When Stevie and Heeseung run into each other a bar, only to find out they have more in common than they initially thought. Will the two be able to navigate feelings and past issues to figure out a future together? or let it all crash and burn in the name of self preservation.
The week had gone by slightly faster than normal. The store had been busy but not insanely so that it felt like she was drowning. The early spring weather had been nice and not too hot to where she felt like she would melt away. Stevie was sitting on the stool behind the register waiting for Sunghoon to come in for his closing shift. She was looking out the window looking at the cloudy sky, thinking about the boy with the perfect nose that she’s decided to call pretty boy instead of perfect nose; at least that’s what she calls him when they’re texting, in her head he’s still ‘Perfect Nose’. She’s been thinking about asking him if he and his friends were planning to go out to the bar again this weekend. She had learned the day before that the bar they had met at the previous weekend was the one they usually went to. He had said it was one of the few places he could go where he didn’t actually mind the DJ because the DJ wasn’t trying to show off, or do anything special; just keep the bar in a good mood. She had only wanted to ask to see if Olivia had a chance to see Jungwon again. Definitely not because she wanted to see ‘Perfect Nose’ again. She was in the middle of debating if it would seem too forward when she heard the door open; she stood up with her customer service smile already working its way onto her face when she made eye contact with Sunghoon instead. “Hey Hoonie! How’s it going?” All the thoughts of texting ‘Perfect Nose’ were out the door as it closed behind Sunghoon, instead she was just excited to see one of her beloved coworkers.
“Hey Knicksy! I’m doing alright, you?” He walked towards the back of the counter to drop his bag filled with textbooks and notebooks in the cupboard where the staff left all their things. His hair looked a little messy, like he had either run his fingers through it a lot or the wind was blowing more than she thought it had. His glasses were perched on his nose, he was wearing a dark green hoodie with a logo she didn’t recognize on the front; with black jeans and a pair of old beat up converse.
“Not too bad, it’s been a pretty chill day so far!” Her hands went towards her neck so she could fix one of her necklaces where the clasp had slid to the front. She was wearing a baggy old grey ‘Eagles’ (the band, not the sports team. She knew nothing about football.) shirt over a pair of baggy blue jeans. A black belt keeping them from falling down with her hair pulled back into a pony tail. She reached down to grab her bag so she could start getting her things together so she could go home after making sure Sunghoon was settled and ready for his shift. “How was school this week? Aren't finals coming up here pretty quick? Do you feel ready for them?” She questioned while packing her laptop into her bag.
“School was okay. And they’re in about a month, at the end of April, so I need to have fun now before crunch time starts, which leads me to a question I have, is it cool if Sunoo takes my Sunday shift? I was hoping to go out with my friends Saturday night and don’t want to work hungover. Sunoo said he’s cool with it as long as I hold up my end of the deal. But if you really want me here then that’s the priority, of course.” Stevie had no issue with the boys switching shifts or covering for each other but she hesitated at the news of Sunghoon going out with his friends. ‘Were these the friends she met last weekend?’ She was thinking but couldn’t bring herself to ask. She felt it crossed a bit of line between professional and personal, and as much as she was friends with Sunghoon she felt like she had to keep some boundaries in place.
“Yeah of course Hoonie! You know I don’t care about that kind of thing. I also know Sunoo has been wanting a few hours for the next couple weeks leading up to his weekend getaway he’s going on.” She finished packing up her things and was about to ask him if she was in the clear to head out, when he had cut her thoughts off with another question.
“Don’t go running out of here without telling me why I couldn’t tell my friend your name; by the way he keeps asking for it, but I'm not telling him. How the hell do you guys even know each other?” He had one of his impeccable eyebrows quirked up in questioning. “And why the fuck is my job on the line if I tell him?” He was starting to smile now, more amused by the whole situation rather than being worried about losing his job.
“Oh god. I forgot I sent you that text!” Stevie let out a little laugh and could feel her cheeks beginning to warm up as she thought about ‘Perfect Nose’ again. “Well the long and the short is, your friend Jake ran into me at the bar last weekend spilling his drink on me, and when I was leaving your friend asked for my name and I told him he had to earn it since Jake spilled his drink on me. He just so happened to come in here a couple days later and we had been talking about it, so once I realized we had a mutual connection to you I had to make sure he couldn’t take any shortcuts.” As she explained she realized just how childish she sounded about the whole thing; but she was nothing if not committed to the joke. She had taken it so far it didn’t seem right to just let him off easy with telling her name.
“Holy shit, you’re bar girl?! You’ve basically already become a legend in our friendgroup. I’ve gotta text the group chat and tell them that ‘ bar girl’ is my boss, they’ll lose it. Don’t worry though, I won’t say your name of course. I’ll have to make sure to keep them in line this weekend so it doesn’t happen to another poor girl just trying to have fun. But how is he going to earn your name? What are you cooking up in that head of yours?” Sunghoon’s smile had spread wider, connecting all the dots.
“Jesus, I have a nickname already? Good lord. And honestly? I have no clue, at some point I’ll tell him but right now it’s just funny to me. But since he’s been here before, like, in the store, shouldn’t he know my name already? Or do you just really not talk about me? Do you hate me? Be honest Hoonie, I can handle it.” That’s one thing she couldn’t figure out in this whole thing. Olivia knew the name of all her coworkers and what they were like. How didn’t ‘Perfect Nose’ not seem to know anything about her? She also realized that he had mentioned that this weekend he was going out with the same guys. She couldn’t wait to tell Liv.
“Okay first things first, I most certainly don’t hate you Knicksy, guys just don’t talk about that kind of thing. I don’t know the name of any of their coworkers. We talk about, like video games and music, what tv shows we’re watching, sports, that kind of thing. I promise I don’t hate you, I know you’re just bugging me but I need to say it. But also yeah you definitely have a nickname, well it’s not much of a nickname but whatever you know what I mean. As far as him earning your name, make sure he really works for it. Don’t fold easily, I like knowing things he doesn’t.” Sunghoon had finished getting settled into the store as he was talking. Taking a seat on the stool behind the counter and began pulling out his textbooks and notebooks. Stevie never cared if the boys wanted to do non-work things while on the clock as long as all their responsibilities were finished and customers still got good service; because of that she knew Sunghoon liked to use his time to study since his roommate, who she now knew was the same Jake from the bar, could sometimes be loud and distracting. Sunghoon liked to play a lot of Abba and Fleetwood Mac when he was working, Stevie loved that her coworker liked the same music that she was named after and considered to be some of her favourite bands.
“Hm. Well if you say so, but I’m still pretty sure you hate me. I also implore you to find me a better nickname with your friends, bar girl is just plain lazy. And don't worry he’ll for sure be working for it. Nothing comes easy with me, I thought you would know this by now.” She had finished getting all her things together and was now just grabbing her sweater that had fallen on the floor.
“Yeah alright, I’ll work on that. As long as he has to work for it I’m happy.” Sunghoon reached over to the stack of records next to the Garrard that the staff usually played the most frequently, flicking through until he landed on Mystery to Me by Fleetwood Mac. Removing the Michael Jackson record that Stevie had been playing, carefully putting it back into its sleeve. Then placed the Fleetwood Mac record in and started it.
“He will, I promise. Anyways, you good if I head out?” Stevie had finished pulling on her sweater, grabbing her bag and placing her sunglasses on her nose.
“Yeah totally, enjoy your night, Knicksy!” Sunghoon had already begun opening his textbook and grabbed a pen and a highlighter out of his bag getting ready to study, whatever he was trying to learn. Stevie never quite knew what he was studying, just knew it had to do with the body.
“You too Hoonie! If you need me, just call!” She was pulling the door to the store open walking into the slightly cool evening, heading towards the subway so she could get home.
“Will do!” She had faintly heard the response behind her. She put her headphones on over her ears and started playing the Michael Jackson album she had been listening to in the store. After pressing play she sent out a few texts.
Pretty girl: hey pretty boy, apparently youve been asking hoonie for my name again? need i remind you who signs his pay cheques. he wont turn his back on me like that
Stevie smiled to herself as she sent it, the thought of the boy making the corners of her mouth move subconsciously. She sent another text to her best friend letting her know what she had learned in her brief conversation with Sunghoon.
steven: hihi!!! cant wait to get home, i have exciting news for you!!!
oliver: omg ok, cant wait to hear it!
She arrived at her apartment only a few minutes before Oliva should be getting home. She immediately took off all her jewelry and changed into sweats before going to the bathroom to wash off her makeup. She then headed to their couch plopping down getting comfortable while she waited. She heard the door start to open a bit later and she shot up bouncing over to the door waiting with a shit eating grin across her face. “Who’s your absolute bestest friend in the entire world? Me. That's right! Why? Because I happen to know for a fact that the guy from the bar last week will be going to the same bar this weekend, tomorrow, which means you’ll get to see him again! You're welcome.” Stevie watched as her best friend's face went through the emotions of shock very quickly followed by excitement; a large smile finding its place on her face.
“Holy shit? How the hell do you know that, wait, you said him and his friends are also friends with Sunghoon, right? Oh my god did you ask him if they were going out again? That‘s so embarrassing! Unless you asked for yourself because you wanted to know if the ‘Pretty Boy’ was going to be there, in which case not embarrassing at all. But if you asked for me, super fucking embarrassing oh my god. But also oh my god I’m so excited,I need to start planning my outfit, I need to look so good he feels like he has no choice but to take me home.” Olivia’s words were flying out at around a hundred miles per hour. She hadn’t even taken off her jean jacket or put her tote bag down before Stevie had ambushed her at the door. Her face was practically glowing with excitement.
“Okay first of all, I don't care if ‘Pretty Boy’ is there or not.” Her friend immediately shot her a look saying ‘bull shit’ without actually saying so. Stevie chose to ignore it. “Second of all, I didn’t ask at all, Hoonie asked if it was okay if Sunoo took his Sunday shift so he could go out with his friends and ‘Pretty Boy’ had told me yesterday that the bar from last weekend was basically the only bar they ever went to. So unless for whatever reason that changes tomorrow, they’re going to be there. Also, no matter what you wear he’s going to want to take you home, you always look amazing so don’t even start with me.” Stevie had replied with a more calm tone than her best friend; but was just as excited. She genuinely hoped things went well for Olivia and Jungwon, he seemed sweet and matched her best friend's energy really well. Her best friend was also correct in her ‘bull shit’ look because Stevie was also very excited at the idea of maybe seeing ‘Perfect Nose’ again, however she was trying to keep her hopes low because she knew he was working on a demo for a client so knew that there was a chance he wouldn’t be able to make it out with his friends. She had considered sending him a text asking if he would be joining his friends but decided against it; knowing if he said yes she’d be nervous about seeing him, and if he said no she would be disappointed. Not that she would ever admit that.
Stevie and Olivia had spent the next couple hours before going to sleep in Olivia’s room, going through different outfit choices, ranging everything from dresses to jeans. Stevie had stepped into the kitchen about half way through the fifth outfit to grab a bottle of cheap screw top white wine. Pouring herself and Olivia a very full glass each, just to help ease the nerves of what the next night would bring. About an hour and a half later they had outfits picked out and were now just sitting, catching up on how their weeks had been. While the two friends lived together, they didn’t always have the time, or energy, to just sit and talk during the week. Stevie was talking about how she had been texting ’Perfect nose’ every day since he had come into her store on Monday.
“I honestly wasn’t sure what it was going to be like talking to him more because he always seemed a little awkward, but, like, in an endearing way? If that makes sense? But he's actually really cool! Did I tell you he’s a producer? Like, he creates actual music for people! Isn’t that, like, so fucking cool?” the glasses of wine were long done by the time they had reached that point in the night, hell, even the bottle was done. Stevie wasn’t really filtering her thoughts any longer; just saying whatever came to mind.
“Yeah Steve, you mentioned that about a million times already. Why can’t you just admit you’re in love with the guy already? When you see him at the bar tomorrow just fucking jump his bones and then get married. Y’all are obsessed with each other at this point, it’s gross. Oh wait, that requires you to have emotional availability which lord knows won’t happen any time soon.” Olivia was giggling as she replied. She knew her friend too well to know that it would never happen, much less that Stevie would actually admit to being into the guy. Stevie didn’t even bother giving her friend a response, just simply rolling her eyes and jokingly flipping her off.
Stevie and Olivia had been introduced by Jay about five years prior and they became attached at the hip ever since. He had walked into Stevie's store (before it was hers) one afternoon saying “Baby, I think I met another you. You need to meet her and be her friend, I can’t handle the pressure of being your only one.” Stevie had other friends; well, they were more like acquaintances, but her closest friend had a point. She desperately needed more friends. Jay had come up with the idea to all get together for coffee so it wasn’t like a ‘weird friend blind date’. Within forty five minutes Jay had left, saying he was tired of third wheeling, and the two girls had stayed for another three hours. They had a lot in common; they listened to the same music, both loved baking and cooking (Olivia had confided in Stevie that day saying she was wanting to drop out of culinary school since she had realized she liked it as a hobby but not as a career, but was scared to tell her family.), both liked fashion but weren’t obsessive over it, and also had the same sense of humour that made every conversation they had flow easily.
Olivia had been the first person Stevie told about her Uncle Brad giving her the record shop, Olivia had cried happy tears with her and told her how happy and how proud she was. Stevie had sat with Olivia as she sent her application to go to university for a degree in marketing. Stevie was also there when she got her acceptance letter in the mail and held her friend's shaking hand as she opened it.
The two girls had started living together two years ago, deciding they practically stayed at each other's places enough to say they were essentially living together already, they might as well make it official. They also had made a marriage pact one drunken night the first year of their friendship saying if they were still both single at the age of thirty five they would get married; go to the courthouse and everything to make it legal, mostly because they thought it would be funny to explain to people they might date in the future that they needed to get their wives approval if they wanted to keep seeing them.
Stevie had been there when Olivia’s ex boyfriend had cheated on her, Olivia had been there for Stevie when her situationship of two years had finally pissed her off one too many times and she had wanted nothing to do with him ever again. They had an understanding for each other that neither had ever experienced before, a connection that didn’t need words to say what they were thinking or feeling. They knew when the other needed a distraction or needed a shoulder to cry on. They knew when the other had a shitty day just by seeing the look in each other's eyes, they knew when the other had exciting news based on how they were smiling. They truly believed they were each other's soul mate.
Just as Stevie was getting ready to give her drunken sappy ‘i love you’ speech to Olivia she saw her phone light up next to her.
perfect nose: hey pretty girl, i hope you had a good day! sorry i couldnt talk more, i had to get this demo done so i could go out with my friends tomorrow night, also, im going to kill sung for telling you ive been asking. pls dont hold it against me, im just a curious guy!
perfect nose: also you didnt hear this from me, but were going to the same place as last weekend and jungwon would love to see olivia again if you two dont have plans already:)
perfect nose: and maybe id like to see you too, just saying:)
Stevie felt her mouth fall slightly open at the text. Not only had she gotten confirmation that Jungwon was just as down bad for Olivia as she was for him, but ‘Perfect Nose’ had also said he wanted to see her again. It also took her a minute to realize what he was talking about and why he was going to kill Sunghoon, but after a small scroll she saw the text she had sent him about Sunghoon telling her he had been asking for his name. She let out a laugh thinking about how weird the whole situation she found herself in was.
“Why are you laughing? Did ‘Pretty Boy’ text you back? Let me see”!” Olvia had grabbed the phone out of Stevie’s hand with no resistance from her. “Holy shit, he wants to see you again! See? I told you, y’all are down bad for each other! Wait. Oh my god. Jungwon wants to see me again? Oh my god! I can’t believe this, he’s been thinking about me too? Holy shit I think I’m sweating.” Olivia had handed the phone back to Stevie and stood up to start pacing her bedroom. “Is the outfit we picked good enough? What if he doesn’t like it as much as the last one I wore last week? Wait no, that’s stupid I’m not changing my outfit based on what a man would maybe want to see. I like my outfit so I’m still going to wear it. But also is it like, anti feminist of me to say I still hope he likes it? Steve you’ve gotta say something I’m panicking.” Olivia’s face was one full of frantic, clearly trying to feel confident of herself but having a crush was making her doubt herself.
“Liv, take a breath. No it doesn’t make you a bad feminist to want a boy to like your outfit as long as you're still wearing it for yourself and not his validation. Also, Jungwon would be stupid to not like it because you look amazing in it. Don’t over think it, okay? We’re going to go out tomorrow night, we’re going to have a drink or two to lose the nerves and then we’re going to find them and you’ll be your lovely charming self and he’s going to be even more smitten with you.” Stevie spoke in a calm but assertive tone, taking a gentle control of the situation so her friend would be able to calm down. Olivia had a bad habit of getting in her head and second guessing herself, especially since her asshole ex-boyfriend had cheated on her. She was trying to work on it but it was easier said then done.
“No, yeah, you’re right. Okay okay enough about me, how about ‘Pretty Boy’ saying he wants to see you again? How do you feel about that?” Olivia had stopped pacing and sat back down at the head of the bed. “Wait no, before you answer that, answer his text. Don’t tell him about me freaking out about seeing Jungwon again though.” Olivia had pulled out her own phone using her body language to tell Stevie she wouldn’t have any further conversation with her until she answered the text.
pretty girl: no worries! I know ur busy i didnt think twice ab it
pretty girl: also pls dont kill him, he’s lowkey my best employee, however haven’t you heard curiosity killed the cat?
pretty girl: wait omg yall are going there too tomorrow? dont tell liv i told you but she convinced me to go out again tomorrow bc she wants to see jungwon again too!!! Omg theyre so cute its nauseating.
pretty girl: but yeah itll be nice to see you too again:)
“Okay I replied, I played it cool and didn’t say anything about you.” Stevie knew that Olivia would be able to see right through her, and knew that she definitely mentioned her; but was hoping that she wouldn’t press the topic too much. “And I feel fine about seeing him, I guess. I don’t know? Like he’s cool but it’s whatever I guess.” She replied with one too many shrugs of her shoulders for it to actually seem like she was feeling neutral about seeing him.
“Uh huh. Do you want me to pretend like I believe you? You know, it’s okay to admit that you like him.” Olivia responded lightly, not trying to push Stevie too hard while knowing that she also needed to hear it.
“I barely know him. I can’t like someone I barely know. Do I think he’s attractive? Sure. Do I like talking to him? Yeah, but I don’t like the guy.” Stevie was barely able to look up from her lap where her fingers were fiddling with the draw strings of her sweats. Knowing if she did, Olivia would see her face flushing slightly.
Stevie knew she had a problem with opening herself up especially to romance; but it was all she really knew how to do. Between having parents who didn't understand her and spent a majority of her childhood at the record store to avoid them trying to pretend they knew their daughter; and having been played by several men and women before, who only saw her as a pretty girl on their roster than an actual dating option; she really didn’t know how to open herself up more.
She had never been in a real, serious relationship before. She dated one guy in middle school for about two weeks but she didn’t think holding hands at recess counted as an actual relationship. She also had a two year situationship with a guy named Jesse. He was in pretty much all ways except for the official title, her boyfriend; but since they weren’t labeled, he would sometimes disappear for a month or two. He would also love telling Stevie about the other girls he was seeing. She would always pretend she was okay with the dynamic between the two, but after spending three weeks straight together where they would spend nights at each other's place, making dinner together, getting each other coffee and dropping off at the other's job. She would lightly approach the topic of being official to which he would freak out, saying she was ‘suffocating him with clinginess’ and would disappear again; only to reappear just as she would start saying how much she hated him and was beginning to move on. The boiling point for Stevie was when Jesse had shown up at her record store, she initially thought he was stopping by to try and grovel and win her back (it probably would have worked.), but ended bringing a different girl with him; then pretended he didn’t know Stevie when she tried speaking to him. She yelled at him for about five minutes telling him to leave and never contact her or show up at her store again. She only had stopped when Jay had walked in for his closing shift and got her to calm down, while also telling Jesse off saying he wasn’t welcomed back. She gave the low down to the other boys that worked there, letting them know they weren’t allowed to sell anything to Jesse ever again and if he came in to tell him to leave.
“Alright Steve, whatever you say.” Olivia knew Stevie was close to shutting down completely and wanted to change the topic. The girls knew when it was okay to push harder topics and were okay to call the other out on their shit, but also knew when it was time to stop talking and let them process. “Do you think we should pregame a bit before we go out tomorrow or just get drinks there?” The conversation quickly transitioned into a lighter one, full of planning their day tomorrow leading up to going to the bar.
An Evening With Silk Sonic by: Silk Sonic
Stevie
Stevie felt like she was having deja vu. She was once again standing in the bar, drink in hand; only this time she knew the name of the guy that Olivia was talking to. Almost as soon as the girls had stepped into the bar Riki had seen them and went over to guide the girls towards the table the rest of his friends were sitting at, they made a quick stop at the bar to allow the girls to get a drink (and also get himself one since that was why he wasn’t with the rest of the boys in the first place.) along the way. Stevie was standing next to the table, nodding her head along to the song that was playing, she couldn’t hear the words but could feel the beat in her chest, heart seemingly beating in time with the song. Riki, Jake and Jungwon were the only ones there so far; Jake had immediately smiled seeing the girls walk up to the table “Oh my god! Hey bar girl! How’s it going! I also need to let you know I'm DDing tonight so I won’t be spilling any alcohol on you tonight, promise!”.
“Oh thank god, I was worried I’d get kicked out due to public indecency!” Stevie responded with a laugh while gesturing to her tight white shirt that she decided to wear the night before, paired with faded blue jean shorts and a pair of black mary janes. She had an oversized black leather jacket on top knowing that when she inevitably stepped outside for a drunk cigarette that she would bum from someone, she would get cold in the spring evening.
“I’m sure a friend of ours wouldn’t mind too much if that was the case, but I can assure you, it won’t happen because of me this time.” Jake looked at the girl with a knowing look. He took a sip of his water smirking behind the glass.
“Dude, Hoonie is literally my employee you can’t say shit like that, it’s weird!” Stevie joked off the comment. She knew exactly what Jake was referencing but refused to acknowledge it. She looked over at Olivia to see if she could use her friend to change the topic, but noticed how entranced she was in the conversation with Jungwon. She decided to be a good wing woman (and friend) and leave them be. She heard Riki let out a loud laugh beside her.
“Bar girl, you’re funny, I like you!” He had said through his laughter. As his laughter calmed down he glanced around the crowded bar looking for the two friends that had yet joined them.
“Thanks Rik, but please for the love of god find a better name for me that's not ‘Bar Girl’, it’s so bad!” Stevie also began scanning the room nervously for a few reasons. One being ‘Perfect Nose’ but the other was seeing Sunghoon out of work. She tried to maintain a balance between professional and personal and was worried that hanging out with his friends would either make him uncomfortable, or would make things weird at work.
“Well, are we allowed to know your name if we promise not to tell Hee- who doesn’t have a name?” Riki had caught himself, hoping he played it off well enough that she wouldn’t notice that he had told her the first part of his name.
“He who doesn’t have a name? Odd way of wording it, but okay? And tell you what, depending on how tonight goes, I might tell you guys my name. I just have to be sure that you won’t tell him the first time he asks.” Stevie wasn’t sure how to play this, she didn’t think that her silly joke would be taken so far, or that their friend groups would begin to integrate. “Until then just call me, uh Mac I guess.” She giggled to herself at the subtle hint to her real name. She liked to think she was being clever with the nod to Fleetwood Mac.
“Mac? Why Mac? Like sure we can call you that but why? Is your name Mackenzie or something?” Jake had decided to rejoin the conversation, suddenly very interested in the girl's name.
“No! Oh god no, that wouldn’t suit me at all! It’s just a quick name I thought of.” She wasn’t completely lying, she had just thought of it at that moment, but also knew she couldn’t tell them the real reason just in case they were smart enough to piece it together if she told them it was inspired by the band, whose lead singer she was named after.
“Well alright then, Mac it is!” Riki put his hand out to shake her’s. “Nice to meet you Mac, I’m Riki. I know we met last weekend, and well today I guess too, but I feel like I should properly introduce myself.” Riki had introduced himself with a smile. Stevie decided she liked the younger boy. He clearly had a good heart and was raised well in her opinion.
As she was shaking his hand and was about to reply she heard Jake yell out “Well, look who finally decided to grace us with their presence!” she glanced at the shorter boy who had a big smile on his face. She followed his line of sight to Sunghoon and ‘Perfect Nose’, she immediately felt her heart beat a little bit faster and her palms begin to sweat with nerves. She shook her hands out at her sides and rolled her neck, bracing herself for what the rest of the night would bring. She felt Olivia stand up and put herself next to Stevie.
“You ready Steve?” She whispered to the girl, knowing how nervous she was.
“Not even a little bit.” Stevie replied. The two boys got closer to the group and began to greet their friends with smiles and ‘bro’ hugs. The two girls stayed back, allowing them to briefly catch up. “Should we go get another drink while they do this?” She questioned.
“Incredible idea, lead the way.” The two girls had a system when they went out, Stevie would walk ahead, holding the hand of Olivia as they walked through the crowd ensuring they wouldn’t get separated. They had subconsciously decided on this the first time they had gone out together seeing as Stevie was around 5'9, or 5’10 on a good day, where Olivia was quite a bit shorter at 5’0. Just as the girls were starting to walk away they were stopped by Jungwon speaking to them.
“Where are you guys going? We were hoping you’d stick around!” The girls glanced back and Stevie took note of the silent pleading in his eyes while looking at Olivia, clearly not wanting her to go.
“Jesus, clingy much?” Stevie jokingly whispered to her best friend and was met with a slap to the arm. “We were just going to grab another drink! We’ll be back!” Stevie replied to the boy. While using her thumb to point at the bar.
“No! Sorry, uh no, you guys stay here I can grab them! It’s the gentlemanly thing to do. What are you guys drinking?” Jungwon replied, clearly trying to impress Olivia but also play it cool. He was already walking towards the bar backwards, looking at Olivia to get the drink order.
“Just two double vodka crans, please! Thanks Wonnie!” Olivia had replied with an easy smile. She fluttered her eyelashes lightly, clearly enamoured with the man, and wanting to show him she was interested in more than just flirty conversation. Olivia knew she had liked Jungwon the previous weekend, as he listened to her talk and occasionally gave a few responses. But she was much happier tonight having a proper conversation with him and getting to know more about him. Jungwon nodded and began walking away immediately saying the order to himself a few times to ensure he wouldn’t forget. Riki followed behind saying he was going to get a drink for himself as well.
“Knicksy! I didn’t know you were going to be here! How’s it going?” Sunghoon had a big smile across his face, finally noticing the girl, going to give Stevie a hug. She could smell a light amount of beer on him, wordlessly telling her that he was already drank a bit before coming out and was a bit tipsy.
“Hey Hoonie, yeah, apparently Liv and Jungwon are kind of into each other and wanted to see each other again, so here we are! I hope it’s not weird for you, like, me being your boss and all. If it is, I'll leave right now and just go home, I seriously don’t mind. I love having you on my team and don’t want to jeopardize our work environment!” She realized she was talking more than she probably needed to, she also realized she was over-thinking the whole situation but it was important to her to make sure she had her priorities in line. She had a nervous smile on her face, and sincerity in her eyes.
“Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so nervous! I promise I don’t care that you’re with my friends. We are also friends, so the more the merrier! I like working with you and I’m not worried about this affecting that, okay? So lets just chill, have a good night and get fucking drunk, yeah?” Sunghoon always had a very chill demeanor to him that Stevie liked. She also knew that he would have been honest with her if he thought it was weird.
“Yeah, okay Hoonie, thank you.” She gave him another hug with a smile. She had a moment of calm thinking about how much she loved her friends when she heard ‘Perfect Nose’ start talking.
“Knicksy? What, are you a big fan of the Knicks or something? I didn’t peg you being a basketball fan, I gotta be honest.” He had said with an easy smile. He stood next to Sunghoon, hands in his pockets. She took a second to give him a once over, He was in a pair of baggy blue jeans, a black shirt that was slightly loose against his torso and a flannel tied around his waist. She also took note of the two silver chains around his neck that reminded her of her own stacked necklaces that she always wore. His hair was slightly styled, pushed back a bit one side of his hair falling over his forehead. He looked casual but in a way where it was intentional, not like he was suddenly sprung into a night out. He looked good, annoyingly so. She realized that's kind of just how he was, annoyingly good looking in every way.
“Yeah something like that, when you grow up in New York you don’t really have any option but to be a fan of the Knicks and unfortunately the Rangers. I guess also the Yankees. I don’t follow sports that closely but love the teams I grew up around!” She gave Sunghoon a side eye that was screaming to go along with it. She didn’t want ‘Perfect Nose’ to be able to figure out her name because of a silly nickname her friend gave her.
“I guess that makes sense, I grew up in Minnesota so I’ve always cheered for the Timberwolves and the Wild. Never cared much about baseball though. But I also never really paid that close of attention to sports if I’m being honest.” ‘Perfect Nose’ replied. He was rubbing the back of his neck, she noticed he did that semi-frequently. She wasn’t sure why, but something about the way he did it was painfully attractive.
“Oh! You’re from Minnesota? That’s cool! Actually wait I guess I knew that because Hoonie is from there and you guys have been friends since middle school. But yeah, that’s cool!” Stevie wasn’t sure why she couldn’t shake her nerves off. At first she was sure it was about hanging out with Sunghoon outside of work but now that it had been settled, she wasn’t sure. She had briefly had the thought of it being about ‘Perfect Nose’ but that seemed ridiculous, like she had said to Olivia the day before, she barely knew him! She was desperately needing that drink from Jungwon.
“Hey! Here’s your drink, Mac!” Jungwon had returned with a smile, dimples on full display. Olivia was trailing behind him but in front of Riki. ‘When did Olivia leave to go find them?’ Stevie had wondered to herself. She felt bad that she was so caught in talking to the two boys that she hadn’t noticed her best friend walk away. She also found herself wondering how he knew her ‘name’; she didn’t realize he was listening to her and the boy's conversation earlier. Maybe Olivia told him? She decided it didn’t matter that much so she took the glass with a smile. More than any of those thoughts, she was just happy he showed up when he did; she took the drink from his hands.
“Thanks Jungwon, appreciate it! Very gentlemanly of you.” She gave the boy a teasing smile then looked back at Sunghoon and ‘Perfect Nose’. She proceeded to chug the whole thing, needing whatever it took to shake her nerves.
“Mac? Why did he call you Mac?” Sunghoon looked completely confused at the mention of a name that definitely wasn’t his bosses. Eyebrows also slightly raised at her drinking her new glass in seemingly one sip, but smartly chose to not bring it up.
“The boys were bugging me earlier about wanting my name but I wasn’t sure if I could trust them to not sell me out to him over there.” She nodded her head in the direction of ‘Perfect Nose’. “So I told them to call me Mac, because like think about it Hoonie, you know my name, what are the origins of my name? What would Mac have to do with that?” She was trying to explain it while hopefully not giving anything away. Sunghoon clearly didn't understand what she was trying to tell him so went over and whispered in his ear “Fleetwood Mac!”. She made sure to put an emphasis on the second word; hoping the other boy didn’t hear her.
“Oh shit! That’s actually really smart, I like it! Not as much as I like Knicksy but that’s my nickname for you. They can’t call you that, so this works well instead.” Sunghoon gave a nod of approval with a smile on his face.
Stevie was aware that ‘Perfect Nose’ was trying to piece her name together based on the hint but was falling short based on the look on his face. It was one of confusion and slight disappointment. She understood what he was feeling, she couldn’t lie to herself about not caring about his name. Sure, the game they had going on was fun but she desperately wanted to call him something that wasn’t ‘Perfect Nose’ or ‘Pretty Boy’ like she did when they were texting.
As if he could read her mind he decided to throw her a small bone himself. “Well, since you gave them, and me, something to call you that’s not a silly nickname I suppose I should return the favour. You can call me Evan. It’s the English name my parents gave to me when we first moved here so I wouldn’t get made fun of at school. I don’t go by it anymore; I really only use my Korean name, but it works.” He had a smile stretched across his face as he told her. Stevie felt her heart ache at the idea of him being bullied at school for going by his real name, but was also happy that she got to learn something new about him. She mouthed the name a few times as if testing out. She decided she liked it, it suited him. She was willing to put money on the fact that his real name would suit him even better, but Evan worked for now.
“Evan. I like it, it suits you.” Stevie was blushing a little bit but was hoping the darkness of the bar was hiding it. She finally could feel the drink make its way through her system, feeling the ‘tingles’ as she often referred to it as in her finger tips and behind her eyes. She closed her eyes briefly letting herself feel it and the music. Her head began to nod along to the beat. “Hey, would you like to, I don’t know, like, maybe go dance or something?” She looked at Evan with hope in her eyes.
“Yeah, that sounds fun.” he quickly shot back the rest of his drink before lightly grabbing her hand, leading her towards the dance floor. Sunghoon had opened his mouth to argue, or say he was going to go with them but decided against it sensing the vibe between them, Stevie noticed, giving him a small smile in either apology or thank you, she couldn’t tell. She let Evan guide her to the floor, stopping in front of him when they arrived. She felt all the nerves she had earlier melt away as she began dancing to the song. She was swaying to the music, eyes closed feeling the beat as her arms slowly went up to rest on his shoulders. She used one hand to play with the hair at the back of his neck. She felt him gently pull her closer soon her chest was pressed against his, one of his arms wrapping around her waist, the other sitting on her hip, guiding her body. The rest of the room seemed to fade away as she opened her eyes meeting his, who were already looking at her. He had a soft smile resting on his lips, eyes full of something she couldn’t quite place. “You look incredible tonight by the way, I wanted to say something earlier but Sung stole your attention away.” He leaned down slightly to speak into her ear, keeping it just between the two of them.
