synopsis: so maybe those few glasses of champagne and tequila wasn’t your smartest choice of beverages at your high school reunion. but how were you supposed to know that running into your childhood crushes absolutely wasted would have you dealing with the aftermath of making out with not one, but both within the same hour?
pairing: haechan x fem! reader & mark x fem! reader
genre: love triangle, childhood crushes au, college au, fluff, humor
word count: 7.4k
warnings: swearing, making out, mentions of alcohol, vaping, weed, jokes about death and just a 'hol lot of y/n being a dumb drunk
note: there’s really no plot to this, just pure thirst and chaos but then again, isn’t that all my fics ever🙃 (and god forbid any of my irls see this bc they'll know exactly who everyone is based off of💀)
[ playlist: all my friends - snakehips / feels - calvin harris / pretty please - dua lip / one kiss - dua lipa / leave the door open - bruno mars / nasty - ariana grande / streets - doja cat ]
IN YOUR DEFENCE, you weren’t planning on getting this drunk.
In fact, you remembered reassuring your group of friends about this the day before, emphasising your astounding hatred towards the very limited selection of the free alcoholic beverages available at the bar (namely, beer and wine).
Further backing up your case, you had initially turned up to your high school reunion an hour late with the lazy excuse of your last-minute decisions towards your outfit that day – which, considering your turbulent meltdowns about having no clothes at two in the morning, was a complete fucking lie – only covering up your actual reasonings of not wanting to face your high school year group.
You didn’t exactly have any particular reasons to avoid anyone – a matter of fact, you liked to think you got along with everyone back in the day, often bouncing around from friend group to friend group with shiny eyes, inviting smiles and friendly banter – but there was something about reuniting your cohort again after a year which felt awkward.
There was no doubt that everyone would have changed in some way shape or form.
Heck, you were a completely different person from when they last saw you in the body of that wide-eyed girl in the crisp white blouse with the conservative knee-length pleated skirt. Plus, judging by the daily scroll of your Instagram feed, many of your peers seemed to don an altered version of their high school selves as well – meaning you had to get to know everyone all over again.
You vaguely remember turning up at the congested bar next to your high school building. The entrance was decorated with popped bottles of champagne with only a few clean empty glasses left on the display tray. The rest are in the hands of the various levels of tipsy college kids packed together like a can of sardines in front of the bar, eagerly milking out the bar tab set by the committee. Despite your school renting out the entirety of the second floor, it felt a little too tight, almost claustrophobic inside as you discreetly tried to scan the drunken crowd for your usual group of friends. However, your search didn’t last long, resulting in you eventually giving up after a few seconds, opting to ease the mild squeamishness with some liquid courage.
The cheap champagne burned the back of your throat as you settled on painfully chugging the glass in mere seconds, sticking out your tongue in disgust. Regardless of your initial reaction to the first taste, you began lining up for another glass, maybe in hopes of finding your intoxicated friends swimming in the chaos.
“Oh my god, Y/N! Is that you?”
Your ears perked at the familial voice amid of the loud chatter, head whipping towards the warm beam of Huang Renjun – a longtime locker mate/bandmate during school. Crushing you into a tight hug, you momentarily thanked the higher power of the universe for sending at least an old buddy as your first very sober interaction.
Though you and Renjun had never exclusively shared the same social circle, your friendship went way back. It started from being in the school’s so-called “rock” band together to trauma bonding over some unfortunate extension English classes in middle school to being neighbouring lockers for the entirety of high school. You recalled Renjun being a wholesome-looking guy, uniform always neatly tucked in, hair short and well kept, so when you spotted his long bleached hair and a silver ring hanging off the left corner of his lip as you pulled away from his grasp, surprise was an understatement of your reaction.
“You pierced your lip!” you exclaimed, turning your face to various angles around him to have a closer look.
A hearty laugh escaped his lips, throwing his head back as he playfully modelled his new accessory with a childish smile, “I did! Though I would be lying if I said I got this voluntarily.”
You cocked your head at him as the two of you received your preferred beverage from the bar counter, gesturing for him to elaborate. Renjun paused, sipping on the overflowing bubbles of his beer before adding, “I lost a bet with Donghyuck.”
Lee Donghyuck, a name you would say you were well acquainted with. He was a popular figure with the female community of your school for his visuals and many other talents, an eye-catching part of Renjun’s circle and your childhood friend. Well, sort of.
The two of you met in second grade, the joyful period of a child’s life where everyone was automatically considered friends if you shared a class or your mothers exchanged more than two sentences and invited you to their birthday parties. Also meant, playing with the designated child of your mother’s chosen friend of the day until their hour-long conversation was over.
Considering the sheer amount of afternoons spent with Donghyuck throughout your elementary school days running around with his family puppy on the school grounds, you would think that would automatically deem the approval of the “childhood friend” title. But the two of you didn’t really talk outside of your forced interaction nor did you share the same lunchtime activities much to your pathetic heart’s dismay.
