After years of being buddies, Park Sunghoon can’t seem to see you as anything more than one of his bros despite you being his girlfriend. afab reader x sunghoon ! smau ! angst ! cliffhanger ! highschool romance ! friends to lovers ! spontaneously written ! awkward hoon !
꒦꒷՞ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 ˎˊ˗
OO1 . Jacket issues ; OO2 . heart made of steel ; OO3 . Loveria ; OO4 . hair theory ; OO5 . pretty cookies ; OO6 . just a picture ; OO7 . hoonpie's memory ; OO8 . Journal ; OO9 . face to face ; O9.5 . five feets apart ; O1O . give this lover boy a chance – the end.
bsf!jungwon × fem!reader.⠀⠀⠀ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⠀⠀⠀you're jungwon's favorite headache—a fact that he can't bring himself to admit, and you can't bring your dense self to realize.
MASTERLIST. ┆ CONTAINS ➤ SMAU. college!au. to be loved is to be known type shi. ACTS-OF-SERVICE!WON!!!!! he's a lil dry and nonchalant but still pathetic and down BADDDD. reader's a bit oblivious and dumb. slowburn. fluff. angst. two idiots in love. profanity. miscommunication. comedy, maybe. petnames (princess, baby, etc.) ignore timestamps & typos. ✮ cameos from enhypen's ni-ki, riize's anton, &team's maki, illit, and other idols.
𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨.ᐟ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥
RUIN THE FRIENDSHIP┆𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗢𝗨𝗦 ─ 𝗡𝗘𝗫𝗧
FROM YAN 🐰 ➤ shit tonne of typos mistakes here . pls bare w ur stupid author LASDAKLSDJA also they're both starting to gain consciousness... y'all know what that means!! 😝😝😝 also if ur in the taglists pls lmk if its working on ur end :( ty!!
bsf!jungwon × fem!reader.⠀⠀⠀ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⠀⠀⠀you're jungwon's favorite headache—a fact that he can't bring himself to admit, and you can't bring your dense self to realize.
MASTERLIST. ┆ CONTAINS ➤ SMAU. college!au. to be loved is to be known type shi. ACTS-OF-SERVICE!WON!!!!! he's a lil dry and nonchalant but still pathetic and down BADDDD. reader's a bit oblivious and dumb. slowburn. fluff. angst. two idiots in love. profanity. miscommunication. comedy, maybe. petnames (princess, baby, etc.) ignore timestamps & typos. ✮ cameos from enhypen's ni-ki, riize's anton, &team's maki, illit, and other idols.
FROM YAN 🐰 ➤ posted part one and on a whim decided to make this into a mini-smau instead because i have so much love for bestfriend!jungwon. Don't Even Play, Lad.
You came back for summer. You got him instead. Sun, salt, and scandal, Jeju’s elite playground is back in session, and so is your favorite mistake: Lee Heeseung. Your enemy. Your almost. Your what-if. One house apart. One argument away. One drink too many from disaster.
pairing: enemy!heeseung x reader !
warnings: yearning slow burn strong language possessiveness jealousy alcohol banter secrecy angst parties rich people (yes, that's a separate warning) loads of sexual tension porn with plot enemies to lovers childhood rivals friends with benefits mutual pining unresolved tension emotional constipation family friends beach-town drama arguments miscommunication fear of commitment
warnings (smut): Multiple explicit sex scenes Enemies -> friends with benefits → Lovers Rough unprotected sex (no!) Creampie Tit/nipple play Fingering Handjob Grinding Teasing Wall sex Door sex Kitchen counter sex Manhandling Dirty talk Cum play Overstimulation Marking & biting
playlist: Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen [] Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift [] Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter [] Are You Bored Yet? by Wallows []
likes and reblogs for a cookie!
☆ WORD COUNT: 29k!
(Masterlist)
Sam: happy birthday to me, love u dada
HELL HAD A VERY SPECIFIC SMELL.
Not sulfur. Not smoke. Not whatever dramatic nonsense poets liked to compare suffering to, or any of the bullshit propaganda movies liked to spread.
No, hell, in your experience, smelled like salt in the air and expensive sunscreen. Like sun-warmed pavement and blooming jasmine climbing over white-painted fences. Like the ocean sitting just close enough to hear from your bedroom window, taunting you with the promise of peace you were never actually going to get.
Hell smelled like summer in Jeju Island. And unfortunately, you had just arrived.
You stood in the driveway of your family’s beach house with your sunglasses sliding down your nose and your patience already clinically deceased, staring at the towering white house like it had personally offended you. Which, honestly, it had. The place looked like every rich family’s Pinterest board had thrown up on it, ivy curling around stone walls, floor-to-ceiling windows reflecting the blinding afternoon sun, hydrangeas blooming obnoxiously blue along the front walk.
Beautiful. Expensive. Full of memories you preferred not to examine too closely. Your mother stepped out of the car behind you with the kind of energy only women with fresh manicures and vacation plans possessed.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said, already fishing her oversized sunhat from her tote bag. “Help your father with the luggage.”
You adjusted your sunglasses and gave the house one last deeply unimpressed look. “I’m considering simply walking into the ocean instead.”
From somewhere near the trunk, your father sighed. “And every year, you make the same joke.”
“Because every year, the ocean remains an option.”
Your mother clicked her tongue, the universal sound of maternal disappointment, and handed you two bags anyway. “Be dramatic later. We’re already late for dinner at the club tonight.”
Of course you were. Summer in Jeju Island wasn’t really summer. It was a social performance with a beachfront view. Three months of yacht parties, country club dinners, charity galas disguised as drinking events, and the same old-money families pretending they didn’t all know each other’s scandals already. Everyone here had grown up together, gone to the same private schools, kissed the same people, ruined each other’s lives in aesthetically pleasing ways. It was beautiful. It was exhausting.
It was home, in the most unfortunate sense of the word.
You hauled your bag up the front steps, pushing the door open with your shoulder. The familiar coolness of the house greeted you immediately, air conditioning and polished wood and lemon-scented cleaning products. Somewhere upstairs, your childhood room waited exactly as you’d left it last August, probably still holding the ghosts of every bad decision you’d made between seventeen and twenty-two. A charming thought.
You dropped your bags by the staircase and wandered toward the kitchen, where your mother was already directing the opening of windows and the placement of flowers like she was staging a home magazine shoot.
She looked over her shoulder at you. “And before I forget,” she said, in the dangerously casual tone mothers used right before ruining your day, “be nice to the Lees this summer.”
You stopped mid-reach for the lemonade pitcher. Slowly, you turned. “Excuse me?”
“The Lees,” she repeated, as if she hadn’t just spoken your personal curse into existence. “We’re having them over next weekend, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t start any unnecessary arguments.”
You stared at her. There was a long, silent moment in which your soul quietly left your body and floated somewhere over the Atlantic. Then, “I’d like it officially noted,” you said, setting the pitcher down with great dignity, “that I never start the arguments.”
Your mother gave you a look. You gave her one back. She won. “You absolutely do.”
“I finish them beautifully,” you corrected. “That’s different.”
She sighed, turning back to her flowers. “Just behave. Especially with Heeseung.” And there it was. The name. The final nail in the coffin. Lee Heeseung. Your lifelong enemy. Your annual migraine. The human embodiment of every smug text message left on read.
Next door. Living, unfortunately.
You leaned against the kitchen counter and closed your eyes for one brief moment, like maybe if you didn’t move, the universe would take pity on you and reverse time. It did not. Because of course he was here. He was always here.
Every summer since childhood had come with three guarantees: humidity, your mother’s obsession with hosting dinners, and Lee Heeseung existing entirely too close to your personal space. Your families had been friends forever, which meant your lives had been annoyingly, inescapably intertwined since before either of you had enough common sense to avoid each other.
There were photos somewhere, horrifying evidence, of the two of you as children on the same beach, him with scraped knees and you with a missing front tooth, already looking like you were one wrong comment away from attempted murder.
Some things, apparently, were timeless. As teenagers, it had only gotten worse. He’d grown into his face in the kind of unfair way that should’ve required government intervention, too handsome, too charming, too aware of both. The kind of boy adults loved and girls wrote bad poetry about. Golden boy energy in expensive linen. Meanwhile, you had perfected the art of making eye contact while verbally destroying someone. Naturally, you got along terribly.
Every summer had become its own tradition of verbal warfare, stolen drinks at parties, arguments on docks at midnight, insults dressed up as flirting and flirting disguised as threats. There had been one almost-kiss when you were nineteen, drunk and angry and standing far too close on his parents’ balcony.
Neither of you had ever mentioned it again. Civilization had survived. Barely. Your mother was still talking. “His mother mentioned he got back last week.”
Wonderful. Fantastic. Thrilling.“Did she also mention if he’s developed the ability to shut up?” you asked.
“She mentioned he’s doing very well.” Of course he was. Lee Heeseung was always doing very well. He probably woke up looking expensive and emotionally unavailable. You poured yourself a glass of lemonade with the gravity of someone preparing for battle.
“Great. I can’t wait to not care.”
Your mother pointed a flower stem at you. “I mean it. No fighting.”
You took a sip. “With all due respect, mother, if Lee Heeseung and I stop fighting, one of us has probably died.”
From the front yard came the low sound of a car door shutting. Then another. Your father’s voice drifted in from outside, greeting someone. Your mother brightened instantly. “Oh! Perfect timing.”
No. Absolutely not. You set the glass down very, very slowly. “No,” you said. She smiled the smile of a woman who had already decided your fate.
“Yes. Go say hello.” You looked toward the window like it might offer an emergency exit. Sunlight poured across the garden. Beyond the hydrangeas and white fencing sat the neighboring house, just as grand, just as obnoxiously perfect. And somewhere in that orbit of privilege and poor decision-making was Heeseung. Back for another summer. Meaning your peace, your dignity, and probably your better judgment had all officially expired.
You inhaled once. Exhaled. Straightened your sunglasses like armor. “Well,” you muttered, heading for the door, “welcome back to hell.”
The universe, unfortunately, had a sense of humor. Because the second you stepped out onto the front porch, armed with sunglasses, a bad attitude, and the vague hope that maybe your father had been greeting the mailman instead of your greatest seasonal inconvenience, you saw him.
Leaning against the hood of his car like he’d been placed there by an overly confident romance novelist. Of course. Of course Lee Heeseung would make an entrance by simply existing in expensive sunlight.
His car was obnoxious. Sleek, black, expensive enough to probably have its own trust fund. It sat in the driveway of the house next door like a personal insult, gleaming under the late afternoon sun while he leaned against it with all the irritating ease of a man who had never once struggled to be liked. White linen shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms. Dark sunglasses pushed back into his hair. Skin already carrying the kind of summer tan people paid money to fake.
And that smirk. That stupid, smug, entirely too familiar smirk. Your father was by the front gate, already deep in conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Lee, who were as lovely as ever, warm, elegant, and somehow still producing that man without demanding an apology from the universe.
Mrs. Lee spotted you first. “Oh, there she is!” There was genuine affection in her voice, which made this all worse. You pasted on your best socially acceptable smile and walked down the steps with the slow, resigned grace of someone approaching their own execution.
Mrs. Lee kissed your cheek, your mother appeared from somewhere behind you like she’d been waiting for this exact moment, and within seconds both sets of parents were exchanging the usual summer pleasantries.
How was the drive?How long are you staying?You’ve gotten so grown up.We must have dinner together soon.
The rich-people mating dance. You answered where necessary, smiled where required, and tried very hard not to look to your left. Naturally, you failed. Because Heeseung was looking directly at you. Still leaning there. Still smirking. Like he’d been waiting for this. You crossed your arms instinctively. He pushed himself off the car. Slowly. Like a villain with excellent posture. Then, with the audacity of a man untouched by divine punishment, he looked you over once, head to toe, unhurried, deeply annoying, and said, “Missed me?”
You stared at him. There were many possible responses. Most of them involved violence. Your mother, standing three feet away, would probably object to murder in broad daylight, so you settled for a look sharp enough to qualify as attempted manslaughter. “I was actually having a wonderful day,” you said, “but thanks for asking.”
His mouth twitched. Your father laughed because traitors lived everywhere. Heeseung slid his hands into his pockets, infuriatingly calm. “Good. I’d hate to ruin your summer that quickly.”
“Please,” you said sweetly. “You ruin my summer just by continuing to exist.”
Mrs. Lee sighed in the fond, exhausted way of a woman who had witnessed this dance for over a decade. “See? Exactly the same.”
“Worse, actually,” you said.
“At least she admits she thinks about me,” Heeseung replied.
You inhaled. Exhaled. Decided prison orange would not flatter you. Your mother gave you a warning glance over the rim of her sunglasses, the universal signal for ‘do not embarrass me in front of the neighbors’. You smiled tightly. Heeseung smiled back like he was enjoying this far too much. He was. He always did. That was the problem.
From the outside, the two of you probably looked like some kind of old-Hollywood screwball romance, beautiful people exchanging insults in linen by the sea. From the inside, it felt more like mutual destruction with excellent lighting. Mr. Lee was discussing the yacht club renovation with your father now, and the adults had drifted slightly toward the garden, leaving just enough space for danger.
You turned toward him, lowering your voice. “If you’re planning to spend this summer being extra unbearable, I’d appreciate a warning so I can emotionally prepare.”
He leaned slightly closer, sunglasses hiding his eyes but not the amusement written all over his face. “Emotionally prepare?” he repeated. “You? I thought your whole thing was pretending not to have emotions.”
You scoffed. “My whole thing is surviving despite your presence.”
“Cute.”
“Don’t call me cute.”
“I didn’t. I said your delusion was cute.” There it was. The familiar rhythm. Effortless. Annoying. Dangerous in the way old habits always were.
You hated how easy it was to fall back into it, like no time had passed at all. Like last summer hadn’t ended with the two of you arguing on the marina docks at two in the morning, both too stubborn to say whatever actually needed saying. Like the almost-kiss years ago had never happened. Like your pulse didn’t do something deeply embarrassing every time he stepped too close.
You adjusted your sunglasses and took one deliberate step back. “Try not to get hit by a yacht this summer, Heeseung. It would create paperwork.”
He grinned. “There she is. I was worried college made you soft.” You smiled back, bright and false and weaponized. “And I was hoping maturity had found you. Shame we’re both disappointed.”
Mrs. Lee called his name from the garden before he could answer, and for one brief, shining moment, you experienced peace. He glanced toward his parents, then back at you. That smirk again. Like he knew something you didn’t. Which was unacceptable. “See you around, neighbor.”
You folded your arms tighter. “Threatening me already?”
“Just making promises.” God, you hated him. Truly. Deeply. Artistically. He turned then, walking back toward his parents with the lazy confidence of someone who had never once doubted the world would make room for him. Mrs. Lee adjusted his collar as he passed, and he let her, smiling in that easy, golden-boy way that made adults adore him and should have been scientifically illegal.
Spawn of the devil. Your father was still laughing at something Mr. Lee had said. Betrayal, everywhere. A few more polite goodbyes later, the Lees disappeared back into their perfectly landscaped kingdom next door, and you stood in the driveway watching Heeseung disappear behind the white fence like a storm cloud in designer sunglasses.
Your mother touched your arm. “You could at least pretend to be nicer.”
“I was radiant with charm.”
“You looked like you were planning arson.”
“That was charm.” She sighed, already turning back toward the house. Inside, the air was cool again, but your mood had fully committed to violence. You followed her to the kitchen, where she resumed unpacking with suspicious calm, the calm of someone about to ruin your evening.
You should have known. “By the way,” she said casually, arranging lemons in a bowl like a woman with no regard for her daughter’s suffering, “we’re having dinner with the Lees on Saturday.”
You stopped. “No.”
She didn’t even look up. “Yes.”
“Cancel.”
“No.”
“Fake your death.”
She placed the final lemon down and finally turned to face you. “Be serious.”
“I am serious. I’m willing to help stage it.” Your mother smiled in the dangerous way mothers did when they’d already won. “Saturday. Seven o’clock. Try not to start a war before dessert.”
You stared at her. At the lemons. At the kitchen. At the universe. Somewhere next door, Lee Heeseung was probably alive and smug. And now there would be dinner. Shared wine. Forced politeness. His knee probably brushing yours under the table just to ruin your life.
Your villain origin story, apparently, came with a seafood course. You picked up your abandoned lemonade and took a long sip like it contained stronger coping mechanisms. Summer had officially begun.
Tuesday arrived the way summer days in Jeju Island always did, slowly, lazily, like the sun itself had nowhere better to be.
By ten in the morning, the entire town had already settled into its usual rhythm. Tennis whites at the country club. Mothers with iced coffees and expensive sunglasses pretending not to gossip. Men in linen shirts discussing boats like they were discussing national policy. Teenagers and college kids spilling toward the beach in swimsuits and bad intentions. Everything here moved with the polished ease of old money and old habits. You hated how easy it was to slip back into it. There was something dangerous about returning to a place that remembered every version of you.
The boardwalk still creaked in the same places. The little café near the marina still sold iced vanilla lattes overpriced enough to count as emotional damage. The beach still stretched golden and endless, all warm sand and glittering water and sun-drunk afternoons that made bad decisions feel like destiny instead of stupidity.
Summer here had a way of convincing people they were invincible. It was probably responsible for at least seventy percent of your mistakes. By afternoon, you’d decided your mother’s constant rearranging of flowers and reminders about Saturday dinner were enough to qualify as psychological warfare, so you escaped. You packed a beach tote with the seriousness of a military operation, sunscreen, sunglasses, a bottle of water, your newest hardcover, lip gloss, and the kind of bikini your mother would call unnecessary and your best friend would call revenge.
Then you walked the familiar path down to the shore. The beach behind the summer houses was quieter than the public side near the clubs and restaurants. Less crowded. More private. A stretch of pale sand bordered by dunes and sea grass, where the houses sat like silent judges overlooking the ocean. This part belonged to families like yours and the Lees, generational wealth and carefully curated summer traditions.
It also meant escape was limited. Still, the ocean was worth it. The salt-heavy breeze hit first, warm and familiar against your skin. Then the sound, the endless hush and crash of waves folding into shore, gulls overhead, distant laughter carried by the wind. You slipped your sandals off and let the sand burn briefly against your feet before finding your usual spot. Far enough from the water to keep your book safe. Close enough to hear the tide.
Perfect.
You spread your towel out, dropped your bag beside it, and stretched out on your back like a woman personally committed to becoming one with summer. Sunlight soaked into your skin almost instantly, warm and golden and heavy in that way only coastal afternoons could be. Your bikini was barely enough fabric to qualify as clothing, but that was the point. Tiny black straps against sun-kissed skin, sunglasses shielding your eyes, a paperback novel open against your stomach.
Peace. Actual peace. No dinner invitations. No passive-aggressive mothers. No Lee Heeseung. Just heat and salt and the kind of silence that felt earned. You read for a while, though read was a generous term for occasionally turning a page while mostly listening to the ocean and contemplating whether adulthood could be legally postponed forever. The book was good. The sun was better.
A few familiar faces passed along the shore, neighbors, old classmates, people you’d known your whole life in the vague, privileged way beach towns operated. There were waves, smiles, the occasional “welcome back,” but no one lingered. Exactly how you liked it. At some point, you must have drifted halfway to sleep, caught in that hazy summer state where time stopped mattering. The sun had shifted warmer against your shoulders. The edges of your book blurred. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.
Then a shadow fell across you. Immediately, your soul knew. Without even opening your eyes, you sighed. Deeply. Spiritually. Like a woman who had seen the face of God and found it disappointing. “No.”
There was a beat of silence. Then, “That’s not very neighborly.” Of course. You opened one eye. And there he was. Lee Heeseung, standing over your towel like some sort of beautifully dressed natural disaster. Shirtless, because apparently humility was not part of his summer wardrobe. Swim trunks slung low on his hips, sunglasses on, skin bronzed by the sun like he’d been handcrafted by someone with a personal vendetta against your patience.
Water still clung to his shoulders, droplets sliding slowly down his chest like the universe itself was trying to make your life harder. Annoying. Extremely annoying. You closed your eye again. “If I ignore you long enough,” you said, “will you evaporate?”
“I think that only works on your personality.” You considered throwing your book at him. It was hardcover. Tempting. Instead, you shifted onto one elbow and looked up at him over your sunglasses. “Don’t you have a yacht to crash or someone else to emotionally inconvenience?”
He grinned, infuriatingly pleased with himself, and sat down uninvited at the edge of your towel like personal boundaries were a concept he’d heard of once and rejected on principle. “I was swimming.”
“I can see that. Congratulations on your ability to enter water.”
“Thank you. I worked very hard.”
You stared at him. He stared back. There was something uniquely exhausting about Heeseung’s presence, like he moved through the world assuming everything, and everyone, would make room for him. And worse, they usually did. He looked out toward the ocean, arms resting loosely over his knees. For a second, with the sunlight catching against his skin and the sea stretching endlessly behind him, he looked less like your lifelong enemy and more like one of those postcard summers people spent the rest of their lives trying to recreate.
Which was dangerous. You hated when he looked cinematic. It made being annoyed significantly less efficient. “You’re ruining my peaceful beach solitude,” you informed him.
“I noticed. You seemed too happy.”
“I wasn’t happy. I was tolerating existence.”
“Even worse.”
You let your book fall shut against your lap. “This is exactly why people warn me about you.” He tilted his head.
“No, they warn people about you. I’m universally beloved.”
You scoffed. “By mothers and women with no standards.”
“And yet here you are, talking to me in a bikini.”
You sat up fully. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was here first.”
“Mm. Territorial.”
“Get off my towel.”
He laughed then, low and easy, carried by the wind and the waves, and it did something profoundly irritating to your bloodstream. That laugh had been the soundtrack to half your summers. Bonfires at sixteen. Pool parties at eighteen. Drunken arguments on docks at twenty. Memory was a cruel thing. You stood abruptly.
Enough. Absolutely enough. If you stayed any longer, you’d either drown him or make eye contact for too long, and both options felt equally dangerous. With the sharp efficiency of someone preserving her dignity by force, you started packing your things. Your book went into your tote. Sunscreen. Water bottle. Sunglasses pushed into your hair.
Heeseung leaned back on his hands, watching the whole performance with zero remorse. “Leaving already?”
“Yes.”
“Because of me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
A pause. Then, truthfully: “Yes.” His smile widened. You hated how much he enjoyed winning tiny wars. You shoved your sandals on and slung your bag over your shoulder, glaring down at him with all the righteous fury of a woman denied a peaceful tanning session. “You are genuinely the most irritating person I have ever met.”
He looked up at you, sunlight in his hair, smirk already waiting. “And yet you keep coming back every summer.” You opened your mouth. Closed it. Because unfortunately, he had a point, and you refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing that aloud. Instead, you gave him one last glare sharp enough to qualify as a formal threat and turned toward home.
The walk back felt warmer somehow, the sun heavier against your skin, sand clinging to your ankles. Behind you, his laughter followed, soft at first, then clearer as the wind carried it over the shoreline. Infuriating. Familiar. Summer itself, if summer had a god complex and perfect teeth. You didn’t look back. But you could still hear him. And somehow, that felt worse.
Saturday arrived wrapped in sunlight and bad intentions. By six in the evening, the entire house smelled like citrus candles, your mother’s perfume, and the kind of expensive stress that came with hosting, or in this case, being hosted by, the Lees. The sun was beginning its slow descent over the water, pouring honey-colored light through the bedroom windows and turning everything soft and golden in a way that made even impending social torture look romantic.
Outside, Jeju Island was in full performance mode. The streets near the coast glowed with polished summer wealth, convertibles pulling into curved driveways, tennis bracelets catching the light, champagne already being chilled somewhere on a yacht that absolutely did not need to exist. The ocean breeze drifted in through the cracked windows carrying salt, jasmine, and the faint sounds of someone laughing too loudly three houses down.
Everything looked beautiful. Which was unfortunate, because beauty made suffering feel theatrical. You stood in the middle of your bedroom surrounded by what looked like the aftermath of a small fashion war. Dresses across the bed. Shoes abandoned like casualties. A hairbrush on the floor. Three rejected outfit options hanging from your closet door like public executions.
And in your hands, your salvation. An oversized gray hoodie. Soft. Reliable. Emotionally supportive. The kind of hoodie that said I do not wish to be perceived. Perfect. You pulled it over your head with the solemnity of a woman entering battle. It swallowed you immediately, sleeves too long, hem brushing your thighs, the entire look somewhere between off-duty model and suspicious raccoon. You stared at yourself in the mirror.
Excellent. If all went according to plan, the Lees would assume you were a drifter who had wandered in from the beach and politely ask you to leave before appetizers. Peace at last. Your mother entered without knocking, because privacy was apparently a concept reserved for only the elites. She stopped in the doorway.
Looked at you. Looked at the hoodie. Looked back at you. Silence. Long enough to be considered legally threatening. “No,” she said.
You folded your arms. “Counterpoint: yes.”
“No.”
“This is fashion.”
“This is a cry for help.”
You turned back to the mirror, adjusting the hood with dramatic precision. “I’m cultivating mystery. They’ll be intrigued.”
“They’ll think I forgot to raise you.”
“Honestly, that might buy me sympathy.”
Your mother crossed the room with the terrifying calm of a woman who had already made her decision three minutes ago. From behind her back, like a magician revealing the final trick, she produced a dress. Yellow. Of course it was yellow, why? Because, summer, darling. Not soft yellow. Not subtle yellow. The kind of rich, golden, sunlight yellow that looked like it belonged in a movie where everyone had unresolved feelings and excellent cheekbones.
A sleek sundress. Fitted enough to be dangerous, effortless enough to pretend it wasn’t. You narrowed your eyes. “No.”
“Yes.”
“It looks like optimism.”
“It looks like summer.”
“It looks like a setup.”
She held it up against you with complete disregard for your emotional well-being. “It looks like you clean up beautifully.” There it was. The betrayal. Because that was exactly the problem. You knew the dress looked good. That made it worse. Wearing the dress meant effort. Effort meant possibility. Possibility meant Lee Heeseung seeing you in a dress that suggested maybe, potentially, under the right atmospheric conditions, you had once been nice to someone.
Unacceptable. You stepped back. “I would rather be hit by a jet ski.”
“Wonderful. You can wear this to the hospital afterward.”
“Mother.”
She sighed, setting the dress on the bed like a final verdict. “You are not wearing that hoodie to dinner with the Lees. Mrs. Lee adores you, your father is already pretending this evening will be civilized, and I refuse to let my daughter look like she escaped from a beach bonfire.” You looked at the hoodie. The hoodie looked back. A fallen soldier. Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried out over the ocean like it, too, understood your suffering.
You flopped backward onto the bed with all the grace of a dying Victorian heroine. “This is oppression.”
“This is dinner.”
“There’s seafood involved. That makes it worse.”
Your mother sat beside you, smoothing a wrinkle from the yellow dress. For a moment, the teasing slipped into something softer. “You’ve been doing this with him for years,” she said.
You stared at the ceiling. “Doing what?” She gave you a look, not sharp, not smug, just the tired wisdom of a woman who had watched two stubborn people circle each other for too long.
“This one. The fighting. The pretending.” You groaned dramatically and threw an arm over your face. “If this conversation ends with you calling him charming, I’m moving to another country.”
She laughed then, quiet and warm. “I’m just saying… maybe try not to make tonight a battlefield.” Too late. The battlefield had excellent landscaping and probably a wine pairing. Still, after she left, the room felt quieter. The golden light had shifted lower now, stretching long shadows across the floorboards. From your window, you could see the neighboring house through the trees, white walls glowing in the sunset, lights beginning to flicker on, elegant and smug and entirely too close.
Somewhere over there was Heeseung. Probably looking expensive. Probably being annoying. Probably existing with that stupid face. You hated that your first instinct was to wonder what he’d be wearing. Probably linen. Men like him were always in linen, like they were personally sponsored by summer. With a sigh heavy enough to qualify as literature, you sat up and stared at the yellow dress again. It stared back, victorious.
Fine. Fine. You changed. And, because the universe enjoyed humiliation as a hobby, your mother was right. The dress fit like it had been designed specifically to ruin your peace. Thin straps, bare shoulders, the kind of silhouette that looked effortless and absolutely was not. Against sun-kissed skin, the yellow made you look like you belonged in this town, like expensive mistakes and beautiful bad decisions.
You hated it immediately. Mostly because you looked good. You stood in front of the mirror, turning once, suspicious. Like maybe if you stared hard enough, you’d find a flaw large enough to justify changing back into the hoodie. There wasn’t one. Traitorous fabric. You added gold hoops, minimal makeup, lip gloss sharp enough to count as a weapon, and tried very hard not to think about why any of this mattered.
It didn’t. Obviously. You were dressing for yourself. And if Lee Heeseung happened to see you and suffer emotionally, that was simply community service. Downstairs, your father was already waiting by the door with car keys and the resigned expression of a man who knew he was escorting two women into battle and had chosen survival over commentary. He looked up when you descended the stairs. Paused. Smiled. “Well,” he said, “you look expensive.”
You picked up your clutch. “I plan to act accordingly.” Your mother beamed like she’d personally invented beauty. You refused to acknowledge this. Outside, the evening had turned warm and velvet-soft, the sky streaked pink and gold over the ocean. The walk next door was barely two minutes, just enough time for dread to fully settle in.
The Lee house stood glowing at the end of the path, every window lit, laughter already drifting from inside. Dinner. Wine. Politeness. Heeseung. You inhaled slowly as your father reached for the front gate. Summer, apparently, had decided subtle suffering wasn’t enough. It wanted dinner and a show. The Lee house always looked like it belonged in a magazine spread titled People With Better Lives Than You.
White stone, warm lights spilling from enormous windows, ivy climbing tastefully up the walls like even the plants here had trust funds. The front garden smelled like jasmine and sea air and whatever expensive candle Mrs. Lee probably had burning somewhere inside. Everything about it radiated polished wealth and the kind of family dinners where people said things like summering abroad.
You hated how nice it was. You hated even more that you’d spent half your childhood here. Birthday dinners. Pool parties. Christmases once, before everyone got too busy and too grown up for normal traditions. There were memories tucked into every corner of this place, most of them involving some version of you losing an argument to Lee Heeseung and plotting revenge by dessert.
Tonight, unfortunately, promised tradition. Mrs. Lee opened the door before you could even knock, all elegance and warmth in a silk dress the color of champagne. “There you are!” She kissed your cheek before you had time to prepare emotionally. “Look at you,” she said, holding you at arm’s length. “Absolutely gorgeous.” From behind you, your mother made the smug little sound of victory.
You chose to ignore it. “You say that now,” you said, stepping inside, “but let’s revisit after I inevitably insult someone over seafood.”
Mrs. Lee laughed like she always did, like your bad attitude was somehow charming instead of hereditary. “Nonsense. We’re all family here.” That was the problem. The foyer opened into soft golden light and polished wood floors, the low hum of conversation drifting in from the dining room. Somewhere, glasses clinked. Somewhere else, your father and Mr. Lee were already discussing something expensive and unnecessary, probably boats.
You slipped off your sandals and stepped inside, the familiar warmth of the house wrapping around you. And then, of course, there he was. Lee Heeseung, leaning against the archway to the living room like he’d been strategically placed there for maximum irritation.
Black button-down this time, sleeves rolled, top buttons undone just enough to be a public health concern. Dark slacks. Watch glinting at his wrist. Hair slightly messy in that suspiciously intentional way attractive men got away with. He looked like summer trouble dressed in designer clothing. Annoying. Extremely annoying.
His gaze found you immediately. Paused. And for one dangerous second, he said nothing. Just looked. Slowly. Unhurriedly. Like the room had gone quiet around it. It started at your feet, moved upward, and landed finally on your face with something unreadable flickering behind his expression. Not smug. Worse. Appreciative. You wanted to throw yourself directly into the ocean. Instead, you smiled sweetly, the kind of smile that had ruined lesser men.
“Try not to look too shocked. I know basic hygiene is a surprise.”
His mouth twitched. “There she is,” he said, voice low and easy. “I was worried the dress had made you nice.”
Your mother, traitor that she was, immediately linked arms with Mrs. Lee. “Oh, perfect,” she said. “You two can catch up while we finish setting the table.”
No. Absolutely not. You opened your mouth. “No—” Too late. The parents had already vanished with the terrifying efficiency of adults who believed proximity solved everything. Your father gave you a look on the way out, the kind that said ‘behave’, and disappeared toward the kitchen like a man abandoning a sinking ship.
And suddenly, it was just the two of you. Silence. Not awkward. Worse. Familiar. The kind of silence built over years of unfinished conversations and too much history. You crossed your arms. He mirrored nothing, which somehow made it more annoying. In your deeply correct and entirely unbiased opinion, “catching up” with Lee Heeseung translated loosely to trying to have a normal conversation without committing a felony.
A challenge, certainly. You managed three words. “Well. You’re alive.” He nodded thoughtfully.
“Still devastatingly handsome too, thanks for noticing.”
You sighed. “This is why people drink before family dinners.”
“And yet you came sober. Brave.”
You were preparing a truly excellent insult, something elegant, devastating, probably Pulitzer-worthy, when Mrs. Lee’s voice floated in from the dining room. “Dinner!” Saved by seafood. You gave him one final look. “Don’t make me regret this.”
He stepped aside, one hand gesturing toward the dining room like some smug Regency villain. “No promises.”
The dining room looked exactly like every old-money summer dinner should. Long table, linen napkins, candles despite it still being warm outside. Too many wine glasses for any morally responsible evening. French doors stood open to the back patio where the ocean breeze drifted in soft and salted, carrying the sound of waves somewhere beyond the dunes. Sunset had bled fully into evening now, the sky darkening violet over the water.
Everything felt cinematic. Which was rude, considering your mood. Seats were assigned by parental conspiracy, obviously. You discovered yours and stopped. Heeseung. Right next to you. Naturally. Mrs. Lee smiled far too innocently. “I thought it would be nice.” It would not. It absolutely would not. But protesting would only make it worse, so you sat with the grace of a woman choosing violence internally. Heeseung took the seat beside you, looking entirely too pleased with the universe.
Across the table, your mother was already discussing someone’s daughter getting engaged. Your father had wine. Mr. Lee had opinions about coastal property values. Everyone settled into conversation with the practiced ease of people who had done this for decades. And somehow, despite all of it, your entire awareness kept narrowing to the person sitting six inches to your right.
His knee brushed yours under the table. Lightly. Accidental. Probably. You froze for exactly half a second. Then refused to acknowledge it because dignity still mattered. You reached for your water. His hand reached for the bread basket. Fingers brushed. Again. This time, definitely not accidental. You turned your head. He was already looking at you. Calm. Composed. Infuriating.
Like he hadn’t just weaponized table manners. You smiled without showing teeth. “If you’re trying to start something over dinner rolls, I’d like you to know that’s a deeply embarrassing way to die.”
His expression remained perfectly neutral as he handed you the basket. “I’m just being polite.”
“Suspicious already.”
Across from you, Mrs. Lee sighed fondly. “You two are exactly the same.”
You and Heeseung answered at the same time. “Absolutely not.” Everyone laughed. You considered faking your death. Dinner continued in that dangerous, glittering way summer dinners did, wine poured generously, stories repeated beautifully, everyone glowing a little softer in candlelight. Your parents kept bringing up old memories.
That camping trip when you were thirteen. The sailing lessons disaster. The time Heeseung pushed you into the pool and you threw his phone into the ocean. Mrs. Lee was still mad about that one. You maintained it had been justified. Everyone treated the two of you like old friends. Like there had always been affection under the arguments.
Like this was charming instead of mutually assured destruction. It was infuriating. Because they weren’t wrong. That was the worse part. Every now and then, while someone else talked, you’d catch him looking at you. Not casually. Not the usual teasing glance. Longer. Quieter. Like he was trying to remember something. Or decide something. Too much. Entirely too much.
You focused on your wine. On your fork. Your plate. Literally anything else. But awareness sat there anyway, warm and sharp and impossible to ignore. The yellow dress suddenly felt like a mistake. The ocean breeze moved through the open doors. Candles flickered. Someone laughed at the far end of the table. And beside you, Lee Heeseung leaned back in his chair, looking unfairly good in soft light and expensive black clothing, like every bad decision summer had ever offered.
You hated him. Probably. Mostly. Which was becoming, very inconveniently, less convincing by the second.
By the time dinner ended, the sky had softened into that strange in-between hour where everything looked prettier than it had any right to. The table was abandoned in stages, wine glasses left half-full, dessert plates forgotten, your father and Mr. Lee still arguing about boats like it was a blood sport. Mrs. Lee and your mother disappeared into the kitchen with the kind of determined energy that suggested they were about to wash dishes neither of them had touched all evening.
Which left the younger generation exactly where summer always did. Outside. Near water. With alcohol. And poor judgment. Someone, probably Jay, because it always felt like a Jay decision, had suggested a beach fire, and within twenty minutes everyone had drifted down toward the private stretch of shoreline behind the houses like it was instinct.
It kind of was. This was what summers here were made of. Bonfires and old friends. Salt in your hair. Music from someone’s phone speaker. Drinks passed around without anyone asking whose they were. The beach at night felt different than it did during the day. Softer somehow. Less polished. The tide rolled in slow and silver under the moonlight, waves folding quietly against the shore while the bonfire crackled warm against the cooling night air. Sand clung to bare ankles, the fire throwing gold over familiar faces.
It made everyone look younger. Closer to the versions of yourselves that had first started all this. Sunoo arrived first, carrying drinks and looking like downtown Cove had personally appointed him its stylish representative. Sharp grin, prettier than most women, and already prepared to be everyone’s problem. “Look who survived dinner,” he said dramatically when he spotted you. “I was taking bets.”
“You should’ve bet against me,” you said, taking the drink he offered. “I nearly drowned in polite conversation.”
“Tragic. And in that dress too. What a loss.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Jay called from where he and Sunghoon were attempting to set up folding chairs in the sand with all the competence of men raised by money.
Jay looked exactly the same as always: clean-cut, expensive taste, and permanently carrying himself like he was five minutes away from judging someone’s life choices. Which, to be fair, he usually was. Sunghoon stood beside him, all cool quiet and expensive silence, somehow managing to look elegant while losing a fight against a beach chair.
Some people were simply born unfair. From farther down the shore came the sound of laughter, bright and familiar, and then Eunchae appeared with Yunjin and Yoonchae trailing behind her, all of them carrying the kind of chaotic energy that guaranteed tonight would end with at least one regrettable decision. Eunchae saw you first and immediately pointed.
“There she is! The woman of the hour.” You narrowed your eyes. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It is,” Yunjin said cheerfully, pulling you into a quick hug. “We’ve heard about dinner. We’re here for details.”
“There are no details.”
“There are always details,” Yoonchae said.
And then, because the universe had apparently decided your suffering needed an audience, Lee Heeseung arrived. Late, naturally. Walking down the path from the houses with his sleeves rolled and his hands in his pockets like he was entering a film scene instead of a beach fire. The ocean breeze moved through his hair, and for one deeply annoying second, every girl within a ten-foot radius visibly remembered he was attractive.
Including you. Unfortunately. Sunoo, traitor that he was, smirked immediately. “And there’s the other half of our favorite summer divorce.”
“Please,” you said. “I’d need to marry him first, and I do have standards.” Heeseung dropped into the sand beside the fire like he belonged there, which, annoyingly, he did, and looked at you over the rim of the beer Jay handed him. “She says that now. Give it ten years.”
“In ten years, I’ll still be filing restraining orders.”
“Romantic,” Yunjin sighed. Everyone laughed. That was the problem with old friends, they remembered too much. This group had grown up together in fragments. Family dinners, yacht parties, beach bonfires at sixteen, too many summers collapsing into one long memory of sunburns and terrible choices. They’d all witnessed the evolution of whatever it was between you and Heeseung. Which meant they were insufferable about it. Sunoo stretched out dramatically in the sand.
“I still think you two should just get married and save us all time.”
Sunghoon, staring into the fire like a philosopher trapped in a luxury campaign, added, “At this point, it would actually be less dramatic.”
Jay nodded once. “Financially, it makes sense.”
You looked around the circle. “I need better friends.”
“No,” Eunchae said, grinning, “you need to admit you’ve been flirting through mutual destruction for like eight years.”
You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “That is an incredibly rude accusation.”
Heeseung took a sip of his drink, far too calm. “She’s right.”
You turned toward him so fast it nearly counted as whiplash. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “You’re meaner when you like someone.”
Sunoo made the loudest, most disrespectful sound of delight known to man. “Oh my god, we’re finally saying it.”
“We are saying nothing,” you snapped.
Yunjin leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Should we bring up the balcony incident?”
Absolutely not. You pointed at her. “If you value our friendship, you’ll choose silence.” Too late.
Eunchae gasped dramatically. “Oh my god, the almost-kiss.” And there it was. Like a match dropped into gasoline. The balcony incident. Nineteen years old. One of Jay’s stupid summer parties. Too much champagne. Too much moonlight. Too much unresolved tension and a stupidly beautiful balcony overlooking the ocean. You and Heeseung had been alone for exactly seven minutes before an argument turned into standing too close, then silence, then that terrible suspended second where both people know exactly what’s about to happen.
You’d almost kissed. Almost. Then someone had opened the balcony door, reality had returned, and both of you had spent the next three years pretending it never happened. Civilization had survived. Barely. Around the fire, everyone looked delighted. You wanted the ocean to take you.
“It was not an almost-kiss,” you said with dignity.
“It absolutely was,” Sunoo replied.
“There was tension,” Yoonchae added.
“There was eye contact,” Eunchae said.
“There was champagne,” Yunjin said solemnly.
Jay, like a judge delivering sentence, finished: “That counts.”
You looked to Heeseung for support. A mistake. Because he’d gone strangely quiet. Not smug. Not teasing. Quiet. His gaze stayed on the fire, beer loose in his hand, jaw set just enough for you to notice because unfortunately, after years of knowing someone, you learned the small things. Interesting. Very interesting. You tilted your head slightly. He wasn’t embarrassed.
If anything, he looked… annoyed. Or thoughtful. Like the memory had landed somewhere deeper than expected. That was new. Usually, Heeseung met chaos with amusement. He was good at pretending nothing mattered. But now, under the firelight, with everyone laughing around him and the ocean dark behind you, he looked still. You watched him for a second too long. Then he glanced up. Caught you.
And just like that, the moment snapped. His expression shifted back into something easier. Familiar. Dangerous. He smirked. You rolled your eyes so hard it should’ve caused medical concern and took another drink. The conversation moved on, someone brought up an old yacht party disaster involving Sunghoon and a very expensive pair of loafers, Sunoo started a dramatic retelling of his brief and toxic relationship with a bartender from last summer, Eunchae laughed so hard she nearly fell backward into the sand.
The night folded around you, warm and nostalgic and too easy. This was the trap of summer. It made everything feel survivable. Even him. By the time the fire burned lower and people started drifting home, the moon sat high over the water and the beach had gone quiet again. You walked back alone, sandals in one hand, the other curled around your phone.
The sand was cool now under your feet. Waves whispered against the shore. Somewhere behind you, someone was still laughing. Your dress smelled like smoke. Your hair smelled like salt. And despite yourself, your mind kept circling back to one thing. That silence. The balcony. The firelight. The way Heeseung had gone quiet.
Interesting. You were still thinking about it when your phone buzzed in your hand. A text. You stopped walking. Looked down. Of course.
Heeseung
A single message.
Heeseung: still thinking about that balcony, or are you finally admitting i almost won?
You stared at the screen. There it was. The beginning of every bad idea. You should ignore it. You absolutely should. Instead, standing barefoot under the moonlight with the ocean at your back and your better judgment somewhere drowning offshore, you smiled. And typed back.
You: won what? you almost passed out from cheap champagne. history remembers the truth.
Three dots appeared almost instantly. Danger, apparently, texted first.
The following week was suspicious. Not in any dramatic, life-altering way. No scandals. No yacht crashes. No accidental engagements announced over brunch. Just… suspicious. Because you were happy. Unreasonably, offensively happy. The kind of happy that made people around you uncomfortable, like spotting a shark in shallow water and realizing it was smiling.
It started subtly. You slept better. You stopped glaring at sunlight like it had personally betrayed you. You let your mother drag you to the farmer’s market on Wednesday morning and only complained twice, which she later described to your father in the same tone people used for religious miracles. By Thursday, you had laughed, genuinely laughed, at something Mrs. Lee said over iced coffee, and your mother had nearly dropped a peach. “Are you ill?” she asked immediately.
You looked up from your sunglasses. “Deeply, but unrelated.”
She narrowed her eyes. “No, seriously. You’ve been… cheerful.” The accusation hung between you. Cheerful. As if she’d caught you committing tax fraud. You leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping your coffee with all the dignity of a woman being unfairly persecuted.
“I’m always cheerful.”
She gave you a look so flat it could’ve ironed shirts. “Last week you called a seagull a personal enemy.”
“It knew what it did.”
Your father, reading the paper at the table, lowered it just enough to contribute, “You also threatened the blender.”
“It started first.” He nodded thoughtfully and returned to the business section. Traitor. The truth was harder to explain. There was no grand reason for it. No cinematic revelation. No dramatic confession under moonlight. Just summer. The beach. The sun. Late-night fires. Salt in your hair. And texts. That was the real problem. Because after the bonfire, Heeseung had texted again. And then again. Nothing serious. Nothing dangerous enough to name. Just stupid things.
A picture of the terrible coffee from the marina café with the caption: thought of you and your bad taste
A midnight text that only said: are you still pretending you didn’t almost kiss me first
A blurry photo of Sunoo asleep on a yacht chair: proof he can be quiet
And every single time, against your better judgment and your carefully cultivated reputation for emotional self-preservation, you replied. Sometimes immediately. Sometimes after twenty strategic minutes. Because dignity mattered. Still, the effect had been catastrophic. You were smiling at your phone now. In public. Like a woman with no survival instincts.
On Friday afternoon, your mother found you standing in the garden staring at the hydrangeas like you were in a coming-of-age film. You were holding one bloom gently between your fingers, sunlight warm on your shoulders, genuinely appreciating how ridiculous and beautiful summer looked here.
She stopped on the patio, and squinted, then called into the house, “Honey, come outside. I think our daughter has been replaced.”
You rolled your eyes. “Please. If I were replaced, the imposter would be nicer.”
“Exactly my concern.” Unfortunately, your brief and scandalous flirtation with floral appreciation ended there. The hydrangea wilted two days later. Probably out of sheer terror. Even worse, people noticed. Everyone noticed. Sunoo, after seeing you smile at your phone during lunch, gasped like a Victorian widow and clutched his chest. “Oh my god. She’s in love.”
You nearly threw your drink at him. “I’m blocking you.”
“Denial. Classic.”
“It’s called boundaries.”
“It’s called a crush.” Across the table, Heeseung said absolutely nothing. Which, somehow, was worse, because lately, he’d been watching you. Not constantly, not obviously, just enough, across dinner tables, from the beach, leaning against his car while pretending not to. Curious. Like he’d noticed the shift and hadn’t decided what to do with it yet, like he was waiting.
On Sunday, you passed him outside while coming back from the beach, still warm from the sun, tote bag over your shoulder, skin glowing with the kind of happiness you were trying very hard not to examine too closely. And for reasons still unknown to science, you smiled at him. Not your usual sharp smile, not sarcastic, not weaponized. Bright, easy, and real.
It happened before you could stop it. For one glorious second, Lee Heeseung looked genuinely startled. Actually startled. He stopped mid-step, eyebrows lifting like his brain had temporarily lost signal. He didn’t smile back, just looked at you with that unreadable expression and one slightly raised brow, like he was trying to solve a puzzle and deeply suspicious of the answer.
You kept walking, because stopping would imply weakness. But halfway up your front steps, you could still feel it, that look, and somewhere behind you, you just knew he was still standing there, watching. Interesting. Very, very dangerous.
By Friday night, the entire town had collectively decided to be beautiful. You could feel it in the air. Summer in Jeju Island had a rhythm to it, and bonfire nights sat somewhere near the top of the food chain, just beneath yacht parties and just above making terrible decisions in someone else’s kitchen at two in the morning. The beach changed on nights like this.
During the day, it belonged to families and sunscreen and children building sandcastles with inherited wealth. But at night, especially on Fridays, it belonged to people your age. To music drifting over the dunes. To bottles hidden badly in tote bags. To girls in tiny dresses and boys pretending they weren’t trying too hard. Bonfire nights were for performance. And if there was one thing you respected, it was committing to a bit. You stood in your bedroom with your closet doors thrown open and the kind of focus usually reserved for military strategy.
Your bed was covered in options. Black satin. White linen. Something red Yoonchae once described as “emotionally irresponsible.” You were considering that one. Because tonight wasn’t just any bonfire. Tonight, everyone would be there. Which meant he would be there. And while you were a mature, evolved woman who absolutely did not make outfit decisions based on Lee Heeseung’s potential suffering, you were also not a liar. You pulled the red dress off its hanger. Short, silk, and worst of all, backless. The kind of dress that looked like bad decisions and expensive apologies. Perfect.
You slipped it on slowly, watching yourself in the mirror as the fabric settled against your skin like it had been waiting for this exact moment. It clung where it should, skimmed where it mattered, and left just enough to imagination to make imagination work overtime. Dangerous. Excellent. You added gold jewelry because subtlety was for people with less interesting lives. Glossed lips. Soft waves in your hair. Perfume that smelled like jasmine and poor choices.
Then heels. Not practical for the beach. That was beside the point. When you walked downstairs, your father was on the couch pretending to read and your mother was rearranging flowers for sport. Both looked up. Your father blinked once. Then lowered his book. “Should I be concerned?”
“Always,” you said.
Your mother smiled like she was watching an expensive revenge plot unfold in real time. “Where exactly are you going dressed like that?”
You picked up your clutch. “To remind people to mind their business.”
Your father muttered something about raising a supervillain. Your mother kissed your cheek on the way out and whispered, “Be safe.” Which, translated from mother-language, meant: Don’t get arrested. Don’t set anything on fire. Try not to ruin anyone’s son permanently. No promises.
The walk to the beach felt cinematic. Warm night air against bare skin. The sound of waves pulling at the shore. Music already carrying from farther down the sand, bass soft and distant beneath the ocean. The moon hung low and bright over the water, silver against black waves. Firelight flickered somewhere ahead. And by the time you stepped over the dunes and onto the shore, every head turned. Good. Let them. There was power in being seen and knowing exactly what they were seeing. Sunoo, standing near the cooler with a drink in one hand and judgment in the other, spotted you first.
He froze dramatically. Then placed a hand over his heart. “Oh,” he said. “She came to kill.” “Someone has to keep standards alive.”
He looked you up and down with the solemn respect of a man appreciating art. “That dress should come with legal paperwork.”
“Excellent. I’m hoping for emotional damages.” Eunchae appeared next, immediately grabbing your arm. “No, seriously, turn around. I need to hate you properly.” You did, because generosity mattered. She groaned. “I’m ending our friendship.”
