CHERRY Psh.
CHERRY ─ psh. ❀
a lollipop a day keeps park sunghoon away…
# genre: outcast!sunghoon x class prez!fem!reader, enemies to lover, slow burn, high school au, 90’s au
# warnings: insults, minor violence, substances/partying, cursing, lil makeout sesh, minor bullying, portrays some idols in a bad light; inaccurate and not how I view them!
# featuring: sunghoon & enha! + txt + aespa
# playlist: not for sale by enhypen, still into you by paramore, chased by woodz, high school sweethearts by melanie martinez
# a/n: hi guys!!! it’s insane that the cherry teaser got so many likes omg. ty guys so much!! plz enjoy <3 (dont let this flop)
# word count: 13.1k
# taglist: @alicesolengg @ningngyu @ramenoil @simjakeissohot @skzenhalove @parkhonnie @denleave1088 @voidbeomgyu @ilymarkchan @everyoneluvscheol @haerinpham @fakeuwus @chesh1re-cat @advesperamz @papiibuprofen @loveliii @cutiejseong @luvyouchuu @hancafe @aeminju @chaerybae @b1ndignity @edilysoob @river-06 @fariylixie0915 @amortenha @hoonpalettes @asyleums @moonmoongi @jyndre @parksunghoonsgf @whippedforbeomgyu @dianzed @soobliss-blog @manooffline @iscocohere @saythenameseventeen178 @woniewonn @luv4cheol @tinylittlebuggi @h-hazwie @ddazed-lhs @enhacolor @hiqhkey @webqrl @ilovewonyo @aesunghoon @hanienie @jrjr289
it isn’t a well disguised fact that park sunghoon doesn’t like you–no, hate would be a better word. park sunghoon hates you, and he makes it clear to everyone who knows him. but when you leave him a different flavored lollipop every day, it gets a little harder to loathe you.
[more under the cut!]
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍 - chapter i.
Park Sunghoon finds solace in the fact that he annoys you.
He isn’t sure he truly does, as you’re quite adept at keeping your face blank when something pisses you off. But for a moment, that bright, customer-service smile slips, and the left corner of your lip twitches when he sneers at you from across the room. That’s how he likes it. He likes that he has an effect on you, negative or otherwise, although it was always the former.
“You need to let it go.” Jake sighed as he watched Sunghoon’s eyes follow you across the room when you stand to pass out the second semester chemistry syllabus. “I don’t even understand why you don’t like her."
“How could you not?” he phrased his question like a statement.
“Well, first of all, she’s my math tutor.” Jake says, smacking the top of his best friend’s head with a rolled up spiral notebook, crumpling his notes. “So I have to get along with her. And second of all, she makes it pretty easy considering she’s such a catch.” Sunghoon groaned in annoyance, a petulant frown on his pretty face.
“God, you’re so brainless.” Sunghoon whined. “You’re just another one of the idiots completely infatuated with her.”
Well, why wouldn’t he be? You’re the president of the school council, head of the party planning committee, photographer of the yearbook club, and the school newspaper’s best writer. It’s an intricate balancing act, and a wonder that you could keep it up on the daily.
“I’m not infatuated.” Jake said with an indignant hiss. “I just don’t hold stupid grudges– shit, she’s coming.” The Aussie cleared his throat and painted an enthusiastic and eager smile onto his face as you approached the boy’s shared table.
“Good morning.” you chirped, and Jake grinned in response. “Here’s the syllabus.” You passed a double sided sheet of paper to each of them, gently setting it down on the desk. It didn’t escape Sunghoon’s attention that his was wrapped up in a roll, a piece of tape closing the document into a cylinder. You sent him a soft smile, looking at him through your lashes, before backing away from the table and moving onto the next pair of students who were waiting to receive their assignment. Sunghoon rolled his eyes, hesitantly peeling off the strip of adhesive and unrolling the paper to reveal the object inside, Jake peering curiously over his shoulder in an attempt to see.
“God, she’s still at it.” Sunghoon groaned, reaching down to pick up a small lollipop, a vivid yellow and wrapped in a holographic piece of cellophane with a little red ribbon tying it closed. “I thought she might’ve stopped.”
“Dude, you’re so lucky.” Jake breathed enviously, and Sunghoon looked at him with distaste. “You know how many guys in this school would kill to get a lollipop from her?” Sunghoon ignored his best friend's implorations, unwrapping the treat and shoving it into his mouth.
Lemon. He hated lemon.
When he looked back to the front of the classroom, you were setting the remaining stack of papers on the teacher’s desk, peeking at Sunghoon’s reaction. You seemed somewhat pleased to see the boy sucking on the sweet you had left him, and you sent a bright smile in his direction. His eyes were drawn to your shirt, which was adorned with what he thought was a very tacky depiction of a dove and some hearts, and he inwardly grimaced. Apparently, it wasn’t too inward judging by the look on your face.
He smirked, lifting up his hand and subtly sending you a different kind of bird with his middle finger. Your smile dropped entirely, and you rubbed your lips together in annoyance, retreating to your desk with a mix of frustration and despondence. That made him very satisfied.
“Would it kill you to be nice for once?” Jake asked, a skeptical look on his face as he watched the entire encounter go down. Sunghoon shrugged, setting his hand down on his desk and strumming his slender fingers on the wooden surface.
“Probably.”
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
Today was yet another failed attempt at making Park Sunghoon like you.
You had to admit, you weren’t entirely pleased with your lollipop arrangement, and by that, you meant that you hated it. Treating Sunghoon like a human being with real emotions was so hard when he was such a piece of shit. You let out an exhausted sigh, hopping onto the counter of the candy shop. Your best friend laughed at your theatrics, wiping his hand with a white rag and tossing you a packet of red licorice.
“What’s the problem?” Jungwon asked inquisitively as though he didn’t already know the answer. “Sunghoon again?” His tone was filled with pity, and you hated it. You rolled onto your stomach, ripping open the packaging and tucking one of the red ropes into your mouth with a heavy sigh, blinking twice hard, before frowning.
“He’s not budging.”
“That’s a shame. I’m almost out of lollipop flavors.” Jungwon tutted with disappointment, reaching into his pocket and removing his hand with a treat, barely able to hold back the anticipating grin on his face. He tossed it to you. “Or am I?”
“You’re a lifesaver.” you sighed, pocketing it. “I’m not sure how you keep coming up with more.” Your best friend simply shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets.
“Chef’s secret,” he smiled.
Jungwon had adored candy since you met him, but the only thing he adored more than eating candy was making candy. This came in handy during basically every holiday or romance related occasion. A handmade bouquet of chocolate covered strawberries, a box filled to the brim with toffee, or a lollipop. He liked lollipops the most. “Maybe you should stop with the lollipops. I’m down to my last vial 0f strawberry flavoring and our restock isn’t until next Monday.” he scrunched his nose up at the thought.
“What if he gets pissed off once I stop giving him them, and then he gets even meaner?” you wondered aloud. “What would I do then?”
“Um, report him to the principal?” Jungwon suggested, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and you shot up into a sitting position.
“Absolutely not.” you hissed. “I have to beat him.” You raised your fist to the air, seething with vengeance. “I will make that pretty bastard like me, goddamn it.” This was it. Jungwon was convinced that you had finally gone ‘round the bend. A ringing sound resounded through the shop as someone pushed through the front door with a grin.
“Did someone say pretty bastard?” he said, arms held out playfully as he turned his nose up to the ceiling. You only pouted in response. “Awww, baby what’s wrong?” he asked, circling his hands around your waist and pressing a kiss to your forehead while Jungwon stuck out his tongue.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” you dismissed the topic with a wave of your hand and a sigh. You knew very well that if Heeseung got word of the way Sunghoon was treating you, you’d have a dead body on your hands. “How was practice?”
“Pretty good. Coach says I’m doing well. Could get a scholarship.” He cuddled up to you, until something hard and spherical hit him in the face, and he gripped his nose with a groan, bending down to pick up the fallen object.
“No cuddling in the store.” Jungwon said, a hand on the door as he came back to the counter, a thin white stick protruding from his mouth. “It’ll scare the customers.”
“Likely.” Heeseung scoffed, yet he pulled the wrapper off the lollipop and shoved it in his mouth, swirling the sphere on his tongue. “You wanna go see that new movie, Ten Things I Hate About You? It’s playin’ tonight and Beomgyu said it’s good.” You laughed, pulling the lollipop out of his mouth with a wet ‘pop’ sound, and tucking it between your own lips. Jungwon gagged on his lunch.
“I don’t trust any movie that Beomgyu says is good.”
“Ah, c’mon babe. It’ll be fun.” he said, returning his hands to your waist as you smiled. He had a way of making you smile even when you were at your lowest.
“Alright.” you caved, and he pumped his fist, planting a kiss on your cheek.
“Glad you said yes, because I already bought tickets.” You chastised him, but he only laughed and grabbed your waist, lifting you off the counter like a sack of potatoes while you shrieked. “Thanks for the sucker, Won!”
“Yeah, yeah. Have fun!” he yelled after the two of you until you were out of sight, hopping into his old Dodge Viper with lovesick, giddy smiles on your faces. Then the boy sighed, rolling his eyes. “Pricks.”
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
“Red Vines.”
“Gotta be Charleston Chews.”
“Ew, no fucking way. Charleston Chews are just s'mores without the best part.” you scoffed, finger wagging in your boyfriend’s face as the exasperated teenage cashier watched you argue about your candy choices for the movie you were about to watch.
“I’ll let that go, because I love you.” he warned. “But Charleston Chews are the best candy.” Despite his protest, he reached for the Red Vines on the shelf and dropped them next to the cash register as he removed his wallet from his pocket.
“Thanks, baby.” you kissed him on the cheek, and he sent you a grin for the reward. “But they definitely taste like shit.” you said cheekily, and he smacked you lightly on the top of the head, before grabbing your Red Vines and pulling you away.
“I’ll get you back for that.” He teased, and you stuck your tongue out. “Oh shit, I left my Coke at the register.” You laughed at his blatant forgetfulness as he smacked himself in the forehead. “Go, hurry. I’ll wait here.” He darted out the exit, excusing himself and apologizing as he ran past a pair entering the theater, almost knocking their popcorn out of their hands. “Where’s he off to in a rush?” one of them asked incredulously, the other mumbling incoherent responses as they seated themselves. Great, the teenage cynics who apparently had a grudge against your boyfriend were sitting right next to you.
“Heeseung’s really been busy lately.” one said, and your ears perked up at their use of his name. “With scholarships, and all that. Must be hella tired.” The voice sounded oddly familiar, but you couldn’t exactly place who it belonged to.
“Yeah, as if.” another scoffed. “He’s probably busy making out with his fuckface girlfriend.” Your eye twitched.
“C’mon, don’t be mean. What’s she ever done to you?’ another said.
“She’s awful. You’re so gullible.” the same disparaging voice said, and you huffed. You recognized that drawl, you had heard it somewhere but you weren’t sure where. “Heeseung’s an idiot. The both of them can go to hell.” Enough was enough. You stood, reaching over to the cynical boy sitting directly next to you and grabbed the front of his shirt, and even though you couldn’t see his face, you could feel his shock.
“You got something to say about me and my boyfriend?” you hissed.
“Have you had your break today? We all need to get away, there’s one place that’s on your way,” the jolly actors sang as the screen suddenly lit up with an advertisement, the lights turning on and revealing the boy before you.
“Y/n?” Sunghoon asked incredulously, and you grit your teeth. He got a reaction out of you. You had completely played yourself.
Despite your instant regret, you continued to grip on his shirt. “Park Sunghoon.”
“What are you doing here?” he hissed under his breath, and your eyes darted to Jake, sitting beside him. He looked utterly stunned. He had never seen you react to Sunghoon’s tauntings before; even Sunghoon never had the pleasure of seeing you burst out in a properly angry reaction.
“Seeing a movie with my boyfriend.” you muttered. Sunghoon didn’t respond, and you thought this might be the first time you had seen him off guard.
You dropped his shirt, letting him plop back down onto the cushioned seat.
You had seriously messed up. Sunghoon was never supposed to see you angry, more than anyone. You were about to do some damage control when Heeseung strode straight through the swinging doors with a box of Charleston Chews and a plastic cup of Coke so large it looked like it could cause diabetes immediately upon consumption.
Heeseung always had incredibly bad timing.
“Hey baby.” he slid into the seat next to you, pecking a kiss onto your cheek. He coughed on his soda pop when he saw the pair staring at him, seated directly next to you, one boy looking at him like he had just ran over his cat. “Oh, hey guys. Jake,” he said, nodding to the older boy of the two. “How’s varsity tryouts?”
“Going good.” Jake said meekly. The two were acquainted from their time on the rugby team, yet Jake suddenly felt extremely intimidated by the older boy. You said nothing, leaning back in your seat with a perturbed look on your face.
Once you and Heeseung finally struck up a conversation, Jake leaned in and grabbed the front of Sunghoon’s shirt with an extremely stressed expression.
“Are you trying to get us killed?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Sunghoon snapped, not sounding sorry at all. “Christ, you really had to book the seats right next to Jack and Joan Sprat?”
“I didn’t know they’d be sitting there.” Jake said through gritted teeth, and it was easy to see that the poor boy was at his breaking point. “I would just like to get through this movie peacefully.” he rubbed his temples, expecting protest. But to Jake’s surprise, the boy didn’t complain. He was much too busy staring at you. “Sunghoon?”
“Yeah, I got it.” the boy rolled his eyes, turning away. Jake looked at him in a double take, shocked at the boy’s compliancy, but pleasantly surprised.
Maybe this would be a nice trip to the theater after all.
Of course, nothing could be peaceful when you and Sunghoon were in the same room together. The tension was undeniable, even to your oblivious boyfriend.
Safe to say you only registered about half of the movie.
Not to say that the film wasn’t engrossing. In fact, you were beginning to seriously enjoy it. Sunghoon, however, was enjoying the movie a bit less than you were.
“This is so fucking stupid.” he muttered to Jake as the main characters bickered on screen. “This would never happen in real life.”
“That’s why it’s a movie, dumbass. Now can you shut up? You’re seriously bumming me out.” Jake snapped back, slapping the back of Sunghoon’s head. Sunghoon reached over to retaliate, knocking his cup of Sprite over in the process, spilling the entire contents of the plastic container directly onto your skirt. You squealed, and Heeseung cursed, pulling you up as he dug in his pockets for napkins. You glared at Sunghoon and saw that he looked rather surprised at his own action, and for a moment you doubted if he did it on purpose. But then the look of shock shifted into one of satisfaction, and you chose to not give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Gosh, I’m sorry.” Sunghoon said in a way that told you he wasn’t sorry at all.
“That’s one hell of a mess.” Heeseung kissed his teeth, attempting to use the napkins to clean off your skirt, but the people behind you began to boo at your obstruction of their view. “Alright people, Jesus. We’re moving.” He took your hand and pulled you back down, still attempting to dry you off. While you greatly appreciated the effort, it was doing practically nothing to help.
“It’s okay, Hee.” you said, pushing his hands off with a tight smile. “It’ll dry.” You sighed, reaching for the box of Charleston Chews. You didn’t even like this stupid candy, but you needed something sweet to calm your temper or you were going to kill someone. Your hand exited the box covered in melted chocolate, and you threw your head back in displeasure. But suddenly, an idea struck you.
The sacrifice of your boyfriend's candy was worth it.
You sloppily upturned the box into Sunghoon’s lap, the half-melted chocolate slipping onto his light tan pants as he inhaled sharply, his lip pulled between his teeth.
“Whoops.” you said with a smile, turning back to the screen.
Sure, you were done being nice to Park Sunghoon. But you still tucked a sucker into his pocket, hoping he would find it on his way home and at least have some kind of consolation for his ruined trousers.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
Sunghoon collapsed onto his bed, reaching under his bed frame for something beneath. When his hand emerged, it held a dark green spiral notebook, with a pencil held by a strap of elastic. He swirled the lollipop around his mouth, thinking carefully for a few moments before flipping to the next open page on his notebook.
“June 15th, 1999… Strawberry… cheesecake…” He mused under his breath as he jotted it down on the lined paper, biting the inside of his left cheek with furrowed brows. “Maybe just strawberry cream?” he thought to himself, biting the end of his pencil before shaking his head. “Had to be cheesecake.” He surely sounded insane to anyone who was listening from the outside, yet this was a nightly routine for the teen, notebook and pencil in hand as he pondered the flavor of the day.
He had tasted birthday cake, banana split, bubblegum, gingerbread, black licorice, pina colada, pretty much any flavor that even Willy Wonka himself could come up with. He thought he might’ve had every lollipop flavor in the universe, and the pages of his notebook had become worn with your endless supply of sugary treats.
However, he did find it odd that you had never given him cherry before.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐄 - chapter ii.
There was something you had never told anyone. Not to Heeseung, not even to Jungwon, and you told him just about everything, maybe too much. No, this secret went untold, and you planned to take it with you to your grave.
Park Sunghoon was your first love.
It’s not like he ever loved you back. This was your freshman year of high school, the first time you met the young charmer, who at the time was wide eyed and raven haired, quiet and not very conversational. At the ripe age of 14, he wasn’t fully comfortable in his skin yet, not making many friends and focusing on building his figure skating career rather than on his grades. He was nerdy, he was awkward, and he was always alone in the cafeteria, picking absentmindedly at his food while he daydreamed.
He was beautiful. You found yourself unable to look away.
Even in your freshman year, rising up the school hierarchy wasn’t difficult. You joined the school council in your first week at Decelis High, easily acquiring the vice president position once election day came around, leading you to take the president position eventually. You started writing in the newspaper club in your second month of high school, your teachers recognizing your potential and promoting you to head editor as well as a journalist, and students immediately began to respect your brave commentary on the school’s weak ethics and poor handling of their students. School was improved when you joined, and the student body found that their day brightened up when you walked down the hall with your signature smile.
Which is why it was odd that you fell hopelessly head over heels for a quiet boy who interacted with no one and didn’t speak unless spoken to, head perpetually in the clouds. And despite your undeniable popularity, he never paid a lick of attention to you.
It took until your junior year for him to even speak to you. When his head wasn’t somewhere over the rainbow, he was focusing on skating, skipping classes to run to the rink for a quick session with his trainer. And when he wasn’t skating, he was playing soccer. Through the rose tinted lenses of love, you thought he was an excellent player, but supposedly his coach didn’t agree. He was benched for nearly all his games.
You never told him you had feelings for him, but the closest you came was when you showed up to the soccer game he was playing in with a button on your shirt that said “Go Sunghoon!”. You cheered for him the entire time, even if the only reason he was playing was because Kang Taehyun had sprained his ankle.
Sunghoon scored one goal, but the more experienced player had sucked up the pain and decided to jump into the game last-minute, scoring the winning goal and sending the audience into a frenzy like they had just won the olympics and not an amateur high school soccer game. The team picked up Taehyun on their backs and ran around the field toting him on their shoulders like a trophy, and poor Sunghoon was left on the bench with a frown, wishing that he could’ve been the one on their shoulders being celebrated. You felt so bad for him that you stood up, cupped your hands around your mouth and yelled for his attention, garnering weird stares from those next to you, but you didn’t care. When you yelled his name with a cheer, he looked up into the stands and sent you the most luminous smile you had ever seen, one that could’ve made the sun itself envious of his radiance.
Which is why it confused you when he hated your guts less than a year later.
You never really understood why Sunghoon disliked you. It was a mystery, not only to you, but to everyone who knew about it, even Jungwon, who had seen more ugly and intolerable sides of you than anyone. Nobody really knew why Park Sunghoon despised you, so they just stopped trying to figure out why.
But not you. You needed to know why he didn’t like you, why the boy who you loved so dearly ended up hating you so much he was spiteful at your mere existence.
Your first memory of Sunghoon was the first day of high school, when he came through the school gates with a big, red sucker in his mouth and an overwhelmed look on his face. So you decided lollipops were the best way to win him over.
But with every canned stick of orange creamsicle, every discarded cotton candy and crushed lemonade, your feelings slowly left you until the love you once felt for the boy disappeared as he left his tally on your heart, then faded into nothing.
Then you met Heeseung. On January 1st, just as the clock struck midnight at Choi Yeonjun’s New Years party, he asked you to be his girlfriend. And suddenly, you didn’t really care if Sunghoon loved you back or not.
But you never stopped wanting him to like you.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
You were entirely done with being nice to Park Sunghoon. After nearly a year of being treated like the scum on the bottom of his shoes, you weren’t afraid of him anymore, you weren’t afraid of showing him how truly done you were. But Jungwon still had buckets full of lollipops left for you, so you supposed the lollipop charade could go on for a bit longer.
You still didn’t like him though. That’s what you told yourself.
“She’s acting differently.” Sunghoon scrunched his eyes into scrutinizing crescents as he watched you stride down the hallway nonchalantly. Just a moment previously, you had met his eyes while you walked, textbook clutched to your chest, and rather than sending him a joyous smile or a wave, you ignored him as though he wasn’t even there, which shocked him thoroughly.
Plus, it was the fourth period and you hadn’t even given him a lollipop yet.
“You’re just salty that she poured her Charleston Chews on you. You’re imagining it.” Jake scoffed, eyes attached to his book, scanning over every word.
“No, you don’t get it.” Sunghoon huffed exasperatedly, arms crossed as he watched you saunter to Heeseung’s side and allow him to pull you into his embrace. “She’s never ignored me like this before. She doesn’t just… look away.”
“So she doesn’t like you anymore. Big deal.” Jake shrugged, but Sunghoon seemed rather upset by this sudden change of events. “You fumbled the bag, that’s all.” Sunghoon’s eyes shot to his shorter companion as they narrowed.
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon, dude. You had y/n y/l/n, the ultimate sweetheart of Decelis High, practically begging for your attention, and you were nothing but mean to her. I mean, anyone would want to be in your place. Of course she’s sick of you.”
“Yeah but-”
“But nothing.” Jake punched Sunghoon’s arm, putting a soft dent in the fabric of his puffy jacket, and the weaker of the two winced. “You were fucking bogus.”