It would be a lie if you said you weren’t charmed by the warm scruffiness of the little boy, oftentimes guilty of shamelessly boring holes into the back of his head during class and daydreaming about your futures together instead of listening to your homeroom teacher. You had a feeling your mum knew of your little infatuation towards the boy, often sending you a knowing gaze after your weekly runarounds with him and after the mention of his name in conversation prompting you to believe that her coincidental run-ins with Donghyuck’s mother weren’t so accidental afterall.
Though growing out of your shorts and summer tunic dresses and into your somewhat maturer age of a teenager; the validation of the excuse of your mother’s budding friendship to catch him after school expired alongside the dissipating giddiness you had once held for him. Something you saw coming for a while as you found yourself seeing less of him around which came as no surprise as neither of you shared the same class nor the same friends as you naturally started gravitating to different parts of your enlarging year group.
Finishing off the remainder of your flat champagne, you raised your eyebrows at the boy, “Donghyuck? Haven’t heard that name in a while, how is he?”
Renjun hummed, fingers drumming on the sides of his beer glass, “Why don’t you ask him? He’s here today,” he began standing on the tips of his battered converses, peering around the bar for the boy in question.
You shook your head with a chuckle, “Don’t worry about it. It’s going to be impossible to find him-”
On queue, Renjun hollered Donghyuck’s name at the back corner of the room, waving at a shadowed figure exaggeratedly. You weren’t even sure how he was able to spot him within the chaos so quickly when you were still left in search of your friends. But that wasn’t your biggest problem anymore as you recognised Donghyuck emerging from within the darkness, jokingly shoving past the large group of huddled and what you assumed to be intoxicated boys.
He didn’t look too different from the last time you met, maybe a few centimetres taller, skin sun-kissed from the recent summer weather but holy shit, was he still as hot as ever. If not more.
“Damn Y/N, is that you?”
You were too sober for this. Sure, you had started to feel the buzz peppering various parts of your face; but your emotions, the logical voice in your brain remained intact, with it blaring “DON’T FUCK UP!” in bold capital letters the closer he got.
Shoving your jitters further down your lame excuse of a brain, a playful smile was forced upon your lips, “The one and only.”
Donghyuck grinned, lightly pulling you into a welcoming embrace, catching you off guard, “It’s good to see you again.”
You could tell the alcohol had already hit his systems judging by the uncharacteristically physical greeting and eyes lazily half-lidded as he pulled away from your grasp. “Looks like someone’s had a bit to drink tonight?” you teased, eyeing the lingering closeness between the two of you.
Donghyuck chuckled, softly shaking his head, “I haven’t had too much, maybe a couple of glasses of champagne at school and a few beers here. What about you?”
“Only two glasses of whatever they’re serving at the bar,” you shuddered at the thought, placing your empty glasses down on the side of the countertop.
“So what I’m hearing is that you haven’t had enough yet,” Donghyuck sent a cheeky wink your way, completely forgetting about poor Renjun’s presence in the conversation as he lightly tugged at your sleeves back in front of the bar, ordering your preferred drinks with the bartender. Clinking your topped-up glasses with the boy, you wondered if making conversations with the boy was this easy before. It wasn’t like he was antisocial or judgemental during your high school years, maybe a little arrogant at times which initially caused your group of friends to have a slight dislike towards the boy.
“Y/N no,” you remembered your best friend Ningning immediately shutting down your thoughts followed by the excessive nods of your friends.
The five of you sat on the floor in front of your lockers, the smell of the freshly made fries Minjeong had bought from the deli next door wafting down the corridor as you had your heated discussion for the day. How you ended up on the topic of your resurfacing feelings for Lee Donghyuck was a whole other question of its own. (Ah, you remembered. Minjeong tripped down the stairs as you and Donghyuck exchanged smiles and pleasantries, whilst she panicked about her one fry which flew out of the cardboard box, all you could think about was him)
Ningning scrunched her eyes, lips formed into a sour expression, “He’s just so…”
“Egotistical?” Shuhua offered.
“Short?” Yunjin added, throwing a handful of fries in her mouth.
“Both,” Ningning affirmed. She patted your lap, a thin smile drawn on her face, “You’re too good for him Y/N.”
It was safe to say that the droplet of leaking feelings had shrivelled back up into your heart that day, both due to your friend’s confronting opinions towards the boy and the unapproachable aura he exuded. (Ok, maybe you admired his golden face from across the room from time to time but who could blame you? It wasn’t your fault his stupidly good looks started appearing at every extracurricular activity you signed up for that term)
A full glass’ worth of conversation passed at this point, and the both of you head deep into your storytelling of your crazy nights out. Bursts of booming laughter thundered as he described canon bombing into his university’s questionable lake and audible gasps sounded as you described your New Year's celebrations earlier that year. Maybe you were wrong about your skepticisms towards the boy during your schooling years, blaming your tendency to catastrophize any minor inconvenience to blow his inherent “unattainableness” out of proportion.
