Do I really have to pay?” He’s smiling now, thank God. He rests his hands on his chest, looking way more comfortable.

“Yup. You do.” You laugh, it’s a softer laugh than your earlier fit, though. “Convenience store?” You prompt him, offering a hand to have him get up. As your hand interlocks with his, a smile tugs at the sides of your lips and you still can’t tell if the heat in your face is from the wind chill or Taesan. “And, take your hat back, idiot. Your ears are red.” The hat traps all the heat radiating from your flushed face and it makes you almost feel sweaty.

He laughs a little before speaking, “thanks for the hat. My ears are just so cold.” He jokes. “The store is just this way.” He points to the right he was going to take when you knocked him down. He was leading you the right way, at least. “Never try to blackmail me again, I swear.” He threatens, pouting, and then shoves you, however lightly. He doesn't look very scary.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.” You retort. He glares at you, keeping eye contact as you walk closer to the glowing, welcoming arms of the convenience store in the form of its bright lights, illuminating the street from the inside, casting an eerie glow onto the otherwise dark and snow-ridden street. In response to his look, you childishly blow a strawberry at him. This hasn’t been either of your finest hours. Your antics draw out a smile from him, at least. Practically skipping along, you try to change the subject to something less personal, maybe. “What did you expect when you called me out here? You said you were nervous, after all.”

“Yeah, I did say that. I got the pre-presentation nerves, you know? ‘Thought we could talk about it.” He rubs his neck. This is definitely a less personal topic, but that’s not to say it’s impersonal.

“So, talk.” You command, avoiding eye contact mostly so you don’t laugh, replaying him falling over.

“What is there to say? I had some nerves.” He laughs, opening the silvery door to the convenience store, stepping aside to let you through.

“What a gentleman,” you muse, “how’d you learn that? Rom-coms?”

“I’m allowed to be nice, too, you know. You watch more romantic comedies than me.” He rolls his eyes.

“I do it ironically.” You drawl. “I was nervous too, to be honest,” you were not going to tell him that you were watching rom-coms trying to relax, that would be a little too much ammo for him, “Jen was fast asleep and I was just kind of… lying there.” You pick up a miscellaneous chip bag, lazily inspecting it.

“Oh, I totally get it. The only other person awake was Leehan, and he was going to trap me in fish conversation if I even so much as approached him.” You snort at this. Even from your brief interactions with Leehan this afternoon, his passion is palpable. You can just see it in his face that he’s a little bit of an uber-nerd about those particular animals. Nerd is being used affectionately, of course. His interest is admirable. “Do you want those chips?” He asks, pointing to the bag in your hand.

“Not really, I like those other ones better.” You shrug, pointing to the alternative, an equally fluorescent bag of slightly better-tasting chips. “We can tame the worries together,” you smile at him, reaching behind you to grab your preferred flavor, ��the question is how.”

“Going to the convenience store is a pretty good start.” He pushes his bottom lip into the top one. As you watch this action, he suppresses a smile, suddenly. “I have an idea.” Of course he does. He says this with a growing smile on his face as he locks eyes with you. “We should have a snowball fight.” Your own smile grows as he waits for your response.

“We should.” You nod. This time, you have an idea, a bad one. “Only if you moan again.” You charge him with the scandalous comment, and he looks affronted again, and immediately reaches out a free hand to shove you.

“Don’t say that so loud!” He hissed, looking around the almost empty store to see if anyone heard him. “That stays between you and me.” You roll your eyes but you can’t hide your amusement.

“Yeah, okay.” You walk off towards the cashier across the store to buy your snacks, sticking out your tongue at him. On the way, you inspect and in turn pick up a chocolate bar and a mediocre-looking apple to buy with your chips; it’s all about balance.

Taesan comes up behind you as you place your haul on the mini conveyor belt and gives a small bow to the cashier. He sets down two bags of chips and an enoki mushroom snack that has Japanese writing on it, for which you give him a disgusted look. Perusing his other selections, you smile when you see the second chip bag, for which you change your disgusted look for one of gratitude.

“Aw, did you get those for me?” You ask, pointing to the less perfect, but still pretty good flavor.

“No, I got them for… um…” He pauses, seemingly unable to think of someone else he would get them for. It’s kind of cute, if not a little embarrassing. “I got them for you. I can be kind, remember?” Sassy man apocalypse.

“Duly noted.” You purse your lips. You look at him expectantly, going from him to his card on the back of his phone, again.

“What?” He asks, innocently. Sungho wasn’t joking when he said that he looks like a cat. As he realizes you’re deadass, he narrows his eyes and turns to you, “are you serious about the whole paying thing?” He cocks his head.

“I was pretty clear. That is, unless you—” You’re cut off by Taesan clamping a hand over your mouth, for which he gets a repulsed and highly suspicious glare from the middle-aged cashier, he meets this with another bow, unclasping your face from his grip. When you’re let go, you raise your eyebrows at him as if to say ‘really?’ His hand smells like lavender soap, it’s kind of pleasant, actually. From the state of his and his roommates’ everything-but-sleeping room, you wouldn’t have guessed they were in possession of floral hand soap. When you’re done thinking about how he smells, you’re feeling a little embarrassed and also physically being led out of the store, hopefully after Taesan paid.

“Was that really necessary?” You ask, hands free because Taesan’s holding the store-provided bag that houses all of your treats.

