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weirdkpopgirl · 1 year ago

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My First | Renjun Fic #2

Title: My First

Genre: high school au, angst

Warnings: mentions of self-harm, divorce, abusive parent. please don't read if any of these topics make you uncomfortable

Word Count: ~13k

Author's Note: I originally posted this book on wattpad, but not many people read it. So I decided to consolidate the book into a full-length fic to post here on tumblr and my nct dream book on wattpad. I wrote this story years ago, inspired by a brief crush I had in high school. I really hope you guys like this story ^ ^

P.S. there may or may not be a sequel to this 😅

*song mentioned is Sorry Heart by NCT Dream*

𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪

A small high school reunion was underway, hosted by Lee Haechan at a fried chicken restaurant he had opened some time ago. Even amidst his hectic commitments, Rejun made sure with his managers that his schedule would be done by the evening. After all, he couldn’t miss this occasion. Not when this was his chance to see her again.

He discreetly entered the restaurant, donning a mask and a black cap to maintain his anonymity until he had fully entered the premises.

Suddenly, he heard the voice of his old friend exclaim, “There he is! The global K-pop sensation!”

Renjun chuckled bashfully as a wave of applause and cheers echoed Haechan's proclamation. Taking a seat, he scanned the room, searching for a familiar face among his former classmates.

“She should be here soon,” Haechan whispered, his hand resting on Renjun’s shoulder as a glass of soju was poured for him. Renjun nodded and allowed himself to unwind for the time being.

After a few drinks, the restaurant's front doors chimed, and Renjun swiftly turned his head to witness the entrance of two individuals. And there she stood, nearly everything about her appearance was the same since high school. Her hair remained long, now adorned with a reddish hue. The melancholy that once clouded her eyes was replaced with a sparkle he never saw in her before. The smile he loved so much hadn’t changed at all. Yet, he knew that smile on her face wasn’t because of him. But it was because of the man whose gentle hand rested on her back.

Renjun couldn't deny that the sight caused a subtle ache within him, breaking his heart a little. He guessed he deserved this feeling though. Especially considering he was the one who had broken hers in the first place.

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She remembered the first time she laid eyes on him, a memory that stood apart from his initial introduction as a transfer student from Jilin, China, at the beginning of high school. She had been rather inattentive back then. This was that one moment when she truly noticed him.

In her oblivious state, she hadn't even realized they lived in the same neighborhood until that day. As was her usual routine, she got off the bus, and there he was, standing at the crosswalk.

Initially, she was about to walk straight to her house without a second thought. But her steps halted when she witnessed an elderly lady struggling with several heavy grocery bags. It was evident that the weight was taking a toll on her. Before she could rush to her assistance, the boy beat her to it.

“Halmeoni,” he spoke kindly, offering a warm smile, “Let me help you.”

He gently took the bags from the lady's hands, and the woman chuckled, tenderly pinching his cheek. She observed them strolling down the street, engaged in cheerful small talk. Their smiles were infectious, and she found herself smiling too.

As they completed their short trip across the street and exchanged farewells, he seemed to sense someone's gaze upon him. Before she could react, their eyes met. In that instant, her brain went into a mild panic, and she turned away, hurrying home without looking back.

No, it wasn't as though she had fallen head over heels for him on that day. Such emotions didn't come easily to her, it seemed. She had simply become more aware of his existence. Unfortunately, she had never mustered the courage to strike up a conversation with the boy. Despite attending the same school, she was absorbed in her studies and lacked the confidence to approach him. The art of making friends was something she had never been adept at.

She didn’t bother to say anything to him in school and she didn’t expect him to either. But for some reason, knowing that bothered her. She couldn't quite explain the feeling. After all, she didn't know him beyond that one act of kindness, even though she was sure it wasn't his first.

Little did she realize that this encounter had only marked the beginning of their story.

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She remembered the next day when he stepped into their homeroom. Their eyes met once more, a scene that could have been plucked from a cliché K-drama. For precisely three seconds, she maintained eye contact with him before her gaze dropped to her desk.

That was the day she finally recalled his name when the teacher called for attendance – Huang Renjun. If not for his introduction, she might have not realized he was Chinese. Partially because she had initially believed his last name to be Hwang. His Korean proficiency further blurred the lines, matching her own.

Each time Renjun spoke in class, she couldn't help but be impressed by his fluency. A classmate mentioned that he had taken Korean as an elective at his previous school.

Nonetheless, she didn't engage in much conversation with him in the early days of the school year, despite the fact that they shared a classroom nearly every day, with their desks not being too distant from each other. Their circles of friends were also closely-knit. Besides the few friends she had made at school, she rarely ventured to talk to anyone else.

However, she found herself unable to cease her contemplation of him. Occasionally, her gaze would stray from her textbook, and she'd spot the dark brown-haired boy a few desks ahead. A slight lean to the left allowed her to observe him diligently taking notes during the teacher's lectures.

Before Renjun, she had never really paid attention to boys. To this day, she remained uncertain about what exactly drew her to him. Perhaps it was his refined facial features, their shared artistic inclinations, or the way he displayed irritation and endearing cuteness when angered. It might have been the enchanting hums he produced while listening to songs from his playlist on their bus rides home.

Some might have labeled her an obsessive stalker, but anyone would have noticed the same subtle details if they had taken a second to observe him. Living in the same neighborhood and attending the same school merely facilitated this connection.

Renjun and she were so close, yet so far away at the same time.

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She remembered their first real encounter quite fondly. It occurred close to the second month of school when one of her friends attempted to persuade her into joining their study group.

“You should join us, (Y/n),” her friend said, trying to convince her for the nth time.

She nervously bit her lip and hesitated, “I don't know…”

Her study habits usually involved solitary efforts or the occasional study session with a single companion. The idea of meeting up with a group of unfamiliar faces didn't particularly appeal to her.

Furthermore, her friend mentioned that part of the reason for forming this study group was to create opportunities for getting closer to some of the cute and popular guys in their homeroom. She couldn't shake the feeling that they wouldn't be doing much actual studying.

“Can you at least come to one meeting?” her friend implored, holding up a single finger. “That's all I'm asking for!”

Reluctantly, she ended up agreeing because she didn’t want to disappoint her friend. After all, she knew that friend would never lead her into doing something crazy. Thus, she arrived at the cafe with the intention of sitting at the end of the table, where she could quietly focus on her studies and avoid interaction with the rest of the group as much as possible.

As much as she had hesitated about attending, she had always been an early bird when it came to events like this. Tardiness had always been one of her pet peeves. Little did she anticipate being one of the first to arrive.

To her luck, the one other person already present was him.

Her body froze as she entered the moment she saw Renjun seated at the empty table with his books spread out before him. He wore a light orange hoodie and round-shaped glasses. Her eyes shifted to the white sweatshirt she was wearing, and she habitually adjusted her own glasses, no longer self-conscious about dressing casually.

Noticing that he wasn't by himself anymore, Renjun's eyes met hers once more. It felt reminiscent of a few weeks ago, but she couldn't tell if he recognized her. Unlike the last time, she managed to resist the impulse to run away when he spoke first.

“Are you here for the study group too?” he inquired.

For some inexplicable reason, words failed to escape her lips, so she simply nodded in response.

Renjun’s smile put her at ease, “That's a relief. I was beginning to worry that I was pranked into coming here alone.”

“Oh, I see…” She awkwardly averted her gaze, focusing on her shoes, unable to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds.

He gestured to the chair beside him, “Um— you can sit here if you want.”

Taking a deep breath, she composed herself before taking a seat. She did her best to collect her thoughts and not appear foolish.

“Thank you,” she murmured as she set her bag down.

Swiftly, she retrieved her homework, diverting her attention from the boy next to her. However, as she did so, her gaze accidentally met him once again. His smile was far warmer than she had imagined it to be.

"You're Kim (Y/n), right?"

“You know me?” The surprise must have been evident on her face because Renjun regarded her as if she had asked an obvious question.

“Of course. We’re in the same class, and I've seen you in my neighborhood a few times,” he explained. “How would I not know you?”

It dawned on her that she wasn't the only one who had noticed those coincidences that connected them. He had been aware of her existence all along. There was no reason for her to have felt invisible. Why had she entertained such thoughts before?

“Oh, right,” her eyes dropped to her homework in embarrassment.

Renjun chuckled and tapped his pencil on her notebook, “Did you understand the math homework?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she replied as she skimmed over the math problems they had to solve.

Math wasn't her strongest subject, but it wasn't her weakest either. The same could be said for her other classes. She excelled in any class related to the fine arts.

“I'm not sure when the others are going to get here,” Renjun remarked, “So do you want to work on this and check our answers together?”

“Oh— sure,” she said, picking up her pencil, relieved to finally engage in productive work. She had been worried that attending this gathering would be a waste of study time.

However, she and Renjun were both diligent students, sharing the same goal of completing their work as efficiently as possible.

Working together in a tranquil atmosphere, she started to relax. But, eventually, their friends began to arrive.

“Oh, you guys are here already!” the friend who had invited her exclaimed. She sighed, a tad disappointed that everyone was here now. Still, she concealed her frustration with a smile and waved at her friend.

The study group unfolded precisely as she had expected, with little actual studying being accomplished. Most of the group members engaged in chatter and jokes. Renjun and she, on the other hand, remained seated at the corner of the table, quietly working on their homework and occasionally helping each other if they encountered difficulties.

After about two hours, everyone started to disperse. It was already dark outside as she stepped out. Since they were both headed in the same direction, Renjun suggested they take the bus together. He gave the excuse that it would be dangerous for her to go home alone.

With rosy cheeks, she glanced down at her shoes and allowed him to accompany her to the bus stop. His actions reinforced her initial impression of Renjun as a kindhearted person.

Upon boarding the bus, few words were exchanged. Yet, the silence between them didn't feel as awkward as it had earlier. She gazed out of the bus window, watching as cars and buildings passed by. Occasionally, she noticed him stealing glances in her direction from the corner of her eye, and she hesitantly turned around once, only for him to quickly avert his gaze. Perhaps her initial interpretation had been mere wishful thinking.

Her attention returned to the window, and she couldn't help but smile, reflecting on the subtle shade of red that colored his cheeks. It was undeniably cute.

As they disembarked from the bus, Renjun scratched his head and avoided her gaze.

"I guess I'll see you at school on Monday?"

She slowly nodded, "Yeah."

"I guess I'll get going then."

Before she could watch him leave, she suddenly called out, “Wait!”

When he turned back to look at her, she smiled bashfully, “It was nice to meet you, Huang Renjun.” In return, he offered a smile just as warm as the first time.

“Same to you, Kim (Y/n).”

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She remembered the change when she returned to school on Monday. Upon entering the classroom, Renjun warmly waved at her, and she shyly waved back before taking her seat. It felt peculiar to have someone other than Soojin greet her with such enthusiasm.

After their last class of the day, Renjun approached her desk with hesitation, inquiring whether she'd be interested in studying together more often. He mentioned that they got along well and he felt more comfortable studying with her rather than with the group from the previous day. The fact that Huang Renjun, whom she had never interacted with before, was extending this invitation felt unfamiliar.

“There's a library near the school where we can go,” he mumbled nervously, his confidence waning with each word.

In retrospect, she realized she should have declined at that moment, perhaps questioning why he wanted to spend time with her of all people. Turning him down then might have shielded her from the tangled web she was about to weave.

However, she couldn't resist a shy smile and accepted his invitation. Her rationale was that she preferred studying with one person over a large group, but also because she saw an opportunity to get to know the intriguing boy who had captured her curiosity.

Her hopes were met, as they began meeting at the library once a week to do homework or prepare for exams. Once a week quickly escalated to twice a week, and soon, they were seeing each other nearly every weekend.

Through those encounters, she learned quite a bit about Renjun, and she believed he was also getting to know her, to some extent. It would be a while before he truly understood her.

“Hey (Y/n),” he said one day, his tone laced with concern. “You're not usually this quiet. Are you okay?”

Lifting her head from her laptop, she met his worried expression, the first time she noticed how his chocolate brown eyes sparkled when the light hit just right. His soft gaze made her want to answer honestly, but she had grown accustomed to concealing her true feelings, even from herself. So, she responded with the same excuse she used whenever her friend posed that question.

“Oh, I'm... I'm just tired, that's all! I'm fine.”

He nodded and returned to his work without further inquiry, though she could sense his desire to probe deeper. Several such instances occurred between them, but she always held back, no matter how much she longed to reveal her true thoughts.

At times, she found herself wishing they hadn't crossed paths from the beginning.

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She remembered returning home each day, where her school life came to a pause and her personal life resumed. Upon entering through the front door, she was met by a towering stack of boxes and several others that crowded one end of the sofa. To any guest, it would appear as though they were in the middle of moving. However, they weren't. At least not at the time.

Ironically, despite her typically organized and minimalist lifestyle, she was no longer fazed by the clutter. Kicking off her well-worn sneakers and placing them on the shoe tray, she hung up her jacket and felt a wave of relief as she discarded her bag.

She picked up her bag once more, intending to carry it upstairs to her room. Just as she reached the top of the stairs, a voice interrupted her.

“Kim (Y/n). You don't even say hi to your mother?”

She held back from scoffing as her mother walked past her. Shaking her head, she continued to ignore her, as was her usual practice, and pushed open the door to her room. Her bag fell to the floor in the corner by her desk.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about her room. She owned only the essentials: a bed, a dresser, an alarm clock, and a desk. However, it was the only place where the real her was revealed, not the persona she presented to the world, nor the facade of strength she wore despite being the weakest person she knew.

Taking a seat in front of her desk on the swivel chair, she sighed. Slowly, her hand reached for her sleeve and began rolling it up, revealing scars that had yet to fully heal. Ugly slashes of red and pink extended from her upper arm and stopped halfway at her forearm.

Laughing to herself, she clenched her fists. These scars served as a reminder of her brokenness.

Even someone like Huang Renjun couldn't rescue her from herself.

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She remembered the day after school when she was listening to music while waiting for the bus. As she scrolled through her saved albums, a message notification unexpectedly appeared.

Mom: (Y/n), I've started applying for job opportunities, but I'll also be receiving financial support from your father before leaving him. If you move in with me, you can have your own room and everything

After reading the message once, she took a deep breath and swiped it away. Gently inserting her earbuds into her ears, she turned up the volume on her phone, allowing the current song to engulf her ears, if only for a few minutes, to temporarily forget everything. However, her solitude was soon disrupted by someone taking a seat next to her at the bus stop. She immediately recognized him as Renjun.

“What are you listening to?” he asked.

She removed one earbud and handed it to him, inviting him to listen along with her. He smiled and plugged the earbud into his left ear.

“Oh, I know this song.” His eyes lit up as he began to sing along. The current track playing was “Don’t Go” by EXO.

While he sang, she stared at him in a daze. “I didn't know you could sing,” she mumbled when the song ended.

Blushing, he cast his eyes downward. “I used to dream of becoming a singer like Rain or someone.”

“Do you not want to be a singer anymore?”

With some hesitation, he responded, “Entering the entertainment field is risky. The chances of someone like me getting in and achieving success are quite low.”

Before she could offer a proper reply, the bus arrived, momentarily interrupting their conversation. As they took their seats, Renjun began recommending songs and other artists she should explore. Nevertheless, her thoughts kept returning to what he had said earlier. She understood why he held those reservations. Someone as cautious as herself couldn't disagree.

That summer, she and Renjun spent a lot of time together. There were no formal plans or scheduled meetups; their interactions occurred naturally. If she was in one place, he would show up, and vice versa. In their moments alone, he would sing a few songs when she asked.

Unbeknownst to her, she found herself captivated by his voice. It was so clear and pleasant to the ear. She struggled to comprehend why he had abandoned his dream of becoming a singer, as it was evident that singing brought him immense joy.

“Your voice is so beautiful,” she mustered the courage to tell him one day. “I think if you debuted as a k-pop idol, you'd definitely make it.”

He looked up and smiled at her. “Thank you for saying that. But I believe it's wiser for me to attend university and secure a well-paying job.”

“You want to be just like everyone else?" she asked, wondering in the back of her mind if her question sounded too critical.

Renjun sighed, “It's a naive dream that's long behind me now. It doesn't matter anymore.”

Her lips formed a frown at his words, but she refrained from further comment. At the time, he seemed resolute in his choices. She had even thought to herself that perhaps it was for the best. If he had become a famous singer, he might have forgotten all about her.

Little did she know then how their lives would ultimately unfold, marked by contradictions.

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She remembered the last weekend before school was set to begin again. It was the first time she had been invited to his house, as his parents were away on a short trip to China, and he sought company. The idea of being alone with him at his place was intimidating, so she was relieved to find that he had also invited another friend to join them.

“Ugh, thank goodness you're here,” Renjun sighed in relief as he opened the door for her. “Haechan and I were arguing over which movie to watch.”

Trying to stifle a smile, she rolled her eyes as she closed her umbrella and removed her wet shoes. She often found it amusing how Renjun and Haechan could switch from arguing to being the best of friends in the blink of an eye.

“(Y/n), back me up here!” Haechan implored when he saw her enter the room. “On a rainy day like this, we have to watch a horror movie.”

She had known Lee Haechan since kindergarten, and even then, he was quite popular among the kids due to his outgoing personality. However, she hadn't interacted much with him until Renjun befriended her. Haechan started tagging along when they hung out, not wanting to be left out.

Despite Haechan's love for provoking Renjun, he was much kinder to her. He would often try to get her to defend him when he got Renjun angry. Naturally, the three of them ended up spending more time together than with their regular friend group.

“It's my house!” Renjun complained. “And I don't want to watch a horror movie.”

Haechan flashed a teasing glint in his eyes. “Oh. You're probably too scared to watch one.”

“I never said that I was scared,” Renjun turned to her. “Let’s just have (Y/n) choose the movie.”

Her cheeks warmed from the sudden attention. Their arguments typically ended with her being the one to make the final decision. So, she suggested a compromise: they could watch one horror movie and one of Renjun's choices. The boys looked at each other and had a moment of realization.

She had to admit it was quite amusing to watch Renjun and Haechan scream at the scary parts and laugh in embarrassment during the second movie. The two of them got into a spat when Haechan spilled popcorn on Renjun, leading to more bickering that she had to mediate. Sometimes she wondered if they were really in high school.

By the time they finished both movies, they noticed the storm hadn't shown any signs of letting up. Renjun suggested that they sleep over for the night, deeming it too risky to venture out in the rain.

Haechan eventually dozed off, leaving Renjun and her as the only ones still awake. They sat on the floor in front of the sofa, contemplating what to do. After a few awkward silences, Renjun cleared his throat.

“Do you want to see some of my old pictures?” she nodded eagerly in response.

He got up and retrieved a light brown photo album, which took her by surprise as she hadn't expected him to have so many pictures. They sat closer together, and he began to show her the photos.

“These are my parents,” Renjun gestured to the image in the top left corner. “And that's my grandfather over there.”

She beamed when she noticed a school photo of a younger Renjun on the next page. Glancing up at him, she commented, “I didn't know you had a snaggletooth.”

“Oh, yeah, I did,” Renjun shyly rubbed the back of his neck.

He pointed to his current smile, showing her his perfectly straight teeth. “But I have lingual braces now, so it's not there anymore.”

“But why? You looked so cute!" she said, saving herself from admitting she found him cute no matter what.

He sighed, “Only you would say that. If Haechan saw this, I wouldn't hear the end of it.”

They continued to browse through the photos, and she paused at one page, her thumb resting on a polaroid at the bottom right. A younger Renjun sat on a bench, with a girl beside him.

"Who is this?" she asked in a softer tone, without realizing it.

Renjun gazed at the photograph with a hint of hesitation. Without uttering a word, she could tell that a whirlwind of emotions and memories had unintentionally resurfaced.

“She was my first love back in my hometown,” Renjun sighed. “Our parents were good friends, so we knew each other from a young age.”

“We only dated for a year. But back then, I used to think nothing could ever separate us.” He wore a nostalgic smile that quickly faded. Evidently, his youthful hopes hadn't materialized as he had wished.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?” she asked cautiously. Renjun paused and briefly looked at her.

“My dad got a new job here in Seoul, so we moved in the middle of tenth grade,” he explained. “I promised her... I promised her that we could still be together, that we could make it work.”

She could see the regret and sorrow pooling in his eyes. “But the last time we talked, she told me she couldn't handle a long-distance relationship. So she broke up with me.”

That final sentence felt both empty and painful. She couldn't fathom how much he must have suffered. Neither of them spoke for a while, until she mustered the courage to ask how he coped with it all.

“To be honest, it was tough in the beginning,” Renjun admitted. “But recently, I haven't been thinking about her as much.”

She shouldn't have allowed herself to feel hope upon hearing those words. “Have you moved on since then?”

“It still hurts from time to time,” he spoke honestly. “I cared about her a lot.”

“That's understandable,” she whispered. “Do you think you'll ever get over her?”

She tried to read his eyes when he looked back at her, but it was impossible. Instead, he shrugged. “I want to, but I'm not sure if I can.”

From that moment on, she should have given up, knowing that she never had a chance to begin with.

Maybe then, she could have prevented all the heartbreak she had set herself up for.

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She remembered that one morning when she was getting ready for school. As she went to leave her things near the door, she heard her mother's footsteps emerging from the kitchen. Her mother's hair was disheveled, and she had gained weight from all the delivery food she had been eating. She couldn't remember the last time her mother had cooked.

“(Y/n),” her mother reached for her, but she instinctively backed away. The desperation on her mother's face quickly shifted to irritation.

“I'm your mother, I gave birth to you. Is this how you treat me?”

“Eomma—”

But her mother continued, “How awful it is that you've turned out to be just like your abusive father. I can't believe he's brainwashed you.”

Anyone else listening might have thought she was a madwoman. Her mother had become a stranger to her.

“Appa has not abused you. No one is abusing you,” she tried to maintain her patience. “Eomma, you need help. You're not—”

“SHUT UP!” Her mother screamed, causing her to flinch. “You don't know what you're talking about. How dare you disrespect me?”

The heat of anger flushed her face. She yearned to scream back at her mother and tell her to stop, but she knew it would only add fuel to the fire. It wasn't worth it.

Before her mother walked away, she said something that she had been hearing frequently lately. “You know what? Sometimes I wish I wasn't your mother.”

Her fingers curled into fists. Her mom was always adept at being manipulative. As a teenager, she did her best to take her mother's insults maturely. But when someone you love hurls those words at you every day, it slowly chips away at you.

All she could see was red after that argument. She remembered searching for her razor blade and making multiple slashes across her arm when she found it. She didn't care about the stinging pain of the cuts or the fresh, warm blood trickling down her arm. Her thoughts were clouded with fury. She was furious at her mother for behaving like a child and at her father for allowing it to happen. She was furious at herself for not being able to do anything. Every night, she was kept awake by her mother's shouting, harassing her father for no apparent reason.

Trembling with anger, she walked to school. All the pent-up pain and bitterness were bubbling to the surface. She had tried so hard to be strong for her father and everyone else, believing she could handle everything on her own.

By the time she arrived at class that day, she could barely hold herself together. She kept her head down to conceal the evidence of her tears. She took her seat at her desk and tried to regain her composure, determined not to let anyone see the real her, the one filled with bitterness and misery.

“Morning, (Y/n),” she heard his voice calling out to her. Renjun's desk was near the front, by the window, while hers was closer to the back. However, every morning, he would come over to discuss after-school plans or homework.

She hastily wiped away any tears and looked up, forcing a smile to hide her inner turmoil. By eleventh grade, they had become closer since the previous school year. She should have known that Renjun would see right through her. It took just one look for him to sense that something was amiss.

“Something's up. What's wrong?”

Renjun glanced down at her wrist, and she almost gasped when she noticed blood seeping through her uniform sleeve. Blinded by rage, she must have unintentionally cut herself deeper this time.

“(Y/n), what—” He reached for her arm before she could stop him. He paused before gently pulling up her sleeve, revealing the fresh cuts from that morning.

Renjun opened his mouth to say something but remembered they were in a classroom setting. He looked back at her, seeing that all color had drained from her face and her lip began to quiver.

“Come on,” he prompted her, leading her out of the classroom.

“Renjun, where are you taking me?”

“To the nurse's office. Now.”

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She remembered him pulling her into the nurse's office. Despite her protests and attempts to stop walking, he paid no attention and continued. When they arrived, Renjun had her sit down on one of the treatment beds while he retrieved the first aid kit.

As he lifted the rest of her sleeve, she found herself holding her breath. She said nothing as Renjun cleaned and bandaged her wounds, her gaze dropping to her arm. What was once fair in color and smooth was now marred by hideous scars. Most of them were faded white, while some were still pink. The new red marks stood out the most.

Numerous times, Renjun tried to catch her gaze. She could tell he wanted to know what she was thinking. After applying the last bandage and closing the first aid kit, she forced herself to meet his woeful eyes.

“(Y/n)...” He began, uncertainty in his voice. “Whatever you're going through that makes you hurt yourself like this, you can tell me.”

They locked eyes for a brief moment, and she knew she was about to share everything she had been holding back. She loathed showing vulnerability in front of those she cared about. It filled her with a strong sense of self-hatred.

“I... I can't,” she practically whispered.

Renjun was stubborn and wouldn't give up. He placed his hand on hers, gently squeezing it. “You can trust me, I promise.”

She stared at him for a moment before her facade, maintained for months, crumbled. Slowly, she began to confide in Renjun. She told him about her mother's drug problem and how it had nearly bankrupted their family. She spoke of the sleepless nights listening to her mother hurl insults at her father. It was the first time she had shared the news of her parents’ decision to end their disastrous marriage. Finally, she told him about the argument with her mother that morning and the hurtful things her mother had said to her.

“How could a mother say those things to her daughter?” Her voice wavered as she continued, “When I've spent my whole life trying to...hoping for her to love me.”

She waited for Renjun to say something. But he caught her off guard when he reached over and enveloped her in a tight hug. He patted her back gently and assured her that she had every right to be upset.

“Your mom must be crazy not to see how amazing you are,” he said, using his thumb to wipe away her tears. “I'm sorry she said those things to you. You didn't deserve that.”

She sniffed and shook her head. “I don't know why there's still some part of me that expects something from her.”

"It's because you love her and want her to be healthy," Renjun responded.

She lowered her head and admitted, "I guess you're right..."

There was a brief silence between them. Renjun frowned, glancing around the room before standing up. He looked down at her with a mischievous smile.

“Let's get out of here,” he suggested, nodding toward the door.

Her torn expression shifted to a confused one. “Right now? But we have class.”

“That’s fine. We’ll just say you felt sick, and I offered to take you home.”

“So you’re suggesting we skip school?”

“I mean yeah, why not?” Renjun shrugged. “It’s not like they’re going to suspect anything bad from top students like us.”

Her eyebrows lifted in uncertainty. She never thought she would ever hear Huang Renjun suggesting skipping class. She had never in her life done such a thing.

Tired of waiting, he took her hand and pulled her up. “You should go have fun on a day like this. To clear your mind.”

She could feel her heart beating faster when he held her hand. Slightly flustered by the situation, she just nodded and followed him to sneak out of the school grounds. They got on a bus and sat in the back rows. She didn’t bother asking Renjun where they were going. Her mind was still stuck on the fact that she had practically spilled her heart out to the boy next to her. She regretted telling him so much in her emotional state. But he didn’t appear to think any less of her.

Renjun ended up taking her to a small arcade filled with game machines, prizes, and neon lights. “Haechan talks about this place a lot. It’s my first time here, though.”

She chuckled, ��He’s going to kill you when he finds out you came here without him.”

“I know,” Renjun said and took her hand again. “Come on, let’s go buy some tokens.”

They played all sorts of games that day, such as racing and shooting ones. She thought she would be bad at the basketball game, but it turned out Renjun was worse than her. She laughed when he got pouty for not being able to score many baskets.

“Oh, over there!” She pointed out. “I’ve always wanted to go to a photobooth with friends.”

Renjun smiled at her sudden excitement. “Let’s go do it, then.”

The two of them went in and paid the machine to take some pictures. In a hurry before the camera started rolling, they picked out accessories for each other. She hoped Renjun didn’t notice the shade of pink on her cheeks as he set a white headband with cat ears on her head. On the other hand, she chose a pair of large daisy-themed sunglasses for him.

Renjun convinced her to try doing different poses. By the time the camera clicked for the last time, both of them were caught up in laughter. To her surprise, the photos came out well. In the last one, she saw Renjun smiling down at her, and she had her hands shaped as a heart. Anyone would have mistaken them for a couple.

She thought they would be done once they were finished with the arcade. But by the time they left, it was late afternoon. She hadn’t even realized the time went by. By then, the school day was already over. She said that they should just go back home now. Renjun looked at her with a slightly worried expression.

“Why don’t we get some ice cream first?” He pointed toward the frozen treat shop across the street. Reluctantly, she agreed and let him lead them to the place.

After getting their ice cream, they sat at one of the two-person tables outside. Subconsciously, she quietly observed him as he ate his green tea flavored ice cream. Why was her heart continuing to beat faster whenever she was around him?

“You should eat yours before it melts,” Renjun pointed out.

She was snapped out of her thoughts and glanced down at the mint-chocolate ice cream cone in her hand. Laughing nervously, she quickly took a small bite. “Oh right.”

Renjun chuckled and picked up the napkin near him. “You have some on your lips.”

Absent-mindedly, he reached over the table to wipe off the remaining cream off her mouth. Her eyes widened when she noticed how close their faces were. When Renjun saw the blush on her face, he coughed and sat back down in his seat.

Once the heat in her cheeks lessened, she took the chance to speak again. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you for today. I’m…I’m sorry about this morning.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Renjun shook his head. “I just—if you ever feel like hurting yourself again…”

He made eye contact with her when he said this, “Come to me, okay? Don’t feel like you have to carry all the burdens on your own.”

When she didn’t say anything, he placed a hand on top of hers. It was the third time he did that today. “I’ll always be here for you, (Y/n)-yah.”

How she wished that she hadn’t taken those words to heart.

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She remembered Haechan narrowing his eyes at her as they waited for Renjun at the library. He seemed as if he was suspecting her of something. She hoped Renjun would come soon to break this weird tension.

“How long are you going to stare at me like that?” She glanced up from her schoolwork.

Ignoring her question, Haechan said, “You and Renjun have been acting strange around each other.”

She laughed incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

“The way you two look at each other is different.” Haechan twirled the pencil in his hands with his fingers. “And you’ve been hanging out a lot. Without me.”

“Haechan, we’re just friends-”

“You like him, don’t you?” Instantly, she froze when he asked. The corner of Haechan’s lips curled upward into a smile.

“I’ll take your silence as a confirmation.”

“How…how did you find out?”

Haechan rolled his eyes as if the answer was obvious. “I’ve known you since kindergarten, Kim (Y/n). Never have I seen you look at a boy before Renjunie.”

It was true. She had no interest in boys unlike the other girls in her class at the time. She was always preoccupied with what was going on at home. Not just with boys, she had never made an effort to make many friends. Her mindset at the time was it was better to be alone, so no one could hurt her. Then Huang Renjun came along and changed everything.

She briefly scanned the library to ensure no one was paying them any mind, before leaning closer to the table. But that didn’t stop her from speaking in a hushed tone.

“You can’t tell him, okay?”

Haechan looked at her quizzically. “You’re not going to confess to him?”

“Why would I? That would be too risky.”

“What’s there to risk?” Her friend tilted his head. “You’re single, he’s single. You like him, and he probably likes you back.”

Shaking her head, “There’s no way he likes me back. I think he’s still stuck on his past relationship.”

“His first love back in China?” Haechan scoffed. “(Y/n), that was so long ago. And you’re here, right in front of him. I think you have a solid chance.”

“It’s not that easy, Haechan. Our whole friendship could be ruined, and I don’t want that to happen.”

The boy frowned at her. “So what? You’re just going to do nothing and watch him go find someone else?”

“Hey, guys! Sorry, I’m late.” A male voice ended their conversation. They looked to see Renjun waving to them and coming to their table.

“What were you guys talking about?” he asked when he sat down.

Before Haechan could answer, she spoke up before him. “We were just talking about the math test tomorrow.”

“Oh right. Let me get out my textbook so we can study.” Renjun reached down for his bag. While doing so, Haechan narrowed his eyes on her again.

He did have a point. She certainly didn’t want to see the boy she liked with someone else. But she was too much of a coward at the time. Confessing to Renjun sounded terrifying just thinking about it. She could never bring herself to do it.

Back then, she should’ve listened to her instincts.

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She remembered frowning at the empty desk in the corner of the room when she entered that morning. For once, there was no Renjun to greet her with his cute smile and wave. That was odd, she thought to herself. He was always in the classroom before her.

When she made her way to her seat, Haechan sat at the desk in front of her. His chin rested in one of his hands as he sulked.

“Our Renjunie is at home with a cold. That’s why he couldn’t come to school today.”

“He caught a cold?” He rarely got sick. But Haechan nodded in confirmation.

“Remember the other day when he forgot to bring an umbrella when it was raining?”

“Oh goodness,” she sighed, worry swirled around her head. “Maybe we should go visit him after school.”

Haechan smiled teasingly and shook his head. “Nah, I don’t want to get in the way of your lovey-dovey moments with him.”

“Lee Haechan!” She lightly pushed his shoulder as he laughed.

“You know, it’s really easy to make you blush? I can only imagine what happens when Renjunie is around.”

She swore, the boy was purposely pushing all her buttons.

Regardless of Haechan’s teasing, she still went to Renjun’s house after school. She had asked the light-haired boy one more time if he wanted to join her. But he said that he had something else to do. Whatever that was.

Anxiously, she made her way up the front steps of his house with a bag in her hand. The school day was killing her, knowing that Renjun was sick and home alone. She had never so badly for classes to be over.

His mom was there to open the door for her. Even though they had been friends for more than a year, it was her first time meeting Renjun’s mother. Immediately she recognized their similar facial features. “Hello, how can I help you?”

Almost forgetting her words, she straightened up her posture and bowed. “I’m so sorry to bother you. But is Renjun home?”

The woman’s face brightened when she said her son’s name. Clasping her hands together, she smiled at her. “You must be that girl he talks about all the time. It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

Her eyes widened when she heard this. Renjun talked about her? To his parents? Before she could muster up a good response, Mrs. Huang was already ushering her inside the house.

“I’m so glad you came,” She said. “My poor son is sick in bed. But I got called into work right now and his father already left in the morning.”

She slipped off her shoes and gave his mother what she hoped to be a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to worry Mrs. Huang. I came to make sure he was okay, so I can help watch over him for you.”