Pulling your phone out of your handbag to check the time, you were greeted with several missed calls and spammed messages from your friends, slapping you back to your original goal in mind.
“Everything alright?” Donghyuck’s face appeared beside your phone screen, eyes concentrated on your sudden change of expression.
“Uh-” you began typing your response to your group chat, reassuring them of your whereabouts in the heavily packed venue, ”-yeah. Yeah, sorry,” you clicked your phone shut, stuffing it back into your purse before facing him again, “Just reassuring a panicked group chat.”
He laughed, dipping his head in understanding, “I’m guessing I’ll have to let you go?”
You shrugged, offering him a small pout, “Unfortunately but hey, take a shot with me later?”
A soft smile littered Donghyuck’s face, hands squeezing the tops of your shoulders.
“Bet, I’ll come find you.”
NOTE TO SELF: Don’t go into the female restrooms during a big event in a relatively logical state of mind.
The girls' restrooms were a lively place for the residents of your school, always scented with the popular fumes of grape ice and strawberry watermelon vape, the tile floors littered with abandoned pairs of laddered stockings in the winter and forgotten multicoloured hydro-flasks perched on the benches. With quite the vaping addiction of your school, it was always a fun game of guess who when you took the trip to the restrooms during class, which clique was occupying the stalls together, which flavour they were attempting that day or what piece of drama you were going to be handed.
You realised that not much had changed when you found your friends huddling with quite the assortment of other girls in your year group in the bar restroom. The air was concocted with the nostalgic smell of blue raspberry vape and Maison Margiela, accompanied by loud loving gossip in the unoccupied stalls and the occasional drunken mirror selfies in front of the basin.
“Oh my gosh Y/N! You’re alive!” Ningning screeched, glomping you into a tight hug, “I was about to get up on the tables to find you out there.”
“Sorry, I missed your calls,” you wheezed as Minjeong came over to peel the girl off of your body, “I didn’t realise my phone was on silent.”
“Don’t even worry about it,” Shuhua slurred attaching herself to Minjeong’s side, “You must’ve been bouncing around like you usually do, judging by how long it took you to find us.”
“Yeah,” – if bouncing around meant from one drink to another with the same person – “You could say that.”
“Yunjin said hi by the way,” Minjeong interrupted, pulling up a photo of your absent friend striking a cute pose in front of a sushi train in Hawaii, “She said to drink on her behalf, which I don’t think is the best idea.”
“That girl’s probably drunk right now,” Ningning snickered, turning to face the large mirror to reapply her lip gloss, “But I’ll take any excuse to drink more.”
Minjeong raised an eyebrow at the girl, “Didn’t you say that you were saving your liver for next weekend?”
Ningning merely shrugged, waving her off before grabbing ahold of your hand with an animated wiggle, squabbling about something along the lines of you looking too sober. You ran into many old faces on the short journey to the bar front, hearty laughter and juicy gossip unconsciously spilled and overheard from the neighbouring conversations (Though whether it was true or not, you weren’t sure, but considering the topics of accidental pregnancies and very messy breakups – maybe it would be best to wish for the latter)
You were on your fourth glass of champagne at this point, something you couldn’t understand as every sip you took attempted to change your mind; it really just tasted the same – like fucking ass. The state of yourself on the other hand arguably has made some progress, to your best friend’s delight. You had joined in on Ningning’s nonsensical babbling a half glass ago, nodding along to whatever came out of her mouth with a small giggle tickling up your throat. She leaned into your ear, slurring some muddled sentence that was drowned out by the screaming lyrics of ABBA. A nod came as a reflex for you, a dazed smile tugging at your lips.
She gave you a little squeeze on your shoulders, shuffling past a sea of people and to the other end of the room. The world seemed to move faster than what your brain could handle at that given moment, only registering the disappearance of your friend as well as the foreign group of kids gathered around you a few minutes later.
There you were, at square one once again, like a clueless fish stuck between the school of other wandering creatures. Except, replace the ocean with flat champagne and cheap house beer.
With an exasperated sigh, you took a step back from the chattering circle, but what you thought was an empty space was in fact a person. A person with a full glass of beer – well, half full after you knocked into it.
“Shit- Fuck- I’m so sorry, is your drink o…kay?” Your words trailed off as you came face to face with your ex-best friend Mark Lee.
Ah yes. Mark Lee and Y/N L/N, quite the known duo during your middle school days. Inseparable, protective and unanimously voted as most probably secretly dating or housing feelings for each other – which to be fair, wasn’t exactly false.