“I don’t need anyone hearing about… that. Especially a middle-aged anyone.” He clarifies and fair enough. You take the opportunity, however, to scoop up a clump of snow (distinctly not yellow, you checked) and pitch it at him. Still carefully holding your bag, he looks at you with a sense of betrayal. “Oh, I’m going to get you.” He threatens before hurling a snowball that splashes against your only water-resistant coat.

Snowball after snowball is thrown, before your brief yet intense brawl is cut short by ice cold rain slicing through the air around you. Without Taesan’s hat, the sleet pummels your head and it hurts. Your puffer has no hood. Before you can let out an ‘ow,’ even, you find your oasis above you, a puffer. Taesan’s puffer. He managed to, in the short time it started sleeting and you noticed it, drop all of his stockpiled snowballs, pick up the convenience store’s bag, take off his puffer jacket, and cover your head with it, protecting you from the harsh, half-frozen rain. When you look at his face to your right, he looks totally angelic. The streetlight behind him makes him look like he has a halo from the light filtering through the edges of his hair. He’s smiling, despite all the teasing and irritation you put him through in the short time you’ve been out of your dorm.

“Yikes, that came fast.” He comments, looking around and noticing how the sleet pelts down around the two of you. “I’ll take you home, I think it’s our cue to wrap this up.” He suggests. His sweetness contrasts against the wistful feeling that unexpectedly forms when he mentions parting. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation or maybe it’s the chill getting to you, but you feel like you’re on cloud nine, it’s the most you’ve laughed since Jen told you the crazy goings-on between her highschool ex-girlfriend and one of her friends. Apparently, her ex-girlfriend is absolutely smitten for her friend and said friend completely ignores her at every turn. You laughed until your cheeks hurt that day. Your cheeks don’t hurt from laughing, necessarily, but it’s the same sort of freeing feeling. You don’t know what to make of that, but you’re damn sure you like the way he’s smiling at you.

“Whatever you say. Thanks for the roof.” You beamed, pointing up at the make-shift shelter he’s made for you.

“My pleasure, Miss Grump.” He says this with a posh accent that makes you laugh. You have no idea since when he’s started calling you Miss Grump, but there are worse names, probably.

“Don’t make me kick you.” You threaten, trying (and failing) to suppress the grin that tugs at your lips.

“Sorry, Madame Grump.” He corrects, still holding the cover over your head.

“I’m not even being grumpy.” You warn him, not even trying to hide the smile that spreads across your face. “Come on, get moving.” You cue him to start the walk back to your dorm.

“Your wish is my command, Miss—”

“Don’t you dare.” You threaten and bump your shoulder into his. The walk back to your dorm is short, it took you far longer to get to the convenience store because of… well… tangential events. Checking your phone, you finally learn the time. It’s fucking two in the morning. Great! You’ll get essentially no sleep, but that’s nothing a little caffeine can’t fix.

“I dare more than you think I do.” He purses his lips.

“Okay, I dare you to admit you moaned when you fell.” You challenge him with a smirk.

He groans, “I pick truth.”

“This isn’t truth or dare, you don’t get to pick. Plus, truth would be ‘did you moan when you fell.’” You can see your dorm from where you stand in front of the red brick building, it’s still brightly lit. Hopefully that means that Jen is still asleep and hasn’t woken up to turn the overhead off.

“You can’t subpoena me so I’m not playing this game.” He shrugs, stopping underneath the overhang above the glass door that marks the entrance to your building and the separation from Taesan. As he steps aside, taking his puffer with him and putting it back on, you’re suddenly and unfortunately aware of his body heat now that it’s gone.

“I’m less nervous.” He says with a smile that seems almost confidential, like a secret only you know. He’s undeniably easy on the eyes with his stupid hat and soaked gloves and hoodie.

“Me too.” The words come out of your mouth softly. Somehow, they’re vulnerable words to say. “Goodnight, Taesan.” After your parting words, neither of you make a move to leave. His full name feels more meaningful than his nickname, somehow. You stand there, lit up by the LEDs of the hallways, staring at each other, and you’re not entirely sure why. The tension might be thick, it might not be, you can’t tell by the way you’re focused on his face. Well, it’s not exactly his face. It’s the way his hair frames his face, yes, and the way that his eyes scrunch when he smiles, even slightly, it’s also the way his egg hat looks and the way his hoodie is so damp because he was trying to keep you warm and dry.

Then it’s all over. When the tension breaks, it’s not like it’s cut through. It’s more like it dissipates. It dissipates thanks to the man who barrels down the street adjacent to your bubble, blasting a Spanish ballad and singing his heart out. Soy capitán, soy capitán, soy capitán! blasts through the complex. You break eye contact with Taesan just to laugh at the oddity passing you. You watch him coast down the street on his green bike, singing, without a helmet, hands-free. Your mother would not approve. Taesan’s not laughing, but he’s beaming and staring at you as you crouch down because of your laughter. You try and convince yourself it’s not even that funny, but something about the era of the night just makes you heave with how hard you’re laughing.

“I mean,” recovering, you let out a sigh, finally releasing a breath that you don’t remember holding, “it is a college campus.”

“You can say that again.” His hands are on his hips, and he’s managed to pry his eyes away from you. The sleet’s stopped somewhat, but the ground is still icy from the snow and sleet and rain that have frozen and refrozen over the past few days. The same wistful silence settles between you two after the interruption.

