#fuCKKCKCKCKKCKCK W HY DID THIS TAKE SO LONG

[aju-naisu]

that was painful to watch. -joshua hong

anonymous said to aju-naisu:

Hey! Can I request a joshua best friend confession au? Where a simple friendship maybe in highschool leads to you both liking each other and you being scared to confess, since a lot of people liked him. 

The joshua best friend confession au I would like to be fluff and fluffy as much as you can (sorry for two asks)

joshua hong x reader word count: 5276 summary: [high school au] jeonghan gives the worst love advice. [fluff and fluff] a/n: (don’t worry about the double asks! i totally get it) this was only meant to be 1k that i would have written in like a week or less instead it took like. Over a month and became 5k holy shit. I’m so sorry it took so long sdfnsk,djfhnksjhdfnm I got caught up in a lot of work and lack of motivation is a biHct ….the text segment exists because i got really tired at 3 AM i’M SO SORRYRYRYYR hao is handling all the fluff from now on, definitely  -希

0. smooth moves

If someone in the hallway listened closely, late after school on a Thursday, they could hear laughter echoing from the music room even from halfway across the school. If they walked a little closer, they'd hear jumbled up guitar chords and play-drunken singing following along terribly to some original tune.

As far as you know, no one had come close enough to see the two of you messing around on a guitar, scribbling notes and cramming last minute for a test first thing in the morning the next day. It was something you shared with Joshua,

It was one of the last remaining things.

In your lap rests an open binder containing handouts upon handouts of material you haven't sifted through yet, all you want to do is curl up and sleep for 5 years (preferably beside the one accompanying you at this hour). The singing is gentle and angelic for once, as you have neglected to join in, and it almost lulls you to rest a dozen times. You don't have the heart to tell him to stop, though.

“Joshua, aren't you going to study?” You let out a yawn, blinking your eyes a few times after. You never realized they'd gone dry due to how long you stared at 11pt Times New Roman font without stopping. “... that was a stupid question, nevermind.”

It must be great to somehow breeze through school without as so much of a hitch. Joshua chuckles at the grumbles you make in discontent, pausing in his song to give you a soft pat on the wrist. “I'm sure you'll do fine, you've been working really hard. Don't stress too much.”

“Easier said than done.” You groan, smushing your hands against your face. It's just so tiring. Your entire academic career was grounded by your natural knack for cramming. “Don't talk to me, Mr. Linguistics Genius.”

“But--”

You spring to action, taking your ruler and press it against his mouth hastily, shushing him, “We are not on speaking terms until I finish this goddamn practice test!” You let out a huff, and throw the ruler into the ground.

He watches as you scribble numbers and sequences onto question sheets for a moment before he returns to his guitar and music. Unlike you, Joshua was surrounded by sheet scores on the ground as opposed to exam notes and tears. He strums a chord, humming along to a song as he played, and you have to pretend you're not paying rapt attention to everything he's doing. The struggle isn't the material, it's paying attention to the material.

When you finish, fifteen minutes have passed, that's a solid fifteen minutes of listening to Joshua sing softly in the back while you suffer through calculus. For what it’s worth, you'd spend another thirty minutes of torture to make him sing for you again. He'd never find out about that.

“How was that?” Joshua smiles brightly at you when you look up from the sheet.

You lean back, ignoring the miniscule flutter in your heart, stretching your arms up and your back out. When your eyes trail back down to the mountain of material left to cover, you yawn in exhaustion, “You always sound like an angel…”

“Huh?”

“... What?”

Your best friend blinks confusedly at you, “I was… asking about the practice.”

All of a sudden, you shoot up straight in your chair and bubble with nervous laughter, looking anywhere except meeting his gaze. In the midst of your sputtering, you can only feel your face get hotter and hotter while you’re helpless to do anything about your embarrassment.

“It’s good! It’s fine! I’m fine!”

Wow.

You’re really bad at this.

---

1. nice going

“Your problem here is that you’re best friends and you don’t have a spine to tell him how you really feel,” Jeonghan concludes, taking a sip from his canned drink. The two of you are sitting across from each other at a small table at the school cafeteria, the chatter around is deafening, and it provides the perfect kind of white noise to mute your sensitive conversation to unwanted eavesdroppers. Or at least, that’s what Jeonghan claims. If you should ever listen to him, that’s up to debate. “Yikes.”