“Thank you.” Stevie whispered in response. She doubted he could hear her, but she was a little taken back. She wasn’t sure if she had ever been complimented by someone who wasn’t Olivia or her uncle in such honesty. There was no ‘but’ or ‘however’, just an honest compliment. “Do you want to go outside for a second? I could use the fresh air.” She felt like she was suffocating in the tension they had built unintentionally. She knew they hadn’t been on the dance floor for more than maybe five minutes but needed to get out of there.
“Yeah for sure, don’t let go, okay? I don’t want to lose you.” Evan grabbed her again and started guiding her outside. Every time her grip loosened he would squeeze her hand lightly, making sure she was still there. Any time she bumped into anyone, or any time someone bumped into her he would look back, making sure she was okay. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She liked feeling cared for but it was also a little bit overwhelming; she was used to being the one guiding around Olivia, making sure her best friend was okay. She wasn’t used to being the one being looked out for.
As they made it outside Stevie walked over to the side of the building, leaning against the wall. He followed her, leaning against the wall on his side looking at her. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes looking at her with a questioning look, checking it was okay that he smoked around her. She nodded before reaching to grab one herself from his pack.
“I don’t smoke often, just sometimes when I’m drinking. Is it cool if I have one?” She had explained and asked even though she already placed it into her mouth.
“That makes sense. I don’t really smoke much anymore, only every once and a while. I used to do it a lot after graduating high school but always keep a pack on me just in case I feel the need. But yeah, help yourself, I don’t mind sharing.” He lit up his own before leaning over and lighting hers as well. He was close to her, so close she could smell the cigarette and his earlier beer on his lips and something that was somehow both citrusy as well as musky. She inhaled the smoke holding it before slowly exhaling. She looked up at the night sky, thinking how peaceful the moment was considering she felt like she couldn’t breathe no more than five minutes prior. The tension seemed to have floated away with the exhale, into the crisp night air. She could tell that Evan was staring at her but needed a bit of time to fully collect herself and her thoughts before she was ready to talk to him.
“I’m sorry for being weird, I just got really overwhelmed and needed a second.” Stevie finally broke the silence that had settled between the two after about three minutes. She looked down at her feet as she lightly kicked the ground, feeling embarrassed about the whole situation. She wasn’t used to not being in control of her feelings and moods; she prided herself in being someone who was usually pretty calm, cool, and collected. She had gone out to bars a million times before but had never felt the air seem to leave her lungs like they had when they were dancing.
“Hey, you’re all good. I’ve been there too, don’t worry Mac. It’s really not a big deal.” Evan spoke in a tone that was so soft and gentle, like he was worried if he spoke too loud he would startle her. She glanced over at him and he had the softest eyes she was sure she had ever seen, his eyes paired with a soft encouraging smile. She smiled back before glancing back at her shoes. “Look at me for a second?” Evan whispered, not wanting to pop the little bubble they had created. She slowly turned her head and tilted her chin up to be able to look at him. His hand reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“What?” she had replied. She felt her heart start pounding behind her rib cage, her cheeks start to heat up in a blush. She followed his action, reaching over to push his hair back keeping it out of his eyes. They stood there quietly, looking at one another. Stevie had finished her cigarette, putting the butt of it out against the wall before tucking it in her jacket to throw away later; she then grabbed Evans doing the same thing. He watched her, eyes roaming her body not-so-subtly.
“Nothing, sorry, I just wanted to uh, look at you.” Evan had finally replied, hand going up to rub the back of his neck again. She looked down at her feet trying, and failing, to hide her flushed face. “You can totally say no, but is it okay if I kiss you?” Evan broke the brief comfortable silence they had fallen into.
“Yeah, I’d like that.” As soon as Stevie had finished speaking Evan held her face in his hands, he moved quickly to stand in front of her, leaning in to lightly press his lips against her. It was a brief kiss, lips barely touching before he had pulled away. His eyes had searched hers to see any hesitation before she leaned in to kiss him again, this time with a bit more pressure. It wasn’t as tentative as their first kiss, this time her arms wrapped around his torso, pulling him towards her. His left hand went to brace them against the wall, his right hand wrapping around her head holding it gently to insure she wouldn’t bump it against the wall. The heat between the two started to rise as her hands began to drift to the bottom of his shirt, beginning to reach underneath to feel his skin under her hands. His hand began to tangle his fingers into her hair. Stevie let out a soft hum finding herself getting lost in the feeling of him against her. She was no longer feeling drunk because of the alcohol she had drank earlier in the night, but in the smell of him surrounding her, the feeling of his body against her fingertips. Evan’s breath hitched as she made the noise, his own soft moan following shortly after. Her lips parted letting her tongue glide over his bottom lip, which he immediately opened to allow her access to his mouth. Their tongues danced against each other, finding a perfect rhythm.
“There you guys are! Wait, oh fuck, uh my bad never mind!” They were interrupted by an Australian accent that she recognized from earlier in the night. Stevie immediately pushed Evan off of her hands going up to try and smooth out her hair before straightening out her outfit. Evan had followed suit, adjusting his shirt and rubbing his hand against his mouth to try and remove any lip gloss that had been there. Stevie looked over to see Jake standing there with wide panicked eyes that looked similar to the ones she had seen the previous weekend. Sunghoon was standing next to him with a shit eating grin, Stevie knew he would definitely be holding this over her head, and most likely Evan’s too, for the rest of their lives.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Stevie could hear the smugness in Sunghoon's voice. “You know, we were worried about you guys. You two had seemingly disappeared into thin air, no longer on the dance floor, you guys weren’t answering any of our texts. One of you could have just let someone know what you guys were up to so we didn’t have to see that shit.” Stevie didn’t know what to do, she was shocked and embarrassed, not that she was caught kissing someone, but because her friend and coworker happened to be the one who found them.
“Hoonie, I’m so sorry I don’t know why I did that and I’m so sorry that you had to see it. I know I said earlier that I didn’t want it to be weird and I think I just did the opposite. I was just caught up in the moment.” She had never wanted to die more in her life than she did in that moment. She couldn’t believe she let herself get caught up in the moment and not think through what she was doing. She glanced at Evan and he was already looking at her with sympathy and hurt in his eyes. She could tell he was probably hurt by her brushing him off so quickly but at that point she was more concerned with her friend not hating her.
“Knicksy, it’s all good dude. You guys have been flirting all week, I literally won $10 from Riki because of this. He said neither of you would make a move until at least two weeks from now; I know both of you too well to know it wouldn’t take that long. The second you asked him to dance I knew where this was headed.” Sunghoon had been chuckling after he replied to the girl, Stevie felt her shoulders slump in relief that he didn’t seem to hate her. She was slightly irritated that the guys had been making bets on her love life but figured she didn’t really have feet to stand on in that argument right now, she would have to wait until the next time she saw him at work.
“Right, well, I’m going to find Olivia and see if she wants to go home. Or if she’s going to go home with Jungwon or whatever I don’t know.” Stevie muttered and walked past Jake, lightly hitting him with her shoulder while she walked by. She kept her head down going into the bar as quickly as she could trying to leave the embarrassment outside, far behind her.
When Stevie and Heeseung run into each other a bar, only to find out they have more in common than they initially thought. Will the two be able to navigate feelings and past issues to figure out a future together? or let it all crash and burn in the name of self preservation.
“I don’t know man, he was just so cute and was actually listening! Not like when a guy is just waiting for his turn to talk, but properly, actually listening to me! And oh my god, did you see his dimples? I swear to god I pictured our wedding. I’m thinking of an early summer with a light, soft orange and sage green as the colour scheme.” Olivia was rambling on to Stevie about the guy she was talking to at the bar, she had talked about the same thing for about five minutes in the Uber on the way to their shared apartment that was about a fifteen minute drive. Stevie laughed at her but also loved listening to her best friend talk, no matter how delusional the girl sounded. She could feel herself getting tired and was just wanting to go home and shower the beer off of her so she just let Olivia fill the car with her ramblings. “I know I, like, never go home with guys from the bar, but he just seemed different, you know? I kept waiting for him to offer to take me back to his place, but he never did. We should go back next week and see if he’s there again!”
“Liv, we never go out two weekends in a row? Was he really that special?” Stevie questioned her friend with an eyebrow raised. She was able to realize that her friend is probably still a little drunk and just was making a bigger deal about the guy than she thought necessary.
“Oh. My. God. Have you not been listening? Of course he was!” Liv looked at her in an exasperated way, showing her despair. “I was literally about to ask for his number before his friend ran into you and stole his attention away, not that I’m blaming you, but you do kind of owe me, since you were a part of it! Pretty pretty please can we go next weekend? I promise if he’s not there I’ll let it go!”
Stevie snorted knowing there was no way she was going to let this go no matter if he was there or not. Her brain then drifted to the man with the annoyingly straight nose. He did seem pretty sweet, she wondered if he was always that sweet or if he was just trying to save his friend from getting a strip ripped off of him by a drunk girl at the bar. He also wanted her name, which was odd to Stevie considering they didn’t really speak much. “Alright fine, we’ll go next weekend but if he’s not there you have to drop it.”
“I will, I promise!” Liv was grinning to herself while looking out the window thinking of seeing the ‘boy with perfect dimples’ again. Stevie smiled knowing if he wasn’t there that the promise was for sure getting broken but she was okay with it, that’s how their friendship worked. They supported the other delusions, even if it meant occasionally promises got broken. They weren’t the serious, friendship breaking type of promises. Stevie looked out her own window dreaming of the hot shower that was waiting for her at home and a bed with clean sheets that she couldn’t wait to crawl into.
The rest of the weekend went by uneventfully. A quiet Sunday that allowed for fresh coffee and homemade muffins. Some reality t.v. show playing in the background of Stevie’s and Olivia’s conversation that seemed to always flow easily. The Monday morning alarm was annoying in the way that all alarms are; loud and irritating. Stevie could hear Olivia getting ready in the bathroom down the hall. She slowly stretched and got ready herself, heading to the bathroom when Olivia was done. She quickly brushed her teeth and did some quick makeup, not a lot, just enough to make her feel good. Walking back to her room she finished getting dressed in a pair of black loose jeans, a tight white t-shirt, an oversized black leather jacket. Her hair was brushed out and falling all the way down her back. She put on a few necklaces and her rings on her fingers. Sunglasses pushed back in her hair, she gave herself a once over in the full sized mirror pushed into the corner of her room. Grabbing her bag she headed to work, hollering out a bye to Olivia as she left.
She arrived at her record shop the same time she always did. Exactly seven fifty, giving her ten minutes to count the register and turn the lights on. She grew up in the record shop, it was owned by her Uncle Bradley, (who wasn’t actually her uncle, but her mom’s older cousin.) who passed it down to her when he had decided it was time to retire. She began working at the store officially when her sixteenth birthday arrived. She was more excited about that, than she was about getting her drivers license. When she became the owner she quickly learned that she didn’t make a lot of money but it was enough to allow her to pay her bills and have a little bit extra for fun. She had always loved the record shop, it was her sanctuary from life when she was growing up, spending hours sorting through new and old records alike, putting on a new one every day. The old Garrard 301 turntable sitting behind the register was her prized possession. It was her uncle's but when he retired he gave it to her alongside the store. He claimed “It was what kept customers coming in before records were cool again.” The record store was called ‘The Tables Have Turned’ , a bit of a silly name, but she loved it. Her uncle had opened the store in the early 90’s. His first wife had just left him for her younger coworker and he decided he needed a change of pace from the previous bank job he had been working.
Music had been his first love, long before he had met Kathy (his first wife), and he wanted to share that love with other people. He once had big dreams of being a guitarist in a band but his high school band fell apart once the lead singer had realized how much work it would be to actually make it big. So at the age of twenty he got a job at a bank working his way up until he was thirty three and decided to open the store. Her uncle was easily one of her favourite people in the world. He introduced her to all of her favourite things; chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, leather jackets, and of course; records. She had an extensive collection, ranging from Taylor Swift to Bon Iver to The Commodores. But her favourite one was the first one she got for her twelfth birthday from her Uncle Bradley; Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. “You deserve to know the woman who I ,somehow, convinced your parents to name you after.” He had said when he gave her the record. As soon as her birthday party was over she begged Uncle Bradley to take her to the store to play it, though she hadn’t needed to, he had been planning on doing that anyways. As soon as she heard it for the first time it became her favourite album of all time.
When the store was ready she flipped the close sign in the front window to the open side. She put the Rumours record on. She decided she was in a ‘feel good’ mood. She went around tidying and organizing for the first little bit. Putting back records that Sunghoon didn’t have time to do the night before.
She had three employees that worked under her; Sunghoon, who was tall and quiet at first but became loud and excitable when she got to know him a bit better. He knew a lot about records and the turn tables they sold but was only able to work weekends due to him being a university student in his last year before graduating. He was in school for kinesiology with dreams of being a physical therapist. He decided he wanted to do it when he got a bad injury in high school and wasn’t able to be a competitive figure skater any longer. His physical therapist was the person that helped him work through it; both physically but also mentally. Sunghoon is a sweet guy who Stevie was always jealous of, only because his eyebrows are naturally thick and full. She decided to hire him after he had come in and got to talking to her about the different songs he convinced his old coach to let him skate to. Old songs from the 60’s and 70’s that she herself had loved. She didn’t care that he had no previous customer service experience; she figured she can teach him how to help a customer but she can’t teach someone to love music the same way she does.
She had hired Sunoo after he had come in one day trying to wait out a bit of rain and ended up staying for two hours chatting about their favourite music and how he liked relaxing, mellow music. He was so sweet and happy even though he had been soaking wet from the sudden downpour she decided she needed those kinds of good vibes around. He usually worked in the evenings but would occasionally work other shifts if whoever asked him to cover their shift promised to bring him mint chocolate ice cream the next time he worked. He had a fun exciting personality that meshed with hers perfectly. He was witty and effortlessly funny in a way that had everyone enamoured with him. All customers loved him and kept people coming back just to see his smile. She wasn’t too sure what he did outside of work, she was pretty sure he wanted to be a hair stylist, but wasn’t confident in it. He was always a face she was happy to see.
Lastly there was Jay, who her uncle had hired alongside her when they were in high school. They were the same age and went to the same school, yet only managed to talk when they worked together. He pulled out his guitar one day in grade twelve after they finished stocking and from that day on they had become close friends. He was quiet, but in a different way than Sunghoon. Not in a timid way, but in a contemplative way. Like he was watching everything happening around him and was happy to be able to witness it. He was the one that had introduced Stevie to Olivia, as they had gone to culinary school together before Olivia dropped out to go into marketing instead. He had graduated but was having trouble finding a job in a kitchen that matched the ‘vibe’ he wanted (Stevie didn’t know what he meant when he said that but she chose to not question it.) He had quit a few times but always came back when the kitchen he was working in didn’t work out. He usually worked afternoons and alternated closing nights with Sunoo, but would work the odd weekend when Sunghoon had finals or a deadline in school that he was stressed about.
The four of them were a solid team that worked seamlessly together, always willing to lend a helping hand to each other when needed. She was proud of the team she had created, she was proud to have a team that loved her store as much as she did; that had the same care and love for music and records. Occasionally Uncle Bradley would come by the store to buy some new records and see what she had changed around the place. He was thrilled when he came in one day to the newly painted black and maroon walls, (that replaced the previous brown ones) that she had covered with posters and scratched records that didn’t play properly any longer. He also had a proud smile when he came into the old bright lights being swapped to a warmer tone with some fairy lights hanging on the wall behind the Garrard 301, helping to subtly showcase the expensive collectors item. He often told her just how proud he was of her, not only because of what she had done to the store in making it her own, but for the team she built alongside it. For the ‘remarkable young woman she had become and will continue to grow into’. She would always laugh him off and usually respond with something along the lines of ‘I’m not anything that special Uncle Brad, just myself.’. He would smile even bigger at her response, as if that was the only answer he would allow to hear.
Her Uncle Bradley had always been her biggest and loudest supporter, especially when she was growing up. It’s not that her parents were terrible, they were fine. But that was it; just fine. Her dad, Jeff, was an accountant that never really understood the love for music and the arts like she did. He was more ‘practical’ in his words. He listened to whatever was on the radio and never tried to expand his catalog. He tried convincing Stevie to sell the record store when she had inherited it, saying “That money could go into savings for your future sweetheart, it’s not that profitable! I’ve heard your Uncle talk about it!”. He has since dropped the topic realizing he was wasting his breath trying to change her mind. Her mom, Elenour, was a third grade teacher who understood her love of music more than her father, but not by much. Her music taste was usually just Madonna and Michael Jackson, who Stevie also loved, but her mom was more casual about it. Elenour knew from the moment Stevie had started walking and talking that her daughter would be just like her favourite cousin but didn’t know exactly how to parent a kid like that. Elenour loved her cousin and he was fun to see and hang out with, but he was a wild child growing up, sneaking out and partying; only really caring about his band and when the next Guns N’ Roses album was coming out. Jeff and Elenour loved their daughter very much but just didn’t understand her, or really try to, in the way that her Uncle Brad did.
Stevie finished putting away the records from the night before, then opened up her laptop to begin making the schedule that would be for two weeks from then. It wasn’t a hard task to do, she usually copy and pasted the previous weeks’ schedule that way all the boys knew exactly what their shifts looked like with minimal surprises. She always opened the store during the week, that way she could do all the orders and administrative work while the store was quiet with minimal interruptions from customers.
Just as she was finishing up the schedule the little bell of the front door opening went off. “Hi! Welcome in!” her cheery voice rang out in an automatic response. She cringed slightly at the sound of her customer service voice but continued on as if it was normal. “Are you looking for anything specific I can help you with?” She finally tore her eyes away from her laptop to make eye contact with a familiar pair of warm dark eyes that fell on either side of an annoyingly perfect straight nose. “Oh! Uh, hey?” she corrected herself into her normal speaking voice.
“Holy shit, it’s you! What are you doing here?” ‘perfect nose guy’ responded in almost disbelief. His eyes widened slightly.
“What am I doing here? In my record store? That I own? Gee I wonder..” Stevie replied in a sarcastic tone that she paired with a smile to show she was just teasing him. She looked him over once, his hair pushed back under a black beanie, a black hoodie with a grey shirt poking out underneath, a pair of loose faded blue jeans and vans on his feet. Stevie was both surprised and annoyed to realize he was just as attractive sober as she thought he was when she was tipsy two nights before.
“You own this place? What the fuck? My buddy Sunghoon works here! I usually only come in on weekends when he’s working but I was too busy yesterday to come in and I wanted to see if you had anything new in stock!” His eyes had returned to their normal size and a small smile formed on his lips. While he spoke Stevie took note of his, yet again, annoyingly straight and perfectly white teeth. It began to dawn on her that physically he didn’t seem to have any flaws, at least from what she could tell. She also had realized without her heels on he was a few inches taller than her rather than eye to eye like she had thought on Saturday night.
“Oh. You’re friends with Hoonie? I wouldn’t have guessed. Wait hold on, you come here? Like, Frequently?” She head tilted slightly like he was a puzzle she was trying to solve.
“Hoonie? You call him Hoonie? And yeah I come here usually once or twice a month! I fucking love this place!” He was fully smiling now, as if a prayer he didn’t know he was making was suddenly answered. He slid his hands into his jeans pockets and leaned lightly against a display table that was next to him. “How the hell do you own this place? You’re what, twenty two? Twenty three?” he tilted his head the same way she did, either copying her or doing it unconsciously.
“Yeah, of course I call him Hoonie? What else would I call him? And I’m twenty four, but close enough I guess. It used to be my uncles but about a year and a bit ago he gave it to me since he wanted to retire. He's in his early sixties now and wants to spend more time with my aunt now that she’s also retired. I basically grew up in this store and started working here when I was sixteen. He claims that, sure, I’m young for owning the store but that he’s always just a call away if I need help. But that I'm also the only person he would trust running it besides himself.” Stevie smiled through her answer, feeling the pride well up in her chest as it always did when she talked about how much her Uncle Brad trusts her with his ‘baby’.
“I don’t know, I just call him Sunghoon? Or I don’t know, like, Sung on the odd occasion. Jake tried to call him Hoonie once as a joke and he got told off over it very quickly. But wow, I mean, that’s really impressive! Good for you-” He stopped his sentence, racking his brain for whatever word he was looking for. “Um, I'm sorry I still don’t know your name.” He smiled sheepishly, like he was embarrassed over forgetting something, even though he was never told it in the first place.
“I’ve been calling him Hoonie from the first week he worked here, he’s never said anything to me about it, must mean he likes me more.” she replied with an effortless smirk that seemed to live on her face whenever she spoke to the man in front of her, he just made it too easy to tease him! “And yes, I’m aware you still don’t know my name, you still haven’t earned it!” she laughed as she finished speaking, letting him realize that she wasn’t that serious about the whole ordeal.
“That’s so fucked up of you to say. I’ve literally been friends with the guy since middle school! But alright fair, tell me what I have to do to earn your name then. At this point I need to know the name of the pretty girl who my dumbass friend spilled a beer on who happens to be the same pretty girl who owns my favourite record shop.” He was smiling softly now, hoping that the pretty girl in front of him didn’t get upset over the fact that he referred to her as such.
“I don’t know man, I guess it really is quality over quantity, even with friendships and how long you’ve had them. Also if I tell you how to earn my name then you aren’t really earning it, now are you? For the record, you can call me pretty as many times as you want, flattery will get you nowhere.” she began to turn around to keep working on her laptop and place an order for things the store needs. “Feel free to look around, pretty boy, but I’ve gotta get back to work now. This place doesn’t run itself.” She hoped that she had turned fast enough that he couldn’t see her face begin to flush because, unfortunately for her, the flattery did actually work; she just liked to pretend it didn’t for the sake of teasing him.
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it then.” He started walking towards the back of the store where the R&B records were. She wasn’t sure why that felt like something she wanted to know about him. As soon as he was out of eye sight she whipped her phone out to send Sunghoon a text.
Stevie (Knicks): hi hoonie!!! hope your day is going well!! silly little thing, but whoever your friend is that comes and visits you at the record store is, DO NOT!!!!I REPEAT!!! DO NOT!!!! tell him my name if he asks. I’ll explain on friday night when i see you before i head out for the weekend. If you tell him youre fired! (joking of course… kind of)
hoonie baby: um? k sure why not. do you want to know his name?
hoonie baby: lol jk he just texted me asking what your name was. i told him i’ve been sworn to secrecy so he said i cant tell you his name either, sorry boss lady! pls dont fire me!
‘Fuck.’ Stevie thought to herself. She had wanted to know the guy's name so she could hold it over his head, teasingly of course. She glanced over at the corner of the store where ‘perfect nose’ had gone, only for him to already be looking at her with a smile. “So. This is how we're going to play this?” he said with a small laugh holding up his phone.
“Guess so.” Stevie shrugged with a small smile. Before looking at her laptop for all of two seconds before the door to the store had swung open.
“Baby! I come with coffee so I remain your favourite!” Jay waltzed into the store like he was the owner rather than her. He had a big smile holding up the iced americano for his boss.
“Baby, I’ve never loved you more than I do right now. Have I ever told you how much I love you before? Because goddamn I really do love you.” Stevie replied with a smile so big she could almost hear her cheeks protest in pain. She walked to the slightly taller man with open arms to wrap around his torso followed by a wet kiss on the cheek that he immediately tried to pull away from. He failed.
“Alright not too much, we’re still at work.” he replied slightly grimacing at her annoying-yet-predictable over the top reaction. “Oh god, and there's even a customer, baby you’ve got to calm down or you’re going to scare away the guy!” he shot a look at her like he was going to strangle her the second ‘perfect nose guy’ had looked away. “ I’m sorry for the interruption man, if you have any questions feel free to ask!” Jay said with an awkward smile. ‘Perfect nose’ quickly turned around after returning the same awkward smile.
“Apparently he’s friends with Hoonie, so I seriously doubt this is the weirdest thing he’s ever seen.” Stevie replied with a shrug, finally removing herself from his side, taking the coffee from his hand followed by a sip, a smile finding its way to her face yet again. “Oh my god, it’s perfect! Did you go to the place down the street? I swear since they reopened with a new owner and new staff they’ve been so much better. However there's a small part of me that misses the burnt coffee strictly out of nostalgia.”
“That guy is friends with Sunghoon? He looks too cool for that. But yeah! It’s from the place down the street, I’m sure on a day when you're really missing it we can find a different shitty cafe to get you burnt gross coffee. Anyway, I can’t stay long, just wanted to drop off a coffee before I head to the interview at the restaurant a couple streets over, wish me luck baby!” Jay had replied with a smile waving as he was already halfway out the door.
“Good luck! Hope the vibes are good!” She called after him, even though she knew he probably couldn’t hear her. She turned to her laptop yet again to start ordering some things that the store needed checking the list she kept on her phone. “Pens, receipt paper, tape…” she muttered to herself trying to memorize it so she didn’t have to keep looking over at her phone and focus on the order.
Starboy (deluxe) by: The Weeknd
Heeseung
Heeseung couldn’t help but glance over at the girl every few minutes even though he knew that she hadn’t moved from the front counter in the last twenty; since the guy had come in and left just as fast. ‘Baby?’ he kept thinking to himself, was that her boyfriend? But he didn’t seem to be happy about her kissing his cheek. But it could be because they were at work, but then again Heeseung knew he would never be upset if he had a pretty girl kiss his cheek. He finally decided he’d been looking in the same bin for too long. It would look weird if she looked over and he grabbed a random one taking it to the front to pay.
“Hey, just this please.” he slid the record over towards her while looking down at his hands fiddling with his wallet that he had pulled out of his pocket.
“Oh! The Weeknd! I love this album, the Die For You remix with Ariana Grande is incredible. Good choice! I approve.” ‘Pretty girl’ immediately started talking about the album he had pushed to her. He looked at the record properly to see what she was talking about. ‘Fuck.’ he thought ‘I already own this one but I can’t say that now or I’ll look stupid. Whatever, maybe one of the guys will want it or I can donate it or something. Maybe try to return it when Sunghoon is working next weekend.’ His brain was running a million miles an hour trying to not look ridiculous in front of this very pretty girl for a second time. He did NOT want a repeat of the weekend of embarrassing himself in front of her; the guys had made fun of him enough for one lifetime over him stripping down to his undershirt for her. In his defense he was slightly tipsy and panicked. “Dude? You okay?” ‘pretty girl’ snapped him out of his thoughts he looked up at her eyes wide in slight panic.
“Sorry what?” he responded, hopefully sounding more put together than he felt. He watched as her smile spread across her face. He liked her smile, she seemed to be the kind of girl who was always smiling and laughing. She was also a very expressive person, he also liked that. She was relatively easy to read.
“How would you like to pay?” She smirked as she spoke. He felt like she could read his mind. He felt exposed. He awkwardly held up his credit card with a smile that, once again, he hoped looked better than he felt.
“So, uh, the guy that was here. Is he like your boyfriend or something? If so, I'm sorry I called you pretty girl earlier. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” he spoke softly but seeing as the only other sound was Rumours playing in the background he knew she could hear him, he also realized she must have restarted the album since the guy had left. He could also feel his cheeks warm up with embarrassment. “Not that you aren’t pretty, because uh, fuck, I’m fucking this up, you are really pretty I just don’t want to overstep is all I’m trying to say.” he was just about to pull the card out of the machine as he had finished paying and rambling when all of a sudden he heard her loud laugh startling him. He jumped. He would deny it if she called him on it.
“Jay? My boyfriend? Jesus Christ! No! Why on earth would you ever think that? He’s like a brother to me! We’ve been friends since we were eighteen! Oh my god I think I’m going to throw up just thinking about it!” She was still laughing but also pretending to dry heave slightly. Heeseung shot his head up to look at her in surprise.
“Oh. Um, I don’t know, he came in and brought you coffee, and you called each other baby, and you kissed his cheek and were saying how much you loved him, so I just.. Figured?” Heeseung felt his sentence slowly fade away from him as his cheeks were burning. He was sure if he could see his reflection he'd be looking at a tomato instead of his face. He also felt a wave of relief wash over him, he knew there was a little to no chance with the girl in front of him but knowing the chance was no longer zero percent made him feel a bit better.
“Unfortunately for me that actually kind of makes sense as to why you’d think that. But no, we’re just friends. Well, we hooked up once at our high school graduation party but we decided it was weird as fuck and we could never do it again. Anyway, no we aren’t together. Calling each other ‘baby’ is a bit of an inside joke we’ve had for years now. It started when he found out he was a month older than me, and started saying I was ‘so young I was practically a baby’ to which I reminded him of the one time he got a paper cut on his hand and cried for a half hour because the rubbing alcohol stung. So I might be a baby in age but he’s a baby in maturity. I also gave him a cheek kiss because I know he hates it. As for him bringing me coffee, he’s just like that, one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met, he knew he would be over here for an interview so he brought me a coffee just because he could. You can’t tell him I said he was sweet though. He’ll never let it go.” She was smiling softly as she finished speaking, showing just how much Jay means to her. Heeseung was even more relieved to hear her explanation. It all made sense, especially the doing things just to tease her friend. He could tell already from their few interactions that it was just how she was. She liked to tease people and annoy them but in a ‘I’m not actually serious, it’s just a how-i-show-you-i-like-you’ kind of way.
“Oh. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Sorry if I made it weird, it wasn’t my intention.” His right hand came up to rub the back of his neck, a nervous habit he had. His chest felt like a weight had been lifted but at the same time he felt so embarrassed but he was thankful for the fact that she was able to see where he was coming from.
“Please don’t worry, you didn’t make anything weird. You just wanted to make sure you didn’t cross any unknown boundaries which is actually very sweet of you. You’re one step closer to earning my name so, congrats I guess.” She let out a soft giggle while looking down, seemingly writing something down. Heeseung could have sworn that his knees were about to give out. She was the kind of cool and charming that everyone tried to replicate but failed; she did it effortlessly. Her style and confidence was just who she was, it wasn’t a performance.
“At risk of ruining any progress I just made, would I maybe be able to get your number? I think you’re cool and yeah. I would just like to, I don't know, talk to you more?” Heeseung rubbed the back of his neck even more trying his absolute hardest to play it cool but he was so sure she was going to laugh in his face.
“I’m already one step ahead of you pretty boy.” she smirked and slid the paper bag holding his record with the receipt on top with her phone number written down with slightly bubbly handwriting next to it saying ‘if you want to earn my name you might need my number to be able to talk to me about it.’ He let out a soft laugh that was full of relief that she didn’t reject him. He looked up and met her eyes to see them shining with delight and a light pink dusting across her cheeks.
“Good, wait no not good, but thank you! Uh, Yeah that makes sense. Thank you!” He took the bag, tucking it under his arm and folded the receipt into his wallet to make sure he wouldn’t lose it. “I should get going, but I’ll text you, I promise!” He shot her another smile before heading out the door and headed to his car parked just up the street, letting go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding in.
My Everything (Deluxe) by Ariana Grande
Heeseung
On the drive home he couldn’t help but pull over at one point into a gas station to hum a melody he had come up with into the voice note app on his phone. Did it sound light and airy, reminding him of ‘pretty girl’s’ laugh? Of course not. He’s not that pathetic. Okay maybe he realized later when he got home it sounded vaguely similar. As soon as he got home he pulled up his DAW on his monitor and connected his audio interface to his keyboard, playing a light piano melody that sounded exactly like what he wanted it to. He played the melody a few more times before deciding to record it. He recorded a couple different versions of it (in case he changed mind later.) with the name of ‘Pretty.girl1’ following the same name with 2 and 3. After he had fiddled with it for a while he heard his phone go off with a light ping.
Jakey: thoughts on going out again this weekend? won wont shut up ab the girl from the bar
Hee: idk man. ill let you know.
Jakey: riki’s down, sunghoon is going to ask his coworker to cover his sunday shift so he can come too! he never comes! jus sayin
Hee: like i said. ill let you know. i have a client on my dick ab finishing this demo by next week
Heeseung didn’t mind going out every once and a while. But the DJ’s always drove him crazy at just about every place they went because he knew he could probably do better than them if he tried. He’d been producing for several years now, starting messing around with different equipment since high school and had become a pretty decent one. Granted the bar they had been at was his favourite one, but still.
Living in New York City had some perks, one of which being there was a never ending demand of people who thought they were the ‘next big thing’ that just needed help making a demo. As long as they paid to rent the recording studio (because there was no way he was allowing strangers into his house to use his makeshift studio he created in the guest room.) he didn’t really care about doing the rest as long as they were more or less serious about it and had a clear vision of what they wanted. He had made the mistake a couple times when he was first starting out, trying to work with people who had thought he would make their less than mediocre songs sound like gold. He was good, not the best by any means; he still had a lot to learn, but he wasn’t a magician. This wasn’t what he wanted to do forever. His goal was to eventually create a full, self produced album that was actually good and people actually wanted to hear. He’s made a few EP’s and demo’s that he’s sent off to different agencies trying to get signed but they all wanted to make too many changes; or just didn’t respond at all.
He was taking his dreams one step at a time and his current step is just working on becoming a better producer while continuing to also hone his skills at different instruments and going to his vocal coach semi-frequently.
His current client is some nineteen year old who has never been told ‘no’ a day in his life, Heeseung assumes at least. The client has daddy’s credit card in his pocket and, sure, the kid had some talent but he lacked a passion for the project. They were Heeseung's least favourite kind of client to work with. The ones who had talent but didn’t care, they just wanted something to do that’s not going to university.
