PAIRING: sim jaeyun x reader
GENRE: study partners, fluff, teasing, friends to lovers dynamic?!
SYNOPSIS: Jake should’ve started studying a week ago. Now, it’s past midnight, the coffee’s gone cold and his brain’s officially on strike.
Without thinking, he scribbles on a pale yellow sticky note, ‘Here’s a study hack: Teach the content to an imaginary friend. Bonus points if they have a funny voice’
You’re smiling — and now he’s starting to think studying with you might be the best distraction finals week has to offer. Sour candy and coffee, sticky notes and bad jokes. Who knew surviving finals week would be this sweet?
Jake Sim is a lot of things.
Decently athletic, reasonably intelligent, extremely dramatic. But prepared for finals week? Absolutely not.
He stares at his physics textbook like it personally wronged him. Wavefunctions? Quantum tunneling? Angular momentum? At this point, Jake’s convinced the uncertainty principle doesn’t just apply to subatomic particles, it’s personally targeting his future.
A pale sticky note is stuck to his forehead, labelled in red bold letters ‘FUTURE VALEDICTORIAN’ is written with an impressive amount of optimism. It’s well past midnight, and any remaining hope in the room is being slowly drained by the inverse square law of finals week stress.
Across from him, you’re still scribbling in that calm competent way you always do, like you understand this madness. Your hoodie sleeves are pushed to your elbows, eyes scanning thoughtfully. Meanwhile, Jake looks like he’s about to commit a crime against his physics textbook.
“Why does this look like hieroglyphics?” he mutters, flipping the page back and forth like the answers will suddenly reveal themselves if he squints hard enough.
You don’t even look up.“Maybe because you haven’t opened that book since the first week of class?”
“I skimmed chapter one,” he defends weakly. “It had diagrams.”
You hum, unimpressed while continuing to flip through your color-coded notes for the past hour with terrifying focus, while Jake has consumed three sour candy packets and half his dignity.
He slumps forward dramatically, cheek pressed to the textbook. “I think my brain hit terminal velocity.”
You snort. “That’s not how terminal velocity works.”
“And yet you knew what I meant. Which is exactly why you should take the final for me.”
You finally glance over, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “So your point is?”
“That I’m hopeless. Just accept it now. Time of death: Chapter eight. Projectile motion.”
You toss a gummy worm at his head “Study, Jake.”
With a groan, he sits up, eyes lazily glazing over the same sentence, again and again: “Terminal velocity is reached when the sum of the drag force and the buoyancy is equal to the downward force of gravity acting on the object.” The letters soon begin to twist, swirl, and dissolve into a meaningless haze. He blinks, tries again, but it’s like the sentence is fighting him—taunting him with its clarity just out of reach.
Jake’s hand twitches, fingers grazing the page like he’s searching for a secret message hidden in the words. “Maybe the book’s cursed,” he mutters, voice barely audible over the pounding in his temples.
His focus drifts from the dense textbook, drawn to the ‘sticky note mountain’ you’ve built. Layers of pale yellow post-it’s arranged like a carefully charted map of your thoughts. On a whim or maybe a plea for sanity he grabs one carefully and scribbles:
Here’s a study hack: Teach the content to an imaginary friend. Bonus points if they have a funny voice.
He sticks it to your notebook with a grin then leans back in his seat, waiting.
You read it aloud, the smallest twitch of a smile tugging at your lips “What kind of funny voice?” you ask, curiosity sparking
Jake's grin widens. “Cartoon squirrel. High-pitched. Maybe a lisp.”
You raise an eyebrow. “What do I get if I do it?”
He leans in, eyes gleaming. “My eternal respect.”
“EXCUSE me, eternal respect is very prestigious!” He says while waving his hands dramatically.
But you’re already scribbling on your own sticky note, slapping it down in front of him.
Only if you explain Newton’s third law in an Australian accent first.
Jake immediately straightens up, clearing his throat, before effortlessly sliding into a thick Aussie drawl (that’s he practiced way too many times)
“Oi, listen up. Newton’s third law, yeah? He points at you with a highlighter like it’s a microphone.
“Every action’s got an equal and opposite reaction.“So, like, if I throw my hopes at this exam—”
“They bounce back and crush you?” you interrupt.
“Oi—unprovoked attack. I’m wounded.” He immediately drops the act while clutching his heart.
You grin, rolling up the sleeves of your three-sizes-too-big sweatshirt before adopting a high-pitched, cartoonish tone, holding your notes dramatically like ancient scrolls.
“In = centripetal, pulling in! Out = centrifugal, feels like pushing out—but it’s fake, tehee!
Jake actually chokes on his laugh. “You sound like if a chipmunk took AP Physics.” he says in between giggles.