“If you put it that way, I just seem like a pitiful existence.” You groan, banging your head on the table. Speaking up again, your voice a little muffled in your current position, “I prefer ‘not one for taking unnecessary risks’, thank you very much.”

“Your love is unnecessary.”

You raise your head, opening your mouth to retort before pausing and grimly muttering. “... you’re right. That cut deep, but you’re right...”

Jeonghan almost chokes from the defeated expression on your face alone. He was expecting a much different reaction, one that involved smacking the table in retaliation and him nearly losing his head.

With a drawn-out sigh of frustration, you tug at the roots of your hair lightly, “I mean, what do you expect me to say? ‘Hi, I’ve been head-over-heels in love with you for like the past 3 years and it’s really starting to be a pain in the ass, so like I hope you accept my feelings since  hiding the fact that I’m so hecking whipped is such a bother because I really, really, really l--’!”

“You really, really, really what?”

In the midst of your impassioned soliloquy, you failed to notice Jeonghan gesturing madly at you to stop and pointing aggressively behind you until it was too late. You freeze mid-speech, making horrified eye contact with your friend on the other side before he dejected nods as if he just watched someone die. Reluctantly, you dread with every single inch of your being, you turn to face the person who just popped in without a warning.

“H-hey there, Josh!” You squeak, slapping yourself internally at the high pitch, “I was just telling-- Jeonghan that he… I really hate him for being so mean to me!”

“What did he do?” Joshua frowns, furrowing his brows as he turns his disappointed gaze towards the said boy.

Your friend only has the chance to shoot a nasty glare in your direction before Joshua begins to berate him. You can only laugh nervously in response. Nice save. Now you have to hope that Jeonghan doesn’t sell you out in spite.

-

2. stupid randomized variables

‘Just tell him already, it’ll be easy!’, ‘be honest about how you feel’, ‘it’s not going to hurt, I promise!’. Yoon Jeonghan was a liar, it’s not easy at all. But, then again, what else is new? Nothing. That's probably what makes it really depressing.

You sit crouched outside a classroom, the room where Joshua had his last block of the day. Normally he waits here for you before the two of you walk home together, but today there's an unexpected guest. So unexpected that you gnaw on your sleeves in agitation and your faces pull into a frown.

At first, you feel a little annoyed and almost frustrated. This morning Jeonghan was beating you up over the ‘perfect confession’ and ‘perfect execution’, now all that was to go to waste. The girl left in the classroom with Joshua didn't seem to be leaving their conversation on linguistics anytime soon. At this point, you consider going home by yourself.

But, even if you don't owe a stupid thing to Jeonghan, you don't feel right just ditching Joshua either. For the next five minutes, you just squat down by the door, filtering their words of conversation through your ears but processing nothing. You debate about leaving or not back and forth internally, and you never make a decision. In fact, you lose track of how much time you spent down there in the first place.

The truth stands, you're a little disappointed and maybe even envious of that girl. If you wanted to see Joshua as enthusiastic as he appears now, you should have taken a foreign language with him. Letting out a sigh, you lean your head back on the door, almost banging against it by accident. That would have been bad.

“I-like-you,” you mumble, closing your eyes, “why is that so difficult?”

You can just picture them on the other side, the exchanged laughter and the inside jokes being cracked. Jokes that you missed out on. You don't like it, secretly hate it, you just feel left out of the loop.

“That's such a great idea! I'll be sure to think about it then later tonight!”

How bitter can you get?

“Oh it's no big deal, thank you for that!”

Very. Her laugh is too pretty.

It matches too well with his.

He lives in a very different world from you.

Maybe you'll have a better chance tomorrow.

You're ready to push yourself off the ground, stand up and leave, but before you get the chance to the door swings open nearly hitting you in the face. You press yourself against the wall, and you're trapped between it and the door for a solids five seconds as the classmate leaves and exits the classroom. She's gone by now, and you hope you didn't yelp as loudly as you think you did.

With the girl gone, you're just left alone to sulk in peace on the ground again. Even though you wanted to get up, you've lost the energy to do so after being knocked down like that.

A minute or so must have past, because the door opens once again (you scoot out of the way in time), revealing Joshua in all his glory. You stare a little dazed, and for a second you think he's going to fail to notice you there and leave. You're not sure of what you'd say to gain his attention now either.

Except, he does turn around.

“Oh, hey! You waited for me.” Joshua pauses, looks at you a little weirdly, “... Is it comfortable in fetal position on the ground?”

“Very.” You clarify.

“Is something wrong?”