“Understandable.” Yunjin, from beside the fire, raised her drink toward you. “Whatever crime you commit tonight, I support you.”
“Thank you. That means a lot.” The bonfire itself was already in full swing. Someone had dragged out chairs no one was using. Music played low from a speaker half-buried in someone’s beach bag. Jay and Sunghoon were debating something useless near the waterline with the seriousness of men discussing world peace instead of tequila brands. People moved in loose circles, laughing, drinking, pretending not to stare at each other. Summer. Beautiful and a little stupid.
And then, like a sixth sense specifically designed to inconvenience you, you felt it. That look, across the fire, Heeseung. He stood with Jay near the cooler, beer in hand, black shirt rolled at the sleeves, looking like he’d walked straight out of an ad for poor decisions. The firelight caught against the sharp line of his jaw, the glint of his watch, the expression on his face, which, for one deeply satisfying second, was surprise. Real surprise.
His eyes landed on you and stayed there. Paused. Moved once, slow and deliberate, like he was trying very hard not to react and failing in private. He noticed, immediately, of course he did. You smiled, not at him, but in his direction, which was somehow worse, and turned your attention elsewhere. Because if you were going to weaponize beauty tonight, subtlety would only dilute the effect.
His name was Minjae, which you remembered mostly because he’d tried to kiss Yunjin two summers ago and gotten publicly roasted for it. Harmless. Pretty enough. From one of the families near the marina. More importantly, available. He approached with exactly the kind of confidence men borrowed from expensive watches. “Well,” he said, smiling as he stepped closer, “you’re either trying to ruin someone’s life tonight or start a small war.”
You took the drink he offered. “Can’t it be both?” He laughed, leaning in just enough to suggest intention. And from the corner of your eye, there, heeseung watching, not openly, but enough. His posture had changed, slightly stiffer, beer untouched, expression neutral in the way men got when they were trying very hard not to look like they wanted to commit a felony. Interesting. Very interesting.
You smiled brighter. Poor Minjae. A perfectly nice civilian about to become collateral damage. “You clean up well,” he said. “I usually do.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Have you?” The conversation was easy, almost too easy. Light touches. Leaning closer. The practiced dance of summer flirting where no one meant too much and everyone pretended otherwise, and the entire time, you could feel it.
That awareness from across the fire. Sharp, and steady. Heeseung. You laughed a little louder than necessary. Touched Minjae’s arm. Tilted your head just enough. Purely for scientific purposes. Across the beach, Sunoo noticed first, because gossip was basically his cardio.
He looked from you to Heeseung and nearly ascended. “Oh,” he whispered to no one and everyone. “Oh, this is delicious.”
Jay followed his line of sight and physically winced. “Someone should probably stop this.”
Sunghoon, wise as ever, took a sip of his drink and said, “No.” Correct. Absolutely no one should stop this. Because now Heeseung was walking over. Slowly. Calmly. Which was infinitely more dangerous than if he’d looked angry. He moved like someone with a purpose. Like the ocean itself had personally requested violence. Minjae was still talking. Something about boats. You had no idea. Because Heeseung stopped beside you, close enough for the smell of expensive cologne and sea air to ruin your peace.
And said, casually, too casually, “Didn’t know you liked boring men.” Silence. Beautiful. Terrible. Immediate. Minjae blinked. You took a slow sip of your drink. Turned your head. Looked directly at him. And smiled.
Oh. This was going to be fun. Minjae, to his credit, had enough self-preservation instincts to realize when he’d accidentally wandered into someone else’s war. He looked between you and Heeseung, your too-sweet smile, Heeseung’s dangerously calm expression, and gave the kind of laugh people used when backing away from wild animals.
“Well,” he said, lifting his drink slightly, “I’m suddenly remembering I promised Sunoo I’d help him with… something.” Sunoo, across the fire, yelled, “I did not—” Too late. Minjae was already retreating into the night, leaving you alone with the problem. Which was standing far too close and looking far too pleased with himself. You turned slowly, crossing your arms.
“Did you just scare off my entertainment?”
Heeseung took a sip of his beer like he hadn’t committed a social crime. “If your entertainment starts explaining boat engines, I’m doing you a favor.”
“I was having a lovely time.”
“No, you were being annoying on purpose.” You placed a hand dramatically over your heart. “And here I thought I was subtle.”
He looked at you then, really looked, and the amusement thinned just enough to let something sharper through. “That’s the problem.” The fire crackled behind you. Somewhere farther down the beach, someone shouted over the music. Laughter carried on the wind.
But here, in the small space between you and him, everything had gone quieter. You tilted your head. “What exactly is the problem, Lee?” His jaw shifted. That tiny thing he did when he was trying not to say too much. Dangerous.
“You always do this.” You blinked once, deliberately. “Do what?” He stepped closer. Not enough for touching. Enough for trouble. “Act like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.” There it was. Not a joke. Not banter. Something real enough to make your pulse trip over itself. You should’ve backed up. You didn’t. Instead, you smiled, that slow, sharp smile you used when you were either about to win or about to ruin your own life.
“And what exactly am I doing?” He let out one quiet laugh, humorless. “Seriously?”
“Very.” His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth. Mistake. Terrible, catastrophic mistake. Because suddenly the entire night rearranged itself around that single glance. The firelight. The ocean. The red dress. His voice lower now, rougher around the edges.
“You flirt with people you don’t care about,” he said. “You get that look on your face when you’re trying to prove something. And then you wait to see who notices.” Your heartbeat was officially embarrassing. You folded your arms tighter, mostly so he wouldn’t notice.
“And you noticed.” He didn’t answer immediately. Which was answer enough. The moonlight silvered the edges of everything, the shoreline, the glass in his hand, the expression he was trying and failing to keep neutral. You swallowed. Slowly. “Sounds like a you problem.” His mouth twitched.
“Probably.” There it was again, that unbearable thing between you, stretched tight as wire. Years of almosts. Arguments that had never really been about arguments. Every summer version of yourselves layered on top of each other until neither of you knew where the joke ended and the truth began. You could still remember the balcony. Nineteen. Champagne. His hand on the railing beside yours. That second where everything had almost changed.
You wondered if he was thinking about it too. You suspected he was. Because now he was closer. And now you could smell the ocean on his skin, something expensive underneath it, and the very specific danger of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. You should absolutely leave. Instead, because self-destruction was apparently hereditary, you said softly, “You’re jealous.”
His expression sharpened. “Don’t flatter yourself.” “Too late.” “You think this is funny.”
“No,” you said. “I think you’re jealous, and I think you hate that I noticed.” He stepped in once more. Enough that your breath caught. Enough that the entire world narrowed. “Careful.”
“Or what?” Your voice came out quieter than intended. He noticed. Of course he noticed. His gaze dropped again, slower this time, and when he spoke, it was barely above the sound of the waves. “Or you’ll say something you can’t take back.” Silence. The dangerous kind. You could hear your own breathing. The ocean behind him. Someone laughing far away, in another universe where people made good choices. Here, there was only this. His hand brushing your bare arm as he shifted. Your pulse in your throat. The ridiculous certainty that if either of you moved half an inch, the entire summer would split open.
You thought, this is it. Finally. At last. And then, “OH MY GOD, THERE YOU TWO ARE.” Eunchae. Of course. She appeared like divine punishment in platform sandals, carrying two drinks and absolutely no sense of timing. You jumped back so fast it should’ve counted as cardio. Heeseung looked like he might walk directly into the ocean. Eunchae stopped. Looked between you. The space. The tension. The crime scene. And grinned like the devil herself.
“Wow,” she said. “I almost feel bad interrupting whatever deeply repressed thing was happening here.” “Don’t,” you said immediately.
“Never,” Heeseung muttered at the exact same time. She handed you a drink with the smugness of a woman collecting evidence. “Cute. Anyway, Sunoo is taking bets on whether you two make out before August.”
You took the drink because murder was illegal. “Tell Sunoo I hope he loses money.”
“Oh, he definitely won’t.” She skipped away before either of you could respond, leaving behind chaos and the lingering smell of coconut perfume. Silence again. But ruined now. Worse, somehow. Because now both of you knew. Not the joke. Not the performance. The actual thing underneath it. And once you knew that, pretending got harder. You stared out at the water. He stared at the fire. Neither of you said anything. Eventually, as the night thinned and people started leaving in groups of laughter and half-finished conversations, it became painfully obvious that your usual ride home had abandoned you in favor of some post-party food run.
Which left, “Get in.” You stood beside Heeseung’s car, clutching your shoes in one hand and your pride in the other. “No.” He unlocked the passenger door without looking at you. “Yes.” “I’d rather walk.”
“It’s two miles.”
“I’m resilient.”
“You’re dramatic.”
You narrowed your eyes. He opened the door wider. “Get in.” And because the universe hated you, you did. The drive home was quiet. Not awkward. Worse. The kind of silence that knew too much. The windows were down, warm night air rushing through the car, carrying salt and smoke and the last traces of summer bonfire on your skin. Your heels sat abandoned on the floor. Your red dress still smelled like fire.
He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the console, expression unreadable in the passing streetlights. You looked out the window because looking at him felt like volunteering for emotional damage. Neither of you mentioned the almost-kiss. Neither of you mentioned anything. When he pulled into your driveway, the house was dark, your parents already asleep.
For one second, neither of you moved. Then you reached for the door. At the same time, his hand shifted. Your fingers brushed. Just barely. Warm. Accidental. Or maybe not. You froze. So did he. And for one stupid, suspended second, it felt like the whole world was holding its breath again. Then you pulled your hand back. Too fast. “Goodnight,” you said. Too quiet. He nodded once.
“Night.” You got out. Walked to the front door. Did not look back. But you could feel him there, still sitting in the driveway, engine running, watching until you got inside. And later, long after the house had gone still and the ocean whispered somewhere beyond your window, you lay awake staring at the ceiling. Wide awake. Heart traitorous. Mind worse. Because now you knew. And so did he. Nobody slept.
The next few days were a masterclass in mutual psychological damage. Not dramatic damage. Worse. Polite damage. The kind where nothing happened and somehow everything did. You didn’t fight. That was the first sign something had gone horribly wrong. No sarcastic remarks over morning coffee. No pointed comments when passing each other near the beach path. No weaponized flirting in front of your parents. No smug little “morning, neighbor” from across the driveway.
Nothing. Just awkward, terrible silence. You’d see him and immediately become fascinated by literally anything else. The mailbox. A cloud. The concept of sand. Anything but eye contact. Because eye contact implied remembering. And remembering implied the bonfire. The almost-kiss. The car ride. His hand brushing yours like the universe personally wanted you to suffer. No, thank you. You were suddenly the busiest woman alive. If he was at the beach, you were tragically needed elsewhere.
If he was by the marina, you had urgent business in the opposite direction. If he was leaning against his stupid car looking like a rich-boy problem in linen, you turned around. Dignity first. Unfortunately, subtlety had never survived around your families. By Wednesday morning, Mrs. Lee noticed. Of course she did. That woman could detect emotional tension like a bloodhound. You were outside watering your mother’s increasingly judgmental hydrangeas, a task you’d been assigned after the tragic and suspicious death of the previous one, when it happened.
The sun was already warm, the kind of bright coastal morning that made everything look too innocent. Birds chirping. Ocean breeze drifting through the hedges. A peaceful suburban scene. Lies. Across the white fence separating your houses, Mrs. Lee stood on her patio with a basket of laundry and the sharp, narrowed gaze of a woman putting pieces together. You should’ve run. Instead, you smiled weakly.
Mistake. Because at that exact moment, Heeseung stepped outside. Coffee in one hand. Sunglasses. Half-awake and offensively attractive. He looked toward you automatically. You looked anywhere else so fast it nearly caused whiplash. Silence. A beat. Then, Mrs. Lee gasped.
Not a small gasp. A full-body gasp. The kind that meant family history was about to be rewritten. She turned toward her son so fast the laundry basket nearly died for it. “Lee Heeseung!” He stopped mid-sip. Already tired. “Mom, what.”
Her hand flew dramatically toward your side of the fence like she was presenting evidence in court. “What did you do to Y/N?” From your yard, you froze. The watering can continued pouring directly onto your foot. Fantastic. Heeseung blinked. “Mom, what do you mean?” “She isn’t looking you in the eyes!”
Across two properties and approximately three decades of neighborhood gossip, your soul left your body. “Mrs. Lee—” you tried weakly. She was unstoppable. “Do not Mrs. Lee me. I raised you both. I know things.”
Heeseung rubbed a hand down his face. “Mom—” Her eyes widened. Her voice rose. “Did you finally have sex?” Silence. Birds stopped singing. The ocean itself paused. From somewhere inside your house, your father definitely dropped something. And then, Mrs. Lee, with the volume of a woman chosen by God for this exact purpose: “DON’T TELL ME SHE CAN’T LOOK AT YOU BECAUSE SHE KNOWS WHAT YOUR DICK LOOKS LIKE—”
“MOM!”
“Mrs. Lee!” You. Heeseung. Probably the entire coastline. At that point, survival instincts kicked in. You dropped the watering can. Actually dropped it. Water everywhere. Dignity nowhere. And then you ran. Not walked. Not gracefully retreated. Ran. Straight through the back door, up the kitchen steps, past your mother, who was holding coffee and looked far too entertained, and directly into the sanctuary of your bedroom like a Victorian woman fleeing scandal.
Your heart was trying to leave your chest. Your cheeks were on fire. You pressed both hands to your face and groaned into the universe. This was it. This was how you died. Not dramatically. Not beautifully. Killed by secondhand embarrassment and one very loud mother. Worse, far, far worse, you were blushing. Blushing. For a man currently being publicly lectured about sex on a Wednesday morning.
Humiliating. Absolutely unforgivable. Your mother knocked once on your door and entered anyway, because privacy remained a myth. She took one look at you face-down on the bed and smiled like a woman watching reality television. “Well,” she said, setting her coffee down, “that clears some things up.”
“Please leave me here to decompose.”
“I’d love to, but dinner is in two hours.”
Cruelty. Pure cruelty. Later that afternoon, once the heat of your humiliation had cooled from catastrophic to survivable, you made the dangerous mistake of leaving the house. Just a quick walk, you told yourself. Fresh air. Emotional recovery. Absolutely no Heeseung. The universe laughed. Because halfway down the lane near the beach path, there he was. Of course. Standing beneath the shade of the jacaranda trees like some handsome curse. You stopped. He stopped.
For one horrible second, neither of you moved. Then you made the deeply strategic decision to simply walk faster. Ignore. Evade. Survive. Unfortunately, Lee Heeseung had longer legs and audacity. “Y/N.” His voice behind you made your spine straighten. You kept walking. Badly. “Y/N.” Closer now. You stopped because running twice in one day felt like poor character development. Slowly, with all the grace of someone approaching public execution, you turned.
He stood there looking… weirdly nervous. Interesting. Suspicious. Your cheeks immediately remembered this morning and attempted betrayal. No. Absolutely not. You stared at a point somewhere near his left shoulder. “I’m sorry,” you blurted. Fast. Too fast. Like the words had tripped over each other trying to escape.
“For the thing. Earlier. Your mom. I mean—not your mom, obviously she’s lovely, but the yelling and the—” you gestured vaguely at existence “—everything. Sorry.” Excellent. Elegant. A true masterclass in social recovery. You were already preparing to evaporate when he stepped forward and stopped you. Not dramatically. Just enough. A hand lightly catching your wrist. Warm. Immediate regret. “Y/N.” You looked up instinctively. And there it was. Eye contact. Actual, dangerous eye contact. For one second, all the confidence he usually wore like expensive cologne just… vanished. Gone. He blinked once. Twice. And then— “I—uh.”
You stared. Heeseung Lee. Golden boy. Professional menace. Smooth-talking devil of Jeju Island. Stuttering. You would treasure this forever. He cleared his throat. “Sunoo wanted me to give you this.” He shoved a folded paper into your hand like it had personally offended him. “An invite. For Friday. He’s doing some thing—well, not some thing, it’s a party, obviously, and he said if I forgot, he’d kill me, so—” He kept talking. Rambling, actually.
Words continuing in increasingly unnecessary detail while you stood there holding the paper, blinking. Because now he was nervous. Actually nervous. And somehow that was worse. Far worse. You grabbed the invitation. Nodded once. And, choosing self-preservation above all else, turned and walked away at a speed just barely pretending not to be fleeing. Fast. Very fast.
Behind you, his voice stopped. Silence. Then, a soft scoff. Followed by a quiet chuckle, carried lightly by the ocean breeze. You didn’t turn around. Absolutely not. But you could feel it anyway. Him standing there. Watching you speed-walk your dignity down the lane. And annoyingly, your heart was still beating too fast. Friday night arrived heavy with heat.
The kind of heat that sat low against your skin and made the entire town feel slower, softer, dangerous in ways daylight never was. By nine, the sky over Jeju Island had gone ink-dark, the moon hanging pale over the water, and the beach had transformed again into its usual summer ritual, music spilling over the dunes, bonfires burning low and golden, laughter rising and dissolving into the sound of the tide. Sunoo’s parties were never really parties. They were events. Carefully chaotic, full of beautiful people pretending they were not looking at one another too closely. Someone always brought expensive liquor. Someone always made a bad decision. Someone always kissed the wrong person under the excuse of summer.
Tonight, the air felt like it had already decided who that would be. You had tried not to think about it while getting ready. Failed, of course. Because the truth was, the last few days had left something unsettled between you and Heeseung. No more easy arguments. No more familiar rhythm to hide behind. Just glances held too long and silences that felt louder than fights ever had. And the memory of his hand on your wrist.
The way he had looked at you. The way he had lost words. It had followed you all week. So when you dressed tonight, it wasn’t for attention. It was armor. A black dress this time, simpler than the red one, but worse somehow. Thin straps, soft fabric, bare skin at your back, the kind of dress that didn’t ask to be noticed because it already knew it would be. Your hair loose, your mouth glossed, gold at your throat catching the light. You looked like someone about to make a mistake.
And maybe that was the point. By the time you arrived, the party had already spilled toward the shoreline. Music low, drinks in warm hands, familiar faces blurred by firelight and moonlight and too much history. You let yourself be folded into it. Yoonchae pressed a drink into your hand. Yunjin laughed at something dramatic Sunoo was saying near the fire. Jay stood half in the water, arguing with Sunghoon over something neither of them would remember tomorrow. Everything looked normal.
It almost felt normal. Until you saw him. Heeseung stood near the edge of the beach, farther from the fire than everyone else, a drink untouched in his hand, dark shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled carelessly to his forearms. He wasn’t laughing. Wasn’t talking much. Just watching. And when his eyes found yours, the rest of the beach seemed to pull backward.
There it was again. That terrible, quiet thing. You looked away first. Coward. The night stretched. Another drink. Then another. Enough to soften the edges but not enough to blur them. Enough to make your body warm and your thoughts reckless. Enough to make him impossible to ignore. You felt him before he reached you. That shift in the air.
That awareness. You turned, and there he was. Close. Too close.
“Having fun?” he asked, voice low enough that no one else could hear. You tilted your glass against your lips. “Immensely. I’ve only considered fleeing twice.” His mouth almost smiled. “Only twice?” “I’m pacing myself.” Silence settled between you, but not the easy kind. The kind that waited. The kind that knew.
The ocean stretched black behind him, waves breaking silver under moonlight. Firelight moved over his face in pieces, catching the sharpness of him, the tension in his jaw. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said. Not accusing. Worse. Certain. You looked at him then.
“Have I?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you’re just easier to avoid lately.”
His expression shifted. Something quieter. Sharper. “That morning embarrassed you.” Mrs. Lee’s voice echoed in your memory and heat climbed your neck instantly. You looked away toward the water. “Your mother nearly announced your sex life to the entire coastline.”
“She likes you.”
“I nearly died.”
A brief silence. Then, softer, “You ran.” You let out a dry laugh. “Wouldn’t you?”
“No.”
“No,” you agreed. “You’d stand there and make it worse.”
“That does sound like me.” For a second, it almost eased. Almost. Then he said, quieter this time, “That’s not why you’ve been avoiding me.” The wind moved between you, carrying salt and the faint smoke of the fire. No. It wasn’t. Because the truth sat uglier than that. You had been avoiding him because once something shifted, you couldn’t shift it back. Because pretending was harder now. Because every look felt like standing too close to the edge of something.
Because if you let yourself think too hard about him, you would ruin everything. And maybe you already had. You set your drink down in the sand. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Do this.” His gaze didn’t move from yours. “Do what?” You laughed once, breathless and frustrated. “This. This thing where you look at me like I’m supposed to know what you’re thinking.”
He stepped closer. Moonlight and firelight and trouble. “Maybe you do.” Your pulse stumbled. “You’re impossible.” His voice dropped. “So are you.”
And there it was. Years of it. Every argument. Every summer. Every almost. The balcony. The beach. The car ride. Every second spent pretending there wasn’t something here because admitting it would mean letting it matter. You could hear your own breathing. His too. Close enough now that it blurred. You should walk away.
You should say something cruel, something sharp enough to put distance back between you. Instead, you stayed. Because the truth was simpler than pride. You wanted him. Maybe you always had. And he looked at you like he knew it. Like he had been waiting for you to stop lying. His hand brushed your bare arm, slow enough to feel like a question. You should have answered no. Instead, your voice came out quieter than you intended. “Tell me to stop.” He didn’t. For one suspended second, neither of you moved.
Then he kissed you. It felt like anger, like relief, like something starved, messy and immediate and years too late. Your hands found him without permission, his shirt, the line of his jaw, the back of his neck. His mouth was warm and rough against yours, like he’d thought about this too many times and was done pretending otherwise. There was nothing careful about it. No softness. No hesitation.
Just all the tension finally breaking open. He kissed you like he was trying to win something, and you kissed him like losing had never sounded better. The sound that left him was low, wrecked, against your mouth. His hand tightened at your waist, pulling you closer until there was no space left to pretend inside. When he finally pulled back, it was barely, forehead against yours, breath uneven, your lips still brushing when he spoke.
“Fuck.” The word sounded like confession. Then his mouth found yours again, harder this time, and the world narrowed to heat and salt and the way his hands made thinking impossible. He kissed down the corner of your mouth, breath warm against your skin, voice rough and half-lost. “Mm. Fuck, inside. Now.” You should have laughed. Should have reminded him he was arrogant, impossible, and absolutely not carrying you anywhere. Instead, when he lifted you, your legs finding his instinctively, your mouth was still on his.
Still kissing him as he walked. Across the sand. Up the path. Toward his house lit quiet against the night. The world beyond it disappeared. There was only this. His hands. Your heartbeat. The sound of the ocean somewhere behind you like witness. The back door. The hallway. Darkness and breath and mouths and hands and years of wanting collapsing all at once.
He barely got his bedroom door shut before you were against it, the sound of it closing sharp in the dark. Heeseung didn’t waste a second. His mouth was back on yours before the echo faded, hotter, deeper, more desperate than on the beach. One large hand cupped the back of your head, the other already sliding down the curve of your waist, gripping the soft fabric of your black dress like he’d waited years to tear it off.
You gasped into the kiss as your back hit the door again, the wood cool against your bare shoulders. His body pressed flush against yours, hard and burning, the evidence of how much he wanted you unmistakable against your stomach. “Fuck, this dress,” he muttered against your lips, voice gravel-rough. His fingers found the thin straps first, tugging them down your shoulders with impatient hands. The fabric whispered as it slid down your body, pooling at your waist before he pushed it lower, letting it fall completely to the floor in a dark heap around your ankles.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, bare except for the delicate black bra and panties, skin flushed, chest rising fast. His eyes darkened, jaw tight. “Beautiful,” he breathed, almost angry about it. “So fucking beautiful it pisses me off.”
Then his head dipped. His lips found the swell of your breast above the bra, hot and open-mouthed, tongue dragging over the lace. You arched into him with a shaky moan as he mouthed at your nipple through the thin fabric, sucking lightly, then harder, the wet heat of his mouth making your knees weak. His teeth grazed just enough to make you whimper.
Your hands trembled as you reached for his belt, fumbling with the buckle in the dark. The metallic clink sounded loud in the quiet room. You shoved his shirt up and off his shoulders, desperate to feel skin, and he helped you, ripping it the rest of the way off and tossing it somewhere behind him.
The moment his belt came undone, your hand slipped inside, palming him over his boxers. He groaned low against your chest, hips twitching forward into your touch. But Heeseung wasn’t letting you set the pace. His hand slid down your stomach, fingers hooking into the waistband of your panties and pushing them aside without ceremony. Two long fingers dragged through your folds, finding you already slick and aching for him.
“Shit,” he hissed against your nipple, voice vibrating through your skin. “You’re soaked.” You couldn’t even answer properly, only a broken sound escaped as his fingers circled your clit once, twice, before sliding lower and pushing inside you without warning. The stretch was sudden, perfect, and your head fell back against the door with a soft thud.
Heeseung’s mouth switched to your other breast, sucking harder now, tongue flicking over the hardened peak while his fingers curled inside you, slow and deep, stroking that spot that made your thighs shake. His thumb pressed firm circles against your clit in time with every thrust of his fingers.
Your hand tightened around his cock, stroking him through the fabric as best you could while your other hand clutched at his shoulder, nails digging in. “Heeseung—” His name came out wrecked, half-moan, half-plea. He lifted his head from your chest, lips shiny, eyes nearly black with want. His fingers didn’t stop moving inside you, steady and relentless.
“Say it again,” he demanded, voice low and rough. “My name. Like that.” You did, moaning it louder this time as he added a third finger, stretching you open, preparing you for what was coming next. His mouth crashed back onto yours, swallowing every sound you made while his fingers fucked you against the door, wet sounds mixing with your ragged breathing.
Your dress was long forgotten on the floor. His pants hung low on his hips. The only thing that mattered now was the burning friction between you, the years of tension finally snapping apart in the dark of his bedroom. And neither of you was nearly done yet. Heeseung’s fingers were still buried deep inside you when he suddenly pulled them out, leaving you empty and clenching around nothing. You barely had time to protest before his hands gripped the back of your thighs.
In one smooth motion, he lifted you, wrapping your legs high around his waist. Your arms instinctively looped around his neck as he carried you away from the door. The movement pressed his body flush against yours, and the second your weight settled, his pants, already tugged low on his hips, slid further down.
His cock, hot and heavy, shoved straight against your soaked folds. Your panties had been dragged aside earlier and stayed that way. There was nothing between you now except bare, slick skin. The thick length of him slid right between your folds, the head nudging insistently against your entrance with every step he took. You gasped sharply at the sudden, intimate contact.
Heeseung groaned deep in his chest, the sound raw and broken. “Fuck—feel that?” he rasped, hips twitching involuntarily as he walked you across the room. Every movement made his cock drag slowly through your wetness, the head rubbing right over your swollen clit.
The friction was maddening. Skin to skin. Hot. Wet. Overwhelming. You moaned into his neck, legs tightening around him as another wave of arousal slicked between you. Heeseung’s grip on your thighs turned bruising, his breathing ragged against your ear. By the time he reached the bed, both of you were trembling. He laid you down carefully, never fully breaking contact. The moment your back hit the mattress, he followed, settling between your spread thighs. His pants were shoved just low enough. His shirt was long gone. And his cock, thick, flushed, and glistening with your arousal, rested heavy against your pussy.
Heeseung braced himself on one forearm, the other hand guiding his length. He rubbed the head slowly up and down your folds, coating himself in your wetness, teasing your clit with every pass. His eyes found yours in the dim light filtering through the window. Dark, hungry, and strangely vulnerable. You could feel him throbbing against you. Could see the tension in his jaw as he held himself back, waiting. You nodded, barely a breath. “Yes.”
That was all he needed. Heeseung didn’t hesitate. With one smooth, powerful thrust, he pushed inside you, burying himself to the hilt in one go. The stretch was intense, perfect, overwhelming. A broken moan tore from your throat as your walls clenched tight around his cock. Heeseung let out a low, guttural sound, forehead dropping to yours as he bottomed out, hips flush against yours.
“Shit— so tight,” he groaned, voice wrecked. “You feel… fuck.”
For a few heartbeats, he stayed still, letting you adjust, letting himself feel every pulse and flutter around him. Then he started moving. Slow at first, long, deep strokes that dragged against every sensitive spot inside you. Each thrust pushed a soft cry from your lips. Heeseung’s rhythm quickly grew harder, more desperate, the wet sound of skin meeting skin filling the dark room. His mouth found yours again in a messy kiss as he fucked you deeper, hips snapping forward with increasing force. One hand slid under your ass, tilting your hips up so he could hit even deeper, grinding against your clit with every thrust.
You were lost in it, lost in him. The way he filled you. The way he moaned your name against your mouth like a prayer and a curse at the same time. The way years of tension finally shattered between you with every brutal, perfect stroke. Heeseung’s pace turned punishing, relentless, like he was trying to make up for every summer you’d spent pretending this didn’t exist.
And you took every single thrust, legs wrapped tight around his waist, nails raking down his back as the pleasure built sharp and fast inside you. Heeseung’s thrusts grew erratic, deeper, harder, his hips slamming against yours with a desperation that bordered on violent. You were so close it hurt, every stroke pushing you right to the edge.
“Fuck— I’m gonna cum,” he groaned against your mouth, voice strained and raw. “Come with me. Now.” You could only nod frantically, nails digging into his shoulders as the pressure inside you finally snapped. Your orgasm crashed over you hard, walls clenching violently around his cock as you came with a broken cry of his name. The intensity made your vision blur, thighs shaking around his waist.
Heeseung followed right after, burying himself to the hilt with one final, deep thrust. A low, guttural moan tore from his throat as he came inside you, hips stuttering, pulsing hot and deep while he rode it out, filling you with every twitch of his cock. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was your ragged breathing. He collapsed on top of you, chest heaving, sweat-slick skin pressed against yours. His face was buried in the crook of your neck, breath hot and uneven against your throat. You could feel his heart hammering wildly against your chest.
Silence. No soft kisses. No gentle words. No confessions whispered in the dark. Just heavy breathing and the slow realization of what you’d just done. After what felt like forever, Heeseung finally pulled out of you with a quiet hiss. He rolled off to the side, staring up at the ceiling, one arm thrown over his forehead. You both lay there, naked and still catching your breath. Then, quietly, “This was a mistake.”
Your voice came out steadier than you expected. “Yeah,” he answered, just as flat. Liars. Neither of you believed it. Not even for a second. But neither of you said anything more.
Morning came like regret. Too bright. Too warm. Too aware. Sunlight spilled through the curtains in long golden strips, cruel in the way only summer mornings could be, soft and beautiful and entirely uninterested in your emotional devastation. Somewhere outside, the ocean moved lazily against the shore. A gull screamed like it had a personal vendetta. Your head hurt. Not from alcohol. Worse. Memory.
Every second of last night returned in fragments the moment you opened your eyes, his mouth on yours, your back against his door, the way he had said your name like it meant trouble, the heat of it, the impossibility of pretending it hadn’t happened. You stared at the ceiling for a full minute. Then another. Then sat up with the slow dread of a woman remembering she had, in fact, made every bad decision available to her.
Excellent. Fantastic. Character development. Heeseung’s room looked unfairly like him, clean without trying, expensive without showing off, sunlight falling over dark wood and linen sheets and the kind of quiet luxury that made you want to rob him on principle. He was standing by the window, already dressed. Of course he was. Dark T-shirt. Messy hair. Coffee in hand. Looking like the human embodiment of consequences. He turned when he heard you move. And for a second, neither of you said anything.
No teasing. No smugness. Just that strange stillness people had after crossing a line they couldn’t uncross. You pulled the sheet tighter around yourself for dignity. It did nothing. He leaned against the window frame, studying you with an unreadable expression. “Well,” he said finally, voice rough from sleep and something else, “this feels healthy.”
You let out one dry laugh. “Absolutely thriving.” His mouth twitched. Dangerous. Because if he smiled right now, if either of you made this softer than it was, the whole thing would collapse into something harder to survive. You got out of bed, collecting your clothes from the floor like evidence. “This was a mistake.” The words landed between you. Again. Too quick. Too sharp. You regretted them immediately. Something in his expression shifted, not hurt, exactly, but enough to make your chest tighten.
He set his coffee down. “Was it?” You pulled your dress on with more focus than necessary. “That depends. Are we pretending this was a one-time lapse in judgment, or are we being honest?” He watched you for a long moment. Then, quietly, “Pretending clearly hasn’t worked for us so far.”
No. It hadn’t. Not for years. You sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly exhausted by the weight of it. The almosts. The history. The fact that wanting him had somehow become the least surprising part of all this. Outside, the day kept moving. Waves. Sunlight. People living normal lives. Inside, it felt like standing at the edge of something. You looked at him.
“So what now?” He crossed his arms, considering. And because the universe had a sense of humor, the answer came with the terrifying logic of two people who were entirely too good at making bad ideas sound reasonable. “We don’t do relationships.”
You snorted. “Understatement of the century.” “You said it yourself. No settling down this summer. No complications.” “No emotional disasters.”
“Preferably.” Silence. Then, you said it first. “Friends with benefits.” The words hung there. Ridiculous. Obvious. Inevitable. Heeseung looked at you like he hated how much sense it made. “Very mature.”
“Extremely.”
“Probably a terrible idea.”
“The worst one we’ve had so far.”
Another silence. Then both of you, at the same time, “Okay.” You stared at each other. And somehow, that was the funniest part. Because of course this was how it happened. Not with romance. Not with confessions. With negotiations. You stood, stepping closer now, the air between you still carrying the remains of last night. “Fine,” you said. “But if we’re doing this, there are rules.”
His brow lifted. “Of course there are.”
“Obviously. I’m not running an emotional free-for-all.” He leaned back against the desk, arms crossed, watching you like he already knew this would be entertaining. “Go on, then.”
You started counting on your fingers. “No dates.” “Agreed.”
“No jealousy.” A pause. Small. Noticeable. Then: “Agreed.”
You narrowed your eyes but kept going. “No emotional attachment.” “That sounds healthy.” “It sounds necessary.” He nodded once. “Fine.”
“No sleepovers.” His expression shifted slightly. You ignored it. “No public affection. I’m not becoming beach gossip.”
“Sunoo will be devastated.” “He survives on disappointment.”
A ghost of a smile. You continued. “No calling unless it’s late.”
“That sounds suspiciously specific.”
“It sounds like boundaries.”
“And?”
You took a breath. The final one. The one that mattered. “This ends with summer.” That one stayed in the room longer. Because suddenly it wasn’t just about tonight or last night or whatever this was becoming. It was a deadline. An expiration date. A promise to keep it temporary. Necessary. Smart. A lie, probably. But necessary. Heeseung looked at you for a long moment before nodding once. “Ends with summer.”
You hated how that felt. Still, you extended your hand like a business deal, because if you were going to ruin your life, professionalism mattered. “Deal?” He looked down at your hand. Then back at you. Slowly, he took it. Warm. Steady. His fingers closed around yours and something about it felt far less casual than either of you intended. “Deal.”
Too intimate. Too dangerous. You pulled your hand back first. Because someone had to be responsible here, and apparently it was going to be you. You grabbed your bag from the chair and moved toward the door before common sense could return and save either of you. At the threshold, you paused. Didn’t turn around. “Just so we’re clear,” you said, hand on the door, “if this ruins my life, I’m blaming you.”
Behind you, his voice came low and familiar again. “If this ruins your life, it’ll be because you let it.” You smiled despite yourself. Didn’t let him see it. Then opened the door. And walked out into the sunlight like a woman with a plan. Very mature. Very stupid. Exactly the kind of thing summer was made for. It started quietly, almost politely. As if whatever existed between you and Heeseung had agreed to disguise itself as something manageable.
A bad decision with boundaries. A summer arrangement. A temporary indulgence. Nothing more. That was the lie you told yourself the first time he texted you after midnight and you slipped out of your house barefoot, cardigan thrown over bare shoulders, the path between your homes lit only by moonlight and terrible judgment.
That was the lie you told yourself when he opened the back door before you even knocked, like he had been waiting there, like he knew the exact second your resolve would break. That was the lie you told yourself when his hands found your waist before either of you said hello. This is fine. It was not fine. At first, it felt almost easy.
There was a thrill to it, sharp and bright and addictive in the way summer secrets always were. The private satisfaction of sitting through family dinners knowing exactly how his mouth had looked against your skin the night before. The way his knee brushed yours under the table and neither of you reacted, though both of you remembered. It lived in stolen things. In late-night visits when the whole neighborhood had gone quiet, and the only sound was the ocean somewhere beyond the trees and your own heartbeat betraying you on the walk next door.
In the pool house one humid Thursday afternoon, when everyone else had gone sailing and the house sat warm and empty under the sun. Chlorine in the air, sunlight breaking over the water in fractured gold, your bikini still damp against your skin while Heeseung stood too close and said your name like it meant trouble. His hand sliding underneath the strap to touch you then quietly adjusting it back into place as if he hadn’t branded your entire neck in marks.
In parties where you crossed crowded rooms without touching, where his hand at the small of your back lasted only a second but ruined the rest of your night. Where you’d disappear separately and meet somewhere quieter, on balconies, behind the marina, near the dunes where the music couldn’t quite reach and the summer air felt heavier.
Every moment carried that same dangerous illusion: that because no one knew, it somehow meant nothing. You learned each other in fragments. The sound of his laugh when it was real, not performed for a room full of people. The way he got quieter when he was tired. How he always reached for your wrist first, like stopping you there somehow felt more honest than pretending he wasn’t pulling you closer.
How you started recognizing the sound of his car before it even turned into the driveway. You hated that one. Because it meant anticipation. And anticipation implied care. Care was not part of the agreement. So you became very good at pretending. You rolled your eyes when Sunoo accused you of being suspiciously unavailable lately. You blamed “family obligations” when Eunchae asked why you kept vanishing halfway through parties.
You told your mother you were staying in because the heat was unbearable, and then spent the entire afternoon in Heeseung’s room with the windows open, listening to the sea and trying not to think too hard about the intimacy of daylight. That was the dangerous part. Not the sneaking around. Not the kissing. Not even the wanting. Daylight. Because night made everything easier to dismiss. Midnight had always been built for mistakes. But sunlight was honest. It stripped things down. Left no shadows to hide inside.
And lately, you were both finding reasons to stay. A cancelled beach day because it was “too hot.” Skipping a yacht party because neither of you were “in the mood.” Sunday brunch abandoned halfway through because one look across the table had made patience impossible. Your parents thought you were finally becoming mature. Choosing rest. Prioritizing peace. If only they knew. On Tuesday, your mother found you in the kitchen at noon, wearing one of Heeseung’s old shirts thrown hastily over your swimsuit because you had forgotten your own cover-up and panic had terrible fashion sense.
She looked at you. Looked at the shirt. Looked back at you. And simply said, “Interesting.” You nearly died on the spot. “Laundry accident,” you replied immediately.
She sipped her iced tea. “Of course.” You fled before she could smile. It was becoming ridiculous. The kind of ridiculous that should have frightened you more than it did. Because somewhere between the late-night texts and the locked doors and the way he said your name when no one else was around, the rules had started feeling less like boundaries and more like decorations.
No sleepovers, and yet you had woken up in his bed twice this week. No emotional attachment, and yet you knew when he was in a bad mood before he said a word. No jealousy, and yet when a girl from the marina laughed too long at something he said, your entire evening soured without permission. This is fine. It was not fine. And the worst part was how natural it all felt. Like maybe this had been waiting for years. Like every summer before this had only been rehearsal.
One evening, stretched beside him on the pool house couch while golden light slipped slowly across the floorboards, you listened to the distant sounds of your families having dinner on separate patios, laughter drifting across the hedges, glasses clinking, the whole world carrying on politely while the two of you existed here in the quiet center of your own disaster. His hand rested lazily over your waist. Your head against his shoulder. Too comfortable.
Far too comfortable. You should have left an hour ago. Instead, you stayed. Because leaving meant acknowledging it. Because staying meant pretending this was still simple. You traced absent patterns against his arm and stared at the ceiling fan turning slowly overhead. Summer had always felt like this, beautiful enough to make bad ideas look romantic. Temporary enough to make them feel safe. You told yourself that was all this was.
A season. A secret. Something that would end when the weather changed. But even then, with the evening light soft around you and his heartbeat steady beneath your cheek, some quieter part of you already knew the truth. This was never going to end cleanly. But the thought vanished as quickly as it came when you felt his hand sliding between your legs. Later, neither of you said much.
The room was quiet in that intimate, ruined way it only became after too much honesty, sheets tangled at your legs, the windows cracked open to let in the salt-heavy night air, the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead like time had slowed just for this. Outside, summer kept moving. Waves somewhere beyond the trees. A car passing faintly down the road. Someone laughing in the distance, far enough away to belong to another world entirely.
Here, everything felt still. You lay on your back staring at the ceiling, your body heavy with exhaustion, skin still warm, his sheets twisted around your legs like evidence. Your hair was a mess. Your thoughts were worse. This had become dangerous. Not because of the sex. That part had been inevitable the second either of you admitted wanting it. No, the dangerous part was afterward. This. The silence that didn’t feel awkward. The way neither of you rushed to leave. The softness that slipped in when no one was paying attention.
You hated softness. Softness made people stupid. Beside you, Heeseung was quieter than usual, one arm thrown behind his head, the other resting across his stomach, his breathing finally even after the storm of the last hour. In the low light, he looked younger somehow. Less polished. Less like the version of him the rest of the world got.
Just him. That was somehow worse. You turned your head slightly, watching him. His eyes were closed. For once, he wasn’t performing anything. No teasing, no arrogance, no carefully placed smirk like armor. Just tired. Real. You wondered if he knew how dangerous that was too. As if sensing it, he spoke without opening his eyes. “If you’re staring because you’ve finally admitted I’m right about everything, I’d like it formally documented.”
Your mouth twitched despite yourself. “I was actually wondering how someone can be this annoying while unconscious.” He opened one eye. “Talent.”
“Curse.”
“Chemistry.” You rolled your eyes and turned back to the ceiling, but the smile betrayed you anyway. Silence returned. Softer this time. The kind that settled around people who had stopped trying so hard to fill it. You should leave. That thought came and went three separate times. You should absolutely get up, find your dress, reclaim your dignity, and walk back to your own house like a woman with standards and emotional boundaries.
Instead, you stayed exactly where you were. Because moving felt like too much effort. Because his room was warm and the ocean breeze through the window made everything drowsy. Because your body had given up on principles sometime around midnight. Because leaving would make this feel real. And staying let you pretend it was still just summer.
Your eyes grew heavier. The last thing you really registered was the lamp on his bedside table casting soft amber light across the room, and the faint smell of salt and clean linen and him. Then sleep came quietly. No dramatic realization. No final declaration. Just exhaustion winning where common sense had failed. Sometime later, minutes, maybe an hour, you felt movement.
Half-asleep, caught somewhere between dreaming and waking, you registered the mattress shifting, the lamp clicking off, the room falling deeper into darkness. Then warmth. A blanket pulled over you. Careful. Quiet. His hand brushing lightly against your shoulder for just a second longer than necessary.
You should have opened your eyes. Should have made a joke. Broken the moment before it could become one. You didn’t. You stayed still, breathing slow, pretending sleep because somehow that felt safer than acknowledging tenderness. In the dark, his voice came low and almost amused. “Rule number four,” he murmured.
No sleepovers. You felt him settle beside you. The mattress dipped. The silence deepened. And then, after a beat, “Terrible at following instructions.” You smiled into the pillow where he couldn’t see it. Outside, the ocean moved patiently against the shore, summer stretching endlessly into the night. And there, in Lee Heeseung’s bed, beneath his sheets and your own very bad decisions, you fell asleep. Oops.
Something shifted after the sleepover. Not dramatically. No confessions, no declarations, no grand cinematic moment where either of you admitted the obvious and ruined everything properly. Worse. It changed quietly. In the spaces between things. And somehow, that made it far more dangerous. Because sex was easy to dismiss. Sex could be blamed on summer, on heat, on proximity, on years of unresolved tension finally finding somewhere to go. Sex was physical. Temporary. Conveniently stupid.
But softness, softness was treason. It started with coffee. You were standing in his kitchen one morning, barefoot, wearing one of his hoodies because your own clothes were somewhere upstairs and dignity had long since packed its bags. The house was still half-asleep, sunlight slipping pale and warm through the windows, the kind of slow summer morning that made everything feel deceptively gentle.
You were reaching for the coffee tin when he slid a mug across the counter toward you without looking. Iced. Too much milk. One sugar. Exactly right. You stared at it. Then at him. He was leaning against the opposite counter, scrolling through something on his phone with the dangerous calm of a man who had no idea he’d just committed emotional violence. “You remembered.”
He looked up. At the mug. At you. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You complain about bad coffee like it’s a moral issue.” You narrowed your eyes. “It is a moral issue.” He smiled into his own cup. That was the problem. Not remembering. How natural it felt. As if of course he knew. As if of course you noticed. As if this was normal. It wasn’t. Nothing about this was normal. And yet the days kept folding around it anyway.
He started bringing you food without asking. Not in some dramatic, romantic gesture way. Nothing obvious enough to name. Just showing up at the beach with the exact sandwich you liked because he “happened to be near the deli.” Leaving fries on the passenger seat when he picked you up because you’d skipped lunch and he could always tell when you did. A bottle of water handed to you silently after too much sun and too much pretending at some yacht party, his hand brushing yours for only a second before he walked away.
Little things. The kind people noticed. The kind people definitely noticed. By the second week of July, your friends had reached collective suspicion. It happened on a Wednesday afternoon at the beach club, where everyone had collapsed under umbrellas with overpriced drinks and varying levels of sunburn. Sunoo was the first to say it, because of course he was. He lowered his sunglasses dramatically and pointed between you and Heeseung like a detective solving a murder. “You two are weird.”
You didn’t even look up from your book. “That is the least shocking thing anyone has ever said.”
“No,” Yunjin cut in, leaning forward, “like weird weird. You’re not fighting.”
That got your attention. You looked up. Across from you, Heeseung was stretched lazily in a chair, sunglasses on, looking entirely too comfortable for someone under investigation.
Yoonchae nodded. “It’s unsettling. I miss the hostility. It was romantic.” Jay, who treated gossip like a legal proceeding, added, “The last thing you said to him that even resembled an insult was, and I quote—” He lifted a hand, reciting with criminal accuracy: ‘Don’t stay in the ocean too long, your wig might fall off.’ Silence. You blinked.
Sunghoon, traitor, added quietly, “That wasn’t even an insult. That was concern wrapped in a taunt.” You hated all of them.
“It was a warning,” you said.
“Because you care,” Sunoo sang.
“Because baldness is a public issue.” Across the table, Heeseung laughed. Actually laughed. Low and easy and far too pleased with himself. And you, idiot that you were, smiled back before you could stop it. The entire group gasped like Victorian women witnessing an exposed ankle. Eunchae clutched her chest. “Oh my god. They’re smiling at each other. We’ve lost them.”
You buried your face in your drink. This was unbearable. But the truth sat heavier than embarrassment. Because they were right. You weren’t fighting anymore. Not really. The sharpness had softened at the edges, and in its place had come something quieter. More dangerous.
You knew when he was lying. It was always in his shoulders first, too relaxed, too deliberate. Like if he made himself look calm enough, no one would notice. And he knew when you were upset before you said a word. Sometimes before you did. Like the night you came back from dinner with your parents, frustrated and restless and not wanting to explain why, only to find him sitting on the hood of his car outside your house.
He took one look at you and said, simply, “What happened?” No performance. No jokes. Just knowing. You sat beside him without answering, and he handed you fries in silence. That was worse than comfort. That was intimacy. And intimacy was not part of the agreement. Neither was the fact that you kept ending up in his clothes.
His hoodie mostly. Dark gray, too big, sleeves falling over your hands, smelling faintly like him and expensive detergent and whatever impossible thing made you feel too warm when you wore it home at sunrise. The first time, you’d told yourself it was practical. The second time, convenient. By the fifth, even you had stopped pretending. One evening, walking back from his house with that hoodie wrapped around you and the sun barely rising over the water, you caught your reflection in a neighbor’s window and had the deeply humiliating realization that you looked happy.
Not smug. Not victorious. Happy. You nearly turned around and walked directly into the sea. And then there was jealousy. The rule neither of you talked about because talking about it would make it real. No jealousy. Very simple. A lie, obviously. It surfaced one night at another party on Jay’s yacht. Some guy, tall, forgettable, rich in the boring way, spent too long talking to you by the bar. Leaning in too close. Laughing too easily.
You were polite. Mostly. But from across the room, you felt it before you saw it. Heeseung, watching. Still. Cold. Not dramatic, that would’ve been easier, just quiet. His expression shuttered in that way he did when he was trying very hard not to let something show, and suddenly the rest of the night tasted wrong. Later, when you found him outside near the dock, the air heavy with salt and dark water below, you said it before you could stop yourself.
“You’re being weird.” He leaned against the railing, gaze on the ocean. “I’m always weird.”
“Not like this.”
A long pause, the air thick with unspoken tension. Then, “Nothing’s wrong.” You laughed softly. There it was, the lie. You stepped closer, “You know I can tell when you’re lying, right?”
Finally, he looked at you. Moonlight catching the edges of him. That familiar unreadable expression. “No,” he said. “You just like thinking you can.” You folded your arms. “And you like pretending I’m wrong.”
His jaw shifted. A tell. You noticed. Of course you noticed. For a second, it almost cracked. Whatever this was. Whatever sat under all the rules and pretending and carefully chosen silence. But then he straightened. Looked away. And the wall went back up. “It means nothing,” he said. The words landed heavier than they should have. Because both of you knew he wasn’t talking about the guy. He was talking about all of it. This. You. Him.
The arrangement. The softness. The way neither of you were following your own rules anymore. Nothing. You stared at him for a long moment, the ocean loud in the silence between you. Then you nodded once. “Right.” A lie, both his and yours, both of you standing there in the warm dark of summer, pretending not to bleed where it hurt.
It means nothing, and somehow, that hurt worse than if he’d said everything, the silence between you lingered for a second too long. Warm night air moved around you, carrying the salt of the ocean and the distant hum of music from the party still going on behind the marina. The dock swayed faintly beneath your feet, water dark and endless below, moonlight breaking silver across the surface.
You stood there with his words still sitting heavy in your chest. It means nothing. Such a simple sentence. Such a stupid, transparent lie, but you hated that it hurt. More than that, you hated that he knew it hurt. That somewhere beneath all the arrogance and all the careful pretending, he knew exactly where to place the knife. And still, somehow, neither of you left. Because leaving would mean ending the conversation. Because staying meant there was still something unfinished here.
You folded your arms tighter, more for protection than attitude. “Right,” you said again, quieter this time. Heeseung looked at you like he wanted to say something else, something better, or worse. You could see it in the hesitation. In the way his mouth opened slightly, then closed again. In the tension sitting sharp in his shoulders, like even he was tired of performing indifference.