He had gone to university and had the music recording and producing degree to prove it. He didn’t particularly love it but he learned a lot and had made some great friends while in school. Friends like Riki, who was in school to be a dance major but had dropped out once he got an offer to be a backup dancer for a few music videos and has kept working with dance studios as a choreographer as well still continuing to star in some music videos. Riki wants to eventually go on tour with some massive artists and be able to perform in front of massive crowds. Riki had made Heeseung promise once, slightly high; in Heeseung's apartment as they were sinking deeper into the couch with every passing minute, that when he made it big Riki would be the first person he would call when he needed dancers. Heeseung said he would but also didn’t need to promise it because he was planning on doing just that anyways. They had met when Riki walked into the music building and found Heeseung sitting in one of the school's recording studios playing the same eight bars of music on repeat. Riki had ended up sitting with him for another hour as they talked about what Heeseung was doing and why he kept replaying the same part. Riki was a couple years younger than him but was so funny and kind hearted that he couldn’t bring himself to stop being his friend even if he wanted to. Riki had quickly become like a younger brother to the older boy.
He also met Jake, who was in school to be a physicist. He happened to be roomed up in a dorm with Sunghoon who had been telling Heeseung all about his ‘weird ass smart roommate who Heeseung would love’. Sunghoon had been right (like he usually was even though Heeseung would never tell him that.) Jake was smart in a way that few people he had met were. He was both book smart and street smart which, truthfully, Heeseung didn’t know was an option. He had thought everyone was always one or the other. Jake proved him wrong. Jake was kind and funny in a way that made everyone around him fall in love with him, even if they didn’t want to. Jake had a heart of gold that showed up in unexpected ways, like when Heeseung had gotten so sick he could barely get out of bed, much less eat. But Jake showed up with ramen, a pack of disposable water bottles, medication and a smile saying he wanted to help however he could; only after about a month of being friends. Jake had obviously gotten sick from being around Heeseung, but Heeseung made sure to return the favour.
Heeseung had also met Jungwon who was a few years younger than him, just like Riki, but they had bumped into each other in the university cafeteria and had gotten to talking. Jungwon was mature and goofy all at once. Only after they had talked for about an hour did they realize that he was a dance major with Riki and that they had both befriended him. Jungwon was someone who wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do after school but loved dance and figured it was better than nothing. Jungwon was currently a part time choreographer and was also working for a few local newspapers and blogs taking pictures of things around the city that their articles were about. The group of boys liked to joke he was like a real life spiderman between being trained in taekwondo (the friends saw him defend a girl at a bar once from a drunk asshole and realized he actually could fight, and was slightly scary when he did it.) and loving photography; as well as having a moral compass that could only rival the Pope.
Heeseung was snapped out of his thoughts by yet another text coming through.
Spiderman: dude. bar. this weekend. need you to distract Olivia’s friend. please.
Hee: dude. i have to finish this demo for a client. can’t make any promises.
At the mention of ‘pretty girl’s’ friend he quickly grabbed his wallet off his desk and grabbed the perfectly folded receipt, cursing himself for not texting her sooner.
(xxx)xxx-xxxx: hey is this the pretty girl who owns the record store?
(xxx)xxx-xxxx: please be the pretty girl, if youre not ill cry
(xxx)xxx-xxxx: that was a joke btw
“Fuck, Hee you gotta pull yourself together. You’re embarrassing yourself.” He muttered to himself after putting his phone down rubbing his hands down his face. Glaring at the phone that didn’t light up the second he hit send which meant clearly it was a fake number and she hated him. He was about to pick it up again to send Jungwon a follow up text saying he wouldn’t be able to help ‘distract Olivia's friend’ whatever that meant in the first place, when his phone lit up.
(xxx)xxx-xxxx: depends. Is this the pretty boy that bought an album he already owns at said record store??
(xxx)xxx-xxxx: also dw i know ur joking lol
“Fuck she knows. How does she know? Oh my god that’s it. I have to fucking kill myself.” Heeseung swore to himself. He then went and saved her contact. “Okay, she at least replied and called me pretty. Wait. Does she think I’m pretty? Can guys even be pretty? Doesn’t matter, she replied, which probably means she doesn’t hate me. Okay be cool man. Just reply normally.” He wasn’t sure why he was talking himself through this whole ordeal like he was a sixteen year old virgin who had never been in a relationship. He had been in relationships before and was definitely not a virgin. He really needed to calm down. She’s just a girl. A very pretty, cool girl. But still just a girl.
perfect nose: haha yeah thats me
Perfect nose: i accidentally dropped my other one and scratched it and so i decided to replace it.
perfect nose: quick question tho, how did you know i already had it?
pretty girl: oh thank god. i was shitting myself thinking a serial killer had somehow found my number!!!
pretty girl: don’t let your best friend convince you to watch a serial killer documentary with her when its already dark out. 10/10 would not recommend.
pretty girl: also hoonie asked me what record you bought, so when i told him he was confused asking if i was sure bc you already had it lol
pretty girl: which is lowkey kinda insulting bc obviously i know my records but wtvr ig
Heeseung let out a laugh at her reply, he was happy that her sense of humour translated well through her texts. He was also making a mental note to kill Sunghoon later for not being a better wingman and just going with it.
Heeseung found himself staying up later than he probably should have talking to the girl. He was able to start getting to know her a bit better. Like how her favourite colour was maroon, she was an only child, how she loved music but was a fan of all the arts; going to art galleries and the movie theatre as often as she could. Her favourite food was anything Greek but also loved any kind of baked good. Heeseung realized that she was a very easy person to talk to. He was cursing himself for being so nervous in front of her earlier that day because while, yes, she’s pretty, she’s also a very chill and cool person to talk to. Eventually he found himself nodding off in his desk chair and decided he should probably shower and head to bed before he falls asleep in the chair; that was comfortable but made his back hurt the next day if he spent too long in it.
As he crawled into bed he shot a quick text to his best friend.
Hee: your so lucky that your boss is cool and believed my lie about scratching my other starboy record, if she didnt id have to kill you for being the worst wingman known to man
He knew the text sounded intense but also knew that Sunghoon wouldn’t take it that seriously. The two boys had been close friends since middle school when Sunghoon’s family had moved to Minnesota, from Korea; just down the street from Heeseung's family. Heeseung's mom had been quick to go down and welcome them to the neighbourhood dragging him along. She was excited to have another Korean family around, a little reminder of home, that they had left when Heeseung was five. When Sunghoon's mother had opened the door her face had lit up at the sight of other people that spoke the same native tongue as her. The two mothers had become fast friends and the boys had become two peas in a pod as well. Heeseung helped teach Sunghoon English in the way a native speaker would talk rather than how an English teacher would tell him how to. “It’s way too formal that way.” Heeseung would tell him. The two boys were disappointed to learn that they were a year apart in school but promised to sit together at lunch. The two had spent almost all their spare time together, going to the mall, going to the nearby skate park, and driving around after it was part curfew when they were highschool; not caring about if they would get in trouble for being out too late. They were each other's escape from life; The arena with the never ending practices and competitions for Sunghoon. The pressure of living up to his older brother who was probably going to end up as either a doctor or a lawyer from Heeseung. They had a quiet understanding of each other, that they didn’t always need to talk about what was bothering them but that just hanging out and smoking cigarettes they had stolen from their parents in the back of Heeseung's car was enough to make them both feel better about their circumstances.
Sunghoon loved being a figure skater but the pressure sometimes got to him, feeling like he always had to be perfect and anything that wasn’t first place meant he was an awful skater. Logically the boy knew that it wasn’t the case, but he still shouldered the weight of perfectionism. When he had gotten injured in grade eleven, he had fallen and shattered his knee cap, he fell into a bad depression; failing to see how he was worth anything if he couldn’t skate. Through surgeries and physical therapy he was able to make a more-or-less full recovery but also knew he wouldn’t be able to be a skater the way he used to be. His physical therapist’s name was Nicole, and she was the nicest woman he was sure he’d ever meet. Listening to him cry when he was in pain and also listening to him cry when he was told he couldn’t compete any longer. She was patient in teaching him how to do his exercises to build up the strength again. Sunghoon also appreciated that she didn’t give him shit when Heeseung would drop him off and she could definitely tell that he had been smoking in the slightly older boy's car; he also liked that she never told his parents. Through her care and patience he had decided to follow in her footsteps career wise; when he told her, she might have shed a tear or two over how touched she was that she had inspired him, but made him promise he wouldn’t tell anyone.
Heeseung loved his brother, and his family, but knew that as soon as they found out that he had no desire to become some big business guy or something similar to it, like his brother, that they would be disappointed in him and would never fully understand. Heeseung had tried to explain to his family a few times that he wanted to go into music and hopefully, if he was lucky, become a known artist himself; they always said the same thing “You’re wasting your time. There's no money in the arts, it’s a hobby not a career.”. They didn’t understand him the way he wished they would, but also knew he had to stay true to himself. Sunghoon always supported him, even when he had tried to be a soundcloud rapper and failed terribly; because in hindsight the songs were god awful. Sunghoon would always post his closest friends' songs on his Instagram stories trying to get him more fans and supporters.
Heeseung could remember the day that he found out that Sunghoon had gotten accepted to NYU in their kinesiology program, Sunghood had ran down the street to his house running inside as if it was his own house, booking it upstairs to Heeseung's room slightly out of breath holding up an unopened envelope with the logo in the top left corner. The boys had opened it together, reading the words “We’re pleased to inform you..”. Heeseung wasn’t sure the last time he had seen his closest friend so happy. As soon as the two had finished reading it Heeseung gave his friend a big hug then reached for his own envelope that he had put on his desk a few days prior. He wanted to wait to know if Sunghoon had gotten in before telling him that he had applied, and was accepted, to the music program at the same school. The boys immediately started planning their futures in New York and how they couldn’t wait to get out of the state they were living in, both literally and metaphorically.
Sung: trust me bro, i knew she wouldnt have cared
Sung: but now she might bc you told her you scratched a record? dude, don’t tell the girl who owns a record store that you treated a record like shit that would be like telling a vet you poisoned your own dog
Heeseung hadn’t thought of that. Oh well it was a problem he would have to deal with later, he was tired and needed to go to bed soon if he wanted to finish the demo for his client if he wanted to go to the bar with his friends that weekend to hopefully be able to see, not distract, the pretty girl that was taking up a bit too much room in his head.
When Stevie and Heeseung run into each other a bar, only to find out they have more in common than they initially thought. Will the two be able to navigate feelings and past issues to figure out a future together? or let it all crash and burn in the name of self preservation.
The sky had long since become dark, the night stretching across the horizon. The music was loud and the bass was beating in Stevie’s bones. Her third drink of the night was in her hand, the condensation dripping down her fingers and onto the floor, it was mostly empty now, just one last sip and more ice than was probably necessary. Stevie’s eyes scanned the group of people around her, her best friend, Olivia, was talking the ear off of whatever guy was stuck next to her due to the lack of room to move away. Her drunk ramblings were getting lost in the sound of the atmosphere but the smile on her face was enough to get her message across.
Stevie’s body was swaying lightly to whatever remix the DJ was creating. She was smiling softly, finding a serenity in the chaos. The lights were both bright and dimmed all at the same time, the crowd singing along and dancing to the pop song that was getting transitioned into a rap song she didn’t know the name of off the top of her head. She could feel her brown hair sticking to the back of her neck where she was beginning to sweat. She was sure that her eyeliner that had once been applied sharp and perfect was starting to smudge, that the lipgloss had been transferring to her glass and a couple strands of hair were stuck in it. She finished the last sip of her drink before reaching out to put it on a random ledge next to her, along with several other glasses that other people had left behind as well. Some were still full, others didn’t even have the ice in it any longer. She let out a giggle as the drink settled into her stomach feeling the warmth spread through to her finger tips. The room was starting to slow down around her. She could feel the stress of the long week finally melt away as she let her body flow more freely to the music.
“Wanna go dance?” Stevie yelled over the music into Olivia’s ear. This was always her favourite part of the night, when she was a few drinks in, when the weight of the world faded away and she felt free to do as she pleased. She knew that she was drunk enough to not care that she wasn’t a good dancer but not drunk enough to make a complete fool of herself.
“You go ahead, I’m going to keep talking to-” Olivia’s face contorted into one of deep thought. “Whatever this guy's name is!” Olivia let out a laugh at the absurdity of wanting to talk to someone but not remembering their name. Stevie looked at the guy to see if he looked like he needed saving from her loud, firecracker of a best friend. She met his eyes and he greeted her look with a small smile, telling her he was just fine.
“Bless his heart if he thinks that letting her talk at him will get him laid.” Stevie whispered to herself while pushing through the sea of people to find her way to the dance floor. The closer she got the music seemed to get louder somehow. Her smile started growing even more, getting excited at the idea of being able to do what she’s been waiting all week to do. She wouldn’t consider herself a big partier; about once a month or so, her and Olivia,(or sometimes Jay, if she could convince him, when Olivia was busy) would go out, just let loose and forget that they’re grown adults with jobs and bills and responsibilities. She found herself tucked into the back corner of the dance floor, near a speaker loud enough to cause anyone in their right mind to go deaf, and began to move to the beat.
She wasn’t sure how long had passed, maybe five minutes or maybe an hour and a half but she did know that she wanted another drink. She began to push her way through, occasionally getting bumped or pushed into someone. She would just smile at them and keep walking. Finally getting to the bar she waited for the bartender to look her way so she could order, had her card in hand waiting to pay (she had learned that starting a tab was a terrible idea and would end in her either maxing the card out or forgetting it which caused more stress than she was able to melt away with the alcohol she had drank the night before.). She felt the small spot next to her get filled by another body, then out of the corner of her eye she saw the person who had filled that spot raise their hand and start snapping to try and get the bartender's attention.
“Oh my god, seriously? That’s so rude! They know we’re here and will get to us as soon as they can! God, people like you are the fucking worst. Not to mention the music is so loud they can’t even hear you snap.” She turned her head to look at the person, glaring. ‘Of course’ she thought to herself when she saw a guy who looked like he paid people to wipe his own ass for him. A guy who looked like he worked a high paying corporate job, not because he put in the time and effort to earn it, but because his dad knew someone.
“Babe, chill, they’re used to it, I’m just trying to get served. But if it means that much to you, why don’t you let me buy a drink to make it up to you?” His eyes worked their way down her body and back up to her eyes, stopping to stare at her boobs for a few seconds longer than necessary. Suddenly the all black outfit she had taken time and effort into making sure looked perfect seemed like a terrible idea. The short skirt and the tight shirt paired with the block heels that made her legs look longer than they already were, with the stacked silver necklaces and the several rings across her fingers, it all seemed like it was too much and way too revealing. Her skin began to crawl and she could feel her heart begin to race. She forced herself to keep a neutral face.
“I’m good. Thanks though.” She replied, sounding more relaxed than she felt. She had been in this situation before, she’s gone out and dealt with guys like him before. She knew it would most likely cause him to get pissy, he’d probably call her a bitch or some other name. That she could handle, she didn’t care if they thought she was rude or mean. What she couldn’t handle was when they would get aggressive. Trying to force their way; it wasn’t as common as the name calling, but it had happened once or twice before. She was trying to remind herself that she was right next to the bar and if the guy wanted to try and act like that the bartenders would notice and call security right away.
“Oh come on, just one drink won’t kill anyone. If anything I’m doing you a favour by saving you some money. Let me buy you a drink, babe.” He had tried to wrap an arm around her waist. She took a step back retreating as far as she could in the limited space she had.
“I said no.” Stevie held her ground, straight faced. No room to try and find the answer the guy was looking for. She turned on her heel and tried to search the crowd for Olivia, suddenly wanting to go home and scrub her skin clean of the guy that had tried to touch her. She couldn’t see her best friend but she could see the guy Olivia had been talking at, so she allowed her feet to carry her there hoping that he might know where she was.
“Fine, whatever bitch, I was just trying to be nice.” ‘And there it is.’ She thought to herself. She didn’t look back, didn’t give him a second glance. Just kept walking to try and find her best friend.
Stevie never considered herself a lucky person; in fact she didn’t really believe in luck at all. But apparently that wasn’t the case that night because just as she had started walking to the guy Olivia had been talking to, someone had run into her and all she could feel was cold and wet go down her shirt. Making her feel like the most unlucky person in the room.
“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.” She said to no one in particular. She could feel the drink,that she could tell was beer based on the smell alone, seeping into her shirt.
“Jake?! What the fuck man, apologize to the poor girl!” Shouted one of the friends of the guy who ran into her. She lifted her head from looking at her now soaked shirt to see who had run into her and met the very wide brown eyes of a guy who she quickly decided looked vaguely like a puppy. He was slightly shorter than her, with long dark brown hair that was fluffy in the way that she wanted to ruffle it. His mouth had fallen open and was clearly flustered, struggling to find his voice in the panic. Her eyes swept over the two men next to him.
There was a guy who stood next to Jake, on his left, who looked like he was struggling to keep a straight face, realizing that he probably shouldn’t laugh, but definitely would be laughing about this later and would probably not let him live it down for a while. He was the tallest of the three with dark hair and eyes that gleamed with mischief. He wore baggy clothing but styled in a way that told her he clearly knew a thing or two about fashion.
On the other side of Jake was the one who had told him to apologize, eyes slightly widened with a similar look of panic to Jake, looking like he was prepared to get yelled at. He had beautiful dark eyes that were filled with care and sympathy over the situation as well. He was the second tallest of them but was eye to eye with her, with an annoyingly perfect straight nose. He was wearing loose jeans with a black button up shirt left open with a white shirt underneath. A single silver chain draped around his neck. His hands were twitching slightly at his side like he wanted to reach out to help Stevie but didn’t know how without making the situation worse. Something about seeing him and seeing the franticness in his eyes had caused her to stop herself from yelling at Jake. She also quickly decided that he was attractive but was still annoyed enough at the situation that she wasn’t going to even try and flirt or see where the night could take it.
“Oh my god I’m so sorry! Riki had bumped into me and I wasn’t watching where I was going, we were trying to find our other friend! I'm so so sorry-” Jake rushed the apology out like the ground was going to open up and swallow him whole if he didn’t say it fast enough. She noticed an accent in his voice but was still a bit too drunk to be able to place it.
“I get it, shit happens. It’s fine.” Stevie cut him off. Her voice still had an edge to it but sounded more resigned that this was just what happens sometimes when you're at a bar. She shook her head almost like she was trying to force her head clear. She rolled her shoulders back and stood tall with her chin up a tad just to try to force herself to feel better and cooler than she felt. But the one guy who had the perfect nose had opened his mouth to start talking.
“Can we buy you a drink? Or I can give you my shirt to change into?” he gestured to his button up. Already starting to take it off like it was the only option in the world that might make it better. “God dammit Jake I told you to pay attention to where you were walking. Riki, why did you push him? What the hell, guys?” as the button up fell off his shoulders he turned his attention on the other two, eyes still full of panic. Something about the frantic tone in his voice caused Stevie to start laughing. Her head fell back as a loud laugh bloomed out of her chest. All three boys turned to look at her with bewilderment.1
“Jesus Christ, is this your first time at a bar? Shit like this happens all the time! It’s not the first time I’ve had a glass of beer end up on me, it probably won’t be the last time either! You can keep your shirt dude, really it’s fine. And Jake, you didn’t shoot me, you don’t have to look so traumatized!” She was laughing so hard her sides were starting to hurt. Something about the adrenaline of the Corporate Guy at the bar, mixed with the alcohol, and the stripping of ‘perfect nose’ ,as she deemed him in her mind, made it the funniest thing in the world to her.
“Girl, you were gone for like an hour, what happened?” Stevie looked to her side to see Olivia had found her. She looked confused and amused at the same time. The guy she had been talking at earlier started to greet the three boys with a smile and a questioning look which was enough to cause Riki to release the laughter he was holding as he explained the situation.
“Jungwon! Oh my god you missed it, it was so funny! So we’re trying to make our way over to you, right? But Jake wasn’t paying attention to where he was going and I pushed him in the way of ‘dude look ahead’, right? Then he ran into this girl who looked like she was about to murder someone, she looks down at her shirt which will one hundred percent smell like beer forever now. And he-” Riki says pointing at ‘perfect nose guy’. Riki is laughing so hard through his explanation Stevie can’t tell if Jungwon even knows what he’s saying but he laughs along. Stevie slowly starts zoning out of what he’s saying, she makes eye contact with Olivia who starts out laughing as well, connecting the dots as to what was all happening. The two girls have a quick conversation with their eyes, Stevie asking her best friend what happened with Jungwon. Olivia responded with a ‘nothing really, I talked, he listened, now we’re here. But he’s cute and I was hoping to go home with him.’ Stevie giggled in response and shrugs ‘what can you do’.
Stevie realizes that Riki had finished his explanation so she takes the moment to cut in. “Seriously guys, it’s fine I was trying to find Liv anyways, she just happened to find me first. However it’s about time we get going. I am in desperate need of a shower.” Olivia nodded beside her best friend, agreeing it was time to go home. “Try not to pour drinks over any other girls while you’re here, yeah?” she finished up talking with a teasing smile.
“I swear I won't. I have a feeling if I did the next girl might not be as nice about it!” Jake replies with an embarrassed smile but thankful eyes, probably over the fact that she didn’t yell at him even though he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. Stevie lets out a little laugh in response and reaches down to grab Olivia's hand to start leading the shorter girl through the crowd.
“Wait up a second!” ‘perfect nose’ spoke out behind the two girls. They turned around, both with a questioning look on their faces. “We never got your name.” He had said to Stevie.
“Your friend drenched me in beer, if you want my name you have to earn it!” Stevie responded with a smile that said ‘I have the upper hand and we both know it’. She let out another laugh as she guided her friend through the crowd. Leaving the bar and the boy with the perfect nose wanting to see her again.
GENRE/CW: fluff, smut, angst, porn with plot, dom!sunghoon, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), oral (fem receiving), fingering, marking, dry humping, slight choking, making out, squirting, multiple orgasms, mentions of jealousy, possessiveness. hoon is clumsy and unnaturally strong, mentions of nicknames, mentions of jake, jay, hee, won, karina, lmk if i missed anything!
WORD COUNT: 29.8k words
SYNOPSIS: when the university’s untouchable campus god accidentally walks into a doorframe the literal second he lays eyes on you, you realize the rumors about park sunghoon being a smooth player are completely fabricated. now, you get a front-row seat to him desperately trying to follow a ten-step wikiHow guide on how to flirt, except you start to think that his clumsy, pathetic devotion is the most attractive thing you have ever seen.
A/N: hihi loves <3 i know it has been a rough few days for us all, i hope this lewser (affectionate) hoon makes you all feel a lil better, take care angels <3
STEP ONE: Introductions by identity theft
Park Sunghoon prides himself on being calm and composed.
At least that’s what he tells himself, if you generously take out the part where he’s clumsy, socially catastrophic, and possesses the spatial awareness of a newborn puppy on ice. To the Uni at large, he’s—well, a concept? The campus god, as wattpad core as it sounds, he simply makes it seem that way. The guy who sits in the back of lecture halls looking bored and devastatingly handsome, presumably thinking about complex philosophical theories or his next modeling gig (he doesn’t have any).
In reality, he’s usually just thinking about whether it is going to rain or stressing over the fact that he held the door open for someone slightly too early, forcing them to do that awkward little run-walk, they were grateful regardless. It’s a fragile ecosystem, really. A reputation built entirely on the fact that he doesn’t talk enough for people to realize he’s actually a massive loser.
Only Sim Jaeyun knew the truth, along with Jay and Heeseung but yeah. Jake knew that Sunghoon isn’t brooding, rather, he’s buffering (as sad as that is). He knows that his oh so cold, mysterious silence is just Sunghoon’s brain playing elevator music (Wii party soundtrack preferably) while he tries to figure out how to function like a human being.
But tonight, Sunghoon feels good, he feels capable somehow. He’s wearing his favorite gray sweatpants, Jay is making pasta and garlic bread, and the dorm smells like home in the best way possible. He has one job—bring the cups to the living room. Jake had been going on about inviting a chaotic duo he came across at a gaming cafe, who absolutely destroyed him during gaming but that eventually led to him aggressively adopting them into his life out of sheer respect for the carry later.
Sunghoon peels the plastic sleeve off the stack of red Solo cups with a satisfying crinkle, feeling that same surge of confidence, headphones playing his favourite EsDeeKid song (Palaces), letting him vibe, completely blocking out the chatter and laughter outside. He steps out of the kitchenette, the bass in his ears vibrating through his skull, making him feel momentarily infinite. He is the main character in a very low-stakes indie movie, he is cool, he is ready to perceive and be perceived, or so he thinks.
And then his eyes land on the center of the living room, and the soundtrack in his head comes to a screeching, violent-ish halt. He expects noise—he can see Jake’s mouth moving rapidly, gesturing with a ladle like a weapon—but he doesn’t expect you.
You are already there, claiming the space in a way that makes the cramped dorm room feel suddenly, terrifically bright. You’re standing near the beat-up sofa, one sneaker kicked off and overturned on the rug, looking comfortably disheveled in a way that art directors spend hours trying to replicate. You’re in the middle of laughing at something another one of your friends said, and he doesn’t know his name yet—a full-bodied, head-thrown-back kind of laugh that Sunghoon can’t hear over his music but can feel in his chest anyway.
You look effortless, like you didn’t even try, yet somehow succeeded more than anyone else in the room. You’re wearing a simple white tank top tucked into vintage denim that fits perfectly, with a leather jacket slipping casually off one shoulder. Your hair is loose, framing a face that is currently lit up with pure, unadulterated joy, and your eyes are crinkled shut with mirth.
Sunghoon’s brain, usually a well-oiled machine of anxiety, simply—stops. The music fades into static, and his calm and composed narrative dissolves. Oh, he thinks, his grip on the plastic stack tightening until it crunches. Wow.
He is so busy processing the sudden, violent realization that you might be the prettiest thing he has ever seen that he forgets a fundamental rule of Newtonian physics, Pauli Exclusion Principle: two solid objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
One of those objects is his broad, unsuspecting shoulder, the other is the wooden doorframe, and there’s a loud sound of collision—a bone-jarring impact that cuts right through his noise-canceling headphones and jolts his entire skeleton from the teeth down. The shockwave travels instantly to his hands, and the stack of red cups, liberated by the violence of the collision, explodes outward like plastic fireworks. They rain down onto the carpet in a chaotic, clattering cacophony that seems to echo for ten years, at least for Sunghoon.
Sunghoon freezes, vibrating with pain, staring blankly at a single red cup spinning sadly near his big toe. Slowly and painfully, he slides his headphones down to his neck. The room has gone dead silent.
The friend you were laughing with—the one with the cat-like eyes, stops mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open. Jake blinks slowly from the couch, profound confusion etched into his features. And you—you turn slowly, eyes wide, the laughter still lingering on your face as you take in the tragedy of the cups and the man currently trying to merge with the drywall.
“Holy shit,” the friend breaks the silence, abandoning his game to lean over the back of the couch, “you good, dude?”
Sunghoon stays very still, he is waiting for one of two things to happen—either for the floorboards to mercifully open up and swallow him whole, or for his body to spontaneously combust from the sheer, blinding force of his own humiliation. Neither happens, instead, the throbbing ache in his shoulder radiates down his arm, a dull, pulsing reminder that he is not, in fact, the protagonist of a cool indie film, he is a hazard.
Say something, his brain screams, make a joke, be charming. Recover for fucks sake.
“I’m good,” Sunghoon manages, though his voice comes out about three octaves higher than usual. He clears his throat, “I’m—yeah. Totally fine. Just—slipped.”
“You slipped?” The friend—Jungwon, he remembers Jake calling him—asks, eyebrows shooting up, “into the doorframe? Vertically?”
“The carpet,” Sunghoon says, pointing an accusing finger at the perfectly standard rug, “it’s deceptive man.”
From the floor, a soft snort erupts, It’s you. You aren’t looking at him with pity, which is what he expects. You’re grinning—a wide, genuine expression that scrunches your nose—and before Sunghoon can process the movement, you’ve dropped to a crouch in front of him to help with the plastic disaster zone.
“Deceptive carpet,” you repeat, the corner of your mouth twitching as you reach for a cup that rolled near his ankle.
Sunghoon’s ears are burning. He can feel the heat spreading down his neck, violent and undeniable. He drops to his knees out of a desperate need to avoid looking at Jake, who is currently burying his face in a cushion.
“Right, physics,” you drawl, and your voice is warm, teasing in a way that makes his stomach do a weird flip. You hand him a stack of cups you’ve gathered, “well, try not to fight any more inanimate objects tonight, okay? The dorm deposit is expensive.”
Your fingers brush against his knuckles as you pass the stack. His skin practically zaps where you touched him. Sunghoon flinches like he’s been electrocuted, nearly dropping the cups all over again. He looks up, terrified, and finds your face inches from his. Up close, you’re even intimidatingly prettier. You smell like vanilla and leather, and your eyes are dancing.
“I’m Y/N, by the way,” you say easily, sitting back on your heels.
Sunghoon stares at you. He knows he needs to respond. The social contract dictates that he provides his own name in return, it is a simple exchange. Input: Name. Output: Name. But his brain is currently running on a backup generator powered by a single, terrified hamster, and gosh the hamster is tired.
“Uh,” Sunghoon starts, his voice cracking a little, then he clears his throat, “Y/N.”
He nods, “Right, you’re Y/N.”
You look at him, waiting.
“I’m—” Sunghoon trails off, looking at your eyes, they are very pretty. He looks at your mouth, you’re smiling, “I’m—Y/N?” He stops, eyes widening. No, that is incorrect.
“I mean—” He waves a hand frantically, nearly knocking over the stack of cups he just rescued, “You’re Y/N! I’m Sunghoon. Yeah. Yeah—you’re Sunghoon and I’m Y/N—wait.”
He freezes. The sentence hangs in the air between you, defying all logic, space, and time. Did I just steal her identity? The silence that follows is loud. Behind him, he hears Jungwon choke on a laugh, disguising it as a cough. Jake just sighs, a long, mournful sound of a man who has given up on his roommate entirely, and Heeseung doesn’t bother hiding his jolly laugh.
You blink at him. Then, slowly, that grin widens until it takes up your whole face.
“We’re swapping?” You ask, delighted, “okay—I’ve always wanted to be tall.”
Sunghoon feels his soul attempting to leave his body through his ears, he stands up, he stands up way too fast. His knees pop, adding a nice, crunchy soundtrack to his humiliation.
“I have to wash these,” he announces to the room at large, voice dangerously monotone.
“They were in a plastic sleeve,” Jake points out from the couch, finally turning around to witness the wreckage, “they’re clean bro.”
“Dust!” Sunghoon yells. He doesn’t look back, he can’t, “you can’t see it, but it’s there. It’s everywhere!”
He turns on his heel and flees. There is no other word for it, he practically speed-walks back into the safety of the kitchenette, shoulders hunched up to his ears, clutching the red cups to his chest, leaving the echo of his dignity—and his name—behind on the living room rug. He rounds the corner, out of sight, and immediately presses his forehead against the cool stainless steel of the fridge. He squeezes his eyes shut, his chest heaving like he just ran a marathon.
“He’s usually—uh—he’s usually not like this,” he hears Jake say in the other room, sounding apologetic.
“He’s funny,” you reply, and Sunghoon can hear the smile in your voice, “I like him.”
Sunghoon slides down the front of the fridge until he hits the floor, all while he buries his burning face in his hands. He is absolutely, irrevocably doomed.
“You good down there?”
Sunghoon peels one eye open, Jay is standing above him, holding a pair of tongs, staring at him with the blank, unimpressed expression of a man who has seen too much.
“I live here,” Sunghoon says to the ceiling, his voice hollow, “I pay rent, I have a 3.8 GPA. Why can’t I say my own name?”
“Nerves,” Jay says, flipping a piece of garlic bread, “also, you told her she was you. That was fucking insane.”
“Shut up, Jay.”
Sunghoon groans and scrambles up. He looks at the stack of cups in his hand, they are perfectly clean, but he washes them anyway. He turns on the tap and aggressively scrubs the brand-new plastic with the intensity of a surgeon scrubbing in for a heart transplant, just to buy himself thirty more seconds of isolation. Get it together, he coaches himself, staring at his reflection in the dark window above the sink.
You are Park Sunghoon, you have a twelve-step skincare routine, you know how to parallel park, you are a functional member of society who definitely knows who he is.
He dries his hands, he fixes his hair in the reflection of the microwave, he takes a deep breath that does absolutely nothing to lower his heart rate, and marches back out. The vibe in the living room has shifted. In the three minutes he was gone, you have seamlessly integrated into the environment of the dorm. You’re sitting cross-legged on the rug now, stealing garlic bread from Jake’s plate.
You look comfortable, annoyingly so, considering Sunghoon currently feels like his skin is made of itchy wool and his bones are made of glass. He walks over, moving stiffly, trying to be as aerodynamic as possible to avoid hitting any other stationary objects. He sets the slightly-damp cups down on the coffee table with a thud.
“All clean now,” he announces.
You look up, and you don’t laugh this time, but the corner of your mouth twitches, scooting over slightly on the rug, patting the empty space next to you, wondering what was going in the head of this pretty boy.
“Saved you a spot,” you say easily.
Sunghoon’s brain does that static thing again, he walks over stiffly, like a toy soldier, and lowers himself onto the rug. He sits carefully, hyper aware of everything, of you.