You click your tongue at that, directing your gaze anywhere except face to face with his. Internally, you're ready to beat yourself up in order for you to actually say what you need to say. Alas, everything in you seems to be made of pure stubbornness.

“No…”

“Um, okay then… Do you want to go home?”

You blink, shaking your head to clear your thoughts, “Ah, right, that's kind of important, isn't it?”

Joshua laughs, “Yes, just ‘kind of’.”

Pouting you stick your hand out in the air above, motioning to him to do the same to pull you up as well. “I’d love to go home.”

He extends his hand out, palm up and giving you a smile that could probably put the sun to shame. Though, maybe that assumption is a little biased.

“C’mon then, what are we waiting for?”

You grab onto his fingers, wrap your own around his hand. This would be the perfect time to tell him if you could find the words to say.

“Listen, Joshua, I—”

You're reminded of that girl in the classroom.

Glancing back and forth between your joined hands and his hesitant expression.

“... Nevermind.”

You figure you can wait.

He gives you one last reassuring beam before yanking you up by the wrist rather painfully. You let out a quiet shriek at the sudden jolt before stabilizing yourself with his hold. Joshua asks if you're okay one last time.

You're left to shake your head in response, reassuring him once again. If he's still skeptical, he doesn't make an effort to express it.

“Let's,” you wrap your hand around his fingers gently, hesitantly, tightening your grip, “let's go home, Joshua.”

It's so simple.

“Of course.”

But that's not so bad.

-

3. pick up lines

private message between it’s ya boi and Joshua Hong.

FROM: it’s ya boi [5:32 PM] >hey josh >did u kno >ur like a red skittle

FROM: Joshua Hong [5:33 PM] >??? >why

FROM: it’s ya boi [5:34 PM] >bc >i like the red ones the best

FROM: Joshua Hong [5:35 PM] >awww how sweet! >i like you the best too (: that’s so nice

FROM: it’s ya boi [5:37 PM] > . [5:40 PM] >okay man th

FROM: Joshua Hong [5:40 PM] >???????????? >were you silenced????

private message between it’s ya boi and SERAPHim.

FROM: it’s ya boi [5:41 PM] >aAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH >IT WAS A CUTE REACTION BUT I’M SO DISSATISFIED SMFH FJDFSK

-

4. friend card

What a little witch.

And you mean that in the nicest possible way that statement could possibly be taken, which is to say, not very nice. First of all, this girl would be getting a lot more points with you if she was actually working when the teacher spared the class a work period for once. It’s a gift in itself, how dare she take it for granted. Second of all, can this girl talk any louder? Not exactly the best in subtlety, then again, you are sitting directly beside her and her friend.

You swear, this gossip is getting to your head and screwing with your productivity more than you would like to admit.

The two of them whisper fiercely back and forth, jumping from one topic to the next. At times they would grow louder, before suddenly becoming self-aware of their volume and dying down into a hush again.

You roll your eyes, there’s only one direction this can lead to.

Not a pleasant one, spoilers.

Sure enough, as per your prediction, the conversation had slowly melted from ‘ginger candy is the worst invention to ever exist’ to ‘yes, I do in fact have a crush on xxxxx from class x’. This is where it becomes a lot less entertaining than before, which isn’t saying much, the two girls really didn’t have a variety of things to say.

Oh, no. There’s another reason why you’re suddenly paying such rapt attention.

They’re talking about Joshua.

crack!

The pencil in your hand snaps in two. The girls beside you don’t pay too much heed, way too invested in their own little party to notice your silent seething. Though the classmates around you turn their heads in your direction in confusion, mostly perplexed, a few of them are wise enough to feel a little scared by your sudden action.

After a moment of burning holes into your assignment paper, you take a deep breath and try to steady your nerves, tuning their talking out for a bit. You glance at your wrecked pencil, before sighing and moving to fetch another one from your bag. There are only a few minutes left of class anyways, you can ignore them until then, hopefully.

“I’m thinking of telling him today, after school?”

It’s funny how that timid little whisper sounds like a deafening scream to you.

You flicker your gaze towards the girl for once, it was the same girl from the classroom a few days ago. You blink, as though you’ve been dazed by her appearance. Out of nowhere, you feel a lot less irritated and a lot more…

Whatever courage you were clinging onto a couple minutes ago just died right on the spot.

Like an idiot, the words still come out anyways.