“Yeah, I get it.” Sunghoon snapped, swatting Jake’s hand away with a scowl. “I was a loser.” When Jake nodded, affirming Sunghoon’s self-diss, he sent him a glare. “Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Nothing, bro. Just move on and stop being such a dick.” Jake shrugged, walking away with his nose still buried in his book, leaving Sunghoon to think. Did he really care if you didn’t like him anymore? Would it be so bad for you to continue to ignore him?
The answer was yes. Undeniably so, because he despised you, and it only brought him more joy to see you struggle. Sunghoon liked being catered to, and you had just taken away his greatest pleasure.
The game was on.
“Jake, it’s simple.”
“No, it’s not.” Jake rubbed his forehead frustratedly as you attempted to explain the permutation formula to him for the fortieth time that day. He was supposed to be good at math, at least that’s what Jay said, and Jay was almost always right. However, you realized after a few tutoring sessions that Jake was a bit less attentive in math class as his friend made him out to be. “Why is there an exclamation point?”
“The exclamation point is to demonstrate how you’re supposed to multiply the number by each number following it, consecutively.” Jake looked like you had just told him to grow wings and fly, and you took the paper from his hand with a small giggle. “Jesus, Jake. You look like you got three hours of sleep last night and your dog shit in your cereal.” He let out a chuckle.
“You’ve got half of that statement spot on.”
“I’m going to assume it’s the former.” you said playfully.
“You got it.” he sighed a second time.
“Wanna talk about it?” He huffed, like the mere memory of his stressors were enough to upset him even when they weren’t present.
“It’s nothing…” You knew it wasn’t nothing. “It’s just Sunghoon.”
Bingo.
“He’s so oblivious sometimes.” Jake said exasperatedly. “Although, most times I’m pretty sure he’s being dense on purpose.” You stared at him blankly and he rested his chin on his palm. “He’s so stubborn. I always tell him to just let things go, to move on, but he never listens.” You didn’t need an explanation to understand what he was talking about. “I don’t know. He’s just felt so negative recently. Especially today.”
“What’s so different about today?” you asked, elated that he was frustrated at your indifference, which wasn’t indifference at all judging by how much you cared.
“Nothing, for most of us.” the Aussie shrugged. “I suppose he’s just feeling a bit abandoned.” You raised an eyebrow, and Jake seemed to notice his misstep. “T-that doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Sure.” you snorted, pulling the sheet of paper you were supposed to be attentively solving into your lap, flipping through your binder for the notes.
“Are you free on Saturday night?” Your eyebrows practically flew to your hairline.
“Depends on who’s asking, and why.”
“Yeonjun’s throwing a party.” You were very well aware of Choi Yeonjun, a freshman at Hybe University. Even after finally graduating a few months ago, his parties were a must for the top tier of Decelis’ elite students; namely the popular kids. You didn’t often frequent parties, but Heeseung and Yeonjun were quite close friends. You had never missed one of his parties, and you didn’t plan to break that record.
“I wasn’t aware.” you picked up a pencil and began scrawling, eyes on your lap.
“It’s a smaller thing than usual. Just some friends, and friends of friends. Maybe a few friends of friends of friends.” You allowed a smile to pass over your lips, and Jake smiled in success. “So you’ll come?”
“I’ve never missed a Choi party.” you shut your notebook and passed the completed homework back to its owner. “I’ll give you the answers, just for today.”
“You’re the best, y/n.” Jake grinned as you stood, holding your binder to your chest, smiling in response.
“I know. Oh, and Jake?” he tilted his head as you removed a green lollipop from the pocket of your pleated skirt, sliding it across the table until it came to a stop just before his hands. “Give this to Sunghoon.”
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
Park Sunghoon was absolutely fuming.
Typically, when school was over, he’d come home, collapse on his bed, write down the lollipop of the day, and then firmly put you out of his mind. But today, for the first time, he found himself unable to do any of those things. He sat on his bed, staring at his wall silently. He was in a haze. He needed a distraction, asap.
When the doorbell rang, he ran downstairs in record time.
“Hit the brakes.” his little sister snapped as he dashed to the door, pulling it open, excited even to see the mailman. He was surprised to see his best friend on the other side, who gave him a sideways look.
“Your scowl is freaking me out.” Jake said, hands in his pockets as he strolled inside. Sunghoon closed the door behind him.
“Get used to it.” Sunghoon replied petulantly, and the two boys walked back up the stairs to Sunghoon’s room. “What brings you to my part of town?”
“I’ve got news.” Jake said, flopping down onto Sunghoon’s bed with a smug expression on his pretty face. “Oh, but before I forget.” Jake reached into the pocket of his blue jeans, removing a spherical object and tossing it in Sunghoon’s direction. The younger boy caught it, his face brightening subconsciously.
“Finally,” he rolled his eyes, unwrapping the lollipop and tucking it into the side of his mouth, sucking on it thoughtfully.
“As I was saying I-” Sunghoon ignored Jake’s ramblings, ducking under his bed and reaching for the green notebook, rifling through the mess under his bed frame. Typically, he’d be too embarrassed to do this in front of company, but he couldn’t find it within him to care. “Did you hear about Yeonjun’s party this weekend?” Sunghoon ignored him, removing the lollipop from his mouth and shoving it towards Jake.
“Do you think this smells like apple?” he asked, and Jake swatted his hand away.
“Did you hear anything I just said? And I’m not putting my face anywhere near something that’s been in your mouth.” Sunghoon rolled his eyes again, turning his attention back to his notebook as Jake stared at him. “Are you even listening?”
“I’m listening.” Sunghoon waved him off, but Jake could swear he heard him muttering fruits under his breath.
“Yeonjun’s having a party this weekend.” he repeated, and Sunghoon looked at him blankly, finally putting his pen down.
“So what?” he scoffed. “You’ve never wanted to go to one of those parties before. They don’t want people like us there.” Jake narrowed his eyes.
“People like us? They’re fine with me, you’re the one they have a problem with.” Jake said, pressing his pointer finger into Sunghoon’s chest while the latter frowned. “In fact, I happen to have an invitation, considering me and Heeseung are friends.”
“I don’t want to go to any party that Heeseung is going to.” Sunghoon refused childishly, and Jake kissed his teeth.
“I don’t get what your issue with Heeseung is. Hating y/n was bad enough, but Heeseung is especially innocent.” Jake shook his head when his best friend opened his mouth to protest, slapping his hand over his mouth before he got the chance. “I know what you’re gonna say, and I don’t wanna hear it.” Sunghoon remained silent.
The two boys sat quietly for a moment, just looking at each other, both as stubborn as the next. Jake broke the silence, sighing exhaustedly.
“Will you just do this one thing for me? Please?” Sunghoon pursed his lips. On one hand, he hated partying. He wanted nothing to do with it. But on the other hand, Jake Sim was his best friend, and he loved this boy more than he loved himself. And he had been a pretty shitty friend recently.
And so, the boy with iron resolve, and an even stronger temper, nodded his head.
“Fine, but seriously, just this once.” he said, wagging his finger when Jake’s face broke out into an enormous smile as he leapt up from the bed. “Never again, okay?”
“Pinky promise!” Jake said, running out the door and down the stairs, slamming the front door behind him as Sunghoon shook his head.
What had he gotten himself into?
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
𝐑𝐀𝐒𝐏𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐘 - chapter iii.
Park Sunghoon had a confession. It was one that he hadn’t told anybody. Not his family, not his friends, not even Jake, who he told nearly everything. No, this was a true secret. One that was bursting at the seams, that he desperately wanted to confess.
You were his first love.
Well, he assumed you were. He had no idea what love was; he was only fourteen at the time. But it felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest when you didn’t meet his gaze, and it felt like he was on cloud nine when he spotted you staring.
Sunghoon wasn’t one to make many friends. He wasn’t a social creature. He couldn’t say that was how he liked it, because he wasn’t necessarily sure that was true. He didn’t know if he liked to be alone, or if that was just how it had always been. But that changed when he met you.
For once, he found himself wanting to be around someone. The minute he laid eyes on you, he fell head over heels. You were everything he wasn’t. He knew he was in love with you when a junior tried shoving Jake into a locker and you punched him in the face. Even Sunghoon didn’t have the courage to stand up for Jake like that.
Sunghoon admired everything about you, but he knew you could never care about him. You were president of the student council, head of the party planning committee, photographer of the yearbook club, and the school newspaper’s best journalist. You tutored, you played multiple instruments. You liked being around people. You were brave and righteous. You were everything he wished he was. Why would you like him? He was just a loser who skipped class to skate and wished he had a little more courage.
But sometimes, he saw a little glimmer of hope for the two of you. When you came to his soccer game and only cheered for him, when you lent him your favorite pencil, when you left a note on his desk saying you liked his diorama the best. Sometimes he even thought that he could be with you if he finally followed his heart.
The only issue? Lee Heeseung.
Captain of the varsity rugby team, runner up for valedictorian, king bee of the school. He was loved by everyone. He had more friends than he could count, and the same for his admirers. When he wanted something, he got it. Sunghoon supposed you counted for that as well. It was obvious that he had a crush on you. Everyone knew you and Heeseung would date eventually, even Sunghoon.
Sunghoon had never fought for anything in his life, but for once, he was willing to fight for you. Until something happened that changed his perspective of you completely, something that made him despise you so much, he could barely contain it. Nobody knew what changed, but one day, Sunghoon dedicated his life to hating you.
You had no idea why.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
Jungwon thought he could find out something about your past with Sunghoon if he sleuthed hard enough, but he was finding it more difficult than imagined.
He had checked the records in the principal's office —with the cover story that he was doing an investigative report— three times over, and he had yielded nothing. He asked nearly everyone he knew for any kind of background information. He even checked with the newspaper department, hoping they had some kind of trashy gossip if nothing else. Most of what he heard was entirely useless, consisting of people trash talking Sunghoon and hyping you up entirely too much. Jungwon thought they’d reconsider their words after witnessing you on a bad day.
He sighed frustratedly, collapsing into the principal’s chair, kicking his feet up onto the desk. Absolutely nothing.
He cocked his head when the door unlatched, slowly creaking open no more than an inch or two. A sneakered foot snuck its way inside, the rest of the intruder following, letting out a yelp when he saw Jungwon sitting skeptically in the center of the room.
“What are you doing here?” Jake said, a hand on his chest as he exhaled rapidly.
“What are you doing here?” Jungwon repeated his question back at him. Jake and Jungwon were mostly ambivalent towards each other, but there was always some distaste. After all, they were the best friends of mortal enemies.
“I…” Jake stared at him blankly. “I’m checking the records.”
“What a coincidence. So am I.” The two boys sized each other up, wondering if they might be there for the same reason.
There was no way.
“How’d you get in?” Jake said after a beat.
“Front door.” Jungwon replied, and the older boy frowned.
“Yeah, I gathered that. I mean, what did you tell administration to get in here?”
“I told them, ‘I want to check the school records.’” Jake shook his head, reaching for the desk containing the files of all the information on every student.
“Are you kidding me? Administration would rather die than let me in here.” Jake sorted through the files. He paused, frowned, then thumbed back and forth for a moment before straightening up and crossing his arms. His eyes widened when he saw the missing file he sought splayed out on the desk, just underneath Jungwon's shoes. “Why were you looking at Sunghoon’s personal file?” Jake said with an accusatory tone, and Jungwon paled, snatching it off the desk and tucking it away into his jacket.
“You’re imagining things.” he said quickly, and Jake rolled his eyes, turning back to the file cabinet. He removed your file, looking at Jungwon pointedly.
“Are you here for the same reason I am?” he asked. Neither of them wanted to admit it, but they were both certain they had the same goal.
Jungwon nodded slowly. “I think so, yeah.”
“You want to find out what happened with Sunghoon and y/n, don’t you?” Jake asked, and Jungwon averted his eyes sheepishly. There was a moment of silence before the two boys broke into laughter. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Jungwon smiled, crossing his arms. “Let’s work together.”
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
Sunghoon was having a horrible day.
Most of Sunghoon’s days were below average, simply because he didn’t often feel like having fun. But that day, he had woken up with a sinking feeling in his stomach and a furrow between his brows. That day was going to be a horrible day, and he knew it even at 6:45 am when the snooze button on his alarm stopped working.
He got to school with no bad occurrences, almost forgetting what was making him so upset. But when he saw you and Lee Heeseung, his lips on your neck, he suddenly remembered.
It gave him momentarily relief when he recalled the apple sucker from yesterday, but when he caught himself smiling, his mood only soured further.
“Morning, sunshine!” Jake chirped, attacking from behind and ruffling Sunghoon’s hair cheerily. Sunghoon glanced back to give him a glare, attempting to repair the damage Jake had done to his hairdo.
“You seem awfully jolly this morning,” he said gruffly.
“I don’t know. Something good is in the air this morning.” Jake hummed, hands in his pockets and a significant spring in his step.
He couldn’t very well admit that he was orchestrating an entire plan to get you and Sunghoon alone together so you’d finally resolve your issues. And he definitely couldn’t mention that he was plotting in cahoots with your best friend.
“Yeah, right.” Sunghoon scoffed.
“I’m assuming that —once again— you’ve chosen to have a bad attitude today?” Jake asked rhetorically. He already knew the answer. He knew his best friend well enough to decipher when he was upset, although it was easy enough that anyone could probably tell; Sunghoon was in an awful mood on most days.
“It’s not something I choose.” Sunghoon scoffed, still messing with his hair.
“Sure it isn’t.” Jake said sardonically, punching him in the shoulder as Sunghoon glared, rubbing the sore area. “Don’t be a- oh hey!” Sunghoon whirled around at his best friend’s sudden topic switch to see you dashing past. “Hey, did you do the chemistry homework last night?”
“Of course I did.” you scoffed. “I’m assuming you didn’t?”
“Clearly you know me well. No chance I could get the notes off of you?”
“No chance, sorry Jake.” you laughed like the tinkling of bells. “But who knows, I might pass you the answer sheet while the teacher isn’t looking.”
“You’re the best!” he grinned as you saluted playfully. Your joyous facade faded for a moment when your gaze locked with Sunghoon’s briefly. You searched his face for any sign that he had received your gift, but his stoic glare firmly remained. You held back the urge to roll your eyes, turning on your heel.
Your lack of a response only made Sunghoon more upset. He was scowling hotly, so much so, that it was certain you could fry an egg on his head.
“She’s such a pretender. Can you fucking believe that?” You heard him scoff just before you left, an accusatory hand pointing in your direction. Jake cocked his head, and Sunghoon’s scowl deepened. “She didn’t even acknowledge that I was here!”
“Why should she?” Jake laughed, tucking his hands into his pockets and walking away as Sunghoon froze on the spot, practically shaking with rage.
Oh, you were going to regret ignoring him.
It almost made Sunghoon sick to think about how much he used to like you.
He thought of all the times he had written your name in his notebook surrounded by hearts and little angel wings. All the times he wished he could bring you flowers, or tell you how he felt. All the times he watched Heeseung sweep you off your feet, and felt bitter resent in his throat. For the first time in his miserable 14 years, he was certain he was in love. It was a bit far-fetched, considering he had only spoken to you once or twice. He didn’t know if he had ever had a full conversation with you.
What was it all for? Why did the girl he loved have to hurt him so bad?
It made him think that life wasn’t very fair. That people were egocentric, they didn’t consider others feelings. He was pathetic, he knew that. He should let it go, forget about what happened between the two of you and move on. He had his own life, you had yours. His existence shouldn’t center around the hatred of another human being.
Maybe hating you was an escape. Maybe he hated you because he couldn’t handle the thought of loving you anymore.
The line between hate and love was very fine. Even he knew that.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
You really didn’t want to go to this party. The more you thought about it, the more you felt sick to your stomach.
After the week you had, drinking with a bunch of teenagers sounded like the last thing you wanted to do. Even being around your friends and boyfriend sounded deeply unappealing; for the first time you could remember, you just wanted to be alone. But you knew this was important to your clique, and so you sucked it up, brushing the dust off the front of your party dress and turning around to your friends.
Ningning and Karina sat on the bed, on their phones. Ningning was dressed in an orange tube top dress, Karina wearing an identical one in purple. Neither of them noticed you until you cleared your throat, and they fawned over your dress.
They were your friends, supposedly. You liked them well enough, and they seemed to like you the same. They were sweet girls, but you didn’t really connect. The only reason you were friends was because you were popular, and so were they. You were living in a dog-eat-dog world, where popular girls became friends with each other to avoid making enemies. You wished it wasn’t like that, and you had a feeling they did too.
Yeonjun walked into the room with a big, cheesy grin on his face, toting your boyfriend behind him. Further back were Beomgyu, Huening Kai, Taehyun, and Soobin, the rest of your boyfriend's older friends. See also: people you didn’t really connect with.
“Are you girls ready?” Yeonjun asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes as the group crowded in. Heeseung came from the back of the procession to take your hands, and it felt like a breath of fresh air. You sighed as the others engaged in conversation.
Heeseung frowned. “You okay? You usually love Yeonjun’s parties.” You brushed some stray hair out of your face and painted on a smile.
“I’m fine, Hee. Thanks for looking out for me.” you said. He pressed a soft kiss to your cheek, adjusting your necklace so the clasp was aligned with the nape of your neck.
“Anytime you wanna leave, just say the word. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” You held his hand with a smile.
“Don’t worry about me, baby. Just have fun.” you ushered him towards his friends, and he gave you a brief look before he went to join them. The crowd filed out of the bedroom and into the living room, ready to party.
You sighed, looking at yourself in the mirror for a moment and taking a deep breath to relax yourself. You had no idea why you were so nervous. You had done this a million times around. You knew the party scene like the back of your hand, it was the life you had been living for the past four years.
You stared at the pink dress you were wearing. It was your favorite dress, yet somehow it didn’t feel good anymore. The lamp from the ceiling shone on your necklace, the bright, diamond letter H catching the light.
Usually, you tried not to let Sunghoon get to you. He was just a jealous, rude, idiot who wanted to bring you down for no reason. But today, his words reverberated in your head, ringing painfully, no matter how hard you tried to get them out.
She’s such a pretender.
It made you wonder, was he right? Were you putting on a show for everyone but you? You had played your role so well, you had almost fooled yourself.
Sometimes you got tired of being perfect. You got tired of keeping up your facade all the time. You almost lost yourself in the process.
Maybe Sunghoon was right. Maybe you were a pretender. Maybe hating you meant that he was the only one who really understood you.
And maybe that was a good enough reason to hate him a little less.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐘 - chapter iv.
“For the record, I am not happy about this.” Sunghoon said for what must’ve been the millionth time that night. Jake had forced him into a button up and combed his hair, in comparison to his usual overgrown bangs and old band tee. He cleaned up nice, but the boy’s foul expression was enough to drive off any prospective attention.
“Tough luck.” Jake said, adjusting his chain as he smiled charmingly at himself in the mirror. “It’s one party. You’ll be fine.” Sunghoon continued to grumble.
He wasn’t used to seeing himself done up nicely. He felt too vulnerable without his long bangs hiding his eyes and a hoodie to cover himself up. It didn’t feel right to see himself fixed up like this, but he kept telling himself that it was only once, for Jake.
Jake looked down at the watch on his wrist, a string of curses leaving his lips.
“Shit, Sunghoon, we gotta go. We’re late.” he grabbed his jacket off the coat rack, dashing out the door while Sunghoon dragged his feet behind him.
“We’re fashionably late.” the younger boy corrected, Jake turning around to give him an impatient look, nodding his head towards his car.
“We’re gonna miss all the fun, c’mon.” Sunghoon frowned.
“What a shame.” he mumbled under his breath, following his best friend into the car and praying that this night would go well, and without conflict.
That was wishful thinking.
Sunghoon instantly knew he was right when they pulled up into Yeonjun’s driveway. He could hear the music pumping from inside the house, so loud it made his ears ache. He could see the crowds of people through the enormous glass windows, and grimaced at the idea of being among the masses of sweaty bodies. Jake however, seemed delighted, and so Sunghoon tried to put a smile on his face.
Jake turned off the ignition, leaning over to his best friend and studying the blank look on his face. “Ready?” he asked, and Sunghoon nodded with an exasperated sigh, unbuckling his seatbelt and slamming the car door behind him. Jake rolled his eyes.
“This is going to be a nightmare.” Sunghoon said, unable to hold back a quip. Jake patted him on the shoulder, ringing the doorbell with a grin.
“Let’s see if you can last the whole night.”
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
It had only been an hour and your head was already pounding.
All the lights felt too bright, the music was too loud, and too many people were trying to talk to you. After having your crisis of self merely 60 minutes previous, you were definitely not in the mood to make conversation with anyone. You downed your third vodka soda of the night and felt everything get a little hazier. You were satisfied when the sound got a little quieter and the lights became less harsh.
Toting your fourth drink in hand, you dropped down to the couch. Most people were busy dancing, thank God, and the only people on the couch was a girl vomiting in Yeonjun’s best porcelain vase and her friend coaxing it out of her. You didn’t mind it too much. At this point, you were craving some humanity.
You felt a little at ease when Jay sat beside you, smiling in greeting. Jay was pretty much the only one of Heeseung’s friends whom you actually liked.
“How’s the night going?” you asked, sipping on the red cup in your hand.
“It’s alright.” he said, his words slurred as he rubbed his nose. It was clear that he had more than a few drinks, probably a couple past his capacity. “Your friend- what’s her name? Tried talking to me earlier.” You didn’t bother to inquire. “Ning? Ningning?” he laughed to himself. He was obviously drunk, so you took another sip and ignored his ramblings. Even the most sensible of people were insufferable to you at the moment.
He sniffled briefly, and you studied his face. You could practically see the gears in his head turning as he poked his tongue into the flesh of his left cheek thoughtfully.
“Hey,” he suddenly said, looking at you very seriously. “I’m really sorry about that Sunghoon thing, y’know. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, and it’s really been bothering me.” You furrowed your brows.
“What Sunghoon thing?” you said, and his jaw dropped open, laughing drunkenly as he covered his mouth. Clearly he had said something he wasn’t supposed to.
“Oops, did Heeseung never tell you?” he said, trying to backtrack. “Oh, we just fucked with Sunghoon a little in sophomore year. You know, back before you and Heeseung started dating.” An awful feeling crept into your insides as you stared at him relentlessly until he finally continued. “We, uh, we just wrote him a letter or something like that.”
“What did it say?” you demanded.