“Oh, that’s so kind of you. Thank you so much,” She squeezed her hands and tried to get a better look at her. “Truly, I’m grateful that Renjun has a friend like you. He was so sad when we first moved here. But now he’s so much happier.”

She recalled the few times when Renjun told her he felt homesick. In the beginning, he told her a lot about his hometown and his childhood there. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to move to a completely different country.

“It’s nothing, really,” She told his mother. “Your son is a great friend of mine. He…he means a lot to me.”

After hearing his mom’s words, she remembered wanting nothing more than to stay by Renjun’s side. She wanted to be there for him, just like he was to her. Even if he never knew about her feelings, she was okay with that.

Ms. Huang thanked her again before she hurriedly left for work. She told her that he was still in bed and his bedroom was on the left side down the hall.

“Renjun?” She knocked before coming into the room. The walls were painted a pale yellow, and there was a window above his desk. His room was neat and simple, like hers.

Renjun lifted his head to see that she had called his name. “(Y/n), what are you doing here?”

She grimaced when she heard him cough. “Your mom just left. I came to drop off your homework and look after you for a bit.”

“Oh…but what if you get sick?”

She smiled at his show of concern. “I should be fine. I have a strong immune system,” she insisted.

He didn’t seem to be very convinced. But he reluctantly laid back on his pillow. She set her school bag down on his desk chair.

“There are some things I have to prepare,” She said, going toward the door. “Just rest here, and I’ll be back in a bit okay?”

Renjun was too tired to protest, so he patiently waited for her to come back. It wasn’t like there was anything else he could do.

Moments later, she returned with a tray that carried a steaming hot bowl of porridge and a cup of tea. The sick boy peered up with a curious look in his eyes.

“This is some congee I made. It’s good to eat warm things when you have a cold,” she explained as she carefully placed the tray on his nightstand. Leaving the drink, she picked up the bowl to give to him.

Renjun smiled, but there was slight guilt in his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“It’s no big deal,” she said. “I made it the other day when my dad got sick. So I just reheated the leftovers that I had.”

“But still…”

Ignoring his nasally mumbles, she took the spoon and firmly put it in his hands. “You need to eat to get your strength back.”

He accepted the utensil sulkily and weakly took a bite of the food she made. She watched quietly as he ate. His face was paler than usual, and his dark hair was damp from his sickness. She hadn’t imagined a sick Renjun would be so cute. But somehow, she was surprised either way.

She stayed with Renjun the rest of the evening. After helping him take some cold medicine, they moved to the living room and watched some k-dramas on her laptop. Some laughter was exchanged at the funny parts. Occasionally, she heard sniffles at the sadder scenes in the movie. She wasn’t sure if it was Renjun’s symptoms or if he was actually crying. Either way, she pretended she didn’t hear him.

“Gosh, you're burning up,” she said when she placed a hand on his forehead to check his temperature.

She stood up to get a cold wet towel to help him cool down. Sitting back down at the foot of his bed, she leaned over to gently dab the cloth onto his forehead. She could sense Renjun switching from staring at her to glancing over her shoulder. But she pretended not to notice. After a few minutes, she brought her hand down and asked if he felt any better. But he wouldn’t answer.

“Renjun?” He looked back at her and gestured for her hand. He took it and placed her hand over his chest.

“Why do you keep making me feel like this, (Y/n)?”

His words meshed into the other. But she was still able to understand what he was saying. She stared at him in surprise, unable to find an appropriate response.

Renjun pressed his other hand over his eyes in distress. “All I’ve been thinking about lately is you. I swear it’s driving me crazy.”

From hearing this, she was certain that this was just the fever talking. She didn’t want to give herself false hope.

“Renjun, you…should rest. I don’t think you know what you’re saying.” She tried to pry her hand out of his.

Instead of letting her go, she felt his grip tighten around her wrist. Before she could say anything, her body was pulled down into a position where Renjun was right beneath her. She wasn’t sure if the sudden heat she felt came from Renjun’s fever or from how flustered she was at the moment.

“Huang Renjun, what are you—” She tried to escape, but he held her in place. He brought her closer to where their faces were merely inches apart. His steady eyes marveled over her red cheeks and eventually moved down to her lips.

But before she could make another attempt to move off of him, he pulled her down so their lips could meet.

Her eyes were wide open when she processed what was happening. He had single-handedly taken her first kiss, and she wasn’t sure how to take it at the time.

Little passion was felt in the kiss. But there was so much yearning and desire. When she let go of any resistance and closed her eyes, she felt herself melting into his touch. This… is something that she wasn’t aware she had wanted. I mean, what girl wouldn’t want to be kissed by the boy she liked?

Before the things could go any further, Renjun released his hands off her neck and fell back. He had dozed off in the next second, leaving her to be baffled by the situation.

She couldn’t recall what happened after. All she could remember was waking up the next morning on Renjun’s couch with a dark blue blanket covering her. Slowly, she sat up and saw Renjun exiting a room.

“Oh, you’re awake!” He looked slightly better than he did the other day, but still a little pale. Self-consciously, she straightened her clothes and patted down her hair as he came to sit beside her.

“Wha-what time is it?” She sat up and reached for her phone to look at the clock. 10:15 am.

Renjun chuckled, “It’s a good thing it’s Saturday.”

Warily, she placed her phone back down on the table in front of them. She looked at the boy beside her for a moment, wondering how to bring up the events that occurred the night before. She must’ve fallen asleep late, overthinking everything. If Renjun kissed her, that had to mean he felt something for her, right? Or were his actions from him being delirious?

“Renjun, about yesterday…” She started.

His eyes lit up, “Oh right. I can’t thank you enough for staying and taking care of me. My mom told me to say thank you to her. She and my dad have already left for work.”

“Oh…it was nothing,” she shook her head. “But I’m talking about when you-”

Renjun leaned back on the couch and sighed, “Ugh I hadn’t been that sick in a long time. Honestly, some of the things from yesterday are hazy to me.”

Her eyes blinked in confusion. “Do…do you not remember what happened last night then?”

The boy furrowed his brows as he tried to think back. Seconds later he snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah. The ice towel you used really helped to bring my fever down. I wanted to thank you for that too.”

So he didn’t remember kissing her. Any hopes she had of Renjun might share the same feelings as she dissolved in an instant. Those optimistic feelings were replaced by perplexity and dismay.

Stupid, foolish girl. She was such an idiot to have such thoughts to begin with.

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She remembered the astounded look on Haechan’s face when she glumly told him about what happened. They had met up at a café later that afternoon.

“He what?!” The boy across from her nearly jumped out of his chair.

She shot him a nervous glare, “Haechan! Can you please just sit back down?”

“Sorry, let me get this straight.” He thankfully did as she asked. “You were taking care of Renjun, and he kissed you. But he doesn’t remember it?”

She dropped her head and nodded gloomily. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Are you sure he forgot?” Haechan asked.

“I don’t know. If he didn’t, he obviously wants to pretend it never happened,” she said, poking at the straw in her drink. Hearing herself say that only left her feeling more depressed.

Haechan sighed and gave her a look of slight concern. “(Y/n), I really think you should just tell Renjun about your feelings.”

“Haechan…”

“I’m being serious! At this point, you should just go for it,” he sat up in his seat. “What could possibly go wrong other than him saying no?”

She had sworn to herself that she would never confess to Renjun. Even if there was a small chance he might like her in return, she was too scared to risk it. He meant too much to her to lose him because of her selfishness.

“If Renjun rejects me, he’ll feel bad and have a hard time.” Her shoulders faltered. “I don’t want to make him feel uncomfortable because of me.”

Haechan crossed his arms, “But that might never happen. Coming from experience, it’s better to just confess your feelings and be done with it. Things might not go the way you want. But you’ll feel better after.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she fumbled with the paper wrapping from her straw.

Haechan smirked, “Of course, I am. I’m always right.”

“Yeah, and what experience do you have?” She questioned, referring to his prior words. In response, he put a finger to his mouth as a motion for her not to comment further.

“Just trust me, okay?”

She dwelled on what Haechan said for a bit. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go being around Renjun without her heart exploding. Especially after they kissed. How long was she going to let herself live like this?

So for once and all, she followed Haechan’s advice and chose one day to confess.

She had to show that she wasn’t a coward and be a little braver for once. It was the most determined she had ever been about something. She was finally going to confront her feelings.

At least she thought she was.

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She remembered it was the beginning of autumn when she asked Renjun to meet her at the park one day. Aside from that, she had been trying to get out of the house more often. Things with her parents were still rocky. Being at school and spending time with friends allowed her to stop thinking about it all for a little while.

But that day was different. When she had finally decided to face her fears and just tell Renjun how she felt. She was beyond nervous, unable to keep her legs from shaking as she waited for him to arrive. She had repeated everything she was going to say numerous times the night before.

Having never confessed to a boy before, she spent the past few nights searching for tips on what she should do. There was one site that said you should dress up for these occasions. So foolishly, she spent almost an hour picking the right outfit and makeup. She hoped Renjun wouldn’t find her being too obvious.

Before she could chicken out, she saw him walking down the street to see her. He was wearing a smile. She didn’t think about it then. But his smile wasn’t bright like the normal ones he showed her. This one was filled with slight apprehension.

“Hey (Y/n),” He came to her with hands in the pockets of his jacket. “What did you want to do today?”

There was no way for her to back out anymore. “Actually Renjun, there’s something I want to tell you.”

“Oh really? I have something to tell you too,” Renjun scratched the back of his head. She was curious as to what he had to say. For a second she forgot about her plan.

They stared at each other awkwardly until Renjun cleared his throat. “You—you can go first if you want.”

“Oh okay.” Tensely, her grip on the strap of her purse tightened. She told herself that she could do this. It was Renjun, after all. Why did she make this so hard for herself?

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to meet his eyes. “You see, there’s something I’ve been hiding from you.”

Renjun looked at her with slight concern, “Hiding from me? (Y/n), you know you can tell me anything, right?”

“I know, I know. That’s why I’m telling you today because I don’t think I can keep it in anymore,” She said. Here goes nothing, she remembered thinking to herself.

“Renjun, I like—”

“Huang Renjun!” She was stopped by an unfamiliar female voice from behind her. As she started to process her failed attempt to confess, she watched a look of astonishment appear on Renjun’s face.

She turned to see a girl about their age with short light-brown hair, wearing a yellow sweater over a white skirt. She ran over to embrace the boy in front of her.

For a moment, Renjun seemed to be at a loss for words. Then he slowly hugged her back and a name rolled off his tongue. “Xiaomi?”

She held him closer to her. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I—I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” He pulled away. Surprise and bewilderment were still evident in his expression.

Every ounce of glee was pouring from her eyes. “I couldn’t stand us being so far apart. It took me a while, but I convinced my parents to move us here.”

“But…but how?”

“Your father talked with mine and helped him secure a job at the same company,” She replied. “I’ll be going to the same school as you too!”

(Y/n) stood there like a fool. They were speaking in Chinese. But it didn’t take an idiot to understand the situation. She was his first love. The one he told her about. She was here, she had come for him. And (Y/n) was just…there.

Renjun didn’t respond and glanced back at her. Finally, the girl turned to look at her. It turned out that she also knew how to speak Korean. But hers wasn’t nearly as good as Renjun’s.

“Is this a friend of yours?”

Suddenly snapping out of his daze, “Y-yeah. This is Kim (Y/n). (Y/n), this is Xu Xiaomi.”

Swallowing this whole new feeling of heartbreak, (Y/n) forced a smile on her face. “Renjun told me about you.”

Xiaomi beamed, “He did? How sweet.”

She looked back at Renjun and clasped her hands together. “Isn’t this great, Renjun? We can finally be together now!”

“I think I’ll get going now,” She bowed her head. She didn’t think she could stand to watch any longer.

Renjun called out to her but she pretended not to hear him. She woke up that day, barely ready for rejection. So many scenarios she had gone through and prepared what to say. But she didn’t expect that to happen.

Yet, she had no idea that there would be more pain to come.

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She remembered Xiaomi being introduced to their homeroom the next Monday. She kept exchanging glances with Renjun throughout the class. She could hear Haechan, who was a few seats behind her, making gagging noises at the couple.

She hadn’t spoken much to Renjun since that day at the park. She wasn’t sure which was worse, losing the one chance she had to confess to her crush or witnessing him be reunited with his past lover.

“Are you going to eat your tonkatsu?” Haechan pointed his chopsticks to her lunch, snapping her out of her brief daze.

He was trying to act like everything was normal. But she could tell he was holding back what he truly wanted to say. Although Renjun or Xiaomi wouldn’t have heard him anyway, since they hadn’t arrived at the cafeteria yet.

When he asked, she pushed her tray toward the boy. “Have it all.”

Her appetite had been lost over the past few days. Not only because of Renjun, she just had this mild pain in her head. Maybe her body was finally breaking from all the emotions she had been trying to hide.

Before Haechan could question her, she stood up from her seat. “I’m going to go back to the classroom for a bit. There’s an assignment I want to get ahead on.”

When she approached their classroom, she saw Renjun and Xiaomi through the window. She was near the door, but they couldn’t see her. She didn’t know why she was inclined to stay. She wasn’t there at the beginning of the conversation. But she had heard the rest of it.

“Tell me the truth, Renjun. Who is Kim (Y/n) to you?” Xiaomi asked. She was no longer smiling brightly.

Immediately (Y/n) was alerted when she heard her name. When did she become the subject?

“Xiaomi…”

She frowned at him in dissatisfaction. “I saw the way you looked at her. Do you not love me anymore?”

“What? No!” Renjun denied. He quickly grabbed Xiaomi’s hands and held them.

She wasn’t prepared to hear what he said next. “Honestly, (Y/n) is just a friend of another friend I made here, and we’ve hung out a few times. She…she means nothing to me.”

“Are you sure?”

He gently lifted her chin and kissed her reassuringly before murmuring. “Yes.”

(Y/n)'s hand reached to cover her mouth, as she started to back away. A sob climbed up her throat. But she was already running before they could hear her. She couldn’t stop thinking about how naive she had been. How stupid she was.

To ever think for even a moment, that she would ever mean something to someone.

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She remembered her dad mentioning that he wanted to move back to Busan. After she had been born out of wedlock, he moved from his hometown to be with her mother in Seoul. Now that the divorce was almost finalized, there was nothing here for him anymore.

At first, she was against the idea. She didn't want to leave her friends and school. But as she thought about it more, she started to think that maybe it was for the best. She didn't think she could ever look at Renjun the same again. Not after he said those things. Yet there was this part of her that still harbored feelings for him. It left her more devastated than anything. Was she really nothing to him?

She was so sick of it all. But before she could leave everything behind, there was something she wanted to do first.

↣ ↢

Haechan was the only person she told that she was moving. She asked him not to tell any of their other friends, especially Renjun.

Surprisingly, Haechan was a lot more understanding than she expected. But he didn't hold back his anger when she told him about what she had heard the other day.

“Damn. That son of a-”

She nearly hit him for swearing. “Lee Haechan! He's still your best friend.”

“I don't care if he is!” Haechan saw the distress in her eyes and sighed. “Okay, I'm sorry. But I still think he was an a**hole to say those things.”

Hating to admit, she kind of had to agree with him. Maybe Renjun wasn't the person she thought he was.

“Thank you, for being there when I needed it,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

The boy waved his hand dismissively, “You're lucky to have such a smart and loyal friend like me.”

Of course, he still maintained that ego of his. But then Haechan placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a sincere look.

“Hang in there, kid,” He said with a proud smile on his face. “I'm sure things will get better for you.”

“We're the same age, Haechan.”

“Shush, don't ruin the moment.”

She shook her head and laughed. Despite everything, it was still nice to know that there was still one person by her side. The past version of her would have never even imagined being friends with someone like Haechan.

But on multiple levels, life had done its best to prove her wrong.

┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦

At the end of the month, their homeroom teacher had an announcement for the class in the morning. But all Renjun could think about was the empty desk in the back center of the room. (Y/n) hadn't been at school this past week. Multiple attempts he had made to call and text her. But there was no response. It was almost as if she had disappeared all of a sudden.

“I know some of you may be wondering about your classmate that has been missing,” the teacher looked around the students. “I came to tell you that Kim Y/n is no longer a student at this school and has moved away.”

The sound of gasps and murmurs erupted among the class. Renjun shook his head, unable to believe the news. No, it couldn’t be true. Why would she leave without saying anything?

“Where did she move to?” One person asked. Renjun looked at his teacher with hope in his eyes.

But the man shook his head and stepped away from the podium. “I can't disclose that information, for her privacy's sake. That's all I have for today. Get ready for your English class.”

When the teacher left, Renjun turned to find Haechan. He didn't seem the slightest bit surprised by this news. He had to know something.

“Where is (Y/n)?” His friend only responded with a glare.

“Lee Haechan!” Renjun's fingers curled into fists, quick to resort to anger.

Haechan shook his head and brought a light purple envelope from his bag. Without looking at him, he gestured for Renjun to take it. “She asked me to give you this.”

He hesitated before adding, “She should be at the train station. But she doesn't leave until half an hour from now. That's all I'm telling you.”

The envelope crinkled in Renjun's hands. He heard Xiaomi call his name. But he was already out the door, running out of school and catching a taxi. He had to find Y/n. He didn't care about the consequences.

Nothing else was on his mind except for her.

┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦

Dear Renjun,

A part of me hopes you will never read this. But if you are, that must mean things didn’t work out the way I had planned. And the purpose of this letter has changed from what it was originally supposed to be.

I know in our day and age that letters are old-fashioned. But I still loved the idea of them. I am writing you this letter because I am not brave enough to face you in person. I haven’t been truthful to you about some things. So here I want to clarify them. I hope you don’t mind.

I don’t remember how it exactly happened. But I’ve liked you for some time now. I think it was that day when I saw you helping that lady cross the street. I guess I’m someone who is easily swayed by kindness.

However, I didn’t realize my feelings until the day you learned about my secrets. That was when I knew I couldn’t keep myself from falling anymore. When we used to study together and hang out in the summer, I was the happiest I had ever been. I should thank you for that.

You had gotten out of a serious relationship and I wasn’t looking to date. I thought I was content with just being friends.

Then on the day you were sick, we kissed. Maybe you didn’t remember. Or maybe you didn’t want to. It was probably some mistake to you. Yet for a second, I thought there was a chance you liked me too. But I was very wrong about that, wasn’t I?

I know I mean nothing to you. But to me, you meant everything. You were the first person who knew my secret and comforted me. You made me feel like I didn’t have to hurt alone anymore.

I may not be your first love, Renjun, But you were mine. And I want nothing more than happiness and success in your future. Seriously, do something that makes you happy. Not because of any standards that are put on us, or the pressure that you give yourself. I hope that you can find your dream again and to someday see you shine brighter than anyone else.

Obviously, you don’t have to listen to me. But these were the things I wanted to say to you without any more regrets.

Sincerely, Kim (Y/n)

The letter crumpled in Renjun’s shaky hands. He looked at the taxi driver with desperation. “Ahjeossi, please hurry!” He anxiously sat back in his seat.

So she did hear what he said that day. Why, why did he lie? Why had he been so foolish?

When he finally got to the train station, Renjun sprinted inside only to be crowded by the other people passing by. He tried his best to get through briskly.

“(Y/n)!” He called out as if he was insane. “Kim (Y/n)!”

He could care less about the people who gave him odd stares. His mind was focused on getting to her. He ran to find the public transport timetable. His eyes darted across the board and found the departures.

10:44 BUSAN KTX DELAY: 0 min

He was too late. She was gone, leaving him in his regrets and despair. The boy fell to his knees as tears streamed down his face.

“Please…please come back, (Y/n),” Renjun cried, “Don’t go, I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

He knew that she couldn’t hear him. Every word that came out of his mouth was futile. She could not see him right now. But if she did, she would’ve run back to embrace him and tell him not to cry.

All he could do was bang his fists on the ground, pathetically. “(Y/n), I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me.”

He said this, even though she was never his and he was never hers. This pain was worse than when Xiaomi had broken up with him. He didn’t think he would ever be able to move on from it. There were so many words that he wanted to say to her. Words that he should’ve said to her before. Most importantly,

“I love you.”

┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦┈◦•◦⟡•◦

{ five years later }

Here she was again, standing before him after not seeing each other since the eleventh grade. But she wasn’t alone.

“Hey, everyone. It's been a while,” she still seemed shy, but more reassured.

That was when his eyes found the person holding her hand. He was tall, handsome with jet black hair and a face that could charm anyone. If Renjun saw him in any other setting, he would have assumed he was some playboy. But in this case, the guy was looking at Y/n with tenderness in his eyes. Anyone would be able to tell he was completely enamored with her from just one glance.

Coincidentally, she met Renjun's eyes when she introduced the person next to her. “This is Na Jaemin—my boyfriend.”

“Wah, he's so handsome!” Her friends were awed as if he wasn't standing right there.”You found yourself a good one, Y/n!”

All Renjun could do was sit back and listen to the others asking how the two met and how long they'd been dating. He thought he should feel angry or betrayed. But for some reason, he didn't feel those things.

“Renjun, you should sing something for us,” Haechan said later in the night. He gestured to the small stage near the back.

“I don't know, guys…”

“Oh come on,” one classmate begged. “Just one song?”

Eventually, Renjun gave in knowing it was the only way for them to stop asking. In the next few seconds, the singer found himself getting out of his seat and getting up on stage. He adjusted the microphone stand and connected his phone to the speaker.

Tightening his grip as the music started to play, inadvertently they made eye contact again. At just one glance, so many emotions swelled in his heart. Without her, he would've ignored his passion and moved on to live a meaningless life. But thanks to (Y/n), he was able to find his dream again and go after it.

Never would he forget how he hurt her with his foolish words. The song he was about to sing was chosen especially for her.

“Why do I get sulky so easily? Am I this pathetic because of my small heart?” He started to sing, tightly gripping onto the mic stand. “Don’t go, I know I was a bit too much. Can you forgive me for being regretful again?”

As a professional, Renjun did his best to keep his voice stable, but it wasn’t easy. This song was written for her. He didn't know if she had heard it before. But he hoped it could convey the feelings he wasn't able to before.

Kim (Y/n), who he loved. Kim (Y/n), who he had hurt and brought him so much regret.

The same heartache he was feeling earlier returned as he sang the chorus, “Tell me, why I let you down? Any chance I get I'm breaking down.”

“I know it's my fault, but why is it so hard? To tell you that I'm sorry, heart.” His gaze remained fixed on her as the lyrics gracefully flowed from his lips.

There was loud applause when Renjun finished the song. But he couldn't enjoy it. He just wanted to see her reaction. She was smiling at him with tears glistening in her eyes. That was all the approval Renjun needed.

When the event was over, he went outside in hopes to talk to her. His feet stopped moving when he found her standing under a large tree nearby. She was talking to Jaemin, who had his back toward him. She laughed at something he said.

Then a few moments later, the man took a small box out of his jacket pocket. Renjun watched as her eyes lit up in the utmost surprise. Renjun couldn't hear the conversation. But he was there when she mouthed the word “yes” and to see them warmly hug each other after.

Still, in her partner's embrace, she met Renjun's gaze once more. He knew that she was content by the way she smiled at him.

And he couldn't help but smile back. Was he envious? Of course, he was. He would do almost anything to be in that man’s place. However, nothing could be done or changed.

He was happy for her because she was happy. No words could be exchanged. But none needed to be said. Their story had ended a long time ago.

They were living in reality, not some cliché world where everyone got their happy ending.

Where having a first love didn't necessarily guarantee they would be their last. But that didn't mean finding happiness was not achievable.

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mysblog · 5 months ago

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Im here to introduce y'all to my son <3

Go watch high school return of Gangster

#high school return of a gangster #jaemin #kdrama #song yiheon #choi sekyung #sekyung #yiheon #hong jaemin #Joo yoonchan

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liu-yu-xin · 2 years ago

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Is nct dreams third album named after the goddamn myers briggs personality test....

#i saw jaemins teaser photos bc i forgot to block the nct dream twt accounts #and it looks like theyre gonna pretend to be in high school again like give it up mark is 24 just like meeeee #it's been 6 years sincehigh school which none of them even went to #养成系还能这样养的吗😂 高中都毕业不了 #sidney talks shit

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luumiinaa · 1 year ago

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The “you were there all along” troupe, this was sweet with just the right spice 👌🏻

One Day Closer (1)

pairings: soulmate!jaemin x soulmate!oc

genre: fluff | smut | a little angst if you squint

warnings: language, masturbation (fem. + m.), mentions of sex, mentions of underage drinking

summary: in a world where soulmates can hear each other’s thoughts, you slowly fall in love with your soulmate, though it takes you an eternity to realize who it really is.

words: 6.6k

parts: one | two

note: y/n and jaemin’s thoughts are written in italics

a part of the You Are Me series!!

Keep reading

#✧.ᐟ jupiter #fic: short #nct #nct dream #jaemin #friends to lovers #academia #high school au #magical realism #soulmates au #mutual pining #fic: series

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asahicore · 4 months ago

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cold hands - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.

genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey

word count. 39.5k 😂

a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)

Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers

When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.

Just to name a few:

There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin.

A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off.

In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior.

The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her.

So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.

Right?

He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life.

These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me.

The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you.

Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.

You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.

“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”

“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.

“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes.

“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace.

You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.

“You don’t believe them?”

You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”

This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.

Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)

But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.

“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department.

“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him.

“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.

“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”

The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.

Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains.

“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that.

He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself.

“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”

Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”

The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore.

The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now.

“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.

Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.

You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”

Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon.

You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”

“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.

“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”

Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.

He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”

Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.

At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”

“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.”

For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”

“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?”

Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.

He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.

“There you guys are!”

You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”

For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”

Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser.

You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.

He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”

Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”

“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.

“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.

“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”

Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”

“You’re on, Sim.”

“You’re going down, Sim.”

Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.

Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.

Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.

You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.

When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing.

Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.

The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated.

You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.

“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”

“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder.

Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”

He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.

When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”

His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.

You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.

“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”

Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”

Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.

Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together.

At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing.

Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.”

He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest.

In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.

Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing.

Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”

“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”

All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever.

You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?

As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer.

His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style.

You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning.

“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”

“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.

You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.

“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.

Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.

He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”

“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”

“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”

“They really don’t.”

“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.

“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.

“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.

“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.

“Where’s that choir of yours?”

When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.

He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center.

“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.

“You had time to bake?”

“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”

Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”

You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.

Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.

“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”

“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.

“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.

“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”

“I came to your concerts!”

One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal.

As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown.

Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.

Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned.

A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”

Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”

An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it.

The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face.

As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”

“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”

“What if they come back for them?”

“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it.

The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café.

He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.

“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”

“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”

“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”

Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.

The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.

“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”

“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice.

He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.”

The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”

He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”

“For sure.”

There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.

“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”

At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”

“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”

Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.”

He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.

“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”

You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”

You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”

“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”

“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.

“That makes sense.”

You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”

“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”

You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”

“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”

When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, “You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.

“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”

“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”

Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.

“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.”

You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”

Now that you’ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”

“Your mom must be really strong.”

Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.”

“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”

“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree.

The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.

The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks.

“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.

Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”

“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”

You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later.

The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.

“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.

“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack.

Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.

But you don’t.

Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.

All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you.

He can hardly fall asleep that night.

For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had.

But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner.

Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.

If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.

Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.

And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone.

In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends.

Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met.

He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love.

Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart.

Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.

And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.

So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all.

Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted.

That was his first mistake.

Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”).

“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.

“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.

Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”

Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”

There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.

“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”

“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”

“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.

“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”

“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”

Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”

Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”

Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.

He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least.

The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.

The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game?

That was his second mistake.

You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.

yn.sim i’ll be there!!

You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.

“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.

“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.

“Your team jacket?”

He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.

A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.

“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.

First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long.

Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.

He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.

“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.

“Okay.”

He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”

Your smile widened. “Of course.”

He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.”

Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.

Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.

Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority.

As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over.

A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.

Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.

The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him.

To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal.

And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure.

The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.

Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.

chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!

Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.

“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.

Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute.

He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too.

Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.

And that was when he saw you.

Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?

He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.

His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.

“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger.

“Hey. I was wondering where you were.”

“You’re the one who came late.”

“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”

“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”

“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.

He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.”

Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”

You nod. “Mh-hm.”

“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.

You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”

“It looks good. You look good.”

“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly.

“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”

“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”

At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?”

Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.

“Oh, that was Jaemin.”

“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.

You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”

Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”

“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.

“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.

He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner.

“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.

“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down.

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.

The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.

For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.

“I’ve missed you.”

You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.

“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”

Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.

“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper.

Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”

You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.

“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”

“Just us two?”

“Just us two.”

He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.

There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.

“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”

You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”

He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”

To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”

Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.

“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”

He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.

“Okay.”

But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”

The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”

“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”

You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”

At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.”

Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”

Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”

You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”

He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”

“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”

Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”

“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.

“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

“I should’ve filmed you.”

It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.

Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.

Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.

“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.

Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance.

Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.

“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”

“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?

“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.

He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.

“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.

“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.

“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his.

He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.

“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”

“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.”

Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.

Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.

“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.

“Mh-hm.”

“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”

“Right.”

There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.

“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.

“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain.

“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”

“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.

“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”

Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.

“So you agree that I’m tall?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”

Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”

“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”

“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”

Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.

“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”

“You-what?”

“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”

You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.

“Sure.”

“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”

“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.

“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”

“That’s smart.”

“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”

Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.

You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months.

Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.

“Minjeong?”

“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”

“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.

“But she’s not the best with relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-”

A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”

“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”

“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”

“You’re like, nineteen…”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in.

She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.

“Minjeong, I promise-”

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Go inside.”

She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.

Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.

yn are you still up for doing something this week?

He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.

She never lets things get serious.

Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.

So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all.

He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.

You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.

Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.

When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.

You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.

“Like what?”

“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”

Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego.

“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.

You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.

“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”

Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.

He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.

It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.

He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.

You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.

You grab his hand; it warms him right up.

Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.

He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth. He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.

Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.

At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind.

He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.

In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.

Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.

“Do you wanna come up?”

“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.

“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.

“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”

“Minjeong karaokes?”

“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”

You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.

The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you.

“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”

Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”

This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had.

“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“I mean, me too.”

You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”

Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.

Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner.

After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month.

He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely.

His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.

He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.

“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.

You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.

His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.

“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.

“Yes, please.”

He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.

Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.

As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.

When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.

You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.

Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you.

He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.

You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”

“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”

This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex.

It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.

You’re better than a dream.

“I feel great. Do you feel great?”

“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.

The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was.

“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”

What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.

“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”

“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”

“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there.

You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”

And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.

After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.

His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.

If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well.

The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.

He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.

He has never felt so awkward in his life.

“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.

“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

“I haven’t!”

“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”

“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.

“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.

He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.

Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”

You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”

Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.

But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere.

So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”

After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you.

The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”

He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”

“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”

With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.

It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment.

His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away.

A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.

“I was gone two minutes.”

“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?”

“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.

“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.

He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there.

He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm.

As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck.

“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”

Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.

As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern.

But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you.

What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace.

After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.

All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.

Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public.

Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.

It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party.

Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.

Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.

He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it.

But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything.

Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.

And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends.

So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep.

As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy.

But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”

When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point.

The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention.

Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.

There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.

“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”

He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes.

“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth.

“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”

“Have you guys tried saying something?”

The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says.

He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently.

No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.

Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”

“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”

“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”

“So this has to do with your parents?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”

“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.

“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”

Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.

Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”

Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.

A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”

“Since I met her, basically.”

Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”

Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.

“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye.

“How did you know, anyway?”

“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”

“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”

“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.

“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”

Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.

“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”

Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.

“Everyone…”

“Everyone?!”

“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”

“So everyone.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”

“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.

“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”

“‘Cause of Heeseung?”

“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.

“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”

“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.

“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”

“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.

“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”

Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”

Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”

A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”

“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”

“What would happen more than once?”

Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”

“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”

“Well, we were.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”

“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”

“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”

Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”

Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”

“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”

“Not really, no.”

“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”

He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”

They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.

He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.

Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.

That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.

“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.

“Jay texted me.”

“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.

“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment.

He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”

“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”

He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”

“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”

“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”

“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.”

Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”

“That’s different-”

“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”

“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”

“Of course I do! But I have to.”

“No, you don’t-”

“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”

“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”

“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”

“Again, that’s different-”

“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”

You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”

Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper.

“You heard me,” you say coldly.

He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”

You glance at him. “Yeah.”

A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.

You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”

His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.

“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”

It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.

Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…

What was Sunghoon?

Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.

Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.

No, okay, it was definitely your fault.

Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.

From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.

“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside.

“What is?”

“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.

“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I don’t think I do, actually.”

She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”

“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”

“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”

“So you are going after him?”

“So you do like him?”

Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”

“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”

“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”

“And how have you gathered that?”

“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”

“I’m not-”

“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”

“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”

You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.

“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?”

The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing.

Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.

He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.

Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.

So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you.

You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.

Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.

You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?

Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.

Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.

It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.

Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.

You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.

The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.

Then you went home for a weekend.

It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.

Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.

The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.

At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.

You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours.

Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.

It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.

“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”

You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”

“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”

You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”

“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.

“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”

“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”

Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.

“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”

You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”

“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”

“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”

“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”

“God forbid.”

After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.

You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.

But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.

It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history.

Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.

Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.

Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.

Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?

Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.

“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.

“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.

“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”

“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”

“Not to them, it doesn’t.”

“Then forget them.”

“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”

“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”

“I wish it was.”

“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”

He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”

“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”

You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”

He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what has it been about?”

He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?

“I love you.”

Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.

“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.

“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”

“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”

“I think I have too.”

“You think?”

You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.

You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”

You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.

Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.

Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.

It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.

Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.

You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.

He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.

Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.

“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.

“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”

“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.

As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”

“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.

“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears.

“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.

He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”

“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.

You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.

In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.

He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.

The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.

And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.

When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.

The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”

Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.

Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.

“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.

“What do you need, baby?”

“You.”

“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.

“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.

“That I can do.”

He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.

“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”

“I love it, Hoon.”

He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”

You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.

“Please what?”

“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”

He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”

“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.

“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”

You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.

You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”

With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.

But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.

“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.

“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.

“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.

“I know, baby.”

Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.

Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.

You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.

Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz (ask to be removed/added!)

#sunghoon x reader #enhypen x reader #sunghoon smut #enhypen smut #sunghoon fanfiction #enhypen fanfiction #enhypen au #sunghoon au #enhypen scenarios #sunghoon scenarios #enhypen imagines #sunghoon imagines

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v1si0n · 7 months ago

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DIVINE TIMING💫 (L.DH)

SUMMARY: you confessed to your longtime crush, donghyuck, back in high school because you figured you guys would never see each other again. you begin to question your faith in the universe when you run into him on a rainy tuesday night, and you start seeing him every day after.

