synopis: having to spend the summer working at your dad’s game shop looks boring, so why not help and flirt with your coworker jake so he can make his crush jealous. now you spend your summer nights playing dungeons and dragons in the back of the store to help him, soon you started to think that flirting with jake doesn’t require as much acting you as thought
genre: smau, fluff, fake dating
warnings: kys jokes maybe, english its not my first language so if there is any mistake im sorry •⩊•
profiles: dragons
featuring: jungwon and ni-ki from enhypen, sion and riku from nct wish, danielle and hanni from newjeans, rei from ive
synopsis: having to spend the summer working at your dad’s game shop looks boring, so why not help and flirt with your coworker jake so he can make his crush jealous. soon you started to think that flirting with jake doesn’t require as much acting you as thought
synopsis: having to spend the summer working at your dad’s game shop looks boring, so why not help and flirt with your coworker jake so he can make his crush jealous. soon you started to think that flirting with jake doesn’t require as much acting you as thought
synopsis: having to spend the summer working at your dad’s game shop looks boring, so why not help and flirt with your coworker jake so he can make his crush jealous. soon you started to think that flirting with jake doesn’t require as much acting you as thought
synopsis. with insomnia, ni-ki has never been good at sleeping. fortunately for him, he’s become quite good at loving you instead. on those nights where he’s wide awake, he instead finds himself wrapped in your arms at three in the morning—reminding himself just how lucky he is to love you.
pairings. insomniac!bf!riki x gf!reader
cw. mentions and descriptions of insomnia, established relationship, extremely tooth-rotting fluff, ni-ki being extremely in love, reader and ni-ki r very inlove. Okkk reader please hug him tighter. :(
✿𓈒ॱ⬭ᩙ malia’s note. dw bae @/ni-ki i I have insomnia too you can lay in my bed n we can cuddle until we fall asleep. anyway I find this verrrryr cute n I have such a soft spot for this boi TT also thank u for reading my jake oneshot!!! I’ll continue writing fluff for enhablrville~
NORMALLY, it is common for most people to find three in the morning an unreasonable hour to be awake— however, your boyfriend, riki, found it nothing unusual. more like a typical part of his daily life.
because riki had grown used to sleepless nights ages ago.
the simple act of “closing your eyes” was not that simple to him, a dark pitch room somehow made him more awake than before, and his google search history was filled with tutorials on falling asleep.
sleep was always a difficult challenge for the boy, it had always been ever since.
sometimes, it frustrated him more than he’d like to admit. sometimes he hated how exhausted and grumpy he felt before the day had even begun.
and sometimes, on nights like these, he didn’t mind it so much.
because laying beside him was his favorite person in the entire world.
his gaze softened almost immediately as he turned towards you. your face was half buried underneath the blankets, one hand tucked underneath your cheek as soft breaths escaped past your lips. he’d always wondered how someone could look so pretty doing absolutely nothing— it seemed unfair, really.
you looked beautiful laughing, beautiful crying and somehow, even more beautiful when you were drooling onto his own pillow.
riki spent years wondering whether he’d ever learn how to sleep properly.
he thinks falling in love with you was probably the closest thing he’d ever get to an answer. because even if sleeping didn’t come easy— peace always did whenever you were around.
carefully reaching over, riki intertwined his fingers with yours before smiling softly at the familiar ring resting comfortably on your finger.
you’d worn it everyday since he’d given it to you almost two years ago. he wasn’t sure you’d ever understand how much those little things like that meant to him.
sometimes he’d catch himself staring at your hand whenever the two of you walked together, smiling stupidly to himself because you were wearing something he’d picked out for you.
it was embarrassing how much he loved you— then again, everything about loving you had always been embarrassingly easy.
“you’re really pretty, you know that?” he whispered quietly, tracing small circles against the back of your hand with his thumb.
silence.
“like ridiculously pretty.”
“I think you’re the most perfect person I’ve ever laid eyes on, how do you do that?”
silence once again.
he smiled softly to himself before gently brushing your hair away from your face. “god, that’s embarrassing,” he laughed quietly. “i’m so glad you’re sleeping right now.”
“i think you’re perfect too.”
what?
riki froze immediately. slowly, he turned his head towards you only to find one sleepy eye peeking open as you smiled at him.
“…you’re awake?”
“mhm.” you chuckled gently, slowly turned your head towards him with a stupid smile— mirroring his mannerisms.
“HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN AWAKE?” riki shot up so quickly that the blanket slipped down his waist, his whole body stiffening as he sat upright. instinctively— he brought up a hand to his face as if it could somehow erase what he had just said.
“a while.”
“a while as in five seconds or a while as in you heard me talking to myself like a complete and total idiot?”
“the second one.”
silence.
“i’m moving countries, goodbye forever.”
you couldn’t help but laugh softly at his horrified expression as he immediately tried to hide under the blanket again, but you were faster—gently pulling it down just enough to reveal his face.
his cheeks were completely red, eyes wide, lips slightly parted like he genuinely didn’t know where to put himself. he looked so flustered it was almost unfair. you burst out laughing.
“you’re so cute,” you said between laughs, reaching up to cup his cheek.
“don’t look at me,” he mumbled instantly, trying to turn away. “i’m never speaking again.”
“no, no, look at me,” you teased softly, still smiling. “you’re so red, ki.”
“i want to disappear.”
“you can’t disappear, riki.”
“watch me.”
you laughed again, softer this time, and gently pulled him back by the cheek so he’d face you again. his eyes flickered to yours for a second before immediately darting away again, still mortified.
“you’re so dramatic,” you whispered fondly.
there was a beat of silence before you leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. it was quick, gentle, almost absentminded—but it hit him like a switch.
his entire body went still.
and then, just like that, all the tension melted out of him.
his shoulders dropped, his expression softened, and the embarrassment slowly faded into something quieter, warmer. he blinked at you once, then again, like he was trying to process what just happened. “you’re annoying,” he mumbled, but there was no bite to it anymore.
“you love me.”
“…unfortunately.”
despite his words— his actions were the complete opposite. he was already leaning closer again, forehead almost touching yours, like he couldn’t help it.
“hm… can’t sleep?”
his eyes softened almost immediately at the sound of your sleepy voice. riki smiled sheepishly before shaking his head slightly. “did i wake you up?” he asked quietly, gently rubbing circles against the back of your hand.
“a little.”
“i’m sorry, baby.”
you simply smiled sleepily before opening your arms towards him. he’d always loved how easily you’d make room for him.
“come here.”
he laughed quietly at your response before immediately pulling you closer against him, resting his head comfortably against your shoulder. it was almost funny at this point— he’d always become impossibly softer whenever he was around you.
“another bad night?” you asked softly, running your fingers through his hair. “mhm.”
you frowned slightly at his response before pressing a gentle kiss against the top of his head.
“how long?”
“since one.”
“riki.”
“i tried sleeping, baby.”
“did you really?”
“…for about ten minutes.”
“wow.”
“thank you.”
you laughed quietly before gently scratching against his scalp, smiling when you felt him practically melt against your touch. “you’re really cute.”
“even when I’m suffering from insomnia right now?”
“two things can be true at once.”
he smiled helplessly at your response before lifting his head slightly to look at you. he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of moments like these.
your fingers tangled in his hair, your very sleepy voice asking if he’d eaten dinner today despite barely being awake yourself. it was nice.
you were nice.
“what?” you laughed softly, noticing him staring at you.
“nothing.”
“liar.”
“maybe i’m wondering how you’re still pretty even at this hour…”
“that’s ironic coming from you.”
“i’m serious.”
“so am i.”
he smiled softly before pressing a gentle kiss against your forehead.
you two sat there quietly for a few moments, simply enjoying each other’s company. there was never any pressure to fill the silence whenever the two of you were together. some nights consisted of endless conversations until sunrise and others simply felt like this.
“baby, i think you’ve spoiled me.”
“how?”
“well, before dating you, i’d just stare at my ceiling in the pitch dark for hours.”
“and now?”
“now i complain if you don’t cuddle me.”
“that’s very cute.” you chuckled, stroking his face with your hand with your other one still playing with the strands of his hair.
“no, it has become quite a problem.”
you laughed quietly before continuing to play with his hair. you didn’t realize he’d begun slowly closing his eyes until his grip around your waist tightened ever so slightly.
“baby?”
“mhm?”
“i love you.”
you smiled helplessly. no matter how many times he said it, those three simple words never failed to make your heart race.
“i love you too.”
“i mean it.”
“i know.”
“no,” he laughed sleepily, pressing a gentle kiss against your hand, “i really mean it.”
his words were beginning to slur, sleep slowly finding him without either of you realizing it. you could tell when he was getting sleepy— with how affectionate he got.