“Oh, good luck with that confession Reina!” Your murmur has a slight snark to it, but maybe they won’t notice it out of the goodness of their hearts. “I’ll be rooting for you there.” No. No, you won’t. But, it’s the right thing to say, right?

“(y/n)?!” She shrieks in silent mortification, “you heard that?!” her whisper is fierce, though she tries to keep it as soft as possible.

“I heard everything.” You drawl back.

Reina buries her face in her hands, groaning in embarrassment. Her friend awkwardly pats her on the back, offering a light laugh and a comforting hand.

“As his friend, I only want the best for him, after all.”

‘...I don't really like that outcome, though.”

As it turns out, you’re really bad at dealing with competition.

You’re even worse at lying, apparently.

-

5. assistance

The bell rings, signaling the dismissal of class for the final time today. You're already at your locker, putting away things you don't need and picking out things to bring home. Jeonghan’s knocking at the side of your door again, and as aggravated as you are you try not to let it show.

“(y/n), would you like to come with us to get coffee?” He asks an innocent question, but as his friend, you've heard it enough times.

“Who’s ‘us’?” You shoot back first. Other questions that must be asked in order to guarantee your safety and sanity include: ‘how are we paying?’, ‘what are you trying to bribe me into doing this time?’, and ‘god damn it, Jeonghan, did you forget to do your dumb stats summative again?’

“... Me and Seungcheol?” He hesitates. Of course, he would, he should know your response to that answer.

“I'm not going.” You slam the locker door shut in one swift motion, causing Jeonghan to stumble a bit as he centers himself again.

The boy is sent into a whining fit, shaking your shoulders gently in a feeble attempt to get you to comply. It's no use, you're simply too stubborn. “Why not though? You should totally come along! It'll be fuuun…”

“Does your definition of ‘fun’ consist of three-wheeling?” You grumble, planting a palm against Jeonghan’s face to maintain a certain distance between the two of you. “One time was good enough, thank you very much for the experience, I wouldn't like to have it again.”

“If I bring Joshua along, you two could three-wheel together?”

You scoff, “You're being ridiculous now. Suck it up and go yourself!”

“Wow, didn’t you know you were terrible at lying? (y/n), you’re blushing.” The smug grin set on Jeonghan’s face is enough to urge you to deck him right then and there in the middle of the hallway flooded with students. He doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut properly, and you find it mortifying that dozens of your classmates and people you know might have heard him.

“I’m not! I’m really not?!” You shriek indignantly, your tone raising with every word.

He laughs at you, “Really? Come with us then!” You don’t even get the chance to close and lock your locker, Jeonghan grabs you by the wrist and proceeds to drag you through the schools to wherever he was to meet up with Seungcheol.

“Wait, wait! Jeonghan!” Crying out, you try to tug your hand back from him, to your dismay Jeonghan is secretly a lot stronger than he seems. “I have a chem test tomorrow! Let me go, I need to study!!”

Comically, your efforts are all in vain and he seems to realize this as well. A few heads turn at the sight of your friend dragging you kicking and screaming along the floor, practically sweeping up all the dust in your path. No one really tries to help you though, and you make a mental note to never acknowledge any of them in your dying will.

“You have time for a coffee! Don’t worry, I know just the thing.”

You are definitely suing Jeonghan postmortem somehow for all the crap he makes you go through on a daily basis.

-

At least Jeonghan has the decency to buy you your drink if he is going to end up ditching you emotionally for someone else. Which is why you decide to be as petty as possible and order the most expensive thing you’re able to stomach. Jeonghan gives you a dirty look but at the end of it, you have your insanely and sickeningly sweet iced drink, so where’s the loss?

While your friend is having the time of his life, chatting it up with Seungcheol like the conversational master he is, you stand off to the side staring the two of them down with a straw in your mouth. They’re so happy, you think bitterly, and there’s nothing else you can look at otherwise.

It’s not until both Jeonghan and Seungcheol receive their drinks that you notice Joshua coming into the small cafe, slightly winded as if he ran directly here from school. You’re not very alarmed when he walks over to the three of you instead of joining the end of the line.

You are a little confused as to why he’s here.

“Oh? Joshua,” you begin as said boy is trying to catch his breath, “what are you doing here?”

It’s awkward while you wait.

“I just--” He inhales, steadying himself better, “Jeonghan invited me to come, I just had-- something come up-- at the last minute.” You stop, wondering if he knows you know about what that ‘something’ is.