“Thanks,” he manages and it comes out deeper than he intended, almost gruff. Great. Now he sounds like a grumpy toddler.
You tear a piece off the garlic bread in your hand—the one you definitely stole, and offer it to him, “here, eat something, you’re practically vibrating.”
Sunghoon stares at the bread, then at you, “I’m not vibrating.”
“You are,” you insist, pressing the bread into his hand, “eat a lil’.”
Sunghoon takes it. He has to, really, because your fingers are brushing his palm and his brain has decided that obeying you is the only way to survive, and your fingers are soft, very soft.
“I’m calm,” he lies, taking a bite. It’s cold, but he chews it with interest.
“Uh-huh,” you grin, leaning back on your hands, your leather jacket creaking softly, “so, Park Sunghoon, besides forgetting your own identity, what do you do?”
Sunghoon swallows, he wipes a crumb from his lip, trying to regain some semblance of the mysterious aura he allegedly has, “I exist,” he says, trying for deadpan humor, “I listen to music. I tolerate Jake.”
“A noble calling,” you laugh, “I’ve only known him for a week and I’m already exhausted.”
“Jungwon, remove her from the group chat,” Jake deadpans, looking at him straight in the eye.
Jungwon looks his way, then your way before nodding, “let’s remove Jake.”
You both chuckled as Jake let out a gasp, launching a throw pillow that hits Jungwon square in the chest while Heeseung groans, “so no one added me to the chat, huh?”
Sunghoon doesn’t care, he’s zoned out as Jay joins the group with his freshly made mac and cheese truffle, and the room immediately devolves into a clamor of grabbing hands, Jungwon and Jake temporarily calling a truce to eat, and add a now very jolly Hee to the group chat. Sunghoon, however, has his undivided attention on you, he watches through his peripheral vision, as you lean forward to inspect the pot, the movement causes your leather jacket to slip further down your arm, he gulps at the sight.
A nudge almost sends him into orbit, head snapping at your face with mouth wide open, and you’re looking at him with your brow raised, a bowl in your hand, “you okay?” You asked, and he nodded mindlessly, and you were genuinely confused now.
You hand him the bowl, fingers brushing and he’s pretty sure his ears have turned red by now, but you’re not teasing him, and he likes how you simply just fit in here, “eat up, hm?”
“Thanks, yeah,” he mutters, looking down at the pasta, and it makes you smile at him fondly, before Jake’s groan interrupts you as he practically cries watching the cricket match on TV.
Jay sits behind you on the couch, starts talking about the history of this game—which only Jungwon pays attention to somehow, and then he stops to observe the room. His gaze drifts from the television screen to the floor, he watches you settle back against the couch cushions, then, his eyes slide to the person sitting next to you.
Sunghoon isn’t watching the match really. Jay watches as Sunghoon stares at the side of your profile for a beat too long. Then, Sunghoon looks down at the bowl in his lap. A small, shy smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, it’s something soft and entirely unguarded. And then, as if his brain has just caught up with what his face is doing, Sunghoon freezes. He just stops moving completely, his smile vanishing into a look of sheer, silent panic.
Jay pauses, his fork hovering halfway to his mouth. He looks at you, completely unbothered, he looks back at Sunghoon, who is currently staring at a piece of macaroni. Jay closes his eyes, he sighs, a long, heavy exhale.
“Oh no.”
STEP TWO: Prolonged realization
It had been four days since you had dinner at Jake’s place, four days since you met Sunghoon, four days since you took Jay’s tupperware as he packed some pasta for you, Jungwon, and your friend Karina.
To be honest, you hadn't expected to see Park Sunghoon again so soon, mostly because Jungwon had reported that he was currently in hibernation to recover from the sheer embarrassment of introducing himself as you. You’d caught glimpses of him on campus, but he was always in a rush somehow with his long strides.
“If you don’t return these,” Jungwon had told you ten minutes ago, dumping the heavy glass tower into your arms, “Jay is going to skin me, like—it’s just tupperware.”
So, here you were, standing in the hallway of the boys’ dorm, smelling faintly of rain and balancing a stack of glass containers, knocking on the door, expecting Jay to open the door, only to find a very cozy looking Sunghoon.
He looked completely different from the guy you’d seen walking around campus. He was wearing a massive gray hoodie and wire-rimmed glasses that were sliding down his nose, and he was holding a piece of peanut butter toast in one hand. He looked soft, sleepy, and very much at home. He blinked at you, clearly surprised, with his cheeks still puffed out from a bite of toast.
“Oh,” he mumbled, swallowing hard, “hi!”
“Hi,” you smiled, adjusting the heavy stack in your arms, “just here to return these, Jay was getting impatient you see. I also made cookies cause it’s not nice to give back empty containers,” you mumbled, eyes on Sunghoon’s moles—they looked pretty.
He stepped forward to help, reaching out with both hands, clearly forgetting the peanut butter toast in his right hand, which slipped and fell on the ground with a wet thwap. Sunghoon stared down at the rug, his shoulders slumping in instant, silent defeat.
“I literally just made that,” he whispered, looking genuinely pained.
“RIP,” you murmured, biting back a laugh at how tragic he looked over a slice of bread, “the five-second rule is a little risky with carpet, though.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, crouching down immediately to peel the sticky mess off the floor, “Jay just vacuumed, too. I’m dead.”
“Here.” You shifted the stack to one hip, crouching down to hand him a tissue from your pocket.
He took the tissue, “thanks,” he mumbled, ears turning red yet again. He stood up, tossing the ruined toast in the bin by the door, then finally turned back to take the heavy stack of containers from you properly. He carefully set the stack on the narrow entryway table. He stared at the top container for a second, seemingly processing the fact that there were actual baked goods inside.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Figured you’d like something other than pasta,” you smiled, cause apparently that’s all what they ate.
“I swear,” Hoon laughed, and it was cute, “it’s usually good but he uses so much basil, and it’s always penne.”
“What’s wrong with penne?”
“I just like fusilli better,” he mumbled, now aware of how he’s making you stand, “wait—do you wanna—like, come in?”
“I would love to, but I have a lecture in—” you checked your phone, “twenty one minutes.”
He frowned for a second before nodding in understanding, “oh yeah, sorry. You should go, we can hang out some other time.” He looked so crestfallen, standing there in his oversized hoodie with his hands tucked into the sleeves, that you couldn’t help yourself. You took a step closer instead of backing away.
“Hey, Sunghoon?”
“Yeah?” He blinked, straightening up, looking at you with those wide, attentive eyes.
“Hold still.”
Before he could ask why, you reached out. His hair was a mess—probably from the hoodie, or maybe he’d been napping before you knocked—and there was a piece sticking straight up in the back like an antenna. Sunghoon froze, he almost stopped breathing as your fingers brushed against his hair, smoothing down the lock. His hair was soft, softer than it looked. You let your hand linger for a split second longer than necessary, your knuckles grazing the shell of his ear.
“Bedhead,” you murmured, pulling your hand back, scrunching your nose with how adorable he looked. Sunghoon didn’t move, simply staring at you as he gulped, his ears turning red (again) that clashed horribly with his gray hoodie.
It was hard for him to keep his mind elsewhere even when you had taken your leave, especially when he tasted those double chocolate chip cookies—moaning with how perfect they were, crispy on the edges and softer in the middle. He was embarrassed, acting like a schoolboy with a crush, but he told himself it wasn’t that, he simply liked you as a person.
So, when he met you again when the group decided to go out for dinner near the campus, he swore he’d be normal around you, maintaining some distance to not embarrass himself any further.
When they arrived at the barbecue spot, the air thick with smoke and chatter, Sunghoon spotted you immediately. You were standing by the entrance with Jungwon and your other friend, laughing at something he said, wearing a simple dress that shouldn’t have looked nearly as good as it did. Don’t stare, he told himself, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. Say hi. Be cool.
“Hey guys,” you beamed as they approached, your eyes landing on him.
“Hey,” Sunghoon managed, keeping his voice painfully neutral. He offered a stiff nod, barely making eye contact before pivoting toward the empty table.
He made a beeline for the corner seat, the one furthest from where he assumed you’d sit. He was halfway there when Jungwon threw his backpack down.
“I’m taking the wall!” Jungwon announced, diving into the booth and dragging Jake with him.
“I need the aisle to grill,” Jay declared, blocking the other side.
Sunghoon froze cause the geometry of the table was rapidly collapsing against him. Karina (your other friend slash roomie) slid in next to Jay. That left one spot—the middle, right next to the aisle. Right next to—
“Can I sit here?” You asked, appearing at his elbow with a grin.
He stiffened, his brain short-circuiting. He hurriedly shimmied into the booth, pressing his thigh against Jake’s so hard that Jake grunted, “dude, personal space.”
“Sorry,” Sunghoon muttered, staring straight ahead at the metal grill.
You slid in beside him, arm brushing against his, the friction sending a jolt straight up his spine. You smelled like vanilla and the rain from earlier, a scent that was quickly becoming his favorite thing to panic over.
“Did you like the cookies?” You asked, eyes shining in hope.
And gosh—he did. He almost forgot about the protein diet he was planning and ate four of your cookies in a go, saving some for later as well. Not to mention how he fought Jake for the last cookie—who was running away teasing Hoon about his newly developed crush, which resulted in Jake being in his chokehold.
“They were really good,” he managed to say sincerely.
“He snatched the cookies from me,” Jake added helpfully, which surprised you pleasantly, much to Hoon’s dismay who didn’t want Jake to open his damn mouth.
You liked it, liked seeing him panic, it made him look like a lost puppy. It was clear how he was trying to avoid more conversations about you, especially since he shoved a piece of meat in Jake’s mouth each time he tried to talk to you, so you focused back on Heeseung and Karina, who were debating about the new albums and rating them.
Even while doing so, your attention kept diverting to Sunghoon and Jay discussing Maillard’s reaction for the perfect cooking of meat. He was so comfortable talking to others, not stuttering once, and he had nice hands, such nice and big and veiny hands—a kick from under the table made you wince, and you looked up to see Karina winking at you, eyes drifting to Sunghoon, which made you roll your eyes, cause sure—he was cute, but he didn’t even wish to talk to you (he just wanted to survive dinner). And somehow, that distracted you more than you’d like to admit. By the time the bill was paid, the night air had cooled down, and Jay insisted on driving you back home, granted you all lived in the dorms.
Sunghoon could see where this was going, especially the way Karina and Jungwon headed to the backseat, Jay took the driver’s seat, Jake naturally opting for the shotgun, which left you, Heeseung, and Sughoon in the middle seating area. Heeseung didn’t bother waiting, sliding in and putting his headphones on. That left the middle seat and the seat closest to the door.
“After you,” Sunghoon said, his voice a little tight. He held the door open, gesturing for you to climb in.
You slid into the middle seat, settling against the upholstery. Sunghoon hesitated for a fraction of a second, staring at the empty space beside you before he finally climbed in and pulled the door shut. With Heeseung passed out against the far window and Jake shouting at the radio in the front, the back seat felt like a private, terrifyingly intimate bubble, more so when Jake decided they should take a detour and take a longer ride.
Jay pulled out of the parking lot, and the car merged into the evening traffic, and by traffic, it was practically a congestion, which made you groan considering how sleepy you felt, “I hate this intersection, it’s always a mess I swear.”
Sunghoon cleared his throat, “the civil engineers set the green light duration for the turn lane too short relative to the main avenue’s volume honestly. It creates a bottleneck every time the cycle resets. If they just added four seconds to the north-bound signal, this entire congestion would clear in no time.”
You looked at him, his skin shining under the dim lights, “you figured that out by just looking at it?”
He just shrugged, wondering if he should have let his mouth shut, cause you probably think he’s even more of a nerd now.
“You know,” you said, a soft smile tugging at your lips, “you’re actually really smart, Sunghoon.”
That actually hit him hard, he expected you to call him a nerd, instead, you were looking at him with genuine admiration, your eyes reflecting the passing city lights. He opened his mouth to respond, but his brain stalled. He settled for a strangled nod, quickly turning his face toward the window to hide the fact that his neck was rapidly heating up. The rest of the ride was a blur of brake lights and the rhythmic thump-thump of the windshield wipers. The warmth of the car, combined with the heavy meal, eventually pulled you under. As Jay navigated the final turn toward the dorms, your head lulled to the side, landing softly on Sunghoon’s shoulder.
He went rigid instantly, he stopped breathing actually. He didn’t move a single muscle, not even to adjust his arm which was starting to go numb from the angle. If he didn't like you, he would have politely nudged you awake or shifted away. Instead, he sat there, a statue in a damp hoodie, terrified that even a single exhale would disturb you, staring at how pretty you looked even as you slept, so comfortable around him.
He wanted to kiss you, he wished to kiss your forehead, and that should have been the sign, but he didn’t, opting to stare like a lovesick puppy who couldn’t admit he was catching feelings. It wasn’t really convenient how he wondered if you’d be just as perfect under him, would you curl up? Pull him closer? Would you want him to touch you?
And he kept on acting like an invisible man after, simply because you woke up and thanked him with that pretty smile of yours, and if it were to get any further Sunghoon swore he would not be able to survive it, not when all his friends were whistling at the fact that Sunghoon could pull someone even with his endearing loser ways.
The invisible act stayed for long, leading to the mid semester exams, which meant that Sunghoon had successfully managed to keep it together for nearly two months since that night, which made him feel proud for handling it so well, or so he thought, until the night before the final major midterm.
The library doors swung open, revealing a torrential downpour, making the group groan in unison—except for Sunghoon, who had checked three different weather apps and was clutching a sturdy black umbrella.
Logic dictated he open it. Logic dictated he offer to walk you to your dorm, sharing the small space under the canopy. But Sunghoon looked at you, shivering in your oversized sweater, and his brain supplied a vivid image of your shoulders brushing for ten whole minutes, so well, panic overrode survival instincts.
“Here,” he blurted out, shoving the umbrella handle into your chest, “cover Jungwon and Karina, It’s big enough for the group.”
“What? Sunghoon, wait—”
“I have to run!” He announced, his voice cracking.
Before you could argue, he turned and sprinted into the deluge, instantly soaking his hoodie as he splashed through the puddles while Jay and Jake watched with absolute disbelief on their faces, staring at each other and sighing, agreeing that Hoon was indeed down bad, and even worse at pretending to be normal about it.
Behind you, Jungwon watched Sunghoon’s retreating figure, then looked at you as you immediately popped the umbrella open and bolted after him, leaving the rest of the group dry but abandoned.
“Idiots in denial,” Jungwon muttered, shaking his head as he pulled his jacket over his head, “I hate it here.”
Sunghoon made it halfway across the quad before the rain stopped hitting him. He skid to a halt, chest heaving, and looked up to see the black umbrella hovering over his head. He turned slowly to find you standing there, slightly out of breath and holding the umbrella over him, your own shoulder getting wet in the process.
“You are ridiculous, Park Sunghoon,” you laughed, though your eyes were soft, “who runs in the rain to avoid sharing an umbrella?”
Sunghoon stared at you, and god you were close, you were wet. You were smiling at him like he was the only person in the world. He was absolutely, irrevocably doomed as you walked him to the dorms, when he insisted on dropping you first, which he did.
What he didn’t expect was the hug you gave him, “thanks Hoon,” you’d mumbled into his ear, god you smelled so good, you were so warm, and fit perfectly into his hug, smiling brightly before heading inside without any care of Jungwon and Karina.
The hug, the smile, the way you used his nickname—yeah, Sunghoon wasn’t sure how he was still breathing, and it was comical how he stood there for five minutes even after you’d gone inside, poor man was broken, and now there wasn’t any room for denial.
Later that night, shivering in his dorm room and wrapped in three blankets, Sunghoon stared at his ceiling with wide, terrified eyes. He fished his laptop out of his bag and typed with trembling fingers:
WikiHow: How to flirt with a pretty girl (with pictures).
STEP THREE: Establish eye contact (like a normal person)
Sunghoon thought he was safe, that closing his laptop’s lid was enough when he went out to get some water before taking a shower, but boy he couldn’t have been more wrong. He walked into the living room with a towel still around his waist after the shower, only to find Heeseung staring at a MacBook with intense focus, but wait—was that his MacBook? Of fucking course, Jay and Jake were there as well, shoulders shaking with silent, violent laughter. Sunghoon froze in the doorway, water dripping from his hair onto the carpet, witnessing the exact moment his social life turned into a tragedy.
“Is that—is that a step-by-step guide?” Jake wheezed, tears streaming down his face as he pointed a trembling finger at the screen.
Heeseung cleared his throat, reading from the screen like a news anchor, “WikiHow: How to flirt with a pretty girl. With pictures. It says here: Smile to show you are approachable.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Sunghoon yelled, his voice cracking two octaves. He lunged across the room, nearly losing his towel, but Jay blocked his path with a shit-eating grin.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Jay sighed, shaking his head with mock sympathy, “Jungwon will kill you.”
Sunghoon froze, the color draining from his face, “wait, why?”
“Cause he likes Y/N,” Heeseung said, keeping his face perfectly straight.
“He what now?” Sunghoon whispered, his voice barely audible.
“Yeah,” Jake added, nodding solemnly, “they’re in love. Haven’t you noticed? The bickering? It’s their thing.”
Sunghoon looked like he had just been shot in the chest. His shoulders slumped, his lips parted in shock, and he stared at the floor with such profound, soul-shattering devastation that the room went silent for a full second. He looked small, wet, and utterly defeated, all while being in his towel, abs out and everything.
“Oh my god,” Jay burst out laughing, hitting Heeseung’s arm, “we’re kidding! You can’t even be jealous without looking like a kicked puppy.”
Sunghoon scoffed, eyes teary, his soul slowly returning to his body as the realization hit, “I hate you, all of you,” he hissed, snatching his laptop and fleeing to the safety of his locked room.
He didn’t know if it would work, but he wished to try anyway, no more running away, which is why he opened the MacBook yet again to go over the steps, preparing himself for the first one, sighing and smiling over the fact that you and Jungwon weren’t actually dating, but that didn’t mean you’d be single for too long, hence, he needs to start step one right after the exams are done. Just like that, Hoon was more focused on the plan rather than the exam, but he was pretty sure he aced it anyway, what he lacked was practical skills, not theory.
The exams came and went, leaving everyone with varying degrees of sleep deprivation, and a desperate need for greasy food. Which is how, mere hours after the final paper was submitted, you all found yourselves crammed into a sticky booth at the campus pub for the weekly Tuesday Trivia Night. You were sitting directly across from Sunghoon, stealing fries from Jungwon’s plate while arguing about the best Mario Kart track (toad harbour). Sunghoon, however, wasn’t listening. He was mentally rehearsing. He had spent the last three days memorizing Step 1: Make Eye Contact.
The article said: Lock eyes with her for a few seconds to show you’re interested. Don’t look away first. Be bold.
He took a deep breath, gripped his pint glass until his knuckles turned white, and initiated the sequence. He looked at you while you were laughing at something Jake said, your head thrown back, looking effortless and bright against the dim pub lighting. Sunghoon locked on, staring with intense focus. You paused, a fry hovering halfway to your mouth, sensing the weight of his gaze. You blinked, confused, but Sunghoon didn’t look away. Hold the gaze, his brain screamed, assert dominance.
“Hoon?” You asked, using the nickname again.
Sunghoon didn’t answer, he couldn’t, he was too busy counting the seconds. Then, you did the one thing WikiHow hadn’t really prepared him for, you didn’t look away shyly, rather, you leaned in.
You placed your elbows on the sticky table and leaned forward, bringing your face alarmingly close to his, a playful smirk dancing on your lips.
“You’re staring, Park,” you lowered your voice, teasing him, “and here I thought you were ignoring me.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he blurted, maintaining that eye contact, “it’s kind of hard—to ignore you.”
The playful smirk dropped from your face as you blinked, caught off guard by the sudden honesty in his tone, which was needed especially when you did spend a gracious amount of time complaining to Karina about how you shouldn’t have hugged Sunghoon cause he had started ignoring you. He wasn’t stuttering now, wasn’t looking elsewhere, just into your eyes—which he finds really pretty.
“Oh,” you breathed, the teasing edge now vanished, leaning back as you felt the faint heat creeping up your neck, matching his own.
“Okay, question one!” The host bellowed, successfully helping Sunghoon escape the situation.
Sunghoon exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He had survived Step 1, but he was pretty sure he’d lost a few years of his life in the process. Then the game started, and Sunghoon forgot about the steps entirely, he just watched you. You were a force of nature, especially when the category switched to 2000s Pop Culture, you were unstoppable.
“Shrek 2!” You yelled before the host finished the quote.
“Correct!”
You high-fived Jake so hard the table shook, and Sunghoon wished he was there instead of Jake. You were competitive, loud, and brilliant. Sunghoon didn’t answer a single question, he just sat there, nursing his drink, tracking your every movement. He watched the way you bit your lip when you were thinking, and the way your eyes crinkled shut when you laughed at Jake’s wrong answers, who was way too competitive for his own good.
“Ouagadougou!” You shouted for the geography round, slamming your hand on the table.
“How do you know everything?” Jungwon asked, looking at you with mild horror.
“I have a brain, Won,” you winked, shooting a glance across the table at Sunghoon, “see? We won.”
Sunghoon felt his heart do a traitorous little flip. He didn’t look away this time. He just smiled, a small, unguarded thing.
Sunghoon processed this as you all started hugging each other, victory being too sweet not to, and he waited patiently, not sure if you would even hug him, but he did stand up with flushed cheeks when you appeared in front of him, the height difference painfully apparent now, he had to look down, his dark hair falling over his eyes, while you had to tilt your head back to meet his gaze. Without overthinking it, you reached out and pulled him into a hug.
He turned into a literal pillar for a microsecond before the realization hit. Then, slowly, his arms wound around you, hesitant at first, then firm, pulling you into the warmth of his chest, and you could hear how fast his heart was beating as you leaned in, your chin resting on his shoulder. The noise of the pub—the clinking glasses, Jake’s loud laughter, the trivia host’s drone—all felt miles away.
You let your hand slide up from his shoulder, your fingers grazing the soft hair at the nape of his neck. His breath hitched, a sharp, audible sound that told you exactly how much effect you were having, and you didn’t mind, simply saying, “don’t be a stranger anymore, Hoonie.”
The nickname did it for him, and he practically shuddered under your touch, his knees actually buckling for a split second. He buried his face in the crook of your neck to hide the fact that his entire face was burning, inhaling sharply. He smelled like mango for some reason, and expensive cologne, but he was more focused on your scent.
“I won’t,” he rasped against your skin, “I promise.”
He held on for a second longer than intended, his fingers digging into the fabric of your sweater as if he were afraid you’d disappear if he let go. When you finally pulled back, stepping out of his personal space with a lingering smile, the loss of warmth hit him as he frowned. You waved at the group and walked out the door with Karina, who was more than ready to gossip about what had just happened, leaving the bell chiming in your wake.
Sunghoon stood frozen in the middle of the pub, his hand instinctively coming up to touch the back of his neck exactly where your fingers had been. He stared at the closed door for a full minute, unable to move, unable to think, his brain reduced to white noise and the echo of Hoonie.
“He’s broken,” Jake announced, waving a hand in front of Sunghoon’s unblinking eyes, “which is fair though, he got called Hoonie.”
“Did you hear that voice crack?” Jay snickered.
Sunghoon didn’t even hear them, just letting out a long, shaky exhale, his legs finally giving out as he collapsed back into the booth, burying his face in his hands.
“You really are like Nobita, just smarter when it comes to studies,” Jake let out as Sunghoon glared at him.
“And Jungwon can be Doremon,” Heeseung laughed, “round head and all, y’know?”
“Shouldn’t WikiHow be his Doremon though?” Jay asked looking at Jungwon who found the comment highly offensive.
“WikiHow?” He asked, and Jay told him the backstory, which had this man laughing like crazy, “Oh, I’m so telling this to Y/N.”
Now, that grabbed Hoon’s attention, who simply grabbed Jungwon and picked him up effortlessly despite him thrashing around—it was a funny sight, Hoon holding him up like a cat, “you wont tell her anything,” he warned, and for the first time he realised the strength of this man.
“Yeah, forgot to tell you he’s strong behind his loser persona,” Heeseung added.
Either way, Sunghoon was in trouble, because he couldn’t sleep that night, and neither could Jungwon, who was contemplating joining gym now.
Hoon spent all night trying to plan his next step, and now he was prepared, he just had to find you.
STEP FOUR: Love is an open door—open it wider.
You were sitting with Karina at the campus coffee shop, finally resting after the exams were over, and right then your brows furrowed as you overheard two girls talking. Now, you weren’t one to eavesdrop, however, they were talking about Sunghoon—granting someone the best pleasure of their life? But he was with the whole group last night, so what’s that even about? Karina was listening as well, genuinely concerned at the very obvious made up story.
“What is going on?” You asked Karina, and she shrugged.
“He has this reputation of being this mysterious fuckboy, and people believe it cause no one really is close to him, she’s faking it all,” she replied, sipping her iced coffee.
“Woah, what the fuck?” You scoffed, “have they even seen how he looks like a puppy who’s always confused?”
“Yeah, they obviously don’t know that—but hey, he could be wild in the sheets, we don’t know that.”
You thought for a second, wondering if it could be true, because to you, Sunghoon seemed so sweet, almost like he’d be the softest, most loving man ever. But—you do wish to know what he was behind those oversized hoodies and shy smiles.
One of the girls smirked, going on about it, “no literally, he was wild last night, he’s got a big cock, and boy he knows exactly how to use it.”
You choked on your doughnut, Karina was amused seeing you like this, even more when the shop bell chimed, “damn, speak of the devil—and is he wearing Prada?”
You turned around, wiping sugar off your lip, and sure enough, there he was. Sunghoon stood in the doorway, clad in a long, structured trench coat over a sleek turtleneck, looking like he’d stepped straight off a runway (yeah, you wanted him in your bed now). The entire coffee shop seemed to dim in his presence. The two girls behind you gasped, clutching each other’s arms.
“He’s looking,” one whispered frantically, “act natural.”
Sunghoon, however, wasn’t looking at them, scanning the room to find you, and he paused when he did. If Jake was there, he would practically see the WikiHow page loading in his brain—Step 2: Smile and be approachable. He tried to soften his face, but the nerves got the better of him. Instead of a gentle, welcoming smile, he pulled his lips back in a stiff, terrifyingly symmetrical grimace that made him look like he was bracing for an impact. He held the expression as he walked toward the counter to order his coffee as you sat there, confused.
“Is he okay?” You asked.
“Don’t know, he’s always like that around you,” she said, and that made you smile—getting a weird glance from Karina.
Sunghoon grabbed his iced Americano, took a deep breath to reset his expression, and walked over. He stopped in front of you, looking slightly thrown off by Karina’s presence, but he played it cool.
“Oh,” he said, his voice dropping to a smooth, feigned nonchalance, “fancy seeing you here.”
He absolutely did not mention that he had asked Jungwon for your location, and Jungwon absolutely didn’t mention that you weren’t alone.
He looked like he was about to retreat to a corner to brood over his failed smile, but you weren’t about to let that happen. Not with the rumor mill churning behind you.
“Hoon, wait,” you said, reaching out to snag the belt of his coat, tugging him closer.
Sunghoon froze, stumbling a step forward, looking down at you with wide, confused eyes, “y—yeah?”
“You look absolutely exhausted,” you said, pitching your voice just loud enough for the table behind you to hear. You reached up, brushing a stray lock of hair off his forehead, letting your fingers linger against his skin, and he wasn’t functioning anymore, that touch sending a shiver down his body and stopping right on his cock.
He fucking loved it when you touched him, your fingers were so gentle, so soft on his skin, and maybe you did like him—that’s why you pulled him closer, right? He looked at you with wide eyes, dropping down to your lipgloss painted lips, which looked too inviting.
“Tired from last night?” You asked, granting him a smile.
He almost fainted, cause it sounded as if you knew he was up all night staring at your photos from instagram, rolling around on his bed with a genuine smile. But how could you know that? So he simply nodded, thinking (hoping) you were referring to Trivia night.
“Yeah, I mean—it did go on for a while, and you were amazing,” he nodded, leaning into your touch instinctively, praying his best to sound normal.
Behind him, the girls inhaled sharply, their imaginations clearly running wild. You smirked, knowing they were picturing a scandalous night while you were actually thinking about him being zoned out for most of the night, paying attention to the winning part only.
“You kept up yknow? That’s impressive too,” you added helpfully even though he had not said a word during the trivia, patting his chest, not knowing how the poor man was suffering—in a good way, “you should rest, we were up really late.”
“I—yeah, it was worth it,” he said, looking down on the floor.
Karina was shaking her head with the biggest smile on her face, turning back to see the girls talking in hushed voices.
You chuckled, “okay, you should go rest now, bye Hoonie!”
He nodded, trying to give you another smile that looked very—uh, scary? But he left, not having it in him to actually stay and talk when there was an audience (Karina), he kicked the random stones on the path as he walked and sat in the Uni park, unsure what had even happened.
“You are a menace,” Karina whispered when he was gone.
“I’m just clarifying things,” you winked, taking a bite of your doughnut as the girls behind you sat in stunned, jealous silence as you both gathered your things and started walking towards the dorms.
It was then when you spotted Sunghoon sitting alone, and you stopped, “I’ll catch you later,” you told her, and she followed your gaze, smirking at how obviously dumb the both of you were.
“Try not to break him this time, hm? Go get him, tiger,” she patted your back and you rolled your eyes, heading towards him, watching him tap his foot to some rhythm, staring ahead blankly.
You slid onto the bench next to him, nudging his knee with yours. Sunghoon jumped, his head snapping toward you. When he registered it was you, he immediately smiled, he had dressed up as well, granted WikiHow did say to dress up nicely and smell good, for which he ended up going to Jay for his perfume collection. He tried to smile, he really did, but he looked so endearingly awkward, you couldn’t help but laugh at him.
“Hoon, please,” you wheezed, reaching up to pull one side of his earpods away from his ear, “what are you doing?”
Sunghoon’s face crumbled instantly, the smile dropping into a pout of genuine despair. He slumped back against the bench, looking miserable.
“I’m trying to be approachable,” he groaned, his voice low and defeated. “I heard that I look mean when I’m thinking. I didn’t want you to think I was—I don’t know, unapproachable.”
“You are unapproachable,” you pointed out, stealing the headphone cup you’d pulled off his ear and holding it to your own, “but that’s because you are handsome.”
“Huh—what—”
You didn’t let him think much as you paused, grinning slightly, “wait. Are you listening to—is this Disney?"
Sunghoon froze. He snatched the EarPod back, his cheeks flushing, “no,” he lied immediately, “It’s—hard rock. Heavy metal, yeah.”
“Sunghoon,” you grinned, leaning into his space, “that was definitely love is an open door from Frozen.”
You didn’t give him a chance to come up with another lie. You just smiled, leaned back against the bench as you grabbed the airpod yet again, wearing it, and you started singing early knowing he’d malfunction.
“I mean it’s crazy—”
Sunghoon froze, he stared at you, his mouth slightly agape. He looked around the park to see if anyone was watching, then looked back at you. You raised an eyebrow, challenging him. You knew he couldn’t leave a verse unfinished. It was against his nature, even if he had to sing the female verse of it.
“What?” he whispered, the word slipping out involuntarily.
You grinned, leaning closer, your shoulder pressing against his, “we finish each other’s—”
Sunghoon’s eyes darted between your lips and your eyes, he fought it. You could see the physical struggle on his face as he tried to maintain his cool, but the music was swelling, and you were looking at him with that expectant, teasing light in your eyes.
“Sandwiches!” He blurted out, perfectly on beat.
You gasped, delighted, placing a hand over your heart. “That’s what I was gonna say!”
Sunghoon let out a defeated, incredulous laugh, but he didn’t stop—he couldn’t. The two of you sat on the park bench, huddled together over a pair of earpods, quietly harmonizing the chorus while a squirrel watched judgmentally from a nearby tree.
“Our mental synchronization,” he sang, looking at you with a gaze that was too obvious, but you didn’t catch it, “can have but one explanation.”
“You,” you sang, pointing a finger at him.
“And I,” he sang, pointing back, a small, genuine smile breaking through his embarrassment.
“Were just meant to be,” you both finished in unison.
Sunghoon let the final note hang in the air before he slumped forward, burying his face in his hands again. His ears were burning a bright crimson, “I can’t believe I just did that,” he groaned into his palms, “I’m wearing a trench coat. I’m supposed to be cool.”
“You’re cool,” you said as he smiled, which made you stop, “hey, you have fangs,” you pointed it out and he got conscious, “don’t hide, your smile is pretty,” you mumbled, and he breathed out, smiling just for you, not thinking this time, as you leaned against his arm.
If Hoon thought yesterday was the best day of his life, he was wrong, cause with how carefree he felt with you in the moment, he swears this is the best day of his life.
Step: Smile at her—successful.
STEP FIVE: Be a hero (by using your crush as a human shield).
You had been smiling way too much lately, and it irritated Jungwon, who was having a shitty day with how his favourite hoodie went missing, how his headphones stopped working, and how he dropped his cupcake on the floor. He glared at you through it all, “stop smiling for fucks sake,” he mumbled.
“Oh shut up, Doremon,” you teased, as Jake had told you about the whole Nobita-Doremon conversation, minus the WikiHow part, while gaming with you. You were disappointed to see the absence of Hoon that day as he had lectures, but that didn’t compare to his disappointment.
