tynlvr

[tynlvr]

LMFAOOO (this is me on my kpop dedicated acc lol)

IS THIS NOT YOU????

I SAW THIS AND WENT WAIT IVE SEEN THIS

YES THAT IS ME HELPPP IT BLEW UP LIKE CRAZY LAST YEAR me and op are oomfs now 💗

[tynlvr]

YUTAROT STRIKES AGAIN THIS IS SO GOOD WTF

butterfly. l.jn

guitarist!jeno, college au, band au, friends to lovers, fluff

wc. 8k

synopsis. after you and three other students transfer to a new college, a rumour goes around that the lead guitarist of the college’s rock band has a thing for one of the transfers. you don’t care, not until the transfer you had grown closest to disappears and only one name runs through your head as to who’s at fault: lee jeno.

warnings. depictions of bullying, reader has a hard time in the beginning, reader has character development, language, mention of alcohol

you have never liked attention, it has always seemed to overwhelm you. you never even had a birthday party when you were younger, the fear of a group of people singing happy birthday for you and only you worried you beyond belief. so when a video of you falling in the middle of a lecture on your way to the bathroom began circulating around your college, you knew that it was time to transfer to another college as far away as humanly possible.

so that leads you to now, feet rooted in place as you stand at the door of your new dorm, running your hands through your hair in the fear of either a weird or rude roommate. you take your time in knocking, eventually deciding to get it over with. 

when the door opens, the girl on the other side of the threshold gasps, noticing the suitcase by your side. 

‘oh my god, come in!’

her enthusiasm throws you backwards as you smile, hesitantly walking through the door and letting her take your things, placing them on one of the beds.

she reaches out her hand to shake yours, ‘im karina, but most people back home call me rina.’

you take her hand, noticing the sweetness of her smile as she looks at you. after a moment of silence, you realise what she had said.

people back home?

‘you’re a transfer student too?’ you ask. 

she grins, lighting up and nodding at your question. 

the next few hours, you spend time getting to know each other: your food preferences, what time you sleep, and eventually each other's majors - hers being communications whilst yours is economics. you also learn that karina had only been here for a few hours before you, her energy and productivity just meant that she had unpacked in impossible speed.

you practically spend the whole night in excitement, cooking dinner and listening to music.  you even learnt about each other's past relationships, watching her face drop when you explained you’d been single your whole life. it was nice, more than nice, to have a friend you click with that quickly, and you thank whoever is looking over you for having put you both in a dorm together.

the next morning, you had made it to your first class far too early, insisting that you walk with karina to her class before waiting around for yours. you hadn’t spoken to anyone else yet, learning instead from the chatter of conversations around you that this semester there were four transfers, you, karina and two you hadn’t met yet. you stay quietly tucked against the wall as you wait, disliking the looks of confusion as people see you waiting for a class they’ve never seen you in before, but you disregard it, it’s better than the looks you got last year. 

when the lecture before yours eventually floods out, you silently creep in, securing your seat at the back corner of the hall before anyone else arrives. something inside of you secretly hopes that someone sits beside you, offering you their friendship, but by the time the lecture starts, the seat beside you remains empty, disappointment fading into your chest as you try to not let it bother you. 

instead, there was something else bothering you: the indistinct feeling of somebody watching you. that was not something you weren’t used to feeling, so like always, you ignore it; nothing good can ever come out of having a pair of eyes trained on you. 

to say that the lecture was boring was an understatement. leaving the hall, you spot karina waiting for you by a bench and you make a direct beeline in her direction. 

‘how was your first class?’ she asks, standing up the moment she sees you. 

‘pretty boring.’ you drone. ‘you?’

‘aww. i made friends with one of the other transfers! her name is sakura and she's soooo sweet.’

your interest peaks at the mention of another transfer student. immediately you ask karina for more details, but when she replies complaining about only exchanging a few words with her, the subject moves swiftly on. 

‘so..’ karina starts, walking side by side with you as you make your way back to your dorm, ‘you don’t have anything planned tonight, do you?’ she asks. 

you furrow your brows, ‘nope, haven’t exactly made any other friends..’

‘perfect!’ she bursts in reply, ‘me and you are going to karaoke.’

your heart stills. ‘absolutely not.’

‘come onnn, it’ll be fun.’

the look she gives you makes you feel as though if you don’t accept her offer, she’ll likely go with someone else instead, and with her as your only friend, it would be nice to keep her around. 

you give her a look of inconfidence before slowly nodding. she jumps up and down, pulling you into a hug as she takes your arm, running towards the dorm in excitement.

why the hell did you say yes, you ask yourself, sitting nervously on the sofa of the karaoke room you and karina occupy, watching as she sings her heart out to ‘little light’. you clutch your fingers in your palm, trying to ignore the sweat that has accumulated due to your nerves. it’s been nearly 4 years since you last sang, and now you’re about to break that. she’s about to see a side of you you’ve never shown anyone else before, all except the shampoo bottles that line the shelves in your bathroom. 

as her song comes to a stop, you give her a well deserved round of applause; the entire song may have consisted of her shouting down the mic, entirely out of breath, but it was incredibly entertaining. 

‘thank you, thank you.’ she bows in laughter before sitting down. only then do you realise that it’s your turn, getting up and standing where karina just was, trying to ignore your knees as they attempt to buckle beneath you. 

you look through the song book, scanning the pages until a song jumps out at you. you used to sing this song to yourself every time you felt angry, using it to compress any emotion that threatened to break through your minds well constructed walls. you take the remote, pressing in the numbers for ‘stop crying your heart out’ by oasis. 

the music begins, flourishing through you like a fever, gripping a vice-like hold on your heart as it ripples through you. you hold the mic to your lips, letting the melody leave you, alongside all the thoughts and suffocating emotions that have been trapped within you for the past few months. it’s freeing, but incredibly captivating. it’s only after the song finishes that you remember where you are, the colourful lights of the karaoke room fading into darkness and the silence that follows strikes your gut in fear.

but it’s the look on karina's face that truly shocks you.

she stands there, completely and utterly in awe. not a word leaves either of you, completely bewildered by the past 4 minutes. 

‘wow…’ she whispers, ‘you can sing.’

you laugh to yourself quietly. ‘not really..’

‘not really?! yn you just sang the most beautiful thing i’ve ever heard in my entire life!’ she says, walking towards you in excitement. 

ever so slightly, you let a proud smile slip. noones ever complimented your singing before. noones ever gotten a chance to hear you.

‘thank you.’ you grin. 

‘i don’t know how i’m ever going to live up to that.’ she says, scrolling through the songbook. 

you grab her attention, ‘why don’t we sing a duet!’

‘i thought you’d never ask!’ she exclaims. 

telling her you need to grab a drink before you start, asking her if she wants anything too, you step outside the karaoke room, walking to the main desk.

quietly, you sing the tune you just sang to yourself, the melody stuck in your head. 

you make it to the front desk, asking the woman sat there for two more drinks. you feel an inpatient presence behind you and take note to order your drinks a little quicker. you take them and head back to the karaoke room, karina jumping up when you arrive and immediately pressing the button for ‘2 baddies.’

the next few days, you and karina are inseparable, spending all your free time together around campus, studying together, eating together. you’re glad to have her around, not knowing what you would do without her. 

you’re sitting on a table in the library when you hear a voice from above you. 

‘karina and yn right?’ he says, looking between you. ‘i’m chenle, i heard you guys are transfers too?’

you look at karina, her face is, like always, filled with joy at meeting someone new. you don’t understand how she does it. 

‘yes! i’m karina, that’s yn! sit with us.’ she says, motioning to the empty space beside you.

he takes a seat, placing his bag by his feet. 

you learn he’s a math major so you and him get on pretty well, discussing your classes. you try your best to be outgoing, but you can tell karina can see you're struggling when she takes over the conversation. 

however, your discussion is cut short when chenles friends come over, calling for him to join them and laughing, talking about something to do with a poster. 

you ignore it, going back to studying. it’s probably something stupid, you tell yourself.

it was definitely not something stupid.

after finishing your assignments at the library, you and karina decide it’s time for a snack before you head back to your dorm. unlike usual, you decide to go to the main cafeteria, somewhere you’ve avoided for the past week for the pure fact that it always seems far too busy to get a seat. 

but today, all the people in the cafeteria don’t seem to be sat at tables. instead, they all form herds around multiple sections at the edges of the hall, seemingly noticing something that’s hung up on all of the walls.

all of the people except one group of girls.

as you and karina walk in, the groups of people grow weary, a shift in their excitement suddenly simmering around the room.

curious to see what all of the fuss is about, you make your way to one of the posters, but when you read the words printed on it, your entire demeanour begins to shatter. 

karina reads the words on the poster out loud, slowly and steadily relaying the message back to you. ‘a little birdy told me that guitarist of the NCU band, lee jeno, has a thing for one of the transfers. that’s unbelievable!’ she says, ripping the poster from the wall and scrunching it into a ball before eventually putting it in the bin. ‘they’re trying to make fun of us!’ she exclaims. you’ve never seen karina this annoyed. she takes your wrist before dragging you both to your dorm. 

you sit together on the sofa, digging into the takeout that karina ordered you both. 

‘urg.. i just can’t believe someone would start a stupid rumour like that. who even is lee jeno?’ she rambles.

you shrug your shoulders, denying the fact that the name is ever so slightly familiar to you. you had heard a group of girls talking about him in your lecture, describing him like he’s some sort of profound campus celebrity. 

suddenly, a thought hits you. 

‘if he’s a member of the college rock band, surely he’ll be on their instagram?’ you suggest. 

karina shrieks, ‘yes! you’re right.’

she grabs her phone, typing ‘NCUband’ into the search bar and eventually finding their instagram account. you peer over her shoulder, an array of images covering her screen. but one image sticks out to you. you lean over, clicking on the image, a guy with black hair in front of a dark blue background lighting up on karina's phone. you look at the caption, ‘#JENO.’

‘holy shit, it’s him.’ karina says, eyes fixated on the screen ahead of her. you giggle at her blushing. 

not because you find her behaviour odd, but because you relate to her reaction entirely. that’s one incredibly attractive man if you’ve ever seen one. 

‘i’m starting to hope it’s me that he’s crushing on.’ karina jokes, and you playfully hit her arm. 

after scrolling through the comments, you learn just how popular lee jeno really is, an array of compliments under each and every post. you also scroll through the rest of the account, learning the rest of the rock bands members to be named yangyang, yuta, ten and haechan. 

‘no but seriously, don’t you think it’s kind of weird?’ you say. 

‘what do you mean?’

‘the poster and about jeno having a thing for one of us. it’s so random.’

karina nods. ‘true, but it’s kind of fun if you think about it.’

you laugh, but you’re not so sure you agree. 

that night, you lie in bed, unable to let sleep take over you. just when you think you might get a chance to get some shut-eye, someone knocks at your door. 

you hear karina shuffle out of bed, ‘i’ll get it!’ she says, running to the door. 

trusting her to deal with whoevers standing outside your dorm at 1 in the morning, you slowly drift off to sleep, letting the feeling of slumber lull you away.

loneliness. that’s what you’re afraid of, being alone. 

you’re entire life, you’ve felt like you’ve been living it by yourself, surrounded by nothing but your own thoughts. now, in a new place surrounded by new people, you’ve felt nothing but warmth and comfort. karina had given you all of that with her friendship, let you discover what it means to not live life alone. 

but all of that stopped the second you woke up.

brushing your sheets off of you, you walk to the kitchen. you expect to see karina there, as usual, studying on the table in your kitchen area, coffee on the desk ahead of her. but the table is clear, coffee machine still cold.

confused, you make your way to karina's room, knocking on her door. 

silence.

deciding she probably overslept and not wanting her to miss her morning class, you open the door. 

but when you do, your heart melts.

you’ve never felt this way before: completely and utterly helpless, world shattering before you with nothing you can do about it.

you stay standing in the threshold, unable to walk inside in fear that reality will sink in further.

her room is empty. karina is gone, along with all of her stuff.

you close the door, tears falling down your cheeks. 

your only friend, the only person you’ve ever truly connected with, has left. your mind whirs in circles at what you could have possibly done to make her want to go home.

you’re alone, the very thing you’re afraid of. 

and gaining loneliness is far more painful than maintaining it.

that day, you spend your entire time by yourself. sitting by yourself in the library, grabbing lunch by yourself, walking to class alone, all of the things you’d usually do with karina replaced by the overshadow of silence. 

you’re walking back to your dorm when you hear the sound of laughter up ahead of you, what looks like two guys walking in your direction from a distance.

it’s only when they get closer that you notice one of their faces. 

lee jeno.

you stop in your tracks, bewildered with a new sense of anger you’ve never felt before. 

he did something, you know it, he’s the reason for it. 

it must have been karina that the poster was about, he must have come looking for her last night at your dorm, he must have scared her off enough to go home.

it’s his fault.

noticing your stare, jeno and who you're presuming is his bandmate, haechan, stop ahead of you. 

jeno doesn’t say a word. 

‘uh, you okay?’ haechan speaks up, laughter lining his tone.

‘not really.’ you snap back. ‘i need to talk to jeno… alone.’

jeno’s face lights up in confusion. he turns to haechan, ‘mine and yuta’s dorm is 120, here’s the key, i'll be up in a sec.’ haechan nods before walking off. turning back to you, jeno gives you his full attention.

‘what’s up?’ he says.

‘it’s karina, isn’t it?’ you say, ‘the girl you have a thing for.’

you almost notice his laughter slip as he tries to hold it in. ‘woah, woah, woah. what??’ 

‘the poster-‘

‘i know about the poster. but why do you think it’s karen, or whatever her name is?’

‘karina,’ you correct him. ‘and because she left this morning after someone came knocking on our dorm last night! you scared her off, didn’t you?’

he looks taken aback, completely and utterly stunned at what you're implying. 

‘so, let me get this straight.’ he says, shaking his head.‘not only do you believe this rumour about me, but you think its about your roommate? and that i went to her dorm and scared her into leaving? do you realise how crazy this sounds?’ 

you listen to his words, looking down at your fingers as you play with the hem of your t-shirt. only after hearing your accusation out loud do you understand the stupidity of what you're saying. 

‘sorry..’ you say, ‘i’ll just go.’

you turn around to continue on to your dorm when you hear his voice echo from behind you. 

‘wait.’ he says. 

you turn around again, facing him. his face is unreadable. 

you wait for him to continue. 

‘don’t apologise.’ he says, a hint of a smile lining his lips. ‘it’s sweet that you care so much about your friend.’

you stand there, words unable to reach your lips. 

‘i’ll see you around, yn.’ he smiles before walking in the opposite direction.

it’s only after you make it back to your dorm that you realise you had never actually told him your name. 

the following week was difficult. you couldn’t even attempt to make new friends, whispers of why karina had suddenly disappeared, flooding the air and forming some kind of invisible repellent around you. you hate the attention, wishing you were anywhere but here as you walk through the library.

there’s not many students around, those who are here, burying their nose in whatever they’re reading. but as you walk absentmindedly through the aisles reading the book titles, you accidentally bump into the back of someone else, colliding with them and causing them to drop their book at their feet. 

‘ow!’ she yells, picking up the book and looking at you.

‘sorry..’ you say, quietly.

‘speak up, i can’t hear you.’ she says.

you want to run out of there, blood rushing through you in embarrassment.

‘i'm sorry.’ you say a little louder.

‘good.’ she says, but just as you think you got away with ending the interaction, her eyes narrow at you.

‘wait a minute…’ she looks you up and down. ‘you’re that transfer.. the one who’s always by herself.. yn ln, right?’ she giggles.

‘um yes.’

‘awww, it’s a shame your bestie left you, you must have done something horrible.’ she mocks, laughing in your face.

‘i didn’t actu-‘

‘oh, who cares.’ she suddenly says, before rolling her eyes and walking past you, bashing her shoulder against yours in the process and knocking you to the floor.

you fall onto the carpet, and as you try to get up, you hear the thud of her book as she throws it down at you. 

‘not nice to be barged into, is it?’ she grimaces, ‘put this back.’ her foot slides the book across to you as she leaves.

you feel like you're about to be sick, surrounded by the urge to cry and never stop. 

this is what you escaped from, this is what you ran from.

and it’s all come chasing you back.

you haven’t stopped crying. not when you got yourself up from the floor, not when you walked through the library and not even when you made it to your dorm. but you don’t want to be there, the lingering reminder of karina’s absence pressuring you into remembering just how alone you are. you wish you had other friends, wish you knew of some other place to go, but you don’t. 

your mind tracks through all the interactions you’ve had over the past week, most of them being passive aggressive remarks or curious questions about what happened to karina. but there’s one interaction that sticks out to you, the only nice interaction you’ve had without karina by your side.

lee jeno.

even though you were displaying your very obvious anger towards him at the time, he was nice to you - if ‘nice’ even counts for what he had said - but in terms of the lack of mean words, it was a lot nicer than any others.

that’s when you remember the beginning of your conversation with him, or more importantly, his conversation with haechan.

he had told him which dorm to go to, handing him over the keys. dorm 120.

you know it’s stupid, you know it’s completely and utterly ridiculous, but you can’t stand a moment longer in this dorm without knowing why karina left. not after what happened today, not after what’s been happening all week.

so here you stand, paying no mind to your tear stained cheeks as you knock on the door to dorm 120. 

your stomach is turning, reminding you of just how stupid this is, of why the college’s most popular guy would ever want to help you. 

when the door opens, it’s not jeno who stands there. instead it’s his roommate, red hair half in braids and makeup staining his eyes. 

he takes one look at you before calling out over his shoulder. ‘hey jeno, i think this one’s for you.’ 

as jeno’s roommate, yuta, steps away from the door, jeno emerges from around the corner. his eyes find yours in surprise, studying the red of your cheeks and the way you stand awkwardly at the door. 

‘yn? what’s wrong?’ he says, brows furrowing.

you don’t know why he cares, why he’s asking. he doesn’t know you. 

‘i, um, need a favor.’ you say quietly. 

he nods before stepping forward, closing the door behind him as he talks to you in the hallway. 

‘okay.’ he says, urging you to go on. 

‘everyone’s blaming me for her leaving, but i’m not the reason… i’m sure of it.’ you say, looking up at him. his face is stern, confused. ‘and i know she wouldn’t just up and leave like that, she was loving it here. there must be another reason. whoever was at our dorm that night, they made her want to go home.’

he nods the whole time you’re speaking, but your unsure if he’s even taking you seriously. he shouldn’t, he doesn’t know you, you’re just some girl who happens to know where his dorm is. 

you continue, ‘i’m tired of being treated this way. i want to find them and ask them why they did it.’ you look down at the floor, ‘but i don’t know how to find them… and i was hoping since you’re, you know, popular, you’d know enough people to help.’

he takes in every word you say, eyes giving off an emotion you just can’t decipher. 

there’s a second of silence before he responds. 

‘alright.’ he says, ‘i’ll help you.’

your eyes look up from the floor to catch his, a smile of hope forming on your lips and you swear you catch him gasp at your excitement, only to watch your expression fall moments later. 

‘but..’ he starts, ‘on one condition.’

you nod, willing to do anything so long as it means you won’t be lonely anymore.

he grins as he looks at you. 

‘if you sing for our band.’

it takes you a while to respond, completely baffled at how he had any idea you could sing. you stand there, thoughts swirling in your head. the confusion must have been evident on your face because jeno lets out a laugh.

‘don’t worry.’ he says, still trying to hold back his laughter. ‘i saw you at a karaoke bar a few weeks ago ordering drinks. i heard you singing to yourself when you walked up to the desk.’

so that was him? 

‘but.. i don’t sing.’ you say, shaking your head. 

he raises his eyebrows. ‘with a voice like that?’

you swear your heart nearly fails, unsure why.

‘you want me to help you?’ he says.

you think for a moment, weighing your options. you’re already gaining too much attention for you to handle, why not take on some more of it means you don’t have to bear it alone?

‘fine.’ you say, ‘i’ll sing for your band.’

he smiles, holding out his hand for you to shake and you get reminded of the day you met karina, shaking her hand as you first stepped into the dorm, not knowing where that friendship would bring you. 

but as you take jeno’s, there’s something different, something indescribable, as if you’re suddenly aware of what’s around you. 

and for once in your life, you don’t hate it.

your first practice with the rest of the band made you feel sick. when you sang infront of karina, you felt safe. nervous? yes, but safe. now, trailing behind jeno as you walk into the practice room, you feel yourself begin to grow terrified. 

‘everyone, this is yn, our new singer.’ jeno says.

you look around at their faces, recognising yuta and haechan as they throw you small smiles of recognition. the one you don’t recognise is introduced to you as yangyang. they all seem relatively nice, not telling you mean comments or giving you looks. they explain to you that their previous singer, ten, got ill a few days ago, and that they’ve been looking for someone to stand in for him in their gig next week. you clench your fists at the mention of having to sing infront of a crowd, and jeno notices your nerves, gently brushing the side of his finger along your forearm in comfort as he stands beside you. its a small gesture, but it means alot. 

you really don’t understand why he’s being so nice to you, helping you find out who sent away karina, but you taught yourself recently to not take kindness for granted. 

because it doesn’t stick around for long.

the rest of the band go to their instruments, warming up their sounds and jamming a melodic tune in sync with each other. you walk over to the mic, picking up the lyric sheet and studying the lyrics to ‘butterfly’. 

after yangyangs cue, the boys start playing their instruments to the song and immediately, you feel more at peace. it's as if the music swarms you, inviting you into an embrace as you begin to sing the lyrics. you drown out any fear, any temptation to want the floor to swallow you up and you just sing, note after note carving the melody. 

when the song ends, the room grows silent. 

‘fucking hell.’ yangyang curses, ‘we should have hired you the second you walked onto campus.’ he says. 

you turn to face them, and you giggle at the sight of them all portraying faces of shock. 

all of them except jeno.

his expression is calm, only a slight smile reaching his eyes as he looks at you. 

you notice haechan, his gaze fixated on jeno as he whispers something to yuta. 

for a moment, a completely impossible idea floods your mind. 

what if the poster was about you?

but when you think about it, truly think about it, you can’t believe you’d be so naive.

jeno was way too far out of the league of people that would be interested in you. crowds of people flock after him daily, he’s the most loved guy on campus. 

that poster was a result of a ridiculous rumour. besides, if it was anyone, it would be that other transfer karina had met: sakura. in your time knowing jeno, you’ve learnt that he admires sweetness, and from what karina had told you, that’s all sakura is. you had gotten falsely angry at him before he had even met you, you’re anything but sweet. 

when practice was over, yuta and jeno say their goodbye’s swiftly, saying something about a gathering as jeno quickly tells haechan something before he leaves. after yangyang goes home, that leaves only you and haechan to grab your things. 

‘you know, you shouldn’t be so nervous about your voice.’ haechan says, slinging his bag over his shoulder. 

‘thank you.’ you reply, smiling before walking to head out of the door. 

haechan runs after you, ‘woah woah woah, where do you think you’re going?’ 

you look at him in confusion. ‘um… back to my dorm..?’

‘nuh uh,’ haechan chimes, ‘not by yourself. sorry, captain's orders.’

it takes you a moment to realise that he’s talking about jeno.

‘jeno asked you to walk me home?’ you ask and he nods. ‘oh.. that’s okay you really dont have to, i’ll be fine..’

‘nope.’ he says, ‘follow me.’ 

you watch as he begins to walk in the complete wrong direction. 

‘you don’t know where my dorm building is, do you?’ you laugh.

‘nope. follow you.’ he says, turning around in the other direction, making you laugh. 

eventually making it to your dorm, he drops you off. 

‘thank you.’ you tell him.

‘no problem, yn.’ he replies. ‘oh and by the way,’ 

your eyebrow raises, waiting for him to continue. 

‘that rumour about jeno is true.’

you’re certain it's sakura. everytime you see her around campus, jeno and his bandmates always turn up. it’s as if every word of the poster is true, he really does have an eye on her. 

it’s the evening and you're bored in your dorm, eyes lingering on the empty space around you when you decide that you need to finally start your investigation with jeno. you’ve been putting it off, struggling to face the reality that someone had tried to do this to karina, to get her to leave. 

knowing you now have jeno’s number in your phone, you call him to meet you at the night cafe a few minutes away from the dorms. 

when you get there, jeno’s already at a table, a drink for either of you infront of him. 

‘hi.’ you say, and he smiles back at you. ‘so um.. where to start..’

jeno laughs at your awkwardness. ‘i have a question.’ he says, and you nod for him to proceed. ‘did karina make any, uh, enemies whilst she was here?’

you rack your brain, scanning through the conversations you and her would have after your lectures, but nothing jumps out at you. karina was always so nice, so bubbly to everyone around her. 

‘no.. i don’t think so.’

he nods, taking a sip of his drink as he thinks his next words carefully. 

‘did you?’

you freeze at his question and he notices. you so desperately want to tell him about the girl from the library, but something in you stops yourself. 

and you’re glad you did, because moments later, you notice the familiar ponytail peek out from the table behind jeno.

there she is, the girl from the library, sat with two other girls. you feel their eyes on you, notice their whispers and laughs as they look at you both, and that's when you realise how bad this looks, the situation your in. 

but when jeno slightly leans to the side to pick up his drink again, you notice the faces of the girls she’s with. 

and you recognise them. 

sitting at a table with the girl from the library, are two girls from your old college.

the girls that spread the video of you falling. 

when they see you notice them, their faces brighten, waving to you as they giggle.

jeno notices your distraction. 

‘hey, yn, you okay?’

you snap back to your conversation with jeno, ‘oh.. yes, sorry.’

‘thats okay, so like i was saying..’

jeno continues on but you can’t help but lose focus, instead watching as the girls get up from their table and head straight toward you and jeno.

‘shit.’ you murmur under your breath.

‘yn?’ jeno asks, concern lining his features.

‘hey yn.’ a separate voice speaks from beside you two. 

the girl from the library looks directly at him. ‘hey jeno.’

jeno looks at you, jaw clenching. 

‘what do you want, haewon?’ he asks, anger undoubtedly coursing through him, and you wish to uncover why. 

haewon giggles, laughing with the two girls from your old college. you try your best to ignore them, looking down at your drink as you pretend to stir it. 

haewon speaks up. ‘i want to know why you're here with this.’ she says, blatantly referring to you. 

jeno doesn’t speak, but you see his fists clench. 

one of the other girls speak up. ‘maybe he wouldn't be if he saw a little video i’ve got.’ she says. she presses play on the video, throwing the phone down on the table for everyone to see. 

but jeno’s eyes aren’t on the phone; they’re on you. 

and they’re livid. 

you’re still looking down, attempting to ignore them. 

haewon continues, ‘you know, jeno, if you were going to stoop this low after our breakup, i would have stayed with you to save you from the embarrassment of being seen with her.’

your head snaps up. 

our breakup? haewon is jeno’s ex?

noticing your attention, haewon taunts you. ‘thats right, yn, i bet you weren’t expecting that were y-’

‘leave her alone.’ jeno’s voice is harsh, stern. 

haewon looks taken aback. ‘she didn’t tell you, did she?’ she says to jeno. ‘about our little incident in the library when she pushed me.’

jeno’s eyes snap to yours and he can tell you want to leave, want to get out of here and never look back. 

but he’s curious, so he doesn’t interrupt haewon, not yet.

she continues, ‘of course, i didn’t let her get away with it though. left her crying on the floor where she belongs.’ she laughs, the two others laughing with her. 

but jeno is anything but amused. 

you’ve never seen him so angry, full of so much emotion as he stands, kicking his chair behind him and walking around the table to grab your wrist, pulling you out the cafe entrance and back onto the street. haewons laughter fades into the distance. 

you think he’s going to yell at you, be angry at you for pushing his ex. 

but just when you think he’s going to yell at you, he does quite the contrary. 

at first, the warmth of his arms around you causes you to still. but when you hear him murmur apologetically, you melt into his arms. 

weirdly, you feel safe, as if his arms can protect you against everything in the world, your fears, your hatred, your loneliness.

and its then that you realise that ever since you turned up outside his dorm that night, you haven’t felt loneliness once, as if, unknowingly, he had healed you of it all simply with his presence. 

after a moment, you pull away from the hug. 

‘why didn’t you tell me?’ he asks, searching your eyes.

‘because i didn’t think i could.’

the following week, you focus mainly on your assignments, as well as attending practice with the band when you could. you were beginning to gain confidence, with the gig in a few days and haechan giving you tips on performing, you were well on your way to feeling relatively okay about it all. you and jeno meet occasionally to try to decipher who had got karina to leave, but you keep getting hit with dead ends. it doesn’t help that karina’s the kindest person you’ve ever met; it’s impossible to find a single soul that could possibly hate her. 

you’re chilling in your dorm with a blanket and on your fourth rerun of pitch perfect when you receive a text from haechan. 

[18:22] haechan: yo

you open your phone, replying back to him with a single question mark. 

[18:22] haechan: me and the rest of the band have a party tonight if you'd like to come?

[18:23] haechan: no pressure tho ofc

[18:23] haechan: well maybe a little bit

your stomach churning at the thought of a party, you reply after little to no thought at all. 

[18:24] me: no sorry

[18:24] haechan: pleaseeeeee

[18:24] haechan: you can go if you feel uncomfortable i promise

[18:25] haechan: plus jeno wants you to come

really?

[18:25] me: okay

so it’s settled, your first college party. you’re literally about to kill haechan for convincing you to do this. 

dressing yourself in the only nice outfit you own, you answer your door as haechan, jeno and yuta arrive. after being informed that yangyang decided to stay back at his and tens dorm to not make ten feel left out, you all walk over to the house where the party’s being held.

you’ve never been to a college party before, only heard about them from friends and their experiences. 

as you walk into the house, you’re immediately overwhelmed. loud music and darkness fill the air and the entire place reeks of alcohol. noticing your nerves, jeno leans down to talk to you. 

‘i won’t leave you, okay? stay by my side.’

you nod, following him as the others split off. 

he offers you a drink and you gladly decline. he doesn’t make a fuss about it, just simply lets you enjoy yourself how you want. 

however, after a while, people's eyes begin to become evident to you, watching as people whisper and point to you and jeno. you hate it, you hate the way they’re looking at you like you’ve done something wrong. 

‘jeno?’ you say to him, but he already knows whats wrong before you even say it, grabbing your hand and pulling you along the party and towards the front door. 

but something, no, somebody stops you. 

haewon. 

she stand’s there, arms folded as she blocks the door from the kitchen into the hallway.

‘get out the way, haewon.’ jeno says, a warning lining the tone in his voice. 

‘so what if i don’t.’ she snaps back. ‘i have a little secret to tell yn over here.’

her eyes travel to you and you almost flinch when she smiles in your direction. 

but you won’t let her taunt you, not like this, not anymore. 

‘don’t talk to me.’ you say, and jeno’s brows lift in surprise at your remark. he smirks at your confidence. 

‘what was that?’ haewon scoffs. 

‘i said, don’t talk to me.’

she rolls her eyes, ‘pfft, you wouldn’t be so confident if you knew who jeno really had his eyes on.’

you sigh, ‘i already do.’

at that, jenos hand tightens around yours, urging you to look at him.

‘what?’ he mouths to you, but you don’t respond, facing back to haewon. 

‘it’s sakura.’ you say. 

with that, haewon lets out a laugh. not a cute laugh, or a kind one, but one laced with nothing but humiliation. 

‘sakura?’ she continues laughing, ‘you really think it’s her?’

you nod, and you feel jeno shift beside you. 

‘oh honey,’ she continues, ‘you couldn’t be more wrong. you should have seen the way he looked at karina. why else do you think she left you.’

her word’s stab you in the chest. not because of her laughter, not because of her humiliation and not even because of her words about karina. no, you know from jeno himself that it isn’t her.

but because, if jeno didn’t like karina, and if he didn’t like sakura. 

then that left just one person. 

you. 

you detach your hand from jeno’s hold, heading straight for the door, pushing past haewon with force. you don’t care what she thinks, you don’t care what it looks like, you need to get out of this party. 

this whole time, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re lonely, deprived from any kind of social connection, removed from any sort of status. but this whole time, he has been looking at you. 

your first lecture when you felt like someone was looking at you, your time at the karaoke bar, this whole time, it had been him. not the eyes of those judging you, not the eyes of people who hate you, but him.

you make it out to the front of the house, sitting on the curb by the road to collect your thoughts. the poster, karina leaving, none of it makes sense.

suddenly, you feel a presence beside you. turning your head to look at haechan as he sits down, you realise your vision is foggy, tears lining your lash line and threatening to drop.

‘i should have never done it.’ he says, looking at the ground. 

you look at him in question and he continues. 

‘i saw the way he used to look at you on campus, i knew he was obsessed with your voice after hearing you at the karaoke bar. i was just playing around, just teasing him for his hallway crush.’

you’re confused. ‘what are you talking about?’

‘i should have never made that poster. if i knew how much trouble it would have caused, i never would have done it. i'm so sorry, yn.’

you sit still, in awe at the confession of the man beside you. he had only intended to pull a prank on his best friend, but it had backfired.

you laugh and he looks at you, ‘its okay, haechan. you don’t need to apologise.’

‘i do.’ he smiles, ‘and im glad i have.’

you sit there for a moment, silence overwhelming you as you think over haechans words. 

‘i saw the way he looked at you on campus.’

the words are familiar, like an unfinished rhyme, beckoning to be completed. but as you sit in quiet, you suddenly remember something haewon had said moments ago. 

‘you should have seen the way he looked at karina.’

it all snaps together, like a magnet that never should have been split apart. 

haewon thought it was karina that her ex was crushing on. she was jealous, enraged. blinded by the fact that you and karina were inseparable, always side by side. it was an easy mistake, one that she must have overlooked when she had knocked on your dorm that night, using whatever manipulative skills she had to get karina to go home, to get her as far away from her precious ex as possible. 

you can’t believe it, how you didn’t figure this out sooner.

it was haewon this whole time.

you stand up, startling haechan, before running back into the party. you spot jeno, slumped against the kitchen counter, beer in hand. you can’t look at him, can’t process the fact that he might possibly have his eyes on you. 

instead, you look for haewon, heading straight in her direction the moment you see her. 

you don’t realise but haechan had clocked on, running over to jeno and explaining everything in as much detail as he could. 

you stand ahead of haewon, heart in your throat. 

‘it’s not karina.’ you say.

‘what?’ shes angry, annoyed that you’re even speaking to her. 

‘i know what you did, haewon. i know that you got rid of her.’

haewon smiles, and you want to wipe the smug grin off her face. 

so you do. 

‘but you got the wrong girl.’

as expected, haewons smile drops. 

‘what are you talking about?’ she says.

but it’s not you that answers. 

his voice is calm, collected. 

‘it was her i was looking at.’ he says, eyes drifting to yours. 

haewon stutters, angrily waving her arms around. 

‘you’re lying!’ she cries, ‘it’s me you should be looking at.’

but he doesn’t, not once, eyes never leaving yours. 

you smile silently, words not daring to leave your mouth in fear that they will choke you. 

haewon storms off, annoyed at the spectacle in front of her. 

jenos face is full of concern, a look of adoration covering his eyes that you’ve failed to recognise until now. 

‘so, you finally realised, huh?’ he says, brushing a strand of hair from your face. 

‘i thought it was sakura…’ you reply.

‘who?’ he laughs, and for once in your life, you laugh with him. 

the way he looks at you when you laugh is a face you want to remember forever.

‘oh and yn?’ he says, causing your eyebrows to raise in question. ‘i found out what college karina goes to from one of the guys over there. we can give them a call tomorrow and try to get her back if you’d like?’

your heart melts, sinking in your chest as your eyes began to gloss over. 

‘hey, what’s wrong?’ he questions, hand now moving to trace your cheek.

but you smile. 

‘thank you.’

and he smiles back. 

‘anything for you.’

3 days later.

‘yn? oh my god! wake up! i can’t believe you’d nap so late in the afternoon!’ 

you groan as you stir from, what was, a nice relaxing afternoon nap before you’re big gig. 

‘im being serious, yn! you have, like, twenty minutes.’ karina’s voice echoes in your brain and you shoot up, panic overflowing you. you check your phone, scrolling as hundreds of texts from each of the band’s members fly across your screen. 

‘shit.’ you curse, and karina laughs before helping you ready your things. trusting her to full capacity, you let her do your hair and makeup before pushing you out the door and running you over to jeno and yuta’s dorm. 

it was interesting introducing karina to the band when she came back, but you love the way they all get along, clicking with karina just as you did at the start of the semester. you told her about the whole situation with jeno, and despite learning the truth, you and him haven’t had the chance to talk about it yourselves.

once you and karina make it to the rest of the boys, you all head over to the venue. as you get closer and closer, your nerves heighten, heart pooling in your chest at the thought. 

the moment you’re backstage, you begin to panic, your chest tightening and restricting you from breathing. 

jeno’s beside you. he notices a shift in your demeanour, leaning down to look at your face in worry. 

‘yn?’ he whispers, ‘you okay?’

‘not really.’ you shake your head; you’re so incredibly nervous.

‘hey, look at me.’ he says, gently bringing his hand to your chin to tilt your head towards his.

the air around you both stills, the music quiets.

you look into his eyes and he looks into yours, as if you’re trying to find something in each other, something you can’t describe.

jeno begins to speak, hand lingering below your chin before moving to fix a few strands of your hair. ‘you know, the first time i heard you sing, that time at the karaoke bar, i was completely and utterly in love with you. you struck something within me, yn. it’s like i’ve been waiting around for you my whole life, like i’m a butterfly and you’re my wings.’ he smiles when he notices your breathing begin to slow, ‘you’re going to sound beautiful out there, just as much as you look it.’

you don’t know how to respond, how to meet his words with as much love as he gave you. so you do the only thing you know will show him just how much you mean it, just how much you’re thankful for him taking away your loneliness. 

you reach up, pressing your lips to his. 

he’s a little surprised at first, but after less than a second, his hands are around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer to him. 

it’s beautiful: the art of not being alone, sharing a love with someone else as if they’re an extension of you. that’s how you feel in this moment, and that’s how you’ll feel forever. 

so as you step out onto that stage, jeno’s warmth still lingering on your skin, you know you're not alone, and you know you never will be.

not when he’s beside you.

[tynlvr]

𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 ──── [𝐋.𝐃𝐇] 𓈒  𓈒  𓈒 

( 이동혁 ) ; 𝐟𝐞𝗺!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐥𝐞𝐞 𝐝𝗼𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐜𝐤

──── in which your parents had always told you to stay away from boys like haechan. boys with cocky smirks, black eye liner, bruised knuckles, and a reputation that came with warning labels. you never had a reason to listen until you were assigned to tutor him after school. it should have been simple. help him pass, get it over with. but there’s something about him that drew you in, and you didn’t want to pull away.