But he didn’t, of course he didn’t. Instead, after a long moment, he stepped closer. Not enough to be dramatic. Just enough to be familiar. And maybe that was the problem. The familiarity of it. The way your body recognized him before your mind had time to argue. His hand brushed your arm lightly. A thoughtless gesture. Comforting. Soft. Dangerous. You should have stepped back. Instead, you stayed still.
And then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like his body had made the decision before his brain could stop it, he leaned down and pressed a quick, absent kiss to your forehead. Gentle. Careless. Tender. The kind of kiss that belonged to something entirely different than whatever this was supposed to be. And the second it happened, you both froze. Completely, the world stopped, the ocean, the music, your heartbeat, everything. Because that, that was not in the rules. Not even close. No public affection. No emotional attachment. No softness.
And forehead kisses? Forehead kisses were practically emotional terrorism. You stared at him. He stared at you. His hand was still lightly on your arm. Your lips parted, but no sound came out because honestly, what exactly was the appropriate response to being emotionally assassinated on a dock? Apparently, the answer was, a dramatic choking noise.
You both turned. Too late. Because standing ten feet away, carrying drinks and what looked like the absolute time of their lives, were your friends. All of them. Sunoo. Sunghoon. Jay. Eunchae. Yunjin. Yoonchae. Witnesses. To your death. For one beat, nobody moved. Then Yunjin made a sound like a Victorian woman seeing a man’s ankle and clutched her chest.
“No,” she whispered. Then louder, “No. No, I refuse.”
And with all the theatrical commitment of a woman born for performance, she dramatically dropped backward onto Eunchae. “I’ve fainted,” she announced to the night. “I’m dead. Tell my family I died right.” Eunchae, instead of helping, was already doubled over laughing. Actually laughing. Tears in her eyes. Full-body betrayal. Jay turned away entirely, hand over his mouth like he was trying and failing to remain dignified. Sunghoon stood there in complete silence, which for him was basically screaming.
Sunoo looked like he had ascended to another spiritual plane. And Yoonchae, traitor, elegant, terrifying, just slowly raised one eyebrow and said, “Well.” You wanted the dock to collapse. Immediately. Preferably with you on it. Beside you, Heeseung cleared his throat with the deeply haunted expression of a man realizing public humiliation was hereditary.
“It was nothing.” Silence. Then six people spoke at once. “Nothing?” Sunoo repeated, scandalized. “You kissed her forehead!” Eunchae shouted.
“That’s husband behavior,” Yunjin yelled from her fake death position. Jay pointed accusingly. “That is not casual. Casual men do not forehead kiss.”
Sunghoon, finally contributing, said simply, “That was intimate.” Which, somehow, was worse. You covered your face with both hands. This was how legends ended. Not with dignity. Not with grace. But with your friends conducting a public trial over a forehead kiss. Heeseung rubbed the back of his neck, visibly regretting every life choice that had led him here. “It was automatic.”
“A Freudian slip,” Sunoo said immediately.
“A cry for help,” Yunjin added.
“A confession,” Eunchae gasped.
“A legal declaration,” Jay said.
“A marriage proposal,” Yoonchae finished.
You made a strangled noise. “Please stop talking.”
“No,” everyone replied. Across the chaos, you finally looked at Heeseung. Really looked. And annoyingly, he looked just as wrecked as you felt. His composure cracked at the edges. His usual confidence gone. His ears, very slightly, red. Interesting. Very interesting. For one brief second, despite the humiliation, despite the six idiots currently planning your wedding in real time, you almost smiled. Because he was embarrassed. Actually embarrassed. And somehow, that made the whole thing worse. Or better. Definitely worse.
He looked back at you. Something unspoken passing there. Something quiet and dangerous. Then, because the universe refused to let either of you have peace, Sunoo threw an arm dramatically into the air and declared to the ocean, “THEY’RE IN LOVE AND THEY’RE MAKING IT EVERYONE’S PROBLEM.” You and Heeseung, at the exact same time: “Shut up, Sunoo.” Which only made everyone laugh harder.
—
The yacht looked like something built for people who had never been told no. White and gleaming and impossibly large, anchored just far enough from shore to feel exclusive, close enough for everyone to pretend it was casual. Music spilled across the water in low, expensive waves. Champagne sweated in silver buckets. Someone was laughing too loudly near the upper deck, and somewhere below, the ocean moved dark and patient against the hull, like it had seen this all before. Summer in Jeju Island had always been performative, but yacht parties were theater. Everyone arrived looking like they had something to prove. Girls in silk and gold, boys in linen and old money and inherited arrogance. Sunglasses even after sunset. Bare shoulders catching the last of the light. Beautiful people pretending they weren’t waiting for someone specific to notice them.
You hated how much you fit into it. Tonight, the dress was white. Soft and dangerous. The kind of dress that looked innocent until someone stood too close. Thin straps, bare back, fabric skimming your skin like seawater. Your hair loose from the salt air, gold at your throat, your mouth glossed and unhelpful. You looked like a mistake dressed as a good idea. Maybe that was the point. By the time you stepped onto the deck, the sun was already beginning to sink, everything dipped in amber, the ocean turning molten and gold around you. The air smelled like sunscreen, champagne, and money.
Sunoo spotted you first, of course. He stood near the bar, already three drinks deep into being everyone’s problem, and his eyes widened slowly as you approached. “Oh,” he said softly, like someone witnessing divine intervention. “Someone is about to ruin a life.” You took the champagne he handed you. “Only one? I’m aiming higher.”
He smiled, but it faded quickly when his gaze shifted past your shoulder. There. At the far end of the deck. Heeseung. Talking to Jay, drink in hand, sleeves rolled, dark shirt open at the throat in that infuriating way he never seemed aware of. The wind moved through his hair. The sunset caught against the sharp line of his profile. And then he looked up. Found you. Paused. There was always that moment. That small, suspended second where everything else fell away and it was just this, the recognition, the tension, the memory of every version of yourselves that had led here. His gaze moved slowly.
Not rushed. Not subtle. Like being touched without contact. And even from across the deck, you felt it. Something in your chest pulling too tight. It would have been easier if he looked away first. He didn’t. Neither did you. Until Yunjin bumped your shoulder lightly and saved you from your own poor decisions. “Don’t do that,” she murmured. You blinked. “Do what?” She took a sip of her drink, watching the sunset like she wasn’t dismantling your life. “Look at him like that. It makes the rest of us feel like unwilling participants.”
You laughed, but it sounded thinner than you meant it to. Because tonight, something already felt wrong. Not wrong. Fragile. Like standing barefoot on glass and pretending it was only sand. Maybe it was the accumulated weight of it. The weeks of pretending. The rules bent past recognition. The softness neither of you spoke about. The forehead kiss that still sat in your chest like a bruise. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe you were tired. Tired of pretending this was casual. Tired of pretending you didn’t care. Tired of him saying it meant nothing when it had started to feel like everything.
So tonight, you decided to be reckless. Not because you wanted someone else. Because you wanted him to react. Which, in hindsight, was the kind of decision people wrote warnings about. Minjae found you first. Again. Pretty enough. Easy enough. Familiar enough to be useful. He leaned against the rail beside you while the yacht drifted slow under the dying sun, talking about some party in Seoul, some mutual friend, something forgettable. His hand brushed your arm when he laughed.
You let it. You smiled. You leaned closer. You let the dress do half the work and the silence do the rest. And all the while, you could feel it. Heeseung. Across the deck. Watching. It wasn’t dramatic. He wasn’t storming across the yacht like some jealous cliché. Worse. He was quiet. Still. The kind of stillness that meant all the dangerous things were happening underneath. You knew him well enough now to recognize it.
The way his shoulders went too rigid. The way his mouth flattened when he was holding something back. The way he stopped pretending to enjoy the party. You kept flirting. Because cruelty, apparently, was a love language. By the time the sky had gone violet and the city lights glittered faintly across the water, the tension had become its own living thing. Heavy.
Everyone noticed. Sunoo kept looking between you and Heeseung like he was watching a live sports event. Eunchae physically winced every time Minjae touched your arm. Jay had the expression of a man reviewing poor investment choices. And Heeseung, he stopped speaking entirely. You should have stopped. You didn’t. Because part of you wanted him angry. Wanted proof. Wanted something undeniable.
You found it when you excused yourself to the lower deck for air. The music faded there, softer beneath the sound of the water. The yacht rocked gently beneath your feet. Moonlight stretched silver over the sea, and the world felt quieter, suspended between one decision and the next. You barely had time to breathe before he was there.
“Seriously?” His voice behind you was low. Controlled. Too controlled. You turned slowly. He stood in the narrow corridor of moonlight and shadow, jaw tight, eyes dark enough to make the night feel thinner around you. There it was. Finally. You leaned back against the railing, crossing your arms like your pulse wasn’t trying to leave your body. “Are we opening with accusations? Very romantic.” His laugh was short. Humorless. “You’re unbelievable.”
“And you’re late. I thought jealousy would get you here faster.” That landed. You saw it. The flicker in his expression. The anger sharpened by something much worse. He stepped closer. “You think this is funny?”
“No,” you said quietly. “I think you don’t get to care.” The ocean moved below you. Dark and endless. He stopped. For one second, the entire world seemed to hold its breath. “And why not?” The question came softer than you expected. Not angry, not sharp, honest, and that was worse, because there was an answer. A real one. Because caring meant naming this. Because naming this meant breaking it. Because if he said it first, if either of you said it first, there would be no way back to pretending.
You looked at him and saw all of it at once, the boy you had spent every summer fighting, the man standing in front of you now, the terrible inevitability of wanting someone you were never supposed to want this much. Your throat felt tight. “Because,” you said, and even your own voice sounded unfamiliar, “you were the one who said it meant nothing.” Something in him shifted. Like regret. Like anger turned inward. He moved closer again, and this time you didn’t step back. There was nowhere to go.
Moonlight on the water. Champagne still bitter on your tongue. His hand braced against the railing beside you, trapping you there without touching. His voice dropped, rough around the edges. “And you believed me?” Your heart stuttered. Because no. No, you hadn’t. That had been the problem. You had heard the lie and let him keep it because the truth was too dangerous.
You looked up at him, and the space between you felt like standing in the ocean during a storm, like drowning and floating and drowning and floating, never knowing which one would win. “Tell me I’m wrong,” you whispered.
He stared at you like he was trying to decide whether honesty would ruin him. Maybe it would. Maybe it already had. His hand lifted, slow enough to stop, brushing a strand of hair from your face with a tenderness that felt far too intimate for a yacht full of people and all the lies between you. His mouth was only inches from yours. And when he spoke, it was barely sound at all. “I think,” he said, “I stopped being careful with you a long time ago.”
Not quite a confession. Worse. Because it was true. And truth, between the two of you, had always been the most dangerous thing of all. He stood there for one suspended second after saying it, like even he was startled by the sound of his own honesty. The yacht rocked gently beneath you, the ocean below black and endless, moonlight breaking itself into silver shards across the water. Somewhere above, the music still played, muffled now, distant, belonging to another life entirely. Laughter drifted from the upper deck like something from far away, from people who had not just stepped to the edge of something irreversible.
You could still feel the words between you. I stopped being careful with you a long time ago. It settled into your chest like saltwater, slow, stinging, impossible to separate from your own blood. For weeks, maybe years, the two of you had been circling this. Pretending desire was just annoyance sharpened into habit. Pretending every almost was accidental. Pretending the way he looked at you meant less than it did. And now here it was. Not clean. Not graceful. Just true. You should have said something. Something intelligent. Something devastating. Something that would let you keep whatever remained of your pride. Instead, your body betrayed you first.
Your hand found the front of his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric like instinct, like gravity. You didn’t even realize you’d done it until he looked down at your hand and something dark and quiet moved across his face. His restraint snapped so softly you almost missed it. Then he took your wrist. And before you could think, before either of you could retreat back into irony and self-preservation, he pulled you with him. Up the narrow staircase. Past the low spill of music and careless laughter. Through the blur of warm bodies and champagne and summer pretending to be harmless.
You barely registered the startled glance Sunoo gave you as Heeseung walked past him without a word, your hand still in his like a confession neither of you were ready to speak aloud. The hallway inside the yacht was cooler, quieter. White walls. Dim lights. The hum of the engine beneath your feet. Somewhere, a door shut. Somewhere else, the sea kept breathing against the hull.
He kept walking. You followed because there was no version of this where you didn’t. Because at some point, resisting him had become another kind of surrender. At the end of the corridor, he stopped. A private deck. Smaller. Hidden from the party. Open to the night. Only the ocean. Only the moon. Only the two of you and everything you were pretending not to destroy.
The door shut behind you with a soft click. Silence. He turned. For a moment, neither of you moved. The wind came off the water cool against your overheated skin, lifting your hair, carrying salt into the space between you. You could hear your own breathing. His too. He looked at you like a man standing too close to fire and knowing he was about to step in anyway.
And suddenly, it felt like standing at the edge of land. Like the last piece of solid ground beneath your feet. Like one more step would mean surrendering to something larger than either of you, something tidal and reckless and impossible to survive unchanged. You crossed that distance first. Or maybe he did. Later, you wouldn’t know. Only that one second there was space, and the next there was none. His mouth found yours like gravity.
Not gentle. Not hesitant. Like being pulled under. The kiss hit you like cold water and summer lightning, sharp, immediate, consuming. Every part of you lit at once, every defense dissolving so quickly it felt humiliating. His hands were at your waist, your neck, your jaw, like he couldn’t decide where to hold you, only that he needed to. You kissed him back like drowning. Like if you let go, you’d wash out to sea. His mouth tasted like champagne and salt and every bad decision you’d ever wanted to make. It was anger and relief and hunger all tangled together, all the years between you collapsing into something hot and breathless and overdue.
The world tilted. Or maybe it was just the boat. Or maybe it was him. You had the absurd thought that this was what slipping away from land felt like, that moment your feet stopped touching the ocean floor and suddenly there was nothing holding you up but instinct and want. Floating. Falling. The same thing, sometimes. His hands slid to your back, pulling you closer, and the sound that left him against your mouth was low, wrecked, like even he was surprised by the force of this.
You understood. Because kissing Heeseung felt like melting. Like sun-warmed skin slipping beneath water. Like losing the shape of yourself. Like becoming something softer, stranger, more dangerous. He kissed you like he was angry at how much he wanted to. You kissed him like you were tired of pretending you didn’t. And somewhere in the middle of it, all your carefully built walls, your rules, your boundaries, your clever little exits, went under like they had never been there at all.
His forehead rested against yours for one brief second, both of you breathing like you’d been running, like maybe you had. His thumb brushed your cheek. A tenderness so small it almost hurt more than the kiss. When he spoke, his voice was rough enough to sound like truth. “You make this impossible.” You smiled, breathless, your lips still close enough to steal.
“So do you.” Then his mouth was on yours again, and whatever was left of reason disappeared with the tide.
—
The rain started sometime after midnight. By morning, Jeju Island had turned silver. The sky hung low and heavy over the coastline, clouds blurring the horizon until the ocean and the storm became one endless sheet of grey-blue. Rain slid steadily down the windows in soft crooked lines, tapping against rooftops and palm leaves and the quiet little streets of the neighborhood with the kind of patience only summer storms possessed.
Everything felt slower in the rain. Softer. The beach emptied. Yacht plans were cancelled. The marina sat abandoned except for boats rocking gently against their docks like sleeping animals. For the first time all summer, the town stopped performing. And somehow, that felt dangerous too. You woke late to the sound of thunder somewhere far away, curled beneath your sheets with damp air drifting through the cracked window. Your phone rested beside your pillow, screen lighting softly against the grey room.
A text.
power’s out at our house.
Then, a second later:
mom says yours still has electricity
And finally:
tragic. devastating. i’ll survive somehow.
You stared at the screen for a moment longer than necessary. Then sighed. Because despite everything, despite all your promises to yourself about boundaries and self-preservation and not becoming the kind of girl who let boys ruin her summer, you were already smiling. An hour later, Heeseung arrived at your front door soaked from the rain.
Not drenched dramatically. Just enough that dark strands of hair clung messily to his forehead, rainwater catching along the line of his jaw and disappearing beneath the collar of his sweatshirt. The storm had turned the whole world softer around the edges, and standing there beneath the muted grey sky, he looked less like the polished golden boy everyone knew and more like something real. Your mother let him in with entirely too much enthusiasm. “Oh good,” she said brightly, already walking back toward the kitchen. “Now you can both stop pretending you don’t miss each other.”
“Mom,” you warned. Heeseung coughed into his sleeve to hide a smile. Rain followed him inside in traces, the smell of wet pavement and ocean wind clinging faintly to him as he stepped into the warmth of the house. For a moment, neither of you moved. No parties. No music. No late-night tension sharp enough to cut through.
Just quiet. The kind that made you suddenly aware of ordinary things. The soft ticking of rain against the windows. The oversized sweatshirt hanging off his shoulders. The fact that he looked at home here. That realization unsettled you more than it should have. The day unfolded slowly after that. Not exciting. Not dramatic. And maybe that was why it mattered.
You spent most of the afternoon in the living room while the storm darkened outside, half-watching terrible movies neither of you cared about. Your legs stretched across the couch beneath a blanket, his shoulder brushing yours every so often in that absent, thoughtless way intimacy sometimes arrived. At some point, your mother disappeared upstairs with a suspicious smile and the kind of timing that deserved investigation.
The rain deepened. Hours passed unnoticed. You learned strange things about each other in the quiet. Not the big things. Not the carefully curated versions people offered at parties. Small things. Real things. Heeseung hated peaches because he got sick eating too many as a kid one summer. You used to fake injuries during tennis lessons because you hated losing more than you liked sports.
He still remembered the time you punched a boy at thirteen for making Eunchae cry near the marina. “You broke his nose,” he recalled from the kitchen doorway, coffee mug in hand.
“He deserved worse.” “You were terrifying.” “I still am.” A smile touched his mouth then. Soft. Unthinking. Rainlight filled the room pale and blue around him, and suddenly the years between childhood and now felt strangely thin. Like maybe you had always been circling each other. Like maybe every version of yourselves had led here eventually. Later, thunder rolled low across the coastline while you sat cross-legged on the floor beside the couch, flipping through an old photo album your mother had abandoned on the shelf years ago.
Bad idea. There were photographs everywhere. Sunburnt summers. Beach days. Bonfires. All of you impossibly young. You paused on one picture, eight years old, missing front teeth, shoving Heeseung into the sand while he laughed hard enough to blur in the frame. Your chest tightened unexpectedly. “We look awful.”
“We look happy,” he corrected quietly. The room fell still after that. Outside, rainwater slid endlessly down the glass. Inside, something shifted. Not loudly, just enough to feel it. He sat down beside you on the floor, close enough that warmth gathered between you naturally. The photo album rested forgotten between your knees. And for the first time since this began, it didn’t feel like war. No tension sharpened into cruelty. No sarcasm waiting like a weapon.
Just this strange, aching softness neither of you knew how to hold. You turned another page slowly. Another photograph. Older this time. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. A summer party. You standing near the water laughing at something outside the frame while Heeseung looked at you instead. Not the camera. You. Your breath caught slightly. “You kept this?” He glanced down at the picture. Then away. Your pulse stumbled. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
His jaw shifted faintly. For a second, you thought he might dodge the question. Turn it into a joke. Deflect the way he always did whenever things came too close to honesty. Instead, his voice came quieter than you expected. “I think,” he said slowly, “I’ve spent a long time trying not to.”
The rain outside seemed to hush around the words. You looked at him carefully. Something vulnerable flickered there beneath all the practiced ease. Something raw enough to make your own chest ache in response. And suddenly you understood something terrifying, this was no longer just desire. Desire was simpler.
This, whatever this was becoming, had roots. Deep ones. You looked back down at the photograph because meeting his eyes felt too dangerous. “I used to hate summers here,” you admitted softly. The confession surprised even you. He looked at you then. “Why?” You traced your thumb along the edge of the page.
“Because everything always ended.” The words settled heavily between you, summer romances, bonfires, fireworks, warm nights, every beautiful thing in Jeju Island came with an expiration date stitched into it from the beginning, and suddenly, without meaning to, you had said something true. Something too true. You felt him shift closer beside you. Not touching. Almost worse.
For one suspended moment, it felt like standing at the edge of another confession, like both of you could ruin yourselves completely if you kept talking, so neither of you did. Cowards.
By evening, the storm had softened into a quiet drizzle. The whole house glowed warm against the rain-dark world outside, lamps casting amber light across the living room while distant thunder faded somewhere beyond the ocean. You’d lost track of time entirely. Dinner had happened somewhere in between conversation and silence and accidental touches that lasted too long. And now he stood near the front door pulling his sweatshirt back on while you lingered barefoot by the hallway, neither of you acknowledging how reluctant this felt. The rain tapped softly against the windows.
He looked tired. You probably did too. For one dangerous second, you almost asked him to stay. You could feel the question there, hovering at the back of your throat. Stay, not because of sex, not because of loneliness. Just, stay, and somehow that made it infinitely more frightening, across from you, he hesitated too, his hand resting on the doorknob, eyes on yours. Like he almost wanted to ask, but neither of you moved.
Because asking would mean admitting this had already crossed into something neither of you knew how to survive. So instead, he opened the door. Cool rain air slipped inside. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said quietly. Not later. Tomorrow. Something about that felt dangerously permanent. You nodded once.
“Yeah.” He left. And somehow the house felt emptier after. You stood there for a long moment listening to the rain before your mother appeared behind you carrying two mugs of tea. She looked toward the door knowingly, then back at you. “You know,” she said lightly, “summer’s ending soon.”
The words hit like cold water. Suddenly, the room felt too small. Too warm. Your heartbeat stumbled somewhere beneath your ribs. Because for the first time all summer, the ending no longer felt theoretical. It felt real. And terrifyingly close.
Summer began leaving in pieces. Not all at once. That would have been kinder. Instead, Jeju Island unraveled slowly, quietly, like a tide pulling back from shore before anyone realized the water was disappearing. The marina grew emptier first. Boats vanished from their slips one by one, carried back toward cities and obligations and real lives waiting elsewhere. Beach houses that had glowed warm every night for months slowly darkened at the windows. Suitcases appeared in entryways. Goodbyes drifted through the neighborhood in soft, temporary promises.
See you next summer.
As if next summer was guaranteed. As if people stayed the same long enough for promises like that to survive. The air changed too, still warm, but thinner somehow, the evenings arriving earlier, sunsets softer, touched already by the melancholy of something ending, even the ocean looked different, darker blue, quieter, less forgiving. You hated noticing it, because noticing meant acknowledging the clock, and the clock meant him, everything suddenly seemed measured in remaining time, three more Friday nights, two more yacht parties, a handful of mornings left before the entire town dissolved back into memory.
Your arrangement had always come with an expiration date stitched into it. Ends with summer. At the beginning, the rule had felt safe, now it felt like standing beneath a blade waiting to fall. You started sleeping badly after that, not because of him, because of the way he had started looking at you. More carefully, more openly, like somewhere along the way, he had grown tired of pretending.
It happened in small moments at first, his hand lingering too long at your waist before letting go, the way his gaze searched for you automatically in crowded rooms now, no hesitation, no embarrassment about it, how he no longer acted surprised by tenderness, as though caring had become instinctive, dangerous, dangerous things. And worst of all, he had stopped treating this like it was temporary.
You noticed it one evening at the beach. The sky had gone pale gold with approaching sunset, the shoreline nearly empty except for scattered locals and gulls drifting low over the water. You sat wrapped in one of his hoodies, knees pulled loosely to your chest while the tide crept closer across the sand. Heeseung sat beside you quietly, one arm draped over his bent knee, watching the horizon.
Comfortable silence stretched between you. The kind that should have felt peaceful. Instead, it terrified you, because this wasn’t supposed to become comfortable. Comfort implied permanence. Permanence implied loss. “You’re thinking too loudly,” he murmured eventually.
You glanced at him. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you get this look on your face when you’re spiraling.” You looked away too quickly. The ocean breathed in and out before you answered. “I’m not spiraling.”
“You started reorganizing the snacks in my kitchen alphabetically yesterday.”
“That was stress cleaning.”
“That was psychotic.” A faint smile touched your mouth despite yourself. His gaze softened when he saw it. There it was again, that look, something gentler, something infinitely more frightening. Your chest tightened.
You stood abruptly before the feeling could settle properly. “I should go.” The shift was immediate. You saw him notice it in real time, the distance, the retreat, his expression changed carefully, like someone stepping onto unstable ground. “You just got here.”
“I know.” Rain clouds gathered faintly over the horizon, turning the water darker beneath the evening light. You avoided his eyes while brushing sand from your legs, because lately every time you looked at him too long, something inside you started giving way, and you couldn’t afford that, not now, not with endings everywhere. The drive home was quiet. not tense, worse, careful, as though both of you could feel something fraying between your hands and neither knew how to stop pulling. After that, it became impossible not to notice. How often he reached for you now. How naturally your lives had begun folding together. How every goodbye felt heavier than the last.
And the more real he became, the more frightened you grew. So you started pulling away, subtly at first, taking longer to answer texts, leaving earlier, skipping late-night visits with excuses thin enough that even you didn’t believe them, too tired, family dinner, headache, lies, all of them, because the truth sounded too ugly to admit aloud: You were beginning to love him, and loving someone with an end date felt like volunteering for heartbreak in advance. He noticed immediately, of course he did, he had always known you too well.
One night at Sunoo’s house, while music drifted softly through crowded rooms and everyone else played cards half-drunk around the kitchen island, you felt his eyes on you from across the room almost constantly, not possessive, not angry, trying to understand, which somehow hurt worse. You laughed too brightly at things that weren’t funny. Let conversations distract you. Pretended not to see the way his jaw tightened every time you slipped further away from him. By midnight, the tension between you had become unbearable.
You found him eventually outside on the balcony overlooking the ocean, moonlight silvering the sharp edges of his profile. The wind moved softly through the dark. Neither of you spoke immediately. There was too much sitting between you now. Finally, he turned. “You’ve been avoiding me.” Not accusatory. Just tired. You crossed your arms tightly against yourself. “I’ve been busy.”
A pause. Then quietly, “That’s not true.” Something sharp moved through your chest. Because no matter how carefully you built distance, Heeseung always walked straight through it. You looked out toward the water instead, far easier than looking at him. The ocean below looked endless tonight, cold, restless. “I just think maybe we forgot what this was supposed to be.” The silence after that felt dangerous. When he spoke again, his voice had gone lower. “And what exactly was it supposed to be?” You swallowed, temporary, easy, nothing, but none of those words fit anymore. Not after rainy afternoons and forehead kisses and sleeping beside each other until sunrise, not after the way he looked at you now.
You could feel him watching you carefully, waiting, and suddenly the pressure of it became unbearable, the ending hanging over everything, the fear curling tighter around your ribs every day this became more real, because if you admitted what this was becoming, then losing it would destroy you. So instead, you stepped backward emotionally the way frightened people always do. “You said it yourself,” you murmured. “This ends with summer.”
His expression shifted, hurt, this time, barely hidden, “And that’s all you want?” You opened your mouth, nothing came out, because the answer existed, because it terrified you. The wind moved cold against your skin, below you, waves crashed endlessly against the shore, over and over, like something trying desperately to return to land. He stared at you for a long moment. Then finally asked, softly enough to hurt, “What are we doing?”
The question hung there between you, not angry, not dramatic, honest, and honesty had become the most dangerous thing between the two of you. You looked at him, really looked, at the exhaustion in his eyes, the hope he was trying not to show, the terrifying possibility of being loved back. Your throat tightened painfully. But fear arrived faster, fear always did.
So instead of answering, you stayed silent, and in that silence, something began to break.
—
The storm rolled in after midnight, it didn't rain at first, just pressure, heavy clouds swallowing the sky whole, the air turning electric and difficult to breathe. Wind moved through Jeju Island in restless waves, rattling windows and palm trees and the fragile remains of your composure. You hadn’t slept. Couldn’t.
His question kept replaying in your head like something unfinished. What are we doing? You had no answer that didn’t terrify you. So instead, you spent hours pacing your room while lightning flickered faintly beyond the ocean horizon, illuminating the walls in brief silver flashes. Coward.
The word followed you everywhere now, by one in the morning, your thoughts had become unbearable, by one-thirty, you were walking toward his house through the storm, barefoot, sweatshirt pulled tight around yourself, heart beating too hard.
The neighborhood lay silent beneath the dark sky, every house asleep except his. Light still glowed beneath his bedroom door upstairs. Something inside your chest twisted painfully at that. Like some foolish part of you had hoped he’d be sleeping peacefully. Unaffected. But of course he wasn’t.
You knocked once before opening the door. He looked up immediately from the couch. And the moment your eyes met, you understood this was going to hurt. The room was dim except for one lamp near the window. Thunder murmured low outside, rain finally beginning against the glass in soft scattered drops. Heeseung stood slowly. Neither of you spoke at first.
The distance between you felt enormous. You hated it. You hated that you were the one who created it. “You came,” he said eventually. His voice sounded exhausted. You wrapped your arms around yourself tighter. “I couldn’t sleep.” Something unreadable moved across his face. For one dangerous second, it almost softened. Then he remembered. “What do you want me to say?”
There it was. No avoiding it now. Your pulse stumbled painfully. “I don’t know.” “That’s the problem.” The words landed harder than they should have. Thunder rolled somewhere closer now. He ran a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding through the calm he’d been holding together for days. “I feel like I’m standing outside a locked door with you lately.”
You looked away immediately. Because if you looked at him too long, you would fold. “You’re making this more serious than it is.” Even saying it felt wrong. You could hear the lie rotting underneath the sentence. So could he, his laugh this time sounded hollow.
“Seriously?” You swallowed hard. “This was supposed to be simple.” “Simple?” His voice sharpened suddenly. “You think any of this has felt simple?” Rain hit harder against the windows. The room felt smaller now. Too warm. Too full of things neither of you knew how to survive. You took a step backward instinctively, he noticed, of course he noticed, and something inside him finally snapped.
“I’m tired,” he said quietly, “of pretending I don’t care.” Silence, the words settled into the room like lightning striking water, there it was, the thing both of you had spent all summer running from, not hidden anymore, not softened into implication, real. You stared at him, your heart hurt so badly it almost felt physical, because part of you had wanted this, wanted him to say it, and another part, the larger, more frightened part, wanted to run until your lungs gave out.
Loving someone meant they could leave. Summer always left. You knew that better than anyone. So fear reached for cruelty the way drowning people reached for air. You laughed softly. Wrong move. His expression changed immediately. You felt your own panic rising now, wild and sharp and impossible to control. “This was never supposed to mean anything.”
The second the words left your mouth, you wanted them back. Too late. Silence. Not dramatic. Worse. Stillness. You watched the hurt move across his face slowly, like something extinguishing. His eyes lost warmth first, then softness, then hope, and suddenly the room felt freezing. He nodded once, a small movement.
“Right,” he said quietly. “Got it.” You opened your mouth instantly. Nothing came out. Because the truth was trapped somewhere beneath all your fear, clawing at your ribs too late. He grabbed his keys from the counter. Didn’t look at you again. Thunder cracked outside just as he reached the door. “Heeseung—”
He stopped. For one second, hope flared painfully inside you again. Then he spoke without turning around. “I think,” he said softly, “I deserved better than that.” And left. The door shut behind him with terrifying finality. You stood there frozen while rain hammered against the windows and the storm swallowed the coastline whole. For the first time all summer, he didn’t come back, and afterward came silence.
No texts. No late-night knocks at your window. No headlights outside your house. Nothing. Just absence. Cold and endless as the sea. After Heeseung left, summer collapsed in on itself. Not dramatically. No thunder. No shattered glasses. No cinematic unraveling loud enough for the world to notice. Just absence. Quiet and creeping and everywhere.
It settled over Jeju Island like fog rolling in from the ocean, slipping beneath doors and into lungs and through the spaces between ordinary things until everything familiar felt wrong. The beach became unbearable first. You still went sometimes out of habit, carrying books you never opened, towels that stayed folded beside you untouched. The shoreline stretched wide and glittering beneath the August sun, beautiful in the same indifferent way it had always been, but now it felt hollow somehow.
Like a photograph of somewhere you used to belong. Everywhere you looked, there were ghosts of him. Near the dunes where he had first kissed you like he was starving. At the marina docks where moonlight had turned his honesty into something dangerous. On the stretch of sand where he’d once laughed at you for trying to fight the tide after too much tequila and too little dignity. You kept expecting to see him.
Leaning against the lifeguard tower. Walking toward you through the surf. Looking at you the way he always did lately, like he had already memorized every version of your face. But the spaces stayed empty, and somehow emptiness had weight.
The parties weren’t any better. Without him, they felt exposed somehow. Too loud. Too artificial. Music thumping against hollow spaces where your heartbeat used to live. Champagne too sweet. Laughter arriving half a second too late to feel real. You drifted through them like someone haunting her own life.
People noticed, of course they did. Sunoo stopped cornering you with gossip and instead watched you carefully whenever you thought nobody was looking. Eunchae started hugging you too tightly before leaving parties. Even Yunjin, who usually treated emotional devastation like a spectator sport, went strangely quiet around you. One evening near the bonfire, while everyone else sat tangled in conversation and salt air and late-summer exhaustion, Sunghoon settled beside you silently with two drinks. You accepted one without looking at him.
For a while, neither of you spoke. The fire cracked softly before him. The ocean breathed dark beyond the shoreline. Then finally, “You look miserable.” No judgment. Just fact. You let out a quiet laugh that sounded closer to breaking. “I’m fine.”
“Right.” The word carried enough disbelief to hurt. You stared down at the bottle in your hands. “You know,” he said after a moment, “you’re the first thing he’s ever taken seriously.” Your chest tightened immediately. You looked at him then. Sunghoon kept his gaze fixed on the fire. “He acts like nothing matters most of the time,” he continued quietly. “But you did.”
Past tense. The word sliced through you before you could stop it. You swallowed hard. The fire blurred faintly. “He won’t even come out with us anymore,” Sunghoon admitted. “Jay says he’s been packing.” Packing. Something cold moved through your ribs.
You looked away quickly toward the ocean because suddenly breathing felt difficult. Summer had always ended. You knew that. You had built your entire heart around that truth years ago. Nothing beautiful stayed. Not beach towns. Not warm nights. Not people. Especially not people.
But somehow, somewhere between the rainstorm and the yacht and the way he remembered your coffee order, you had forgotten. Or maybe you had simply hoped he would become the exception. That realization arrived slowly over the following days. Not all at once. In fragments. You missed him in stupid ways first. Reaching automatically for your phone after something funny happened.
Turning toward the empty seat beside you at dinner before remembering. Still wearing one of his hoodies to sleep because taking it off felt too much like admitting he was gone. You found traces of him everywhere. In your routines. In your silences. In yourself.
And the worst part was understanding that this grief did not feel temporary. It rooted itself deeper every day. One afternoon, rain threatened faintly over the coastline while you wandered through town half-distracted, passing storefronts already packing away summer displays. Towels disappearing from racks, souvenir stands closing early, seasonal flowers wilting slowly in the heat. August ending in real time. You paused outside the small café near the marina where you and Heeseung had once hidden from the heat for nearly two hours, sharing iced coffees and childhood stories neither of you had meant to tell.
You remembered the way he’d looked at you across the table that day, soft, unarmed. Like loving you had happened quietly when he wasn’t paying attention. The realization hit then, simple, terrible. Oh. This is love. Not infatuation, not summer lust, not convenience sharpened into attachment. Love.
Real enough to hollow you out. Real enough to ruin everything else afterward. You leaned against the storefront window, eyes burning suddenly. Horrible, absolutely horrible, because now you understood why everything felt wrong without him. He had become stitched into the shape of your summer so completely that removing him tore pieces out alongside it.
And worse, you had done this. Fear had done this. You replayed the fight endlessly afterward, every cruel sentence tasting more poisonous each time you remembered it. This was never supposed to mean anything. You had watched those words break him in real time, and still you’d said them. Coward.
By the final week of August, panic settled fully into your bloodstream. You started looking for him without meaning to. Driving past the Lee house too slowly. Watching the beach at sunset. Checking your phone at two in the morning like your body still expected him to return eventually. He never did. The silence between you became its own kind of violence. Finally, the worst part.
It happened accidentally. Your mother stood in the kitchen arranging flowers while late afternoon sunlight spilled gold across the countertops. Outside, cicadas buzzed lazily in the heat, summer sounding exhausted now. You barely listened until she said, “I saw Mrs. Lee earlier.” Something inside you immediately sharpened.
“Oh?” “She said Heeseung’s leaving tomorrow morning.” The world stopped. Your hand froze halfway around your coffee mug. “What?” Your mother glanced up, surprised by the sudden rawness in your voice. “He’s heading back early. Something about work starting sooner in Seoul this year.” Tomorrow. The word crashed through you like cold seawater. Tomorrow meant this was real. Tomorrow meant endings.
Tomorrow meant there was suddenly almost no time left to fix the thing you had destroyed with your own hands. Your pulse turned violent beneath your skin. Outside the window, the ocean stretched blue and endless beyond the cliffs, glittering beneath the fading August light. Beautiful. Temporary. Already slipping away.
—
The next morning arrived too bright. Cruel sunlight flooded Jeju Island in sheets of gold, the ocean glittering innocently beneath the sky like yesterday had not split your heart open. Everything looked painfully beautiful in the way endings often did.
You barely slept. Every hour had passed tangled in panic and memory and the unbearable realization that if you let him leave now, this would become one of those tragedies people carried forever. The kind stitched permanently beneath your ribs. By nine in the morning, your hands were shaking. By nine-fifteen, you were in your car.
You drove too fast down the coastline road, sunlight flashing violently through the trees, your heartbeat louder than the music still playing faintly through the speakers. Wind rushed through the open windows carrying salt and heat and the last dying breath of summer. Your mind replayed him endlessly. The rainstorm. The yacht. The forehead kiss. The way he had looked at you like you were something worth staying soft for.
The moment his face went cold after your cruelty. You gripped the steering wheel harder. Not this. Please not this. The marina came into view suddenly beyond the cliffs, boats swaying gently beneath the sunlight. People moved lazily along the docks carrying luggage and coffees and ordinary lives. Heeseung. Standing near the end of the dock beside one of the ferries heading toward the mainland.
White T-shirt. Dark sunglasses. One duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Leaving. The sight hit you so hard you nearly forgot to breathe. For one terrible second, fear almost won again. Turn around. Protect yourself. Pretend this never mattered. Then he glanced up. Saw you. And everything stopped. You barely remembered getting out of the car. Only the sound of your footsteps against the dock, the ocean below, your pulse roaring loud enough to drown the gulls overhead.
He straightened slowly as you approached, no smile, no anger either, just exhaustion, like he had finally become tired of hoping, that hurt most. You stopped a few feet away from him, sunlight breaking across the water between you both. Neither of you spoke at first.
Words suddenly felt impossibly small compared to everything sitting between your ribs. Finally, he exhaled quietly, “You came.” The simplicity of it nearly broke you, no accusation, no bitterness, just surprise, your throat tightened painfully. “I had to.” The wind moved softly around you, carrying warmth off the ocean.
He looked at you carefully then, like he was trying not to expect too much, and suddenly you realized something devastating, if you stayed silent now, you would lose him forever, no more pride, no more running, just truth, your eyes burned. “I was scared,” you admitted first. The words came rough, fragile around the edges. Heeseung stayed perfectly still. So you kept going before courage disappeared again.
“I think…” You swallowed hard. “I think I knew what this was becoming before you did. And it terrified me because everything here ends eventually and I didn’t know how to love someone without already grieving them.” His expression shifted slightly. You stepped closer. “I said those things because I thought if I ruined this first, it would hurt less when summer ended.”
Your voice cracked embarrassingly on the last word. The ocean blurred faintly behind him. “But it already hurts,” you whispered. “It hurts all the time.” Silence. Not empty. Listening. You looked at him fully then, no defenses left anywhere inside you. “I was stupid.” A breath. “And cruel.” Another. “And completely in love with you.”
Just love. Messy and terrifying and real enough to destroy you if he rejected it. Your chest ached violently waiting for him to say something. Anything. Heeseung stared at you for a long moment that felt endless beneath the August sun. Then finally, he laughed softly, not mockingly, disbelieving, like he had spent the entire summer waiting for a miracle and couldn’t quite believe it had arrived, you frowned immediately through the tears threatening your eyes. “That’s your reaction?”
He stepped closer. Close enough now that you could see the exhaustion beneath his eyes, the relief slowly undoing it. “I’ve been waiting all summer for you to admit that,” he said quietly. Idiot. You made a broken sound halfway between a laugh and a sob before grabbing the front of his shirt and kissing him, hard, desperate enough to make up for every moment you wasted being afraid. His hands found your waist instantly, pulling you against him with something almost painful in its urgency, and suddenly the entire world dissolved into sunlight and saltwater and relief.
The kiss felt different now, not drowning, not war, like finally reaching shore after spending months lost at sea, his forehead rested against yours when you finally pulled apart, both of you breathing unevenly beneath the burning light. “You are unbelievably difficult,” he murmured.
You laughed wetly. “You stayed anyway.” “Yeah,” he admitted softly. “I did.” Around you, the marina continued moving, boats departing, gulls crying overhead, summer ending one irreversible second at a time. But for the first time since this began, nothing about this felt temporary anymore.
—
The late afternoon light filtered through the curtains of Heeseung’s bedroom, casting a golden haze over tangled sheets and bare skin. Months had passed since that messy night, since the angry kisses and the “this was a mistake” lies. What started as stolen moments and stubborn denial had slowly, stubbornly, become something real.
Now, you were exactly where you belonged, underneath him, legs locked around his waist as he moved inside you with deep, unhurried strokes. Every thrust pulled a fresh sound from your throat. Your fingers dug into his shoulders, back arching as pleasure coiled tight in your core. “Heeseung— mmph!” Your cry was muffled as he leaned down and kissed you, slow and filthy, his tongue sliding against yours while his hips kept that devastating rhythm. Heeseung chuckled warmly against your mouth, the vibration sending sparks through your body. He kissed you once more, softer this time, then pressed his lips gently to your forehead, lingering there as he stayed buried deep inside you.
Still teasing. Still chaos. Still both completely insufferable. But now it was real. He pulled back just enough to look at you, sweat-damp hair falling over his eyes, that signature smirk playing on his lips even while he was still pulsing inside you. “Thought I told you not to fall in love with me,” he murmured, voice low and rough with affection.
You smiled up at him, glowing and utterly wrecked, your hand coming up to brush his hair back.
“Thought I told you not to call.” Heeseung let out a genuine laugh, the kind that made your chest feel too full. He rolled his hips once more, slow and deep, drawing a soft gasp from you before stilling again. “Yeah, well… I never was good at listening,” he said, brushing his nose against yours. “That night after the party, when I texted you to come over… I told myself it was just one more mistake. One more time and we’d get it out of our systems.”
You raised an eyebrow, tracing your fingers down his spine. “And how’s that working out for you?” “Terribly,” he admitted, kissing the corner of your mouth. “Because every time you walked away, I kept thinking about you. Every summer. Every fight. Every time you looked at me like you wanted to kill me and kiss me at the same time.”
He shifted slightly, still deep inside you, and rested his forehead against yours. “I kept telling myself not to fall. And then you showed up at my door the next morning anyway. Stubborn as hell. Beautiful as ever.” You laughed softly, tightening your legs around him. “You’re the one who kept calling. Kept texting. Kept pulling me back in.”
Heeseung’s eyes softened, that rare vulnerable look breaking through the cocky exterior. “Because I couldn’t stop. Even when I tried.” His thumb stroked your cheek. “Guess I’m the idiot who fell first.” The room felt smaller, warmer, wrapped in golden light and years of history finally settling into place. All the almosts, the what-ifs, the angry almost-kisses on balconies and beaches, they had led here. To this. You pulled him down into another kiss, slow and sweet this time, savoring the way he melted against you.
When you broke apart, Heeseung froze for half a second, then broke into the brightest, most boyish grin you’d ever seen on him.“That’s what this whole thing has been, hasn’t it? One long, messy ‘maybe’ that turned into forever.” You nodded, eyes shining. “No more mistakes. No more running. Just us.”
“Just us,” he echoed. He kissed you again, deeper, hungrier, and started moving inside you once more, slow and intentional, like he was sealing the words into your skin. The laughter faded into soft moans and whispered names, the two of you losing yourselves in each other one more time.
Later, as the sun dipped lower and you lay tangled together under the sheets, Heeseung’s fingers tracing lazy patterns on your bare back, he pressed one last kiss to your shoulder.
“So… Call Me Maybe?” he asked, smirking.
You grinned. “Only if you promise to always pick up.”
jungwon’s body laid sprawled across the coffee table in front of him, an empty cup sat beside him, and his mind barely sober. the incoherent babbles pushing past his lips were something neither of his friends paid attention to, both jay and sunghoon being more focused on finding your contact name in jungwon’s phone.
you picked up after the first ring. “jungwon?” your voice came through, a hint of worry carried with it. “is everything okay?” you pressed further, unaware of the two who exchanged a short glance to one another at your inquiry.
“hello? this is sunghoon.” sunghoon clarified with an awkward pause. “don’t get mad at us.” jay interjected from beside, his voice attracting jungwon’s attention whose head jerked up in interest. sunghoon hushed him.
“what happened? where is jungwon?”
“jungwon is drunk.” sunghoon admitted. “we were playing a game and he kept losing—”
“he’s seriously terrible, please let him know.” jay interrupted once more. sunghoon nudged him away from the phone, opting to bring the device up to his ear instead. “jungwon is drunk. like, really drunk. and he keeps whining about missing you.” sunghoon sighed, twisting his head to take in the sight of his friend—his head resting on top of his crossed arms with his lips jutted out, his cheeks puffed pink and hair poking in different directions.
from where he stood, sunghoon could see the way his eyes blinked sluggishly in an attempt to keep himself awake.
"give him the phone." you said, sounding far more awake and alert than you were just moments before. sunghoon didn't need to be instructed twice as his feet were already moving in the direction of the coffee table. he shook the younger boy awake. "jungwon."
jungwon groaned and burried his head in the crook of his folded arms. “leave me alone” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.
“your girlfriend’s on the phone.”
the speed at which jungwon shot up was downright comical. his eyes went wide in disbelief, frozen like a deer caught in headlights as his gaze locked onto the phone in sunghoon’s hand. “my girlfriend?” he echoed, his voice suddenly clear and devoid of any trace of slurring. sunghoon wordlessly passed him the phone, turning to jay before dragging the two of them out the room.
“jungwon?”
“baby.” jungwon sighed out, his whole body melting at the simple sound of your voice reaching his ears through the phone. “i miss you.” jungwon thought out loud, a warm smile forming on his face, mirroring the exact feeling burning through his body.
your chuckle carried through the line, prompting jungwon to smiling further. “i told you not to drink more than three glasses, baby.” you lightly scolded him. the remark made him let out a breathy laugh, his heart swelling as he pictured your usual disapproving frown he grew to love.
“it’s because of jay and sunghoon.” he reasoned in a whine.
you sighed softly, though there was no hint of irritation in it—nothing that suggested his presence was unwelcome or that you didn’t care about how he was doing. “you’re okay right?” you asked him gently.
jungwon nodded instinctively, despite knowing you couldn’t see him. “i’m okay now that i’m talking to you.” he admitted. his gaze drifted to the ceiling, only for him to wince and mutter a curse at the harsh brightness casting down. “i wish you were here right now.”
“i’m this close to leaving the house and running straight to yours.” he mumbled.
“if you do that i’ll be really mad.”
“you’re never really mad at me anyways.”
“i’m mad at you now.” you challenged him.
“mhm.” jungwon hummed. “sure, baby.”
you giggled before continuing to speak through the phone with your smile remaining. “for someone who’s supposed to be drunk, you got a lot to say.”
jungwon took a moment to let your words process before responding. “hearing your voice sobered me up a little.” he confessed, his tone noticeably smaller. “i haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all night.”
the unexpected confession rendered you momentarily speechless. and with the softness his voice carried, jungwon broke the silence once more. “i love you.”
“...suddenly?”
“it’s not sudden. i mean it—i love you,” jungwon insisted, emphasising every word. had he been there to witness, jungwon would’ve caught the shy smile spreading across your face, one you didn’t try to bite back in the confined space of your room.
“i love you too jungwon.” you returned.
“i love you more than you could ever love me.” jungwon one-upped you.
“that can’t be possible because i’ve loved you way before you’ve loved me.” you stated back.
“well i love you so much that i don’t need anyone else in my life.” jungwon declared.
the bold claim piqued your attention. “so you’d cut jay and sunghoon off if i asked?” you teased. part of you expected him to backtrack and admit he was just rambling whatever came to mind, while another part secretly hoped he’d stand by his words.
“i’d do anything for you.” jungwon replied, no hesitation found.
the tenderness in which he spoke—so sincere and personal—caught you completely off guard, even though a part of you had braced for him potentially sticking to his words. still, nothing you imagined compared to the impact of what he truly said, his words leaving you unable to respond back.
your lips ached from how hard you were biting them in attempts to withhold your grin. “you’re making me smile, jungwon. make sure you don’t drink anything else and have some water before you go to sleep, okay? i love you,” you reminded him. your heart was pounded unevenly at the thought of the boy on the other end of the call, who likely wouldn’t even remember half of what he’d said just a minute ago.
“okay, i will. just for you. i love you, i wish i was there right now to show you how much i love you but i will wait until i’m not out of my mind. i can’t wait to hug you and kiss you and just see you.” jungwon continued to ramble, his words never ending as new ideas formed the longer he thought of you.
“that sounds like a promise.” you laughed. “goodnight jungwon.”
⌗ in which . . . while you spend spring fair buried in your campus anonymous confession feed, a string of suspiciously specific posts begin surfacing, ones you don’t realize are quietly leading to you and park jongseong
流星 ໑ . . universitystudent!jay x fem!reader
⌗ includes . . . a university au ! fluff, swearing, anonymous confession page shenanigans, campus gossip, flowers as a love language, public spectacle, light emotional tension ♡ purely a work of fiction, none of this reflects reality | wc: 4.5k
⟶ mentioned ⋮ a lot of idols because campus is crowded !
♪ el’s bubble: day one 😎 of dumping all my tweaked up drafts on tumblr . . this felt far too cute not to post because anonymous confession pages, bouquets, and jay own a concerning amount of my heart ! please please please enjoy — likes, reblogs, and feedback are deeply appreciated on here ♡ requests are open if you want to see me write something specific ۫ ׅ
tags: @wonscapes @simsimluver @maishee @grdientlips @kristynaaah @psychicdazestrawberry @heesroses @vmpiricou @seungiesdoll @malibluess | send an ask if you’d like to be added ˙𐃷˙
now playing . . . art class by beabadoobee
The cool spring air hit you, sending strands of your hair flying to your face, effectively and deliberately ruining your lip combo you’d spent a few minutes on.