GENRE: smau (some written parts), college student! hyuck x fem! reader, ????? to lovers, fluff, probably some angst but not heavy bc i’m sensitive, humor, lowkey she fell first but he fell harder trope, hyuck is a jealous little lad

WARNINGS: profanity, sexual and death jokes, mentions of reader being insecure, mentions of stalking, mentions of alcohol consumption

PLAYLIST: thinkin bout you by frank ocean, the spins by mac miller, intro (end of the world) by ariana grande, snooze (acoustic) by sza ft justin bieber , diana by one direction, midnight pretenders by tomoko aran

NOTES: hi !! idk why i chose a smau to be my first post but here it is🙁❤️ this is my first au of any kind on here so i hope yall love reading it as much as i enjoy writing !!

STATUS: completed :)

（＾＿＾）☆（＾＿＾）☆（＾＿＾）☆（＾＿＾）☆

profiles (1): y/n’s crew🤍

profiles (2): hyuck’s crew🖤

intro: canon event or just trauma🥸

ch. 1: night shifts and feet…pics?

ch. 2: #freeyn

ch. 3: severe hallucinations or…?

ch. 4: call the coast guards.

ch. 5: goodnight streaks

ch. 6: me when i LIE

ch. 7: CHAT CLIP THAT !!!!

ch. 8: not to alarm anyone

ch. 9: i spy an attention whore…

ch. 10: i have this friend

ch. 11: the proof and the pudding

ch. 12: spin the bottle

ch. 13: lol lmao

ch. 14: i loveee smart emo boys

ch. 15: sassy man apocalypse

ch. 16: jaemin’s spirit guides

ch. 17: jisung and his inability to read the room

ch. 18: what the fuck is y/nhyuck

ch. 19: potato tomato bro

ch. 20: sir cuntington and his squires

ch. 21: hyucks personal issue

ch. 22: y/nhyuckism

ch. 23: …no guillotine

ch. 24: chenle, the wordsmith

ch. 25: hyuck support group

epilogue: happy grad!

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weiweific · 9 days ago

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jaemin fic recs .₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎

ok hello hello this is just a list of my fave jaemin fics in no particular order!

(m) smut | (f) fluff

one shot

i love hot nerds by @domjaehyun | m | 8.7k college au, perverted and nerdy shy boys jaemin & haechan author summary: when your professor pairs you with the two smartest students in your class for a group project, you find yourself making an interesting deal with them. or, alternatively: the one where you have to help two nerds learn to get girls so you can pass your class.

just so you know by @sluttyten | m | 20.9k friends to lovers, poly mmf with jeno and jaemin author summary: you’re kinda with jeno, but when you realize his best friend jaemin is in love with you too, well it complicates things

angel baby by @neopuppy | m | 8k alpha/omega dynamics, pregnant y/n, neighbour jaemin cookie jar by @neopuppy | m | 7k dubcon, stuck in dryer au, jeno & jaemin stepbrothers stepcest

this untitled jaemin oneshot by @haetrack | m | 6.4k pwp, inexperienced y/n

diet pepsi by @mochidoie | f | 10k flirty jaemin, the tensionnnn author summary: Accidentally walking in on your best friend’s hot housemate half naked with a towel around his waist in the bathroom was never in your plans. But maybe, it was in his?

persimmon problems by @starsstuddedsky | f | 18.3k uni/college au author summary: fantasy crushes are all fun and games until it stops being a fantasy and he’s really talking to you. but what are you supposed to do when he invades every part of your life?

hush, hush by @domjaehyun | m | 19.5k foursome ft. jeno, haechan & jaemin

besties (gone sexual) by @tyonfs | m | 43.4k college au, best friends to fwb to lovers author summary: na jaemin, resident playboy and serial heartbreaker on campus, thinks he might have a crush on you. this is concerning because he’s slept with your roommate before, who called him something along the lines of “a waste of a human.” another reason why this is concerning is because you happen to be jaemin’s best friend of seven years, and you know far too much about him to ever consider dating him.

stargirl interlude by @tyonfs | m | 5.9k influencer y/n, strangers to lovers author summary: and i shouldn’t cry, but I love it, starboy / i just wanna see you shine ‘cause i know you are a stargirl

j.crew by @sluttyten | m | 11.4k gangbang ft. johnny, jaehyun, jungwoo, jeno & jaemin

sniff by @guanana | m | 7k sniffing kink, pwp poly!nomin one shot by @jenosbigtoe | m lots of drabbles as well!!! linking their masterlist here

f4 by @starryhyuck | m | 4k+ slight dubcon, featuring mark, jeno, haechan and jaemin as f4 author summary: the most popular guys at school are wanted by everyone and anyone. the problem is… they only want you.

Drippin’ [Dream ‘00 line] by @ncteez '00 line x reader, mild dubcon, birthday sex author summary: “It’s too late to run away, you started this game first.”It was a joke, you swear. Sharing something like that with your group of horny man-friends was definitely a recipe for disaster. That one little tweet sets off a string of events that prevents you from pretending that you wouldn’t fuck your friends. Because you would, and they know it. or the one where you’re considered a tease with the shit you share privately online, and they’re just about fed up with the way you act innocent and uninterested in what they’re packing.

series

talk to my skin by @fadedncity | m | 13.8k college au, friends to lovers, fwb + pt. 2 if you let me (18.6k)

strawberry cough by @hazyhae | m | 9.1k plug!jaemin, friends/plug to lovers ahh, weed use author summary: when your longtime bestie and plug moves out of town, he recommends one of his buddies to fill your weed needs. jaemin is glad to deliver that and maybe even more. + pt. 2 sour tangie (6.3k)

quarantine chronicles by @domjaehyun | m | 3 parts | 126.7k featuring jaehyun, johnny, jungwoo, mark, haechan & jeno author summary: fourteen days, five roommates, and five remarkably high sex drives. what could go wrong?

#jaemin smut #na jaemin smut #nct dream smut #nct smut #jaemin fanfiction #nct dream fanfiction #nct x reader #jaemin x you #jaemin x reader #jaemin fic recs #na jaemin fic recs #nct dream x reader #i feel like im missing quite a few fics here but its 3am and im dehydrated and i need to get off this screen #JENO WILL BE NEXTTTTT

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luumiinaa · 1 year ago

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soccer boys (fall)in love ~~~~ 🥰

the heart is the goal | nct dream

how can seven boys be so ruthless on the field but so shy around the ones who won their hearts? but one thing is the same: they won’t stop until they’ve won.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: this idea came to be from me sending a tiktok to @quokkacore because hyuck looks hot playing sports (whether the ball he was holding was a soccer ball or a basketball, no one really knows), and now we’re here! updates will be sporadic and all of the fics will be under 5k :) you can read the fics in any order that you want, but the chronological order is donghyuck, jeno, mark, renjun, jaemin, jisung, then chenle.

choose who is written next!

TAG LIST: @quokkacore @sleepylixie @colpen @yoongischeeksluv @n-jules @unknown5tar @tinymarklee @juyeo-on @rockinrebelyay @pewpewpwe00 @struggle-kmpr @2andom @aaasteroidsky @naba08 @bellepluie @hufflepanda221b @bunnylover0193 @0ritoo @liusomi @itsreinpark @willfiteforfood

if you would like to be tagged, please reply to this post or send me an ask!

soccer player!mark lee x tutor!fem!reader

the profile: the oldest | #4 | center defender

i’m fluent in your love language

mark lee is anything but dumb. but he sure does pretend to be when he finds out his crush is the new foreign language tutor. will he finally be able to sweep her off her feet after all these years?

Keep reading

#☾.ᐟ moon #★.ᐟ mars #fic: series #fic: story #nct #nct dream #academia #high school au #sports au #mark #renjun #jeno #jaemin #haechan #chenle #park jisung #strangers to lovers #friends to lovers #enemies to lovers

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vnti-vnxiety-recs · 9 months ago

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GUARDIAN GLOVES (M)

★ PAIRING: Boxer! Jeno x Reader

☆ WORD COUNT: 12k

★ GENRE(S): Brother’s Bestfriend AU, Childhood Friend AU?, Smut

☆ SUMMARY: No matter how badly you want to start over, your rebellious past follows you to college, and you can't run from it forever Your brother Jaemin was your rock growing up, but now that he has left for an out-of-state university, he can no longer save you. You do not want to burden your brother's best friend, but he might be the only one who can save you from the person of your past who refuses to let you go.

★ ☆ WARNINGS: Unprotected sex, sexual intercourse, fighting, harassment, and stalking, mentions of violence, guns and drugs, abusive relationships.

☆★ NOTES: Read with caution, please; some scenes can be intense. Leave nice comments, please <3

It was a mistake; you knew it was a mistake; your brother and friends both told you so. Now, due to the enormous amounts of red flags you have ignored, you have found yourself in some hot water. What can you say? Love makes you blind.

“You cant keep putting up with this! We need to do something,” your friend Ryujin stressed “This has been going on for too long; im scared something serious might happen” You were worried that wrinkles might form from how much shes been furrowing her brow.

“Im fine! Its not even that serious, ok? Just drop it,” you say, sitting on your bed with your head buried in your hands as your roommate paced the dorm room. You had never seen her so upset.

“No! I will not sit here while my best friend gets harassed! We need to report this!”

“We are NOT reporting this ryu; that will only make things worse.” you sigh before sitting back to look your friend dead in the eyes

“He pushed you down the stairs!?”

“It was a mistake!”

You met Yuta during your junior year of high school. He was your typical run-of-the mill bad boy; he skipped classes, hung out late, and got high. You knew he was trouble, but that was what you wanted. You grew up rebellious; you were young and dumb. You just wanted attention, and hanging with the wrong crowd got you plenty. You felt unstoppable when you were with Yuta and his crew. When Yuta would parade you around school in your too-short skirt and pretty long legs, you felt special; you felt wanted. Your friends hated him, and they hated what you became. You didn’t listen to their warnings, and you stuck around.

You stuck around even when skipped classes turned into stolen cars and the weed highs turned into selling. You were stupid to think you could keep up with his lifestyle. You just wanted to piss your family off. You were used to bad boys, but Yuta was something else.

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself “Look, he's clearly getting bold; I'm afraid he’ll seriously hurt you!”

“Please, drop it,” you beg in exhaustion. Its been a long day. You had classes all day, and with your yuta problem, you found yourself getting tired a lot faster. You had to turn in his class work on top of yours, which resulted in more time spent in the library. You had been getting home later and later.

“What about Jaemin? Have you told him? You know he would do anything for you.”

Your brother left for college the year before you. You couldn't ask him to fight your battles anymore. He got a full ride and was off in another state, living his life, while you were at home bawling your eyes out over the fact that the heartbreaking bad boy broke your heart.

You had finally broken up with Yuta when you realized he was cheating on you. You should have seen it coming, honestly, The day you checked his phone and found the messages, he didnt even try to pretend like he cared. He had been talking to several other girls while he was with you. You felt so stupid, and that was your last straw. Let us just say he was not happy about it, and he and his friends have been harassing you since.

“That's exactly why I can't tell him; I don't need him flying out just to take care of my issues; I can handle them on my own. He's got his own life; he can't afford any more distractions.”

Your brother was practically your hero growing up. Whenever you were in trouble, he was by your side to protect you. Even though he was really only your stepbrother, he didn’t love you any less. You would always be his little sister.

Jaemin had been in and out of the boxing ring for years. Bad boyfriends weren't anything new to you or him; he was the one who typically kept them in check. You were the main reason he picked up fighting; he knew, as your older brother, it was his job to protect you, and he would do it to his last breath. He tried to warn you about Yuta, but you didn't listen. You knew he would drop anything if it meant coming to your aid, but you couldn't ask that of him.

You also know he would never let you live it down.

You thought once high school was over, you would finally be able to escape Yuta’s torment, but he followed you to your new school. Your brother warned you about him, and now he's not here to protect you anymore.

"Ok, what about Jeno?” She states hesitantly,

“Absolutely NOT!” you scowl, throwing yourself back into the sheets to hide under the covers

“Yes! Jaemin literally told you to go to him if you need anything! He probably knew you would be too proud to contact him if you were in trouble.”

You sit back up and throw the covers off of you. “It’s not his problem! I got myself into this mess. I'll get myself out, ok?” you state firmly

"Fine, you know what fine, its getting late I’m heading to bed…but I swear if he—”

"Ok, Ryujin, thanks really,” you say sincerely. You could never be mad at Ryujin; she was only looking out for you, and you knew she meant well. For all that it was worth, you knew she would always have your back. She would run head-first into battle for you.

You could definitely be mad at Ryujin. In fact, you've been upset for the last hour.

She promised a surprise for you; she said she wanted to take you somewhere to take your mind off of the whole Y*ta situation. Honestly, you were grateful to be getting out of the house; you had been limiting yourself to only going to classes. You were trying your hardest to not run into him.

You make sure to dress prettily. You were just too excited to finally have a reason to dress up again. You were so excited, you didn't even blink at the all-too-familiar signs and buildings as Ryujin pulled into the parking lot of a run-down boxing gym.

It's not until you have walked into the threshold and over to the rusty sideline benches that you feel overdressed and out of place. Your eyes scan the room, and everything feels so familiar yet out of place that you feel stupid for not realizing sooner.

As your eyes take in the old tattered banners and boxing ring, you realize you were walked blind into your brother's old gym. He and Jeno used to come here all the time to spar and train. This place used to run official matches and business, but it went bankrupt and had to close. Now it was just a place that hosted underground fighting.

You knew what this was about, and you were upset that Ryujin fooled you into coming. You crossed your arms protectively over your chest, and you had hungry eyes staring at you from each angle.

“You...are... insane,” you hissed at her in anger after you two got settled in your seats.

“And you are a coward. I'm sorry I lied Ok, but we need his help,” she contests

“You just walked me into a den full of hungry wolves. We're gonna need a lot more than help now!” You whisper harshly.

"Oh, come on, you know jeno’s not gonna let anything happen to you”

It was as if saying his name aloud summoned him; the next thing you know, he is in the ring.

You can't help but hold your breath at the sight. He had grown since the last time you saw him, and you didn't even think that was possible. His face was more refined and sculpted, and his arms were toned with muscles. His shoulders would have had you drooling if it weren’t for the perdicament you were in. They were broad and covered in cuts and bruises, much like the rest of his body. His body relaxes as he shakes away his nerves. He was standing in one corner of the ring, while his opponent stood menacingly at the other end. You think you hear the announcer call out his name—was it Jaehyung? Jaehyoon? Something like that.

You try to duck your head, not wanting to be seen, but you stand out like a sore thumb. As Jeno finished up his quick stretches, his eyes somehow wandered to you. First comes shock, then confusion, and as he rakes his eyes over your outfit, he’s overcome with anger.

Tonight was going to be a long night.

You could hear the scolding now…

”it's too cold to be wearing that”

“it's too dangerous for you to be here”

“This isn't some show; don't bring your friends here”

It wasn't even your fault you were here! You already knew he was not going to hear any of that, though.

He fixes you with a stare that says, “We’ll talk later,” and you groan in annoyance.

Before you can even open your mouth to give Ryujin another piece of your mind, the match begins and draws your attention back to the ring.

Jeno sizes up his opponent as they circle each other, looking for openings. His opponent, Jae Something, was twice his size, and honestly, you were a little afraid for Jenos sake. Jae was inpatient and struck first. Jenos weaves left and holds his guard strong. Jeno played the defense; he was patient, and you find that his fighting style was the mirror opposite of his personality. Even though Jeno had a tendency to lose his temper, it was fascinating to watch him change when he stepped into the ring. He moved with poise and thoughtfulness at every turn.

Jenos patience rewarded him and he saw an opening In his opponents gaurd. He struck Jae, causing him to stumble back on unsecure footing. This allowed jeno to push his opponent back and switch to offense. Jae was already worn out, and Jeno used this to his advantage, knocking him down and out after hounding him with jabs and hooks.

Jeno was an endurance fighter; his goal wasn't to win through brutality but by outlasting his opponent in a fight.

You were amazed at how far he had come. He was a skilled fighter, as he always had been, but now, after years of honing his craft, you could see he was nothing like the boy you knew before.

The match was over and you were brought back to reality as you realized just what kind of scene you were in. This was an illegal boxing match, and now that it was over, the illegal part really started to stand out. Bets had been placed on the matches before hand and were now being fulfilled. Money was being passed around, and some exchanges even turned aggressive. You knew Jeno had probably wanted you to stick around for your lashings, but this was your queue to get the fuck out of there. You grab Ryujin's hand and try to lead her away from the ever-increasingly aggravated crowd. You navigate through groups of people as you hurry towards the exit.

On your way, you trip over your stupid heels that Ryujin convinced you to wear and accidentally bump shoulders with someone. You find your footing and apologize. You try to walk away, pulling Ryujin behind you, but feel a rough hand on your shoulder pulling you back.

“Where do you think your going?” a gravelly voice calls out.

“I already apologized; let me go,” you grit out, trying to pull away from the man. He was a little bit taller than you and was twice your age. You noticed the wad of cash in one of his hands and the sickishly sweet smile on his face, and you figured he must have placed a winning bet.

“Don't be like that; how about I take you and your friend here out and we go somewhere private” he says while flashing his money. “Of course you'll have to work for it if you want a tip,” he says repulsively.

From the corner of your eye, you see Jeno pushing through the crowd. The look on his face gives you the chills.

“Don’t be scared, baby; I don't bite,” the man says.

Oh, you’re not scared of him; your scared for him.

You know what's coming before it happens, and the man is on the ground in seconds. His money flits through the air before joining him on the ground. The man is clutching his face, and before Jeno can get his hands on him again, men dressed in all black pull the man to his feet and drag him out. You figured they must have been something like security.

Everything happens so fast, but all you know is that you and Ryujin are both being pulled by an angry Jeno deeper into the building into some back room. Ryujin looks a bit shaken, but you assure her everything is okay now.

It was dark and chilly in the room. The cement walls offered no warmth as you stood in the middle of what you assumed to be an old locker room. The back of the building was really coming apart; water leaked from the ceiling, and it smelled like mildew. No one really occupies the space anymore.

Now occupying the space were Jeno,currently trying to reel in his nerves as he drags a hand down his face; Ryujin, shifting from one foot to another awkwardly; and you, who crossed your arms definitely over your chest as you waited for Jeno’s reprimanding.

“You know what I'm going to say,” he huffs.

“I'm sorry, it's really not her fault I'm the one who drug her here; I didn't realize how dangerous it would be” Ryujin tried to defend you, but she didn't know Jeno like you did. He wasnt one for excuses.

“Who are you?” He asks dismissively.

Jeno had never met Ryujin before. Ryujin had only heard about him through the stories you would tell her about growing up with him and your brother.

“Im a friend; we didn’t come here without a reason we wanted to—” She says but doesnt get to finish

"Jeno, dont be rude. She was only trying to help.” You interrupt. You could not have her bring that up now; you needed his attention back on you.

“I'm sorry, Ryujin. Can you give us a moment?” He sighs in apology.

Ryujin gives you a look but takes the hint and doesn't push the topic again. She reluctantly walks to the door and waits outside the room.

Once the door shuts behind her, Jeno wastes no time telling you off. “I dont know why your here or whats going on but you need to leave. You know better than this,” he scolds

You wanted to jump off a cliff. This is absolutely not how you wanted to meet him again. You had imagined this meeting a thousand times in your head. When you finally reconnected, you were supposed to show him how mature you had gotten. This whole fiasco definitely sets you back 10 steps.

“I wouldn't be here …I wouldn't be dressed like this if I had known we would end up here. It was a mistake. We'll leave, ok?" You say arms crossed and closed off as you dig your heel into the ground.

Even after all this time, he still had a soft spot for you. No matter how hard he tried to be stern with you, one look at the pout on your face made him feel bad. He walks over and closes the small distance between you two. He engulfs you in a hug, and you’re reminded of home. He reminds you so much of your past that it makes you nostalgic. He kisses the top of your head affectionately and lets go, and you’re reminded just how smelly and musty he is as his sticky skin peels from yours.

“Gross,” you grumble

“I think you'll live,” he jokes with a smile. He's a lot calmer now. He leans down to meet your gaze “I'm sorry for being hard on you; I was just worried. You popped up out of nowhere after all this time.

It was so easy to fall back in step with him. You want to tell him everything; all you want is for him to fix everything, but you are no longer that little girl, and you are determined to prove it.

You’re deep in thought when he asks, “Is everything OK, Storm?”

Your heart skips a beat at the nickname; you haven't heard that in awhile. He's always called you that; when you asked him why, he told you it was because you would stir up so much trouble wherever you went, growing up like a storm. It may have sounded negative, but he didn’t mean it like that. He always said it affectionately.

“I'm fine; Ryujin brought me here because I said I missed home. She wanted to take me around to some familiar places. I guess she didn't know what really went down at this place” You try to cover up the truth.

Your campus wasn't too far from your hometown, and you go home almost every weekend, but hopefully Jeno doesn’t know that and buys the story.

He looks a bit sceptical. "Lately, its been hard to come by you,” he says “Are you sure your not in any trouble?”

"I've just been busy with school; its nothing really,” you explain.

He just nods, and you know he does not believe it, but he doesn’t pry either. “Lets get you home; it's getting late”

When you open the door, Ryujin falls forward, clearly listening in and she gives you a sheepish smile. You grab her arm and pull her along as jeno personally escorts you out and to ryujin's car.

He holds your door open for you and watches as you clamber inside before buckling your seat belt and closing your door for you. You internally groan in annoyance. He was never going to see you as anything but the 7th grade version of you that he first met. The girl needed her brother to save her from herself.

You are grown now!

He can practically see the words printed on your forehead as he huckles to himself. He didn’t care; he would always take care of you, no matter how much you hated him for it.

He motions for you to roll down the window before leaning into the car and caressing your face affectionately with his rough, bruised hand. You decide right then that you would never let him get hurt for your sake. He’s fought enough.

“If you need anything, call, ok?” He says this before drawing his hand back. You don't respond, and he quirks an eyebrow.

"Ok,” You grumble

“You have my number, right?”

“Yes!” You say a bit louder in annoyance.

"Ok, ok, I'm just checking, you never reach out, I just want to make sure your okay,” he continues

“Actually, can I take your number? I'm practically her guardian now. I'll make sure to keep you updated if she needs anything” Your friend butts in with a smile.

Jeno happily gives her his number, and you just sit in the passenger seat like a child, watching as your parents fuss over you.

You are grown now!

Mondays are the worst days of the week, not because you have to go back to classes. You loved class, you loved learning and you loved your teachers. It wasn’t until college that you found out that you really enjoyed learning. Yuta would have definitely laughed at you if you told him that in high school.

Yuta was the reason you hated Mondays. Mondays were the worst because they meant no more hiding. You couldn't stay in all day; you had to go to class, and that meant running into the devil. You were lucky enough to only have one class with Yuta, and that class only met on Mondays.

You find your way to your seat at the back of the class, hoping to hide away from him, but you know he will find you. You felt his presence as he slipped into the seat next to you.

“Morning doll, did you get my text?”

You hated when he texted you; it was always a disturbing photo. Last time you opened a text from him, it was a video of him fucking some girl in a dark alleyway. In the video, he made the girl drop to her knees and open her mouth. He pressed the barrel of his gun into her mouth and made her suck it off. ‘Wish this was you’ was the text he sent after the video.

Since then, you have made it a point not to open his texts, but it seems like he wasn't going to let this one go.

“I’ve been busy; i hadnt had the chance to”

"Well, that's no good doll; why don't you open it now?” he smirks wickedly.

“I dont think—”

“Open it,” The playfulness slips off of his face and replaced with seriousness

You never noticed it before, but Yuta could be terrifying. He never showed this side to you before, but your certain this was the side everyone else saw. He made a promise to follow you to the end of the earth, and so far he has kept true to it.

He had gone from being your high school’s bad boy to the campus’s star athlete. Yuta had completely rebranded himself after graduation, and it made it even harder to report him. No one would believe you. He would just spin the story and make you out to be some bitter ex, making up lies to try to ruin his college career.

With shaky hands, you unlock your phone and go to your messages, clicking on the conversation with the unsaved number attached to it. There, you find a video waiting for you. You turn your volume all the way down and hit play. This time, it was a video of you a few nights ago, exiting the gym with Ryujin and Jeno. The camera work was shaky, and it seemed to have been taken from behind a car or a bushr? You couldnt tell but your heart was beating outside your chest.

Your eyes are glued to the screen as you feel a firm hand caress your tense shoulder until it grips the back of your neck. "Now why does it look like my doll is cheating” You freeze in place as your mouth hangs open. “Who is that?” he asks.

You had no idea he was following you. How long had he been following you? The grip on your neck tightens.

“Answer me,” he whispers cruelly, his eyes darkening with rage.

“He’s no one” tears well up in your eyes. Ryujin was right; this was getting out of hand.

“Let me catch you with him again; I'll make you regret it,” he whispers. He kisses the side of your head and breathes in the scent of your shampoo. He releases you, and you release the breath you had been holding.

You can barely pay attention to anything your professor is saying; you just stare blankly at the front of the room.

You sent Ryujin a text to meet you in the library. You hated to dump all of this on her but you had to talk to someone. You could already tell she was frustrated with you about the situation, but she was the only one you could confide in. With her around, you didn't feel so alone in this.

“He did what?!”

“Its ok, if I do what he says, everything will be fine; i have it under control,” you reply sheepishly

“No! You need to report his creepy ass to the cops!” she yells in disbelief.

“Keep it down; we’re in a library,” you remind her

“Dont try to change the subject,” she whispers

“I'll figure this out”

“We will figure this out.” she says, grabbing your hand and giving it a supportive squeeze.

When she lets go of your hand, hers slip under the table. You don't see it, but she’s texting someone, typing furiously before hitting send.

You try not to be mad at Ryujin, but you can't believe she went behind your back and snitched. Now, here in front of you, sits the last man on earth that you want to worry. Ryujin mouths a sorry and sends you an apologetic look. Jeno had arrived about ten minutes earlier, and he looked to be trying to keep his calm before confronting the matter.

“Is this some intervention?” you joke to lighten the mood.

“Ryujin told me everything; do you think this is a joke?” He questioned, trying to stay patient with you. “Why didnt you tell me sooner”

You sigh, feeling ashamed. Everything was always so tense between you two. You had grown apart over the years, and it was difficult to think he was once like a second brother to you. But time was not the only factor to blame; high school also played a part. Puberty changed everything. It changed you, it changed jeno, and it definitely changed how you felt towards him. You had such a massive crush on him in high school that even your brother found it hard to ignore. You made Jaemin swear to secrecy and never tell a soul. If you had known Ryujin was going to call Jeno, you would have sucked it up and reached out to your brother.

You didn’t want Jeno to get involved. You kept telling yourself you didn't want him to get hurt, but you had to be honest with yourself. There was another reason you didn't want to ask for his help, and it was because you were still embarrassed. Anything was better than sitting in front of the man who rejected you.

Summer freshman year of highschool

You thought you had finally grown up in his eyes; you thought your newfound curves were enough to make him see you as more than “Jaem’s little sister.” You thought you could fool yourself into believing you had a chance.

It wasnt abnormal for jeno to sleep over at your place during highschool. He would crash in Jaemin’s room and eat breakfast with your family, like he lived there. One night, you catch him alone and tell him how you feel. You waited for him outside the bathroom. He was showering, and you were certain your brother was too engulfed in his game to interrupt you. Jeno had exited the bathroom wearing sweats and a tanktop, drying his hair with a towel. He had almost walked right by, not noticing you. You stood in front of him wearing a similar white tanktop and sleeping shorts, your nipples poking through the fabric of your shirt. You were so sure you would have his attention, but he just tentatively acknowledged you.

“Im sorry, was i taking too long?” he asked apologetically

"No, i actually wanted to talk to you about something”

He just nods his head and waits for you to continue

“I really like you, and I was hoping I could spend more time with you... just uh… the two of us,” you said shyly, unable to find the right words.

You couldnt meet his eye and stare at a random spot on the carpet

You felt a gentle hand stroke your head affectionately. You look up, hopefully but your world comes crashing down with his next few words

“Your like a sister to me; of course we can hang out more,” he smiles brightly, unknowingly ripping your heart out

Ever since that night, you have avoided him like the plague.

‘I just didn't want to worry you or jaem.” you say, ashamed.

“I won't tell him but if you think I'm going to sit back and let this happen, your wrong”

“I didn’t think it was that much of an issue yet.” you say, picking at your sleeves.

Jenos eyes harden with disbelief “Are you serious? Not much of an issue?” he grits “Hes threatening you”

"Ok, ok, your right; I shouldn't be taking this lightly” You try to soothe things over with a weak smile.

“Give me your phone,” he says, holding out his hand

You unlock it and hand it to him, unsure of what he's going to do. After messing around with it, he hands it back. “I blocked him; dont even think about texting him again.” he warns

“Jeno! I have to; hes going to be pissed!” You take your phone back, looking through your messages, but you’re unable to find the conversation again. You didn't realize how much control he had over you. You thought all you had to do was follow his orders, and you would be alright; one day he would just get bored of you and stop.

“Don't you hear yourself? Your scared!” he yells. He hated seeing you like this. He promised Jaemin that he would watch after you, but here he was, blind to the cruelty that you had endured. “Once this is all over, I'm telling Jaem.”

(¬_¬) snitch

He gets up, preparing to leave, while both you and Ryujin stare at each other. Well, you glare at her while she communicates a response with her eyes in return. He doesn’t turn to leave before saying one last thing: “Keep your phone on you at all times, and I'll be walking you from your classes from here on out,” he states sternly.

“I dont know if that’s a good idea; he told me not—”

“Are you more afraid of him or me?” he asks you

Point taken.

You wait until Jeno is out of earshot before you whisper yell at your friend, “I told you not to tell him!”

“I had to! I was worried”

"Well, great, now he's worried and probably thinks I'm an irresponsible idiot!”

"Well, you are,” she counters, “whats your deal anyway? You seriously think Yuta is just going to leave you alone? He's gonna end up killing you!” she scolds.

You take a moment to process her words. She had a point, but she didn't know Yuta like you did; neither of them did. He was dangerous. You just wanted to keep your friends safe, but you might have gotten in over your head.

You finally make it to your destination; you drove to the old gym, hoping to find Jeno. You could have called or texted him, but you knew it would be easier to get your point across in person. You had at least wanted to let him know what he was getting himself into. Yuta was dangerous, and no matter how strong Jeno was, he wasn't bulletproof.

You park your cute little beetle and cringe; you definitely didn't belong in this scene, and everyone around was going to know it. A sticker-bombed Volkswagen Beetle in the middle of the parking lot of a broken-down and shady gym? Perfect combo!

Luckily, there were only a few cars tonight. You figured it must not be fight night, and you prayed that you found Jeno inside. You gather up your courage and march inside. You make your way down a narrow hallway that opens up into the main gym, and that's where you find him. There were a few other fighters occupying the space, but they seemed to be wrapping up. Jeno must not be the only one who comes here to let off steam, you assume.

"Oh, who's this cute thing?” one of the guys says as you catch his eye on his way out.

“I wouldn't do that if I were you Haechan; thats Jenos Girl,” another voice says, coming up behind him before slinging an arm over his shoulder. “Excuse him,” he says politely before pulling Haechan away and scolding him.

The one that wasn’t Haechan was there the night Jeno punched that weirdo out. Apparently the whole gym knew you as Jeno’s girl, according to his rambling. Their arguing fades away and the last thing you hear before complete silence is “Get off me Renjun your musty”

You laugh to yourself before scanning the room, and you bring your eyes back to the man nestled in the corner. He's facing a punching bag with his hands tightly wrapped and his headphones secure on his head. He wasn't still for a second, staying light on his feet as he threw a few hooks at the bag.

You were almost afraid to accidentally sneak up on him because that would not end well. You stay cautious and keep a safe distance, choosing to call his name a few times to get his attention. Your practically screaming, but he can't hear you. You wonder what brand of headphones he had because that noise cancellation was crazy! You choose a different approach and spot a disregarded boxing glove on a side table. You walk the short distance, grab the item and chunk it at the back of Jeno’s head.

Now clearly, you weren’t trying to poke a bear. You were aiming more towards his broad shoulders, given that was a better target, but your aim was off, and you almost knocked the expensive-looking headphone off his head.

Jeno whips around angrily, opening his mouth to curse, but stops himself short once he notices you. He settles for a deep, exasperated sigh and a sharp glare. He must have been at it for awhile because he was drenched in sweat, and his bangs hung messily in his eyes and were dripping sweat. He pushed the wet hair back from his eyes, showing his forehead. He looked so good when he was angry; his eyes were narrowed dangerously, and his chest heaved heavily.

“Why are you fucking with me?” He says this, coldly pulling his headphones off his ears and letting them hang around his neck "You better have a good reason for being here when there is a psycho after you. I clearly remember telling you to stay away from this place?”

Oh yeah, you definitely poked the bear. Hes pissed.

“Are you sure you want to get involved?” You try to find your words. “Yuta isnt like the little boys you and jaemin used to beat up in highschool”

“You could never keep yourself out of trouble, huh?”

“I'm not asking for your help!”

“Drop the act for once, would you? Your not tough so stop acting like it!”

“I’m not being tough; I just don't want to be a bother! I'm not the same kid! When I’m falling, you always save me, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being weak. I don't need your help, so why don’t you drop the older brother act? Your barely even older than me!” You pitch back

“Jaemin told me to look out for you so thats what im doing,” he huffs

“And that's your only reason, right? Your just looking out for me because my brother said so” you scoff, trying to keep the hurt out of your voice. " How about this? I take you in the ring and show you what I got. Let me show you I can take care of myself” You cross your arms and send him a defiant look.

“Are you seriously—” he cuts himself off, shaking his head in disbelief “You know what fine. Show me what you got”

You smile in triumph and walk over to the center of the gym, where the ring sits. You take off your shoes and crawl inside. The mat felt cool under your feet; it was a grounding sensation, and just once you understood why Jeno loved standing in it, even if it meant fighting. You scan the gym, and memories fill in all the rust, broken pipes and holes in the wall as you remember what the gym used to be. Your stuck in a trance until you feel something soft but firm hit you in the head, knocking you from your daydream.

“That was payback…. but you also need to be mindful of your surroundings. Not starting off so well, angel,” Jeno says, shaking his head as he adjusts the punching mitts over his hands.

You’re brought back to the present and finally notice the boxing gloves at your feet. You get the memo and put them on.

“This can't be too hard,” you mutter to yourself.