“Maybe it’s a sign.” You laugh in disbelief. Now you’re sure you’ve laughed more than when Jen told you about her friend’s drama. Way more.

“A sign for what?” He questions, jocose and almost suspicious of your deduction.

“A sign you’ve violated like a million rules of common decency!” Another voice, one other than the singing man’s melody and Taesan’s and your chatter, is heard echoing throughout. “Han Taesan, I’m going to beat your ass!” The voice threatens angrily. At first, you don’t know where it’s coming from. At second, you don’t want to believe where it’s coming from. You slowly look up to your open dorm window and see Jen’s disheveled figure poking out with the single most serious scowl you’ve ever seen her wear. The only time that gets close to this nouveau expression is the time she decked a guy for… being a total freak for one of her friends, let’s say. Your body is confused on whether to panic, run, or just freeze. Waiting to act is still an action, and it’s the prognosis your body suggests. You freeze, looking from Taesan to the window, where Jen is notably absent.

You look at Taesan.

You look at the window.

You look at Taesan.

You look at the hallway.

Taesan looks terrified, you look utterly and visibly confused, and for Jen… well, it looks like there's smoke coming out of her ears as she storms down the hallway towards the doors that open to reveal your two-person symposium. Jen slams open the door and, if it wasn’t specifically made not to slam, the impact of the slam would have reverberated until even Dr. Woo heard it across the campus in his (probably sound-proofed) office where he probably still is because, you know, he’s Dr. Woo.

“You motherfucker, what did you do to get her to go out without telling me! What are you hiding? Are you a criminal? Are you a smoker? Oh no, you’re just a piece of shit trying to get in her pants!” Jen steps in front of you, blocking everything but Taesan’s head from your view. From what you can see, Taesan hasn’t been sucker punched yet. His eyes are wide and he’s holding his hands up like he’s waiting for her to swing, and maybe he is. You know he doesn’t know her well enough to know that she wants to beat the shit out of him, but she did say explicitly that she was going to beat the shit out of him so he had some reason to suspect that that’s what was incoming.

“W-what? I don’t— I didn’t do any of that stuff!” He’s shaking his hands wildly and Jen still looks like she’s about to swing by the way she’s pushing a finger into his chest. Still too shocked to do, well, anything except watch.

You see her rear up in a way that’s all too familiar to you, and when you remember you can move, “Jen, wait! It’s–” As soon as the words leave your mouth, you see her closed fist collide with his cheekbone and the impact make him reel back, clutching the affected area with a mittened hand. He almost knocks his head into the pole supporting the overhang, and you can see he’s visibly out of it. Is this a good time to mention that Jen is freakishly good at karate? What Jen is, however, not amazing at is analyzing the situation. As she battles with the follow-through of the swing, she loses her footing on the icy ground, falling flat on her ass. Now, both parties accompanying you are on the icy ground and you’re the only one still standing.

You act in a delay. “Jen! He didn’t do anything, I swear!” You reach for her shoulders that are no longer there, trying to stop an action that’s already happened. You watch as Taesan crumples further into a fetal position and you stand there in shock.

“See!” She spits, snapping her head back to look up at you. “He’s not even trying to help me up!” Her eyebrows are furrowed and angry.

“Jen,” you almost can’t help but laugh, “you decked him, he doesn’t even know what planet he’s on.” You look from your best friend to your… Taesan, and wonder how you attend to both of their bullshit situations at once. “Okay, first of all, Jen, please don’t punch his ass again—”

“Yeah, I’ll punch him in the gut.” She snarls, cutting you off.

“No! There will be no punching.” You declare, trying to sound confident but you’re so bewildered it comes out more as a question. You turn your attention to Taesan, whose nose is bleeding ever so slightly. He’s holding his hat-clad head in his hands and is grimacing in pain. You mirror him, a grimace appearing on your own face as you look upon his pitiful condition. This is going to be so fun to explain. “I came out here because I told him he could call me if he was nervous for the presentation tomorrow and I’d talk to him about it and so we went to the convenience store and… I’m fine! He’s not just trying to get in my pants, he would’ve done that already if he wanted to.” You ramble, using logic that probably wouldn’t withstand in court but works well enough when you talk a million miles an hour to a less than law-savvy subject, that subject being Jen. The subject, Jen, looks scandalized by this information.

“Where did my innocent baby go?” She pouts, getting up to put her arms around you. “Where did my sweet, lightweight, baby with no love life go? She’s sneaking out to see boys?”

“Jen, I’m a grown woman.” You tell her, incredibly blasé and stiff as she embraces you in a hug. From over her shoulder, you catch Taesan’s eye. When your eyes meet, he laughs and then winces. It probably wasn’t a good idea to welcome an uncontrollable movement when you have some sort of abrasion on your cheek and blood coming out of your nose. Jen pulls back to look at you and shakes her head, you can almost hear her saying they grow up so fast. Maybe this is the same kind of telepathy that goes down between her and her sisters. Maybe you get it. Jen, coming back to earth from her sappy, self-appointed caretaker meltdown, narrows her eyes and looks from you to Taesan, and then from you to Taesan, again.