Perfect.
So, so perfect.
The university grounds had burst into color — you could smell the scent of fresh corn dogs being fried from the row of food stalls near the humanities building, a speaker somewhere blasting Bags by Clairo loud enough for the chorus to melt into the chatter of passing students, laughter ringing out from every direction.
Every year, the graduating batch organized a spring fair as one final send-off before the semester dissolved into deadlines, internships, and goodbyes too heavy to say out loud.
Festive is an understatement.
Flowers strung along canopies, student booths lined with handmade trinkets and half-melted candles, photo walls stood crowded with squealing friend groups, while games and cheap drinks in plastic cups filled whatever empty spaces remained.
Really, it was one last attempt at wringing sentimentality out of a student body too sleep-deprived, and far too emotionally constipated, to process the fact that the seniors would be gone in a few months.
Not that any of that was your main concern.
Nope, while everyone else was busy pretending to cherish the fleeting beauty of university life, you were far more invested in the one thing spring fair reliably delivered every single year: the campus anonymous confession page losing its collective mind.
Like clockwork, the submissions came flooding in the second booths opened.
Confessions.
hello and good moooorning 😍 to the engineering major at booth 6 who keeps fixing his sleeves every thirty seconds FUHHH you’re so damn fine bruh like you’re insane
WHOEVER THE FUCK LITERALLY JUST GOT SERENADED BY THE LEE HEESEUNG FROM THE MUSIC DEPT WITH WOOZI’S GUITAR did you say yes or are we all just gonna die from the heat today 😞
Shameless pleas to visit their stalls.
hi hi hi PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come to booth 14 🥹 we’re really cool we promise! we have brownies, friendship bracelets, and jake voluntarily (mind you, VOLUNTARILY) doing customer service with a smile ✌️this may never happen again so take the risk or lose the chance and come visit us
send support to booth 9 pls… hot (totally) health sciences major chwe vernon agreed to wear cat ears if we hit the quota (begging on my knees btw)
Missed connections.
to the cute girl in a pink cardigan who helped me pick up the flyers in the library yesterday, i’m so sorry for suddenly running away because Jungwon poked me by the waist 😭 if you see this pls reach out i wanna be friends sb
tysm to kazuha from the performing arts department for buying our cheesecakes and complimenting them 🥹 so so grateful for the love and support, we were too shy to say it in person but you made our entire day ☹️ i hope you see this
Questionable public dares.
yo admin if this gets posted before 2pm i will man up and ask for a picture with sunghoon
my friends said i will never have the balls for this but yolo 😂 but to ningning from the fashion booth, do you wanna check out the book booth by the engineering building…??? ADMIN PLS POST THIS ASAP TY
Suspiciously detailed sightings that sent entire departments into detective mode.
just saw business boy, black tote bag, silver watch, bring in a huge ass bouquet at exactly 10:09 am today (entrance by the accountancy department building) WHO IS IT FOR PLS SPILL
admin pls tell james to stop manning the god damn drink booth like he’s auditioning for boyfriend of the year 😭✌️im crine
Friends exposing friends with absolutely no shame.
MANNN my seatmate (from lecture hall 4 btw) spent a whole ass hour perfecting her eye makeup for literally no damn reason apparently 💔 “i need to look nice in group photos” but kim mingyu is legit on campus rn just floating around
admin pls post because ik very well my friends just on here rn… seungmin if you see this pls pls PLEASE come to the building by the dorms because you have yet to hand me over the money from last week & im craving allat 🫠
And, naturally, dramatic cries for administrative intervention.
admin can you please confirm whether or not sunoo is single so i can proceed with my day hwhauahahah
TO WHOEVER IS USING THIS PAGE TO PUBLICLY THIRST OVER THE BUSINESS MAJOR BOYS PLEASE KEEP GOING I’M SO DAMN INVESTED 🙏
Spring fair was many things, but above all, it was prime anonymous page entertainment.
The feed moved like it had a life of its own, too fast to properly keep up with, too loud to ignore, and just chaotic enough that everyone pretended they weren’t checking it every thirty seconds.
You were seated at one of the long wooden tables near the center walkway, half-shaded by a canopy of paper flowers someone had clearly spent too many late nights folding.
Your friends had run off earlier with vague promises of “be right back” and “we’re getting food,” which, in spring fair language, meant you had at least ten uninterrupted minutes alone with your phone and absolutely zero self-control.
Perfect conditions, really.
Your thumb kept scrolling out of habit more than curiosity now, refresh, pause, scroll, repeat, it’s like the page had become a second pulse in your hand.
The feed was still alive, of course. It always was at this hour, like the entire campus had agreed productivity was optional for the day.
You weren’t even reading anymore; you were just catching fragments of them as they passed.
YOON JEONGHAN OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS jeonghan literally just walked past me again and ugh i swear he wants to make eye contact 🤣 chill im easy
Admin pls stop approving confessions from the same 7 people flirting with people they saw for less than a minute 😭
to whoever the hell keeps stealing extra fries from our booth: we see you, we respect you, and we fear you (just don’t steal one of the plastic containers bruh istg)
admins just be approving to approve nowadays im hollering
JUST PASSED BY BOOTH 14 AND WTF JAKE IS SO FINE IN PERSON WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME 💔
admin pls why are all the confessions js people admitting they’ve been staring at strangers for 0.2 seconds and calling it fate 🥲
You exhaled lightly through your nose, shifting your elbow on the table.
The feed blurred into itself again — booths, crushes, complaints, people overreacting to everything and nothing all at once.
Then, in between everything else, something newer slipped in.
Not as a thread, not grouped together, not framed as anything important.
It was just fragments appearing at different points in the scroll, separated by entirely unrelated posts that had nothing to do with each other.
A complaint about melted ice cream sat above it, followed by a lost phone report, followed by someone asking if it was embarrassing to trip in front of their crush and still think about it three days later.
Buried somewhere after a booth announcement about discounted chicken popcorn came a post that looked more like an unfinished thought than a confession.
okay wait i’m actually going to get exposed for this but i HAVE to get this off my chest cause im so bad at keep secrets 🧍♂️… whoever is the lucky girl congratufuckinglations
You kept scrolling.
A meme about Hoshi tripping on his own shoe lace. A student asking if anyone had seen a missing shoulder bag. A rant about how the mathemathics department’s attendance sheet was “emotionally violent on Thursdays.”
Another booth update. Someone selling stickers shaped like fruits. A joke about how no one trusts the engineering department with electrical wiring but still buys from them anyway.
Then, scattered again, further down, separated by posts about croquettes and someone complaining about the heat making eyeliner run, another line appeared.
IF YOU GUYS SAW A BUSINESS MAJOR WALKING AROUND WITH A BUNCH OF FLOWERS TODAY NO THE FUCK YOU DID NOOOTT 😂 quit playing
A confession about accidentally calling a professor “mom” during recitation. A blurry photo of someone’s drink order labeled “breakdown brew.” A booth owner begging people to stop stealing sample forks.
Then the same voice, not labeled, not connected, just dropped again in a completely different section of the feed, like it belonged to an entirely separate conversation happening in parallel.
he literally walked around with them for like an hour like he was thinking too hard about something that wasn’t even that complicated be so fr right now man
More posts passed between it. Someone losing their wallet. A joke about how spring fair was just capitalism disguised as bonding time. A group asking admin to stop approving confessions written entirely in caps lock.
A review of booth revel bars calling them “life changing and emotionally destabilizing.”
Then another fragment appeared lower down, not adjacent to the others, not grouped, not following any visible order.
i’m his friend btw i’m allowed to say this 💀 he kept stopping near booths like he was waiting for a sign from the heavenly figures or something but then just kept walking again like nothing happened every time i can’t deal with this bitch for longer
The feed kept moving without acknowledging it. A poll about favorite booth snacks. A lost airpod report. Someone asking if anyone had seen the accountancy department boy who always sits slightly off-center in Lecture Hall 5 on Wednesdays because “he looks familiar and I’m losing my mind about it.”
Another unrelated joke about Jake smiling too much at customers.
Then, further down again, almost swallowed by everything else, the final fragment appeared.
anyway if lecture hall 2 psych girl somehow sees this, just know he’s been like this since forever and i’m tired of having to deal with his whiny ass 😭
You stared at the screen a little longer than necessary.
The posts kept moving the same way they always did, too fast to settle into anything solid. Booth updates, complaints about the heat, someone saying their garlic bread fell, and they “emotionally checked out for the day.” A Joshua sighting that apparently caused mild chaos for no reason other than existing.
Nothing about it was structured enough to take seriously.
Your thumb kept scrolling.
A recurring mention of a business major with a silver watch moving between booths kept slipping through the feed, like the page had collectively decided he was now part of the spring fair scenery.
why does the commerce guy with the silver watch or something keep appearing everywhere like he’s doing a campus tour wtf 👻 companion who are YOU
Then another post a few scrolls down, joking about how he kept pausing near booths like he was trying to decide something important, turning away, coming back, then disappearing again like the fair itself was giving him second thoughts.
“Who even is this guy that he has several posts about him,” you mutter under your breath.
Between those, everything else stayed unrelated. Someone complaining about their groupmate disappearing mid-spring fair to “find themselves” and returning with only fried snacks. A rant about Lecture Hall 11 seats being “designed like medieval punishment devices specifically for Monday mornings,” like some ancient trial method disguised as university furniture.
bro from business keeps hovering around like he’s waiting for a cue in a movie but refuses to read the script DAMN ITT JUST TAKE THE RISK BROTHER 🫡
A friend-type post followed somewhere else in the feed, joking about someone being seen pacing between booths all day, stopping near crowds, then walking away again like he was waiting for something to align properly before acting on it.
You exhaled lightly through your nose.
“Jeez, what’s all the fuss for,” you muttered under your breath, thumb still moving.
A guy with flowers, some vague sightings, people acting like it was a bigger deal than it sounded on paper.
Your eyes flicked back to the feed, slower now, like you were actually paying attention instead of just scrolling through habit.
Lecture Hall 2, psychology girl.
That detail came up again.
You tilted your head slightly, thinking.
Psych department. Lecture Hall 2. Tuesdays.
Your gaze drifted, not fully focused, just connecting dots as they came.
There were only so, so many girls in your class who fit that routine.
The one who always came in early and chose the same seat without fail. The one who never really joined conversations before class started. The one who stayed quiet, always slightly detached from the noise around her. The one who left right after lectures ended, like she was already halfway elsewhere before anyone else stood up.
You hummed softly to yourself.
“Probably her then,” you said under your breath, more observation than certainty, you were just sorting through possibilities the same way the page was.
Your thumb kept scrolling.
Still no urgency.
After all, it was still just another messy spring fair feed.
Your thumb kept moving, screen half-tilted toward you as you slouched a little further into the wooden bench.
The feed didn’t care that you were only half-reading it anymore. It just kept giving you more of the same exact things — booth drama, exaggerated confessions, someone arguing about cup noodles superiority like it was a serious academic debate.
You were mid-scroll when your phone dimmed slightly from inactivity, your attention drifting just enough to let the sound of the fair take over again.
The sound of chairs scraping, distant laughter, and a burst of music from a nearby stall that got swallowed by the crowd almost immediately.
Then something tapped your shoulder.
It was light and direct; it wasn’t enough to hurt you, but just enough to interrupt.
You blinked once, still half in the page, then instinctively turned your head slightly.
Another tap, closer to your other side this time, like whoever it was didn’t feel like waiting for you to fully register them.
“Hello,” a voice said behind you, calm but way too close to ignore.
You finally looked up.
The phone in your hand was still open to the feed, but it suddenly didn't feel important enough to hold onto.
Behind you stood Jay.
The Park Jongseong, mind you.
Not in a dramatic way, no, not like the kind of arrival people would turn their heads for twice. He was just there, close enough that the noise of the fair felt slightly farther away, like the space around him had decided to quiet down without asking permission.
Business department. Silver watch. The same name that kept slipping through anonymous posts like background noise people joked about but never expected to actually stand in front of them.
Shit.
The same guy people apparently kept orbiting in passing, the one with the easy reputation, the one who always looked like he belonged somewhere slightly more put together than wherever he was currently standing.
And yet he was just there.
Right behind you.
Holding a bouquet that looked almost out of place in his hands.
Yellow first, soft and bright like sunlight caught in something real. White flowers layered in between like pauses that didn't need explaining. Pink near the edges, lighter, almost hesitant, like someone had chosen them last but still chosen them anyway.
His grip on it wasn't fully confident either. It’s like he wasn't used to holding something that mattered in a way people could see.
Your brain didn't process it all at once.
It came in fragments.
Silver watch. Jay. Business department. The posts. The running jokes. The vague mentions. The anonymous page chaos that suddenly didn't feel so anonymous anymore.
Your chest tightened before you could even name the feeling.
Not pain, not fear.
Hell no.
Just something sharp and immediate, like your body had recognized him faster than your thoughts did.
Your fingers loosened slightly around your phone without you realizing it.
The screen stayed lit in your hand, still showing the feed, still full of noise that now felt distant and irrelevant.
None of it mattered anymore though.
Jay was looking at you like you weren't just another passerby at spring fair. As if he hadn't just crossed campus, ignored everything else, and stopped exactly here on purpose.
Your heartbeat did something stupidly obvious then, loud enough that it almost felt unfair.
Heat crept up your cheeks before you could stop it, subtle at first, then worse when you realized there was no way to pretend you hadn't noticed him.
You swallowed slightly.
He still didn't speak.
He just waited.
It’s almost like he was giving you time to fully arrive back into your own moment before he stepped into it with you.
The seconds stretched, and you became acutely aware of every sound around you.
The distant hum of the fair. The laughter from the food stalls. Someone calling out prices for handmade jewelry four booths away. All of it felt like it belonged to a different world now, one that existed just beyond the strange, quiet bubble you'd somehow fallen into with a guy you'd only ever known through secondhand stories and pixelated profile pictures.
You finally found your voice, though it came out smaller than you intended.
"Hi."
Damn it.
The word barely made it past your throat, and you immediately wanted to take it back.
Hi? That was what you came up with?
After seeing his name circulate through anonymous posts, after all the whispers in lecture halls about who he was and who he might be interested in, after scrolling past a post about him just seconds ago without a second thought? Hi?
But Jay's expression didn't shift into the polite, distant acknowledgment you might have expected from someone like him. Instead, the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, almost like he'd been waiting for you to speak first and was quietly pleased that you had.
"Hi," he echoed back, and his voice was lower than you'd imagined it would be.
He wasn't in a rush to fill the space between you with unnecessary words.
You glanced down at the bouquet again, as if looking anywhere else might buy you time to figure out what was happening. The yellow flowers caught the afternoon light, and you noticed for the first time how deliberate the arrangement was. This wasn't something grabbed last-minute from a grocery store display. Someone had thought about this. Someone had chosen each stem with purpose.
And that someone was standing right in front of you, watching you not-so-subtly avoid eye contact.
"Those are—" you started, and then stopped, because you weren't sure how to finish the sentence. Beautiful? For me? Completely unexpected from a person I've never actually spoken to before today?
"They're for you," Jay said, and he shifted his weight slightly, lifting the bouquet just enough that it became impossible to pretend otherwise. "If you want them."
Your breath caught somewhere between your lungs and your throat.
If you want them.
He was giving you an out. He understood that this was strange, that showing up out of nowhere with flowers for someone you'd never formally met wasn't exactly standard campus behavior. Yet, he said it so simply, like the question was genuine and not just a formality.
"I—" You looked up at him properly now, and the full force of eye contact hit you all at once.
He was taller than you'd realized, or maybe you just felt smaller.
Either way, you found yourself staring directly into the kind of gaze that made you understand why people wrote anonymous posts about him in the first place. There was something unnervingly present about the way he looked at you. He was just so, so focused entirely on you like you were worth the attention.
"You don't have to explain," you managed finally, though your voice still felt unsteady. "I just—I wasn't expecting—I mean, I saw the posts, but I didn't think—"
"You saw the posts?" There was a flicker of something in his expression. Not quite amusement, but close to it. "About me wandering around with flowers?"
The heat in your cheeks intensified, and you were suddenly very aware that you'd just admitted to scrolling through the anonymous confession page like everyone else on campus. "I mean—yes? It's hard not to. People post about everything and anything nowadays."
"That's true." He glanced down at the bouquet for a moment, and you noticed the way his thumb brushed against the paper wrapping. A small, almost unconscious gesture. "Though I wasn't sure if you'd actually see them… or if you'd care if you did."
The admission landed strangely.
He thought about this.
About you specifically, not just about the act of holding flowers in public while people speculated.
"Why wouldn't I care?" you asked before you could stop yourself, and then immediately regretted it.
That sounded too eager, too obvious, too much like you wanted him to have a good answer.
But Jay didn't seem to mind. If anything, his smile deepened just slightly, and he stepped closer. Not enough to be overwhelming, but enough that you could smell something faintly clean and warm, laundry detergent, maybe.
"Because you didn't seem like the type to pay attention to anonymous posts," he said simply. "You always looked like you had better things to think about."
You blinked. "You've noticed how I look?"
The question slipped out before you could filter it, and you watched his expression shift again. Something softer. More uncertain, almost, though he recovered quickly.
"I've noticed a lot of things," he admitted, and then he held the bouquet out fully, bridging the last of the distance between you.
"These are for you. Because I wanted them to be for you. I've… actually, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while, and this seemed like the only way I'd actually do it."
Your hands moved on their own. You reached out, fingers brushing against the paper wrapping, and you felt the weight of the bouquet settle into your grip. It was heavier than you expected.
The yellow flowers were bright against your skin.
The white ones looked almost luminous in the afternoon light.
The pink, god, the pink was softer up close, delicate in a way that made something twist gently in your chest.
No one had ever given you flowers before.
Not like this, not carefully chosen and held by someone who looked at you like you were worth the effort of choosing them.
"I don't know what to say," you whispered, and the honesty of it surprised even you.
"You don't have to say anything." Jay's voice was quiet now, too, matching yours. "I just wanted you to have them. I just wanted you to know."
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere unexpected.
Not nervous this time, but genuine, warming, and bright and entirely beyond your control.
You looked down at the flowers in your arms, then back up at him, and the absurdity of the moment hit you all at once.
"This is ridiculous," you said, but you were still smiling. "In the best way, by the way. Very, very ridiculous in the best possible way."
Jay's shoulders relaxed slightly, like he'd been holding tension he hadn't realized was there. "I wasn't sure if you'd think it was creepy. Showing up like this. I've been walking around for twenty minutes trying to figure out if this was a terrible idea."
"Twenty minutes?"
"Maybe longer." He ran a hand through his hair, and the gesture was so unexpectedly human that you felt another laugh building in your chest. "The posts weren't wrong. I have been wandering around with these. I just didn't want to seem like I was... I don't know… making a scene."
"You kind of are making a scene," you pointed out, but there was no bite to it. Just warmth.
"Maybe." He glanced around briefly, and you noticed a few people nearby stealing glances. Not many, but enough. Enough that you knew this would probably end up on the anonymous page by tomorrow morning. "But I think I'm okay with that. If you are."
You looked down at the bouquet again, at the colors bright against your arms, and felt something settle in your chest.
"I'm okay with that," you said.
You laughed, bright and unselfconscious, letting the sound carry just enough that it felt like release.
The noise of the fair faded back in around you, but it didn't feel overwhelming anymore.
Jay watched you laugh, and something in his expression shifted.
Something softer, fonder, like he hadn't expected this moment to go this way but was grateful that it had.
A strand of hair had fallen loose from wherever you'd tied it earlier, and you didn't notice it at first, too caught up in the flowers, in the absurdity, in the warmth spreading through your chest.
But Jay noticed.
His gaze flickered down for just a second, and then his hand was moving, slow enough that you could have pulled away if you'd wanted to.
You didn't want to.
His fingers brushed against your temple, light and careful, as he tucked the strand back behind your ear. The touch lingered just a moment longer than necessary, and then his hand dropped, returning to his side like nothing had happened.
You felt the ghost of his fingertips against your skin, and the sensation stayed with you, quiet and warm and impossible to ignore.
"There," he said softly. "Now you don't have to keep fixing it."
You hadn't even realized you'd been fixing it.
Somehow, that small gesture felt bigger than the flowers in your arms.
More intimate, more deliberate, like he'd been paying attention in ways you hadn't known anyone was paying attention.
"Thank you," you said, and the words felt inadequate, but they were all you had. "For the flowers, and… for whatever this is."
Jay smiled, and the expression transformed his face in a way that made you understand, suddenly, why people couldn't stop talking about him.
Because when he looked at you like that, like you were the only person in a crowded fairground worth focusing on, it felt like something worth talking about.
"I should thank you," he said. "For not making this weird."
"It's still a little weird," you admitted, but you were smiling too.
"Like… um—good weird?"
"Good weird," you confirmed.
The afternoon light caught the yellow flowers in your arms, and for a moment, everything felt suspended.
You held the bouquet tighter, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew you'd have to explain this later.
To your friends, your classmates, and probably your parents if they saw you returning home with flowers.
To whoever saw the inevitable post on the anonymous page tomorrow.
That felt far away now, though, separate from the warmth of this moment and the quiet certainty settling in your chest.
Jay tucked his hands into his pockets, watching you with an expression you couldn't quite name but felt, somehow, like it meant something.
"So," he said, and the word was light, easy. "Do you want to walk around? See what else the fair has to offer?"
You looked at him and felt the last of your nervousness dissolve into something warmer.
"Of course," you said. "I'd love that."
You fell into step beside him, flowers in your arms and the afternoon stretching out ahead, bright and unexpected and entirely, wonderfully new.
pinned photographs, half-written notes, fading memories, and feelings left carelessly scattered across a corkboard — hi hi, hoonguin nation! introducing my new series, the masterplan ^__^
inspired by my four all-time favorite oasis songs, this enhypen⁷ hyung line series follows four different stories stitched together by love, longing, and all the quiet chaos that comes with caring a little too much !
angled somewhere between tender affection, consuming desire, reckless decisions, whispered confessions, and hearts far too fragile for their own good, each story carries its own little universe of emotions — some warm enough to feel like home, others heavier around the edges ><
but even then, through all the aching hearts, lingering touches, sleepless nights, and memories that refuse to stay buried, every fic remains pinned together as part of the same little collection ♡
started : 06/03/26 | finished : #
got a specific idea you want to see first? vote here ♡ poll open until 06/10/26 !!
EL’S ✷ BUBBLE : i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t very heavily inspired by my baby jo < @stwryun 33 !!! i’ve been listening to oasis for as long as i can genuinely remember, and even now they remain my favorite band ever 💌 my outside life has also started calling for me again, so updates will definitely 101% slow down compared to before ^__^ but i’ll still be working on this whenever i can ♡ if you’d like to be on the series taglist for future updates (or only for a specific member, please specify), feel free to comment and let me know hehe
STAND BY ME ؛ ✿ . ˚ LEE HEESEUNG
♫ stand by me, nobody knows the way it’s gonna be ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : post-university graduation life has been one hell of a rollercoaster ride, to say the least. between figuring out whether to pursue a post-graduate degree, get a job, or somehow manage both at once, adulthood comes crashing down on you faster than you ever expected.
but if you're being honest, none of that occupies your mind nearly as much as lee heeseung does.
your relationship with him has always been rocky. for the past two years, your friends have spent countless nights telling you to leave him, reminding you that love isn't supposed to hurt this much. maybe they're right. maybe loving heeseung has always felt like holding onto something that keeps slipping through your fingers.
the problem is, you've never been able to find the heart to let him go.
even when he disappears into himself. even when he drowns his problems in cigarette smoke, half-empty bottles, and silences that stretch for days. even when you're the one left dealing with the fallout of things he refuses to talk about.
but lately, for the first time, you're starting to wonder if staying is worth it.
because if loving lee heeseung means constantly waiting for him to choose himself, then maybe it's finally time for you to choose yourself too.
trope : situationship, on-and-off relationship, emotional avoidance, toxic devotion, hurt and comfort, codependency, self-destructive love, more to be added . . .
content : post-university au, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), smoking, alcohol consumption, emotional manipulation, toxic relationship dynamics, unhealthy coping mechanisms, arguments, themes of abandonment and emotional dependency, angst
estimated word count : #
date to be released : #
I’M OUTTA TIME ؛ ✿ . ˚ PARK JONGSEONG
♫ guess i’m out of time ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : one thing you’ve had in common with your fiancé, park jongseong, is that both of you express yourself through art.
he turns sound into feeling, and you turn feeling into color, and somewhere along the way, that became the easiest way to understand each other.
for a long time, it worked in a way that didn’t need much explanation. his music filled your days, your paintings quietly carried traces of him, and the engagement felt like something inevitable, like it had simply settled into place over time.
but after that, time started slipping in strange ways. plans were postponed without urgency, schedules stopped aligning, and “later” slowly became the shape most of your promises took.
you notice the shift first in your work. not in what you paint, but in what no longer appears — his presence fading out of your canvases until it feels like he was never really there to begin with.
and then there are days when the studio feels different in ways you can’t quite place, as if something familiar has already started to loosen its hold and drift somewhere just out of reach.
so how exactly do you hold on to something that’s already slipping away?
trope : established relationship, slow-burn emotional distance, love in decay, codependent relationship, almost-love falling apart, yearning, bittersweet romance, more to be added . . .
content : post-engagement au, musician lifestyle, art career focus, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), alcohol use, emotional neglect, relationship stagnation, emotional withdrawal, burnout, themes of separation and longing, angst with a hopeful ending
estimated word count : #
date to be released : #
WONDERWALL ؛ ✿ . ˚ SIM JAEYUN
♫ and after all, you’re my wonderwall ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : one thing you've always known about sim jaeyun is that he makes people feel safe.
maybe that's why becoming his girlfriend had felt so natural. somewhere between shared lecture notes, late-night study sessions, and countless walks across campus, loving him became second nature, something woven so deeply into your life that you stopped noticing where you ended and he began.
for a long time, it felt permanent.
until one day, it didn't.
when you wake up in a hospital room after an accident, your memories are still there. your family, your friends, your classes, your life. even jaeyun.
you remember his name.
you remember his face.
you even remember that he's your boyfriend.
what you don't remember is why.
the stories are still there, preserved in photographs and retold by people who watched the two of you fall in love. they insist he was your favorite person, the one who knew you better than anyone else ever could. but no matter how many memories belong to the two of you, they feel strangely distant, like pages torn from someone else's life.
but there are days when his presence begins to feel familiar in ways you can't explain. the comfort of sitting beside him in class, the instinctive urge to search for him in crowded hallways, the way your heart stumbles whenever he smiles at you for too long.
not memories, definitely not memories, but rather something entirely new.
or maybe something finding its way back.
how do you remember a love you've forgotten when you're already falling for him all over again?
pairings : university student!sim jaeyun ❤︎ female!reader
trope : established relationship, university au, memory loss au, friends-to-lovers-to-lovers-again, mutual pining, second chance with the same person, slow-burn romance, hurt & comfort, yearning, healing, bittersweet fluff, more to be added . . .
content : university setting, memory loss following an accident, hospital scenes, emotional vulnerability, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), established relationship dynamics, relationship rediscovery, physical rehabilitation, themes of identity and memory, angst with comfort, lots of fluff
estimated word count : #
date to be released : #
DON’T GO AWAY ؛ ✿ . ˚ PARK SUNGHOON
♫ so don’t go away, say what you say ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : years ago, park sunghoon was just a stranger on a screen.
what started as a random encounter on omegle quickly became a routine neither of you could let go of. online games turned into late-night calls, late-night calls turned into endless conversations, and before long, he had become the person who knew everything about you despite having never met you in person.
for a while, it worked in a way that didn't need much explanation. your days began and ended with him, every notification carried the possibility of a message from him, and the distance between your cities felt insignificant compared to everything you shared.
until one day, it didn't.
without warning, you disappeared.
no goodbye, no explanation, no anything.
nothing at all.
years pass.
a new city, a new career, a new life.
you've spent years convincing yourself that the version of you who stayed awake until sunrise talking to a boy she met online no longer exists, and that whatever happened between the two of you is better left in the past.
then your first day as a junior associate attorney at one of the city's most prestigious law firms proves otherwise.
because standing at the front of the conference room is the last person you ever expected to see again.
park sunghoon.
older, sharper, and no longer separated from you by a screen.
he remembers literally everything. the games you used to play together. the calls that lasted until morning. the plans you made. the promises you never got the chance to keep. every single thing.
and while he treats you with the same professionalism he offers everyone else, there are moments that make you wonder if he's truly moved on at all. coffee waiting on your desk before particularly difficult meetings, patient guidance whenever you make mistakes, and a familiarity that lingers no matter how many years have passed.
because unlike you, sunghoon never got the opportunity to do things properly the first time around.
and now that fate has placed you back in his life, he isn't willing to let the chance slip away again.
trope : online lovers to strangers to lovers, boss x employee, workplace romance, second chance romance, right person wrong time, forced proximity, unresolved feelings, mutual pining, slow burn, yearning, emotional healing, fluff with a tiny sprinkle of angst, "where did you go?" trope, more to be added . . .
content : law firm au, workplace setting, former online relationship, themes of abandonment and reconciliation, emotional vulnerability, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), alcohol consumption, office interactions, unresolved past conflict, romantic tension, emotional hurt and comfort, lots of yearning
THE GIRLFRIEND CHRONICLES, ENHA HYUNG LINE SERIES - MASTERLIST
• SYNOPSIS: A university campus that doesn't know how to stop talking whether it is about who's dating who, who's faking it, and who's already fallen. Here secrets spread like wildfire, friendships get messy, and somehow, the chaos always leads to the same thing: love, whether you are ready for it or not.
🎧 A Campus Romance Series of Campus Boyband - HYPHENIX.
➻ Four boys, one band, and just too many love twists.
╭── 🎙 Setting:
│ University AU: Home of Hyphenix, the most popular campus boy band.
│ Status: On going... | Started: 19/06/2025 | End: TBD
╰───────────────────────────────────
🎸 𝗝𝗮𝘆 — The icy guitarist.
🎹 𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗻 — The silent keyboardist.
🎤 𝗛𝗲𝗲𝘀𝗲𝘂𝗻𝗴 — The golden voice frontman.
🥁 𝗝𝗮𝗸𝗲 — The golden retriever drummer.
⦿ VOLUME 1: PARK JONGSEONG (COMPLETED)
◇ I DON'T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND | PART 2
• SYNOPSIS: A fleeting encounter with Park Jay at a high school party leaves a quiet imprint on your then broken heart. Years later, you find him again, now as an icy guitarist of the campus boy band, HYPHENIX. You never spoke again, but you remembered his eyes, his words, his presence and how he lingered at the back of your mind years after. You wanted to reach for him, but he was so far, popular, untouchable that you decided to pour your heart to him in secret, until the secret was revealed but someone else claimed it before you could.
Or in which you pour your heart into anonymous letters for the cold, distant guitarist, Jay, only to watch your best friend claim every word as her own.
⦿ VOLUME 2: PARK SUNGHOON (COMPLETED)
◇ I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND? | PART 2
• SYNOPSIS: Sunghoon thought nothing could make his life worse than the flood of anonymous love letters cramming his locker thanks to Jay and his girlfriend's legendary campus romance, until a rumor sparks that he's dating you, the campus's sharp-tongued, designer-draped cautionary tale he can't stand. The feelings? Entirely mutual. You're not sure why Park Sunghoon, the painfully breathtaking keyboardist of HYPHENIX, seems to have personal vendetta against you. Especially when you've never even had a proper conversation, you didn’t even know he had such an expressive talent for glaring. But if he wants to act cold, you aren't about to play nice either.
Now, in a twist neither of you saw coming, the rumor you were supposed to deny has turned into a full-blown fake relationship and it's spiraling way more than it should have.
⦿ VOLUME 3: LEE HEESEUNG (COMPLETED)
◇ WILL YOU BE MY GIRLFRIEND? | PART 2
• SYNOPSIS: Heeseung has always been the voice of HYPHENIX, the steady rhythm behind the chaos, the boy who hides his emotions while encouraging others to face theirs. For him, Ella is the memory that never faded, the first love he could never forget, the one that got away. When she returns, he refuses to let the chance pass without a confession. To bridge the years of distance, he turns to the one person she trusts most now: you. What begins as a simple favor draws you into late-night conversations, fragile secrets, and the slow, quiet ache of realization.
And when the moment comes for her to leave again, you are left to wonder which heartbreak will cut deeper: his, or yours.
⦿ VOLUME 4: SIM JAEYUN (TBD)
[This masterlist will be updated regularly, so if nothing is linked then be free to assume that part isn't out yet.]
you've never had a desire to leave home. valley point offers solace, a place where you know you fit in, or even stand out in a good way. working at your uncle's bakery is a blessing you can never appreciate enough; what more could you ask for?
enter heeseung lee, a 23-year-old free spirit whom your uncle hires from the outside. you insist that you don't need him—it's a family business. he only wants to help. you won't give him a chance.
so, what happens when you uncover the layers of heeseung lee and begin to realize that there's more to him than meets the eye, and with that, someone to love?
now showing: incandescence (color my world).
PAIRING: nonidol!heeseung x baker!reader (hallmark christmas au)
WORD COUNT: 23.1k
ꨄ︎: merry christmas, everyone! i've been working on this nonstop for a while now, and i'm just now finishing it at 11:00 pm, but i think it'll be worth the wait :) i first came up with this idea way back in august, and i've been so excited to release her to the world 🥹 incandescence!heeseung is my favorite interpretation of him that i've written, mostly because i was really able to explore him as a whole. i hope you all love this story as much as i do. i'd love to continue their story. enjoy, and happy reading. xo <3
CONTENT: fluff, “enemies” to friends to ? to lovers, eventual smut mdni, fingering, multiple orgasms, sex not too detailed, unprotected sex, creampie(?), (semi?) public sex, pet names (baby), slow burn, mentions of blood, he cleans her cut, profanity, slight situationship, heavy angst, heeseung has no mom and slight daddy issues, baking au, christmas au, new england small town hallmark fic, tooth-rotting fluff, han jisung from stray kids, other enhypen members mentioned, boston bruins mentioned, arguing
incandescent.
(adjective)
to be full of strong emotion; passionate.
describes a person who is glowing with a strong emotion or feeling, such as passion, joy, excitement, or rage.
—
47 Days Until Christmas
“A what?”
Your uncle chuckles as you practically explode behind the counter, flailing your arms around like a small child not getting their way. “I said that I hired a coworker for you,” he simply states over a sip of his hot coffee, eyes glazing over the newspaper in his free hand. “You’re going to need help this year. I’m in no shape to be handling the rushes anymore. I’m getting too old.”
“Uncle Arthur, I’m fully capable—”
“Y/N,” he interrupts, and you freeze. “You’re going to work with him,” he sets the newspaper down and looks up, “so you’d better get used to it.”
“Where’s this guy even from?”
“He’s 23, around your age,” he replies. “From South Korea. Said he moved here for a change of scenery.”
“How did he find Valley Point?” you wonder aloud, arm tired from cleaning off the counter. If it weren’t 7:00 at night on a Tuesday, maybe you wouldn’t be so easily irritable, and in hindsight, he probably should’ve picked a better time to drop the bomb. But then again, you’ve always been this stubborn, so really, it wouldn’t matter.
“Beats me,” he shrugs, folding the paper neatly and tucking it into his flannel shirt pocket. “He probably wanted somewhere small if he was looking to escape the city. That’s usually the case for those boys. But I will agree with you that it’s quite odd that someone from Korea, of all places, stumbles upon us.” He chuckles softly to himself, but you only grimace. You’re not all that amused, clearly.
“I guess.”
He stands up from the barstool and braces a hand on his back, trying to stretch it out. “Well,” he winces, “I’d better be on my way.” He yawns, and you round the counter to stand in front of him.
“Uncle Arthur, please,” you try one last time, “I’ll be fine, I promise. You know I have a system, and—I mean, come on, can’t you just get Taylor or Diane here to help me? They know how to carry their weight around here.”
“They won’t be available as much as you’ll need them,” he counters with a pointing finger. “I tried to avoid this, but honestly, it might be good for you. Remember—you don’t own this place, Y/N, I do.” You want to protest, but damnit, he’s making a valid point—why can’t he just let you be? “I may be your uncle, but I can take this position away from you if you refuse to cooperate with me.”
You sigh with defeat, shoulders slugging beside you, eyes closing tightly. “Okay,” you whisper begrudgingly. “Fine. I’ll just have to...figure it out.”
“That’s my girl,” he smiles, patting your back, and you grimace again. He laughs—the kind that’s usually sweet but only annoys you further—and heads for the door. “You’ll like him.”
“Doubt it.”
“Just trust me,” he winks. “He’s quite the looker, ya know,” he jokes, and he finds that you’re not all that amused. “Well,” he motions for you to get back to cleaning, “you should be fine closing up alone. I’ll see you in the morning.”
You roll your eyes—and admittedly stick your tongue out—as your uncle exits the shop, leaving you alone with his empty coffee cup and the nerves of working with a complete stranger for the entire holiday season.
-
“And then he said ‘you’ll like him’ as if I’d ever like some random guy impeding on the system I so perfectly built up!”
Jisung laughs on the other end of the line. “Well, Y/N, you are just about the worst person to work with,” he giggles, popping a chip into his mouth. “Uncle Arthur might have a point there.”
He scrolls through Instagram on his iPad as he lies flat on his stomach, kicking his feet in the air like a little kid. “What if he’s hot, or something?”
“Pfft,” you scoff, “yeah, right. Some random guy stumbling upon a small town and interrupting my peace? I highly doubt it.” You sigh exasperatedly as you flop back onto your mattress, cold from the extreme lack of heat reaching your room; damn the central air system in townhouses.
“Don’t count the possibility out,” he mumbles, cutting himself short. “Oh, my god,” he snorts.
“What is it?”
“Did you see what Taylor posted?”
Taylor is a few years older than you. She’s the eldest daughter of Uncle Arthur’s good friend, who helped him start up the shop and passed away just a couple of years back. To keep her busy and give her a little piece of her dad, he let her help out during the busiest rushes of the year. You always got along with her, sure, but something always felt off, so you never kept all that close with her, and well—it seems you’ve been right all along.
“No,” you furrow your brows, putting him on speaker and opening the app to check. “That bitch,” you scowl. “She’s going on vacation to the goddamn Bahamas while I’m stuck here to work the Christmas rush with some fucking stranger?” You angrily slam the phone onto the bed beside you, and you hear Jisung gasp from the loud noise. “Seriously, I knew she didn’t care!”
“Hey,” Jisung pipes up, rolling onto his back, “look on the bright side—maybe you’ll make a friend out of him.”
“I dunno, Jisung—”
“Just…don’t let it ruin the season for you, okay?” he breathes. “It’s only until January.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
-
Alright, so you might have let it ruin your week. Not the whole season, or anything, but your week has basically gone to shit, and the blame is going to fall on him. A man you literally have never met, mind you. You don’t even know his name, because your uncle always butchers it in typical elderly American fashion.
But still, you’re too set in your own way to leave well enough alone. You’ve convinced yourself that this can only go wrong, and that’s what is going to happen, no exceptions. When he doesn’t show up at 7:00 a.m. sharp like you were told he was going to, the uneasy feeling in your stomach multiplies. You like people to be punctual, and even your uncle thinks the same way, so why is it nearing quarter past seven, and this guy has yet to show his face?
You angrily pop open the register to check the money, barely sorting through the paper before a loud, swishing noise interrupts you. A cold breeze makes its way in, and you turn your attention to the front door, where a man stands at about 5 feet 11, panic set in his face, two hot drinks in his hands.
It’s him; you know it is.
“You’re late,” you grit out and re-focus your attention on the open drawer. “Not a good look for your first shift here.”
“I am so sorry,” he begins, opting not to take off his comically puffy jacket and practically running towards you. “I swear, this isn’t how it was supposed to play out. I left my place almost an hour ago, and there were no buses, so I had to walk. I stopped for coffee on the way, because I almost died out there, and I grabbed one for you as an apology, but now that I think about it, you might not even like it.”
He finally takes a breath. “Shit, uh, I’m sorry,” he places the warm cup beside you, and you reluctantly accept it with a curt thank you. “You must be Y/N. Your uncle told me about you.” He extends a hand out to you.
“Yeah,” you respond dryly, “Y/N Whitmore.” You shake his hand without looking up. “Heeseung, right? I’m sure he told you how nice and friendly I am to new blood around here.” You finally get a clear look at his face when you close the drawer, nervously laughing at what he hopes is a joke, like he’s afraid you’re going to beat him up with the cash register if he doesn’t.
Okay, so maybe Jisung was onto something. He’s a looker. Like, really nice to look at.
He’s got the type of eyes that look straight into your soul. Not intimidatingly, just—deep. Big. Like boba. His face is soft, but it’s detailed, like the upturn of his nose and its sharp, straight bridge. His lips. His teeth flash with his smile, and it’s…pretty. And you have to admit that he has a really nice head of hair. The ashy blonde color looks a bit eccentric because it’s very clearly not his natural one, but it suits him. He kind of looks like a deer, if you squint your eyes and look, like, really closely.
Alright, so he’s hot; it doesn’t change the fact that he’s late and the person you’ve been not-so-excitedly anticipating to ruin your workflow.
“So,” he claps his hands and rubs them together in a dorky fashion, “where do we start?”
You breathe air out through your nose. “Cases,” you mumble, standing up straight and turning to the display cases beside you. “We need to make and thaw out what goes in every morning.” You gesture towards the empty shelves and the dry-erase labels. “It changes every once in a while. Our regular guy, Gerry, comes in late at night after closing to clean out the kitchen and prepare for us to make the pastries that go here,” you point to the shelves on the bottom, “and we deal with the rest. I usually come a little early to help with those, but I doubt I’ll be doing much of that anymore. As for you, we’ll make the muffins, some cookies, et cetera in the mornings, put out the other premades, and boom—ready to open by 9.”
“Okay…sounds…easy enough,” he nods along.
“Yeah,” you shift your weight from one foot to the other. “Do you know how to bake, or did my uncle go into this completely blind?”
“Go in blind?” he asks like he doesn’t know what you’re saying, and you blink in confusion until you realize he doesn’t. You haven’t really left Valley Point much, and the most time you’ve spent in a city probably only totals up to about 2 days, so the concept of someone not being born and raised here—or at least not speaking the language natively—is foreign. Your right-hand man is Jisung, but he was raised here. Things like this simply aren’t common in a small and sheltered town like yours.
“It means, like,” you tilt your head in thought, debating on how to explain, “when you do something without doing research first. I was asking if he hired you without even asking if you know how to bake.”
“Oh. I see,” he nods. “Sorry if my English isn’t great. I’ve gotten better, but being born and raised in Korea makes it harder to understand some things.”
“It’s okay.” Your nails scratch at the nape of your neck, “That’s my error, really.”
“Maybe you can teach me,” he adds with a smile that fades almost as quickly as it comes when your half-cold, half-unamused expression doesn’t change. “Uh, yeah, I know a little bit,” he clears his throat and answers your earlier question with a shrug. “Most of it isn’t stuff you make here, though. I’ve been here for a bit, but I’m not that good at it. I’m willing to learn.” He leans on the counter behind him and folds his arms nonchalantly, like you’re not staring at him blankly. “Besides, your uncle hired me to help you, so I think I should try to do my part.”
“Alright, well…since I’m not sure how much knowledge you have of some of these things, we’ll just start with the basics.”
And that’s what you do. You start slowly, spending the next few hours before opening carefully showing him how to prepare each item you’ll be making for the day. You make sure he watches carefully and doesn’t touch anything to disrupt your flow. You’ve got a system that cannot be broken, and he needs to be aware of that as soon as possible, or else there will be more problems than you already anticipate.
“Heeseung, you can’t put the flour in that fast. You’re going to dry out the cookie dough,” you palm your face. “Have you never made cookies before?”
If anything, he seems to be an attentive listener. But you’re not sure he’ll be a fast learner.
“But you said to add it,” he furrows his brows, and you breathe a long sigh past your lips, which only confuses him more.
“Just—do it little by little, okay?” you try again; he’s clearly not well-versed in this, and it really isn’t his fault, so you suppose you’ve got to give him a little benefit of the doubt.
“Alright…” he breathes and focuses a little harder, making sure to follow your rules. “I’ve really never baked anything before. I don’t even have a m—”
“It’s fine, Heeseung,” you sigh. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
You’re not a bad person. In fact, you’re anything but; you’d do anything for the people you care about. Your only real crime is that you’re far too easily annoyed.
The rest of the shift goes by smoothly; much better than you thought it would. He does ask a lot of questions about pricing and the register and whatever else you can imagine someone in his position would, but you suppose you can’t get too upset by that, because at least he’s trying to figure things out.
Still, this season isn’t going to be a cake walk, and it’s all thanks to that damn uncle of yours and his itch to make things perfect.
-
It doesn’t take long for you to become irritated.
Crowds are becoming more frequent, and you don’t have the time to be worrying about training someone, and not just training him, but literally teaching him how to make the food he’s selling. You could’ve handled this by yourself. You always do. The only people who have ever helped you with this are Taylor, your semi-friend from high school, who usually only worked this time of year as an extra set of hands, and Diane, who is around Uncle Arthur’s age and in the same predicament as him.
You worked your way to the top here fair and square, and no matter who has accused you of nepotism, it’s all baseless. You’ve had this system in place for years. It’s hard to watch the outer layers of it start to chip off because of Heeseung. It’s already stressing you out, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
“It’s just so hard to get used to this when all I’ve done for years is work around my being alone,” you take a sip of your latte. “Like, I don’t know how to navigate it, and it’s making things even harder.”
Jisung crosses one leg over the other from across the table. “Well, for starters, you are the most stubborn person I’ve ever met,” he stresses, “and it seems like the poor guy is just trying to figure out how to a, not piss you off, and b, learn how to bake while maintaining a.”
“Jisungggg,” you sigh, letting your head fall into your hand. “You’re supposed to be on my side,” you mumble into your palm.
“I mean, he kind of has a point,” Ellie, your other close friend from school (but nowhere near as much as Jisung), chimes in with the bite of her danish still in her mouth.
“We’ve already established that I was right and that he is hot, so—”
“Jisung, please.”
“I’m serious! I know you won’t admit it out loud, but we all know you think he is.”
“It doesn’t matter how attractive or unattractive he is to me. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s the sole reason for my current and upcoming problems, and it’s gonna affect the way I work,” you argue, gesturing with your hands. “I don’t know why this year, of all years, he decides to hire someone else, who isn’t even from Valley Point, or the States, mind you.”
“Let’s just change the subject, okay?” Ellie interjects. “Jisung, you need to stop being such a drama fiend! That is not what she needs right now, okay?” She turns to you. “And Y/N, you need to stop being such an anxiety freak and accept the fact that you’re stuck with Heeseung one way or another, okay? Great. Glad we’ve got that settled. Now, can we please talk about something else before my head explodes?”
One thing you’ve always prided Ellie on is her ability to mediate a situation when it’s beginning to escalate. As much as you love Jisung to death, he’s just as hotheaded as you, and it always leads to both of you beating a dead horse almost every time you’re together. Which is great and all if you’re alone, but not when someone else is there. That’s usually where Ellie comes in, and you’ve got to be thankful for that, whether you like it or not.
“Okay, uhh…There’s some crazy stuff going on at the publishing office, if anyone cares to hear.”
Ellie palms her forehead. “Jisung, that’s literally what I was just talking—”
“Oh, shit! I gotta go,” you shoot up from your seat, frantically grabbing your things and stuffing your trash in your pocket. “I told Heeseung I’d only be gone for thirty minutes, and it’s been almost an hour. Fuck, I can’t leave him alone for that long.” You sigh and run a hand through your hair, walking towards the café’s exit. “Sorry, guys, I’ll text you later.”
When you finally arrive back at the bakery after basically flooring the gas pedal the entire way back and somehow avoiding the police, you scramble around and slam your car door shut, which you probably shouldn’t do considering it’s a 2012 and cannot handle any more damage. But you ignore that and run inside to see Heeseung behind the counter, serving people, and looking…calm?
You already knew he was pretty easygoing. Still, even with the incredible number of people inside this place, he actually seems to be holding the fort down decently well. Then again, you haven’t been monitoring him at all since you left, and he could be doing everything wrong, so you beeline for the staff closet and throw everything inside before taking a fresh apron and slipping it on.
“You’re late,” he says plainly as the final customer in line walks away. “I thought you said you’d only be thirty minutes? And oh, if I remember correctly, you love it when people are…How do you put it? Right. ‘Punctual.’”
“Don’t get me started, Heeseung,” you roll your eyes, tying the apron behind your back. “Everyone loses track of time at some point in their life. Seems you were fine here alone, anyway.”
He scoffs, “What, after you basically implied that I’d burn this place down without you? Yikes, what’s that saying…Rules for thee, but not for me?”
“Heeseung,” you grit, and he laughs, nudging your shoulder with his.
“Relax, Sunshine, I’m just messing with you. Show a little enthusiasm,” he teases. “I can handle serving people. It’s just the other stuff that I need help with. Like, baking.”
-
“Heeseung, I told you that you can’t leave the cookies in for that long.” You palm your forehead as the smoke crowds around you, wafting into both his and your faces. “They’re burnt to a crisp, and we don’t have time to make more before the morning rush starts. It’s hard enough to serve people coffee and food if they’re at a table, and we’ll never have time to do all of this over, too.”
It’s only been a few days since you met Jisung and Ellie for lunch, and even when you thought for some reason that it would, nothing has changed.
“Fuck,” he coughs, running a hand through his hair. “I’m trying, it’s just—it’s hard to remember all of
this.”
“You know what? Just—just stay back here and make more. I’ll deal with the people out there by myself,” you sigh, smoothing out your apron and tightening your ponytail irritably. “Clean all of this up, and don’t take them out of your sight once they’re in there. If anything happens again, I’m going to be pissed.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“You know, an apology doesn’t have much meaning when things like this keep happening.”
It’s all you say before you push your way out of the kitchen and to the front, where a few people wait in line at the register, and you frown.
“So sorry for the wait. What can I get you?”
As you help the customers, Heeseung remains in the back, doing as you tasked him with and trying desperately not to fuck it up. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t irritated, too.
You haven’t given him a chance in Hell in the few weeks he’s worked here. Even Arthur has been nothing but lenient with him, often apologizing for your behavior and trying to knock some sense into you, but it isn’t working. You’re clearly not willing to budge, and he’s starting to wonder if it’s even worth the hassle.
He manages to fix his error and make a fresh batch of cookies that look good enough to sell, and he brings them out to stock the case quietly, mostly avoiding eye contact with you in the process.
He doesn’t notice anyone standing above him until a girl no younger than him speaks, startling him, and he looks up.
“Are you new here?” she asks, twirling a strand of honey blonde hair between her fingers.
“Uh, yeah.”