✦ drama, fluff/angst, slow burn(ish). forbidden love? ; tags. goodgirl!reader x badboy!haechan, suggestive, your parents are literal jerks, swearing, mentions of fighting, kissing !!, protective!haechan, corruption? but not really, lmk if i missed any ! ;

𓂃 w.c [ 15.3k / 22.7k ]

!! not proofread !!

▸ j.note ; i hadn’t planned on making this fic so long but emo haechan does something to me i guess. also pls pls give feedback i want to improve my writings in the best way possible and i know my writing needs a lot of work, so constructive criticism is encouraged.

▸ this is part one of two and part two can be found here .ᐟ

© kiszjuli 2025 ⟳ likes & reblogs are appreciated

you had never been the type to chase trouble.

your life had always been structured, predictable, mapped out like a perfectly folded brochure of all the things you were supposed to be. the good daughter. the responsible student. the girl who never gave anyone a reason to worry.

your parents raised you with expectations as solid as the fence that surrounded your house. good grades, early curfews, polite smiles at dinners. you were the kind of girl who double-checked her answers before turning in a test, who texted home before she was even late, who never spoke back even when she wanted to.

it wasn’t that you minded. not really.

your life was safe—comfortable.

weekends were spent with the same close friends, at the same coffee shop on the corner, drinking the same latte every time and reviewing notes for exams that were still weeks away. after school, you went straight home, sometimes stopping by the bookstore if you had extra time, flipping through pages of novels where the main characters lived lives far more reckless than your own.

and you liked it that way. you liked knowing where you belonged, knowing exactly what came next.

because trouble was for other people. rule-breakers, risk-takers. the kind of people who never thought twice about consequences. people who didn’t care.

the kind of people like him. lee donghyuck—or as he preferred to be called, haechan.

lee donghyuck had always been a name whispered in the hallways, wrapped in either amusement or warning. he was the boy who skipped class but somehow still seemed to do well, the boy who wore silver rings on his fingers, black eyeliner and bruises on his knuckles, the boy who flirted with everyone but never let anyone close.

he was reckless in a way that made people watch him like a fire they couldn’t look away from.

and you? you were the girl who had spent her whole life avoiding flames.

—

science had always been your best subject.

there was something reassuring about it—formulas that always worked, reactions that could be predicted, rules that never changed. if you followed the steps, you got the right answer. it was logical. reliable.

but not everyone saw it that way.

from the back of the classroom, haechan let out a quiet sigh, loud enough that a few students glanced his way. he was slouched over his desk, barely pretending to take notes, the end of his pen tapping lazily against his open textbook.

“can anyone explain why increasing the concentration of reactants speeds up a chemical reaction?” the teacher asked.

your hand went up without hesitation.

“because a higher concentration means more particles in the same space,” you answered. “so there’s a greater chance of collisions between them.”

“correct,” your teacher said, nodding approvingly.

from the corner of your eye, you caught movement. haechan had lifted his head just enough to glance in your direction, his gaze slow and assessing. when you turned to meet it, he didn’t look away, but just studied you, the corner of his lips twitching like he was in on some joke you weren’t part of.

your teacher moved on, scribbling equations across the board, but haechan didn’t so much as pretend to care. he stretched, tipping his chair back onto two legs, hands folded lazily over his stomach, like he was just waiting for the bell to save him from all of this.

you turned back toward the front, exhaling through your nose. it annoyed you, yet you didn’t know why.

it didn’t matter, it had nothing to do with you.

he didn’t matter.

or at least, that’s what you had always thought until today.

—

you were halfway through packing your books when you heard your name.

“could you stay back for a moment,” your teacher said, just as the last bell rang.

you paused, glancing up as students shuffled past your desk, their conversations blending into white noise. you couldn’t think of a single reason you’d need to stay—your grades were perfect, your assignments were always on time, and you definitely didn’t cause any trouble.

but then the teacher said another name.

“donghyuck, you too.” you heard him correct the teacher of his name under his breath.

your fingers curled around the thick textbook you were shoving in your bag.

he was slouched at his desk, twirling a silver ring around his finger, eyes half-lidded like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. it took him a second to react, but when he did, it was with an exaggerated sigh, dragging himself upright like even this was too much effort.

the classroom emptied around you until it was just the three of you, the weight of the silence settling in as the teacher folded her arms over her desk.

“haechan,” she started, “you’re failing. if you don’t pass your next exam, you’re going to have to repeat this class. and you know what that means.”

he leaned back on the closest desk to the teacher’s, completely unfazed, crossing his arms. “that i get the pleasure of spending another semester with you?”

your teacher didn’t so much as blink. “it means you will not graduate with your class. you need this credit.”

that got a reaction. his arms uncrossed as haechan’s smirk slipped, just slightly.

“which is why,” she continued, turning to you, “you’re going to tutor him.”

your mouth parted slightly. “wait—”

“you’re the top of this class,” she cut in, before you could protest. “if anyone can help him pass, it’s you.”

you swallowed. the request made sense—on paper. but logic didn’t stop the heat of his gaze as it flickered toward you, as he finally seemed to take you in.

slowly, he let his eyes drag up and down, taking his time.

your unwrinkled clothes. your neatly done hair. the way you clutched your bag like it was a lifeline.

his lips curled at the edges, something amused, something almost lazy, and yet, you felt it. the weight of being looked at like that.

“seriously?” he drawled, tilting his head, eyes still on you. “her?”

your spine straightened. “what’s that supposed to mean?”

he smiled like he’d already won. “nothing, sweetheart.”

your teacher exhaled sharply, already tired of him. “this isn’t optional. you’ll meet and study together, and if i hear that you’ve skipped even once, i will not hesitate to let you keep your failing grade. understood?”

haechan sighed, tipping his head back like this was the greatest inconvenience of his life. then, with the ghost of a smirk still tugging at his lips, he muttered, “yeah, yeah. whatever you say.”

you could already tell. this was going to be impossible.

—

you walk out of the classroom first, stepping a little harder than intended. this wasn’t how you planned to spend your semester. tutoring some guy who didn’t even try, who slouched in his seat like he was too good for all of it, who looked at you like you were something to be amused by.

the hallway was mostly empty now, students already heading home or to their next activities. you were almost free, when a voice called out behind you.

“so, tutor, when do we start?”

you didn’t stop walking. “the library. after school tomorrow.”

haechan caught up easily, his pace unhurried, like this was all some joke to him. “ugh, the library?” he groaned. “how predictable.”

you glanced at him, unimpressed. “where else are we supposed to study? a convenience store?”

“actually, yeah.” he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, shooting you a smirk. “sounds more fun. we could get snacks. maybe a drink. aren’t tutors supposed to motivate their students?”

you exhaled sharply. he’s messing with you. you knew it, and yet, somehow, he still got under your skin.

“you don’t need motivation,” you said flatly. “you just need to study.”

“eh, debatable,” he mused. “i think what i need is a tutor who’s a little more flexible. less ‘strict teacher,’ more ‘cute classmate who wants to help me succeed.’”

you stopped walking.

haechan took a few more steps before realizing you weren’t next to him anymore. he turned, an eyebrow raised, just as you crossed your arms.

“okay, let’s get something straight,” you said, voice firm. “this isn’t a favor. i don’t want to tutor you, but i have to. and i don’t care if you think it’s boring or predictable, because it’s either this or you fail. so if you actually want my help, show up tomorrow. on time. otherwise, don’t waste my time.”

for a second, he just looked at you, head tilted like he was reevaluating something.

then, instead of answering, he let his gaze drag over you, slowly, like he was seeing you for the first time.

you stiffened under the weight of it, but refused to look away.

after a beat, he grinned.

“damn,” he murmured, almost to himself. “you’ve got a little fire under all that perfection, huh?”

you huffed, turning on your heel. “just be there.”

“yes, ma’am.”

you ignored him.

but as you walked away, you could still feel his smirk and stare burning into your back.

—

you barely stepped through the front door before your mom called out from the kitchen.

“you’re home later than usual.”

you set your bag down by the entryway, slipping off your shoes. “the teacher kept me after class.”

that was enough to get both of your parents’ attention. your dad looked up from where he sat on the couch, while your mom leaned against the counter, a slight crease forming between her brows.

“for what?” she asked, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

you exhaled, already bracing yourself. “she assigned me to tutor someone. he’s failing, and she thinks I can help him pass.”

your dad hummed approvingly. “well, that’s nice of you. who is it?”

you hesitated for half a second.

“haechan.”

the shift in the room was immediate. your mom stilled, and your dad turned completely this time, exchanging a glance with her before turning back to you.

“him?” your mom repeated, her voice careful.

“yes, him.” you folded your arms. “why does it sound like you already know who he is?”

your dad sighed, setting the paper aside. “people talk, sweetheart. he’s got a reputation.”

you rolled your eyes. “so what? he slacks off in class?”

your mom pursed her lips. “it’s more than that. skipping school, getting into trouble, hanging around the wrong crowds…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “just—be careful around him, honey.”

there it was. the warning.

and, of course, the assumption that you couldn’t think for yourself.

you sighed, rubbing your temple. “i’m not hanging out with him. i’m tutoring him. in the library. with textbooks.” you glanced between them. “pretty sure that’s not a crime.”

your mom didn’t look convinced, and your dad only leaned back in his seat, his expression unreadable.

“just don’t let him pull you into anything,” he said. “kids like that don’t change.”

you bit the inside of your cheek, a flicker of irritation curling in your chest.

they made it sound like you were helpless. like the second you spent time with him, you’d suddenly throw your whole life away. everything you’ve built for yourself.

you shook your head. “it’s not that serious.”

and before either of them could say anything else, you grabbed your bag and headed for your room, shutting the door with a little more force than necessary.

they were overreacting.

they didn’t know him.

and neither did you.

—

session one - monday february 23rd

the school day dragged.

it wasn’t any different from usual; classes, notes, the occasional group discussion, but today, there was a lingering awareness hanging over you. a ticking clock in the back of your mind, counting down to the inevitable.

you weren’t looking forward to tutoring haechan. but you had a job to do, and if he didn’t show, well… that was his problem, not yours.

by the time the final bell rang, you had already secured a table in the library, setting out your textbook, notebook, and a few highlighters. everything was neatly arranged. you had a plan, a structured breakdown of the material he needed to catch up on.

and yet, fifteen minutes passed.

then twenty.

you checked your phone, tapping your pen against your notes.

was he seriously going to ditch on the first day?

finally, you heard footsteps approaching, and then a familiar voice, drawling, “damn. you’re really taking this seriously, huh?”

you glanced up to see haechan standing there, hands in his pockets, looking completely unfazed. like he hadn’t just wasted almost half an hour of your time.

you exhaled sharply. “you’re late.”

“fashionably,” he corrected, dropping into the chair across from you.

you leveled him with a stare. “i don’t think that applies to studying.”

he shrugged. “guess we’ll find out.”

already, your patience was wearing thin. you pushed the textbook toward him, flipping to the section you had marked. “let’s start with reaction rates. you need to understand how—”

he wasn’t listening.

instead of looking at the notes, he was looking at you, head tilted slightly, a lazy smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“you always sit this straight?” he mused, tapping his pen against the table.

you blinked, looking up from the textbook. “what?”

“just saying. you’re sitting like you’re taking an exam or something.” he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. ��relax. tutoring’s not life or death.”

you ignored the heat creeping up your neck and flipped open your notebook instead. “can we focus?”

he hummed, like he was considering it. then, before you could continue, he leaned forward slightly, eyeing your arrangement of highlighters and pens.

“bet you highlight in, like, five different colors.”

you clenched your jaw. four, actually, but you weren’t about to give him the satisfaction of being right.

when you didn’t respond, he grinned, undeterred. “does tutoring me ruin your whole ‘perfect student’ reputation?”

you inhaled slowly, gripping your pen a little tighter. “only if you fail,” you said flatly.

he let out a soft laugh, finally glancing at the textbook. “alright, alright. hit me with the science.”

you exhaled, pushing past your irritation. this was going to be a long session.

but one way or another, you were getting through to him.

—

the next hour closed and you left the library still irritated—but more at yourself than him.

why had your heartbeat picked up when he had leaned in? why had his teasing stuck in your head longer than necessary?

get a grip.

the school hallways were mostly empty by now, just a few stragglers grabbing things from their lockers or heading to practice. you stopped by your own locker, swapping out your books for what you needed, then headed outside.

the late afternoon air was crisp, the sky shifting into a soft orange glow. you walked home, already thinking about how you’d explain the session to your parents.

(you wouldn’t. you’d just tell them it happened and leave it at that.)

continuing your walk, barely making it past the school you hear a voice from behind you.

“yo, tutor.”

your head snapped up.

haechan. again.

he was leaning against a lamppost a few feet away, hands shoved in his pockets, the same knowing smirk playing at his lips.

“we should celebrate.”

you frowned. “celebrate what?”

“me actually getting an answer right, obviously.” he straightened, stretching his arms behind his head. “c’mon, don’t be boring. you never just—i don’t know—do something on a whim?”

you had remembered the question he got right—which was simply the question you had answered yesterday in class. you narrowed your eyes. “if this is your way of trying to get out of studying next time—”

“relax.” he chuckled. “just messing with you. see you at our very serious study session next time, tutor.”

and with that, he strolled off like he hadn’t just left you standing there, your thoughts an even bigger mess than before.

—

session two - wednesday the 25th

you told yourself you wouldn’t get annoyed this time. you even mentally prepared for his usual antics before heading to the library.

it didn’t work.

haechan was late again. this time only by ten minutes, but still. he strolled in with an iced coffee in one hand, a lazy grin on his face like he hadn’t kept you waiting.

“you get extra credit for showing up on time, you know.”

“damn, should’ve known,” he drawled, sliding into the seat across from you. “maybe next time.”

you sighed, pushing the textbook toward him. “no distractions today.”

“that’s asking a lot.”

“it’s not.”

to your surprise, he actually made an effort. at least at first. he followed along as you explained reaction mechanisms, even nodded a few times like he understood. but the second things got even slightly complicated, he leaned back and groaned.

“why do i even need this? it’s not like i’m gonna be a scientist.”

“you need it to pass.”

“passing is overrated.”

“says the guy who’s literally failing.”

he just grinned, spinning his ring around his finger. “touché, sunshine.”

the nickname caught you off guard, making your stomach flip in a way that was foreign to you. whether he noticed your shift or not, he continued to use the name anytime he talked to you.

progress was slow, but you managed to get through two topics before he started messing around again, twirling his pen, asking dumb hypothetical questions that had nothing to do with chemistry.

“if i fail, do you fail too? since you’re my tutor?”

“no.”

“damn. no stakes for you then, huh?”

“just the overwhelming frustration of having to deal with you.”

“you wound me.” he clutched his chest dramatically, then smirked. “you sure you’re not starting to like our little sessions, though?”

you rolled your eyes. “go home, haechan.”

he laughed as he stood up, giving you a lazy salute before walking off.

session three - friday the 27th

miraculously, haechan was on time. but that didn’t mean he behaved.

“don’t look so shocked, tutor.” he plopped into his usual seat. “i can be responsible when i wanna be.”

“so, you just choose not to be?”

“exactly.”

today, he actually put in a little more effort, asking questions instead of just guessing his way through answers. you started to think, maybe this tutoring thing wouldn’t be a total waste of time.

and then, halfway through, he got bored.

“okay, pop quiz,” he said, snapping his book shut. “if you had to get a tattoo, what would it be?”

you blinked. “we are not doing this.”

“come on, humor me.”

“fine,” you muttered, flipping through your notes. “something small. simple. maybe a quote.”

“predictable,” he teased. “what if i said i’d get your name tattooed?”

you shot him a deadpan look. “then i’d question all of your life choices.”

he laughed, drumming his fingers against the table. “nah, i’d get something cool. a dragon or something. or maybe—” he wiggled his brows. “a chemical equation, just for you.”

“how generous.”

“i try.”

somehow, even with the distractions, he managed to retain at least some of what you covered. as you packed up, he tapped his pen against the table.

“hey, sunshine.”

you glanced up, not missing his smirk at your responding to the name.

“don’t miss me too much over the weekend.”

“leave.”

he laughed all the way out the door.

session four - monday march 2nd

you were already exhausted from the start of the new week, and haechan wasn’t helping.

“mondays shouldn’t exist,” he grumbled, dropping into his chair.

while you agreed, you had to keep him focused. “you still have to study.”

“brutal.”

you launched straight into the material, ignoring his dramatic sighs and complaints about how unfair school was. surprisingly, he focused for a solid thirty minutes—until he caught you tapping your foot.

“you’re impatient today,” he observed, tilting his head.

“or maybe i just want you to actually learn something.”

“i am learning. look,” he pointed at an equation. “i even remember this one.”

you checked. he was right.

“wow,” you deadpanned. “you have a functioning brain after all.”

“careful, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

despite yourself, you bit back a smile.

the session ended with him actually completing the assigned questions, granted, after a lot of coaxing. as you packed up, he tapped the table again, just like last time.

“see you wednesday, sunshine.”

this time, you didn’t tell him to leave.

you did however, roll your eyes as he walked away, still grinning.

—

session five – wednesday the 4th

it was one of those days.

haechan was late—again. not by much, but enough to make you grit your teeth when he finally strolled in, a bag of chips in one hand, looking like he had nowhere better to be.

“don’t look at me like that, sunshine.” he smirked as he slid into his seat. “traffic was brutal.”

“you walk here.”

“damn. caught me.”

you inhaled sharply through your nose, pushing the worksheet toward him. “just start.”

he did. kind of.

five minutes in, he was tapping his pen against the table. ten minutes in, he was spinning his rings. fifteen minutes in, he was leaning back in his chair with a yawn.

“haechan,” you warned.

“hmm?”

“can you at least pretend to care?”

he grinned, resting his chin on his hand. “depends. does it bother you?”

you shook your head. “whatever.”

“relax, sunshine.” he tilted his head. “you’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

you ignored the way heat crept up your neck. “just answer the question.”

he glanced at it. “mm… ‘catalyst slows down a reaction.’”

you shut your eyes, inhaling deeply. “no. it speeds up a reaction—”

“eh, close enough.”

“no, it’s not—” you cut yourself off, exhaling sharply. “are you even trying?”

“nah.”

that was it.

“then why the hell are we even doing this?”

he blinked at you, momentarily caught off guard. but you were already pushing back your chair, stuffing your notes into your bag with sharp, deliberate movements.

“if you fail, that’s your problem. not mine.”

you didn’t wait for a response. just walked out, leaving him sitting there—still smirking, but something in his expression had shifted.

session seven – monday the 9th

the session was supposed to be like any other. you’d prepared the material, you had everything set up, and you were expecting the usual. you didn’t expect haechan to show up on time—or at least not to show up with an actual sense of purpose.

he slung his bag over the chair and slumped down. his usual cocky grin wasn’t there.

“what’s wrong with you?” you asked, surprised at how… serious he seemed.

he didn’t answer right away, instead just staring at the notes in front of him with furrowed brows.

“this is dumb,” he muttered under his breath.

you raised an eyebrow. “what’s dumb? the concept? the subject? or… you?”

he flicked his eyes to you, but there was no usual smirk, just irritation. “all of it.”

you frowned. “this isn’t the usual ‘i don’t care’ routine. what’s going on?”

he didn’t meet your eyes, instead flicking through the textbook like he was hoping to find a way out of this.

“i just don’t get it,” he said, voice tight.

you sat back, eyeing him carefully. you were so used to him breezing through everything, acting like he didn’t care, so this sudden frustration was… different. it threw you off.

“you’ve got this. we’ve gone over it before.”

“yeah, well, it’s not clicking today,” he shot back, rubbing his temples like he was battling a headache.

you leaned forward, speaking more gently than usual. “haechan, this stuff isn’t hard. you just have to stop shutting down every time it gets tough.”

he looked at you for a long moment, eyes soft but frustrated. he clearly didn’t want to admit that maybe, just maybe, you were right.

“i don’t shut down,” he muttered. “it’s just… everything else is easier. this? it feels like i’m failing at something i can’t even explain.”

you blinked, taken aback. haechan never let anything get to him, at least not this much.

“okay,” you said, shifting your tone to something a little more reassuring. “we can take it slow. i’ll help you through it.”

but even as you said it, you knew it wasn’t just about the chemistry. there was something deeper in his frustration—something he wasn’t saying.

he sat back in his chair, massaging his temples. “maybe i just don’t get it because i’m not supposed to. i’m not like you, sunshine.”

“no, you’re not,” you said softly. “but i know you can get it. you have to try.”

there was a long silence between you, and for the first time in a while, you realized that your usual teasing, quick comebacks wouldn’t fix this.

haechan’s eyes met yours for a fleeting second, something raw in them. then, he sighed.

“this is stupid,” he muttered, but there was a softness to his voice. “i’ll try.”

and for once, you believed him.

—

days later, sunday dinner was quiet, just the soft clinking of utensils against plates and the low hum of the tv in the background. your parents had been giving you a look all evening. the kind that meant they had something to say but were waiting for the right moment.

you didn’t have to wait long.

“so,” your mom started, too casually. “how’s tutoring going?”

you didn’t even glance up from your plate. “fine.”

“fine?” your dad echoed. “that’s it?”

you shrugged, poking at your food. “what else is there to say?”

your mom set down her fork. “is he at least putting in effort?”

you huffed. “define effort.”

they exchanged a glance, the kind that made you feel like a kid again, like they already knew exactly what was going on.

“we just want to make sure he’s not wasting your time,” your dad said. “if he’s not serious about learning, you don’t have to keep doing this.”

“he’s… getting better,” you admitted, though you weren’t sure if it was entirely true. he was trying, in his own way, but it was a slow process.

your mom still looked unconvinced. “just be careful, sweetheart.”

you frowned. “careful?”

“boys like him…” she hesitated, choosing her words. “they can be a distraction.”

“he’s not a distraction,” you said immediately, but the way she raised an eyebrow made your stomach twist.

and then— “you’re not getting a crush on him, are you?”

you nearly choked. “what? no. why would you even—?”

“because it happens,” your dad cut in, giving you a pointed look. “you spend enough time with someone, and next thing you know, you start making excuses for them.”

“i’m not making excuses.” you leaned back in your chair, suddenly desperate to get out of this conversation. “and i definitely don’t have a crush on him. it’s just tutoring. that’s it.”

they didn’t argue, but the look in their eyes said enough.

—

session ten – monday the 16th

you weren’t sure why your parents’ question was still echoing in your head. it was ridiculous, really. you didn’t have a crush on him. just because he was annoying, and cocky, and had that stupid smirk that made your stomach flip sometimes—no. not sometimes. never. it didn’t matter.

but still, as you walked into the library, setting your bag down at the usual table, you felt weirdly… off. distracted.

you pulled out your notes, trying to shake the thought, but haechan just had to say something.

“damn, sunshine. you look tense. bad day?”

you jumped slightly at his voice. he was standing next to you now, one hand gripping the chair as he spun it lazily before sitting down. he was late, as usual, but this time you hadn’t even noticed.

“fine,” you said quickly, focusing on your notes.

“you sure?” he tilted his head, leaning forward on the table. “you look like you’ve got something on your mind.”

you did. but there was no way in hell you were going to tell him what.

“it’s nothing,” you said, too quickly. “let’s just get started.”

but as the session went on, you found yourself more distracted than usual. every time he leaned in, every time he ran a hand through his hair, every time he smirked at something that wasn’t even funny, you thought of your parents’ voices in your head.

“you’re not getting a crush on him, are you?”

no. you weren’t. you refused to.

but then he tapped his pen against the table, glancing at you through his lashes. “you’re really off today, sunshine. what’s up?”

and maybe it was the way he said it, or maybe it was the fact that you hated how observant he could be, but you snapped.

“you. you’re up. why do you talk so much?”

he blinked, clearly not expecting that. then, he grinned. “because you like it.”

“i don’t.”

“liar.”

you groaned, running a hand down your face. this session was going to be impossible.

—

session twelve - friday the 20th

you had a feeling he wasn’t going to show up.

maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t texted all day—not that he ever really did, but usually, there was something. some offhand comment about how he was so tired or how he was mentally preparing for another “brutal” study session. but today? nothing.

still, you sat at the usual table, notes spread out, waiting.

and waiting.

and waiting.

until finally, you checked the time and realized it had been forty-five minutes.

you scoffed, shoving your notes back into your bag with more force than necessary. of course he wouldn’t show up. of course, he’d waste your time like this.

this was exactly why you didn’t like him.

not that you had to remind yourself. but things like this. his impulsiveness, his lack of reliability, the way he did whatever he wanted without considering anyone else, made it so much easier to not like him.

except, if that were really true, you wouldn’t be this pissed off.

you stormed out of the library, typing out a single text before shoving your phone deep into your pocket.

“seriously?”

no greeting. no unnecessary words. just that.

and when he didn’t respond, you told yourself you didn’t care.

even though, somehow, he was all you could think about for the rest of the night.

—

the weekend was quite eventful.

saturday -

you weren’t mad.

at least, that’s what you told yourself as you pulled out your laptop that morning, trying to focus on the essay you’d been putting off. it had nothing to do with him. nothing to do with the fact that he’d completely wasted your time yesterday. it wasn’t like you cared.

but when your phone lit up beside you, your heart jumped a little too fast. you grabbed it instinctively. only to see a notification from your bank about your spending this month.

you exhaled sharply, tossing your phone aside. see? you weren’t waiting for a text. because you weren’t expecting one. because you didn’t care.

still, you had to physically stop yourself from checking your messages every hour, and by the time the afternoon rolled around, you were in a terrible mood.

saturday night -

“so let me get this straight,” your friend, karina said, stirring her drink lazily. “he didn’t show up. didn’t text. and…now you’re mad about it.”

you scowled, leaning back in your chair. “i’m not mad.”

she raised an eyebrow. “you sure? cause you seem pretty mad.”

you crossed your arms. “i just don’t like when people waste my time. it’s inconsiderate.”

“right.” karina smirked, tilting her head. “but it’s weird, isn’t it? because you weren’t even this mad when you thought he wasn’t taking tutoring seriously. but now? now he misses one session, and suddenly, it’s a big deal?”

you scoffed, rolling your eyes. “that’s not the point.”

“mhm.” she sipped her drink, clearly unconvinced.

you refused to give her the satisfaction of a reaction, but as you stared down at your untouched food, a thought crept into your mind.

was she right?

sunday afternoon -

you spotted him before he saw you.

standing by the counter at the campus café, looking as unbothered as ever. hoodie slightly loose around his shoulders, rings glinting under the dim lighting as he scrolled through his phone.

he wasn’t avoiding you, then. because avoiding would at least mean he knew he did something wrong.

the irritation that had been simmering all weekend bubbled over. before you could think twice, you were already walking toward him.

“oh, hey, sunshine.” he glanced up as you stopped beside him, smiling like nothing had happened. “you look cute when you’re brooding.”

you didn’t waste time. “you didn’t show up.”

he shrugged, slipping his phone into his pocket. “yeah. something came up.”

“something came up?” your voice was sharper than intended, but you didn’t care. “you could’ve at least said something.”

he leaned against the counter, studying you with an amused tilt of his head. “why? you miss me?”

your fingers curled into fists at your sides. because he was doing this on purpose. pushing, testing, waiting to see how much you’d react. and you hated that it was working.

“you’re unbelievable.” the words came out in a breath, laced with frustration.

and then you turned on your heel and walked away before you could say anything else you’d regret.

but the worst part? the absolute worst part?

he was still in your head, and you didn’t know how to make it stop.

—

session thirteen - monday the 23rd

for the next two weeks, you and haechan had to change locations as club was having their meetings in the library. you moved to a classroom near the library.

monday’s session wasn’t a disaster. in fact, it was almost… normal.

he showed up—five minutes late, but that was practically on time for him. he didn’t ignore the notes you laid out, didn’t spend the whole time spinning his rings or making dumb comments. he even answered a few questions correctly, which honestly shocked you.

“so you do pay attention sometimes,” you muttered when he got one right.

“wow, sunshine.” he grinned, resting his chin on his hand. “say that again. maybe i’ll start believing you actually like having me around.”

you scoffed, underlining something in your notebook just to avoid looking at him. “don’t push it.”

he chuckled but didn’t push. and for the first time since this whole tutoring arrangement started, things actually felt… okay. he was still distracting, still teasing you every chance he got, still doing that infuriating thing where he leaned back in his chair like he had all the time in the world. but at least he was trying.

and that was enough.

for now.

later that week, things changed.

session fifteen- friday the 25th

you were still in one of the school’s empty classrooms, finishing up some notes for yourself. it was already late when you heard the classroom door creak open.

too late for a tutoring session. too late for him to be here at all.

you looked up, expecting a janitor, maybe a teacher. instead, you saw him.

“oh my god.” your breath caught when you finally glanced up. “what happened to you?”

he looked…rough. a split lip, a bruise already blooming on his cheekbone, dried blood crusted near his eyebrow. his knuckles were bruising and stained with a little blood, like he’d been swinging at something—or someone.

“nothin’.” his voice was quieter than usual, the usual cockiness dulled by exhaustion. “just a bad night.”

“bad night? you look like you got your ass kicked.” you frowned, already standing. “who—why—”

“doesn’t matter.” he waved a hand, like he wanted to brush it off, but even that small movement made him wince.

you sighed, shaking your head as you grabbed your bag. “stay here.”

he didn’t argue as you left, and when you came back a few minutes later, first aid kit in hand, he still hadn’t moved. just sat there, fingers tapping restlessly against his thigh, like he was waiting for the fight to start back up again.

but when you stood in front of him, tilting his face up slightly so you could dab at the cut on his lip, he stilled.

“you don’t have to do this,” he murmured.

“you don’t have to get into fights.”

he huffed a quiet laugh, but there was no humor in it.

when you knelt beside him and took his hand in yours, he barely reacted, letting you clean the dried blood from his knuckles. his skin was warm under your touch, but you ignored that. just like you ignored the way his eyes were fixed on you, dark and unreadable.

for a while, there was only silence. the soft press of gauze against his skin, the quiet scrape of your nails as you brushed away the dried blood. and through it all, he just watched you.

like he didn’t understand why you cared.

“you’re not supposed to fix me, sunshine,” he said eventually, voice quieter than you’d ever heard it. “just tutor me.”

you didn’t look at his eyes. “maybe i just don’t want to watch you fall apart.”

his breath hitched slightly. and maybe you imagined it, but for the first time, the fight in his eyes flickered. just for a second.

he didn’t say anything else. but something shifted in that moment.

because later, when he went home, he touched the bandage you had carefully pressed onto his skin, fingers lingering there longer than necessary.

and even though he would never admit it. maybe not even to himself, that was the moment he started falling for you.

—

after that night, things feel different. you tell yourself they’re not, that nothing’s changed, that you’re just imagining the way your chest tightens when you catch him looking at you in the middle of a study session. but it’s there, lingering in the spaces between words, in the silence that lasts too long, in the way his teasing remarks don’t land the same way anymore.

the next session, he actually tries.

not in an obvious way—he’s still late, still sighs dramatically when you hand him a practice problem, still taps his pen against the table like he’s counting down the minutes until he can leave. but when you ask him a question, he answers. when he gets something wrong, he listens when you explain instead of brushing it off.

session sixteen - monday the 28th

“so, what, you’re suddenly serious about passing?” you ask, watching as he leans forward, elbows braced against the table.

he tilts his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. “maybe i just like seeing you all impressed when i get something right.”

you roll your eyes. “trust me, you’d have to try way harder for that to happen.”

but you don’t mean it. because when he mutters the right answer under his breath, brow furrowed like he’s actually thinking, something twists in your stomach. you shove the feeling down before it can take root.

—

then, he starts showing up.

not just to your tutoring sessions—those are still scheduled, still predictable, still something you can control—but to other places. places he shouldn’t be.

like when you’re sitting outside between classes, notebook open in your lap, the afternoon sun casting long shadows over the pavement.

“wow,” his voice cuts through the quiet, lazy and amused. “you really do study all the time, huh?”

you glance up, frowning as he drops into the seat across from you. “what are you doing here?”

he shrugs, peeling the label off his drink. “nowhere else to be.”

he stays. doesn’t do much—just picks at his rings, tosses casual comments your way, complains about the weather. at first, it’s just once. then it happens again. and again.

“you know you don’t have to sit here, right?” you say one day, not looking up from your laptop.

“i know.”

he doesn’t leave. and you don’t tell him to. maybe that’s your first mistake.

—

the evening air is crisp, biting at your skin as you step out of the library. you tug your jacket tighter around yourself, putting your earbuds in as you start down the quiet path leading off campus. most of the streetlights flicker on as it got darker.

you don’t hear him at first.

not until he falls into step beside you, hands stuffed into his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched.

“hey, sunshine.”

you nearly trip, ripping an earbud out as you whip your head to the side. “what the—why are you here?”

he doesn’t look at you, just keeps walking like this is the most natural thing in the world. “walking.” he motions in front of him.

“walking where?” you press, your suspicion growing.

he exhales, tilting his head toward the sky as if debating whether to answer. finally, he shrugs. “just making sure you get home okay.”

you slow your steps. something about the way he says it, like it’s just a fact, like it’s obvious, throws you off balance.

“i don’t need a bodyguard,” you mutter.

“yeah, i know.”

“so why—”

“just shut up and keep walking.”

the words should annoy you. they do annoy you. but something in his casual but firm tone, like he’s already decided he’s doing this whether you like it or not, leaves no room for argument. so you walk, stealing glances at him every so often, watching the way he shifts his weight, the way his fingers flex like he’s holding back something he’ll never say out loud.

“this isn’t a habit now, is it?” you ask after a few minutes.

“depends.”

“on what?”

“on whether or not i feel like doing it again.”

you roll your eyes but don’t push.

when you finally reach your place, you stop at the fence, hesitating. you should say goodnight. you should say thanks, maybe. but before you can decide, he’s already a few steps away, hands still buried in his pockets, gaze fixed ahead.

“see you later, sunshine.”

he doesn’t look back. doesn’t wait for a response.

but for some reason, you watch him walk away anyway.

—

you should be asleep.

but you’re not.

instead, you’re lying on your bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the walk home in your head like a movie you can’t turn off. like the flickering streetlights, the cold air, the steady sound of footsteps beside you—his footsteps—are all burned into your mind.

you shift onto your side, pulling your blanket up to your chin. it’s stupid. he didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything that should be lingering like this. all he did was show up. all he did was walk.

but still.

“just making sure you get home okay.”

he’d said it like it was nothing. like it wasn’t a thing.

but it was. wasn’t it?

you sigh, rolling onto your back again. your phone sits on your nightstand, screen dark, no notifications. not that you expected any. he’s not the kind of guy to text. but still, some stupid part of you wonders if he’s thinking about it, too.

not about you. just—about anything.

maybe he’s already asleep, completely unbothered, already moved on. maybe it meant nothing to him.

but then again—

“depends.”

“on what?”

“on whether or not i feel like doing it again.”

you close your eyes, exhaling slowly.

you don’t know what’s worse. the fact that he might actually do it again.

or the fact that you kind of want him to.

—

session nineteen - monday april 4th

you check the time again.

ten minutes late.

with an annoyed sigh, you tap your pen against the open notebook in front of you, debating whether to give up and leave. it’s not like he hasn’t done this before. showing up whenever he feels like it, acting like he’s doing you a favor by even bothering. but this time, it’s grating more than usual. maybe because things have been different lately—less antagonistic, more… whatever this weird tension is that neither of you have acknowledged.

and then, just as you’re about to slap your notebook shut, a chair scrapes against the floor.

“took you long enough,” you mutter without looking up.

“miss me?”

the smirk is there—you can hear it in his voice even before you meet his gaze. he leans back in his chair, stretching out like he has all the time in the world. no apology, no excuse. just him, always testing your patience.

you roll your eyes and push his notebook toward him. “just open your book.”

the session starts off okay, at first. he’s actually trying—not a lot, but enough. he answers a few questions, gets some right, listens when you explain the ones he gets wrong. but there’s something off about him today.

he’s restless. more than usual.

his fingers tap against the table, his rings clicking against each other in a way that makes your nerves buzz. he sighs every time you correct him, leans back so far in his chair that you’re convinced he’s seconds away from tipping over. but most of all, he’s not looking at you.

not in the usual way, at least. he usually stares—lazy, smug, like he’s waiting for you to snap. but today, it’s like he’s avoiding your gaze altogether. like he’s somewhere else.

“what is wrong with you today?” the words slip out before you can stop them.

haechan raises an eyebrow, finally meeting your eyes. “me? nothing. maybe you’re just extra grumpy today.”

you glare. “maybe i wouldn’t be if you were actually focused.”

he clicks his tongue, shutting his notebook with a dull thud. “yeah? and what if i don’t feel like it?”

your patience snaps. “then why are you even here, haechan?”

silence.

his expression shifts—just barely, but enough for you to see it. the way his jaw tightens, the flicker of something unreadable in his eyes before he looks away.

and then he speaks so quiet, almost to himself.

“good question.”

your breath catches. because suddenly, it doesn’t feel like you’re talking about tutoring anymore.

neither of you speak after that.

the rest of the session is stiff, words clipped and movements sharp. when it ends, he doesn’t throw a smug remark over his shoulder, doesn’t tease you like he usually does. he just stands, slings his bag over his shoulder, and walks out without looking back.

you stay sitting there long after he’s gone, staring at the empty chair next to you.

heart pounding for reasons you don’t want to think about.

—

session twenty - wednesday the 6th

wednesday’s session is quieter than usual. it’s like there’s a wall between the two of you—still the same awkwardness, but with more… space.

haechan is more focused than before, but there’s a distance in the way he engages with the material. no smart comments, no teasing, just a steady silence as he works through the problems. every time your fingers brush over his paper to point out a mistake, there’s a brief, electric pause. neither of you comment on it, but it lingers, like a promise neither of you are ready to make.

but by the end of it, he’s gone without a word. not a smile, not a look. just the door shutting quietly behind him.

