Being best friends with you since childhood, Jisung’s main goal in these last two years of college was to finally make you see him in the same romantic light that he saw you in. Disheartened by the fact that he knew his soft shyness wasn’t what you were looking for, his friends reassure that they can help turn things around for him. A “bad boy” was the last descriptor to ever fit Jisung, but how far is he willing to go to be just your type?
Chapter Twenty-Seven: a former athlete with a sob story
- six images, 1.9k words -
As far as summer days went, this one was as typical as it got for you - at least, since “typical” began to exclude a certain neighbor of yours ringing the doorbell every day. Your parents were at work and your friends had stopped responding to your texts about thirty minutes ago, leaving you nothing to do but rot on your couch.
You were scrolling mindlessly through movie lists on every streaming platform available, at this point sure you would spend more time finding a movie than actually watching one. Your thumb instinctively lets off the forward button of the remote once a part of the Twilight series had come under your scroll. Your lips quirk to the side awkwardly as a trace of hurt flashes behind your eyes. You didn’t know if those movies would be any sort of comfort right now, and you still weren’t sure why six months of not talking to Jisung still meant everything reminded you of him.
It was more so an attempt to rid yourself of the pathetic feeling, you figure, when you click on the movie page of New Moon; you would take back your favorite movie series and enjoy it just as you always had…besides, the baseball scene wasn’t in this one. You were about to press play when your doorbell rings, and while normally you’d leave the door-to-door salesmen without a reply, something inside you really wanted to experience the satisfaction of telling them off, and so, placing the remote down and making your way to the front door, you throw it open with your most disinterested look and snarky tone. “What do you-?”
You freeze the second you make eye contact with the person at your door, not at all a stupid salesman and rather instead, as Jisung himself would put it right now, a stupid best friend. Your shoulders sink as the confidence you had drains in his presence, and Jisung recognizes it enough for the ache in his chest to tighten, and he knows he needs to get a move on with his purpose for being in front of you and putting you through this.
He draws a sharp inhale of breath and then in an instant, his own shoulders drop in the light and carefree kind of way, and he throws a shy smile on his face. “Hi, I’m Jisung,” he begins like some dorky introduction, and the blush on his face lets you know he’s aware of just how dorky this sounds. Nevertheless, he continues before you can ask any of the questions that your raised eyebrow was so desperately hinting at. “I live across the street from you. I’m a former athlete with a sob story, but what’s more important is that I grew up with a best friend who did her best to teach me to find love in everything and kindness in everyone.”
He finally falters a bit, a missed breath making his next words more choked up. “On the flip side of that, I’m very thankful that people still manage to find kindness in me, because contrary to popular belief,” he says with a small, soft laugh, “I haven’t withstood enough Twilight marathons to become immune to toxic masculinity; so, I don’t know if you wanted to have a Twilight marathon, but I could use one.” He picks his gaze back up to make serious eye contact with you. The boyish shy nature of his presence had faded to instead leave the man in front of you completely genuine and sure in his next words. “I’m trying to be a better man for this girl I really like.”
Emotion flooded your being and all you could do was begin to cry as you rammed your body into Jisung’s to wrap him in a hug, though his much stronger grip rather made it feel like he was the one who had you wrapped in a hug. Standing at your front door, you wonder if Jisung knew that on the other side of your doorway, Twilight was pulled up on the TV again for the first time since your friendship ended - that your brains still rode the same wavelength even after all this time apart. You’re glad that you hadn’t pressed play on any of them yet, that you wasted so much time trying to figure out what to watch…you’re glad you wouldn’t ever have to watch the baseball scene without Jisung by your side.
“I missed you,” you whimper into his chest, and he squeezes you slightly tighter to him in response.
“I missed you, too,” he promises against the top of your head. “I'm sorry...for everything. If I had just taken the time to listen or literally think for one moment, I could've saved us from this whole mess. Everyone in my life was trying to look out for me and instead I forced you to watch me self-destruct and got you caught in the aftershock. I forced you away myself, thinking hard-to-get was the only way to get to you and it was the dumbest thing I've ever done. It even sounds stupid coming out of my mouth- y/n, I'm sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long, and I’m sorry for the fact that it’s taken me this much time to reach back out to you after I’ve already reconnected with our friends. I was just scared that I didn’t deserve your forgiveness, but I realized that however scary the idea of you telling me off forever is, I’m much more terrified of risking missing out on a second chance you’d be willing to give me.”
