☤ TEETH. ❝ BEFORE AND AFTER ❞ 박성훈⸝.ᐟ⋆
⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆ S in which nothing cuts deeper than your hatred for park sunghoon, except the desire that waits underneath it. 、masterpost PAIRING 𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗄 𝗌𝗎𝗇𝗀𝗁𝗈𝗈𝗇 ۶ৎ 𝘧𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋. 💿playlist WC 3.3k
𝓦 。ᐟ nothing much just fluff flashbacks hello, angst, 30 smau screenshots, with a dash of babygirl bestfriend heeseung 💿 in my head — ariana grande, i wish i hated you — ariana grande, you get me so high - the nbhd two slow dancers - mitski
𝓢ummer taps mic … hello is this thing on... i’m sorry for being so awol my sweeties i’m in the fucking trenches. i decided to post this separately instead of including it in chapter 16 hehe i got carried away pouring my despair into writing over the past 5 months (crazy sentence) so here is a cumulation of my babies before their downfall + bits of reader's diary :3 i love you all so much. thank you for being here
・・・・・ ✷
FOUR SUMMERS AGO, you came home from a three month long summer trip and found a stranger wearing your favorite person’s face.
Eventually, you started to wonder if you exaggerated everything the two of you had and embroidered the whole thing with too much hope. Maybe you were just young and stupid, and it was unrequited love, because that is what he told you, wasn’t it?
“You’re just needy, delusional, and spoiled. And I could never be with someone like you.”
In the end, Sunghoon chose his empire over you, too cowardly to fight against a system his father set up. And you lost your best friend in the process, too. That’s what happened.
You know what happened after that, what he turned into.
But he wasn’t always like that, no matter how hard you try to rewrite your memories to lessen the pain.
THREE YEARS AGO. ’Twas a warm, still, joyful spring evening from an entirely different lifetime.
Back when you were beguilingly unaware and unworried about what would happen in the next three years, much less in the next few minutes, inside the cozy corners of your bedroom, which smelled like a Pomander Diptyque candle while Obvious by Ariana Grande sounded through the ApplePlay on your TV.
At the time, you weren’t worried about your sexuationship with your ex-best friend, who turned into the mortal embodiment of Hades and, as fate would have it twistedly, your (PR) fiancée at all. You only had three real concerns, and they were all oh so very simple:
What the hell were you supposed to wear to Jay’s surprise birthday party tonight?
Which bag would best fit all four of your lipsticks and your 3 different compacts (because what if you need to touch up highlighter, powder, and blush?) a power bank (because Sunghoon’s phone always ran out of battery), wipes, hand sanitizer, and Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer, because you were fixating on reading again and planned to sneak away to finish a chapter even though you were not antisocial, but just obsessed with Edward Cullen. Maybe the Chanel 19? But what color? And if the bag changed, then the outfit changed. And if the outfit changed, then the shoes changed. Obviously.
How irrevocably in love you were with your best friend. (Don’t worry, in here, he’s not Hades yet. He’s still your Hoonie.)
Hoonie, by the way, arrived way too early to pick you up, so now he was lying across your couch in your gigantic pink bedroom at your family manor, scrolling through TikTok obnoxiously loudly while you stood inside your walk-in closet, digging through dresses and ranting about some guy you gave a chance the night before. (Sungchan, irrelevant to the plot, however, he was cute. Definitely your type. Definitely into you. Were you? Not so much.) But you finally said yes to a date with him because you could not be hung up on your best friend forever, right? Especially not when said best friend had sworn off love like fucking Simon Basset or whatever. (You didn’t say this out loud, duh)
“…And then he tried to kiss me, and I was like… not in those ugly ass shoes. I was not having my first kiss—” You stopped, because that’s not factually correct. “Well. Not my first kiss. You were my first kiss.”
“I was your what?”
“My first kiss,” you repeated, cocking a brow up, even though you were in your closet and Sunghoon couldn’t see you. (This was approximately a few weeks after you’d tipsily kissed him in Heeseung’s house, by the way.)
Sunghoon was silent for a while, and then a loud thud sounded. You peeked out just in time to see Sunghoon dragging a hand down his face from your cream sofa, looking exactly as stupid as he clearly felt. “Shit. I forgot that you’re… You.”
You scrunched your nose, indignantly. “What the hell does that mean?”
He looked at you, still in your pajamas and with absolutely no makeup done, and paused for a moment. “How long are you planning to take?”
“What do you mean, I’m me, Hoonie?” you repeated, giving him a look that said, I will now take longer because you asked.
“I mean… you’re you.” He pointed up and down at you. “You have standards and rules.” He looked down at the blanket under him on your cream sofa with the pink Hermès pillows and the matching jacquard merino cashmere blanket, a blanket which was there because no outside clothes touched your couch and even your bed. “And standards for the rules. You just said you rejected Sungchan because of his clothes.”