“i know, riki.”
“i’m really lucky, you know.”
“mhm.”
“i got you.”
you smiled softly at his sleepy confession before gently brushing his hair away from his face. “and i got you.” he smiled sleepily at your response before closing his eyes once more.
“you’re really pretty.”
you laughed quietly. “you’ve told me that so many times tonight.”
“I should tell you more….” he yawned, burying his face comfortably in your neck, “i can do better tomorrow.”
somewhere between him talking about how he’d somehow won at life by getting to love you and you rambling about your whole day, his responses slowly became quieter.
“and then I saw someone holding their cat, it was a black fluffy cat, it had some spots on it—it kinda reminded me of a puma in a way.”
“mhm.”
“and i think the cat looked exactly like you.”
“that’s nice.”
“riki?”
“mhm.”
“you’re falling asleep, aren’t you?”
“no…”
“riki.”
“…maybe a little.”
you laughed softly before pressing a gentle kiss against the top of his head. “go to sleep.”
“can’t.”
“why?”
there was a brief moment of silence before he smiled sleepily against your shoulder. “because i’ll miss talking to you.” your expression softened almost immediately at his confession.
“i’ll still be here tomorrow, silly.”
“promise?”
“promise.”
“okay.”
his words had begun to slur together, sleep slowly finding him without either of you realizing it. he was practically melting into your arms now, tightening his hold around your waist whenever your fingers slowed against his hair.
“baby?” he called out, his voice raspy.
“mhm?”
“i think you’re the prettiest girl on earth.”
you smiled helplessly, you could feel your face burning up at your boyfriends compliments. “that’s sweet.”
“m’ serious.”
“i know.”
“i like looking at you.”
“even when you’re sleeping.”
you laughed quietly before pressing a gentle kiss against his forehead.
“i like kissing your face too.”
“you do?”
“mhm.”
he hummed sleepily before smiling against your shoulder. “i wanna kiss your face all the time.”
“that’s a lot of kisses.”
“you deserve all of them.”
your heart softened immediately at his sleepy confession. there was something so unbearably affectionate about him whenever he was half asleep. he always became softer with you somehow.
“i like you so much.”
“i like you too.”
“no.” he frowned sleepily before shaking his head slightly. “i like you more.”
“that’s not how that works.”
“mhm. that’s exactly how it works.”
you giggled quietly at his response before continuing to play with his hair. “okay, if you say so.”
“you’re really warm.”
“thank you?”
“you’re really soft too.”
“riki…?” you chuckled softly.
“and really pretty.”
“…you’ve told me that many times tonight.”
“I don’t think it’s enough…” his eyes widened slightly as if it was totally unacceptable. “i’ll do better for you tomorrow.” you laughed softly before pressing another kiss against his forehead.
“you can tell me more tomorrow.”
“okay.”
there was another moment of comfortable silence before he suddenly tightened his arms around your waist once more. “please hug me tighter.”riki asked quietly, your expression softened immediately at his quiet request.
“of course, baby.”
you pulled him impossibly closer against you, smiling when you heard him let out the sleepiest, happiest sigh against your shoulder. “that’s better.”
“mhm?”
“i love you.”
“i love you too.”
he smiled softly at your response before pressing a sleepy kiss against the back of your hand. “thank you for loving me.”
you paused briefly at his words before gently brushing his hair away from his face.
“thank you for loving me too.”
“i’m really lucky.”
“we’re both lucky.”
“no.” he shook his head stubbornly despite barely being awake. “i won.”
“…won what?”
“life.”
your heart melted immediately. “that’s cheesy.”
“don’t care.”
“you’re half asleep.”
“still right.”
you laughed quietly before kissing the tip of his nose.
“go to sleep, pretty boy.”
“okay.”
you watched as he closed his eyes uncontrollably, adjusting his position as your body was tangled together— you admired this sight, it was more than you could ever ask for.