She opens her mouth and lets out a puff of air as if to start speaking, but she only does so a few seconds later. “So… there was no reason for me to deck him?” She asks, raising an eyebrow in genuine confusion. You nod, solemnly. Her jaw drops and her eyebrows push together. She puts her tongue in her cheek, mind reeling. This is when she realizes she gave this poor man a bloody nose and probably a black eye for no damn reason. Suddenly, she fixes her gaze on you, “you’re the one I should be chewing out! Do you know how many staples of girl code you’ve violated?! You could have died!” She exclaims, clearly ready to give you a talking-to, way worse than when you spelled ‘Elliann’ as ‘Ellyanne.’ She’s like OSHA but for general female wellbeing.

You reach out to grab her hands that are moving dramatically to illustrate her point, “okay, you can chew me out after Taesan isn’t bleeding out.” She seems to relax like a combative patient injected with midazolam.

“I’m not bleeding out.” He huffs, but is still holding his nose bridge, so he’s still bleeding, at least, and that’s not exactly ideal.

“You look like shit, though.” You tell him

“Thanks,” he groans, “can I get some tylenol, or something?” Yeah, he totally looks like a hurt puppy. It’s kind of cute, you guess.

“Yeah, we’ll get you patched up.” You assure him, breaking away from Jen to attend to Taesan.

“No ‘we.’ Only you. Don’t let her punch me again.”

“We’re over the combat phase, it’s fine. Get up, do your legs still work?” You try to say your biting words as comfortingly as possible. It’s past two in the morning, you’re too over-tired to try to pick your words so they’ll feel better for the receiver. What’ll make Taesan feel better, physically, at least, is tylenol and making sure his nose isn’t broken.

“My legs don’t, my ass hurts like hell.” Jen complains, but helps in picking Taesan up anyway.

“It’s very hard to break a tailbone, a nose, on the other hand…” You raise your eyebrows but say no more. Taesan gets up just fine, but still clutches his nose. “Campus clinic’s probably closed, we have a first-aid kit, though.”

Jen issues a half-hearted-sounding yet fully meant apology in the form of a mutter of “sorry for punching you, man.”

“You’re cool, man. Cool that you were looking out for her.” He gives her a small thumbs up. It’s a weird moment of friendship between these two. For having met barely a week ago and having spent five hours together tops, these two have a more tumultuous relationship than most twin siblings at the age of nine, which is saying something considering most have chased each other with a knife by the age of five and a half. Jen has gone from asking to be the maid of honor to decking the presumed groom and now having a hopefully more stable relationship with said groom. So much plot it’s not even ‘for the plot’ anymore, you’re just riding the wave of unexpected inciting events.

“The more the merrier.” You mutter as you sling Taesan’s arm over your shoulder. Why he abets this when the damage is to his face, who knows. The more the merrier indeed in your cramped dorm, trying to ignore how the cold compress on his bruise keeps melting even though it’s so cold and the fact that you have an injured and sleep-deprived boy on your hands.

GOT GOOD

You bite the inside of your cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to express your dismay. You kind of bombed your presentation.

Scrap that, you really bombed your presentation.

As you step out of the lecture hall following the sea of your peers, you step aside to press your back into a free wall. It’s one of the moments where you need to just detach. Crossing your arms for stability, you melt into the wall. The overhead light that you can see even through your closed eyelids is obscured every so often by a moving body. This drowsiness is familiar.

Amid the frequent passings of students, the light is masked for longer than would be caused by someone in passing. You know who it is.

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad.” You open your eyes to a squint and see Taesan leaning against the wall next to you. Despite how you try to ignore it, you’re immediately drawn to the squashed berry purple color that blossoms on the inflamed skin under his left eye, giving way to a lighter almost green tint near his nose. Jen got him good. Your blinks are slow, the scant hours of sleep are getting to you. You slept through your alarm, foreboding you from even getting coffee before the presentation. Despite his injury, he’s smiling.

“I lost where I was like every other sentence.” You attempt to mirror his smile, but it doesn’t really work, leaving you with a smile that reaches your eyes but not your lips, somehow.

“It’s Dr. Woo, you’ll be fine. He doesn’t care nearly as much as you do. We got all of our information out. It doesn’t matter how graceful it was.” He lays out his reasons and you cock your head, weighing the possibility that he’s right.

“Are you like a vampire, or something? You don’t need sleep?”

“I’m used to it.” He shrugs. Maybe living with five as many people as you do makes you sleep way less; especially since it seems like Taesan is their chaperone despite the fact that Sungho and Riwoo are older than him, you’ve learned.

“You shouldn’t be. Sleep is good.” You close your eyes again, and a silence settles over you. You’ve created your own little bubble in the hallway, and it might not even include Taesan. Right now, it’s just you and your desperate need for rest. You are not the kind of person to pull an all-nighter.

“I told you you were going to crash.” He reminds you and you hum in response. “Look,” he gets your attention by putting a hand on your shoulder, “the boys are out, come back to my place and you can take a nap. I know that your room still smells like disinfectant.” A smile creeps across your face at this. It’s true: your room smells like the pungent iodine that you used to clean the minor abrasions on his cheekbone. You still have no idea why Jen has that much power in her.

“Lead the way.”

“It’s way closer to this building than it is to your building, it’s barely any walk at all.” He assures you. Regardless, you have to speed walk to keep up with the pace.

“Do you have hot chocolate, or anything?” At your drawled request, he tsks. Pressing his lips together, you take that as a no.