—

session twenty one - friday the 8th

friday’s session is different.

when he walks in, there’s a heaviness about him, something off—his face is bruised again, his lip split like last time, hair slightly tousled, and there’s a subtle tremble in his step like he’s not sure whether to be here or not. his eyes avoid yours as he slides into the chair across from yours, too close to be casual but too distant to be comfortable.

the silence between you is charged from the start, but it’s not the playful tension you’re used to. it’s thick, raw, almost uncomfortable.

you can’t help but stare at the bruise blooming across his jaw, the scrape on his chin, and the other cuts scattered across his arms. the anger and adrenaline radiate off him in waves, but there’s something deeper underneath all of it—a tiredness.

you try not to let your voice crack, but the concern breaks through anyway. “what happened?”

haechan doesn’t meet your gaze. his eyes are dark, like he’s trying to bury something under all that nonchalance. “it’s nothing.”

you don’t believe him. obviously. not looking like that. “haechan, don’t lie.”

finally, he looks at you, and there’s something in his expression that makes you freeze—raw vulnerability laced with a bitterness you can’t quite place. “someone said something about you,” he says quietly. “something i didn’t like.”

you feel the weight of his words like a punch to the gut. “what do you mean?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper, but there’s no hiding the unease creeping into your tone.

he’s quiet for a long moment, his fingers tapping restlessly against the table as he thinks about how to phrase it. then, he just blurts it out: “i fought over you.”

it takes you a second to process. “what?”

he looks at you, this time, eyes searching yours like he’s looking for something. “they were talking about you. bad stuff. i couldn’t just sit there. i—” his words falter, like he’s not sure why he’s even explaining this to you.

you don’t know what to say. your heart beats harder, faster. “so you just…?”

“i lost it.” he’s not ashamed, not exactly, but there’s something about the way he says it that makes you feel like he’s letting go of more than just the fight. “i couldn’t stand it. i had to do something.”

and that’s when it hits you—the depth of everything he’s been hiding behind those sharp smirks and sarcastic comments.

without thinking, your fingers move—just a soft brush against his darkening knuckles, like it’s the only thing you can do to make sense of all this. you feel the heat of his skin underneath your fingertips, and the contact burns, even though it’s so small.

haechan’s breath catches. there’s a moment of complete silence, and then he slowly, so slowly, moves his fingers that were under yours.

you hold your breath, fingers trembling just a little. and then, as if testing the waters, he slides his fingers up to rest his hand against yours. you found your hand opening up, as your palms touched slightly. his finger tips grazing your with a ghost-like touch. for a second, neither of you moves. there’s a fragile, delicate tension that seems to freeze the room in place.

and then, without saying a word, he lets his fingers gently curl around yours.

it’s slow, tentative, like he’s afraid you’ll pull away. but when you don’t, when you let him, he doesn’t hesitate. his grip tightens just enough, not too much—just enough to say this matters.

your heart races, and your breath hitches, but you don’t pull away. you don’t want to.

you let your fingers slip into the spaces between his, moving carefully, slowly.

there’s no hurry. just the quiet sound of your breaths mingling with the subtle click of his rings as his fingers settle between yours.

his eyes drop to your hands, studying the way you fit together, the way your fingers slide against his, perfectly and effortlessly. it’s intimate in a way that makes everything around you disappear. there’s only the soft warmth of his hand in yours, the quiet thrum of something unspoken growing louder between you.

he leans forward slightly, his voice quiet, almost like a confession. “i fought because of you,” he says, the weight of his words settling between you two like a secret you didn’t expect.

you want to say something, want to ask why, but the words don’t come. your chest feels tight. why would he do that for you?

his thumb strokes the back of your hand, the motion slow and careful, and you feel the heat of his touch seep through you. “i couldn’t just let them say shit about you,” he murmurs, his voice raw. “no one talks about you like that and gets away with it.”

you finally meet his gaze, your chest tight with something you can’t name. he holds your hand gently, but there’s a possessiveness in his touch, something protective that you can’t quite ignore.

the air between you is thick, filled with the weight of everything unsaid. he doesn’t let go of your hand, doesn’t move away, and neither do you.

you’re not sure how long you sit there, fingers entwined, the world outside of this moment fading away. but somehow, it feels like everything has changed between you two in that quiet, intimate touch. Something that didn’t need to be spoken but felt.

neither of you moves, not yet. not until it’s time.

—

saturday -

saturday morning arrives with the lingering weight of haechan’s words from the previous session. “maybe we could grab a coffee or something. no tutoring… just…”

his voice still echoes in your mind as you get ready. you don’t know why it’s making you nervous. you’ve spent hours with him tutoring, in tight spaces, talking about everything under the sun, but this feels different. it’s not about grades or chemistry anymore. it’s about you and him—just two people.

when your parents asked where you were off to, you brushed them off with a simple. “studying at the café,”.

at 2 p.m., you arrive at the cafe a little early. your heart beats louder in your chest as you stand outside, looking at the door, unsure whether you should go in first or wait. but before you can make up your mind, haechan appears. he’s wearing a hoodie and jeans. his messy hair adds to the vibe—relaxed, but there’s an intensity in the way he walks towards you.

“hey,” he greets with that familiar teasing smile, but it’s less playful today, more reserved. he watches you for a beat, like he’s trying to gauge how you’re feeling.

“hey,” you respond, your voice steady but your insides twist with something unfamiliar.

the conversation starts easy, like a continuation of your tutoring sessions, but it quickly morphs into something more personal. you laugh at his jokes, and he cracks a few of his usual sarcastic comments. but this time, they don’t feel so cutting—they feel like an invitation, an effort to connect.

you tell him about your favorite subjects, and he talks about his struggle with science (which he completely tries to play off like he doesn’t care about). somehow, you both end up talking about your childhoods, your families, and some awkward high school moments. the more you talk, the more the layers fall away, and you realize this is more real than you expected. he really wasn’t some monster that everyone seemed to paint him as.

as you finish your drinks, there’s an uneasy silence between you two. haechan runs a hand through his hair, and you shift in your seat, unsure of what to do next. the energy between you both is charged now—unspoken words hang thick in the air, and it’s almost unbearable.

“well, sunshine,” he says, his voice softer than usual, “i guess I’ll see you on monday?”

you nod, too quickly, almost relieved to escape the pressure of the moment. “yeah, monday.”

you both stand, and as you turn to walk away, you feel his eyes on you. you can’t tell if it’s admiration or something else, but the way he watches you feels different now.

sunday -

sunday passes quietly, but the space between you and haechan feels wider, even though you just saw him the day before. you try not to think about the little moments—the way he looked at you, how close you both were, how much you wanted him to say more. but that’s the problem, isn’t it? you both left so much unsaid, and you can’t help but wonder what’s going through his mind.

he doesn’t text you at all. the silence is deafening. you tell yourself it’s probably a good thing; after all, you don’t need to overanalyze everything, right? but then again, why does it feel so heavy?

you end up spending the day at home, alone with your thoughts. the weekend was supposed to be simple, a break from the usual, but now you can’t shake the feeling that it’s more complicated than that. haechan has always been complicated, but now you feel like you’re standing on the edge of something, not sure whether to jump or step back.

session twenty two - monday the 11th

by the time monday rolls around, you’re feeling restless. there’s a shift in your mood. a nervous energy that you can’t shake off, and when you step into school, it feels like you’re waiting for something to happen. you can’t decide if it’s anticipation or dread, but either way, you’re drawn back to the tutoring session.

when haechan finally walks into the classroom, you can’t tell if he’s acting like everything is normal or if he’s pretending. he gives you a short wave, but it’s not his usual playful smile. it’s different now. there’s something more cautious in his movements.

you both settle into your usual rhythm—he’s late, of course, but he’s quieter today. you’re not sure if that’s because of the weekend or if it’s something else entirely.

the session goes well, mostly. it’s like before, in the sense that you both get through the work, but there’s an added tension. he looks at you a little longer than he usually does, his eyes scanning your face as if he’s trying to understand something. the usual teasing is absent today, replaced by a different energy—more subtle, more cautious.

by the end of the session, you can’t help but feel like you’re caught in this strange, unspoken limbo between what you both were and what you might be. you still don’t know where it’s going, but you’re both standing at the edge, unsure whether to jump or wait to see what the next step will be.

—

session twenty three - wednesday the 13th

it’s the final session before the break, and everything feels different. the air feels thicker, charged with something neither of you are saying but both know is there. you both sit at the desk, the tension palpable, but neither of you are focused on the notes in front of you. it’s like the classroom walls are closing in, and neither of you can breathe easily.

you keep glancing over at him, trying to stick to the lesson, but he’s just… there, too close, too present. the words he’s saying are just noise in the background as his eyes flicker over you every time you speak, his gaze heavy, simmering. you know it’s not just the subject anymore. something has shifted.

“you’re not listening,” you say, your voice sharper than you intend.

he looks at you, not surprised, but not unaffected either. “neither are you,” he replies, and there’s something in his voice that’s too calm. too knowing.

you press your lips together, trying to keep your composure. “well, you’re not even trying.”

he smirks, leaning back in his chair slightly. “again, neither are you.”

there’s a challenge in his voice, and it sets something off inside you. something snaps. you stand up more abrupt than you anticipate, trying to collect your thoughts but only feeling more overwhelmed by the space between you two. you feel like you’re suffocating under the weight of the tension, like there’s something about to break, and you don’t know if you want to stop it or let it happen.

you cross your arms, pacing around the small desk, trying to cool the heat you feel flooding your chest.

“why are you so difficult?” you murmur, more to yourself than him.

“because you make it easy,” he says, voice low, leaning forward, his eyes locked on you in a way that makes your knees weak.

he stands up slowly, the movement purposeful, and your heart skips a beat. the space between you is closing, and before you can make sense of what’s happening, he’s there, standing right in front of you.

his hand brushes against yours, and you feel it like a spark, his fingers just grazing yours before he holds your wrist lightly, tugging you closer to him. you can’t move, rooted in place by something deeper than just attraction.

and then he kisses you.

it’s a kiss that’s full of everything you’ve been holding back. the anger, the frustration, the need for something more that you don’t know how to name. it’s messy, urgent, like both of you are desperate to see how far you can go without letting go. your hands find their way to his chest, pushing against him as you kiss him back, just as hungry, just as eager.

you feel his grip on your wrist tighten, pulling you closer as his other hand slides to your waist. the kiss deepens, and the world around you disappears. it’s just you and him, the heat of his lips against yours, the press of his body against yours.

you can’t help but give in, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, your breath coming faster as the intensity builds.

and then, just as suddenly, it breaks.

you pull back, hands trembling, and you stare at him, your heart pounding against your ribs.

you feel guilty.

you glance away, trying to catch your breath, but all you can hear are the voices from the past—the warnings your parents gave you, the things they said about boys like him.

“boys like him are trouble.”

the words echo in your mind like a warning. trouble.

you can’t ignore it. your heart sinks, and a cold wave of uncertainty washes over you. this is trouble.

you step back, trying to create some distance, trying to make sense of it all. “this isn’t… supposed to happen.”

he stays silent for a beat, his expression unreadable. then, quietly, he says, “i don’t want to stop.”

you shake your head, backing away, but you can’t seem to find the words. everything’s spinning in your head. he’s trouble, but you want him.

“haechan,” you whisper, feeling a rush of heat rise to your cheeks, “i—this was a mistake.”

he doesn’t say anything, just watches you as you grab your things, your heart heavy in your chest.

you don’t know how to fix this, don’t know how to untangle the mess you’ve just made of your feelings. you only know that walking away is the only thing you can do right now, even if every step you take feels like it’s pulling you away from him and yet dragging you closer at the same time.

you leave without another word, but as you walk down the hall, your mind is still stuck on him.

this isn’t what i signed up for… but then again, maybe it was.

—

the following night is unusually still, and you lie awake, mind tangled in the events of the past week. your thoughts keep drifting back to him—the kiss, the way he pulled away, and the uncertainty that followed. you toss and turn, trying to shake off the feeling, but it’s like something’s pulling you in. just as you start to think you’re finally starting to calm down, a soft knock at your window breaks through the silence.

your heart jumps in your chest, and for a second, you freeze. there’s no mistaking who it is. haechan.

you rush to the window, heart racing, but you pause for a brief moment to glance at your door—your parents are just down the hall. still, curiosity outweighs caution, and you push the blinds up quietly, barely believing your eyes.

there he is, his silhouette framed against the dim streetlights outside, standing on the roof near your window with that familiar, confident smirk that sends a strange rush through you.

“how’d you get up here?” you whisper after opening the window, your voice shaky, heart still pounding in your ears.

he shrugs as though it’s the most normal thing in the world, but you can’t ignore the way his arm strains as he grips the window sill, his veins flexing beneath the fabric of his shirt. your eyes flicker down to his arms, and for a moment, you forget to breathe, your gaze catching on the way the muscles ripple as he pulls himself up with a small thud.

you wince, then immediately shush him, raising a finger to your lips in an exaggerated, playful gesture. “my parents are gonna hear you!”

he flashes that trademark grin, but it’s softer this time—almost sheepish, like he wasn’t expecting this much resistance. “sorry,” he whispers, giving you a quick, apologetic wink before pulling himself through the window with a bit more flair than necessary. you can feel the heat radiating off him as he steps inside, and for a brief second, you both just stand there in the quiet of the room.

there’s an awkward pause as he dusts himself off, glancing around your room as if trying to find a reason for being here, but then his eyes land on you. his expression softens just a little, that familiar cockiness fading away for a second.

“didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but… figured i’d take a risk. can’t sleep, you know?”

you laugh softly, a little nervously, though you can’t quite explain why. there’s something about him being here, standing in your room in the dead of night, that’s thrilling in a way you’re not ready to admit. “did you…climb the tree?” you ask, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“yeah,” he grins, his tone light, almost teasing. “it’s not that hard. plus, i thought i’d get your attention somehow.” he shrugs as if this is a totally reasonable thing to do. but when his eyes meet yours, there’s something behind them. something vulnerable, something unspoken.

“you’re crazy,” you mutter, but there’s no malice behind it. instead, your voice is soft, fond. you step back instinctively as he moves toward you, not sure if you want to step away or let him close the gap. you should be more concerned that he was here. if your parents found out, you have no idea what kind of reaction they’d have.

he looks at you for a moment, his gaze flickering over your face like he’s studying every detail. you can feel the tension building between the two of you, and even though you know you should step back again, you stay rooted to the spot. there’s a pull between you that neither of you can ignore.

“i just… couldn’t stop thinking about everything. about you,” he admits, the words coming out quieter than usual. he doesn’t sound like the usual confident haechan; there’s a vulnerability in his voice now, something raw that you’ve never heard before.

you blink, caught off guard. the air feels thick with unspoken words, and for a second, you’re at a loss for how to respond. your heart hammers in your chest, and before you can stop yourself, you move a little closer to him.

his eyes widen slightly when you step forward, but he doesn’t move away. instead, he reaches for your hand slowly, almost hesitantly. his fingers brush over yours, the lightest touch that sends a jolt through you. it’s so quiet, so soft, but it feels like the whole world has paused. you glance down at his hand—his fingers are rough, the veins on his arms standing out against his skin.

you look back up at him, meeting his eyes, and he squeezes your hand gently, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand in a slow, almost intimate motion. there’s a quiet understanding between the two of you, a silent acknowledgment of everything that’s been building between you.

“you’re here,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, but it feels like it carries the weight of everything you haven’t been able to say.

he gives a small, lopsided grin, his thumb still moving over your hand. “yeah. i guess i am.”

and then, without another word, he leans in, and this time, when your lips meet, it’s not chaotic. it’s slow, deliberate, like the two of you are finally giving in to something you’ve been avoiding. his hand slides up to your cheek, his thumb brushing over your skin as if he’s memorizing the feel of you.

the kiss is soft at first, tentative, but it deepens as the moments stretch on, his other hand moving to gently to him by your back, pulling you closer. everything else fades away. the hesitation, the uncertainty and you lose yourself in it.

when you finally pull back, both of you are breathing a little heavier, the space between you still charged with the emotions neither of you knew how to express. you glance at the door again, your mind briefly flashing to the consequences of this. but for a moment, you don’t care.

“this is… insane,” you whisper, your voice trembling just slightly.

he leans his forehead against yours, his breath warm against your skin. “i know. but i don’t think i can stay away.”

for a moment, you both just stand there, breathless, sharing the same quiet understanding. you’ve crossed a line you never thought you would, and for the first time, you’re not sure what comes next. but you know this: you can’t go back. not now.

—

after that night, everything changes. things between you and haechan aren’t just charged—they’re different. there’s no more pretending that what happened didn’t mean something.

friday the 15th

the next day at school, he’s there—leaning against his locker like usual, surrounded by his close group of friends, but his eyes are on you the second you walk in. it’s not just a glance this time. it’s intentional, like he’s waiting to see if you’ll look at him, if you’ll acknowledge what happened between you the night before.

your heart races, but you force yourself to act normal. your parents had been none the wiser about his late-night visit, but that didn’t mean you weren’t still thinking about it. thinking about him. you take a deep breath and head toward your first class, but just as you pass him, his fingers catch your wrist. it’s subtle, barely a touch, but enough to send a shiver down your spine.

“you’re not gonna ignore me now, are you?” his voice is low, teasing, but there’s something real underneath it.

“not here,” you murmur, pulling your hand away, your face heating up as you disappear into the crowd.

you glance around—people are watching. of course they are. it was unusual for a student like and a student like him to interact. let alone lee haechan and you.

but you can feel his gaze on you for the rest of the day.

after school -

he catches up to you before you can leave, cutting you off near the entrance. “so, sunshine, are we gonna talk about last night? or are you just gonna pretend i didn’t climb a damn tree for you?”

you roll your eyes, crossing your arms. “you could’ve fallen.”

“but i didn’t,” he grins, stepping closer, dropping his voice so only you can hear. “what, you worried about me?”

you are, but you won’t admit that. you sigh. “i don’t know what you expect me to say.”

his smirk fades just slightly, a flicker of something more serious in his eyes. “say it wasn’t nothing.”

you hesitate, because you can’t say that. you won’t lie. but you also don’t know what this is.

before you can respond, a voice calls your name from behind. one of your classmates. someone who shouldn’t be seeing you with him like this.

“i have to go,” you say quickly, stepping away.

he doesn’t stop you, but as you walk away, you hear him call out, just loud enough for you to hear—

“i’ll see you later, sunshine.”

and you know you will.

saturday night -

you get a text from him.

haechan: come outside

your heart leaps into your throat. you glance at your bedroom door, listening carefully. your parents are still awake. sneaking out has never been something you’ve even considered before, but now…

your fingers hover over your phone.

you: are you insane?

haechan: probably. but i wanna see you.

you hesitate. but only for a second.

and then, for the first time, you take the risk.

—

the door clicks softly behind you as you step onto the porch, the night air brushing cool against your skin. you shiver slightly, but you ignore it, your pulse already picking up when you spot haechan waiting just beyond the porch light’s glow, hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie.

he steps forward as you approach, but then—he stops.

his eyes flicker down, lingering.

you suddenly realize what you’re wearing—silk shorts, the kind with delicate lace at the hem, barely brushing mid-thigh. paired with a thin, loose sweater, it’s nothing that scandalous, but under his gaze, you feel the heat creeping up your neck.

his tongue swipes over his bottom lip before he exhales, tilting his head. “damn, sunshine. if i knew sneaking into your thoughts at night got me this kind of welcome, i would’ve done it sooner.”

you cross your arms, giving him an unimpressed look despite the warmth spreading in your chest. “i wasn’t exactly expecting company.”

he hums, taking another step closer. “yeah? so you just wear this to bed every night?” his voice dips lower, teasing, but there’s something else there.

you roll your eyes, but you can’t ignore the way your stomach tightens. “are you done staring?”

his smirk deepens. “not even close.”

“why are you even here?” you sigh, trying to steer the conversation before you combust under his gaze.

his expression shifts slightly, something more serious flickering beneath the teasing. “couldn’t sleep.” he shrugs, eyes still on you but softer now. “kept thinking about you.”

your breath hitches. you weren’t expecting that.

you hesitate, shifting on your feet. “and what exactly were you thinking about?”

he doesn’t hesitate. “that kiss. both of them.”

you inhale sharply, your heart picking up speed.

he watches you carefully, stepping just close enough that you have to tilt your chin up to meet his gaze. “tell me i’m the only one who’s been losing sleep over it,” he murmurs. “tell me you don’t think about it too.”

you should brush it off. should laugh, roll your eyes, push him away like you always do.

but you don’t.

“…maybe a little.”

his lips quirk, but it’s not his usual cocky smirk—it’s softer. more real.

“thought so.”

before you can even react, his fingers find yours, brushing over your knuckles before lacing them together. it’s slow, deliberate—like he’s testing the waters, waiting for you to pull away.

you don’t.

he exhales a quiet laugh. “you’re in trouble, sunshine.”

you swallow. “why?”

his thumb traces over the back of your hand, and when he looks at you, there’s something almost fond in his eyes.

“’cause now that i’ve got you like this,” he murmurs, “i don’t think i can let go.”

—

you should go back inside. your parents are asleep just down the hall, and this is the kind of thing they warned you about. sneaking out into the night with a boy like him, hand in hand, heart racing in ways it shouldn’t.

but you don’t let go.

“come on,” he says, his grip tightening just slightly, like he’s afraid you might change your mind. “let’s go somewhere.”

“what? where?” you ask, but you’re already following him down the steps, his hand warm against yours.

he smirks, eyes glinting in the dim light. “trust me.”

and for some reason, you do.

—

the night air is crisp, cool against your skin as the two of you walk through the quiet streets. neither of you say much at first, just the soft scuff of your footsteps on the pavement, the occasional flickering of a streetlight overhead. it’s reckless, it’s stupid, but for some reason, it feels right.

he leads you toward a small park a few blocks away, one you haven’t been to in years. it looks different at night—emptier, quieter, like a hidden world that only the two of you know about.

“seriously?” you say, raising an eyebrow. “you dragged me out of bed for a playground?”

haechan grins, tugging you toward the swings. “come on, sunshine. live a little.”

you huff, but you sit anyway, the chains creaking slightly as you lean back. he takes the swing next to yours, feet planted on the ground, arms draped lazily over the chains.

for a moment, neither of you speak. the city hums softly in the distance, a car passing now and then, but here, in this little forgotten space, it feels like you’re in your own world.

then he breaks the silence.

“so,” he says, voice quieter now. “are you gonna tell me why you kissed me back?”

your fingers tighten around the swing’s chains.

you should lie. should brush it off, make a joke, something.

but instead, you glance at him, finding him already watching you, his usual smirk nowhere in sight.

“…i don’t know,” you admit.

he exhales a soft laugh, shaking his head. “wrong answer, sunshine.”

you frown. “oh? and what’s the right one?”

he leans in slightly, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him even in the cool night air. his voice drops, teasing but serious all at once.

“that you can’t get me out of your head, either.”

your breath catches.

you could argue. you could deny it. but instead, you just look at him, your heart pounding, and realize—maybe you don’t want to.

—

the morning after sneaking out with haechan, everything feels different.

your room is the same, the sun filtering through your curtains, casting warm streaks of light across your sheets. your parents are in the kitchen, the smell of coffee and toast drifting down the hall like any other saturday morning. nothing has changed.

except it has.

because your mind won’t stop replaying the night before. his voice, his hands, the way he looked at you under the dim glow of the streetlights, with that same dark eyeliner you’ve grown to like. the way he leaned in just close enough that you thought he might kiss you again but never did. the way your heart had pounded the entire walk back home, fingers still tingling from where he had held them, warm and steady.

and the worst part?

you didn’t want it to end.

you go through the day pretending everything is normal.

you do your chores, respond to messages, attempt to start your homework—but it all feels distant, like your mind is somewhere else entirely. every time your phone lights up, you half expect it to be him. but it never is.

and then, just when you think you might be going crazy, your mom’s voice cuts through the quiet.

“you’ve been distracted all morning.”

you blink, looking up from your untouched notebook at the kitchen table. your parents are sitting across from you, your dad flipping through the newspaper, your mom watching you with knowing eyes.

“i’m fine,” you say quickly, too quickly.

she hums, not convinced. “it’s not about that boy, is it?”

your heart stops. “what?”

your dad turns a page in the newspaper, not looking up. “the one you’ve been tutoring,” he says simply. “you know, the one we told you to be careful around.”

your pulse stutters. “it’s—no, of course not.”

your mom raises an eyebrow. “really? because ever since those sessions started, you’ve been acting a little… different.”

“and now you’re all spaced out,” your dad adds, still not looking up. “not getting a crush on him, are you?”

you scoff, forcing out a laugh that sounds almost believable. “as if.”

your mom exhales, satisfied for now. “good. boys like that, they’re nothing but trouble.”

your chest tightens. they don’t know anything. “so you’ve told me.” you sigh.

but instead of arguing, you just nod, mumbling something about needing to study before quickly escaping back to your room.

and the moment the door clicks shut behind you, your phone finally buzzes.

haechan: you up, sunshine?

you hesitate for half a second, holding back the small tug at your lips before responding.

you: yeah, why?

his reply comes instantly.

haechan: meet me? same spot.

your heart skips. you don’t even hesitate.

you: be there in 10.

—

the air feels heavier, like the wind is carrying something unspoken between you. you spot him before he sees you—leaning against the swing set, hoodie pulled over his head, one hand twisting a silver ring around his finger. he looks lost in thought, gaze fixed on the ground until he hears your footsteps.

his head lifts, and when he sees you, his lips twitch into a smirk—lazy, like he knew you’d come.

“thought maybe you wouldn’t show,” he says, rocking back on his heels.

you cross your arms, standing a few steps away. “why?”

he lets out a soft chuckle, shaking his head. “figured maybe you started listening to your parents.”

you raise a brow. “you’re eavesdropping now?”

nah,” he says easily, stepping closer. “just know how people see me.”

you don’t respond. instead, you take a step closer, letting the silence settle between you.

“so,” you say after a beat, “why’d you call me out here?”

he exhales, tilting his head as he watches you. “needed to see you.”

the words come so easily, like he didn’t even have to think about them. like it was the most natural thing in the world.

your pulse stutters, but you keep your expression even. “and now that you have?”

he grins, stepping closer until there’s barely any space between you. “now?” his voice drops lower, eyes flickering over your face. “now i wanna know why you came.”

you swallow. why did you?

you should have ignored his message, should have listened to every warning sign telling you to stay away.

but standing here, heart pounding, heat rolling off him in waves—

you realize you don’t regret a damn thing.

“i wanted to see you too.” you say lowly.

—

after that night, something shifts.

it starts slow—an unspoken understanding, a magnetic pull that neither of you acknowledge but never fight.

one night turns into another. and then another.

sometimes, he climbs through your window just to talk, arms crossed against your windowsill, voice hushed as he tells you about his day. other times, he doesn’t talk at all, just pulls you close and kisses you like he’s afraid you’ll slip through his fingers.

and maybe you should be afraid too—afraid of how easy it is to let this happen, to want more. but you’re not.

—

you find yourself around him more at school, too.

it’s not obvious, not at first—just stolen glances across the hallway, his shoulder brushing yours when he passes by, the flicker of a smirk when he catches you looking.

but then he starts waiting for you after class, hands stuffed in his pockets, always acting like he just happened to be there. like it wasn’t intentional.

and you let him.

because somehow, being near him feels natural now. even with the tutoring sessions over. he seemed to be doing pretty well in science now anyway.

—

the nights are different. the nights are yours.

sneaking out is reckless, dangerous, a risk you wouldn’t have taken before. but now? now it’s routine.

sometimes, you meet at the park, swinging lazily under the glow of the streetlights. sometimes, he drags you into the city, leading you through neon-lit streets, hands brushing in the dark.

and sometimes—most nights, actually—he’s at your window.

it always starts the same way: a faint rustling, the quiet scrape of sneakers against bark, and then, moments later, his head poking through the window frame with a grin.

“you’ve got to stop leaving this unlocked, sunshine,” he teases, even though you both know you won’t.

and every time, without fail, you roll your eyes, but you don’t stop him when he pulls himself inside, muscles flexing, veins prominent under his skin as he steadies himself.

the first few times, you told yourself this was temporary—just a phase, just him being him.

but then there’s a night where he doesn’t just talk, doesn’t just steal a few kisses before leaving.

there’s a night where he lingers.

where his hands settle on your waist, where he backs you up against your wall, where the air between you is thick with something unspoken, something dangerous.

where he kisses you deeper, hands tracing slow patterns against your skin, like he’s memorizing you.

where you let him.

because at some point, you stopped trying to fight this. stopped trying to pretend you didn’t want it.

because at some point, you stopped caring that he was the kind of boy your parents warned you about.

—

it was one of the nights he had skipped into your room, you greeted him with a smile and things went from there.

his breath is warm against your lips, hands gripping your waist as he backs you into the wall.

he’s been teasing all night—touching you just enough to leave you wanting more, murmuring things in that low, rough voice that made your pulse stutter. but now? now there’s no space left between you, and neither of you are trying to fight it.

his fingers press into your sides, slow and steady, like he’s testing how much you’ll let him take. his lips brush yours once, twice—just enough to make you chase him before he finally kisses you like he means it.

and you let yourself fall into it.

your hands slide into his hair, fingers threading through the soft strands, tugging just enough to draw a quiet groan from his throat. his body presses closer, chest rising and falling against yours, the heat between you dizzying.

“you’re gonna drive me crazy,” he murmurs against your lips, voice thick, almost strained.

you don’t even get the chance to answer before he kisses you again, harder this time, like he’s losing whatever little patience he had left.

his hands slip under your shirt, fingertips skimming your skin, sending shivers up your spine. and you should stop this, should put some distance between you before it’s too late—

but then his hands tighten on your hips, and you feel the way his heart is racing just as fast as yours, and god—

you don’t want to stop.

“tell me to leave,” he murmurs, lips trailing along your jaw, down to the hollow of your throat.

you swallow hard, tilting your head back as he presses closer, as his hands continue their slow exploration.

“tell me you don’t want this,” he says again, but there’s no teasing in his voice this time—just something raw, something vulnerable, something almost pleading.

and you should. you should.

instead, your grip tightens in his hair, and you whisper back, “i don’t want you to.”

his response is immediate—his hands slide lower, pulling you flush against him, and he groans against your lips like he’s just lost whatever last shred of control he had.

“fuck,” he exhales, forehead resting against yours. “you’re really gonna be the end of me, sunshine.”

but he doesn’t stop.

and neither do you.

—

when you finally pull your mouth from his, his lips are swollen, breath uneven as he leans into you, hands still firm on your waist like he can’t bring himself to let go just yet.

you don’t want him to.

but somewhere between the heat of his touch and the way his body presses against yours, reality creeps back in.

your parents are just down the hall.

he shouldn’t even be here.

“we should stop,” you murmur, though the words barely make it out, still breathless from the way he just kissed you.

he exhales sharply, eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he tilts his head back to look at you. his pupils are blown wide, jaw tight like he’s forcing himself to pull back.

“yeah,” he mutters, voice rough. “yeah, we should.”

but neither of you move.

his thumb brushes against your side, like he’s memorizing the feel of you.

“sunshine,” he says softly, like a warning.

you know you have to let him go.

but when he leans in one last time, mouth hovering just over yours, you don’t stop him.

“just one more?” he murmurs, but it’s a lie.

one more turns into two, then three, then a lingering kiss pressed to the corner of your lips, like he’s reluctant to leave you at all.

but eventually, he does.

he steps back first, running a hand through his hair like he’s trying to ground himself, like he’s trying to pull himself together before he does something you’ll both regret.

“guess i should go before i completely fuck this up, huh?” he says, forcing a smirk, but you see the hesitation in his eyes.

you nod, but you don’t trust yourself to say anything.

he moves toward the window, but just before climbing out, he looks back, gaze flickering over you—your flushed cheeks, your parted lips, the way your fingers are still trembling just slightly.

and then, instead of saying goodbye, he just grins.

“try not to miss me too much,” he teases, but there’s something softer beneath the words. something real.

and with that, he’s gone, disappearing into the night like he was never there at all.

except—he was.

you press your fingers against your lips, as if you can still feel him there, and then, you smile.

it’s embarrassing, the way your stomach flutters, the way your cheeks heat up, the way you actually giggle like some lovesick schoolgirl.

you should not be this giddy over a boy like him.

but you are.

and you couldn’t find it in you to care anymore.

—

it was another saturday night, around 12am, your parents long gone to bed.

his hands are warm against your skin, fingers teasing under the hem of your shirt as he deepens the kiss, pulling you closer.

you’re not even thinking anymore—just moving, just feeling. stumbling over your own feet as he walks you back, laughing quietly when you almost trip over a pile of books.

“shh,” you whisper, barely suppressing a giggle.

he grins against your lips. “that was you.”

“doesn’t matter,” you breathe, fingers curling into his shirt, feeling the way his muscles tense beneath the fabric. “just be quiet.”

he hums in amusement, hands sliding up your sides, his touch slow, deliberate, testing. “you always tell me what to do, sunshine?”

“someone has to.”

“mm,” he leans in, lips brushing your jaw, hands slipping beneath your shirt, pushing the fabric up just slightly—waiting for permission.

you exhale, whispering a word of approval.

he doesn’t hesitate. he tugs your shirt up, just enough to expose more of your skin—

knock.

the door swings open.

“what are you doing—?”

you freeze.

haechan freezes.

your mom stands in the doorway, eyes locking onto the scene in front of her—haechan’s hands still on you, his hoodie discarded on the floor, your shirt lifted just enough to make it painfully obvious what was happening.

for a second, no one moves.

no one breathes.

haechan is the first to react, stepping back so fast he almost knocks over your chair. he runs a hand through his hair, like he’s trying to play it cool, like there’s any coming back from this.

you don’t dare turn around.

your heart pounds in your chest, face burning hotter than ever before. this time not with the same heat.

your mom inhales sharply, voice eerily calm.

“downstairs. now.”

the finality in her tone sends a chill down your spine.

haechan glances at you, expression unreadable, but you can’t look at him.

because this time, you’re really in trouble.

—

▸ j.note ; finally releasing this lmao it’s been in the sm basement for quite some time now

[tynlvr]

touch (haechan x fem!reader)

𖦹 genres : enemies to lovers (kind of but not really)

𖦹 warnings : alcohol consumption, swearing, teasing, etc

𖦹word count : 12k

Chenle’s apartment is already filled with warmth and chatter when you step out of the elevator, the muffled sounds of laughter and a movie seeping through the closed door. You hesitate for a second, staring at the wood grain, your body screaming at you to just turn around and head home.

You’re so tired. The kind of tired that sits heavy in your bones, weighing down your limbs with every step. Clinicals had drained you completely today,  hours on your feet, absorbing information like a sponge, and trying to stay sharp despite the exhaustion creeping in. You’d barely had time to shower and change before coming here, and truthfully, you weren’t even planning on coming in the first place.

But Karina had texted you five times.

“Where are you??” “You better be coming.” “I know you’re tired but plssss just come chill with us.” “It’s Friday!!! You have the whole weekend to sleep!!!” “Y/N!”

You knew she wasn’t going to let you get away with skipping this time, and if you were being honest, you probably needed this, a nice little break, a distraction, something that wasn’t textbooks and hospital walls.

So you exhale, shake off the lingering hesitation, and knock before pushing the door open.

Immediately, warmth and familiarity wash over you. The scent of buttered popcorn and takeout lingers in the air, and the glow of the massive TV illuminates the living room, casting soft shadows on your friends as they lounge around. Some are on the couch, others spread out on the floor with blankets and pillows.

"Finally!" Jaemin’s voice rings out, dramatic as ever. He’s the first to spot you, grinning from ear to ear. "Our favorite doctor-to-be has arrived!"

"Not a doctor," you mumble automatically, slipping off your shoes and setting your bag down. "Nurse."

"Same thing," Jaemin says with a shrug.

"Not at all," Renjun corrects, earning an approving nod from you.

"You are late, though," a voice cuts in, smooth and teasing, and you don’t even have to look to know who it is. Donghyuck.

You finally glance over at the couch, finding him sprawled out like he owns the place, one arm draped over the back of the couch, his legs stretched out comfortably. He’s smirking, his head tilting slightly as he watches you.

"Long day saving lives?" he muses.

You exhale sharply through your nose, more out of exhaustion than amusement. "Something like that."

"See, I was worried," he continues, and you just know he’s gearing up for something. "I thought maybe you were avoiding me." He places a hand over his chest in mock hurt. "That would’ve really hurt my feelings, you know?"

"You don’t have feelings," you say dryly, crossing your arms.

A few of your friends laugh, and Donghyuck gasps, clutching his chest like you’ve mortally wounded him. "Wow. Wow. You wound me, Y/N-ie."

You shake your head, ignoring him as you scan the room for a place to sit. The couch is full, except for one open space. Right next to him.

Of course.

"Y/N, come sit!" Karina calls out, patting the empty cushion invitingly.

You hesitate, debating your options. Sitting on the floor is possible, but after the hours you just pulled, the idea of sitting on the hardwood floor for another two hours sounds like torture. The couch is right there.

You exhale, too tired to really care, and make your way over, sinking into the empty space beside Donghyuck.

The cushions shift slightly under your weight, and before you even have time to settle, you hear a low hum from your left.

"Wow," he muses, his voice practically dripping with amusement. "Lucky me."

You ignore him, focusing on getting comfortable, but the moment you lean back, his arm—already stretched along the back of the couch, grazes your shoulder.

You stiffen slightly. He’s not really touching you, but it’s close enough to be noticeable. He doesn’t move away.

You glance at him from the corner of your eye, and sure enough, that damn smirk is still there. He’s watching the movie, but you know he’s waiting for a reaction.

You refuse to give him one.

Instead, you shift just enough to put space between you, keeping your focus on the screen. The others are engaged in the movie, occasional whispers and quiet laughter filling the room, but you can feel his presence beside you like a persistent itch under your skin. It’s going to be a long night.

At some point during the movie, exhaustion finally wins.

You don’t mean to fall asleep, you’re just so comfortable. The warmth of the living room, the low hum of the TV, the way your body sinks into the plush couch after an impossibly long day, it’s a recipe for sleep, and before you know it, your eyelids grow heavier with each passing second.

The last thing you remember is the soft murmur of your friends' voices, the screen casting gentle shadows on the walls, and the quiet, unshakable awareness of Donghyuck beside you.

Then, nothing.

When you stir awake, it’s to the distant sound of laughter.

Blinking groggily, you shift slightly, feeling something solid and warm beneath your head. It takes you a second to register that you’re not just leaning against the couch anymore, you’re leaning against him.

Your breath catches.

Donghyuck is still beside you, unnervingly still, but the moment you stir, his head tilts slightly, eyes flicking down to meet yours.

"Rest well, Sleeping Beauty?" he murmurs, voice lower than usual, softer, as if he’s afraid to startle you.