“Oh, you know.” he said for the thousandth time, and you were beginning to lose your patience. He took a swig of your drink to loosen his tongue. Jay knew he shouldn’t be the one to tell you about this, but his conscience was pressing him to continue, and so he did. “We just said some mean stuff, called him a freak. Told him to stay away from you. It was Heeseung’s idea, really.”
You felt a pit in your stomach. You felt so sick, you didn’t even have the capacity to register the anger bubbling up in your throat. Why would your boyfriend do this? What had Sunghoon ever done to him?
You didn’t even notice that you were defending Sunghoon over Heeseung.
“Why would you do that?” you asked blankly, and Jay stood up quickly, stumbling drunkenly as he almost lost his balance. He sensed that he said something he shouldn’t, and if he kept drunkenly blabbering, Heeseung would definitely kick his ass for it sooner or later.
“Uh, you should ask Heeseung about t-this.” he stuttered, evading before you got angry. He had never seen you upset before. Nobody had, with the exception of one.
You stood from the couch, downing the remainder of your drink, feeling the alcohol leave a burning trail down your throat before you tossed the cup to the side.
You had to find your boyfriend.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
Dear Sunghoon,
I know you have a crush on me. I’m sorry to say this, but I really don’t reciprocate your feelings. To be honest, I find it disgusting that you think you even have a chance with me.
Maybe you haven’t realized, but we come from completely different worlds. People actually like me. You might not know what that feels like, but it’s actually pretty nice to be liked. I get good grades, I make friends, I do the work. Something you wouldn’t know much about. You’re nothing compared to me. You have no idea what it’s like to be admired, or to have friends. Maybe that’s because you’re always alone, daydreaming like a fucking loser.
I could never love someone like you. You’re a freak.
Sincerely, y/n.
P.S. I’m in love with Lee Heeseung.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
Jake, that bastard, had absolutely disappeared. He had left Sunghoon stranded in a house full of strangers. And not just any house; the house of the man he disliked nearly the most. Well, after you, then Heeseung, then Jungwon… you get the point.
Sunghoon wasn’t a big drinker, but he downed any alcohol he could get his hands on. His fourth shot of vodka left a fierce burning in his throat, and he tried his best to ignore it. Alcohol was just about the only thing that could make him feel a little less alienated in a place full of people that despised him. With every sideways glance, even an admiring or curious one, he felt more and more like running away. But he promised to stick around for the night, and he was a man of his word. Most of the time, at least.
He felt his eyes almost roll into the back of his head when Lee Heeseung approached him, toting one of his goons behind him.
“Can I help you?” Sunghoon said from behind the rim of his cup, brows raised skeptically. Heeseung had a foul look on his face, one that Sunghoon hadn’t really seen before. He seemed to be a jolly guy most of the time.
“What are you doing here?” he said, voice low.
“Sorry, I wasn’t informed that you were Yeonjun’s security guard. I’ll be on my way out, if need be.” Sunghoon said sardonically, and Heeseung’s scowl only deepened.
“I’m warning you, watch what you say to me.” Heeseung said, pointing so closely, his index finger nearly brushed his chest. “I think we both know you don’t belong here.”
“Wow, it seems like you’ve got an attitude problem. Not as innocent as everyone thinks, huh?” Sunghoon didn’t shy away from the contact, attempting to close the inch difference between their heights. It was a lot harder than it seemed. “Just like you little girlfriend.” he provoked, and Heeseung grabbed the front of his shirt, jaw pulsing.
“You watch what you saw about her.” Heeseung said through grit teeth. “You’re just jealous, and we all know it. She could never love someone like you. You’re a freak.”
I could never love someone like you. You’re a freak.
Sunghoon furrowed his brow. He tried his hardest to keep his lower lip from trembling. He couldn’t show that he was hurt, no matter what.
“I’m not afraid of you.” he said.
Heeseung scoffed. “You’re pretending.”
“I’m not the only one.” The two boys stood in silence for a beat.
Heeseung dropped Sunghoon’s shirt, adjusting his jacket with a glare. “Fuck you, Sunghoon. We come from different worlds, you have no idea what it’s like to be me.”
We come from completely different worlds.
You have no idea what it’s like to be admired.
With that, Heeseung was gone, his lackeys disappearing as well. And it was all coming back to Sunghoon, biting his lip furiously to distract from the burning in his eyes. He downed the rest of what was in his cup, wandering back to the kitchen.
Maybe he wasn’t welcome here, but he was going to drink them dry before he left.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
“I have a surprise for you!” Jungwon waved his arms excitedly. You stared at him, completely unamused. Your best friend definitely had the worst timing ever.
“I’m a little busy.” you said, trying to push past him to no avail. You didn’t feel like explaining your situation, not until after you talked to your boyfriend.
“It’s really important,” Jungwon insisted, pressing his hands to the small of your back and steering you towards the staircase. You tried to squirm out of his grip but gave up about halfway through. You would humor Jungwon and see his stupid surprise, then you’d find Heeseung and have a serious conversation.
“Okay, right this way,” Jungwon mumbled, pushing you into a spare guest bedroom. “Wait here for just a moment, I need to get something ready.”
“How long is this going to take?” you said exasperatedly, flopping down onto the bed and crossing your arms.
“Just a minute!” he yelled before slamming the door, dashing away.
As he walked into the corridor, he high fived a certain blond haired boy, Jake rushing by to find his respective best friend.
“Some guy upstairs said he was looking for you.” Jake said, jabbing his thumb at the staircase. Sunghoon’s brows knitted, looking up skeptically before taking another swig of the drink in his hand.
“Me? Was it Heeseung?” Jake shrugged ambiguously.
“Don’t know. He was walking real fast, muttering your name. I think he went into one of the rooms upstairs.” Sunghoon put down his cup, rolling his eyes and heading quickly to the staircase. Jake grinned successfully, trailing behind the boy as he muttered strings of profanities and insults.
“What the fuck does he want…” Sunghoon grumbled, opening the first door he saw when he went upstairs, shutting it in exasperation when a couple screamed, their intimacy interrupted. Jake grimaced; Sunghoon seemed unaffected. He continued this with three more doors, until he finally reached one with a white frame and a silver handle, one with squeaky hinges, one that locked from the outside.
“Where is he-” Jake shoved the boy with all his might, slamming the door behind him as his best friend yelped, pounding on the door. Jungwon came running from around the corner, diving for the doorknob with a key in hand, turning it firmly in the lock. No matter how much Sunghoon protested, it was futile.
“Nice one.” Jake said, high fiving the younger boy as the two proudly celebrated their success. They stared at the door until Sunghoon’s protests went quiet, and the culprits were left with an awkward silence as they registered their actions.
“...We did a good thing, right?” Jungwon asked unsurely. “...Yeah. Definitely.”
“Oh, fucking excellent. God, this night couldn’t get any worse.” Sunghoon said immediately upon noticing your presence. He huffed, pacing around the room while you stared at him, eyes watery, biting down on your lip hard. Sunghoon was filled with so much rage, he was unable to speak, and the two of you sat in silence for a brief second before you got to your feet, walking straight up to him and slapping him in the face.
“I am so fucking mad at you!” you yelled, shocking both of you.
“Me? What could I have possibly done to make you mad at me?” Sunghoon shouted incredulously, pressing his hand to his hot cheek, red blooming under his skin.
“This whole rivalry!” you said, gesturing vaguely. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he asked irritatedly.
“About the letter!” Sunghoon paled. He had imagined this moment a hundred times over, and none of those hypotheticals went like this. He simply couldn’t have this conversation with you, it was too painful. It was in the past.
“Why should I? You’re the one that wrote it.” he said frustratedly.
“Jeez, you’re so fucking stupid. I never would have done that to you. I wouldn’t say any of that mean shit to you. I didn’t write that letter!”
He scoffed, “Oh yeah, then who did?”
“Heeseung did, Sunghoon.” He paused for a moment, not sure what to say.
You’re just jealous, and we all know it.
She could never love someone like you, you’re a freak.
We come from completely different worlds.
You have no idea what it’s like to be me.
Heeseungs hurtful words rang around his head, cutting into his skin like hot knives. It was impossible. You wrote the letter. Heeseung wouldn’t have done that.
“Why would he do that?” you stared at him, unbelieving at how oblivious he was.
“Because I was in love with you, obviously!”
It felt like Sunghoon’s heart was on fire. The two of you stared at each other in silence for what felt like centuries, Sunghoon’s head spinning. Suddenly, everything was much too real for him to take in. His rising body temperature, the sweet lilt of your voice, the way you looked at him through your lashes.
“What?” he questioned blankly, hardly even registering what you were saying. He felt dizzy. “You were in love with me?”
“Well, it was freshman year. I was 14. Can you just shut the fuck up? I’m still mad at you.” you said, your cheeks went aflame with the realization of what you had just said.
He grinned. “You’re so dumb.”
“You’re so fucking annoying-” Suddenly, his lips crashed into yours.
He tangled his hands in your hair, knotting his left hand in your hair. You kissed him in return as he held your waist in his right hand, his teeth biting your lower lip. You both fought for dominance, staggering through the room until your back hit the wall, and you wrapped a leg around his waist as he cursed under his breath. It was a kiss of hatred, but at the same time, relief. His lips felt as though they were made to fit yours, fitting like a puzzle piece. You parted for a breath, but he pulled you back in hungrily.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” The two of you pulled away immediately as Jake cursed loudly, Jungwon behind him with a look on his face like you had just shot him. “What is wrong with you two? We wanted you to make up, not make out!”
“Get the fuck out!” Sunghoon shouted, running after his best friend and shoving him away, slamming the door behind them with a heavy exhalation. When he turned back to you, you were trying to hold back a giggle and failing miserably.
The two of you began to laugh, and Sunghoon dropped to the floor with a sigh, you doing the same and sidling up to him.
“I can’t believe we just did that.” you said, feeling intensely embarrassed.
“ Yeah, I bet you’ll give me herpes.” Sunghoon mocked, and you turned to him with a glare, and he held his hands up. “Old habits die hard. But I really am sorry I was mean to you. I didn’t know Heeseung wrote the letter.” You scowled at the reminder.
“Heeseung…” you said, rubbing your eyes. “Jesus. What am I gonna do about him?” Sunghoon didn’t reply, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully.
“Did you ever think I was a freak?” he asked suddenly. You frowned.
“Why would I think that?”
“I don’t know. I was always alone, always daydreaming. I wasn’t popular or anything. Didn’t you ever consider that you shouldn’t like someone like me?”
“Someone like you?” you snorted. “C’mon, don’t be full of yourself. You’re just a person. I could care less if you like to be alone, or if you daydream. So does everyone else, they’re just not brave enough to say it aloud.” Sunghoon smiled in relief, and he wanted nothing more than to press another hungry kiss to your lips. But he knew he needed to hold back. I mean, you had just gotten over your rivalry a couple minutes ago. He should probably give it some time before he starts kissing his ex-nemesis.
“You should probably go,” he said, avoiding eye contact. “I bet people are looking for you. And I think you might need to talk to your boyfriend.”
“Ex boyfriend, when I’m done with him.” you said, rolling your eyes and getting to your feet, bruising the dust off of your dress. You held out a hand to assist Sunghoon in getting up, and he took it with a smile. You walked, turning back when he didn’t follow you. “C’mon. Let’s show Heeseung that we’re not enemies anymore.”
He couldn’t hold back his grin.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
You felt like the room quaked when you walked downstairs with Sunghoon.
The music didn’t stop, but it almost seemed like everything went silent, hundreds of pairs of eyes landing on the two of you immediately, narrowed, criticizing. Sunghoon was sweating at the judgment, but you strode confidently, not paying any attention to their stares. And like magic, everyone began to turn around and mind their own business. You sent Sunghoon a wink.
“Do anything with confidence, and people won’t give a shit.” you said. Sunghoon grinned. He knew he had a lot to learn from you. The two of you slid through the bodies, navigating your way through until you spotted him from across the room.
Lee Heeseung. The man you called the love of your life just a few hours ago. You wonder if you still loved him after what happened.
“I think I’m gonna head out.” Sunghoon said, tilting his head towards the door.
“See you later, Sunghoon. Don’t be a stranger.” you said, before turning on your heel and marching away. He shook his head at your retreating figure, smiling with a warm blush on his cheeks before he made his exit.
“Heeseung!” you yelled across the room, attempting to pass by the hordes of drunks to get to your boyfriend. Him and his friends were playing a rowdy game of beer pong, and he watched you inquisitively with a ball in hand. “We need to talk.”
“About what, baby?” he asked, tossing the ball and scoring with ease, Yeonjun and Beomgyu cheering behind him and chanting his name.
“Heeseung.” you said his name coldly, and he grew serious within an instant.
“Yeonjun, take my place.” he said, slapping his friend on the back as the boy raised his brow, the group watching you with curiosity as you walked away.
You led Heeseung to the backyard, crossing your arms the minute you turned around to face him. He could tell you were serious as ever.
“What is it baby?” he said with concern, reaching for your arm, but you pulled away from him quickly. He only grew more worried.
“Heeseung, do you have anything to tell me?” you asked vaguely, and every bad thing he had done in his entire life ran through his head in an instant.
“No?” he said pathetically. “Y/n, will you just tell me what you want?”
“Why did you write Sunghoon that letter?” Heeseung paled. He didn’t think you would find out. Not this soon. “You said such hurtful things to him, why? And addressed from me?” You said, voice wobbling.
“Baby, let me explain-”
“You’re the reason Sunghoon hated me so much. I put up with his belittling for years because I thought I deserved it somehow. Just to find out it was you all along? What kind of fucked up person would do that?”
“How else was I supposed to get him away from you?”
“That’s not your decision to make, Heeseung.” you said coldly.
“Look, baby, that was all in the past. I’m really sorry, can’t we just look past it?”
“No, Heeseung, because you hurt an innocent person really badly. And that is always unforgivable.” you sighed, pinching the space between your brows.
“He doesn’t matter, y/n. I’m your boyfriend, not him!”
“Well, not anymore.” Both of you froze. Through the glass walls, the entirety of the party stared at the two of you, Decelis’ golden couple. Now destroyed.
“You’re breaking up with me,” Heeseung said slowly, in disbelief. “Over Park Sunghoon?” You stared at him for a moment, before steeling yourself.
“Yes. Yes I am.” And then you walked off, pushing past the shocked crowds with tears in your eyes, gunning it for the door and disappearing into the night.
Something was telling you to run after him.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
epilogue.
“She’s still at it?” Jake asked in disbelief. Just a moment previous, you had strode straight up to Sunghoon from your spot at the blackboard with the utmost confidence and placed a lollipop onto his lap. You didn’t even look into his eyes, just turning on your heel and returning to your duties.
He was beginning to get envious looks from his fellow classmates, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
“S’pose so.” Sunghoon said, unwrapping the cellophane and popping the treat into his mouth with a satisfying suction sound. “Mm. At least she’s giving me good flavors these days.”
“It’s been three years. You’d think she’d stop by now.” Jake shook his head, tossing his notebooks and laptop into his backpack as the bell rang, dismissing class.
“She’ll never stop. She loves me.” Sunghoon grinned proudly, the stick of his lollipop protruding from the corner of his upturned mouth.
“Why doesn’t she ever bring me lollipops?” Sunghoon frowned, slapping Jake in the back with his notebook before shoving it into his duffel. “Ow! What?”
“She’s my girlfriend. She’s not allowed to give lollipops to anyone but me.” Sunghoon said, like it was obvious, walking to the front of the class with Jake in tow just behind him. “Besides, you don’t even like lollipops anyway.”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
Even after a year of dating, you and Sunghoon were still up to your classic shenanigans. It was a wonder that the two of you were still together, considering how often you bickered. You were lucky that you loved each other more than enough to make up for the arguments.
“Hey, baby.” he said, striding up to your place at the front of the class and pressing a sloppy kiss onto your cheek. You wiped your cheek off with a playful scowl, before plucking the lollipop from Sunghoon’s mouth and putting it between your lips.
“Hey, Hoonie. Hey, Jake.” You reached for your boyfriend’s hand as the three of you walked out of class together. “How was practice, you two?”
“Mm, I’m tired.” Sunghoon said, pecking you as Jake rolled his eyes at your overt pda. “Jake’s been keeping me busy with training.”
“If you weren’t so shit, I wouldn’t have to train you all the time.” Jake ruffled the younger boy’s hair as he looked up at him with a scowl. After your debacle with Heeseung, Jake quit the rugby team, deciding he favored soccer. It turned out to be a good decision, as he was quite good at it, and you decided it must have been pure fate that gave him a scholarship to the same college you and Sunghoon were attending.
“Hey, I joined soccer way before you did. Have some respect for your seniors.” Sunghoon said, evading Jake’s hands as he reached to slap the younger boy, the two tussling as you watched with a smile, sucking on your lollipop. “Jesus, don’t you ever get tired of those two?” a weary voice said, sidling up to you as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. You turned to face Jungwon, his bangs matted to his forehead and his button up shirt nearly halfway undone.
“You’ve been sleeping during class?” you asked, humor in your tone as your best friend turned to you with a raised brow.
“How could you tell?” You didn’t answer. Sunghoon ran to you, a big grin on his face as he dragged Jake behind him in a headlock.
“Hey, Jungwon.” he said, reaching for a handshake that Jungwon didn’t reciprocate. He then reached for the stick dangling from your lips, removing it, kissing you softly, and then putting the sucker back in his own mouth.
“You guys are disgusting.” Jake said, voice muffled from under Sunghoon’s bicep.
“Cherry, again?” Jungwon said, watching the bright red sphere as it protruded slightly from Sunghoon’s mouth. “I should’ve known you were up to something when you ordered them in bulk.”
“What can I say? A tradition’s a tradition.” you grinned, taking Sunghoon’s hand as the four of you walked in a line. “A lollipop a day keeps Park Sunghoon away.” He looked at you with a snort, unable to hold back a smile.
“Did you just come up with that?” he asked, amused.
“I did.” you hummed, and he pressed a kiss to your nose, Jungwon and Jake groaning loudly in unison.
“We get it, you’re in love.”
“Enough already, it’s gross.” they whined, and the two of you laughed together, swinging your hands back and forth like a little swing between your sides.
Who knew you and your enemy would fall in love? You certainly couldn’t have predicted it. Turns out that college life had a lot of unexpected surprises in store. But while everything kept changing, there was one thing that always stayed the same.
Sunghoon’s heart always skipped a beat when you gave him a lollipop.
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
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More Posts from Hoondiors
DEJA VU ⏖ ꒪ 이희승
SYN0PSiS After your third comeback, you thought you had mastered being an idol. But what you couldn’t quite master was the concept of love and heartbreak. Though you had yet to experience one, you just might when you can’t seem to ignore the growing distance between heeseung and you anymore as his attention begins to focus on someone else.
ㅤㅤ BASED 0N DEJA-VU BY 0LIViA R0DRiG0
𖥦 GENRE ⤿ smau, angst
∿ WARNiNGS profanity, cheating, tba
ㅤㅤㅤ̑̑៹FEAT. enhypen and my ocs
ㅤ⏱ PAiRiNG idol!heeseung x idol!reader
STATUS ongoing. ︿ STARTED 260823 ↷ ENDED TBA
𖥻 TAGLiST 𖥦 OPEN // send an ask or comment to be added
PR0FiLES ៳ epipen ◠ lunas
⏆ ⋆ CHAPTERS
TEASER ᶻz ONE | TWO
0001 heeyn disband!
0002 SHUT UP FRENCH.
0003 yolo ig
0004 heeseung back off!
0005 what if i CRIED
0006 YN LOOK AWAY
0007 I know Where you live.
0008 ok genshin player
0009 omg u poophole
0010 bffr
0010 MY GUY U ARE SCARING THE HOES
0012 side chick (written + smau)
0013 nvm yall, my bad
0014 wake up and break up!
0015 ask me where i cared 💀
0016 single and ready to mingle
0017 wah wah (written + smau)
0018 watch out
0019 Oh. (written + smau)
0020 jow or never moment
0021 patrick star
0022 love you, and always will (written + smau)
TAGLiST ∿ OPEN // bold cannot be tagged
@hoonvrs @imhuh @svarcq @wvnkoi @fakeuwus @flwrshee @soobsnow @homohoons @noascats @lucyinthesky-00 @jiawji @ilychee08 @kjrcrz @rikisly @imsiriuslyreal @jiaant11 @starryunho @iea-tsand @artstaeh @zellypop-main
PERM TAGLiST
@flwoie @zuyairus @bubblytaetae @yenqa @haknom @redm4ri
© yeokii — do not copy, repost, translate any of my works on any platform
—ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤᘡ WHATS YOUR ESTIMATED TIME ARRIVAL ?
idol!ni-ki x idol!fem!reader
—When New Jeans member Y/n finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her the Enhypen member Ni-ki (and also one of y/n's exes) finds this as an opportunity to get her back but they never seem to be able to talk to each other due to their busy schedules.
will Ni-ki win her heart or will she find someone else?
🍓 GENRE fluff, angst(not rlly?), crack, idol au, social media au, exes to lovers WARNINGS profanity, mentions of food,(more will be added) TAGLIST closed 4 now! FEATURING newjeans, nmixx, enhypen, ive & some other idols
PROFILES !!
old skirts — ice spice enjoyers — frat boys
SETLIST !!
1.ETA
NewJeans only hangout
…
2.Super Shy
…
3.New Jeans
…
4.ASAP
…
5.Get Up
…
6.Cool With You
…
© feeeli do not translate, modify or repost
nothing to lose
pairing: jay park x fem!reader
summary: after a hockey party, a football game, and a near perfect first kiss, jay is humbled by his (practically silent) friend sunghoon, who reminds him that he has nothing to lose.
genres: university / college au, friends (uni crushes) to lovers, smut, fluff
warnings: minors dni, vaguely (very?) british undertones..
word count: 24,064 .. sorry.
playlist: awkward sza, do you like me? daniel caesar
author's note: please just be nice to me and let me know your thoughts (positive / negative / anything as long as ur not mean abt it) .. thank u @asahicore my rock, my bestie, my beta reader .. <333 hope u enjoy !!!