Your rather complicated feelings for the boy began in fifth grade when the boy slipped you a silly doodle of a duck in a top hat during math class. The two of you were seated a table apart from each other with your respective seatmates so you weren’t too sure of why he specifically chose you to gift his work of art but regardless, you giggled, pencilling in the words “Taffy the Duck” on the top of the page to pass back to him. Your little note passings continued throughout the rest of elementary school, leading to middle school where in your despair realised that you shared zero classes with the boy. Despite this, your friendship stood as strong as ever, hanging out during lunchtimes and visiting the local 7/11 after school until well – it wasn’t.
There was no pivotal moment when you stopped being as close as you were; in fact, it was a question that remained frustratingly unanswered throughout the years. It wasn’t like the two of you ever argued or had a major fallout – which could’ve given you a proper reason to either make up or talk to him again – but rather be described as a painstakingly slow drift, enough to the point where it was unnoticeable. Maybe it started with the branching of different friend groups then led to your attention on your respective crushes at the time – which now that you recollected on your past, think that your hidden feelings for each other at the time were the only thing holding you together.
Sure, you had attempted to revive your friendship at times, starting with the ever-so-awkward first hellos in the stairwell to a couple of sentences exchanged before classes started in your final year, but all efforts seem to have unravelled as you graduated from school and went on your separate ways, until today.
“Oh hey, Y/N?”
You handed him a napkin from the bar, “Mark.”
Shaking the excess residue off of his hand, he mumbled a quiet thanks as he took the napkin from you. You wanted to die, really. As a matter of fact, you were convinced that it would be a much more pleasant experience than silently standing like some dumb wooden doll in front of your ex-best friend, as he cleaned up after your mess.
“So,” he cleared his throat, “It’s been a while huh?”
You gulped down the last sip of your drink, feeling the burn of the champagne trickling down your oesophagus, “Yeah, I mean the last time we talked was, one and half years ago?” – Technically, it was his birthday a little less than a year ago when the two of you last exchanged messages. It entailed your short greeting of “happy b’day mark!” and the equally blunt response of “haha thanks y/n”. However according to the Cambridge dictionary, a conversation is defined as a discussion about a particular subject and well, nothing was discussed.
“Well, how have you been? Your brother doing well?” Mark passed his fingers through his dark locks, turning his full attention to you.
You were surprised he remembered your brother, with him starting school not long before you guys stopped being friends, “He’s doing well, grown up a lot since you last saw him,” you snorted, remembering his little presence trailing behind the two of you after school, begging for you to buy him Mcdonald's fries, “How about you? You attend NCIT right?”
“Yep, studying Business,” he rolled his eyes, “Quite the regretful choice. How about you?”
“Communications at Yonsei,” you responded, “Though, I did originally transfer from Business, due to as you said. Quite the experience.”
Mark chuckled knowingly, raising his glass to take a sip of his remaining drink, “It suits you. Communications that is.”
“What? Because I’m loud?” you joked.
He shook his head, “You always had great ideas, people always looked to you for advice.”
A warm smile made its way onto your face. It was a reassuring phrase to hear, short but impactful nonetheless. Especially as you struggled to figure out your path after school, switching from one faculty to another in hopes of finding the one that didn’t make you want to throw yourself off a cliff side. Communications was a spontaneous jump but it was the only choice that made you confident in your abilities so hearing this sort of external validation felt nice, especially from him.
Mark returned the gesture, eyes crinkling into the tender crescent shape. Despite the maturing of his facial structure, he still housed the same childlike smile. The one which stretched to the outskirts of his cheeks, softening his overall cold exterior. The one that made you fall for him in the first place.
“How come I didn’t catch you at school earlier?”
You blinked, snapping out of your thoughts, “O-Oh, I turned up pretty late so I missed out on the terrace drinks.”
“That makes more sense,” Mark hummed in affirmation, eyeing you up and down, “I feel like I definitely would’ve noticed you if you were there.”
What.
“Tequila shot?” he offered.
You bat an eye, “Uh, sure.”
YOU SEE, you were an affectionate drunk – most often seen clinging onto your friends’ bodies for dear life or littering kisses on their cheeks towards the peak of your night outs. You concluded your drastic personality change was due to the massive confidence boost and the silencing of the practical parts of your brain, meaning that your already concerning amount of extrovertedness maxed the scale.
Before that evening, this quirky little trait of yours never caused you harm, only resulting in the multitude of ‘friends’ being made in the club’s restroom line or several new followers on Instagram the morning after – half of which you barely remember the existence of.
It was barely eleven when Donghyuck snatched you away from your friends, keeping what you thought to be an empty promise of taking a shot with you. Although you were the one originally suggesting your actions, you won’t lie that you held low expectations for him to follow through – most definitely considering his current state of mind.
Clinking your shot glasses together, you downed the liquor in mere seconds, followed by the soothing taste of the lime, melting away the burn that chased up your throat. An electrified laugh sounded from your left as the familial chords of Bruno Mars blasted through the speakers. Donghyuck held no hesitation to grab your hands, dragging you to the front of the speakers as he playfully serenaded you throughout the way.