“I figured. I’ve never seen you before,” she smiles sweetly, eyes glancing down, but not for long enough to warrant much suspicion. “I don’t think I’d forget a face like yours, anyway,” she all but whispers, so low that only he hears.
“Yeah?” he hums, a little intrigued, and leans over the case with the empty tray still in his hand. “I think I could say the same for you.”
Heeseung has quite the confident streak, but it hasn’t come out in the time you’ve known him. How would it, with how evilly you’ve treated him since you met him? Regardless, it’s there, and it’s awfully powerful. It’s not like he doesn’t know that he’s conventionally attractive, and well, then some.
The moment doesn’t last for long, anyway.
“Heeseung!”
“Fuck,” he mumbles under his breath and looks down with his eyes screwed shut.
“Stop flirting with the customers, and go back into the kitchen,” you mutter through gritted teeth, and he swears he can see steam coming out of your ears. “Or I swear to God, you will be fired.”
He drops the innocent act and huffs out a breath, rolling his eyes and making damn sure you see it before he slams his hand on the double-hinged door and enters the kitchen.
“So sorry about that,” you switch back to your perfectly-tailored customer service voice and turn to the girl he was talking to, whose name you don’t know, but you recognize from coming in frequently. “I’ll take you over here.”
“Can I just grab a blueberry muffin, and,” she scans the menu above your head, “a medium hot with three creams and two sugars?”
“Of course,” you smile, ringing up the order. “For here, or to go?”
“To go.”
“Alright, total’s gonna be six dollars and fifty cents,” you send the order to the card reader and walk away to grab the muffin and coffee as she pays. “Here’s the blueberry,” you place the bag on the counter, “and the coffee.”
“Great,” she smiles. “Oh, and also,” she interrupts, “that new guy—he’s kinda hot, isn’t he?”
“Not really,” you shake your head, but your conscience says otherwise. “He’s disrupting my flow here. He’s more of a nuisance, honestly.”
“Well, let me tell you—I wouldn’t care,” she giggles. “You wouldn’t happen to have his number—”
“—I can take who’s next in line!” a male voice shouts, and you turn to see that Heeseung has returned, and he’s not wearing his usual expression.
“Have a good one,” you say, and then force the girl out of the bakery, turning to him. “I thought I told you to stay back there.”
He looks you dead in the eye, and for the first time, you feel a little intimidated. “You’re not sticking me back there like a damn puppet anymore.”
Taken aback by his bluntness, you widen your eyes and front a smile for the next customer, not speaking another word to him during the rush. The air is a lot thicker than it was when you met, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to change any time soon.
It’s gonna be a long winter.
-
“Okay, I’m gonna start cleaning the front if you wanna take charge of the back.”
It has been hours since Heeseung spoke a single word to you that wasn’t entirely necessary, and it’s starting to tick you off. Usually, you’re easily irritated by his way-too-energetic personality, but right now, you’d almost pay to have that version of him back, because whatever he’s got going on now is ten times worse.
“Come on, Grumpy, show a little enthusiasm,” Heeseung nudged your shoulder as you hung your head dejectedly over the counter. It was only 7:00 at night, and the bakery was deserted. You even swore you saw a tumbleweed pass through at one point, but it was highly unlikely to happen in bumfuck, Maine. Still, you had another hour left until close, and time only seemed to tick more slowly with each passing minute.
“Heeseung, I am not in the mood right now.”
“You’re never in the mood,” he countered, drumming his fingers on the countertop. You reached out and slammed your hand on top of his, forcing the noise to stop, and when you finally lifted it, he perched his hands onto his hips. “So let me get this straight—I can’t bake anything, I can’t clean anything, can’t talk to you or make noise with my fingers, and I can’t leave your line of vision. What can I do?”
“Leave, preferably,” you mumbled.
“You know, you’re kind of miserable.”
“Good.”
Heeseung doesn’t respond, doesn’t even give a nod to tell you that he’ll clean it. In fact, he doesn’t even look at you. He just walks into the back silently, not even breathing too loudly, and begins tidying up. You wonder briefly if this mood of his will remain constant, but you don’t know Heeseung—maybe it’s only a phase, or a short grudge, and he’ll return as normal within the next few days. Or maybe he’ll quit, you pray to yourself, but you doubt that you’ll get that lucky.
The sound of the vacuum whirring thwarts your thoughts, and you turn around to start cleaning the tables. The mop’s handle is cold against your palms, like it hasn’t been touched in years, but really, it’s because it usually sits in the supply closet where the heat never reaches. The rhythm you clean in is mundane. Typically, you’d put music on your phone and let it play quietly, or even sometimes, you wouldn’t mind if Heeseung buzzed in your ear about mindless nonsense. But now, it’s quiet. And it’s odd; off-putting in a way you don’t care to make sense of, because you’d rather not admit that you kind of miss him.
Hah.
Once you finish the all-too-exciting cleanup of the front—where you discover a beautiful clump of muffin that someone dropped beneath one of the corner tables and have to dispose of it—you sigh and stretch out your back, listening as a set of car keys jingle from the back.
“You ready to lock up?” you ask Heeseung as he walks out of the kitchen, his sweatshirt unzipped and hanging loosely over his shoulders.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, fumbling around with the keys in his hand. “I’ll let you do it, since you’re so set on making this all about you.”
He brushes past you and walks out of the bakery, leaving you standing alone, the room dimly lit from only half of the lights on. You guess it’s your own fault.
You turn the remaining lights off and head out, locking the door behind you, and watch as he pulls out of the parking lot without a second thought, not even caring to spare you a passing glance. You never considered that Heeseung could’ve been as petty as you, but you’re beginning to think that might not be so impossible.
The November air is much cooler this year than last. You wish you had opted for more than a cable-knit sweater as you walk back to your car, holding your palms over your arms to give them a shred of warmth. When you finally slip inside, you shiver and turn on the ignition, letting the cold air hit your face until it becomes warm with the engine. “God, I need a new car,” you mumble to yourself when the warm air hits, omitting the same almost rancid scent as it always does at first. Finally, you relax into your seat, lying still for a moment and letting out a tired sigh before putting the car in drive and setting your sights for home.
As you drive down the road, you notice the fallen leaves on the sidewalk, turning slightly brown from the damp ground beneath them. You’ve always loved autumn. There’s a lot to love with it—the change in weather, the colors, the New England foliage, oh, and the scents and flavors—what’s not to like? When you were still with your ex, you weren’t really able to enjoy it for the two years you spent with him. He always found a way to make you feel like a little kid, and not in the nostalgic way—it was the kind of judgment that made you feel small and childish. But he was the “perfect match”, as most would say, because you’d known him for years in your childhood, and Valley Point is a small town—the kind where everybody knows everybody. There really aren’t many other fish in the sea.
When you pass your favorite late-night coffee shop, you decide to pop through the drive-thru and order a small, hot drink. You’re usually not one for lattes, since they tend to be a little too strong for your taste, but you know it’s pumpkin spice, so you assume it’ll do the trick. And really, you just want to let yourself enjoy it since there was a time when you’d be chastised for a damn drink. Fuck him, anyway.
You probably shouldn’t be drinking something that’s caffeinated at this hour, but you don’t really care; it tastes phenomenal, and it’s exactly what you needed tonight, after the long day at work and off-putting silent treatment you’d been getting.
When you finally arrive home, your quaint, burgundy-bricked townhouse stares back at you welcomingly. You’re sure it’s never looked so appealing before. You tiredly walk in and set your purse down, kicking off your shoes and throwing out the empty foam cup that once yielded the delicious, pumpkin-flavored drink (you chugged it all before you even got to your street).
Stepping into the hot shower has never felt so relaxing. Your muscles have been tense all day, and the steam clouds your senses enough to make you forget about the long day you’ve had. As the water cascades down your back, you’re finally able to let go of the stress from the day and just breathe.
The fresh strawberry scent of your shampoo serves to relax you further as you massage it into your hair, closing your eyes and smiling faintly to yourself. Maybe this silence from him isn’t such a bad thing, after all. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to work alone again, or at least work in peace.
You wrap a clean, fluffy towel around your torso when you step out of the shower, the steam rising to the ceiling and fogging up the mirror. You wipe your hand across the reflective glass and stare back at yourself. It’s a quick, routine process from there: brushing your teeth, washing your face, changing into your silk sleepwear, and towel-drying your hair until you’re happy with it.
Then, you’re finally sinking into your warm, inviting bed.
As you lie still under the sheets, sleep doesn’t find you as quickly as you had pictured it would. Instead, you feel an odd sense of discomfort, something preventing you, putting up a wall that doesn’t let it reach you. With a heavy sigh, you pick up your phone and prop the pillow up behind you, scrolling through apps, playing whatever games you still have downloaded in two-minute increments until you become tired of that. But then, in a moment of weakness, you open Instagram—perhaps, the one thing you’ve been trying to avoid subjecting yourself to.
Typing his name into the search bar and finding his account is the easy part, feels like instinct rather than curiosity or reluctance, and that’s probably what frustrates you more about the whole thing. It’s when your eyes catch sight of his account that you’re culture shocked. He has…a good handful of followers. Not that much, but enough to prove that he was pretty well-liked back at home. At least, by one group of people.
And, well, his posts.
You don’t know why you’re clicking on them and staring at them so intently. It’s not like he’s some unattainable celebrity, or something—shit, you work with the guy. You train him, and if you think about it, you’re basically one of his bosses. So what is it about him that, for some reason, lures you in the middle of the night? Whatever vulnerability you’ve got flying around in your head is clearly working its magic.
You wish that he weren’t as attractive as he is. Especially with certain hair colors, because you’ve noticed that he’s gone through at least six from what you can see, and you’ve barely scrolled. Black, red, pink, blonde, purple—and a brief moment of dark blue—like a cycle. For whatever reason, something in your stomach ticks at the cherry red he looks to have had for only a few weeks. Well, shit—this isn’t humbling.
There are at least thirty posts, all littered with praises and thirsts in the replies, as if he’s someone important, someone in the public eye enough for all these women to be so bold. And in a span of about five minutes, you’ve gone through half of them. Staring. Studying. Wondering what has gotten into you and who must have spiked your latte. To hell with that coffee shop, anyway.
Mirror photos, landscapes, back shots, high angles, and fuck, the ones taken in bed that make him look like the sexiest person in the world, just because he’s barefaced and jaded in them. Like something you’d see in one of those edits that people make on the internet.
You close the app and put the phone face down on your nightstand, because you’re a little scared of what thoughts your semi-conscious brain was just conjuring up about the guy you’re supposed to hate. Well, okay—you didn’t like him before, and you still don’t. The only difference now is that before, you weren’t imagining what it would be like to have him all over you. Or on top of you.
Or both.
You suppose that looking at those photos must have given you some sort of weird closure, because your eyelids quickly become heavy after that, and sleep overtakes you within minutes.
-
You’re sitting on the couch when Jisung bursts through the front door, letting all of the cold from outside in. You begin to regret giving him a house key.
“We need to talk,” he shouts, beelining for the empty spot beside you and flopping onto the cushions, knocking your book clean off your lap.
“A ‘hello’ would be nice,” you mumble.
“You haven’t called me in three days and six hours,” he says from below, where his head rests in your lap. “And not only does that mean something is going on, but it also means that you are missing out on very. Important. Matters.”
“Such as?”
“I’m glad you asked.” He pops up from his spot—because he’s incapable of staying in one for too long—and takes the space next to you, pulling his legs into a criss-cross as his arm rests on the back of the couch. “So, I met this guy, and—wait.”
You cock a brow.
“This is deflecting. Why haven’t you talked to me in days?”
“Perhaps because I’m busy, Ji?”
“Too busy for your best friend in the whole world?” He narrows his eyes. “I highly doubt that. You have, like, one other friend, Y/N. And she’s also my friend. Your life is also…really boring.”
“Should I take this key away? Because I do not need to catch strays in my own—”
“Okay, yeah, yeah,” he interrupts, “whatever, you’re super cool and fun and stuff. But something is up. Despite all of this, I have known you like a book since we were eleven years old, so spill.”
He gasps, “Oh, my God, is it that Heeseung guy? Did something happen?”
You don’t respond; he takes that as a cue.
“I was right. He is hot,” he grins. “You finally came to terms with the fact that you wanna slide into his bed at night, and that’s why you haven’t been talking! You’re ashamed.”
“He hasn’t spoken to me in over a week.”
Jisung blinks.
“Oh.”
He tilts his head, “Wait, then—shouldn’t you be, like…throwing a party over that? I thought he was a dick. You said you hated him.”
“Yeah, well. He is. I mean,” you sigh, “he got mad because I told him to stop flirting with one of the customers—you know that blonde girl who always comes in, red lipstick and all that?” Jisung nods. “Yeah, well, she took a liking to Mr. Dimples, and he was supposed to be helping. So I said something to him, and he’s been stone-cold ever since.”
“Maybe you should try talking to him.”
“I don’t know, Ji,” you breathe. “He clearly has his mind made up. I doubt anything I can say will change it, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to.”
“You sure you don’t have anything to do with this?”
“I—no!”
“Y’know, you talk all this talk about him, but I’ve still yet to see him.”
You roll your eyes and sigh. “Will you let me breathe if I show you?”
“Yes,” he quickly answers, eyes lighting up at the thought.
You sigh, reaching for your phone, and Jisung raises a fist in celebration. “I can still refuse, you know,” you threaten, scrolling through your apps to find the one you ashamedly searched a few nights ago, and he stops moving. “Alright,” you swallow, “here.”
Jisung takes the phone from you and looks at the screen, visibly freezing when his eyes catch sight of the man you’re doomed to work with until at least the first of next year. You watch his jaw drop open, and regret washes over you—you’re never going to hear the end of it.
“Dude,” he whispers. “You’ve been working with this, and you’re complaining?”
“Oh, I knew it.”
“Y/N, you’re stronger than me. If I were you, I’d be on that so fast—”
“Peter Han!”
“Here, just take it back,” he shoves the phone back into your hands, “I don’t want to look at it anymore…Bitch.”
“Jesus, you are so dramatic,” you laugh, turning the phone off and setting it face down back onto the coffee table. “So enough about me—you said something about a guy?”
“Yeah,” he clears his throat. “On this app. He’s, like, my type personified. And he’s kinda far away, but I think we could make it work. I mean, I wasn’t going to stay here forever, so…”
“What’s his name?”
“Minho,” he smiles proudly.
“Well, I’m happy for you, Ji,” you smile back, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “You deserve it. But, uh…” You look over at the clock, and Jisung tuts his teeth. “It’s late, and I have to get up for a nice, long day of hostile work tomorrow.”
“I’ll go before you kick me out,” he swallows, rising to his feet. “Y’know, you’re scary when you’re bossy.”
“Jisung!”
“Okay, okay!” He runs for the door. “I’ll see you soon! Update me on the hottie!”
You threaten to stand and chase after him, but he laughs and runs out the door before you can even get to your feet. You shake your head, sighing as you fold your blanket.
Your best friend is a lot of things, but most of all, he’s a handful.
And even he can’t uplift your spirits about the day you know you’ll have tomorrow.
-
“Evan! Good to see ya, buddy,” Uncle Arthur says as he walks into the bakery, walking over to Heeseung and giving him a firm pat on the back.
“Hey, Mr. Whitmore. How’s it going?” he smiles, and your uncle shakes his head, laughing.
“I told you about a thousand times that you can just call me Arthur. I’m too old and tired for formalities, anyway,” he laughs and takes a scan around the shop. “But I will ask—where is my dear niece on this fine morning?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” he shrugs. “Haven’t seen her all morning. It’s not like her,” he notes as he dries out a mug to pour himself a cup of coffee. “If it were me coming in late, I’d be scolded like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’d believe it.”
“What brings you this morning?” Heeseung asks, grabbing a second mug and holding it up. “Can I make you a coffee or something?”
“I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” your uncle replies and waves his hand.
“No, really, it’s fine. I was making one for myself, anyway, and…considering that Y/N isn’t here yet, I don’t think I’m going to finish the whole pot alone,” he laughs and sets the mug down anyway, reaching for the steaming pot. “How do you take it, Mr. W?”
“You’re too kind, really. Two creams and two sugars,” he smiles. “And to answer your other question—I just wanted to check on business. Y/N has been bothering me through the roof, complaining about this, and that, and the other thing. That girl is more stubborn than a boulder in quicksand, I tell you.”
Heeseung chuckles at your uncle’s remark, because it can’t be any closer to the truth. He really has no idea what you’ve been putting him through, but he doesn’t want to trouble him with that—he can handle you on his own. And you’d be stupid to think that he’d leave because of it. That would be letting you win, and he’s a lot more determined than you could ever imagine.
“Oh, believe me, I know,” he says as he hands your uncle his coffee, steam rising from the mug and heating up Arthur’s face, still red from the crisp air outside.
He hums softly and takes a sip, savoring the warmth in his mouth before placing it back down, leaving a few fingers loosely threaded in the handle. “She been treating you alright?” he asks, tapping the ceramic cup with the tip of his finger. “If she isn’t, just let me know. She tends to forget that I pay the bills here and not her.”
“No, no, she’s been alright,” he waves him off, taking a small sip of his own coffee before reaching for an apron below the counter and slipping it around his waist. “She’s a handful, but I haven’t been perfect, either,” he says as his hands tie the apron in the back. “I think she’ll come around eventually. It’s nothing I can’t handle, or at least try to.”
“Good,” Arthur smiles, “that’s nice to hear. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, kid.”
Just then, the front door swings open and nearly slams against the glass beside it, forcing both Heeseung and your uncle to turn towards the noise. Both men are met with the sight of you, bolting inside and to the counter, a half-empty cup of coffee in one hand and your keys in the other.
“Shit!” you spit as you finally reach the counter, ripping your jacket off and stuffing it into the small storage cubby, along with your purse. “Oh God, I am so sorry,” you breathe, walking over to the two, both still looking slightly puzzled. “My alarms didn’t go off, and I panicked, and,” you turn to Heeseung, “I was gonna get you a coffee, too, but then I remembered we usually make them in the morning, so I figured, ‘Hey, maybe I shouldn’t do that!’ and then—”
“Y/N,” your uncle interrupts, forcing your lips to screw shut as you look at him sheepishly. “Calm down. Everything is fine.”
“Sorry…Uncle Arthur,” you swallow. “Hi…by the way.” You wave, offering an awkward smile while your uncle takes the final sip of his coffee and wipes his mouth with an old napkin he stored in his pocket.
“Hi, dear,” he finally laughs and stands up from the stool, sighing as his muscles tense up from sitting for too long. “I just stopped in to check on things,” he smiles, “and it seems that Heeseung here has been doing a splendid job at holding down the fort for us.”
You try not to roll your eyes.
“I’m sure he is,” you front a matching smile, leaning down to grab an apron of your own, smoothing down your crimson sweater before wrapping it around your waist. “He’s been very attentive. I think I can whip him into shape, after all.” You nudge Heeseung’s side with a playful elbow, “Right, Heeseung?”
“Right,” he nods.
“Well, if you don’t need me for anything,” your uncle begins, happily adjusting his coat, “then I’ll be on my way. I wasn’t planning to stay for too long, and you two seem to be doing well.” He turns to you, pulling your side into a small hug and ruffling your hair with his palm, at which you protest after spending far too long styling it this morning after waking up late. “I’ll see you soon,” he says, “and if I don’t see you, Heeseung, enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend.”
“I don’t celebrate.”
“I know that,” he laughs, “but you’ll still get the days off. Enjoy them, won’t you?”
Heeseung nods, and Uncle Arthur heads for the door, lifting an arm and waving to both of you.
“Bye, Uncle Arthur!” you shout, waving back.
“See ya, Mr. W!”
When you turn to Heeseung again, your uncle far out of view, his expression morphs into something stoic—leaving behind any happiness that he just had moments ago. You open your mouth to speak, hopefully offer more of an explanation than you gave when you ran in, but he doesn’t let you get the words out. Not before his voice abruptly cuts yours off, using a tone sharp enough to cut skin.
“Don’t worry, you can drop the nice act. He’s gone now.”
“I wasn’t putting on an act,” you bite back, but he turns his back to you and walks into the kitchen, bringing the empty coffee mugs with him. You’re a lot of things, but sitting back and letting some kid from outside of your hometown walk all over you? No, that won’t slide. You follow Heeseung into the back, the double-hinged door slamming against the old tile wall beside it. He’s leaning over the sink, steam rising from the hot water and sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he washes the dirty mugs. “I was talking to you, Heeseung.”
“Oh, were you? Sorry.” He doesn’t look at you; he barely bats an eye. “Doesn’t feel nice, does it?”
“I might have been harsh, but I never ignored—”
“—save it, Y/N,” he interrupts again, tone flat and voice low. “You’re the only one who likes to hear you talk.”
If there was a single bone in your body that had considered apologizing, there is a 0% chance that it’s still intact. You scoff and exit the kitchen, opting to stay out front and prepare to open. “This is what being nice gets me,” you mumble under your breath, huffing as you clean up a small coffee spill beside the pot Heeseung brewed earlier.
The rest of the day doesn’t go by any smoother. It passes in a blur—you, stationing yourself at the register closest to the edge of the counter, only moving to package orders or refill sitting customers’ coffee, and Heeseung, limiting himself to the back, where he helps bake and cleans utensils and plates and silverware ten times over just to avoid stepping into the front. Just to avoid seeing you.
It’s not as awkward working when the Christmas seasonal hires are there—Kira, who just turned 21 and helps you at the register, and Diane, who did return to help Gerry with the baking, after all—serving as a buffer between the two of you. But they only work until mid-afternoon, leaving you alone with him during closing as usual.
It starts as a simple mistake.
You’re gathering the half-empty mugs, dirty silverware, and bare trays from the display case to carry into the kitchen to be cleaned. The neon sign on the door is switched to “Closed”; it burns lowly in the silence of the front. Only one street light works outside, the one directly across the street from the front entrance. The others had blown out a few nights ago, and the town still hasn’t sent someone to check them out.
Footsteps sound in the back, but your ears don’t register them—not soon enough. The moment your hand reaches to push in the door to the kitchen, it hurls forward, knocking into your forehead with a force that stings, sending the tray out of your hand and your feet backward until you trip on spilled coffee and hit the floor.
“Ow, fuck,” you hiss, grabbing at the top of your head with your palm, feeling for a bump or wound. Your forehead throbs with sudden pain, and your other hand grabs your ankle—the same one you tripped over and twisted as you fell. “Shit.”
“Oh, God, are you okay?” Heeseung sputters as he kneels beside you. He raises a hand and gently pulls your hand away from your face to see the cut, but you quickly swat him off. He doesn’t protest.
“Don’t touch me,” you mutter.
Heeseung doesn’t get angry. In fact, the whole act he’s been maintaining all week disappears as quickly as it came the day this whole mess started. “You’re bleeding,” he whispers, eyes wide and remorseful. You flip your hand over to see a few drops of blood resting in the middle of your palm, and a short gasp slips past your lips. “Let me fix it.”
“No, it’s fine—”
“Please?” he asks, and the soft look in his eyes makes you falter.
“Alright,” you sigh, shoulders sagging as you flatten your palms on the floor and try to stand. Heeseung’s hand rests on the small of your back, but you don’t push him away—your ankle is in too much pain to stand without his support, and you almost reach for his arm, too. “At least let me clean the,” you suck in a breath when you put pressure on your ankle, “floor.”
“No, I’ll do it,” he shakes his head and guides you to the nearest chair, lowering you onto it. “It’s my fault.” He walks over to the cabinet where you keep the First-Aid kit and fishes through it until his fingers grip the handle, pulling out the case and bringing it over to the table you’re sitting at.
“Really, I can do this myself—”
“Y/N, just shut up and let me help you.”
Your lips tighten into a flat line.
Heeseung flips open the latches on the box and takes out a small bandage, accompanied by a half-empty tube of ointment and an alcohol pad. He tears the foil wrapper open and unfolds the damp napkin, wrapping it snugly around his index finger. Then, as his eyes gauge your face, the pads of his fingers tuck a few loose strands of hair away from the small slice, and he brings the napkin to the wound, dabbing it carefully over the blood to clean it. A sharp sting shoots through your forehead, and you wince from the pain, eyes screwing shut.
“I know, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, applying small bits of pressure as he dabs the liquid away.
Heeseung is gentle with you; for a moment, you forget that you haven’t gotten along since the day you met. For a fraction of a second, you think you like the softness of his touch; the way his voice drops to a whisper to ground you.
“Good,” he removes the napkin, now spotted with crimson, “hard part’s over.”
Your eyes flutter back open, still on the cusp of a squint as they focus on a small flour stain on his sweater just below his ribs. He opens the bandage and squeezes a small dollop of ointment onto the cotton in the middle, then takes it carefully between his fingers. Your eyes trail up to his face, tracking his slow movements. His eyes focus carefully on the small incision as he aligns the bandage with it, lips subconsiously parted just enough to reveal the top row of his teeth.
He’s close enough to feel the warmth of his breath graze your skin, and you swallow, eyes transfixed on him. You don’t move. You can’t. As if your body is on autopilot, just like the night you purged his entire page without a second thought.
“Okay,” he breathes as he finally steps away, smoothing his palms over his jeans, and you blink out of your trance. “How does it feel?”
“Better,” you admit gently, focusing on the flour stain again to avoid his eyes.
He nods and gathers the trash into his palm, tossing it into the trash bin a few feet away as his empty hand closes the clasps on the kit. He slides it back into its place in the cabinet and carefully steps over the spilled drinks and shards of the ceramic mugs to get to the kitchen. You hear running water, a couple of clanks of plastic and wood, and then the door swings open again, where Heeseung stands with a mop and a bucket.
But you’re too stubborn.
You push out of the chair, wincing again as you put pressure on your ankle, and limp over to the mess on the floor. The tray sits upside down, edges covered in old coffee. Shards litter the tile, along with coffee grounds and brown liquid that could stain the white floor. Heeseung kneels beside it, not quite noticing your presence until you manage to get down to your knee on the other side of the spill, hissing with the sharp pain.
“I told you I’d do this,” Heeseung says when his eyes finally catch your frame.
“You already bandaged me up.”
“And your foot is shaking.”
You try to protest, but he has no intention of budging and every intention of cleaning everything himself. The position your body is in—crouched on the floor, ankle shaking from the pressure despite barely putting any on it—says enough. And as much as you don’t want to accept his help, you falter again with his gaze, standing with a sigh that resonates in your chest.
“Why are you so stubborn?” he asks, voice soft as he picks up the glass shards. “I mean—you never take my help, and you treat me like I’m incapable. Even on the first day, you didn’t want me here.”
His gentle confrontation forces a question onto you that you always thought he wouldn’t ask, and it sets you back. If anything, you expected an argument because of his recent demeanor, for him to lash out. Instead, he insisted on cleaning you up and touched you like something fragile.
Maybe he is a breath of fresh air that you’ve just been refusing to take in.
“I don’t know,” you breathe, lifting yourself onto the edge of the counter and bracing yourself with your palms. “I guess I just…I’ve always been independent, you know? My uncle, he…taught me everything here, and then he left it all to me a few years ago.” You watch as Heeseung silently gathers the shards into a pile and disposes of them safely. He moves toward the mop and takes the handle, tapping it along the edge of the bucket before bringing it down to the tiled floor.
“Having you come here on such short notice lodged a wedge into my plans, and I guess…I thought that you’d screw everything up,” you admit, looking away when his eyes drift over to your figure, too embarrassed to make contact with them. “So I was cold, and I didn’t give you a chance.”
“You know I’m not here to do any of that, right?” Heeseung asks, and your eyes flit back to him at the gentle manner in which he speaks to you. His elbow is propped up on the tip of the mop’s handle, and he leans into it, still looking at you as if he’s trying to convince you of something you don’t believe.
“I know,” you nod.
You take a deep breath, exhaling through your nose as he resumes the circular motion with the mop over the spill until the brown soaks into the fabric at the bottom. “How did you even end up here?”
Heeseung freezes—so quickly that you almost don’t notice—and continues as if you’ve hit a nerve just by asking. And as you decide that you shouldn’t pry, he speaks anyway.
“My mom died when I was ten,” he whispers, and your heart sinks to your stomach; you feel it fall from its place in your chest.
“It’s been just me and my father since. He tried to raise me well, and he did, really. But sometimes, with my mom gone, he just…wanted things to be too perfect, or else he wouldn’t be doing right by her.” He squeezes the dirty water back into the bucket with his hands, and your nose crinkles at the thought of him being so alone, having to lose his mother at such a young and vulnerable age. Tears well in your eyes, but you will them away; this isn’t about you.
“I always liked to sing, y’know? Not that I was really any good, but some people told me I could make something of it, if I tried,” he shrugs. “My mom, she used to sing sometimes, for some small venues. She didn’t make a lot of money, neither did my dad. So, when they had me, he felt like he had to shape up, and then, she…got sick.”
He sighs, hands visibly shaking, though you try not to notice. “And when I told my dad, he…lost his composure. It was a lot of yelling back and forth, and he told me I was disgracing my mom. So I left.” He glances around the café until he lands back on you, and a frown tugs at your lips when you catch a glimpse of his gaze, eyes tired and sad so visibly—an expression he’s never worn for you before. “Somehow, I ended up here. And I met Arthur just down the street when I was looking for a place to stay, or work…or both.”
He breathes.
“So I’m sorry, for ruining your plans. I never meant to.”
You blink as he walks into the back to empty the bucket, letting his words, his expression, his life sink in, amidst the silence at the front of the store. Guilt plagues your body, starting with your heart and spreading through each limb until you’re mindlessly pushing off the counter and following him into the back, limping in the process and ignoring the shooting pain that comes with it.
When the door swings open, Heeseung turns to the noise from his spot in front of the closet to find you walking carefully towards him, bandage snug on your forehead, and hair still tucked behind your ear.
He flinches when your arms initially wrap around his waist, but his body quickly relaxes when he realizes you only want to comfort him, and his hands find your upper back, resting atop your shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “About your mom…and me…and everything. I was wrong.”
His chest vibrates as he chuckles softly, palms rising to your shoulders and pulling you back to look at him. “It’s okay,” he smiles, “you didn’t know.”
“Can we just…start over?”
He nods, arms falling to his sides.
“I’m Heeseung Lee,” he extends a hand, “and I’m the new hire here.”
“Y/N Whitmore,” you shake it gently, “your new co-worker.”
“Friends?”
“Friends,” you smile.
He lets go of your hand and brings his fingers to your hairline, thumb brushing along the Band-Aid stuck to the side of your forehead. “You should be more careful when you walk towards double-hinged doors…going forward,” he jokes, and you laugh, eyes still glancing up at him until his eyes fall back on them. “Now go home and get some rest—and ice that ankle. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, right?”
“Right.”
“Go ahead,” he motions with his head, “I’ll take care of the lights.”
“Okay,” you nod, carefully stepping toward the door and flattening your palm on the cold metal to push it open. You turn back to Heeseung, who still hasn’t moved from his place beside the closet. “Thank you, Heeseung.”
He offers a curt nod, and you gather your belongings as he closes up, smiling to yourself when you finally exit through the front door, leaving behind only the faint sound of the bell that hangs above it.
-
“Christmas lights—we need, like, ten sets of Christmas lights.”
Heeseung looks up from the notebook. “Ten? What the fuck are we supposed to do with more than two?”
“Look, I don’t know what you guys do over in Korea, but in Valley Point, Maine, if there are any existing parts of a building without decoration on it, you’re doing it wrong.”
“Jeez, alright,” he looks back down and scribbles another tick onto the checklist. “I put us down for twelve.”
You smile. “That’s the spirit!” you shout as he sits at one of the empty tables closest to the windows, and you tidy up the front counters, ridding them of old crumbs and small spills from the day’s events.
For the first time since the day he arrived, you and Heeseung have gotten along. And, if you’re being honest, you’re glad that he’s here.
You decided to put him on Christmas decoration duty over the weekend, since you’re not quite sure that you’ll have the time, and you promised him that you’d give him a fair chance. He happily accepted the challenge, and the moment that you started the closing chores, you sat Heeseung down with a pen and a piece of paper, shouting various things to add to the list of decorations that he needed to buy.
“Are you trying to turn this place into the North Pole?” he asks, his voice wavering with concern. “Where are we going to fit all of this?”
“Oh, Heeseung, you poor, innocent soul,” you murmur, tutting your teeth as you approach the table he sits at, still with a half-limp, gently patting his back. “You have no idea.”
You walk over to the cubby that stores your belongings and begin pulling them out, starting with your winter coat and slipping it onto your frame, then your purse, and finally, the small set of keys that have only one decorative keychain: a Boston Bruins logo that is frayed at the edges and faded with time, one that your father gifted you for your sixteenth birthday when you received your first car.
“Everything’s done already?” he asks, and you nod.
“All you have to worry about is that list,” you point, zipping up your black coat. “I took care of the rest already. We weren’t too busy today, anyway.”
Heeseung takes a breath and stands up, grabbing the paper and folding it to shove in his pocket for tomorrow. He flips his chair and places it onto the table for the night, along with the other two, before making his way towards the cabinet you’re still standing at.
Another thing you hadn’t particularly noticed until today is your difference in height; how the top of your head just barely breaches his shoulders. You swallow, mouth suddenly parched, though you can’t pinpoint why.
Heeseung isn’t intimidating. He’s just…intense.
“Text me tomorrow if you have any questions, okay?” you finally speak as he takes his own jacket from the cubby. “I’ll be around.”
“Okay,” he nods, and you give him another pat on the back before walking to the door, noting the cold air as it whips against your face when you finally step outside.
-
The first ring wakes you.
Your body jolts awake, and your eyes barely open enough to register your surroundings—your bedroom, lit only by the dim light streaming in through your closed curtains, and…your phone screen. It buzzes beside you, a name present but too blurry to read with your tired eyes.
Your hand flops over the device, fingers lazily curling around it and bringing it closer to your face to read. The letters, still not perfectly clear, are familiar. Too familiar.
You reluctantly press the button to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey, sorry to bother you,” Heeseung’s soft voice rings through the speaker. You hear beeping in the distance, akin to the sound of items scanning at a register, realizing that—at what is apparently 8:00 in the morning on a Sunday—Heeseung is Christmas shopping. Already. “So you wanted me to get a light-up deer, but there are at least four different types. Did you want an inflatable one, or the ones with,” he crouches down to inspect a display, “wire?”
You groan into the microphone, and he stands back up, expression puzzled. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, but…Why are you doing this at 8 o’clock in the morning?”
“I needed to have as much time as possible to get it right.”
“Okay,” you mumble. “What do you have already?”
“Well…” he murmurs, trailing off as he holds the phone in one hand and sifts through the decorations with the other. “A few boxes of lights, garland, icicles—oh, and I even found some plastic candy canes that we can hang inside. Where did I put them…oh, shibal,” as he nearly slices a finger on the edge of the plastic.
“Huh?”
“Er—nothing. I found them.” He steps away from his cart and looks back over to the various types of decorative reindeer. “So, which kind do you want? I don’t want to get the wrong one.”
When you don’t respond, he pipes up again. “Y/N?”
“…Yeah?”
“Oh…shit, I woke you, didn’t I?”
You breathe. “Yeah, kinda.”
“Sorry, sorry—I’ll figure it out,” he stammers. “You can go back to sleep.”
“It’s okay, just,” a yawn interrupts, and you turn onto your side, “send me a picture, okay?”
“Okay,” he responds, and the line goes dead, leaving you alone and awake far too early for today in bed, staring mindlessly at the window as you wait for the chime of your phone. Then, it pings.
HEESEUNG: [attachment: 1 image]
HEESEUNG: inflatable or wired?
You laugh at the stupidity of his message so early in the morning, though you’re admittedly endeared by his dedication to the job you gave him.
YOU: wired. you can pick which one, i’ll put my trust in you
From the other end of the conversation, Heeseung smiles and reacts to your reply with a thumbs up, then slides his phone back into his pocket as he bends down to pick up the box of his favorite deer. White, one front paw up with the neck craned down as if it’s drinking from something. Something about it—perhaps the elegance of its form, or maybe the sternness in its posture—reminds him of you.
He places the box carefully into the shopping cart and checks off the “light-up deer” scribble on the paper from last night.
You, on the other hand, are awake for the day, and though being woken up by such an insignificant question wasn’t exactly ideal, you do have plans to visit your parents, so it isn’t so bad.
The day passes in a blur—air so brisk that a few flakes of snow fall onto the roads, a hectic hour of cooking and cleaning up the mess that your parents’ dog created, and a constant stream of questions from Heeseung to the point that you consider blocking him.
But you suppose you can’t be too upset. He’s only trying, after all, and when you finally sink into your sheets after the long day, you can’t help but let your mind wander. The thought of him not being able to experience the season the way you always had as a child—losing a mother so young—brings a frown to your face.
Mothers are the holidays, the birthdays—any occasion that needs them. And Heeseung had that taken away from him.
YOU: next weekend, we’ll put the decorations up
YOU: promise, i’ll show you everything there is to love here
You set your phone down beside you, letting the noise of the wind outside grazing your window and the warmth that your bedsheets provide lull you to sleep as the new week arrives, and you intend on making it the best. Your phone buzzes once, twice beside you, just gently enough not to wake you.
public enemy #1: great, can’t wait
public enemy #1: see you tomorrow
-
The week flies by in a flash so fast that it feels like it doesn’t even happen.
Your uncle visits a few times to check in on things, make sure that you’re holding down the fort like you should be doing without the stress of bickering. And if you’re being honest? It’s going well—so much smoother, now that you’re finally on the same page, and you trust Heeseung enough to carry his weight. As he’s said about a hundred times already this week, “Uncle Art has nothing to worry about.”
Monday and Tuesday drag; not the way they usually do, at least, not with Heeseung around. While the incessant finger drumming and the constant yapping in your ear and the 24/7 chipper attitude used to be the very attributes of his that made you despise him so deeply, you’ve come to find them entertaining. At least when there are no customers and not much work to be done.
Come Wednesday evening—when the closing hours slowly start to become your unspoken time to bond—music is blasting throughout the store over the speakers at a volume that would get you smacked upside the head by your uncle if he ever heard it with customers around. You’re wiping down the tables and counters, emptying the trash, and even cleaning every last speck off of the display cases until they’re entirely spotless, your sudden burst of energy courtesy of Heeseung and his unexpected obsession with Justin Bieber (and another handful of artists that you can’t name on just one hand).
“Just give me a chanceeee, ‘cause you’re all I need, girl,” he sings as he pushes through the door with the broom, using the tip of the handle as a fake microphone, making your whole body cringe at the sight.
“Oh, God, I can’t look.”
He saunters over, taking your hand and lifting it into the air. “If I was your man, I’d never leave you, giiirl,” he twirls you around, and you laugh, humoring him so that he won’t keep pestering you until you do. And maybe you don’t hate it, either.
“If I was your boyfriend,” as his hand slides down to your lower back, fingertips grazing over your sweater, “I’d never let you go.”
“Heeseung, come on,” you swallow and mask it with a laugh as he removes his hand slowly, sending an involuntary shiver up your spine. “We have to finish.”
“I’d never let you go,” he purses his lips and winks, seductively disappearing back into the kitchen without even sweeping a single ounce of dirt from the floor.
The music stops, and you blink at the door as it still swings gently from his impromptu dance number. The only real thought that you can form in your head is damn, because the man can sing; what does his father even have to worry about with a face like his and the pipes of an idol?
But you shake that feeling off fast and push your way into the kitchen, flicking him on the shoulder.
“Ow!” Heeseung yelps and grabs his shoulder as he whips around. “What was that for?”
“You didn’t even sweep the floor, dickhead.”
“Oh, shit. Whoops.”
And that about sums up your week.
-
“Today is the day,” Heeseung chimes as he bursts through the front door, soft Christmas music already humming through the speakers that decorate the walls of Arthur’s. The large box in his arms is stocked full of the decorations he meticulously picked out six days ago, practically overflowing as he pushes the wooden box that contains the deer inside with his foot.
You laugh from the other side of the counter, the clock behind your head already reading 4:00 as the sun starts to set, giving you a clean slate to work with, despite already having put some of last year’s decor up. “Someone’s excited to be at work on a Saturday,” you tease as he places the giant box onto an empty table and clasps his hands together.
The store, historically, closes after breakfast on Saturdays and is only open every other week on Sundays. “You’ve got to keep them on their toes,” said your uncle when he first decided on it. “If we want to be the best in town, then we’ve got to force business into one day. They’ll come in packs!” And somehow, he was right about that.
So naturally, today is the perfect day to decorate.
“Hey, when you don’t have to do any actual work, it’s not so bad,” he counters, emptying the cardboard box’s contents onto the table and chairs. “Besides, now that you’re not such a scrooge, I don’t mind spending my quality time with you.”
“Y’know, I can always turn back into one,” you threaten. “Nothing’s stopping me.”
“I doubt that.” He walks over and holds the strand of garland in place for you to pin it, since you’re very clearly too short to reach, and he happens to want to prove a point. “Once someone has fallen for Heeseung Lee’s charms, they often find it difficult to escape. It’s really a sad thing.”
Your hand freezes in its place, and you slowly turn to the man beside you, face contorted into the ugliest grimace he’s ever seen. “That was disgusting.”
“But notice how you couldn’t find it in you to move away?” He takes the pin from your hand and tacks the garland into place on the wall himself. “That’s the phenomenon in action, baby.”
“Ew.”
Heeseung trots back over to his pile of decor that looks like the Christmas section of Target exploded onto the table, and fishes through them until he finds some signage that he purchased to put on the windows. “Hm, I think these could look good on the windows, y’know?” he asks, completely disregarding the visible cringe still left on your frame. “I mean, come on—who wouldn’t walk into a bakery with a Santa Stop Here sign? That screams friendly atmosphere.”
“Where do you learn this terminology? Seriously, like, how did you even learn to speak like this?”
“I watched a lot of American television growing up,” he says as he grabs a roll of tape and some window hooks. “Also, one of my best friends back home grew up in Australia.”
“Oh. Wow,” you blink. “That explains the weird accent you’ve got going on, then.”
“Well fuck you, too, Y/N.”
You laugh.
“His name is Jake. Nice guy, kinda dramatic, kinda—horny, but he’s a good friend.” He peels the sticker off a hook and sticks it to the window, pressing down as he checks to make sure it’s aligned properly. As he grabs the sign and hangs it behind the glass, he chuckles quietly to himself. “He actually taught me most of my English. He’d usually use it when speaking to me, so I’d pick up on it. But once I took things into my own hands, I stopped being able to understand him.” He shakes his head, “Seriously, why do people talk like that down there?”
“Well, I dunno,” you shrug. “I mean—we have some pretty weird accents here, too. Look at, like, the south. Or even Boston. I’m from New England, but I wake up and thank God every day that I don’t speak like them. So, I guess we both got lucky.”
“Yeah,” Heeseung smiles, “I guess I did.”
The hours tick by much faster than either of you anticipated they would. Before you know it, it’s already dark outside, nearly seven o’clock at night, and you’ve moved outside, still tacking lights and signs and random shit Heeseung found onto the outside walls of the building. You gave him bush duty, since last year, you tripped and fell into it, and you swore you’d never decorate one again after the cuts healed and left a few light scars on your ankles.
At one point—before you stepped into the cold—Heeseung poked fun at one of the songs that played through the speakers, and you made sure that he regretted it.
“What is this even about?” he’d asked, cocking a brow. “Africa?”
“For your information, this is one of the top ten Christmas songs, and no, I will not be accepting counterarguments,” you interrupted from across the store, pointing a finger into the air and waving it around like some kind of child having a tantrum. “It was written and produced in 1984 by some of the greatest British artists of the 1980s for charity, and it is simply one of the best songs of its time. Never mind the controversy, it’s a hit.”
“It’s kind of…sad.”
“Well, take that up with Band-Aid, not me.”
So Heeseung shut his mouth and let you enjoy the song. But it all worked out—you let him pick the next few, and you went on as if nothing had happened.
But now, as your whole face practically burns from the cold, and you can’t really feel your fingers anymore, you step back, noting that the final thing to set up is the reindeer. Heeseung retrieves the box from inside and takes it out, carefully following your instructions to plug the extension cord in and pull it out just far enough to reach where the deer will stand in the grass, now frosted over from the cold and the thin layer of snow.
“Okay,” he mumbles as he crouches down to construct the reindeer correctly. He inspects the pieces, and you hold the manual in your hands, standing above him as your eyes gloss over the page.
“So what I’m gathering here is that you take these things,” you bend over to grab the small, V-shaped metal pieces, “and stick them into the ground over the deer’s feet. That should keep it in place. I think the rest is kinda self-explanatory as for where the deer’s body parts…connect.”
Heeseung nods and makes quick work of putting the pieces together, listening carefully to which order they should be connected in until everything is in place, and all he needs to do is stick the metal into the ground to hold it up. You crouch beside him and grab two of the stands, opting to set up the hind legs, while Heeseung takes care of the front, but you quickly find that you didn’t account enough for the ground being frozen.
As you push—with all of your strength—you can only manage to get the metal halfway into the ground, sighing as your body sags, too weak, but also too determined not to get them in. You don’t register Heeseung moving until he’s behind you, hands sliding over the backs of yours with his head just beside your ear, close enough to feel the ends of his hair brushing against your neck.
“On three, yeah?”
You nod.
“One…two…three,” Heeseung pushes down with you, and the metal sinks into the dirt, steadying the deer’s foot. He breathes in your ear, a small sound rising from his throat as he exerts his strength, and you swallow, opting to ignore it—at least, to the best of your ability. “Good,” he whispers. “One more.”
He helps you put the last piece in, practicing the same position, count, exhale until he sits back on his knees, and you sigh, hands trembling from the cold and the pressure.
“Let’s go inside,” Heeseung finally says, rising to his feet and extending a hand to help you up, “it’s freezing out here.”
After packing away the storage boxes and containers, you kill the lights and lock up, finally noticing how late it’s gotten as you walk to your cars. Heeseung turns to you and you match his gaze, tilting your head slightly as you wait for him to speak, noticing the familiar expression on his face that signals a question he’s trying to determine how to ask. Then,
“You wanna get a coffee?”
The corners of your lips pull into a soft smile; he doesn’t wait for an answer before his hand is on your wrist, tugging you down the sidewalk.
He leads you to a coffee shop—the same late-night favorite you’d stopped at a few weeks ago—and steps inside, smiling bashfully as he shifts his weight between his heels and his toes. You match his smile but don’t meet his gaze, looking away when he turns to you.
You opt for a medium hot, nothing too fancy for the late hour, but enough to keep you awake until you arrive back home. Heeseung matches your order and insists on paying, despite your protests, making sure to hand you the one with the cup sleeve since only one cup came with it, and he doesn’t want your hand to burn. You grin, thank him gently, and take the coffee, letting him lead the way outside, where—gentlemanly as before—he holds the door open for you.
“Is it everything you’ve ever dreamed of?” you murmur, taking a small sip and watching the steam from your breath waft into the air above your nose.
“Yeah,” Heeseung laughs, and you nudge his shoulder, adorned with a long, beige peacoat and a maroon scarf hanging just by his shoulder blade. “It’s good, though. I like it. After the long day, at least.”
You nod, “I’ll toast to that.”
Suddenly, Heeseung’s phone rings, and he furrows a brow, pulling it out and glancing at the name. “What the…” he mumbles as he presses the button to answer.
“Yooo. Any updates on the baddie from the bak—”
The line immediately falls flat.
“What—who was that?”
“...Jake.”
“Oh,” you nod, clearing your throat as you continue the walk, taking a timid sip of your coffee. “Seems nice.”
The moon, shaded by the clouds bearing snow for tomorrow, shines high in the sky as you walk down the sidewalk, the street empty at such a late hour; Valley Point is far too small for people to travel through this late. It’s peaceful, with most of the light in your path coming from the warm streetlights and the occasional small shops with decorated exteriors for the upcoming holiday. Heeseung looks around, and for the first time in a while, he looks relaxed—wholly, not for show.
“I’m sorry,” you swallow, voice a near-whisper as your fingers clench around the coffee cup, “for…everything. I shouldn’t have judged you so quickly.”
Heeseung looks down at his feet, and the ghost of a smile graces his lips. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I just…I’ve been sheltered from a lot, growing up here. And you felt like a threat,” you sigh. “I should’ve never assumed so much of you.” You slow your steps, fingers pressing into the cup harder, turning your head just enough to catch a glimpse of his face. “You’re a good guy, Heeseung.”
His lips stretch further. “I think I assumed something of you, too,” he admits softly as he walks, staring at a tree in the distance as a squall of snow hits the ground you walk on. His footsteps slow down until they’ve come to a halt, and you match his pace, stopping just beside him. He turns on the ball of his foot.
“I’m glad that I was wrong,” he breathes.
“I’m glad, too,” you whisper back, staying firm in your place when he steps closer—tentatively—and raises his hand to the side of your head. You don’t flinch when his thumb brushes along the half-healed cut on your forehead, eyes drifting down to yours and never leaving.
“Can I kiss you?”
You nod before your mind can catch up with your body.
Heeseung’s hand slides further back, caressing your head as he slowly leans down and slots his lips with yours. It’s soft, gentle, comforting—just like him, from the moment he first spoke to you to the night he carefully bandaged your forehead as if it were the most important task in the world, despite barely having spoken to you in days. But that’s who he is—it’s who he’s always been, even if you failed to realize it.
His tongue presses against your bottom lip for entrance—not to rush or force, but to feel more of you, more of the person he’s grown to care more for in the last few weeks than he ever thought possible. Your lips part, letting it slip through, gently graze along your teeth; he tastes of coffee and faintly of peppermint, perhaps from the mints you’ve watched him swipe from the jar beside the register countless times, despite them being for the customers. His taste is familiar and comforting all at once, something you gravitate towards on instinct, and your body melts into his as you lift your empty hand, flattening your palm gently against his chest.
It feels like you’ve known him forever.
As he pulls back—so slowly that your lips fight to part ways—his hand stays in its place, and his eyes don’t leave yours, looking into them with an intensity behind them that you’ve never seen before. At least, nothing you’ve ever noticed.
“What now?”
“I don’t know,” you breathe.
A car drives by and interrupts; Heeseung’s hand falls back to its side, and you clear your throat, turning and taking a swig of the coffee as if your life depends on it. He looks in the distance and finds the familiar parking lot with only two cars parked just by the corner, swallowing as he looks past the snow.
“Our…cars are over there.”
“Yeah.”
You walk to them without speaking, the tension far too tight to be cut with words. The footsteps suddenly become louder, your ears become aware of every small sound, and your heartbeat pounds in your head; you’re not quite sure what to do or say, if you can do or say anything.
“So,” Heeseung coughs as you stop in front of the two cars, noses red from the cold, fingertips growing more numb as the heat from the coffee dissipates, “I’ll see you…Monday?”
You nod, throat dry, still unsure of what else to say.
He leans in—hesitates—then presses his lips to the side of your head, just over the small incision.