Your both centered in the ring and you focus on jenos movements. You grew up being dragged to almost all of your brother's matches; you figured you had watched long enough to catch on to some moves. You throw a punch at Jenos mitt, and he cushions the blow. He lets you get comfortable throwing a few punches before he counters. He makes his movements very big and obvious; you can see his strike from a mile away. You weave under it and throw a punch at his gaurding mitt.

Hes going easy on you

You continue to spar, and Jeno is in full coach mode. He's guiding you in the correct stance and helping you learn what to look for when someone strikes. You've been at it for about 30 minutes now, and you've gotten faster at dodging and reading his movements. He’s still going extremely easy on you, but upping the ante just a little. You were completely absorbed in the lesson.

“Nice hook, put you jab lacks power,” he instructs.

You were good at putting your body into your hooks, but you just couldn't build enough momentum for a strong jab. You try again, but it falls flat, and Jeno shakes his head.

“Follow through; come on, try it again,” he encourages you. You take a breath and send a jab into his mitt. Still not enough.

Jeno takes off the mitts and moves in closer towards you.

"Here, watch me,” he says, raising his gaurd and striking the air. “You want to step into it, see?” He shows you again, a little bit slower.

You give a determined hum and copy his movement, but you can tell by Jeno’s face that you're missing the mark.

"Ok, come here; let me show you” Jeno moves in behind you and grabs your arms. He helps you fix your posture and you instantly heat up at the contact. You try to keep it together, but the way his chest was pressed up against your back and the way he was breathing heavily in your ear had you reeling. "Ok, now focus, step into it and jab.”

He moves one hand down to your waist and pushes you forward, guiding your step, while the other helps you jab. He was so close. You wanted to blame the sudden weakness in your limbs on the endless training he has you doing, but you know its from the heat of his body.

“Are you okay? That one was really weak. Are you shaking?” Jeno looks at you from over your shoulder, worried.

You meet his gaze and nod silently. He's so close. His lips are a breath away, and all you have to do is turn your head to meet his lips. The hand holding your waist travels up your side and grabs your chin. He tilts your head up a little, and his lips are meeting yours. You turn in his grasp and kiss him back. His lips are so soft, and when you pull away, you immediately miss the feeling of his lips on yours.

“I'm sorry; I shouldn't have done that,” he says softly.

Before you can protest, he pulls away from you, cleans up the equipment you two used, and calls it a night. You let him walk you to your car, and you say nothing before you drive away. If it wasn't awkward before, it definitely would be now.

How could he kiss you and then pretend like nothing happened? You’re too embarrassed to bring it up again. Does this count as being rejected for a second time? Nah, he kissed you; you're not taking another L.

It had been a week so far, and Jeno had shown up promptly to all your classes. He shouldered your bags and carried your books as you both walked across campus. Neither of you brought up the kiss, but fortunately, it wasn't awkward anymore. He had started teaching you to defend yourself at the gym sometimes after class. Those moments felt the most intimate. You could feel his passion when he taught you, and it warmed you in all the right places. You two talked about everything in these moments. You shared embarrassing memories from high school, and he told you stories about Jaemin that you would never let your brother live down. You talked about everything but the kiss. You wonder if he regretted it?

The funny thing about college was that the classrooms were so big and there were so many students that it was hard to keep track of who was who. That's how Jeno ended up in you’re lecture every Monday. It was the only class you had with Yuta, and Jeno wasn’t taking any chances. You told him it wasn't a good idea, and the eyes burning into the back of your head were proof of that. Jeno was by your side the entire period, and to onlookers, you two probably looked like a couple. He had scooted your chair directly next to him and was practically shoulder to shoulder with you.

“Back up; I can feel you breathing down my neck”

“I want to see what your doing”

Jeno didn't go to college. He mainly just worked during the day and fought on the weekends for extra cash. His parents were absent for the most part, and he kind of took care of himself growing up. He didn't really have a support system growing up, and that was one of the main reasons he found himself at your house. The only other place he felt safe was the gym. You could only imagine how devastated he was when it shut down. You can understand why he decided to stick around when things turned shady. Jeno earned enough money to support himself, so he never felt the need to go to college, which is why Jaemin didn't feel to bad about dumping you off on his shoulder.

“I can't concentrate Jen,” you scold.

He spends half the class peaking over your shoulder as you work and the other half asleep on the desk. Some guard dog he was.

Yuta didn't bother you during class anymore, and you were grateful. You could finally focus on bringing your grades back up, but you couldn't shake the feeling that he was plotting against you the entire time. After class, he would hang out in the library or, if you had a long day, the gym before returning to pick you up.

Later that day, Jeno was supposed to meet you after your econ class, which was your last class of the day, but you were surprised to not see him silently leaning up against the wall opposite the door. You try your best to calm your nerves as you try to decide if you should wait for him or not. You tried not to freak out; he was probably fine. Maybe he thought you could handle walking yourself home for once; you couldn't expect him to be there all the time. Not to mention you hadn't run into Yuta anywhere other than class.

Your last class ends late, and the sun has already gone down, so you were really reluctant to leave without Jeno. You try your best to channel the old you, the one that ran with bad crowds, the one who feared no one and nothing, and the newer you, who had trained with Jeno and learned how to protect yourself. You put on your best face and begin trekking home.

As you walked, you realized It wasn't so bad; you had honestly forgotten how nice it felt to just walk around by yourself and clear your head. You were enjoying your walk home, and you were about two blocks from your dorm when you felt something in the air shift. Suddenly, you didn't feel so alone. You try to pick up your pace as subtly as possible and pull your phone from your bag. You dial Jeno’s number with quickness and wait for him to pick it up. You can feel the person behind you’s steps quicken.

Come on, please

You beg internally as you break out into a small jog. Screw being subtle; someone was clearly following you. You didn’t dare chance a look over your shoulder as you cut across a lawn; his phone went to voicemail, and you dialed again. The person behind you is right on your heels and you drop your phone as a firm hand grabs your arm. Your first reflex is to scream, but you remember Jenos teachings: you jab your elbow as hard as you can into the attacker's ribs. Your about to break his grip when you hear a familiar groan. You turn around to look at your attacker, and you notice its just Jeno.

He's looking at you with a worried expression, like he didn't just chase you for a full block.

“What are you doing!?”

“I was trying to catch up to you!” He lets you go and holds his ribs, groaning in pain.

“Why didn't you pick up weirdo? I thought someone was going to get me!”

“I was running late and left my phone at home; I thought you would at least wait for me,” he states

You calm your nerves and sign in relief. You shake off your backpack and shove it into his chest.

“Dont be late again; what if something had happened”

“You know I would never let anything happen to you, right?” His eyebrows furrow, and he looks into your eyes. He needs you to know that he would throw down everything to make sure you were okay.

“I know that” Your heart skips a beat, and he grabs your hand reassuringly. You were grateful for the night sky because you could feel your face heating up.

"Good,”

You finally arrive at your off-campus dorm and make your way inside. Your roommate didn't seem to be home yet; typically, she came home late because she had to work late at her job so you were grateful for the time you had alone with jeno.

It isn't until he sets your things down and you flick on a few lights that you see a few bruises and cuts on his face. It was not surprising to see Jeno bruised up, given his fighting background, but these appeared to be from a recent fight. When he notices your gaze, he turns to hide his face and begins unpacking your bag and arranging your study materials.

Jeno had insisted a few days ago that he stick around a little after he drops you off. He insisted it was for your protection so you guys started studying together. Well, you started studying; Jeno just watched you or took a nap next to you on the sofa.

“We should start soon; it's getting late,” he says, trying to redirect your attention.

You refuse to let it go though and move in closer to get a better look. “Who did this?” you say as you gently caress his face, moving it around to examine the damage

“I had a match the other—”

“Don't lie to me,” you urge

“He sent some guys after me,” jeno confesses

Your heart drops. This is exactly why you didn’t want him to get involved. Its like he can read your thoughts because he immediately tries to ease your worry.

“Calm down; this is nothing. You know me, I can hold my own,” he says

You didn't respond.

“I took care of them; you dont have to worry”

You stare at him incredulously “Is that why you were late today?”

"Maybe,” he winces

“Jeno!” you scold. “Was Yuta there?”

“I tried to look for him after, but apparently he had an away game tonight,” he answers.

“Let me clean you up”

Jeno wasn't that much taller than you, probably just a few inches, but you found it easier to work on the cuts on his face by sitting on the counter. You already had your materials prepped; you kept a first aid kit on hand at all times; it was a habit you couldn't shake. This wasn't the first time you found yourself in this position with Jeno; you had always cleaned him and your brother up during childhood. You felt terrible; you worked in a silence that Jeno kept trying to break. Anytime he would open his mouth to speak, you would dab at his lip with more ointment to shut him up until he got the memo. He kept trying to cheer you up and you werent in the mood

He winces at your touch, and you immediately let up and give a short apology. You go back in with a lighter hand and add a bandage. As many punches as he takes, you would think a little peroxide wouldn't hurt. You were done fixing him up, and you busy yourself with putting your kit back together, ignoring the eyes that bore into you. You wanted to leave and put some distance between you but he wouldnt step from between your legs.

“Hey, look at me.” he calls out to you.

You could not bring yourself to look at him; each scar on his face reminded you that it was your fault that he was hurt.

“Its not your fault” its like he was reading your mind.

"Yes, it is! I shouldnt have gotten you involved! I should have just called Jaem.”

“You would rather see Jaemin beat up?” He jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

“He would have at least deserved it,” you say, rolling your eyes and thinking of all the times he tormented you growing up.

A comfortable silence falls between you two after sharing a laugh. He was so close, but you reached out like he was going to disappear. You tentatively caress his bruised cheek; he leans into your touch, and the look he gives you gives you butterflies. He looked at you like you were the most precious thing in the world.

“I like being near you; don’t push me away again”

"Jeno,” you say, shocked by his confession

“I dont want us to go back to the way things were I—

You push him away before jumping down from the counter; you don't want to hear anymore. You had a feeling you knew what he was getting at. After all this time and all the hurt, now he likes you!?

“You were the one who made it like this! Made US like this. I told you how I felt all those years ago, and you rejected me!” you argue

“What are you talking—”

“Drop it,” you demand, trying to leave the bathroom, but he stands in the doorway, blocking your path.

“What did you mean? When did I ever reject you?” Jeno tries, but you ignore his gaze until he grips your chin and forces you to look at him.

“Stop being like that and answer me.” he says.

You were tired of holding your tongue; you might as well get it over with. “Do you remember that time during highschool? When you stayed with us the whole summer?” you worry your lip. “I told you I liked you and you said I was like a sister to you,” you heave out in one big breathe

Jeno takes a moment to process your words, and he finally says, “I had no idea that was what you meant back then. I thought you hated me since I was always over. I thought the ‘I like you’ was more of an ‘I like you around’,” Jeno explains.

“Why would I hate you?” You ask in shock

“Jaemin used to always drag me around to scare off your boyfriends; I thought you might have hated me for that. You never really went out of your way to speak to me, I guess? I asked Jaemin if you hated me that same night, and he told me no. Then I ran into you in the hallway, and you suddenly told me you liked me, so I figured he told you to set things straight?”

He wasn't wrong; back then, you kept to yourself and watched from afar. You hoped you could make him come to you. You were too scared to approach him, so you did everything you could to get his attention. You got into trouble, so he and Jaemin would have to come to your rescue. You dated all those guys to make him jealous. This whole time, you thought he couldn't care less about you, but it seems the whole time he was worried you hated him.

"Well, that doesnt change the fact that you only see me like a little sister”

“I kind of did, at first. You were my best friend, little sister, and I had to see you that way. Jaemin would kill me if I didn't. But I can't, not anymore. Truthfully, I never had.” He caressed your face and pressed his forehead against yours “I'm sorry if this is all confusing for you. I know it has been for me, but can we just try something?” He holds your eye contact, and your faces are so close that you can feel his breath. He smelled so good; the minty scent of his tooth paste mixed with the natural musk of his skin was driving you crazy. You had waited for a moment like this for almost forever.

“Anything; I'll do anything with you,” you say, almost forgetting to breathe.

He pushes you back and sets you on the counter again as he leans in and caresses your lips softly with his, teasing you like he has been doing for the past few years. You cannot take it anymore; you cannot wait anymore, so you take the dive. You press your lips fervently against his, causing him to hiss slightly from the sting, but when you try to pull back to apologize, he grips the back of your neck and reconnects your lips again. He moans into your mouth as you lick the cut on his lip, which will undoubtedly scar apologetically. You try to kiss him more gently but when he feels your hesitance, he pulls away just for a second to whisper, “don’t hold back”

Your hands find their way into his hair and his find their way under your thighs, hiking them up and around his waist. Things were getting heated fast, and you could hardly breathe. Everything you ever wanted was coming to fruition right in front of your eyes. When he finally pulls away to catch his breath, he does not waste any time kissing your neck. The force of his kisses makes you weak, and you have to lean against the mirror behind you to stay upright.

You could hardly keep up; your limbs felt like they weighed a ton, and you could hardly hold your head up. The way he was rolling his hips into yours made your breath start to make condensation on the mirror as you laid your face on the cool glass. Jeno eventually found your lips again after his short exploration and claimed them hungrily.

“What's gotten into my baby? You can't handle it?” he teases

This was the first time he’s called you that, and it was driving your heart beat up dangerously.

“Don't worry, I'll take care of you, like I always do,” he murmurs against your lips before leaving you with a peck.

He pulls you off the counter as he leads you to your bed. You were in a daze; your brain was running hot, and you couldn't even think of anything but the feeling of his hands caressing your sides from under your shirt.

“Tell me you want it” Your eyes flutter a bit at his tone. He sounded so good. You needed him inside of you; that was the only thing you could think of.

“I need you inside,” you moan with a roll of your hips

“Gotta get you ready for that first,” he says as he begins to strip you of your clothes before he follows with his own.

You definitely had brain fog but the sight infront of you cleared it up. He looked so good, you had to bite your tongue before you let out an embarrassing sound. His broad shoulders and slim waist hovered over you tauntingly, like his body was begging you to mark it. His length stood proud against his abdomen, and you had to will yourself to meet his dark graze again. When he licks his lips, you pout and give him a "hurry up" look.

He wastes no time and starts stretching you out over his fingers. You return every kiss and nip he gave you earlier and more. You mark up his neck with kisses and bites and leave pretty claw marks down his back and chest as he works his fingers in and out of you skillfully. He had to bite back the groans that threatened to leave his mouth as you gushed all over his fingers. He couldnt wait to feel you around his cock. You feel yourself getting so close. You roll your hips as he scissors you open. He senses how close you are and hooks his fingers as they drag deliciously against your walls. You finish all over his fingers.

“You must have been so pent-up, baby; that didn't take long at all?” he coos teasingly

You shoot him a glare and retaliate by wrapping your legs around his waist, locking him into place. You grab his length and stroke it. You give him a few sensual pumps before you crack. You wanted to tease him like he's been torturing you, but you couldn't keep waiting; you needed him inside so you slipped him in. He chuckles softly at your failed attempt to get back at him and pecks your lips affectionately. You shudder at the feeling, and your walls are squeezing him so tight that the soft patterns he was drawing on your skin turn into harsh grasps of your hips while his soft chuckling turns into a surprised gasp. He moans softly as he tries to ground himself.

“You want it bad, huh?” he tries to get you to beg but it comes out more whiney than domineering

“No more waiting; if you wont do anything, I'll do it myself,” you threaten.

He finds your threat cute and has decided to take mercy on you. He strokes slowly at first, making sure you’re not hurting or uncomfortable. You loved this man, and you loved how much he cared for you, but right now you didn't want that. Despite his constant nagging, he has always been nothing but gentle with you for as long as you can remember. You don't want that side of him. You want it rough.

“Dont hold back,” you mirror his words from earlier “you wont break me,” you reassure him when you see worry settle into his features

“What if I do?”

“I want you to,” you whisper back

That seems to do the trick because now he was hoisting your hips up, tilting them to fuck into you as deep as he could. Your lower half is lifted from the mattress and all you can do is hold on to the sheets. He was thrusting in deep, craving as much contact as possible.

You try to match his pace and fuck back on him, but you grow tired and just settle for taking everything he gives you.

He sets your hips back down before yanking one of your legs over his shoulder. He starts back up again, and you can see the way his veins strain against his arms at the force he's using to fuck you. You were sure to have pretty bruises in the shape of his hands in the morning. The bed creaked loudly as he pounded you into the mattress, and you prayed that Ryujin wasn’t home yet.

It was like he couldn't keep his hands off of you; they were never still on your body. First they were grasping your hips, holding you steady as he drilled you, then they were grasping at your breasts, and finally one of them took a purchase wrapped around the base of your neck. He wasn’t applying much pressure; he was just holding it there.

Your walls flutter around his cock and hw tightens his grip around your neck at the feeling. He can tell you’re about to cum and when you do, he has to hold you down with his other hand. The lack of air triggers your survival responses and heightened senses, making you feel everything tenfold. The burn against your throat hurts, but the pain mixes with the pleasure to give you a beautiful ending. You can tell by the sticky warmth that fills you and the groan that follows that Jeno wasn't far behind at all. He rolls off of you and plops down on the space beside you to catch his breath. You pull yourself up and start to get out of bed before he grabs your arm.

“Where are you going?” He asks as hurt crosses his features.

“I need the bathroom,” you explain, sleepy “This is my house anyway; you thought I was going to leave?” You joke with a laugh

Jeno visibly relaxes for a second before he too gets out of bed. He makes his way over to you and helps you to the bathroom. You go to the bathroom, and he runs a bath, and you realize how much more domestic your relationship has become in the last few weeks, to the point where it feels natural.

He helps you into the bath and slips in behind. You two talk more in the bath as he pampers you. You have never felt more at home than when you were wrapped in Jeno’s arms. When you get out, he lays you back on the bed before cuddling up beside you. You study his face, and for the first time in awhile, you take a good, long look. If you looked close enough, you could still see traces of the boy you knew all those years ago under the man that stared back at you. For some reason, that made everything hurt. You knew Jeno would do anything to protect you, but who would protect him? With Jaemin gone, all he had was you. You shut your eyes at the thought.

You don't know what your thinking; you just knew you had to be strong and that you were going to put an end to this tonight. You didn’t have his number anymore, but you always knew where to find him.

It was getting late, and instead of heading to the gym for your weekly training with Jeno, you were on the other side of town. You hug your jacket tighter to your chest, bracing yourself against the cold winds of the night. When you turn a corner, the flashing neon lights almost blind you.

찬스노래방

Chance Karoake

You open the door to the front of the building and make your way in. You put on your brave face before trekking over to the back of the shady building. Room 0824 was your destination.

This was the building Yuta ran most of his deals out of. Karaoke rooms are a known hotspot for drug deals and other illegal trades. It was rare to see Yuta here now due to the fact that he had to keep his image clean but you knew his schedule and you knew when he would pop in. Dont get him wrong; yuta wasnt some big-shot crime boss, he was just some kid who dealt in shady business.

You knock on the door and wait. When the door swings open, a cloud of smoke hits you in the face. The room stinks of weed and disposables, the smoke burning your eyes as you try to focus on the figure in front of you.

Cheshire grin meets an apprehensive frown as you stand face-to-face with Yuta.

“Welcome home, doll”

You feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins at the man standing in front of you, the source of so much trouble in your life. The atmosphere is tense, filled with the lingering smell of drugs and the weight of unspoken threats. You knew this was your chance to finally confront him and put an end to this dangerous game you've been forced to play. With a steely glance, you lock eyes with Yuta and prepare yourself for the confrontation that will determine the course of your future.

“Don't call me that” You push past him and enter the room. There is plenty of sitting room on the couch, but you’re too anxious, so you decide to stand. A few of his friends occupy the room, and he doesn't have to tell them twice to leave the two of you alone.

Even after all this time and all your history together, you cannot bring yourself to look him in the eyes. Jeno was right; he terrified you. You could pretend to be brave all you wanted, but the truth was, you were just a scared little girl inside.

“Don't push me, doll,” he warns before wrapping slender fingers around your jaw and forcing you to look at him. “Where's your little boyfriend? Not here to save you?” he taunts

“I want you to leave him alone,” you grit out. You had to be brave.

“You think you can just walk in here and give me orders? You forget who you belong to?” He shakes your face in his grasp.

You rip his hand from your face and twist. No, you would not let him control you any longer. This had all gone too far. Despite feeling intimidated, you refuse to submit to his control any longer.

All you could think about was Jeno; you couldn't let him get hurt anymore because of you. You loved him more than you feared Yuta. You refuse to let him own you.

With the grasp that you have on his arm, you twist his wrist farther until hes crippling down onto his knees. As he winced in agony, you could see the fear etched on his face. With a steely resolve, you pressed harder. His cries echoed in the empty room as you held him in place, making sure he felt every ounce of pain he had caused. Your grip tightened, a silent promise that this would be the last time he hurt anyone.

“If you want to continue playing and keep your scholarship, I suggest you leave me the hell alone. Next time you harass me, I'll break it,” you spit.

With a final, warning glare, you released your grip on his wrist. His body crumpled to the floor, gasping for breath as he clutched his throbbing wrist. You had made it clear that harassment would not be tolerated, and the threat of losing his scholarship hung heavy in the air.

The weight that had been dragging you down for so long began to lift, replaced by a newfound sense of confidence and self-worth. With your head held high, you strode forward. Although you know for certain that Jeno would kill you if he ever found out, you think deep down he would be proud; after all, he created this monster.

When you get home, Ryujin’s on your ass for being out so late. When she had called Jeno and he hadn't seen you either, she thought the worst had happened. You check your phone and find 10 missed calls and even more frantic text messages from Jeno.

You apologize for causing worry to Ryujin and explain that you lost track of time while out. You decide to quickly call Jeno back to assure him your okay.

You wait as the phone rings, but there is no answer. You call again, and he still doesn't pick up. Something didn't feel right, and you grabbed your keys, rushing out of the house.

“You just got here; where are you going?” a stern Ryujin calls.

“Gotta find Jeno!” you call back before hopping back into your car.

For as long as you’ve known him, you knew Jeno could be a hothead sometimes. You knew the moment he heard you were missing, he went out himself to go looking for you. You drove to his house to find him. When you pull into his driveway, it's empty. You park and rush up the stairs to his apartment. You bang on the door until someone answers. You almost sigh in relief until you realize its not Jeno. The person on the other side of the door looked clearly aggravated. His black hair was messily strewn on his head, and his shirt hung off his frame like he just threw it on.

“Can I help you? A raspy voice calls

“Uh, im looking for Jeno,” you ask the man

“He left like an hour ago,” he yawns lazily, leaning against the door frame like he could barely stay awake. “Its almost one in the morning. Whats going on?”

“Its nothing; can you call me if he shows back up” you ask frantically. If Jeno had left an hour ago, who knows where he could be now? You give him your number, and he tells you his name is Mark. You thank him and rush back to your car. Your about to pull out when your phone lights up. Jeno was calling you back.

“Hello? Jeno where have you been?” You feel a weight lift off your shoulder as you take your keys out of the ignition and slump back into your seat.

“”I found Yuta”

“Jeno…What did you do to him?”

“I beat his ass,” he says, “and then I made him tell me where you were”

“Jen—”

“Why did you think it was a good idea to go and threaten him on your own?”

“I had too. I had to do it for me”

“Where are you”

“At your apartment”

“Stay there”

You get out of your car and lean up against the hood, and you wait to see his car roll down the street.

You breathe in the cold, crisp night air and let it soothe your nerves. You did not want to argue with Jeno, not right now. Headlights blind you as a car pulls up behind yours. You hear the engine cut off and the car door slam. As Jeno quickly approaches, you prepare yourself for the confrontation. The tension hangs heavy between you, but you take a deep breath and gather your thoughts before engaging in what could be a difficult conversation.

"Jeno, can we talk about this—” You're left speechless as his lips meet yours in an unexpected kiss.

Confusion and conflicting emotions swirl within you as you reluctantly allow yourself to be swept up in the moment, momentarily forgetting all of your worries.

He pulls away and rests his forehead on yours “Don't scare me like that” His hands caress your face like he can't believe your standing in front of him, like he's making sure he's not dreaming. His frame is shaking, and you’re not sure if it was the cool night air or the light rain that chose this moment to fall, making him shiver.

He pulls you in for a tight hug, and your heart twists, your throat closes up, and you cry. You cry because you never want him to pull away; you cry because you realize how much he loves you; and you cry because you’re both safe.

“Im sorry Jen i didnt mean to—”

“No excuses,” he says, shaking his head “promise”

You hug him back tight and bury your head in his shoulder. “I promise I wont do anything like that again”

He pulls away from you and you notice hes soaked to his bones. The rain had picked up and was now pouring down over you two; you could only imagine your clothes were in the same state. You laugh and push his wet hair out of his face.

“Mark is going to kill us if we soak the carpet.”

“I think he's already upset; I woke him up earlier. Come on, lets get you out of the rain”

He leads you inside by the hand, and you kick off your wet shoes and socks. You try your best to make your way to the bathroom to change. Jeno brings you some dry clothes, and he closes the door and changes alongside you into something more warm.

You follow him to his room with light steps, afraid of waking Mark up for a second time. You lay down next to Jeno in his bed, and you tangle your feet with his seeking warmth.

“I feel like my heart starts beating again when our hands hold each other,” he whispers

“Back then, when we drifted apart, every day felt like I was drowning. Now because you are here, I'm breathing,” you confess

He hugs you tighter and kisses the top of your head “im not going anywhere”

And you believe him, because somehow you had always known he was your guardian angel. You close your eyes, feeling the warmth of his embrace and the reassurance in his words. In that moment, you know that no matter what challenges may come, you both can face them together. With his arms around you and his promise to stay by your side, you finally feel at peace, knowing that you have found your way back to each other.

#jeno smut #nct jeno smut #jeno scenarios #jeno x reader #jeno imagines #jeno #lee jeno smut #nct jeno #nct smut #nct dream smut #nct dream #nct dream x reader #nct dream images #nct dream fanfic #kpop smut

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jenoroyals · 10 months ago

Text

Cigarettes After Sex - Lee Jeno

pairing : jeno x fem!reader

synopsis : Starting your first year of college in a different country was exciting to you. Everything fell into place - your roommate, your friends, and even your apartment. The only thing that didn’t was Lee Jeno - your roommate’s boyfriend’s best friend.

word count : 17.7K words

content/warnings : college au!, fluff, angst, strangers to lovers?, one bed trope, smoking usage, heavy drinking usage, cursing, cheating (not jeno or mc), perv!jeno, semi sexual content, etc.

featuring : yunjin (lesaraffim), mina (former gugudan), jaemin (nct), mark (nct), haechan (nct), renjun (nct), chenle (nct), jisung (nct), giselle (aespa), & shotaro (riize).

During your childhood you dreamed of growing up, being on your own and going out was all you’ve ever wanted. Hearing stories from your older relatives about how wild they were in college just made it more severe.

“Yn? What college are you thinking about?” Your older sister asks.

You think for a moment before replying. “Well, I was thinking of Seoul National University.” You say and she furrows her brows.

“Well, that’s far from home.” She says, staring at you.

“I know but they have a great nursing program.” You defend while looking at her.

“Schools around here have great nursing programs too.” Your sister argues and you shake your head.

“Not like the one over there.” You say and she sighs defeatedly.

“Can you even speak the language?" Your sister asks and you nod your head.

“Yes, I took classes all throughout high school. I’m basically fluent.” You say and she scoffs lightly.

“Nerd.” She says and you slap her arm. “Hey!” She laughs and looks at you before getting serious again.

“Have you talked to mom and dad?” She asks and you shake your head no.

“I’m pretty sure they won’t mind.” You say and look at her before getting up. “I might not even get accepted. I’m still thinking about what colleges to apply to.”

“Well, as your older sister, I don’t want you to go that far. But, I know that you’ve always taken your education seriously, so if that's where you want to go, then you should apply.” Your sister says and you snort.

“I was going to anyway.” You say with a roll of your eyes, jokingly.

She pushes your shoulder and mumbles “Whatever.” before walking out of your room with a laugh.

You walk over to your computer and start looking at the application to SNU. Sighing, you click on the application and start typing in your information. “Let’s hope.”

You smile thinking about that memory while packing your bags. Tomorrow, you’ll leave your hometown and go to South Korea.

“Are you excited?” Your mom asks while zipping up one of your luggages.

“Yeah I am.” You say and she smiles while looking at you.

“Is your roommate nice?” She asks and you nod with a smile.

“Yeah, we’ve been talking a lot lately. She seems nice.” You say and your mom asks for her name.

“Yunjin. She was born in Korea but moved to New York when she was little.”

You were online looking at the dorms, hoping to find a suitable roommate when an ad listing popped up. Curiously, you clicked on it and found a girl named Yunjin who was looking for a roommate to help pay for her apartment. She looked nice and the apartment was close to the university.

Hesitantly, you clicked on the apply button and started reading the conditions before applying. You were sure that you could pay for half of the rent with your card. Your parents were both brand owners so money wasn’t an issue.

The next day, you received an email saying that she would be glad to have you as a roommate and that's when a new friendship formed.

Your mom nods her head and starts running her hands through your hair. “I’m gonna miss you.” She says and sniffles which causes you to turn around.

“Mom, don’t cry. I’ll be okay, I promise.” You say to her and hug her.

“I know you will, I’m just gonna miss my baby.” She says and you coo at her.

“I’m okay.” You mom says and pulls away while wiping her eyes.

“Now finish packing up. I’m going to start preparing dinner.” She says and walks out of your room.

You sigh and grab your phone, looking at the messages you received.

facetime? - yunjin

You quickly type a response before you get an incoming call from her. “Hello?” You ask while placing your phone on your vanity.

“Hi! I’m so excited to move in and finally meet you in person.” She says and you laugh while packing away your accessories.

“Me too! I can’t believe we’re finally going to meet tomorrow.” You say and look at her through your phone.

“Are you still packing, girl?” She asks and laughs.

“Just last minute things.” You say and she nods her head.

“What time does your flight land?” She asks and you quickly look at your boarding pass.

“I should be landing at 5pm. You’re picking me up right?” You ask her and she nods. “Yes I am.”

The two of you stayed on the phone until it was time for you to go eat dinner. After dinner you showered and laid down on your bed. You couldn’t sleep due to the excitement and nerves. You were going to be far away from home, your family, everything you’ve ever known.

It was like you were finally starting your life, this was all that you dreamed of while growing up. Now that it’s finally happening, you couldn’t help but be nervous. You don’t even remember falling asleep but somehow you get woken up by your alarm.

Your flight was at 5am and you had to be there about an hour early. You woke up at around 3am and walked into your bathroom. You brushed your teeth and hair, trying to make yourself look comfy but somewhat presentable since you were going to be on a flight for 12 hours.

After getting ready and grabbing your bags, you brought them downstairs where your parents were already preparing snacks and food for your flight.

“Are you ready, sweetie?” Your dad asks and hands you the bag of food and snacks.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He nods and hugs you, squeezing you tightly.

“My baby girl is leaving the nest.” He says and you laugh.

“I’ll be back dad. I’m not leaving forever.” You say and he laughs along with your mom.

“Okay, we should start leaving. It’s already 3:45.” Your mom says and starts grabbing your luggage.

You follow her out into the car with 2 suitcases in your hands, along with the bag full of food. After putting everything into the car, the three of you get inside the car and drive to the airport.

Your parents followed you all the way through the airport until they couldn’t anymore. You turned to face them and hugged them tightly.

“I’m going to miss you guys.” You say and they both sniffle, trying hard not to cry.

“Be safe please.” You mom says and you nod your head.

“I will, I promise.”

“Flight 423 to Seoul will now be boarding.” Was heard over the intercom.

“I love you guys.” You say to them and hug them tight once again before turning around.

You wave goodbye to them before you can’t see their figures anymore. Pushing your glasses up, you make your way into the first class section of the plane. Setting your bag down, you quickly take your glasses off and look out the window.

Another 20 minutes went by before the plane started to take off. You watch out the window as the city lights start becoming smaller and smaller.

Goodbye home.

After a 12 hour flight, you finally landed in Korea. Grabbing your bags from the baggage claim, you walked out into the front of the airport, hoping to see Yunjin.

“Yn!” You hear your name being called and turn to where the voice came from.

You let out a squeal and run towards Yunjin. She wraps her arms around you and laughs.

“You’re finally here!” She says and you nod your head before pulling away.

“The air feels different.” You joke and she laughs.

“You haven’t even stepped outside yet.”

“I know but it just does.” You say and she laughs before helping you with your suitcases. The two of you walk out of the airport and to her car.

As you’re looking out the car window, you see different types of scenery. Buildings, people, trees, rivers, and bicyclists.

“Oh wow, the college looks huge.” You say and she laughs.

“I’m so not excited for school.” She says and you nod your head.

“Me too. Thank god we have two weeks before we have to start attending classes.” You say and the both of you continue to talk until she parks inside the apartment parking garage.

She popped the trunk open so you could get your luggages out. She helped you with them before the both of you walked towards the apartment building. There were two different apartment buildings.

“Okay, so we are in the building on the left on the fourth floor.” She says.

You follow her and get into an elevator. The elevator arrives on the fourth floor and you guys walk down the hall.

“124...125…126…and 127.” She says to herself and turns to you.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, I’m dying to just lay down for a bit.” You say and she laughs before unlocking the door.

The walls were white with pictures and decorations adorning them. She had black leather couches surrounding a glass coffee table.

“You can put your stuff in here.” She says and leads you to a room. There was a queen sized bed with black bedding.

“I hope you like it. I wasn't sure how to decorate it.” She says and you shake your head.

“It’s perfect.” You say and she nods her head.

“What time are we going to dinner?” You ask her, starting to unpack.

“At 6, and I hope you don’t mind but I invited my boyfriend and some of our friends.” She says and you shake your head again.

“Not at all. I’m excited to make new friends.” You say and unzip another suitcase.

“What’s his name?” You ask while she helps unbag your skincare and makeup onto the vanity table.

“Jaemin.” She answers and looks at you.

“You know, his friends are also super cute.”

“Yunjin don’t.” You say jokingly and she laughs.

“What? I’m just saying. You said that you’ve never dated before. Why not try new experiences? I mean, that’s what you’re here for right?” She asks and you sigh before looking at her.

“Well yeah but-”

“But, nothing. Come on, you’re in a foreign country, you’re sweet, and you’re hot. You could probably get anyone you want.” She says, walking closer to you.

“Let’s just see how this goes.” You say and she smiles while clapping her hands.

After unpacking, you showered and started getting ready for dinner. After applying makeup and doing your hair, you looked through the drawers for clothes. You decided on a pair of low rise jeans with a baby pink cropped tank top.