He fell down on the floor (it really happened, no exaggeration) when he learned that you had left just ten minutes before he arrived back at the dorm, it was as if he was facing withdrawals of your absence, not having seen you since that day in the park. And of course, he was not confident enough to actually text you. Yes, he had your number from the groupchat, but that was about it. Now, he couldn’t wait much longer as he sat down to actually plan the next step, which was breaking the touch barrier. He actively ignored Jake teasing him about how you were wearing a skirt (which you definitely wore in hopes of seeing him, but oh well), and how you looked so pretty.
Sunghoon rolled into his stomach, pulling his phone out to garner more ideas, and he settled on one which seemed to be the most natural—use a scary movie night as an excuse, hold her when she gets scared, be her protector. He wasn’t fond of it (horror movies), but he believed it was the only way to go on about it, which is why he opened the group chat and started typing, swallowing hard.
He hated horror movies, the last time he watched The Conjuring, he slept with Jay and Jake, who couldn’t really complain, being equally scared, but then, he imagined you—scared and pretty, leaning into him for protection, and he was sold.
Sunghoon: movie night, ill buy pizzas
Jay: ?
Jake: you hate paying bro??
Hee: free pizza i’m in
Jungwon: oh you’re down to this now
Karina: dw ill bring Y/N along
You: sounds like fun, can’t wait :3
Sunghoon threw his phone across the bed, giggling into the pillow, and Jay stared at him from the half opened door, unimpressed at the view of his friend giggling like a schoolgirl, “please control yourself,” he mumbled.
Sunghoon screamed, throwing the pillow his way, “personal space i swear, knock before you come in!”
“You’re cleaning that up,” Jay deadpanned, watching the pillow slide sadly down the wall, “and fix your face. You look insane.”
Three hours later, the dorm living room had been curated better as Sunghoon had dimmed the lights and gathered the pizza boxes.
He was wearing a grey fitted tshirt because WikiHow said grey was a soft, inviting color. He was ready. When the door opened, it was chaos. Jake and Heeseung were already on the sofa, arguing about pineapple on pizza, Jungwon was complaining about the stairs, and Karina was dragging you inside.
“Hi, Hoon!” You beamed, spotting him instantly, you were wearing an oversized graphic tee and the skirt, oh that skirt, looking comfortable and devastatingly pretty.
Sunghoon’s brain short-circuited, “pizza,” he blurted out, pointing at the table, “I mean, hi. There’s pizza.”
“Smooth,” Heeseung whispered as he walked past, patting Sunghoon’s shoulder.
The seating arrangement was a battlefield, but Sunghoon had strategized. He maneuvered Heeseung to the armchair, shoved Jungwon and Karina to the beanbags, and left the sofa for the core trio: Jake on the far end, you in the middle, and himself rightfully claiming the spot on your right.
“So,” Jake asked, grabbing a slice of pepperoni. unimpressed at how Hoon was behaving, “what are we watching?”
Sunghoon took a deep breath. This was it—the ultimate sacrifice.
“The Grudge,” he announced, trying to keep his voice an octave lower than usual.
Jake froze mid-chew, looking at Sunghoon, then at the TV, then back at Sunghoon with wide, betrayed eyes, “bro, are you serious? You slept with the hallway light on for a week after we watched the trailer.”
“I did not! That was you,” Sunghoon lied through his teeth, grabbing the remote to stop Jake from exposing him further, “I crave the thrill now.”
You looked at him, impressed, leaning back into the cushions so your shoulder brushed against his, “woah, really? I love horror movies. I didn’t know you were brave like that, Hoon.”
Sunghoon preened under your praise, ignoring the way his heart was doing gymnastics, “I’m full of surprises.”
He pressed play, and the room plunged into heavy silence that only horror movies can manufacture, Sunghoon sat rigid, his spine glued to the cushions, his eyes locked on the screen, but his entire awareness was tunneled on you—tracking the way you absentmindedly chewed on the crust of your pizza, the way you leaned back, looking frustratingly calm, while his own heart was doing gymnastics against his ribs. Ten minutes in, the tension was unbearable, the protagonist walking down a dark, rotting hallway while the violins shrieked in that nausea-inducing crescendo, and Sunghoon’s palms were slick with sweat, his brain screaming at him to look away, but he couldn't, not when he had a mission.
Wait for the scare, wait for the flinch, be the fucking rock. Suddenly, the ghost appeared, a pale, contorted face filling the screen with a deafening, wet shriek.
“Ahhhhhh!”
A scream tore through the room, high and terrified—but it wasn’t you? It was Jake, who launched himself sideways, burying his face directly into your shoulder and clutching your arm like it was the last life raft on the Titanic.
“Turn it off! Turn it the fuck off! She’s gonna get me!” Jake wailed, vibrating with fear, effectively using you as a human shield against the fictional spirit.
You laughed, startled but amused, patting Jake’s head with fondness, “It’s just a jump scare, Jakey, breathe.”
Sunghoon sat frozen, his arm halfway raised in a pathetic imitation of a yawn, staring at the scene in absolute horror, because that was his shoulder, that was his moment, that was his Step 3 crumbling to dust before his eyes because his best friend had zero dignity. He glared at the top of Jake’s head, jealousy flaring hot and bright in his chest, a burning indignation that momentarily eclipsed his fear of the vengeful ghost.
“Get off her,” Sunghoon gritted out, voice laced with venom.
Jake lifted his head, eyes wide and teary, looking like a puppy, “shut up.”
“You’re crushing her,” Sunghoon lied through his teeth, reaching over to peel Jake’s fingers off your arm with surprising strength, his jaw tight, “sit up, Jake, have some self-respect, be a man.”
“You’re just jealous I got the safe spot,” Jake sniffled, retreating to the corner of the couch but keeping a hand on your sleeve just in case, pouting, and you chuckled, hiding your smile from Sunghoon.
Sunghoon bristled, turning back to the screen, determined to reclaim the moment, because the movie was building up to the next scare, the ghost crawling down the stairs with wet, cracking sounds that made his skin crawl. He lifted his arm yet again, fingers trembling slightly because he needed to be smooth, but he was scared.
And on the screen, the ghost lunched right at the camera, and well, Sunghoon didn’t just scream, he fucking broke. Instead of casually putting an arm around you, he let out a strangled yelp and instinctively yanked you toward him, burying his face into the crook of your neck and wrapping both arms around you in a crushing embrace.
Silence filled the room, heavy and awkward, broken only by the screaming on the TV and Sunghoon’s heavy, erratic breathing against your collarbone.
You sat there, stunned, your face pressed against the soft cotton of Sunghoon’s t-shirt. You could smell his detergent—clean linen and something distinctly him—and feel the way his heart was hammering against your chest, the rhythm so fast it made your own pulse skip a beat. Butterflies erupted in your stomach, not from the fear of the movie, but from the sudden, overwhelming warmth of him surrounding you, his arms holding you like he never planned to let go—and of course, he had well defined muscles, you could feel it.
Jake paused his panic to look at Sunghoon, Jungwon stopped eating mid-chew, and Karina raised a judgmental eyebrow from the beanbag.
“Hoonie?” You whispered, your voice muffled against his chest, trying to ignore the heat rising in your cheeks.
Sunghoon froze as the realization crashed down on him—he was hugging you. He was practically hiding in your neck and everyone was watching. He had failed Step 3 in the most spectacular way possible, yet—you felt so warm. You fit so perfectly against him—and it made him want to bite you? Abort, abort, abort. He slowly pulled his face away from your neck, but he didn’t let go of the hug, he looked down at you with wide, panicked eyes, his ears burning (again), searching your face for rejection.
“I—I got you,” he stammered, his voice cracking, trying to look heroic while his hands still trembled on your back, “I thought—I thought you were going to jump, so I—uh held you.”
Everyone was baffled, and wondering how you even entertained Sunghoon through his outbursts, but they found fun in it, watching it unfold like some sitcom.
“Held me?” You repeated, eyebrows shooting up, though the amusement dancing in your eyes was soft, not mocking, “by trying to merge our ribcages?”
“It was a reflex,” he insisted, though the thought seemed wildly nice, before looking around the room, refusing to make eye contact with Jake, who was now grinning wickedly, “don’t overthink it.”
“I think he’s using you as a teddy bear,” Jungwon deadpanned from the floor, throwing a piece of popcorn at Sunghoon’s leg.
“Shut up,” Sunghoon hissed, but he tightened his arms around you just a fraction, pulling you back down so your head rested on his chest, “i’m protecting her. Look away.”
You didn’t pull away. Instead, you shifted closer until you were comfortably tucked against his side, listening to the rapid thumping of his heart slowing down to a steady, comforting rhythm. You wrapped an arm around his waist, grounding him, feeling the tension slowly leave his frame.
“It’s okay, my brave protector,” you whispered, looking up so your breath tickled his chin, “keep me safe.”
Sunghoon swallowed hard, resting his chin on top of your head, his face still burning. He stared straight ahead at the terrifying screen, absolutely petrified of the ghost, but thinking that maybe, just maybe, failing step 3 was better than succeeding.
Because for the rest of the movie, he didn’t let go of you once, and every time you shifted, his hold only grew gentler, more possessive, and infinitely more real.
STEP SIX: Texting builds character
“You know—I don’t get it, it feels like mixed signals,” you sighed and Karina was baffled.
“What mixed signals? You’re as blind as him I swear,” she mumbles, shaking her head, “you both get such good grades but can’t navigate life, even if you’re a bit better at hiding your dumbass thoughts.”
“Aw thanks for the support,” you gasped in fake sweetness before sitting down next to her and sighing, “one second we are hugging and the other—radio silence, what even is going on?”
Karina sighed, finally glancing at you with a pitying look, “he’s just a guy. And guys are stupid. You look like a sad Victorian woman waiting for her husband to return from war.”
“Shut up,” you groaned.
“Make him jealous, maybe he’ll act up again and confess for real,” she shrugged.
“Confess? Girl I don’t think he sees me that way, definitely just a friend.”
Karina couldn’t believe her ears, but she couldn’t be mean when you looked like a puppy now, just like Sunghoon. It was crazy how similar you both were, yet so different, but yes, you shared that same dumbness of not acknowledging the basic emotions you harboured.
So when you got a text from Sunghoon, you were surprised, rushing into your room before Jungwon could comment on the odd look on your face.
Meanwhile, Sunghoon sat in the library with his textbooks wide open, but he hadn’t read a word in twenty minutes. Instead, he was staring at his phone, his thumb hovering over the delete text button. On his laptop, hidden behind a PDF of organic chemistry notes (his elective), was the tab:
WikiHow: How to Flirt Over Text
Step 1: Be playful. Send a meme that relates to a shared interest or a current mood. Humor lowers defenses.
He had agonized over the image for ten minutes. Was it too weird? Too try-hard? He needed something that said I’m thinking about you without actually admitting that he was, indeed, obsessively thinking about you. He swallowed hard, his heart doing a nervous rhythm against his ribs. Just calm down, Park. It’s a meme, not a marriage proposal (might as well have been a marriage proposal for him).
On the other hand, you had thrown yourself onto your bed, buried yourself under the duvet to block out the world (and Jungwon, who was loudly gaming in the next room), and opened the chat to find a blurry, low-res picture of Psyduck clutching its head, eyes wide in some sort of existential horror.
Hoonie: me looking at this chem assignment rn
A laugh bubbled up in your chest. It was so stupid, so random, and so him.
You: pleaseee
You: that is literally you
You: drama queen
Hoonie: wow
Hoonie: im suffering and this is the support i get?
Hoonie: fake friend
It physically pained him to even type the word, however, the guide did say to start off slow, so here he was, biting his lip as he saw you typing, wondering if you’ll play along or be offended.
You: i’m a great friend btw
You: i’m manifesting good grades for u from my bed
Three dots appeared for you, bubbling, then stopping, then bubbling again.
Hoonie: must be nice to be resting
Hoonie: im starving actually
You stared at the screen, wondering if this conversation was going where you thought it was going cause he was starving, and well, you were starving (always).
You: same tbh
You: i would kill for boba rn
The typing bubble appeared for a long time, then it disappeared. A moment later, an audio file appeared.
Hoonie: [Voice Message 0:08]
You fumbled to hit play, holding the phone pressed tight against your ear.
The background noise of the library was faint—the rustle of pages, a distant cough—but his voice was right there, as if he was whispering directly into the mic so the others wouldn’t hear. The intimacy of it sent a shiver down your spine.
“I’m practically dead here. I was gonna sneak out to that boba place near the campus—the one that’s still open? You should come. Save me from this chemistry nightmare.”
There was a pause, a small intake of breath, and then a softer, rather shy admission, “I’ll pay.”
Your heart slammed against your ribcage, because he wasn’t just texting, he was asking you out, at 11 PM, to get bubble tea. This was it, maybe he was trying to signal directly for the first time. You bit your lip to stop the grin spreading across your face and started typing furiously.
You: deal. give me 10 mins i’m com—
Ping.
Another text popped up before you could hit send.
Hoonie: jake and jay are coming too
Hoonie: so yeah group thing, you can invite won and rina
Hoonie: ill be waiting
Your thumbs froze over the keyboard. The cursor blinked at the end of your unfinished sentence, of fucking course, it was a group thing. The excitement drained out of you like water from a cracked cup. It went from a date to a hangout in the span of three seconds.
Sunghoon stared at his phone, horror dawning on his face. He dropped his forehead onto the library table with a dull thud.
“You idiot,” he whispered to the wood grain, talking to himself, “why did you invite Jake? Jake hates tapioca pearls.”
He had panicked. The voice note had felt too intimate, way too real. The WikiHow guide had a warning in bold red text—don’t come on too strong or you’ll scare her off. In a split second of terror that you might say no, he had used Jake and Jay as some human shields. Now, staring at the chat, he realized he had ruined it.
Beside him, Jake looked up from his laptop, looking at the groupchat where Jungwon had confirmed that he’ll be joining (you had asked him and Rina in a grumpy tone), your supposed date now turning into the usual hangout.
“Bro, did you just invite us to get boba? I thought we were grinding until midnight?”
Sunghoon didn’t reply, simply standing up and grabbing Jake by the hoodie, as he dragged him into a—headlock.
“Ow! What the hell?” Jake yelped.
Meanwhile, you were staring at the text, contemplating throwing your phone across the room, when another notification popped up.
Jay 🦅 sent an image.
You frowned and opened it. It was a blurry, candid photo taken in the library. In the foreground, Sunghoon had Jake in a chokehold. Sunghoon’s face was buried in his arm, his ears bright red, looking equal parts frustrated and miserable. Jake looked like a flailing hostage.
Jay 🦅: hoon is having a breakdown idk
Rina: do i even ask if he’s okay anymore
Hee: click more pics, ill need those
Jun-gone: ,, why?
Hee: science
You stared at the photo, at Sunghoon’s red ears and frustrated posture. The disappointment in your chest loosened, replaced by a sudden, warm laugh. So he had panicked. You grabbed your hoodie, the smile back on your face.
Sunghoon groaned, because this step had failed, miserably so.
STEP SEVEN: Turn your failures into wins.
The universe probably hated you, or maybe you were just dumb enough not to check in with Jake about Sunghoon’s availability in their dorms, cause somehow you found yourself there with a plan to game with the boys, Karina and Jungwon had joined in as well, which means everyone was there—everyone but Sunghoon.
“He’s at the library,” Jake had said, waving a controller dismissively as he selected a track on Mario Kart, “something about his thermodynamics assignment or whatever. I think he just forgot we were hanging out.”
So, you gamed. You played round after round, fueling yourself with soda and the competitive rage of losing to Jungwon three times in a row. But as the hours ticked by and the adrenaline crashed, the exhaustion of the week finally caught up to you. The shouting and the flashing lights of the TV became a blur as your eyes felt heavy, which is how you managed to fall asleep on the couch in this awkward position. No one bothered to wake you up.
“Leaving this to Sunghoon now,,” Jungwon muttered and Karina agreed once the session was over.
When Sunghoon finally unlocked the dorm door, the silence was jarring. He had spent the last five hours battling Carnot’s theorem, and his brain felt like mush. He expected to find a room full of pizza boxes and screaming friends. Instead, he found a dim room lit only by the standby light of the TV and Jake, who was scrolling on his phone in the armchair.
And then, he saw the couch. Sunghoon froze in the entryway, his keys still clutched in his hand. You were curled up in the corner of the beat-up sofa, cheek smushed against a throw pillow, looking comfortably disheveled, hair spilling over your face, and your soft, rhythmic breathing was the only sound in the room.
Sunghoon felt his chest tighten, a warm feeling spreading through his ribcage. He stood there, staring, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be cool and composed. He just looked like a guy whose heart had decided to do gymnastics because a girl was sleeping on his furniture.
“You’re late,” Jake whispered, not looking up from his phone, “we finished like an hour ago.”
Sunghoon blinked, the spell breaking slightly. He toed off his shoes, trying to be quiet, “I was studying.”
“Sure,” Jake snorted. He gestured with his chin toward the couch, “your turn to be the hero. Everyone else bailed.”
Sunghoon took a few steps closer, looking down at you—you looked so small, so peaceful. He wanted to reach out and fix the hair falling into your eyes, but his hands felt too big, too clumsy.
“She’s asleep,” Sunghoon stated the obvious, his voice hushed.
“Comatose, actually,” Jake corrected, finally standing up and stretching his back, “Jungwon destroyed her in Smash Bros, seemed like she was distracted,” Jake looked at Sunghoon, then at you, and rolled his eyes, “don’t just stare at her, dude, you look like a creep.”
“I’m not staring,” Sunghoon whispered defensively, though his ears were already turning red.
“Take her to your room,” Jake said, stifling a yawn.
Sunghoon choked on air, “my—what?”
“Your room,” Jake repeated slowly, as if talking to a toddler, “the couch is lumpy, and my room is not clean right now. Unless you want her waking up with me by her side.”
“That’s not happening,” Sunghoon muttered, a sudden wave of possessiveness washing over him at the thought of you waking up next to Jake, and truly, Sunghoon was a jealous man, something he did, “fine. I’ve got her.”
“Don’t drop her,” Jake yawned, disappearing into his room without another glance.
Sunghoon stood alone in the dim living room, staring at you. Okay, he just had to carry you, just hold you in his arms, simple—right? He crouched down, sliding one arm under your knees and the other behind your back. He expected it to be awkward, expected to trip over the rug, but as he lifted you, he realized you fit surprisingly well in his arms, mentally patting himself on the back for acting normal.
You shifted instinctively, your head lulling to rest against his chest, nose burying into the fabric of his shirt. Sunghoon’s breath hitched, cause god, he was doing it again, trying to get a whiff of your scent, and he was terrified you’d wake up and hear his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He walked carefully down the hall, navigating the darkness and kicked his bedroom door open with his foot. The room was cool, smelling of his detergent and books. He lowered you onto his bed and you sank into the mattress immediately. Sunghoon pulled away, his arms suddenly feeling empty and cold. He stood by the bed, watching you, his hand hovering uncertainly, caressing your cheek gently before he shook his head.
He retreated to the corner, sitting down on the desk chair as he tried to distract himself with physics yet again, but he stared at you for most of the time. Now, it was a big thing for Sunghoon who was pondering deeply—would things be like this if you were to date him? Would you sleep on his bed? Would you let him stay? He was preparing himself without even knowing much. He knew your favourites by heart now—coffee order, the type of pasta you preferred, the bands you’d been listening to. He had found your Spotify account, and he blushed when he saw you actually listening to EsDeeKid when he’d mentioned he liked it.
It was the next step—be caring and attentive, but as much as he was following it, you were doing it too, without a guide, but yeah. There was no doubt he was down bad, he wanted you—needed you. But he was willing to wait, as for now, he was more than content watching you sleep on his bed (he’s not being creepy he swears—although he has done some questionable stuff before). He didn’t register much, especially the time, or the way you were shifting in your sleep.
“Hoon?” You whispered, your voice a small, happy to see him before you gathered your surroundings—it was Hoon’s room, he carried you inside.
Sunghoon jumped so violently his chair creaked, spinning around with wide eyes behind his lenses. He immediately tried to fix his posture, reaching for that composed shield, but he looked too drained to maintain it.
“Hey,” he breathed, his voice deep and rough from disuse.
He stood up and walked over to the bed, his strides careful as if he were afraid to startle you. He reached out, his hand hovering near your shoulder for a heartbeat before he gently grasped the corner of the duvet that had slipped. He tucked it back into place, his fingers lingering agonizingly close to your skin. You saw his knuckles twitch, the silent battle to touch your cheek written in the tension of his jaw, but he clenched his hand into a fist and pulled back.
“You okay? Wanna go back to sleep? It’s late,” he said softly, his eyes reflecting the dim lamp light, “It’s late.”
“You should sleep too,” you murmured mindlessly, reaching out from under the covers to catch his wrist.
Sunghoon froze, his breath hitching as he stared down at your hand against his skin. The heat of the touch was instant, and he stood rooted to the spot, trapped by the gentle pressure of your fingers.
“I will,” he lied, his voice barely a whisper, not moving an inch until you finally let go, his pulse still hammering where your fingers had been.
You sat up slowly, rubbing your eyes as you realized the time, and even if yo didn’t want to, you said it, “I should probably go back to my dorm. I didn’t mean to take over your bed.”
Sunghoon looked at his desk, then back at you, a conflict of interest clear in his eyes, “It’s raining really hard,” he noted, his voice dropping to a low murmur.
“So—” you teased softly, the remnants of sleep making you bolder, “should I stay?”
He looked at you, his brain likely running through a twelve-step response plan, but he settled for a slow shake of his head, “I—I’ll walk you back,” he managed, his ears turning a bright crimson because he doesn’t trust himself alone with you, especially at night—especially when you say things like that, “I have an umbrella.”
You chuckled, watching him move around—you always felt so helpless especially when he looked so soft. He was so incredibly caring, and you couldn’t even deny that you wanted more, as selfish as it might sound.
The walk back was quiet, the black canopy creating a tiny, private world for the two of you as you splashed through the puddles. He walked close, his shoulder brushing yours, his hand steady on the handle to make sure you stayed dry while he took the brunt of the mist. When you reached your door, you didn’t just wave, you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around his waist, pulling him into a firm, warm hug, your emotions taking over. Sunghoon went rigid for a microsecond before his arms wound around you, pulling you into the warmth of his chest naturally now. He rested his chin on the top of your head, inhaling sharply, wishing the night didn’t have to end.
“Goodnight, Hoonie,” you whispered against his heart.
“Goodnight, Y/N,” he rasped back, watching you head inside with a gaze that was far from neutral.
It was hard to let go, he pulled you to him harder, sighing as his hands caressed your sides, and you almost whined when he put just the slightest amount of pressure before he actually let go—eyes darker than ever, as if he was having just as hard time as you if not more.
He walked back feeling emptier than ever, wondering what could have happened if he had asked you to stay. Would you have wrapped your arms around him the same way? Would you let him cuddle you to sleep—to kiss you goodnight or more?
“God,” he mumbled, finally reaching his room again and getting on his bed.
His phone chimed just then, and he frowned because who would text him this late? Mouth opening wide when he saw your notification, a picture attachment. He was scared to open it, and rightfully so. He threw his phone away with a gasp, cause no way—no fucking way you sent him your picture, on your bed, in your tank top that did nothing to hide your cleavage. He’d been doing so well, holding on so well, only to shatter at the sight of you, smiling that easy smile of yours.
Y/N-nie: thanks for tonight hoonie, sleep well 💗
Sleep? No. He grabbed the phone and managed to type a response, saving your picture as he stared deeply at the slight dimple on your face, that one mole which was barely visible—but he wanted to kiss it. The way your clavicle looked so inviting wasn’t helping his case. Was he actually getting turned on at the mere sight of what you could offer him? Yes, he was.
“No—no I can’t do this to her—no,” he mumbled, grabbing his hardening cock through the sweatpants, “pathetic,” he breathed out.
He sat back against the headboard, the air in the room feeling thick and heavy. His breath was coming in short, uneven hitches, and he couldn’t stop the frustrated sound that caught in his throat as he looked back down at the screen. The blue light washed over his face, highlighting the sheer desperation in his eyes as he took in every detail of the photo again. His hand tightened, the fabric of his sweatpants offering little relief against the insistent, pulsing ache. He felt like he was losing a war with himself. Every time he tried to blink you away, the image of that tank top and your soft, teasing smile felt like it was burned into his retinas.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” he choked out, his voice a low, wrecked rasp, “you have to be.”
He shifted, his body reacting to the mental image of being there with you, of seeing that smile in person instead of through a cold glass screen. The tension was coiled so tight in his gut it was almost painful. He palmed himself again, a desperate, clumsy movement born out of a total lack of control, his head falling back against the wall with a dull thud as he freed himself, wrapping his big hand around his leaking cock, groaning louder by the second. Just the image of you, the scent of you on his bed drove him into madness as he pumped himself, praying that his flatmates wouldn’t hear him.
Thrusting his hips up, he chased that feeling, delving deeper into the thoughts of you no matter how embarrassed he was at the situation, he couldn’t help but imagine your soft fingers wrapped around his cock, your pretty eyes looking up at him, calling him hoonie.
“Fuck—need you.”
He would kiss you so deeply, be so close to you so you’d breathe the same air, he’d touch you even softly—god you’d look so pretty arching into him. He gripped himself harder, wondering if you’d like him being so soft with you, wondering if you’d let him taste you, wondering if you’d want him as bad as he wants you.
Would he be soft with you? He’s pretty sure he’d lose control and come off too strong, and maybe you’d like seeing him take control. The image of you moaning his name, pulling him closer and into your pretty pussy—yeah, that had him stroking himself harder, groaning out your name, each sound rougher than the last.
Yes, it was embarrassing how fast his body gave in, thick ropes of cum staining his bed sheet and sweats as he focused on his breathing with his eyes closed, “so fucking pathetic,” he mumbled.
He isn’t sure his step worked out, but he knew one thing—he had never felt such an insane surge of pleasure before.
STEP EIGHT: Mission abort
Guilty.
That was all what Sunghoon felt after waking up—because how did he even manage to get hard at an innocent picture of you? It didn’t matter now, he had fucked up, and now he stood in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth, contemplating his choices. First—he can go out and continue acting as if nothing happened, or second—he can hide in his room and stay locked away forever and ever. The latter seemed very tempting, but that also meant he’d never see you again—the absolute love of his life.
The idea itself was so haunting, that he had no option but to jump in his room, hyping himself for the next meeting—which he was orchestrating by asking Jungwon about your schedule (again), and he was relieved to hear that you were in the library, alone. Maybe he would feel better if he gets to talk to you one on one, since that opportunity has been rare (happened twice and he was struggling). So, he wore a nice button up, parted his hair to the side, sprayed a decent amount of cologne—all while Jake stared at him, amused.
“Are you gonna ask her out?”
Hoon flinched, “Gosh—why don’t you guys ever knock?” He mumbled, pouting a little.
“I’m just going to the library,” Sunghoon deflected, turning back to the mirror to fix a strand of hair that was already perfect, “to study. Alone.”
“Right,” Jake snorted, not looking up from his phone, “just don’t trip on your way to Y/N.”
Sunghoon ignored him, grabbed his wallet, and marched out the door with the grim determination of a soldier going into battle—albeit one armed with a debit card and a crippling fear of rejection. He made a strategic detour to the campus café, the one you swore had the best blueberry cheesecake in the city. He ordered a slice to go and your favorite iced vanilla latte, his brain reciting the text he had highlighted on his laptop screen earlier.
Step 9: Surprise them with small gestures.
Bringing them their favorite snack or drink shows that you listen and that you care about their comfort. It creates a positive association with your presence.
“I listen,” Sunghoon whispered to himself as he carefully balanced the cardboard carrier and the pastry box against the biting wind, “I am a great listener, I am thoughtful, I can do it.”
He felt good, today, he was the guy in the button-up bringing coffee. He had upgraded himself to the romantic lead of a rom-com, from the previous indie movie actor. He reached the library, navigating the quiet rows of books with a newfound confidence. He knew exactly where to find the Biology section—the corner table by the window, he rounded the corner, a rehearsed casual greeting on his lips—Oh, hey, just happened to be in the neighborhood with pastries—but the words died in his throat.
You were there, just like Jungwon said, however, the composition of the scene was wrong. Sitting beside you, occupying the space Sunghoon had mentally reserved for himself, was a guy. Sunghoon didn’t know him, but he immediately felt a surge of irrational hostility. The guy wasn’t wearing a stiff button-up or drowning in expensive cologne. He was wearing a faded, oversized hoodie, leaning back in his chair with a maddening, effortless slouch that made Sunghoon nervous.
Sunghoon froze behind a stack of anatomy encyclopedias, clutching the cheesecake box so hard the cardboard buckled under his thumb.
“If you skew the standard deviation any further, this becomes a guessing game, not a lab report,” the guy said, tapping his pen against your screen.
You laughed and it wasn’t the polite, reserved chuckle you gave strangers, It was the unguarded, head-thrown-back laugh that you provided Hoon with. You nudged the guy’s shoulder playfully.
“We gotta optimize the data, Jaemin,” you teased, “look at that bell curve. It’s beautiful.”
Jaemin grinned, looking at you with a familiarity that made Sunghoon’s stomach drop, “so what? You can’t just gaslight E. Coli into fitting your hypothesis.”
Sunghoon looked down at himself. He saw the carefully ironed shirt, the polished shoes, the thoughtful surprise that suddenly felt like a desperate bribe. He felt like a caricature—a man masquerading as a romantic lead while the actual protagonist was sitting right there in a beat-up hoodie, speaking your language, making you laugh about bacteria without even trying.
The WikiHow guide hadn’t prepared him for this. It had steps for flirting, steps for eye contact, steps for mirroring body language, it didn’t have a step for watching the girl you like shine brightly at someone else, unaware that he was even in the room. He turned on his heel, the movement sharp and painful. He walked back toward the exit, his pace quickening until he was practically fleeing the scene, the cheerful chime of the library door mocking him as he stepped out into the biting wind. Sunghoon had never been good with jealousy, and right now, he wanted nothing more than to pull you away from the guy and kiss you right there, god he’d do so much just to prove a point, but no—he had to stay calm, for now at least, and leaving was the only option.
The chime of the door made you look up from your laptop. The smile that had been on your face while joking with Jaemin faded instantly as you checked your phone for the fifth time in ten minutes. The screen still displayed the last text from Jungwon—he’s on his way, said he has a surprise. You frowned, your brows knitting together as you scanned the entrance, but there was no one there. The library was quiet, devoid of the tall, clumsy boy you had been hoping to see.
“Everything okay?” Jaemin asked, noticing your shift in mood.
“Yeah,” you sighed, dropping your phone face-down on the table with a dull thud of disappointment, “I just thought—never mind. Back to the assignment.”
Outside, Sunghoon sat on a secluded concrete bench, oblivious to the fact that you had been looking for him. He placed the cooling coffee on the ground and opened the pastry box.
“I hate blueberry,” he muttered, picking up the plastic fork with shaking fingers.
He ate the cheesecake aggressively, he felt ridiculous, he was a grown man sitting in the cold eating a cake meant for a girl who was currently laughing about standard deviations with someone else, all because he needed an internet article to tell him how to be a human being.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, the tab was still open:
WikiHow: How to flirt with a pretty girl (with pictures).
He stared at the cheerful illustrations, the bullet points that promised success if he just followed the formula, it all looked so hollow now, so sterile.
“Stupid,” he hissed. He closed the tab, closing the browser next before he cleared his history, as if scrubbing the evidence of his own incompetence.
He was done. He was done treating you like a puzzle to be solved with cheat codes. Watching you with Jaemin had triggered something visceral in him—not just jealousy, but a terrifying clarity. He didn’t want to be the guy who surprised you with coffee because a website told him to, he wanted to be the guy who could make you laugh like that naturally
“Tomorrow,” he said to the empty bench, tossing the empty cake box into the trash with a decisive thud.
The end-of-semester party was tomorrow night, everyone would be there. There would be no scripts, no steps, no hiding behind Jake or a stack of books.
“I’m just going to tell her,” he decided, the wind ruffling his carefully parted hair, “I’m going to walk up to her, and I’m going to tell her. No more steps.”
He stood up, wiping a crumb from his lip. He felt terrified, he also felt nauseous, but for the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel like a project—he felt like Sunghoon.
And Sunghoon was going to confess to you.
STEP NINE: Be yourself (or not)
“Why am I wearing this again?” You asked as Karina stood behind you, zipping up your dress—which was beautiful, however, Karina wasn’t the one to instruct you on your dressing choices.
“Cause I’m fed up of you and Hoon being dumb, maybe this will make him realize what he’s been missing,” she muttered, making you roll your eyes.
“He didn’t even show up at the library, Rin. I think the message is pretty clear—and just when I thought we were actually going somewhere, especially with how sweet he was when I slept at his dorm,” you mumbled, smoothing down the fabric, “he’s not interested.”
“Or,” Karina countered, spinning you around to face the mirror, “he’s an idiot who got lost in his own head. Look at you girl—If Park Sunghoon doesn’t lose his mind tonight, he’s officially clinically dead.”
You stared at your reflection, and you felt nervous, thinking of backing out now, but Karina was already shoving a purse into your hands and dragging you out the door before you could overthink it. The frat house was vibrating before you even stepped inside. The bass rattled your teeth, and the air was thick with the scent of cheap beer and humidity. It was the kind of scene Sunghoon usually avoided, or endured by standing in the back looking bored and devastatingly handsome.