Your body rises and falls once with a huff of teary laughter as you bring your head out from where it was buried in his chest to instead look up at him. “‘Second chance’ is ironic considering how many chances it feels like I’ve already given you,” you manage to joke through a defeated smile, but Jisung makes sure to reflect none of the playfulness back to you, as he instead wipes away at the tears rolling down your face and raises his brows seriously.
“I promise all I need is one more.” Probably the opposite of his intentions, his words cause more tears to rush down your face as you nod and bury it back in his chest. He holds you there with one hand splayed across your back and the other behind your head as you rid yourself of tears…and you’re not exactly sure how long the two of you stood there even after you were done crying, just basking in each other’s familiar hold.
When you do finally move to let go from the hug, it’s with slightly embarrassed words. “I uh- was actually about to start a Twilight marathon, if you did really want to join,” you say, nodding your head back towards the living room TV.
Jisung drops his head with a smile. “Of course you were,” he says with a fond laugh before bringing his eyes back to yours, “and of course I do.” You reflect a shy smile back to him as you move aside to let him actually into your house. As he takes a step inside, his hand reaches out to take yours and lead you to the couch, but he stops himself before he can make contact, his hand awkwardly flexing by yours instead as he shifts his gaze to meet your confused look.
“I never stopped having a crush on you, and I’m not scared to admit that; and I know I really messed up by being selfish and blind to how I was hurting you…or maybe I wasn’t blind, maybe I was just apathetic. I don’t know, a lot has been a blur. But I know that I need you in my life, and I know that you offering for me to come in and watch Twilight is the second chance I was asking for, so contrary to how I thought this was gonna go, I’m actually not scared now to ask if you ever stopped having a crush on me or if you just want me in your life as a friend…because either way, I’m the luckiest person alive, but I figure I should ask now before I accidentally cross boundaries and hurt you some more cause- god, y/n, hear me when I say I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”
Instead of replying right away, you just grab his hand in yours, squeezing it tightly as you let a smile take over your face at his surprised expression. “I never stopped having a crush on you, which is why it hurt so much; but I’d rather work through that hurt with you by my side, because if these past six months have taught me anything, it’s that I suck at working through it without my best friend to talk things out with.”
When Jisung smiled back down at you afterwards, it was the first time since he came over that his smile was without any trace of fear, as he led the two of you to sit down on your couch and you grabbed the remote to change it so that you were starting with the very first movie rather than New Moon, and you made sure Jisung cleared his schedule for at least the next three movies tonight.
As your parents both got home from work, it was with initial shock at the extra body on the couch, but any reconciliation between you and Jisung would be the last thing they would question. It was when you were saying goodbye to Jisung at your door late that night that he brought up the only lingering thought in his mind, his question coming out incredibly shy as he fumbles over it. “Hey, uh- absolutely no rush because I don't even know how I would respond to this if I were you, but how long do I need to wait before I can ask you to be my girlfriend? Because I know I hurt you a lot and we only just remedied that but I was just thinking about how much I'd like to be yours and you be mine cause I'm pretty sure 'you and me' is what this whole life thing is about but if you're not ready that's totally fin-”
“Ji," you say softly, cutting off his rambling with a wide smile, "I think all our lives is already long enough.” Your tease comes with raised brows, flustering Jisung some more as he hides his face behind his hands, a few moments elapsing until he brought them down again to reveal the tight-lipped smile that you loved before he eventually bore his teeth in a boyish grin.
“Y/n, can I be your boyfriend?” He asks as unwaveringly as he could.
Your smile only brightens as you nod your head. “Please,” you whisper in reply, and Jisung lets out a huff of relieved breath as he leans his head down slightly more towards yours.
“So, uh- is it okay if I kiss you right now?” He asks, and you almost laugh at the fact that this is the same boy who had fooled even himself for a bad boy. You knew the Jisung you grew up with was always still there somewhere - the Jisung who was just your type.
You had half a mind to thank yourself, that, though unwillingly, you waited for him to get back to himself, because kissing Park Jisung, the former athlete with a sob story who lives across the street from you, was far better than kissing anyone else.
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a/n: hoping his reintroduction is enough to make you forgive the horrors :')
taglist: @fullsunberry @dearlyminhyung @kittydollzz @gothhyucks @ddengiejams @222brainrot @emislove @wachimingox @neo-teenkidz @aphantassia @sung-ct @hahaechans @nctspersonaltherapist @notmastyle @toroufriteh @ly-sona