After getting ready you grabbed your phone to look at the time but the doorbell rang. Confused, you walked out of your room and knocked on Yunjin’s bedroom door.

“Ynn, it’s my boyfriend and our friends. Can you let them in?” She yells from the other side of the door.

You yell back a yes and walk to the front door to open it. Three guys all dressed differently looked back at you in a confused manner.

“Are you sure this is the right one, dude?” The guy in a plain white long sleeve asks.

“Yes I’m sure. Hi, you must be the new roommate.” The guy in the middle asks.

“Yeah, I’m Yn. Nice to meet you. Please, come in.” You open the door wider for them to enter.

“Yunjin’s in the room.” You tell him and he nods before walking into her room.

Feeling awkward, you gesture for the other two boys to sit in the living room. They both walked over to the couch and sat down.

“Hello, I’m Mark. It's nice to meet you.” The guy who spoke earlier says and smiles at you.

He holds his hand out as a gesture for you to shake it. You grab his hand and smile back at him. “Yn.”

“I’m Jeno.” The other one says.

You quickly look at him and observe him. He was dressed in black ripped jeans with a plain white tee and a black leather jacket.

He was oozing with charisma, from the way he talked to the way he dressed. He had rings adorned on his fingers, paired with silver metal bracelets and multiple necklaces around his neck. You almost felt intimidated by him until he flashed a bright smile at you. His eyes formed into cute little crescents of the moon.

“Nice to meet you.” You say and walk away to grab your shoes. You grab your pink dunks and walk over to the couch to put your shoes on but before you could, Mark speaks up.

“Where’s the bathroom?” He asks and you direct him to it before continuing to put on your shoes.

As you bent down to slip your foot in, Jeno noticed how he could see your cleavage poking through the opening of your tank top. He smirks and licks his lips before looking back at his phone. After putting your shoes on you sat there in silence.

“Nice shoes.” He says and you look at him.

“Thank you.” You look down to his shoes to compliment him as well when you notice he’s wearing the same shoes as you just in black.

“You too.” You shyly say and he chuckles softly.

Jaemin and Yunjin finally walk back into the living room.

“Is everyone here?” She asks and Jamein shakes his head.

“We’re waiting for Mina.” Jaemin says and your eyebrows furrow.

“Who’s Mina?” You ask and Yunjin walks over to come sit next to you.

“Mark’s girlfriend. She lives further away from campus.” Yunjin says and you nod your head. Just then, Mark walks out and sits back down where he was sitting previously.

The atmosphere was a little awkward and you felt yourself curl up into a ball. You could feel Jeno’s eyes on you but you choose to ignore it, looking at anywhere but him. Finally, the doorbell rings signaling Mina’s arrival. Mark goes to open the door and greets her with a kiss.

“Okay, let’s go.” Yunjin says and walks to Jaemin, intertwining their hands. You’re the last one out of the door and you turn around to lock the door humming to yourself.

You turn back around and see Jeno waiting for you as the rest of them start walking to the parking garage.

“You didn’t have to wait for me.” You joke and he laughs.

“It’s okay, I didn’t want to really be with the couples anyway.” He says and you laugh, the two of you trailing behind the rest of the group.

Mark and Mina walk towards her car and you follow the rest of them into what you assume to be Jeno’s car since Jaemin was getting in the back seat. You turn to look at Yunjin who wiggles her eyebrows at you teasingly. You jokingly roll your eyes and get into the passenger seat.

“The usual?” Jeno asks and Yunjin nods her head.

He waits a moment for his phone to connect to the car before pulling out of the parking garage and heading to the restaurant. The music started to play and you recognized the song.

Apocalypse - Cigarettes After Sex

“I love this song.” You say out loud, hoping to make conversation.

“Yeah?” He asks and looks over at you quickly.

“Yeah, I love Cigarettes After Sex.” You say and softly laugh.

“What’s your favorite song?” You ask and turn to look at him with a smile.

“Probably ‘K.’ What about you?” He replies and you stop and think for a moment.

“It’s hard to say because I love all of their songs but I’ve been listening to ‘Sunsetz’ a lot recently.” You say and start playing with your fingers.

The conversation dies again but this time it’s not an awkward silence, it’s a comfortable one. A while later, you guys finally reach the restaurant and Jeno parks the car. The four of you get out of the car and meet up with Mark and Mina who were inside the restaurant already.

The six of you sit down at the table and start looking at the menu. It was a Korean Barbeque place. You were at the end of the table, closest to the wall with Yunjin on your left and across from her was Jaemin. Mark and Mina took up the remaining seats.

You look at the menu, debating on what you should get.

“The spicy pork belly is pretty good.” Jeno says across from you. You look up at him and smile.

“Yeah I was thinking about getting that.” You say and he smiles before looking back down at the menu.

“So, Yn. What are you majoring in?” Mina asks you before taking a sip of her water.

“Oh I’m majoring in nursing right now.”

“Oh, no way! Me too!.” Jaemin says and holds out his hand for a high five. You shyly high five him and the conversation continues.

Mark and Mina were both in their second year of college. Mark wanted to become a music producer and his girlfriend wanted to become a veterinarian. Yunjin and Jaemin were in the same year as you and like yourself, Jaemin wanted to become a nurse. You knew that Yunjin wanted to be a lawyer from previous conversations.

Jeno kept quiet most of the time, letting his friends talk before he did. After Jaemin finished speaking you turned to Jeno with questioning eyes.

“What about you?” You ask him and he softly smiles.

“I want to be a car designer.” He sheepishly says and you nod your head.

“That’s cool! I think you’d be good at it.” You say and he laughs.

“How do you know?” He asks teasingly and you look back at him.

“Your car! You added on all of the modifications right?” You say and he nods his head.

The four friends look at each other with knowing smiles before looking back at you and Jeno.

Before you know it, the food arrived. Jeno grabbed a piece of the spicy pork belly and placed it into your bowl of rice.

“Thank you.” You sheepishly say before eating it.

Everyone was so focused on eating that there was almost no conversation. Small conversations here and there but not too long lasting.

After 3 rounds of meat, everyone was stuffed. You wanted to treat everyone since they made you feel so welcomed but Jaemin beat you to it. He slid his card into the tab and gave it back to the server. You pouted a bit and Jeno noticed.

The way your cheeks filled up with air and your lips curled into each other, pressing against each other. He softly laughed and looked away.

“You guys want to drink tonight?” Mark suggests and everyone agrees.

“Yn and I can go grab alcohol and meet you guys back at the apartment.” Jeno says and everyone agrees with the plans.

You softly smile at the thought of spending time alone with him. You walk to his car and get in the passenger seat while waving bye to everyone else. Jeno starts up the car and the music starts playing.

Sunsetz - Cigarettes After Sex

You smile at the familiar instrumental intro of the song. You look over at him and he already has a smile forming on his face.

“Do you want to play 21 questions? We can get to know each other that way.” He asks and you nod your head yes.

“So, what made you come to Korea?” He asks you when the car gets to a red light.

“They have a good nursing program. One of the best in the whole world.” He nods his head at your answer.

You think for a moment before a question pops up in your head.

“How did you meet Jaemin?” You ask him and he softly laughs at your question.

“We were deskmates in middle school. I met him when I was 14.” He says and you smile at the thought of a younger Jeno.

The rest of the car ride was filled with questions bouncing back and forth between the two of you. Walking into the convenience store, you ask him a question.

“What’s your favorite color?” You ask and he laughs loudly at it.

“That’s what you’re asking?” He asks and laughs again when you nod your head.

The both of you walk over to the section with the soju bottles and he grabs a case that has 12 bottles in it.

“Blue.” He answers while walking to the register.

He started pulling out his wallet but you were faster. You tapped your card and when Jeno hears the noise the machine makes he looks up.

“My treat.” You say and he sighs softly.

“You didn’t have to.” He says and you shake your head.

“Your turn.” You say to him, gesturing for him to ask a question. Before he can ask you a question his name gets called.

You turn to look at the girl who called his name. She was gorgeous. Her hair was in all the right places, her makeup looked flawless, and her outfit looked like it was chosen by a stylist. Feeling insecure you wrap your arms around your body and avert your eyes.

“Jeno? That is you!” The girl exclaims and runs over to bring him into a hug.

Jeno keeps his arms down by his sides, not reciprocating the hug back. She pulls away from his embrace and pouts at him.

“What? You don’t even want to hug me?” She asks, batting her eyes at him but he keeps a stoic poker face.

“What are you doing here Giselle? I thought you were in Japan.” He says calmly and she turns her head to look at you. Ignoring his question she walks up to you.

“Hi, I’m Giselle. Jeno’s girlfriend.” She says and your eyes widen a bit.

She holds her hand out for you to take but before you could Jeno steps in front of you and blocks you from her vision, his taller frame towering over her.

“Ex. Girlfriend.” He clarifies and she rolls her eyes.

“Same thing. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” She says with a smile that looked all too fake.

He sighs and turns to look at you before grabbing your hand in his.

“She doesn’t need to be introduced to you.” He says bitterly.

His left hand wrapping around yours while holding the case of soju bottles in his other hand. He glares at the girl in front of you guys before dragging you out of the convenience store.

He pops open his trunk and lets go of your hand to place the case of alcohol in there. You awkwardly observe him let out a sigh before walking to the passenger door. He gets in the driver's seat and turns the car on.

You look at him and frown when you see his eyebrows furrowed with his eyes closed. Hesitantly, you poke at his eyebrows and his eyes open in shock.

“It’s not good to furrow your eyebrows for a long time.” You say and smile at him.

He softly smiles at you while looking into your eyes. Seeing him up close like this made you realize just how attractive he is. His strong and arched brows, his mole under his eye, his perfect nose, his full lips, even his chiseled jaw. Realizing what you’re doing, you quickly turn away from him and look straight out the window of the car and he softly laughs.

“I’m sorry.” He says and you frown before looking at him.

“Why are you apologizing?” You ask and he sighs again.

“Giselle.” He says, pointing out the elephant in the room. You nod your head and look at him furrowing his eyebrows again.

“We uh… we broke up last year. We dated for about two years before she had to move to Japan. Her dad got a job transfer over there and so her whole family moved. We tried to do long distance and it was going well, until I found out that she cheated on me.” He says and closes his eyes again.

You pout again and look at the man in front of you. How could anyone ever cheat on him? He was so damn perfect. Sure, you only met him today but you knew how genuine he was.

“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.” You say and he softly chuckles.

You quickly look down for a second, trying to focus your attention on your hands in your lap. You slightly jump at the feeling of his hands under your chin. He grabs your chin in between his thumb and pointer finger, your eyebrows furrow feeling the coldness of his rings directly on your skin.

He tilts your face up to look back into his eyes and smirks. You slowly swallow the saliva in your mouth and look into his brown eyes.

“Don’t apologize, you did nothing wrong.” He says and you slowly nod your head.

He lets go of your chin and you sit further back into your seat. He laughs at your action and puts his car in reverse, heading back to your shared apartment with Yunjin.

“Finally!” You hear Yunjin say as you open the door.

“Sorry, we had to drive to the one further away because the other one didn’t have any soju in stock.” Jeno lies easily through his teeth.

You furrow at his words before plastering a smile onto your face. “Yeah, the detour was like 20 minutes.” You say, hoping that it made the lie more believable.

Jeno smiles at you, backing him up before placing the case of soju on the counter. He opens up the box and pulls out 3 bottles from it. You walk over to help him put the rest in the fridge and he grabs your hand. You gasp softly and look up at him.

“Thanks.” He says and you nod your head, knowing what he was referring to.

Jaemin had suggested a game of ‘Truth or Drink’ so the six of you were sat around the coffee table . Everyone agreed to let loose and be completely honest, no matter how raw the questions were and if they didn’t want to answer it, they could just take a shot of soju.

“Okay, Yn.” Jaemin starts off and you look at him.

“What was your first kiss like?” He finishes and everyone looks at you, waiting for you to answer.

“Hm, my first kiss.” You repeat and cringe thinking about it.

“It was gross. He kept trying to push his tongue in my mouth.” You say and everyone laughs at the thought of it.

“Okay, Mina. What’s the worst pick up line you’ve ever heard and who said it?” You ask with a smile and she laughs at the question. She looks over to her boyfriend who gasps offendedly.

“The worst pick up line I’ve ever heard was at the club.” She says and Mark groans upon hearing that causing the group to laugh.

“Mark came up to me and said ‘Hey, you owe me a drink. Because when I saw you, I dropped mine.”

Mark screams and cringes as the words leave his girlfriend’s lips. The group laughs and starts teasing him.

“I would’ve thrown my drink at you if you said that to me.” Jeno says and laughs when Mark flips him off.

As the night went on, half the soju case was almost gone. You could feel the alcohol getting to you, your eyesight was starting to blur a bit. The game continues and it was mark’s turn to ask.

“Have you and Yunjin ever got caught doing ‘it’ by someone?”

“Plenty of times.” Jaemin answered quickly with no thought.

Yunjin, feeling embarrassed, hides her face in her hands.

“Oh my god Yunjin, you said you were innocent!” You exclaim and hit her shoulder lightly.

“She’s not innocent at all, one time she wan-mphh” She covers her boyfriend’s mouth before he can embarrass her even more.

She removes her hand from his mouth and he laughs before scanning the room. He looks at everyone before stopping on his best friend.

“Okay, Jeno. Are you completely over what happened last year?” He asks his best friend who tenses up at the question but then relaxes again.

The smile that was once on his face disappears and he clears his throat.

“Um yeah, I would say I am.” Everyone nods their head at his answer and he looks over at you with a smirk.

“Oh no.” You say with a sigh playfully. He just laughs at your reaction and smiles even more.

“You’ve been asking me questions all night, aren’t you curious about anyone else?” You ask jokingly and he shakes his head.

“Nope. Just you, princess.” You cheeks flush at his use of a pet name and you look at him with wide eyes. He chuckles and playfully pinches your cheek.

“What’s the kinkiest thing you like to do during sex?” He asks and your cheek flushes even more.

It’s not like you’ve never had sex, you’ve had a few encounters of it. Keyword, a few. Both times however, were really vanilla so you’ve never experienced anything remotely kinky.

Clearing your throat you slowly pour the soju into your shot glass and take the shot.

“Oh come on princess.” He says and you shake your head no.

“Not telling.” You say and cough when the alcohol goes down the wrong pipe. The group laughs at your misery while Jeno pats your back, also laughing.

Not long after, everyone was slowly starting to drift off to sleep. You slowly were starting to sober up and decided to start cleaning up the mess. You grabbed the empty bottles and placed them in a trashbag.

After cleaning up, you looked around at everyone. Mark and Mina were fast asleep on the couch, cuddled up. You walked over to your bedroom and grabbed a spare blanket from the closet for them.

As you were walking out of your room, you met Jaemin and Yunjin in the hallway. “I’m guessing he’s sleeping with you?”

She nods her head and drags a drunk Jaemin into her room. You walk into the living room and drape the blanket over Mark and Mina. Jeno was fast asleep with his head on the coffee table. You walk over to him and shake him.

“Jeno? Wake up.” You say softly while shaking him awake. He mumbles incoherently before tuning his head to face you.

“Jeno, come on. Go sleep on the couch.” He shakes his head no and whines softly.

“You don’t want to sleep on the couch?” You ask softly while crouching down to him. He shakes his head again and you furrow your brows.

“Where do you wanna sleep?” You ask him and he slowly lifts his head up. He looks towards the hallway and points in your room.

You sigh softly and weigh your options. You could leave him here and have his body be sore tomorrow or you could take him to your room and let him sleep on your bed while you come back to sleep on the couch. Sighing, you grab his hand and help him up.

“Come on, let’s go to my room.” You whisper and he obliges.

He stands up, albeit a little wobbly but he manages to balance his weight, never letting go of your hand. You drag him to your room and place him on the bed. Reaching over. You take off his shoes and place them on the tile floor.

You stare at the sleeping man in front of you and sigh softly. As you go to walk away, he grabs your wrist. You stop in your tracks and turn to look at him.

“Don’t leave me, Giselle.” You hear him say and you widen your eyes.

So he was lying when he said that he was over it. You knew he wasn't with the way that he reacted inside the convenience store. You sigh again and furrow your brows before grabbing his hand that was holding onto your wrist and pull his grip away.

You stare at him again and he has a sour expression on his face. You hesitantly poke at his eyebrows to ease them before walking out of your room, leaving him in there. You walk into the bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror.

Your eyes were red and your mascara was smeared everywhere. The pink lip tint you applied is now gone due to the oil of the food. You take out a makeup wipe and start removing your makeup, all the while thinking about the man in your room.

You barely met him yet he had you wrapped around his finger. You sighed again for the hundredth time that night. After removing all of your makeup, you brushed your teeth before walking back out into the living room.

You decided to sleep on the other couch. After grabbing another blanket from the closet, you laid down and felt your eyelids getting heavy. Sleep slowly overtaking your body. You closed your eyes and let it devour you, not wanting to think about what just happened in the last 20 minutes.

You hear voices coming from next to you and open your eyes. The sun was blaring from the balcony window. Squinting your eyes, you sit up and see that everyone was up besides Jeno.

“Want some breakfast?” Jaemin asks from the kitchen and you slowly nod your head.

Your head was pounding and your mouth felt dry. Last night was the first time in a long time that you’ve drank that much. You tried to swallow some saliva to help quench your thirst but it didn’t help at all. Yunjin and Mina came over to sit next to you on the couch. MIna handed you a glass of water and you softly thanked her.

The water was cooling against your dry mouth and throat. Gulping down the water you slowly looked around.

“Where’s Jeno?” Yunjin asks you and you bring the cup down from your lips.

“He didn’t want to sleep on the couch so I took him to my room and came to sleep out here.” You answer and they nod their head.

“Food’s ready.” Jaemin says and the three of you walk over to the dining table where Mark was setting up plates.

“I’m gonna go wake up Jeno.” You say and walk towards your room.

You slowly opened the door, hoping not to wake him up. He was softly snoring and you observed him again before walking closer to him on your bed. The events of last night flash through your brain and you stop in your tracks. Deciding to not think too much, you walk up to him.

“Jeno.” You say and shake him to wake him up.

He slowly opens his eyes and blinks up at you before sitting up fastly. He looks around the room and notices that he’s in your room. You softly laugh at him and shake your head.

“Jaemin cooked breakfast, go eat.” You say and he slowly nods his head before getting up from your covers.

He grabs his shoes and walks out of your room. You sigh once he's out and lay down on your bed, not even caring that you haven’t washed them after he used it. You stare up at the ceiling for a moment before getting up to change into more comfortable clothes.

You fell asleep in your jeans last night and it was itching your legs. Locking your door, you change into a pair of gray loose sweatpants and a tight white long sleeve that was cropped. You looked for your brown fluffy slippers and put them on before walking back out into the kitchen to eat.

It’s been a few days since that day and you haven’t seen Jeno at all. You and Yunjin were watching a movie in the living room when you looked over at her and decided to ask the question you were dying to know the answer to.

“Yunjin?” You call out and she turns to look at you.

“What’s up?” She asks.

“Who did Giselle cheat on Jeno with?” You ask and she makes a confused face.

“How did you know about that?” She asks and you panic. You didn't know if you should tell her about what happened at the convenience store but you do anyway.

“When Jeno and I went to go get alcohol, she was there.” You answer and Yunjin sits up from her position.

“She was here? In Korea?” She asks for clarification and you nod your head yes.

“That bitch.” She says softly and looks away before looking back at you.

“She cheated on him with this guy named Shotaro.” She says and you slowly nod your head.

“DId he love her?” You ask again and Yunjin looks at you confusingly.

“Jeno.” You clarify and Yunjin sighs.

“Yeah, I think he did. But once she broke that trust, it was hard for him to get over it.” She explains and you stay quiet.

“Why are you asking?” She asks and you shake your head.

“I was just curious.” You say and she looks at you with squinted eyes before looking back at the tv.

You sat there in silence, thinking about the information that you just received. You grabbed your phone and looked up the name ‘Shotaro’ on instagram. It wasn’t hard to find him after all, there weren't many Shotaros in the world.

Clicking on the first profile that popped up you looked on his page and saw different posts with girls and guys. One picture in particular caught your eye though. It was a picture of Shotaro, Giselle, and Jeno.

She was standing in the middle with her head on Jeno’s shoulder. You frowned and zoomed in on the picture. Her arms wrapped around both of them but even though her head was on Jeno’s shoulder, Shotaro was standing closer to her than Jeno was.

You looked at the date it was posted, 2021. You zoomed back onto Shotaro’s face. He wasn’t bad looking but he definitely wasn’t as handsome as Jeno was. It seems like Jeno and Shotaro were friends or acquaintances at least.

You clicked on the picture to look at the tag and found Jeno’s account. He had no posts but he had story highlights. You clicked on one and saw Jaemin and Mark along with other guys. Tapping through them you looked at them before it changed to another highlight. You noticed that this one had just him.

There were pictures of him at the gym, him biking, him at parties, and more. Just as you were about to look even more, the doorbell rang. You looked up and saw Yunjin looking at you.

“Are you expecting anybody?” She asks you and you shake your head.

Getting up, you walked over to the front door and opened it. Jeno was standing there in a muscle tee and sweats. His biceps were out for everyone to see and you slowly widened your eyes.

“Jeno? What are you doing here?” You ask and look back to see if Yunjin was watching but she wasn't.

“Can we talk?” He asks and you nod your head before walking out to talk in the hallway.

“What’s up? Are you okay?” You ask and he nods his head.

“Yeah. I just wanted to apologize about the other day.” He says and you scoff slightly.

“It’s okay. You were drunk, don’t even worry about it.” You say and he smiles softly. You look up into his eyes and feel yourself smiling as well.

“Is that all?” You ask and he nods his head.

As you turn to walk back inside he grabs your wrist. “Wait!” He exclaims and you turn back to look at him.

“Um, someone I know is throwing a party tonight. Would you like to go with me?” He asks and you furrow your eyebrows.

“Tonight?” You ask and he nods his head.

“Sure, what time should I expect you to pick me up?” You ask and he smiles softly.

“I’ll be here at 9.” He says and you smile with a nod of your head. You turn to walk inside but before closing the door, you wave to him and he does the same.

“Who was it?” Yunjin asks and you drop your smile.

“Uh, Jeno. He invited me to a party tonight.”

“Oh, it must be Haechan’s party.” She says and you furrow your brows.

“How do you know?” You ask and she shrugs her shoulders.

“Jaemin invited me but I declined because I thought we were hanging out tonight.” She says teasingly and your eyes widen.

“Oh shit. Sorry, I already accepted his invite. I can cancel on him.” You say and Yunjin laughs.

“It’s fine, if you’re going then I’ll go too.” She says and grabs her phone to text Jaemin.

You smile and walk into your bedroom. It was already 5pm and you needed time to get ready. You walked into your closet, hoping to find something to wear. Looking through your tops, you found a black tube top and decided to pair it with a blue denim mini skirt.

You knew it was going to be a bit chilly outside, but you didn’t want to ruin your outfit so you opted for freezing tonight. Laying your outfit down on your bed, you walked towards the vanity mirror and started applying makeup. You knew you wanted it to be subtle but still bold enough to compliment your features.

“Hey, what are you wearing?” Yunjin asks while walking in and looking at the outfit on your bed.

“Oh, this is cute!” She exclaims and grabs your jacket to inspect it closely.

“Well, I was going to wear low rise jeans but I thought the skirt was cuter. What about you? What are you wearing?” You say while applying some lip gloss.

You turn towards her and see her in a green mini skirt with a white top. You smile and nod your head yes. “Oh hell yeah! You look hot as fuck.” You say and walk closer to her to look closely at her outfit. She smiles and does a quick turn while posing like models do. You laugh and gently hit her shoulder.

“Is Jaemin picking you up?” You ask and she shakes her head no.

“We usually uber since we both drink but Haechan’s place is really close so we usually just walk.” She says and you nod your head.

“I think he’s coming with Jeno so the four of us will probably just walk together.” She says and walks into your bathroom to look at herself in the mirror. You walk back over to your vanity table and finish getting ready. You finished curling the last strand of hair when the doorbell rang. You hear Yunjin going to open the door and quickly look at yourself in the mirror before grabbing your black platform boots.

As you were putting them on, there was a knock on your door. “Come in!” You yell and the door opens revealing Jeno.

“Hey.” You softly say and smile at him.

He stays near the door, mesmerized by you. Your outfit, your hair, your makeup, everything was so beautiful. He slightly clears his throat before looking away and greets you as well.

“You look beautiful." He says and you shyly smile.

“Thank you.” You say and finally look up to get a glimpse of his outfit for tonight.

He was wearing a purple and black striped shirt with black ripped jeans. His signature leather jacket was draped over his shoulders. His jewelry completed the look. He had the same rings adorning his fingers and you slightly felt a chill run up your spine, remembering the way they felt under your chin. His jet black hair was styled properly this time, showcasing his forehead. You slightly blush and get up to grab your bag. Slipping it over your shoulder, you look at yourself in the mirror one last time.

You turn to Jeno and smile while gesturing for him to leave first so you could close your door. The both of you walked towards the living room so that you guys could all leave. Yunjin and Jaemin were the first ones out of the door and you stayed behind to lock the door. Feeling a sense of deja vu when you see that Jeno was waiting for you.

“Is Giselle going to be there?” You ask Jeno who shakes his head.

“I don’t know. I hope not.” He replies and you nod your head before trailing behind Jaemin and Yunjin who were joined at the hip.

“I think I have a new favorite song from Cigarettes After Sex.” He says and you turn to look at him while walking.

“Really? What song?” You ask curiously and he slightly chuckles.

“Sunsetz.” He says and you gently laugh while pushing him away from you.

“You’re such a follower.” You joke and he laughs before walking close to you again.

The both of you continued small talk while walking to Haechan’s house. Your hands slightly bump into each other since you were walking so closely to each other. Your cheeks flushed every time your hand accidentally brushed against his.

As the night went on and more people came you lost sight of your friends. Sighing, you lean your back against a wall and take a sip out of the nasty concoction that was made by Haechan himself. Suddenly you felt someone come stand next to you. You turn to look at the person when you notice how familiar he looked.

“Hi, I’m Shotaro. What’s your name?” You gape at the person in front of you. He was the guy Giselle cheated on Jeno with. You slightly smile awkwardly and give him your name.

“Pretty name for a pretty girl.” He says and you slightly back away from him to put some distance with a fake smile plastered on your face.

“I haven’t seen you around before. Are you new here?” He asks and you nod your head.

“I’m here for college.” You reply dryly and he smiles at you.

You hated to admit that he was an attractive man but you couldn’t do that to Jeno. The two of you just stood there in silence looking at each other.

Unbeknownst to the both of you, Jeno stared from across the room. His hand clenched onto his cup while his tongue poked his cheek. Why the fuck was Shotaro talking to you? And why was he standing so fucking close to you?

Hachan sluggishly wrapped his arm around his friend and laughed. “What’s got you so pissy?”

Jeno huffed and pushed his arm off of him. Haechan follows his gaze and sees Shotaro. Furrowing his brows he straightens up and turns to Jeno.

“I didn’t know he was back.” He says and puts his hand on Jeno’s shoulder.

Seeing enough, Jeno removes Hacehan’s hand from his shoulder and gulps the last of his drink before throwing the cup on the floor. His eyes stayed on Shoitao the whole time he was making his way over to you two.

“Do you want to dance?” Shotaro asks and holds his hand out. Before you could even answer a hand pushes him away.

You look up and see Jeno standing next to you. His nostrils were flared and his eyes were abnormally cold. Glaring at the man in front of him while Shotaro just chuckles.

“Jeno Lee.” He says and smiles while looking straight back at him.

Jeno didn’t reply, he just glared at the guy in front of him before grabbing your hand. As he turned to get the both of you away from him you felt Shotaro pull on your other arm.

“Hey, we were talking!” Shotaro yells and Jeno turns quickly to look at him.

“Let go of her.” He says through clenched teeth and Shotaro just smirks.

He slowly lets go of your arm and continues smirking while Jeno keeps his eyes on him. You slightly tap Jeno’s shoulder, signaling for the both of you to leave. He softly looks back at you and the both of you walk back over to where the rest of his friends were.

“Why were you talking to him?” Jeno snapped and you turned to look at him.

“He came up to me, what was I supposed to do? Ignore him?” You sass back and Jeno just sighs.

“Do you know who he is?” He asks, never letting go of your hand.

Of course you knew who he was but you didn’t want to admit to stalking their Instagram pages so you shake your head no. He sighs and pulls you towards the kitchen counter. Your back hits against it and you let out a soft yelp from the pain.

Jeno steps in front of you, keeping you trapped between his own body and the counter. His taller frame towering over you and you felt a little shy looking into his eyes. You avert your eyes and look down but Jeno grabs your chin to make you look him straight in the eye. Your lashes flutter against your eyes and he softly chuckles.

He leans down so he could whisper in your ear. You freeze up because he was too close to you. His necklace dangling onto your shoulder and the cool metal against your bare shoulder makes your cheeks flush again.

“You’re cute.” He says and you softly giggle.

You can feel your heart rate going up. Trying to calm it down, you inhale a short breath but Jeno catches it. He can feel your heart pounding against his chest and he softly chuckles.

“Do I make you nervous?” He asks and you quickly shake your head no.

He pulls away from your ear and looks at you again with a smirk.

“You sure?” He whispers, leaning closer to your face.

You could feel his breath hitting in your face and it makes you back away a little bit. You didn’t get too far because his hand goes around your waist, pulling you right up against his body. The alcohol in your system and the closeness of your bodies make you start to sweat a bit. It was too hot in here, you needed to get some fresh air.

“I need to- I need to get some air.” You say quietly for him to hear and he smirks while letting go of you.

You huff out a breath and step away from him. You walk towards the sliding door and feel the cool breeze against your skin. Your heart is racing a million beats per minute. You slowly bring your hands to your cheeks and feel how hot they are.

Shaking your head, you try to calm yourself down but a touch on your shoulder scares you. You jump away from the contact and turn around to see Yunjin and Mina there.

“Oh, hi.” You say softly and they both look at you.

“Are you okay?” Mina asks and they both walk closer to you.

“Yeah. I just needed to get some air.” You reply and they both nod their head.

“We saw Shotaro trying to talk to you.” Yunjin says and you sigh.

“Yeah, it was awkward.” You say and inhale a sharp breath.

“Was Jeno friends with him?” You ask and they both look at each other before looking back at you.

“They were very close in high school because they were both in dance club.” Yunjin says and you nod your head again.

“Come on, let’s go drink.” Mina says and wraps her arm around your arm with Yunjin doing the same.

The three of you walk back into the house and walk to the kitchen where the rest of the guys were at. You quickly catch Jeno’s eye and he smirks at you. You shyly smile at him before walking with the girls to the other side of the counter.

You were across from Jeno but you tried not to look at him. Instead, you kept your eyes on Renjun, who was pouring the shots. He passed out the shot cups and you shyly thanked him before grabbing it from him.

The eight of you cheered and clicked your shot cups against each other before downing the shrink. The alcohol was burning your throat and you let out a sour look after swallowing it down.

“That’s nasty.” You say and Renjun laughs.

“It’s Bicardi.” He says and lifts up the bottle to show you.

“It tastes like shit.” You say and Hachan screams.

“Don’t say that about my baby.” Haechan says and grabs the bottle to pat it.

“Don’t worry, she didn't mean that.” He says and you laugh at him.

Jeno kept his eyes on you the whole time. Maybe it was the alcohol in his system or maybe it was his dirty mind that wanted to corrupt you. You seemed so innocent to him, with your sparkling eyes, your skirt riding up so high that he could basically see your panties but you didn’t even notice.

You stupid perfect lips that curl up so sweetly when you smile. Your hair that looked so soft, your belly button piercing that always adds fuel to the boner he was already springing. He was imagining all sorts of things.

His necklaces dangling in front of your face as he pushes himself into you. Your belly button piercing that would glimmer so bright as he was on top of you.

“Jeno!” Renjun’s voice snaps him away from his thoughts. He looks over at his friend who has a knowing smile on his face.

“She’s pretty cute right?” Renjun says and laughs softly when Jeno looks back at you.

“Shut up.” He grumbles and pushes Renjun away slightly who laughs at his friend.

You felt your head spinning and decided that you had enough to drink. You sat down on the counter to keep your body from falling down. You close your eyes to help your headache when you feel a presence in front of you. Opening your eyes, you see Jeno in front of you again.

‘You okay, princess?” He asks and you nod your head.

“Yeah, I just need to calm down a bit.” You say and he nods his head. His hands come to rest on the counter, trapping you again.

Your belly button piercing was on full display for him, the butterfly charm draws him in. He reaches down to play with your piercing and you giggle at his actions.

“It tickles.” You softly say and try to wriggle from his hands but he softly laughs and places his other hand on your waist to keep you from moving.

Feeling bold, you grab his necklace and pull him in closer to inspect it. You smooth your fingers over the cross and he smiles softly watching you. His fingers never leaving your belly button piercing either. You look up into his eyes and smile softly.

“What?” You softly say and he shakes his head.

His eyes formed into those cute little crescent moons. This man was going to be the death of you. You let go of his necklace and sigh.

“My butt hurts.” You say and he softly chuckles again.

He lets go of your piercing and holds his hand out. You take his hand in yours and jump off the counter. You go to grab your bag but he grabs it for you and holds it with his other hand while leading you to the couch.

The smell of marijuana was piercing and your nose scrunched up at the smell. Jaemin was smoking a blunt with Yunjin on his lap. He blew the smoke out away from his girlfriend before passing it to Hachan. Jeno sits down on the couch and pulls you onto him.

You yelp when your butt lands on his thighs. Everyone was lost in conversation and you were lost in your thoughts. Mark passes the blunt to Jeno who takes a drag before blowing it away from your face. You look at him as he takes another hit.

“Wanna try, princess?” He asks and holds out the blunt to you.

You shake your head no and he shrugs his shoulders before passing it back to Mark. Jeno’s hands were wrapped around your waist and he pulled you in closer. His chin resting on your shoulders as he closes his eyes.

You smile softly and place your hands against his. You grab one of them and start playing with one of the many rings he has on. Jeno opens his eyes and watches as you get lost looking and playing with his rings. You shyly smile at him and go back to looking at his rings when a figure catches your eye.

Giselle was walking over and you quietly tapped Jeno’s arm to signal him. He opens his eyes and lets out a soft hum. He looks up and sees her in front of the both of you. The conversation died down as everyone looked at her.

“Can I get a hit?” She asks, looking Jeno straight in the eye. He sits up and squeezes your waist tighter.