You scanned the room instinctively, your eyes darting over the sea of bobbing heads and red Solo cups, but the familiar silhouette of broad shoulders and perfectly styled dark hair was nowhere to be found. You told yourself you weren’t looking for him, that you were here to dance and forget about the odds, but your subconscious was a traitor. Every time the door opened, letting in a blast of cold air and fresh bodies, your heart did a hopeful little stutter in your chest, only to sink when it wasn’t him.
“He’s not here,” Karina shouted over the thumping bass, reading your mind with terrifying accuracy. She handed you a drink that smelled like fruit punch, “stop looking. If he shows up, he shows up. If he doesn’t, it’s his loss. Now come on, they’re playing that song you like.”
You let her drag you onto the makeshift dance floor, the sticky residue of spilled beer gripping the soles of your shoes. You tried to lose yourself in the rhythm, to let the vibrations of the music rattle the anxiety out of your bones, but the knot in your stomach remained tight. Thirty minutes later, you started feeling odd. It was subtle at first—a ripple of whispers, heads turning toward the entryway. You were by the kitchen island, trying to cool down with a cup of water, when you saw him.
Park Sunghoon had arrived.
And he wasn’t alone; Jake was flanking him like a bodyguard, but Sunghoon didn’t look like he needed protection. He looked—different, gone were the oversized, comforting hoodies. Tonight, he was wearing all black—a fitted shirt that somehow emphasized the sharp line of his jaw and dark jeans that made his legs look miles long. He wasn’t checking his phone, he didn’t even bother scanning the room with that panicked, deer-in-headlights look he usually wore, he looked focused, determined even.
He stood near the entrance, declining a drink offered by a hopeful sophomore, his eyes now cutting through the haze of the party as if he was looking for someone.
“Target acquired,” Jake muttered into Sunghoon’s ear, nudging him hard enough that Sunghoon stumbled a step forward, breaking his cool facade for a second.
Sunghoon followed Jake’s gaze and locked onto you instantly. The noise of the party seemed to fade into white noise for him. You were standing under the harsh kitchen light, the dress Karina picked hugging your frame, looking absolutely breathtaking and terrifyingly out of his league. He took a deep breath, steeling himself as he started to move toward you, his strides long and purposeful.
But before he could reach the kitchen island, you turned abruptly, intercepted by a group of girls who grabbed your arm and pulled you and Karina towards the back hallway—the one usually reserved for coats and couples looking for privacy. You looked confused, casting one last glance over your shoulder, but the crowd swallowed Sunghoon’s view of you.
“Where is she going?” Sunghoon frowned, the panic starting to creep back in.
“Looks like interrogation,” Jake said, squinting, “uh-oh—that’s the gossip squad. Come on.”
Sunghoon didn’t need to be told twice. He followed you, weaving through the sweaty bodies, Jake trailing close behind. They reached the entrance of the narrow, dimly lit hallway just as the voices drifted out. Sunghoon raised a hand to stop Jake, pressing his back against the wall just outside the hallway entrance. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the sound of his own name froze him in place.
“So, be honest,” a voice purred, that made the hair on the back of Sunghoon's neck stand up, “are you his next target?”
Sunghoon froze. He looked at Jake, whose eyes had gone wide, his hand hovering over Sunghoon’s shoulder as if to restrain him. He knew the bullshit the girls used to spew about them, but actually cornering you was concerning.
“Target?” your voice rang out, incredulous, “what are you even talking about?”
“Oh, come on,” the girl laughed, “we know the type. He puts on that whole innocent act, standing in the corner looking all bored and mysterious, but it’s just a trap, right? I heard he’s actually wild. That he has a whole rotation of girls and he just plays the quiet card to lure you in.”
“Yeah,” another voice chimed in, “he looks like he knows exactly what he’s doing. A total player, my friend says he’s dangerous, he had a go at her.”
Sunghoon felt a strange, conflicting tightness in his chest. Part of him—the part that had spent hours reading WikiHow articles on how to be cool—held his breath. He didn’t wish to be perceived as a player, obviously, but he desperately wanted to be seen as a man, someone capable. He waited, heart hammering against his ribs, hoping you would defend him by saying he was respectful, or intense, or maybe even just—cool.
Instead, he heard you scoff, as if you were offended, “dangerous?” You repeated, the word sounding ridiculous in your mouth, “Park Sunghoon? Are you guys blind?”
“Excuse me?” the girl sounded taken aback.
“He isn’t a fuckboy,” you snapped, your voice rising in defense of him, fueled by the protective anger of someone who knew the truth, and you’d been on edge all day, which made Karina look at you with concern, wondering where this is going, “he’s barely even a guy in the way you’re thinking. He’s—he’s so innocent, you’re just tainting his image.”
The word hung in the dank hallway air. Innocent. Sunghoon felt the color drain from his face.
“Innocent?” the girl challenged, “with that face? Please.”
“I’m serious,” you insisted, stepping closer to them, your voice softening into a tone that sounded painfully, devastatingly like pity to Sunghoon’s ears, “he’s not mysterious, he’s just shy, he doesn’t have a roster, he has a skincare routine that has twelve steps. He drinks banana milk because he thinks coffee makes him too jittery sometimes.”
Sunghoon squeezed his eyes shut. Stop, he begged silently. Please, just stop. But you were on a roll, determined to clear his name of these vile accusations, unaware that you were simultaneously dismantling his entire romantic potential, making him feel as if you never saw him as something beyond someone who was just clumsy and cute, as if you didnt see him as a guy after all, as if he couldn’t what—fuck you?
“He’s not like that, okay? He’s like—a puppy,” you said, and fondness in your voice went unnoticed by Hoon, “a newborn puppy on ice. He trips over his own feet when he gets excited. He’s clumsy and sweet and completely harmless.”
Harmless. The word echoed in Sunghoon’s skull, drowning out the thumping bass of the party. Harmless, safe, a puppy. Yes, you were defending him but—he couldn’t even thank you for that, simply wondering what would have happened if he actually confessed. Would you have laughed in his face and called him just a friend?
Jake slowly turned to look at Sunghoon. The amusement was gone from his face, replaced by a cringe of profound sympathy. He looked at Sunghoon’s white knuckles, at the devastation etched into the sharp lines of his jaw.
“Dude,” Jake whispered, reaching out to touch his arm.
Sunghoon felt like he couldn’t breathe. He had wanted to be the protagonist. He had wanted to be the protector, the one who held you during horror movies. He wanted you to see him as a man who could sweep you off your feet. And all this time, you didn’t see him as a man at all. You saw him as a loser, you didn’t look at him with desire—you looked at him with the same fondness one might have for a particularly incompetent golden retriever.
“Let’s go,” Sunghoon whispered, his voice hollow and scraping against his throat.
“But—you were gonna tell her—”
“I said let’s go.”
Sunghoon didn’t wait for Jake. He pushed off the wall, turning his back on the hallway where you were passionately defending his lack of masculinity. He moved through the crowd blindly, shoving past sweaty bodies, the bass pounding in his ears mocking the frantic, broken rhythm of his heart. He felt small and stupid. He felt like the massive loser he feared he was.
He burst out of the front door into the cold night air, gasping as if he had been drowning. He didn’t look back, he couldn’t. He just walked, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the girl who thought he was a loser.
STEP TEN: Accepting defeat
Radio silence.
You had never felt this agitated in your life, never missed someone so much in your life. It had been over a week and you hadn’t seen Sunghoon, and the worst part? You didn’t even know what was wrong, was he just ignoring you or was it the same for others as well? You could have sworn he was at the party, and as soon as you were done with the girls, you had come out to search for him, only to feel his absence even further.
You checked your phone again, hoping to see a reply but no.
You: are you okay hoonie?
You: jake said you are sick
Those were the texts you had sent five days back, but you didn’t stop there.
You: is everything okay?
You: hoon?
You: did i do something wrong
He hadn’t even read it, simply left you on delivered. The lack of response resulted in a physical ache in your chest. You lay on your bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the last week in your head. Had you been too clingy? Had the hug outside the dorm been too much? Or maybe, just maybe, those girls were right, and he had simply decided he was bored of his current toy.
No, you thought, rolling over and burying your face in your pillow. He’s not like that—he’s Sunghoon. He’s the guy who covers you with umbrellas and brings you coffee. He’s the guy who looked at you like you were the only person in the room. But if he was that guy, then where was he? The uncertainty was gnawing at you, turning your usual confidence into a frayed mess of nerves. You missed his awkwardness. You missed his sudden bursts of confidence followed by immediate regret. You missed the way he made you feel like you were safe.
Across campus, inside the dorm that smelled of despair, Park Sunghoon was currently lying face-down on the living room rug. He hadn’t moved in twenty minutes. Inside his head, it was a funeral. He was eulogizing his manhood, his romantic prospects, and his dignity. The word echoed in the cavern of his skull—harmless, harmless, harmless.
“Are you going to rot there all day?” A voice asked from above.
Sunghoon groaned, refusing to look up, “leave me alone, Jay. I’m decomposing.”
“You’re blocking the path to the kitchen,” Jay said, nudging Sunghoon’s ribs with his foot, “and you’ve been listening to sad bollywood playlists for three days straight when you don’t even understand the lyrics.”
“Let him rot,” Jake’s voice drifted in from the couch, though it lacked his usual biting sarcasm, “he’s mourning the death of his ego.”
Sunghoon shot up, sitting cross-legged on the rug with a sudden, frantic energy. His hair was a mess, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
“I’m not mourning my ego,” Sunghoon snapped, though his voice cracked, betraying him instantly, “I’m facing the fucking reality. She called me innocent, Jake. She told them I wasn’t shit.”
“She did not say that dude, she was defending you, you idiot,” Jay interjected, leaning against the doorframe with a dish towel in hand, “I wasn’t even there, and even I know that. Jake told me the whole story.”
“She defended me by neutering me!” Sunghoon argued, the humiliation burning fresh in his chest, “She told them I am clumsy—which is true but—she sees me as a child, Jay. You don’t date children, you babysit them."
“She literally meant she’s comfy with you,” Jake tried to reason, sitting up.
“I don’t want to be comfortable,” Sunghoon hissed, standing up and pacing the small room, “I wanted to be—I don’t know, someone she actually desires.”
He felt foolish for even trying. The button-up shirts, the cologne, the WikiHow articles—it was all just dressing up a golden retriever in a tuxedo. At the end of the day, you saw right through it. You saw the clumsy, anxious mess underneath and decided he was something to be coddled.
“Okay, enough,” Jay decided, tossing the dish towel onto the counter, “you're spiraling. Put on shoes, we’re going to get food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Nobody asked,” Jay said, grabbing his keys, “Jake, grab his other arm.”
Despite his protests, Sunghoon was manhandled into a jacket and dragged out of the dorm. He walked with his head down, hands shoved deep into his pockets, reverting to his resting bitch face now, not because he wanted to look cool, but because he wanted to disappear. They made it to the campus plaza, the wind biting at Sunghoon’s cheeks. He was busy staring at a crack in the pavement, plotting his transfer to a university on a different continent, when Jake elbowed him.
“Hoon—look.”
Sunghoon looked up to find you walking out of the convenience store, laughing at something Karina was saying. You looked tired, your eyes a little puffy as if you’d cried, but the moment you spotted the trio, your face transformed and his heart hurt—it actually hurt. The worry on your face vanished, replaced by a radiant, relieved smile. You took a step toward him, your eyes locking onto his with that familiar warmth. You looked so happy to see him. And that broke him.
Because to Sunghoon, that smile didn’t look like love. It looked like relief of finding a close friend or something similar (he truly had been blind—an overthinker self sabotaging himself). He couldn’t take it, he couldn’t stand there and be the recipient of your pity.
“Hoon?” You called out from a distance, your voice hopeful.
Sunghoon’s jaw tightened and he didn’t wave, didn’t smile back, he didn’t even acknowledge the greeting. He turned his head sharply, breaking eye contact, and walked right back towards his dorm.
“Sunghoon?” Jake hissed, grabbing at his sleeve, “what the fuck are you doing? She’s right there.”
Sunghoon ripped his arm away from Jake’s grip, “I’m going back,” he muttered, his voice cold and flat.
He walked away, leaving you standing on the pavement with your hand half-raised, the smile sliding off your face. You watched his retreating back, the way his shoulders were hunched against the wind. Confusion washed over you first—had he not seen you? But no, he had looked you dead in the eye. He had seen your relief, your joy at seeing him alive, and he had looked at you with something that looked disturbingly like resentment. He just—walked away.
The confusion hardened into something sharper. You had spent a week worrying, heck, you had been crying over him. You had defended him to those girls, you had sent texts that went unanswered, you had lost sleep wondering if he was okay. And he just walked away without even doing as much as acknowledging you.
“Okay,” you whispered to the empty air, lowering your hand, “okay, Park Sunghoon, be that way.”
If he wanted to act like you didn’t exist after everything, fine. You turned back to Karina, your eyes dry and your expression steely, “let’s go,” you said, your voice devoid of the warmth you had reserved for him, “I’m done.”
You started walking as Karina looked back, glaring at Jay as if he could’ve done something—anything, but he was just as frozen, standing with Jake who could feel a headache forming in his head.
“The fuck just happened?” Jake asked, and Jay shook his head.
“Two of the nicest people I’ve met are acting like emotionless mannequins,” Jay mumbled, “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“He doesn’t realize that Y/N meant well—even if the way she worded it hit him hard, can he stop being so difficult? Did he not see how happy she was to see him?”
“Well—now what?”
Jake shook his head with a sigh, “we suffer—all of us.”
And suffer you did.
The days that followed didn’t feel like time passing; they felt like a slow, suffocating slide into permafrost. The end-of-semester exams descended upon the campus providing the perfect, miserable backdrop for two people who were determined to freeze each other out.
The party was a distant, feverish memory, replaced by the stark reality of the library and 24-hour study halls. But if anyone thought the pressure of finals would distract you from the hollow ache in your chest, they were wrong. If anything, the silence of the study rooms only made the noise in your head louder.
You became efficient, terrifyingly so. You attended every lecture, submitted every lab report early, and sat in the front row with a posture so rigid it looked painful. You didn’t laugh with Jaemin anymore, in fact, you barely spoke to anyone outside of necessary academic exchanges. You were over it, you told yourself, you were busy. You had a GPA to maintain and a future to build, and neither of those things required a boy who treated your concern like an insult.
But Karina knew better. She saw the way your eyes lingered on the back of a black hoodie in the cafeteria before snapping away. She saw the way you checked your phone every time it vibrated, only to toss it aside with a scowl when it wasn’t him.
Across the quad, Sunghoon was disintegrating in his own way. He moved through the campus like a ghost, his headphones permanently glued to his ears—though half the time, nothing was playing. He just didn’t want to hear the world asking him if he was okay. He studied, or at least, he tried, staring at thermodynamics equations until the Greek letters started to look like your initials. He sat in the library—not at your table, never at your table—but in the far back corner, hidden behind the stacks. He told himself he was proving a point (he didnt even know what anymore).
But every time he drank black coffee (which he still hated) instead of banana milk, he felt a little piece of himself wither. He missed the warmth, he missed the way you used to look at him before he ruined it. Now, when you passed each other in the corridor, the air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. There were no shy glances, no blushing ears. Just two strangers walking past each other with aggressive apathy, while their mutual friends trailed behind, looking like they wanted to scream.
“It’s like watching a car crash,” Jake whispered to Jungwon one afternoon in the library. They were watching Sunghoon stare blankly at a blank Word document.
“Worse,” Jungwon muttered, eyeing you across the room where you were aggressively highlighting a textbook without actually reading it, “It’s like watching two cars almost crashing but never quite reaching there, being stubborn and all.”
The tension came to a head on Tuesday night. The library was packed, the air thick with the smell of stress and stale caffeine. You were printing a paper, waiting for the machine to finish, when Sunghoon walked up to the adjacent printer. You didn’t look at him and he didn’t look at you (he did, and he swore under his breath seeing how pretty you looked wearing that skirt he loved).
The silence between you was louder than the whirring of the machines. You could smell him—that damn cologne and clean laundry, and it made your eyes sting. You wanted to scream, you wanted to ask him why he was being such a coward, you wanted to hug him—kiss him.
Sunghoon stood rigid, his knuckles white as he gripped his folder. He could see you in his peripheral vision. You looked tired, he wanted to ask if you were sleeping. He wanted to offer you his jacket because the library was freezing, but the word harmless flashed in his mind like a warning sign. She doesn’t want you, his brain supplied unhelpfully. She pities you.
Your printer beeped and you snatched your papers.
“Excuse me,” you said, your voice polite, as you stepped around him.
“Sure,” he replied, his voice equally flat.
You walked away without looking back. Sunghoon watched you go, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs that had absolutely nothing to do with physics and everything to do with the fact that he was miserably, hopelessly in love with the girl he was currently pretending to hate.
“I hate it here,” Jake groaned from a nearby table, dropping his head onto his open textbook, “I really, really hate it here.”
STEP ELEVEN: Let jealousy take the wheel
“Oh she looks beautiful!”
Jake and Jay kept on cooing, staring at the pictures Jungwon was showing them—pictures of you. Well, since the end sems were over, Karina had decided to do a mini photo shoot with you and Jungwon, and since it wasn’t really a request, you had to comply.
Sunghoon was on the couch, heart hammering at the praises, but he didn’t (couldn’t) ask Jungwon to show him the pictures, which only made Jake compliment you harder. Jungwon shook his head, absolutely done with whatever was going on, he started screen sharing so the pictures would appear on the TV, and Sunghoon tried his best not to look up, but he did. For the first time in a while, his friends could see his eyes shining. You looked beautiful—you always did, and good lord, Sunghoon missed you—cursing himself for behaving exactly how a child would.
He stared more, it was a pretty picture of you sitting on the grass and smiling—however, it didn’t reach your eyes. Sunghoon wondered who were you smiling at, granted Karina was sitting on the other side of you. He saw a hand, a hand that did not look like Jungwon’s hand, and he felt even more nauseous at the image of some other man being there and making you smile.
You had been so detached from reality, you didn’t understand it—you hadn’t processed just how attached you’d felt to Sunghoon, only for him to switch up midway, and you wondered how he was taking it.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up abruptly, muttering something about needing water, and retreated to the sanctuary of his room.
“The kitchen is that way, Hoon,” Jay pointed out helpfully, gesturing in the opposite direction.
“My room,” Sunghoon corrected, not breaking stride, “I have—water in my room.”
He sat on the edge of his bed, taking his MacBook out as he opened the one site that had guided him (poorly) through this entire semester—WikiHow.
He started typing, what to do when you’ve ruined everything with the girl you love and she thinks you’re a child.
No results.
He didn’t give up, trying to find variants, how to fix a relationship when you ghosted her out of insecurity.
The algorithm struggled. Finally, he clicked the same one he’d been following all along—how to flirt with a pretty girl (with pictures). He scrolled past the ads to the last step which said—If it doesn’t work out: accept that it’s over. If she says no or seems distant, respect her space and move onto a new girl.
Sunghoon stared at the screen. Move on to a new girl.
He slammed the laptop shut, he couldn’t do that. The mere thought of looking at someone else, of trying to memorize someone else’s coffee order or the way they laughed, made him feel physically ill. He didn’t want new, he wanted you. He wanted the girl who called him Hoonie and defended him, even if her defense had shattered his ego into a million pieces, and he hid instead of proving her wrong.
He buried his face in his hands, he couldn’t move on, but he didn’t know how to move back.
Back in the living room, the atmosphere had shifted from admiration to, well, tactical planning.
“He’s hopeless,” Jake said, staring at the closed door of Sunghoon’s room, “did you see his face? He looked like a kicked puppy again.”
“We can’t keep doing this,” Jay agreed, leaning back and crossing his arms, “the atmosphere in this dorm is insane. Sunghoon is miserable, Y/N is miserable, and I’m tired of hearing sad playlists through the wall I swear—they need to fuck it out.”
Jungwon disconnected his phone from the TV, a determined look on his face (before he gave Jay an odd look, of course), “we need to force them into the same room.”
“How?” Jake asked, “Hoon won’t leave his room unless the building is on fire.”
“A party,” Jungwon said simply, “Beomgyu texted. They’re throwing a massive end of Exams bash in the Grand Suite downstairs like two days later, it’s the biggest dorm and everyone is going.”
“Sunghoon hates parties,” Jay pointed out.
“Exactly,” Jungwon smirked, “which is why we aren’t asking him—we’re dragging him.”
“And Y/N?”
“Karina is already on it,” Jungwon said, holding up his phone to show a text confirmation, “she’s bringing Y/N. The plan is simple honestly, just get them in the room. If they see each other, they’ll have to interact—if Y/N doesn’t break, Hoon sure will.”
“Sounds risky but okay,” Jake muttered.
“Well, do we have any other options?” Jay asked, only to be met with silence, “great, then operation—get them to fuck is a go.”
“I don’t really like the operation name—”
“—Leave the styling to me,” Jay said, spinning the keys around his finger as he headed for the door, his mission clear, “I’m going to the mall. He needs an edge. I’m getting him a leather jacket—”
Jake and Jungwon shook their head, hoping it will work out for the better.
STEP TWELVE: Grand romantic (?) gesture
“I’m not going,” you mumbled, staring at La La Land playing on your MacBook (again), and you knew well you were torturing yourself, calling it your coping mechanism.
Karina sighed, “you need to let loose, it’s not the end of the world,” she muttered, snapping the laptop shut, “and watching Emma Stone get her heart broken for the fifth time this week isn’t going to fix yours.”
“It’s not broken,” you lied, rolling over and burying your face into the pillow to muffle the waver in your voice, “It’s just—bruised. Badly.”
It felt like more than a bruise, though. It felt like a phantom limb ache—a nagging, persistent sensation of something missing that should have been there. It had been days of absolute radio silence from Sunghoon. No awkward texts or Pokémon memes, no shy glances across the campus quad, no memes sent at 2 AM. Just a sudden, inexplicable void where his presence used to be. You had replayed the last week in your mind until the memories were frayed at the edges, trying to pinpoint the exact moment the shift happened.
The thought gnawed at you. You remembered defending him with such ferocity, calling him innocent and harmless, painting a picture of a boy who was sweet and misunderstood. Now, lying in the dark, you felt like a fool. Maybe he wasn’t misunderstood. Maybe he was just a guy who got bored and moved on, leaving you to dissect the silence he left behind.
“Get up,” Karina commanded, pulling the duvet off you, “Beomgyu’s party is starting, and I am not walking into that sweatbox alone. Besides, if he’s there, don’t you want him to see what he’s missing? Do you really want him to think you’re rotting in bed over him?”
That struck a nerve, the indignation flared up, burning through the lethargy. You didn’t want his pity, and you certainly didn’t want him to think he had the power to dismantle your entire life with a week of silence (he did and you missed him). You sat up, pushing hair out of your face with a grim determination. It was amusing to the others—watching you and Hoon having this insane personality shift, but garnering feelings would do that to anyone, so they couldn’t really question it.
“Fine,” you snapped, though there was no real bite in it, “but if I see him and he ignores me, I’m gonna kiss the first guy i see after him.”
You were lying (obviously), you couldn’t even imagine kissing anyone but him. At first it used to be sweet, you wanted to know if he’d smile into the kiss—but now? Now you wanted him to actually break and prove a point, which seemed a distant thought granted he wasn’t even willing to look your way.
Sunghoon was undergoing the same thought process in his room where Jay had shoved a very expensive leather jacket his way with a simple command to dress up for the party which made no sense because Sunghoon hated parties, and somehow, he thought that you would not be there—would you? Then his mind drifted to the guy from the library and he realized that maybe you would be there—there with him.
“He’s buffering again,” Heeseung noted from the doorway, watching Sunghoon stare at the leather jacket as if it were a sentient threat, “Hoon, if you don’t go, you’re just proving you’re a coward. You’re going to let some other guy take your spot because you’re too busy sulking?”
Sunghoon’s head snapped up. The thought of Jaemin at the party, standing in the space he should be occupying, made his stomach do a violent flip. He realized that yes, you would be there—and the thought of you being there with him was a catalyst that finally burned through his lethargy.
“Fine,” Sunghoon gritted out, grabbing the jacket. He stood up, his height and the sharp lines of the leather making him look like a stranger even to his roommates.
“Great,” Jay muttered, though he gave Sunghoon a lingering, skeptical look, “I’m not letting you leave that party until you open your mouth and say something that isn’t an apology for existing.”
The walk down to Beomgyu’s suite was a blur of neon lights and thumping bass. The Grand dorm was the largest in the building, and tonight it was a humid, vibrating mass of people. Sunghoon felt like a passenger in his own body, his social anxiety acting like a lead weight, yet the leather jacket served as a suit of armor. He ended up leaning against the kitchenette counter, a red cup held in a white-knuckled grip, completely zoned out as the other boys left to find Jungwon to discuss the situation.
Despite his internal collapse, he looked devastating. A group of girls had already drifted toward him, laughing and brushing against his sleeves which he was not comfortable with, but he didn’t hear a word they said. He was staring at the door, his heart hammering against his ribs in a frantic, desperate rhythm, not paying attention to the girl who clearly wanted a night with him, cause he had reserved that for someone else tonight (and forever if things worked out right).
He closed his eyes for a while, just standing there collecting his thoughts as the group watched from a distance, muttering about how they weren’t even sure what to expect anymore, but gladly, Karina had informed them about their arrival, which Hoon missed—but you did not miss the way he was there, as if put on display right there for you to feel even worse.
You turned away, your eyes stinging, desperate to find an exit, a drink, anything to numb the sudden spike of pain.
“Well, look who finally decided to show up.”
The voice was smooth, familiar, and right in your ear. You turned to see Jaemin standing there, a lazy, charming grin plastered on his face. He looked effortless, holding a drink in one hand, his posture relaxed and open—the antithesis of the tension radiating from the kitchenette.
“Hey, Jaemin,” you managed, though your voice sounded thin to your own ears.
“You look incredible,” Jaemin said, stepping into your personal space with a confidence that felt practiced yet sincere. He tilted his head, his eyes crinkling at the corners, “though you look like you’re plotting a murder, do you need an alibi?”
You let out a weak, breathy laugh, grateful for the distraction, “just overwhelmed. It’s loud in here.”
“It is,” Jaemin agreed, leaning closer so you could hear him over the pounding bass, “I’m just feeling lucky to catch you without your usual entourage.”
Across the room, Sunghoon had opened his eyes again, now trying to find Jake, to inform him that he wishes to leave, especially when he couldn’t find you—but oh he did, and the static in Sunghoon’s brain cleared with a violent snap. He had been zoning out, letting the chatter of the girls around him fade into white noise, his mind a continuous loop of misery. But the moment his eyes landed on you, everything sharpened. He saw the way you looked—beautiful and somehow sad, and then he saw Jaemin.
He watched Jaemin lean in. He watched the easy familiarity, the way Jaemin smiled at you, the way you offered a small, reluctant smile in return. It was a smile Sunghoon hadn’t earned in days. And then Jaemin reached out, his fingers brushing a lock of hair away from your face, his touch lingering near your cheek.
The innocent boy within him died right there. The harmless label incinerated in a flash of pure, blinding jealousy. Sunghoon didn’t think about this, just felt a rush of adrenaline—which is why he felt so confident now, so sure of what he had to do, and it was interesting how one hormone could manage to switch up someone to such lengths.
He moved through the crowd with a purpose now, his eyes locked on Jaemin like a predator sighting a threat. He was like a storm front moving across the room. You were just about to answer Jaemin’s question when the air shifted. A shadow fell over you, and before you could turn, a heavy arm clamped around your waist, pulling you backward until you were flush against a hard, solid chest. The scent of expensive cologne and leather enveloped you instantly, drowning out the stale beer smell of the party.
Sunghoon stood behind you, his body a wall of heat, his grip on your waist possessive and unyielding. He wasn’t looking at you. His dark, furious eyes were bored into Jaemin, his jaw set so tight a muscle feathered in his cheek.
“You should leave now,” Sunghoon said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register that vibrated against your back, completely devoid of any stutter or hesitation, and for a minute, you just tried to process the situation, heart hammering in your chest.
Jaemin blinked, his smile faltering as he looked from the white-knuckled grip on your waist to Sunghoon’s icy glare, “I’m just catching up, Sunghoon. Relax.”
“Conversation’s over,” Sunghoon snapped, his fingers digging into the silk of your dress, staking a claim that required no interpretation, “leave.”
And he did, knowing when to turn back and sent a wink towards Jungwon, who had put Jaemin up to this—and it seemed as if their plan had worked, though, it was a hilarious sight to see the boys hiding at the back with their jaws hung wide open, Heeseung laughing freely.
“What the fuck—let go of me, Sunghoon,” you almost screamed, trying to pry his hands off of you.
He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he spun you around, his eyes dark and burning with this volatile mix of desperation and the remains of that blinding jealousy. He didn’t look at the group of boys huddled near the drinks, whose jaws were indeed still dropped at the sudden, predatory shift in the guy they usually described as buffering, he only looked at you, his jaw set in that same tight line that suggested he was one second away from either shattering or exploding. Without a word, he grabbed your hand—his palm hot and slightly damp against yours—and began weaving through the crowd, hauling you toward the exit.
“The fuck are you doing?” You asked, stunned at his new behaviour.
“We’re not doing this here,” he said, jaw clenched.
“Oh—now you wanna talk, huh?” You seethed—because god, you were so angry, so confused and yet your heartbeat betrayed you because you were looking forward to what he had to say, what excuse he wished to use.
The walk up the stairs to the boys’ floor was a blur of cold concrete and the echoing sound of your heels. He didn’t stop until he had reached his door, swinging it open and pulling you inside before slamming it shut with a finality that made the air in the small room feel suddenly very thin. The silence of the dorm was jarring after the chaos downstairs, but it wasn’t a peaceful quiet, it was heavy and pregnant with everything that had been left unsaid since before the exams began.
“You don’t get to do that,” you snapped the moment he let go of your hand, the anger finally breaking through the shock, “you do not get to treat me like I’m invisible for weeks, ignoring my texts and walking past me in the library like I’m a fucking ghost, only to act jealous because you saw me talking to someone else.”
Sunghoon paced the small space of his room, his hands shaking as he pushed them through his hair, successfully ruining the perfect styling Jay had insisted on, “I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose,” he shot back, his voice cracking with a jagged edge you had never heard before, “I was stopping you from looking at him the way you used to look at me before you decided I was someone you couldn’t even consider a man.”
“A man? What are you even talking about?” You yelled, stepping into his space, refusing to let him retreat into the mysterious silence he used as a shield, “I have spent weeks wondering what I did wrong! I was crying over you, Sunghoon. I defended you when everyone was asking why you were acting like this, only for you to ignore me right when I was there in front of you!”
“That’s exactly the problem!” Sunghoon roared, finally stopping his pacing and turning to face you, his eyes glassy, “I heard you, Y/N. At the party before finals, I was right there in the hallway when you were telling those girls exactly what you think of me.”
You froze, the memory of the gossip squad cornering you flashing through your mind, “yeah? And what’s wrong about it? I was defending you! They were calling you a fuckboy.”
“By basically calling me what—a loser?” He hissed, stepping closer until he was looming over you, the scent of his cologne and the leather jacket enveloping you, “I heard the words you used. You told them I was like a puppy, someone who trips over his own feet. You told them I drink banana milk because I can’t handle coffee and that I have a twelve-step skincare routine. You made me sound like an incompetent child, Y/N.”
You could not believe it—all this crying, the heartbreak stemmed from you defending him? And he took it in the worst way possible, as if his mind could not admit you would love him the way he is, and formed a thought process that did irrevocable damage to both you and him.
“I said those things in a good light,” you screamed back, your own heart hammering against your ribs, “I called you sweet because I thought you were! I didn’t know your ego was so fragile that you’d rather be seen as a villain than a person who actually cares about things!”
This conversation was not going the way you both had intended—anger taking over and ruling all the other feelings out, yet none of you were ready to back down.
“It’s not about ego!” Sunghoon grabbed your wrists, pinning them against his chest so you could feel the violent, erratic rhythm of his heart, “It’s about the fact that I’ve been sitting in this room for days trying to be a man you’d actually desire, only to find out that you look at me with pity, you made me feel like I wasn’t even an option for you—just a clumsy loser you had fun to be around.”
“So you decided to punish me instead of talking to me normally?”
“Yeah, just like you forgot all about me the second Jaemin came into your life.”
“Are you fucking hearing yourself right now?” Your throat hurt with all the yelling, and you couldn’t even back down, not when he was so close to you, “fine, if you don’t want that to happen then stop acting like a coward and actually do something, fight for me, not against me!”
His hand shot out, not to grab your wrist this time, but to grip your chin, forcing your head up so you couldn’t look away—and god he looked so different, but his eyes were the same, sweet and gentle despite the anger, “I dragged you out of there because I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else having your attention. I’m standing here, wrecking everything, screaming my lungs out because I am fighting, Y/N. I’m fighting the urge to completely lose my mind.”
“Then show me,” you breathed, challenging him, your heart pounding so hard as the tip of his nose brushed against yours, “prove it to me you’re not the harmless boy I defended. Prove to me that you want me.”
He didn’t need to be told twice—he’d waited too long, and he couldn’t say no when you stood there with watery eyes, chest heaving up and down, bottom lip bitten, and Sunghoon swears you look the prettiest you had ever looked. He had gone through myriad scenarios of this happening, none of them involved Sunghoon surging forward with his mouth crashing against yours—which is exactly what happened.
It did not happen with the tentative sweetness of the boy you had defended in the hallway, but with a searing, desperate hunger that tasted of frustration and a few week’s worth of repressed longing. He groaned into the kiss—it felt good, too good as he let his lips convey what he couldn’t, and it wasn’t sweet, it was rather messy and uncoordinated, a collision that felt less like affection and more like a necessity—as if he were trying to breathe you in to keep from suffocating.