“Goodnight…Y/N,” he whispers, traces your figure awkwardly with his eyes, and bows his head just slightly before walking away and stepping into his car.
You lift a hand and wave, still standing beside the hood of your car as he returns the gesture and pulls out of the parking lot, eyes never quite leaving your body through the rear view until you’re no longer in sight.
-
How does one go about returning to work after kissing the man they’re supposed to hate? You suppose your guess is as good as any.
But you manage, slug yourself out of bed after a long, hard day of overthinking and what ifs that almost kept you up all night, but thankfully didn’t. And even better—Heeseung doesn’t change, not in the slightest. Not visibly, at least.
Not to you, to Diane, to Kira, to Gerry, or to any of the customers (including the hot ticket from the day you yelled at Heeseung in front of essentially everyone, who still hits on him but doesn’t quite get the reaction she wants).
But on the inside, when he’s left alone with you on late nights, acting cool and collected, he’s numb; trying to determine if it was all a mistake, or if you’re just conflicted, too. When he brushes past you mid-shift, no matter if it’s in front of other people or not, he wonders if you feel the same pause in the air that he does. If you want to kiss him again, if you want him at all, even in the slightest, or if you simply reacted instead of felt when he kissed you that night.
The week doesn’t drag. It feels still. Unmoving in the sort of way that makes time feel warped, coffee taste stale, smiles feel forced and devoid of the warmth they usually withhold.
But just like any week, Friday hits, the day before the seeming end. Three weeks before Christmas, when the first rush arrives, and your co-workers grow stressed, shifts extend by hours as work piles up. Customers find themselves entitled to things they don’t deserve, their impatience influencing their demeanor until you’re being yelled at, but you can’t retort—you’re only the employee.
“You can’t work the week of Christmas?” you shout at Kira as she grabs her belongings for the end of the shift; 5:00 sharp, never a minute more, never even letting the word “overtime” grace her spoiled lips. “What’s the point? We need you; we already lost Taylor.”
“I’m sorry,” she shrugs like it’s not important. “I can’t.”
“Just—go, I’ll figure it out.”
And she leaves without a second thought, adding fuel to the fire already burning inside of you from the stress of the day, the week, everything.
Heeseung tries to console you, but you shove him off, letting the stress turn you back into the monster you once were without trying to be. He thinks he’s the problem; that he’s made you hate him again. He lets the time pass, each employee filing out the same as any day until the last hour—the one that’s become so painfully familiar—arrives. It starts with customers slowly dwindling until close, when you lock the door to clean and watch the town fall silent, dark, with the oncoming night.
It ends with him approaching your frame—hunched over the countertop with your hands on your head—solemnly, placing a hand on your shoulder gently, though it still makes you flinch, and he pulls back.
“I’m sorry,” he finally whispers, and you turn to him, eyes tired, the circles beneath them far too dark. “I ruined it, didn’t I?”
You shake your head.
“Okay,” he nods, stepping closer, bringing his hands to your waist, only ghosting over it until your expression allows him to touch you. “Then let me help,” he pulls you closer, “please.”
You don’t stop him when he kisses you.
Slower, firmer than the last. Sure of himself, lacking the hesitation his lips harbored on the cold sidewalk, where his brain couldn’t decipher hope from reality. You lean into him, sighing into his mouth as your muscles relax under his touch, hands gliding up his arms until they’re locked around his neck, pulling him down to you.
His lips curve into a smile against yours, and you almost swear that you feel his heartbeat against your chest, racing at a speed that’s far too fast to be normal. His palms knead the swell of your hips, fingers pressing firmer into the skin just as they lift you onto the counter behind you—thankfully wiped down just minutes ago. You gasp, gripping him tighter but not resisting, legs parting to let him stand between them as you brace your weight onto your palm, one hand still toying with a long, ash-blonde strand of hair.
His palm skates across your front until it stops just above the waistband of your pants, and your breath hitches as his lips kiss a path along your jaw until they’re resting at your temple, just above your ear.
His hand slides between your legs, palming you through your pants; your hips lift, chasing the feeling. The pads of his fingers rub small, soft circles against the fabric, your own fingers tugging at a few strands of his hair, and he smiles, but you don’t notice. He presses the pad of his thumb over your clit, and you almost whimper, but you refrain.
“Let me take care of you,” he murmurs into your hair, and you nod mindlessly, body craving the release of built-up stress and tension from the week.
His fingers finally dip below the waistband of both your pants and underwear until the tips brush against your clit, and your body shudders against the countertop, your palm pressing harder into the white marble. He doesn’t wait, doesn’t tease, doesn’t build you up until you’re begging for something you’re not even sure of; his fingers push into you, slowly at first, letting you adjust to every inch as he breathes out, breath grazing the shell of your ear.
He curls them when they’re fully inside, and your body tenses again, gripping him tighter, pulling him closer, even if you’re not meaning to. You breathe, squeezing your eyes shut as you bite back a noise, too scarred from your last relationship and the embarrassment of letting him see you like this so soon after meeting you.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, taking his fingers out and pushing them back in carefully, the hand on your waist keeping you in place as your hips involuntarily writhe against the cold surface beneath them. “It’s just me.”
You nod, finally allowing a strained moan to slip past your lips. “Heeseung,” you whisper, so quiet that it’s barely audible, disappearing into the air as soon as it leaves your mouth.
His fingers move a little faster, pressing just against the sweet spot inside of you, causing your hips to jolt. He notices the shift and switches his focus, pushing the tips of his fingers in again and again—never too fast, never too slow—right against the same spot until your breaths morph into whimpers, unintelligible whines that don’t quite reach his ears. Your hand tugs at his hair again, hips chasing the release, lips perpetually parted in his grasp.
“H—Hee.”
Your eyes drill shut as the orgasm suddenly washes over you, knuckles white against the marble as your head fights the urge to fall back, but it doesn’t; Heeseung’s lips keep it in place, pressing soft kisses to your temple and whispering into your ear, though the soft ring in your ears keeps you from comprehending any of it. The sound of his voice is enough to ground you.
Warm droplets drip down the sides of his fingers, coating the creases between them, but he keeps the movement up, gradually slowing it until he pulls them out, your body still beneath his, your chest rising and falling with each breath. His thumb brushes away the release from the surrounding skin before he slips his hand out of the fabric and grabs the nearest napkin to wipe it dry, not bothering to make a show of things, not now.
He readjusts the waistband of your pants, smoothing them back into place and pulling your shirt down to cover the exposed skin.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” you nod, sliding off the counter as Heeseung’s hands fall on your waist to stabilize you. “Better. Thank you.”
“Good.”
He brushes a strand of hair behind your ear and lets his fingers linger there, eyes scanning your face. “Go home,” he whispers. “Get some rest. I’ll take care of things.”
“No, I can help—”
“Y/N,” he interrupts, “go.”
You exhale, offering a soft nod as Heeseung admires your face, the way the soft glow of the Christmas lights shines against your skin. He steps back to let you gather your belongings, holds your coat up so you can slide your arms in, and follows you to the door, making sure you don’t try to do any more than you already have today.
“What is…this?”
He breathes. “Whatever you want it to be.”
You nod.
“Text me when you get home,” he winks and closes the door, locking it for good measure. He watches you enter the car, turn the ignition, and pull out of the lot.
You arrive home, haphazardly toss everything onto the stairs, rather than put it away properly. Run a hot shower and wash the evidence of whatever it was that occurred at your uncle’s shop, the one he so graciously extended a hand out to you only for you to do something so obscene with the man he hired but a month ago. Yet, despite all of that, you don’t regret it.
Finally, after trying to scrub the sin off your body, you slide into bed, tired, yet relaxed at the same time, relieved of the pressure that the week had put on you. Your head turns to the phone, stares at it like the mask of the Green Goblin, urging you to send the message, despite knowing that he’s not someone you should pursue; someone you can.
But,
YOU: i’m in bed. i’m sorry for not texting sooner
public enemy #1: good. i just locked up not long ago, on the way home now
public enemy #1: sleep well
You guess you do.
-
Relationships haven’t been your speed for years.
But what you have with Heeseung almost feels too close to one; that scares you.
You introduce him to your house for the first time—a quaint, brick townhouse just down the road from the shop, almost central to the town, if someone were to pinpoint it. It welcomes him, perhaps too naturally, lets the hours slip past a lot easier than they should, than they would with anyone else. But Heeseung doesn’t notice. He doesn’t see a problem, he doesn’t feel the pit of worry in his stomach as strongly as you do—he just sees you. And maybe that’s why it feels so difficult to keep the line between friends and more from blurring with each day that passes.
You find that Heeseung has an obsession with ramen (or ramyeon, as he forces you to spell it now), so much so that he apparently even ate strictly that for an entire year straight. So during the nights when he breaches the line between professional and personal, stepping past the threshold of your front door and into your home, your sanctuary, he teaches you all of the ways he likes it. Maybe you’ll like them, too, and you can learn to make them yourself. Maybe you won’t, and he’ll just forget about it entirely. He doesn’t do things for himself; he does them for you.
You exchange languages in your spare time, during the moments when the shift drags, and the others can hold their own. The small sections of the day when it feels like you’re the only ones there, until you are, and your body just wants to be close to him, whether you should be or not. You help him with phrases, pronunciation, teach him some ways to put sentences together, or add filler words that are never necessary, but sound more native when you use them. Heeseung, in turn, teaches you Korean—the differing sentence structure, how to read Hangul, though it seems too daunting at first, and even how to speak some of it. Basic knowledge that can only go so far, but he’s proud, anyway. He likes hearing his language in your voice.
“Hey, are you okay?” you ask into the phone one morning, lodged between your ear and your shoulder as you take the chairs off the tables with Heeseung on the other line. “It’s…” you glance at the clock, “almost ten, and you’re not here. What’s up?”
“Oh, yeah, I—” he coughs, “—I’m sick. I must have caught something from the cold.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” you apologize, masking the part of you that’s upset, even if only slightly. Even if he’s not supposed to mean anything. “I’ll find someone to cover, or I’ll just try to do both. You can sleep.”
You hang up the phone and slide it back into your pocket as you work to prepare the store for the day, sighing as you glance at the clock again, knowing that time won’t pass as fast. Somehow, over the course of the last few weeks, you’ve grown dependent on Heeseung—someone you originally wished would leave your life as quickly as he came.
public enemy #1: come over tonight?
public enemy #1: i won’t bite. promise
The first time your eyes glaze over the messages, your body shudders. He’s been in your house a thousand times, taught you to cook his favorite meals (ramyeon aside), spoken Korean, watched television, and helped you decorate, for Christ’s sake. It shouldn’t be so jarring to accept an invite to his small, old apartment only ten minutes away from yours. But it is. Everything with him is.
But you show up, anyway. Ring the doorbell exactly fifteen minutes after your closing shift ends; punctual, just as normal. Heeseung answers the door, sporting a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt that you can read but aren’t sure what it really says. He looks tired, still clearly ill, but his face lights up with his smile. You feel a pang in your chest; guilt or happiness, you’re not sure.
You sit on the sofa with him and complain about the day, how busy work had gotten on the one day staff was short, making a complete show of it. Heeseung laughs, doesn’t interrupt. He just listens.
But he’s quiet; too quiet, nothing close to the Heeseung Lee you know.
“You should lie down,” you whisper, turning to him and rubbing your hand on his shoulder. “You look exhausted.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it,” you nudge him. “Come on.”
Reluctantly, he lets you force him into his bed, and you pull the covers over until they rest just below his elbows. You prop the pillow up behind his head until he looks comfortable.
“I’ll be right back,” you tell him, and he just nods.
You decide to put his lessons to use. You rummage through the cabinets, searching for the stash of what you know is hiding somewhere until you find the cabinet stocked with various brands and flavors of Heeseung’s favorite ramyeon. You take one that looks familiar—doing the best you can to understand the Korean name—and rack your brain to remember the way he taught you to make it, back at your place, with his hands resting over yours and your back pressed to his chest.
You’re surprised that you can even remember.
But you manage to complete a bowl that looks and smells edible, as close to his finished product as possible, and you stick a pair of chopsticks inside. You grab him a glass of ice water and a napkin and walk back into his room, where he lies idly on his phone. Your mind wanders back to the night you decided he was attractive at the sight of the familiar profile layout on the screen, and you swallow, stepping further inside.
“Hee,” you whisper, and his head turns. His eyes grow three sizes, and he quickly sits up, cocking a brow as you step closer, setting the warm bowl into his hands.
“You made this for me?”
“I tried.”
“I was wondering what took so long…” He twirls a clump of noodles onto the chopsticks and brings them to his mouth, taking a bite and slurping the remainder inside. His eyes fall shut, and a warm smile stretches across his face. “Perfect,” he compliments. “I taught you well.”
You giggle, moving to the other side of the bed and propping yourself up beside him. “Eat up,” you tell him, lifting a hand to brush a messy strand of hair away from his face. “You’re sick, you should be eating.”
“You’re good to me,” he murmurs, and you offer a smile in return, watching as he slowly clears the bowl. Even drinks every last drop of the broth—you swear he’s too obsessed, but you suppose it’s cute. He reaches for the water and takes a few sips, placing the empty bowl on the nightstand and turning back to you.
He leans closer, and you try to pull back. “You’re sick,” you repeat, but he persists.
“Not contagious anymore,” as he presses his lips to yours, and you laugh against them, letting him pull you into his lap, despite the protests you just made.
His hand finds purchase on your waist, thumb rubbing the skin just beneath the hem of your shirt as the other slips to the underside of your jaw, holding you closer to him. It shouldn’t feel right—being here, with him, in the apartment he bought a matter of weeks ago, derailing every bit of self-respect you thought you’d gained after everything with your ex, knowing that this is nothing, because it has to be. Because he just showed up one day and weaseled himself into your life. Knowing that deep down, he knows that, too. But still, as his tongue melts with yours, fingers grazing your skin like worship, you just want him.
For the first time, you don’t stop yourself.
And you don’t go home that night.
You read as friends, enjoying each other’s company when you have it, admiring decorations and listening to holiday music, watching the snow fall and collect in the crevices where the exterior walls of the store meet the ground—things anyone does with someone close to them. Things you’ve done with Jisung, with Ellie, with every person that’s come your way and considered themselves your friend.
But when you find yourself craving Heeseung’s proximity, making excuses to have time with him, even if only for a moment, invite him into your house, steal kisses that no one sees, brush past him and feel comfort, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world…when you begin showing up to work together, you start to realize that none of this is friendly. Not a single ounce.
And it can’t possibly be real, either.
-
“Evan!”
He jumps at the old man’s voice, the sound far too familiar to go unnoticed. He turns on his heel to see his boss—your uncle—approaching the counter, saying hello to some of the patrons as he walks around the corner and pats him on the shoulder.
“Someone looks hard at work.”
“Yeah,” he laughs, using a rag to dry off a clean coffee mug, “it’s been pretty busy recently. I can understand why you’ve got so many people here, Art.”
“Art. That’s a new one,” your uncle ponders as the kitchen door swings open, and out flies you, a large tray of cookies in your hand to re-fill the display case with. You almost don’t notice him standing there until you place them onto the counter, and Heeseung taps your calf with the edge of his foot.
“Oh, Uncle Arthur! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” you exclaim apologetically, walking over to wrap an arm around him. He kisses your forehead, and you smile, perched idly beside Heeseung, whose eyes have been glued to you since you walked in, regardless of the others standing nearby amidst the chaos.
“Hm,” his eyes flit between you, finger lifting and gesturing back and forth, “you two…?”
“No!” you both shout a bit too comically synchronized (and loudly), eyes wide, hands waving in front of you.
“No, no,” you tack on, giving an awkward laugh. “Never, this guy?” You turn, mocking a grimace. “He’s lucky I even came around to him.”
“Okay, okay,” your uncle mock-surrenders, “just asking, no need to get hasty.” He laughs, reaching into his pocket to grab his eyeglasses and unfolding them, slipping them onto his face. He looks up at the menu—spending so long out of his establishment that he’s forgotten some of the options—and orders a few things, on the house.
“I bet, though,” he chuckles, still glancing up at the menu, “if I checked those cameras, you two would be just as close as I’d imagine. You kids are easy to read these days.”
That’s when it registers.
Your eyes lock with Heeseung’s; wide, terrified, horrified.
“The cameras,” you whisper, pointing up and gesturing at the one just above the counter, panic etched deep into your face.
Yeah, take one look at the cameras, and he’ll be fucking scarred. That’ll be the day he finds out some guy he barely knows fingered his niece right on the goddamn counter.
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” you shake your head, “we can’t just leave it there!”
“Then, what do you suppose—”
“—hello?”
“Yes!” You clear your throat, “Yeah—Uncle…Arthur?”
“You guys okay?”
“Yeah!” simultaneously, “yeah.”
Heeseung moves to grab his order, and you step into the back, beelining for the office that typically stays empty, since your uncle rarely visits for any longer than minutes at a time. You open the computer, sift through files, applications, everything until you find the ones you’re looking for, marked with the date of each day, each hour.
The door flies open; you sigh, noticing that it’s only Heeseung.
“God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”
He closes the door behind him, “He’s gone. I extended your goodbye.”
“Thank you,” you breathe, focusing back on the files until you come across the day you’re looking for, swallowing thickly as the footage appears on the screen in a minimized window.
You click and drag the mouse along the timeline, face dusted red the moment you find what it is you’ve been looking for, and lift your finger to let it play. You breathe, clearly embarrassed by the ordeal, despite the only person seeing this besides yourself being Heeseung. Yet, that doesn’t make it better.
You’re thankful there’s no audio.
You hover the cursor over the Delete button, then follow it to the Trash folder and delete it from there, clearing any evidence from that night. Leaving it only in your memories. You lean back in the chair, closing your eyes and letting out a sigh of relief, almost forgetting that he’s even there until you feel his lips press against the side of your head.
“Nothing to be embarrassed about, baby,” he whispers, and your stomach caves. “You’re perfect.”
He ruffles a hand in your hair before leaving the office, not giving you time to counter his claim.
Damn, that handsome son of a bitch.
-
Saturday—six days until Christmas.
public enemy #1: come to arthur’s. rooftop. stairs at the back
You stare at the words—confused—for a few minutes, furrow a brow, contemplate. You still end up in the driver’s seat of your car, chugging down the street at such a late hour, your feet carrying you more than anything else.
You walk up the stairs carefully, swallowing down your nerves, though you’re not quite sure why it has you so rattled. Perhaps, because he’s usually asking to come to your place or inviting you to his, rather than this. This has to mean something; you’re scared of what.
As you finally approach his figure, he senses your presence and turns around. You gasp, nearly stepping back as your hand rises, running your fingers through his hair.
Faded cherry red; the same wine color you paused at all those weeks ago on his page. Bangs hanging loose in his face. Change accurate as an instinct, like he knew.
“Heeseung…” you whisper, swallowing as your fingers linger just behind his ear, and he fronts a bashful smile.
“You like it?”
“It’s…yeah,” you laugh, “I love it.”
“Good. I thought you would.”
Your brows knit together, “How would you have…known?”
“Well,” he breathes, shifting his weight between feet, “you sort of liked a post a few weeks ago. More than that—over a month ago, I think. I don’t think you noticed.”
“You love it,” he smiles, lifting a hand to your cheek as he leans forward, slotting his lips with yours.
He tastes sweeter tonight; like cherries and sugar, maybe from old gum or a mint, or perhaps it’s neither, and it’s the Chapstick on his lips that’s flavored like this. Your lips stretch into a smile against his, too natural to be simply casual, and you sigh contentedly into his mouth, one arm wrapped loosely around his waist, while the other extends upward, palm resting over his heart. You feel it beating again beneath your fingertips; it grounds you, still.
The wind swirls around you, forcing your hair to mingle with his, but it doesn’t matter; you don’t feel the cold, the breeze, the dust of snow falling onto the rooftop beneath your feet.
You think—for a moment—that you could stay like this forever, and you’ll be happy.
“Come with me,” he mumbles against your lips, and you pull away, looking into his eyes, head tilted.
“What?”
“Come with me,” he repeats firmly, words laced with a conviction that scares you. “When I leave, next year. After this.” His hands slide down your arms, and he laces his fingers with yours, rubs the backs of them with his thumbs. “I want to do this, see the world. And I want you with me.”
Your heart drops to your stomach. Heeseung is leaving. It shouldn’t come as a surprise—that was his plan, that was always the plan, wasn’t it? So, why does it hurt so much when you’ve known it all along?
You think about all of the times you’ve told him to pursue it; the times you’d lie in bed together, and he’d sing you gently to sleep, never thinking anything of it. When you’d play music at work, and he’d hum along to the songs he liked, to the ones he learned for you. When he’d start singing Do They Know It’s Christmas? after the stink you made the first time, and you’d tell him he was good, more than good.
Because to you, he’s perfect.
But sometimes, that isn’t enough.
“Heeseung, I—I can’t.”
The life in his eyes is the first thing to go.
Then, the smile falters, his hands loosen their grip on yours, and his jaw clenches as he holds back tears, though he tries not to let it show.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t, I—” you breathe, choking over your own words as tears brim in the corners of your eyes, making no effort to hold them back. “My whole life is here, Heeseung. I can’t just—leave it.”
“But that’s just it, Y/N,” he counters, trying to hold his composure. “You’ve only ever known this. Don’t you want to see what’s out there?” He steps closer, and you let him, knowing that you shouldn’t. “You have so much to offer.”
“I’m not like you, Hee,” you shake your head, “that’s not what I want.”
“Not with me?”
Your heart lurches, but you don’t reply. The words get stuck in your throat. Heeseung takes it as an answer, despite the tears running down your face—ones he makes no effort to wipe away, to acknowledge, though he would’ve jumped to get rid of them just minutes ago.
“I thought you would’ve changed your mind by now.”
“That’s not how that works, Heeseung. I can’t just up and leave, and you know that. You know I can’t just come with you like it’s nothing.”
He scoffs, poking his tongue into his cheek as he looks down at his feet. “You sound just like him.”
“Who, your father?” you shout, offense mixing with hurt and lacing your voice. “Because I don’t want to leave my home? Because I don’t want you to go?”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to leave without you, either, because I lo—”
“—Don’t say it,” you warn.
“Why not? You don’t want the truth?”
“No. Because I can’t handle it,” you admit, bile rising in your throat, but you swallow it down. “I can’t deal with that reality, Heeseung.”
“So what, you’re just gonna stay here forever?” he asks, hurt breaking his voice, the noise wedging the knife deeper into your heart. “You’re gonna just work here forever? That’s all you ever want to be? Just come cashier?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” he bites back, and you look away, taking a breath.
“You can’t expect me to do that for you, Heeseung. I haven’t even known you for two fucking months!”
“Well, from the way you’ve been acting, it seemed like we were a lot more than I thought, so I’m sorry that I misinterpreted whatever this was.”
“Look, I didn’t ask for you to just show up and derail my entire fucking life, okay?”
He freezes; you step forward, guilt immediately washing over you.
“Hee,” you reach out, but he moves away, doesn’t speak.
He walks down the stairs without another word, and you chase after him, breaths increasing in weight, your heartbeat hammering in your head like an anvil that just won’t stop. He opens the car door and slips inside, and your hand catches on it before he can shut it.
“Hee, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“—save it.”
He looks up at you, eyes red and glossed over. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave. Just like you always wanted me to, alright?”
“No, Heeseung—”
He turns the ignition and slams the door, forcing your hand to lift before it gets crushed, and he takes off, not looking back at you, not thinking twice, just leaving.
Realization hits like a truck; you sink to your knees, broken, battered. The cold of the fallen snow on the ground burns on your kneecaps, but you don’t care—you think you deserve it. Tears run down your cheeks, burning hot in contrast to the freezing cold outside, and you shove your hand in your pocket, pulling out your phone. Your fingers tremble so severely that you can barely grasp the device, vision blurred from the tears spilling down your cheeks; the painful fear in your chest is too severe to bear.
You dial the number without thinking. The ringing feels like agony, grating pain against your heart until you hear the voice on the other line that stops the ache just for a fraction of a second.
“Ji,” you sob, “I fucked up.”
-
“Hey, hey, what’s the matter, baby?”
You sob into Jisung’s chest, dampening his shirt, but he doesn’t care. He holds you closer and runs his palm along your back. Your knees still hurt from the cold, but they’ve numbed, just a little.
“He’s gone,” you cry, shaking your head as if it isn’t real. “I made him leave.”
“What?”
You bury your face deeper into his chest. “He wanted me to go with him, and I told him no,” you ashamedly tell him. “I can’t lose him. I don’t wanna lose him.”
“Lose who, Y/N?”
“Heeseung.”
Jisung blinks above you; you don’t notice, you don’t even look up, but you feel the way his hold loosens just slightly. “Heeseung? I thought you—what? I thought you hated him.”
“I don’t hate him, Ji,” you whisper, “I never did.”
“You have a lot to catch me up on when you’re done crying and warm in your house.”
And you’ll tell him, because you know where you stand with Heeseung now.
Only, you might never see him again, and your body can’t accept that fact. Not one bit.
-
You expected work without him to be difficult.
You didn’t expect life without him to be.
When the others ask where Heeseung is, you shrug—a partial truth, despite knowing that you’re the reason, that you’d hurt him too much for him to stay. You’d already been keeping him at an arm’s length, tried your best to, at least, but you’d pushed him too far, and now, you’ll have to pay for it.
His presence in your life feels like a candle that you never knew was burning, until one day, you noticed it, and then, it was out. Gone like it was never there, despite the smell left behind, the reminder of its existence never quite dissipating, not enough to forget.
“I don’t know, I guess he must have quit.”
—your usual response, dry, uninterested. Because you can’t bring yourself to feel the loss; if you do, you don’t think you’ll recover. You check your phone, even when it doesn’t ping, silently hoping that his contact will pop up, say something like gotcha! and then, he’ll show up out of nowhere, sliding right back into the hole he burrowed in your heart. But days pass, the holiday draws closer, and he’s radio silent. Some nights, you drive past the apartments, try to see if a light is on inside, if his car is nearby—you never quite find what you’re looking for.
Your uncle apologizes, thinking all of it is his fault, but you don’t have the courage to tell him the truth: that you did have something with Heeseung, and you let him go as quickly as he came. The wish you wanted to come true until he suddenly became everything.
You find yourself staring at the decorations inside the store, propping your hand up on the counter, and glancing around. You want to hear his voice, him to burst out of the kitchen with some stupid thing to say, wrap his arms around you, and kiss you until you can’t breathe. You realize—standing alone in the store, just as you always wished for—that none of this place matters anymore, not without him.
You don’t know who you are without this place. Maybe that’s even scarier than leaving it.
But it’s too late—you’ve done the damage, sent the best person to happen to you away as if he meant nothing to you at all.
As the final shift before Christmas Eve finishes, you open the cabinet to grab your things—keeping them on the same half you always had with him, not daring to fill his side. The closing process feels monotonous; unplug the decorative lights, check the counters, organize the orders, turn off the ceiling lights, walk out the door, and lock it behind you. Staring at the space he always parked in as you sit in the driver’s seat of your car, nearly breaking down from the pressure and the immense silence inside, is a new part you add to the list tonight.
You drive home without music, only half-paying attention to the road. The heavy snowfall blows against your windshield but makes no noise, clouds your vision more than the fog that’s already there. But your mind wanders elsewhere, unable to stay completely focused, much like most of your time as of late. Only the shell of you remains. And nobody notices—nobody even bats an eye. Not like he would.
Never like him.
You push through the front door, and even in your own house, you can’t escape Heeseung—he plagues your thoughts and haunts the inside of your little townhouse like a spirit that won’t leave. Every corner of the house holds a memory of him. Nothing remains untouched. Everything feels like a punishment; packages of ramyeon stashed away in the back of one of your cabinets, the Boston Bruins blanket that he claimed to be his favorite still folded in the spot he usually took on your couch (after which you forced him to watch a game because he “deserved to know the best sport in the world”), and even your bed—where the ghost of him still lies, his cologne etched into the sheets that you haven’t yet changed.
A rap on the door takes you out of your thoughts, jolting your body away from the refrigerator as you try to fill a glass of water. You place the half-full glass onto the counter and smooth your hands over your pants, furrowing your brows. You don’t bother to check the peephole; you simply turn the lock on the door, hand trembling slightly from stress and nerves, then the knob, swinging it open.
Your body tenses—eyes well with tears the moment they catch sight of his face. Familiar, loving eyes looking back at you, the soft, now cherry red hair you love to run your hands through, spotted with flakes of snow as they fall onto his head, the lips you’ve kissed with every ounce of affection in your heart pressed together as he swallows.
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”
The snow falls behind him, around him, melts into his hair as he stands before you, unfazed by the cold outside as long as you’re near him; he thinks it’s been that way for a while.
“I can’t pretend like I don’t think about you every second.” He steps closer, almost crossing the threshold but not quite touching it, still not without your permission, despite every bone in his body screaming for him to. “I can’t act like I’m not in love with you. And maybe you don’t want to hear that, but you need to.”
The lights he helped string on the arch of your doorway twinkle above, illuminating his face with a soft red glow that somehow makes him prettier, if even possible. You falter at his words, legs fighting to stay steady beneath you as he says it with conviction and forces the tears to fall from your eyes.
“Hee,” you whisper weakly—all it takes for him to step forward and slide his hand behind your head, holding it in place for him to kiss you.
It’s different from the other times, a declaration and a promise all at once, desperation seeping into it like it hadn’t before. His tongue finds yours the moment your lips part to let it in, and he steps forward, forcing your bodies closer as if he’s trying to meld them together. You smile against him, hand trailing into his hair and taking the soft burgundy strands between your fingers, needing to feel him just as much. The thought of losing him—someone who made you realize everything you’d been missing out on—hurts more than any insult anyone could throw at you.
Because Heeseung is your person, and you’ll never let him slip away again.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between kisses, refusing to part from you after not seeing you for days; your mouth chases his, kisses becoming sloppy, but neither of you seems to care, not when it feels so good, for once. You hum into his mouth, and his hands grip your body tighter, fingers pressing into your skin. Heeseung moans, and you grin wider.
“No, I’m sorry,” you finally counter, pulling back to breathe. “I was wrong. You didn’t ruin anything, Heeseung.” Your hands slide down his arms until they reach his, lacing your fingers together and gripping them firmly, lips swollen. “I want to do this with you. I don’t want to be here if you’re not,” you say, shaking your head. “This is all I’ve known…But I want to know more. With you.”
“I don’t want to force you.”
“All my life, I’ve never even entertained the notion of leaving this town.”
You close your eyes and take a breath, exhaling deeply through your nose. “But if it means being with the person I love, I’ll travel as far away from here as possible.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, kissing along your jaw, the corner of your mouth, your lips. “‘m gonna make up for everything, okay?”
You nod, and his hands slip beneath the swell of your ass, hoisting you up for your legs to wrap around his waist. He carries you up the stairs, kissing a path along the underside of your jaw as your hand fists in his hair.
Heeseung takes his time with you, laying you onto the bed, fingers dancing along the edges of your clothes and peeling each item off, one by one. His lips find every dip and curve on your body, pressing kisses to them like worship, his touch reverent as he takes the first release from you with just his mouth, the second with his fingers, prying soft moans that seep into the four walls of your bedroom as if he’s the only other person meant to set foot in it.
When his hips meet yours, he kisses you as if his life depends on it, one hand palming your kneecap and holding it in place while the other entwines its fingers with yours, holding them above your head and against the headboard. You feel him in your stomach, on your knees, above you, around you—everywhere, all at once. He takes care of you; lets you feel every last inch of his want for you, shows his love for you rather than trying to control you. He wants you comfortable and pleased and satisfied all at once.
The soft light that streams in from outside the door—mixed with the small, white-lit tree in the corner of the room—makes you feel at ease, with Heeseung hovering above you, holding onto you like a lifeline, something you never thought possible the day you met him.
Your body relaxes under his touch, and your brain takes a vacation, focusing only on Heeseung, how perfect he feels like this, how nothing could feel any better than this very moment. And you smile against his lips, sighing deeply when you reach your final peak, giving yourself to him, wholly. Let the evidence drip down your inner thigh for his thumb to carefully brush away, unsure of whether its origin is from you or him. Kiss him until your lips go numb, until you can’t breathe, until he’s sure that he’s made up for every ounce of pain, every minute he missed with you, every night he could’ve made you feel this good and hadn’t, because he left. Not bothering to consider what anyone will think, what will happen if you leave, how tomorrow will go—all you think about is him as he pulls back to look at you.
And that stupid, beautiful smile of his.
-
The Christmas Eve shift passes by in a blur. With Heeseung back, everything returns in full swing, all hands on deck for the morning until close. Handfuls of people file in and out, picking up orders, grabbing passing drinks, admiring the scenery that he and you spent far too many hours meticulously creating.
On the short break you get, you pull out your phone, scroll through it mindlessly until a text message flashes on the screen.
public enemy #1: off the phone, slacker
You look up; Heeseung stands on the other side of the door, shaking his head and tutting his teeth. You flash him a smile (and a choice finger) that makes him laugh, loudly enough that you can hear it through the door. He blows you a dramatic kiss and walks away.
YOU: asshole.
public enemy #1: you love it
YOU: focus on working instead of me. and start thinking of outfits for tomorrow
The annual Whitmore family dinner on Christmas Day, usually hosted by your parents, but now extended to you. You invited Heeseung, intending to introduce him to the others as your boyfriend, the boy you love—whatever it takes to describe what he means to you. Where he’ll finally meet your parents, where they’ll find out that you’re going to navigate life with him outside of Valley Point, despite the challenges that you’ll face, and the fear that pits in your stomach.
You know that if he’s there, you’ll be okay.
Which reminds you,
hee ♥︎: anything for you
-
“Merry Christmas!”
You smile, wrapping your arms around your uncle as he walks into your house, your aunt following closely behind. Heeseung stands beside you, nervously fumbling with his thumbs as his eyes follow their path.
“Heeseung! I heard you’ve been absent for a few days,” he teases as he pats him on the back, not quite tall enough to reach his shoulder so easily. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” he nods, eyes flitting over to you as you give him the go-ahead, and his arm slowly wraps around your waist, fingers resting just over your hip. “Just…figuring things out.”
“I knew it,” he grins, and you shove him with your palm.
“Yeah, yeah. Go inside and talk to the others, okay?”
Heeseung shifts his weight between feet, unintentionally moving your body along with his. You turn to him, tilting your head to see his face as he looks forward, not particularly focused on anything.
“Hey,” you whisper, and he looks down, his nervousness etched into his features. “It’s okay. They’re gonna love you.”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs.
“Heeseung,” you scold. “My parents are going to love you. I promise.”
“Okay,” he breathes. “Yeah…yeah, okay.”
The front door flies open, nearly slamming against the wall behind it; you don’t have to look to know who it is.
“Well, if it isn’t the infamous Heeseung Lee,” Jisung says as he saunters over, hands perched on his hips like he has a personal score to settle with him. “Heard a lot about you.”
“Have…you now?” Heeseung asks, already far too nervous to be confronted about things he has clue idea of.
“Yup.” He extends a hand for Heeseung to take and waits until he does to clamp down and practically cut off his circulation with his fingers. “Jisung,” he introduces proudly.
“Oh,” Heeseung nods. “I’m, uh—yeah. Heeseung.”
You notice a familiar figure outside the window and usher Heeseung into the kitchen with Jisung where the others are gathered, telling him that your parents have arrived. He goes without question. Once he’s in the kitchen, he gets swooped up in conversation almost instantly, only half-listening as his mind wanders off, worrying about what your their first impressions of him will be, if they’ll even like him at all. He hears your gentle “Hey!” from the kitchen, but can’t tear himself away enough to look back at you, despite his attempts.
“Heeseung?” you call from the empty sitting room on the other side of the house, and his head whips around. He takes a breath and walks toward the noise, preparing to see you standing there with your parents, waiting to introduce them finally, after so much back and forth, so much uncertainty.
But when Heeseung walks into the room, it’s not what he expected at all.
“Appa?”
You stand just around the corner, biting your lip nervously as Heeseung timidly speaks to his father, just a few feet in front of him. It’s a side of him you’ve never seen before—a son, just a boy with his father, who lost his mother as a kid and only wanted to succeed for them. You swallow, not quite understanding what they’re saying; you make out a few words from what he’s taught you, but it’s not nearly enough. You don’t think you should understand, anyway—it’s their personal business, not yours.
Heeseung hesitantly steps forward, and his dad meets him halfway, pulling him into a hug that looks long overdue. You turn away, not wanting to pry, to give them their time alone, though you can still hear Heeseung’s quiet sobs, and you blink back tears.
As they pull away and exchange a few more words, Mr. Lee motions you in with an arm, and you bow gently, thanking him before letting him step out to join the group of people already accumulating in your dining room, socializing as the snow continues to fall outside.
“I love you,” he smiles, wrapping his arms around your waist and lifting you off the ground, letting out a soft laugh that transfers over to you as you twirl around in the air, gripping him tightly, like you’ll fly away if you let go.
When your feet finally touch the ground, the tips of your fingers meet behind his neck, and you admire his expression, happiness glowing in his eyes. “I love you, too,” you whisper back, leaning up to kiss the tip of his nose. “You deserve to be happy, Hee.”
“I already have been,” he sniffs, and a tear runs down his cheek, barely reaching his jaw before your thumb catches it. “But God, you get better every day.”
He leans down and catches your lips in a gentle kiss, tasting of that same sweet Chapstick he’s been using and familiarity; comfort, warmth, love. Everything you’ve ever wanted—everything you’ll ever need. You don’t think you’ve ever felt as free as you do with him; though it scares you, you want to start this next chapter with him, because you’re not sure that you’d trust anyone else.
47 days can do a lot to a person.
Heeseung is a plot twist you never expected.
“Merry Christmas, Y/N,” he whispers into the air between you, bringing a finger up to poke the tip of your nose. He laughs gently, and you match it; Heeseung thinks it might be the best sound in the world.
“Merry Christmas, Heeseung.”
You let the silence create a blanket around you, wrapping the two of you in your own world, even if for just a moment, where all that exists is you, Heeseung, and the faint glow of the incandescent lights strung around the house—present as a reminder of the love you gained this season, even after they’re taken down and stored away in boxes until next year.
Because they’ll always represent what you are: passion, joy, excitement, love—
pinned photographs, half-written notes, fading memories, and feelings left carelessly scattered across a corkboard — hi hi, hoonguin nation! introducing my new series, the masterplan ^__^
inspired by my four all-time favorite oasis songs, this enhypen⁷ hyung line series follows four different stories stitched together by love, longing, and all the quiet chaos that comes with caring a little too much !
angled somewhere between tender affection, consuming desire, reckless decisions, whispered confessions, and hearts far too fragile for their own good, each story carries its own little universe of emotions — some warm enough to feel like home, others heavier around the edges ><
but even then, through all the aching hearts, lingering touches, sleepless nights, and memories that refuse to stay buried, every fic remains pinned together as part of the same little collection ♡
started : 06/03/26 | finished : #
got a specific idea you want to see first? vote here ♡ poll open until 06/10/26 !!
EL’S ✷ BUBBLE : i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t very heavily inspired by my baby jo < @stwryun 33 !!! i’ve been listening to oasis for as long as i can genuinely remember, and even now they remain my favorite band ever 💌 my outside life has also started calling for me again, so updates will definitely 101% slow down compared to before ^__^ but i’ll still be working on this whenever i can ♡ if you’d like to be on the series taglist for future updates (or only for a specific member, please specify), feel free to comment and let me know hehe
STAND BY ME ؛ ✿ . ˚ LEE HEESEUNG
♫ stand by me, nobody knows the way it’s gonna be ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : post-university graduation life has been one hell of a rollercoaster ride, to say the least. between figuring out whether to pursue a post-graduate degree, get a job, or somehow manage both at once, adulthood comes crashing down on you faster than you ever expected.
but if you're being honest, none of that occupies your mind nearly as much as lee heeseung does.
your relationship with him has always been rocky. for the past two years, your friends have spent countless nights telling you to leave him, reminding you that love isn't supposed to hurt this much. maybe they're right. maybe loving heeseung has always felt like holding onto something that keeps slipping through your fingers.
the problem is, you've never been able to find the heart to let him go.
even when he disappears into himself. even when he drowns his problems in cigarette smoke, half-empty bottles, and silences that stretch for days. even when you're the one left dealing with the fallout of things he refuses to talk about.
but lately, for the first time, you're starting to wonder if staying is worth it.
because if loving lee heeseung means constantly waiting for him to choose himself, then maybe it's finally time for you to choose yourself too.
trope : situationship, on-and-off relationship, emotional avoidance, toxic devotion, hurt and comfort, codependency, self-destructive love, more to be added . . .
content : post-university au, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), smoking, alcohol consumption, emotional manipulation, toxic relationship dynamics, unhealthy coping mechanisms, arguments, themes of abandonment and emotional dependency, angst
estimated word count : #
date to be released : #
I’M OUTTA TIME ؛ ✿ . ˚ PARK JONGSEONG
♫ guess i’m out of time ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : one thing you’ve had in common with your fiancé, park jongseong, is that both of you express yourself through art.
he turns sound into feeling, and you turn feeling into color, and somewhere along the way, that became the easiest way to understand each other.
for a long time, it worked in a way that didn’t need much explanation. his music filled your days, your paintings quietly carried traces of him, and the engagement felt like something inevitable, like it had simply settled into place over time.
but after that, time started slipping in strange ways. plans were postponed without urgency, schedules stopped aligning, and “later” slowly became the shape most of your promises took.
you notice the shift first in your work. not in what you paint, but in what no longer appears — his presence fading out of your canvases until it feels like he was never really there to begin with.
and then there are days when the studio feels different in ways you can’t quite place, as if something familiar has already started to loosen its hold and drift somewhere just out of reach.
so how exactly do you hold on to something that’s already slipping away?
trope : established relationship, slow-burn emotional distance, love in decay, codependent relationship, almost-love falling apart, yearning, bittersweet romance, more to be added . . .
content : post-engagement au, musician lifestyle, art career focus, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), alcohol use, emotional neglect, relationship stagnation, emotional withdrawal, burnout, themes of separation and longing, angst with a hopeful ending
estimated word count : #
date to be released : #
WONDERWALL ؛ ✿ . ˚ SIM JAEYUN
♫ and after all, you’re my wonderwall ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : one thing you've always known about sim jaeyun is that he makes people feel safe.
maybe that's why becoming his girlfriend had felt so natural. somewhere between shared lecture notes, late-night study sessions, and countless walks across campus, loving him became second nature, something woven so deeply into your life that you stopped noticing where you ended and he began.
for a long time, it felt permanent.
until one day, it didn't.
when you wake up in a hospital room after an accident, your memories are still there. your family, your friends, your classes, your life. even jaeyun.
you remember his name.
you remember his face.
you even remember that he's your boyfriend.
what you don't remember is why.
the stories are still there, preserved in photographs and retold by people who watched the two of you fall in love. they insist he was your favorite person, the one who knew you better than anyone else ever could. but no matter how many memories belong to the two of you, they feel strangely distant, like pages torn from someone else's life.
but there are days when his presence begins to feel familiar in ways you can't explain. the comfort of sitting beside him in class, the instinctive urge to search for him in crowded hallways, the way your heart stumbles whenever he smiles at you for too long.
not memories, definitely not memories, but rather something entirely new.
or maybe something finding its way back.
how do you remember a love you've forgotten when you're already falling for him all over again?
pairings : university student!sim jaeyun ❤︎ female!reader
trope : established relationship, university au, memory loss au, friends-to-lovers-to-lovers-again, mutual pining, second chance with the same person, slow-burn romance, hurt & comfort, yearning, healing, bittersweet fluff, more to be added . . .
content : university setting, memory loss following an accident, hospital scenes, emotional vulnerability, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), established relationship dynamics, relationship rediscovery, physical rehabilitation, themes of identity and memory, angst with comfort, lots of fluff
estimated word count : #
date to be released : #
DON’T GO AWAY ؛ ✿ . ˚ PARK SUNGHOON
♫ so don’t go away, say what you say ⊹ ࣪ ˖
synopsis : years ago, park sunghoon was just a stranger on a screen.
what started as a random encounter on omegle quickly became a routine neither of you could let go of. online games turned into late-night calls, late-night calls turned into endless conversations, and before long, he had become the person who knew everything about you despite having never met you in person.
for a while, it worked in a way that didn't need much explanation. your days began and ended with him, every notification carried the possibility of a message from him, and the distance between your cities felt insignificant compared to everything you shared.
until one day, it didn't.
without warning, you disappeared.
no goodbye, no explanation, no anything.
nothing at all.
years pass.
a new city, a new career, a new life.
you've spent years convincing yourself that the version of you who stayed awake until sunrise talking to a boy she met online no longer exists, and that whatever happened between the two of you is better left in the past.
then your first day as a junior associate attorney at one of the city's most prestigious law firms proves otherwise.
because standing at the front of the conference room is the last person you ever expected to see again.
park sunghoon.
older, sharper, and no longer separated from you by a screen.
he remembers literally everything. the games you used to play together. the calls that lasted until morning. the plans you made. the promises you never got the chance to keep. every single thing.
and while he treats you with the same professionalism he offers everyone else, there are moments that make you wonder if he's truly moved on at all. coffee waiting on your desk before particularly difficult meetings, patient guidance whenever you make mistakes, and a familiarity that lingers no matter how many years have passed.
because unlike you, sunghoon never got the opportunity to do things properly the first time around.
and now that fate has placed you back in his life, he isn't willing to let the chance slip away again.
trope : online lovers to strangers to lovers, boss x employee, workplace romance, second chance romance, right person wrong time, forced proximity, unresolved feelings, mutual pining, slow burn, yearning, emotional healing, fluff with a tiny sprinkle of angst, "where did you go?" trope, more to be added . . .
content : law firm au, workplace setting, former online relationship, themes of abandonment and reconciliation, emotional vulnerability, explicit sexual content (intended for mature audiences), alcohol consumption, office interactions, unresolved past conflict, romantic tension, emotional hurt and comfort, lots of yearning
diet pepsi ⸺ camp counselor!jay (sounds to scenes collection)
( ★ ) ⸻ jay spent the entire summer pretending that he wasn't into you. ignoring every single one of your advances, because it made sense. you were younger. he was leaving. it just wouldn't work out. avoiding you just made the most sense. until he's letting himself slip on your last night together and he's quickly realizing that he's made a huge mistake.
۶ৎpairing: mentor!jay x mentee!reader ۶ৎgenre: heavy angst... smut. summer camp au. age gap (reader is 18, jay is 24). established relationships. ۶ৎtw: smut (mdni!) descriptive making out, loss of virginity, mutual pining. unexpected heeseung closure. fingering, dry humping. slight dirty talk. unresolved feelings. cortis!martin makes an appearance. bnd!jaehyun. car sex. subtle masturbation (m.), relationship ending. gone the next morning... post sex abandonment? unprotected sex (not in this economy pls). ۶ৎwc: 16.5k+
⸻ playlist | diet pepsi. addison rae, bound. the ponderosa twins plus one, late night talking. harry styles, electric love. borns, love grows (where my rosemary goes). edison lighthouse, tenerife sea. ed sheeran, perfect places. lorde, bad habit. steve lacy, get you. daniel caesar ft. kali uchis, summertime sadness. lana del rey, vienna. billy joel, the scientist. coldplay.
by the time the sun was setting, camp barely looked like camp anymore. the campers that had spent the past three months running from cabin to cabin had been picked up hours ago. said cabins cleaned up and empty, ready for the winter that slowly crept around the corner. the lake was still. for the first time all summer, there wasn't a schedule to follow, no activities, no headcounts. no one asking where the arts-and-crafts supplies were. you and the eleven other counselors were the only ones left, closing out the summer with a well deserved bonfire barbecue.
martin, sakai and jaehyun dragged picnic tables to the beach before setting the folding chairs up to surround the fire, while jungwon set up his speaker, viv and lex arguing about whose playlist should be shuffled. the smell of charcoal hung heavy in the air as heeseung started up the grill, expertly cutting thick pieces of beef while brin stole bites directly off the serving tray.
he's rolling his eyes the third time her tongs chase his, “those are for everybody,” he grumbles, she nods with a grin – pushing a big piece past her lips. “mhm!” she's reaching for another piece, but he's nudging her away with his hip. she easily reaches around him, popping the pork into her mouth before he can steal it back. “brin.” he tries to sound stern, but the natural softness of his voice never leaves him. “you've eaten like a full cow by now,” he jokes and she grins wide up at him, shoulders lifting in a shrug.
“put more on,” she says simply.
mindless chatter is heard all throughout the beach, a red solo cup clutched in every hand. sunoo is stationed behind a folding table he deemed the bar, two coolers hidden underneath filled with juice and several bottles that had been hidden for the better half of the summer and an obnoxious amount of fruit. mia argues as he hands her drink over, “you shouldn't eyeball vodka,” she nags and he's snorting out a laugh. “it literally won't matter in ten years, just drink.” he encourages, repeating what had become his mantra these last few days.
and no matter how scary that sounded, he was right. all the moments that seemed huge, everything that made you cry, smile, laugh – most likely wouldn't even matter ten years from now. but that's what made every last moment that much more special, what made the goodbyes that you all knew were looming that much more devastating. because despite promising to stay in touch, you all knew that this was all temporary and in ten years, everything would be so different. you all would be completely different.
you sit close to the fire with the other girls as the chaos settles, slowly rotating a marshmallow over the flames. the heat warming the bare skin of your thighs left by the dress you picked this morning. subconsciously putting more thought into your appearance, knowing what tonight meant. it was the last night, yes, but it always was a last chance. so you’re choosing the strapless dress that hugged your frame, a bright orange with pretty pink flowers scattered over it, the colors seeming to pop against your sun-kissed skin.
you hoped you looked as pretty as you felt and that a certain someone took notice, the moment he's drifting into your thoughts – your eyes shift to where he stands. leaning casually against one of the surfboards, head tipped back as he laughs at something jungwon said. jongseong park. jay. you remember reading his name on the welcome sheet on your very first day, the man in charge of the music lodge and all of the instruments inside. your mentor for the next three months and the man who you'd be replacing at the end of the summer when he left for grad school.
that's what he was introduced to you as, but after meeting him, after spending every single day with him for the last ninety-two days, he had become so much more. he was funny, smart, kind, generous and extremely talented. the kids loved him, looked up to him and he gave them a good reason to with how patient and encouraging he was with every last one of them. he was an all around good guy and him being without a doubt the hottest guy you've ever laid eyes on only added to that.
jay was sexy without even trying to be, from his facial expressions to the way his fingers moved over the strings of his guitar, everything he did seemed to draw you in. and god you were so bad at hiding it. from day one, you couldn't keep your eyes from finding him in the crowd, couldn't mask the insistent blush of your cheeks or the way giggles would slip past your lips before you could even think twice.
and the craziest part of all of it, was that he also seemed interested in you. you never missed the way the touches would linger, the way his eyes would drop to your lips before snapping back up to your eyes. you've even caught him watching you from the pier one night when you and the other girls went out for a late swim. but you never once made a move, just treaded dangerously close to the line and it all but drove you insane.