“It’s not mine, don’t ask me.” He says and looks at Jaemin.

Jaemin shrugs his shoulders and hands out the blunt to her. She smiles and sits down next to Jeno and you. You roll your eyes at her and go to stand up but Jeno’s hold on you gets tighter. You turn to look at him but he shakes head. He places his chin back onto your shoulder.

“I’m comfortable.” He whispers in your ear and you giggle softly while he laughs.

Giselle looks at you two with a nasty look before hitting the blunt again. Yunjin and Mina look at each other with a roll of their eyes.

“What’s your name?” Giselle asks, looking straight at you. You turn to look at her and plaster a fake smile.

“Yn.” You say and she softly laughs.

“You don’t smoke?” She asks again and you shake your head no.

“Oh, I thought you did because Jeno likes girls who smoke.” She says with a raise of her eyebrows.

You know she’s trying to rile you up and you hate that it’s working. Jeno sighs and opens his eyes to look at her again. He releases you from his grasp and you take that as a sign to get up from his hold.

“Let’s go.” He says and grabs your hand in his again. You shyly take it and look at Yunjin who gets up as well.

“This was fun Hyuck, but I think it’s time for us to go.” She says and holds onto Jaemin as he gets up too.

You wave bye to everyone and walk out of the house with Jeno, Yunin, and Jaemin. Giselle gals at your figure disappearing and scoffs.

“It was just a joke, jeez. What’s their problem?” She asks and takes another hit of the blunt.

Mina scowls at her as she gets up to leave with Mark.

‘You know what the problem is, bitch.” She says angrily and the two of them walk off.

You and Jeno were walking into the direction of your apartment. The chilly air was blowing against your skin and you shiver. He notices and stops walking to take his jacket off. He places them around your shoulders and smiles at you.

You thank him and he grabs your hand to continue the walk. Unbeknownst to you both Jaemin was taking pictures of you two with a big grin on his face.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Yunjin says softly with a giggle and pushes his hand away.

He laughs and puts his phone back into his pocket before grabbing her hand. The four of you finally made it to your guys' shared apartment. Jeno walked you to your room and sat you down on your bed. He kneels down to take your boots off. Your head was pounding so hard you lay down against your pillows.

After he was finished he looked at you fast asleep on your bed. He smiles softly and bends down. He places a quick kiss to your head and whispers a soft “Good night.” before walking out of your room.

“You good to drive?” Jaemin asks and he nods his head.

He takes the keys from Jaemin and the both of them walk out of the apartment to head back to their dorm. Jaemin noticed the way Jeno's lips curved up into a smile. He noticed the way Jeno’s eyes lit up every time he looked at you. He noticed lots of things in his friend that he hasn’t seen in a long time. He smiles softly at his friend who continues the drive home.

You woke up the next morning, still in your clothes from last night and your makeup half rubbed off. You walk over to the bathroom to remove your makeup and shower when you notice Jeno’s jacket around you. You smile and go to grab your phone.

you left your jacket - princess

i left it on purpose ;) - Jeno Lee

You smile and heart his message before getting ready to remove your makeup.

It’s been a week since you started classes and safe to say, you were not expecting that much work within the first week. It was finally Friday and you just got back to your apartment. Yunjin didn’t have any classes today so she was already home.

“Are you done packing already?” You ask as you walk into her room.

“Yeah. Are you?” She asks and you shake your head no.

Jaemin had a beach house and he invited you all over for the weekend to destress from the first week of school.

“I’m too tired to pack.” You say and she laughs. “Well you better hurry up, They’re meeting here at 2.” She says and you groan.

“That’s in like 2 hours.” You say and she nods her head.

“Yeah, so hurry up. Princess.” She teases you and you hit her gently.

“Shut up! Don’t call me that.” You say laughing and she laughs as well.

“Just go pack.” She says and you laugh before walking to your room to pack for the weekend.

You were only going to be gone until Sunday so you packed 2 bikinis, a few pairs of jeans and sweats, and a few baby cropped tees. You walk over to your undergarments drawer when Jeno’s leather jacket catches your eye.

You smile thinking about the memory last weekend and walk up to it. You grab it and fold it up to put in your bag so you could give it back to him. You tried to give it back to him earlier but he kept trying to push it off, claiming that he had other ones to wear.

You place it into your bag and grab new undergarments to pack. Lastly, you packed your makeup and skincare into a smaller bag and placed it into your duffel bag. After zipping it up you change into comfortable clothes.

You changed into your black one piece spandex and grabbed a white cropped sweater that falls off your left shoulder perfectly. You put a pair of fuzzy white socks on and slipped your feet into your UGG platform slippers. Looking at yourself in the mirror, you smiled before grabbing your bag and walking out into the living room.

You had makeup on already from school so you just touched it up a little bit. You wanted to look cute since you were going to be riding with Jeno. Jaemin and Yunjin were taking Mark and Mina, while Haechan and Renjun brought along their other two friends.

“They’re here.” Yunjin says and you grab your bag and place the strap around your right shoulder.

“Let’s go!” You say and walk out of the apartment first. Yunjin locked up the apartment before following you down to where everyone else was.

You notice Jeno’s black 2023 Mercedes Benz C-Class first. You smile and wave at him as he opens the trunk and grabs your bag from you. You open up your bag and pull his jacket out from it and hand it to him.

He smiles and takes the jacket from you and places it in his trunk as well. He closes the trunk and you walk over to the passenger side door and get inside the car. He gets in the car as well and waits for Jaemin to take off first.

“Are you excited?” He asks and you squeal.

“Yes! I need a break from school.” You say and he laughs.

“It’s barely been a week.” He says and you giggle.

“Yeah but the classes are so hard.” You say and he softly laughs.

“Who’s coming with Haechan and Renjun?” You ask and he looks over at you.

“Our other friends, you haven’t met them yet. Their names are Chenle and Jisung. They’re a bit younger than us.” He says and you nod your head.

He pulls out something from the back seat and gives it to you. It’s a small velvet box. Furrowing your eyebrows you look at him.

“What is it?” You ask softly and giggle.

“Just open it.” He says and you do as he says.

Inside was a thick metal ring adorned with jewels. It was the same one he had on middle finger. You gasp and pull it out from the box, bringing it closer to you so you can inspect it.

“You liked playing with mine so much, I figured I’d just buy you one." He says sheepishly and you smile at him.

“Oh my god, Jeno! It’s so beautiful, thank you.” You say and slip it on your middle finger on your left hand, exactly where it was on Jeno’s finger.

You lift your hand to show him and he laughs at the placement of your ring. Excitedly, you take out your phone and grab his hand to place yours on top. Snapping a quick picture of your guys hands together with the rings on display. You smile in satisfaction and show him.

“Send it to me.” He says and smiles.

You nod your head and quickly pull up his contact to send the picture to him. He looks over at your phone and sees his contact saved as ‘Jeno Lee.’ He scoffs and grabs your phone from your hands.

“Hey!” You exclaim and try to get it back but he pushes your hand away.

He changes his name to ‘jen’ and saves it before handing your phone back to you. You laugh once you see his contact name and look at him.

“What’s my name saved as?” You ask with a smile on your face.

He pulls out his phone and goes to your contact before turning his phone around and showing you. You stare at the ‘princess’ and laugh, pushing his shoulder away.

“You’re annoying.” You say and he laughs before charging his phone.

“You got your nails done?” He asks, grabbing your hands to inspect your nails closely.

You recently got them done with Yunjin and Mina. They were a nude pink color with glitter and charms adorned around them. You nod your head as he plays with the butterfly charm on your middle finger.

“I wanted to make them pretty.” You say and he softly laughs.

You look out the window and notice Jaemin’s car leaving. Jeno lets go of your hand and puts his car in reverse to follow them.

“Can you GPS the way just in case we get separated?” He asks and you nod your head before grabbing his phone.

“Password?” You ask and he quickly says the password code before you click on the group chat with the 10 of you.

You click on the address that Jaemin sent earlier this week and it starts showing the map on Jeno’s dashboard. You swipe out of the app and go to his Spotify. You look through his playlist and find one titled ‘Princess.’ Smiling, you click on it and see that it’s all Cigarettes After Sex songs. You click on ‘Sunsetz’ and the song begins to play. Jeno lets out a laugh at the song choice and shakes his head.

After a two hour car ride, you and Jeno finally arrive at the house. Jeno parks his car and you undo your seatbelt. Stepping out of the car, you walk towards the trunk and grab your bag. He follows you and grabs his bag as well.

The two of you walk inside the beach house and notice how big it was. It was squeaky clean like a brand new house. You walk through the house, looking in awe at how beautiful it was. After you finished looking at it, everyone was gathered in the living room.

“So there’s 5 rooms, everyone is going to have to share a room.” Jaemin says and grabs his girlfriend’s hand.

“Me and Yunjin, Mark and Mina, Jeno and Yn, Haechan and Renjun, and Jisung and Chenle.” Jaemin finishes and everyone nods their head in agreement.

“Every room is available besides the master bedroom, that’s where Yunjin and I will sleep.” He says and you and Jeno rush to get the best room.

You open the door and squeal when you look inside. There was a beautiful balcony with a view of the beach right outside. You were in awe of the balcony that you barely noticed the one bed but when you did your eyes widened.

You’re sharing one bed with Jeno. You look over to him and he laughs at your expression. He walks over to you and looks out the window with a smirk.

“Don’t worry, I’ll behave.” He says and walks to the bed to set his bag down. You awkwardly laugh and play it off.

“I’m not worried at all.” You say and shake your head.

Jeno raises his eyebrows at your lie and smirks before sitting on the bed. You go to place your bag on the bed as well when Jeno grabs your wrist and pulls you down onto the bed. His body hovering over yours causing his necklaces to dangle in front of you.

You eyes widen and you try to get up from his grasp but he pins your arms down above your head. He smirks and laughs at you before getting up and letting go of you.

“Not worried at all, my ass.” He says and chuckles. You sit up and huff at him.

“Shut up. You just caught me off guard.” You lie again.

He lets out an amused smile and nods his head knowing the truth. You get up to unzip your bag and grab your makeup bag to put on the desk table in the corner of the room. After doing that, you walk out into the kitchen to help Mina and Yunjin prepare the meat so Jamein can barbecue it.

Jeno sat on the bed and pulled his phone out. He looks at the photo you sent him and stares at it for a second before saving it and going to Instagram. He clicks on the photo and puts ‘Sunsetz’ as the music background before posting it.

He smiles looking at the finished product and turns his phone off before joining the rest of you guys in the kitchen. He can hear your laugh and it brings a smile to his face again. He walks outside and over to Jaemin who's preparing the grill and helps him.

You were washing the rice when Yunjin let out a gasp. You and Mina turn to look at her and she squeals before showing her phone to you guys. The picture that you just took earlier today blaring through her phone. You widen your eyes and clear your throat.

“That’s you right?” Mina asks while looking at you with a shocked face.

“No.” You shake your head and try to lie but the two of them smirk.

“Yn, we all got our nails done together.” Yunjin says and grabs your left hand to match the nails and the ring to the picture.

“Oh my god! Are you guys dating?” Mina asks excitingly and you shake your head.

“No we aren’t. I don’t even know what we are.” You say and Yunjin pouts at your words.

“Do you like him?” She asks and you sigh before nodding your head.

“But, I know that he’s not over whatever happened with Giselle so it’s impossible.” You say placing the bowl into the rice cooker.

Mina and Yunjin pout before walking over to you. They both hug you to comfort you and you smile at them.

“I’m okay, I promise.” You say and the two of them look at each other before looking back at you. They let go of you and the three of you continue to prepare the food.

After Jaemin finished grilling the meat, everyone was sitting outside enjoying the food and the weather. You were sitting in between Mina and Jeno. The latter’s Instagram story is still reeling in your mind. Why did he even post that? What was he trying to do when he posted it?

You looked over at him laughing along to something Haechan said, you didn’t bother to pay attention to the conversation. Jaemin must’ve caught you staring because next thing you know you feel a kick on your leg.

You looked across to him and he smiled while raising his eyebrows teasingly. You shake your head and laugh.

“I just spaced out.” You say, trying to defend yourself.

“Sure you did.” Jaemin teases and you flip him off jokingly.

The conversations continue until Haechan screams and runs away from Jeno who's chasing him. You laugh at them and sip on your water. Setting the glass down, you start playing with the ring on your middle finger. Twisting it around to help distract yourself.

“That’s a nice ring.” Mark says with a smirk.

“Oh, thanks. It was a gift.” You say and smile while he slightly laughs.

“From who?” He asks again, leaning closer to get a good look at you.

“Um, I forgot.” You lie and take a sip of your water.

Mark laughs at you again and goes to say something but Mina nudging him makes him stop talking. You slightly scoff and go back to eating when Jeno sits back down. He goes to grab his glass of water but it’s empty.

He looks over at yours and grabs it before drinking out from it. He sets the glass back down where it was and smiles at you. You don’t say anything as you continue to eat the meat that Jaemin barbequed.

As everyone finished eating, you started cleaning up along with Mina and Yunjin. You gathered up the dirty plates and put them in the sink while the other two went to retrieve more dirty dishes. You started washing the dishes when Jaemin came over to help you.

“Oh, it’s okay Jaemin. I got it.” You say and he waves off your comment.

“It’s fine.” He says and starts rinsing the soapy dishes.

“Anything you wanna talk about?” You ask, hoping to ease the conversation.

“Not really.” He says while looking at you causing you to laugh slightly.

“How do you like the friend group so far?” He asks.

“Oh, you guys are really fun. It’s very different from my friend group back at home." You say and continue to wash the dishes.

“How so?” Jaemin inquires.

“Well, for starters there’s not a lot of us in the friend group. There’s only four of us and we didn’t really hang out with guys. I mean, we did, but they weren’t part of our immediate friend group.” You explain and he nods.

“Do you ever miss home?” He asks and you sigh quietly.

“I do. But, at the same time it’s good to have new experiences so I’m really glad I came over here for college.” You say with a smile.

“I see why Yunjin likes you so much.” Jaemin says and laughs.

“What do you mean?” You ask and laugh as well.

“You guys are just so alike. You always want to see the good in things, even in people.” He says and you laugh again.

“Like you?” You tease and he glares at you playfully.

“I wasn't that bad.” He defends and you laugh.

“Yeah right. You turned from this playboy who slept around to being in a fully committed relationship.” You say and he shrugs his shoulders.

“Maybe I was just waiting for the right person to come along.” He says and looks over at you. You just nod your head at his answer and he almost groans in frustration.

How could you not understand that he was also talking about you and Jeno. You both were the most dense people he’s ever met. Of course he and his girlfriend gossip about you guys- you’re her roommate and Jeno’s his best friend for Christ's sake.

He knew you liked his friend, Yunjin told him. And, he knew that his friend liked you as well, even if he didn’t want to admit it. The way that Jeno acted around you was different than how he was around any other girl, even Giselle.

Jeno cares for you in more ways than one. Like when he gave you his jacket, or when he was holding your hand, or protecting you from Giselle, or buying you a ring, or posting you on his public social media account for goodness sakes.

After finishing up the dishes, you changed into your bikini to go swimming in the pool. Walking out onto the deck you placed your towel on the chair before jumping into the water. The coolness of it relaxes your tense body.

You swam alone for about five minutes until you heard the door open and close. Looking over, you find Jeno walking towards the pool in nothing but his black swimming trunks - matching your black bikini. You smile slightly and continue swimming when he gets in.

“Didn’t find you in the room.” He says and you laugh.

“I just wanted to clear my mind a bit.” You reply while swimming to him.

“Something wrong?” He asks and you shake your head immediately.

“No, nothing’s wrong.” You say and he stares at you.

He knows that you’re lying, whenever you lie you always avert your eyes and press your lips together. He walks closer to you and backs you up against the wall of the pool.

“Jeno.” You softly say but he cuts you off by placing his hands around your thighs.

You whimper quietly as he places your legs around his waist. His dark eyes staring abc into yours and you have to bite your tongue to not release a moan.

“Jeno.” You say quietly and he brings his face closer to you.

“Hm?” He asks and you try to avert your eyes but he stops you.

“Look at me.” He says and you listen to him.

You look into his eyes and say nothing. He leans down further and starts pressing butterfly kisses on your neck. You let out a soft whimper before biting your lip.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” He says before kissing your neck again. He makes his way up to your jaw and starts placing kisses there as well.

You grip his shoulders tightly as you try to answer him but you couldn’t think of any words. Your mind was hazy, trying to tell him what was bothering you. You let another whimper when he harshly sucks on your neck, leaving a mark there. He pulls back and smiles devilishly at the mark he left before placing one last kiss on it.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll stop.” He says and you whimper again while shaking your head.

“I can’t- I can’t concentrate if you do that.” You admit and he softly chuckles.

He pulls back fully and looks into your eyes, his eyes begging for you to answer him. With a sigh, you look away from him and close your eyes before opening them and speaking.

“What are we?” You ask and he furrows his brows.

“What do you mean?” He asks for clarification.

“I mean what are we? Why are you buying me gifts and acting like you’re my boyfriend when you’re not.” You say and feel your eyes getting teary.

“I don’t like feeling like this Jeno. I don’t like feeling like the second option.” You say and he puts your legs down to hold your waist and bring you closer.

“What do you mean it feels like a second choice?” He asks and you sigh again.

“The first night we met and you slept in my room. You called me Giselle and begged for me to not leave you.” You admit and sniffle.

Jeno shushes you and brings your head into his chest. After you calmed down a bit, he pulled back and looked at you again.

“I promise, I’m over her. I don’t know why I said that, it was probably because Jaemin asked me about the situation and seeing her again… it was just too much for me.” He explains and cups your face into his hands.

“I would never hurt you, princess.” He says and you whimper at the pet name. He chuckles at your response and brings his face closer to yours.

“Can I kiss you.”

You nod your head and that’s all Jeno needs before he crashes his lips onto yours. His lips were soft and tasted like mint. You followed his rhythm while wrapping your arms around his neck. His hands go lower to your butt and cups them, earning a moan from you.

He smiles at the sound and pulls away from you to place kisses on your neck once again. “Jeno.” You moan his name, and he smiles into your neck.

He smiles at the sound and pulls away from you to place kisses on your neck once again. “Jeno.” You moan his name and he smiles into your neck.

“We should head inside.” You say unwrapping yourself from him.

He nods his head at your suggestion and lets go of your waist. You slowly back away from him and smile shyly before turning around to walk out of the pool. He stares at your ass as you walk out and lets out a groan.

“Do you have to look so hot walking out of the pool?” He retorts to you and you turn to flip him off jokingly before grabbing your towel and wrapping it around your body.

He steps out of the pool as well and grabs his towel. You wait for him to dry himself off before the two of you walk back inside the house. A shy smile adorned your face the whole time. You still didn’t know what you and Jeno were, but at least you knew that he was completely over Giselle.

You walk into your room and grab your skincare as well as a change of clothes before heading to the bathroom to shower. Slowly, you took off your clothes and stepped into the shower. The hot water burns your skin but that’s how you liked your showers.

You lathered your rose scented shampoo into your hands before thoroughly applying it into your hair. You couldn’t help but think about what just happened. Your heart was bursting just remembering the kiss. You felt like a teenage girl experiencing some kind of first love.

You softly giggled at your thoughts as you finished your shower. Stepping out of the tub, you reached over to a new towel to dry your body and apply some moisturizer on your face. As you rubbed the moisturizer between your hands, you glanced at the ring on your middle finger and smiled again.

After changing into your pajamas (a pair of blue loose sweats and a white cropped tank top), you blow dried your hair. Once you were done, you walked out of the bathroom and into your shared room with Jeno. He was laying on the bed, having finished his shower earlier than you.

He smiled and watched as you put your things away. He shuts off his phone and places it on the nightstand next to where he’s sleeping. You walk over to the bed and lift the covers up so you could slide in next to him.

“Hi.” You softly say to him and he shortly laughs before greeting you back.

“How was your shower?” He asks and you snuggle into the pillow.

“It was relaxing, how was yours?” He turns his body to face you.

“Good, I feel clean.” He replies and you stare into his eyes.

Hesitantly, you bring your pointer finger up and trace his facial features. You traced over his eyebrows and nose before making your way to his mole under his eye. He laughs and his eyes turn into those little crescent moons that you love so much.

“I love your eyes.” You say and trace over his eyelashes.

“I like when they turn into moons when you smile.” You say and he laughs before grabbing your hand and placing it on his chest.

You can feel his heartbeat, it was speeding up. You chuckle softly and look at him with your eyebrows raised.

“My heart does that every time I think about you.” He softly says and you nuzzle your face into your pillow, getting shy.

“Stop it.” You say and giggle.

‘It’s the truth.” He says and brings your hand to his lips.

He places a chaste kiss onto the back of your hand before placing it back onto his chest.

“When we get back home, would you like to go on a date with me?” He asks, staring straight into your eyes.

You nod your head and your lips curl up into a smile. “I would love to.”

You lift your head up from the pillow and Jeno opens his arms to let you embrace him. His arms wrap securely around your figure and he sighs in content.

“Goodnight, Jen.” You say to him and nuzzle in closer to his body.

“Sweet dreams, princess.” He says and places a quick kiss onto your head before nuzzling into it.

The both of you stay in that position all night long. His heartbeat and touch brought a sense of comfort to you and you didn’t ever want to let go of that feeling. Meanwhile, the boy next you was feeling the exact same way.

Jeno wakes up the next morning reaching for your body only to be disappointed when he opens his eyes and realizes you’re not there. He rubs the sleepiness from his eyes and gets out of bed.

Making his way to the kitchen, he’s greeted by the sight of you cutting up some fruit. You were so focused on cutting the watermelon that you didn’t hear him approach you. You slightly panic when you feel arms wrap around you from behind but once you recognize the rings, you instantly smile.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” You say to him and he grumbles in response.

He places his chin on your shoulder and looks over at the watermelon that you’re currently cutting up.

“That looks good." He comments and you giggle softly.

“Do you want a piece?” You softly ask and feel his head nod on your shoulder.

You grab a piece that you’ve already cut up and raise it to his lips. He opens up and eats the fruit from your hands.

“Yummy?” You ask and he nods his head again in response.

The conversation dies down after that. Occasionally, you would feed him pieces of fruit while he gladly ate them. Once you cut up enough fruit for all of you guys to enjoy, you turn around in his embrace to look at him.

He smiles at you and leans in closer. He closes his eyes, going in for a kiss but you’re quicker. You shove a piece of strawberry into his mouth and he grumbles.

“Someone might walk in.” You say softly and he shakes his head.

“I don’t care. Let them see.” He says and leans in again.

You shriek and escape from his grasp with the bowl of fruit in your hands.

“Go wash up.” You tell him and he grumbles softly before walking into the bathroom.

Today, you were all going to the beach and having a bonfire night. You put sunscreen, sunglasses and two towels in your bag, one for you and one for Jeno. After packing up the bag, you walk over to your duffel bag and pull out your baby pink bikini.

After changing into it, your hickey was on display for everyone to see, so you looked into your bag for an oversized shirt. Jeno walks in just at that moment and whistles at you. You stand up from where you’re bending over and roll your eyes at him.

“What are you looking for, princess?” He walks closer to you and you sigh.

“I’m looking for an oversize shirt to wear over my bikini, but I don’t think I packed any.” You pout and he laughs before unzipping his duffel bag.

He digs through his bag and pulls out a gray t-shirt. He looks at it for a second before walking over you and handing it to you.

“Here you go.” He says and smiles when you grab it.

You slip it on and look at yourself in the mirror. His shirt barely covered your ass but at least you were more covered than before.

“Thanks, Jen.” You say and turn to place a quick kiss on his cheek which makes him blush.

He waits for you to grab your bag before holding his hand out for you. You take his hand in yours and the both of you walk to the beach, catching up with the rest of your friends.

You were sitting on the big beach towel with Mina and Yunjin and catching up on last night’s events.

“I knew it!” Yunjin squeals and pulls you into her embrace.

You laugh and pat her back while observing the boys play in the water. Haechan was on Mark’s shoulder, Chenle on Jeno’s, and Jisung on Jaemin’s while Renjun was the referee. They were playing chicken fight and trying to knock each other off.

You grabbed your phone and quickly took photos of Jeno just for you to keep before taking pictures of the three of you. After spending about 3 hours in the sun, you all agreed that it was time to go back to the house.

Once everyone was back, they all went to their separate rooms, tired from their beach day. You quickly washed your feet before slipping into bed with Jeno for a nap. Jeno’s arms were around you and he had that devilish smirk he always has on.

He sits up and lays on top of you, his necklace dangling over you. He slides his shirt over his head and you widen your eyes and try to stop him but he pins your hands above your head. He leans in and starts placing kisses on your jaw before going lower.

You softly moan and try to break free from his grip, wanting to touch him. He slightly chuckles before releasing your hands. Instantly, they travel to his hair and you slightly pull on it. He sucks particularly hard on your soft spot and you let out a loud moan.

“Quiet, princess. We don’t want everyone hearing you do we?” He says to you with his head tilted as if he was mocking you.

You whimper and bite your bottom lip to keep the noises from coming out. His hands teasingly run up and down the sides of your torso.

“Jeno.” You softly whisper and he chuckles.

“I know, baby. You gotta be patient okay? Can you do that for me?” He asks, looking into your eyes and you nod your head.

“Good girl.” He says and his fingers slowly go towards the waistband of your shorts.

Your belly button piercing on display for him to see and he groans at the sight of it glimmering underneath him. He pushes his fingers against your core teasingly which draws out a whimper from you.

“Take it off please.” You beg and he almost cums at how whiny you sound. He slowly pulls your shorts down and sees the growing wet spot on your pink lacy panties.

“You’re such a slut.” He degrades and you whine from his usage of words.

“M’ not.” You defend and writhe underneath him.

“No?” He asks teasingly before sliding a finger in between your folds through your panties.

“Jeno.” You moan loudly at the contact and he brings his hands over your lips to muffle the noises.

“Quiet baby.” He says and removes his hands from your mouth while leaning into your neck.

‘You’re so wet, princess. Who are you so wet for huh?” He asks while sliding your panties down to your thighs.

Your glistening folds make his dick grow even more and he can’t help himself. He slides his finger through your folds teasingly as you try to contain your moans. Your hands go around to his back and grip him tightly. He slips a finger into your hole and you squeeze your eyes shut.

You moan loudly at the feeling of his fingers inside of you, not answering his question. Jeno groans at your lack of answering and rips your panties off your body. You gasp as you hear the tearing of fabric.

“Jeno! Those were my favorite.” You say and he darkly chuckles.

He moves one of his hands from your waist to your neck. His grip tightens and you gasp at the feeling of your airway being blocked.

“You answer me when I ask you a question, princess.” He says seductively and stops pumping his fingers into you.

You whine at the loss of friction and he squints his eyes at you before pulling out completely.

“No.” You quietly whimper out and Jeno tightens his grip around your neck even more.

“Answer me.” He growls and you can feel your heat getting wetter.

“You!” You say, trying your best to get the words out.

He smirks and brings his lips back onto yours. His grip gets even tighter making you feel light headed from the loss of oxygen. He slowly lets go of your neck and pushes his finger into your heat again. You moan into his lips and he feels his cock getting harder.

He pushes in another finger and you moan into his ear. “Jeno please!” You beg and he laughs cockily at you. He kisses your cheek before moving to your ear.

“Please what, princess? What do you want?” He asks and you groan in frustration.

“Please. Mphh… Want you inside me.” You say, whining when his fingers start to pump faster and harder into you.

“Jeno! M’ gonna cum!” You babble and he groans into your ear.

“C’mon princess, cum all over my fingers. I know you can do it. You’ve been such a good girl.” He says and edges you on even more.

Your moans grow progressively louder and Jeno has to clamp his hands over your mouth again to muffle them. You feel the knot in your stomach tighten before it breaks. You finish with a loud moan that’s muffled but he doesn’t stop his ministrations. He moves his fingers even faster causing you to try to push him away.

“Jeno! M’ sensitive!” You muffle out, gripping his arm hoping that he’ll remove his fingers but he doesn't.

He grabs your hands and pins them against the bed again. He licks a stripe up your neck and sucks harshly again, leaving a trail of his marks starting from your ear all the way down to your chest.

“Jeno, I’m gonna-” You're interrupted when a second orgasm washes over you and you let out a shrilling moan, hoping that no one was awake to hear.

"That's it baby.” He says and slowly pulls his fingers from your heat.

You babble and hum out incoherent words as you try to catch your breath. He pushes his shorts past his dick and gets on his knees. You look at his angry red tip. He was so huge and you gasp as you try to squirm away from him.

“Jeno, I can’t.” You attempt to say through heaving breaths but he just laughs and grips your thighs to bring you back closer to him.

“Yes you can, baby. I know you can take it." He says and spreads your legs further apart. He lines up his tip with your entrance. He lets out a quiet groan when he feels your gummy walls around him.

You bite your lip to not let you moans out as you feel his bare dick inside you and you try to catch your breath. He was so much bigger than you expected. The stretch was too painful as he quickly pushed himself all the way in. He was bigger than anything you’ve ever taken before.

“S’ too big.” You mewl out and he laughs.

You were fueling his ego even more and you didn’t even know it.

“I know, baby. I know.” He says and stays still for a bit so you can get used to his size. After a minute, you nod your head and give him the green light.

He pulls out and slams himself back into you causing you to put your hands over your mouth. You chant his name in your hands like a mantra and that only fuels him more.

He starts thrusting inside you harder, faster, and deeper. You quickly wrap your hands around him and shove your face into his neck. He was reaching places that you didn’t even know existed. Your vision was so blurry, you felt like you were seeing stars. Your freshly done nails scratched against his back and biceps.

“I can feel you, baby. You’re almost there.” He says into your ear and you nod your head. His grip on your hips were so tight, you were sure there were going to be bruises tomorrow.

‘C’mon baby, cum. Cream all over my dick.” He says raspily into your ears and that’s all you need before the knot comes undone, creaming all over his cock. He groans at the sight and chases after his own orgasm.

He finishes inside of you and leans his head into your neck. He places kisses all over the marks he left on your body. You smile and run your fingers through his hair. Giggling, you pull his head away from your neck and place a quick kiss on his lips.

He smiles and leans his forehead against yours. He breathes you in deeply with you doing the same. The smile never leaves both of your faces. Your tummy was so warm with his cock buried inside, you didn't want him to pull away.

However he does and you wince at the loss of him. His cum leaks out of your whole and he reaches down to push it back in.

“Jeno!” You yelp and he laughs before sliding his finger out.

“Didn’t want it to go to waste.” He says while looking at his art work. Your core was throbbing with spurts of white escaping and he felt himself getting hard again but he knew you couldn’t go on anymore.

He grabs his discredited shirt off the floor and wipes at your core before grabbing another pair of panties from your bag. He slides it up your thighs and places a kiss over them before pulling his own shorts and boxers up.

You get up from the bed to go pee before getting back into bed with him. He wraps his arms around you again as you lay close to him. You sigh blissfully as he places his head in between your boobs. He gets a perfect view of your neck covered in his marks from there and smirks. Your hands go to his hair and you start playing with it. Sooner or later the both of you pass out from exhaustion.

Your eyes flutter open as you look around for Jeno but he is nowhere to be found. The sunlight from earlier is now gone. You get out of bed and change into a pair of sweats. You knew it was a bit chilly outside since you could see the tree leaves swaying back and forth.

You go to Jeno’s bag and pull out a black hoodie. Quickly slipping it on, you walk outside to the bonfire where everyone is sitting. You walk up to Jeno who gestures for you to sit on him. You sit down on his lap and wrap your arms around his neck.

He passes the blunt to Jaemin before wrapping his arms around you.

“Do you want a drink, Yn?” Jisung asks and hands you a cup filled with jungle juice. You slightly thank him before taking a sip.

“Good?” The man under you asks and you nod your head at him.

He glances at your hoodie and notices that it’s his. He doesn’t say anything but he smiles at the thought of you wearing his clothes again.

You watch the fire as everyone around you engages in their own conversations. Looking around, you catch Jaemin looking at you and Jeno. He brings his hands up and gives you a thumbs up which causes you to laugh slightly.

You look back down to Jeno to find him already staring at you. He slightly chuckles and intertwines your hands together. You smile sheepishly and he can’t help but to plant a kiss on your cheek. You gasp and hit his shoulder lightly with your free hand while he laughs.

You pull your phone out from your (his) hoodie pocket and furrow your eyebrows when you see that Giselle started following you on Instagram. Quietly, you show it to Jeno who rolls his eyes.

“Just block her, that’s what I did.” He says and you nod your head but you don’t actually do it. You just turn your phone off.

Unfortunately time flew by too fast and you found yourself in class 3 months later. Your professor was rambling on about something that you could care less about. You looked at the clock and let out a breath of relief when you noticed that there was only 5 minutes left of class.

Quietly, you start packing up your bag and shutting down your laptop. Just as you finish packing, the professor dismisses you guys while talking about the assignment due next week. You jump out of your seat as soon as she’s done talking and quickly walk out.

Your phone pings and you look at it while walking.

we’re waiting for you baby -jen

okay, coming! :) -princess

You quickly speed up and walk over to the parking lot where everyone was gathered around their cars. You happily skip to Jeno who’s leaning against the hood of his car. His arms open wide as he waits for you to embrace him.

He groans when you throw your arms around his neck and smiles.

“Missed you.” He says and squeezes you tighter to him.

“You just saw me this morning.” You say with a giggle and he shrugs his shoulders.

“I always miss you.” He admits and kisses you quickly on the lips.

Jeno and you finally made it official a few weeks ago after “talking” for two months. You guys were on a date like usual only this time you guys were walking in the park and enjoying the first snowfall of the season.

“I love the snow.” You say, smiling wildly as you catch a falling snow in your hand.

Jeno observes the way your eyes light up as you bring it closer to your face to inspect it. He felt his heartbeat fasten and he knew he had to ask you right then and there. He tugs on your hand that he was holding and you look up at him.

What’s wrong?” You ask as you stare into his eyes.

Jeno inhales sharply before looking at you.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” He asks quickly and your eyes widen.

You softly let out a laugh and wrap your arms around him and he reciprocates. You pull away and plant a kiss onto his lips before pulling away and squealing with a “Yes!”

He laughs at your reaction and brings you in closer. His hand going to cradle your head as he connects both of your lips together again.

Your arms go to his waist as you hold him tightly while kissing him back. He pulls away and you nuzzle your head into his chest. His arms squeeze and pull you in closer. The snowfall started falling harder but you both didn’t care. You stood there in each other’s embrace as the snow hit the ground.