You could only shyly giggle as he twirled you around the circling crowd, blatantly avoiding his grand gestures for you to sing along. But your resistance didn’t last long as the chorus hit, finding yourself swaying to the beat of the music, accepting the enclosing distance between your bodies. You peered up to meet his eyes, still filled with the childlike wonder and life from the early days of your friendship to the sharp slope of his nose to his scattered moles down to his supple lips.
“You know Hyuck, you’re really hot.”
A satisfied grin laced Donghyuck’s lips, “Am I now?”
“Can I kiss you?”
You weren’t exactly sure what initially prompted you to blurt your relatively forward words to the unsuspecting boy. Maybe it was the lingering fresh taste of the lime on your tongue. Maybe it was the way he swiped his tongue against his bottom lip to soak up any last droplets of the liquor or simply because you just wanted to. Either way, what you didn’t expect was for a smirk to tug against Donghyuck’s lips, stepping closer to your body, eyes flickering to your lips as a finger grazed the underside of your chin. He momentarily wavered a couple centimetres away from your lips, warm breath fanning against your face before his lips met yours.
The once horridly ear-deafening music of the room with the bubbling chatters of your cohort seemed to fade into the background as the ghost of Donghyuck’s hands skimmed the bare parts of your waist. His tousled curls tickled the sides of your cheeks as he nipped at your jawline, pinning your body firmer against the wall.
“God forbid if our mothers saw us right now,” you let out a slight gasp as he kissed the sensitive part of your neck.
“Well, good thing our mothers aren’t here to see us, right?” a low chuckle rumbled from his throat before reconnecting your lips again, his tongue fighting for its place in your mouth. Your fingers gripped at the back of his head, tugging at the strands to elicit a staggered moan from the boy, filling your chest with a weird sense of pride and definitely not helping your already inflated ego.
You could conclude you had certainly passed your tipsy stage, with the last shot of tequila seeping into your system and pushing your brain’s irrationality almost a bit too far. You remembered once hearing your tenth-grade biology teacher talk about the effects of alcohol on the human body and how it altered your brain’s chemical composition. Specifically, how it lowered an individual’s inhibitions and social rationalisation.
And considering your ongoing messy but undeniably hot lip-locking with Lee Donghyuck, you began regretting zoning off in the latter part of that science lesson (not really. You did manage to beat your personal record in 2048) where she had subsequently explained how to piece together the drunken jumble in your brain as the following few words which tumbled out of your mouth, you would inevitably regret.
“Wait, I need to pee.”
YOU HAD TO ADMIT. It was quite scary the amount of things you managed to figure out about yourself whilst severely intoxicated.
One, you really couldn’t hold your bladder. Evident by the frequent trips to the restroom every thirty minutes or the number of times you had bumped into the same group of girls gathered outside the basins, offering you a hit of their neon-coloured vape and a piece of their drunken secrets.
Two, realising the sheer amount of time and money wasted spent trying to figure yourself out during your high school years as the one night of limitless alcoholic beverages seemed to be a confronting personality test in itself.
Three, the emotions you spent years persuading to simmer down in your heart were capable of rapidly firing out in mere seconds alongside the memory bank of shitty pick-up lines and your apparent drunken rizz that went through the roof.
Four, maybe your best friend’s words of you supposedly being in your “hoe phase” were really true because at that moment, you really, really wanted to kiss someone – more specifically, Mark Lee.
It wasn't exactly the best course of action, considering your heated make-out session with Donghyuck not too long before – which you left halfway through, might you add. But wise decisions weren’t things you were great at making. Especially a few too many glasses of champagne and spirits deep.
According to your very skewed sense of time, it was around midnight when you stumbled into Mark once again, this time hidden within the shadows behind a pillar in the corner with another drink in his hand. Not many people lingered around this part of the room. You guessed it was due to the immobile bodies sprawled across the dingy carpet a few metres in front and a frustrating lack of both music and alcohol. With a light trip in your step, you made your way towards the boy.
“Oh my gosh Mark! What are you doing here?”
A concerned grimace appeared upon Mark’s lips, prompting him to place his drink on the carpeted floor to steady your rocking body. The room had begun spinning at this point in time, with Mark’s face distorting ever so slightly to your hilarity.
A giggle bubbled up your throat, followed by your hands which gravitated towards the poor boy’s face, poking various parts of his features in such fascination. Mark could only sigh, registering his sheer lack of control in the situation, as he sat you on the plastic chair.
A wave of peace washed over your bodies for a few minutes, with Mark quietly sipping on the remainder of his drink whilst you traced your fingers across his jawline. Though much to his despair, the calm before the storm barely lasted three minutes as your loud ass mouth began itching to dominate your brain.