“you're drooling,” you hear from beside you and your body startles, nearly dropping your marshmallow into the fire. viv laugh besides you, leaning into your shoulder as she does. you can already feel the heat rising in your cheeks. “no i'm not,” you uselessly defend and she nods as if she actually believes you, “why don't you go say something?” brin makes an attempt at whispering, leaning across viv to look at you.
you feel the anxiety blooming in your chest before she's even finishing her sentence, “are you crazy!?” while you were like 89% sure jay also thought you were cute, there was still that 11% chance that he was just being nice. and you were terrified by that 11%. viv lifts her drink to her lips, taking a big gulp of it before she's setting in the sand, deciding she was done with it. “he leaves tomorrow... forever.” she reminds with a pointed look. “and then in ten years, none of this will matter...”
as if he could sense he was being talked about, jay's eyes drift in your direction. not even half surprised that he caught you and the other girls staring, it sort of been the theme of the summer. and the way he wiggles his fingers in a slight wave makes everything worse, because you're gasping, marshmallow actually hitting the ground as laughter erupts between your friends.
the night stretches just like that, conversations bouncing between you, drinks and food being passed and lingering stares between you and jay that everyone else pretending they didn't notice. by the time the sky was dark and the stars were twinkling, everything seemed to settle. the feeling of finality that everyone had been avoiding thickening with each flicker of the fire.
“i can't believe i won't be back here next year,” heeseung says, earning a chorus of loud eye rolls from each of you. he's only mentioned it a trillion times in the past three months. “oh my god, wait! it's your last summer!?” lex fakes a gasp that has laughter spreading, heeseung lifts his middle finger in her direction while brin slaps at her shoulder playfully. “cut him some slack, he's been here since they filled the lake.” she teases.
jungwon is quick to interject, a smirk playing on his lips. “nah, that was jay. he poured the water in himself, one cup at a time,” he punctuates his words with a tip of his own cup, letting the last few drops of his liquor hit the sand. “seriously, though, we're going to miss you guys.” sakai starts and you can already hear the quiver in her tone. “it's going to be so weird not smelling brin making bacon before sunrise, or hearing jay fighting with the kids for hiding his drumsticks, no more heeseung waking us up past midnight for ramyeon...” her lips form a pout before she can even finish her thought and you're reaching over to hug her.
“aw.” martin coos, setting down his drink before clapping his hands together. “think tonight calls for some goodbye speeches,” agreement is immediate and it's not long before brin is standing. she talks about her love for the camp, when she started and how close she's become with every one of you, highlighting funny moments, sad ones and ones that she swears she'll never forget. heeseung follows, starting with “i can't believe this is my last summer...” and ending with the same words, head shaking.
jay stands next and you feel the way your heart flutters for no good reason. his hand rubs at the back of his neck, teeth tugging at his lower lip as he fought to put the right words together. he looked handsome, face lit by the fire, hair dyed blond after losing a dare to one of the campers on the first week. it suited him. “i hate public speaking,” jungwon leads the chorus of boos that follow his words, pulling a laugh from him which seems to ease the tension between his shoulders.
he continues on despite the thump in his chest, despite knowing you're sat less than a few feet away, watching him. “honestly, this place has been home for a long time. i started when i was seventeen?” he ignores the groans that come from the group, out of all the counselors, he's been there the longest and he never let them forget it. “get off the stage, unc!” jungwon shouts, hands cupped around his mouth.
jay's eyes drift from the lake, over to the music lodge sitting at the edge of the camp, back to the friends he's grown closer to every summer. and then to you and the way you smile at him has him losing his train of thought for a full three seconds. “seriously, though, i've spent almost every summer here and i thought that would make leaving harder but it isn't. of course, i'll miss the campers, you guys and obviously my music room, but...” his eyes are back on yours and everyone notices the way his gaze, “i think the reason it's kind of easy is because i know everything i love is being left in good hands,” exaggerated gasps are heard around the fire.
jay does his best to ignore them, eyes never breaking from yours. his gaze said everything he had been swallowing for the past few months, mixed with the regret of not having the courage to make a move sooner. stood in his own way each and every time. “yn, i'm so relieved to know you'll be the one replacing me. you're so good with the kiddos, you're smart, funny... patient and creative... way more organized that i've ever been. thank you for making leaving a little bit easier, i appreciate you,” an unmistakable blush has settled on his cheeks and he's moving to sit, “and you look pretty in all your dresses,” the words are jumbled together, alcohol giving him just enough courage to mumble what he had been thinking every morning you walked into the music lodge.
the silence lasts for less than a second before obnoxious cheers erupt through the group. “better late than never!” jaehyun whistles, while sunoo claps wildly beside him. apparently, he had mentioned it to everyone but you the way they were reacting like it was this long awaited thing. it was. you ignore the flutter in your chest long enough to thank him. you can't stop replaying the last three words of his speech: 'all your dresses'. all like every one of them? which meant he had noticed every one. and he thought every one was pretty.
and he waited until the night before he was leaving to say something about it. bittersweet wasn't even the word.
the rest of the evening passes in a blur. all of your crowded around the fire, reminiscing and sharing secrets. it has the expected warm feeling the end of summer would, but you can't seem to fully enjoy it with the way your eyes keep drifting to jay. as the hours tick on, the group starts to break apart around the beach. heeseung and martin had volunteered to get more drinks and jay had hopped up to help, since then the three of them had been seated at the table a few feet away. they're talking quietly but you don't miss the not so discreet way one of them would point in your direction.
viv and mia only make it worse, shoving and hitting your arm wildly when jay finally stands to head toward the coolers. “okay, okay. go now.” you hear one of them say, nearly shoving you off of your chair. and you don't miss the kissing noises they make as you're walking away.
the coolers sit near one of the set up of kayaks that jaehyun swore he'd get put away before sundown. it was ten pm. jay is already crouched beside one when you approach, pushing aside melting ice as he searched for another drink. “hi,” your heart is pounding so rough against your chest, it's all you can muster. you catch the way his hand stills, body stilling for just a second before he's shaking it off – pulling two wine coolers from the ice before standing to face you. he hands one over with the prettiest of smiles.
“hey.” he says through one of his nervous laughs you've gotten so familiar with.
“i liked your speech,” it's all you can think of saying because it's all you can think about. his gaze drops to the sand, a hand lifting to rub at the back of his neck. and for the first time all evening, all summer even – jay actually looks embarrassed. the past three months, you've been the one blushing, the one caught staring, you've been so sure you've been making a fool out of yourself with your loud crush. when it reality, he's been noticing you this entire time too. he was just so much better at hiding it.
his shoulders lift in a slight shrug, “i was just being honest.”
“honest? you were flirting with me,” you accuse playfully and that has his cheeks going pink. “oh my god,” he laughs and it's a real pretty one, it has a smile lifting on your lips almost immediately. his eyes find yours for a moment, but he's quickly finding something else to focus on. and then he's slowly coming back, allowing himself to actually look. his stare is so intense that it has you shifting, searching for something to say, anything to fill the silence. your lips part, but he's beating you to it. “i meant it. i really like you, yn. but...”
he's getting ready to reject you, you can just tell. jay didn't like loose ends and despite all the quiet glances, subtle flirting that you're now just realizing was flirting, he was still leaving in the morning. he was starting a whole new chapter of his life and there could be no maybes left behind. so he needed a clean break. you're interrupting him before he has the chance. “and you said i was pretty in all my dresses. you know, i knew you were staring every morning... you'd always act like you were look at your bon jovi poster,”
jay is letting out a low laugh, “it's a nice poster!” he defends. “but yeah, it was you.” it feels so weird to say out loud, he had been so careful all summer and admitting that he had been admiring you this whole time didn't feel like him. “you looked good in every one. extremely distracting by the way.” he's twisting the cap off of his drink as he speaks, taking a long sip from it.
and you realize why he's not holding back anymore, the semi permanent flush of his cheeks and glossy look in his eye. “every one?” you prompt with a grin, following his lead and taking a sip from your drink too.
he nods without a moment of hesitation, “all of them.” the confidence in his voice catches you off guard, because this was jay we were talking about. the same jay that spent three months carefully putting distance between you every time you got too close. who would find excuses to rush away whenever you'd start flirting with him. the same jay who'd look away whenever you caught him staring, spouting off nonsense facts about bon jovi instead of saying what he truly wanted to.
that jay was looking at you through hooded eyes, gaze dragging over the curves of your body. and a lazy smile stretches on his face that makes your stomach twist. he's nodding his head as if he's confirming a question he had asked himself. “yeah, all of them.” he says quietly. “the long blue one with the slit on the side,” your lips part slightly, the exact morning flashing in your mind. it was only the third day and he called you in early to do one final sweep before the campers were arriving later that day. you remember just throwing the dress on, annoyed that you were up before sunrise when everyone else was sleeping in.
“you remember that?” he's nodding before you're even done speaking. “yeah, you wouldn't stop giving me attitude all day.” he's laughing with a shake of his head. he's taking a step closer, turning so he's facing you fully and you feel your stomach twist. “the white one you wore to the talent show,” he continues, lip tucked between his teeth. he had stood on the other side of the room the entire show, barely speaking two words to you when it was over.
“and...” his head tilts slightly, eyes dragging over you in the way that makes it so painfully obvious that he's been forcing himself not to look at you all summer. he's grinning. “the short orange one you're wearing now,” you actually feel the way your brain short-circuits, eyes wide as your jaw drops. it's usually the other way around, you coming onto him and him ignoring you. so now that the roles were reversed, you have no idea what to do with yourself.
“okay, stop.” you're laughing, hand lifting to slap his shoulder. “what? i can't compliment you? you compliment me all the time.” you shake your head quickly, “tit's different when you do it. especially now.” you point out and jay goes quiet, because he knows you're right. it is different. everything is. summer was over, all the campers were gone, he was leaving tomorrow morning and everything just felt... heavier?
before either of you can say anything else, a scream cuts across the beach. both of you turn at the sound to find sunoo pealing his shirt from his body, sprinting toward the water. “LAST SWIM OF THE SUMMER!” he shouts as he runs. chaos breaks out within seconds, your friends abandoning their drinks and kicking off their shoes. shirts and shorts fly through the air as they reveal the swimsuits they'd been wearing all night.
the firelight flickers across the beach as everyone runs toward the lake. viv jumps on jaehyun's back, his hands clutching her thighs as he runs. jungwon, martin, sakai and lex have already started climbing up a nearby cliff. mia and heeseung are in search of a beach ball. it's so obvious that everyone was trying to drag out time, trying to cram in as many 'lasts' as they could before morning was rolling in and all of this was ending.
you're smiling, gaze shifting back to jay. and you find him already look at you, he smiles brightly before tapping his bottle against yours, tipping it back and swallowing the rest down. you do the same. his head tilts toward the lake once you're finished, brow lifted slightly. “race you,” he's running off before you can even register what he's said, bottle ditched somewhere in the sand and you're quick to follow behind him.
jay's laugh is loud and unrestrained as he runs into the water, pulling his shirt over his head in the process. you've never heard him laugh like that, ever and it's incredibly contagious. your dress joins the liter of clothing at the shoreline as you rush in. the lake is freezing and you're squealing the second it hits your legs. jay turns to face you, he's already fully submerged himself into the water and he's reaching a hand out to you.
“you gotta jump right in,” you've been saying that to him all summer. the irony is funny to you. still, you take hold of his hand and he's easily tugging you toward him. the two of you float there, treading water and staring at each other. it's like he was getting in all the looking he had missed out in the past months. “what?” you're laughing and he's shrugging his shoulder slightly. “just remembering...” you hate the way his words make you feel. you don't want to think about it being the last night, or all the time wasted. so you splash him instead, a hard wave that soaks his hair. jay's laughing, hand pushing his hair back out of his eyes to see that you've swam away and he's quick to swim after you.
you're swimming right through the middle of the impromptu game of water volleyball, jaehyun deciding you're apart of his team and sending jay to join heeseung's side. sunoo teases mia about winning now that they had you and she had jay, she rolls her eyes before roughly serving the ball. it hits jaehyun in the chest and viv shouts from the pier for you all to be careful with her man, brin laughing beside her.
across the lake, jungwon, martin, sakai and lex have made it to the top of the cliff. their voices echo as they argue about what actually counts as a flip. martin deciding to shut them all up by launching himself off of the rock, body flipping naturally in the air whooping loudly just before he's hitting the water with a loud splash and lex follows behind him, looking less graceful but gaining a supportive chant from the girls when she resurfaces.
the game of volleyball melts into a shouting match after the first three rounds, arguments about points that nobody had been even keeping track of in the first place, sunoo swearing that he didn't cheat and heeseung and jay going back and forth about something neither of them seem particularly passion about. the beach ball floats away forgotten by both teams.
eventually, you're paddling your way back toward the dock, pulling yourself up beside viv and brin. water drips from your legs as you stretch them out in front of you, back laying against the warm wood. viv immediately scoots closer, grin wide as her eyes drift to where jay and heeseung fight to pull each other under the water. “so,” you feel the heat rise in your cheeks. “does he like you? does he want to kiss and get married and have five kids?” she's asking and you're barking out a laugh.
“yeah, right.” you roll your eyes. “we didn't say much, really. just that he liked me dresses.” you catch the way brin rolls her eyes, letting out a soft huff. “he's hopeless,” she sighs, but is quickly moving to change the subject, pointing across the lake as sakai shoves jungwon into the water before jumping off behind him. “can you believe she's going to be in charge next year?” brin had spent the past three months training sakai on how to run this place and come next year, she'd be the new head counselor.
viv is shaking her head, “wild. this is the same girl who faked pneumonia to get out of cooking duties, by the way.” you're snorting out a laugh. “i'm going to miss this,” the admission settles between all three of you. waking up and not have your friends right outside your door, no more staying up late to watch the stars. this place somehow became home without any of you noticing and in less than twelve hours it all would be over.
the dock shifts slightly, a large splash following and the sound of jaehyun's laughter. viv is rolling her eyes, kicking her foot out to him but instead of hitting him, he's catching it by the ankle. he's tugging her slightly, earning a swift kick with the other leg. he's laughing. “come here,” his thumb traces her ankle, hand slowly dragging up her calf. “i'm having a conversation,” viv says, gesturing between you and brin.
jaehyun is shrugging quickly. “you can have it in the water,” his fingers tighten around her leg, a sly grin spreading across his lips and anyone can guess what he's thinking. “jaehyun, don't.” he's looking up at her, mischief dancing through his eyes. “what? i'm just touching you. i love you. i can't touch you?” they're ignoring the gagging noises that come from beside them just like they always do.
“i can feel you–” she is not even able to finish her sentence before he's yanking his arm toward him, successfully pulling viv off of the dock and into the water. he catches her instantly, arms around her waist as her legs secure themselves around his waist. “say bye to your friends,” he says already swimming further into the water.
a few feet away, heeseung is waving both his arms in your direction. “are you two planning on sitting there all night?” he shouts with his hands now cupped around his mouth. “maybe!” you're shouting back and he's quickly shaking his head, waving you both over. “get in the water!” brin is quickly pointing at you, despite the fact her legs and hair were still dry. “she doesn't want to,”
“what!? you're still dry,” you point out. she's rolling her eyes, slipping in just as heeseung has started swimming over. you follow behind her. the group gathers together slowly, floating in the middle of the lake as conversations overlap. you're all drifting between each other, talking about plans for the next few weeks, sharing excitement for next year, worries. jungwon's group eventually get their fix of cliff diving and join the rest of you in the water. lex puling herself comfortably on sunoo's back, reaching forward to steal his drink. mia starts another argument this time with sakai about who slept in the most.
and somehow in the midst of all of this, you end up beside jay again, without even fully realizing it. at least that's what you tell yourself when your shoulder bumps against his. one moment, he's laughing at something heeseung says, the very next you're stealing his attention away, in your tiny yellow bikini that barely covers yours ass. he knows. he checked.
you're so close to him, but you're completely enthralled in conversations. laughing loudly and engaging freely. your legs brushes against his whenever a soft wave rolls through and each time neither of you move away or say anything about it. you don't realize that the two of you are floating away at first. you were listening to the others, jungwon's laugh carrying across the water as martin exposes him for never really being on duty.
their voices come and go with the ways, but slowly it seems like they're fading into the background. you shift onto your break, letting the water hold your weight as you stare up at the twinkling stars scattered across the sky. jay stays close to you, tanned skin glistening in the moonlight. his hair is wet and slicked back, dark eyes sparkling as he watches you.
“you stare a lot,” you're pointing out with a laugh.
he's quick to nod his head, not even bothering to deny it. his hands find their way underneath you, floating uselessly beneath your back as if he's holding you up – but not actually touching you. just looking for excuses to be close to you, to touch you. even if it was through the water. “you're so different tonight, i'm not used to this jay.” you're saying after a minute and jay's gaze is dragging up to your eyes.
“am i?” he's asking like it's not the most obvious thing. “yes. you're actually looking at me, complimenting me, not rushing away when i get too close. where was this all summer?” besides the time the two of you spent working together in the music lodge, there were very few times where you were alone. no matter how much you wanted to be. “i was trying really hard to be professional. i'm your mentor.”
“not anymore,” you're quick to point out and you notice the way his eyes drag down the line of your neck to to the swell of your breasts all the way down to the curve of your waist. his eyes catch the gold jewelry that dangles from your navel before he's snapping his eyes back up to yours. “not anymore,” he repeats with a nod. you feel the way the palm of his hand grazes your thigh as he floats closer to you.
you're sure the pounding in your chest can be heard by your friends on the other side of the lake. you try to appear as composed as possible. “so, what else have you been keeping to yourself?” jay's lips shift into a smirk, head tilting to the side slightly. of course you want to know what he's been thinking about you since he was first meeting you. and he's kept his cards so close to his chest up until now, it was only fair. “you want the whole list?”
your head tilts so your able to look at his face fully, eyes wide. “there's a list?”
“a long one,” he's nodding quickly. “like how cute i think you look biting your lip when you play the piano. the way i admired how easily you were able to bond with the kids in our class...” he's actually searching his mind for more things to tell you and you find that unbelievably adorable.
but still, something about all of this just doesn't sit right by you. “why'd you wait so long to say something?” he's letting out a soft sigh, stepping back slightly as his hand rubs at the back of his neck. “i'm leaving in the morning, yn. and i'm not coming back. i mean, i liked you from the start but it didn't seem smart to start something with you i knew i wasn't going to be around to finish.” it made sense. he wasn't coming back, this was his last summer before he went to start his life in new york or california or wherever life took him. this was his past now.
“and i knew you had a crush on me too, it just didn't seem fair.” he's explaining with a sigh and you're nodding, because he's right. you hated to admit it, but he was right. now you knew, though. and you still had the rest of the night. there was no sense in moping around about the fact that this would be the last time you'd see each other when you could be reveling in the time you still had.
you're shifting in the water so you're upright again. “you know, i really thought i was embarrassing myself all summer. turns out you were crushing on me just as bad,” you tease, sticking your tongue out at him that has him smiling. “no, you were.” he's clarifying and you reach over to slap at his chest. “i was not! you kept a mental inventory of my dress collection,” you're pointing out.
“yeah, but i was subtle. you knocked over an entire box of guitar pics when i touched your hand,” the memory makes him smile, you were wearing a green halter dress than, hair pulled into a sleek bun. and you smelt like caramel. “okay, but-” you try to defend yourself, but he's interrupting you. “and let's not forget the time you spilled juice in your lap when i sat by you,” white dress with red and pink flowers all over it. it was ruined. rip.
you embarrassed yourself in front of him more times than you could count and there was denying that, so you don't try to. “you know what,” you're grumbling, hands pushing the water hard enough to send a large splash toward him. it hits him directly in the face, soaking his hair all over again. and you don't miss the dangerous smile on his lips as he reaches up to wipe the water from your eyes, you're already swimming away before he's opening them.
“oh, you're done.” you hear from behind you and you make the mistake of looking back, catching the way he dips under the water. he's scarily fast. you're letting out a squeal as you rush away from him. he's laughing at how easily he's able to close the distance between the two of you. and you hate this version of him. no, actually that was a lie – you hate how much you like this version of him.
this is the jay everyone else around you apparently knew about it. the one that wasn't watching every word or always stepping back. he was no longer trying so hard to keep up with this stiff image of himself, he was just being. and you hate that it took until the very last day for you to finally experience him this way. you're laughing so hard you can barely defend yourself, screaming when jay is finally catching you. “jay!” you shout as he's easily lifting you over his shoulder and tossing you behind his back into the water.
you're resurfacing quickly, jumping onto his back without a bit of hesitation. jay stumbles forward, laughing as you wrap your around his shoulders trying with all your might to get him under the water. “i'm going to fucking drown you,” the threat comes between laughs, ruined by the fact that you're barely even able to move him. “you?” he says amused, a large hand lifting to wrap around the arm you've got around his neck. “are we sure about that?” the confidence in his voice should've been your warning, but you barely have time to question it before he's shaking you off and right back into the lake.
you're bobbing to the surface with a gasp, shoving wet hair from your face as your eyes find jay standing across from you. he's bent over laughing so hard he's basically wheezing, eyes shut as he clutches his stomach and you're taking the chance. you're jumping on him before he can react, sending both of your bodies under the water. you're quick with swimming to the surface, coughing and laughing as jay wipes water from his eyes. “get over here,” his laugh follows his words, and you're instantly swimming away.
you hear the water shifting behind you. way too fast. and you're swimming straight for the rocks, planning on getting out of the water entirely and getting away from him on foot, but you're barely able to touch them when you feel his arm wrap around your waist. he's pulling you toward him swiftly, your spine colliding with his solid chest – hands braced on the rocks in front of you. you were literally trapped between a rock and a hard place. “i warned you,” his voice is right beside your ear and you're suddenly becoming painfully aware of how close you were.
you can feel the way his breathing has changed against your back, hands dropped down to your hips as he holds your body against his. his grip tightens for half a second as another wave rolls between you. you feel him shift behind you, pulling you close and you're gasping when you realize what he's doing. your ass is pressed right against his crotch, his stiffness pressing against your ass. his head tilts slightly, a hand lifting to push your hair off of one shoulder. “done running from me?” he mumbles but you can't even form a proper sentence right now.
you're nodding, breathless, pulse is racing and slowly you're turning around in his arms, hands landing on his shoulders. he looks like he's ready to devour you. hair dripping into his eyes, cheeks flushed and eyes slowly drinking you in. and for once, he's not looking away when your eyes meet. instead, he's moving in closer. your bodies shift until your back is pressed against the rolls and there is no where else for you go besides into him.
his hand lifts from your body, finger latching onto the front strap of your bikini – right between your breasts. he grins at the sound of your breath hitching, the soft gasp you let out when he's tugging you toward him. the water ripples, your chest hits his and he's backing you back against the rock before his leaning down. you can almost hear his resolve snap before his mouth finds yours and you're immediately melting into it.
overhead, jungwon is launching himself off of the cliff after successfully convincing his group to climb back up. his body rotates easily through the air, the best backflip that he's all summer and he can hear the cheer of his friends as they look up at him. and then he's catching movement, seconds before he's about to hit the water. it's you and jay, further from the rest of the group still. standing a bit too close.
he's eyes are widening when jay is lifting his hand, finger hooking into your bikini top and tugging before he's tugging you toward him. “no way,” the words leave his lips just as he's hitting the water, the splash that follows is huge but he can't even reveal in that as he fights to the surface. he swims to the edge of the lake, pulling himself out of the water as he shoves his wet hair from his face. eyes finding the two of you again, still very much kissing. and when he reaches the top of the cliff again, you're in the same spot.
martin is still standing near the edge of the cliff, sakai trying to convince him to belly flop. lex spots jungwon first, brow furrowing. “you said last jump, why you back?” he nearly slips as he rushes toward the edge of the cliff, pointing aggressively down at the water. “look.” martin follows the direction of his finger, sakai tilting her head to the side as she squints and lex crouches down slightly.
“oh my god.”
jay's groaning against your mouth and the sound shoots straight through you. his mouth moves over your swiftly, tongue pushing it's way past your lips. your brain is reeling, completely drowning in the taste of him. everything in the background just ceased to exist, you were no longer worried about tomorrow, or next summer or even your friends that were right behind you. all you could think, breathe, feel was jay.
your mouth tastes like the blueberry wine coolers you've been drinking, you smell like caramel the way you always do, and the way you feel against him is enough to drive just about anyone insane. your arms are around his neck, chest pressed to his and head tilted as your tongue is rolling into his mouth. he doesn't miss the soft whine you're letting out, the sound muffled by his mouth but his dick responds anyway. pressing firmly against you, you're shifting closer.
jaehyun sits on the dock, hands spread out beside him with viv perched between his legs. she's droning on about her new campus and her new roommate that she was so excited to meet. he's half listening, but his attention seems to drift across the water. a habit he's picked up throughout the summer, sort of like canvasing. checking where everyone had ended up, what you're all doing.
brin is floating in the water by heeseung, talking about their first summer here... six years ago. she had these atrocious bangs and braces, he still hadn't even grown into his nose. it was crazy how to two of them grew up. mia and sunoo sit at the edge of the water, legs kicking in front of them as sunoo gushes about finally being reunited with his boyfriend back home.
jungwon, martin, lex and sakai are still on that damn cliff, but instead of doing flips like they had been all night, they're crouched down staring below them. jaehyun follows their gaze and he's nearly falls over when he's seeing what they see. “oh, no way.”
“baby, i'm telling you a story.” viv says from between his legs, turning to look at her man who was clearly no longer paying attention. his hand reaches for her jaw, turning her head in the direction of you and jay. she's gasping, moving quickly like the queen of gossip he knew she was. she's waving her arms dramatically trying to catch mia's attention and it takes less than a few seconds before she's looking over.
'what?' she mouths and viv is pointing in your direction. her eyes land on the two of you instantly and she's grabbing sunoo's arm, pointing across the lake. sunoo is letting out a loud gasp, leaning forward like he's about to charge right over to you. mia is holding him back just in case. “heeseung,” jaehyun is whisper-shouting, catching the older boy's attention pretty quickly.
'look at jay.' he mouths and heeseung's brows are furrowing before both him and brin are turning around. the grin that spreads on his face can only be described as proud. finally. after three months of pining, finally. he has to hold back from applauding his friend.
jay moves like he's been starving for this. hands dropping to your thighs and squeezing roughly until you're taking the initiative and climbing onto him, legs wrapping easily around his waist. he's sucking your lip into his mouth, teeth grazing it as he presses his hips forward, effectively pinning you against the rocks. your hands have made their way into his damp hair, tangled in the strands.
neither of you have any idea that all of your friends bought front row tickets to your first kiss and it's evident in the way jay is shifting his hips forward, half hard cock pressing against him and you're pressing down just as hard. he's humming out a moan and you feel it throughout your body, heat pooling between your legs. his fingers spread against your skin, slowly sliding up your thighs.
you're pulling back just enough to catch your breath, a soft laugh falling from your lips at the dazed look in his eyes. cheeks flushed pink beneath the moonlight, lips swollen from the kiss, chest rising and falling unevenly. droplets of water fall from the hair that covers his forehead. he doesn't say anything, just stands there taking you in. the sight alone has another giggle falling from you lips and that has his gaze dropping to your lips. he's leaning in again before he can think twice about it.
“let her breathe, let her breathe!” sunoo's voice echoes across the lake and you feel jay's body go rigid against you. his eyes squeeze shut as if he's suddenly remembering where he is and the fact that it wasn't just the two of you out there. “that's it! get your man!” mia is whooping, lifting her drink the air as she cheers for you. your shoulders shake, a horrified laugh escaping you as your forehead falls onto jay's shoulder. the sound is quickly swallowed by the shouts that come from your friends.
jay is letting out a low breath through his nose. his head lifting toward the sky for a second with a shake of his head. and when he's looking back down at you, this is the first time you've ever seen him have his composure rocked. usually so calm and careful, but here he looked almost boyish? obviously blushing as the teasing from your friends filled the air. his hands stayed resting on your thighs the entire time, holding your body close to his as jungwon shouts about having seeing it happen first.
“this is so beautiful!” sakai shouts from the top of the cliff, leaning on martin as tears well in her eyes. clearly more emotional about leaving camp than she let on. martin wraps an arm around her waist before leaning forward where jay is able to see him. “look what y'all did! you made kai-baby cry.” he points down at the girl in his arms who also cried after seeing all the beds made this morning.
“kiss again!” jaehyun is shouting from the dock, earning a supportive whistle from viv. the group erupts at the suggestion, childishly chanting 'kiss' as jay stands there mortified. and you think it's hilarious, he looks so cute embarrassed, trying to hide the fact that his heart wasn't pounding and despite how badly he wanted to kiss you, he was all of a sudden feeling shy.
“come on, the first one didn't count!” brin is shouting through the chants. “how would that not count!?” jay shoots back, finally turning back to look at your friends. his reaction only fueling their chants and you can practically feel the heat coming off of him now. they're all a perfect orchestra. heeseung leads the chants, hands cupped around his mouth as cheers for another kiss. lex is leaning over the edge of the rock, sending exaggerated kissy faces your way. and brin is holding her hands up, making them kiss as her lips pucker.
and despite how desperate jay looks to escape their attention, you're addicted to peer pressure. a laugh slips past your lips as your hand is reaching down, fingers pressing against his jaw gently – just enough to turn his head back toward you. the shouting gets louder instantly. you're leaning down against instantly, mouth slotted against his and he's letting out an involuntarily groan at the feeling. the cheers that follow are obnoxiously deafening and it has your laughs dying against jay's lips.
the cold of the lake slowly becomes unbearable and one by one, you all begin making your way back toward the shore. the like that had been full of shouting and splashing just minutes ago is now quiet behind you, water still. wet footprints trail through the sand, towels stolen and half finished drinks recovered from where they had been abandoned hours ago.
you're settling in front of the fire with jay who swiftly positions himself behind you. the fire crackles in front of you, casting a warm light across the campgrounds. hair and body still wet, but you're settling further into jay's chest until going to find a towel. he doesn't seem to care much either, arm looping around your waist as he holds you close to him.
neither of you seem particularly interested in talking about what just happened, instead you just smile way too wide each time your eyes meet. you can hear brin from across the grounds, hair wrapped in a towel and a large hoodie covering her frame. she's rubbing at her stomach as she speaks. “i'm starving!” heeseung snorts as he walks past, his wet swim trunks in hand a pair of dry short hanging loose on his hips. he's digging through the coolers, without even looking up.
“we still have a bunch of meat left. should we kill it?” he suggests and brin's body immediately perks up. “say swear,” she says, taking quick steps to where he stands. he's letting out a soft laugh, pulling two unopened packets of pork belly from the ice with one hand, three packets of brisket in the other. “swear,” brin is squealing, reaching up to take the packets in hand. “see? this is why you're my favorite.” she says, leading the way toward the grill.
heeseung is rolling his eyes, but following closely behind. “yesterday you said lex was your favorite,” he points out and brin is nodding happily. her hand extends so she's able to boop the tip of heeseung's nose, he's scrunching it immediately. “today it's you.”
you spot sunoo walking toward the fire a few seconds later carrying four drinks, two in each hand. “good news,” he announces in a sing-song tone, lifting the bottles toward his face. “i found a full box,” viv and jaehyun trail behind him, stealing one of the bottles before settling on one of the lawn chairs. sunoo hands you a bottle, before passing the next one to jay and plopping down by the fire. “this is starting to feel final,” you say with a pout and you feel the way jay stiffens behind you.
“we live close! we should plan something, yn.” viv reaches her hands out to you and you're agreeing instantly. you two were only a forty-five minute drive apart, it wouldn't be hard to make plans together before next summer, it was just harder when you weren't just a few doors away. rather than across the country.
lex, mia and jungwon take responsibility for the mess they spent most of the night helping create. jungwon is already collecting empty bottles to recycle, lex is carrying a trash bag that's somehow bigger than she is, while mia complains but about everyone being pigs while she cleans up the leftover food. she's mainly yelling at martin who's pretending he can't hear her from where he still sits at the lake with sakai beside him.
they're sat near the edge of the water in the sand, sakai is wrapped in a large blanket and martin has his head resting on her shoulder, fighting the sleep that's creeping up on him. sunoo is rummaging through his bag for something, his bottle pressed between his knees as he looks. “oh wait!” he's exclaiming loud enough that it catches the attention of the people sitting closest to him.
“what?” jungwon is asking, head peeking up from the trash bag he had been separating.
sunoo is pulling a small stack of envelopes from his bag, holding them up with a wide grin. “we forgot these!” he's standing before anybody call say anything else, shuffling through the envelopes and making his way around the camp to hand them out. they're goodbye letters. you know, because you written eleven of your own. everyone had to, it was camp tradition according to brin.
but as sunoo makes his way through the group, the energy changes, you can feel it. the distribution was like a blaring indicator that it was over. eventually, you'd all have to go to sleep and face tomorrow. the fire was going to die down, heeseung was going to run out of food to make, at some point you'll run out of memories to share, stories to tell. it had to end. and you all had to say goodbye.
“i'm going to miss how you always steal my hoodies, even though you have a man.” sunoo says dramatically to viv while handing her the letter he wrote, he's shooting jaehyun a pointed look at the mention of him and then shuffling to find the letter for him. viv is taking hers with a laugh, tucking it safely beneath her leg. “and i'm going to miss pretending not to notice when you and viv disappear,” jaehyun takes his letter with a roll of his eyes, drink still pressed to his lips.
“you never pretended.” he points out and sunoo is nodding with a laugh. “because you guys are gross,” he sings before turning to continue his rounds.
by the time sunoo is dropping back down beside the fire, you've noticed a handful of your friends disappearing into their cabins and coming back with their own letters. but none of you talk about it, none of you make an announcement to pass them out, it sort of just happens.
the grill sizzles, brin stealing a piece of meat before it's finished cooking and heeseung is meeting her with an individual plate with the letter he wrote her tucked underneath it. she doesn't make a big deal out of it, takes the plate and the letter before plopping down at the picnic table to eat. jungwon complains about people not separating recyclables correctly, pulling glass bottles from the trash bag that should only be filled with food. martin is standing above him, note extended in front of his face.
“if that's another bottle, martin, i'm going to drown you in the lake. and then myself,” jungwon grumbles as he looks up, eyes finding the crisp envelope inches from his nose. he takes it quickly, tucking it into his pocket then goes right back to complaining. martin walks up, making his way back to where he had been sitting with sakai before, only now she's standing.
the blanket he had lent to her folded neatly a sad look on her face as she hands it over, the note she wrote for him resting on top. “i'm going to miss you so much,” she says through a sob and martin is chuckling softly, plucking the note from the top before grabbing the blanket. unlike everyone else, he's tearing into his note immediately despite sakai's protests. his eyes move quickly across the paper before they're slowing, taking in every written word and the meaning behind them.
sakai notices the shift, she recognizes it. “martin?” her head tilts up to get a better look at his face but he's quickly looking away, folding the note and tucking it back into it's envelope. “i'm fine,” he rushes out, wiping at his eyes with his knuckle. “let's go help clean up,”
a note seems to fall from the sky as jungwon passes, hitting your knee and landing on jay's lap. “read it away from me,” he mumbles before disappearing with his trash bag. jay is picking it up with a small smile. leave it to jungwon to literally run from any type of emotional exchange. “let me go put this away,” jay says, nudging at you leg gently and you're standing to allow him to slip from behind you and disappear into his cabin. you take the chance to slip away as well, grabbing the stack of letters you had spent the past week writing from underneath your pillow.
jay catches heeseung on his way to the bathroom, “hyung, wait.” heeseung's turning to the sound of jay's voice, eyes instantly landing on the thick envelope in his hand. “what is that like ten pages?” he asks with a laugh, reaching his hand out to take it. “it's only like seven,” he defends and heeseung is shaking his hand, tearing into the letter before jay can say anything of it.
“you know i have to read it out loud,” he says through a chuckle. jay is rolling his eyes, both hands pushing his hair back on his head as he feels his cheeks darkening. “you're so embarrassing,” he says with a shake of his head, but he doesn't fight it. heeseung would just find him and read it out loud later, he did it every summer for the past six years.
he's straightening his back and clearing his throat before bringing the note up to eye level, reading it like it's a scroll. “hyung. i tried keeping this short...” he lowers the letter to shoot a deadpan expression toward the younger boy. “seven pages?” he teases and jay is waving him off with a roll of his eyes. “just hurry up and read it,” much to his surprise, heeseung continues reading. “thank you for spending the past years putting up with me. though, i've been here longer than you... i never truly had someone to look up to until you arrived. we're the oldest, so everyone looks up to us. but i'm thankful i have you to look up to too.” jay doesn't miss the way the playfulness leaves heeseung's tone. realization that this was the last letter finally hitting him.
“i don't know if anybody else realizes how much this place has your fingerprints on it. you came up with most of the things we know call tradition, you've helped me write more songs than i can count. i even heard martin repeat one of your inside jokes his first week here... half the things the campers think have always existed started because of you, you're the blueprint.” heeseung pauses to grin because he had been screaming that for the past four years and finally he was getting the recognition for it.
the letter continues on like that, highlighting the memories they made together in the past six years, how close they've become. jay's plans for the future and how he promises to keep in touch, though, no one ever really did. but heeseung can tell that he meant it. the only difference is, heeseung was leaving too. not for the summer, forever. they both were on different paths of their lives now and seeing each other every summer was going to be a thing of the past.
he doesn't ruin the moment by pointing that out, though.
“you've been apart of almost every version of my adult life and it's going to be so hard imagining moving into my next phase without you standing ten feet away making an unnecessary comment. i don't really know how to end this, because i feel there shouldn't be an end to us. to our friendship. so i'll just say, thank you for being my friend and i'll see you soon.” heeseung looks up at jay to find him trying to look anywhere else, he's shaking his head laughing softly while flipping the pages over in his hands.
there's a few sentences scribbled on the back of the last one. “oh! there's more,” sarcasm drips from his words and jay's letting out a laugh. “i had a lot to say, shut up.” heeseung continues reading. “ps. stop giving relationship advice. even if you're right 99% of the time, stop it. your 'i told you so' face is so annoying. but, you were right again... i regret not telling yn how i feel. and i regret not kissing her when i had the chance,”
heeseung is looking up with a knowing smirk on his face, brow arched and jay is shoving at his shoulder. “that face! you're so irritating,” he says through a laugh while heeseung is carefully folding the note back up. “you kissed her, though. what changed your mind?” judging from the end of his note, it's clear that jay had no intention to actually make a move with you. but he saw the way jay kissed you in the water and how he's been all over you all night. this jay was very different from letter jay.
jay is clapping his hand on heeseung's shoulder with a shake of his head, “those fucking dresses, man.”
the night officially starts to settle around you. letters distributed and tucked away safely. the fire that had been roaring all evening has started to die down, only crackling whenever a piece of wood breaks. the loud shouts of your friends have dwindled into soft murmurs heard throughout the grounds. each one of you losing the battle against sleep, it was impossible to keep fighting it.
the food is gone, the coolers are empty. jungwon has organized every single piece of trash he could get his hands on. there was nothing left to do, there was nothing left to say. sakai and sunoo disappear first, walking into the bathroom with arms linked to do their skincare routine together for the last time of the summer. brin is a few steps behind them, yawning loudly and rubbing at her eye with the heel of her palm.
viv is curled up in jaehyun's lap, his hoodie working as a blanket as her head rests beneath his chin. every few minutes, she'll mumble something into his chest and he'll reach down to smooth a hand over her hair. jaehyun is still wide awake, talking quietly with jay from across the fire. you still sit comfortably in jay's lap but you're zoned out staring at the burning embers of the fire.
jungwon, martin and heeseung have migrated into their cabin, changed into their pajamas and laying on their beds. they talk softly, finding random things to say as they fight off the inevitable sleep. their voices drift through the open window every so often before dissolving back into sleepy laughter. across the lake, lex and mia have claimed the hammock and have been laying there with the past twenty minutes. neither of them have managed to finish a complete sentence, settling for quiet sighs and toying with each other's fingers.
jay feels you shiver against him for the fourth time and it has him realizing rubbing his hands over your arms was useless in warming you up. “you cold?” he asks, head tilting to the side so he can look at you. you're tired but you're fighting it, long curls pulled in a bun at the top of your head and pretty orange dress doing nothing against the cool night air. you're turning to look at him, head bobbing in a nod.
“i have a sweater in the car, should we...” he says it because he wants to spend more time together, that part is obvious. he could've very much you suggest you go to bed, put on warm sweats of your own and call it a night. but in reality, he wasn't ready for his night with you to end and neither were you, which is why you're standing to follow him.
the walk to his jeep isn't long, he parked close to the entrance out of his need for efficiency. he was set to leave early tomorrow morning, had spent the better half of the day loading up his car. it only made sense that it would be parked a few feet away. his arm settles over your shoulders as you walk, a comfortable silence falling over you and you're finally finding the courage to ask him what you've been wondering for the past hour and a half.
“did you forget to write me a letter?” you try to keep your tone playful, masking the echoing doubts in your mind. everyone had a letter, each passed out one by one and you watched jay hand out a letter to each one of your friends. yet, the one that he should've written for you never came. you don't miss the smile that breaks onto his features, a soft laugh falling from his lips as he shakes his head. “no, god no. i just couldn't stop rewriting it,” that peaks your interest. because, yes there must've been unspoken feelings when he sat down to write it, but actually rewriting it felt different.
it took you a good three hours to decide what you were going to say to him. everything you decided just felt too elementary, but even still you only wrote one draft. and that was the one tucked away somewhere in his cabin. “you did? how many did you write?” you're reaching his car just as the question leaves the lips and he shrugs, pulling the car door open before leaning in.
“nine.” he says it so casually, half his body in his car, your eyes are widening anyway. “nine!? you wrote me nine letters!? jay...” he's standing with a black sweater clutched in his hands. it's one you recognize right away, he's worn it enough for you to. just a simple black hoodie with 'miami' written in bold red letters, the word cut off by the deep-v cut into the neckline. he's easily pulling it over your head, guiding your arms into it.
it's such a simple gesture but it's so jay that your heart flutters. hand reaching down to find the side of his neck as he straightens the hem of his sweater against your thighs. you're gently pulling him toward you, to plant a soft kiss to his lips which he returns instantly, arm wrapping around your waist to pull you into him. “nine letters?” you're saying again as he pulls away and his face breaks into a soft smile.
“relax, you're only getting one.” he's reaching back into his car, rummaging through a bag before pulling out the folded piece of paper. number nine. the final draft of his goodbye letter to you, but it felt outdated now for some reason. still, he's handing it over to you with a sad smile. “read it later,” he feels the need to clarify, traumatized by heeseung's traditional presentation.
you're tucking the letter safely into the pocket of his hoodie and silence falls between the two of you. it's a charged silence that holds the words that neither of you are willing to say. instead his eyes stay trained on you as your eyes drift into the back of his jeep. slowly, you're stepping forward to get a better look. and the sight makes your chest tighten. boxes stacked neatly on top of one another, duffel bags shoved into every available corner of his trunk. his guitar. his backup guitar. binders upon binders of sheet music. seven years packed into the back of a car. your breath catches in your throat as you're eyes shift to look back at him, body leaning against the frame of the open car door.
“so... this is really it, huh?” jay follows your gaze, a soft sigh falling from his lips as he nods. “yeah, i guess so,” you feel the way your heart drops, which is stupid, because you had known he was leaving. for the past three months it's all he could talk about. grad school, apartment hunting, moving dates. the weather in his new city, he was never not talking about leaving. but somehow seeing it packed into the back of the car hit differently. it felt real. “it's like you fit your whole cabin into your car, looks weird...”
jay lets out a quiet laugh through his nose, hand lifting to rest just above your head against the car. “tell me about it. my cabin looks weirder, all empty.” your eyes drift back to the boxes, trying hard not to picture how his cabin would look empty. you poked your head in too many times to see if he was around to now think of the reality of him never being around again.
“you did this all day?” you say it just to make conversation, because you have nothing else to say that didn't feel totally depressing. and jay seems to catch on, because he is playing along. he nods simply, lips pulling into his mouth as his eyes drift back to you. “yeah, some of it yesterday.”
“you cried, huh?” you tease and that manages to pull another pretty laugh for him, “i absolutely did not,” he defends halfheartedly, but you're not buying it. “oh, now i know you cried. you're such a liar,” your eyes narrow up at him and that has him laughing even harder and for a second it almost feels normal again. but then your eyes are drifting back, catching sight of his guitar case again.
you're changing the subject quickly. “you know...” your voice trails off, forcing a smile on your lips. “i thought you hated me for like the first two weeks.” jay's head snaps toward you so fast it makes you laugh, his brows raised high toward his hairline. “are you serious?” he says through a laugh, your hand slaps against his chest. “yes! did you forget about how you'd avoid me? and ignore me, even if i was talking directly to you.”
he's laughing, eventually nodding along. because it was true. the first few weeks he couldn't even be around you without his brain short-circuiting and when he'd try to say something, anything – he found himself getting tongue tied more often than not. but still, “you were impossible to ignore. but, yes. i did try.” he had it in his head if he just didn't talk to you, then his feelings wouldn't grow. he was so wrong.
“you'd walk into a room and all of a sudden everyone's attention would be on you. including mine.” his eyes drop to his hoodie and how it swallows your frame, covering up one of your many pretty dresses. then slowly back up to your face, you're staring up at him with the same heart eyed expression you've been giving him all summer. “you flirted with me constantly too, even when i tried not to look your way,” you're laughing, arms reaching up to wrap around his neck.
“i had a feeling it would end up being effective,” you grin and he's smiling, hand lifting to rest on the small of your back. “trust me, it was. it was all i could talk about with heeseung,” but never to you. he never gave away to the slightest bit of interest and that drove you insane every single day. it almost bothered you more that he waited until the last day to finally say something. he could've just left you clueless, able to move on and say that you tried. because you did try, so hard.
and for some reason him waiting until there was no time left to meet you halfway just didn't feel fair. the pout is forming on your lips before you can fight it, hand resting on his cheek. “i wouldn't change a second of this summer, truly. i loved meeting everyone and spending my days with you.” it's hard to ignore the sadness in your eyes, the obvious way you're fighting back tears as you speak. “but, fuck, jay... i wish we had more time,”
he knows exactly what you mean without you having to say it. you spent all summer wanting him, loudly. but every time he caught himself wanting you back, he'd find a reason to keep his distance. to walk away, to play it safe. he'd find a reason not too look too long, not too linger in conversations with you. especially if they were about your shared love for music.
he was so strategic in the way he interacted with you, careful not to let himself enjoy the way your fit lit up whenever you spotted him hanging out in his cabin. he had spent months convincing himself that this was the right way, that he was doing the right thing. the smart thing. that all of this would be easier if he kept his distance, and maybe that would've been true if tonight never happened.
because standing here now, knowing exactly what it feels like to kiss you, makes what should've been an easy goodbye feel impossible. “well,” he's saying with a soft smile, arm lifting so his wrist is in view. and you follow his gaze to the watch on his wrist. “it's only... 2:49AM. there's still five hours and eleven minutes until it's over.” he says with a proud smile, probably at his mental math and that has you laughing softly. “what should we do with that time?” his finger taps at his chin and you're tilting your head to the side.
without missing a beat, you're leaning up to press your lips against his. he's kissing back instantly. his hands fall down to grasp your hips, easily pulling your body against his. your worries about tomorrow seem to melt away as soon as his lips are on yours, your fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck as you hold him to you. jay kisses you with a rushed, starved almost desperate need and it makes it difficult for you to focus on anything but him.
his tongue is pushing past your lips easily, brushing against yours before he's changing his mind and catching your lower lip between his teeth instead. you're gasping, the sound pulling a soft chuckle from his mouth. it dies on your tongue. “you're so perfect,” he sighs, hand resting against the side of your face as he leans back enough to look at you. he's easily tilting your head to the side with his hand, revealing more of your neck to him.
his head is dropping to the side, soft lips finding your skin. salty from the lake but he sucks kisses against the length of it. “jay,” you're gasping, hand reaching out to clutch the fabric of his t-shirt, pulling him close. and his arm tightens around your waist, holding you tight against him as his lips roam your skin. he's focusing his lips just above your collarbone, sucking the skin into his mouth and it has your head lulling back. his body shifts, hands tracing the curves of your body before he's carefully lifting you into the backseat.
it's cramped between all his bags and boxes, and the idea of his new life. but he's climbing in behind you, letting the door slam behind him. closing the two of you in to your own private space and you're on him instantly. his back hits the door from the force of your lips, a soft laugh falling from both of your lips. you kiss him desperately, every push of your lips screaming finally and all he can do is try to keep up. he groans as your hands sneak underneath the fabric of his shirt, nails dragging over his stomach.
your tongue pushes and twists against his, his hands shoving his hoodie and your dress out of the way. his fingers spread over the skin of your ass, squeezing gently and the moan you let out has his dick jumping. jay is easily pulling you further onto him with the grip he has on your ass. it's so uncomfortable, you've got your legs on either side of his waist, he's hanging half way off of the seat, back pressed against the door. all of the crap from his cabin surround your bodies, making it that much more difficult to move. yet, he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
not when you were hovering over him like this, panting into his mouth while pushing your ass back into the palms of his hands. “oh, fuck.” he's sighing when your lips trail down the length of his jaw, you follow the same pattern as he had before. sucking kisses into is skin, before grazing your teeth over it. focusing on a particular sensitive bit while your hips grind down onto his. a low, untamed growl catches in his throat as he feels the way your body moves against his.
the thin material of your bikini bottoms doing very little to mask the wet heat dripping from between your legs and onto his shorts. his head dips down to find your lips, mouth covering yours quickly and he wastes no time with licking into your mouth. jay's easily pulling you into a deep, needy, almost frantic rhythm that has your head spinning. you're moaning, hips pressing roughly against his. the length of his cock presses delicious against your clothed clit and your hips roll toward his, body shuddering as pleasure spreads throughout your core.
“oh my god,” you're whining into his mouth, hips moving frantically against his. he does his best to lift his hips to meet yours, fingers digging in to the flesh of your ass as heat rises up his neck. “you feel so... holy shit,” he's grunting, head falling back to rest against the door as you basically bounce on his lap. through hooded eyes, he watches the way your body moves against his. the needy roll of your hips paired with the look on your face just makes him harder.
you've got your lip tucked between your teeth, head dipped back as your hands travel up your torso. they find your breasts almost instantly and he watches as you squeeze and toy with them through fabric. he finds it hot how you refused to take off his sweater despite how much you probably want to. your hips move swiftly, pretty moans filling the cramped car as his hard length drags between your folds.
his hips lift to meet each one of your movements, using the grip on your body to press you down harder against him. every last bit of restraint has snap, he's no longer able to hold himself back. chest rising and falling in untimed breaths as a flush creeps onto his cheeks. he tries and fails to hold his whimpers back, but the way you're moving just feels too good. or he's just too sensitive, either way the pressure builds at the pit of his stomach and it's impossible to ignore.
and to make matters worse, jay can tell you're close too just from the unfocused timing of your hips and the helpless whines you're letting out. “jay,” you're gasping, fist clutching the fabric of his shirt as he watches the way your eyes roll back, your thighs squeezing together the best you can with his body between them. and he's quickly deciding he'd rather feel you cum, rather than see it.