When you pair his kind eyes and charming smile with his ever-positive outlook on life, it’s easy to see why Park Jongseong is heavily popular amongst the student body; even described by your flatmates (and the rest of his fan club) as the stuff of dreams. And in your dreams, you know exactly why he’s staring in your direction with a sweet smile on his face. In real life, however, you have absolutely no idea and it’s kind of weird. Not his smile itself, no, his smile is.. really pretty, but it’s kind of weird in the sense that it’s directed at you.
You think.
Most of the library’s population sits across the room in the computer lab and based on your seat, at an empty table, in the (also empty) far corner, he’s either smiling at you or at the wall that your head is resting on. It’s not until the two of you lock eyes that you feel you should smile back, though your brows knit together at the way he whips his head around in the other direction when you do – a move that seems out of character for the Park Jongseong that you know. Or rather, the Park Jongseong Jay that you knew.
The Jay you knew was a (more than) pleasant enough guy who grinned in a way that pushed a dimple into his cheek every time he got to class and sidled his way through the aisle to sit in the seat next to you. The very first time he did it he’d mistaken you for someone else, his smile faltering slightly as he sat down anyway, a large hand extended to you.
“Jay,” he introduced himself, nodding thoughtfully when you told him your name and holding on to your hand for a split second longer than what was comfortable. And even though it was clear that he’d been sitting in the wrong seat, at Na Jaemin’s end-of-year party months later, you acted shocked when he told you about how he’d forgotten to put his contacts in that morning. Nonetheless, he continued sitting next to you in that class for the rest of the semester.
From your current seat in the library, you watch him curiously, wondering if he might look over again. For two minutes, he leans against a shelf in the reference section, completely unaware of his audience (you) as he types on his phone. You can’t take your eyes off him until the sudden vibration of your phone startles you, your hand reaching for it immediately thinking (hoping?) it might be a text from him.
yj: hockey mixer tn
yj: what are you guys wearing
You feel relieved to see that it’s just Yunjin in the group chat, though, as you read the messages, you struggle not to roll your eyes seeing that she (captain of the hockey team) is still trying to convince you (non-member of the hockey team) to go to the hockey mixer. By the looks of things, the field hockey team is the last to take advantage of the space that the student union building has to offer. Functioning as a nightclub over the weekend (and on select weeknights), The U is the place to be if you’re looking for a good time for a good price.
Unlike the other club parties, tonight’s hockey mixer is Yunjin’s answer to concerns raised by members of the students’ union about binge drinking on campus. According to her: “A mixer is an informal gathering where people mingle, interact, and get to know each other. And a party is,” she paused, fixing her eyes on the ceiling as if waiting for divine inspiration to strike. “Fun.” She didn’t seem pleased when you asked if this meant that the mixer would be boring and eventually confessed that the hockey party would be a mixer in name only.
You lock your phone without responding and lift your gaze back to references only to find that Jay is gone; stuck to the part of the bookshelf he was leaning on, you notice a lopsided poster featuring two crossed field hockey sticks and a ball over a green gradient, and a chill runs down your spine. If Yunjin is one thing, she’s bad at graphic design persistent.
Unfortunately, in all your time spent not working, you find that your laptop hasn’t begun doing your research paper for you, and the Google Doc looks exactly the same as it did when you last edited it one hour ago, with only the intro from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals website pasted into it. In the bottom left corner of your screen, a white box tells you that it’s 467 words long, and, feeling a rare bout of motivation, you get to work paraphrasing and attempting to condense the text.
As morning turns into afternoon, the library starts to get busier and busier, and despite the low hum of several different conversations creeping in through your earphones, you’ve gotten into a flow with your work and don’t let anything distract you. That is until Jay himself lets his backpack thud onto the table across from you, brows raising a little at the sudden noise, before pulling out the chair and sitting down.
“Need a study buddy?” he asks, a tentative hand on the zipper of his jacket.
You take a moment to observe him; the way he asked to join you after having already joined you, settling into the seat before you’d had a chance to say anything. A part of you wants to say “no,” just to see how he reacts, but, with a smile on your face, you take out your earphones and say, “Sure.”
A grin spreads over his lips as he mumbles the word sweet, shrugging off the oversized coat and letting it drape over the back of his chair, revealing a chunky pair of headphones sitting around his neck and a thin gold chain with a hook pendant on it. His dark hair sits flat on his forehead and he rakes a hand through it twice before taking a textbook out of his bag. He doesn’t touch it, though. Instead, he lets his elbows rest on the table in front of him, biceps flexing slightly under his sleeves as he crosses his forearms. “What are you working on?” he asks.
“A report on the integration of renewable technology in buildings, for my sustainable development class.”
Jay hums, brows raising slightly. “Renewable tech like solar panels and shit, right?”
“Right.”
Another grin, pretty, sincere. “It’s cool you’re getting to learn about the stuff you care about,” he tells you, and even if you hadn’t been looking at him, you’d have been able to hear the smile in his voice, light, sweet. Jay is sweet. The statement trickled out of his mouth so simply, so casually, a small detail that you have to rack your brain to recall sharing with him; still just as attentive as you remember. “Really.”
“Yeah,” you nod, smiling too. “Exactly.”
There’s a distinct comfort that rolls off of Jay in waves as the two of you chat, and the scene feels familiar. It’s reminiscent of the nights you’d spend together last term, at a table like this one with the notes from your shared Property Law lecture sprawled out in front of you while pretending to study. The two of you would find anything else to talk about, and constantly received dirty looks from the laughter you’d struggle to stifle.
It’s not until Jay reaches for his textbook that you properly check it out, and as a non-fashion student, you’re not expecting to know what subject he’s studying but you’re pretty sure that Nutrition, Energy, and Human Performance are not part of his curriculum. “Excercise Physiology?” you ask, reading its title.
“I picked it up earlier for Sunghoon. He’s at the rink all morning,” he nods.
“So why are you studying it?”
Jay laughs, shifting in his seat. “It’s, like, the only thing I have in my backpack. I just came over here ‘cause I wanted to say hey.”
It takes everything in you not to say “aww” out loud; his sweetness palpable, his smile contagious, and his eyes so bright and warm that your heart soars in your chest when you look at them. “Hey,” you say after a beat.
“Hey,” he chuckles. “How was your break?”
“It was good! I went home for a week, or so, and then I got bored and came back to hang out with Chaewon,” you tell him, grinning despite yourself at the memory of poorly mixed cocktails and days spent lounging by the pool at her family’s holiday home. “85% of the summer was just us running around being stupid.”
“And the other 15?”
You feel more than a little awkward about telling him that you spent the other 15% fooling around with Jaemin, so with a forced smile you tell him, “Just more running around being stupid.” Hopefully, he can’t sense your mild discomfort and thinks you’re scratching your neck because it’s itchy and not because of the slight guilt you feel. “How was yours?”
“Minus Chaewon, I had, like, the exact same break.” He pauses, breaking out into the widest grin you’ve ever seen. “Oh, and I went to the Yuuri show! It was crazy.” He runs a hand through his hair, sitting up a little straighter in his seat. “I was gonna text you but I didn’t wanna bother you during break or anything.”
“Oh,” you say, dragging the vowel. “Right. So you’re bothering me during term time instead?” You tease, though with the way Jay’s eyes widen and his brows knit together, it doesn’t seem like he’s caught on to your joking tone. “I’m kidding, tell me all about it,” you add as quickly as you can manage, a huge smile on your face.
Relief washes over you as Jay laughs, his shoulders shaking, and his nose crinkling, showing off the scar across its bridge that you’ve come to like so much. After calming down, he watches you carefully, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Right,” he finally says, taking a breath before talking with excitement and at great length about the concert.
But it isn’t without slight interruption: Jay’s phone vibrates against the table a few times, and he ignores it, eventually turning it on do not disturb before squinting at you. “You’re not allowed to laugh. Pinky promise me you won’t laugh.” He holds his hand out to you, wagging his pinky finger in your face. There’s a smile on his lips when you link your finger with his, his skin rough against your own when he squeezes your pinky. As much as his tight grip is starting to hurt, you (unsuccessfully) fight off a smile when you realise that the two of you are effectively holding hands.
“I’m not gonna laugh,” you promise.
A beat passes before Jay lets out a chuckle. “That’s my girl,” he says, voice low as if he didn’t want you to hear him. You wish you didn’t hear him.
When you try to let go, he doesn’t budge, only easing up a little so he’s not cutting off your circulation anymore; just holding it lightly with his. Across the table from you, struggling to meet your eyes, Jay wears a sheepish look. “He threw his pick out into the crowd at the end of the show, and I caught it!” he tells you, looking away. “And I cried..” His voice thins out into practically nothing though you think you hear the words “home,” and “Heeseung,” before he stops talking completely.
Jay’s sentimental side has tugged at your heart for as long as you’ve known him, and given the way he’d sobbed quietly in his seat at the cinemas when you’d gone out to watch a late showing of Spider-Man 2 together, you find it easy to imagine him welling up over catching Yuuri’s guitar pick.
For some reason, much like the tears he’d shed over Peter Parker, you find the thought quite cute, and a smile teases at the corners of your mouth as you make a mental note to finally listen to some Yuuri songs later on. Jay looks at you expectantly, and before you have the chance to speak his phone starts to ring, vibrating incessantly against the table, though Jay doesn’t take his eyes off of you.
“Do you need to get that?” you ask, unable to suppress the snort that makes its way out.
Jay shakes his head. “You promised me. You’re still promising me,” he says, lips curving into a frown as he makes a show of waving your still-linked hands.
“No, it’s cute that you cried.”
He seems shocked by this. “Really?”
“A little.”
His mouth falls open in a silent gasp as he furrows his brows at you. “A li—” He’s cut off by his phone vibrating once again, and he releases your pinky to check it. Jay sighs lightly, reading the messages from his screen and picking up the textbook. “Sorry, Hoon’s on my ass about this thing. I gotta go.”
Disappointment weighs lightly on your shoulders at his words, though you do feel better when you see the little pout on his lips, hoping that it means he doesn’t want your conversation to end either. “I get it,” you say, shooting him a smile that you hope is convincing as he puts the book in his bag before pulling his jacket back on, and standing up from his seat.
“I’ll text you,” he says cheerfully, waving at you before leaving. He looks over his shoulder a few moments later, waving again with the same smile from earlier on his face.
You can’t help but watch as he retreats, captivated by the air of confidence he somehow exudes even without showing his face, until he disappears into the mix of students by the entrance, becoming just another bag and shoulders in the crowd.
Without Jay to chat to, the idea of sitting in the library becomes jarring, and suddenly it’s time for you to leave too. You don’t hesitate to grab your phone when it vibrates twice next to you, an odd combination of the relief from earlier and slight disappointment hitting you when you see that it’s Yunjin — texting you directly this time.
yj: if you wanna ignore me turn off read receipts
yj: open bar for girls on the team
you: sounds like the hockey girls are gonna have a good night
yj: i’ll get you a jacket
you: don’t bother i’m not going.
SWANG rattles through tinny speakers in the student union and with every free drink you knock back, it gets harder and harder to pretend to Yunjin that you’re not having a good time. The team jacket she snagged for you and Chaewon to share fits a little big over your shoulders as you conclude that Number 20 is a lot more popular than you thought if the vaguely disappointed look on many faces when they see your face is anything to go by.
Sitting in a booth towards the back of The U, you and Yunjin mumble along to the song with a shot in each hand as she starts a countdown from 3! and you wonder whether or not you’ll be able to make it to class in the morn—2!—ing given how much you’ve had to drink and how much of the night is still left to happen 1! The formerly rancid tequila goes down like water the first time around, and gets caught in your throat the second time.
“I’m so happy you came tonight!” she yells in your ear, wrapping an arm around your shoulders, choosing to gush while you cough into the crook of your elbow. “I always have the most fun with you but you never come out.” Her drunkenness is evident in the slightly higher pitch that her words take on and the way most of the consonants come out almost the same way the vowels do.
As sweet as she’s being, you can’t ignore the alarms blaring in your head hearing that your best friend would describe going out (at least) two nights a week as “never” going out, but you chuckle along anyway, locking your hand with hers.
With a smile on his face, Lee Jeno brings Chaewon back to the booth in one piece, ruffling her hair a little before raising a hand to salute you and Yunjin, and disappearing back into the crowd.
“The period at the end of that last text almost convinced us,” she says as she takes her seat beside you. “But I new your little crush on Jay wouldn’t let you miss a chance to see him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chaewon rolls her eyes, backing a shot before leaning over you to get closer to Yunjin. “She’s pretending again.”
With a scoff, Yunjin unlocks her phone and pulls up her camera roll to an album titled with an unfortunately cute ship name. “I can’t stop thinki–” You cut her off, snatching the phone from her hands and placing it under your thigh.
“Okay, okay,” you relent, letting your head fall back as you groan. “I may have had a.. thing for him last semester but I’m over it now.”
“Do you think he’ll swipe up if I post a song he likes?” Chaewon reads between laughs.
Flustered, you sink into your seat after hearing the text that you sent two nights ago, hoping with all your might that the booth will open up to swallow you whole.
To your utter devastation, it does not.
The universe chooses to soothe you in a different way by sending an angel Kazuha to drag you all out onto the dance floor. With intertwined hands, the four of you “excuse me” and “sorry” your way over to where Sakura and her friend Mark are dancing a little closer than usual with one another.
His hands are on her hips as he holds her back to his front, the two of them grinding to the music, but she’s quick to smack his hands off of her and break away from him when she sees you guys approaching. Using a hand to push hair out of her face, Sakura laughs at nothing, smacking Mark’s chest playfully while he glues his eyes to the floor.
“We missed you at pres,” you say, wrapping her in a hug.
“Right, sorry, Mark had a thing at his place!”
Despite understanding why she does, you ignore Chaewon when she nudges you at the mention of Mark and his place before hugging him too, agreeing when he says that you guys should come next time.
The six of you form a circle after greeting one another, jumping around while yelling obnoxiously to the music blaring into your ears. Over Mark’s shoulder, you see Jay nodding at a friend before leaving the clu—“I’m actually gonna go get some air,” you blurt out. “Alone!” you add before Yunjin can offer to come with.
Despite the way the breeze nips at your legs, the fresh air is a welcome slap in the face when it hits you; the previously ear-splitting music reduced to a pathetic mumble now that you’re outside. A few girls that you recognise from some of your classes stand opposite the, now short, entry queue, waving you towards them and blowing cigarette smoke over their shoulders. You shake your head when they offer you a draw, though (against your better judgement) you do accept a few hits of a polar menthol flavoured juul while chatting distractedly about your “new spot” on the hockey team and trying to find Jay — which doesn’t take you very long.
Not too far from where you’re standing, he leans against the building’s grey brick while looking at his phone. Its OLED display casts a slight glow over his features, showing off the crease of his brow, the slope of his nose, and the tiny little pout set on his lips as he types.
You can’t help but stare as Jimin and Minjeong plan the rest of their night, which includes afters at Yizhuo’s if she doesn’t pass out, and extend an invitation to you and your friends — “I mean, we’re still gonna go. She’ll probably need us more if she does,” Minjeong says, stubbing out a cigarette under her shoe before both girls head inside.
Waving goodbye, you let yourself find Jay again and take a deep breath. For a moment, you attempt to strategise in the way you and the girls always do together. A few possibilities play out in your head and right when you think you’ve found a good opener—“Hello!” You find yourself saying as you stumble walk over to him.
As you’ve come to expect, his mouth curves into a smile when he looks up at you. “Hello,” he says, laughing through the word. In the short time it takes you to reach him, and lean about an arm’s length away on the same wall, he slips his phone into his jacket pocket. “Since when are you a hockey girl?”
With a smile of your own, you roll up your left sleeve to refer to a watch that you’re not wearing. “It’s been a few hours.”
Jay’s teeth press down on his bottom lip as he chuckles, before mumbling an apology and pulling his phone back out. You don’t mean to peek at his screen when he opens the messages app, but you do anyway. And can’t help but feel bad at the sight of your name at the top of the second message thread — the memory of Yunjin taking your phone so you couldn’t text back forcing your stomach to turn a little.
Lifting your gaze back up to him, you sort of hate how pretty he looks as he ruffles his hair before putting his phone back in his pock—You turn your head immediately, finding sudden interest in the lamp post that irregularly flickers a pale yellow over his shoulder. For a split second, it seems like you managed to stare at him without being caught, but if the little laugh he lets out is anything to go by, your neck jerk wasn’t as subtle as you’d hoped.
“You’re cute,” he grins, stepping a little closer. “It suits you.”
It’s a struggle to backtrack and remember what the two of you were even talking about as the faint scent of his cologne hits your nostrils. “F-field hockey?” you offer.
“The jacket,” he clarifies, a sweet laugh slipping past his lips as he speaks.
“Ohh, you too.”
He cocks his head to the side. “You think this suits me?”
His hand comes to one side of his denim jacket, holding it out slightly and allowing you to catch a proper whiff of his cologne and a glimpse of his bare shoulder. You worry a little about what might come out of your mouth if you open it, deciding for everyone’s sake just to nod and pray that he’ll leave the damn jacket alone.
“It’d probably look better on you.”
An audible smile tugs at your lips. “No way.” You shake your head, trying and failing to keep your giggles to yourself.
“You wanna prove me wrong?”
With a tilt of your head, you turn the offer around in your mind; a pros and cons list starting to take shape.
Pros: getting to wear Jay’s jacket, having an almost permanent reason to keep chatting with him throughout the night, and getting to see Jay in a vest — arguably the biggest pro of them all, given the amount of IG stories he’s posted in the gym recently.
Con: losing free drinks privileges; which doesn’t really seem like a huge deal because Chaewon can just wear the hockey jacket and get drinks for you like she’s been doing for half of the night so far.
Under the weight of Jay’s stare, you shift on your feet, realising that he’s clearing his throat for the second time since he stopped speaking and you still haven't said anything. “But then I’d have to pay for my drinks,” you say in an attempt not to seem too eager. The words slur a bit on their way out, though you’re too caught up in the way Jay’s lips tug into a grin to fuss over it.
“Not if you stick wi—” He stops short, cut off by a voice from a few metres away. “Jongsaaaaaaeeeeeeng!” it yells. And if not for his silver head of hair, you’d never have believed it was Park Sunghoon screaming like that.
“Poor guy kept icing himself,” Lee Heeseung calmly explains, walking ahead of Sunghoon and, what looks like, Sim Jake who’ve been giggling with one another since the cry left the younger’s mouth.
Despite not knowing Sunghoon very well, from what you’ve heard about him, it’s easy to imagine him hiding bottles of Smirnoff Ice to ice one of his friends, only to lose track of where he’d put them and find them himself later on, thinking one of his friends was icing him. The thought makes you stifle your laughter; you like the fact that Jay laughs too.
Before dapping Jay up, Heeseung offers him the confiscated Smirnoff Ice that Sunghoon had made quite a dent in, only shrugging when he declines. Jay watches as his friend wraps an arm around your shoulder in a polite side hug while asking if you want to finish the “smice”. You let a beat pass before telling him that you’ll think about it.
For a while, you listen as he fills Jay in on what he missed at pres, smiling at Jake and Sunghoon as they get closer, and wondering when it would be appropriate if at all, to introduce yourself to the three boys that you’ve only ever walked by at parties or on campus. You find a window when the two arrive, waving a little when you tell them your name.
Jake’s lips curve into what looks like a smirk as he looks over at you. “We know,” he says, eyes darting quickly over to Jay before looking back at you.
Sunghoon says nothing.
The boys are quick to get back to their conversation, and Heeseung glances in Jay’s direction, nodding his head before making a show of unscrewing the cap on the smice and skying it. After an impressive chug, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, holding up the empty bottle like a trophy before putting it in the bin.
With a slight frown, you realise that you didn’t even get to tell him that you didn’t want it.
There’s a grin on his face as he wraps his arms around Jake and Sunghoon’s shoulders. “See you guys in there!” he says before guiding the two boys away and into the club.
With the two of you on your own again, you become hyperaware of your proximity, of the fact that if you moved your hand even a centimetre it would brush his. The heat from his body is dizzying, and with his body leaning down towards you, Jay is already watching you when you look up at him. His lips rest in a small smile that only widens at the sight of your face, seeming unbothered that you’d caught him staring. That it wouldn’t take much to bridge the gap between your faces. Between your lips.
“The offer still stands,” he says. “To wear my jacket and drink for free.”
A somewhat familiar 808 beat rattles through tinny speakers in the student union.Jay’s jacket fits pretty big over your shoulders as you try not to say anything ridiculous while he holds your hand, leading you through the crowd. Now that your hands are actually clasped, the butterflies you’d felt over having linked fingers for a pinky promise seem silly, completely eclipsed by the feeling of your heart clattering against your ribs. After every few steps, he looks over his shoulder at you, your cheeks burning hotter and hotter with each smile he throws your way.
Upon your return to the booth, you drop the team jacket in Chaewon’s lap, praying that your friends won’t say anything about Jay or the fact that you’re wearing his jacket — or the fact that despite having reached your friends safely the two of you are still holding hands. By the looks of things it seems as though telling her to move up isn’t enough of a signal to her that you’d like to sit down; though maybe she’s just too busy trying to shrug the jacket back on to move up. You tell yourself that she’s just too busy trying to shrug the jacket back on to move up.
Chaewon wears a wicked grin on her face, making no effort to be discreet about staring at your intertwined fingers. “YN? Why aren’t you dancing? You love this song!” she says, opening her mouth to wink obnoxiously at you and nudging Yunjin.
“I don’t know this song,” you say, liking the way Jay laughs beside you, squeezing your hand a little.
For reasons unbeknownst to you, Yunjin sees this as the best opportunity to chime in, tilting her head before saying, “Whaaaaaaat? This is your favourite song! Trust me, Jay, she loves this song!”
“And she’s such a good dancer,” Chaewon adds. “Have you seen her dance, Jay?”
You stand around dumbly, mouthing the word “stop,” at your friends and leaning up towards Jay when he leans down to you. “How about a drink?” he asks with a voice as smooth as velvet, soft lips grazing the shell of your ear.
“Please.”
After telling the girls that you’ll be back, and flipping them off with your free hand, you let Jay lead you back through the dance floor to the bar, letting an elbow rest on its surface. When you look at him, he’s watching you, his lips quirked up ever so slightly while he does so.