“Mark, has anyone ever told you how fucking hilarious you are?”
Mark deadpanned, crossing his arms over his chest, “I haven’t said anything.”
“SEE?!” You bounced out of your seat, “A fucking knee slapper that one!”
Another sigh escaped his lips, getting ahold of your shoulders again to place you back down, “Y/N, how did you manage to even get like this?”
“You know Donghae? Haechang? Whatever his name is-”
“Donghyuck.” Mark corrected, eyebrows furrowing at the mention of his name, “What did that overgrown cabbage patch kid do to you?”
“Relax, he just bought me a shot…” You drew out your words before pouting, “Or two, and maybe a couple drinks before that.”
Mark shook his head, patting your head, “I’m gonna get you some water.”
“Nooo! Don’t go, you’re so sexy!” You latched yourself onto his waist, fingers twisting around the belt loops of his jeans.
You could feel him visibly freeze on the spot, occasionally twitching nervously the closer your hands lingered to his crotch. You staggered up from your seat again, hands grazing his torso to wrap around his neck. Despite only a part of his face being illuminated by the light behind the pillar, it was enough to make out his parted lips and widened eyes.
Just like Hyuck, you realised how much Mark had grown into his mature face over the years. His cheekbones were more prominent, and his hair styled with the hard gel he refused to use in middle school. You reached to pass a stray strand across his forehead, though your eyes never left his and your lips inching closer towards his.
“You’re drunk, Y/N.”
You shrugged, eyes flickering down to his lips, “I wasn’t drunk when I wanted to kiss you.”
“And when was that?”
“Middle school, high school,” You paused, pondering for a second, “After graduation.”
A moment of shock flashed across the boy’s face, lips partly ajar and what seemed like a rollercoaster of emotions tumbling within his eyes. You had always questioned what his response would’ve been to a potential confession back in the day; maybe he would’ve reciprocated your drawn-out feelings and lived as a happy couple to this day, or if you wanted to be pessimistic, suffered the horrors of a toxic middle school relationship and be forever traumatised by love for the rest of your life; or maybe he would’ve rejected your feelings and just remained as an awkward pair of “besties”.
There was a little voice shrieking from the depths of your brain to shut the fuck up, most probably belonging to your sober self trying to save your face. However, it seemed as though the mystery to your decades-long question would be answered that night as Mark chuckled, clearing his throat.
"Middle school me would've gone crazy hearing this."
You knew you were definitely wasted at that moment, his words of reciprocation to your elementary school feelings flying over your head and rather hyperfocused on the warmth of his embrace and the subtle gulp of nervousness he took.
"What about present-day Mark?” You murmured, your breath hitting his lips, “Is this making him crazy too?"
"Absolutely insane."
You were reminded of your friends’ comments on your drunken rizz, with apparently any form of embarrassment and dignity thrown into the gutter to crash and burn. With the amount of unknown dms you had woken up to the morning after drinking, you’d think you would’ve learnt your lesson by now – but your drunken alter ego was a stubborn bitch.
A bitch who definitely needed some kind of therapy.
As Mark smashed his lips onto yours, it was then you were hit by your mother’s words about drinking responsibly. Obviously, to avoid alcohol poisoning, potentially blacking out and passing out on the side of the road, but most importantly, to avoid involving yourself in sticky situations in which your sober self had to deal with the aftermath.
But how were you supposed to anticipate that the aftermath of a fuckload of champagne and tequila shots was going to have you hooking up with your childhood crushes at your school reunion?
Oh, and blackout whilst you were at it.
YOU WEREN’T GOING TO LIE, waking up in the comfort of your sheets came as a surprise for your tired self.
You were quite proud of yourself for making it back in one piece, or even back at home at all and not passing out on the side of the road somewhere, considering the rather large gap in your memory and the fact that you were most definitely still drunk when you woke up.
There was a slight wobble in your step as you made your way over to the kitchen, head pounding and face still numb as you took the first miraculous sip of water. Your phone screen lit up with a bomb of message notifications and Instagram tags from last night, in which you nervously opened your active group chat.
[ yunjin ] did i miss anything?
[ shuhua ] i shit talked about ppl with aeri and somi whilst high
[ ningning ] yk i don’t think i recall parts of last night
[ you ] i mean,, understandable. u were pretty fucked
[ minjeong ] y/n wrestling tongues with donghyuck was the most unexpected for me
[ shuhua ] you what😭
[ you ] we are not mentioning that…
[ ningning ] wait i swear it was mark, was it not?
[ yunjin ] lol plot twist: it was both
[ you ] …
[ minjeong ] YOU MADE OUT WITH BOTH OF THEM!??!?!?!
You chose to shut off your phone at that moment, predicting the bloodbath of capitalised screams and spammed Facetime calls from the group. Which, in all honesty, you severely lacked the willpower to deal with.