You jerk away instinctively, sitting upright and blinking rapidly as awareness comes crashing down. The weight of the room, the knowing looks, the barely suppressed amusement from Karina and the others.

The movie is over. The lights are dimmed. And everyone is watching.

"Oh, you’re awake?" Karina says innocently, but there’s a look in her eyes, one that makes you bristle. The girls had been teasing you mercilessly lately, pointing out how you must not hate Donghyuck as much as you say, since you haven’t put an end to it yet.

"She was sleeping so soundly," Ningning muses, her lips twitching.

Minjeong nods curtly. "Would’ve been a crime to wake her up."

Beside you, Donghyuck stretches lazily, voice dripping with mock innocence. "I'm just that great of a pillow, what can I say?"

A few sparse giggles echo around the room, with most of your friends rolling their eyes at him, and your stomach tightens with immediate regret.

You knew this would happen.

"You—" you glare at him, heart still racing from the realization that you had been asleep on him. "You should’ve woken me up."

Donghyuck gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. "And ruin such a precious moment? Never."

The girls burst into laughter again, while Mark shakes his head, grinning like he’s watching something unfold that he’s known about for a long time. Jisung and Chenle exchange a look that you really don’t like.

You exhale sharply, forcing yourself to shake it off. "Whatever. It’s late, I’m gonna head home."

You stand, stretching slightly, trying to ignore how stiff your body feels. The room is already shifting, people gathering their things, conversations overlapping as the night winds down. You reach for your bag, but before you can even think about your next move, Donghyuck is already there.

"Want me to drive you?" His voice is deceptively casual, but his eyes glint with something unreadable. "You’re probably still tired. I don’t mind."

You freeze.

Nope. Absolutely not.

You’ve never been alone with him before. Ever. The thought of being trapped in a car, just you and him, with no buffer of your friends—no escape from his teasing, his words, his presence—makes your pulse spike with something dangerously close to panic.

You’re too tired for this. Too tired to deal with him, with the inevitable way he’d spend the whole drive getting under your skin.

So you shake your head, reaching for an excuse. "You are not driving my car."

He raises an eyebrow. "I’m a great driver, actually."

"I’ll drive you," Jeno offers smoothly, appearing beside you.

Relief washes over you, and you nod instantly. "Thanks, Jeno."

A beat of silence follows.

Then...

"Wow." Donghyuck exhales, clutching his chest in a fresh display of mock betrayal. "I offer my services, and you just... just throw me aside for him?"

"Yes," you say simply, grabbing your bag.

More laughter. More knowing looks.

Donghyuck sighs, long and exaggerated. "I always knew you’d break my heart one day."

You roll your eyes, already moving toward the door with Jeno in tow.

As you step into the cool night air, the distant sound of his dramatics lingering behind you, you can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t over.

Not even close.

The library is the last place you expect to find all of them.

You’d paused before stepping inside, lingering in the hallway just long enough to consider turning around and pretending you never got Karina’s text. But you did need to study, and she had promised, sworn, that it would be a quiet, productive session. Just you, the girls, and maybe a couple of the guys.

A lie, of course.

Because the second you push the study room door open, you’re met with a chorus of voices, loud, excited, overlapping.

"Y/N, finally!" Jisung exclaims, throwing his hands up like you’d been gone for weeks rather than just arriving.

Mark waves enthusiastically. "Took you long enough!"

"You actually showed up?" Chenle teases, grinning.

You scan the room quickly, noting just how full it is. The energy in the room is chaotic. Laptops are open, but no one is using them. Notebooks are scattered across the table, completely ignored. The whiteboard is filled with messy writing, but instead of formulas or study notes, it just says "SPRING BREAK BEACH TRIP: OPERATION TURN UP" in Mark's barely legible handwriting.

You sigh. “This is not studying.”

“Y/N!” Ningning beams, ignoring your complaint. “We were studying, but now we’re deciding room assignments for the trip.”

You blink. “I can see that. I really need to study though, I thought it would just be a few of you guys.”

Jaemin grins, draping an arm around your shoulders. “Yeah, about that… We lied.”

“Obviously,” you mumble, dropping your bag onto an empty chair.

"We did study," Jeno says from his seat across the table, gesturing to his closed laptop. "For about ten minutes. Then Mark started talking about the trip, and now we're here."

Mark shrugs. "I regret nothing."

You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. "I should leave."

"No!" Karina grabs your arm before you can escape. "You're coming, so you have to help plan!"

"I'm not even sure if I want to go…"

"Oh, come on," Jaemin whines, nudging you. "You're always so busy with school. You deserve a break. And wouldn't it be nice to wake up to the sound of waves instead of, like, hospital beeping for once?"

You hesitate. Okay, fine, he has a point.

"And," Ningning adds slyly, "you wouldn’t want to miss out on all the fun, would you? Jeno already agreed to teach us all how to surf."

Your eyes flicker to Jeno, and he nods, leaning back in his chair. “Yeah. I could teach you first if you want.”

Before you can respond, Donghyuck suddenly groans, dragging a hand down his face.

"Oh my God," he mutters. "This again?"

You blink at him. “What?”

"This whole thing…" He gestures between you and Jeno. "'Teach me first, Jeno,' 'You're so reliable, Jeno,' 'Oh, Jeno, you just understand me so well-'"

You frown. "I never said that."

Donghyuck ignores you, dramatically clutching his chest. "You don't have to," he groans, dropping his head onto the table.

Jeno, raises an eyebrow. "Are you good?"

"I'm great," Donghyuck deadpans, crossing his arms. "Thrilled."

Renjun snorts. "Why are you acting like a jealous boyfriend?"

"I'M NOT-" he cuts himself off, inhaling sharply through his nose. "Anyway," he changes the subject. "I vote that I get to choose my roommate first."

Everyone laughs at his obvious deflection, and the conversation shifts back to room assignments. You shake your head, ignoring the weird feeling creeping up your spine.

“Okay, we actually need to figure out the rooming situation,” Mark says, pulling out a marker and getting ready to write everything down. “There’s only two single rooms, so we need to divide the rest of us up into the doubles.”

Without hesitation, Karina pipes up. “Y/N should definitely have one of the singles. She’s always so tired.”

You blink in surprise. “What? No, I can just share a room, it’s fine.”

“Nope,” Karina insists, taking the marker and writing your name in one of the single rooms. “You’re not getting stuck with someone who snores or kicks you in your sleep. You’re getting your own room.”

“Yeah, no objections,” Jaemin agrees with a nod. “You need it, especially with all the studying you do. You deserve a break.”

You feel a bit embarrassed, but can’t help the smile that tugs at your lips. “Okay, fine. I’ll take the single.”

“And I’ll get the other single room,” Chenle announces, putting his hands behind his head as if the decision is already set in stone. “It’s my aunt’s house after all, so I’m claiming it.”

“Fine,” you mutter, rolling your eyes but secretly relieved. At least you won’t have to fight with anyone over a room, or worse, share a room with Donghyuck.

“Alright, let’s figure out the doubles now,” Mark says, looking around at the group.

Minjeong immediately points at Karina. “I’m rooming with Karina. I’m not sharing with any of the guys.” She laughs, but it’s clear she’s serious about the arrangement.

Karina laughs in return, agreeing. “Deal.”

“And I’ll share with Giselle,” Ningning chimes in, grinning. “That works, right?”

Giselle gives her a thumbs-up. “Sounds good to me.”

“I call dibs on sharing with Jeno” Jaemin says, looking at his friend. Jeno just nods, his usual calm smile in place.

“Yeah, I’m fine with that,” Jeno adds easily. He doesn’t seem too concerned about the arrangement.

“Alright, I guess I’ll take one for the team.” Mark pauses, glancing over at Donghyuck. “Looks like you and I are sharing a room, Hyuck.”

Donghyuck immediately groans, slouching in his chair. “Ugh, no. I don’t want to room with you.”

Mark smirks, already writing it down on the whiteboard. “Too bad. Looks like it’s you and me, buddy. No backing out.”

“You’re impossible,” Donghyuck mutters, but it’s clear there’s no fighting it. He crosses his arms and leans back, clearly defeated.

“And that leaves Renjun and Jisung in the last room,” Jaemin says, giving a nod to Renjun and Jisung. The two of them share a glance and shrug, both clearly content with the arrangement.

“Fine by me,” Renjun says, looking at Jisung.

“Same,” Jisung replies, grinning.

“Alright, so here’s the final list,” Mark says, finishing up the room assignments and snapping a picture of the whiteboard.

Chenle claps his hands together. “That was easy. Now we just need to pack!”

Everyone seems satisfied with the outcome, and the conversation shifts to packing lists, beach activities, and what snacks to bring. You can’t help but feel the excitement growing in your chest as you think about the trip. It’ll be a much-needed break from all the studying and clinical shifts.

And though you’re still a little nervous about how things might go with your friend group, especially when it comes to Donghyuck, you can’t help but feel a tiny bit of anticipation.

The next time you see any of your friends is almost a week later, the day before you're set to leave for your trip. You'd been so busy you'd forgotten to pack, so you desperately texted the girls asking for help.

You hadn’t expected the girls to show up so soon, but it didn’t take long for them to arrive at your apartment, excited and ready to help you pack for the trip. You were sitting on your bed with your suitcase opened wide, clothes scattered across the bed, looking overwhelmed. You had no idea what to pack for a spring break beach trip, it was just a trip with, after all, and it wasn’t like you needed to impress anyone.

But that didn’t stop you from wanting to look good. You took pride in your appearance, just as much as you took pride in your work ethic. For you, how you presented yourself was an extension of who you were, and you were determined to feel comfortable, confident, and, most importantly, cute while you were away.

As soon as they entered, they swarmed around you, already laughing.

"Y/N, it’s just a beach trip," Karina teased, tossing her bag onto the floor. "What are you even stressing about? Just pack some bikinis and go!"

You gave her a side-eye. "I’m just trying to make sure I have everything, okay?"

Minjeong, ever the enthusiast, jumped right in. “Come on, we’re helping you. Just relax! Besides, we all know you want to look cute for some people. *Ahem* Donghyuck.”

You froze for a second, not expecting her to say that. Then you roll your eyes and fold up a top, "Literally no."

“Look at that blush!” Ningning laughed, nudging you with her elbow. “Y/N’s totally thinking about how Donghyuck will react to her beach outfit.”

“Stop,” you muttered, already feeling the heat creeping up your neck. You never knew how to react to their teasing, it was bad enough when Donghyuck did it on his own, but when your friends joined in, you totally froze up.

Giselle, always the bold one, was already digging through your bathing suits, pulling out your smallest bikini with a mischievous smile. “Oh, you’re totally bringing this one,” she announced, holding it up like a prize.

“No!” you protested immediately, but they were already laughing.

“Y/N, this will drive him crazy,” Karina said through her laughter. “He won’t even know what hit him.”

Giselle grinned. “This tiny thing? He’s gonna lose it, trust me. You’re gonna look so hot.”

You could already picture Donghyuck’s reaction, and it made you feel a mix of embarrassment and... something else. You didn’t need him looking at you like that, but at the same time, a small part of you wondered if he'd like it.

“I don’t know…” you muttered, trying to get them to put it back in your drawer. “It’s too much. We’re just hanging out at the beach.”

Ningning shot you a teasing grin. “Sure, just hanging out...”

“Y/N,” Minjeong chimed in, “It’s Donghyuck. I mean, the guy has no shame. He’ll be totally distracted by you. Bring it, and we’ll all get some entertainment.”

The way they were all giggling, their teasing coming at you from all angles, made you feel like you were going to explode. You tried to stand firm, but the laughter was contagious.

“Okay, fine,” you finally said, giving in. “But only because you won’t stop until I do.”

“Yes!” Karina cheered, holding her hands up in victory. “You’re gonna look amazing, Y/N.”

They kept rummaging through your things, adding more options to the pile, but the tiny bikini you reluctantly agreed to bring remained at the top of the heap. You couldn’t deny it, the idea of wearing it felt a little enticing, but it also made you feel like you were opening yourself up to Donghyuck’s endless teasing, and you were pretty sure he wouldn’t hold back when it came to making comments.

“I swear, if Donghyuck so much as looks at me the wrong way in this, I’m leaving him at the beach,” you muttered under your breath, crossing your arms over your chest, but the girls just laughed even harder.

“Who says he’ll even be able to look at you when you’re wearing it?” Giselle teased. “He might be too busy picking his jaw up off the floor.”

You groaned, sinking into the pile of clothes on your bed. “You guys are awful.”

The drive to the beach house had been long, but you had made good time. Being the responsible one, you had insisted on driving the girls in your car, both because you didn’t trust anyone else’s driving and because you couldn’t bear the thought of food crumbs or spilled drinks in your pristine vehicle. You had offered to stop for food midway—just a quick trip through a drive-thru—but the girls, in their excitement, had waved you off, insisting they just wanted to get there already.

Now, as you pulled into the driveway of Chenle’s aunt’s massive beach house, their regret was palpable.

"Y/N, I love you so much, but I swear to God, if I don’t get food in the next ten minutes, I’m eating the leather off your seats," Giselle whined dramatically.

You put the car in park and turned to look at them, feigning irritation. "I offered to stop. You were the ones who said no."

Winter pouted. "We didn’t think we’d feel it like this."

"You know what would’ve helped?" Karina muttered. "Eating in the car."

You shot her a glare. "You know the rules."

You didn’t let people eat in your car. Ever. Drinks were fine, but food? Absolutely not. You kept your space immaculate, and the last thing you needed was crumbs in your seats or greasy fingerprints on your console.

Before anyone could argue further, you were being dragged into the house by Giselle, and loud voices spilled into the foyer. The guys were already there, laughing, relaxed, and, most importantly, eating.

The sight of them casually gathered around the kitchen island, shoveling food into their mouths like they hadn’t just left you all to suffer, sent the girls into an immediate uproar.

"You stopped for food?!" Ningning all but screeched.

Mark, mid-bite, blinked at her. "...Yeah?"

"Oh my God," Karina whispered, betrayal thick in her voice.

Donghyuck was the first to fully process the situation, and of course, he smirked. "Let me guess," he drawled, crossing his arms. "Y/N didn’t let you eat in the car?"

"We didn’t wanna stop, we just wanted to get here already!" Winter shot back.

"Yeah, but now you’re hungry and pissed off" Donghyuck said.

The girls fell silent. You lifted your chin. "Exactly."

He shook his head in amusement, then turned to you. "You must be starving."

"I’m fine," you said, rolling your shoulders.

"You know you’re lying."

You opened your mouth to argue, but before you could, Jeno stood up and grabbed a takeout bag from the counter. "I figured you wouldn’t eat, so I got you something," he said, handing it to you.

Donghyuck scoffed. "You baby her."

Jeno just shrugged. "She deserves it."

You offered Jeno a grateful smile before moving toward the table with your bags. "At least someone is considerate, but I’m gonna try to unpack before I eat."

Donghyuck made a noise of offense. "I’m so considerate."

"You stopped for food without us," the girls whined.

He grinned. "Exactly. Considerate to myself."

You huffed, shaking your head as you made your way upstairs. Of course, you weren’t surprised when you heard footsteps behind you.

"What are you doing?" you asked without turning around.

"Helping you with your stuff," Donghyuck said, sounding far too pleased with himself.

"You don’t need to."

"But I want to."

"And I don’t want you to."

He grinned, grabbing your bag anyway and hoisting it over his shoulder. "Too bad."

You let out a slow breath through your nose. "Fine, but don’t go digging through my stuff."

The girls, still grumbling about their hunger, exchanged knowing looks as they headed back outside and pulled their own bags from the trunk.

"She’s doomed," Karina muttered.

"He’s so annoying," Winter sighed.

"Yeah," Ningning agreed. "But she loves it."

A few hours had passed since you’d arrived at the beach house, and while your friends had been busy settling in, chatting, and eating (something you still hadn’t done, despite Jeno’s thoughtfulness), you had taken the opportunity to escape to your room.

You had planned for this trip, of course, and you had every intention of participating in some of the activities. But you also had exams coming up, and a bit of uninterrupted studying sounded more appealing than whatever chaos was happening downstairs.

Unfortunately, peace was a luxury you were never allowed for long.

A knock at your door broke the silence, followed immediately by the door swinging open.

"Hey, Y/N, we're heading to the–" Jeno started, but his voice trailed off when he saw you sitting at your desk, notes spread out in front of you, highlighter in hand. His brows furrowed. "Are you seriously studying?"

"Of course she is," Donghyuck muttered, stepping into the room behind him. "Why did I even think she’d be doing anything else?"

You sighed, setting your highlighter down. "I was planning to come out later."

"Later?" Donghyuck repeated, looking personally offended. "Y/N, we’re at the beach. This is vacation."

"Yeah, and I still have responsibilities."

"No, you don’t," he argued. "Not right now. Not this week. There is literally nothing so urgent that you need to be in here instead of outside with us."

Jeno, ever the reasonable one, walked further into the room and leaned against your desk. "Maybe if you study for another thirty minutes–"

Donghyuck cut him off. "No."

Jeno sighed, rubbing his temples.

"You guys go ahead," you said, turning back to your notes. "I’ll be out later."

Donghyuck grabbed your pen out of your hand. "Nope."

You glared at him. "Give that back."

"Not until you get up and get changed."

"Donghyuck."

"Y/N."

You turned to Jeno for help, but he only shrugged. "You should come out."

Your lips pressed together. "I hate both of you."

"No, you don’t," Donghyuck said easily, tossing your pen onto the desk. "Now, get changed."

“Fine, but get out."

Donghyuck grinned but backed toward the door, holding his hands up in mock surrender. Jeno followed him, shaking his head.

"You have five minutes," Donghyuck called. "If you’re not outside by then, I’m coming back in here, and I will pick your outfit myself."

You grabbed your pillow and threw it at him. He ducked out of the way, laughing as he disappeared down the hall.

With an exhausted sigh, you stood up, knowing there was no way they’d let you off the hook. You changed into a more modest bikini, one you knew wouldn’t get you any teasing comments, before throwing a loose t-shirt over it.

When you finally stepped outside, the scene before you was exactly what you had expected.

The guys were spread across the sand, tossing around a volleyball, while the girls were lounging on their towels, soaking up the sun. The sound of waves, laughter, and friendly shouting filled the air, a perfect snapshot of summer.

You barely made it five steps onto the beach before Donghyuck spotted you.

"Look who finally decided to join us!" he announced, loud enough for everyone to hear.

You ignored him, heading straight for Karina, who sat up on her towel with a smirk.

"You lasted longer than I thought," she said.

You sighed, sitting down beside her. "I tried."

Ningning stretched, adjusting her sunglasses. "You can’t study all the time, Y/N."

"She’ll certainly try though," Giselle murmured, earning a laugh from the other girls.

"Well, now that she’s here," Donghyuck continued, still standing in the middle of the sand, "she can actually do something instead of sitting around."

You shot him a glare. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

"Join the game, obviously."

You scoffed. "I haven't played volleyball since high school."

"Perfect," Donghyuck said. "You’ll fit right in, then, because none of us know what we’re doing either."

"Fine, but I don’t want to be on your team," you said begrudgingly, wanting nothing more than to lie down and enjoy the sun.

Donghyuck grinned. "Don’t worry, I like winning, so I want you on the other team."

Jeno, who was standing nearby, rolled his eyes. "We don’t even have teams yet."

"Then I call not having Y/N," Donghyuck said.

You blinked at him. "Wow."

Donghyuck smirked. "I’m just saying, I’d rather not be burdened."

"Fuck off," you shot back.

The group let out a chorus of exaggerated "ooh"s, and you felt satisfaction settle in your chest at the way Donghyuck’s smirk twitched.

Jeno, sensing the inevitable back-and-forth brewing, clapped his hands together. "Alright, alright, let’s just start the game."

And so, with some grumbling, Donghyuck turned back to the makeshift volleyball court, and you, for once, felt like you’d won.

At least, until you realized he was absolutely going to target you the entire game.

The walk back to the beach house was filled with laughter, mostly at Donghyuck, Mark, and Jisung’s expense.

“I’m just saying,” Jaemin grinned, slinging an arm around your shoulders, “we should’ve placed bets on that game. We could’ve made some serious money off of this.”

“I wasn’t overconfident,” Donghyuck argued, kicking at the sand as he trudged beside Mark and Jisung, all three of them looking thoroughly defeated. “We just didn’t have the right team synergy.”

“Oh, please,” you snorted, brushing Jaemin’s arm off with an amused look. “You guys were great at failing together!”

Renjun, who had taken his reffing duties far too seriously, snickered. “I can confirm. It was tragic.”

Jisung groaned. “I don’t even wanna talk about it anymore.”

Mark clapped him on the back. “At least we looked cool losing.”

“No, you didn’t,” Ningning called from ahead, where the girls were leading the way back to the house.

As soon as you stepped inside, the real chaos began.

The boys disappeared into their rooms to shower and change, while the girls all flooded into your room, immediately diving into outfit planning.

“Okay, what’s the vibe for tonight?” Giselle asked, already rummaging through your suitcase. Your friends had a habit of stealing your clothes, since you had a carefully curated wardrobe.

“Dinner reservations at a cute beachside restaurant,” Karina mused, eyeing herself in the mirror. “That means cute but effortless.”

Minjeong hummed. “Effortless? Ningning’s about to show up in a full runway-ready fit.”

“And I will look amazing,” Ningning confirmed, flipping her damp hair over her shoulder as she rifled through her dress options.

Meanwhile, you were sitting on the edge of your bed, towel drying your hair after a quick shower, watching the absolute madness unfold in front of you.

“Y/N, what are you wearing?” Karina asked, pulling you back into the conversation.

You blinked. “Uh… I was just going to wear a sundress?”

The girls groaned in unison.

“Boring,” Giselle whined.

“You have so many cute clothes,” Ningning said, already making her way toward your suitcase.

“I’m not gonna overthink it. It’s just dinner.”

“But think about the instagram post you can make if you dress up,” Minjeong cuts in, tossing a dress your way.

You sighed, knowing resistance was useless, and held it up to inspect it. It was cute, a little more flirty than you would usually go for, but not so out of your comfort zone that you’d fight them on it.

“I guess this works.”

“Perfect,” Karina beamed, and then turned back to her own outfit choices.

The next twenty minutes were filled with outfit changes, makeup debates, and various cries of ‘Wait, do these shoes match?’

At some point, the boys started knocking on the door, ready to leave.

“Can you chill?” Ningning yelled. “We’re almost done.”

“You said that twenty minutes ago!” Mark called back.

“And we meant it!”

The door swung open, revealing a slightly exasperated Donghyuck.

“Oh my God, what is taking so–” He cut himself off, eyes scanning the room before landing on you.

You had just stood up, finishing the final touches on your hair, and when you met his gaze, his expression was unreadable for a split second before he cleared his throat.

“Well. At least one of you actually looks ready,” he muttered, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

You roll your eyes, tilting your head. “What the hell? We could’ve been changing!”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just go before Mark cries,” he said quickly, turning on his heel and disappearing down the hall.

Ningning gave you a knowing look. “See? We told you the outfit was a good choice.”

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your purse and phone. “Come on, let’s go before Donghyuck cries, too.”

With that, you all headed out, ready for whatever chaos dinner would bring.

The restaurant was a perfect mix of cozy and classy, with dim lighting and the salty breeze from the ocean drifting through the open windows. The twelve of you were seated at a long table near the back, tucked into a semi-private corner.

You ended up sandwiched between Jeno and Donghyuck, much to your annoyance. Jeno, at least, was a source of comfort, but Donghyuck… well, he was Donghyuck.

Across from you, the girls were already teasing each other over outfit choices, while Mark and Jaemin were debating whether or not they should order the most expensive thing on the menu just because Chenle was paying.

“I swear, if you guys make me regret this, I’m leaving you here,” Chenle muttered, flipping through the menu.

“You’d never,” Jaemin grinned, propping his chin in his hand.

The conversation flowed easily, laughter bubbling at every turn. You were still slightly winded from how fast everyone had rushed to order after skipping lunch, but now that food was on the way, everyone seemed to settle.

That was, until the waiter arrived with your drinks.

“Here you go,” he said, placing a glass of water in front of you, his smile lingering just a little longer than necessary.

You blinked up at him, confused at first, until he shot you a look. The kind that was meant to be charming.

“So, are you all from out of town?” he asked, eyes flickering over to your friends before settling back on you.

You nodded slowly. “Yeah, just here for spring break.”

“Ah, I see,” he mused. “Well, it must be my lucky day that I get to serve the prettiest girl at the table.”

Mark choked on his drink, Jaemin was full-on cackling, and Ningning nearly fell out of her chair. Karina and Minjeong grabbed each other’s arms, whispering “oh my God” repeatedly.

Your face burned. You weren’t bad at taking compliments, but being flirted with so openly? In front of everyone? That was a different story.

“Oh,” you said, voice slightly higher than usual. “Uh. Thank you?”

Jeno was grinning beside you, highly amused by your reaction, while Donghyuck…

Yeah, Donghyuck looked pissed.

His jaw was clenched, lips pursed as he stared at the waiter like he wanted to set him on fire with his mind.

The guy, oblivious to the chaos he had caused, only smirked. “Let me know if you need anything, alright?”

You nodded quickly, and as soon as he turned to leave, the teasing began.

“Y/N, that was the worst reaction ever,” Giselle gasped between laughs.

“I didn’t know what to say!” you protested, hiding your face in your hands.

“He was so bold for that,” Winter added. “Like, no hesitation.”

“He knew what he was doing,” Ningning snickered. “And look at Hyuck.”

You dared a glance to your right. Donghyuck was still stiff, staring daggers at the poor waiter’s back, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“Ohhh, someone’s jealous,” Jaemin teased, poking his shoulder.

Donghyuck scoffed. “Jealous? Please. I just think it’s funny that some random guy thinks he has a chance.”

You frowned at that, turning to him with an incredulous look. “Excuse me?”

He met your gaze, eyebrows raised like you were the one being unreasonable. “I mean, come on, Y/N. You’re not actually into that, are you?”

You stared at him for a second before scoffing. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I just don’t know how to handle that kind of attention.”

“Oh, we know,” Karina said, still grinning.

Donghyuck, however, looked slightly relieved at your response, though he quickly masked it with his usual smugness. “Good. Because I’d hate for you to fall for some sleazy waiter’s weak pickup line.”

“Don’t act like you’re any better,” you deadpanned.

Jaemin shook his head, chuckling. “Man, Hyuck, you’re so obvious.”

Donghyuck kicked him under the table. “Shut up.”

Despite the way your heart was still racing, you sighed, rolling your eyes before focusing back on your drink. The conversation slowly shifted away from you, but the occasional teasing glance from your friends made it clear they weren’t letting this go anytime soon.

The next day, the sun is high in the sky, warm against your skin as the salty breeze drifts through the air. Laughter and music blend together, the sounds of waves crashing against the shore mixing with the occasional pop of a bottle being opened. It’s barely past noon, and everyone’s already a little buzzed, passing around fruity mixed drinks in plastic cups.

You, however, have tapped out early.

The combination of the sun, the alcohol, and the exhaustion from yesterday has knocked you out cold. You’re lying on your towel, face turned away from the group, sunglasses shielding your closed eyes. The girls had teased you for bringing an actual beach pillow, because of course you did, but you don’t care. You’re comfortable, the sand warm beneath your towel, and that’s all that matters.

At least until a shadow falls over you, blocking the sunlight.

You stir slightly, mumbling something incoherent, but whoever it is doesn’t move. If anything, they get closer, the heat of their body radiating over yours.

“Wake up, princess.”

You groan at the sound of Donghyuck’s voice, burying your face further into your pillow. “Go away.”

“No can do.” He squats next to you, far too persistent for your liking. “You need to reapply sunscreen.”

“I’m fine,” you mutter, refusing to open your eyes.

“You’re not.” There’s amusement in his voice, but also something stubborn. “You’re gonna burn, and I don’t wanna hear you complaining about it later.”

That makes you crack one eye open, shifting your sunglasses down slightly to glare at him. He’s sitting there, shirtless, golden skin glistening slightly from the heat, an infuriating smirk playing on his lips. A bottle of sunscreen is in his hands, the cap already popped open.

You squint. “You just wanna touch me.”

Donghyuck grins, unfazed. “Maybe.” Then, more sincerely, “But I really don’t want you to burn.”

You hate that that makes your stomach flip a little. You sit up reluctantly, stretching your arms over your head before taking the bottle from him. He watches as you squeeze some into your palm, rubbing it over your legs and stomach before reaching for your shoulders.

“Here, I got it.”

Before you can process what’s happening, Donghyuck takes the bottle back from you and squirts some sunscreen into his hands.

You blink. “I can do it myself.”

“I know you can,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “But what kind of friend would I be if I let you do all the work?”

You give him a deadpan look, but he just grins wider before reaching out and smoothing sunscreen over your shoulders. His hands are warm, firm, but gentle as he works the lotion into your skin. It should be annoying—it is annoying—but it also feels… nice. The contrast of the cool sunscreen and the heat of his touch sends an involuntary shiver down your spine.

You ignore the way his fingers linger for a second longer than necessary. Ignore the way he’s so close that you can smell the faint scent of salt, coconut, and whatever cologne he put on that morning.

The girls are watching, of course.

“Wow,” Karina drawls, sipping from her drink. “He’s so caring.”

“I know,” Ningning says, dramatically fanning herself. “I might swoon.”

The guys are less impressed.

Jeno groans. “I’m gonna be sick.”

“It’s painful to watch,” Renjun adds, cringing.

“Painful?” Donghyuck scoffs, finally pulling away. “You’re all just mad because Y/N likes me the most.”

You snort, adjusting your sunglasses. “In what world?”

Donghyuck winks. “The one where you let me touch you.”

Your face heats instantly. You pick up your book and smack him in the chest with it, making him cackle.

The teasing continues for a few more minutes before everyone shifts back into their previous activities. Mark and Chenle are trying to build an elaborate sandcastle, arguing over logistics like they’re actually architects. Ningning and Giselle are taking pictures, trying to get the perfect Instagram shots, while Jaemin and Jeno toss a football back and forth in the distance.

Donghyuck plops down beside you, stretching his legs out in the sand. “You having fun?”

You pause for a second before nodding. “Yeah. I guess I needed this.”

He tilts his head slightly, watching you with an expression you can’t quite place. For once, there’s no teasing in his gaze. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I think you did.”

And for some reason, that makes your heart race more than anything else.

The sun has started to dip lower in the sky, casting golden streaks across the beach. The afternoon has been… surprisingly nice. Maybe it’s the vacation atmosphere, maybe it’s the gentle buzz of warmth in your veins, or maybe it’s just that you’re too tired to fight it anymore, but you’ve found yourself less annoyed with Donghyuck as the day has gone on.

He’s still insufferable, obviously. Still teasing you every chance he gets, still acting like a menace. But for once, you don’t feel the urge to roll your eyes every time he opens his mouth. If anything, it’s kind of… fun.

The group is sprawled out across the sand, some lying down, some still messing around in the water. You’re sitting in a circle with Karina, Winter, and Jeno, discussing what to do for dinner when someone groans dramatically.

“We’re out of snacks,” Jaemin whines, staring at the empty chip bag in front of him with a pitiful expression. “I told you guys we should’ve bought more.”

“Okay, we get it, you were right,” Mark says, nudging him. “What do you want? A gold star?”

“No,” Jaemin pouts. “I want chips.”

There’s a collective sigh as everyone realizes that, yeah, they’re actually low on food. Someone has to go to the store.

You, having had only one drink hours ago, are the only real option.

“I’ll go,” you offer, stretching your arms over your head before standing up. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m coming with you.”

You don’t even have to turn around to know who it is.

Donghyuck pushes himself up from where he was lying in the sand, running a hand through his messy, sun-lightened hair. He looks like he could fall asleep at any second, eyes drooping slightly from a full day of lazing around in the sun.

You sigh. “You can barely keep your eyes open. Just stay here.”

“But it’s boring here.” He steps closer, voice taking on that whiny tone he always uses when he wants something. “Let me come. Please?”

You give him a flat look. “You’re just gonna fall asleep in the car.”

“Exactly,” he grins. “I’ll be quiet the whole time. You won’t even know I’m there.”

Somehow, you seriously doubt that.

Before you can say no, Jeno stands up, brushing the sand off his shorts. “I’ll come, too.”

Donghyuck groans immediately. “Nooo, stay here.”

Jeno raises a brow. “Why?”

“Because.” Donghyuck gestures vaguely. “You’re, like… responsible, you won’t let me get the good snacks.”

“I’m probably more responsible than Jeno,” you point out, crossing your arms.

“Yeah, but you like me.”

You blink. “Since when?”

“Since you let me rub sunscreen on you.” He smirks. “You could’ve said no, but you didn’t.”

You open your mouth, then close it, heat rushing to your face. You hate him. You hate him so much.

Jeno snorts. “I don’t think that’s how it works, dude.”

Donghyuck just grins wider, unfazed.

You sigh heavily. “Fine. Get in the car before I change my mind.”

He fist-pumps like he just won something before trotting off toward the front of the house.

Jeno looks at you. “You sure you don’t want me to go?”

You glance toward Donghyuck, who is currently struggling to open the car door because he forgot to wait for you to unlock it.

“…He’s basically half asleep,” you say. “I doubt he’ll even be awake enough to bother me.”

Jeno gives you a knowing look, but doesn’t say anything.

You roll your eyes and turn on your heels, heading toward the car where Donghyuck is still waiting, a lazy smile on his face as he leans against the passenger side.

The moment Donghyuck slides into the passenger seat, you know you’ve made a mistake.

You’d been so sure he’d pass out the second the car started moving, he’d looked half-asleep on the beach, after all. But no. He’s buzzing with energy, wiggling around to get comfortable, tapping on the dashboard like it’s a drum, and talking a mile a minute.

“You’re the best for taking me,” he sighs dramatically, stretching out in his seat. “Really. I think I’d die if I had to stay with them any longer.”

“You’ve spent all day with them,” you point out, pulling out of the parking lot.

“Exactly. I need a break.” He shifts to face you. “And what better break than quality time with you?”

You glance at him briefly before looking back at the road. “If by ‘quality time,’ you mean you talking my ear off while I drive, then sure.”

He grins. “See? You get me.”

And just like that, he launches into a story about something stupid Jisung did last week, then another about how Renjun nearly killed him for eating the last of his favorite snacks. You hum in response when necessary, letting his voice wash over you, the car filling with his animated storytelling.

The problem is, Donghyuck is clearly still tipsy. Not drunk, thankfully, if he were, you’d never have let him come, but definitely loose-limbed and giggly. He switches topics so fast it’s hard to keep up, gasping dramatically when he remembers something else, barely finishing his sentences before jumping into the next one.

It should be annoying. It would be annoying, if it were anyone else. But for some reason, you find yourself holding back a laugh as he keeps rambling, waving his hands around like he’s giving the most important speech of his life.

By the time you pull into the store parking lot, he’s midway through ranting about how underrated chocolate milk is.

“No, listen–listen,” he insists, leaning toward you as you shift into park. “People act like it’s for kids, but it’s not. It’s delicious and nutrient-rich.”

You unbuckle your seatbelt. “Are you really arguing about chocolate milk right now?”

“I’m advocating for it,” he corrects.

“Right. You should totally start a campaign.”

“Maybe I will.” He nods solemnly before fumbling with his door handle. “Okay, let’s go.”

Inside the store, you quickly realize you’ve made another mistake.

Donghyuck wants to buy everything.

“This,” he declares, throwing a random bag of cookies into the cart. “And this.” He grabs a bottle of soda. “And definitely this.” A whole cake.

You sigh, stopping him before he can add another unnecessary item. “Donghyuck, we don’t need all this.”

“Yes, we do.” He clutches the cake to his chest like you’re about to take it away. “Jaemin loves cake.”

“Jaemin also loves eating two-day-old takeout, so I don’t think we need to cater to his tastes.”

He gasps. “How dare you.”

Rolling your eyes, you reach into the cart, plucking out the soda, the candy, and the cake, placing them back on the shelves. He watches in horror.

“You’re so cruel,” he mutters, shaking his head.

“You’re being dramatic,” you counter, steering the cart toward the actual necessities.

He sulks for about five seconds before perking up again, trailing after you as you grab snacks, drinks, and a few other things the group had asked for. He makes his presence very known, commenting on your choices, dramatically suggesting new ones, and occasionally sneaking things into the cart when he thinks you’re not looking.

Eventually, you make it to the self-checkout. Donghyuck insists on bagging everything, saying, “I worked in retail, I know how to do this.” Once everything is packed up, you drag him back to the car, making him sit still while you load the bags into the trunk.

The drive back is quieter, but not in an uncomfortable way. The sun has dipped lower, casting the world in warm, golden light, and Donghyuck, who has finally stopped talking, leans his head against the window, humming softly to the music playing from the speakers.

When the chorus comes, he starts singing along.

And you… you find yourself smiling.

It’s small, barely there, but it’s real.

For the first time, you realize you don’t actually hate being around him. You don’t hate his loud voice, or his ridiculous stories, or the way he always seems to be hovering around you. Somewhere along the way, the irritation turned into something else.

Something warmer.

Something dangerous.

Your fingers tighten around the wheel.

No. You don’t have time for this. You already have too much to focus on—school, clinicals, your future. The last thing you need is to start liking Donghyuck.

So, as soon as you pull into the driveway and he stretches with a sleepy groan, looking at you with a lazy grin, you make a decision.

You need to distance yourself.

Subtly, of course. No one will notice. Not even him. Because if you don’t, you’re pretty sure you’re going to fall for him. And that? That’s not part of your five year plan.

You’ve always been good at lying when necessary.

It’s not that you enjoy lying, you just know how to do it well.

So when you tell the group that you’re not feeling well, voice soft and convincingly tired through the door, they believe you.

Well. Most of them.

Karina and Ningning fuss over you for a bit, offering to bring you medicine and food, but you turn them down, assuring them that you just need to rest. They’re reluctant, but they drop it, making you promise to come out later for the bonfire before finally leaving you alone.

It’s quiet after that.

Too quiet.

You should be relieved. You wanted to be alone, wanted to create some space between yourself and the group– between yourself and him. But now, sitting on the edge of your bed, laptop open, textbook flipped to a page you haven’t even glanced at in the last thirty minutes, you realize you don’t actually feel any better.

Because no matter how hard you try to push it down, your mind keeps wandering back to the grocery store.

To him.

To the way his voice filled the car, vibrant and endless. To the way he’d hummed along to the music, tapping his fingers against his knee, completely at ease. To the way he’d looked at you—sleepy and grinning, like you were the only thing worth focusing on in that moment.