You stumbled back, your spine hitting the wood of the door with a dull thud, but he didn’t let up. His hands were everywhere—one tangled tightly in the hair at the nape of your neck, tilting your head back to deepen the angle, the other gripping your waist with a bruising possession, anchoring you to him. He was heavy against you, a solid wall of heat and leather, and for a moment, the sheer shock of his intensity froze you, a shiver going down your spine, feeling the frustration radiating off him.
But then the indignation flared—the audacity of him to think he could solve this with physical force had you fighting back. You kissed him back with the same jagged intensity, your hands balling into fists against the lapels of that ridiculous jacket, pushing and pulling all at once. The kiss was an argument in itself, sharp and biting, stripped of any pretense of politeness.
He broke the contact with a ragged gasp, but he didn’t really pull away. He buried his face in the sensitive crook of your neck, his breathing harsh and uneven against your skin, his lips grazing your pulse point, breath warming you up further, especially when he nibbled on your skin. You could feel him trembling—fine tremors running through his frame that betrayed the facade he was trying so hard to maintain.
“I missed you,” he mumbled into your skin, the words thick and slurred, vibrating against your clavicle, “god, I missed you so much it physically hurt.”
It was the vulnerability in his voice—the way it cracked on the confession, stripping away the anger to reveal the desperation underneath—that finally undid you. You could feel the dampness of his eyelashes against your neck, a stark contrast to the aggression of moments before.
“You have a terrible way of showing it, Sunghoon,” you whispered, your voice shaking, your hands slowly uncurling from his jacket, moving up to grip his shoulders to keep yourself upright.
“I’ll show you, fuck—i’ll show you everything,” he mumbled, pressing opened mouthed kisses over the expanse of your neck, making you gasp his name, to which he groaned, “‘m not Sunghoon, call me Hoonie.”
“Fuck—”
“Tell me you missed me—tell me you’re feeling this too,” he hissed, which almost seemed like a plea against your lips—especially with the way he was holding your nape, looking right into your eyes.
“I—I did, Hoonie,” you mumbled against his lips, and he shook his head.
It’s filthy how he leans in to bite your bottom lip, pulling you flush against him with ease, his right thigh settling in between your legs as he did so, making you whine, and he loves the sound, he loves it too fucking much to not pull you into another kiss to absorb each sound you’re giving him so lovingly (at least he thinks so).
“C’mon—say it,” he urged, pulling your lower lip before letting go, a string of saliva connecting you both regardless.
“What happened to you?” You breathed out, knees threatening to give out as you held on to Sunghoon’s shoulder, who only chuckled.
“Did you really think I was a virgin? That I’m someone who can’t make you feel good, hm? As if I hadn’t thought about having you close before,” he leaned in again, and this time, you could see how calm he was, “I’m still the same man—just this time, I’m desperate to please you.”
Your eyes widened, pressing your thighs together only to cage Hoon’s leg harder, shoulders curling in, “Hoonie, you don’t have to—”
“Shh—just be good for me tonight, I really really want to kiss you again.” He couldn’t help but express his feelings, “you look so pretty, so pretty I swear,” he grunts, and he swears it’s intoxicating the way you taste, how he can feel your pulse as he sucks on skin. His lips linger on your neck, sucking gently at the tender skin, drawing out the heat that blooms under his touch. The pull of his mouth is unhurried, deliberate, each drag of his tongue sending a fresh wave of warmth spreading through your veins. You feel the rapid thump of your own pulse against his lips, matching the erratic beat of your heart, and it makes your breath hitch in your throat.
“Say it, baby,” he murmurs.
“I missed you—was waiting for you,” you whined, and he swore, the way you said it sent this insane feeling down his cock—which twitched with need.
One of his hands stays firm at the nape of your neck, fingers threading through your hair with a possessive grip that grounds you, while the other slides slowly down your side. His palm flattens against your ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through your shirt, tracing the curve with feather-light pressure. The fabric bunches slightly under his exploration, and you arch into the contact without thinking, a soft whimper escaping as the sensation teases your nipple into a tight peak.
“God, your body responds to me like it’s been waiting,” he murmurs against your skin, his voice low and rough, laced with that raw need that's starting to unravel you both. His breath fans hot over the damp spot he’s left on your neck, making you shiver, and he presses closer, his chest rising and falling against yours in sync with your quickening breaths, “thought about this so much—thought about you all the time, fuck! Pretty, yeah just keep your eyes on me.”
You can feel the hard line of his cock straining against the front of his jeans, pressing insistently into your hip as he shifts his weight. It’s a solid reminder of his arousal, thick and unyielding, and the knowledge sends a flush of heat straight to your core, your pussy clenching with empty want—mind still trying to process the situation. Your hands, still clutching his shoulders, slide down tentatively, fingers splaying over the firm planes of his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart beneath the leather jacket. The material is cool and smooth under your palms, juxtaposing the feverish warmth of his body seeping through.
“Thought you got bored of me,” you gasped out.
“Could never—I thought about you each fucking day, each second.”
He groans softly at your touch, the sound vibrating through him and into you, and his hand at your side dips lower, cupping your hip with a squeeze that borders on bruising. His fingers dig into the soft flesh there, kneading slowly, pulling you tighter against him so that his thigh remains wedged firmly between your legs. The pressure against your clothed pussy is maddening—subtle friction that builds with every tiny shift, making your clit ache for more direct contact.
“Hoonie,” you whisper, your voice trembling with the mix of lingering frustration and surging desire, your nails scraping lightly over his jacket as you grip him harder. The vulnerability in his earlier confession lingers in the air, softening the edges of your indignation, and now it’s just the two of you, bodies communicating what words can’t quite capture.
He lifts his head from your neck, eyes dark and intense as they meet yours, pupils blown wide with lust and something deeper—longing perhaps, or the fear of losing this again. His free hand moves up, cupping your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone before trailing down to trace your jaw, then your throat. The touch is reverent, almost tender, but there’s an undercurrent of hunger in the way his fingers linger, pressing just enough to feel your swallow.
“I need to touch you everywhere,” he confesses, his voice cracking slightly on the words, and before you can respond, his mouth claims yours again. This kiss is slower than the last, exploratory—his tongue sliding against yours in languid strokes, tasting and teasing without the frantic edge. You melt into it, your body going pliant as his hand on your hip ventures bolder, slipping under the hem of your dress to caress the bare skin of your waist.
His palm is soft, and the texture against your smooth skin makes you gasp into the kiss. He takes the opportunity to deepen it, tongue curling around yours as his fingers spread wide, exploring the dip of your waist, the slight curve of your lower back. Each inch he claims feels electric, igniting nerves you didn’t know were so sensitive, and you press your thighs together around his leg, seeking relief from the growing wetness soaking your panties. The friction only heightens the ache, your pussy throbbing with each subtle grind, and he notices—god, he notices everything. A low hum of approval rumbles from his chest, and his hand under your dress inches higher, thumb grazing the edge of your bra. He doesn’t push further yet, just circles the underwire with agonizing slowness, feeling the way your breath stutters, the way your nipple strains against the lace.
“Tell me what you feel,” he pulls back just enough to whisper, forehead resting against yours, his eyes searching your face. His other hand leaves your face to join the first, both now under your dress, palms sliding up your sides in tandem, thumbs brushing the sides of your tits, all while he tries to memorize every inch of you, the most perfect girl for him.
“You—everywhere,” you manage, voice breathy, your hands moving to his waist, tugging at the hem of his shirt to feel the heat of his skin, “your hands—it’s too much and not enough, i need you, baby.” The confession spills out, raw and honest, mirroring his earlier vulnerability, and it seems to spur him on.
He chuckles softly once he’s done groaning cause—fuck, he’s been waiting to hear that, to have you to him. And finally, his big, veiny hands cup your breasts fully, squeezing with a firm pressure that has you moaning into his mouth as he kisses you again. His thumbs flick over your nipples through the bra, back and forth, hardening them further until they're aching points of need. The groping is thorough, unhurried—he kneads the soft flesh, feeling their weight in his palms, rolling them gently as if memorizing every curve.
“So the girls were right—ah,” you whine.
“No,” he breathed out, “I’m like this just for you, just because of you.”
Your hips rock against his thigh instinctively, the seam of your panties rubbing against your clit, and the spark of pleasure makes you clench around nothing, arousal trickling down your thighs. He feels the movement, presses his leg harder to encourage it, his own cock twitching against you in response. The air between you thickens with the scent of your combined arousal, heavy and intoxicating, and his kisses trail back to your neck, nipping lightly as his hands continue their worship.
“So responsive,” he breathes, one hand slipping around to your back, fingers working at the clasp of your bra with practiced ease. It gives with a soft snap, and he wastes no time pushing the straps down your shoulders, exposing your tits to the cool air. Goosebumps prickle your skin, but his mouth is there immediately, hot and wet, latching onto one nipple while his hand covers the other, “fucking pretty—all fucking mine.”
He sucks gently at first, tongue swirling around the peak, teeth grazing just enough to send jolts straight to your core. Your pussy pulses with each pull of his mouth, wetness seeping further, and you thread your fingers into his hair, holding him close. The feelings crash over you—the possessiveness in his grip, the desperation in his touches, the way his body trembles slightly against yours, betraying how much he needs this reconnection as much as you do.
“Seems like you have a lot of experience,” you mumbled, looking elsewhere.
He smirked against you, “is my baby jealous?”
“No—fuck,” you whined as he let his free hand roams lower again, palming your ass through your panties, squeezing the cheek hard enough to make you gasp. He kneads it slowly, pulling you tighter against his thigh, guiding your movements as you grind, the friction building that sweet, torturous pressure, “that’s it, feel how much I want you, only you,” he murmurs against your breast, voice muffled, before switching sides, giving the other nipple the same devoted attention, and fucking hell—he was in love with you, absolutely there to hear each sound you make and every movement of your body in response to him.
Every touch, every grope, layers the intimacy, stripping away the walls between you, leaving only the raw, aching need to be closer, to feel more.
He pulls back from your breast with a wet pop, his eyes dark and feral as they lock onto yours, “get on the bed, baby. Now,” he growls, voice thick with command, and you stumble back with him, legs shaky from the grinding, your soaked panties clinging to your pussy lips as he shoves you toward the mattress. You hit the soft sheets on your back, bra discarded somewhere on the floor, tits bouncing free.
His body follows, crashing over yours, knees pinning your thighs apart. Those veiny hands dive straight for your naked tits (which he seemed to love, especially wanting to mark them), squeezing hard—fingers digging into the soft flesh, thumbs crushing your nipples until you arch and cry out, “fuck, these tits are so perfect,” he mutters, leaning down to bite one peak sharp enough to sting, his fangs sinking in while his tongue flicks the tip. Pain mixes with heat, shooting straight to your clit, and you buck under him, pussy clenching empty and desperate, repeating his name as you find yourself wetter than ever, and he had barely touched you—you really fucking needed him.
His fingers press deep into your skin, bruising your waist as he kneads them like he owns every inch—because he does, tonight, tomorrow, always, all him to ravage, “you love this, don’t you? Watching me go crazy over you, fuck,” he rasps against your skin, breath hot, his free hand sliding down to grip your hip, nails scraping.
Your hips jerk up anyway, grinding your drenched panties against his thigh, the fabric sodden now, rubbing your swollen clit with every desperate roll. Wetness seeps through, coating his jeans, and you feel his cock twitch hard against your side, “yeah, keep going, doing so fucking well for me, c’mon, rub yourself before I lose it and fuck you dumb,” he taunts, pressing his thigh firmer into your pussy, forcing the friction deeper. You moan loud, fingers clawing at his shoulders, the ache building fast, your core pulsing with slick heat.
“Please—Hoonie, you’re insane,” you mumbled, biting his shoulder to conceal your moans, “want you, I’ve always wanted you.”
He chuckles dark despite the way he felt butterflies in his abdomen, cause god, he literally fell for you at first sight, only to truly fall for you with each passing interaction. And now? He wanted to show you exactly how good he can make you feel—leaning in low, shoving your legs wider with his knee, “enough teasing. I want that dripping cunt bare and pretty for me.” His hands hook into your panties, yanking them down rough, the elastic snapping against your thighs before he rips them off completely, tossing them aside. Cool air hits your exposed pussy, lips puffy and glistening, arousal dripping down to the bed sheet. He spreads you wide, knees hooking under yours, thumbs parting your folds to stare at your slick hole, eyes shining, “fuck—look at this messy pussy, begging for my tongue, all fucking mine, yeah?”
Before you can gasp, his head dives between your legs, mouth latching onto your cunt like a starving man, licking a stripe from your hole up to your clit before going down again. His tongue thrusts deep inside, fucking your hole with wet, urgent strokes, lapping up your juices as they flood out. You scream, back bowing off the bed, hands fisting the sheets while he devours you—sucking your clit hard, then plunging back in, tongue curling against your walls, “taste so fucking good, all wet and ready for me,” he groans into your pussy, vibrations humming through you, his stubble scraping your inner thighs raw.
“God—”
“No god, just me,” he groaned against you.
He eats you out relentlessly, nose bumping your clit as his tongue spears deeper, slurping noisily at your folds. Fingers join in, two thick ones shoving into your pussy alongside his tongue, stretching you, pumping hard while he bites your labia lightly, tugging. Your hips buck wild, grinding into his face, soaking his chin with your cum, “that’s it, fuck my mouth—come all over it,” he demands, voice muffled but commanding, free hand reaching up to pinch your nipple again, twisting until tears prick your eyes.
“God—feels so good, ah—slow down—”
Pleasure coils tight in your gut, his dominance flooding you—the way he holds you open, owns your body with every rough lick and thrust. He pulls back just enough to spit on your clit, rubbing it in with his thumb before diving back, tongue flicking fast, fingers curling to hit that spot inside that makes you see stars, “stop? Oh baby—you’re mine to fuck, mine to eat, gonna make this pussy squirt before I ram my cock in, yeah? Gonna claim you, make you forget about anyone else who had you before me,” his words hit like slaps, so very dirty and possessive, pushing you closer to the edge.
You bit your lip, trying to rile him up even further, “you sure you can—ah!”
He slapped your cunt, making you arch off the mattress, making you cry, moans turning to pleas, his mouth working you harder, rougher—sucking your clit like he’s trying to bruise it, tongue fucking your hole until your thighs quake around his head. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t ease up, just dominates your pleasure, drawing out every drop of slick, every shudder. The room reverberates with the wet sounds of his feast, your cries echoing, bodies slick with sweat and need. But he’s not done—far from it, his cock grinding against the mattress now, hungry for more than just your taste.
“Sure I can, and I will.” Sunghoon doesn’t remember the last time he felt so feral, perhaps never before, perhaps this was just for you, and he didn’t mind especially when you were spread out so pretty for him, reacting to every bit of him, he fucking loved it—he loved you. He grabs your hips suddenly, dragging you back down the bed with a rough yank, your ass sliding over the sheets as he positions you right where he wants—legs splayed wide, pussy exposed and dripping onto the mattress. His big, veiny hands clamp onto your thighs, thumbs digging into the soft flesh to spread your soaking slit wide open, folds parting with a wet schlick, your clit throbbing in the cool air
“Stay fucking still, baby,” he snarls, eyes locked on your glistening hole, arousal leaking out in thick strings. Before you can catch your breath, his head drops again, mouth crashing against your cunt like he’s starving for it.
His tongue buries deep inside you in one brutal thrust, spearing into your walls, lapping up the fresh flood of juices with savage hunger. He sucks hard on your inner folds, pulling them into his mouth, teeth grazing just enough to sting while his tongue flicks wildly against your entrance. The suction pulls at your core, making your pussy clench around nothing, and you cry out, hips jerking up to grind against his face. Slurping sounds fill the room, obscene and wet, his stubble scraping your sensitive skin raw as he devours you deeper, nose pressing into your clit with every forceful lick.
“This cunt’s mine, hm? Gonna eat it till you can’t walk, gonna show you how sorry I am,” he mutters right into your slit, the vibration rumbling through your nerves, sending shocks up your spine, “sorry, baby. Sorry my pretty girl—hm, so fucking sorry. You’re mine and I’m not fucking sorry about that.”
You arch off the bed, fingers twisting in his silky hair, pulling him closer even as the intensity borders on too much. His tongue thrusts in and out, curling to scoop out more of your slick, swallowing it down with greedy gulps, sucking your clit between his lips and biting down lightly, making you scream. Pleasure-pain explodes, your thighs trembling around his head, but he pins you harder, dominance radiating from every rough movement—owning your body, forcing ecstasy on you whether you can take it or not.
Without warning, he shoves two thick fingers inside you, knuckles deep in one brutal push, stretching your walls wide around the intrusion. Your pussy grips them tight, sucking him in as he starts pumping fast—curling and twisting, slamming against that spot inside that makes your vision go blur.
“Fuck, so tight and wet—good fucking girl, stay this way, hm?” He rasps, mouth still latched on your clit, sucking hard while his fingers piston in and out, the wet squelch echoing with every thrust. Juices coat his hand, dripping down to soak the sheets, and you buck wildly, the stretch burning sweet as he adds a third finger, scissoring them to open you up more.
“Fucking crazy, what happened to clumsy Hoon?” You breathed.
“Gone for now.”
His cock throbs hard against your thigh now, the thick length straining through his pants, hot and leaking pre-cum that smears sticky on your skin. He grinds it there deliberately, humping your leg like an animal in heat while he finger-bangs you relentlessly, thumb circling your clit in rough swirls.
“Feel that? My dick’s aching to split you open, but first I’m gonna make this pussy gush all over my face, need to taste you,” he keeps on mumbling against you, voice muffled against your folds, breath hot and ragged.
You drown in the raw lust, moans spilling loud and broken from your lips, every nerve firing as he devours you deeper. The pressure builds unbearable, your hips rolling desperately into his mouth, chasing the edge as waves of heat crash through you. Sweat slicks both your bodies, the air thick with the musk of sex—your arousal, his sweat. You claw at the sheets, thighs shaking, the dominance in his grip holding you down as pleasure rips you apart.
“Can’t anymore, please—”
“Come on, pretty girl, cum on my tongue, let me taste you,” he demands, voice gravelly, tongue flicking your clit one last time before sealing his lips around it, humming low to vibrate through your core.
The orgasm hits you like crazy, your walls clenching hard around his fingers, gushing slick that he laps up hungrily, not missing a drop. You thrash and sob, body convulsing under his relentless ministrations, but even as the aftershocks ripple, he keeps pumping slow now, drawing it out, his cock still grinding insistently against your thigh, and you wondered what happened to the clumsy boy you knew, and why was he a fucking beast in bed for real—not knowing how he wasn’t really sure himself, just drunk in your essence probably? Or too fucking adamant to make you feel good, prove something even though you wanted him regardless.
“That’s one—now I’m gonna fuck you raw till you beg for me to stop.”
Well—fuck. He was too good at this, cause you were left speechless, staring at how spent he looked, pulling back just enough to meet your dazed eyes, lips shiny with your juices, hunger far from sated, and eyes darker than ever—he looked insanely hot.
Sunghoon’s gaze holds yours captive, that predatory glint in his eyes sending fresh shivers racing down your spine. His lips curve into a smirk, wicked and knowing, as he wipes a stray bead of your essence from his chin with the back of his hand, never breaking eye contact. The air between you crackles, thick with the scent of sex and sweat, your breaths mingling in the charged space. You can still feel the ghost of his fingers inside you, the way they curled just right, coaxing every last tremor from your core. But he’s not done—not by a long shot. That insistent press of his cock against your thigh grows bolder, the heat of it branding your skin, a silent vow of what’s to come.
“Speechless already?” He teases, his voice a husky rumble that vibrates through your chest. He leans in closer, his nose brushing yours in an almost tender gesture, a stark contrast to the feral hunger etched on his face, “I thought you wanted me to show you exactly how much I want you, hm? Will you be satisfied when I’m buried in deep?” His words drip with challenge, laced with that raw affection you’ve always known from him—the clumsy stumbles, the shy smiles—but twisted now into something intoxicatingly dominant.
You swallow hard, your throat dry despite the slick mess between your legs. The room spins a little, your body still humming from the high, but his proximity grounds you, pulls you back into the moment, “Hoonie—” you manage, your voice a breathy whisper, fingers twitching at your sides as if unsure whether to push him away or pull him in. The old him flickers in your mind—the boy who tripped over his own feet during movie nights, who blushed when your hands brushed accidentally. How had he transformed? It was like unleashing a storm you’d never seen brewing.
He chuckles low, the sound vibrating against your collarbone as he trails open-mouthed kisses along your jaw, savoring the salt of your skin, “yeah? Say my name like that again when I’m fucking you senseless.”
His hand slides up your thigh, possessive and unhurried, fingers digging in just enough to leave faint marks—reminders that you’ll feel tomorrow, a secret map of this night. He stopped just for a minute, and you watched him take off his pants and boxers in a go, your eyes widening in process as you watched him undress, the dim lights accentuating every inch of him—even the ones you wondered whether you’ll be able to handle or not.
He hooks your leg over his hip, opening you up further, the tip of his cock now teasing your entrance, slick with your arousal and his own pre-cum. The anticipation builds like a slow fuse, every shallow nudge sending sparks skittering through your nerves.
“Please,” you murmur, the word escaping before you can stop it, your hips arching instinctively toward him. It’s not begging—not yet—but it’s close, the vulnerability cracking through your haze. You want to unravel him too, to see that beast roar, but god, the way he looks at you, like you’re the only thing anchoring him—it makes your heart clench alongside the ache low in your belly.
Sunghoon pauses, his breath hitching, eyes softening for a fraction of a second as he searches your face. There’s that tenderness again, peeking through the cracks of his intensity—a silent question, a check-in amid the storm, “you okay, baby?” He asks, voice dropping to a gravelly whisper, his thumb stroking soothing circles on your hip. It’s so him, this blend of fire and care, and it only makes you want him more.
“More than good,” you reply, reaching up to tangle your fingers in his damp hair, tugging lightly to bring his mouth back to yours. The kiss starts soft, exploratory, lips brushing like a shared secret, but it ignites quickly, tongues tangling with renewed urgency. You taste yourself on him, musky and intimate, and it fuels the fire, your free hand roaming down his chest, nails scraping over the ridges of his abs.
He groans into your mouth, the sound raw and needy, breaking the kiss to nip at your lower lip, “fuck, Y/N—you drive me crazy. Always have.” With that admission hanging between you, he shifts his hips, the head of his cock pressing insistently now, parting your folds with deliberate slowness. Inch by torturous inch, he sinks into you and it takes a while, leaving the room with reverberations of your moans and groans as you accommodate to his size, the stretch burning sweetly, your walls yielding to his thickness. You gasp against his shoulder, biting down to muffle the sound, but he doesn’t let you hide—his hand cups the back of your neck, forcing your eyes to meet his as he bottoms out, fully sheathed.
“Look at me,” he demands, though his voice wavers with the effort of holding still, letting you adjust, “feel how perfect you are? Made for this—for me.”His forehead rests against yours, breaths syncing in the intimate cocoon of your bodies. The fullness is overwhelming, every pulse of him echoing through you, but it’s the emotion in his stare that hits hardest—the need of wanting you. Lovers entangled in a way that feels inevitable.
You nod, words failing as you clench around him experimentally, drawing a hiss from his lips, “Sunghoon—move. Please, I need—”
“I know what you need, baby,” he cuts in, voice strained, and then he’s moving—slow at first, a languid roll of his hips that grinds against that spot inside you, building the tension like embers catching flame. Each thrust is measured, deep, his cock dragging along your sensitive walls, the friction sparking pleasure that coils tighter with every pass. His hand slips between you, thumb finding your clit with unerring accuracy, circling in time with his rhythm.
“Like that?” He murmurs, lips ghosting your ear, his free arm wrapping around your waist to hold you flush against him. The position is intimate, chest to chest, hearts pounding in tandem, but there’s nothing gentle about the way he picks up speed, hips snapping forward with increasing force. The wet sounds of your joining fill the room, obscene and arousing, mingling with your shared moans.
“Yes—god, yes,” you cry out, head falling back as the pleasure mounts, your nails digging into his shoulders for purchase.
“No baby, say my name,” he chuckles when you do so on repeat, and he’s relentless now, the beast fully unleashed, pounding into you with a ferocity that borders on punishing, yet every so often he slows, grinding deep, whispering praises that melt your bones, “so tight—so wet for me. You’re gonna cum again, aren’t you, love? Milk my cock until I can’t hold back.”
The words push you higher, your body responding with a flood of heat, slick coating him as you chase the edge. You can feel him everywhere—his sweat-slicked skin sliding against yours, the musky scent of him overwhelming your senses, the way his breath stutters when you squeeze around him. It’s raw, but threaded with that emotional undercurrent, the clumsy boy proving himself not through words, but through this worship of your body.
“Sunghoon, I’m—fuck, I’m close,” you gasp, your voice breaking as the coil snaps taut. He senses it, angles his hips just right, thumb pressing harder on your clit, and the world fractures. Your orgasm crashes over you, fiercer than the last, walls fluttering wildly around him as you sob his name, body arching in ecstasy. Stars burst behind your eyelids, pleasure radiating from your core in endless waves.
He doesn’t stop, riding it out with you, his thrusts erratic now as your release triggers his own, “that’s it, baby—cum on me. Fuck, you feel so good—”
With a guttural groan, he buries himself deep one final time, spilling hot inside you, his cock pulsing with each spurt. His body shudders against yours, arms tightening like a vice, as if afraid you’ll slip away in the haze, in awe of how you clenched harder, squirting all over his cock and abdomen, which is something you had never really done before.
For a long moment, you stay locked together, breaths ragged, the afterglow wrapping around you like a warm blanket. He presses soft kisses to your temple, your cheek, murmuring nonsense words of adoration, “you’re incredible,” he breathes.
He watches you staring at him with your pretty eyes, and now, he feels shy, yet not ready enough to part ways, so he settles with hiding his pretty face in your neck, trying to be impossibly close to you, licking the spots he’d marked earlier, making you giggle slightly, his own smile blooming when he hears that, and somehow, everything feels right again. With you playing with his hair, he giggles, and the switch up in his demeanour amuses you, because the fiercely jealous guy who dragged you out of the party had entirely melted back into the sweet boy you’d been missing for weeks.
“You’re like two different people, Hoonie,” you whisper, your fingers gently detangling the dark strands at the nape of his neck.
He hums a low, contended sound that vibrates against your skin. He shifts his weight, wrapping his arms even more securely around your waist to pull you flush against him, as if he’s terrified you might still disappear if he loosens his grip.
“I’m just me,” he murmurs, his voice muffled against your skin. Slowly, he lifts his head. His cheeks are dusted with a pretty, shy pink flush, and his dark eyes are incredibly soft, completely devoid of the panic or anger that had clouded them earlier. He looks at you with a vulnerability that makes your breath hitch.
“I didn’t know what I was doing, Y/N,” he confesses, his thumbs gently stroking the sides of your waist. He swallows hard, “I was so desperate for you to see me as a man you could desire, not just some harmless puppy you felt sorry for. I—I actually looked up a guide.”
You blink, your hands stilling in his hair, “a guide?”
Sunghoon groans, dropping his forehead against your shoulder as if trying to hide from his own embarrassment, “WikiHow,” he mumbles, “how to flirt with a pretty girl, uh—with pictures.”
The room goes completely silent for a second. You stare down at the top of his dark head, your brain struggling to process the information.
“Wait,” you breathe out, the pieces suddenly snapping together in your mind, “the staring contest at the pub during trivia night?”
“Step one: Make eye contact,” he grumbles miserably.
“The voice note asking me to get boba, and then immediately inviting Jake and Jay?”
“I panicked because the guide said not to come on too strong. I used them as human shields.”
A massive, overwhelming swarm of butterflies suddenly erupts in your stomach. The guy who looks like he belongs on a runway, was secretly reading step-by-step internet articles because he was so nervous around you. It is the most endearingly pathetic, incredibly sweet thing you have ever heard in your entire life. You can’t help it—a laugh bubbles up in your chest, bright and genuine.
Sunghoon flinches slightly, his grip tightening, “don’t laugh at me,” he whines, sounding exactly like a babie, “Jake and Heeseung already found it on my laptop and roasted me for it. It was humiliating.”
“Hoonie,” you laugh softly, cupping his face and forcing him to look up at you. His eyes are wide and entirely unguarded, “you didn’t need any of that. The steps didn’t make me like you—you made me like you.”
He searches your face, clearly searching for any trace of pity, but only finding absolute adoration, “really?”
“Really,” you promise, your thumbs brushing over his sharp cheekbones, “I didn’t fall for the guy trying to be a smooth, mysterious flirt. I fell for the guy who fought the doorframe and lost, the guy who shared his umbrella in the rain, and the guy who sang Disney songs with me in the park. You never needed a guide, Sunghoon, I wanted you.”
A beautiful, relieved smile breaks across his face, the one that reaches his eyes and shows off his cute fangs. He leans into your touch, completely melting into your space, “I like you so much it makes my brain short-circuit,” he breathes out, his forehead resting against yours, “I’m entirely, hopelessly down bad for you, Y/N.”
“I really really like you too, you puppy,” you whisper, pressing a soft, reassuring kiss to his lips as he whined, making your eyes wide, “oh you’re into that—”
“Uh—i’ll get you some water,” he panicked, getting up, cock slipping out of you, and entirely forgetting about the clothes sprawled all over the floor, which made him yelp as he fell down.
You laughed freely, cause gosh, you really were falling for this man. Grabbing his leather jacket, you wore it as he tried to hide himself with embarrassment. It was a stupid choice to get up when your legs were not stable, because it resulted in you wobbling and falling right over hoon, the jacket doing nothing to hide your body, pressed against his so perfectly. Now, it was his turn to chuckle as he grabbed a strand of your hair, kissing it sweetly.
“Damn, was i that good?” He smirked, clearly loving the way you were hiding your face in his neck now.
“Oh shut up, puppy,” you mumbled, and he held on to you tighter.
“Well—this puppy isn’t done with you. C’mon baby, let me help you shower.”
Safe to say, you did much more than just showering, and even though exhaustion took over, sleep wasn’t something you entertained, pecking each other sweetly all night, acting clingier than ever, and honestly?
You wouldn’t have it any other way.
MEANWHILE:
Jay rattled the handle one more time, putting his shoulder into it just to be absolutely sure. He slowly turned his head to look at Jake and Heeseung in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hallway.
“He locked it,” Jay said, his voice completely flat.
Jake pressed his forehead against the heavy wood door, looking genuinely heartbroken, “you’ve got to be kidding me—tell me you’re kidding. My bed is in there, Jay, my toothbrush, my entire life.”
“I don’t care about your toothbrush, Jake,” Jay snapped, rubbing his temples, “I care about the fact that we are currently homeless because Sunghoon final-fucking-ly figured out how to flirt.”
Heeseung didn’t even argue, he had already accepted his fate, sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. He lay flat on his back, staring blankly at the sky, “I planned this,” I muttered, “I planned the whole party with Beomgyu, and my reward is the floor.”
Down the hall, Jungwon and Karina stepped out, stopping dead in their tracks as they took in the tragic scene. Jungwon let out a loud snort, crossing his arms, “wow, look at this sad display. You guys look pathetic.”
Heeseung immediately sat up, he scrambled over to Karina, looking up at her with giant, desperate eyes, “Karina please, have mercy.”
Karina took a step back, “what are you doing?”
“Y/N’s bed is empty,” Heeseung pleaded, “i’m a great houseguest. I will literally buy your coffee for a week—do not leave me out here in the hallway with them.”
Karina looked down at Heeseung, then over at Jay and Jake, who were staring at her like abandoned stray dogs. She let out a long, suffering sigh, “fine, get up. Heeseung, you can take Y/N’s bed. But just you.”
“Bless you,” Heeseung whispered, jumping up and sprinting before she could change her mind.
Jungwon shook his head as they all made your way towards their dorm, looking entirely too amused as he walked over to unlock his own bedroom door down the hall, “well, good luck on the carpet, you two. Build a fort or something.”
He turned the key and pushed his door open. But the second the lock clicked, Jay and Jake exchanged a single, desperate look. Pure survival instincts kicked in, and no words were needed. Before Jungwon could even step inside, Jay and Jake shoved past him, rushing into the room like they were escaping a burning building.
“Hey! What the—” Jungwon yelled, spinning around.
It was too late. Jake was already laid across Jungwon’s mattress like a starfish, pulling the duvet up to his chin, while Jay wedged himself against the wall side of the bed, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing heavily to fake being asleep.
“You can’t kick us out!” Jake screamed, hair disheveled.
“I’m asleep!” Jay announced loudly, “so deep in sleep.”
Jungwon stood in the doorway of his own bedroom, staring at the two fully grown men currently occupying his mattress. He looked at Jake’s death grip on the blanket. He looked at Jay, who was very clearly peeking with one eye. The silence stretched for three agonizing seconds.
Jungwon just let out a long, deeply exhausted sigh, slowly reaching over and grabbing a single throw pillow off his desk chair, and turned on his heel.
“I hate all of you,” Jungwon muttered flatly, dragging his feet out into the living room to sleep on the couch.
summary: four ex-couples are brought together to test whether love can end, restart or transform. you’re not sure which path is yours yet - closure, a new beginning or the courage to try again
< prologue | part 2 >
the taxi slows down before it fully stops, its tires crunching softly against gravel and for a moment you wish it wouldn’t, you wish it would just keep driving. you watch the house through the window, standing there, all clean lines and wide windows reflecting the pale sky, like it’s been waiting for you specifically.
the driver says something you don’t fully catch, and you blink, pulling yourself back into your body.