Recovering from your chipmunk impression, he's reaching for another gummy worm. When you hit him with another sticky note:
If centripetal force keeps objects in circular motion, what’s keeping you from spinning out every time I mention your sister and Sunghoon?
He stares at it. Then at you, his jaw dropping slightly.
"Low blow," he mutters, eyes narrowing but there’s no heat in it, just the kind of scandalized betrayal only Jake can deliver at 1:42 AM with sugar in his veins and sleep nowhere in sight.
“I’m just asking a physics question,” you say innocently, already jotting down another post-it.
Newton’s fourth law: Jake deflects feelings with dumb jokes and gummy worms.
Jake squints before peeling it off dramatically like it personally insulted him. “Fake law. Slanted source. Zero peer review.”
Before you can reply, he makes a strangled sound and slaps a sticky note over the last one like he’s trying to erase history.
This study session is now under strict sibling-privacy law. Violators will be pelted with sour candy.
You burst out laughing. “You’re really gonna throw candy at me?”
Jake grabs another sour gummy from the neon packet and holds it up like a warning. “Don’t test me.”
“But science demands answers,” you tease.
Jake looks genuinely torn, half scandalized, half flustered, and one tiny fraction looking like he might burst into flames just at the mention of Sunghoon and his sister in the same sentence.
“She’s younger than him,” Jake mutters finally. “She’s smarter than him. She’s…off-limits. It's cosmic law.”
You smile, tilting your head. “I don’t think the universe got the memo.”
“She wore a hoodie he complimented once,” Jake says, voice rising with pure, uncut sibling panic. “Now she’s acting like he invented fabric.”
“She does wear it a lot now,” you point out. “Kinda suspicious.”
He lets out a horrified squeak, eyes widening. “They’re definitely not just friends. What if they’re actually dating?”
You peel off one last sticky note and slap it right on his chest, snapping him out of his panic.
Newton’s Fifth Law: Brothers go feral when best friends flirt with their sisters.
Jake tears the harmless looking note into two and throws it behind him like it’s cursed.
It flutters to the ground, but your laughter doesn’t.
You stretch with your arms overhead, a gentle smile tugging at your lips.“Who knew finals week would finally be fun with you?”
“Are you saying I wasn’t fun before?” he mock gasps but you just toss another sticky note at him.
You’re tolerable. Especially when you bring candy.
He grins, sticking the note over his heart. “I’m framing this.”
“You say that about every sticky note.”
“Yeah, but this one’s got you written all over it.” Your face suddenly goes warm, and Jake definitely sees it because now he’s got that look. The smug, cheeky Jake Sim grin you’ve come to know way too well.
But then something in his expression shifts. The grin lingers, but softer now, like it’s only half there. Jake lowers his hand, eyes still on yours. “You know what scares me?” he says suddenly, voice low.
You blink, completely caught off guard by the change in tone. “What?”
He shifts in his seat, hesitating. “That I’m gonna bomb this final, and everyone will finally figure out I’m not as smart as they think I am.”
No sarcasm. No smirk. Just Jake — unguarded in a way you rarely see.
Your breath hitches, but only for a second. Resting your arms on the table, your voice is gentler now. “You’re smarter than you know. You just… talk loud enough to drown out the part of you that doubts it.”
Jake looks at you, really looks at you, like you’ve just said something he didn’t realize he needed to hear. The space between you shifts quietly, humming with something unspoken.
“And what if the doubts are right?” he asks.
You smile, soft but unwavering. “Then we’ll fail gloriously together. But you won’t.”
His eyes flicker to your lips, just for a second. Then back up. “You’re really bad at letting me spiral.”
You shrug, voice barely above a whisper now. “Someone’s gotta keep you grounded.”
There’s a pause, it's long enough for the world to shrink to the table between you and the lingering heat of his gaze.
Jake leans forward, elbows on the table, close enough that your knees almost touch.
“You keep doing that,” he murmurs.
“Making me feel like I’m not completely falling apart.”
You tilt your head, heart in your throat. “Maybe you’re not.”
For a second, neither of you speaks. The air between you pulls tight, something warm and steady growing in the silence.
And then because it’s Jake, he whispers, “Still not doing vectors.”
You burst out laughing, shoving his shoulder. “You're such an idiot.”
But your smile doesn’t fade, and neither does the look in his eyes.
You’re not sure when he stopped being the guy who always claimed the same library table. But lately, a small part of you wonders, if it's centripetal force that keeps things from flying apart...
Then maybe Jake Sim is your favorite kind of gravity.
⊹ enha4everr’s note ⊹presenting my highly requested jake fic. i’m so sorry it took longer than expected (just been in a terrible slump) but the banter between both characters just kept me going, and i couldn’t keep you lovelies waiting. let me know what you think!!
just a reminder that this piece of writing is from my imagination and does not represent the names mentioned.
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