It’s dangerous. This feeling.

You don’t have time to like someone. You don’t have room for distractions. And yet…

Yet.

You sigh, rubbing your eyes.

No. This is for the best. You just need some distance.

By the time the sun starts setting, the guilt starts creeping in. You know they’re all outside, setting up for the bonfire, laughing and enjoying the trip like they’re supposed to. And you? You’re hiding.

You check your phone.

karina: u better come out when we start the bonfire miss girl ningning: we will DRAG you out if necessary

A small smile twitches at your lips.

They’re right. You can’t spend the whole trip locked in your room.

You take your time getting ready, changing into a hoodie and shorts, tying your hair back before finally stepping out. The cool night air greets you as you walk onto the deck, the sound of waves crashing in the distance, the fire crackling as the group settles into their seats.

Someone notices you first. “Hey, look who’s alive!”

You roll your eyes as everyone turns toward you, grinning.

“You’re not actually sick, are you?” Jaemin teases, nudging Jeno.

You shrug, sitting down. “Feeling better now.”

Ningning eyes you suspiciously but doesn’t push it.

The night goes on easily after that. The fire burns bright, laughter fills the air, and for a bit, you let yourself relax.

But then, at some point, Donghyuck sits beside you.

Not too close. Not close enough to make it obvious. But close enough that you can feel his presence, close enough that you’re suddenly hyper-aware of him.

He doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Then, quietly, just for you…

“You don’t actually want to be here, do you?”

You tense, turning to look at him.

His expression is unreadable, gaze fixed on the fire, hands clasped together. He looks… different. Not like the loud, playful Donghyuck you’re used to. Not like the boy who argues with you just for the fun of it.

This Donghyuck is softer. More careful.

You swallow. “What are you talking about?”

He finally looks at you. And in his eyes, you see it—he knows.

Knows you weren’t actually sick. Knows you were hiding.

Knows that you’re avoiding him.

And yet, he doesn’t call you out on it.

He just leans back, stretching his legs out. “I get it, you know,” he says casually, voice quiet enough that only you can hear. “The whole ‘pretend you don’t care’ thing.”

You frown. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “Right.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then.

“I just don’t get why you think you have to be alone all the time.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

You turn to him again, but he’s already standing up, stretching his arms above his head.

“Don’t think too hard about it,” he says lightly, ruffling your hair before walking away.

You sit there, unmoving, heart pounding in your chest.

And for the first time in a long time, you don’t know what to do.

After Donghyuck walks away, you sit there for a while, staring at the fire, trying to make sense of the strange feeling curling in your chest.

It’s not frustration, not quite. It’s something softer, something unfamiliar, something you definitely don’t want to acknowledge.

Before you can dwell on it too much, Mark and Jaemin stand up, clinking their drinks together loudly to get everyone’s attention.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” Mark announces, grinning, “we’re playing a drinking game."

You let out a small laugh as Jaemin dramatically gestures toward the makeshift table they’ve set up. “This is a vacation, and we are so sober right now. That’s a problem.”

“Not for long!” Mark adds, cracking open another beer. “We’re playing King’s Cup.”

You shake your head, watching as the others gather around. You don’t really drink much. Sure, you’ve had drinks here and there, but you’ve never been the type to let loose the way they do. You like to be in control, like to stay sharp.

But then Karina nudges you. "Come on, Y/N," she whines. "You never drink with us. Just this once?"

"Yeah, seriously," Giselle chimes in. "You’re not studying right now, so you have no excuse."

Ningning gives you an exaggerated pout. "For me?"

You exhale, rolling your eyes. "You’re all so annoying."

But when you reach forward, grabbing a drink from the cooler, they all cheer.

"You won’t regret this," Jaemin promises, handing you a set of cards.

You already regret this.

One hour has passed, and you are so drunk.

At first, you were just taking small sips, rolling your eyes at the ridiculous dares and confessions being thrown around. But then the game started getting competitive, and you, never one to back down from a challenge, kept losing. And losing. And drinking.

And now?

Now the fire is looking really pretty, your head is spinning in a way that feels kinda fun, and you’re slumped against Karina, giggling at literally everything.

"You know what?" you slur, pointing at Jeno across the fire. "I always thought you were a robot."

Jeno blinks. "What?"

Jaemin bursts out laughing. "No, please, continue."

You wave a hand. "You’re just so… so stoic. Like. If I found out you were an AI experiment, I wouldn’t even be surprised."

The whole group loses it. Even Jeno is laughing, shaking his head. "That’s crazy."

"You’re crazy," you mumble, sipping from your drink. "Too perfect. Suspicious."

"Okay, Y/N, I think you need water," Winter says, barely holding back her own laughter.

Donghyuck, sitting across from you, is watching you with a smirk. “You’re one to talk about being too perfect.”

You squint at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means," he drawls, leaning forward on his elbows, "You know what I mean, don’t lie.."

The group collectively gasps.

You put a hand to your chest, feigning offense. "I have never told a lie in my life."

Jaemin chokes on his drink. "You just lied right now."

Donghyuck grins. "Exactly. I rest my case."

You cross your arms, pouting. "Well, you’re annoying."

"And you," he says, tilting his head, "are way more fun when you’re drunk."

You open your mouth to argue, but…

Oh.

Oh no.

The world sways a little too much when you turn to look at him, and suddenly, you realize just how drunk you actually are.

"Whoa," you mutter, blinking hard.

"Okay, yeah, you’re done," Karina says, steadying you.

Ningning grins. "This is kinda fun, though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this."

"Me neither," Mark agrees, amused.

"Alright, party’s over," Jeno says, standing up. "Y/N, let’s get you inside before you die."

"I’m fine," you insist, though the way you sway as you stand up proves otherwise.

Jeno shakes his head, wrapping an arm around you to keep you steady. "Sure you are."

You don’t protest as he starts leading you inside, your body too heavy, your limbs too warm.

But before you step through the door, you glance back over your shoulder.

And Donghyuck? He’s still watching you. You can’t even begin to decipher the look in his eyes, and even if you could, you’re so drunk you’d probably forget by the morning.

Once again, you’re sitting under the shade of the umbrella, legs stretched out in front of you, thoroughly engrossed in your book. 

"Yah! That doesn’t even count!"

You glance up from your book just in time to see Chenle cackling, hands on his knees, as Jaemin falls over in the sand, wheezing with laughter. Donghyuck stands a few feet away, watching them with exasperation.

"I did it!" Jaemin insists between laughs. "You guys suck!"

"You flinched!" Chenle counters.

Your eyebrows furrow. What are they even doing?

It doesn’t take long to figure it out—especially once you spot Mark and Jisung watching with amused expressions, shaking their heads at whatever nonsense is unfolding.

"Boys," Karina mutters from beside you, also reading a book. "They have a collective IQ of 120."

You hum in agreement. "What are they even doing?"

"Some dumb dare game," Ningning answers, peering at them from behind her sunglasses. "It started with normal stuff, like running into the freezing water or eating a spoonful of sand—"

"A spoonful of sand?"

"Jaemin was very confident about it."

You grimace.

"And now," Giselle sighs, "they’re just being stupid."

You glance back at them just in time to see Chenle turn to Donghyuck, a devious grin spreading across his face.

"Alright, Hyuck, your turn."

Donghyuck leans back, smirking. "Hit me with it."

Jaemin sits up. "I dare you to…" He pauses, eyes flicking to the shoreline. Then, suddenly, his grin widens. "I dare you to run barefoot across the rocks over there."

You snap your head toward the area he’s pointing at, the part of the beach where sharp, jagged rocks stick out of the sand like teeth.

You frown. "That’s a horrible idea."

"It’s fine," Donghyuck says with a casual shrug, already standing up.

"Dude, it’s literally not." You close your book, staring at him incredulously. "You’re going to cut your foot open."

"Yeah, well, I’m not a coward," he says dramatically, stretching his arms out.

You huff. "Fine, I hope you do cut your foot open."

He grins at you. "I love when you root for me."

You roll your eyes, but before you can argue, he’s already jogging toward the rocky stretch of sand. The boys erupt into cheers as he takes off, sprinting across the jagged terrain like an idiot.

And then, "ow, ow, shit!"

You don’t even look up from your book. "Called it."

When you finally glance up, Donghyuck is hopping on one foot, wincing, while Jaemin and Chenle howl with laughter.

"It’s fine," Donghyuck insists, though his face betrays the pain he’s feeling.

You sigh, closing your book. "Come on," you say, already standing up. "Let’s get that cleaned up before you get sand all in it."

He tries to act nonchalant, but the moment he puts pressure on his foot, he winces.

You shoot him a pointed look.

"...Fine," he mutters, limping toward you.

You roll your eyes, grabbing his arm to help steady him. "Idiot," you mumble under your breath.

He grins. "Your idiot?"

You shove him gently.

Once inside, you lead him to your bathroom, gesturing for him to sit on the edge of the tub. He props his injured foot up, watching as you grab a first-aid kit from the counter.

"You know," he says as you kneel in front of him, dabbing at the wound with disinfectant, "you’re being really sweet right now."

You scoff. "I’m stopping you from getting tetanus. This is basic human decency."

"But you don’t usually do things out of ‘basic human decency,’" he teases.

You scowl at him, pressing the cotton ball a little harder than necessary. He hisses.

"Ow!"

You ignore him, carefully cleaning the cut. "You should be thanking me instead of running your mouth."

"I would thank you," he says, grinning, "but you’re so cute when you’re annoyed."

You exhale through your nose. "Shut up."

He does, but only for a moment.

Because then, as you gently wrap the bandage around his foot, he tilts his head and says, casually,

"You know, I actually like you, a lot."

Your hands freeze.

Your heart stumbles over itself, pulse hammering in your ears.

Slowly, you look up. "What?"

Donghyuck shrugs, like he didn’t just drop a bomb in the middle of your world. "I like you," he repeats. "I think I have for a while."

Your throat goes dry. "You…" You let out a short, breathless laugh. "No, you don’t."

He raises an eyebrow. "I don’t?"

You shake your head, ignoring the way your fingers tremble as you finish wrapping his foot. "You like annoying me. You like getting under my skin. That’s not the same thing as liking me."

He leans forward slightly, studying you. "So, if I do like you," he muses, "would that be so bad?"

You hate the way your heart clenches at the softness in his voice.

You hate the way you don’t immediately say yes.

"...You’re really annoying, Donghyuck."

His smile grows. "That’s not a no."

You glare at him, standing up. "Shut up. I don’t have time for this."

But your hands are still shaking when you put the first-aid kit away.

And when you turn to leave, you don’t see the way Donghyuck watches you go, expression unreadable, but entirely sure of himself.

The air is cooler tonight, the breeze rolling in off the ocean in soft, salty waves. The sky is an inky black canvas, dotted with stars, the moon casting a silvery glow across the sand. It’s the last night of the trip, and the thought of leaving makes something in your chest feel heavy.

So, instead of staying inside with the others, you slip out onto the beach, bare feet sinking into the cool sand as you walk along the shore.

You don’t know how long you sit there, knees pulled up to your chest, staring out at the ocean and listening to the rhythmic crashing of the waves. The laughter from the beach house is distant now, nothing but a faint hum in the background. It’s peaceful. Almost enough to make you forget that by tomorrow night, you’ll be back to reality.

But, of course, peace is fleeting.

"You didn’t really think I’d let you mope out here alone, did you?"

You don’t even have to turn around. "Of course it’s you."

Donghyuck flops down onto the sand beside you, stretching his legs out in front of him. "You wound me, Y/N," he sighs dramatically. "I’m excellent company."

You roll your eyes, but you don’t tell him to leave.

For a while, the two of you sit in comfortable silence, the waves filling the spaces between words neither of you say. Then, eventually, you glance at him. "How’s your foot?"

He smirks. "Aw, you do care."

You scowl. "I did take care of it, idiot."

"Exactly." He turns to you, his expression soft. "You care about me more than you let on."

You open your mouth to argue, but he gives you a look, and suddenly, the words feel stuck in your throat. Maybe you do.

You exhale, looking away. "It doesn’t matter," you mutter.

Donghyuck hums. "Why not?"

You don’t answer right away. You stare out at the ocean, at the way the moonlight shimmers against the waves, at the way the tide pulls back just to come crashing forward again.

Finally, you say, "Because I don’t have time for a relationship."

It’s not a lie. Between school and your future plans, between everything you’ve worked so hard for, the idea of dating feels like a distraction.

You hear Donghyuck shift beside you. "And you think I wouldn’t take up too much of your time?"

You let out a breathless laugh. "Are you kidding? You would be the biggest distraction."

He grins. "That’s fair."

Silence stretches between you again, thick with unspoken thoughts.

Then, he says, voice quieter now, "You think I just like you because you’re unattainable?"

You hesitate. "I think you think you like me."

Donghyuck shakes his head. "Y/N, I do like you." His voice is so sure. "I know I do."

You swallow. "Hyuck…"

"I don’t care how much time you have," he says, turning to face you fully. "I don’t care if you’re busy, or if you need space, or if you want to pretend you don’t like me back…"

You inhale sharply, but he doesn’t let you argue.

"...because I know you do. Even if you won’t admit it."

Your heart is pounding. He’s too close, his eyes dark and warm and sincere. And the worst part is, you can’t even lie to yourself anymore.

You do like him.

And you’re tired of pretending you don’t.

So, before you can overthink it, before you can stop yourself, you lean in.

Donghyuck’s breath hitches, but he doesn’t hesitate. He meets you halfway, his lips soft against yours, the kiss slow and lingering and so much.

When you finally pull away, he’s grinning.

"I knew it," he murmurs.

You groan, shoving his shoulder, but he just laughs, pulling you back against him. And, for once, you let him.

You sit there for a while, your head resting against his shoulder, his hand warm against yours.

Eventually, though, the night grows colder, and you sigh. "We should go in."

Donghyuck groans dramatically. "Nooooo. I want to stay out here forever."

"You’re so annoying."

"You like it."

You roll your eyes, standing up and offering him a hand. He takes it with a smirk, lacing his fingers with yours as you walk back toward the house.

The moment you step inside, Donghyuck groans. "God, I forgot how loud Mark snores."

You snort. "Didn’t you literally live with him freshman year?"

"Exactly. That’s why I have trauma."

You roll your eyes, considering. Then, before you can talk yourself out of it, you sigh. "You can sleep in my room if you want."

Donghyuck’s head snaps toward you so fast you’re surprised he doesn’t get whiplash. "Really?"

"As long as there’s no funny business," you warn.

He grins. "Define funny business."

You shoot him a glare.

He holds his hands up in surrender. "No funny business. Got it."

When you finally collapse onto your bed, Donghyuck immediately flops down beside you, stretching like a cat.

"Comfy," he hums.

You shake your head, amused despite yourself. "Go to sleep, Hyuck."

He grins, shifting closer, and for the first time, you don’t stop him.

"Goodnight, Y/N."

And, as much as you hate to admit it, his warmth is comforting.

Maybe you don’t mind distractions as much as you thought.

The house is in complete chaos.

Suitcases are being thrown open, clothes are flying, and people are running around in a frenzy, scrambling to pack up their things before checkout. You, however, are unbothered. You packed everything last night, so all you have to do is change and get in the car.

That is… until Ningning screams.

“OH MY GOD!!!”

You bolt upright in bed, heart pounding. Next to you, Donghyuck groans, burying his face in the pillow.

The door slams open, and suddenly, everyone is peering inside.

Jeno, Mark, Jaemin, and Chenle all stare in complete shock. Karina claps a hand over her mouth. Giselle gasps dramatically. Jisung straight-up gags.

And then, of course, someone takes a picture.

“DELETE THAT RIGHT NOW!” you shriek, scrambling to grab your phone off the nightstand.

“Oh, noooo,” Chenle cackles, holding his phone high in the air. “This is going down in history.”

“I hate you.”

Meanwhile, Donghyuck is completely unbothered, still half-asleep beside you. “God, you guys are so loud,” he grumbles, flipping onto his side.

“You two slept together?” Jaemin deadpans.

“Not like that!” you snap, your face burning.

“Uh-huh,” Ningning teases, waggling her eyebrows.

“I swear to God,—”

Before you can defend yourself, Mark– sweet, oblivious Mark–tilts his head. “Wait, then why is he still in here?”

At that, Donghyuck finally sits up, stretching lazily. “Because Y/N loves me.”

“I let you sleep here because Mark snores like a chainsaw,” you hiss.

He grins. “Same thing.”

You groan, throwing a pillow at his face. He dodges easily, laughing as he finally gets out of bed.

“Okay, okay, let’s pack before we get in trouble for staying past checkout,” Karina says, rolling her eyes but smiling.

With one last dramatic sigh, you grab some clothes and head to the bathroom to change, praying that somehow everyone will forget this ever happened.

An hour later, the house is cleaned out, the cars are packed, and everyone is loading up for the drive back. You swing your car keys around your finger, ready to get going when a familiar voice pipes up beside you.

“I’m riding with you.”

You glance up, raising a brow at Donghyuck. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” He flashes you a bright grin. “I’m coming with you.”

You sigh. “Hyuck, you can just go with the guys—”

“But I want to go with you.”

“You just want to keep bothering me.”

“Maybe.”

You give him a look.

“Pleaseeee,” he begs, tilting his head, “you can just drop me off after the girls.”

You scowl.

“…Fine.”

“Yay.”

So, you find yourself stuck with Donghyuck in your passenger seat, his stupid playlist blasting through the speakers as you drive. The girls chatter in the back, occasionally teasing you about your little sleepover last night, much to your dismay.

You focus on the road, but every now and then, when you glance over at him, he’s already looking at you, a lazy smile on his lips.

And for some reason, you don’t hate it.

After dropping the girls off one by one, you finally pull up in front of an apartment building.

“Alright, here we are,” you say, putting the car in park.

But Donghyuck just snorts. “Y/N, this is your place.”

You grip the steering wheel a little tighter. “…Yeah.”

He raises a brow. “So I’m not going home?”

You exhale, staring ahead. “I mean… you can, if you want to.”

Silence.

“So you do love me.”

You groan, dropping your forehead against the wheel as he cackles beside you.

“Just come inside, Donghyuck.”

bonus

Somehow, without even realizing it, you let Donghyuck carve out a permanent space in your life.

At first, it was little things, him dropping by unannounced, sneaking into your study sessions just to bug you, stealing your coffee even when he hates the way you drink it. He’d throw his legs over yours while you were sitting on the couch, play with your hair while you read, or send you stupid texts just to see your reaction.

It’s late. You’re at your desk, reading over some notes, but your mind is starting to blur. You press your fingers against your temples, sighing.

Donghyuck, lying comfortably on your bed, barely looks up from his phone. “You should sleep.”

You exhale through your nose. “I need to finish this first.”

“You always say that.”

You give him a pointed look, and he grins. “Seriously,” he says, softer this time. “Come here.”

Against your better judgment, you let yourself push away from the desk and shuffle over to your bed.

As soon as you sit down, he tugs you back against his chest, looping his arms loosely around your waist. You roll your eyes but don’t fight him.

“You know,” he murmurs against your hair, “you’re different now.”

You tilt your head. “What do you mean?”

“You used to be so… tense all the time. Like, I’d say one thing and you’d either threaten to kill me or give me the nastiest look.” He chuckles. “Now you just sigh like I’m an annoying little inconvenience you can’t get rid of.”

You snort. “That’s exactly what you are.”

“Yeah, but you like me now.”

You pause.

He grins. “See? No denial.”

You let out a long breath. “I guess I do like you, Hyuck.”

His hold around you tightens, and you feel him press a quick, warm kiss against your temple. “Good,” he says. “Because I love you.”

Your chest tightens, warmth creeping up your neck. You swallow, shifting slightly to look at him. His gaze is soft, full of something that makes your heart clench.

“…I love you too,” you admit, voice barely above a whisper.

Donghyuck beams. “Say it again.”

You groan, flopping back against him. “Go to sleep.”

He only laughs, holding you closer.

And for once, you don’t mind the distraction.

[tynlvr]

two baddies two baddies one car

[tynlvr]

Persimmon Problems

jaemin x reader

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?

genre: fluff, angst, university au, non idol au, he’s not a frat boy but he’s basically a frat boy, inaccurate depictions of student council, I don’t actually know what this is

warnings: swearing, drinking, implied sex (it’s pg-13), lmk if I missed any

wc: 18.3k (oops)

a/n: ahahaha remember that jaemin dream… yeah. anyways so I’ve looked at this for so long that I don’t even know what this is anymore, all I know is that I can’t keep working on it. also I still don't know what a persimmon tastes like so.. yeah. I really wanted to try one but if this stays in my drafts any longer I will go insane. I hope you all enjoy!!!! as always I'd love to hear what you think :)

You’ve never had persimmon before but you think maybe it’s the best word to describe Na Jaemin. He is a persimmon in your palm, an unknown flavor to be discovered if you dare to bite. It doesn’t help that he chose to wear orange today, the sweater a shade away from pink. 

There’s a pinch at your side. “You’re staring again.” 

You glare at Renjun, who doesn’t bother to look up from his laptop, working on the graphic for the student council. “Was not.” 

“Whatever,” he says. “Just don’t let the pretty boy distract you from paying attention because I needed to finish this yesterday.”

“The only one distracting me is you, and you aren’t pretty.” You pretend his silence is agreement instead of him trying to force you to take notes as Professor Bae closes up the lecture. 

It’s not that you can’t focus around Na Jaemin–your perfect notes at the end of class prove just the opposite. Jaemin simply exists in another world. There is your corner, mostly filled with student council responsibilities and never ending university work, and there is Na Jaemin, honorary member of every frat on campus. Not that you’ve been thinking that much about him, but his Instagram shows up in your recommended often enough for you to know that he goes to parties nearly every weekend. The sliver of overlap in the Venn diagram of your world and his only includes Microbiology on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 4, and that’s enough for you. To fantasize about him from here, a fruit you’ll never have the opportunity to try. 

Jaemin starts to turn around and you quickly turn to Renjun, resisting the urge to peek at him out of the corner of your eye. You look at the shapes on Renjun’s computer instead. 

“That looks like shit.” 

“Trust the process,” he says. 

“You spent the entire lecture working on this, you are aware we have a lab where you actually have to do things right?” 

“You don’t think you can handle it on your own?” 

“Stop trying to bait me into doing all the work.” You close your laptop, standing and stretching. You see Jaemin out of the corner of your eye, a blob of black hair shuffling down the aisle toward the door to the classroom. The orange-pink sweater is actually a cardigan, large cream colored buttons keeping it together. That’s when you realize you’re staring again. Shit. 

“Are we eating before lab or do you seriously think you’ll finish that thing in the next thirty minutes?” You ask Renjun, who still hasn’t moved. 

“You want to be president when you aren’t even pressuring me into posting the election announcements that were supposed to go out yesterday?” 

“I want to eat something before we have to stare into microscopes, so what do you want?” You wonder if he’s focused enough to miss you grabbing his wallet out of his bag. 

“Whatever you want is fine and if you use my card it will literally decline.” You curse and toss his wallet back into his backpack. 

“Should have taken that class with Chenle, his card never declines.” 

“That’s because it’s his parents’ black card.” He finally looks up from his laptop at you. “Are you getting the food or not?” 

You open your mouth to say something extremely witty and/or smart, but your stomach rumbles. “I’m going to fire you when I’m president.” 

“And who else will put up with your bullshit?” he calls as you walk down the aisle. You prepare a mature response (sticking your tongue out at him), walking backwards. Directly into someone—bouncing off their chest, more specifically. 

Hands grab your shoulders before you can react, straightening you before you have a chance to fall. “Woah there.” 

“Holy shit, I’m so sorry,” you say as you turn around and find Na Jaemin staring at you. Apologies spill out, even as he smiles at you, a true, knees-to-jelly, threat-to-sunshine smile. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. 

“Sorry,” you repeat. Your brain struggles to diversify its vocabulary with him looking at you, smiling with his eyes in full focus. His eyes are so dark it’s difficult to distinguish between his pupils and his irises. Staring, again, the third time in an hour. Why can’t you be normal around him? 

“I was blocking your way out anyway, so it wasn’t all your fault.” He steps back, letting you out of the aisle. At least, giving you the space to do it, since your feet decide not to work. He tilts his head at you, sending your brain into a spiral of predictions, ranging from he’s going to ask you out (rather fantastical) to he’s going to tell you that you have something stuck between your teeth (horribly realistic). 

Instead, he says, “You’re YN, right?” 

“Yeah. How did you know that?” 

His smile widens when you say yes. “Student council vice president, right?” 

You don’t trust your voice so you nod. 

“I’m Jaemin,” he says, extending his hand for a moment like he wants to shake hands but he pulls away at the last second. “Your picture is on the website.” 

“Nice to meet you,” you say, mouth going through the motions on its own since your brain’s whiteboard has been wiped completely clean. The only thing left is NA JAEMIN in giant bold letters, bright red marker and all. 

“Yes, it is,” he says. Does he know the effect his smile has on people? Legally it could be considered a weapon. He pauses a moment longer, like he wants to say something else but instead he turns away, walking back to his seat, waving at half the class because of course he does. 

You don’t have to turn around to feel Renjun staring at you. You don’t feel like hearing his judgy comments, even when they’re only passed on through his eyes. Whoever said eyes are the window to the soul was right—Renjun’s give you a clear view of the most judgmental person you have ever met. You leave the class without looking back. 

Very few places nearby campus sell edible food, and even fewer are ever empty enough to be able to grab food and eat before the three hour lab starts. Today is even worse than normal, as if everyone has chosen to be hungry at the same time as you. You end up at a 7/11, grabbing Takis since they’re the only chips Renjun will eat. You grab an iced tea, tapping your finger in line as you wait. Getting the food was enough of a distraction to keep you from thinking about Jaemin but as you wait for the person in front of you try to get a discount using a coupon that expired three months ago, you go over every millisecond of the interaction–and god, you were so awkward. All you really did was apologize to him, you couldn’t even move. You have got to grow up, stop acting like a middle schooler with a crush. 

The cashier finally gives up, giving the person a discount and waving them out. You set your food down and smile at her. She does her best to put a customer service smile back on her face, though you can see the exhaustion. You thank her as profusely as you can. 

By the time you make it back to the lecture room, there’s barely five minutes left of break. 

“Thank god, I’m starving,” Renjun says, grabbing the bag out of your hands. You keep your iced tea on the side farthest from him, glaring at him until he tilts the bag so that you can reach it too. “We are going to make Donghyuck cook tonight, I need real food.” 

“Agreed,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand so you don’t spew hot chip dust everywhere. 

“And I took pictures of you embarrassing yourself in front of Jaemin, so please try to replace me as your social media correspondent.” He smiles at you over the purple bag. 

“You’re horrible, has anyone ever told you that?” 

“Music to my ears, sweetheart.” 

.

.

Unfortunately, Renjun’s graphic does look good, though still not good enough to warrant how much time he spent on it. The messy shapes don’t look half as bad when they’re the right color, and all the information is listed (not in Comic Sans, though it’s only a matter of time before he tries to use it again. You have yet to find out if he actually likes the font or just wants to be annoying). He posts it an hour after the lab, which wasn’t half bad. Your percent error was under 50% for once. 

It’s a Friday morning, no classes since your university actually listened to the student requests for a three day weekend, which the student council (you) takes full credit for. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean you are responsibility free. Instead you sit in cheap plastic chairs rented from the events and planning committee and under a tent that’s in serious danger of blowing away. 

You cling to your ball cap, NCIT STUDENT COUNCIL embroidered on the front. The papers in front of you whip around, the weights on top of them holding steady. At least it isn’t raining, though the thick clouds overhead get darker every minute. 

Realistically, there’s no reason for you to be here. All the information about running for student council is posted online and with over 30,000 students, only a small portion of the student body actually care—none of whom are walking around campus at 11 in the morning on a Friday. You pull the blanket tighter over your shoulders. Just another fifteen minutes and then Jisung will relieve you. Mark should be the one freezing his ass off since he’s the one that insists on upholding tradition, but as president he takes advantage of avoiding work whenever he can. 

Only two and a half months before that privilege is yours. Assuming you are elected, of course, but there’s no real danger in losing that. You’ve been a part of the council since freshman year, appointed as vice president as a sophomore. Few people have more qualifications, and fewer are actually interested in the position. Usually the competition comes from within the cabinet, but none of the rest of the guys have said anything about the running, though that might be because you haven’t shut up about the position since freshman year. Either way, the position is all but yours, and there is absolutely no reason you need to sit here when you could be studying for midterms. 

A strong gust of wind blows from in front of you instead of behind and this time you are too slow. Your cap flies off your head, tumbling across the empty quad. You shuffle after it, keeping the blanket wrapped tightly over your shoulders, which helps protect you from the cold winds. Unfortunately, said cold winds don’t stop blowing, and your hat blows faster than you can shuffle. It reaches to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the squad by the time it finally stops. 

Moving as fast as you can wrapped up one dry day away from mummification, you try to snatch the cap before it gets blown away again. You bend down to reach for it but a pair of sneakers appear in front of you and a mitten-clad hand grabs it before you can. You stand up and find Jaemin, wearing bright red earmuffs that have a green headband to make it look like a pair of cherries. He holds your hat out, smiling when he sees you (when he recognizes you?). 

“What’s wrong? Hat got your tongue?” He waits, with an expectant smile. The boy next to him, wearing more layers than you, shakes his head. “Sorry,” Jaemin says, “bad joke, I know, but I couldn’t help it.” 

Even the most lovesick part of you can’t defend him on that one. You take your hat from his outstretched hand, sticking it back on your head when you realize what your hair must look like after crossing the quad with all the wind. 

“It’s Jaemin, from microbio,” he says, as if there’s actually a chance you don’t know him. 

“Thanks, Jaemin from microbio.”

He flashes a smile that warms you better than any sun. “My pleasure, Vice President.” 

“You can just call me YN,” you mumble. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” You swear he winks, though maybe it’s the wind blowing in his eyes. 

The boy next to him nudges Jaemin with his shoulder, keeping his hands tucked safely in the pockets of his jacket. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” 

Jaemin rolls his eyes. “This is Jeno, he’s–God, I guess he’s my best friend.” He glances at Jeno, unimpressed. “The position is temporary.” 

“Thanks!” Jeno says brightly. 

“Jeno, this is the vice president of the student council,” he says. 

“YN,” you say, “I’d shake your hand but…” You show your hands, stuck keeping the blanket wrapped around you. 

“It’s alright, I lost my gloves, so my hands are stuck here.” Jeno lifts his jacket with his hands in the pockets, just to prove his point. 

“Hey, I didn’t get a handshake,” Jaemin says. 

“Did you need a handshake?” 

He tilts his head, showing off his jawline, not that you’re paying attention to that at all. It simply calls attention to itself, and who are you to ignore a jawline that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo (not the ninja turtle). He must be cold with so much skin exposed. 

“I’ll settle for some advice,” Jaemin says. Right, maybe you shouldn’t be comparing his face to famous works of art mid-conversation (save it for the Instagram stalking like everyone else). 

“Advice?” 

“I was actually looking for you anyway.” Jaemin glances at Jeno before meeting your eyes again. “The student council election is open to anyone, right?” 

“The presidency is open to seniors that are enrolled here, but yeah,” you say. “Why?” 

He shrugs. “I’m going to apply.” 

You blink at him. “For president? Of student council?” 

“Yeah,” he says. Jeno shuffles beside him, stuffing his hands impossibly deeper into his pockets. 

President… but that’s your position. If it wasn’t for the senior-only rule, you’d already be president. You rose through the ranks, suffered through a vice presidency with Mark to get here–it’s your position. 

“Do I apply there?” He asks, pointing at the table you’re supposed to be sitting at. 

“The application is online,” you find yourself saying, “you have to submit a resume and go through a qualifying process, and submit your proposals for campaign policies and a whole bunch of other stuff, it’s all on the application information.” You’re about halfway through your own application, though it’s mostly copying and pasting from the document you’ve been working on since you joined student council. 

“You can scan the QR code on this blanket, it’ll take you to the application.” You hold it straight, cursing Renjun in your head for being so creative with marketing. You look like an idiot, waiting for him to scan your shoulder. 

“Cool,” Jaemin says, pulling out his phone, but instead of scanning the code, he hands it to you, a new contact profile with your name already in it. You glance between the phone and the smiling boy. “Can I ask you if I have any questions?” 

Jaemin is asking you for his phone number. To help with his campaign, against you. Your brain works in overdrive, trying to determine how you are supposed to feel. Your heart doesn’t hesitate to take advantage of the internal turmoil. You put your number into his phone and hand it back to him. 

“Sure,” you say, even as your brain screams at you not to. “Whatever I can do to help.” 

He grins and your brain fully malfunctions, gears popping, cartoon sparks flying. “Thank you, YN.” 

“No problem,” you mumble, knowing that’s not true at all even without a functioning brain cell. You should have let him call you vice president when you had the chance–this is so much worse. 

“I should go back,” you say, taking a step backward, a gamble considering your history of walking backwards around him. Trying not to linger in Jaemin’s presence is like a planet resisting the pull of gravity to the sun–no matter how hard you try, you can’t beat physics.  

 But maybe he isn’t the sun because when you take another step, Jaemin takes a step to follow you. Are there stars that revolve around planets? But Jaemin doesn’t revolve around you, he doesn’t even exist in your solar system. Maybe a black hole is a better metaphor, sucking you in from a galaxy over. You should stop making metaphors based on middle school astronomy. 

You peer at Jaemin as he continues across the quad, walking leisurely beside you as you shuffle. Jeno trails behind slightly, risking the cold to pull out a phone. 

“Are you following me?” 

Jaemin looks at you over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows. “You think you’re that special already?” Before you can answer, he laughs. “But, yeah, I am. I can’t leave you all by yourself out here, anything could happen.” 

“As opposed to by myself at the table?” 

He shrugs. “There’s two chairs. I could sit with you.” 

It’s your turn to raise your eyebrows, looking him up and down. He’s got a puffy jacket (bright red, probably to match with the earmuffs) and jeans. “You’d freeze in five minutes.” 

“You could–” 

“Are we going to Doyoung’s or not?” Jeno calls from behind you. 

“Right,” Jaemin says, “I definitely did not forget about that.” He glances at you. “Rain check?” 

“I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for you to keep me company freezing my ass off,” you say, “but seriously, I wouldn’t let you stay anyway.” You reach the table, turning to face him. 

Jaemin pouts. “Why not?” 

“For starters, I don’t want to be responsible for the hypothermia you’re bound to catch,” you say, “and it’s a student council thing. You’re not a part of the student council.” 

“Not yet.” 

Right. The standard, crush-threatening-the-dream-you’ve-spent-three-years-working-toward-situation. “Also, no offense, but I barely know you.” 

“Offense taken,” Jaemin says, holding a hand over his chest. “We’ve taken half a class together!” 

“We’ve spoken twice if you count today!” You say. Does he really not get it? “At the very least it would be awkward.” 

“I take full offense to the idea that I could ever be awkward,” Jaemin says. He folds his arms over his chest, eyeing you. “I’ll prove it to you.” Your gut twists, sending off the warning bells, but there’s no way Jaemin is actually flirting with you. He probably hates the idea that someone doesn’t immediately trust him with their heart and soul. He doesn’t need to know that you already do. That’s why there’s simply no way he’s flirting with you–it simply doesn’t make sense. 

“Dude, we seriously need to go,” Jeno says. “Doyoung is spam texting.” 

Jaemin wiggles his eyebrows at you. “I’ll see you in class.” 

“Bye Jaemin,” you say. You watch him walk away with Jeno, throwing his arm over his friend’s shoulders. He doesn’t look back at you. 

What just happened? 

Jisung approaches so quietly you jump when you turn around and he stands in front of you. “Was that Na Jaemin?” 

“Yes–wait, how do you know him?” 

Jisung avoids your eyes, turning to watch the pair of boys trudge away. “Renjun talks.” 

You’re going to kill him. But first you need to defrost, so you hand the blanket over to Jisung and jump a few times to warm yourself up, trying in vain to make up for the loss. 

“What was he doing here?” Jisung asks, wrapping himself so tightly his feet are bound together. One strong push would send him tumbling over, probably unable to get up. If only it was Renjun. 

“He wants to be president.” 

“Of student council?” 

“Apparently.” 

“Huh.” Jisung sits back. “Aren’t you supposed to be president?” 

“Yep.” 

“Huh.” Jisung stares at you. 

“Have fun!” You say. The air without Jaemin is so much colder. Maybe your toes have frostbite. “It’s cold!” 

Jisung grunts, huddling down and you don’t spare a second look at him. There’s a solid chance he’s texting Renjun already, since your best friend has decided to be a dirty gossip. You walk along the sidewalk and try to tell your heart that no matter how pretty his smile is, Na Jaemin is bad for you. Your heart reminds you that he saved your hat. 

Your phone vibrates in your pocket. You pull it out, fully expecting to see a message from Renjun but instead a string of numbers show up. you better save my number :). You stare at your phone until it fades to black, which is why you know the exact moment it starts to snow. Though it’s March and the groundhog didn’t see its shadow, a snowflake falls on your phone, melting quickly. You walk home in the snow, thoughts of Jaemin piling up a snowbank that no plow can clear. 

.

.

For breakfast on Tuesday morning, you have an untoasted bagel with a side of impending doom. You woke up with the feeling, a knot in your gut that usually only appears before exams or after you drink too much coffee, but today has chosen to warn you of unknown horrors yet to come. It has to be the dream you had, only you forgot it the moment you woke up. 

[Bitch #1] You’re just trying to avoid jaemin. 

You don’t know why you expected Renjun to support you. Unsurprisingly, he found out about Jaemin’s intent to run for president before you made it back to your apartment, and dedicated an hour to lecturing you over FaceTime, then spent the entire pregame on Saturday side eyeing you. 

Jaemin’s message sits at the bottom of your recent texts. He hasn’t sent anything since Friday, though neither have you. You close your phone and try not to think about him, an impossible task. In the end you can’t think of a valid excuse, and go to your morning lecture. It’s one of your favorite classes (world history of medicinal developments 1200-1600) but today your mind drifts, still trying to figure out why today feels so off. Are you forgetting an assignment? You’ve checked the syllabus for all of your classes and the reminders your professors sent out but nothing has slipped past your the list on your planner. You check your outfit after class to see if you put something on backwards but you look fine. By the time you head toward microbio, you’ve resigned yourself to a day of inexplicable anxiety. 

You should have trusted your gut. 

You take one step into the room and the knot in your gut twists itself into a mess that spells out leave now while you still have the chance. 