“I’ll see what I can do. Woonhak owes me like nine favors.” He laughs a little at this, and you smile too. Unremarkably, it hasn’t become spring overnight, and so the wind is still nipping at your face. You were wise enough to wear your Taesan-provided gloves, though. Looking at Taesan’s face and the way the wind makes his face a little pink, you’re pretty sure you could find the whole color palette on his face. Except blue, maybe. You’ve got the other colors covered. Red for his cheeks, orange, yellow, green, and purple for his bruise. Huh, that bruise contributes a lot. “It’s just this way.” He says, guiding you with a pointed hand towards a complex highly similar to your own. Same red brick buildings and same overhang. The difference is that, you know from picking your roommate, this building is the apartment sector. Frankly, it’s incredible that Taesan and his roommates are all friends. You know other people who got apartments, or even quads, who aren’t so happy.

As you step into the entrance way, you feel the warm air hit your face. This building is much warmer than yours, maybe that’s a good thing. Walking up the stairs, Taesan is steady behind you. You wonder if he’s thinking about catching you like he had to the time you were drunk off your ass.

As soon as you enter the apartment dorm, your focus tunnel visions on the soft couch in the middle of the room. It looks like heaven as you step towards it. You were unfairly ripped from the comfort of your bed for that fuckass presentation and now you can return to your natural state, sleeping. You thank whatever power is out there because this is so incredibly opportune.

As soon as you shed your backpack and winter coat and collapse on the couch, you’re out like a light. No words from Taesan can wake you now, even if it is him professing his undying love for you. No, it’s up to your internal clock to make you up, lest you sleep forever.

Your internal clock does wake you up. You’re groggy, but it’s still light out, so you couldn’t have slept for so long. As you assess your situation, you notice two differences.

First, you’re warm.

A navy blue throw blanket has been carefully draped over you, and you’re pretty sure you didn’t do that yourself. You bite the inside of your cheek—happily, this time. It’s proof he does care, and maybe you’re letting the gesture get to your head. You do… not like Han Taesan, right?

Second, you’re alone in Taesan’s living room.

There are no signs of life, not from his roommates nor from the mountain himself. That’s more puzzling. You would have assumed he would have stayed for one reason or another, maybe he went out to get hot chocolate? He told you that he would have Woonhak do it.

Looking around the room, you take in the sights. There’s a modest TV with various video game consoles, there is a section of the room clearly designated for guitars, and it’s remarkably clean. Not too bad for five early 20-somethings and one 18 year old. It’s kind of impressive, actually. There isn’t any leftover food out and even the dishes in the sink have been rinsed, if not thoroughly washed. You pat down the area around you in search of your phone, mainly to check the time, but also to figure out where the hell Taesan went. Something about his absence hurts your heart in an uncomfortable way. You would have liked to see him when you woke up. Still… you do not like Han Taesan… do you? No, no. You don’t like him, that’s silly. He’s just your partner for a group project.

As you locate your phone, you hear the door open behind you and you swing your head around to see Taesan standing in the doorway with a hand behind his back and a bag in the hand that’s visible to you. Another bag, nice.

“Good morning.” He smiles at your state. The way he looks at you suggests your hair is out of order. You fail obviously as you try to subtly sort it out.

“I had a great nap. You have a good napping couch.” You bring a hand up to rub your right eye even though your mom says it causes astigmatism. It would suck to have contacts in right about now.

“Well,” he says, setting down the bag on the counter, “I have your hot chocolate.” You’re pretty sure your face lights up at this, it’s the perfect thing for this kind of dingy day. “And,” he continues, “I got it from a café near here; store-bought isn’t as good.” He takes a cardboard carrier out of the bag and presents his finds to you, two lidded cups.

“You sure know the way to my heart.” You mean that on a deeper level that you hope he doesn’t catch. “What’s behind your back?” You ask, pointing to the obvious hand still tucked behind him.

He looks sheepish and brings the hand to his front, “I got these for you.” His cool act is far gone, he seems almost timid. In his left hand he grasps a bouquet of an assortment of colorful flowers. There are assorted yellows, blues, pinks, purples, and reds. It’s like a sunset wrapped in brown paper and tied in a pretty twine bow.

“Taesan!” You exclaim excitedly, jumping up from the couch to go collect your gift. “Why?” You poke. He’s quiet for a second, the question seems to echo throughout the room. A chorus of ‘why.’ You meet his eyes for just a second, but the shared glance makes your heart beat faster. He seems to bite his tongue, there’s a shining reflection of the kitchen light in his dark brown eyes. You don’t see them crinkle up, indicative of a straight face.

He swallows like his throat is thick, “I got them for you because I like you… I like you romantically.”

You’re not sure if your heart swells or drops.

From this one statement, you learn two things. You learn that Han Taesan likes you, and you learn that you like Han Taesan. You really like Han Taesan. You like the way he’s cold but kind and the way his bangs fall and his endless care for his roommates and his hardworking nature.

You like Han Taesan.

You take the bouquet in your hands, analyzing the flowers. You notice they’re mostly tulips, but flanked by carnations, baby’s breath, and bluebells. A smile grows on your face as you look back up at him. He looks absolutely terrified. It’s not worth it to tease him here. He’s vulnerable, you should be too.