Letting your nails drum against the bar, you smile back. “Sorry about my friends,” you say, unsure as to why you’re apologising but feeling like it’s the right thing to say.
“Sorry about your friends?” Jay asks. He grins. “Sorry about mine.”
You want to tell him that you liked his friends, that they seemed nice. Even though Sunghoon didn’t speak, and Heeseung finished the drink he offered you before you even had a chance to let him know that you wanted it. But he’s already distracted.
His eyes scan the bottles that line the shelves behind the bar, and you busy yourself doing the same thing, the sight of almost every rum brand bringing up memories of past nights out with your friends. Two palm trees on a white bottle of “MarkLeebu” leave you suppressing your laughter as you think about Sakura’s friend falling asleep - standing up - against the wall of a club after drinking two bottles of Malibu to himself on a dare.
Jay’s breath fans your ear when he speaks, “What are you having?”
“A jäger bomb.”
With a nod, he orders your drink and a whiskey for himself, and as per his suggestion, the two of you toast “to third year” before drinking.
Jay makes good on his promise. One shot becomes two becomes three, and a cocktail in a comically large pitcher before you wake up the next morning to Sakura hogging the duvet, and no memory of anything beyond sitting down at the bar.
While lying on your back you curse two versions of yourself: the first for leaving the window open before you left, and the second for having so much to drink. Staring up at the ceiling, you attempt to go over your interactions with Jay using a fine-tooth comb to figure out just how badly you humiliated yourself last night. Given the fact that you don’t remember what happened after 1 a.m. (or so), this doesn’t take too long, and the corners of your lips quirk up into a smile as you think about the way his hand felt in yours.
Your memory tells you that he smiled a lot, but this seems like an insignificant detail because Jay always smiles a lot. There was a pitcher. A big one. Inside it was a vibrant, sweet, too cheap to be true cocktail that you sipped, blinked, and opened your eyes to find yourself in bed. The unaccounted-for period fills you with a visceral sense of dread, leaving you unsure if you shiver because of the temperature in your room or out of sheer embarrassment.
The notifications you find on your phone only make you feel more nervous, so you cover your eyes with your hand before checking them. You were mentioned in Chaewon’s Instagram story (which means you behaved catastrophically), and you have a text from Jay (which .. well you’re not quite sure what to make of this). Through the gap in your fingers, you start by looking at the story, uncontrollable butterflies in your stomach from what you see. A picture (on close friends) of you sitting in Jay’s lap with his arms wrapped around your wairs, and his chin resting on your shoulder; the two of you donning wide grins with THESE TWOOOOOOO 😍😍😍 written over it.
Jay’s text is simple yet sweet: hope u got home okay, was realy nice getting to chill w u again <3. You don’t even realise that you’re giggling until Sakura stirs next to you.
you: i did thank uuuuuuu
you: sorry if i was weird though haha
You say. Although all things considered, you can’t really think of anything to be haha-ing about but Jay’s reply comes so quickly that you barely have the time to dwell on this fact. “Nahhhh you were so cute dw,” he texts back.
With your stomach doing somersaults, you turn over in the bed, burying your head in the pillow to muffle a squeal.
Sakura wakes up.
While in the shower, you let the water hit you directly in the face for a bit with your eyes screwed tightly shut under the stream. And not a single thought occurs to you other than how cute Jay seems to think you are.
jay: do you have class today
you: slept in
jay: L
jay: for me.. i wanted to see you again
Your jaw falls open as you read the message, and over your shoulder, Yunjin lets out the gasp that you hadn’t been able to. “Oh, my God!” she says, watching as a cheek-aching smile creeps up on your lips. A small celebration ensues while the two of you squeal and kick your feet like children. And then your phone vibrates again.
jay: could still link if ur down?
jay: hold up
Yunjin pulls air through her teeth. “Could still link if you’re down,” she reads before taking the phone from your hand. “Fuckboy text, ignore.”
Knowing you’re not likely to win the argument that Jay’s not a fuckboy — even though he’s not one, you think — you roll your eyes. “So what if he’s a fuckboy?” you frown, pulling your knees to your chest.
“If a fuckboy was supposed to be liked he’d be called a like boy,” Yunjin says as if reciting scripture. “Text Jaemin back if you want a fuckboy.”
You don’t mean to groan out loud at her tone. “Jaemin’s not a fuckboy, he’s just.. a guy. Who.. likes to fuck.”
The sound of the front door opening prompts you to pause the TV, and the two of you crane your necks towards the open doorway to hear what’s going on. It’s Chaewon giggling loudly before speaking.
“Thanks for bringing me home.”
A deep chuckle sounds through the hall. Jeno. Of course. “You’re my girl,” he says and his smile is audible through his words. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Chaewon giggles at this too, and, pressing play on the remote, you share a look with Yunjin as you hear the beginning of a wet kiss. Brooklyn Nine-Nine gets through an entire cold open and the theme song before she – looking fresher than ever in her boyfriend’s sweatpants – joins you both on the couch.
“What’d I miss?” she asks.
“Yunjin thinks Jay’s a fuckboy.”
Chaewon lets out a snort. “Well, yeah, anyone could’ve told you that, dude’s best friend is Lee Heeseung,” she says, though quickly changes her tune as if remembering her audience. “It’s all just rumours though, people see a good-looking guy who’s overly friendly and flirts with everybody, and posts obvious thirst traps to his Snapchat story, and just assume he’s a fuck boy..” she trails off, sinking a little in her seat.
Somewhat disheartened, you nod your head. “Right.”
“So what did I miss?” Chaewon asks again, pointing at the TV this time.
Still in Yunjin’s custody, your phone vibrates in her lap and she gasps as she reads the screen. “A reformed fuck boy?” she says, holding the phone up for you and Chaewon to read.
jay: would you like to hang out with me later?
You grin despite yourself, reading the message and reading it again before telling him “yes”, and later can’t come soon enough. The time slips by like molasses and you finally meet up with Jay -four decades- two hours later, with no set plan, at the library where he approaches you with Jake and a smile on his face.
Friendly as ever, Jake chats with you and keeps a pretty smile on his lips the whole time. “If you ever have a hard time with physics or math based classes, I’ve got you,” he offers, clearly happy to hear that you’re in STEM too.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” you tell him, grateful as you remember the tears you’d shed over a Construction Mathematics lecture last year.
With a wave, Jake leaves the two of you alone, saying “See you later” before walking away. He excitedly glances over his shoulder to where you stand with Jay a few times.
After telling you that he “knows a spot,” Jay takes you on a bit of a walk, successfully distracting you from the distance by keeping you talking. He listens enthusiastically while you ramble about a show you started, and you like the feeling in your chest when he says he’ll check it out.
With a “ta-da,” Jay extends an arm to the gate in front of you. A play park. “We’re here!” he says, struggling to mask the excitement in his voice as he walks towards the empty play area. “It’s no fun when there’s kids here so I brought us the long way.”
As you follow him through the gate, you can’t help but feel a bit nervous. The last time you’d been sober at a play park you were probably 15 or so, cutting through the park on your walk home from school with your friends. You’d spin the roundabout at lightspeed cackling at the screams of terror coming from those sitting on it, and talk about your crushes while calming down on the swings.
Jay sits on one of the swings and watches you, and even though you’re not too sure what to talk about, you’re pretty sure confessing your crush on him as you sit next to him might send him running in the opposite direction. Instead, you clear your throat and look over at him. “So your “spot” is a play park?” you ask, using your feet to rock you back and forth.
He pulls air through his teeth, scrunching his nose and tilting his head. “Would you prefer it if I took you to CP in the Sky?”
If Jay had his car with him, you might have hoped for that. Most of the boys in your city who drive, including Jaemin, have been known to take girls to a spot they know. Super quiet, private, and almost as pretty as you, they’ll say, and take you up to ‘Car Park in the Sky’; the city’s most notorious hook-up spot. Though, Jaemin hadn’t exactly been secretive about wanting to hook up and actually only drove there after you’d told him about it.
You shake your head. “The park is good, it’s great.”
Conversation ebbs and flows between the two of you, the sounds of nature and the swings creaking keeping you company. It’s nice spending time with Jay like this. Sober. And not holed up in the library or a cafe with assignments and deadlines on your mind.
You don’t mean to gain momentum but you do, swinging about as high as you can, gasping when you see a car over the top of a climbing frame.
“What is it?” he asks, laughing to himself when you jump off the swing.
“I wanna take a drive!” you call out over your shoulder, jogging over to the wooden stationary car you saw.
Jay’s footsteps sound after yours, and he grabs you by the wrist before you climb into the driver’s side. “Did you get your licence yet?”
You shake your head, watching as his mouth falls open, bracing yourself for a lecture on how a girl of your age should be driving already.
He looks aghast, in genuine distress before he speaks. “What makes you think I’m gonna let you drive?” Jay nods his head to the other side of the car. “Go.”
Letting out the most exaggerated sigh you can manage, you comply, dragging your feet to the passenger side and climbing in. Jay follows suit, sitting down next to you on the small connected seat built with kids in mind, and his thigh presses up against yours.
“Don’t be upset, everyone knows passenger princess is way more fun than actually driving.”
And rationally, you know he’s not specifically calling you a princess but your tummy turns nonetheless.
“Whatever,” you mumble, faking a sigh and struggling to suppress your laughter when he buckles a fake seat belt. Jay gives you a disapproving look when you don’t move to do the same. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” he says solemnly, though you can see the smile teasing at his lips. “Better safe than sorry, that’s what I always say.”
There’s nothing behind his words, no hidden meaning but you read into them anyway, hoping he can’t hear the way you gulp at the thought that plagues you. For some reason, you’ve chosen this hill to die on, shrugging at him and turning to look straight ahead.
Jay sighs dramatically, pinching the bridge of his nose before leaning over you to grab your ‘seat belt’ and buckle in by himself. He takes his time though, and the way he looks you dead in the eye makes you wish you’d just done it yourself. His face is close to yours, his breath warm against your skin, creating a welcome contrast to the cold air around you. He lingers for a beat before sitting up straight and clicking the belt into place.
“Finally,” he whispers, putting an imaginary gear stick into reverse and draping his arm over the back of your connected seat. You can’t help but watch as he looks over your shoulders before moving the car, liking the way his side profile looks under the rapidly setting sun. Something stops him, he looks at you. “I can’t focus with you staring at me like that,” he says, taking his hand from the wheel to touch your cheek.
Your breath catches in your throat. Jay grins, gently turning your face away from him. You stare over at the roundabout and feel just as dizzy as you would have if you’d taken him up on his offer to spin you on it.
Jay gets on with all the necessary checks before ‘starting’ the car and ‘driving’ off. “What are you thinking about?”
It probably wouldn’t be appropriate to tell him that you’re thinking about the way it felt when he put his fingers to your cheek. Or how gentle he was with you, only pushing you a little bit and then guiding you the rest of the way. So you keep that to yourself. “The movies.”
You hear Jay chuckling next to you. “All of them?”
“Yeah,” you nod. “The drive-in kind. Have you been?”
“I went once.”
You gasp, excited. “Really? What did you see?”
Jay thinks about it for a while. He thinks about it really hard before shaking his head, “You know, I don’t think I was paying much attention.”
“You spent all that money on a ticket and didn’t even pay attention? What were you doing?” The words rush out before you can stop them and you cringe a little thinking about the possible answers.
He turns his gaze back out on the road. “Sleeping,” he mumbles, swallowing thickly.
You wish you could go back in time to stop yourself from asking, finding an answer to the question: “Is it better to speak or to die?”
“Hey, we can go to the drive-in right now! I just need to put this thing in park and we can watch any movie you want!” he says, stopping the car and turning as much as he can in his seat to face you. “Any movie that’s available with a Netflix subscription!” he adds, smiling when you do.
Cramped together in the front seat of the stationary car, the two of you watch The Devil Wears Prada and get about halfway through before Jay’s phone hits 10% — and it’s probably the best movie watching experience you’ve ever had.
You take Jay up on his offer to walk you home, and he chats with you about the movie, telling you how much he thinks it totally blows that Miranda Priestly isn’t a real person that he can work for after graduation, but he seems happy enough when you suggest that he could become Miranda Priestly.
Reaching the familiar crossing by the student union, you look up at him. “If it’s easier, you can just head your way from here. I can literally see my building,” you offer, feeling bad about him walking so far out of his way.
Jay scoffs like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. “I’m not gonna make you walk by yourself.”
“It’s barely five minutes,” you tell him, shaking your head. “You don’t have to.”
“YN?”
“Hm?”
A pretty smile spreads across his lips. “I want to, let’s go.” And Jay hardly gets to start telling you about his upcoming mock trial before you reach your flat.
“This is me,” you say, pointing at the door to your building.
He lets out a dry chuckle. “You’re kidding.”
You shake your head. He frowns, looking terribly cute with his lips turned down like that. Though it doesn’t last for long and he raises his brows when you gasp. “You know, we came from a place I’ve never been before, and I’m starting to think this might be the wrong street,” you say, struck by the sudden realisation. “We should probably walk around the block a couple more times, just to really be sure.”
Listening to your words, Jay beams at you and it’s heavenly. “I heard it can actually take, like, 4 or 5 walks around the block if you want 100% certainty.”
“Oh yeah,” you giggle. “I think I’ve heard that too. Should we make it 6?”
“Perfect.”
To your surprise, you’d both been wrong. As it would turn out, the required number of, very slow, walks around a student housing complex to be 100% sure, completely beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re at the right place is ten.
“Hey, uh, how about we do one more lap? Just to make sure? For the absolute best measure,” Jay suggests, eyes twinkling under the streetlamp. He almost looks a little nervous, burying his hands in his pockets as he watches you.
“Sounds good.”
Just like your last few walks around the student housing block, fallen leaves rustle under your footsteps, and the back of Jay’s hand still brushes against yours, but this time feels different. Maybe because there’s a finality to this; the last lap. You couldn’t possibly ask him to spend any more time walking around here. Could you?
“This neighbourhood is so cute, all the student apartments clustered together like this, I love it,” he says, looking over at you.
“It’s nice knowing that some of my friends, and the people I like partying with, live so close, but it’s always so noisy around here,” you tell him, continuing when he doesn’t speak. “‘Cause it’s all just a bunch of 18–20–somethings that live here, and The U’s just down the street. The noise is fun when I’m part of it, but when I’m studying or just trying to sleep it’s annoying.”
“Don’t you think it’s kinda cool though? There’s always something happening. So even if the girls aren’t down to go out, you’re not exactly short on plans.”
You’d never really thought of it like that. Probably because Yunjin is always down to go out. But you like the way he puts it. You nod, reminded of your classmates who live in the building right next to where you’re walking. “Yeah, I should probably text Minjeong more.”
“And if not you can always hit me and see what I’m doing,” he says at the same time.
You stop walking, and your heart — feels like it — stops beating.
Jay, noticing this, stands in front of you, hands help up defensively as he shakes his head. “You don’t have to do that, obviously. I just thought it’d be cool if you weren’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything, maybe we could link and do nothing together,” he explains. “I’m stupid, sorry.”
This might be the first time you’ve ever heard Jay ramble like this, and your heart does a twirl just seeing his worried expression. “I think if I’m not doing anything, and you’re not doing anything, then it’d be cool for us to link and do nothing together, Jay,” you smile, liking the way he visibly relaxes, his shoulders falling slightly and an exhale curling out of his mouth and into the air.
“Cool.”
When, for the 11th time, you reach your building, you turn to Jay and hesitate a little, unsure of what to say. Glancing at him, it looks as though he’s feeling the same way. A silence falls over the two of you.
Finally, Jay speaks. “Goodnight,” he says, pulling you into a hug.
Despite your surprise, you wrap your arms around his waist, holding him close. You hope he can’t feel the way your heart is racing. Or the way it starts to pick up when you catch a whiff of his scent. Warm and cosy, tempting in a strange way that you can’t quite put your finger on but you like all the same.
When Jay lets go of you, you look up at him almost instinctively. You don’t mean to stare at his lips but you do, gulping at how close they are. You want to kiss him. Not any more than usual, but the urge is there. “Goodnight,” you say, taking a step back and walking up the path to the door.
Using your key fob, you unlock the door, turning to look over your shoulder and thankfully finding Jay still standing there, watching you with a stomach-turning smile on his face. “I had a really nice time tonight,” you say, smiling back.
“Yeah?”
You nod. “We should hang out more.”
“I think so too.”
“Cool,” you smile, biting your lip. “Goodnight, Jay.”
“Goodnight, YN.”
“Could you, text me? When you get home, so I know you’re, like, safe.”
Jay beams at you, nodding his head. “Of course.”
After a week (eleven days) of texting and hanging out with Jay when you can, you find yourself spending 3 hours of your Friday afternoon taking notes in your Sustainable Development lecture, and coming to the realisation that none of the course content is relevant to the report you’re trying to get through.
Seeing Jay leaning on the wall outside your class when you leave is a welcome surprise; he wears a thin pair of glasses and a smile that makes your heart stutter a bit as he stands up straighter, greeting you when he sees you and quickly falling into your step. “I meant to ask you earlier, are you going to the game on Saturday?” A beat passes. “Football,” he clarifies. “First home game of the season.”
“Maybe if my friends are going.”
Jay seems to think about this for a moment as you round the corner at the end of the corridor and he holds the door to the stairwell open. “After you.”
You mumble a thank you and count six steps before he speaks again.
“I’m going,” Jay informs you, his hand meeting the back of his neck to scratch awkwardly at it. “I mean, I’m gonna be on the pitch but.. I’ll be there.”
A breathy laugh slips from your lips at this added information; how sweet of the football team’s captain to let you know that he’ll be at his team’s football game on Saturday. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I just think it’d be cool to see a friendly face in the crowd when I score the winning goal.”
Given Jay’s unending kindness, you imagine that most of the faces in the crowd — or at least the ones from your uni — will be friendly, especially if he scores the winning goal. The thought causes a smile to itch at your lips as you consider that maybe he means that it’d be cool to see your friendly face in the crowd. And who could say no to that?
The rest of the conversation goes smoothly and Jay slows down when you reach the second floor. “I have some admin shit to work out, but I’ll see you at the game?” he asks, watching you with hopeful eyes and chewing on his bottom lip.
Knowing full well that you’ll be there, you pretend to think about it for a moment. “Maybe.”
Jay chuckles at this, tilting his head. “Please?”
“Maybe,” you repeat, despite already planning your outfit. Did you wash your white shirt or will you be doing laundry tonight? You wave at Jay when he waves and make your way down the rest of the stairs while clicking mindlessly through Instagram stories.
Nothing interests you until you reach IG user onyourm__ark's story; a picture of IG user 39saku_chan in his football jersey. You hit the like button and pretend to believe that the song choice (Infrunami by Steve Lacy) was made purely out of sheer enjoyment of the artist’s early work.
With a smile on your face, you text the group chat to solidify your weekend plans.
you: are u going to the football game tmrw
cw: not even if u paid me
yj: hard no
yj: i’m going to the party AFTER the game though
yj: why?
you: it’s nothing dw
cw: ???
you: jay invited me..
The chill of October’s first evening is unkind on your face as you sit amongst the rowdiness of drunk uni kids, cheering and groaning in unison as the game trudges on, and somehow Kazuha manages to sleep through it all with her head on your shoulder.
“Fuuuuck,” Yunjin groans, shivering in the seat next to you. “I hate sports.”
“Says the captain of the hockey team,” you say, voice coming out muffled behind the top of your jacket.
“Playing and watching are, like, completely different.”
You’re sure Yunjin’s right, she has to be, but you have to admit that there’s something more than slightly entertaining about watching a group of boys chasing a ball around and yelling expletives at one another, all while number 99 keeps a huge grin on his face, laughing at his teammate’s temper. Or lack thereof.
However, the novelty wears off at around 8:45 when the ref calls for half-time; a chill runs down your spine as you’re struck with the realisation that university football games are full-length. But other than Yunjin’s teasing, there’s no use pretending that you hate the sight of Jay lifting the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face.
As the players retreat from the pitch and some students start to clear the stands, Yunjin gets up to stretch. She hums along to the song playing while you watch from your seat with aching knees, slightly envious and trying not to move too much and wake up Kazuha who sleeps soundly on your shoulder.
With her arms above her head, Yunjin lets out a yawn. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’d really rather be doing a reading for marketing than be here any longer.”
“And I’d rather be helping you out,” you say, frowning a little when Kazuha stirs. “Hey, what do you think they do during half-time?” you ask distractedly.
She thinks about it for a beat, eyes flicking to the pitch before looking back to you. “We usually strategise, use the bathroom, get water — quick things like that,” she says, raking a hand through her hair, watching as you shift a little in your seat to get your phone from your pocket when it vibrates. “They have a lot longer than we do though.”
jay: are you having fun?
you: yeah you guys are great, good game so far :)
Yunjin scrunches up her nose as she reads the exchange. “God, you’re so boring,” she sighs, taking the phone from your hands, and typing something before showing the screen to you.
“We should link at the party later,” you read, scoffing as you take it back and delete the message. “I’d never say that.” In those words.
jay: hahaha i think you might be my good luck charm
A dramatic gasp comes from a now-awake Kazuha. “Don’t reply!”
You heed this advice, joining her as she stands up to stretch as well.
“Look how much fun they’re having,” Kazuha sighs, pointing over at Sakura and Chaewon in their seats close to the pitch. They dance along to the music blaring through the speakers and laugh so loudly you can hear them despite their distance. “Why didn’t we join them?”
You think about it for a bit, filled with regret. “At the time, pregaming before the game and then pregaming again before the party seemed intense but..” you trail off, watching your friends clutch their stomachs in laughter. “Next time.”
“Next time,” Kazuha repeats, slouching in her seat. “I’m clearing your drink supply when we get back.” There’s a frown on her face when she speaks but she’s quick to perk up at the sound of your text tone, grabbing the phone for herself.
jay: are you coming tn? got a feeling that congrats will be in order
you (technically kazuha): wouldn’t miss it !!!
“Three exclamation points? I’m not that desperate,” you say defensively, nudging her in the ribs.
As if on cue, Yunjin reads another text. “I saw his notes again, his handwriting is so cute and ugly, agh I’m literally clutching my chest, he’s perfect,” she says, her voice high-pitched and mocking.