In your normal spot at the back of the classroom, sitting beside Renjun, sits Jaemin, grinning and waving at you like he’s been sitting there the entire semester. 

You walk carefully down the aisle of desks, stopping in front of him. “You’re in my seat.” 

Jaemin doesn’t seem to notice Renjun’s snort, opting to smile at you. “Hello YN, it’s nice to see you.” 

“Hi Jaemin,” you say, “you’re in my seat.” 

He rolls his eyes, sliding his backpack to the side and slipping into the next seat over. “I was just getting to know Renjun.” 

You glare at your best friend, sitting beside him. “I’m sure he’s been lovely.” Renjun smiles innocently, turning back to photoshopping a graphic of the student council.  

Jaemin pulls out his laptop, sitting leaning back into the chair. Is he planning on sitting here for the whole class?  

“What are you doing?” You ask softly. Renjun continues to click around, not even pretending not to eavesdrop.

“I told you, I could never be awkward,” Jaemin says. 

“Speak for yourself,” you mutter, shrinking in your seat. Does he really not notice the class staring at you? Okay, maybe staring is an exaggeration, and it’s not the whole class, but the people he normally sits with keep glancing back at you and whispering to each other. 

Professor Bae walks in and they turn back to the front, saving you from (more) embarrassment. From the corner of your eye, you watch the boys at your sides—Renjun doesn’t bother to open the notes doc he shares with you, opting for continuing the edit, which you can’t really complain about because it’s the series of posts you asked him to make. Jaemin pulls up a cartoon series, Teen Titans, volume off with the subtitles on. 

“Is this what you do every class?” You whisper. 

Jaemin looks away from his fake typing for a moment. “She grades for attendance, not participation.” 

“Are you even passing this class?” 

Jaemin grins. “Sweetheart, I skew the curve.” Just to prove his point, he pauses the bickering superheroes and pulls up the grade review for the class. True to his word, his scores are well above average, rivaling your own. With the exception of Renjun, you haven’t met anyone who’s gotten similar grades. 

Jaemin smiles, switching back to the show. He exudes confidence, and why wouldn’t he? Not only hot and popular, he’s smart too, smarter than you—it takes you hours of studying, exam cram sessions, paying attention in class—he doesn’t even hide that he isn’t paying attention, and from his reputation alone, you know he doesn’t spend as much time studying as you. Does he know what he’s getting into with student council? Even the laziest of presidents put in several hours of work a week.

Jaemin laughs at the show. Renjun finally glances at you, raising his eyebrows at Jaemin in a silent question. You shrug, mouthing, I don’t know either. He purses his lips and turns back to photoshop. You’re sure the second Jaemin steps away he’s going to be on your ass again. 

Belatedly, you realize you’ve spent far too much of the class thinking about Jaemin. Professor Bae has already moved on from weekly announcements to new topics, meaning you have a date with YouTube review videos tonight. Thank god Professor Bae actually cares about her students and has recorded lectures. You just have to hope you didn’t miss one of the exam hints she only drops during class. 

Jaemin and Renjun stay quiet for the rest of the class period, though it does little to help you actually focus. Between Jaemin existing next to you and the inevitability of Renjun’s judgment, it’s hard to stay focused on virus identification. You take half the notes you usually do. 

But can you really blame it on them? It’s you that loses focus, you that is distracted by Jaemin beside you when he doesn’t actively try to pull your attention. He may have disrupted the balance of the universe by sitting beside you, but that doesn’t mean you have to fall off the scale. 

Professor Bae announces the end of lecture a couple minutes early. You swear you see her raise her eyebrows at you and glance at Jaemin before disappearing into her office for the half hour break before lab. Is it too self-absorbed to wonder if she’s taking things the wrong way? But what is the wrong way? None of it makes any sense except that maybe Jaemin is too stubborn for his own good. Funny how a week ago he didn’t know your name and now you can say he’s ‘too’ something. 

“So what do you normally do during break?” Jaemin asks. “Other than bounce off the chest of your roguishly handsome classmates.” 

You roll your eyes to keep him from noticing how flustered his comment actually makes you. “Go over the prelab in case someone forgets to do it–”

“I always do it!” Renjun says. 

“–but usually get snacks and do homework. Lately Renjun has been doing a lot of student council work during class, but that’s because he doesn’t know how to manage his time.” 

“Says the one who asked me to design a scheduler for them.” 

“Just because you’re good at Canva doesn’t mean you’re on top of your work.” 

Renjun shakes his head. You can tease him all you want, at the end of the day, you know that it doesn’t really matter. The truth is, he just doesn’t need to study as much as you. Sort of like Jaemin, and absolutely nothing like you. 

“What do you normally do during break?” You ask. 

Jaemin purses his lips. “Well, my lab partner rarely does the prelab, so usually I let him look at mine.” From the row where Jaemin normally sits, a guy in a striped yellow polo glares back at you. 

You glance between him and Jaemin, who turns away from his partner to look at you. “Should you go over there?” 

“Probably.” He doesn’t make a move to get up, instead tilting his head and smiling at you a little. “You’re very interesting, YN.” 

You cough, breaking eye contact to fiddle with the A key on your laptop which is in serious danger of falling off. “Well, your lab partner is probably going to try and inject you with a virus during lab if you don’t go over there.” 

Jaemin laughs. “You’re probably right. I’ll talk to you later.” He stands up and glances at Renjun, who finally looks away from his laptop. Jaemin nods at him and flashes a smile at you, showing perfect rows of white teeth, and finally turns around, backpack half open in his hand. 

You tear your eyes away from him, turning back to Renjun, who sits with his elbow on the armrest, chin in hand. He softens his eyes and looks up at you. “You’re very interesting, YN.” 

“Shut up,” you say, pushing his elbow out from under him, though he doesn’t fall like you wish he would. 

He shakes his head. “I do not like that guy.” 

“Really?” You frown. “Why?” 

“The fact that you’re even asking me that.” He sighs. “He’s just not my favorite type of guy.” He glares at you before you can tease him. “You seem to exclusively be attracted to shitty men, and then I become associated with them through proximity and it’s overall not a fun time for me.” 

“Okay first of all, you barely know Jaemin,” you say, “and second of all, nothing’s ever going to happen with him.” 

Renjun raises his eyebrows. 

“Seriously,” you insist, “he’s literally Jaemin, and I’m… not his type. You can hate him all you want but don’t do it on my behalf.” 

Renjun stares at you a little longer. He doesn’t believe you, and he’s probably right not to. But he turns back to his computer and doesn’t argue back. 

“I didn’t do the pre lab, though,” Renjun says, “that was a lie.” 

“I’m going to kill you and make it look like an accident.” 

.

.

Jaemin doesn’t show up to class on Thursday. You stare at your phone, the single message in your conversation with him. Curiosity and something bitter boil together, making it impossible to think logically. He acts so friendly around you it would be easy to mistake him for a friend, but it’s not like you don’t have friends. You wouldn’t have a second thought about sending a text like this to Renjun or Donghyuck–but you’ve never felt butterflies when either of them looked at you. 

So when your phone dies, you slip it into the pocket of your sweatshirt instead of trying to fight Mark for a charger (ever since “someone” stole one, he’s been overprotective of the cords). It’s movie night anyways, it’s not like you need your phone. 

“Wait,” you say, “since when are we watching Endgame?” 

“We literally just voted,” Donghyuck says, “You could have tied it for Lilo and Stitch but you weren’t paying attention.” He glares at you. 

Mark throws an arm over your shoulders. “It’s all good, YN can just make the popcorn.” 

“It’s hitting buttons on a microwave.” 

“Oh, would you look at that, the movie’s starting!” Mark says, pushing you off the couch and towards the kitchen of his apartment. You glare at him, but the guys have made you watch Marvel movies enough times that you are glad for the excuse to escape any part of it. It’s bad enough you can hear it from the kitchen. 

The shelves in Mark’s apartment are tall enough that he keeps a stool in the kitchen so that he can reach the highest of them. Of course that’s where he keeps his popcorn, so you jump as high as you can, snatching the box. Except you pull a little too hard and the box flies clean out of your hand, your feet slipping out from under you. You tumble to the ground, narrowly avoiding banging your head on the faux marble countertop. 

A moment later, Donghyuck appears standing over you, box of popcorn in one hand. “You could have just used the stool.” 

“That’s so much work.” 

“And yet it keeps you off the floor.” He holds out his free hand and helps you stand. Your tailbone hurts a little but otherwise it seems you dodged major damage. 

“You okay?” Chenle shouts. 

“Fine,” you shout back. You wonder what the odds are that they’d let you bleed out to finish the movie—probably higher than what you want to calculate. At least Donghyuck is as anti-Endgame as you. 

He sets the box on the counter, pulling the plastic off a bag and putting it in the microwave for five minutes. You would’ve just used the popcorn button but Donghyuck insists it tastes better this way. He turns around, leaning against the counter and studying you. 

“So,” he says. 

You raise your eyebrows. “‘So’ what?” 

“So, Jaemin.” Donghyuck stares at you, eyes unreadable. He’s been like this ever since you met him—pulling people apart with his eyes and extracting the most important bits, all with a smile on his face. He knew Shotaro was going to drop out before Shotaro did. 

“He’s…” A friend? A crush? The guy you wish would stay out of your life so you could keep daydreaming about him? 

“He’s sort of famous,” Donghyuck says. “Or infamous, depending on who you ask.” 

“And if I ask you?” 

Donghyuck smiles like this is going according to his script. “He’s lots of fun to party with. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like him.” 

“But?” You jump when the first piece of popcorn pops. 

Donghyuck pins you down with his eyes. “But he isn’t the boyfriend type. I mean, I’m not best friends with the guy, but it’s pretty obvious, and I talked to—”

“Stop.” You hold a hand up. “I know exactly what kind of guy he is, I’m not an idiot.” 

“I’m not saying you’re an idiot, I just—”

“Donghyuck, I get it.” You stare back at him. “I really do, but I promise I know what I’m doing.” Okay, maybe that last part is a lie, but you know what you aren’t doing. You don’t expect a single thing from Na Jaemin. 

“I heard he’s running for president.” 

“Come on,” you say, “you think he can beat me?” Donghyuck raises his eyebrows. He won’t call you out on it, but he doesn’t have to. Your lie doesn’t even convince yourself. Jaemin has it all—grades, good looks, and, most importantly, popularity. Yes, he can beat you. Easily. 

“Why are you helping him?” 

“Jisung can’t keep his mouth shut, huh?” 

“Renjun was actually the one that told me, but that’s not the point,” Donghyuck says. 

“He hasn’t even asked for help,” you say, “and it’s not like I’m going to give up. I just…”

“You like him,” Donghyuck says. He raises his eyebrows, waiting for you to try to deny it but you won’t fight a battle that’s already lost. But you won’t admit it either. 

“I know what I’m doing.” 

Donghyuck chews on his lip for a moment. “Just be careful,” he says, “I do care about you. A little. Just a tiny bit. And from what I know, Jaemin is a good guy, but I don’t want you to get hurt because he isn’t what you want him to be.” 

“Gross, stop acting like we’re friends,” you say. 

“Never mind, I take it all back,” he says, “and I won’t be your vice president.” 

“Too late.” You shrug. “You already signed a contract.” 

“Fine, I’ll veto everything you propose.” 

“You don’t have the power to do that.” 

He tossed his hands up. “What is the point of being vice president?” 

You beam at him. “Doing the shit I don’t want to do!” 

Donghyuck opens his mouth to argue back but he pauses, sniffing at the air, and that’s when you realize the popcorn has long since stopped popping. Behind Donghyuck, smoke rises. 

He curses, pressing the button to open the door only to take a wave of smoke straight in the face. At least the bag isn’t on fire. You laugh as he waved his hand in front of his face, coughing. 

“Dude, what is that smell?” Mark shouts from the living room. 

You spend half the movie bickering with Donghyuck while trying to get the sharp smoky scent out of Mark’s kitchen. By the time the Avengers have all the infinity stones again and are in the final battle, you are curled up on the floor with a blanket, the popcorn bowl confiscated by Chenle when he realized how much you and Donghyuck ate while making it (it sort of tastes like smoke anyways). Two Marvel movies later, Mark shakes you awake and sends you and the rest of the guys out. 

You’re so tired by the time you get home, you plug your phone in and fall asleep. That’s why you don’t see the message until your alarm goes off the next morning. 

[Na Jaemin] you busy? 

.

.

For the past three weeks, you’ve tried meditation. Renjun swears by it, but you’ve seen him lose it over half a quesadilla, so it doesn’t exactly instill confidence in you. Still, you set aside ten minutes every morning to listen to the podcast he sent you. It’s meant to be calming, to connect you with yourself, and usually you do feel better, at least for a few minutes. 

You peek at your phone, checking how much time in the lesson is left (3 and a half minutes). No new notifications. 

Jaemin’s message gave you a heart attack when you woke up. He sent it at 8:12pm, probably right after your phone died. So seeing his message first thing in the morning woke you up pretty fast. You sent an apology that you definitely didn’t rewrite fifteen times, and now you wait. 

But no, you’re meditating right now. Clearing your mind, not thinking about a single thing except the air that floods your lungs, letting your heart beat twice before releasing the air again. You peek your right eye open. No new notifications. 

The narration ends and you sigh, laying back on your bed and checking your schedule for the day even though you’ve memorized it. In half an hour you need to be in the library to meet with your study group, then a council meeting, some space for lunch (which will undoubtedly end up crashed by Chenle or Donghyuck), then more homework in the afternoon. Tonight you’re supposed to go to a party thrown by one of Mark’s friends from grad school—depending on whether Renjun can find out if he’s a poli-sci major or not. 

You jump when your calendar disappears and the incoming call screen pops up. You stare at Jaemin’s name for a couple seconds before your brain begins to function again, and you slide the button at the bottom of your phone to answer the call. 

“Hello?” 

“YN,” Jaemin says. His voice is a little deeper than normal, raspy like he just woke up. “I was starting to think you’d blocked me.” 

“Sorry, my phone died last night and Mark doesn’t let anyone use his chargers.” 

Jaemin laughs, the phone distorting the quality, sounding choppy and un-Jaemin. “Damn, does the student body know he treats his council like this?” 

You laugh a little but can’t think of anything else to say. The silence stretches longer as Jaemin doesn’t speak either. The ceiling of your apartment has a constellation of holes, evidence of the former tenant’s antics. You have yet to figure out exactly what it could be—stabbing the ceiling with a broomstick? What does Jaemin’s ceiling look like? He’s so hard to pin down, like the more you get to know him the less he makes sense. He’s the type to have a messy room with clothes tossed everywhere and a bed that’s never made, yet he’s also the type to keep it neat, put up diagrams to match the college aesthetic of studying even if Jaemin himself is allergic to it. 

“So,” Jaemin says, apparently realizing you aren’t going to say anything else. “I actually texted last night because I wanted to see you.” 

You shove down the butterflies that spring up. “For what?” 

“First of all, it’s cruel that you don’t think I’d want to see you just to see you. But also I was gonna ask to go over microbio together because I heard a rumor that Professor Bae talked about the final.” 

“Don’t you have a lab partner?” 

“Yeah, he’s who told me she talked about it. Unfortunately he’s worse at taking notes than me.” He pauses. “Besides, you’re much cuter.” 

“Oh.” The butterflies breach containment, digging like madmen trying to escape your stomach. 

“So are you free?” 

Despite just checking your schedule, your mind goes blank. You frown, trying to remember what you’d just seen, and thank every deity that might exist that Jaemin can’t see your face right now. 

“I’m free after the council meeting. How is 12:30?” 

“Damn, council meetings on Fridays,” Jaemin says, “that works though. Meet you in the library?” 

“We can use the council room on the third floor,” you say, “no one else will be there.” 

“Okay,” Jaemin says, “see you soon, YN.” 

“Bye, Jaemin.” 

The butterflies have turned into zombies, rotting in your stomach and spoiling the leftover popcorn from last night. It’s just sharing notes. It’s just Jaemin. He’s just a boy from another world. The butterflies groan and demand chocolate. 

.

.

Council meetings feel a little bit like the Magic School Bus series. The tagline plays in your head: A normal council meeting? With this group? No way! 

Some of the blame can be directed towards having such an eclectic group of majors, Mark as the only true political science major. The rest of the group has been adamant about keeping the council safe from political science majors (how Mark doesn’t see the horrors of his classmates you truly don’t know). Another point towards Jaemin, being biochem and pre-med. 

Though being a non-poli-sci major doesn’t mean he can handle the presidency. Mark can barely do that. Not that he’s a bad president. Though it sometimes feels like you do all the heavy lifting for him to take credit for, he does work hard. No, Mark’s problem isn’t his leadership—it’s that he doesn’t know when to give up. 

The council meeting is long done but he continues to bicker with Donghyuck, who holds the entire student council hostage. 

“It’s a proven fact,” Mark says. “How are you arguing with science?” 

“Can science tell me what I feel?” Donghyuck folds his arms over his chest. His laptop has faded to black, the meeting notes long forgotten. “This isn’t about facts, it’s about my experience!” 

You check your phone. The meeting has already gone over fifteen minutes. Any longer and Jaemin could walk in on a very not-empty room with Mark committing a crime against Donghyuck for saying that Froot Loops have individual flavors. Maybe it’s time to intervene. 

“You’re just gaslighting yourself,” Mark says, “it’s not physically possible!” 

“Well, you’re not physically possible!” 

“That makes negative sense. I’m getting dumber listening to your attempts to argue.” 

“Okay,” you say, standing up so quickly your chair falls back. “This isn’t council business anymore. All in favor of concluding the meeting?” According to the official rules, Mark is the only one that can conclude the meeting, but Jisung’s hand flies up, followed quickly by Renjun and Chenle. 

“Cool, majority rule,” you say, ignoring the outrage on Mark’s face. Donghyuck pretends to be mad too, but he was only arguing with Mark to piss him off. He’ll probably follow the older boy around just to ruin his day. The two always have some fight going on—you’re convinced the reason Donghyuck agreed to be your vice president (if you win) is just because Mark would hate it. 

Jisung leaves first, eager to escape from Donghyuck and Mark. Donghyuck pauses long enough to write a few more summarizing notes on the meeting but catches up to Mark before he can vanish, continuing to pester him about Froot Loops. 

“Going home,” Renjun says, “we’re going out tonight, by the way. Turns out Taeyong is an econ major, and also a former frat president.” 

“Huh,” Chenle says, “I can’t believe neither Donghyuck or me know him.” 

Renjun shrugs. “I need to finish a couple projects since nothing will get done tomorrow.” He grins. “See you guys later.” 

“Bye Renjun,” you say, tapping your phone screen to check the notifications. 

[Na Jaemin] in the library  [Na Jaemin] lost in the library  [Na Jaemin] nvm found the stairs 

[yn] need me to come find you? 

[Na Jaemin] nah i don’t get lost (yes please) 

“You’re texting with Jaemin?” Chenle breathes over your shoulder, making you drop your phone. Unfortunately it’s still open, your messages easy to read and Chenle doesn't hesitate to snatch it. At least the rest of the guys left, only Chenle is nosy enough to wonder who you’re texting. 

“This is painful,” he announces. He hands the phone back to you. “You could at least add an emoji. Or, like, send more than one sad message.” 

“Why?” 

Chenle shakes his head. “You are texting the Jaemin, right? Na Jaemin?” 

“Is there any other?”  

“You’ve got a chance here,” Chenle continues, ignoring your question. “Not many people—well, I’ve actually heard he’s quite experienced but that’s beside the point, because you have a chance and that’s rare.” 

“Genuinely, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” You glance at the door, just in case Jaemin appears. Somehow you don’t think you want him overhearing this conversation. 

“Okay, look,” Chenle says, “you’re you. Student council, 4.0 GPA, plans to be the next director of the WHO or whatever—”

“That’s not at all what I want.” 

“—never a second you aren’t working, and then there’s Jaemin, and sure he’s a STEM major too, but the he’s type that strolls through life, who has things fall into his lap because he’s hot and lucky but you can’t really be mad about it because he’s Jaemin.” He pauses, like that explains everything. But you already know that Jaemin exists in a realm outside your own. Chenle waits a moment longer then shakes his head. “You know what, you’ll figure it out eventually.” He glances at you with a frown. “Maybe.” 

“Good bye, Chenle,” you say pointedly. 

He moves extra slow, closing his laptop only after spamming the save button. He once forgot to save a spreadsheet after a two hour budgeting session and you think he’s still traumatized. Still, spending a full thirty seconds hitting CTRL + S is excessive even for him—he’s stalling, trying to be as nosy as ever. 

“I’m meeting him at the elevator so you can stop stalling,” you say. You hover over the send button, Chenle’s “advice” infecting your brain. You hit send before you can overthink it any more. 

[yn] on the way now 👍 

Chenle sighs, returning to peeking over your shoulder. “You’re hopeless.” 

You grin and give him a thumbs up. “Thanks buddy. If you hurry you can run into him in the elevators.” 

Chenle perks up, grabbing his still-open bag and sprinting out the door. You feel a little bad for lying to him, but he was the one that didn’t read Jaemin’s messages closely enough—evident from missing the fact that he’s on his way up the stairs and how Chenle thinks he might actually be flirting with you. You shake your head at the thought. 

Just when you reach the doorway to the stairs and wonder if you should meet him in the stairwell, the door flies open. Despite climbing three flights of stairs, Jaemin breathes normally. A different backpack than usual is sling over his back, bright orange, like… well, an orange. (Persimmon, your brain unhelpfully supplies). 

“Hi,” he says. “Sorry I’m late.” You wonder how anyone is immune to his smiles. A smile like that robs you of everything irreplaceable and leaves you missing it as soon as it’s gone. 

“You’re not late,” you say, showing him the time on your phone as you walk to the council room. “Exactly on time.” 

“Oh.” He glances at you, and when you turn your phone back to face you, you understand the awkwardness. 

[Chenle] good luck 🤪🤪🤪

[Chenle] have fun with the hottie 🔥🔥🔥

[Chenle] but not too much fun 😼😼

You clear your throat, praying he didn’t get a chance to read all of the messages. “Chenle’s just making fun of my emoji use. Or lack of emoji use.” 

Jaemin nods. “I hate to take the side of someone I’ve never met over you, but he might be right.” 

“I use a perfectly respectable amount of emojis,” you say. “Besides, I’ve never seen you use any.” 

“You’re just going to have to text me more to find out.” 

You’ve never been so happy to see the doors to the council room. It’s nothing more than a glorified study room, with a rectangular table that stretches in the middle of the room, eight wooden seats set around it. A giant whiteboard stretches the majority of the back wall. The only truly special part of the room is the projector that hangs from the ceiling, with a screen that needs a button to come down. The walls that line the hallway are glass, along with the doors, so that anyone can see the council discussions, though tucked away in the back corner of the third floor, only the occasional passerby is subject to the bickering. 

Jaemin raises his eyebrows and whistles. “This is nice.” 

“Don’t lie,” you say. “The only nice thing about it is that we have full access to it whenever we want.” You point to the sign that reads Student Council Members Only. Truthfully, the six of you use it more as a private study room than for actual council work. 

“It is nice,” Jaemin says, holding the door open for you. He pauses in front of the whiteboard. Chenle had been sitting closest to it, apparently spending the final thirty minutes of the meeting drawing out different game plans for the basketball club he somehow has time for. 

“Chenle,” you explain, “he thinks he’s a part of the Golden State Warriors.” 

“How much council work actually gets done in these meetings,” he says teasingly. 

“You catch on fast,” you say. “It took me the full first year to realize how incompetent we are.” 

“How come?” 

“The president just wanted resume padding. He was incredible at sucking up to faculty and making the right people think he was a great leader, but he would send us fresh-terns to pick up condoms and sent Donghyuck with a fake to get drinks once.” 

“Fresh-tern?” 

“The freshman interns,” you explain, “since the president is the only elected position and the rest of the council is appointed, the only way to get known is through the ‘internship,’ which technically is open to anyone but only freshman are dumb enough to dedicate that much time to a job that does absolutely nothing—like, it doesn’t pay or even guarantee you a spot on the council in the future. It’s all based on whether the president likes you or not. 

“Anyway, our president last year was marginally better, and he tried to abolish the seniors-only president rule but couldn’t get it to pass in time, so we ended up with Mark. Not that Mark is a bad president, though council meetings could be half as long if he wouldn’t go on tangents every two minutes.” You stop, realizing how much you’re talking. You’ve come dangerously close to telling him the truth about the presidency. Jaemin says nothing, probably bored. “Anyways, we’ve got a few new initiatives this year but mostly we try to maintain the annual events and keep Mark’s head on his shoulders until he graduates.” 

“Sounds like fun,” Jaemin says. 

“Sometimes.” You pause. “How’s your application going, by the way?” 

He glances at you, smile fading a little. He turns back to the whiteboard, this time studying the fading drawing Renjun made a month ago of a goat fighting Donghyuck. “Still figuring things out. Mostly working on my campaign goals.” 

You nod. A part of you wants to press further, learn more about his plans—but because you want to beat him or because it’s Jaemin? Why is it so difficult to think clearly around him? 

You sit at the table and open your laptop, pulling out your notes. He sits beside you, scraping the chair against the tile floors until his knee is an inch away from yours. He must not notice the way your breath catches in your throat when he leans closer. A moment later and your brain is invaded by his scent, a clean smell like laundry detergent or body wash. 

“It’s organized by subject,” you explain. “Usually I take notes in class and then Renjun reviews and organizes it with keywords and highlighting and this coding system that I don’t really get but he swears by. Either way it works for us.” You show him the keyword that Renjun uses to signify exam hints, combining it with the past class’s date to cross reference the relevant information. 

Jaemin lets out a low whistle. “This is crazy.” 

“Yeah,” you say, “Renjun puts a lot of time into it. But when we study for exams, it’s worth it.” 

“You know Renjun from student council?” He asks, beginning to type a few notes. 

“I guess that’s where I met him first,” you say. “But he’s pretty much my best friend. The whole student council is pretty close, way closer than the group Mark came into. He tells us horror stories about how they made the fresh-terms compete just to turn them against each other, though that’s back when it was filled with poli-sci majors.” 

“None of you are poli-sci?” 

“I’m public health,” you say, “and Mark is poli-sci, but the rest of the guys avoided it. We swore that the next council would be free of the plague of poli-sci majors.” 

“You really hate them?” 

“They deserve it,” you say. “But also it’s because I made the mistake of dating one last year.” You shudder at the memory. 

“Really?” Jaemin looks away from his laptop, staring at you instead. 

“Don’t make fun of me,” you whine. “It was a moment of weakness and he confessed to me with cookies.” 

“Not making fun,” Jaemin says. “Were the cookies at least homemade?” 

“Well, yes.” You shake your head, trying to stop the next bit from coming out. But Jaemin raises his eyebrows and you can’t help it. “He had his ex make them, actually.” 

“No!” 

“Yeah, and then dumped me for them after, like, two weeks, and the guys are all convinced that he cheated on me with them,” you say. “So, no, I don’t really like poli-sci majors.” 

“A good observation,” Jaemin says. His approval makes your cells glow—scientists could discover a new form of bioluminescence from within you. 

Jaemin continues to stare at you, eyes full of warmth. It’s so easy to get lost in them, glancing between the pure dark chocolate and fond smile on his lips. The change in light when your laptop screen fades snaps you out of it. 

You eye him. “Do you even need these?” 

“Nope,” Jaemin says. He grins at you. “Just an excuse to see you.” He turns back to the laptop and continues to copy your notes into his document. You turn around, giving him no chance to see the smile that creeps onto your face. You seriously need to get a grip. Jaemin needs to get a grip and realize that he can’t flirt with you like this, not without completely upsetting the balance of the universe. But even as the world slides sideways, you smile. 

.

.

“Nothing special.” That’s what Renjun said when you asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday. But March 23rd falls on a Friday this year, and everything snowballed from there. 

That’s how you find yourself wearing an outfit even the most lenient parents would dub inappropriate, wearing more body glitter than exists in the state of Utah, taking your fifth shot. 

“Sixteen more to go,” Renjun says, patting your back. Why you promised to match him shot for shot, you aren’t quite sure. You had reasoning, at some point. Definitely before the shots. 

At least you aren’t alone—Donghyuck curls his lip after his shot, lime slice snatched out of his hand by Mark before he can take it as a chaser. Mark laughs as he grimaces. 

 “What’s our motto?” Donghyuck shouts. 

“Two and three to infinity!” Mark shouts. 

“Nobody goes to the hospital!” You shout. 

“To the grave!” Renjun shouts. 

“Huh, I guess we should have coordinated that,” Donghyuck says. “I was thinking something more like ‘happy birthday Renjun.’” 

“Shoulda said something,” you say. You take a step to the couch, the world tilting to the side, though maybe it’s actually you because you stumble into the wall. It holds you up until you make it to the couch, sighing as you reach solid ground. A couple people sit next to you, friends of friends of Renjun whose names you don’t know regardless of the alcohol. 

“You’re YN, right?” The girl closer to you says, making you feel a little guilty for having no idea who they are. She beams when you nod. “I live in Apollo Hall, Karina is my RA, she says you aced biochem.”  

“Oh, yeah,” you say. “Who do you have?” 

“Professor Ahn,” she says. 

“He’s good,” you say, “I had him for a different class and he talks off topic all the time but if you visit him in his office hours once, he’ll remember and be more lenient on the research report. I can send you my notes, too, if you want.” 

She smiles even wider. “Really?” 

You nod, your brain sliding around your skull with the movement—not a good sign, only five shots into the challenge. 

The music changes, a Britney Spears song that Donghyuck must have slipped into the rotation. The girl’s friend drags her up to dance before you get the chance to ask for her name. 

Dancing sounds like so much fun, until you stand up and realize that you’ve been hydrated too well. Your bladder announces its need for attention much like the maintenance worker that fixed the leak in your shower—loud and last minute. 

You push your way through the people crowded at the edge of the room, making your way to the hallway where the bedrooms and, more importantly, bathroom are. You pass by a semi-familiar face flirting with a girl from Renjun’s study group, but your bladder gives no time for your brain to make connections of recognition, let alone time to wave. 

Finally, you break the crowd, ignoring the couple making out concerningly close to Donghyuck’s bedroom door (something you like to call “not my problem”). All your focus is on the door to the bathroom, a piece of lined notebook paper taped on with RESTROOM scribbled in marker. Just as you reach for the handle, the door swings inwards. 

You might have caught yourself, two or three shots ago. Instead you tumble forward, the floor coming to meet you fast. And then you aren’t. 

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” Jaemin says, laughing. He caught you by the elbows, your face pressed into his chest. He helps you straighten up, though he doesn’t let go of your arms. 

“Jaemin.” You grin at him. 

He tilts his head. “You’re drunk.”  

“You’re pretty,” you say. Jaemin tilts his head and smiles at you. Endearing. Endearing, that Jaemin has an amused expression on his face. Like he is endeared by you. How funny. 

But he really is pretty. He must be hot in the leather jacket, loose over his broad shoulders. Yes, those broad shoulders. He’s hot too. But first, he’s pretty. His black hair falls just above his eyes, loosely split down the middle, framing the perfect angles of his face–the perfect line of his nose, gentle curve of his cheekbones, that jawline–and of course those lips. Perfect lips. 

Jaemin leans closer. “You’re prettier.” 

You burst into laughter, stopping only when you snort. “You almost sound serious.” 

Jaemin doesn’t say anything else, still smiling at you, only a couple inches of space between you. Ignoring those lips this close is impossible. They’re the prettiest shade of pink, and he must have put on lip balm–or maybe it’s the lighting–because they glow. What do they feel like? They have to be soft—you’d bet everything in your pocket (if these pants had pockets) he tastes sweet. Like a fruit, a yummy, juicy fruit, dripping with juice, which reminds you—pee. 

You push past Jaemin, into the bathroom. “Need to pee.” 

He catches his hand on the door before you can close it, frowning a little. “You’re not going to slip and crack your head open?” 

“Nope,” you say. “Really need to pee.” He lets go of the door and you slam it shut, using one hand on the counter to steady yourself while you fumble with the lock. After an eternity, you finally get to the toilet, which, despite the number of people crowded in a house of two college guys, isn’t totally disgusting. 

Two minutes, an empty bladder, and clean hands later, you push the door open. Your balance has improved just enough for you to feel confident in your ability not to die on the dance floor—and with perfect timing because Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz just started playing. You find Donghyuck in the middle of the room and join him, grinning when he cheers. 

Renjun appears halfway through the next song, shots in hand. More of the tequila ends up on the ground than in your stomach by the time you knock it back but Renjun shouts, “Six!” anyways. 

Another 2000s hit plays (it’s definitely Chenle’s playlist, which reminds you that you haven’t seen him in a while) and you get Renjun to stay on the dance floor for the full song. It’s hot and sweaty and you wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world. 

Donghyuck cheers again, hyping up the people that join your little circle. You turn to see Jeno, wearing a piece of fabric that technically could be called a shirt though it really looks like a hole for his head that’s completely open at the sides except for the ties at the bottom. Beside him, and right next to you, Jaemin grins at you. He throws an arm over your shoulder, pulling you against his side. 

“And I was like baby, baby, baby, oh!” You shout along with the song, vaguely aware of the rest of the guys singing along—except for Jaemin, who waits for Ludacris’s verse to come in to rap it word for word. 

Renjun drags you away before the next song can start. “Number seven,” he shouts in your ear over the bass. 

“What about Donghyuck?” You glance behind you where he starts a full performance, an empty water bottle as a microphone. 

Renjun shrugs. “He’ll catch up.” 

You watch Renjun struggle to pour the tequila, holding the bottle with two hands off the edge of the counter to get the mouth as close to the paper shot cups as possible. You can’t see how much tequila actually makes it into the cups but it burns its way down, sending your stomach spinning. Only a third of the drinks you are supposed to take with him but you’re already questioning the next round. 

Renjun gets dragged away from you by some people you aren’t even sure are actually his friends, but you lose track of him when someone tugs on your hand. Jaemin, again. He lost his jacket at some point, wearing a shirt that matches Jeno’s, showing off his considerable arms. Even in the poor lighting from the strobe lights Donghyuck set up, you can see the definition in his biceps. 

Yeah, you’re definitely staring. 

Jaemin asks something but you can’t hear him over the music. You step closer, stumbling a little on your own feet. As always, he catches you, arm sliding around your waist. 

“How are you doing?” He shouts over the music. 

You grab his other forearm to keep yourself from falling over. “I’m so hungry.” 

Jaemin leans closer, lips brushing against your ear. “Wanna get out of here?” You raise your eyebrows at him and he grins. “The McDonald’s, across the street?” 

“I need French fries,” you say, letting go of his arm and spinning out of his embrace to face the door. He catches you before you can go too far (and fall on your face), looping his elbow through yours. 

As soon as the door closes behind you, everything falls silent. Not everything, because you can still hear the bass from inside the house, and cicadas sing, and the highway is close enough to hear the rumbling of engines passing by. But quiet falls in the space between you and Jaemin, a breath waiting to fall free. 

He doesn’t let go over your arm, using his other hand to brace the three steps in front of Donghyuck and Renjun’s place. He leans on you as much as you lean on him, magnets stuck to each other, except magnets don’t struggle to stay upright crossing an empty street. Maybe if they could get drunk. 

The street light flickers above you, crackling electricity. You can feel Jaemin’s bare arm against yours, firm muscle held taut. You peek at the boy beside you, his head tilted to the sky. Pretty. You won’t say it again for fear of being repetitive, but it’s the right word for this moment. Not just Jaemin, but the chilly night air, the faulty light above you fighting with the neon lights to illuminate your breath. You’ll blame the alcohol in the morning, but tonight it’s all pretty. 

Jaemin swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and he turns to meet your eyes. It’s definitely the alcohol but you don’t look away. 

The crosswalk changes to the white man, beeping at you to cross the street. You tear your eyes away from him, settling for clinging to his arm to make it past the striped crosswalk illuminated by headlights. 

You’re hardly the only drunk couple at McDonald’s. Jaemin notices you limping a little and drops you off in a booth, stumbling on his own to order. You must have done something dancing, though you don’t remember anything hurting. Your ankle hurts now, so you lean your head into your elbow and watch Jaemin’s back. 

The fluorescent lights can’t make him look sickly. They show his arms in their full glory, open sides revealing enough of his body to make you self-conscious. The hint of a farmer’s tan dusts his arms, shoulders just a shade lighter than his forearms. Where did he get that from? 

So many questions about him. So much to know. So little you do know but you like him so much it gets so hard to tell. What matters. 

Jaemin puts his wallet into his back pocket, turning around and smiling when he meets your gaze. He slides into the seat across from you. “Potatoes are incoming.” 

“Do you know what persimmons taste like?” 

“What?” His brow furrows, a cute frown that makes you forget what you’d asked. 

“Never mind,” you mumble. Opening your mouth any more around him is a dangerous game—you aren’t quite sure what will spill out. 

He reaches out to tap his finger on your arm. Like the sun, being in his atmosphere makes everything warmer, his touch boiling your skin. The heat flows through your body, each cell vibrating with the need for something. 

“You feeling okay?” 

It takes considerable concentration to work past his finger, which has graduated to drawing shapes, and answer him. “Renjun wanted to do twenty-one shots for his birthday but seven is beyond enough.” 

Jaemin whistles. “Is Renjun going to survive tonight?” 

“Probably not,” you mumble. “That opens up a council position. You could be a good social media person. Your face is pretty enough.” 

“Is that the only requirement for student council?” Jaemin asks. “Being pretty?” 

“You can’t be a poli-sci major either,” you say, “which you pass. It helps that you’re smart, and kind. I like people that are smart and kind.” 

“That’s a low bar,” Jaemin says. “What else do you like?” 

“Hm…” Your voice rumbles, a funny feeling in the back of your throat. You hum for a little longer before you remember Jaemin asked you a question. What do you like? 

“Sharks. They’re much cooler than dolphins. And potatoes, I love potatoes. I like Renjun. And Donghyuck. And Mark, even though he’s a poli-sci major. I like Chenle and Jisung. They might be my favorite people.” And you. I like you so much I don’t know how to say it. 

“What about doctors?” Jaemin leans closer, intertwining his fingers with yours. “Do you like doctors?” 

You lift your head up, pouting your lips at him. “Doctors have needles. I don’t like needles.” 

Jaemin laughs. “Even if the doctor is super rich?” 

“Rich? From taking all my money?” You cry. 

“Rich from saving people’s lives,” he says. “Like a neurosurgeon.” 

You squint at him, the blurriness of your eyelashes mixing with the blurriness of the alcohol and canceling out until his face becomes clear. “Are you actually pre-med because of Grey’s Anatomy?” 