You begin to open your mouth, but before you can, he continues in an attempt at defense, “listen to me, please. I thought you were cute and smart even before the party and all of those incidents, but now that I know you I can’t not tell you. You’re witty and stubborn and playful and it’s so easy to talk to you. You were cute when you were drooling, I didn’t know that was possible. You make fun of me but I like it because you’re so kind. I… I like you.” He confesses, he’s talking fast and you think your heart might burst with excitement. Excitement isn’t the right word—euphoria? Joy? Happiness? Exhilaration? No word is quite right for how you feel about Taesan. “The tulips symbolize love.” He says under his breath and the flowers take on a whole new meaning. You feel like a tulip. Tulips symbolize love.

The smile that bursts across your face makes his eyebrows release all their tension immediately, “Taesan, I like you too. I really like you,” you tell him, “tulips symbolize love.” You look down at the bouquet and see the array of tulips that smile back at you.

“Can I kiss you? I’m not drunk, I swear.” He promises. The allusion to your first meeting makes you laugh. You met with an ask for a kiss, and now he confesses with an ask for a kiss.

“Yes.” You whisper, and he throws his arms around you, pressing his forehead to yours. You sway like that for a moment, you feel the cold of his jacket against your arms and the pressure of his hand on the small of your back. You look at him and in his eyes you see him. No walls, just you two. Just you and Taesan.

You wrap your arms around his neck, one hand still holding the bouquet and pull his lips to yours. Warmth blossoms in your chest—his kiss is soft and tender and he tastes like mint. Mint might be your new favorite flavor. His lips fit perfectly with yours. You feel the soft press of his fingers into your back, pulling you closer to him. Your lips part slightly and you’re out of breath before he even starts to pull away. His kiss is just like him, just when you think you know him all, he shows you a new surprise, something new. After stalling for just a second, he pulls you back to him and deepens the kiss. You could kiss this minty boy forever.

When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against yours again, fluttering his eyes open and shut.

“I wrote a song about this. A serenade.” He says breathlessly.

Even in the dead of winter, you think your heart melts all over again.

NOTES: Shoutout Hartford Whalers even tho they sports disbanded! SINGING MAN CAMEO! The singing man is a genuine character in my life. Living in the city center of a major city means I get LOTS of people doing weird shit like the emoji guy (who wears outfits only with bright fucking emojis, my friends have seen him too, he’s wacky), the tree guy (a man who always walks around with a fallen branch on his head, no idea why), and the supercar medical worker (woman in scrubs who drives down the streets with a loud ass car that looks like one of those fuckass shoes with big holes in them you know what im talking about the kidney shoes). I take a pic and keep them in a folder on my phone called “recurring characters.” I have never seen the singing man. He walks past my house every weekday at 11pm and I like to have my windows open and he sings loud Spanish ballads. I love him. Singing man my beloved. Sorry this is a slowburn, it was forced out of me i fear. is this a slowburn? methinks so.

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northopalshore · 5 months ago

Text

Derivative astrology: the 7th house

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

˖ ִֶָ🐇 In this post specifically I'd like to look at the 7th house derivative astrology. I prefer to work with examples, so I'll be reading about my future spouse as a guide. I'll include some celebrity citations as well. What is Derivative astrology?

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

The ascendant (natal 7th House):

His appearance, physical traits, attitude & approach

๑ஓVirgo (9° sagittarius)

In terms of looks, he's tall, more so on the leaner side, and looks very down to earth or approachable. His age will not show on his face, so even if he's 30/40 he still looks 20 lmao. Extremely clean and put together, although when it comes to fashion he could wear a lot of "basic" clothes. It's usually comfort & practicality over looks. People will describe him as easygoing but also a bit of a perfectionist.

๑ஓEros (22° capricorn)

He's very particular about the way that his body/physical appearance looks. Perhaps he's the type to work out regularly. Since it's in virgo though, I don't think he'll be doing it competitively, but rather to exercise control or restraint. Just something he likes having in his routine.

Celebrity example

(the effects of your descendant & your partner's looks)

Ariana Grande has her Cancer in the 7th house. There's also Chiron & Mercury here. Have you noticed how a lot of her long term partners look rather.. sick? Pale, with eyebags & a tired expression. The ones she usually just dates are rather short (Cancer, mercury 27° gemini) but the ones who get closer to engagement or marriage are tall (Leo, chiron 21° Sagittarius). Also.. they kind of resemble her brother lol ( cancer; family, mercury 27° gemini; sibling)

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 2nd house (natal 8th House):

His finances, work, values & priorities

๑ஓLibra

He could work under a contract or with certain people. Business relationships are very prominent here. Though, this could also mean he's usually working with a partner or a group.

๑ஓJupiter (16° cancer)

He's likely born into a pretty stable household in terms of money. However, it's likely he works with his family or people close to him. Could also work with younger individuals, he'll likely gain a lot of wealth through his contracts or working with people he's familiar with/ family.

๑ஓFama (20° scorpio)

My FS's work will involve movement, and talking or interacting with a lot of people. He will usually be the person they are looking at at work.

๑ஓPopulus (24° pisces)

My FS gains a lot of money through his looks and his aesthetics. He'll likely be quite popular for his charms & magnetism. People could attach his image to that of prince charming if that makes sense. People might not expect me to be with someone like him lol. Perhaps they think he's this untouchable entity or that someone like him is different from the average person (pisces influence).

๑ஓUnion (26° taurus)

I'll likely be working with my FS somewhere down the line especially since it's in libra. A power couple!