A soft shuffle of slippers sounded at the kitchen entrance, and you turned to face your mother. Still in her pink fluffy pyjamas, drowsily waved as she made her way to the fridge, delicately opening the door to grab the milk.
“How was last night?” she asked, making her way to the milk frother.
You hummed, walking to the coffee machine with a mug in hand. “It was…”
An absolute clusterfuck of chaos – would be the correct answer. But telling your mother you had drunkenly made out with the sweet little son of her old friend and the name of a boy she hadn’t heard from for half a decade probably wasn’t the best piece of news to be told first thing in the morning – if at all.
You slipped a capsule into the machine with a crack, half haphazardly pressing buttons on the top before a mellow whir filled the silence, “... Interesting.”
A short chuckle resonated inside the refrigerator door, “What did you do this time?”
You scoffed, offended by the direct jab of her question, “Hey! I don’t always get into trouble!”
“So you didn’t do anything last night?”
You groaned, pouring the foamed milk into the coffee mug, “Well, no…” Dragging on the o, you passed the mug to your mum, huffing as you sat on the countertops, “How can you always tell?”
“I think I’ve heard enough drunken antics from you to know,” she took a sip from her mug, raising her eyebrows at your phone lock screen, “And I think the amount of notifications you’re receiving says a lot too,”
You reached over the end of the countertop, swiping your phone with a roll of your eyes. Your once pretty lock screen of you and your friends had been bombarded by the stacks of message notifications, fulfilling your prediction of incessant exclamation marks and illegible keyboard smashes. However, one contact profile stood out from the rest – that being a concerned Renjun.
[ renjun ] u feeling alright after yesterday?
[ you ] physically, pretty decent.
[ you ] mentally, very confused.
[ renjun ] haha fair, u did seem pretty wasted before u left
His message made you pause, attempting to dial back your inefficient memory to when you left the venue.
Did you even see Renjun before you left? Pfft, who were you even kidding – you didn’t even have any recollection of how you got home in the first place.
[ you ] remind me how i got home..? :)))
[ renjun ] … mark left u with minjeong who called u an uber home
[ renjun ] god, how much do u remember?
[ you ] … not a lot
[ renjun ] u free wednesday? i think we need a debrief
“IS IT TRUE that you kissed both Mark and Donghyuck at the reunion?”
Now. When you agreed to get a casual drink with Renjun the following Wednesday, you had expected a few questions about your little flings with his friends to come up in conversation. But boy, did you fail to prepare for such bluntness so early on.
“H-how the fuck- did you- know?” Choking on the sharp intake of the unmixed gin at the bottom of your cocktail, the calm approach you had rehearsed on the way over to the bar fell apart as your response came out as a desperate splutter of coughs and stutters.
Renjun threw you a sidelong look, chucking the pathetic remains of the stale popcorn at your figure, which you barely dodged.
“Because those horny fuckboys told me, how else?”
You crossed your arms over your chest, the accentuation of the word fuckboys making you feel rather defensive over your drunken behaviour, “Just for the record, I don’t usually go around sucking faces with every hot guy I see.”
“I never accused you of doing so.”
A smug look settled on Renjun’s face, clearly amused by your unfortunate situation judging by the quirk of his lips as you reached for your drink once again.
“You are insufferable.”
“So-” Renjun dragged on, resting his elbows against the tabletop, “Who was the better kisser, hm?”
The alcoholic concoction got caught in your throat once again, sending both you and your rapidly declining self-preservation into a downward spiral. The straightforwardness of the boy is one of the contributing factors, the rest being the rather vivid flashbacks of your liaisons a few nights prior.
It wasn’t like you hadn’t talked about this before – in fact, you recalled it being one of the first questions shoved into your face when you picked up your friends’ calls. However, whether you gave them the answers they were desperately seeking for, you weren’t sure because simply. You weren’t exactly certain about how to answer it either.
“I cannot believe that you hooked up with both your childhood crushes and managed to mess up both interactions,” you remembered Shuhua splutter incredulously through your FaceTime call with the approving nods of the rest following shortly after.
“I just- how did you get the courage to pull the two hottest guys in our year whilst being the drunkest you had ever gotten?”
“It was because I was the drunkest I had ever been,” you grumbled in response, rolling your eyes at your screen, “I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“So you’re saying you wouldn’t hook up with them again?”
You chose to remain silent for Ningning’s question, neither wanting to directly confirm or deny any theorised accusations which plagued your best friends’ minds, but, with the growing giddiness which reflected on their faces, you realised that no amount of silence could ever hide your real thoughts from your friends, prompting the passing notion that maybe the silence was actually meant for you and your restless little brain.
Shaking away your thoughts, you turned back to Renjun, “Why are you so interested in this anyway?”