Oh. You get what he means now. Translation: you’re you, aka stingy with your attention and operating with an insane, clearance system when it comes boys (and girls, if only society wasn’t so… como se dice… homophobic!) Nevertheless, you barely let anyone make it past the talking stage before you find one tiny flaw and send them to the metaphorical guillotine.
And how you’ll never date unless it’s The One.
“And?” You shrugged.
Side note: You rejected Sungchan because he was not Sunghoon. Plain and Simple. But also, his clothes were really ugly.
“Ugly fashion choices are a reflection of one’s soul. Like, who wears Prada loafers with a flashy Gucci shirt and a Loro Piana belt? Disgusting mix and match. The sexiest thing a man can do is know when to stop,” you add.
Sunghoon stared at you for a long moment, growing a bit smug, because he was currently your thesis statement in human form. Black Zegna Polo. Black Zegna trousers, and his very own Prada loafers (which are taken off downstairs because, of course, no shoes in the house.) He looked back at you, and he licked his bottom lip. Ugh. “Right,” he said. “So I’m sexy?”
You rolled your eyes. “Keep dreaming, Park.”
“Think you do that for me just fine.” His ears were pink now, despite how smug he was, and you felt a flush go over you all the same. “But…” He paused. “I really was your first kiss?”
You exasperatedly laughed. “How the fuck did you not know that? I’m actually taking great offense to this. Do you even know me? I dropped Winter because she said Breakfast at Tiffany’s was overrated. I have watched Pride and Prejudice nine times—”
“I know. I was with you three of them,” Sunghoon cut in.
You clicked your tongue at the interruption, frowning a bit at the general context of everything. “Did you really think I was out here kissing random people? Me?” You pointed at yourself, genuinely appalled. “I’m not you.”
Sunghoon looked increasingly guilty the longer you spoke, and clearly, he knew that was a jab at how he’d gotten drunk and kissed Sooha at a party one time. “Okay, when you put it like that… I didn't forget,” he argued weakly. “I just…” He paused, running a hand through his hair as you crossed your arms and threw him another annoyed look. “Don’t look at me like that. You're eighteen. I thought maybe.. I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t tell me? You’re so pretty, and everyone fucking likes you and—”
“Didn’t tell you?” you repeated, and he nodded with an even guiltier look. “Hoonie, you’re the only person I ever tell anything to other than my mom. You’re my… best friend. Do you think I would keep my first kiss a secret?” You rolled your eyes. “You forgot because you’re a man. Just say that.”
“I forgot because I am a man,” he said obediently.
“And because you’re so, so, very stupid.”
Sunghoon’s expression said, nice try. “Don’t push it.” His mouth twitched, then he paused again for a bit, the gears in his head turning in real time. “Was the kiss good, at least?”
Well, now you were only thinking of kissing him again. How inconvenient. “It was terrible. Society would collapse if they found out their precious Park Sunghoon can’t kiss for shit.” You lied. Obviously, you had no previous experience, but you knew it was still the best kiss. (This can be confirmed today, too.)
Sunghoon cocked a brow, his shy demeanor washing away and being replaced by a smug one. He could always tell when you were full of shit, and you hated it. “Oh yeah?”
You threw one of your Hermès slippers directly at his head, but he had the reflexes of an Olympic athlete, so he caught it one-handed without even looking away from you, and this only irritated you even more. “Actually, it was traumatic,” you doubled down, crossing your arms. “Made ten times worse by the fact that the criminal responsible made me promise never to talk about it again.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry.” And damn him, he meant it. You could tell he really fucking did.
“Save it. You’ve ruined romance for me forever.”
Sunghoon clicked his tongue, and you went back inside your closet. “Fuck. We can’t have that, can we?” He cooed, and suddenly you heard him get up from the couch, so you peeked out again. Oh, God. “I guess I have to make it up to you.”
The atmosphere shifted as he moved closer, and closer, each step feeling as if he were tiptoeing along your ribcages and into your heart. You pursed your lips together as tension curled all around the room and into your being, because you’d never seen Sunghoon’s eyes so dark with want. “And how do you plan on doing that?” you asked.
Sunghoon stopped right in front of you, close enough that you had to tilt your chin up to meet his eyes — which he did for you, thumb brushing beneath your jaw in a feather-light touch, and now all you could smell was him, and him, and him. His Tom Ford cologne, Fucking Fabulous
Sunghoon’s eyes dropped to your mouth, and your heart dropped with it, too. “By practicing,” he said.
And all you remember thinking at that moment was, this is really happening, and we’ll never be the same again.
“Fine,” you said, trying to sound casual as if your heart was not on the tip of his thumb that brushed your chin. “But only because your technique needs serious work, and I’m sooooo charitable.”
“Of course. I mean, you are my best friend, right? And… If I’m really so bad at kissing, then who else but you to help me out?” Sunghoon smiled boyishly, and then he kissed you again before you could say anything, sweeping you off your feet.
And you would later write in your diary that it felt like one of the kisses from The Notebook, except better, because this was not Ryan Gosling in the rain.