“wait, baby... wait.” jay is shifting up, hands moving down to your thighs, stilling your movements. and he finds the pout that takes over your features especially cute, he's pressing a soft kiss to it without thinking. “i want to feel you,” he says simply. he's carefully leaning you back, your body resting against the boxes behind you as he moves to hover above you now.
his fingers sneak underneath the hem of your dress, latching onto the strings of your bottoms as his eyes drag up to look at you. you're shooting a nervous smile in his direction that has his heart softening. “is this okay?” he's asking softly, slowly tugging at the strings. you're nodding quickly, “please, jay.” you're breathing out, hips lifting off of the car seat to make it easier for him.
jay's letting out a soft chuckle before dragging your bottoms down your legs, tossing them somewhere behind him. his eyes drop down to catch the way your folds glisten, large hands pushing the hoodie and your dress up toward your belly button. “fuck,” he sighs with a shake of his head and you feel the heat rising in your cheeks, feeling unbelievably vulnerable under his lustful gaze. he's leaning forward, nose dragging along the length of your neck before his tongue pushes out to drag against your skin.
his hand slides expertly between your legs as his mouth moves to suck a hickey into your skin. your legs spread almost instinctively, moaning as his fingers trace between your folds. “you're so fucking wet,” he's groaning, fingers pushing slowly past your entrance. the warmth of your pussy surrounds his fingers as he slides in all the way to the knuckle. your hips lift to meet his hand and he's grinning down at you. “does it feel good? having my fingers stretch you out?” he asks softly as he curls his fingers inside you.
your walls clamp down around them, head bobbing in a nod. “yes... f-fuck, jay. it feels so good,” you're admitting. jay's fingers thrust deep inside of you, thumb pressing against your clit before he's rubbing slow cirlces against it. it's not long before he's falling into a steady rhythm, free hand lifting to hold your hips still as his fingers fuck into you. you're whining softly, legs spreading wide for him. “jay...” you're pleading, yet you have no idea what you're asking for.
his eyes lift to find yours, head tilting to the side slightly. “what, baby?” he grins, speeding up the movement of his hand and easily pulling a loud gasp from your lips. the sound of his chuckle follows, his eyes dropping back to your pussy. you're basically dripping around his fingers walls pulsing with each thrust. “i need... more, jay please.” your words break on a desperate cry, his fingers scissoring inside of you as his thumb presses harder against your clit.
“whatever you want,” he says, but the truth was he couldn't wait much longer either. not with this insistent throb between his legs, and the way you were looking up at him, so needy and ready. he had waited long enough for a moment like this with you, he was done waiting. jay pulls his hand away slowly, hands flying to push his shorts out of the way. his wet hand wrapping around his thick length and you watch as he strokes himself slowly, coating his shaft with your arousal.
the sight makes your mouth water. he stays knelt there for a few moments, just rubbing his hand over himself and watching you and the intensity in his stare makes your body hot. “spread your legs for me,” he's saying after a minute and you're separating your knees without a word, pussy clenching at the groan he lets out. “jay. fuck me, please.” you're whining, hand dropping down the length of your body to spread your folds for him, showing him just how badly you needed him.
he's leaning forward quickly, mouth covering yours in a needy kiss as the bulbous head of his cock bumps against your fingers. he takes his time with lining himself up with your tight hole, pushing his hips forward slowly until he's feeling you stretch around him. you have to remind yourself to relax as he pushes forward, breathing through the pain that comes with each inch of him. your fingers clutch his hair the moment that he's bottoming out and he feels the way your body stiffens.
“relax, baby. take your time.” he soothes, hand stroking your hair gently as he watches you adjust. he leans down to press soft kisses against your skin. switching between sucking hickeys into your neck and twisting his tongue with yours. he waits patiently for you to loosen up for him, but the moment he feels you shifting, he's taking that as his go and thrusting his hips forward. “fuck!” you shout, back arching as much as it can and he's pinning you back down with his hips.
slowly, he's pulling his hips back, allowing you to feel every rigid inch of his cock. “you're squeezing me so tight,” he says before he's quickly slamming back in. your body jerks, hips lift, whines falling from your lips as he falls into a steady pace. your hands are on his shoulders, nails dragging against his skin. jay fucks into you slowly and incredibly deep. his grip is tight on your waist, dragging your body down onto him with each thrust. his face remains buried in your neck, mouthing at your skin as his cock splits you open.
you feel him so deeply, he's no longer holding back and the desperate movement of his hips has an electric need shooting through your body. you needed to be closer. needed to feel him deeper. needed his hands on you like this forever. his teeth bite into your skin, muffling the long groan threatens to slip out and you're matching it with a needy whimper. his thrusts become brutal, hips snapping against yours in a overwhelmingly rough pace. your nails drag over the muscles of his back, legs spreading wider for him as desperate cries fill the car.
“jay, oh my god. i'm gonna...” you don't know if you should push him away or pull him closer, heat spreading throughout your body as the knot at the pit of your stomach tightens. jay keeps up with the pace as best he can, hand dropping down to find your clit again and he rubs figure eights into the sensitive bud. his head lifts so he can watch the way your face contorts in pleasure.
your orgasm tears through your body, eyes rolling all the way to the back of your head as your back arches off of the seat. it's unlike anything you've felt before, body going numb as his hips continue to move between your thighs – fucking you through it. “god, look at you.” he sighs, burying himself deep inside of you, balls slapping against your ass with each thrusts. he moves until you're coming down for your high, watching the way your body relaxes in his arms. and only then is he pulling back, slowly drawing his hips away from your body and twisting his body so he's sitting upright on the seats.
“fuck,” he breathes, hand wrapping over his cock to keep it from falling limp. “i had the craziest cramp in my leg,” he says through a laugh, eyes shifting to find you. you're half way off of the seat, back resting against a box and hair falling messily around your face. “you okay?” he asks, smiling softly the second you're nodding. his free hand reaches out toward you, beckoning you over with a grin.
you're lifting slowly, allowing his arm to wrap around his waist and for her to tug you onto his lap. “come ride me, i'm almost there,” there's quiet begging in his tone as he lifts your body slightly, enough to pull you into his lap. your heart jumps, body freezing as you stare over at him with wide eyes. “oh, uhm... i've never? i don't think i know how...” you feel the heat rising in your cheeks and jay's brow furrows at your words.
“you've never rode someone before?” he asks because it sounds almost insane. of course you've rode someone before. he takes in the look in your eye, the shy blush that darkens your cheeks. “well, no... that was my first time,” you say sheepishly and his eyes are flying open, his hand falling from his cock to push his hair back on his forehead. “what?” he says it, even though he's positive he heard you clearly.
he just couldn't believe it. didn't even stop and consider it. and now he feels terrible because he just took your virginity like it was nothing. like it was something you could just hand out. it should've been special, he should've made it special. “yn, you can't lose your virginity in the back of my car!?” you're laughing at his distress, the wrinkle between his brow as they furrow in pure worry.
you don't know why you find him so cute this way. your shoulders lift in a shrug, hands settling on his shoulders. “too late?” you're saying through your laughter and he's shooting you a pointed look. “not funny, yn. i should've been gentle,” you're quick to shake your head, hands covering his cheeks as you lean down to press a soft kiss to his lips. he kisses you back slowly, hands resting on your waist much lighter now. you're pulling back slowly, head tilting slightly.
“come on, you already took it. don't clam up now,” you're leaning down to plate a kiss to his lips that has his worries melting away. your tongue wrapping around his, fingers curling in his hair as you lift your hips to climb further up on his lap. his head rests on the back of the chair when you pull away, looking up at you through his lashes as your hand reaches down wrapping around his cock. his hips twitch as you position his head at your entrance, “teach me,” you say with a pout and just like that his restraint is gone.
again.
–
you're not heading back to jay's cabin until the sun is already peaking over the mountains. it's weirdly empty, just like you imagined. his bed made in the middle of the room. he doesn't let you dwell on the look of it for too long, not wanting you to sleep too deep in your thoughts while you're having such a good time. he's pulling you into bed beside him, easily tucking your body into his as the two of you finally drift off to sleep.
and you stay like that in his arms for god knows how long. your head on his chest and his arm wrapped securely around your waist. he doesn't dare move, even when sleep finally takes over. which doesn't last as long as he would have hoped, his alarm blaring at exactly 7:15am. he's careful not to wake you as he slips out of bed, showering and changing his clothes as you shift and pull at his sheets. you don't even budge when he's making his bed, or when he's taking the last bag out of his room and into his car.
there's so much more he wanted to say. and he hated that he had no more time. for a long while, jay just stands there. keys in hand as his eyes scan over his empty cabin, save for you curled beneath his blankets. the morning sun peaks in through his window, golden streaks fanning across the bed. and you don't even shift. you're dead asleep, drooling onto his pillows and the sight has a soft laugh falling from his lips.
“wow,” he's shocked because even like this, smushed face and messy hair – you still look so pretty. he should leave, he needed to get on the road before the gps estimated a different arrival time. there were a list of things that he needed to get done back at his apartment before he was heading to the airport, he needed to leave. instead, he's making his way back into the cabin. setting his keys back on his desk before pulling out the blank notebook from one of the drawers, stealing a page.
he starts writing. the words coming to him much easier now that he's no longer hold back. he's ran out of reasons not to tell you exactly how he feels. he spent the last nine drafts trying to sound reasonable and failed every single time. because, this wasn't reasonable. falling for you was the most unreasonable thing that he has ever done, but he loved every second of it.
jay doesn't stop once as he writes, not a single typo. his feelings hit the page unfiltered, for the first time all summer. he's saying everything that he's wanted to, to you, about you. for you. he doesn't make a single edit. every for sentences, his eyes would drift over to where you lay, curled in his hoodie and drowning in his sheets. and then three more sentences would come to mind, two more after that. he writes until he's filled the entire page and then some more on the back.
once he's finished he's folding it carefully, slipping it into an envelope before scribbling something across the front. he's moving to stand beside the bed one last time, setting the note on his empty pillow before his eyes drift over to you. the urge to wake you up hit him intensely, he wanted so badly to say goodbye properly, to steal one more kiss, one more touch, one more hour. but he knew that was wrong. that he'd end up wanting to stay longer, actually seeing him walk away might hurt you more.
so he doesn't. he just sets his hand on your head softly, brushing your hair back so he's able to press a soft kiss to your forehead. his lips linger there for a moment, silently hoping that you'd wake up on your own. and when you don't, he's standing. he grabs his keys from his desk, takes one final look at you, before he's heading out of the cabin, closing the door tight behind him.
you're stirring awake two hours later. the first thing you notice is that you feel warm, surrounded by jay's familiar scent. you sink further into the mattress, sunlight spilling from the windows and warming your skin and for a few seconds you don't open your eyes. instead, you nuzzle yourself into jay's warmth as moments from the night before flood your memory.
playing with jay in the lake. kissing jay against the rocks. jay holding you by the fire. walking with jay to his car, his arm around your shoulders. jay fucking you in that same car, in so many different ways. you could still feel the stretch of him between your legs. a smile spreads across your lips, remembering exactly how he felt beneath you as you rode him for the first time ever. and you're suddenly filled with the need to try it again. to feel him again.
you're reaching out before your mind can tell you differently, eyes snapping open when your hand is met with nothing but emptiness. your eyes find the clock sat on his nightstand, reading the flashing numbers that stare back at you. 10:17AM. your stomach drops, a deep frown replacing the sleepy smile you had been wearing before. “oh,” you're sighing as realization hits, jay was gone.
you knew he'd be leaving early, he told everyone that he was going to be gone before anyone was really waking up. but despite knowing, not seeing him beside you still stings. slowly you're sitting up in his bed, the over-sized hoodie shifting over your shoulders as you reach to rub at your eyes. everything feels heavy, your heart thumps uselessly in your chest as your eyes scan over the room.
he was really gone. the bathroom had been emptied out this morning, his desk was completely cleared off, posters torn down and folded neatly. there was no trace of him left in this room besides you and the fact that he took everything and left you behind has your throat tightening. your eyes drift back toward his pillow, eyes furrowing at the sight of the crisp envelope that laid on top of his blue pillowcase. you're reaching for it quickly, reading over the words written across the front of the envelope. “make it ten versions,” you read and you don't waste a second before tearing the note open.
❝ yn.
i've written this goodbye letter to you so many times that i almost forgot the point of it. the first few letters sounded like i was giving you a college recommendation... then i got too emotional about leaving the music lodge in your care. the third version was so embarrassingly raw that if you ever somehow read it i'd most likely evaporate where i stand. the one that I gave you, version nine, was the one that felt the most honest to me. at least at that time. now, it just feels like it was written by someone else.
someone that was still pretending he hadn't fell for you. i spent the last three months pretending that i wasn't looking for you in every room. pretending that i was fine with keeping things professional. wasted so much time pretending that i didn't feel the same way that you did and i think i owe you an apology for that. i owe you a lot of apologies, honestly.
i'm sorry that i waited until the last day to make a move. i'm realizing now, seated at my desk and you snoring behind me that, that was the wrong move. i should've said something sooner, i shouldn't have let you wonder if you were the only one with the crush. or at least stuck to my guns, said nothing, and left quietly. because this sucks so much worse. leaving after just one night of getting to know how it feels to be with you feels horrible. but i don't regret it, don't get me wrong. i'm happy that our last night together was every bit of perfect, i just wish i got it together sooner. for the both of us.
and that brings me to my next apology. i'm sorry that you spent all summer being brave enough for the both of us. you were so loud about your feelings, you never hid, you flirted with me in front of everyone despite their teasing. you made your feelings so clear and gave me every opportunity to meet you halfway and i kept coming up with excuses not to.
i convinced myself that keeping my distance would be best for the both of us. there was no point in starting something that i couldn't finish, but i realize now i was too focused on that small detail. because while the future was clear and we both knew this summer would end, we could've still enjoyed each other for three full months rather than one night. that's my fault, i'm sorry i robbed us of that.
for the last seven years, this place has been my home away from home. i know the walls, i know the smells, every last detail is engraved in my brain like a sixth sense. so naturally, i figured no longer having it as a constant would be the hardest thing of all, the thing that i'd miss most. but now i'm realizing (again) that i was wrong, because what i'm going to miss most is you.
i'm going to miss the way your face lights up when you talk about music, the way you manage to make every conversation last twice as long as they should. your laugh, your smile, the taste of your lips. i'm going to miss how warm you felt sleeping against me. and most of all, i'm going to miss all the things that i want to experience with you and now know it's too late.
fuck, i hate that it's too late...
for the first time ever, i have no idea what will happen next. because as you read this, i'm probably already on the road, heading home or toward the airport and even though, i know that has always been the plan, i can't help but wonder if i should be doing something different. or if it's stupid to make such huge life changes over someone you just met. for the first time ever, i don't trust my own plan and that scares the shit out of me.
but i kind of like it, because if there's one thing this summer taught me, one thing that you taught me... it's that all of life's best moments happen when you stop trying to control them. it took me until last night to realize it, that's why i kissed you when i did. none of that was part of the plan, but i'm so happy that i let myself enjoy being with you, even if it was just once.
i know i don't have to tell you this, but don't worry too much about me... enjoy your school year, enjoy your life. go on all the dates, make new friends and be as happy as you can possibly be. i hope that one day the universe will bring us back together, but in the meantime... keep my hoodie safe. it looks better on you, anyway.
removing rikis makeup for him because he’s too tired to keep his eyes open — fluff
the dorm is quiet when riki finally gets home, the kind of late night quiet that settles after long schedules and bright stage lights. you can see the exhaustion on him immediately. his hoodie hangs off tired shoulders, eyeliner faintly smudged beneath sleepy eyes, glitter still catching softly on his skin. he looks so pretty, but so worn out underneath it. the second he sees you, his expression softens.
you open your arms and he comes over right away, melting into you the moment he reaches the couch. his head drops into your lap with a quiet sigh while your fingers slip into his hair automatically. “hi, baby,” you whisper. he hums softly, eyes already closing as he melts further beneath your touch. you can feel the tension leaving him little by little every time your fingers comb through his hair.
your thumb brushes beneath his eye, catching leftover shimmer. “you still have your makeup on.” you say. “too sleepy,” he murmurs. your heart softens instantly. “aw, my poor baby.” you press a soft kiss to his forehead, then another near his temple, and he exhales quietly at each one like he needs them more than air. “c’mon,” you whisper. “let me take care of you.” he follows you to the bathroom still holding your wrist, sleepy and clingy in the sweetest way.
halfway there, he leans against your shoulder for a second, warm and heavy. in the bathroom light, he looks even softer somehow. you sit him on the counter and step between his knees immediately. his hands settle around your waist while you gently wipe away his makeup, careful around his tired eyes. when his brows pinch slightly, your free hand cups his cheek at once. “i know, baby,” you soothe softly. “almost done.” he relaxes again the second he hears your voice.
you’re gentle with him the entire time. wiping away smudged eyeliner, brushing glitter from his cheeks, smoothing your thumb beneath his lashes because you know his skin gets sensitive after schedules like this. every so often, you pause just to kiss him. a kiss near his eye, another against his cheek, one pressed softly to his forehead while your fingers run through his hair. he takes every single one quietly, eyes heavy and affectionate. “you’re doing so good for me,” you whisper. his grip around your waist tightens slightly. “yeah?” you smile, brushing your thumb over his cheekbone. “mhm, sweetest boy ever.”
by the time you finish, he looks impossibly soft sitting there with a bare face, sleepy eyes, hair messy from your hands constantly touching him. you smooth moisturizer onto his skin gently before whispering, “all done.” he just stares at you for a second before pulling you closer by the waist, forehead resting against your chest. then he tilts his head up slightly, waiting and you kiss him immediately. slow, warm, and lingering. he sighs softly into it, one hand sliding higher up your back while the other keeps you close like he finally gets to rest now. when you pull away, he follows with two more tiny sleepy kisses before settling back against you again. “stay with me,” he murmurs quietly. you kiss his forehead one last time, fingers slipping into his hair again. “always, baby.”
⇝ synopsis: two hopeless romantics and incredibly awkward people meet, neither knowing how the other feels.
OR
in which jake is obsessed with you, but it’s okay, because you’re obsessed with him too!!
⇝ warnings: cursing, suggestive language, mentions of alcohol/drinking, mentions of insecurity/negative body image, mentions of anxiety, masturbation (m), possible SA (forced kissing), making out, dry humping minors DNI
SUMMARY: once the college’s golden girl, you had it all: endless parties, a popular boyfriend, and flawless grades. but behind the spotlight, your mind was slowly unraveling. pretending everything was fine became exhausting, and for the first time, you didn’t recognize the person staring back at you anymore. then came Sim Jake, the awkward, quiet nerd you never thought twice about, who somehow saw through every carefully built wall around you. and the more your world fell apart, the more he became the only place that still felt safe.
WARNINGS: PLEASE READ PART 1 BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH THIS FIC. mentions of anxiety attacks, panic attacks (slight description), pills consumption, jake is silly (we love him), y/n’s anxiety is mentioned A LOT, alcohol consumption, arguing, fightin (no punches actually), slow burn but they had sex, this is low-key trash (but don’t we all love a little trash sometimes?), jake is VERY desperate, abandonment issues (🙁), i SWEAR it gets better as y/n breaks up with jacob, missionary, (failed) edging, overstimulation, fluff (like, tooth rotting) pet names (baby), lmk if more. NOT PROOFREAD.
NOW PLAYING: Skin by Sabrina Carpenter - I THINK I’M LOST AGAIN by Chase Atlantic - Fame is a Gun by Addison Rae - Diet Pepsi by Addison Rae
a/n: hihi! here is the second part <3 i wanted to add a couple of more scenes but honestly i don’t think i have the energy to do so. still please let me know your thoughts! 🫶
You didn't go back to university for a full week. You simply couldn't. The thought of walking through those hallways, of seeing the library where you had studied with Jake, of passing by the bench in the campus park where you had finally ended things with Jacob— it all felt too heavy.
So you took the week off, told yourself it was a self-care break, and tried to convince your reflection in the mirror that you deserved this time to heal.
Some days were productive: you dragged yourself to the nail salon, settling into the plush chair as a kind woman with steady hands shaped your nails into perfect ovals and painted them a deep burgundy that reminded you of dried roses.
You watched the color transform your fingers, layer by layer, and thought about how strange it was that something so small could make you feel a little more human.
You got your hair cut too, just a trim, a few inches off the ends, but it felt like shedding old skin.
The hairdresser chatted about the holidays while snippets of hair fell around you, and you nodded along, offering polite responses even if your mind was somewhere else entirely.
You went shopping, aimlessly at first, wandering through stores without really seeing the items on the racks.
But eventually, you found yourself picking up things with purpose.
A soft cashmere scarf in forest green that felt warm like a hug. A small leather-bound journal, because maybe writing would help.
A set of copper mugs that reminded you of the ones Jake had in his kitchen…. truthfully you didn't know why you bought them. You just knew they made you feel something other than the numbness that had settled into your bones.
But other days, you didn't leave your bed at all. The curtains stayed drawn as you lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on your chest.
You cried until your eyes were puffy and your throat was raw. You slept fitfully, dreams tangled with memories that left you disoriented when you woke.
You had no energy, no motivation, and certainly no desire to do anything except exist in the fog of your own sorrow.
Jake texted you almost daily. His messages were gentle, never demanding.
jake 🤓💙: Good morning. Just wanted to say hi.
jake 🤓💙: Did you eat today?
jake 🤓💙: I found a funny video of a cat trying to catch a laser pointer… thought you might like it.
And you would reply, sending him little snippets of your days. It was a lifeline, those messages. A thin thread connecting you to the outside world when you felt like disappearing.
When Christmas holidays arrived, you didn't even have to decide whether to go back to university. The break had started, and all your exams were already submitted. You had finished them before everything fell apart, and for that, you were grateful.
Sophia had gone back to her family, and she would stay with them until the 27th. She had hugged you tight before leaving, and made you promise to call her if you needed anything. You had nodded and waved goodbye.
then the dorm was empty.
You had no intention of going back to your own family. You hadn't told them about the breakup with Jacob, but news traveled fast in the way it always did. Jacob's mother had called your mother, and Jacob had painted himself as the victim, of course.
He had spun the story so that you were the villain, the unstable girlfriend who had cheated on him after everything he had done for you. Your mother had called, and you had let it ring until it went to voicemail. Then she called again… and again.… you ignored every single one.
On the morning of December twenty-fourth, your phone buzzed with a call that you almost didn't answer.
But when you saw Jake's name on the screen, something in your chest loosened.
"Hello?" you said, your voice still rough from sleep.
"Hey, Y/N." He sounded awkward, the way he always did when he was nervous. "I know this is really last minute, and you can absolutely say no, no pressure at all. But I was wondering… would you maybe want to come celebrate Christmas with my family? My mom would really like for you to come and— uhm I would too. If you wanted.”
You felt warmth spread through your chest, chasing away some of the cold that had settled there. "Jake, I would love to."
"Really?" His voice cracked with surprise. "I mean— yes! Great. That's great, I'll come pick you up. What time works for you?"
So you packed a small bag, throwing in clothes for a few days, your toiletries, and some last minute gifts you bought during a shopping spree.
You wrapped them carefully, choosing paper that sparkled under the light and ribbons that curled when you pulled scissors across them.
It felt good to do something with your hands, it kept your mind busy.
Jake arrived at your dorm in the early afternoon. When you opened the door, he was standing there with flushed cheeks and a red nose, bundled up in a thick coat and a scarf that was slightly crooked.
He looked so cute that your heart ached. "Hi." he said, his breath fogging in the cold air.
"Hi.” you replied, and you smiled. It was small and fragile, but it was real.
He took your bag without asking, slinging it over his shoulder, and walked you to his car.
The ride was long, about three hours long, but it didn't feel draining.
You talked about everything and nothing. He told you about the Christmas traditions they had.
You told him about your shopping spree and about how you had cried in the shower that morning but felt a little better afterward.
You sang along to the radio, off-key and laughing, and the miles slipped away.
When Jake pulled into the curb of his family home, the front door burst open before the car had even fully stopped. A golden and white blur came bounding out, barking and wagging her tail so hard her whole body wiggled.
"That's Layla.” Jake said, grinning.
He got out of the car and immediately dropped to his knees, letting the dog jump all over him.
She licked his face, smeared her paws on his coat, and knocked his glasses askew.
He laughed, hugging her close, and you felt your chest tighten at the sight.
"Come here, Layla," he said, gesturing for you to approach. "Meet Y/N."
Layla moved over to you, sniffing your hand with enthusiasm before deciding you were acceptable and licking your palm. You laughed, scratching behind her ears, and she leaned into your touch.
"She likes you." Jake said with a soft voice and eyes that shone.
You walked inside together, bags and gifts in hand. A Christmas tree stood in the middle of the living room, covered in ornaments and twinkling lights while stockings hung by the fireplace.
Jake's mother came out first, a woman with kind eyes and graying hair, and she wrapped her arms around him like she hadn't seen him in years. His father followed, clapping him on the shoulder with a warm smile.
Then their attention shifted to you.
"Oh, you must be Y/N," his mother said, her voice gentle. "Jake has told us so much about you."
You felt your cheeks warm. "It's so nice to meet you. Thank you for having me."
She took your hands in hers, squeezing them. "Sweetheart, Jake told me you've been struggling. But you're brave to try to be better.” She pointed to your chest “That takes real strength."
Your eyes stung with unexpected tears, and you blinked them back. "Thank you.” you whispered.
They showed you around the house, a cozy space filled with family photos and handmade decorations, and then led you up the stairs to Jake's room.
It was exactly what you had imagined. Neat and organized, with Taekwondo trophies lining the shelves and Marvel posters covering the walls.
A shelf of comics sat neatly arranged, under it were a desk with a lamp and a stack of books. His bed, made with precise corners, looked inviting and soft.
"We thought you could sleep here," his mother said. "Jake will take the sofa downstairs."
"I can sleep on the sofa," you said, feeling guilty. truly, I don't mind."
But she waved her hand dismissively. "Nonsense, you’re our guest. And besides, it's Christmas."
You were too tired to argue. You took a long, hot shower, letting the steam ease the tension from your shoulders.
You changed into your pajamas and collapsed onto Jake's bed.
The sheets smelled like him, that familiar detergent scent that had become a comfort. You wrapped yourself in his blanket, breathed in deep, and fell asleep.
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Christmas morning arrived with the soft patter of snow against the windows. You woke to a gentle knock on the door, followed by Jake's voice. "Merry Christmas, Y/N."
"Come in.” you mumbled, still half-asleep.
He opened the door, and Layla came bounding in before he could stop her.
She jumped onto the bed, her paws pressing into your stomach, and proceeded to lick your entire face with enthusiastic abandon.
You laughed, sputtering, trying to push her away gently. "Layla, I love you, but please—"
Jake grabbed her by the collar, pulling her off with an apologetic expression. "I'm so sorry. She gets excited."
"It's okay," you said, wiping your face with the back of your hand. "Good morning to me, I guess."
He smiled, and it was bright and genuine. "Good morning, breakfast is ready when you are."
You went downstairs together, Layla trotting behind you.
The table was covered with food of all kinds: pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit and a plate of cookies that looked homemade.
Jake's mother beamed as she set out the plates, and his father poured coffee into mugs shaped like snowmen.
You ate until you were full, the conversation light and easy. They asked you about your studies, about your dreams, about your favorite Christmas movies.
You answered honestly, feeling more at ease than you had in weeks.
After breakfast, you all gathered around the tree. His father handed out the gifts one by one, and you watched as the family exchanged presents with laughter and joy.
Jake's mother unwrapped the knitted scarf you had made, running her fingers over the uneven stitches.
"You made this?" she asked, her eyes soft.
"I tried," you said, embarrassed. "It's not perfect, I was in a rush."
"It's perfect," she said, and she wrapped it around her neck. "I'll wear it every day."
Jake's father opened the miniature car you had found for him, a vintage model that you had seen in a shop window and thought he might like.
He examined it with the careful attention of a collector, then looked up at you with a smile. "Thank you, this will look wonderful in my display case."
And then it was Jake's turn. You handed him a small, neatly wrapped box, and he unwrapped it with careful fingers.
When he saw what was inside, his breath caught.
It was an Iron Man plushie with a little button on its chest. He pressed it, and a voice recording played: "You are special."
His eyes welled up. "Y/N…"
"I recorded it myself," you said, your voice quiet. "I wanted you to hear it whenever you needed to."
He hugged the plushie to his chest, then reached out and pulled you into a hug.
His arms wrapped around you tight, and you felt his breath warm against your ear. "I love it,"
He whispered. "I love you."
Your heart skipped, but you didn't say anything.
Then he pulled back, wiping his eyes, and handed you a gift of his own.
It was a small envelope, and inside were two tickets. You pulled them out, reading the fine print that you recognised, it was the new SPA back in town… the very expensive one.
"I thought you could go with Sophia," he said, his voice nervous. "Just to relax and unwind. I thought it might help."
You stared at the tickets, then at him. "Jake, this is too much. This must have cost—"
"I wanted to do something nice for you," he said simply. "You've been through so much.. and uhm… I just want you to be happy."
You threw your arms around him, burying your face in his shoulder. "Thank you," you murmured. "Thank you so much."
──── ──── ──── ୨ৎ ──── ──── ────
The day passed in a blur of food, laughter, and warmth.
You played board games after lunch, and you lost spectacularly at Monopoly.
Jake's mother taught you how to make her famous Christmas cookies, and you got flour on your nose, but you were happy to help.
As evening rolled in, the house grew quiet. His parents went to bed early, tired after the long day, and the lights on the tree were turned off, leaving only the glow of the fireplace.
Jake was about to head to the sofa, but you reached out and grabbed his hand.
"Come with me.” you said.
He looked at you, confused. "But I'm supposed to sleep on the sofa."
"I don't want you to sleep on the sofa," you said. "Come to the room."
He hesitated, but you tugged him along, and he followed. Layla was already asleep in her bed by the fire, fortunately ahe didn’t follow you upstairs.
You closed the bedroom door behind you, the room illuminated only by the soft moonlight filtering through the curtains.
Jake stood there, unsure, with his hands hanging at his sides awkwardly.
"Jake," you said, stepping closer to him. "You've been so kind to me. The tickets, the way you've checked on me every day, the way you let me cry on your shoulder…. you've given me so much."
"It's nothing." he said, shaking his head.
"No, it's everything." You reached up and kissed him. Soft at first, a gentle press of your lips against his.
He made a small sound, and then his hands came up to cup your face, pulling you closer.
You broke the kiss, breathing hard and looked at him. "Lay down." you whispered.
He did, settling onto the bed, and you climbed on top of him. But before you could do anything else, his hands caught your waist.
"Wait," he said, his voice strained. "Are you sure? You asked me to wait…. I don't want to push you into something you're not ready for."
You looked down at him, at his worried eyes and trembling hands.
You leaned in, pressing your forehead to his. “My body and heart already belong to you… you just have to give my mind time to catch up."
He searched your eyes, looking for any hesitation, and when he found none, he kissed you, deep and passionate, and you melted into him.
You helped each other out of your pajamas, the fabric sliding away, leaving skin against skin. He laid you down, his body hovering on yours.
His hands roamed your back, your hips, your thighs, touching you like you were something precious.
He was already hard, his thick cock pressing against your thigh with a bead of precum glistening at the tip.
You reached down, stroking him, and he gasped.
"Tell me what you imagined," you whispered. "When you were here, alone. Did you imagine being fucked? Or did you imagine fucking someone?”
His breath hitched. "Both."
"Then fuck me," you said. "I want to feel you."
He positioned himself at your entrance, with his eyes locked on yours.
He pushed in slowly, his thick cock stretching you, filling you completely. You gasped, your fingers digging into his shoulders.
He began to move, thrusting into you with a rhythm that started steady but quickly became sloppy.
He was inexperienced, you could tell, and it was so endearing it made your heart ache. “I— uhm.” He gasped, “I’ve never done this before…”
He was trying so hard, but his hips were uncoordinated.
“I’ve got you.” So you moved your own hips, meeting his thrusts, guiding him.
He groaned, burying his face in your neck. He trailed kisses down your body, until he reached your breasts. He kissed the skin there, then sucked it, marking your skin with purple hickeys.
You bit your lip, trying to stay quiet, aware of his parents sleeping downstairs.
"I'm going to come," he gasped, his movements becoming frantic.
"Hold it.” you said, your voice firm but gentle.
He tried. He really did. His muscles tensed and his jaw clenched, but his body was betraying him. "I can't—"
"Stop moving," you said. "Breathe with me."
He froze, his cock still buried deep inside you, and took shaky breaths. You held him, stroking his back, calming him downwards.
"Okay," you said after a moment. "Keep going."
He started moving again, but it was too late. "No, no, no—" he gasped, and then he was coming, deep inside you, his body shuddering as he spilled into you.
He collapsed on top of you, breathing hard, with his face buried in your hair. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I couldn't hold it."
"It's okay.” you said, stroking his back.
He tried to comtinue, to make you shatter on his cock, but it was too much. He was too sensitive. So he pulled out and looked down at your slick, messy thighs. He swallowed, then leaned down, pressing his tongue against your clit.
You gasped, your hips bucking up to meet him. He ate you out with desperate hunger, licking up the mix of his cum and your arousal, his tongue circling your clit until you were trembling.
“Mh— fuck.” You whispered, grasping his hair and guiding his head.
He moaned, putting a finger inside you, then two, stretching you open. “Yes, right there.” you breathed out.
He took it as a mission to rub agains the spot that made you see stars. And when you came, it was with a broken cry, your body arching off the bed as waves of pleasure crashed through you.
He crawled up, kissed your forehead, and wrapped his arms around you. "Merry Christmas, Y/N," he whispered.
And for the first time in a long time, you felt like maybe everything was going to be okay.
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You woke in the middle of the night, your eyes fluttering open in the darkness of Jake's room. The digital clock on his nightstand glowed at 2:47 AM, but even if it was late you felt completely awake, your mind churning with thoughts that wouldn't settle.
You turned onto your side, watching Jake sleep. His face was relaxed, his lips were slightly parted, and his chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
His glasses were folded neatly on the nightstand, and without them, he looked younger. You reached out, barely brushing your fingers against his cheek, but he stirred anyway.
"Mm?" He blinked, unfocused eyes opening in the darkness. "Y/N? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," you whispered. "I just couldn't sleep."
He didn't hesitate. He lifted the blanket, making space for you, and you shifted closer to him, settling into the warmth of his body.
He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you against his chest and you breathed in the familiar scent of his skin.
You were both back in your pajamas, you in the soft flannel pants and old t-shirt you had worn to sleep, him in a pair of sweatpants and a thin long-sleeved shirt.
"Better?" he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
"Better.” you said, and you meant it.
You lay there in the quiet with the rhythm of his heartbeat steady against your ear.
But your mind was still restless, full of questions that had been lingering in the back of your thoughts for weeks.
"Jake?" you said softly.
"Mm?" He murmured.
"Can I ask you something?" He shifted, looking down at you. "Of course."
"What do you want to do after you graduate?"
He was quiet for a moment, his hand tracing lazy patterns on your back. When he spoke, his voice was thoughtful. "I’ve been thinking about it a lot, actually." He paused. "I'd really like to teach Taekwondo to little kids."
You lifted your head to look at him, surprised. "Really?"
"Yeah." There was a soft smile on his face, visible even in the dim light. "My instructor... he was patient. He taught me that strength isn't just about being able to hit harder, it's about discipline, and respect, and knowing when not to fight." He swallowed. "I want to be that for some kid. Maybe help one just like me."
You felt your heart swell, and you pressed your hand against his chest. "That's beautiful, Jake."
He shrugged, embarrassed. "I don't know if I can make a living with it, butt maybe with my major, I could get a part-time job in a company, doing statistical analysis. I just... I want to do something that matters."
"It matters," you said firmly. "It matters so much."
He looked at you then, his eyes soft. "What about you, baby? What do you want to do?"
The nickname made your heart flutter. You were sure it had slipped out in the intimacy of the moment, but you didn’t want to shatter it by pointing it out.
You looked away, staring at the wall, at the Marvel posters that watched over the room.
"I don't know," you admitted. "I'm majoring in Economics, but... truthfully, I hate it."
The words hung in the air, heavy and raw. You had never said them out loud before, not even to yourself.
"I only did it because my parents thought I should get a stable job," you continued, your voice barely above a whisper. "They said Economics was practical, that I could always get a job with it. That I shouldn't waste my potential on something frivolous."
"But you don't like it." Jake pointed ou.
"I don't," you said. "I hate every single class. I hate the numbers, and the graphs, I feel like I'm drowning in something I don't even care about."
He was quiet, letting you speak. "But I think..." You took a shaky breath. "I think I want to become a kindergarten teacher."
The words felt fragile, like they might shatter if you said them too loudly. But Jake's hand stilled on your back, and he looked at you with an expression so full of warmth it made your eyes sting.
"A kindergarten teacher?" he repeated.
"I want to sing with kids," you said, the dream spilling out of you now. "I want to help them draw, and make little crafts for their parents. I want to teach them the alphabet, and read them stories, and watch them figure out the world for the first time. I want to be the person who makes them feel safe and happy and excited to learn."
You laughed, a little embarrassed. "It sounds stupid."
"It doesn't sound stupid at all," Jake said, his voice firm. "It sounds perfect."
You looked at him, searching for any hint of insincerity, but there was none.
"I'll help you achieve it," he said. "Whatever you need. I'll help you study for the exams, I'll help you find programs, I'll even help you tell your parents if you want me to.” His eyes were full of determination, “Whatever it takes, I'm with you."
Your throat tightened, and you felt tears prick at the corners of your eyes. "You're already part of my dream, Jake.”
He blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." You reached up, cupping his face in your hands. "When I imagine my future, I see a classroom full of little kids. But I also see you, I see you coming home after teaching Taekwondo, and I see us making dinner together, and I see lazy Sundays on the couch with Layla… I see you in every single part of it."
His breath caught. "Y/N..."
"You're not just part of my dream," you said, your voice breaking. "You are my dream."
He kissed you then, soft and tender, and you melted into him. When you broke apart, his eyes were glistening. "I love you.” he whispered.
You didn’t say it back just yet, but you pressed yourself closer, letting him feel it with your body.
You fell asleep in his arms, wrapped up in each other, the future no longer a terrifying unknown but something to look forward to.
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The next few days passed in a warm blur.
Jake's mother sent you home with so many leftovers that you had to use two bags to carry them all: tupperware containers of cookies, slices of cake and a whole ham that she insisted you take.
Jake laughed as he helped you load everything into the car, and you tried to protest, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"You look too worn-out," she said, patting your cheek. "Eat."
Time flew by, and before you knew it, it was December thirty-first, New Year's Eve.
You knew what was your plan: Jay, one of Sophia’s friend, was throwing a party, and the invitation extended to you. His parties were always popular, full of drunken college kids, weed, and even a dance floor he had bought from Amazon.
You chewed your lip, glancing at the time.
You had been nervous about asking Jake to come to a party. He wasn't the type for crowded rooms and loud music, but you wanted him there. You wanted to share that part of your world with him.
You spent the whole morning gathering courage, typing and deleting messages, until finally, you sent one.
You: hey! so, a friend of a friend is throwing a party tonight and i was wondering if u wanted to come 🥺
jake 🤓💙: I don't know, Y/N. Parties aren't really my thing.
You: heeseung will be there too! and i'll be with you the whole time, i promise.
You: if it gets too much, we can leave whenever you want
jake 🤓💙: Okay. For you.
You spent the whole afternoon getting ready, you put on a mini glittery skirt that caught the light every time you moved, paired with a black top that showed just enough skin.
You curled your hair, put on a bit of makeup, and looked at yourself in the mirror.
You looked good and you felt even better.
Together with Sophia you drove to Jake's place ajd when he opened the door, your breath caught.
He was wearing dark jeans and a simple button-down shirt, but he looked so handsome it made your heart ache.
He had done something different with his hair, probably added some gel, and then you noticed— he was wearing contacts.
His brownish eyes, usually hidden behind glasses, were fully visible, and they were beautiful.
"You look amazing.” you said. “A total ride.”
He blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. "You look incredible too, Y/N."
Sophia wolf-whistled from the car, and Jake's blush deepened.
"Let's go." you said, grabbing his hand.
The party was already packed when you arrived. Jay's house was massive, with a sprawling backyard and a living room that had been converted into the dance floor.
Sophia disappeared into the crowd almost immediately, spotting a friend across the room and waving at you over her shoulder.
You held Jake's hand tightly as you wove through the crowd, your fingers intertwined.
Almost every person you passed greeted you. "Y/N! Happy New Year!"
"Good to see you!"
"You look great, Y/N!"
Jake looked at you with wide eyes. "You know everyone here?"
"Not everyone," you said, laughing. "But I know a lot of them."
You reached the kitchen, where Jay was mixing shots with Sunghoon and Heeseung. The counter was lined with bottles and plastic cups, and the three of them were laughing about something.
When Heeseung saw Jake, he broke into a grin. "Jake! Man, good to see you here!"
Jake relaxed visibly, and the two of them started talking, falling into easy conversation.
You felt a wave of relief at the thought that he had someone he knew, someone who could help him feel less out of place.
You took a single shot, the burn sliding down your throat, but your friends ganged up on Jake.
"Come on, one shot!" Jay said, pushing a cup into his hand.
"I don't really—" ahe tried to resist.
"Just one!" Jake looked at you, and you shrugged, smiling. He downed it, grimacing. "Another!" Sunghoon said.
"No, I—" Jake waved his hands. "Another!" He took a second. And then a third, because Jay was very insistent.
By the time he was done, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were a little glassy. "I think I'm drunk.” he said, blinking slowly.
"Just a little.” you said, laughing.
Someone dragged him to play beer pong, and you watched as he fumbled with the ping pong balls, missing the cups entirely.
He was out of his comfort zone, but he was trying, and you were so proud of him you thought your heart might burst.
But the room started closing in after a while. The music was too loud and the bodies too close
You felt your chest tighten, that familiar wave of anxiety creeping up your spine.
You slipped away, out the back door, into the cool night air. Despite the winter biting chill, the cold temperature grounded you.
You sat on a small stone wall, wrapping your arms around yourself, breathing in the cold until your lungs ached. The stars were barely visible through the city lights, but you stared up at them anyway, trying to keep your mind occupied
Not even ten minutes later, you heard footsteps coming towards you. "Found you."
You looked up, and Jake was standing there, his silhouette outlined by the glow from the house.
"I'm sorry," you said. "I didn't mean to disappear."
He sat down beside you, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours. "It's okay, I noticed you were gone and figured you might need some air."
You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder. "Thank you."
He wrapped an arm around you, pulling you closer. "You're very popular, you know. Every single person in there knows you."
"I guess so." You shrugged.
"It's not very my crowd," he said, and there was no judgment in his voice.
You were quiet for a moment. "I don't think it's my crowd anymore either."
He looked at you, surprised menus. "Really?"
"Really." You sighed. "I used to love parties. I used to love the noise and the chaos and the feeling of being surrounded by people. But now... I don't know, It just feels exhausting. I'd rather be somewhere quiet.” You smiled up at him “With you."
He didn't say anything, but his arm tightened around you.
You noticed him blinking rapidly, squinting into the distance. You cupped his face, turning him towards you. "Jake?" you said softly. "Are your contacts bothering you?"
He looked sheepish, his cheeks flushing. "I'm not used to wearing them. But I wanted to look cool for tonight."
Your heart ached. "You’re cool even with your glasses and you don't have to change yourself to fit in. You're good the way you are."
He stared at you, his eyes vulnerable. "You really think so?"
"I know so." He leaned in, his forehead resting against yours, and you closed your eyes, breathing him in.
And then a voice cut through the night like a blade. "Look, the mentally ill and the nerd together."
You both turned. Jacob was standing a few feet away, with a smug smile on his face.
Minjee was at his side, looking very uncomfortable, her eyes were fixed on the ground.
Jake got up immediately, with a tensw body and fists clenched to his sides. He stepped forward, dangerously close to Jacob.
"Jake, don't," you said, standing and reaching for his arm. "He's not worth it, just ignore him."
But Jacob wasn't done. "What's the matter, Jake? Happy with my leftovers?"
Jake's jaw tightened. "She's not leftovers, she's worth ten of you."
"Oh, is that so?" Jacob laughed. "You're pathetic. After you fucked her, you—"
Jake moved so fast you barely saw it. One moment he was standing beside you, the next he had Jacob on the ground, his arm twisted behind his back, with a knee pressing into his spine. It was a perfect Taekwondo takedown, clean and precise.
Jacob let out a pained grunt, struggling to get up. "Get off me!"
"Apologize.” Jake said, his voice low and dangerous.
"Fuck you!" Jacob spattered.
Jake pressed harder, and Jacob yelped. "Apologize to Y/N."
"Fine! Fine! I'm sorry!" Jake held him for a moment longer, then released him, stepping back. Jacob scrambled to his feet, his face was red with humiliation.
Jake turned to you with his hand outstretched. "Let's go inside."
You took his hand, and he led you back into the party, leaving Jacob alone.
You pulled him onto the dance floor, the music thrumming through your body. Reggaeton played through the speakers, a heavy beat that made you want to move.
"That was very badass.” you said, shouting over the music.
He blushed, the red reaching his ears. "I don't know about that."
"I do." You started dancing together, your bodies moving to the rhythm.
You pressed close to him, your hips brushing against his and your arms looping around his neck. He was a little drunk, his movements were slightly uncoordinated, but he was so cute it made your head spin.
He leaned in, his lips brushing your ear. "Thank you."
"For what?" You tilted your head, confused.
"For letting me into your world." You pulled back, looking at him. His eyes were earnest, vulnerable, and oh so full of love.
"Thank you for being in it.” you said.
And then you kissed him, right there on the dance floor, with the music pounding and the lights flashing and the crowd cheering around you.
His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you close, and you melted into him.
The new year hadn't even started yet, but you already knew it was going to be the best one yet.
──── ──── ──── ୨ৎ ──── ──── ────
May arrived with a burst of warmth and sunshine, painting the campus in shades of gold and green. The trees that had been bare during winter were now full with leaves rustling in the gentle breeze.
The air smelled like freshly cut grass and the faint sweetness of blooming flowers, and everywhere you looked, there were students in black gowns, posing for pictures with families and friends.
You stood in the middle of the quad, your own gown rustling around your ankles. The fabric was stiff and slightly itchy, but you didn't care.
In your hand, you held your diploma, a thick piece of paper with your name on it, proof that you had made it through four years of exams, sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, and moments where you thought you wouldn't survive.
But you did survive. You were there.
You and your friends had taken dozens of pictures already, Sophia fussing over your cap while Mina beamed with pride.
But there was only one person you wanted to find.
You walked across the square, your heels clicking against the pavement. The sun was warm on your shoulders, and you felt light, almost giddy. Months of ups and downs, of fighting and making up, of learning to trust and to let go— it had all led to this moment.
You spotted them near the old oak tree by the humanities building. Jay and Sunghoon were there, both in their gowns and laughing about something. And beside them, talking animatedly with his hands, was Jake.
He was wearing his gown too woth his cap slightly askew and his glasses perched on his nose.
He looked exactly the same as the day you had met him at the gala: nerdy, awkward, and a little bit clumsy.
But his face lit up when he saw you, and that smile, that beautiful, genuine smile, made your heart skip a beat.
"Y/N!" he called out, and he started jogging toward you.
You met him halfway, and before you could say anything, he spun you around.
Your gown flared out, your cap nearly flew off, but you laughed, a sound so pure and joyful it surprised even you.
"We did it!" he said, setting you down. "We're free! No more assignments and no more exams and no more all-nighters!"
"We did it.” you echoed, your hands resting on his shoulders.
"You look really good in your gown," he said, changing the subject. "I have flowers for you. They're in my car, I forgot to bring them to the ceremony because I was running late, but—"
"Jake," you interrupted, your heart pounding in your chest.
"Yeah?" He tilted his head, listening.
You took a deep breath. The words had been building inside you for months, and now they spilled out, unstoppable. "I want us to be real."
He blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." You swallowed, your hands trembling slightly. "I want us to be a couple, like… officially. I want to call you my boyfriend without hesitating and I want to be your girlfriend too.”
His eyes widened, and he stared at you like you had just handed him the world.
"I'm ready," you continued, the words tumbling out. "I've almost stopped my anxiety medication entirely. The doctor said I'm doing well, and with university over, I'll have less stress. I can focus on us.”
You took his hand in yours. “On our relationship… I want to be with you, Jake, completely. I want you to be mine."
The silence that followed was deafening.
And then Jake's face broke into the widest grin you had ever seen.
He grabbed you, pulling you into a hug so tight it squeezed the air out of your lungs. "Yes," he said, his voice muffled against your hair. "Yes, yes, yes."
You laughed, tears prickling at your eyes. "Is that a yes?"
He pulled back, cupping your face in his hands. "That's a thousand yeses. I've been waiting for you to be ready, but I would have waited forever, Y/N."
"I love you.” you said, the words falling from your lips like they had always belonged there.
His breath caught. "Say that again."
"I love you." You repeated.
He kissed you then, right there in front of everyone.
His lips pressed against yours, warm and insistent, and you melted into him, your fingers tangling in the fabric of his gown.
The world around you disappeared, there was only him, and you, and the taste of salt and sweetness on his lips.
When he pulled away, his eyes were glistening. "Say it again."
"I love you, Jake."
He buried his face in your neck, his arms wrapping around your waist. "I love you too," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I love you so much it scares me."
You held him, your hand cradling the back of his head. "Thank you," you said softly.
"For what?" He questioned.
"For helping me find myself again."
He pulled back, shaking his head. "You did that all by yourself, Y/N. I just encouraged you from the sidelines."
"No," you said. "You understood me and you never once forced me to be something I wasn't. You never made me pretend to be fine when I wasn't.”
You bit your lip nervously, “You let me be broken, and you stayed anyway. That's not nothing… that’s— that's everything."
He kissed your forehead, your nose, your lips again. "I'll always stay."
Jay cleared his throat. "Okay, you two are making the rest of us single people jealous. Let's go celebrate."
Jake laughed, wiping his eyes. "Yeah, let's go."
You took his hand, intertwining your fingers, and walked off together toward the future.
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