“Let’s go.” Jaemin says and the eight of you pile into the cars to head over to lunch. Jeno opens the passenger door for you and you quickly get in before he closes it and rushes over to the driver’s seat. He gets in and places his hand on your thigh.

You smile and grab his hand that’s on yours before he reverses his car and pulls out of the parking lot. Jeno wasn’t in your plans when you first arrived but you’re so glad he meddled his way into your life. As you look over at him, you smile and press a kiss to his cheek which makes me smile.

His eyes make those cute little crescent moons that you love so damn much. He brings your hand to his lips and kisses the back of it before placing your hands back into your lap. You fell hard for Jeno and you still continue to fall hard for him.

No amount of measurements could measure how happy you feel right now. If falling for someone felt this good, you would’ve done it a long time ago. But then again, maybe it only feels good because it’s Lee Jeno you’re falling for.

End.

Thank you So much for reading my first ever fic! I spent so much time planning and rewriting this, but I'm glad to finally have it out for you guys to read. Sending you lots of love and kisses!

xoxo, jenoroyals

#lee jeno #nct jeno #jeno x reader #jeno smut #jeno drabble #nct dream #jaemin #mark lee #yunjin #haechan #renjun #park jisung #chenle #nct dream x reader

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gonelike-ach00 · 3 months ago

Text

ᴏɴᴇ - jeno

masterlist | next

summary:

They weren't aware of it but they were beginning to write their future as the days finally welcomed their youth. Now, as the sun begins to rise and the cold days of childhood leave them, they are welcomed into the warm—sometimes too hot—hug of youth.This was their start--the first taste of the warmth of youth.

genre:

fluff, angst, slice of life, high school romance, reoccuring anthology

word count : 2k

pairing: high school! jeno x high school! female character

ᴏɴᴇ - jeno

The school finally felt a lot more familiar than before. He could now walk around this place with his eyes closed if he wanted. The second semester has finally started and he made sure to arrive here earlier than everyone else.

Or so he thought.

The classroom felt a little more daunting than before. The large windows that looked out the soccer field and front of the school gave the room a much larger appearance than a normal room. It was enough to sit 40 students if the school wanted, but they opted for 30 students per class. Yet in this class, why was there someone else sitting in the classroom when he had more than an hour left before class started?

"Cho." He snickers as she raises her head as soon as he enters the door.

Cho Eunji was Lee Jeno's greatest nightmare. Her slicked-back ponytail and thick-rimmed glasses made it hard for anyone not to know that she was someone who took her studying seriously. Everyone in this class probably took their studies seriously, but she was on a different level. Even further than the province-born, former valedictorian, Lee Jeno himself.

There was a reason why Jeno was skipping at his heel as he made his way to the school he had just made up his mind that he was going to take his place back. There was no way he would allow Cho to take his spot once again.

"You're here early." There it was that smug grin on his face. He watched as she pushed her glasses up her nose and put down her pen.

Jeno wanted to roll his eyes so badly, but it felt like he would allow her to win if he allowed himself to roll his eyes. Instead, he takes a deep breath in and force a smile on his face. He walked up to the seat, the one just right beside hers. The classroom was set up in rows that sat by pairs. Jeno and Cho sat right at the front of the class with their seats right beside each other—they were seatmates.

It was almost impossible for the two of them not to talk to each other. Classes for the second semester hadn't even started, but she was already studying materials he was sure that she was studying for university entrance exams. His eyes couldn't help but drift to materials on her desks, ones he had yet to purchase on his own. He had no plans to buy them until he was in his second year, but here she was embodying the idea that university preparation starts once you enter high school.

Finally, after holding himself back, he rolls his eyes.

"What are you even doing this early?" Jeno leans his elbow onto his table scanning onto the pages she was flipping over.

Cho pauses and then looks back down at her university entrance exam materials. "Figured, this was a better place to study."

"There's a library."

"That isn't even open yet." She shakes her head without even lifting her sight from the page she was on.

"Tell the library committee to come in earlier then. Aren't you friends with Naeun?"

Cho sighed, finally lifting her head from the book and turning to face Jeno. She puts her pen down and turns her whole body to face Jeno. "What do you want?"

For a moment, Jeno sits there with his head leaning onto his desk and his eyes meeting hers. He knew that Cho was the hard worker type (which he was one himself, but had a little more luck in terms of genetics when it came to that side), but seeing her this close where he could see evidence of it made him feel a little bit guilty with his intentions to bother her so early in the morning.

Jeno wasn't the type to take notice of it, but Cho had really beautiful eyes. They were large, almost as large as his own and they were bright even amidst the darkening bags of her hard work. It was eyes that could draw people in with a simple glance almost medusa-like in the way it had sitting there staring at her and looking at her like he was a statue. If only they weren't hidden behind the thick frame of her glasses he would have noticed it before—no, he was certain he would have seen it before.

Jeno opened his mouth but was stopped by the door of the classroom sliding open. Cho turns her head forward and Jeno sits forward with his whole body leaning towards his desk. He pretends to raise his head and stare at whoever it was that had just opened the door.

Yangyang entered the room and looked between Jeno and Eunji in absolute confusion. "Do the two of you actually come to school at this hour?" He had to double-check with the watch on his wrist.

Jeno sits up suddenly feeling relieved to see a familiar face pop up by the door. He sits up straight and stands up from his seat.

Unlike all his other friends, Yangyang had gone back to Taiwan over the break. His family mostly lived there and only his sister and him were living in South Korea. His sister worked as a set designer for a lot of agencies and was quite well known. So, if you wanted a signature from a popular idol he was the guy people at school hit up for it.

"Bro!" Jeno gets up to hug Yangyang. "I haven't seen you since the break started."

"Samesies!" He pats Jeno's back and then turns to look at Eunji. "Eunji, hi!" He greets her enthusiastically, almost in a cute manner that Yangyang was completely unaware of.

Eunji lifts her head and pushes her lips together to smile. "Hello." She was completely baffled by his quite cutesy morning greeting, but beyond the morning greetings and saying hello to each other Yangyang and Eunji didn't really talk too much. That was unless she was in a group setting with other people from class.

"What were the two of you—" Yangyang then looks between Eunji and Jeno. The scene that Yangyang saw before he had opened the door was quite an intimate scene—in his opinion. Two students were alone in a room, sitting next to each other, but what sealed the deal was how both Jeno and Eunji were barely a few inches from each other.

Jeno stops Yangyang from talking as he throws his arms around his shoulder. This included his weight as well, making Yangyang bend his upper body forward as he carried most of Jeno's weight. They staggered towards his desk, leaving Eunji in her own world and the two of them in their own plant.

"Well, what was that?" Yangyang whispered as soon as Jeno sat down in his seat.

"What was what?" Jeno leans his back on the chair and looks side to side obviously avoiding Yangyang's eyes.

"The whole thing the two of you had going on?"

Jeno sighs and shakes his head. "She was just getting on my nerves," he runs a hand through his hair frustrated. "I mean she's studying for the university entrance exams. We just finished the first semester!" His voice was not really growing louder but hers was definitely getting more expressive.

Yangyang paused and looked at Jeno before he slowly took the seat beside him. "Is this because of the whole situation with you getting second place last sem?"

Jeno snickers bitterly as he turns to face the front of the classroom and leans his body onto the table. "I just don't understand—"

"She works really hard, Jens." Yangyang comments.

"What do you know?" Jeno retorts.

Yangyang sighed knowing there was no way he could win an argument against Jeno in this state of stubbornness of his. "Why are you so eager to win over her anyway? With your grades alone, you could get into a really good school on a scholarship."

Jeno looks up to see her back facing them. Her posture was the worst as her head was nearly parallel to the table that kept her book. She was sometimes stretch her neck as she read but her eyes never left the book. "There's no way I'm losing."

Yangyang shakes his head. "There's no—"

The door opened once again, this time it was going to be the last time it was going to close. Most of the students were about to arrive on campus and it just so happens that the first ones here were the three of them. Three other people stood at the entrance of the door and completed their group of friends. Haechan, Jaemin, and Renjun entered the room and placed their bags down in their seats before making their way towards the two of them.

"Yang!" Haechan gallops towards Yangyang and Jeno after dropping his bag. "Welcome back!"

Yangyang stands from his seat to give him a quick hug. "Dude, what have you been up to!"

"Liking all of your Instagram posts." Yangyang was referring to pictures of the four of them hanging out. They were out going to each other homes playing video games and hanging out. In some cases, the four of them were outside their homes and that was then Haechan would post the most.

"Come with us next time," Haechan puts his arms around Yangyang, but unlike Jeno's heavy blow, he was basically hanging around his shoulders. "All we could think about was how much you would enjoy the things we were doing."

The subconscious nods of heads in the group made it pretty obvious that the group was indeed talking about him even if he wasn't there all break. For a moment, Yangyang admits that he has found a group of people who finally cherished him in his absence.

"You could've given me a call." Yangyang tries not to show too much sentiment on his face. They had a good two more years of hanging out like this before he could finally open up about all he's been thinking.

"Would you even have answered?" Renjun grabs a seat from beside Yangyang's seat and sits down. Renjun doesn't sit there, most of them don't but they had just naturally gathered around Yangyang.

"Touche."

"Figured that much." Renjun sighs and leans his head towards Yangyang's table.

"Why do you look so tired?" Jaemin asks Renjun as he sits at Yangyang's table instead of pulling a chair towards where everyone else is seated.

Renjun sits up and stretches his arms over his head. Among the five of them, it was Renjun who carried the most boyish charm that actions as simple as stretching his arms over his head would appear cuter than all of them combined. He even leans back on his chair and then sighs. "Bona got herself a new shelf and guess who was told to help her build it at 12 midnight."

"Last night?" Jeno raises his eyebrows at the statement.

"Trust me," Renjun runs his hand through his hair, "I don't know what was going in that mind of hers."

Haechan puts his hands on Renjun's shoulder. "Yet, you can't deny her." There was a hint of teasing in the way that Haechan was talking about Bona, Renjun's childhood friend.

All he could do was sigh as Haechan wiggled his eyebrows at him. At this point in Haechan and Renjun's friendship, he was exhausted by this joke about his relationship with Bona. The long-time friends, Haechan and Renjun have spent their middle school years together and decided to enter high school in the same school as each other. Haechan says it's a coincidence, and Renjun tells everyone that Haechan is stalking him.

"Bona knows too much." Renjun sighs giving Haechan one long look before sitting up straight and facing everyone else.

Haechan's reception of that look shut him up.

As everyone finally entered the classroom, even with several other students in class, their voices were always above everyone else. They weren't aware of it but they were beginning to write their future as the days finally welcomed their youth. Now, as the sun begins to rise and the cold days of childhood leave them, they are welcomed into the warm—sometimes too hot—hug of youth.

This was their start. The first taste of the warmth of youth.

masterlist | next

#nct #nct fanfic #nct masterlist #nct jeno #jeno #lee jeno #jeno fanfic #nct dream #nct u #nct dream fanfic #nct high school #jeno fluff #nct fluff #jeno high school #renjun #jaemin #haechan #yangyang #first love

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ghostofhyuck · 4 months ago

Text

NCT Dream in We Got Married!

AN: I miss this show so much </3

Mark Lee

I think that Mark would be in the international version of WGM. You’re a famous actress in your country and you were given this opportunity because they heard you're a huge fan of NCT. So you're literally panicking when you learned who your husband is! The first meet-up was Mark picking you up at the airport and you literally ran away lol. But Mark is so chill about it! He's such a caring husband, and you two tend to code-switch since you have a little knowledge in korean, but most of the time, you two talk in english! The panelists thinks that you two are a cool couple because of how casual you two are with each other.

Huang Renjun

OHHHHH. You two are overflowing with visuals! You two are considered the flower couple because you two are just so goddamn pretty. <3 Your first meet-up was like in a maze and you two have to find out who's your partner is based on clues but really, you two already know because the news came out lol. But you met Renjun at the end of the maze with a flower bouquet with his hands and everyone was just, yep, flower couple right there. Most episodes were spent in your house, sharing domesticity and sweet moments, but your favorite moment with him was when you two spend a 2D1N stay at a countryside house.

Lee Jeno

During the individual interview, both of you expressed that you two are a homebodies. So that's both of your concern since both were scared that they may come out as boring. It turns out to be true. After meeting Jeno at a coffee shop where he has to find his wife based on her order, your domestic stay-at-home married life began. Like, it when to the point where the staff have to arrange some activities for the two of you, so that you two can go out LMAO. Activities like you two going to an amusement park wearing school uniform like a high school sweethearts or maybe doing an escape room episode where Jeno has to hold your hands because you were too scared. (Everyone loves how sweet Jeno was during that episode.)

Lee Donghyuck

Your season with Haechan was loved by everyone! Because you two are so funny and very chaotic like, he loves teasing his wife but at the same time, you won't back down and you just match his chaos. Your first meet-up, Haechan has to know who his wife is based on their choreography since he learned that his wife is an idol too. But you danced to a different song and it took him fifteen minutes to learned that you tricked him lol. But there are subtle sweet moments between you two, especially the proposal! Haechan did it on an aquarium because you mentioned that you love going to aquariums. Also you two probably kissed during one episode. ><

Na Jaemin

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. I feel like Jaemin won this season. He's just so prince-ly and is such a great husband material, like during his individual interview, it was shown that he cooks, he has his own apartment and takes care of his three cats. He's a meticulous guy who's also good with expressing his expectation on the program. So the panelists probably fell in love with him already. When your married life began, everyone just coos at how you two would give each other the princess treatment, but of course, Jaemin wouldn't back down, like,,,, he gives his 100% with everything. Cooking you breakfast, carrying your bag, and placing you on the safer side of the road. <3

Zhong Chenle

Just like Mark, Chenle would also be in the international version of WGM! You're a solo artist in your country and was loved by everyone <3 So he's marrying your country's sweetheart! Your first meet-up was Chenle going to your country and meeting you at a tower that oversees your city! Everyone gushes at how cute you two are. A newly-wed young couple, so most of your episodes are very light-hearted and high school sweetheart like! You two also tend to code-switch when you two converse with each other since you know a little bit of korean. The last episode was Chenle sending you off to the airport and it was a bittersweet episode but you two were smiling before hugging one last time. :<

Park Jisung

You two are a shy couple! very shy and very awkward like, the first meeting, you two are just so quiet and no one says a thing after you two placed at order. Jisung thinks that it should be him who should initiate the conversation, so despite stuttering (it made you laugh), he tried to talked to you and ask you questions! Your season shows how you two progressed from two shy chicks into a comfortable couple who are very sweet with each other but at the same time, would tease each other. It was a surprised that your season went long, and in your last episode, you cried because it's finished, but Jisung comforted you, (he's trying hard not to cry though :<)

#nct dream #nct imagines #nct dream fic #nct fic #nct x reader #nct #nct dream imagine #nct scenarios #nct fluff #nct drabbles #nct dream reactions #nct dream imagines #nct mark #nct jeno #nct renjun #nct haechan #nct jaemin #nct chenle #nct jisung

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lisired · 9 months ago

Text

who needs cupid’s bow?

pairing: bff!haechan x (f) reader

genre/warnings: bff2l, suggestive, lots of sexual innuedos but no smut, fluff, a teaspoon of angst, mc & hc are oblivious to each other’s feelings and jaemin calls them out on their bullshit, mutual pining

summary: Cupid is not on your side, it seems. He’s made you fall in love with the worst possible person ever, AKA your best friend, AKA the man who still eats tootsie-pops—willingly. And frankly, it feels like the damn candy has a better chance of dating him than you ever will.

word count: 11.1k

a/n: inspired by down for you by kehlani, boyfriend by ariana grande, and serial lover by kehlani. another oldie but i kinda like it… kinda. as always, feedback is appreciated!

It’s safe to say that Cupid is your mortal enemy (Or immortal—whatever. Nonetheless, you aren’t the biggest fan of him.)

You don’t know why, but for some inexplicable reason, he always makes you fall in love with the wrong people. Such as Lee Taeyong from eighth grade, or your failed relationship with Kim Jisoo from your biology class in high school — a pretty girl, but you were as compatible as Mentos and Coca-Cola. Hell, there was even Jung Sungchan from senior year, who you naturally drifted away from during an exam period. They’re all chapters in your book now, but you’re currently stuck on the one about your best friend, Lee Haechan.

It seems like you’re Cupid’s mortal enemy, too. You and Haechan are always side by side, down one another’s throats, there’s no way his arrow could have hit you and missed Haechan.

Perhaps, it’s a hole you dug yourself in. Via mutual friends, when you were seventeen, you met Lee Haechan — jock, senior, and the most beautiful boy you’ve ever seen. There was an instant connection between you two, all it took was a convo at a party about coincidentally both failing the same math exam, and you quickly became friends and close enough to pour out your heart into little rants whenever there was something personal bothering either of you, and you needed an outlet. You liked him because he understood you. He was patient witth you. You see, you aren’t the best at communicating how you feel, and he never makes you feel bad about it.

You remember breaking up with your then-boyfriend, Jung Sungchan, and while you weren’t heartbroken since you saw it coming and all the love had evaporated by then, you were devastated that you no longer had someone to kiss. That being your main concern made Haechan laugh. He thought it was the most you thing ever.

“Can I kiss you, then?” you asked, a little grin on your face, although you were very serious. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, kissing your best friend. He has pretty lips, and it isn’t like it’ll mean anything, you think. It’s just one kiss.

Haechan scoffed, biting off the last remaining piece of his Tootsie Pop off the stick. You’re kidding, he thinks. Why would you seriously want to kiss him? And after breaking up with your now ex-boyfriend? The wound’s still fresh. “You wouldn’t dare.”

To Haechan’s surprise, you dared.

He tasted like chocolate, exactly like a Tootsie Pop, as expected of him. You didn’t mind, though. You never do. It was fun, you liked the way Haechan held you in his lap and kissed you back with fierceness, and he still kisses you with that same passion, like there’s no tomorrow.

And that’s the problem.

Fast-forward four years later, you’re still best friends with Lee Haechan, only this time you’re in college, and have the fattest, most gigantic crush on him. Somewhere along the way, those lines between love and friendship were blurred. It’s impossible to pinpoint when, but you fell deep and hard for your best friend.

And the worst part? You doubt he’ll ever reciprocate those feelings.

One kiss turned into more than you can count on your fingers and toes.

Should you continue making out with your best friend who doesn’t reciprocate your romantic interest in him? Probably not.

Are you still going to, though? Absolutely.

“Y/n, I’m going to kill you,” Haechan states as he stumps inside the dining room. His hair is tussled since he’s just waken up from a nap, but you like this raw side of him. He looks gorgeous, and despite him basically threatening to murder you you still want to kiss him.

“Romantic,” you deadpan, training your eyes back on your laptop. It takes everything in you not to stare, but if you want to keep your feelings low-key, you need to follow a couple of rules.

“I know you took my Tootsie Pop. Where is it?”

You smirk a little, but it quickly fades into a line. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Okay, so maybe that’s a lie, and you both know it. You aren’t the only other person in the house, but Jungwoo, Haechan’s stepbrother, is asleep and wouldn’t cut his nap time short to do something as stupid as stealing the last of his brother’s favorite candy. That leaves you. As his best friend, you’re the first person to know Haechan turns murderous over those stupid lollipops, and that he’s the last person to know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop. In your personal opinion, they’re not even that good. But he’s loved them ever since you’ve known him.

“We’re best friends, y/n. I know when you’re lying,” he remarks, and doesn’t give you the chance to answer before he persists, “where is it?”

There’s only one way out of this.

Run.

Haechan follows almost automatically, and in spite of being barely awake he obviously has the upper hand because he’s always leaned more towards the sport-y side. This doesn’t deter you though, because you have a getaway plan.

In your attempt to somehow outrun a man that used to do track and field, you make a beeline for the backyard door. He’s not going to outrun you in the grass in slippers, you think as you turn to see if he’s caught up on you. You’re in the lead, albeit barely, with your body almost being in arms reach. You try to pick up your speed, and once you reach the door you hurry to turn the knob. Except, there’s one, itty-bitty problem.

The door is fucking locked.

And you already know you won’t have time to open it, so you cave in to defeat, whirling around with your hands up in a surrendering pose. Your plan’s backfired; you’ve been caught.

“Oh, I’ve got you now,” Haechan says cockily. He has you—hook, line, and sinker, and at this point you aren’t even upset. You can’t be upset. His eyes are on you, and his body is close to yours, dangerously so.

“Okay, you win. Happy?” You mumur.

“Not until I get my Tootsie Pop back,” he shakes his head, ��now where is it?”

Smiling, you shrug. Of course, you know where the candy is, but he’s either going to have to win or pry the answer out of you.

Then, he steps even closer, and your heart starts pounding in your chest twenty times faster than your feet were against the hardwood. This isn’t your first rodeo, you’ve made out with your best friend countless times, yet the anticipation gives you a rush, like you’ve never done this before. It makes you feel like a teenager in love all over again — seventeen, young and head over heels in love with the man closest to you.

He’s back you into the door, and you can’t keep your eyes off his lips. Beautiful, plush, soft, and your eyes flutter shut as you prepare to feel the same skilled pair against your own, closer, and closer, and closer—

Crunch.

“I fucking knew it!” Haechan yells, jolting your eyes open. You aren’t even given the opportunity to register the situation before his hands are digging into your back pocket, retrieving his fortunately unharmed Tootsie Pop.

It feels like he’s gone before you can even blink, and realizing he’s slipped back into the hall, you begin to follow him into his room. “Hey!” you yell, and he doesn’t say anything, just looking up at you from his gaming chair with that damn candy hanging from his mouth, “why didn’t you kiss me?”

“Why’d you steal my Tootsie Pop?”

Okay, that was stupid, yes, but there was a particular goal in mind which was reached, even if for a short-lived moment.

You frown, “I wanted your attention.”

Haechan shakes his head, laughing. “C’mere.”

Somehow, those words never fail, making you melt and slip into his lap effortlessly every time. You’re like Jell-O to his voice, to his touch, to his whole. You’re a goner, some would say, and a part of you is alright with never coming back if it means you get to feel all the weird, Cupid-y emotions he makes you feel.

At this point, you don’t think you’ll ever stop kissing Haechan. In the time that you’ve been together, you’ve both been in relationships, hence putting the make out sessions on hiatus. They were never really long though, because you’d break up with them and inevitably find your way back to one another in the end.

His fingers guide your chin up, and once more your eyes flutter shut as his lips unite with yours. Haechan kisses in a manner that contrasts with the soft feeling of his lips. He always starts off gentle, but there’s a hunger that overcomes him as he stands up and pushes you against his desk, rough yet graceful and holding you so firmly, like you’re glass, but he wants to break you. And when he shatters you into all those tiny pieces, you don’t care. You want him to glue you back together and do it all over again. He’s intoxicating, he’s an addictive drug, but he tastes like candy, and you can’t stop coming back to him. He feels like home, the place where you belong. The place where you can be one-hundred percent, authentically you, safe and whole, more than the general perception than you. And fuck, does he kiss like the damn devil himself.

You were silly for ever believing it would only be one kiss.

Jungwoo thinks that for people who are trying to keep their not-so relationship-y relationship under wraps, you two are very loud.

Speaking of which, and despite the nature of your relationship, you and Haechan haven’t even discussed your label. You know that you aren’t friends with benefits—you haven’t crossed that line, but to be honest, those lines have been starting to look blurry for a while—but you also aren’t in a relationship. You see other people, you fuck other people, and when other people ask if you’re dating, you both deny it immediately. You’re just best friends, you both say each time like some rehearsed line, even if it breaks your heart to hear him friendzone you.

Karina and Mark even have an ongoing bet about you two. Karina is one-hundred positive there’s something going on, whereas Mark is probably the only person in the world that wants to give you guys the benefit of the doubt.

“For heaven’s sake, I can’t get any type of sleep around here,” Jungwoo rasps, leaning against the doorframe, “I really hope you guys don’t do this shit when Dohwan’s here.”

His judgmental eyes practically bore into your soul, and you thank heaven that you don’t have to worry about keeping this secret from Jungwoo, even if he would probably appreciate it more if you did. He finds you in a rather interesting position, straddling Haechan’s lap as you press kisses into his collarbone.

It’s all Haechan’s fault, really. Three years ago, Jungwoo made the mistake of walking inside Haechan’s bedroom without knocking, accidentally finding you two making out in a very touchy way on his bed because a certain someone didn’t think to lock the door. Not only did you ruin his quote-unquote innocence, but his perception of you forever, and ever since that ordeal, Jungwoo has never opened his stepbrother’s door without knocking. This time, it just so happened to be wide-open.

You bite your lip, feeling bad. Kim Dohwan is Haechan’s halfbrother of whom he babysits whenever available (and you like to tag on, because dealing with children is stressful and Haechan’s already stressed enough), and on weekdays Jungwoo has to wake up from his nap earlier to pick up the kid from school and bring him back home, then leave for work. You were too loud and disrupted the poor guy’s nap time.

“Oh,” Haechan says the syllable blankly, not too sympathetic, “did we wake you?”

“Of course not, I usually wake up at 2pm and take extra longs showers to start my day,” Jungwoo deadpans, “but whatever. I’m heading out. Don’t forget to go grocery shopping today.”

“Noted,” you and Haechan say simultaneously, gazing at one another and stifling giggles when you catch each other’s gaze. Jungwoo smiles at you, then flicks off his brother before parting.

When you’re both all alone again, a few seconds pass before Haechan’s eyes do that thing where they twinkle every time something catches his interest (or perhaps that’s the in love side of your brain making you see things.)

“Hey, you coming to Chenle’s Valentines Day party Monday?” You don’t know why he’s even asking, you follow Haechan everywhere he goes like a lost puppy. Maybe he’s discreetly asking you out. “Unless you’re actually busy, by the way, I hope you know you’re going. And maybe you’ll find some single pringle interested in a relationship. You can’t just kiss me forever, you know.” Oh. Well that eliminates that thought.

A part of you is yelling at you to decline, to lie and say that you actually have a dick or pussy appointment scheduled for the 14th, yet another is weak, in spite of you being aware of how this works. First of all, Valentine’s Day parties are mainly for single people who don’t have anything better to do, and each time one of you go to one, you end up meeting some stranger and hooking up with them. You know that’s more than likely what he’s going to do, and you aren’t strong enough to watch him flirt with other people.

You know how to put up a good front, though, so you’ll fake it until you make it.

“We can do a lot more than kiss,” you suggest with a wink.

Haechan grimaces, “No thanks. Now get off my lap.”

You frown, but climb off his lap nonetheless. “Wow,” you drag dramatically, “You’ll make out with me for what feels like hours, but sticking your dick in me is where you draw the line?”

“Precisely.”

You gasp in faux offense. “Oh, come on. Sex doesn’t seem so bad. Like, think of it as my pussy giving your dick a nice warm hug.”

Haechan’s at a lost for words, his face bright red. How do you even come up with this stuff? “Oh my god, are you coming or not?”

You joke, “I thought you said sticking your dick in me was where you draw the line?”

He shoots you a glare so sharp you’re sure that if you were still on his lap, he’d be barely resisting the urge to shove you off. You don’t miss the way his cheeks heat up, though.

Haechan groans exasperatedly, leaning back his gaming chair, “Y/n, seriously!”

“Fine!” resisting your best friend is literally impossible, you conclude, because you have officially caved in to his request—or, more or less, demand, rather, “fine, fine! I’ll go!”

“Great,” he grins with satisfaction, beaming with his thirty-two teeth, and you even see little gleams of smiles in his eyes, “anyway, Dohwan’s gonna be here soon, so let’s get ready to go shopping.”

You furrow your brows. You have a solid twenty minutes left, and all you really need to do is slip on your shoes.

“I need more Tootsie Pops,” Haechan adds, and suddenly everything makes a lot more sense.

And you roll your eyes. “We’ll get you some more Tootsie Pops, but you better not ditch us for the candy aisle!”

“Of course, not,” he smiles, not even trying to sound or appear convincing. “I’d never leave you guys.”

That’s exactly what he does.

You aren’t even remotely surprised, though heavily disappointed when he announces in the middle of the thankfully empty cereal aisle that he’s going to find Tootsie Pops, managing to run off before you can even protest.

Gripping the shopping cart, you avert your gaze from the Cinnamon Toast Cruch boxes to his figure, almost missing him jog onto the following aisle. You shake your head, a small smile tugging your lips. If it were the end of the world, Haechan would stock up on those candies before he would even think to consider water.

“Auntie Y/N,” you aren’t quite adjusted to being addressed as an aunt, but you aren’t against it either. You have the image all put together—rich, thriving, and the kids adore you, “do you love my brother?”

That was perhaps the very last question you expected the six-year-old boy to ask you. Your eyes are a little wide, but it’s a kid, you remind yourself, so you shouldn’t be worried. But shit, then again, if a first-grader can figure it out, you’re fresh out of luck.

“Why do you think that?” You crouch down to be eye-level with him, having a feeling there’s some misunderstanding here. Dohwan’s bright for his age and doesn’t let anyone forget it, but you’ll be damned if he’s sniffed you out.

He makes a face. “I saw you kiss him, just like mommy and daddy do. And my mommy and daddy love each other very—” he stretches the vowel, and you can’t but giggle, “—much! That’s why they made me!” then he gasps, and you fear what it means, praying he doesn’t ask what you think he will. “Will you and my brother have a baby, too? I wan’ a new friend!”

On second thought, you think you’d rather he would’ve asked you what you thought he was. You nearly have a heart attack in the middle of the aisle, yet still, Dohwan gazes up at you with his innocent, sparkly eyes. You assume it’s in the blood; Jungwoo doesn’t have them, and he isn’t blood-related to Haechan, but Dohwan partially is, and the twinkle is promiment.

Calmly, you reply, “Don’t you already have a lot friends?”

He does, you both know it. You vaguely remember pulling up to his sixth birthday bash and being in shock of all the little kids jumping and flipping on the Spider-Man bouncy house. You haven’t been surrounded by that many children since, hell, probably since kindergarten.

“Yeah, but I wanna be a big brother,” he folds his tiny arms and pouts, “It’s not fair Hyuck and Woo get to be big, but I don’t!”

With minimum success, you manage to stifle your laugh, stretching out your arms to bring the little boy in for a hug, “You’ll be big one day. Trust me, you don’t wanna rush it.”

“And strong like Superman?”

“And strong like Superman,” you reassure, all smiley and convincing. “Now let’s go check up on your big brother, he’s taking too long.”

Dohwan rocks from side to side as he walks, murmuring some Nickelodeon TV show theme song, and you push the cart until you’ve reached your designation.

Quickly, you regret acting on your impatience. The scene taking place at the back of the aisle is anything but comforting—Haechan’s talking to some girl, whom of which is literally throwing herself onto him, and you can’t help but notice the way he wallows in the attention. For fucks sake, all the attention you give him and he doesn’t even give a fraction of it back! Then here comes this random girl from your campus.

Sometimes, you think about how you could do everything she’s doing right now—twirl your hair around your finger, be touchy with him, giggling girlishly at everything he says, funny or not—and yet he wouldn’t bat an eye, because you’re best friends and nothing more. Kissing each other breathless is already normalized between the two of you, what’s a little flirting.

Sometimes, you wish you hadn’t kissed your best friend that day. You’re both too comfortable, everything is too weightless. I love you, Haechan says it back without a thought. C’mere, he calls and pulls you onto his lap or cuddles you to death. Fuck, he—on very rare occasions when making out goes a little too far—groans into your ear, groping you a little. Scratch that. It may be weightless on his end, but it isn’t on yours, and everything has an everlasting effect on you.

“Auntie?”

When you look down at Dohwan, your gaze is so, so tired. Your eyes do the talking; you can’t move your lips.

He hugs your leg. “I love you.”

His face is pure, innocent, but he reads you so perfectly. The corners of your lips turn up, and you ruffle his hair, “Love ya, too. Let’s go get your brother, alright?”

He bounces eagerly, and you both begin to stroll down the aisle until you’re beside Haechan. You’re in a selfish mood today, so you think of some remark to make in the process.

“Nice Tootsie Pops, Bowlcut,” you mask your tiny emotional breakdown with a joke, “Hi, Faith.”

“Hope,” she corrects, evidently annoyed by your presence, though she doesn’t state it outright. “My name is Hope. And… bowl cut?”

“Interchangeable,” you dismiss her correction carelessly. In all honesty, you already knew her name, but you’re feeling like a bitter bitch currently, “and yeah, in high school Haechan had this hideous bowl cut that he—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Haechan grumbles, “that was four years ago!”

“And I’ll never forget,” you’re smiling blissfully, nostalgic. “Anyways, what’cha two doing?”

“We were catching up, it’s been a minute since I’ve seen Hope here,” you hear Hope snicker at this, and something about it is extremely off-putting. He turns to her, “So, I’m in a bit of a time crunch. Could I have your number?”

Ouch. Right in your face, literally.

She giggles some more, typing her number in his phone, and you try to focus on Dohwan so that you don’t cave into your desire to knock her upside the head. There’s already so much on your plate, you don’t need an assault charge.

She smiles, all bubbly and giddy. You know jealousy isn’t a good look, but it’s still pissing you off. “See you around?”

“See you around,” Haechan replies. She hugs him, not forgetting to shoot you a look from across his shoulder as she does, and only once satisfied does she turns on her heel, sashaying away.

“Didn’t know pussy was on the shopping list,” you sneer, relieved once she’s finally gone. Her presence was suffocating.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he rolls his eyes, “at least I’m actually trying, I don’t know what you’re going to do when I’m cuffed down and—holy sh—I mean crap! You’re so quiet, I forgot you were here,” Haechan jumps, only noticing Dohwan when he pokes at his leg. “And don’t you dare make a cuff joke, y/n. Not in front of the kid.”

You yell in that defensive tone which is a tell-tale sign you’re lying, “I wasn’t gonna!”

Haechan gives you the look.

The we’re-best-friends, I-know-when-you’re-lying look.

And that look is utterly withering, so you decide you’re accepting defeat. “Okay fine, maybe I was thinking about it, but I wasn’t actually gonna say it. Not with him around.”

Haechan snorts, like you said something funny, but in reality he just doesn’t believe you. “Yeah, alright. Let’s finish shopping.”

You don’t argue, but there’s a lingering thought in your mind as you push the cart, rattling around in your brain still.

When he’s cuffed. Hmm. You can’t speak for him completely, but you both know how that one goes. When you get into a relationship, you think the person is great and they serve as a nice temporary distraction—that is, until you’re bored and realize no one will ever compare to Haechan, and especially not in the kissing department. So you break up, and then you go back to making out with Haechan, solidifying your suspicion that no one will ever replace your best friend. It’s the reason you don’t do relationships anymore, you feel bad for using people when you know it isn’t going to change a thing. It never does.