Hearing your typed words out loud from someone else’s mouth is troubling, especially because “It never seems that bad when I’m typing,” you frown, immediately checking your phone when it goes off.
jay: awesome :) see u there
jay: !!!
The game’s second half goes by much quicker and in the end, they lose 5-3, leaving you and Yunjin struggling to keep your laughter to yourselves at the sight of the FIRST W OF THE SEASON banner hanging up in the living room of the house that most of the footballers share. With linked arms, the two of you make your way to the kitchen to get something to drink. Already feeling the buzz from pregaming, you settle on a cup of lemonade which Yunjin rolls her eyes at.
“Shut up,” you say, eyeing her over the rim of your cup.
Yunjin holds her hands up defensively, spilling a few drops of her tequila-vodka concoction. “I didn’t even say anything.” For a couple of minutes, you pretend to listen as Yunjin tries to come up with a game plan for the night, nodding and humming along when she pauses, and trying to decipher the animal code names she’s using. A gasp. “I see him! Black cat and penguin sitting out on the half wall.”
You watch as she leans over the sink to get a closer look out of the window. “I feel like saying exactly where they are makes the code names redundant.”
“I feel like you’re redundant.” A beat passes. “Just be yourself, and if he says something funny, laugh and put your hand on his bicep while you do.”
“Noted.”
Yunjin doesn’t let you go outside without taking a sip (or three) of the poison in her cup, and after you gag over the sink, the two of you make your way into the garden, sights set on the half wall where “black cat” now sits alone. A potent mixture of the scent of tobacco and weed hits you the second you open the back door, and the two of you leave the house to make a beeline to Jay, apparently to Yunjin’s displeasure, given the way she asks you three times to play beer pong with her when some of the basketball boys start setting up cups for the next round.
“No,” you say. Three times.
As if sensing your presence, Jay whips his head around right before the two of you reach him, a bright smile gracing his face as he waves at you with his whole arm. He seems to glow against the darkness of the night, bright, dreamy, an unreal quality that leaves you feeling fuzzy around the edges. Jay, you think, over and over and it starts to sound made up. Jay. Jay. Jay. Until you reach him. He stands up when you guys are close enough. “You’re here,” Jay says with a smile, pulling you into a hug. With his arms around your waist, his hold is somehow both tight and gentle. Secure. Safe.
“Hey,” you say, voice muffled by the fabric of his hoodie. A whiff of his scent hits you, flooding your senses. Fresh, citrusy, and undeniably Jay. A dizzying combination, so light, and distinctly him in a way that makes your heart beat a bit faster.
When Jay lets go of you to hug Yunjin, you take the last sip of your drink and almost wish you’d taken her cup instead; your lemonade is sweet to the tongue but does absolutely nothing to boost your confidence. You watch as they greet each other while Jay sits back down. Standing in front of him with your arm against Yunjin’s, you feel as though you've missed the window to sit down too and opt to continue standing next to her.
“We like your banner,” you say, pointing in the direction of the house behind him.
Following your finger, Jay lets his head whip around towards the back of the house. Yunjin uses the time he spends looking over his shoulder to nudge you, nod her head in his direction, and mouth the word “sit” at you. So you do.
If he’s surprised to turn back around barely a second later and find you right beside him, Jay doesn’t show it. He gives you a warm smile and knocks his knee against yours before speaking. “What, first w of the season?” He tilts his head. “And here I thought you were a good luck charm, twenty,” he says with a chuckle when you nod.
Yunjin’s brows raise, and you feel yours rise too. “Twenty?” she asks.
“The hockey jacket,” he answers without missing a beat. “Speaking of, when’s your next game?”
“Oh, we’re playing the Foxes next week,” Yunjin rakes a hand through her hair. “TDU, you know?”
Jay nods, turning his attention back to you. “Can I look forward to seeing you on the field, twenty?”
Tilting your head, you pull air through your teeth. “You know what, I actually just got benched, like, right now,” you say, liking the way Jay laughs. “I’m out for the rest of the season.”
After clapping a hand to his mouth, Jay points at you. “Did they get you on a drunk and disorderly after the mixer?” he asks through a laugh.
In horror, you watch while Yunjin’s head falls back with laughter as she lets out cackles that only unsettle you. “That’s exactly what happened!”
“I was not.. disorderly,” you say meekly, finding sudden interest in the hem of your skirt.
It sounds as though Jay says: “You didn’t tell her how she got back home?” though you’re finding it difficult to focus on much other than trying to recover your missed hours after the hockey mixer.
You’ve gone on countless nights out, spent many mornings after vowing never to drink again, and, on multiple occasions, have gotten too drunk to enter the club. But even then, in the past, your memory has only ever been.. spotty, nonlinear. Never completely void for hours at a time, and it’s concerning. After tonight, you really won’t drink again.
Except on birthdays.
And when you go to the club. Or to parties. Or when you’re bored with the girls. But again, apart from that? Never.
“How did I g—” you start, though Yunjin cuts you off.
“I think Zuha’s lifting her leg again, hold on,” she groans, looking over Jay’s shoulder at the glass doors leading to the kitchen. Yunjin disappears back into the house and it’s not until you watch her slide the back door shut behind her that you remember Kazuha having too much to drink at pres and having to stay in with Chaewon.
When you look at Jay, he watches you with knitted brows. “Kazuha’s doing what?” he asks.
“Ballet,” you explain. He nods.
Neither of you speak for a moment. While you chew on the inside of your cheek, you can’t help but wonder if you should’ve followed Yunjin, or if you should’ve had less to drink at the mixer. You reckon the fact that Jay’s still talking to you must mean you didn’t do anything that you can’t recover from, but you can’t shake the feeling that your trip home that night was less than pleasant.
“Hey,” Jay says quietly, catching your attention with concern lacing his features. “What do you look so down for?” he asks.
Though terrified of the answer, you repeat your earlier question. “How did I get home?” you ask, wondering if the Earth usually opened up to swallow people whole or if you’d have to put in a special request.
Jay licks his lips, using his hand to push your shoulder playfully. “I have no idea,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “I was talking to Yunjin at the library on Tuesday, I think, and she told me you can’t remember anything. I just wanted to freak you out.”
You feel heat under his touch and relief from his words, though something about him talking with Yunjin seems to jostle you slightly. “Yunjin was at the library?”
Briefly, what looks like disappointment flashes across Jay’s face, replaced quickly with a pretty smile, light, playful. “You care more about Yunjin being at the library than me asking your friend about you?” he asks.
“You were asking my friend about me?”
“Yeah, I think you’re cute,” Jay says sweetly, smiling at you in a way that makes your cheeks burn even when you look down at your lap.
There’s something about the way he says it, so casually as if telling you the time or today’s date, that throws you off. It doesn’t make any sense to you that some of the most vivid sensations that Jay makes you feel are just that: sensations. You know that your stomach doesn’t actually have butterflies in it and that your heart isn’t really twirling in your chest, but it sure feels like it. You wonder if he also feels like that sometimes. You earnestly hope that if he does, it’s because of you.
He seems nearer than before when you look at him, and for fear that you might kiss him if he gets any closer, you bring your empty cup to your lips, lean back a little, and pretend to sip. Its emptiness isn’t lost on Jay, however, who chuckles, asking if you want a refill. While walking towards the house, you listen as he tells you what the team normally get up to during half-time (mostly strategising and pretending not to hear Heeseung’s snores), and silently beg your cheeks to cool down. His hand is heavy on the small of your back as he ushers you inside first, sliding the door shut behind him, and gently pushing you towards the kitchen island.
You let yourself lean against the counter, ignoring the fluttering in your stomach as you watch him reach for a visibly sticky bottle of your favourite drink without asking what you’d like. Though before actually touching it, his eyes widen. “Wait, I have something for you,” he says, holding out a hand for you to take. “Come on.”
Jay weaves his fingers with yours, leading you through the house and up the stairs into a bedroom. He closes the door gently behind you, stepping over a couple of backpacks before sitting on the end of the bed, and tugging at the zipper on one of them.
For a moment you watch as veins appear on his hands and have to physically tell yourself to drag your eyes to anything else, eventually settling on the walls. Walls that are covered in countless glossy 4x6 prints, some shots of landscapes, groups of people, out-of-focus beer bottles and.. “You have a lot of photos of Mark Lee in here,” you comment, scanning the room around you. “And it doesn’t look like you’re.. in any of them,” you continue as you notice a grainy polaroid stuck to the wall next to the light switch — a picture of Mark making out with his best friend, Sakura “give me a break, a boy and a girl can be just friends” Miyawaki, and make a mental note to bring it up later.
Jay glances at you as if you’re the one sleeping in a Markkura shrine. “Yeah, ‘cause it’s his room,” he chuckles. “You can sit down, you know,” he adds after a beat, moving over a bit on the bed.
With a nod, you look at some more of the pictures as you make your way over to the spot next to him, a photo of Mark and Jake with their middle fingers to the camera catching your eye. And holding it for so long that you trip a little over one of the backpacks before sitting down and pretending nothing happened. Thankfully, Jay doesn’t seem to notice.
“It’s not much by the way, don’t get your hopes up,” he warns, his hand still hidden by the fabric of his bag.
“Got it.”
Despite his earlier disclaimer, he makes a show of the whole thing. “Ta-da!” His voice is a little singsong as he brings the obje—bottle of Smirnoff Ice into view.
“Thank you?” The bottle is cold in your hands when you take it from him, reading the ABV 4% on its label and wondering how many of these Sunghoon must have had to drink to have been stumbling the way he was that night. You also can’t help but wonder what reason Jay has for buying you a bottle and then taking you into the privacy of Mark’s bedroom to give it to you.
“Yeah,” he trails off a little, letting his hand come up to scratch the back of his neck. “You looked pretty crushed the other night when Heeseung finished that one bottle.”
You can’t help the scoff that comes out. “Crushed? I mean, I might’ve frowned.”
“Frowned? You were near tears, I was worried about you.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious, every time I looked at you, you had this.. upset look on your face.”
“Well, maybe you should stop looking at me so much.”
Jay’s eyes sparkle under the light, flicking back and forth from your eyes to your lips as he brings a hand up to your face, tucking some hair behind your ear, his fingers hot on your skin, unmoving. His eyes lock with yours. “Come on,” he says in a low voice. “You know there’s no stopping that.”
A smile tugs at your lips. Jay bites his. His gaze drops back down to your mouth. Lingers. And in what almost seems like an alcohol-induced hallucination, he leans in. Slightly. As if testing the waters. As if waiting for a sign that you want him to stop. A sign that you want him to continue. Anything. His hand is heavy on your cheek when he cups it in his palm, skin rough against yours.
Mere inches away, Jay’s lips seem more tempting than ever. Separated only by the distance of a breath and your nerves, you try to settle yourself. To put your heart at ease. But how could you relax when he looks at you like that; his gaze soft, tender, all of his attention on y—The bottle slips from your hands, cool against your thighs, reminding you of its existence. Jay flinches when you do.
“Let’s have a drink!” you suggest, though the absence you feel when he takes his hand from your face makes you wish you hadn’t.
“Sure.”
The cap screws off the bottle with a few satisfying clicks, and Jay, amused, shakes his head when you offer him the first sip. “After you,” he says.
Without a second thought, the bottle touches your lips and the sweet, sweet taste of Smirnoff Ice touches your tongue, coating your mouth and leaving you wishing the alcohol content was higher.
“Do you mind if I put my lips on it?” he asks while you pass the drink to him.
You shake your head, determined not to think of a double meaning, and watch as his lips connect with the bottle’s opening, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat while he drinks. When Jay pulls it from his mouth, he lets his tongue dart out to wet his lips. You wonder if it will taste different in his mouth, if his lips, wet from the drink, taste as sweet as they look.
Now that you realise you’ve shared an indirect kiss, you kick yourself for passing up the chance at a direct one, deciding that if you want him to kiss you, you’ll need to get closer. Step up your game a little. Maybe you’ll say something about his necklace, ask to get a better look.. And hopefully, he’ll take the hint and kiss you because you’re not really sure what else you could say.
Of course, you could opt to skip words altogether, taking his face in your hands, and pressing your lips to his. You’re sure that’s what Yunjin would do. And you’re sure that would be her advice to you if you asked her.
Jay hands the bottle back to you and you close it, determined to feel his lips on yours if it’s the last thing you do. And you quickly open the bottle again, one last sip for good luck. The soft laugh he lets out is breathy, and it’s hard to tell if the heat in your stomach is coming from the drink, or from the way you see him looking at you in your peripheral.
His straight teeth bite at his bottom lip, and he shakes his head when you offer him another sip. This time when you close the bottle, you do it for good, setting the glass on the floor so it doesn’t interrupt you again.
“I really like your necklace,” you say, off to a good start, following the plan.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Aw.. thanks,” he says, choosing now, of all times, to stop being a conversationalist.
In the quiet of the room, you realise that you hadn’t planned anything beyond the compliment. You let your eyes focus back on the charm hanging from his neck, trying to picture him with a fishing rod in his hand, and wellington boots on his feet. It doesn’t really work. “I didn’t realise you were so into fishing,” you blurt out, and the way he knits his brows together makes you wish you’d just grabbed him and planted a kiss on the lips he purses to the side while watching you.
“Me?”
“Yeah you, with your cute little hook on a chain.”
Jay squints at you. “Hook on a chain?” he repeats.
You let a hand reach up and press on the hook pendant on his necklace.
His shoulders rise and fall dramatically as he sighs, his hand coming up to wrap around yours, holding it to the base of his neck as the small (not) hook warms in your fist. “Why does everybody think it’s a hook?”
“It isn’t?”
“It’s the letter J.” He lets go of your hand to lift the charm. “See?”
You squint your eyes, leaning a little closer to him, gaze fixed on the little gold hook letter sitting near the base of his neck. “Ohhhh, right,” you say, but even from a few inches away, it still looks like a hook, and from this close, you can hear the way his breath hitches in his throat.
With an inhale, you find yourself lingering. Sticking around just long enough to make out the woodier notes of his cologne before moving back a little. Finally, you draw your eyes away from his neck, wanting to meet his gaze but finding yourself stuck on his lips instead. They sit slightly ajar, pink, pretty, sort of chapped in the way they always seem to be. His breath tickles your forehead. You sit straighter, noticing the way his eyes burn holes into you.
“Quit staring,” you mumble hypocritically.
Jay’s brows quirk up for a split second as he sits back on his hands. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Well, you’d have to be staring at me to know.”
“Do you want me to stop staring?”
He seems to consider this for a second before shaking his head. “No,” he tells you.
“What do you want then?” Your voice is soft when you ask.
“I wanna kiss you.”
Jay’s lips don’t move but you hear the word “really” being spoken out into the room like a question. Your voice doesn’t feel like your own and doesn’t fully register until Jay says: “Yeah,” so softly that it’s practically a whisper.
Jay wants.. to kiss you. You feel your breath catch in your throat and it seems even more ridiculous to think it than to have heard it from him. To see his lips move to form the words. I wanna kiss you, he’d said. You’d heard it. You’d seen it. It happened. He wants.. to kiss you.
“Do you want me to do that?” he asks, leaning in slightly, his hand rising to cup your cheek. Slower, gentler than last time.
You let your gaze meet his; regret flooding you immediately. Just as kind and soft as the rest of him, Jay’s eyes stare into yours, warm, and inviting, but, still, you can’t shake off your nerves. More than anything, you want to say yes; to say of course, can’t you tell? but you don’t trust yourself enough to open your mouth and speak to him. Instead, you nod, so slightly that for a moment you wonder if he even noticed. And then, there, in the dim privacy of Mark Lee’s bedroom, while your heart beats out of your chest, Jay kisses you for the first time.
His lips are warm against yours, the sweet taste of Smirnoff Ice only amplified as he holds you close. Soft, gentle, kissing Jay is everything you’d imagined it would be. You feel as though you might melt under his touch as his hand grabs your waist to pull you closer. So close that you’re nearly in his lap as he deepens the kiss, his tongue moving along yours.
It doesn’t feel real, it can’t be.
As if thrown by your thoughts, Jay pulls away. While attempting to form a coherent thought, you catch your breath, once again, regretting looking at him. He looks down the bridge of his nose at you with half-lidded eyes, and his pretty, pink lips sit parted, wet and plump from kissing. Jay leans in almost immediately, the moment cut short by his lips on yours once again.
It’s tangible this time; you couldn’t possibly make up the way his hand grips your ass or the way he groans softly when you whine into his mouth. He’s real, and he’s kissing you, and you only feel yourself growing dizzier, and dizzier the longer his lips move against yours. A gasp pulls you out of it and the two of you separate.
Looking in the direction of the now open door you see Sakura and Mark hand in hand. You can’t help the slight embarrassment that hits you at first, hating that, of all people, it had to be Mark to walk in and find you making out with someone on his bed.
Though you get a bit distracted seeing him and Sakura like this, they look cute together. His football hoodie covers her form completely, much longer than the dress she has on, as she leans into him, and a giggle slips from her lips when he lets go of her hand to wrap an arm around her waist instead.
Somewhat belatedly, and needlessly, Mark apologises, his eyes focused on you when he speaks but you can’t get the words out to respond to him. Jay chuckles at this, shaking his head and telling him not to worry about it as he stands up from the bed. You follow suit. Jay picks up your drink from the floor and takes you by the hand, telling Mark he’ll text him later while leading you out of the room. When you glance at Sakura, she’s grinning at you, mouthing: “Sorry,” before smacking your butt.
Jay hands you the bottle when the door closes, his hand slipping out of yours. A beat passes. And then another. He chews at his bottom lip. You clear your throat and the silence continues. It’s a shame to be standing around like idiots on the landing like this, you think.
“I..” he trails off, wiping his hands on his pants. He points over his shoulder with his thumb. “I should get back to the boys.”
Your heart sinks as you hesitate, unsure how to respond. Slowly, you nod. “Right, yeah,” you say.
“Later,” he mumbles, holding up his hand to wave stiffly at you before turning around to leave.
Deflated, you lean against Mark’s door while you search for your phone to ask Yunjin where she is. Maybe if you’d waited for a moment, you’d have seen the way Jay stopped at the top of the stairs to look over at you, seen the frown on his face when he saw that you weren’t looking at him. But instead, you read 2 texts from Yunjin.
yj: dude heso into u
yj: flirt more = hv fun upstairs
You spend the next three days pretending nothing happened at the party, avoiding Jay, and dreading going to uni. It’s just unfortunate that for you, pretending nothing happened looks like zoning out in the library while replaying the kiss in your head until your elbow slips off the desk. And avoiding Jay seems near impossible, given his tendency to show up everywhere. Or rather, your tendency to see Jay in everything.
Like the tiny little black cat you saw perched on the fence outside your apartment building, and the busker singing Harry Styles in the city centre. And the half-full bottle of Smirnoff Ice from that night that sits on your dresser with your perfume and jewellery, displayed with about as much sentiment as a trophy won at school for a random achievement.
Impulsively, you post a selfie to your Instagram story before hiding your phone under your pillow and leaving the room entirely, making yourself comfortable atop the kitchen counter and waiting for someone to come back home.
Chaewon gets home first, and quickly, arriving with a groan as she shrugs her jacket off and shuts the door behind her. “I hate uni,” she mutters. “I hate studying, I ha— Hey.” She jumps a little when she sees you in the kitchen. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever, where’ve you been hiding?”
“My room.”
She nods, leaning comfortably against the doorframe. “You’re not going out tonight, right?”
You shake your head, amused by the look of relief that paints Chaewon’s features as she whispers thank God. “I’m gonna shower, and take a nap,” she informs you. “But when I wake up, it’s you, me, pizza, and whatever story Yunjin has from practice.”
“Can’t wait,” you say sincerely, stepping down from the counter.
With a wide smile on her face, she salutes you before dragging her feet to the bathroom. Completely endeared, you decide not to comment on the salute even though you think it’s sweet that she’s starting to copy her boyfriend.
The sounds of student housing on a Wednesday evening seep in through the open window as you pour yourself a glass of water, unable to stop wondering if Jay saw your story; and what he thought about it if he did. Wondering if he’d notice that the picture was from Saturday night.
Filling up your glass again, you take it to your room and pull your phone out of hiding. Along with a message from Yunjin telling you and Chaewon to order your food so it comes shortly after she gets home, you find that Jay hit like on your story. Then sent a reply ten minutes later saying: you’re sooo gorgeous.
With a smile on your face, you type out various forms of “thank you so much, you’re perfect,” before settling on a simple: thank uuu :D, and Jay’s response is immediate.
jay: i don’t think i’ve said that before
jay: how prettty i think you are
The heat that rises to your cheeks is troubling, yet despite your best efforts, you can’t get it to pass. Especially not when you read and reread Jay’s message. You press your eyes shut, willing the heat to pass, willing the grin on your face to fade. Neither works, in fact, they only worsen when you open your eyes to see the new messages waiting for you in the chat.
jay: it’s a lot bte
jay: *btw
You let out a romcom-worthy sigh, clutching the phone to your chest and laying down on the bed. A glow-in-the-dark sticker stares back at you from its spot on your ceiling, a single star that you’d won as a set of two at the arcade with Kazuha in December. The memory brings a smile to your face, even though you remember being a little annoyed after she turned down the other star when you tried giving it to her.
Another message from Jay makes your phone vibrate in your hands.
jay: sorrry
you: it’s okay
You tell him. Even though you’re not sure what he’s apologising for. Just like before, Jay reads the message immediately though this time his reply never comes.
With Yunjin now home from practice, and freshly showered, you sit on the couch with your flatmates, talking and laughing over the sound of the TV for hours until Netflix asks if you’re still watching, and Yunjin’s passed out with her cold, wet hair on your shoulder.
Pressing a wet kiss to your cheek, Chaewon retires to bed, whispering “Goodniiiiiiiiight,” in your ear before abandoning you. Tired as you are, a part of you feels bad about waking Yunjin so you decide to sit a while longer, moving the blanket from your lap to cover her up properly. But of course, this is the movement that wakes her up.
In a soft voice, you tell her goodnight, standing up from the couch to stretch your arms above your head.
“You never told me what happened on Saturday,” Yunjin says tiredly. “Kkura told me you and Jay were busy in Mark’s room.”