This was Park Sunghoon in your bedroom, kissing you like he finally stopped pretending what was between the two of you was inexorable in the face of everything: his family, society, his defences, and his belief system.
Later that night, at Jay’s birthday dinner, you would sneak away — not to read Midnight Sun at all — to kiss your best friend. Then again and again and again.
From then until Paris, that was all it became between you two. Sacred, stolen glances and secret moments, and no one knew.
(With the sole exception of Heeseung and Jay.)
・・・・・ ✷
・・・・・ ✷
Yes, you were seriously just best friends. That’s the foundation for every great love story, though, isn’t it?
And as much as you wanted it — and God, you did want it — you never had sex. You got close once in the back of his Lamborghini, parked under the trees outside the Ritz at the going-away party Wonyoung and Sunoo threw for you, while your dress was bunched around your thighs, and his hand trailed higher, and higher, goosebumps trailing in their wake. But he stopped, and then he said you deserved better than your first time being in the backseat of a car. His first time, too, actually.
So a promise was made. Because promises are sacred and you can never, ever break them, right?
Forever and always.
And then you went to Paris high on the feeling of being his but not quite fully, but anything was better than not being his at all, and you fell asleep on calls and missed him in every Parisian corner that should have felt magical but didn’t, because he was not there to give its beauty meaning and say something funny that would become your favorite part of the day.
・・・・・ ✷
・・・・・ ✷
June 5th, 2022 6:10 PM
Dear Hoonie Moonie,
“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me you’re everything that exists, the reality of everything.” — Virginia Woolf.
i like that you send me poems sometimes, so i’ve decided this diary will now include a quote of the day whenever one reminds me of you.
after ballet today — which i was half asleep through because SOMEONE thought it was acceptable to keep me on the phone until 5 a.m. my time because he was clingy — i went to the musée d’orsay with tae and jennie, which you’ll know when you wake up anyway, but i find the need to immortalize everything on paper. duh. we know this by now. they flew in from new york as a surprise (cough, cough, take notes) naturally, tae ended up third wheeling us again. #ilovemysisterinlaw.
anyways, im already dreading just thinking about that luncheon i’m going to tonight without you to keep me company :(
and for my question of the day i shall pose: would you still love me if i went bald?
bisous bisous,
your pink mirage
・・・・・ ✷
July 14th, 2022 1:00 AM
Dear Moonie,
“There are times when my longing for you overwhelms me, so often I can think of you only with teeth clenched.” — Franz Kafka.
there were fireworks everywhere and it was a beautiful day and i wish you were here.
it’s been six days since i last heard your voice properly and i feel like i’m going to die.
ugh. i sound whiny and annoying. what are you doing to me, park sunghoon? i talked to heeseung about this whole thing and he told me i’m the neediest girl alive… first of all needy by ari is my national anthem for a reason, but i’d rather die than admit a man is right.
and i am busy too, but i still manage to not be too busy for you.
that was bitchy but i don’t care. i’m not even mad that you are sort of ghosting me. you could go years and years without talking to me — and i’d go out of my mind — but i’d still love you. but i’m just worried. i feel like there is something you aren’t telling me even though you insist there isn’t.
it’s just that i am so confused about everything, and this on top of it is making me overthink every last thing ever. call it female intuition but impending doom is at bay… in my heart.
i am so fucking confused, hoon. i know you’re in love with me and i know saying things has always been harder for you than acting on them, and i know you are scared, but why is this the one thing you can’t say when you say everything else?
my question of the day: how do you kiss me and get jealous the way you do and still leave me here like this? am i not worth it?
i keep trying not to think that maybe you regret these months… okay wait. i should just shut up. six days of us not being the way we always are and i’m acting like i imagined everything. god. i’m just being dramatic.
please just be okay.
forever and always,
your sunshine
p.s. it’s a full moon tonight, so at least you’re here somehow.
・・・・・ ✷
・・・・・ ✷
・・・・・ ✷
September 19th, 2022 11:55 PM
Dear Sunghoon,
“I guess this is the end / I'll have to learn / To be somebody else / It's been you and me / Since before I was me / Without you, I don't yet know / Quite how to live.” – Mitski.
i don’t know why i’m still writing in this. but this is the only place i can still talk to you. i’ll never understand what changed, and as hard as i have tried, you have made it very clear you don’t want me in your life anymore, so i guess this is it, isn’t it?
i saw a pretty car on the street today. you know i don’t know shit about cars, but i think it was a maserati or whatever. it was black and tinted and my first thought was, sunghoon would love this. isn’t that fucking pathetic? you’d call me that, i guess. better pathetic than a coward.
every beautiful thing turns around and points to you, and i never thought there would be a day where i would see something and not be able to tell you about it. so much for forever and always, huh?
i love you.
i hate you.
question to the gods who rolled my fucked up dices: how do i stop loving someone who is embroidered into the tapestry of my soul?
think of me fondly,
y/n ・・・・・ ✷