Renjun slurped the last droplets of his cocktail, eyebrows raised in amusement, “Well, aside from the fact that you chose my two best friends as your hookups for the night – which, may I add, coincidentally happens to be both your childhood crushes – Let’s just say those two aren’t exactly on good terms right now.”
Your lips parted from the straw, “Aren’t on good terms?”
As far as you remembered, the three of them had been best friends since early middle school – a fact that made you want to coil up into a shameful ball of nonexistence – you recalled seeing them on the soccer field at lunch, oftentimes doubling over themselves over something on Donghyuck’s phone or the rare exchanges of shy hellos and flustered smiles when they had met up with Mark as he dropped you off in front of your classroom.
Despite the drift in friendship from your end, Mark’s friendship with Donghyuck had always seemed to remain close – which, considering their shared activities of partying, sports and residing in the same social circle, made sense.
Noticing your puzzlement towards his revelation, he added, “Believe it or not, they fought over the same girl a few months ago.” Renjun popped the fries in his mouth as if he wasn’t casually spilling his best friends' secrets to a girl he randomly reunited with a couple days ago, “which is funny because that’s literally what’s happening right now.”
You groaned, slinking further into the wooden seat with your head buried into your hands, “Great. So what you’re saying is that I’ve just further ruined your guys’ friendship because of some silly drunken mistake.”
“I guess you could say that.”
You rolled your eyes at him, “Oh, lovely. What a great reassurance to hear.”
“I was just offering my pure honesty, no harm intended.”
The two of you slipped into a comfortable silence, ordering the last deserving round of the cheap happy hour cocktails before it was too late. As you waited for your orders to be delivered, Renjun spent the time scrolling through the photos of their drunken nights out, replaying the short clips of Donghyuck with a traffic cone over his head and his own unfortunate events of being rolled around the empty city in a stolen shopping cart.
With the number of snorts and giggles exchanged, it felt like no time had passed since your high school days – except for the increasing recklessness between both parties.
You began retelling your version of your nights out, from the gasps extracted as you mentioned witnessing a random street brawl in an alleyway to the disapproving tuts of his tongue about your case of being stranded on the side of a highway at three am.
“You know Y/N? You really are the bringer of chaos.”
You could only chuckle in response as you reached for your phone, “Trust me, I’m not that bad.”
However, as you unlocked your phone to read through your missed notifications for the evening, you realised that maybe you should fix your habit of making bad decisions whilst severely intoxicated, as what you found waiting on your lock screen served as a painful reminder of quite possibly your stupidest mistake yet.
Noticing your sudden change of demeanour, Renjun frowned, “Hey, is everything alright?”
You could only bat an eye, pushing your phone to his side of the table for him to read.
Yeah, you took it back. You really were the bringer of chaos.
a/n: bro u don't even understand.. this has been sitting in my wip docs for like more than a year😭 but i finally forced myself to write and post something on this app that wasn't a longass smau OIHFOIWEHF anyways thank you for reading!! don't hesitate to leave a comment and rb this post if you liked it🥲
synopsis: after the messy end to your relations with jaemin, it seemed like you were the only one unable to move on from your past. but with a few slip ups in between the planning of his wedding, you realised that maybe he too stayed right where you’d left him
warnings: swearing, jokes about death, mentions of alcohol/clubbing
note: im keeping myself accountable and finishing this series guys
synopsis: after the messy end to your relations with jaemin, it seemed like you were the only one unable to move on from your past. but with a few slip ups in between the planning of his wedding, you realised that maybe he too stayed right where you’d left him
warnings: swearing, jokes about death, mentions of alcohol/clubbing
note: im keeping myself accountable and finishing this series guys
synopsis: after the messy end to your relations with jaemin, it seemed like you were the only one unable to move on from your past. but with a few slip ups in between the planning of his wedding, you realised that maybe he too stayed right where you’d left him
warnings: swearing, jokes about death, mentions of alcohol/clubbing
note: i've been drinking too much recently,, y/n and i are one ig...
synopsis: after the messy end to your relations with jaemin, it seemed like you were the only one unable to move on from your past. but with a few slip ups in between the planning of his wedding, you realised that maybe he too stayed right where you’d left him
warnings: swearing, jokes about death, mentions of alcohol/clubbing
note: i've been drinking too much recently,, y/n and i are one ig...
synopsis: after the messy end to your relations with jaemin, it seemed like you were the only one unable to move on from your past. but with a few slip ups in between the planning of his wedding, you realised that maybe he too stayed right where you’d left him
warnings: jokes about death, mentions of alcohol/clubbing
note: holy shibal what a throwback,, everyone say welcome back J
synopsis: after the messy end to your relations with jaemin, it seemed like you were the only one unable to move on from your past. but with a few slip ups in between the planning of his wedding, you realised that maybe he too stayed right where you’d left him
warnings: jokes about death, mentions of alcohol/clubbing
note: holy shibal what a throwback,, everyone say welcome back J