Jeonghan doesn’t seem to have the slightest clue, nor does he seem to care at all either. He pats Joshua on the back rather forcefully, congratulating him on making it on time, “I was worried for (y/n) for a second, she would have gotten so lonely… oops. Well, I guess you’ll have to go through that queue first.”

You glance at the line up to the cashier, indeed it has grown a lot more since you had gotten here earlier.

You can already see Joshua fighting to bite back a groan. To spare him the pain, you offer him some of your drink, “Jeonghan paid, so naturally, I got the largest size and a nice but expensive drink I would have never gotten with my own money anyway.” You shrug.

“My wallet is crying…”

Joshua lets out a small laugh before he takes the drink, if anyone wanted to say something about how he didn’t get a new straw… well, they didn’t. “Thanks, (y/n).” He pauses, “sort of thanks to Jeonghan.”

Jeonghan’s expression can only be described as scandalized.

You shake your head, pulling Joshua along with you to sit down at an empty table to leave Jeonghan along with Seungcheol. Maybe he’ll forget about his salt easier this way, it’s much less work to deal with a calm Jeonghan than a petty Jeonghan.

It’s only after you’re seated do you realize how suggestive the scenario might be. The two of you are alone at a small table, with a single drink between both. You have half a mind to call your other friends over, but your pride would suffer a bit too much so you carry on pretending like this doesn’t look like a textbook example of a coffee shop date.

“So, what were you doing after school?” Master of conversational segues, you are not.

“Hmm?” He sets the drink down on the surface, “Oh, someone was just looking for me.”

Your rational side is telling you not to press more, that just seems kind of nosy. Unfortunately, you don’t really like listening to that side, and instead, opt more for the impulsive one. “Who?”

“Reina, you know her, right?”

“Ah, yeah, she’s a nice girl.” You comment, not knowing what else to say. Apparently, neither does Joshua, as he doesn’t make a move to continue anything. “... What was she… looking for you for?” You wince at the stiff tone and the feigned curiosity. Your voice sounds flatter than anything else.

“... You seem like you know more than you let on.”

You’re taken aback for a moment before you sigh, reaching to take a sip from the drink, “That obvious?”

“No,” when you look up again, Joshua is beaming back at you, “I just happen to know you a lot better than you might think.”

“So, um, what was your… you know, response?”

Joshua doesn’t say anything at first, silently holding his hand out for the iced drink. Once you hand it to him, he takes a very, very long sip. With every second he delays his answer, you can hear your heart hammering in your ears.

“I don’t think I’m the right person for her.”

You don’t even realize you had stopped breathing before in anticipation.

“Like, I believe the right person would at least feel the same way, right?” He reasons. You wordlessly agree with a small nod. “Reina’s a lovely person but, uh… she’s not the person I like.”

“Well, implying that there is someone else you are interested in.” You’re joking at first, swiping the cup away from his grip. A moment passes, and you realize Joshua isn’t responding anymore. The awkward silence that has set in was your fault alone for that passing statement.

Well.

Master of only conversation, you are not.

You feel a tiny sense of dread creeping up the back of your neck, if your heartbeat wasn’t pounding in your head already, it definitely is now. The imminent rejection just seems to loom over the top of your head, even though you haven’t said anything. That won’t stop anything.

“Um…”

It’s getting really warm in the cafe, or maybe that’s just you.

“... maybe there is.” He mumbles.

You continue to stare incredulously at him, and his gaze is still directed at the floor, anywhere but you. Is there really something you can say in this situation that wouldn’t make everything more suffocating? How terrible.

You take a quick glance away from Joshua.

You’re not sure what makes your blood run cold even more, the sight of Jeonghan slowly stalking his way over towards you, or the way Joshua’s face seems to pale at that too. Supposedly, he hasn’t the slightest idea of what you were talking about, indicated by his bright smile and unsuspecting mood. Why do you have a ridiculously bad feeling about this?

He pulls a chair out from another table and situates himself at an empty side, sitting down and leaning his face against his palm. You gulp.

“You look like you’re having a wonderful time?” Jeonghan gasps, “... Don’t tell me I ruined the lovely time you were having? I didn’t mean it like that at all.”

“N-no, that’s not it.” Joshua quickly waves his hands frantically in denial, “You’re not interrupting… anything.”

There’s a growing sense of passive-aggression emanating from your friend, you can only worry so much about that.

“We were just talking about,” you laugh nervously, trying to grapple onto any kind of excuse, “um… Our… classmates?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Talking about others? What about yourselves?”