The mention of his name takes you back to that night. Back to Jay and the way his lips felt against yours, the way his hand held your waist, and the way he’d ditched you outside Mark’s room. A pit forms in your stomach; and as if reading your mind, Yunjin asks if you’re okay.
You sit down on the other end of the couch, bringing your knees up to your chest and telling the story from top to bottom. After recounting the night in detail from after she left you guys alone, you find yourself hyperaware of the differences between you and Yunjin. For you, the highlight of Saturday night was Jay kissing you and then running away after.
“Wait, Sakura and who?” she asks when you’re done.
For Yunjin, the highlight of the story seems to be Mark’s presence.
“Mark.”
“She told me she went on her own, what were they doing?”
Although you have some idea, you think it best to keep your knowledge to yourself. “They were looking for her phone,” you say, pleased to see that Yunjin accepts your answer and moves on.
“So then what?”
“He texted me hey on Sunday morning, which I ignored, and then a couple hours ago he replied to my story and told me how pretty he thinks I am,” you say, pausing to take a breath. “Then ignored my response.”
Yunjin sits silently, seeming to take in everything she’d just been told. Her eyes are focused on the TV screen ahead so you look over at it too. It had gone into standby mode, displaying nothing but an indistinct impression of the two of you.
And the silence continues.
In the TV’s cast, you can just about make out the way she tilts and then turns her head to look at you. “Maybe he’s just.. frazzled, or something, from being walked in on. How did you feel?”
The answer takes a while to come up with because for you, the night exists in two parts — Before kissing Jay, and everything else that happened when you left the room. This whole time, you’ve been so focused on him leaving, that you’ve barely given any thought to how you felt when Sakura opened the door. Frazzled, you think. Probably the best word to use. Embarrassed suits a bit better though.
“I was embarrassed about it, but only because it was Mark. If it had been you, or Chaewon, whoever, it would’ve been different because they’d walk in and go “oh sorry” or something and leave, but obviously, when it’s Mark going into his own room, he’s there for something, you know?” you explain, chewing at your bottom lip.
“Maybe that’s how he feels too.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t embarrassing enough to leave and never talk to him again.”
Yunjin exhales heavily. “I want to be on your side, really, I do, but isn’t that kinda what you did?” she asks, her voice hesitant as she tilts her head. “He texted you the next day and you didn’t reply, what do you think he’s thinking about right now?”
“He’s the one who said he should get back to the boys.”
“What if that’s just because he spoke first?” she suggests. “Obviously we don’t know what you would’ve said if you spoke first, because you didn’t, but I feel like you would’ve been like “I-I’m gonna get back to the girls” and ran away.”
Always correct, Yunjin is your worst enemy and your best friend rolled into one. Oh, how you hate her. Well, she’s correct about the fact that you would have said the same thing. You think. You press your lips together in a straight line and sink into your seat.
She sighs when you don’t speak. “Look, he talked to you today, and told you how pretty you are, which is a win, right?”
You nod reluctantly.
“So let’s celebrate that, celebrate the fact that you kissed Jay! Even better, the fact that he kissed you.” Yunjin pauses, for what you think is dramatic effect, before speaking again. “Just.. don’t sweat the small stuff, okay?” She stops again to yawn. “And text him back if he reaches out, or, text him first.”
Leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, you brush your teeth, watching as Yunjin does the same, sitting on the edge of the tub with her eyes shut. While gargling mouthwash, you think about the conversation you’ve just had and decide to take matters into your own hands. By pleading with God to put Jay in front of you and have him tell you that he likes you back.
Once again, the higher powers seem to be on your side. Kind of. Jay does end up in front of you to tell you that he likes you back. Kind of. But only after learning that you’ll have to start your report again; which, given that you’d only gotten through 800 of the required 4000 words, wasn't exactly criminal. It was an irritation that settled in you, mainly, as all of your research and the sources you’d found were now redundant in the face of such adversity.
Nonetheless, with heavy feet, you leave the lecture hall, trying to come up with a way to fake your graduation ceremony next year so you can secretly drop out. You draw a blank and find Jay waiting in line at the vending machine near the library’s entrance.
Even though you’d spoken with her on Tuesday night, here, today, on Friday afternoon, Yunjin’s words echo so clearly in your mind you almost want to peer over your shoulder to see if she’s there. You do. She isn’t.
Your formerly heavy feet lead you right over to Jay, who greets you with a smile. “How’s the report coming?” he asks, his tone light, easygoing, and clearly oblivious to the fact that his question strikes you like a knife to the gut.
The two of you shuffle forward slightly, now at the front of the queue. Waiting for your response, he punches E6 into the machine that rattles loudly, delivering his bottle of Lipton lemon.
“Not great,” you tell him, feigning nonchalance and watching as he presses E4 before squatting down to collect both drinks. “Are you heading to class?”
Standing up straight, Jay holds out the new(er) bottle of Lipton peach towards you. “What happened?”
Holding the drink in your hands, you fall into step with him and sigh despite yourself. “I have to start over.”
Jay’s eyes widen and his jaw drops slightly at your words. Dramatic. Cute. “Nooo,” he says sincerely. “How come?”
“I read the question wrong.”
“Oh,” he says. “That’s okay, at least you found out now rather than later. And you still have until December to get it done, that’s almost two months! I’m sure most people haven’t even read the question,” he tells you in a gentle voice.
There’s a fuzziness in your chest, and Jay’s words make you feel like everything will be alright. Even though you weren’t exactly cut up about the report, something about talking with him about it leaves you feeling soothed when you look up to give him a warm smile.
“I don’t have classes today, I’m just here to study,” he says, answering your earlier question as he leads you to a table.
You watch as Jay sits down, and decide to take a seat across from him, dumping your bag on the floor at your feet. His brows quirk up when you put the drink down on his side of the table, confusion evident in his voice when he says: “You don’t like peach tea anymore?”
All of a sudden your heart is pounding, and you grin despite yourself. Oh, Jay, you think. “It’s my favourite.”
Matching your smile Jay slides the bottle over to you. “It’s yours,” he says.
You can’t explain the overwhelming sense of gratitude you feel over a barely cold, 500ml bottle of tea, but it beams brightly on the table between you; radiant, glowy, the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. “Thank you,” you say sincerely in a soft voice, lest you knock the bottle out of its haze.
The deepest part of your brain romanticises the scene around you even further, and the table you sit at, in the smallest library on campus, starts to seem like something from a kid’s storybook. From a mythical land where the iced tea is luminescent, and you get to study with an angel who wears Chrome Hearts pants and olive green 6s.
“Can I read it when you’re done?” His question cuts through your thoughts. Surprised by how genuine Jay sounds, you glance back over at him to find him already looking at you, his lips pushed up into a soft smile that spreads flutters around your chest.
It takes you longer than you’d like to admit to realise what he’s talking about, but you tilt your head when you do. “You wanna read my paper on wind turbines and solar farms?” you ask.
Jay’s eyes widen briefly as if shocked that you’re even asking him that. “Of course I do,” he says, sounding almost offended, defensive maybe.
You eye him from across the table, sceptical. Jay seems to pick up on this. “Why wouldn’t I want to know about the UN’s advances towards net zero by 2030?” he asks, chuckling to himself when you raise a brow. He shrugs. “I got curious after you mentioned it.”
With burning cheeks, you watch him as he continues to talk, neither of you making any effort to start on the work you’re there to do. As much as you feel it’d be useful to get work done in the library — because it’ll allow you to go home and do nothing without guilt — you don’t see the point in half-assing your research and absentmindedly chatting with Jay, when you could ditch the research completely and fixate over the way his lips move to form his words.
“I lost my student card so I need to read while I’m in here. I think it’s better though; easier to stay focused, less distractions,” Jay tells you when you ask what brought him to uni just to study alone. “Usually,” he adds, gaze flicking up to meet yours with a teasing smile crossing his lips.
Jay’s words hold a flirtatious undertone that isn’t lost on you or the butterflies that take flight in your stomach. “I’m not a distraction,” you say, frowning slightly.
“I never said you were, but I had no problem getting my work done until you got here.”
Jay’s words remind you of your first test for Property Law in February. The two of you sat together at a table in the campus cafe, empty mugs and printed slides scattered across the space between you. For four hours, you highlighted sentences and rewrote notes to keep your hands busy until Jay walked you back to your flat, where you pulled an all-nighter so you could actually study. You got a 61 and slept for twelve hours afterwards.
“If it’s getting to you that much, I can go,” you offer, really, really, hoping he doesn’t take you up on it.
“No, please stay. I like spending time with you,” Jay admits with a slight downturn at the corners of his lips.
You try to work out how to echo his sentiment without sounding like a lovestruck fool, though you draw a blank, distracted by the way he– “Are you batting your lashes at me?” you ask through a chuckle.
Jay squints. “Is it working?”
You shake your head.
“Well, neither are you,” he points out, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that almost makes you feel scolded despite his light tone. You think you like it.
An overly dramatic sigh huffs its way out of your mouth as you roll your eyes at him, fighting a smile at the sound of his breathy laughter. “Whatever. Starting now, I’ll work on my paper. You focus on your reading, no distractions,” you suggest.
“Right, no distractions,” Jay repeats, his eyes falling to your lips.
Sticking to your word proves much easier than you’d initially thought and you manage to sit, mostly undistracted, for more than a little while, putting the paragraphs that can stay in italics, the bits that need to be amended in bold, and deleting the rest.
Your workflow is broken only when Jay speaks softly, “Is it cool if Heeseung works with us?” he asks, sending a text after you tell him that it’s okay.
And as if he’d been waiting around the corner, Heeseung shows up seconds later. “Jongseongieeeeee,” he coos when he sees Jay, extending a hand to pat his head and ruffle his hair.
Unable to hide his irritation, Jay’s face scrunches up at the interaction and in an attempt to stop the sudden attack, he grabs Heeseung by the wrist, seeming shocked when it works. You watch him fix his hair in his phone camera.
In the same playful tone, Heeseung says your name too, sitting down in the seat next to Jay. “I feel like I haven’t seen you since the hockey mixer.”
You can’t help the breathy laugh that comes out at the cute pout on his lips. “Because you haven’t seen me since the hockey mixer,” you say, smiling at Jay when you notice him looking at you.
“You weren’t at the football party, were you?” Heeseung asks, his eyes widening right when the words leave his mouth. “Riiiiiiiight, you were.” He mumbles to himself before covering his mouth with his hand. “I’m just..” he trails off, pointing at his laptop with his index finger before opening it and sinking in his seat.
There’s a nasty pit forming in your stomach while you watch Heeseung all but disappear behind his screen. And in the black screen of your laptop, you stare at yourself, pretending that: 1. The fingerprints and smudges don’t bother you, and 2. That you don’t notice the way Jay’s looking at you. Or rather, the fact that Jay’s looking at you. If you’d noticed the way he was looking at you, you might have picked up on the softness of his gaze. But you didn't, so you don’t.
Instead, the fact that Jay’s watching you only makes you feel worse. Though at least it looks like your hair is sitting nicely today, you think, glad to have at least one thing working for you rather than against you. Like the pit in your stomach, or the Lipton peach that tastes like nothing when you take the first sip.
In the presence of Heeseung - and the things he said - the three of you manage to get on with your work, free of conversation.
Reluctantly, you let the two boys walk you back to your place when you’re ready to go home. Heeseung leads the conversation, thankfully, with no more mention of the football party and even hugs you goodbye while Jay watches from a few feet away. Judging by the expression on his face, you’d think the person he’d liked for months kissed him and then ran away.
“Sorry,” Heeseung whispers, pressing his lips into a straight line.
With your key in the lock, you watch as they retreat, Heeseung nudging Jay when he reaches him and mumbling something that you can’t quite make out. Neither of the girls are home when you get inside and, sprawling out on the couch, you look for your phone to make plans.
you: we should go out tn
cw: tmrw ! i have a deadline
yj: broke friday or .. j*emins party
Too broke for broke Friday, the two of you find yourselves stepping over the legs of a sleeping Sunghoon to reach the open door to Jeno and Jaemin’s apartment. There are people everywhere, including the hall outside, but you suppose this is the benefit of student housing; none of your neighbours can complain about noise because they’re too busy being part of the commotion.
Jake almost spills his drink when he sees you both, saying “heyyyyy,” with a giggle and eyes that linger on Yunjin while he talks though he quickly excuses himself to take water to poor Sunghoonie.
The night is largely uneventful, much the same as every other night out you’ve had since starting college. Except for the part where Jay shows up,a massive grin on his face to greet your friends. Sakura, Yunjin, and Kazuha all get a “hey” and a brief hug. Jay regards you with a nod and a small smile. At least Kazuha seems to believe you when you tell her that you’re crying in Jaemin’s bathroom because you hate your outfit.
After a weekend of self-pity, you spend Monday at a coffee shop with Sakura, watching as she studi—“You could at least pretend to study, you know?” she sighs. “Every time I look up you’re either staring at me or using your phone, it’s distracting.”
With a frown on your face, you touch your mug to see if your coffee is cool enough to drink yet — it’s not — before flipping your notebook to a blank page and trying to write out some of the key points that you remember from Friday’s lecture. A part of you feels bad for neglecting your Architectural Practice class but it’s just not as interesting, and you tell yourself that you’ll dedicate all of your time to it after finishing your report. You definitely will not come to regret leaving three months worth of work to the very last minute.
You study with Sakura for a few hours until deciding that you simply cannot continue, and the two of you leave the cafe in favour of a Mcdonald’s drive-thru, eating your dinner in the dark parking lot before she drops you off.
On Tuesday night, you’re thankful that Yunjin and Kazuha don’t push you to go out with them when you say you’re tired, but when Netflix asks if you’re still watching Modern Family at almost 3 a.m., you wish they had.
You push yourself out of bed to do your skincare, and hear the two girls coming back home as you apply your last pimple patch. After Kazuha all but yells something about a huge pair of shoes by the door, it seems like they settle in the kitchen.
They’re sharing a bowl of cereal at the table when you get there. Feeling bad, you make instant noodles for them while Yunjin hugs you from behind. Both of you try your best to laugh quietly at Kazuha’s story about some box blond figure skater who completely blanked her when she tried flirting despite staring at her all night.
Once the food is ready, you sit up on the counter, watching them eat straight from the pot. Trying to talk to those two while they’re so invested in dinner is a waste of energy so you busy yourself on your phone instead, scrolling aimlessly until both girls kiss you on the cheek to thank you for looking after them. Kazuha gratefully drinks the glass of water you give her, and Yunjin, as you expect, is stubborn about it; taking three small sips before running away to her room.
The argument you can hear through the open window keeps you entertained as you wash the dishes, and you check your phone on the way to your room, finding two texts from Jay.
jay: i know it’s late but can we talk in person if you’re up
jay: it’ s important
They came in four minutes ago and you chew on your lip trying to figure out what he wants to talk about.
you: are you okay?
jay: can you come outside
With not even enough time to hit send on the three question marks you’d typed out, the distinct ring of a FaceTime call surprises you. Though what you find more surprising is the sight of your building’s door behind Jay’s face which just about fills the screen. Lit dramatically by an orange street light, he looks beautiful. Looks cute when his lips pout slightly around the words: come quickly and dress warm, as he successfully convinces you to leave the comfort of your bed.
Through the glass in the main door, you see him. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, he looks up towards the sky and puffs visible breaths into the air above him. Jay turns around at the sound of the door opening. You feel your stomach lurch because he doesn’t smile when he sees you.
“Hey,” he says after a while, watching you intently, inspecting almost, as you shut the door softly behind you. His face softens, the smile he hadn’t given earlier coming through now. “Are you wearing my jacket?” His voice is soft too when he speaks, breathy enough for the smell of alcohol and vague peppermint to hit your nose.
“I thought I should probably give it back,” you nod. “Sorry I kept it so long.”
Jay shakes his head, hair shifting on his forehead from the motion. “No, I love it on you. Please keep it,” he pauses, taking a step towards you. “I want you to keep it.”
Thank God, you think. You hadn’t really been meaning to give it back, and you weren’t really sorry to have kept it so long, it just felt like the right thing to say.
The space between you is so small that you wonder if he can hear the way your heart rate starts to pick up. In the time you hadn’t talked, you’d seen him around campus, in the corners of story posts, but seeing him here in front of you is almost overwhelming. A gust of wind ruffles the jacket Jay has on and his scent unfurls right under your nose; warm, lived in, mixed with faint sweat and what you think might be tobacco. It creates a musk that leaves you weak at the knees.
“It was milk and cookies night,” Jay continues when you don’t respond, digging into his pocket and holding a plastic-wrapped cookie out towards you. “You like white chocolate chip, right?”
Hearing that it was milk and cookies night makes you wonder if you’d been too hasty when you turned down the girls’ invitation.
Despite the cold, Jay’s hand is warm when your fingers graze his. Letting your touch linger, you thank him sincerely, touched by the little things he seems to remember about you.
Even though you’re aware of the other students coming home from various nights out, and end up having to move out of the way so some of them can enter your building, it feels like the two of you are in your own world. You notice that his sights are locked on the cookie, on the spot where your fingers touch, allowing you to admire him freely.
Standing almost directly under the lamppost now, you notice that his cheeks and the tips of his ears are dusted with red. You feel a little bad, he must be freezing, you think. Your gaze falls to his lips that sit parted, chapped like you expect, and now you’re thinking of kissing him.
Clearing his throat, Jay moves his hand from yours to put it in his pocket. You do the same.
“I know I said I wanted to talk, but I just wanted to see you,” he says, looking you right in the eyes. “I wasn’t sure you’d come if I said that.”
You frown, wondering if this whole time he’s been avoiding you because he thought you didn’t want to see him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Jay only shrugs in response.
From over your shoulder, you hear the door opening. Jay’s eyes flicker in its direction. You turn your head to look too. A boy with pink hair frowns when both of you tell him you don’t have the lighter he’d been looking to borrow.
“I’m sorry about leaving after we kissed. And for avoiding you. That was stupid,” Jay says as soon as the door closes. “It was childish of me to do that instead of just telling you how I feel. I wasn’t gonna say anything, because I know you only see me as a friend, but I have to let you know that I like you, a lot.”
You stand around limply for a beat, staring up at Jay and trying to take in every single detail about this moment before you inevitably wake up. But this ‘dream’ doesn’t cut off where you’d been expecting it to. Instead, you feel your heart thudding against your ribs, your stomach flipping. The only thing you can get yourself to do is blink at the boy in front of you. The boy who likes you.
A lot.
“It’s just that, after Heeseung said that shit in the library and you couldn’t even look at me, I knew I didn’t have a chance with you and I just.. am trying to figure out how to be near you and pretend like I don’t want to drop everything and kiss you.”
“What’s stopping you?” you ask, surprised that your voice even comes out properly.
Jay’s gaze drops to your lips. Without noticing, the two of you had gotten so close that your chests are barely an inch apart; they’d probably touch if either of you took just one deep inhale. A beat passes. His gaze flicks up to meet yours and your breath hitches in your throat. You want to kiss him. You must. Right when you start to lean up towards him, to put your lips on his, he steps back.
“Fuck,” Jay mumbles, his brows knitting together as he shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
The ability to hold his liquor is something that Jay sees as both a blessing and a curse.
On the bright side, he can drink as much as he wants and won’t say or do anything he wouldn’t say or do when sober. His delivery might be a little off when he’s drunk but the point still stands.
On the not-so-bright, catastrophically dim side, however, Jay wakes up the morning after drinking with a vivid memory of everything that happened to him at whatever party he’d been to. Plus a killer migraine.
And so, since drunkenly showing up at your place with a cookie in his pocket and his heart on his sleeve two weeks ago, Jay’s been quietly pitying himself and gently encouraging Jake to work harder on physics so he can get some sort of time machine up and running.
Though it seems like you’ve been able to go on as normal. So normal, in fact, that Jay starts to believe the whole thing was just an elaborate dream. So elaborate that when he scrolls through your text thread, he finds the messages that you’d ‘exchanged’ that night. He finds the thought of having developed self-awareness in a two-week-long dream to be a greater comfort than the reality that you don’t like him back.
You would have said if you did. Right? Or at least brought up what he’d said. Asked if you could talk about it. You’d be so excited to see him again, sober, that you wouldn’t even be able to say anything except: “I like you too!” Right?
But you haven’t. So unless you’re going through trauma-inflicted amnesia, or someone has finally come up with the technology to invent The Neuralyzer, you really don’t like him back.
Jay had been so sure, certain that you liked him back. It just seemed so obvious; like the way you seemed to find him at every party, and how anytime you saw Jake in the engineering block you’d ask about him. Surely it wasn’t all in his head. The way that Chaewon and Yunjin had been teasing you at the hockey mixer, and how Yunjin made up that excuse to leave the two of you alone at the football party. It was all so.. like-y.
Even today, when you texted him asking to hang out. He was sure that you were finally (finally!) going to tell him you liked him too. So sure, he’d even told the boys that he’d be coming back home as someone’s boyfriend. As your boyfriend.
But instead, Jay finds himself climbing the stairs of his apartment complex wondering how the fuck he’d been so delusional. In his back pocket, his phone vibrates. Twice. Texts; both from you.
you: i forgot to say but lmk when u get home lol
you: and if u have time to hang out before ur game tmrw !
His heart twists in his chest as he reads your messages.
jay: okayyyyyyyyyyyyy, i can chill for a bit
jay: what did you have in mind?
After fishing his house key from his jacket, he twists it in the lock and crosses the threshold before texting you once more: home now :). You heart the message immediately. The laughter that Jay could hear in the hall quiets as soon as he closes the door, and heavy footsteps thud towards the living room’s open doorway. Sunghoon.
“It’s Mr YN YL—” he stops short. “Oh.” It’s not until Sunghoon looks over his shoulder and shakes his head that Jay even notices the stupid shutter shades he’s wearing. And when Jay joins his friends in the living room, he smiles despite himself seeing the way they’d decorated the space. Streamers dangle from the ceiling, hand-drawn A4 posters with both of your names written in lopsided hearts are stuck to the wall, and Jay ignores the thought of losing the security deposit to appreciate his friends; they’re good to him.
On the way to his usual seat, an armchair in the corner of the room, Jay stops to wrestle a bottle of Desperados from the open six back sitting atop the coffee table and kicks a balloon that was in his path before sinking into his chair.