“sorry?”, you say.
“we’re here”, he repeats gently.
right. here.
you nod, pay and thank him and then push the door open. you step out, your shoes meeting the ground with a soft thud and for a brief second you just stand there, staring at the house with your hand still resting on the door.
this is it.
you close the door, walk around to the trunk and pull your suitcase out. the handle clicks into place and you flinch a little at the sound. it’s stupid, there’s no one outside to hear it, but your nerves are already stretched thin, reacting to everything like it matters more than it should, because, in reality, everything about this matters.
you wave goodbye to the driver, more out of habit than anything else, and watch as the taxi pulls away. it disappears faster than you expect, leaving you alone in front of the house with nothing but the faint hum of distant traffic and the sound of your own breathing. you consider getting back in, well not literally because there’s no taxi anymore, but you consider leaving.
you’ve thought about it so many times already that it doesn’t surprise you when the thought comes back again. you thought about it when hyunjin called you to talk about the show, when you told your ex, when you both agreed to do it, when you packed your things last night.
you’ve been thinking about it every single day. and yet, here you are.
your grip tightens on the suitcase handle as you exhale slowly, steadying yourself and then, you start walking towards the house. each step feels like you’re crossing some invisible line you won’t be able to step back over. the path is neat, carefully arranged, leading straight to the front door like there’s only one direction you’re supposed to go.
you reach the door and hesitate again, your reflection faintly visible in the glass, and you look more composed than you feel. you smooth your hair back, then your clothes, you grab your suitcase again and then let out one last breath.
you know the cameras are already recording you, the people of the show told you that. which means you’ve stopped being just you ever since you left the taxi. now, you’re you on a show. you with rules, you with secrets.
you push the door open before your thoughts make you run away and step inside. the interior is quiet and brighter than you expected. natural light spills in through large windows, stretching across polished floors and soft-coloured furniture. the space feels open, carefully designed to look effortless and beautiful and you know every detail has been thought through.
you walk inside slowly, your suitcase rolling softly behind you and you let your eyes wander. the living room opens up in front of you, wide and inviting, with a large sofa facing a low table, a few scattered cushions, and subtle decorations that make the place feel lived in without being personal.
“hello?”, you ask softly, but there’s no answer, you’re the first one.
you move further in, your footsteps quiet but echoing, another sign that tells you that you’re alone. the cameras are there, you can feel them even when you don’t look directly at them. you glance towards the kitchen, drawn by the openness of it. it’s just as expansive as the rest, with clean countertops and a large island in the centre of it. you can already imagine people standing there, leaning against the counter, laughing and talking with each other.
you run your fingers along the edge of the island as you pass. everything feels a little too polished, like a stage waiting for actors, actors like you. your stomach twists at the thought.
you wonder who will walk through that door next. a girl? a boy? one of the other participants you’ve never met, who will just walk in here and introduce themselves and become part of your daily life faster than it should be possible? or-
your chest tightens again, sharper this time.
it could be him. it was one thing to see him last week, with all of the cameras and you talking and seeing each other for the first time in a year. but if he’s the next one to arrive today…
you swallow, your gaze drifting back towards the entrance as the idea settles heavily in your mind, impossible to ignore. the moment you see him, no matter if he’s the next one or not, you will have to act like you don’t know him, like there’s no history between you. you’re just strangers. the thought feels almost absurd when you try to hold it next to everything you lived together.
was this a good idea?
the question comes back again and you walk back into the living room. you leave your suitcase and then lower yourself onto the sofa. you rest your hands in your lap, your fingers loosely intertwined, and stare ahead without focusing on anything in particular as the silence stretches.
you think about how this will look from the outside - the first arrival, the quiet girl sitting alone, waiting. they won’t hear your heart beating so loud you think it will leave your chest, they won’t see the way your thoughts keep circling the same questions, they won’t hear the way your mind keeps going back to him, they won’t know how much of you is hoping and dreading that he’s the one who walks through that door next.
you suddenly hear it, the faint sound of the front door opening, and you straighten slightly, your hands tightening in your lap, your gaze flicking towards the hallway that leads to the entrance. you hold your breath as you hear the first footsteps, soft and careful.
one of the girls.
one of the boys.
him.
your chest tightens with something you don’t want to name and even though you don’t move from the sofa, every part of you feels alert, waiting. the footsteps come closer and then she appears.
a girl steps into the living room, pausing just slightly when she notices you. her eyes widen for a brief moment and then a visible wave of relief softens her expression, her shoulders dropping like she’s just let go of something she didn’t know she was holding.
you feel it too, faintly, relief spreading quietly through your chest. it’s not him, good. you stand up and you both bow politely.
“hi”, she says, her voice gentle and you see there’s a small smile on her face, “i’m lily”
“hi”, you reply, returning the smile as best as you can, “i’m y/n”
she nods her head and then glances around the room again, as if she’s taking everything in now that she knows she’s not alone.
“it’s… really big”, she says, laughing out of nerves.
“yeah, it is”, you say, laughing too, “i got here some minutes ago. i haven’t seen all of it”
“that makes me feel better”, she says, smiling a little more easily now, “i thought i’d be the first one and just… wait here awkwardly”
you shake your head, laughing more, “don’t worry. i already did that for you”
that earns another laugh from her, this time more genuine, and the tension between you loosens just a little. you both sit down on the sofa, leaving a comfortable amount of space between you.
“so…”, she starts, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “were you nervous coming here?”
you let out a small breath, glancing down at your hands before looking back up, “yeah. more than i thought i’d be”
“same”, she says, nodding, “i kept thinking about it on the way here, like… why did i agree to this?”
you huff out a quiet laugh, the words hitting a little too close, “i’ve been thinking that for a while”
she smiles again and there’s something understanding in her expression that makes it easier to sit there with her. the conversation flows slowly but steadily, both of you skirting around anything too deep, too revealing, because you can’t reveal too much about yourselves, at least not yet.
you’re in the middle of responding to something she says when the sound of the front door cuts through the air again and both of you pause. your head turns towards the hallway and lily does the same beside you, her posture straightening too.
you hear footsteps, heavier this time, and your heart picks up again. the footsteps get closer and closer, until a figure appears in the living room. it’s a boy this time, and he stops when he sees the two of you and gives a small, polite nod.
“hello”, he says.
you and lily bow in greeting and he mirrors the gesture.
“i’m minho”, he adds, his voice even, controlled.
you introduce yourself and lily does the same. there’s something calm and unreadable about him but it doesn’t fully hide the slight tension in his shoulders, the careful way he moves when he leaves his suitcase next to yours and walks over to sit down on the sofa with you. you can see he’s nervous too.
three strangers in a too big, too quiet house. the silence settles again, like all three of you are waiting for someone else to be the one to break it. minho is the one who does, as he glances between you and lily and then speaks.
“are you two the first ones?”
his voice is calm, casual enough, but you can hear the hesitation there, like he’s choosing his words more carefully than necessary.
you nod, “yeah. i got here first and then lily came a bit after”
“i was really hoping i wouldn’t be the first one”, lily says.
minho laughs, “yeah, me too”
and then, you hear a soft, very audible sound breaking through the room - lily’s stomach. you blink and turn your head towards her at the same time as minho before the three of you laugh at the same time.
“oh god, i didn’t eat this morning, i’m sorry”, lily says, covering her face, her voice muffled behind her hands, “i was too nervous”
“don’t worry”, you say, still laughing.
minho tilts his head, looking at her, “i can cook something if you want”
the offer comes naturally, like it’s not a big deal at all, but it still makes you glance at him with a bit more interest. lily looks surprised too, her eyes widening just a little before she quickly shakes her head.
“no, it’s okay”, she says, “i’ll just wait until everyone gets here”
“are you sure?”, he asks her.
“yeah”, she nods, smiling, “it feels weird to start without everyone”
you glance at minho again, “you like cooking?”
he shrugs, casual, “yeah. i do it a lot”
“that’s nice”, you say, “i don’t. like, at all”
“same”, lily adds, laughing a little, “i mean i know how to cook, but i really don’t want to most of the time”
minho’s lips curve just slightly at that, like he finds it amusing but isn’t going to comment too much on it. you’re about to say something when you hear the door opening again, cutting the moment instantly.
the three of you go quiet, your attention shifting towards the hallway in sync. your heartbeat picks up again, the now familiar tightness returning to your chest before you can stop it. you see a boy stepping into the living room with a small, polite smile already in place, like he’s prepared for this moment. his eyes move across the room, landing on the three of you, and he gives a light bow.
“hi”, he says, “i’m seungmin”
you move with the others, bowing in return. your voice comes out steady when you introduce yourself, even though your heart hasn’t stopped beating faster and faster, you know it won’t calm down until everyone is here. seungmin places his suitcase next to the others and then walks over to sit in the armchair across the sofa, right in front of you.
up close like this, it’s easier to see the details - the slight tension in his posture, the careful way he settles into the seat, how his hands rest together a bit too neatly, how he keeps pressing his lips together. he looks composed and calm, but it’s the same calm you had seen in minho as well, controlled and nervous.
“did you eat?”, lily asks seungmin, her tone light.
he shakes his head slightly, “um... not much”
“me neither”, she says with a small laugh, “i was too nervous”
seungmin nods in understanding, a faint smile touching his lips and then, you decide to speak again.
“do you like cooking?”
his gaze shifts to you, “i know how to, but i don’t really like it”
“just like us”, you say, gesturing between you and lily, the two of you laughing again.
the front door opens once more and you all wait there in silence until a girl appears this time. she stops the moment she sees all of you, like completely still. her eyes widen slightly, like she wasn’t expecting to walk into a full room and she just stands there taking everything in. you recognise the feeling immediately, that brief and overwhelming awareness that this is real, that you’re all here for the same reason.
she bows quickly, almost a little too fast, “hi, i’m hae”, she says, her voice quieter than the other so far, carrying a small awkward edge that makes something in your chest soften just lightly.
you and the others greet her the same way, introducing yourselves one by one. she looks around again, as if trying to figure out where to go or what to do, and then she walks over to leave her suitcase next to the others. after a small hesitation, she moves towards the sofa, but instead of sitting near you, she chooses the far end, settling into the corner with a bit of distance between herself and the rest of you.
“did you have trouble finding the place?, seungmin asks, his tone easy, directed towards minho first.
minho shakes his head, “not really. the directions were clear”
seungmin nods, glancing briefly towards lily and you as if including everyone in the conversation, “same here”
it’s simple, surface-level, but it works, it gives everyone something to hold onto.
“and you?”, he continues, this time looking towards hae.
she blinks, then shakes her head quickly, “no… it was okay”
“good”, he says, offering a small, polite smile, then his gaze moves between all of you, “have you looked around the house yet?”
you shake your head, “not really, just the living room and the kitchen”
seungmin hums softly, like he expected that answer.
“it’s big”, minho says, glancing around again, “i think we’ll get lost at some point”
that earns a faint smile from lily and even minho’s expression softens slightly. before anyone can say anything else, the door opens again. the sound is becoming familiar now, but it still sends a small jolt through you. your body reacts before you can stop it as your shoulders straighten slightly, your attention shifting once more towards the entrance as your heart speeds up again.
another boy steps into the room with a natural ease that immediately feels different from the rest of you. he’s not completely relaxed, you can see a hint of nervousness in the way his gaze flickers across everyone, but he carries it differently.
“hi”, he says, smiling as he bows lightly, “i’m bang chan but you can call me chan or chris”
his tone is warm and open and it changes the atmosphere almost instantly. you introduce yourselves again, you honestly don’t remember how many times you’ve done that today, and he moves to join you in the living room once he sets his suitcase down with the others. he sits down on the sofa, just between hae and lily, but leaving a respectful space between all of them. he looks around at all of you, his expression thoughtful for a second before it softens again.
“so…”, he starts, leaning forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees, “am i the only one that’s nervous or are you all just really good at hiding it?”
all of you laugh at that, and you miss the way chan looks at you quickly before he looks around the room again.
lily lets out a short laugh, “no, no, we’re definitely nervous”
“same”, seungmin adds quietly, clearing his throat and looking at the floor now.
you smile a little as you joke, “i think we’re all just pretending not to be”
chan nods his head, “okay good, that’s better”, he glances between all of you again, “did you guys eat before coming here?”
“we were talking about that before, saying that we were too nervous to eat anything”, minho says.
“i barely ate too”, chan says.
hae gives a small nod again, she’s quieter than the rest, but she does it to be included in the group.
you glance towards the kitchen, “do you think there’s food already here?”
“probably”, lily says, “or maybe we have to go buy some?”
chan tilts his head, “we could check”
everyone agrees and there’s a small shift in the group, like the idea of actually doing something, anything, helps ease the stillness just a little more. you’re about to say something else when the door opens again, and the tension returns. you hear high heels against the floor, and it tells you everything before you even see her - the last girl is here.
she steps into the living room, her gaze moving across all of you, “hi, i’m yeong”
everyone introduces themselves and then chan gestures towards the kitchen, “we were just about to check if there’s anything to eat”
yeong glances in that direction, then back at the group, and nods her head, “okay, that sounds good”
you stand up with the others, following them towards the kitchen, everyone filling the space that had felt too still just moments ago. the kitchen feels different now with almost everyone in it, you don’t forget that the last boy has yet to arrive. all of you move around the island, opening cabinets and checking the fridge.
“there’s some stuff here”, hae says, crouching to look into a lower cabinet.
“there’s not a lot”, minho adds, scanning the shelves.
“ramen”, chan points out, pulling out a couple of packets, “that’s something”
“of course it is”, seungmin says lightly.
there are a few other things - bread, eggs, some vegetables, meat, basic ingredients. it’s not enough for anything elaborate but it’s enough to put together something quick.
you find yourself standing near the counter, watching as everyone starts to fall into small roles without really discussing it. there’s quiet conversation, overlapping just enough to keep the silence from settling again, and yet, your thoughts drift as you glance at them one by one, almost without realising it.
some of them look more relaxed now, others are still nervous and you try to think about you and your ex and-
you stop yourself there. your gaze shifts away as your fingers brush against the edge of the counter. this is what you signed up for, a house full of strangers and questions and choices you’re not sure you’re ready for.
your chest tightens again, as the now familiar question surfaces again, was this a good idea?, quieter this time but no less present. you watch as minho opens the ramen packets, casually asking who wants what and for a moment, it almost feels normal, like you’ve done this a million times before. but underneath it, your thoughts keep moving and circling, never quite setting, because nothing about this is going to be simple.
by the time evening settles in, the house already feels different. not completely familiar, not yet at least, but it feels less distant than it did when you first met this morning. eating together had gone better than you expected and after that, the energy naturally dipped and you all moved to unpack, see the house, sit alone for a while and just breathe.
there were four rooms in the house which meant you all had to share. you end up sharing with lily and you’re quietly grateful for it because there’s something about her that makes you feel at ease. you talk a little while unpacking and it’s enough to settle some of the nerves in your chest.
everyone is nice, really nice, but you had expected something more awkward or forced. but instead it was just good, really good even. which almost makes it worse because it lulls you into forgetting, just for a second what his actually is.
now, the house is alive again, and you make your way back into the kitchen. one by one everyone gathers again, naturally falling into place like you’ve already created a routine. you step closer to the counter, glancing around.
chan is already there, his sleeves pushed up as he looks through what you can have for dinner. minho stands nearby, leaning against the counter as he looks too. lily joins you a second later before looking around as if deciding where to help. seungmin stands next to you and just when he’s about to speak, the front door opens again.
everyone pauses and looks at each other, the last boy is finally here. you hear footsteps quickly this time, faster and slightly rushed. a boy appears then, breathing just a little heavier than the rest of you had when you arrived.
“hi- sorry”, he says, bowing quickly, “i’m han and i’m really sorry i’m so late”, his voice is warm but hurried as he continues, “my job was… busy today. it took longer than i expected. sorry”
he bows again but you all stop him, there’s no need to apologise.
“it’s fine”, lily says with a small smile, “we were just about to start dinner”
“yeah”, chan says, “you didn’t miss anything important”
han lets out a small breath, visibly relieved, “okay, good. i felt bad”
you introduce yourselves again and han nods after each of you, his shoulders relaxing. he looks at his suitcase and then at you again.
“so… um…”, han starts.
“oh, you’re gonna share a room with me, here, let me show you”, seungmin says before he moves to han and the two of them go to their shared room.
everyone’s here, no more arrivals, no more waiting. all of you move to start dinner again and han slips into it easily despite arriving late, offering to help and joking when he almost grabs the wrong thing, earning a few laughs in return. when everything is ready, you all move to the table together.
there's a brief moment of hesitation - who sits where, how close, how far - but it passes quickly. chairs scrape softly against the floor as everyone settles in, plates and bowls being passed around, the clatter of utensils filling the space. you sit between lily and yeong, all of the girls on one side and all of the boys on the side. you start eating in silence but it doesn’t take long for the conversation to start again.
“we should probably figure out chores”, yeong says, glancing around the table.
“yeah”, seungmin agrees, “this place won’t stay clean on its own”
han lets out a small laugh, “i was hoping it would”
“rotating sounds better, so no one gets stuck with the same thing”, you say.
“agreed”, seungmin says.
there’s a small pause as everyone considers it, then nods follow.
“and groceries”, hae says quietly, “we’ll need more food”
“that too”, minho says, “maybe tomorrow? whoever’s free can go”
“and dinner”, han says, his gaze moving between all of you, “should we… eat together everyday?”
it’s a simple suggestion but it carries something deeper, a kind of quiet commitment.
“i think that would be nice”, you say.
“yeah”, lily agrees, “everyone will be busy during the day with their jobs and stuff, so dinner would be nice”
“then we can rotate cooking too”, chan says, “like two people each night?”
everyone agrees and then, when you finish eating, you hear the doorbell ringing again. the sound cuts through the room so suddenly that for a second, no one reacts. all of you pause almost at the same time, small movements freezing mid-action and conversations dropping off mid-sentence.
“is… someone else coming?”, lily asks quietly.
no one answers at first and it almost feels like the beginning of the day again, that same anticipation and uncertainty creeping back in.
minho pushes his chair back and stands up, “i’ll go and check”
he heads towards the front door and the rest of you stay where you are, listening, the house feeling too quiet again. there’s the faint sound of the door opening and then closing. minho reappears a few seconds later, something in his hand.
an envelope.
the moment you see it, you recognise it immediately. somewhere in the back of your mind you knew this would come, but actually seeing it, here, now, makes it real in a way you hadn’t fully prepared for.
he looks at all of you, holding it up slightly, “it’s for us”
he reaches into the envelope and pulls out several smaller ones, one for each of you. your eyes drop to them, scanning, and your breath catches when you see your name written on one. a memory flashes in your mind - sitting alone days ago in your apartment, a pen in hand as you stared at a blank page without writing anything. some of the people on the show had contacted you and said you needed to write an introduction of your ex.
you remember how hard that felt. how impossible it was to decide what to say, what to not say.
minho starts handing them out one by one. all of you take them with different expressions, different reactions, some of you are more hesitant, others are more curious. once everyone has their envelope, you all sit there, waiting until someone decides to actually do something.
“so…”, chan starts, “should we read them?”
then lily nods slowly, “out loud?”
“probably”, minho says, “i think that’s the point”
no one argues but there’s a shared understanding, unspoken but clear, that this is part of it, the beginning of everything unraveling.
lily ends up going first. she hesitates before opening the envelope, her fingers careful as she slides the paper out. you watch her expression as she scans the first lines, the way her lips press together briefly before she starts reading, her voice soft at first, slightly unsteady.
‘lily is the first girl i had a serious relationship with. she is nice, bright and smiles a lot so she gets along with everyone. she’s soft hearted and hates being alone so i think it’ll be nice if she meets someone kind and gentle and becomes the person i couldn’t be for her’
when she finishes reading, she lets out a small breath, smiling faintly as she folds the paper again.
“that was…”, she trails off.
“beautiful”, hae offers gently and lily nods.
next is minho and he doesn’t hesitate as much when he opens his envelope. his tone is steady when he reads, more than lily’s, but there are moments where something softer slips through the words he reads.
‘my first impression of minho was that he was very handsome’
he stops reading when all of you laugh at that, himself included.
‘he may seem cold at first but he’s actually a very warm person and he likes to give presents and prepare things for his girlfriend. he’s someone who’s genuine with others, so he was a very warm and reliable boyfriend’
when he finishes reading, he reacts with a slight shake of his head, like he expected that.
“that was very good”, han says.
minho hums, “it was”
yeong decides to go next and when you look at her, you notice the way her fingers hold the paper just a little tighter. her voice is clear as she reads but there’s emotion there, subtle and controlled.
‘yeong is a caring and soft hearted person who gets hurt by the smallest actions and words, but she tries to hide it because of her strong pride, so i think it would be great if you can pay attention to her and take good care of her’
when hae’s turn arrives, she goes very quiet again. she almost whispers at first, glancing down more than she looks up, but as she continues, her voice steadies, even if her hands don’t.
‘once hae sets her mind on something, she’ll do it no matter what. she’s a passionate person who likes learning new things and looks cool working. she was a very considerate girlfriend and was always there for me whenever i needed her’
you find yourself leaning slightly without realising it, listening more carefully, trying to piece things together without actually knowing anything, without seeing the image of the puzzle you’re trying to create.
han’s letter brings a different energy. he laughs once before he even starts reading, shaking his head slightly like he already knows what’s coming.
“okay… this is embarrassing”, he says, but he reads anyway.
‘han is someone who makes me feel special. i loved our time together and he was very romantic. he’s bright and funny and he talks a lot so it’s easy to talk with him. he loves music and when he’s with people he shines. i think a girl who can understand him will be a good match for him. he will treat you like a princess but he’s also the princess in the relationship’
there’s more laughter this time and it helps, just a little, to break the weight that’s been building.
chan goes after him. he opens his envelope with a small breath, scanning the page briefly before starting to read. his voice is warm, like it was when he first walked in, but there’s something more grounded in it now.
‘chan is a very warm and meticulous person. wherever he goes and whoever he’s with, he always puts others first. he takes good care of people, so while living with him, you’ll be able to see his sweet side often. he likes music and he’s sentimental, so i think he’ll be very good with a girl who has the same interests as him’
you notice the way the room quiets a bit more as he reads, the attention fully on him. when he finishes, he smiles faintly and looks at seungmin as he folds the paper.
“your turn”, he tells him.
seungmin opens his letter without much hesitation and he starts reading, his voice calm and controlled.
‘seungmin has a very detailed personality to the point he notices the minor changes in your tone. he loves baseball and he is very good at it. he usually seems calm but he’s very loving, caring and warm when you get to know him. he looks after those close to him and he took great care of me and always put me first. he’s the only boy i regret breaking up with’
everyone stays silent at the last sentence, the words quite heavy and full of regret. you try to keep your breathing steady because you know you’re next and you’re not sure if you’re ready for the words that are going to appear in front of you in mere seconds.
all eyes shift to you, there’s nowhere else for the attention to go. your heart is beating too fast again and your thoughts are too loud but still, you inhale slowly and open the envelope.
you stare at the handwriting, recognising it as soon as the letter lands in your hands. you force your eyes to focus and then, you start reading.
‘y/n has a pretty smile and laughs a lot, that’s why when you look at her, you feel happy as well. she’s someone with bright energy and loves chocolate, so if you give her something sweet, you’ll see her wide smile’
but as you go on, something shifts. you try to keep going anyway, your eyes moving across the lines, your grip tightening on the paper.
‘she is always happy and she is very caring and loving. while we were together, she made me grow and taught me many things. i remember our time together as the best time of my life’
you can feel it building - the memories behind the words, the things he chose to write. your voice softens without you meaning it to.
‘she’s soft hearted and emotional, and also strong, but please be kind to her so that she won’t get hurt’
by the time you reach the end, your chest feels too tight, your throat closing just enough to make the last words harder to get out. when you finish, you lower the paper slowly, your hands not as steady as before. your eyes sting, and before you can stop it, a tear slips down. you look away quickly, pressing your lips together, letting put a small breath that doesn’t quite steady you.
you see a hand in front of you, offering you a tissue. you look up and see seungmin, with a soft smile on his face.
“here, take it”, he says.
“thank you”, you say as you grab the tissue.
you knew this would happen. you bring the tissue to your face, brushing your cheek and wiping the tears from your face, trying to compose yourself again, even as your chest still feels tight and your emotions are sitting too close to the surface.
not long after you finish reading the letters, all of you decide it’s time to go to bed. you can still feel the weight of your letter sitting in your chest, without fully letting you go after you read it out loud. you’re sitting on the edge of your bed, staring down at your hands, still holding the faint memory of the paper from earlier.
“hey”, lily says gently.
you look up.
she’s watching you now, her expression soft but a bit concerned, “are you okay?”
you take a second before answering, not because you don’t want to respond, but because you’re trying to figure out what the honest answer even is.
“i think so”, you say finally, “it was just… a lot”
she nods immediately, “yeah, i get it”
“it kind of hit me more that i expected", you say, looking down again.
“i could tell”, she says softly, “but it was really nice. you know, what your ex wrote”
you nod slowly, not trusting yourself to speak again. you both start getting ready for bed when your phone vibrates, both of your phones do. you look at lily and she’s already looking at her own phone. you reach for yours and you see a text from the show.
exchange: who made your heart flutter today? send them a text
this is the first actual choice you have to make and your mind starts moving, faster than you can control. you think about the day, about the boys and then you exhale quietly. you don’t even know them yet, not all of them at least. sending something to someone new feels… too much and too fast.
but if you send your ex the text… your thumb hovers over the screen for a second before you finally type.
‘thank you’
it’s simple, maybe too simple. but it’s the only thing that feels right in this moment, especially after everything that happened earlier, after the letter. you stare at the words for a second, then press send before you can overthink it.
“did you send it?”, lily asks you.
“yeah, you?”
“yeah”, she says, placing her phone down beside her.
none of you asks who you sent the text to, it’s understood, the texts have to remain anonymous, at least for now, that’s part of the rules. you start talking again, relaxing, when your phone vibrates again.
you see a new text and your heart picks up slightly as you read it.
‘i miss seeing you smile’
your breath catches and for a second you just stare at the screen and before you can think too much about it, another text appears.
exchange: your ex chose you
when you finally wake up the next day, you realise that the light filtering through the curtains is higher in the sky than it should be, and for a moment you just lie there, disoriented. your body feels heavy and your head too. it takes a few seconds before you reach your phone, your eyes still half-lidded and when you see the time, you blink, even more confused now.
it’s almost noon. last night… didn’t really let you rest. you just lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, your thoughts looping over and over again. the letters, the text.
you turn on the bed, pressing your face into the pillow for a moment before pushing yourself up. your body protests just a little, still tired, but there’s no point staying there. you leave your room and go to the kitchen and you see hae as soon as you step in. she’s standing by the counter, a cup in her hands, and she looks up when she hears you enter.
“y/n”, she says, a small smile appearing, “good morning, oh, well... good afternoon”
“yeah, hello”, you reply, your voice still a little softer than usual.
“did you just wake up?”, she asks you.
you nod, rubbing lightly at your arm, “yeah… i didn’t sleep that well”
“me neither”, she says, letting out a small breath, “i think everyone was a bit overwhelmed”
you nod your head and then ask her, “where is everyone?”
“seungmin and minho went to buy groceries”, she says, “the other left earlier for work”
you nod slowly, leaning against the counter and hae looks at you again, a little more carefully this time.
“are you okay?”, she asks.
you hesitate for a second before answering, “yeah, i just… needed some time i guess”
“it was a lot”
“yeah, it was”, you agree.
you’re about to say something else when you hear the front door opening, followed by the noise of footsteps and the faint clatter of bags.
“they’re back”, hae says.
a second later, minho and seungmin walk into the kitchen, both of them carrying grocery bags.
“oh, you’re up”, minho says, setting one of the bags down on the counter.
seungmin’s gaze follows, landing on you briefly, “morning”
“morning boys”, you reply.
“have you eaten?”, minho asks, already moving to set the rest of the groceries down.
you shake your head.
“i can make something quickly”, he offers.
“no, it’s okay”, you say, “you just got back, i can-”
“it won’t take long”, he cuts in lightly and starts pulling something out of one of the bags, starting to prepare you something to eat.
you exchange a small glance with hae, who smiles faintly, then turns back to the groceries.
“let’s put these away”, she says.
you nod, stepping closer to the counter. seungmin joins you without a word, picking up one of the bags and starting to sort through it. the three of you start taking things out, placing items where they belong, and behind you, you hear minho moving around, the sound of cooking filling the kitchen.
you finish putting everything away at the same time minho finishes cooking for you and he slides a simple plate towards you with a small nod.
“thank you”, you say.
he just shrugs lightly, “eat before it gets cold”
you sit at the counter while the others linger nearby. hae pours herself some water and seungmin leans lightly against the counter, looking at his phone for a second before he puts it away again. the four of you stay there, talking as you eat slowly, the food pulling you a little more into the moment and into your body.
when you’re done eating, everyone leaves to do their own thing, it’s still too early for constant closeness, too soon to be together all the time without space. the house is shared, yes, but you’re all still figuring out how to exist in it with more people.
you go to your room and sit on your bed before reaching for your bag, pulling out a book you brought with you. reading has always been like this for you - a way to settle your thoughts, to step into your own little world just enough to understand your own mind better. and right now, your mind needs it.
you curl up against the headboard, opening the book, letting the words pull you in slowly. it takes a few pages to fully focus, your thoughts still drifting back to everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours, but eventually it quiets.
time passes without you noticing too much, and at some point you check your phone, replying to a few texts, when you start hearing movement outside your room again. voices, doors, the house filling up.
you close your book, setting it aside and stand up, stretching before heading out of your room. when you step into the living room, all of them are already there. chan and seungmin are sitting on the sofa, talking about something that makes lily laugh beside them. han is nearby, saying something animatedly while minho listens with a small, almost amused expression. hae and yeong are there too, talking together, a bit further from the group but still there.
“y/n, you’re here!”, lily says when she notices you.
you smile at her, moving closer, “yeah, i was in our room”
“how was your day?”, chan asks you, turning towards you when you sit next to him.
“quiet”, you say, “slept in and then just read for a while”
“that sounds nice”, he says.
the conversation picks up from there, and you find yourself laughing along at some point, the sound coming easier than it did yesterday. suddenly, the doorbell rings and the sound cuts through the room, immediate and clear. the doorbell rings again and then lily pushes herself up from the sofa.
“i’ll get it!”, she says, already heading towards the door.
you follow her with your eyes as she disappears down the hallway, the rest of you falling into a brief, curious silence. you hear the door opening and closing, and then lily comes back with an envelope.
she looks around at all of you, a small, almost nervous smile on her face before she opens it. the paper rustles lightly in her hands as she pulls out the contests, looking down to read.
“okay, here we go…”, she starts, her voice a little bit shakier now.
‘earlier today, the female participants were asked to name an important restaurant for them that held memories with their ex’
your stomach drops lightly.
right, that text, you remember it now, it’s one of the texts your answered before when you were reading in your room. you didn’t realise it would happen so soon, whatever this was supposed to be. lily continues, reading carefully.
‘the male participants will now choose one of these four restaurants for your first date tomorrow. please, keep in mind that the purpose of this is to meet new people’
there’s a small shift in the room, it’s subtle but you feel it.
“so… if we have to pick a restaurant that we don’t know…”, han trails off.
“it’s because we can’t pick our ex”, minho finishes, matter-of-fact.
silence settles for a second as the implication lands clearly for everyone. you swallow, your gaze dropping briefly to the table before lifting again.
lily pulls out four small cards from the envelope and places them carefully on the table in front of you. each one has the logo and the name of the restaurants the four of you have chosen - four choices, something simple but carrying more weight than they should.
everyone gathers around the table, drawn in without needing to be told. the space tightens, your shoulders almost brushing, and you feel the air shifting again.
“so… how do we decide the order?”, chan asks.
“rock, paper, scissors?”, han suggests.
the boys nod their heads and then their hands go up, small bursts of laughter breaking through the tension for just a moment as they play it out. seungmin wins so he will go first, then minho, han and chan, that’s the order.
seungmin looks at the cards and then reaches for one, the tacos restaurant. he picks it up and turns it over, all of you realising there’s a code on the back. he takes out his phone and scans it.
“what’s that?”, hae asks him.
“you scan the code and it tells us who we’re gonna have our date with”, seungmin says.
okay, so everyone is gonna know who is going with who once all of the boys choose the restaurant, perfect. you’re not really sure if that calms your nerves or not.
minho goes next and he reaches for the bbq restaurant without much hesitation. his movements are smooth, almost detached, but you can see it, the slight tension in his jaw as he flips the card over and then there’s another code, another scan, another couple for a first date.
han is next and he looks at the remaining cards for a second before choosing the italian restaurant. there’s a small smile on his face, nervous but something you’ve come to learn is so him.
“okay…”, he mutters softly, mostly to himself, as he turns the card over.
you feel it before anything happens, that strange pull in your chest, that quiet sense of something about to shift. he scans the code and pauses for a second, then two, and then, he looks up, straight at you, and everything clicks into place at once.
han is your first date.
a/n: han jisung you're OUT ❌ he's notttt the ex (i'm scared bc i know some of you are gonna come for me and i'm sorry pls don't hate me) so who's the ex???? 🤔
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