Celebrity example

(How your 8th house affects your spouses' career)

Lana Del Rey has a stellium in her 8th house (sun, mars & mercury). Most of her exes were singers though not as successful as her. Her husband however, is a tour guide; usually talking to a small group of people on an airboat (cancer Mercury 16° cancer), his job involves a lot of movement & hard labour, a little risk & talking/explaining (Mars 8° Scorpio, Eros 21° Sagittarius). He does a lot of physical labour, working for/with his family, & has since gained a lot of fame/ recognition through that (Starr & Varuna).

Lana's natal 2nd house will be his 8th house when read through derivative astrology, so her being more wealthy & popular than him sort of tracks. She's more of this exotic phenomena while he's a traditionally hard working family man 'normie'. Sagittarius vs Cancer.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 3rd house (natal 9th House):

His mind, thoughts, siblings & early education

๑ஓScorpio

He is very intuitive. Most of the time, there is nothing that can be kept hidden from him. He's also great at reading body language or facial expressions, and likely not the type to be able to hide his distaste for certain things. At least, not through his expressions lol. If he doesn't like you, you'll see it on his face.

๑ஓMars (26° taurus)

He may have argued with his siblings a lot somewhere along his youth, I don't think it's necessarily a toxic relationship. In fact, I think that's just how they bond lol. He could have been very stubborn as a child, doing whatever he wanted despite his sibling's wishes. He could also have been quite stubborn or greedy around his sibling (s). "What's mine is mine, what's yours is also mine".

๑ஓVenus (5° leo)

He is very charming, and quite romantic. By that I mean, he is the type of man who will romanticise love & art. These aspects may be very closely tied to his own way of thinking. Believing in a "one true love". The way he communicates & thinks is also quite dramatic. Perhaps he believes there is no one else quite like him lol.

๑ஓMercury (10° capricorn)

My FS is very analytical. No matter how romantic or dreamy he likes to think, there is always a part of him that values logic & structure. He probably likes to argue with himself in his head often. Something along the lines of;

"It feels right, but what does it really mean? "

"Does it make sense? I don't think so yeah, maybe not."

"..on second thought —"

"..nah"

Celebrity example

Lisa Marie Presley has Saturn, North Node, Union Chiron & Mireille in her natal 9th House.

Michael Jackson used to work with his siblings (saturn) in The Jackson 5 before they had a falling out also because he wanted to go solo (pisces Chiron 26° Taurus).

They were very successful (Mireille) just not in the way MJ wanted to be seen, so he left (aries, pisces & chiron). In the end, he was meant to go solo to be the Michael Jackson we all love & remember (Aries north node 21° Sagittarius).

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 4th house (natal 10th House):

His home life, his mother, his early childhood

๑ஓSagittarius (13° aries)

He has been living independently from a very young age. Moving to another town, state or country from his parents alone. His parents are very open-minded, perhaps there were issues with religion when he was younger or he just had parents with mixed religious beliefs & found it a bit difficult to latch onto either one.

๑ஓGreat attractor (14° taurus)

He was likely favoured by his aunts or his grandmother, perhaps he has a lot of parental figures in his life. His siblings could also act as his care takers since it's in Taurus. People liked him for his openness or willingness to learn from them. Though, he might talk back at times lol (conjuncting ic °13 aries).

๑ஓPluto (22° capricorn)

His childhood was likely cut short due to his career, or because he had to work from a young age he didn't exactly live the life of a regular child. It forced him to be wiser & more experienced than his age.

๑ஓSun (29° leo)

He might've been the favourite child of the household lol. You could see his charisma shining through, even as a child. He could also be the youngest child in the family. He may have butted heads with his mother at times, but respects his father a lot.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 5th house (natal 11th House):

Love life, creativity, childhood, talents

๑ஓCapricorn

He could treat art as a job, or just work in the artistic industry. Could have been working as a child (like a child actor, performer or something). His childhood was likely bleak because of this.

๑ஓChiron (24° pisces)

He likely had a very difficult childhood. He might've felt like he was never truly a child, or he never got to enjoy his youth like his peers. He may have felt like an outcast and all alone when he was younger. Not really fitting in with people his age. He may have accumulated some trauma from his childhood as well. In terms of his love life, he may have felt that his previous partners never see him eye to eye, but rather as an illusion. Either that, or he himself has ignored his partners to chase his own ideals. Never feeling truly connected with anyone he's dated in the past.

๑ஓGroom (25° aries)

He may long to be in a stable relationship, however he may feel that he'll never have the time to indulge in that type of life because of work ( groom conjunct chiron in Capricorn). Although, this perspective may be healed through marriage hoho ✧₊ ⊹ .

๑ஓJuno (6° virgo)

Like I said, somewhere before my FS & I are likely to work together at some point in our lives. (Virgo & Capricorn). His love life will play an important role in his career.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 6th house (natal 12th House):

Work ethic, routines, job, health

๑ஓAquarius

He doesn't work a 9-5 and could work independently i.e not with a government agency. He could be working alone for the most part, but he could also be working with friends or a community.

๑ஓNeptune (13° aries)

His work will involve movement but also illusion and creativity. He could be very prone to health issues, or his work causes him to neglect his own health or wellbeing. Could be both mental & physical health that decline because of work. He could have insomnia or fatigue. Usually, Neptune & pisces heavy placements lead to someone being very artistic, or talented with music or art. You'll see it quite often in the charts of musicians i.e Lana Del Rey, Matty Healy just to throw a few names.