Knowing there’s no use giving them a play-by-play, Jay recounts the last few hours as briefly as he can. He makes sure to leave out small details; like how he felt weak at the knees when you hugged him and told him you loved him after he won you a Hello Kitty plushie from the claw machine that you swore was rigged. Or how you’d worn his jacket out and his heart started racing when he noticed that your perfume had started to mix with his cologne. Unexpectedly, the guys seem hooked on the story right until its end. “So it’s not like it went badly or anything, I just.. didn’t tell her.”
Somehow, all three of them speak at the same time: “What do you mean you didn’t tell her?”
Jay stares at a spot on the floor, noticing a hole in the toe of Jake’s sock. He’ll make fun of that later. “I just couldn’t get the words out,” he mumbles, shoulders drooping as he slumps further and further into his seat before taking the first sip of his bitter drink a—“Fuck, why does anybody drink these?”
“Cheap,” Sunghoon mumbles, scowling after sipping from his own.
Clearly.
“Unless I’m missing something, this doesn’t seem like the end of the world. Just tell her tomorrow, tell her now, text her,” Heeseung sighs, letting his eyes fall shut.
The other two boys seem to agree, echoing the sentiment and adding their own ad libs to it. Jay watches as Sunghoon leans over to get another drink from the table, admiring his commitment to beer drinking even though he doesn’t like it. He waits for silence before speaking again: “I already know she doesn’t like me that way. And it’s only been two weeks so it doesn’t make sense to confess again so soon when I know the answer.”
“Again?” Sunghoon asks, raising a brow.
Ahhh, Jay knew there was something he’d forgotten to do. Though he's struggling to figure out how he’d withheld this information, considering it was the main thing on his mind at all hours. “Yeah, after milk and cookies I went to hers and told her I like her,” he says, attempting to feign nonchalance, shoulders rising and falling in a stiff shrug.
“And you kept that to yourself because..”
Jay scrunches up his nose, genuinely unsure. “I didn’t go there to confess, I just wanted to see her and give her the cookie I got for her,” he admits. “But then she came outside, and she had my jacket on, and she just looked so pretty. The only thing on my mind was oh, my God, I can’t go any longer without telling you I’m in love with you.” Jay pauses, taking a long sip of beer before telling them what happened outside your building.
As if he wasn’t feeling bad enough already, Heeseung bursts out laughing. Hard. It’s not long before Jake and Sunghoon join in and Jay wants to vanish into thin air. Feeling slightly left out, he also wants to ask what’s so funny, but the fear of being slated holds him back.
It’s the eldest who calms down first, sitting up straight in his seat. “So you go to YN’s door, tell her you like her, almost kiss her, then explicitly tell her not to say she likes you back, run away from her, again, and you’re wondering why she didn’t say she likes you back?”
With the story being laid out so simply, Jay starts to see the flaws in his logic. Though too stubborn to admit that he’s wrong in front of Jake, he nods his head. “Exactly.”
He presses his lips into a straight line when the boys call him chronically stupid.
“You need to call her, talk to her, figure your shit out before it’s too late,” Heeseung says with a firm tone.
Jay thinks about it, biting at his bottom lip before replying, asking in a small voice: “But what if she says she doesn’t like me?”
As much as not having confirmation is killing him, there’s a part of Jay that likes not knowing how you feel about him because it lets him play into his delusions. Lets him feed himself with thoughts of you being excited to see him because you like him and not because he makes great platonic company. The thought of you checking up on him through Jake because you’ve been thinking about him, but feel too shy to ask directly. And Jay knows when you properly reject him, he won’t be comforted by such thoughts anymore. They’ll only hurt him.
Though after hearing what may be the wisest thing he thinks Sunghoon has ever said, Jay starts to see the situation a little differently. It’s casual. Spoken through a yawn. “You already don’t have a girlfriend. Nothing to lose, right?”
The walk to your apartment building is longer than he remembers, but the cool air feels good on his neck as he tries to figure out what exactly he should say. Jay only starts to consider that this may not be the best idea when he stands face to face with your apartment building and feels a little too nervous to buzz your flat. What is he doing?
A grating screech comes from the heavy door when it opens, and Chaewon’s boyfriend steps outside with squinted eyes. “Jay?” he asks as the door thuds shut behind him. “YN didn’t say you were coming over.”
An awkward chuckle slips from Jay’s lips and (for the first time in his life) he does jazz hands. “Surprise?”
Jay feels better when Jeno’s lips spread into a grin. “Ohhhh,” he says, nodding and extending an almost empty deck of cigarettes in his direction.
“I’m good,” Jay declines, shaking his head.
Though if things go poorly up there he might have to take Jeno up on his offer.
Holding his cigarette between his lips, Jeno uses a fob to open the door for him, and Jay can’t help but feel comforted by the way Jeno pats him on the back and says: “I’m rooting for you.”
Standing at the door to your apartment only unleashes a new sense of nervousness. His hand rests on it, balled into a fist, waiting to be pulled back. But something stops him. Jay lets his hand slip down the door and takes a step away from it. He’d been standing too close. Now, he stands shifting his weight from foot to foot, and the toes of his shoes are just touching the doormat.
Reminding himself that knocking isn’t the hard part, Jay takes a deep breath and knocks three times.
A few minutes pass and it’s now that he remembers he doesn’t even know for sure that you’re home, or awake. He counts ten seconds before knocking again and the second his fist touches the door, he hears the sound of a lock clicking and the door creaks open.
Like something from a dream, you stand in the doorway, looking so beautiful with his hoodie on that Jay has to put in effort to keep his jaw from falling to the ground.
“Jay?” you say quietly, brows furrowed. “Is everything alright?”
“Do you like me?” Jay blurts out, pressing his eyes shut immediately as all plans of a proper conversation go to the wind. From his spot on your doormat, he can hear the sound of the TV quieting and a terrible silence settles over the two of you; lasting eight whole seconds before you speak.
“Do you wanna come in?”
Jay steps into the apartment, taking off his shoes at the door while mumbling a greeting to Yunjin and Chaewon who (definitely heard him) lay on the couch with wide grins on their faces, and follows you to your room where you close the door behind him.
“Sorry, I had, like, a speech ready and then I saw you and I just..” he trails off, standing awkwardly near the door and looking at everything in the room except for you; he struggles to tear his eyes away from a polaroid picture of the two of you with huge grins. It’s only when you talk that he manages to look over at you instead.
“You can sit down,” you say, patting a spot on the bed next to you. Without saying anything, Jay crosses the room to sit beside you — if sitting at arm’s length can be considered as beside you. “Tell me about the speech,” you say, and Jay shakes his head while trying to convince himself that your chuckle isn’t patronising.
“Do you like me?” he asks again, not wanting to waste any more time.
“I like you.”
Your words, simple and quiet, leave Jay winded.
“You look surprised,” you say, tilting your head. “You really didn’t know?”
Immediately, he relaxes his face. Clears his throat. Jay’s not entirely sure what he did and didn’t know, but he doesn’t think it matters. Nothing could possibly matter more than you do right now. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, letting out a sigh of relief. “I like you too.” The words sound regular when he says them, though he does like the lightness in his chest knowing for sure that the feeling is mutual. “Can you say it again?”
“Jay,” you start, resting your hand on his knee. Jay wonders if this is supposed to comfort him and clasps his hands over his lap as discreetly as he can manage. “I like you,” you tell him again.
Under the weight of your words, Jay feels his heart cinch a little in his chest. Why does everything sound so perfect coming from you? He can’t help but lean in, finally kissing you after what feels like an eternity. Jay didn’t think anything would feel better than your first kiss, but having your lips move softly against his, and knowing that you like him back, might just be the best thing ever. How did he go so long without this? Dazed and lovestruck, he lets his forehead rest against yours to calm down, to catch his breath. “Again?” he whispers, hopeful, one step away from begging.
You let out a chuckle, soft, breathy, fanning his lips. “I like you,” you say after a while, quietly, a whisper, just for him before kissing him again.
Jay’s not sure when it happened, he’s not even sure he notices that you’re sitting in his lap until you grind down on him; the feeling overwhelming despite all of the layers between you. A whine slips from your mouth into his when he rolls his hips up towards yours, and he can’t help but hate himself a bit for not just confessing sooner.
You pull away from him, a smile on your face as he chases your kiss. “Please touch me,” you whisper, hiding your face in his neck when he chuckles at your request, calling you cute under his breath.
He feels oddly thankful that you’re not grinding on him any longer because he was about two more movements away from cumming in his pants. His hand slips under your shorts, finding your clit and pressing on it through your underwear, liking the way your breath fans his skin when you sigh. The wet patch on the fabric only starts to spread when he starts rubbing you. “You like that?”
“Yeah,” you tell him on an exhale, letting your hips roll against his hand, whimpering at the friction.
Your mouth quickly finds his again, and you let your hand clutch at his shirt, balling it up in your first before tugging at it, parting to take it off of him. With wide eyes, you gape at his torso, the word “Shit,” falling from your mouth while you let a hand rest on his stomach.
When he tries pushing your panties to the side, the soaked material sticks to your slit slightly, and Jay groans despite himself. You’re absolutely drenched in slick, sopping wet to the core as you let out a broken whine from the feeling of his finger slipping into you. Curling his finger towards your belly button, his eyes fall shut, cock throbbing against his thigh when he thinks about how you’d feel around his shaft, how you’d look under him.
“You’re so good,” you whisper, awestruck and trembling in his lap.
The way you watch him makes him feel a little under pressure when he opens his eyes, but, determined to make you feel good, Jay attaches his thumb to your clit and everything is so slick that his finger slips around a bit before he can help it. You squirm in his lap, your head falling forward into the crook of his neck, forcing Jay to hiss when you bite on the skin of his shoulder. Your whimpers turn into cries and you mumble that you’re close, your walls tensing around him a moment later as if to prove your point.
Jay pulls his fingers out, holding back a moan at the way they glisten in the light, coated in you— “Nooo,” you whine, sounding audibly distraught.
Though he’s too busy tasting your cunt on his fingers to grace you with a response. In the quiet of the room, you sit up properly to look at him, watching with parted lips as Jay sucks on his fingers, humming at the way you taste. You barely give him a chance to put his hand back down before pressing your lips to his, moaning into his mouth as you taste yourself on his tongue.
Getting a tight grip on your waist, he moves around a bit to lay you down on the bed. Resting on his forearm, Jay leans over you, kissing you again. He lets his hand trail down your body, liking the way you spread your legs when he dips his fingers into your waistband. You nod eagerly when he asks if he can take them off, and his cock throbs when you tell him to take your panties off too.
With no unnecessary fabric in his way, his finger drags up and down the length of your pussy. Already close, it doesn’t take long for you to start whimpering and squirming underneath him, your walls stuttering once again as you cum, hot and hard on his hand.
Ever the gentleman, Jay stands up to place himself between your legs, groaning at the sight of you, pulsing and wet. “Such a pretty pussy,” he says. Deciding not to waste another second, he uses his thumbs to spread your lips a little before burying his face in your cunt.
It doesn’t take much for you to writhe under his tongue, and as soon as he kisses your clit it’s a wrap. He feels his cock leaking a little when your clit starts to throb between his lips, and he can’t help but groan when you tug at his hair.
You stutter through the words: “Too much,” and Jay tears his mouth away from you, letting his forehead rest on your inner thigh while he catches his breath, savouring your taste on his tongue. It doesn’t last long though; your scent drives him crazy. When Jay leans back over your face, he presses kisses to your cheek, mumbling to you about how pretty you are, and how good you taste, all while playing with the drawstrings of your hoodie.
He likes the way it looks on you, way better than it does on him. Likes it so much, he almost objects when you sit up to pull it over your head. Jay’s glad he doesn’t. He gulps at the sight of your breasts, surprised to see that you weren’t wearing anything under his hoodie, his dick somehow growing harder just from looking at you.
Jay feels an intense desperation to suck on them, but your hands reach back up to his face, pulling him towards you to kiss him again. He settles (ecstatically) for holding one in his hand, pinching your nipple with his fingers. He’s relaxed, he’s happy; not torn up about it because he has all the time in the world to feel your tits in his mouth.
He thinks.
Jay pulls away from you. “Wait,” he says, feeling butterflies when you smile up at him. “Can I be your boyfriend?”
Your giggle sounds like music and he feels warm all over when you say, “Of course,” the words somewhat muffled by his lips on yours again, he could make out with you all day. But he stops for a moment, looking down at you, into your eyes and revelling in this moment. Revelling in you, his girlfriend, and the way you look at him. Like he put the stars in the sky or moved mountains; like you want him just as much as he’s wanted you all this time. And he wonders what he’s done to deserve it.
Overwhelmed by emotion, Jay kisses you, lets his tongue run along the seam of your lips as he considers just kissing you for the rest of the night. It almost seems like he’s trying to, and you speak once more against his mouth.
“Are you gonna fuck me?” you ask, moving your head to the side. “It’s okay if you’re not, but I’d like to know.”
Jay smirks at you — pretty cocky for a guy whose dick is throbbing against his thigh just from hearing you talk. “You want that?”
“Mhm,” you hum, nodding. “Need it.” Your gaze burns into his as he tries to process your words. You look distractingly beautiful with a thin sheen of sweat on your forehead, lidded eyes, and kiss-plumped lips that you press up against his once more. “There’s condoms in the second drawer.”
Leaning up off of you, Jay reaches into his back pocket to show off the two condoms he’d brought with him.
“Classy,” you tease, though there’s an excitement in your eyes that drives him mad.
“Responsible,” he corrects, standing up to pull his pants and underwear down. Slapping against his stomach, his cock throbs when he hears you gasp. Jay lifts his head in your direction, trying not to cum on the spot from the sight of you leaning up on your elbows, staring at his dick with an open mouth.
Taking a deep breath, Jay reminds himself that he has all the time in the world to find out what your pretty lips will feel like around him, choosing to busy himself with putting the condom on instead. “How do you want it?”
If the way you stop and stammer through the word “However” is anything to go by, the question seems to catch you off guard. Making his way back over to you, Jay racks his brain trying to figure out how he wants this to go, but seeing you on your back with your legs spread for him makes it clear. He hovers over you, lips drawn to yours like a magnet, using his hand to run the tip of his cock up and down your pussy, all while you whine against his mouth every time he pushes past your clit.
“Don’t want to wait any longer.”
Your words make his stomach turn. He pulls away, his brows knitted together. “How long have you been waiting?”
“Months, Jay,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, eyes screwed shut in a tortured expression. “Please.”
Satisfied with your answer, Jay guides his cock to your slit. Pushes just a little. “I won’t make you wait like that again,” he tells you, and he means it, pushing in as much as he can before you cry out.
Worried, Jay stops, leaning close to press a kiss to your cheek. “You okay?”
“I just need a sec,” you tell him breathlessly.
Jay nods. As good as he feels, quitting while he’s ahead seems like the better option at the minute — he needs a sec too, but with the way your walls clench around him, it doesn’t really feel like much has changed. He finds himself having to hold his hips back after a while, as you get used to the feeling of him inside, your pretty little cunt starts trying to suck him in and his breath hitches in his throat when you look him in the eye.
With a hand on the back of his neck, you pull his face back down to yours. “I’m good,” you mumble into his ear.
“Yeah?” he asks, grinning when you nod in response.
You stretch around him so easily that Jay whines as you take him in, deeper and deeper, inch by inch until he bottoms out. “Shit,” he mutters. How did he go so long without this? The sting of your nails digging into his bicep makes him hiss and he all but passes out when you moan. Falling from your mouth on a loop with every move he makes, his name is the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard; you cut yourself off with a gasp, breath hitching in your throat.
“There?” Jay asks, even though he knows he’s hitting your spot.
You look up at him through fluttering eyelids, becoming more and more dazed each time his hips smack yours. “Mhm, I—close,” you mumble.
Jay takes this as a sign to hike your leg up around his waist, making sure to hit it each time he pumps into you. It seems like it’s working. “Cum for me, baby,” he whispers, using his free hand to push some of your hair out of your face.
Your whines turn into broken sobs and you hide your face in the pillow next to you, muffling your screams. Although he thinks your consideration for your flatmates is coming a bit late, he leaves you be, finding the sight sexier than he cares to admit.
Sexier still is the way your body tenses before squirming again, your walls pulsing uncontrollably around him while you cum. Jay’s stomach starts to tighten as he fucks you, spurred on by the look on your face as you orgasm, and the sound of his cock filling you up. With a few more thrusts and a jagged moan, he spills his load into the condom, just about collapsing on top of you.
Considering how fucked out and sleepy you’d been while Jay cleaned you up, he isn’t surprised to find you fast asleep when he gets back from cleaning himself. He does his best to join you in bed as softly as possible but it’s no use because you wake with a large yawn, making his heartache from a weird mixture of guilt and how cute you look.
He lays on his back, grinning to himself when you rest your head on his chest, making yourself comfy with an arm and leg slung over him. You talk drowsily about watching The Devil Wears Prada in full after his game tomorrow and nod eagerly when he asks if you want to wear one of his jerseys to come and watch him play. Jay keeps his eyes shut until he hears you snoring faintly, and looks forward to teasing you about it in the morning.
When he stares straight ahead at your ceiling, a fuzzy feeling rises in his chest. “I put my star on the ceiling too,” he whispers, knowing you can’t hear him, but feeling happy nonetheless.
Huddled up under Jay’s jacket, you sit on the half wall outside the football house with Chaewon, watching as Jeno blows smoke from his super king over his shoulder. Though given the way that the wind blows it back in your faces, the two of you may as well have taken him up on his offer to share.
Letting Chaewon rest her head on your shoulder, you take a sip of your drink and feel thankful to the version of you from five minutes ago who let Jay fill your cup with lemonade instead of vodka. The two of you laugh along with Jeno until you see Yunjin rushing out of the double doors and into the garden.
“Is there anything wrong with my outfit?” she asks, giving the three of you a twirl so you can check and mumbling a “thank you” to Jeno who reaches his arm out to stop her from falling over in the process.
Yunjin’s outfit looks fine. At first. Until you notice the massive hole in the left side of her skirt; the sight of which leaves you and Chaewon wiping tears of laughter. Through cackles and a slight stomach ache, you manage to ask what happened.
“I got caught on something, like, an hour ago, and I wasn’t hurt or anything so I forgot about it, and then I went out front and felt the craziest breeze on my thigh and I looked down and.. half of my skirt is just.. missing,” she explains, pausing only to take a draw from Jeno’s cigarette. “Does it look intentional at least?”
You almost choke on your drink when Chaewon suggests using her acrylics to make an identical hole on the side, telling her to market the holes as “cutouts” and try selling it on Depop.
“Vintage, Y2K, I.AM.GIA, Destiny’s Child, Britney Spears,” she says, although she’s had so much to drink that it all comes out as one word. “Don’t laugh at me, write it down! Babe, quick, take pictures!”
Yunjin poses dramatically while Jeno takes product photos on her phone, and in the space between them, through the double doors, you see your boyfriend standing next to the dining table, his friends laughing around him while he stares over in your direction with a sweet smile on his face.
And even though you can’t say for sure, you’re just glad that here, tonight, you have a pretty good idea of why Park Jongseong’s smiling at you.
© zreamy (2023), all rights reserved. do not repost, translate, or plagiarise my work. do let my know your thoughts !
permanent taglist: @asahicore
HACKED! ─ yjw. ♪⋆
he’s finally met his match…
yang jungwon, a newly 19 year old university student with a 4.0 gpa and a spot on the honor roll, is a hacker. unexpected but true, the boy with a heart of gold spends his free time installing malware and stealing data in order to scam people out of their money. usually he would just target rich assholes or some kid that had bullied him in elementary school, but everything goes downhill once he accidentally hacks a girl from his microbiology class, who refuses to wire him his money.
## pairing: hacker!jungwon x student!reader
## genre: smau, major crack, fluff, hacker au, college au
## warnings: lots of cursing, some insults, threats n stuff, bimbos and himbos everywhere!
## general: enha’s backstories and personalities are a bit different, this is not a reflection of reality it’s just a story! all characters are in university (except riki) also I know nothing about hacking pls spare me
## featuring: jungwon and enha! + (g)-idle + mentions of txt
## playlist: black sheep by metric, angel or devil by txt, break by alex g, criminal by fiona apple, domo23 by tyler the creator
## status: active! taglist is open!
📂 note !! hey guys! I know it’s a lil weird to post another jungwon smau when I didn’t even finish my last one but I can’t help it 😢 I love him tewwwww much. anyways enjoy!! send an ask or a message if you wanna be added to the taglist ❤️
## taglist: @msxflower @enhacolor @hiqhkey @mrowwww @dangowon @kxr0mi @hangecanweholdhands @kjrcrz @saythenameseventeen178 @annoyingbitch83 @jungwonzlvr @txtmetonight @ramenoil @onionzzzs @useraerin @spilled-coffee-cup @chvngi @chaechae-23 @jyndre @yyawnjun @viixial @manooffline @aylin-hijabi @stqrlite @arwn-yng @tiissue @teddywonss @chaemmie @yumilovesloona @ilovewonyo @beomsbeanie @solstrmaii @pkjay @fakeuwus @anglswon @kyungssem @naddii @luviestarz @kangtaehyunfan029 @enhacatalog @the-poetic-side-of-me @jayfrvr @enharts @mxnuilx97 open!
## network tags: @kflixnet @k-radio @enhypennetwork @k-vanity
00. profiles ─ one | two
01. MMMMmm….lord… ❤️
02. jungwon has a typing quirk?
03. jakey wakey
04. wait she’s goated
05. #heeseung4life
CRUEL SUMMER - JAKE SIM SMAU!
SYPNOSIS- You didn't really like your part-time job at the grocery store, primarily because of the people. But one thing caught your attention: a guy buying condoms and lube at 9 am. However, running into him after work was entirely unexpected.
GENRE - SMAU!! Fluff !! Angst in future! Brother best friend!au??? Weird humor
FEATURING - Ningning & Karina AESPA, more to be added!!
taglist- OPENED!
WARNING - Sexual jokes!!! Be aware!!!
SUMMER BREAK STARTING NOW
01- it’s 9 in the MORNING ?!
02.- WHEN I CATCH YOU RIKI
03- block! And report
04.- RESIGN PAPERS IS ON TABLE