Jaemin looks away, running a hand to the back of his neck. “Maybe.” His biceps are almost enough to distract you from his admission. Almost. 

“Oh my god.” You can’t hold back the giggles, trying to cover your mouth with your hand. Tears prick at your eyes and you gasp for breath, stomach twisting the alcohol with the giggles and turning over itself until you aren’t sure if you’re starving or need to throw up. 

“It’s a perfectly respectable career!” Jaemin says. 

“You want to be Patrick Dempsey?” You say between giggles. “Not even McSteamy?” 

“Hey, he’s—wait, you watch it too?” 

You shrug. “It’s fun.” 

“Then how are you making fun of me!” He cries. 

“I didn’t go into medicine because of it!” 

Before he can say anything else, the workers shout a number. He glances at the receipt and shoots you a glare without a drop of malice in his eyes and leaves. 

Jaemin being silly. Jaemin bickering with you. Hard to believe that even two weeks ago, you never would have believed he watched children’s shows in class and chose his profession because of a soap opera. Jaemin who keeps surprising you, who makes you want to believe that maybe he’s from the same planet as you after all. 

He brandishes the brown paper bag in front of him like treasure. What does it matter that you’re grinning because of him and not the golden treats inside?

“For you,” he says, setting the bag in front of you and tilting it on its side so you can reach inside for the fries. “I didn’t know what sauce, so I fought… Okay, maybe flirted with the worker, but the important part is that I got one of each.” He pauses glancing at you. “Which apparently you don’t need.” 

“So good,” you say, eating them properly: no sauce, just freshly fried golden perfection. You look up to find Jaemin smiling at you… fondly? Is that what’s in his eyes? 

“What?” 

He shakes his head. “You’re just cute.” 

You stare at him, fry halfway to your mouth. He looks down, the tips of his ears tinted red as he grabs a fry and dips it in honey mustard. 

The rest of your time at McDonald’s is dedicated to properly enjoying the French fries and not at all sneaking glances at Jaemin sneaking glances at you. You finish the fries long before the swirly feeling in your stomach goes away. The butterflies must be drunk too. 

“Back to Renjun’s?” Jaemin asks, standing up and extending a hand for you to take. The most dangerous handhold of your life. You don’t think twice about taking it. 

“Mm, I’m pretty tired,” you say, “and Renjun was pretty adamant about the twenty-one shots thing. If we go back, he won’t let me go until one of us is in the hospital.” Walking is easy when Jaemin lets you lean on his shoulder. Standing just outside the McDonald’s, your shadows stretch ten times as tall as you, the lines between you and Jaemin undefined. 

Jaemin raises an eyebrow. “You aren’t worried about him?” 

“He swore to send Donghyuck to the grave before him, he’ll be fine,” you say, “plus Jisung is there, sober. They’ll be fine.” 

“And you?” 

“I’ll be fine when I get home.” You tilt your head up from his shoulder only for him to look down at you, his nose brushing against yours. Your breath catches in your throat, heart pounding. But you don’t move away and neither does he. 

“Take me home?” 

He doesn’t move for a heartbeat, eyes flickering to your lips. Then he turns his head straight, patting your head with his free hand a couple times. “Okay.” 

You whisper directions, a ten minute walk from Renjun’s place. The walk home is considerably less stumbly, your balance recovered halfway through the fries. You cling to Jaemin’s arm anyway, more afraid of letting him go than falling. 

The building appears far too quickly, Jaemin pushing open the glass doors and walking you to the elevators. You don’t dare say a word to break the silence as the elevator dings to the third floor. He waits until you reach your door to disentangle himself from you, standing with the tips of his sneakers a millimeter away from yours, catching your hands in his. 

“Goodnight, YN,” he says. 

No. This isn’t the time for goodnight, not when every atom in your body might explode if he takes a step away. You tighten your fingers around his. 

“Do you want to come in?” You ask. “See my apartment?” 

He tilts his head, a little frown creasing his brow. “Okay.” 

You fumble with your keys, hands shaking when you open the door. Emotions swirl around you, making it difficult to tell the difference between excitement and anxiety, if it exists. Calling the place an apartment is a bit of a stretch. Glorified broom closet is your preferred term–a bed shoved against the far wall with a tiny window next to it, desk tucked in next to it like a puzzle piece without enough space for a chair, a door for your bathroom, directly next to the “kitchen” of a stovetop oven and sink, and a closet that barely fits your coats.

Beyond being tiny, you left the place a mess, second, third, and fourth contenders for outfits strewn on your bed, unwashed dishes in the sink. The entryway is the only space for the two of you to stand together comfortably but you lead Jaemin farther in, balling up the clothes and tossing them into your hamper underneath the bed. 

“I don’t normally have company,” you explain. 

“It’s okay,” he says, “my room’s a mess too.” He picks up the pink teddy bear from your bed and smiles. “A gift?” 

You shake your head. “Bought it myself for surviving sophomore year.” You pull the great white shark out from beneath a blanket. “Freshman year.” 

“Cute,” Jaemin says, still looking at the bear. 

You follow Jaemin as he wanders the tiny room. He pauses at a framed picture of the student council that sits on your desk. It was a gift from last year’s graduating cabinet, the whole group, president, appointed cabinet, unofficial members, and the fresh-terns, fifteen people in total. 

“That one’s my ex,” you say, the word still strange in your mouth. “If you count two weeks as even dating.” 

“The one in red?” 

You nod. 

Jaemin snorts. “I’m way hotter than him.” He sets the picture and turns, and suddenly only a couple inches of space separate him from you. This close, you can see exactly how pretty he is, long eyelashes that cannot be natural, even longer when he stares at his toes instead of meeting your eyes. And, this close, you can see the soft pink of his lips, lower lip jutting out just a tiny bit. 

Not drunk, not yet sober, it’s easy to lean a little closer, brush your lips softly against his. The kiss is over before you can think about it. 

You open your eyes to Jaemin staring at you, eyes wide, somewhere between disbelief and fear. You open your mouth to apologize but he moves faster, hand coming up to cup your face and pulling you closer until you kiss him again, your hand instinctively catching you against his chest. He links his fingers with your free hand, tugging you even closer to him. 

He moves slow at first, a gentle kiss that takes your breath away anyway. He pulls away when the stars flood your brain, smile boyish and sweet. His thumb strokes your cheek into the shape of a heart. Then he slides his hands to the back of your neck, letting go over your other hand to wrap around your waist and pull you against his chest. 

Jaemin knows how to kiss. He moves like it’s his last chance, desperate lips telling truths words can’t capture. And you might not have as much experience, but you understand the language of desperation. A never ending chain of fireworks explode within you, pushing you to wrap your arms around his neck, kiss him even harder. Your hands move on their own, tugging at the cloth of his shirt until he leans back, breathing heavily. 

“How far you want to go?” He asks, chest rising and falling with each breath. “You know consent is so sexy.” 

You laugh, giddiness making it difficult to think. “You have a condom?” 

Jaemin grins, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. He slips the shiny packet out, tossing his wallet to the floor along with his shirt. He gives you a proper amount of time to ogle his chest before tugging you against him again, your heart pounding so hard against him he must feel it. 

He tilts your head towards his until his lips brush against yours, and when he speaks, you feel every word. “Now where were we?” 

.

.

[Na Jaemin] sorry I had to go :( [Na Jaemin] wish I could have been there when you woke up  [Na Jaemin] but! I have a surprise [Na Jaemin] [image attached] [Na Jaemin] see you in the morning <3 

You blink at the message, a picture of him wearing a fuzzy headband in the middle of his skincare routine. Your head pounds a little, but otherwise your hangover isn’t too bad. Definitely not the worst it’s ever been. 

No, the strange feeling in your stomach is something else. Last night is burned into your memory, every move, every touch. Jaemin, who you fell asleep beside, though the timestamp on the texts show he didn’t stay much longer after. Not that you expected him to. It’s Jaemin, you remind your traitorous heart. No matter how much he flirts, no matter what he did drunk, he was never yours. 

Your phone rings, but it isn’t Jaemin. 

“Hey,” Renjun says. 

“You sound awful,” you say, throat aching. 

“You’re one to talk,” Renjun says, “and you didn’t even get to double digits. Donghyuck out-drank you.” 

“And how’s Donghyuck doing?” 

“Throwing up in the shower, it sounds like.” 

You laugh, the motion, sending your stomach spinning. “Happy birthday Renjun.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, “I actually did call for a reason.” 

“I am not helping with clean up,” you say, “Chenle swore he’d do all of it since he bailed on set up.” 

“Not that,” Renjun says. “I’ll be over as soon as I can walk without passing out.” He hangs up, leaving you to frown at the empty screen. 

Well, considering how late he got back, Jaemin probably won't be awake any time soon. You need to shower and rehydrate and try to convince your stomach to take something—and with how Renjun sounded over the phone, it seems like you’ll have plenty of time. 

An hour later, slightly burnt toast, and post-Advil, the headache is mostly gone. Your stomach still twists at the thought of Jaemin. You jump at the doorbell but find Renjun wearing a mismatched sweatsuit and his bright orange crocs, glasses nearly sliding off the bridge of his nose. He wears the hood of his sweatshirt up but you can see tufts sticking up. 

“God, did you shower?” You catch a whiff as he passes by, reeking of tequila. 

“I was serious about coming over as soon as possible.” He groans, collapsing on your bed. “I think I maybe came over too early though. Might need to throw up.” 

“Do you want toast?” You offer. 

He glares at you. “Just sit.” Renjun rarely speaks with patience but today he seems extra short on it. Maybe because of the hangover, but the way he glares at the carpet before turning to look at you makes you wonder if something else is wrong. His eyes soften a little when he meets your eyes, his frown lightening just barely. 

“I really wish I didn’t have to tell you this,” he begins. “Did you go out with Jaemin last night?”

“He… took me home,” you say. “What’s wrong Renjun?” 

“Last night—well—this morning, I met some guys from Sigma Nu, who are friends with Jeno and Jaemin,” he says, “who were talking about how Jaemin is going to be president. About how he’s messing around with the frontrunner, trying to distract them or fuck around, trying to take the presidency.” He falls quiet, studying your face. 

“He wouldn’t.” Your voice feels so small. 

He wouldn’t, you said, but you can’t even convince yourself. Your heart flounders, drowning in a lake of its own creation, choking on fantasies. Your brain takes control in the chaos, gears turning despite the crashing waves. Facts don’t need oxygen. 

1) Jaemin approached you about the presidency first 

2) he pretended not to know you were running 

3) he’s known for hooking up with anyone 

4) he never belonged in your world 

The conclusion is obvious, a conclusion you could have come to much sooner if you weren’t too busy getting swept off your feet by his easy flirting and sweet smile. Though your heart doesn’t want to believe it, it makes too much sense. So much more sense than the hope you were stupid enough to believe in. Jaemin isn’t that type. How many of your friends told you that? How many times did you tell yourself that? But you let him hurt you anyway because he held your hand and called you cute. How quickly a fruit can rot when it sits in the palm of your hand. 

Jaemin doesn’t exist a universe away–he lives in your world, worse than a cliche. The type of boy that made you want to believe in him, even when you knew better from the start, and maybe that’s the worst part. He never hid who he was, what he wanted. It’s you that wanted more, that believed he could want something more. How pitiful. 

“I’m sorry,” Renjun says softly. “I wanted him to be different.” 

“Did you? Because everyone was telling me about how I needed to be careful, protect myself, not get hurt over him. Did any of you consider that I didn’t ever expect anything from him?” You shake your head. “No, you all thought poor little YN, getting their feet swept out from under themself over a boy that doesn’t give a shit about them? A boy that’s actively trying to stop them from achieving a dream they’ve had since they started college? Well, guess what? You all were right. Congratulations.” You bite your lip trying to hold back the tears but it’s too late. 

“I’m sorry,” Renjun repeats. He pats your arm, looking away when you swipe at your eyes. He waits for you to take a shaky breath, hand on your arm. You grab the teddy bear, trying not to hear Jaemin calling it cute. 

“I slept with him.” The admission burns its way up your throat. “Last night.” You sigh. “You don't have to tell me I’m an idiot.” 

“Okay, I wasn’t going to say that,” Renjun throws his arm over your shoulders. “Though I’m kind of regretting sitting on the bed.” He scoots a little forward but squeezes your shoulder. “You’re going to do things you regret, there’s no stopping it.” 

“Why do you always have to be right? Why am I exclusively attracted to shitty men?” Your chin digs into the innocent bear, jaw tightening. “Why can’t I just like a boy that likes me?” 

“Do you think maybe you liked him too much?” Renjun asks gently. “Like maybe you liked the idea of him more than Jaemin himself.” He pauses, squeezing your arm. “Don’t let a boy that isn’t real hurt you.” 

You lean into his touch, resting your head on his shoulder. “But he was real. Sweeter than persimmon. Like a strawberry. Or a mango.” 

“Okay, I’m not understanding.” 

“I thought he was a persimmon, a magic fruit I could imagine tasting sweet or sour or tart but he’s real and even though his flavor isn’t a mystery, it’s better than what I could have imagined. Like taking a bite of a pineapple and it’s the best pineapple you’ve ever had, juicy and sweet.”

“Okay first of all, that’s a terrible metaphor, please stop talking about how he tastes or I will throw up,” Renjun says. “Also persimmons are real.” 

“I know that,” you snap, “but I’ve never had one, so they’re magic to me.” You stare ahead, grateful Renjun knows when you just need a little bit of time to work up the courage to say what you need to say. “I’m saying you are right. I didn’t really like him, not at first. But it’s worse than that because when I did get to know him, it was so much better. He wasn’t a dream, he was a boy who watches Grey’s Anatomy and does skincare even after a night of partying.

“I know it makes more sense, that his flirting wasn’t real, that he was never really interested in me. But nothing real about him makes sense, and I want to believe in him, still.” You purse your lips. “Pretty pathetic, huh?” 

“You really liked him,” Renjun says, “that won’t just go away.” 

“That would be too easy,” you mutter. 

Renjun laughs. “You’re going to be fine. There are so many better men.” 

“That’s what you said last time,” you say. 

“And I was right,” Renjun says, “Jaemin is better than last time. Marginally. At least he isn’t a poli-sci major.” 

You snort. 

“See, you’re already laughing at him.” Renjun pushes you off his shoulder, standing up and groaning. “Now, I’m going to throw up in your bathroom, and then we can watch dumb action movies until your brain rots. The rest of the guys are supposed to come over, though I think Donghyuck is still throwing up.” 

You bury your face into the bear. “Does everyone know?” 

Renjun pauses. “The guys from this morning were sort of proud to be the ones to tell us.” 

You groan. The door to your bathroom closes but you barely hear it. You clutch the bear a little tighter, as if the fluff could break through your chest and fill the spilling hole in your heart. 

It would be too easy to blame Jaemin, to pretend like none of the pain is from your own stupidity. But you already told Renjun. You knew it from the start. 

Knocking at the door, a knock that means only one person. You wipe the tears from your eyes and take a deep breath that does nothing to steady your heart. 

“God, I was afraid I was waking you up.” Jaemin starts talking as soon as you open the door. He holds up a bag, a tray with two iced coffees and a hot cup. He looks unfairly good and, of course, he grins at you. “I wasn’t entirely sure what your hangover cure is, so I got hot and iced coffee, and there’s a breakfast sandwich and a donut and also these potato things, I really wasn’t sure what you’d like, but–” 

“Did you know that I was running for president?” 

Jaemin freezes, frown slowly curling his brow. “What are you–”

“Just answer the question.” You grip the door handle, knuckles turning white. 

He pauses a moment too long. “It’s not like that.” 

“Never talk to me again.” You fight the urge to slam the door, but your neighbors don’t have to suffer your wrath. You shake your head, “I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit.” 

Jaemin opens his mouth but you close the door, sliding the deadlock as hard as you can. He has the audacity to try to explain himself. If you didn’t want to hear him out so badly, you might laugh. Instead you turn your back on the door, sliding down it until you can rest your head on your knees and sob. 

.

.

Jaemin makes it halfway down the aisle of seats on Tuesday before you turn to Renjun, panic and tears in your eyes. He glares at Jaemin so hard he freezes in his tracks and doesn’t try again. He doesn’t look at you in class, not even a peek. On Thursday, he walks straight to his seat. 

.

.

Chenle doesn’t bother to throw his packages into the recycling after opening them. He says he’s hanging onto them to make moving out easier, but really he’s just too lazy to break them down. You have to step around them to get into his apartment, since he thought it would be fun to make an obstacle course out of them. Navigating these sober is hard enough, you have no idea how he makes it to bed after a night out. 

But today, it’s worth it. It’s been two weeks since you cut off Jaemin, a month since the day you bumped into him in class (a month and three days but who’s counting?). He doesn’t look at you anymore. You haven’t fully escaped him–every once in a while you’ll hear his laugh from the other side of the lecture room. The sound still stabs between your ribs, a wound turned new each time you hear it. But it cuts a little more shallow each time. One day you won’t feel it at all. 

And today, Chenle got a puppy. 

She cries before you make it over the baby gate in Chenle’s room. A tiny ball of white fluff bounds toward you, tripping over her own feet. 

“Hi baby!” Your voice automatically rises three pitches looking at her. “Aren’t you just adorable!” You crouch down, letting her jump on your knees. She won’t sit still long enough to be pet, sprinting around your feet, then back to Chenle sitting on the floor, back resting against his bed. 

“Hi to you, too,” Chenle says pointedly. 

“Hi Chenle,” you turn back to his puppy. “And hello puppy!” 

“Her name is Daegal,” he says. You can hear him rolling his eyes. “‘Cause she’s got a big ass head.” 

“Chenle is so mean to you!” You coo at the puppy at your feet. “But that’s okay, I’ll take good care of you. You can come home with me!” 

“You hear that baby?” Chenle says. “YN wants to pay me $1000 to take care of you!” 

You stare at him. “Did you seriously adopt a $1000 puppy?” 

He shrugs. “She’s really cute.” 

“You’re insane.” Daegal settles down enough to let you pat her head. 

“I invite you into my home for some much needed puppy love and this is how you treat me?” Chenle sighs. “To think that I felt bad for you, that I told you about her before anyone else. This is how I get treated for my kind heart.” 

“I don’t need your pity,” you say. Daegal licks your hand. 

“It’s not pity.” He pauses. “Well I guess it is pity, but you’re also my friend YN. Believe it or not, watching you live the sad boy lifestyle over some dude, again, is not fun. I’d much rather watch you being happy with my puppy.” 

“You’re the one who brought it up,” you mutter. 

Chenle claps his hands, making Daegal jump. “But that does remind me, everyone has been too much of a coward to ask, but I’ve heard from tertiary sources about his reputation, but I’d love a first hand account.” 

“What are you talking about?” You eye him. 

“How was the sex?” 

“You’re seriously asking me that?” 

He shrugs. “Well, yeah.” 

You pick up Daegal, staring at her instead of Chenle. She wiggles her tail, then her paws, so you set her back down. “I’m not answering that.” 

Chenle narrows his eyes, studying you. “That means it was good.” 

“That’s not at all what I said.” 

“And yet you’re not denying it.” 

“Please shut the fuck up.” 

For once he listens. With Renjun, silence means peace–he doesn’t say anything that doesn’t matter. When Chenle doesn’t speak, it means he has something to say and he isn’t sure how to say it. You peek up at him and your suspicions are confirmed. He chews on his lip, frowning at you. 

“Just tell me.” 

Chenle purses his lips. “He dropped out.” 

“Of school?” 

He rolls his eyes. “The election.” 

You stare at him. “Seriously?” 

“He hasn’t touched his application since Renjun’s birthday and Donghyuck said yesterday he emailed and said he wasn’t going forward with it.” He doesn’t say anything about how technically you should be checking the email. 

“But it doesn’t make any sense.” 

Chenle shrugs. “I’m just telling you what I was told.” He stands up. “Now! How much do you like cleaning up dog pee?” 

You glance down at Daegal, who squats in the middle of the room, a dark stain on the carpet beneath her. Chenle tosses you some paper towels and a can of Febreeze. 

“Why am I cleaning up after your dog?” 

“Because you tried to steal her,” he says, “and I’ve already done this three times today and I’m really sick of it.” 

You shake your head but pull off a paper towel and press it into the stain. 

“We’re going out tomorrow night, by the way,” Chenle says. “And you’ve passed two weekends in a row so you’ve hit a cap for the month. You have to come with, no ‘buts.’” 

Apparently the grace period of pity is over. Whatever, it’ll be nice to do something other than hiding in your room watching Powerpuff Girls. And maybe you will see him. Maybe you’ll get an answer to the giant question mark that’s lodged itself in your heart when Chenle told he dropped out. Maybe the little caterpillar of hope that’s survived these past few weeks can metamorphize. 

And maybe he’ll break your heart again. But you won’t get any answers daydreaming. 

.

.

How Renjun can still drink Tequila, you truly do not understand. Ever since his birthday, the thought of it makes your stomach flip, and you didn’t even drink that much. But he sips on the margarita, insisting it doesn’t taste like alcohol. 

“It’s disgusting,” you say, pushing it closer to him. “I am not drinking this.” 

He rolls his eyes. “You do realize the whole gimmick of this place is all their drinks are made with tequila, right?” 

“No one told me that!” You glare at Chenle, who showed up at your door at exactly 8:00pm and dragged you to the bar. “For the record, I would have pre-gamed. But I guess I can be the babysitter tonight.” 

Chenle cheers. “Donghyuck, you’re back in! YN is babysitting!” 

Your drink slides down the table to Donghyuck, interrupting whatever ‘conversation’ he was having with Jisung. 

“I thought the whole point of dragging you out was to make you have fun,” he says. 

“You better be fun, then,” you say. 

Donghyuck raises his eyebrows but eventually take a long sip. “Brain freeze!” He cries, clutching his forehead. You laugh with the rest of the guys. It’s almost normal, except you can’t help but peek at the door whenever somebody walks in. 

The night passes and the guys get more drunk. The bar gets more crowded–soon you are squished between Renjun and Chenle, barely able to breathe as the music slowly gets louder. The tequila looks more and more appealing but the guys need at least one person sober to make it back alive: Chenle arm wrestles a stranger while Donghyuck has some poor soul cornered, practicing his pick up lines. 

When Chenle loses, you push past him, muttering something about fresh air that they probably can’t hear. You push through the crowd of drunk people, trying not to remember the last time you did this. 

You squint at the steps, edges difficult to see with so little light. Who builds a bar on the second floor of a building? You make it to the final step but misjudge how close it is and your foot slips off the edge, sending you tumbling forward. You might have caught yourself, but you don’t have to—strong arms catch you mid fall, wrapping around your waist and swinging you clean off the stairs and onto solid ground. You aren’t surprised at all to look into Jaemin’s eyes as he lets go. 

He frowns at you, eyes so dark they look black. Maybe it’s the lack of light, but the twinkle in his eyes, the glint you’ve come to recognize as trouble, is missing. 

“Hi,” you say. 

He drops his arms, stuffing his hands into his back pockets. “So you’re talking to me now?” 

An apology begins on your lips but you can’t push it out. Not when you still don’t understand. “Can we talk?” 

He glances at you. “Have you been drinking?” 

You shake your head.  

“Okay.” He doesn’t walk away, folding his arms over his chest. 

When you imagined this conversation, the sun shined so that you could see the warmth in his eyes. He smiled at you, called you silly for ever doubting him. The Jaemin in your head wouldn’t ever do something to hurt you. 

But Jaemin doesn’t exist in your head–it’s far past time you learned that. 

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I shouldn’t have just cut you off. But I thought… I don’t know what I thought, let alone what I think now.” You force yourself to meet his cold eyes, searching for a hint of warmth. “Chenle told me you dropped out of the presidency.” 

He nods slowly. 

“But Renjun told me that someone told him that the presidency is the only reason you ever pretended to like me, but if you dropped out then I really don’t get it. Not that I ever got it in the first place, though, because you’re you and I’m me, and everyone kept telling me that, like I didn’t already know that you are supposed to be a persimmon and grow on a tree far far away from my lemon or pomegranate or whatever kind of fruit I am, because the point is we were never meant to be.” You take a deep breath, realizing that you don’t exactly sound sane. “What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t make sense. It made sense when you were trying to cheat me out of the presidency, but you dropped out. And it doesn’t make sense.” 

Jaemin blinks slowly at you. “You would rather believe that I was trying to rob your presidency than that I actually like you?” 

“Do you?” 

He frowns. “Of course I do. I like you so much I think about things I’ve never wanted before, the silly shit–watching horror movies as an excuse to cuddle, having picnics by the river, buying groceries together–I wanted to do all of it with you. 

“You talk a lot about how we’re different people—who gives a shit? If I’m the type of person that wants to be with you and you’re the type of person that wants to be with me, why does any of that matter?” He takes a step closer to you, and you can see you were wrong. His eyes aren’t cold, they’re full of emotion, dark waves of hurt. “What do I have to do to prove it to you? Should I tell you how pretty you are? How incredibly smart you are—not fake smart like me, but really smart. And when I’m around you, I like who I am. I know it’s cheesy but you bring out the best in me. 

“I know I fucked up. I should have told you how I felt before anything else, and I shouldn’t have left. I regretted it as soon as I was gone but it was terrifying to lay next to you and give you my bare heart, even when I didn’t think you would ever try to hurt me.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know if it hurts more thinking that you never wanted a relationship or thinking that I’d ever stoop that low. I mean, everyone tells me about my reputation, but I didn’t think you cared about any of that.” 

Tears prick at your eyes. How could you be such an idiot? Listening to all the wrong people, especially yourself. Jaemin doesn’t exist in another world, he isn’t any kind of fruit. He’s a boy that you like that likes you back. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, reaching a tentative hand out to rest against his arm. “I’m so sorry.” He drops his head, sighing. “I was an idiot.” 

He sighs, staring at your hand. You start to drop it but he grabs it, squeezing your fingers. “Where do we go from here?” 

You study him, eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Jaemin who is not a fruit, not an alien, just a boy. 

“Hey.” You reach out and cup his cheek, waiting for him to meet your eyes. “My name is YN. I think you’re really cute.” 

For a heartbeat he doesn’t move. Then he smiles, cheek rising underneath your hand. “Hey, my name is Jaemin. I think you’re really cute too.” 

“Oh really?” You slide your hand to the back of his neck, wrapping your other arm across it. His arms wrap on your waist, pulling you into a hug. He squeezes you flush against him, head tucked into your shoulder just as yours is tucked into his. 

“I know we can’t start over,” he says, “but can we start again?” 

“How about this time we just talk to each other?” You say, tapping your fingers on his shoulder. “No more rumors and gossip.” 

He nods, chin digging into your neck a little. “I swear, I won’t give you any reason to doubt me ever again. I won’t be the kind of guy your friends call a red flag.” 

You loosen your grip and lean back to look him in the eye. “Wait, did they seriously say that to you?” 

“I ran into Donghyuck after I dropped out and we had a very… one sided conversation with his side doing all the talking,” Jaemin says, “and Renjun made it obvious from the start that he didn’t like me.” 

You laugh a little, then even more when he pouts. “You’ll win them over again.” 

“They really don’t like me,” he says. 

You cup his cheek again. “You’ll change their minds.” He leans into your touch, closing his eyes. You lean forward, resting your forehead against his. He gasps a little, hands tightening on your waist. 

“Now, am I remembering incorrectly, or are you an amazing kisser?” You ask. 

He grins, leaning forward and closing the distance without wasting a second. Neither of you can stop smiling, lips and teeth gnashing together but it’s still the best kiss you’ve ever had. 

.

.

You stretch an arm out, only to find more bed instead of empty space. You sit up, shivering as the blanket falls away. Right, you fell asleep in Jaemin’s bed. His room is much bigger than yours, sharing an apartment with Jeno. He has enough room for a dresser and a nicer desk, even a chair. It seems he lied to you about being messy, because even when you show up unannounced, like today, his clothes are neatly folded and the biggest mess you’ve found has been three dirty dishes in the sink (which you later found out were Jeno’s). 

Jeno, apparently, isn’t all bad–he did let you in even though your boyfriend was still out. He doesn’t fully trust you, but then again, your friends don’t hide their mistrust of Jaemin either. You maintain your earlier stance that time will heal that wound. 

You hear a knife against a cutting board coming from the kitchen, so you wrap the blanket around your shoulders and shuffle towards the sound, unable to stop the smile from spreading up your lips when you turn the corner and find Jaemin standing at the counter. He glances behind him and grins at you, and even though you just woke up from a nap and probably have messy hair and marks on your face, he says, “you look sexy.” 

“So cheesy,” you say. He laughs and turns back around. You slip behind him and wrap your arms around him, burying your face in his back and closing your eyes. He radiates warmth better than any blanket. It’s too easy to lean against him, take a deep breath of the scent of his laundry detergent and cling to him. Jaemin moves slowly, careful not to hit you by accident. 

“What’re you doing?” 

“A surprise,” he says, “at least my attempt at one.” He sets down the knife on the counter and taps on your hands, pulling them apart gently and spinning around to face you before setting your hands back on his waist. He tilts his head at you when you purse your lips and frown. “What’s wrong?” 

“Still no ass,” you say, patting him a little lower than his waist. 

“Hey!” He sticks his lower lip out. “I’m trying.” 

“No one’s perfect,” you say, sliding your hands back up and sneaking a kiss to his cheek. 

“You are,” he says, cupping your face to kiss you properly. Jaemin still kisses like it’s his last chance, drawing out every moment, lips lingering on yours until your head spins. It’s only when you can’t breathe that he finally pulls away.  

“Good answer,” you say. 

He smiles. “If you come to the gym with me I’d be more motivated to get an ass you’d be proud of.” 

“You send enough pictures for me to know that if I saw you at the gym I would never survive,” you say. “You want me to die?” 

He laughs, squishing your face together with his hands. “If anyone’s going to die, it’s going to be me, because you are too cute.” 

He presses another kiss to your lips, still squished together in a pout. He laughs at the outrage on your face, letting go of your cheeks and slipping his hands behind your neck, kissing you one more time for real, letting go far too early. 

“The surprise,” he says. He lets go of you with one arm, turning to the cutting board and holding up a slice of what he was cutting. It looks a little bit like a tomato, though it’s more orange than red, and about the size of a golf ball. 

“A persimmon?” 

“I still don’t really get the persimmon thing,” he says, “but I’ve never tried one.” 

You blink at him. Jaemin makes it so easy to fall in love. He holds the piece closer to your mouth, waiting for you to open. A persimmon tastes sweet and mild and rich, a little bit like honey. Jaemin eats his own piece, frowning and nodding. 

“No more magical mystical fruit,” Jaemin says. 

“You’re going to make an amazing trophy husband,” you say. You tap him on the nose. “Maybe we could even be a power couple.” 

He grins. “We’ll be so cool. Like Beyoncé and her husband.” 

“Jay-Z?”

“Whatever.” Jaemin flips his hand. “The important part is that I am Beyoncé.” 

You smack his shoulders softly. “Hell no, Beyoncé would never have a flat ass.” 

“It always comes back to the ass.” He sighs. “Be honest: are you embarrassed by me?” 

Once you never thought he could be embarrassing. That was before you knew he staked his career on a soap opera and wears jorts to the gym, before he called you drunk just to confess he accidentally stole your pencil, before he spent three hours putting up campaign posters for you (and then another two getting written up by campus police for not having permission). Before you fell in love with him. 

“By you? Never.” You pat his cheeks. “Your ass leaves much to be desired, though.” 

thank you for reading!

[tynlvr]

no because i want to be loved so badly like it's not even funny anymore i'm the #1 lovergirl and like i have so much love to give and like i'd treat my man so good like my love language is gift giving yes so like he can expect little things i bought because i thought of him and i'd make him little playlists and buy him flowers and make him food and learn his favourite recipes for him and write him little letters and send him gm and gn texts and give him hugs all the time and link pinkies and wow i really need to shut up.

[tynlvr]

RIDE OR DIE: l.jn smau

016: thumbs down emoji

previous : mlist : next

notes; oooo here we go ☺️☺️ (also btw im announcing another smau tn 😅😅😅😅)

taglist — open! @jenohyun @jirsungs @do-you-remember-summer-127 @ddolbyong @stqrgr7 @thatsatricky1 @sunghoonsgfreal @nattan127 @ssweetreveries @flamingi @chenlesfavorite @peterm4rker @snoopyjimin @akunoeyebrows @junviadinho @slayhaechan @f6llsun @multifandomania @cookiehaos @catecita @mrsjohnnysuh @luv4jeno @hyuckies18 @dreamiestay @tangerinelovelees @jjaegyeom @https-yeonjun @nanaxwi @yukisroom97 @nosungluv @mrkleelvr @neocrashed @jaedgemental @apolloxxivmin @kyubing @catdonut657 @dudekiss3r @juyeonshour @hamjwis @antifrggile @mmjhh1998 @thegracerammy @jenocity23 @honeynanamin @bluedbliss @lampcults @yyangj3lly

[tynlvr]

illegally good.

red velvet hearts.

pairing: bad boy!donghyuck x baker!reader

genre: fluff, slight angst

word count: 7.7k

synopsis: you patch up a boy with a bloody nose and bruised knuckles, only to find out that he has quite the sweet tooth.

author’s note: why do i keep injuring hyuck in all my fics lmao??? anyways i tried to write his character a bit differently than i usually do to challenge myself so please let me know how you guys like it! also remember, ladies: this is fiction. you cannot fix him <3

warning(s): brief description of injuries, mentions of violence, maximum amounts of cringe and melodrama

playlist: all my ghosts by lizzy mcalpine ― heart eyes by coin ― close to you by gracie abrams ― sidelines by phoebe bridgers ― the alchemy by taylor swift

RECIPE 1. TIRAMISU

“This is not what I meant when I said you need your back blown out.” 

“Not funny. I almost died,” you grumble as you wrap the back brace around your torso. You hate the immediate relief you feel from the support it provides, no longer able to tell yourself that it’s really not as bad as it seems―which only makes you angrier. 

“Throwing your back out while lifting a giant bag of flour and nearly getting crushed to death by said flour is genuinely the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Yeri, your best friend (derogatory), snorts as she shakes her head. “I wish you had cameras in the storage room because I want to see that shit so bad.”

“Thank you for the brace. You can get the hell out now.” You roll your eyes. 

“So, what are you going to do now? Aren’t you swamped with orders?” Yeri asks, ignoring you completely. 

You have no clue what you’re going to do now. It isn’t just orders you have to worry about fulfilling; it’s also the freshly baked pastries that you have to sell every morning. After a year of blood, sweat, and tears, the bakery that you built from the ground up is finally starting to gain some stable business. So, of course, you chose now of all times to try to lift a bag of flour over your shoulder like you were Dwayne The Rock Johnson. 

“I think I’ll have to hire some temporary help,” you answer begrudgingly. 

“You could sound less like someone is holding you at gunpoint,” Yeri snorts, “Come on. It had to happen sooner or later anyway.” 

“I was handling things just fine on my own.”

“Were you, though?” Yeri raises an eyebrow, gesturing to your current state. 

You fear you walked right into that one. “Shut up and help me make some posters.” 

The two of you eventually manage to whip up some haphazard “Help Wanted” posters, the letters written in glitter pen and Yeri’s clumsy bubble text. You tried your best to fill in the empty gaps on the construction paper by placing Pompompurin stickers that you normally give to customers’ kids all over it. The posters look like a nine-year-old girl’s school project gone wrong, but you hope it’s charming enough to catch some attention. 

By the time you and Yeri finish hanging up all the posters, the sun is already starting to set, and all you want to do is go home and put a heating pad on your back. After saying bye to Yeri, you start making your way back to the bakery to lock up. Once you arrive, you notice a figure dressed in black slumped over in front of the door. You can see their shoulders rise up and down as they take in labored breaths, leaning against the glass door for support. 

Every rational fiber in your being screams at you to not approach the stranger alone, but it’s not like you can just leave this person at the front of your place of business. Cautiously taking a step forward, you squat down to eye level with the stranger, wincing slightly from back pain. Through the sweaty and matted mess of his brown fringe, you can see that the stranger is a young man around your age. However, his face is absolutely battered: bloody (and almost certainly broken) nose, split lip, black eye swollen shut, and a jagged cut on his cheek. If he notices your presence, he doesn’t show it, keeping his head hung down.

Gingerly placing a hand on his arm, you give him a small shake. “Excuse me? Are you okay? Do you need me to call an ambulance?” 

His brows furrow, and he opens an eye (the only one he’s probably able to open) with a wince before lifting a finger and putting it against his lips. You notice that his knuckles are completely scraped raw. 

“Not so loud. I’m okay,” he answers. 

“You don’t look―” 

As if on cue, his stomach rumbles with a guttural growl that slowly drawls into a sputtering gurgle before dying out all together―leaving a long silence to hang between the two of you.

After another beat, he gives you a sheepish smile. “You got anything to eat?” 

You stare at him for a moment; his face is flushed, pink all the way down to his neck. 

And like a stupid horror movie character who opens the door to a room that clearly screams danger, you nod. 

.

.

.

Fortunately, he―Donghyuck, as he introduced himself―ends up not being a crazy ax murderer. 

Unfortunately, you find yourself awkwardly sitting in your closed bakery with a virtual stranger, fiddling with a first aid kit while watching him absolutely devour a piece of leftover tiramisu that you had in your fridge. If the situation wasn’t so insane, you might actually think it was pretty funny. For someone who looks the way he does, this current picture of Donghyuck absolutely doesn’t suit him―bruised chipmunk cheeks stuffed with ladyfingers and cocoa powder stuck on his split lip. 

When he’s finished, Donghyuck looks over at you with a mesmerized expression on his face, as if you just fed him ambrosia. There’s a softness to his face that you didn’t think could exist underneath all that grime and dried blood. 

“That was…delicious,” he breathes. 

“Thanks,” you snort, pushing a glass of water towards him. Unsurprisingly, he chugs it in the blink of an eye. “I still think you should get those injuries checked out, though.” 

“Nah, I’ll rub a little spit in them and it’ll be fine,” he shrugs. 

“Don’t be gross,” you sigh, scooting your chair closer to him as you set the first aid kit on the table. “Now, come here.” 

Donghyuck reluctantly dips his head, and you carefully cup his jaw for support, disinfecting and applying ointment on the cuts and scrapes on his face. You also clean up the dried blood near his nostrils and on his bottom lip, and he doesn’t flinch even when you accidentally brush tender areas like his broken nose or the gash on his mouth. Instead, he stays perfectly still, leaned back in the chair with his forearms resting on his thighs and fingers nonchalantly laced together. 