๑ஓUranus (3° gemini)

His career could involve writing, talking or singing. In aquarius, it's likely he'll be working with a lot of people or with diverse individuals. He could work online or at places where people come to gather for something. Whatever it is, he will be the speaker/one front and center. Uranus is all about standing out from the crowd. He may be a trendsetter where he works. His work also involves a lot of multitasking.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His descendant (natal ascendant):

His partnerships, business relationships, spouse

๑ஓPisces (9° sagittarius)

Foreign, distance. He could be very introspective about love & relationships. He may romanticise love often as well. His spouse will come from another country (overseas) and may be at a great distance from him lmao. If he works with any contracts, it's likely it will lead him to travel often. I will be very different from him culturally. Different languages, different religions, different countries.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 8th house (natal 2nd House):

Sex, fears, transformations, inheritance

๑ஓAries

Oof, daddy chill. He could be very obsessed with sex, money & his possessions. He'll find himself struggling with selfishness at times. He'll be very protective of his inner circle. A lot of people with this placement tend to be a freak in the sheets, yet 9/10 they'll stun you when it turns out they're a virgin. Loyal to a fault, although they could have been sexualised their entire life even from a young age.

๑ஓBoda (18° virgo)

Marriage will transform him deeply. He could feel like an entirely different person compared to who he was before. His marriage will not be spontaneous however. It's likely he has put much thought into it before proposing in the first place. Everything will be well planned and organised. Almost like he had a motive for it, or had the intent to marry me immediately lol. Something about the marriage will be taboo in a way, or perhaps will cause arguments since it's Aries & in the 8th house (yikes). I have a feeling, that he'll know I'm the one the moment we met. He has likely planned our marriage from the start.

๑ஓMoon (28° cancer)

He could struggle with his emotions quite often. Perhaps he'll be panicking inside but keep a straight face (virgo rising). He could have mood swings pretty often. There may be a part of him that's constantly searching for something safe or stable. He could be quite aware of the changes or cycles in life as well as the occult. However, it's not likely for him to be completely adept at it from a "professional" standpoint i.e you won't be reading any observations post or astrology blog from him any time soon. Rather, he goes by intuition and gut feeling. He could have trust issues as well. It's like "I don't really know what's happening but I can feel it." He might also come to me for advice or just to ease his mind often.

My younger brother also has this placement, so I've grown familiar with it through observing him.

๑ஓNorth node (0°)

Change and transformation may be a part of his destiny in this life. Wherever he goes and whatever he does will be influenced by a reawakening, or rebirth. He could have been set on this earth to bring change to himself and those around him. He may have gone through many deaths spiritually prior to meeting me. Learning boundaries, commitment and adaptability. Our relationship could be centered around this as well.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 9th House (natal 3rd House):

His perspectives & convictions

๑ஓTaurus

My FS likey has a deep attachment to money. By that, I mean he likely believes in the power of money lol. Perhaps it was made clear to him from a young age how important it is for someone to have things in their possession. So because of this, he may be quite greedy or have the mindset of a hustler.

๑ஓBriede (19° libra) retrograde

He's likely dreamt of how his future spouse would be quite often throughout his life. He's also very romantic, and a slightly delulu type of lover. Perhaps he has looked through the faces of all the women he has met, looking for his true love. He could have gone through some disappointments in this area before meeting me as well. He may have felt that he's looking for someone unattainable at times. He'll be the type to idealise his wife to the nines.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 10th House (natal 4th House)

๑ஓGemini

His job could involve a lot of talking, teaching or writing or even singing. He could do a lot of multitasking in his career i.e not just writing for example but speaking also. He could work with the media or the internet or just with a lot of people in general. He has a very vocal presence if that makes any sense.

๑ஓPart of fortune (8° scorpio) in Cancer

He's likely been through a lot of shifts in his career. Perhaps some trial & error, or it was quite difficult during the first few years into his career. He could work with his parents or his family, people he is comfortable with or just works closely with other people. There could have been a point of time where things just started going right lmao. People may think he's extremely lucky but it's more likely that he worked hard to get where he is. Literally blood, sweat & tears were sacrificed. He may have shared this with his family as well.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 11th House ( natal 5th House):

His friends, views on community & other people

๑ஓCancer

He could be around a lot of women, or perhaps a lot of his friends treat him motherly i.e baby him. When he opens up to people he likely treats them as family. He could also see his friends as his home or a source of comfort.

๑ஓLilith (15° gemini)

He could have trust issues, or have only a few people he really trust as his friends. He could also switch friend groups often or is introduced to other people by his friends often. He's likely not the one to initiate any friendships.

๑ஓSaturn (25° aries)

A lot of his friends could be older than him. Perhaps most of his friends are also his coworkers or people that he has a professional relationship with as well. There could be some competition between him & his friends or even between groups in general.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

His 12th house (natal 6th House)

The subconscious, his fears, his hidden self & ideals.

๑ஓLeo

He's the type of person who'll draw people to him because of his mysticism and genuine appeal. People could feel like they sense his soul when they're in his presence. He could be quite restless but also reserved when it comes go his talents. There may be a side of him he isn't as confident to portray yet by the time I meet him. His diva side might still be rather demure lmaoo. Still, there's great potential within him.

₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊ ⊹ .₊๋₊ ˚ ⊹ ࣭ ⭑ . ₊

A lot of the information just resembles that of what I wrote in my groom persona chart analysis

Thank you for reading!

@northopalshore

@northopalshore derivative astrology 2024.

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