You seem to have forgotten about how easily Jeonghan can manipulate conversations to turn his way.

Maybe it’s how you both cringe at that, which causes the last bit of Jeonghan’s fuse to burn up. Because, the next second he’s abruptly standing up, causing his chair to skid back harshly against the tiled flooring.

You grimace, trying to hide the screaming internally because whatever is going to happen next is probably not going to be the most joyous moment of your life. You can try to pray, but you’re convinced that whatever god exists can do nothing to stop Jeonghan anymore.

He slams his hands on your table between the two of you, Joshua jumps at the noise, the surface shakes from the impact.

“You two! Have got to be the most painful pair of people to watch interact! Ever!” He hisses.

“Wait--”

“I’m losing hair stressing over your futures!” Jeonghan snaps, pointing an accusing finger back and forth between you and Joshua, “When did I ever sign up to be in the middle of your stupid mutual pining?!”

“Jeonghan!” Your screech is more akin to a panicked whisper as you try to keep your voice down in vain, “What happened to--”

“The only reason I’m here right now is because you’re too caught up in all those other people that have the hots for Joshua over here, and,” Jeonghan flips over to glare at the other, “you’re too damn shy to actually say something! I listened to this conversation for a grand total of like twenty seconds and I’m already having an aneurysm! You’re killing me, you’re actually killing me.”

It’s safe to say that both of you are rendered speechless by his spiel.

“Wonderful!” He throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. “It was absolutely damn agonizing.”

By the end of it, Jeonghan is practically fuming for a completely fruitless reason. There’s nothing you can think of to say, you’re way too delirious from the information dump that your friend just loaded onto you. Joshua clearly feels the same way about that.

“I.”

Was it just you or did the entire cafe go quiet?

“You’re welcome.” Jeonghan huffs one last time before crossing his arms and slumping back in a position that is not unlike the expression of a disappointed mother. There are merely two thoughts left in your head, one is how Jeonghan literally eavesdropped on that entire conversation before to be able to butt in like that and lose his mind entirely, and two is how Joshua is sitting there like a blushing mess almost entirely mirroring you.

You make eye contact, only to avert your gazes immediately thereafter.

How cute.

Jeonghan looks like he’s going to go crazy all over again.

You break the atmosphere first by bursting into embarrassed laughter, both at the scene Jeonghan had caused at the things he had said. Really, on the inside, you’re probably fuming. What can you even say that Jeonghan won’t smack you in the head for? “Oh, my—what the—wh-wha—?”  Involuntarily, you bury your face in your hands and hunch over, still shaking from your laughing.

“I—“

Yoon Jeonghan is a dead man.

“Thanks a lot, Jeonghan, but could we—could we please have some privacy now?

Begrudgingly, he backs off for now and slowly, tentatively takes steps back towards the table that you now note Seungcheol is waiting, a little distance away from yours. Jeonghan gives a glare that yells ‘I’m watching both of you, don’t totally screw things up’. About that…

It’s hard starting to talk again knowing that your friend is probably dropping in and hearing every single word.

Why did he have to do that?

“I—” Joshua stammers again, “I can’t believe Jeonghan just exposed me like that out of nowhere.” He looks down at his hands and then back up at you. You’re worried he may start to cry any moment now, but with how dizzy you feel and how the world seems to keep spinning you should probably allocate some of that concern to yourself as well. “Wow, I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

“S-so, you like me?” At this point, you’re grinning like an idiot, whether it’s due to embarrassment or excitement, that’s beyond conscious comprehension.

“Yeah, yes, I think so,”

He starts to laugh at how crazy everything turned out, and you can’t help but do the same.

“Can we try this again?”

“Yes, please.”

You take a deep breath, most of your worst insecurities have been disproven, and it feels so great to get everything off your chest. “My name is (y/n) and I am stupidly in love with you and have been for the past however many years.” You rest your hands on the table.

He smiles back at you, and the elation you get might as well be some kind of drug on its own, “My name is Joshua Hong, and I’m probably stupidly in love with you more.”

“Is that a challenge?” You laugh.

Joshua merely places his hand over yours, tugging at your arm and bringing your entire body forward across the table.

“Why don’t we seal it with a kiss?”

“Isn’t that a little fast?”

“Not when you’ve been waiting for years.”

-

Over the next couple of days, your first couple outing is designated as ‘expose Jeonghan’s ass and exact revenge’.