He keeps his gaze trained on something past your shoulder, and you also try your best to focus, but it’s hard to keep yourself from staring―especially when his demeanor has changed so much. He’s so calm and quiet in such a cold, ruthless manner, as if he’s physically steeling himself from pain―like he’s done this a million times before. Occasionally, you feel his eyes swipe across your face when he thinks you’re not paying attention, and it occurs to you how close the two of you are. Suddenly, you’re acutely aware of the heat of his skin against your palm and fingertips, and you rip your hand away from his jaw. 

Clearing your throat, you move onto his hands, dabbing his raw knuckles with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol before placing large band-aids on them. Despite your best efforts, it’s hard not to notice how slim his long fingers are or how surprisingly clean his nail beds are for someone who’s covered in blood. You keep your head completely bent, fighting the urge of looking up and possibly meeting his eyes. 

“There, all done,” you announce a little too loudly. 

“Thank you,” he says softly, “for the cake and for this. For helping me.” 

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t do much,” you blurt, still avoiding eye contact as you clean up the table. However, you notice in your peripheral that his gaze follows your movements, almost hesitantly, before he asks: 

“So, you’re hiring?” 

You click the first-aid kit shut, blinking a few times before turning back to him. He looks at you with a raised eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

“I―yeah. How did you know that?” you ask, puzzled by such a random question. 

Donghyuck points at a poster that you didn’t even know you left here, sitting on the table right behind you. You realize that he was probably looking at it while you were patching him up. 

“That poster that says ‘help wanted.’ With the Pompompurin stickers. I’m actually in between jobs right now, so if you would have me―”

“You know Pompompurin?” you interrupt him. It’s not that important and should not stand out to you as much as it does. Yet, you can’t help but grin at the fact that someone like him knows about a tubby Golden Retriever character with a name that sounds like a mashup of the English language’s most adorable onomatopeias. 

Donghyuck trails off, stiffening as if you just found out his deepest, darkest secret. He opens his mouth slightly, trying to speak but unable to formulate a response―an excuse, rather. Instead, he just lets out an airy cough, putting a hand over his mouth and turning away from you in an attempt to obscure his face. Despite his best efforts, he can’t hide his glowing red ears and the way his earlier coldness melts away.

“I―yeah,” he responds, words slightly muffled by his hand. 

You struggle to maintain your composure as you gnaw on your bottom lip to keep from laughing. Fighting a smile in your voice, you finally say: 

“The pay won’t be that much, but you’ll get a bunch of free desserts at the end of the day. Are you okay with that?” 

It takes him a moment to process that you’re offering him the job, and you watch his eyes light up and a warm smile overtake his face. There’s still a light shade of pink dusting his cheeks, clashing with the purple bruising and swelling of his injuries. 

“I’d love nothing more.”

Suddenly, it occurs to you that Donghyuck somewhat reminds you of a tiramisu. 

He may look a bit rugged and grimey, bitter like coffee, but in actuality, underneath it all, he’s soft and fluffy (but not too sweet) like a mascarpone filling. 

RECIPE 2. BLUEBERRY PIE

“Are you out of your mind?”

You cringe away from your phone, hurriedly turning the volume down. “Damn, you don’t have to scream like that.” 

“You should be the one screaming,” Yeri hollers. “I better not come over one day and find your body stuffed in the freezer or something.”

“I thought you wanted me to hire someone!” 

“Not some random dude off the side of the street who was covered in injuries and doesn’t even have any baking experience,” Yeri hisses. 

“I don’t need him to bake. I just have him working the front counter and doing all the heavy lifting when I get my ingredient shipments,” you protest. “Did you think I would really just hand over all my orders to some random dude and go party it up in Cancún or something?” 

Yeri is silent for several seconds before asking, “He’s hot, isn’t he?”

“What?”

“So you did know what I meant when I said you needed your back blown out.” You can hear the smugness in her voice. 

“Yeri,” you say tiredly, “please be serious.”

“I am serious. You’re the one being unserious,” she retorts. “Yesterday, you acted like you would rather sacrifice your firstborn child before hiring a part-timer, and now look at you. Dickmatized.” 

“Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

“So, when do I get to meet him―”

You quickly hit the button to end the call and shove your phone into your pocket, letting out an exasperated sigh. You definitely won’t be hearing the end of that for a while. Your face feels warm for some reason, and you decide that you need a coffee break. After you finish making it, you pour yourself and Donghyuck a cup. 

You peek your head out from the curtain that separates the kitchen and the front counter to see if Donghyuck is busy. He’s politely chatting with an elderly woman, and your eyes nearly pop out of your head when he takes out the entire tray of egg tarts in the glass display and wraps it up for her. The woman happily hands him a wad of bills and waves him goodbye. After putting the cash in the register, Donghyuck turns around and catches you in the middle of gawking. 

“Oh, Y/N. I was actually just about to head back there. We’re out of egg tarts for the display,” he says nonchalantly. 

“Uh, yeah, I can see that,” you whisper loudly, “Was that Mrs. Kim? Why the hell did she order a dozen egg tarts? That woman can barely finish a single cookie.” 

Donghyuck blinks, clearly confused, whispering back, “She asked for my recommendation, so I said egg tarts since no one had bought any yet, and she said she would take all of them.” 

You pause, things finally clicking. Grinning knowingly, you say, “You know, having you work the front is doing wonders for sales.” 

“I don’t understand.” He furrows his brows. 

You laugh, handing him his cup of coffee. “I’m talking about your face card, Donghyuck. You’re too handsome, so you’re flustering the customers.” 

“Are we not whispering anymore?” he asks awkwardly. “Besides, that’s not true. Look at the state of my face right now.” 

His injuries have faded significantly, but the bruising and cuts are still there. You want to tell him that superficial wounds can’t mask the warmth in his caramel-brown eyes, the fullness of his cheeks and the sharp jawline, and the air of mystery that enshrouds him and draws people in. 

But you don’t. 

“Well, for someone who’s only been working here for two weeks, you’re doing superb. Injuries or not.” 

And it’s true. You’ve always preferred to work alone because you’re the only one who understands how you want things done. You naturally assumed it would be a hassle and a waste of time to try to explain to someone else when you could just do it yourself, but Donghyuck never seems to need an explanation. In fact, he knows before even you. 

He gets to the bakery three hours before you, cleans and preps all the equipment you need for the day, unloads the ingredient shipments, and is already manning the front counter by the time you arrive like it was no big deal at all. He also seems to have a sixth sense of knowing when you’re about to do something you shouldn’t be, even though you downplayed your back injury. He’s somehow always there―moving all the stuff you keep on the top shelf to somewhere within your reach even though you insisted that the rickety wooden step stool you use is perfectly safe, cleaning up a glass beaker that you accidentally shattered, taking out the trash during his breaks, checking in on you when you skip lunch. He even turned down his first paycheck, saying it’s repayment for patching him up and feeding him. 

Donghyuck is so perfect that sometimes you wonder if you’re being set up, like maybe he’s secretly embezzling money from the cash register―which would be a more viable theory if he didn’t drive an Audi to work everyday. 

“Thanks for the compliment. And the coffee,” Donghyuck says, snapping you out of your thoughts. He gingerly takes a sip and makes a strangled noise, a mixture being choking and retching, before slapping a hand over his mouth. 

“Are you okay? Was it too hot?” you ask worriedly. 

“No, it’s just…really bitter,” he mumbles, words muffled in his hand. 

“Oh,” you blink, “Sorry. I drink black coffee, so I forgot to ask if you wanted creamer and sugar. Come on, there’s some in the back.” 

The two of you head to the kitchen, and you watch him dump an exorbitant amount of creamer and sugar in his coffee, the dark roast swirling into something more akin to milk tea.

“You know, there might be some chocolate milk in the fridge if you’d rather that,” you tease. 

His head shoots up, those doe eyes lighting up. “Really?” 

“No,” you trail off awkwardly, “Sorry, I'm just messing with you.” 

It’s a bit adorable that you can visibly see him being disappointed in there not being chocolate milk before growing embarrassed, looking down at his cup. He turns away from you, but you can see the flush on the back of his neck. 

“You really have a sweet tooth, huh?” you laugh. 

“Pretty lame, right?” 

“Why would that be lame? You’re talking to someone who owns a bakery, in case you forgot.” 

Donghyuck smiles at you, and it’s sugary sweet like buttercream frosting. He looks at you like you just said the most wonderful thing in the world; in fact, he always makes you feel like that, no matter what you say or do. “I guess you’re right.” 

“What’s your favorite dessert?” you blurt, needing a distraction urgently. 

He pauses briefly. “I don’t think I have one.”

That actually surprises you. “You don’t? Even though you love sweets so much?” 

He laughs, the sound harsh and rough, and it almost makes you flinch. “I’ve never really had an opportunity to have many until now.” 

There’s clearly weight behind his words, but you know you’re not in a position to ask any further. A selfish part of you wants to be important enough to him that you are in a position to know more, but you’re all too aware about him very purposefully keeping you at arm’s length. 

“Well, you have plenty of time to find out,” you quickly continue, pretending not to notice. “Actually, I’m going to a blueberry farm tomorrow because I’m thinking about adding blueberry pie to the menu. When I get back, I’ll bake one for you, and you can be the first to taste test it!” 

“You’re going by yourself?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. 

“Of course. Who else would I go with?” 

“Me. I’ll go with you,” he replies immediately. 

“But it’s, like, a forty-five-minute bus ride to the farm. Plus, coming with me to get ingredients isn’t part of your job description anyway,” you explain. 

“I can’t come with you on my own free time?” he asks, tilting his head. “Besides, I’m worried about you overexerting yourself with that back injury. A bumpy bus ride definitely isn’t going to help, so I’ll drive us there.” 

“You’re going to drive that fancy ass car to a farm? You do realize it’s going to be dirt roads, right?” You cross your arms. 

“I think I’ll live. Besides, what makes you think this is the only fancy ass car I own?” He gives you an amused smile. 

“You’re joking, right?” You stare at him. 

He hesitates for a moment. “Yes.” 

“That doesn’t sound―”

“What time are we leaving tomorrow morning?” 

“...Seven.”

.

.

.

Unsurprisingly, Donghyuck picks you up right on time, not a minute too early or late. As the universe would have it, it rained the night prior―meaning all the dirt roads are now rivers of mud. You wince every time you heard a splat of mud hit Donghyuck’s pristine white car, but he seems to pay no mind to it. The two of you arrive at the farm within twenty minutes (he found a shortcut), and because you came so early, you get the entire farm to yourselves. The staff arms both of you with a large wicker basket each before setting you loose onto the massive property. 

“Okay, make sure to pick the fat ones. The small ones are super tart, so avoid those,” you instruct Donghyuck. “We’re going to fill these baskets to the brim and get our money’s worth.” 

“You got it, Captain.” He salutes. 

You give him a determined nod and a thumbs up before turning to your respective side and beginning to pick the blueberries. The two of you work without much fanfare or conversation, and it’s a silence that lingers between you comfortably. It reassures you to hear the sound of the bushes rustling from Donghyuck working; his companionship alone relaxes you. 

Eventually, when the sun starts peeking through and the weather grows warmer, both of you decide to take a break. You find a spot in the shade before sitting down, pulling out snacks and bottles of water from a backpack Donghyuck brought along. 

“I have a surprise for you,” you tell him, trying to hide a smile. “Close your eyes.” 

He eyes you suspiciously but does so anyway. You fish out a handful of unripe blueberries wrapped in a handkerchief from your pocket and feed some to him. His reaction is nearly instant the moment he starts chewing them; you watch as his face puckers up from how sour they are and his entire body shrivels into itself, a shudder running through him. He’s polite enough to not spit them out, but you’re not polite enough to resist pointing and laughing at him. Throwing your head back, you laugh so hard that your stomach starts to hurt. 

“Oh my God, your face!” 

“Ugh,” Donghyuck groans, taking a big gulp of his water. “I should’ve known you had sinister intentions from the start.” 

“I didn’t think you’d react like that,” you finally manage to say after catching your breath. “You really can’t handle anything except for sweet stuff.” 

“Are you having fun bullying me?” He rolls his eyes. 

“So much fun,” you say in a sing-song voice. 

Donghyuck tries to continue feigning annoyance, but he can’t help the low chuckle that rumbles in his chest. His eyes always soften when he looks at you, and his gaze is intimate like a lover’s―gentle, tender, unwavering, and vulnerable. But his warmth is always fleeting, and he only allows you glimpses of it through the unmoving walls that he’s erected around himself. 

You wish he wouldn’t indulge you so, terrified you’ll try to cross the line he’s drawn between the two of you. 

“What are you thinking about?” Donghyuck asks, trying to read your expression

“About the delicious pie I’m about to make when we get back,” you smile. 

“I see,” he responds, though it’s clear he isn’t convinced. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“You better be. This is how I’m paying you back for driving me here,” you nod. 

“Instead of that, pay me back by telling me what your favorite dessert is,” he suddenly says. “I do still want the pie, though.” 

“That was random,” you snort. “Why do you want to know my favorite dessert?”

“Because you asked me, but you never told me yours.” 

You suppose he has a point, but you find it ironic that he wants to know more about you when he refuses to offer you even a modicum of information about himself. Despite this, you tell him anyway because you are obviously the fool here. 

“If you must know, it’s red velvet cake,” you sigh. 

“Why?” 

You don’t answer at first, carefully thinking about if you’re ready to be vulnerable in front of him―still a virtual stranger. A virtual stranger who loves sweets. A virtual stranger who is a bit of a messy eater. A virtual stranger who knows Pompompurin. A virtual stranger who worries about you even when he’s not on the clock. A virtual stranger who gently tells you to be careful whenever you try to do something dangerous, whispering, “I’ll do it instead.” A virtual stranger who allows his luxury car to be caked in mud for you. 

“Because it’s the dessert that made me realize I want to do this for the rest of my life,” you finally say. “I baked it for my mom’s birthday, and I think I ended up being more excited than her.” 

Donghyuck stays quiet, gauging your reaction. 

“I was in college, studying to be a doctor like everyone else in my family. So, like a dumb young person who thought that dreams were more important than money, I dropped out of college and went to culinary school. My parents told me I was ruining mine and their lives, disowned me, yada-yada―a bunch of depressing stuff, you know. Eventually, I graduated, took out a huge loan, and opened up my own bakery. Worked a bunch of part-time jobs until my business could stand on its own. Now here I am. Still in debt, though,” you laugh awkwardly. “But I’m not doing too shabby. I was able to hire you, so at least I have a little cash to spare.” 

He still doesn’t say anything, so you find yourself starting to ramble. You’re really not sure what possessed you to trauma dump on him like that. 

“You know, a lot of people talk shit about red velvet cake because they say the only thing that makes it special is the red food coloring,” you hurriedly explain, “but that’s not true. The cream cheese frosting is super important too. Also, I always say love is the most important ingredient of all. As a baker, you’re kind of baring your heart to the customer, and isn’t it kind of cute that red velvet cake is red like a heart? Okay, please say something now or else I think I’m going to projectile vomit.” 

Donghyuck reaches over and brushes a sweaty lock of hair out of your face. His fingers brush over your temple, which makes you sharply suck in a breath. You almost lean into his touch, but you catch yourself. His hand slightly lingers on the side of your neck, like he wants to bring your face closer, but he eventually pulls away. 

He searches your face, and you’re not sure what he’s looking for―if anything. Rather, perhaps he’s not searching. Perhaps he’s committing your features to his memory, as if the way you look right now is something he wants to remember forever. 

“You’ve worked hard, Y/N,” he says softly, voice slightly hoarse. “This is long overdue, but congratulations. You achieved your dream, and don’t let anyone ever discount that. Not even yourself.” 

You wonder how long you’ve waited to hear that. You’re not even sure you knew you needed to hear that. But when Donghyuck says it, it hits you just how long and hard you’ve worked all on your own without a single break. Throughout the years, you’ve really only ever heard, “I’m sorry that happened.” When was the last time someone congratulated you? When was the last time you congratulated yourself? 

You surge forward, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and burying your face in his shoulder. Donghyuck cradles you against him, one hand wound tightly around your waist while the other is tangled in your hair. You can feel his chest rise up and down as he holds you. He smells like lavender soap and a bit earthy from being outside, and the warmth of his skin against your cheek makes you want to close your eyes and fall asleep in his arms. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. 

“No, thank you,” he murmurs into your hair. 

You’re not sure why he’s thanking you instead, but what you are sure of is that you’re crossing the line, taking a step towards him and wondering if he’ll meet you halfway. 

.

.

.

“Tada!” you announce cheerfully, setting down the freshly baked blueberry pie onto the table. 

Donghyuck claps excitedly. “Holy shit, it looks amazing.” 

“I’m still trying to figure out the right portions for the filling, so let me know if you think there’s too much or little,” you tell him as you hand him a slice. 

Without even answering you, he stabs his fork into the pie and almost eats the entire slice in one bite, seemingly unbothered by the steam still rising from it. 

“Be careful. You’re going to burn your tastebuds off. I’m not letting you eat it for shits and giggles, you know. This is for research purposes.” You cross your arms. 

“It’s perfect, Y/N. I’m serious,” Donghyuck says after swallowing. “The filling isn’t too sweet, and the crust is airy and light.” 

“Well, alright, Gordon Ramsay. I think we’re going to be adding a new menu item then,” you smile. “Think you can get Mrs. Kim to buy a dozen of these?”

“I don’t think she’ll need much convincing with how good these taste.” 

“You’re so easy,” you tease. “All I need to do is feed you. Anyways, I’m going to clean up here, but you should head home. It’s getting late, and you wake up way earlier than me.” 

“I’ll help,” he insists. 

“Go,” you order, pointing at the door. “I can handle it.” 

He looks conflicted but eventually relents when you threaten to physically kick him out. Before he leaves, he turns back to you and says, “Thank you, Y/N.”

“Why do you keep thanking me?” you laugh. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had this.”

“What? A blueberry pie?”

Donghyuck pauses, a slight wonder in his expression, as if he’s realizing his answer for the first time as well.

“Peace.” 

And you think maybe this is a step forward for him too. 

RECIPE 3. CREAM PUFF

It’s quite surreal how easily and naturally you and Donghyuck fall into a routine together. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, two weeks becomes two months. You’ve learned the little things about him, like how he always swipes some icing before you can fill up the piping bag or that he’s not a coffee drinker at all (more of a hot cocoa person) or that he purses his lips when a dessert he’s testing tastes off (no matter how hard he tries to hide it) or that he involuntarily sticks his arm out in front of you when he wants to stop you from doing something you shouldn’t. 

You also notice that he sometimes comes into work with injuries. They’re not nearly as bad as the first time you met him, but it’s hard to ignore a bruised cheek or bloodied knuckles. He always has a reason for them, whether it’s tripping down the stairs or accidentally falling down and scraping his hands on the concrete. You can tell by the way he laughs it off that he doesn’t plan on telling you the truth, so you laugh with him. The two of you, having taken only a step towards one another, find yourselves completely immobile now. 

He always does this: envelops you like a cloud but disappears the moment you reach out for him. 

You’re honestly not sure why he’s still here. Your injury has long healed, and he clearly doesn’t need the abysmal pay you’re giving him. He feels like he’ll slip away at any moment, fleeting like a warm spring breeze, and you suppose time flies by when you know it’s limited. Despite knowing that, you can’t help but desperately want him to stay. 

“I think it’s cute how hard he’s working,” Yeri randomly says one day as she eyes Donghyuck prepare orders in the front. He’s in the middle of a lunchtime rush, so he doesn’t even notice the two of you watching him like weirdos.

“Well, that’s what I’m paying him to do,” you reply, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, I think the money is the least of his worries here,” she hums, taking a sip of her coffee. 

She has a point, but you’re pretty sure she’s implying something else as well. Just as you go to ask her what exactly she means, you hear a loud clatter. Flinching, you turn your attention back to Donghyuck and realize that he’s dropped a tray on the floor. However, the tray is the last thing on your mind when you see the expression on his face. It’s a mixture of horror, anger, and almost sadness―like he’s finally come face-to-face with whatever he’s been running from. It makes your blood run cold. 

Donghyuck is looking at a boy around his age; the boy has dark hair, a mole under his eye, and a grim expression. More importantly, he’s covered in injuries too. 

“Who is that?” Yeri whispers. “Why does Donghyuck look like he’s seen a ghost?” 

Maybe because he has, you want to tell her. 

Donghyuck grabs the boy's arm, squeezing so tightly that his knuckles turn white, and mumbles something to him. When he turns around and meets your eyes, he looks pained and fearful as if you witnessed something you shouldn’t have.

“Is it okay if I take my break early today?” he asks calmly, though the tremor in his voice gives him away. 

You nod hesitantly, unable to force yourself to speak. You watch him as he drags the boy out; when he passes you, you can tell how tightly his body is wound right now. His jaw is clenched, a muscle spasming as he tries to control himself, and every step he takes seems labored. He’s running on pure adrenaline right now, like he’s physically steeling himself. 

However, you don’t think he’s ever appeared so incredibly alone before. As you watch his back disappear further and further from your view, you’re unsure if he’ll ever return, and you never imagined how terrifying that would be. 

.

.

.

The cream puffs aren’t rising.

You’re crouched in front of the oven, watching the dough remain flat and lifeless. You should’ve known better than to attempt to make cream puffs on such a shitty day, especially when pastries like these are so sensitive to the environment and atmosphere. Even though you know you should probably just scrap them and try again, you wait for just a little longer, hoping that maybe if you wish hard enough that they’ll magically start to rise. 

But then again you suppose that no matter how hard you try, no matter how careful you are, no matter how perfect the batter is, no matter how much time you spend time piping them, no matter how much you want them to rise, they won’t. 

You decide that Donghyuck isn’t like a tiramisu at all; he’s sensitive and delicate and elusive and frustrating like a cream puff. 

“Y/N, they’re burning.” 

Losing your balance and nearly falling over, you gasp loudly. You were so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t even hear Donghyuck walk into the kitchen, nor did you smell the undeniable scent of something being burnt to a crisp. 

“Oh, fu―!” you curse, hurriedly opening the oven and casually suffocating both you and Donghyuck with a hot plume of air. Sputtering, you look around and grab a random rag from the sink before reaching for the cream puffs. 

“Wait, stop!” Donghyuck stops you with an outstretched arm, his hand pressed to your side. “Let me do it.” 

He gently takes the rag from your hand and removes the tray of charred cream puffs from the oven, dumping them into the trash before putting the tray in the sink and running some water on it―just how you like it. 

Letting out a relieved sigh, he turns back to you and asks, “Are you okay? It’s not like you to make a mistake like that. You didn’t get burned anywhere, did you?” 

When you don’t answer immediately, Donghyuck rushes forward and grabs your hands, carefully examining your fingers and arms. “Wait, are you hurt? Where? Tell me where you got burned. We have to cool it down with some lukewarm water. And don’t just say you’re fine. Burns are not a joke, Y/N―why are you looking at me like that?” 

His hands are calloused and rough, and you can still see scabs from where he tore his knuckles, yet he touches you like you’re the delicate one. He’s covered in fresh and old wounds, yet he looks so panicked at the thought of you having a scratch. 

“Shut up,” you whisper furiously, ripping your hands away from him. “From now on, don’t ask me another question. It’s my turn to ask you questions.” 

He blinks, a bit stunned by your reaction, but it’s clear he knows what you’re about to say. He goes to reach for you again but decides against it. “Okay.” 

“Who was that guy?” you demand. “Why are you always covered in injuries? Why did you lie to me? Who are you?” 

“He’s an old friend,” Donghyuck starts quietly. 

“Do you treat all your friends like that?” 

“When I don’t want to see them.” 

You wait for him to continue.

“Before I met you, he and I and a few of our other friends worked…odd jobs for cash,” he explains, and he looks like he’s choking on every word. “The jobs usually entailed us hurting people and also getting hurt. I did a lot of shit I wasn’t proud of. At the time, I didn’t really care. It was just nice to feel something, whether it was the adrenaline rush from doing the punching or the pain from being punched. I got a bunch of money, bought a bunch of expensive stuff, but none of it mattered. Eventually, I just felt nothing again. I didn’t even have the energy to loathe myself anymore. So, I took one last job, got the shit kicked out of me, and then I left. That’s when you found me―”

He inhales, and his eyes flicker towards you. He gazes at you so longingly, as if you were impossibly out of his reach, that you can’t help but involuntarily take a step towards him. 

But he steps back. 

“I thought that working here would make me feel like a human being again, but I didn’t realize how much I would―” He pauses again. “I thought working here would be a nice reset for me, but I naively thought that I could completely leave my past behind. My friends eventually found me, and I guess I care about those reckless assholes more than I thought because they managed to convince me to take on a few more jobs with them. That’s why I’ve been coming to work with injuries. But I’m done. I cut them off for good when they walked into this bakery. I don’t want…I don’t want our past to tarnish this place. I want to keep this place a beautiful, warm, and pure safe haven that you worked so hard for it to be. That’s why I lied to you, Y/N. I’m a coward to the bone, and I was envious of you. I was ashamed to admit it to you. You, who had the courage to chase after your dream. You, who had the kindness to help a good-for-nothing asshole like me. I only want you to have happy memories from now on, and I am not one of them.” 

“Are you going to leave?” you ask softly. 

“I probably should,” he answers shakily. 

“What’s stopping you?” 

“Just…one reason.” 

“When you say it like that, it makes it sound like the reason is me.” 

Donghyuck laughs bitterly, and his eyes drag across your face like every movement hurts him.

“You know it’s you. It’s always been you.” 

When you reach for his hand, he turns away like just the warmth from your body heat burns him. So instead, you take a step back. 

“I won’t ask you to stay, Donghyuck, I won’t chase you. I’m going to wait right here, and it’s up to you if you're going to meet me halfway.” 

RECIPE 4. RED VELVET CAKE

When your alarm clock goes off the next morning, you seriously consider just not showing up to work. It’s not like you can be fired for being a no-show when you’re your own boss, after all. 

And it’s not like you have any employees who will be expecting you. 

You’ll just apologize to Mrs. Kim and your other regulars later. You’re allowed to have a day where you just rot in bed and feel sorry for yourself. 

However, no matter how much you tell yourself that, you find yourself crawling out of bed and getting ready anyway. You can’t seem to brutally crush that small glimmer of hope that Donghyuck might still be there, no matter how hard you try. When you see yourself in the mirror, you recoil in horror. Your eyes are almost swollen shut from the amount of crying you did last night, and your face is sallow and lifeless. 

So much for putting on a brave face, you think wryly to yourself. You tried so hard to look tough, when in reality, you bawled your eyes out and even considered praying to God for Donghyuck to stay. It’s a humiliating and humbling reality check. 

“Stand up right now,” you sharply tell yourself in the mirror. “He’s just some guy. Get it together.” 

You do your best to clean up your appearance and make the trek over to the bakery. It takes another internal pep talk before you can make your way to the door. After you finally walk up, you see that the lights inside are off. Your stomach sinks, and your eyes start to burn. Even though you’re holding the handle, you can’t bring yourself to open the door. It’s an outcome that you expected, yet you wonder why it hurts so badly. 

“You liar,” you mumble to yourself, “You said you only wanted me to have happy memories.” 

Once you make your way inside, you numbly head towards the kitchen, trying to remember what exactly you have to do today. Oh right, now that he’s not here, you also have to make sure all the ingredients are prepped first. 

When you walk into the kitchen, you do a double-take. 

The whole place looks like it’s been completely ransacked: used pans and utensils piled up in the sink, two opened boxes of cake mix, containers of ingredients without lids on on the tables, random lumps of flour and egg shells strewn about― 

And right in front of the oven is Donghyuck, flour in his hair and frosting on his nose. He’s holding a cake stand with…you think it’s supposed to be a cake on it? The shape is mangled and haphazardly cut, but it has echoes of a heart. The frosting is a hot mess, as if a bird with diarrhea shat all over the cake. The batter is clearly underbaked and makes the cake look gooey in a bad way. 

“Um, I promise I’ll clean all of this up in a second, but I wanted to surprise you,” Donghyuck starts awkwardly. “It’s not perfect, but I tried making a red velvet cake for you.” 

You stare at him, still not sure how to react. 

“You once said that baking is like baring your heart to the customer and that love is the most important ingredient of all,” he laughs softly to himself. “I think love is the only ingredient I managed to get right, but I’m baring my heart to you now, Y/N. I’m sorry I hid everything and lied to you, but I’m in love with you. Hopelessly so. All my life, I’ve chased a feeling, not knowing what it was. But now I do. I don’t think I knew how to feel until I met you. I never once thought I would ever have a purpose in my life, but you make me want to be a normal, proper member of society. Your dream is my dream. I want to wake up at 5AM and sell egg tarts with you for the rest of my life, if you’ll have me.” 

Donghyuck sets the cake down on a table in front of you, and you notice that his fingers are dyed red from the food coloring. It almost reminds you of when you first met him, except his injuries have been replaced with red food coloring, flour, and cream cheese frosting. 

“This cake is terrible,” you smile, “how did you butcher it that badly when you used cake mix?” 

You watch him blush all the way down to his neck, as he sheepishly looks away. “Don’t make fun of me. I really tried my best. I stayed up watching tutorials―” 

Leaning across the table, you cup his face with both hands and kiss him, brushing your thumbs across his cheekbones. He tastes like frosting, hot cocoa, and your prayers being answered. The way he kisses you back is bruising, dizzying and knocking any coherent thought out of your head, his hands finding your hips and anchoring you to him. He kisses you like you’re the sweetest and most wonderful thing he’s ever tasted.

When you finally pull away, it takes you a moment to regain feeling in your legs. Donghyuck presses his forehead against yours, lips brushing against yours once again as the two of you try to catch your breath. 

“I think I’m going to have to fire you, though,” you whisper. “You know, with me being your boss and all. The power dynamic is too weird.” 

He hums, pausing for thought. “Then how about I become your business partner?” 

“What?”

Donghyuck reaches into his pocket and fishes out his wallet, pulling out a shiny and fancy-looking credit card. He hands it to you without much fanfare. 

“I have a lot of money, you know. So I’m going to invest in your business. Use it as you’d like,” he casually announces.

You stare at him, your jaw hanging wide open. He never tried to hide from you that he was rich, but he never told you that he was rich rich. 

“Well, damn! Why didn’t you show me this earlier? I would have forgiven you a lot sooner,” you tease, slapping him on the arm. “Are you sure you want to give this to me? I’m quite the gold-digger, you know.”

“When I told you to use it as you’d like, I meant me as well,” Donghyuck replies, shrugging.

“You’re insane.” You hope he can’t tell how much your face is burning up. 

“I guess I am,” he laughs, and you don’t think he’s ever looked so free. You want to tell him that you hope he only has happy memories from now on too. You want to tell him that you’ll rewrite all of his scars with sugary and fluffy desserts so that they won’t ever hurt again. 

And for the first time in your life, you feel it too.

Peace. 

EXTRA

“So, have you figured out what your favorite dessert is?” 

Donghyuck stirs slightly, groaning, as he wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you closer. He slips his hand under your shirt (well, technically it’s his shirt) and rests it on your bare hip bone. 

“Why aren’t you asleep?” 

“Because I’m curious.” 

“If I answer, will you let me rest?”

“Depends on how good your answer is.” 

“Blueberry pie. That’s my answer.” 

You smile against the crook of his neck. 

“Why?” 

“Because it’s the dessert that made me realize I want to do this for the rest of my life.” 

[tynlvr]

i need christopher bahng so bad this is not a drill

[tynlvr]

hi! could i pretty please request enemies to lovers texts with yy hes so pookie omg high five is so good

yangyang texts ‧𓍢ִ໋☕ ׂ 𓈒 ⋆ ۪

-- enemies to lovers w/ coworker yangyang !!

content: fluff, gn reader, not proofread, i lowk suck at enemies to lovers soz

REQS OPEN

a/n: STREAM FREQUENCY!!! also pls req other wayv members guys!! i love writing for them but i feel like most of my works r just yangyang (not complaining tho)

[tynlvr]

tags issue!

hi dear losers in love community

@nerdsungie @222brainrot @roseangelxfuma @starfilledgaze @dudekiss3r @injunnie-lemon @mouldyeggsblog @ninahorikoshifr @livingdoll-hara

it's showing on my end that all of you are able to be tagged but i don't think a couple of you are tagged in the post - could you please let me know if you haven't been tagged? thanksss

-jules

[tynlvr]

losers in love: l.yy smau

vi. try again?

it’s tuesday again. you have to see yangyang again. you’d done a good job of avoiding him, of running away in the crowded hallways and being ‘too busy’ to read his texts. you’d even skipped a couple lectures, but you had to fulfil the attendance quota, or you’d fail. and this led to you dropping your bag into the seat with a sigh, slumping over your desk as wayv’s poppin’ love blared through your headphones. you’d really been into wayv lately - an up and coming band of smu that karina had introduced you to. one of the members’ angelic voices is rudely interrupted by a light tap on your shoulder, leading to your first encounter with yangyang in a week.

‘hey, [—].’ his lips move, but you can’t exactly hear him, so you pull out your airpods and give him a curt ‘hey.’

he visibly deflates, sliding in next to you. he doesn’t meet your eyes when he asks, ‘did i do something? why don’t you want to be my friend anymore?’ his big eyes are sneaking glances at you, his hands fiddling with the few silver rings he has on. his usual big, happy personality is suddenly… small. and your heart wrenches. this week of knowing yangyang really made you feel like you and him clicked - but you couldn’t let what happened with him happen again.

it started just like this. the happiest boy, who won your heart too quickly with a carton of strawberry milk. won your heart, and broke it. broke you. you remember the nights that never seemed to end, picking at a metaphorical flower - ‘he loves me, he loves me not.’ one day he’d call you beautiful, the next he was ignoring everything you said. yet, you still loved him. until he told you… he loved someone else entirely.

but seeing yangyang next to you… he’s different. you felt the same spark with yangyang that you did for the boy of your past, but you were too scared to progress quickly.

‘[—]? you good?’ asks yangyang, quietly. his eyes drop to his lap, his fidgeting returning with vengeance. he never questioned if your drop in mood, your tears, you ignoring him was his fault.

yeji’s calming, reasonable vice floods your head. ‘yangyang isn’t him. give your friendship a chance.’

‘yeah, i am,’ you reply with a small smile. ‘i’m sorry, i’ve been - thinking. can this friendship start again? please?’

yangyang is confused. he doesn’t understand, but he knows how hard it is to be pushed away, to be told ‘no,’ over and over again.

‘yeah, of course we can. hi, i’m yangyang! it’s nice to meet you.’

and just like that, his bright smile eases all your worries, you melting into his easy demeanour with a matching grin.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

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my taglist is always open! reply here or drop an ask :)

please like reblog and share my work and feel free to drop asks reading them makes me so happy <3

a/n: imagine timely updates-

taglist: @nerdsungie @222brainrot @roseangelxfuma @starfilledgaze @dudekiss3r @injunnie-lemon @mouldyeggsblog @ninahorikoshifr @livingdoll-hara

[tynlvr]

losers in love: l.yy smau

v. i knew you weren’t that smart

yangyang hasn’t seen you in a week. granted, he’s only known you for about a week, but he misses you. he misses getting coffee with you (he’s only done that once), he misses studying with you (he’s done this twice) and he misses your funny texts. he knew the two of you weren’t close just yet, but he thought at least you liked his company… but it seems he was wrong.

‘I just don’t get it man!’ he complains to hendery. ‘i thought we were friends.’

hendery just shrugs, floppy hair drooping into his eyes. ‘you’re gonna have to talk to her, yknow. i can’t read her mind.’

‘maybe… your girlfriend can?’ yangyang asks, eyes twinkling hopefully.

‘dude, she’s probably waiting for you to talk to her. the whole ‘if you wanna know how much space you occupy in someone’s heart, give them space and see how long it takes to fill it.’’

yangyang is shocked. ‘when did you get so wise?’

hendery blinks. ‘it was my grandmother.’

the silver-haired boy tsks. ‘i knew you weren’t that smart.’

———————-

‘yeji, i’m so scared. i can’t- he can’t happen again.’

‘and he won’t. you’re wiser now, you’re not looking for love and yangyang seems genuinely sweet. giselle knows him really well and she trusts him, so that means something right?’

you smile at the mention of giselle, your childhood friend.

‘of course that means something. but i can’t just turn off being scared. i never want to be hurt that way again.’

‘yangyang isn’t him. give your friendship a chance.’

you’re not quite sure that’s the right thing to do.

—————

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my taglist is always open! reply here or drop an ask :)

please like reblog and share my work and feel free to drop asks reading them makes me so happy <3 feedback much appreciated!

a/n: hi r u excited to see what happens next cuz i sure am

taglist: @nerdsungie @222brainrot @roseangelxfuma @starfilledgaze @dudekiss3r @injunnie-lemon @mouldyeggsblog @ninahorikoshifr @livingdoll-hara

[tynlvr]

RIDE OR DIE: l.jn smau

014: i barely know him

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notes; i’m back!!! sorry for leaving on such a horrific part of the story but a girl had to prioritise… (miss u 7dream) anyways i’m probably gonna revamp my account soon (keeping my user) so dont be alarmed if my account and my smaus suddenly look different lol anyways missed u all loads and can’t wait to get deeper into this story because there’s alotttttt left to come (looking it u that one anon who guessed the entire plot in my asks) okay this is getting long bye

taglist — open! @jenohyun @jirsungs @do-you-remember-summer-127 @ddolbyong @stqrgr7 @thatsatricky1 @sunghoonsgfreal @nattan127 @ssweetreveries @flamingi @lesuneczka @chenlesfavorite @peterm4rker @snoopyjimin @akunoeyebrows @junviadinho @slayhaechan @f6llsun @multifandomania @cookiehaos @catecita @mrsjohnnysuh @luv4jeno @hyuckies18 @dreamiestay @tangerinelovelees @jjaegyeom @https-yeonjun @nanaxwi @yukisroom97 @nosungluv @mrkleelvr @neocrashed @jaedgemental @apolloxxivmin @kyubing @catdonut657 @dudekiss3r @juyeonshour @hamjwis @antifrggile @mmjhh1998 @ldh0000 @thegracerammy @jenocity23 @honeynanamin @bluedbliss @lampcults @yyangj3lly

[tynlvr]

[tynlvr]

i love when an author truly understands a character so well that they can just put said character in any situation and still have them act correctly. like yeah okay hes a cat cafe owner. hes a middle school teacher. hes a dog. and hes acting exactly how he would act if he was a dog.