As far as your knowledge extends, things aren’t too different with Haechan. You and him don’t push things, you don’t pry too deep. There’s some unspoken boundary, and you know when to drop things. That’s why you both say the same thing each time you ask one another why you and whoever it was that you were previously seeing broke up—it wasn’t working out.

Like a moth to a flame, Haechan always finds his way back to you too, because apparently you’re the only person that can keep him tied down. You don’t think that’s the case, though. Your problem is you’re in love with your best friend, no matter how hard you try to suppress the feelings. His problem? You can’t be sure, but you’d guess commitment issues.

Whatever it is, and as selfish as it may sound, you want it to stay. He isn’t yours, but you like the comfort of knowing that he isn’t anyone else’s, either.

If Cupid had a human counterpart, it would be Na Jaemin in reincarnated form. He may not have wings nor a bow and arrow, but he does have dedication and a gigantic mouth.

“I can’t believe you called me over here for this,” you stand in an effort to leave, but Jaemin pulls you back down by your wrist, so you sigh, accepting that you’re stuck in the cafe and in the middle of a Jaem-terrogation.

“Not so fast, Sonic. You still haven’t answered my question. I don’t have all day, you know, I have other people’s business to be in,” he admits unabashedly, and you snort at his honesty.

Jaemin is an extremely shameless, extremely straightforward individual. He knows what he wants, how to get it, and the only time he’s afraid of letting someone know what he’s chasing for is when it interferes with his goal of obtaining said desire. He loves all things drama and gossip, and these are the lengths he’ll go to squeeze information out of you. No wonder he’s one of the writers for the campus newspaper.

“I don’t have feelings for Haechan,” you fiddle with your fork. “And even if I did, why would it matter? Haechan doesn’t have feelings for me, either.”

“Forgive me, but you’re a fucking dumbass,” Jaemin concludes, and you gasp in dramatic offense. “Why would I be here if he didn’t like you back, y/n? You know that he hasn’t had anyone over in two weeks? There’s like, three things at the top of Haechan’s list of shit he needs to survive, and that’s you, Tootsie Pops, and sex. Yet he’s gone two entire weeks without it. He likes you, really fucking bad.”

“Golly gee, Haechan hasn’t fucked anyone in two entire weeks. He must be head over heels in love with me,” you deadpan, ignoring how Jaemin rolls his eyes in response. “Be serious, Jaem. He literally got this girl’s number the other day. The man said himself that he doesn’t want to stick his dick in me. There’s nothing going on.”

Okay, so maybe Haechan is a raging sexaholic. Maybe he’s been a little horny recently. And maybe contact-full makeout sessions have been a reoccurrence in the past two weeks, but none of that matters, and he typically has extreme self control. Fresh as yesterday, he was definitely trying to get into Hope’s pants. It’s weightless, everything between you. It means absolutely nothing, and you’re trying to come to terms with the possibility that it never will. You wish your friends would accept the fact, too.

At least they don’t know you and Haechan make out, and have been for the past four years. They’d be insufferable, and you two would absolutely never hear the end of it.

“Y/n, please. Your biggest competition is those damn Tootsie Pops.”

“And if you told him that he had to live without me or the candy, he’d choose them over me any day.”

“Actually, he’d tell me to fuck off—and stop asking him stupid questions. You can’t tell me I’m wrong because I’m speaking from experience,” Jaemin grins, “I pushed the question until he gave me a proper answer. He chose you, by the way.”

You groan into your hands, “Unless you have some other evidence to provide besides this stupid question and him not getting laid in two weeks, you’re wasting my time here, Cupid.”

Jaemin sighs, “I thought I could pressure you into admitting your feelings—”

“I don’t have feelings for Haechan!”

“—that you deny having, but I guess taking the high road doesn’t work. Don’t worry, I still have plan B. I mean, you should be worried, but it’s whatever.”

You blink. “Plan B?”

He ignores you, standing up and preparing to take his leave. You’re still curious about whatever his alternative, backup plan is however, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to tell you.

“Jaemin!” You shriek. “What are you talking about?”

“February 14th, Chenle’s party,” he answers vaguely, swinging his bag over his shoulders. “Be there, or be square. Whatever that means.”

He exits without another word, leaving you dumbfounded and with a sudden dread in your chest. They don’t… know, do they? No, of course not. How could they? You’ve been keeping this secret for nearly four years, and the only people that know are Jungwoo and Dohwan.

Great. Another reason to dread the fourteenth, and despise Cupid—and his human counterpart, your actual mortal enemy.

“I know you like Regina George, but the dress code is Cady Heron.”

Bummer. You didn’t exactly plan on attending as a sexy bunny in fishnets and knee-high boots, but you don’t intend on wearing a Party City outfit, neither. It’s only the 6th though, so you still have a week and some change to outfit plan.

You frown, “Why the change? None of his past parties have had much of a dress code.”

“Because Chenle is also stuck babysitting his baby brother on Valentine’s day while his parents are having a date night,” Haechan answers. “I’m not saying you have to dress like a prude, but don’t dress like a slut, either.”

Ignoring the insinuation behind his words, you don’t miss the fact he said also. “What do you mean also? Don’t tell me…”

“Exactly what you think. Dad is whisking my stepmom away on a romantic evening date to only God knows where, and Jungwoo is busy with his girlfriend, so me being the sole single-pringle in the family gave him the bright idea to have me baby sit,” he explains, though he doesn’t seem burdened by the task. “I don’t really mind, though. It’d be one thing if I planned on getting some pussy that night, but no one’s smashing at a party where there’s children. I hope not, at least.”

You wince at that. You hope not, too. It’s a setback that you have to re-plan your outfit, but on the plus side, Haechan can and will help you decide this time, even if you have to force him.

So that’s where you find yourself a couple hours later, your bedroom a mess as the aftermath of the meticulous care you’ve put into your self-styling. You’ve narrowed it down to two outfit selections; option A, the white crop-top with the cute pink pants; or option B, the pretty and red mini-dress with stilettos. It’s a little embarrassing that hours of your indecisiveness have led you to this conclusion, but you want to choose the perfect outfit that’s also not overbearing.

“And I have to help you why?”

“Because you’re my best friend, and that’s what best friends are for, duh.”

Haechan’s favorite thing about your place is you have all his utmost favorite games—and that literally everything there is like a piece of you, from the decoration to the smell of your perfume bottles you keep in your bathroom. He’d never tell you that, though—so he wasn’t too enthusiastic about being interrupted from his video-gaming session. But then, he realized he gets a special preview of your Valentine’s day outfit, and Haechan loves the way you dress, probably an abnormal amount. Slutty or prude-y.

“Then what’cha waiting for? Strip for me, princess,” he demands jokingly. It isn’t normal for you to feel bashful by anything a guy says, but everything is so different with Haechan. It’s the littlest, simplist things that drive you over the edge, that make you want him in ways you probably, scratch that, definitely shouldn’t.

And all the questions, assumptions, and rumors regarding your nonexistent relationship with Haechan aren’t exactly unwarranted. You two flirt and touch an abnormal amount, and while it’s common knowledge that Haechan is a touchy person, and you’re a natural flirt, people say it’s extreme between you two.

That makes you laugh. When it comes to the tension between you both that people speak of, you wish you could see what they see.

“You want to watch me strip?” You’re genuinely surprised, only the other day he seemed repulsed by the thought of you naked. “That’s new. I’m guessing you haven’t gotten laid in a hot minute.”

Haechan rolls his eyes, silently confirming what Jaemin told you at the cafe, but you shake the thought away, refusing to let it spur you on. It doesn’t mean anything. “Anyways. You’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before, baby girl. Now, you gonna strip or what?”

“I’m stripping, I’m stripping! Relax, Liam Payne!” It’s really nothing he hasn’t seen before, because Haechan’s seen naked girls, and he’s seen you half-naked before, so neither of you actually care. You peel off your top, slowly and in a strip tease sort of way and look him in the eye, giggling once you catch him shaking his head. You don’t repeat the movement with your shorts though, simply taking them off and picking up your new shirt to slip it off the hanger.

Successfully discreet, Haechan wallows in the sight of you half-naked for as long as he can before you’re slipping on the crop top and the pink pants. Now that he thinks about it, he bought you those pants, and darn do they make your ass look good. Then he realizes he’s thinking about your ass and taking not as discreet looks at it, and shakes the thought away.

“So?” Your voice cuts through the silence. “What do you think?”

He needs a moment to gather himself and recollect his thoughts, because he feels like turning on Destiny’s Child’s Bootylicious and if spoke his mind he would definitely say something he’d regret. Like, I could fuck the shit out of you. He doesn’t think he should say that.

“What do you mean, what do I think? I bought you those pants, I’d be damned if I thought you didn’t look good in them,” Haechan supplies, making you roll your eyes in response.

“Very underwhelming reaction. I wanted you to fall out on the floor and pass out for a few seconds with your hand on your chest,” you pout.

“Definitely not doing all that,” he chuckles. “But you do look good enough for… somebody to do it. Anyways, it’s stripping time again. Get in that dress for me, princess.”

If he doesn’t stop with the pet names you’re going to combust. You hide it though, taking off outfit option A and putting on option B. You feel confident in your appearance, with or without him, but the way Haechan’s practically gawking at you does boost said confidence.

“What about this one?”

Okay, so Haechan’s one-hundred percent biased in his decision—or maybe he isn’t, since he didn’t buy this outfit—though nonetheless, he loves this dress on you. In his personal opinion, you’ll look good in anything you wear, but the way this particular dress hugs your figure perfectly is a bonus. He knows all eyes are going to be on you the moment you step inside Chenle’s house, and maybe he’s going to have to keep you and Dohwan close to his side.

Rather than replying verbally, Haechan walks forward and pulls you into a kiss. His hands dip around your waist, skirting the area until he’s gripping you like he’s afraid of letting go.

And as always, you melt into his lips. Like ice to the sun, or wax to a flame. It’s the umpteenth kiss in your whole lifetime, but Haechan always makes it feel like the first time. Like two love-struck highschoolers, except with a lot more experience. Haechan kisses you like he loves you, and you hate it. You might even loathe it.

His fingers slip down your hips, to your revealed thighs, like he just so happens to know that’s one of your weak spots. Luckily you’ve learned some of his weak spots too, and not really thinking, you don’t hesitate to aim for his most sensitive one - his neck. You can’t get used to how beautiful he sounds as he moans, your lips pressing into his sweet spot and leaving undoubtedly a mark.

“Fuck,” Haechan moans, “you’re my kryptonite, you know that?”

“A kiss is all it takes for you to fold?” You gasp out with a smirk.

“Shut up.”

Your grin widens. “Make me.”

Just as he leans in, about to pin you down to your duvet and kiss the life out of you while you’re thinking that maybe this is the tension people speak of, his phone rings in his back pocket. It feels like snapping out some trance or spell, like a reverse Cupid’s arrow, and he instantly backs off of you.

He takes a look at his phone screen. “I um, I gotta take this.”

Biting your lip, you nod. “Okay.”

“You look great though,” he comments, and you smile thinly at him as he slips from between your fingertips yet again.

It seems that you’re left all alone, pathetically wet, and wondering if that person on the other line is Hope - but you try to shake that thought off.

Sighing, you flop against your sheets. Love is some extremely cruel, extremely rigged game that only lucky people win, and it seems that Luck has sided with the evil that is Cupid. You’ve been dealt cards, and Haechan refuses to show you his hand. All you can do is watch it play out.

Haechan knew that something was dangerously off when Jaemin bought him a brand-new bag of Tootsie Pops without being asked, and invited you over for a movie night with the guys, offering to open up with you and Haechan’s all-time favorite movie, Mean Girls. He even offered to play The Kissing Booth next! Everyone else instantly protested of course, but the fact he offered in the first place is borderline suspicious.

Sure, Jaemin’s not the devil or anything, depending on who you ask. He’s… kind, and he can be a sweetheart. But Jaemin does nothing for free, and Haechan can’t shake the thought that this is planned bribery. And it isn’t hush-money. Jaemin doesn’t buy silence, he buys words.

By the time Jaemin asks Haechan to help him with the popcorn, he’s ninety-nine point nine percent sure that something is definitely wrong here. Yet still, he follows him into the kitchen.

“Alright, what’s up man?” Haechan wastes zero time, wanting to get to the bottom of all this. “I know you want something out of me. There’s no other reason you would offer to play The Kissing Booth, or buy me Tootsie Pops for free.”

Jaemin scoffs, but he doesn’t try to front, “Glad you know. Since we’re on the same page, let’s address this thing with you and y/n.”

“That’s what this is about?” Haechan grumbles. “I’ve told you, I don’t have feelings for her!” He whisper-yells.

Jaemin has heard that far too many times for it to be convincing. He’s positive that even Helen Keller herself could tell you two are hopelessly in love. Takes one to know one, he thinks. It seems the three of you must be blind, because you and Haechan are oblivious to your feelings for one another, and it’s painfully obvious.

“And Mary wasn’t a virgin,” Jaemin says ironically, making Haechan roll his eyes. “If you’re not in love with her, then explain what the hell is going on between you two. I know that she’s your best friend or whatever, but you don’t act like it at all. From a fresh perspective, someone would totally think you’re in love.”

Haechan hates that he’s right. It doesn’t make sense the amount of times you’ve gone to public places and had cashiers refer to you as a couple, or elderly people ask you if you’re together. Because you’re not. You’re best friends, and even if Haechan wants to be more than that, that’s his label. And he’s sure he’s stuck with it for life.

“You’re fucking Hope to distract yourself from your feelings for y/n,” Jaemin adds, and it’s a statement, not a question.

“I’m not—”

“You are,” Jaemin interjects. “Head over heels, in love with a girl you think doesn’t reciprocate your feelings, and you’re also being an ass to her, whether you know it or not.”

If Haechan was in a situation where he needed to simplify the reason you two click so well, he’d say chalk it up to compatibility and say it’s because you’re like a mirror of one another. Which also means he knows you, better than anyone else even, and he knows neither of you do the whole catching feelings things anymore. You like to fuck and flirt, and fuck some more, to avoid the fact that you love too hard. If you fuck people whose names you don’t even remember, it doesn’t mean a darn thing that you two make out.

No one really knows about that part yet. But they do know that you like to fuck, and that’s why Haechan thinks that if he’s an ass, then that means so are you. What the fuck is he doing that you aren’t?

Even if he is an ass, what is he supposed to do? He’s only recently realized that damn, he actually does have feelings for you, which is where Hope comes along and yes, he is fucking her to distract himself from you. So what? It’s not like it’s working, he’s still stuck on you, obsessed with the thought of you, craving your touch and the sound of your voice. He still loves you, and it’s so scary because no matter what his friends say, he thinks they don’t know you or your relationship like he does. They think they do, but they don’t.

“I’m not in love,” Haechan lies through his teeth, “maybe I’m in like.”

Jaemin snorts. In like? That’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. Not in love his fucking ass. “You’re in denial, that’s what you are.”

Haechan grumbles, trying desperately not to raise his voice so that the others don’t hear him from the living room, “Even if I did like her—and I’m telling you, I don’t—it wouldn’t change anything because she doesn’t like me.”

“You two are the same breed of oblivious and stupid,” Jaemin takes the popcorn out of the microwave, pouring it all into a bowl. He’s even laughing, much to Haechan’s confusion, but he’s apparently unbothered by Haechan’s lack of confession, “but fine. Lie to my face. I still have a backup plan.”

“A back-up plan?” Haechan repeats, lost.

“I just thought it would be nice of me to try and get you to confess before I have to work a Valentine’s day miracle, but unfortunately you two are a match made in heaven—both terribly stubborn,” Jaemin says vaguely, not really answering Haechan’s question, “so I guess we’ll all know the truth at Chenle’s party.”

Jaemin exits with the popcorn bowls before Haechan can even part his lips to ask another question, and he stands there, shocked and unsure of how to react. He’s concerned, though. Jaemin has something cooking (besides the popcorn), and he isn’t sure what, but it’s Na fucking gossiping blabbermouth Jaemin. That means it can’t be anything good.

So apparently when you and Haechan had that heated makeout session the other day, you left a trail - or in other words, you marked his neck the fuck up.

You hadn’t noticed because he covered it up with concealer, but you’re in the middle of another one of those when he stops you, preventing you from repeating your mistake.

“You can’t do that. People will see,” Haechan frowns. You wonder what’s the problem with hickeys. Is he embarrassed? No way. Haechan? Embarrassed? About hickeys? He has much bigger fish to fry.

In contrast, you’re over the moon. Even if he isn’t yours, marking him up makes you feel like he belongs to you. Plus, other people will see, and they’ll know that he isn’t theirs, either. Haechan also has a beautiful neck, you realize as you stare at his skin. It makes you wonder if there’s anything about him that isn’t beautiful.

“Would that be so bad?” You ask. “You’d look sexy all marked up by me.”

Haechan groans, “Do you ever think with your head and not your pussy?”

“I wish my pussy was my head. My head’s just so full of you,” you sigh dramatically.

It’s rare for Haechan to blush, but you somehow manage to make him full-on flush sometimes and you take that as an achievement. It’s partially the reason you love flirting with him so much, he’s so reactive. His reactions are cute sometimes.

“Be serious for 5 seconds,” he whines, and you giggle.

“I was serious,” you insist, “but fine, I’ll think with my head since yours is clearly not working. No one’s gonna assume they’re from me, Hyuck. Just tell them they’re from one of your hoes.”

“I know, but it’s not them I’m worried about. It’s, um…” he trails off.

You’re confused, blinking. If not your friends, then who on earth—oh, for fucks sake.

“It’s Hope,” you utter tonelessly.

“Yeah, uh, yeah,” he wonders why you suddenly sound so dry, and then the whole grocery shopping thing seeps back into his mind. You obviously don’t like Hope, and it’s not just you, really. Lots of people don’t like her. But Haechan needs a pretty face to compete with the image of yours in his head, even if it isn’t winning. “She kinda likes me, and—”

“Do you like her?” You don’t mean to ask so fast. It slips, like your mouth has a mind of its own.

Haechan shrugs. No, he doesn’t like her. He likes you, but he thinks that maybe he can somehow convince himself it’s the other way around. So he replies, “Maybe.”

Fuck. You try not to appear suddenly devoid of life, forcing a cheery smile. “That’s… nice,” you lie through your teeth. “Let me take this opportunity to have one last kiss before I possibly never will again?”

Haechan snickers, to silently say as if. He isn’t wrong for it, either. One kiss is never one kiss with him — never has been, never will be. There’s a reason you both bonded over bombing a math exam.

D-day rolls around, and you’re eyeing your frame in your full-length mirror, smoothing your palms over your dress as you give yourself a quick once-over before the clock strikes 7PM. You look like that bitch, and everyone in that party is going to fucking know it because you’re going to walk in there like that bitch. Fuck Cupid. You don’t need his stupid bow. And fuck Haechan, too. He’s your ride, but he’s gonna ditch you at some point in the party like he always does. It’ll be no different now, and this time, you’ll be the first one to leave.

The chime of the doorbell jolts you from your mental slumber, and you quickly reach for your purse then head towards the door with a heavy heartbeat. You know he’s already seen you in this dress, he chose it for fucks sake, but there’s something else that gets your heart racing—no. You can’t think about him. Fuck Haechan, remember? He’s no good for you.

“Here goes nothing,” you mutter to yourself, palm on the doorknob, “you can do this.”

Haechan’s sucks in a breath the moment you open the door. You look gorgeous. You always do, but in this particular moment, you look better than you ever have before. Those corny romance sayings usually make him laugh with mirth, but he’s genuinely convinced you look better everyday that he sees you. All dressed up like this, or not.

“You look so pretty, Auntie!” Dohwan beats him to a compliment.

You bend down to ruffle the boy’s hair, “Thank you, Dohwan. You look very handsome.” And then you look at Haechan.

He looks handsome as well, unfortunately. Jet black hair, exposed forehead, and his outfit is black with red hearts in the center of the shirt. You try not to pay him too much mind, but your heart and the place between your thighs don’t seem to agree with your mind. He catches you looking at him, and feels a twinge of anxiousness in his heart. Get it together, man, he tells himself. Lee Donghyuck doesn’t get nervous looking at pretty girls. Lee Donghyuck doesn’t hesitate about his actions, either, wondering if he should hold your hand, he doesn’t rethink what he should say. It all comes to him naturally.

“Yeah, you look beautiful,” he settles, mentally cursing himself for being unable to think of anything else. He blames you. Ever since you first snuck in his mind, you’ve been living rent-free there, and make it hard to think about anything else sometimes. That’s why he thought that needed distractions.

If you could relay the message to your heart, you’d tell it stop beating. Instead, you mask your emotion, smiling. “Thank you, likewise. Now c’mon, we gotta get there by 7:30!”

Haechan’s saddened by the dismissal, but you don’t catch his face as you walk to his car.

If you ignore him, you can do this.

Haechan cannot do this.

Something isn’t right. It wasn’t right the second he noticed you gave him a simple, rushed compliment, not bothering to make some sexual remark that usually makes Haechan’s cheeks feel like fire. You didn’t even kiss him before you got in the car. And Haechan’s sure you’ve been avoiding him like the plague, scurrying off and getting lost in the red and pink sea before he could even ask you if you wanted to check out the drink menu.

He doesn’t know where you are, and that haunts him. Turns out Chenle is paying Yangyang, Ten and Jisung to keep the kids entertained on one end of the house, whilst the adults do adult-y things on the other. You could be with someone else for all he knows, hell, you probably are. He was practically fuming when he saw some people staring at you as you walked in.

“Uh oh, I think y/n divorced Haechan,” Chenle jokes, and a choir of laughs follows suit.

Haechan grumbles, “A guy can’t miss his girl best friend?”

“Of course, you can,” Chenle drawls, “but everyone knows she’s more than just a friend to you. Like even if you aren’t together, there’s no way you guys don’t have feelings for each other.”

“Right? And they’re so cute together, too. A literal match made in heaven by angel Cupid,” Jaemin agrees, speaking as though Haechan isn’t right there.

“You’re dating y/n?” gasps Karina, overhearing Jaemin much to Haechan’s dismay. Oh, great, she’s as much as a blabbermouth as he is. The whole world’s going to think Haechan’s dating you in five minutes or less.

“No!”

“Yes, he is, spread the word,” Jaemin says, already knowing he doesn’t have to tell her. Karina’s mumbling I knew it under her breath before jogging somewhere.

“You know,” Haechan starts, downing a shot because if he’s not at least tipsy he’s going to die at this party, “she’s been making me watch murder documentaries with her and I’ve definitely picked up a thing or two. I’d be careful.”

Jaemin scoffs, “Please. You’re going to be kissing my ass and the ground that I walk on by the time this party’s over.”

There it goes. Haechan wonders what’s so special about tonight that Jaemin’s been hinting at vaguely. It’s been keeping him on his toes, but he doesn’t ask because he knows Jaemin, and he isn’t going to tell him a thing. The one time this guy wants to keep something secret.

An hour flies by, and Haechan still hasn’t seen you. He’s looked for you, and refuses to believe his eyes are somehow missing you, even though you’re in a crowd. He literally went up the stars and gazed over the railing for a better view, and you were no where to be found. You’ve refused to answer your phone, too, and Haechan doesn’t know what to do. He would just start talking to some random chick, but that’s not what Haechan wants. He doesn’t want some random chick. He wants to be with you. Hold you. Touch you. Kiss you, with no shame, no fear, in front of everyone, and he isn’t in denial about it. He wants you.

And Jaemin is fed up.

“Alright, I’m tired of you moping around drinking like a divorced man. Let’s go to the kitchen,” Jaemin suggests. Or commands, but still.

Haechan quirks a brow. “Where there’s nothing but more drinks?”

“Trust me, I’m not letting you drink anymore tonight. You have a wife and a kid to drive home,” Jaemin jokes. Usually he’d deny any sort of relationship with you that isn’t best-friendship, but Haechan simply shakes his head, following his friend and roommate into the kitchen.

Then he sees you, and his jaw doesn’t just drop, but it falls flat on the ground, bounces a little, and comes back down. You’re clinging to Chenle’s side with a confused face, equally as surprised to see him, though not very delighted.

“What’s going on?”

You stare at one another.

“Stop copying me!”

Jaemin and Chenle stare at one another, then stare at you two staring at one another, and stare at one another again.

“I hate to interrupt your… stare-off, but there’s a reason we brought you two here,” Jaemin interjects, making you two finally split gazes as you stare at him, confused.

“Which is?”

You glare at him. Jaemin’s success was short-lived, it seems.

“Drum roll, please,” he says, and Chenle begins tapping against the counter, “Dohwan!”

Suddenly, Dohwan pops up from around the corner. He’s on the completely wrong side of the house, and while he’s under adult supervision, you still wonder why he’s here.

You blink. “What’s he doing here?”

Jaemin smirks. “I’m glad you asked. Dohwan tells me he’s witnessing some very interesting sights of the two of you. Go ahead and tell us what you saw, kiddo.”

“I saw Haechan and Auntie y/n kissing, like mommy and daddy do!” Dohwan shares, grimacing in disgust. If you weren’t practically fearing for your life right now, you’d probably laugh at his reaction.

“And how often do you see this?” Chenle adds.

“Um…” the kid ponders, “every time Auntie y/n comes over. I heard them say they wanted to keep it a secret from me, but they’re not very good at it.”

Haechan shoots you a panicked look, and you’re wearing the exact same one. By the time you realize that this is what Jaemin’s been hinting at this whole time, it’s much too late. Your secret has been exposed to the worst people ever, and now they’re definitely going to think you’re dating.

“Thank you for your input, Dohwan,” Jaemin smiles, then turns to look at you and Haechan. You’re both frozen and stiff, unsure of how to respond. “So, anything to say about this?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Haechan’s quick to say. You hope no one catches the way your face falters with hurt for a split second. “If you want me to be honest, then fine, I will. Yeah, we kiss. We’ve been kissing since high school, but it didn’t mean anything then and it doesn’t mean anything now. We just, I don’t know, do it for fun.”

Chenle deadpans, “So you just kiss for pure, innocent fun.”

“Exactly,” Haechan nods. “It means nothing.”

It means something to me, you think to yourself, and when you notice the silence in the room, you gaze up to see everyone’s eyes on you, Haechan’s a little wide. Oh, fuck.

“I said that aloud, didn’t I?”

“Yep,” Jaemin grins. He was right. “Is there something you want to share with the class?”

Stupidly, you decide to look at Haechan, and he’s re-lost his composure, frozen up and stiff all over again. Your heart is pounding harder than it has been all night. It’s partially the alcohol, but you can feel it in your veins and all around you. It won’t leave you alone, and looking at Haechan, it’s faster, as if to say he’s the one I want.

So you choose to make another decision that you might possibly regret, but you have to get this off your chest. It isn’t news to anyone but Haechan anyways.

“Donghyuck,” you start, and he knows it’s getting serious because you just said his government name. You literally never call him by his government name. “I know we agreed to keep things platonic, and for it to mean nothing, but I want you. Like really, really bad. I think I—no, everyone’s right, I really am, extremely in love with you. If you don’t feel the same I understand, I just had to get this off my che—”

You aren’t given the chance to finish before Haechan swoops you in his arms, reaching for your waist as he pulls you into a kiss. There’s a chorus of cheers from Chenle and Jaemin, followed by a shriek of disgust from Dohwan as he covers his eyes, but you two aren’t trying to hide anymore, you want to scream from the rooftops that you’re in love. Yes, the infamous Lee Donghyuck and y/n know more than flirting and fucking. You’re in love, drunk off of a sip of it and the taste of Haechan’s lips, and god, has kissing your best friend never felt better.

“Let’s give the newlywed couple some privacy now,” Jaemin says with a grin. Gosh, he really is the spawn of Cupid, but you have to thank him. This wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for his stupid ‘gotcha!’ plan. “You two work this out.”

The three of them pile out, and you and Haechan part from one another to breathe. You stay in comfortable silence for a moment, his hands slipping into yours.

“Your hands are sweating,” you comment after a while.

“It’s hot.”

“It’s the middle of February.”

“So? Global warming is real, you know,” Haechan shrugs, refusing to acknowledge the fact that his hand is sweating because he’s nervous. He’s accepted that you make him feel all warm inside and his heart feel like mush, but he still isn’t used to not hiding the way you make him feel.

You laugh but don’t press things. “Newlywed couple, huh. Can’t be, you still haven’t popped the question.”

“Yeah?” He laughs, too. “Then will you take my hand in marriage and take me as your illegally wedded husband?”

You hum, pretending to contemplate, “Hmm, I don’t know. You sure you don’t wanna marry a giant cardboard Tootsie Pop cutout? Or what about that girl? What happened to her, by the way, I thought you said you liked her.”

Haechan groans, not really wanting to think about her right now, “No more Hope. Ironically, she’s a lost cause. I had to cut shit with her because she can’t comprehend what a fling is. She wanted a relationship, and you know, I lied to you when I said that I might want her. I didn’t know you liked me back until, like, now, so I was just saying shit in hopes of convincing myself I could stop liking you. That planned failed, though.”

His words lift a massive weight off of your shoulders, and you finally feel like you can breathe now. Take that, bitch, you think with a smirk. She was giggling in your face so hard at the grocery store, but you’re having the last laugh.

You tilt your head. “What about the Tootsie Pops?”

“Yeah, sorry but I can’t give them up as easily. Would you mind a Tootsie Pop bouquet?”

Gosh, this is the man you love. You roll your eyes, but smile as you reply, “You know, you’re like a Tootsie Pop.”

If Haechan were a dog, his ears would perk up right now. “How come?”

“I’ll never know how long I’ll be able to kiss you without wanting to fuck you,” you lean in his ear to purr, voice tickling his neck. You eye it and his lips, and lord knows you can’t wait to finally be able to mark him up again.

“Yeah? Wanna go home, put Dohwan to sleep, and let me take this dress off you?” He grips at your waist, his hand resting there with the burning urge to dip lower. He bites his lip.

“Thought you drew the line at sticking your dick in me,” you joke.

“That was when I was in denial about wanting you,” Haechan whispers, “but now I can admit to myself that even though you amazing in this dress, I wanna take it off of you. Your body’s perfect.”

“I kinda hate the scar on my thigh.”

“Don’t. It provides depth to your character. It makes someone wonder how you got it, the story of how it happened,” he answers, ever so deeply.

“Poetic,” you snort, “can’t tell if you’re giving me Bruno Mars or John Legend vibes more right now.”

Haechan rolls his eyes, smiling. “You said you’d never know how long you’d be able to kiss me without dying to fuck me, right?”

“I never said dying.”

He ignores you, “Then let’s put it to the test, shall we?”

Your lips wind up pressed firmly to his, with your hands on his cheek and his palms on your hips yet again. It’s fiercer than ever, Haechan’s kissing you like he doesn’t want to let you breathe, like he wants to stay in this moment with you forever. He kisses you with love and lust, with passion and desire, with emotion and no more fear in his chocolate-y eyes. You don’t regret kissing Haechan that day. It took a while, but it brought you to this moment where you can finally call him yours. And that one more kiss stuff is bullshit. His lips are yours and vice versa, and as you’re by each other’s side, you’ll never stop kissing him. And he’ll never stop kissing you.

“They’re here!” Karina suddenly bursts into the kitchen, pointing at you and Haechan. “Look! I told you they were dating!”

Oh, god. You totally forgot about Karina’s stupid bet with Mark. Mark looks entirely devastated and surprised, devastated because that’s twenty-five bucks gone from his wallet, and surprised because he genuinely believed you and Haechan have been best friends this whole time. Technically, he isn’t wrong, but you’re not sure if you want to interrupt to tell them that.

Mark whines, “Oh, c’mon! I really thought you guys were just friends.”

“Pay up, loser,” Karina smirks, and with a pout, Mark pulls cash from his pockets.

Haechan looks at you, and while you don’t say anything, you can tell you’re both thinking the exact same thing. The whole campus is about to know you two are dating. Karina’s for sure going to tell everyone she knows, hell, probably even people she doesn’t know, and there’s a ninety-nine point nine percent chance of Jaemin raining your business on everyone in his latest report for the school newspaper.

You can’t say that you care, though. This is what you wanted, to unashamedly love Haechan, to be able to state it proudly in front of everyone, to let everyone know, to claim him as yours and yours only. So fuck Cupid. Fuck his bow, fuck his arrow, because this relationship is all a product of you and Haechan’s hard work and dedication.

Who needs Cupid’s bow when you have tasty lips and Tootsie-Pops?

“You’re telling me you’ve been in love with me for the past four years? Oh, you’re a soldier. I would have given up in the first month.”

You snort. Part of becoming Haechan’s girlfriend is the process of telling one another the secrets you’ve been keeping, such as how long you can been in love. Haechan’s been in love with you for a solid year, he thinks, maybe two, but it’s been almost four years for you, on the other hand.

“If only it were that easy,” you sigh. “Trust me, I tried getting over you by getting under other people—how Jessie Reyez of me—but that didn’t work out, obviously.”

“You are too much like me,” Haechan shakes his head. “What made you think we should anyways?”

“You mean, four years ago, or now?”

Haechan shrugs. “Either. Give me three reasons.”

“Oh, brace yourself. I could do a presentation on this. One, we know each other’s McDonald’s orders. Two, like you said, we’re very alike. When have we ever argued over pizza toppings?” You reason. “Three, I can’t imagine kissing anybody else. I mean, we’ve basically been practicing on each other for the past four years. I’m the reason you can kiss so good, it would insane for you make out with other people. Four, I have a fat ass and sometimes I catch you staring at—”

“I said three reasons!” Haechan cries, face blooming red as a rose.

“I could go for a fifth,” you grin, “we’re both terrible at math.”

“Damn right we are,” he mutters. “But that’s what makes us… us, isn’t it? The only reason we’re dating right now is because we couldn’t resist kissing each other after one time.”

He’s right. It practically only took one kiss to fall in love with Haechan. He’s giving you major Dua Lipa vibes right now.

“I know you’re thinking about that Dua Lipa song right now.”

You smirk. “You know me very well.”

He tilts his head. “And what else are you thinking about?”

“That you look like all I need,” you say in tune, making Haechan laugh. “And I just want to feel your skin on mine.”

“Then we should do something about that, right?” Haechan smirks back.

You’re kissing the smirk right off his lips seconds later, and this is where you decide that you just can’t get enough of him. Even if one kiss is all it takes, you’re greedy for more, and more, and more, until both your lips are swollen and you’re both gasping for air.

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