“baby..?” he let out.
looking down— you waited for what he was gonna say or ask now, but to your surprise, he’d fallen asleep halfway through his question, arms still wrapped tightly around your waist as soft breaths escaped past his lips.
you smiled quietly to yourself before pressing one final kiss against his forehead. perhaps you’d tell him tomorrow that he’d nearly made you cry at all his words.
for now, though, you’d simply hold him a little tighter.
f*ck I’m so single bro. THIS IS SO FCKIMG CUTE GUYS PLS also i can relate to this because my insomnia gets hella bad but I ain’t got no ni-ki to hug n cuddle with so f**k off
synopsis. jake is hopelessly, embarrassingly in love with his girlfriend. coming home after a long day of practice to find her asleep waiting for him only makes him realize one thing: he’ll never get tired of being loved by her—and he’ll spend the rest of his life loving her right back.
pairings. downbad!bf!jake x gf!reader
cw. tooth rotting fluff, jake is extremely downbad and head over heels inlove with reader like stupidly ^_^
✿𓈒ॱ⬭ᩙ malia’s note. I miss my future bf. n I wish it was downbad obsessed jake. :/
YOUR sweet boyfriend jake had come to three conclusions after dating you for almost two years. the first was that he loved you. the second was that he loved you very much. and the third was that perhaps loving you had made him a little stupid.
he doesn’t think it’s his fault, really.
how was he supposed to act normal when his girlfriend existed?
he couldn’t.
it was scientifically impossible to him.
his best friend, sunghoon, had once told him that the way he talked about you was concerning. even more, it got to a point that riki once threatened to throw jake's phone into the han river if he saw another picture of you as his lockscreen.
which was unfair, because ni-ki simply didn’t understand art when he saw it.
everyone was simply jealous that he had the prettiest girlfriend in the world.
you were currently occupying every single wallpaper on his phone. his notes app was filled with things you liked that you’d casually mentioned six months ago: he was simply a man in love.
a very, very in love man.
but the thing about jake was that he never realized he was being sweet.
remembering how you take your coffee wasn’t sweet, it was common sense. carrying hair ties in his bag because you always lose yours wasn’t sweet either.
that’s just what boyfriends do, don’t they?
at least, that’s what he’d always say whenever you’d point it out.
today wasn’t much different.
practice had ended much later than expected and although jake had told you repeatedly not to wait for him, he should’ve known better than to think you’d actually listen.
you’d sent him a text three hours ago saying:
i’ll wait for my handsome boyfriend!!
i stole your hoodie btw.
ok i miss you :(
his favorite notifications were always the ones from you. unlocking the door to his apartment quietly, jake smiled softly at the sight before him.
there you were, curled up comfortably on the couch wearing his hoodie that looked far too big on you. your laptop remained abandoned beside you alongside a half-finished assignment and two empty snack wrappers.
you’d fallen asleep waiting for him. his expression softened almost immediately.
god.
you were so pretty.
he wondered if people would judge him if he cried at the sheer sight of his adorable girlfriend sleeping on his couch.
probably. he didn't care at all though.
placing his bag down quietly beside the door, he crouched down beside the couch to move a strand of hair away from your face. you’d waited all this time just to see him.
that thought alone made his heart feel impossibly warm. sometimes, jake wonders what he ever did to deserve loving someone as wonderful as you.
and perhaps more importantly, what he’d done to deserve being loved by you too.
you shifted slightly in your sleep, reaching instinctively for his hand the moment your fingers brushed against his.
“…jake?” you whispered sleepily, eyes barely opening.
“go back to sleep, pretty girl.”
“you’re home.”
he laughed quietly at the smile immediately appearing on your face despite being half asleep.
“i am.”
“I missed you.” you let out quietly.
three simple words.
three words that somehow still managed to make his heart skip a beat after all this time.
“i missed you more, pretty.”
“that’s impossible.”
“is it?” he smiled, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. “i’ve been missing you since breakfast.” jake chuckled, his hand meeting your face as he cupped your cheek. you giggled sleepily at his response.
you laughed quietly as he sat down beside you, immediately wrapping his arms around your waist while you buried your head against his shoulder.
it was moments like these that made him realize he’d choose this life over and over again if he could.
he took a second to just look at your face, how could anyone be this beautiful? he thought to himself, "my beautiful girl..." he muttered under his breath, his thumb gently stroking your face.
coming home to you. holding you after long days. watching you fall asleep in his arms while rambling about your day.
“did you eat?” you suddenly asked, looking up at him worriedly despite being half asleep yourself.
“i did.”
“really?”
“you know... 'cuz half a sandwich counts, right?”
you sat up immediately.
“SIM JAKE.”
“MY BABY I’M SORRY.”
he smiled helplessly as you began lecturing him about proper eating habits for what was probably the hundredth time this month. he wasn’t listening particularly well, admittedly.
mostly because he was busy thinking about how pretty you looked when you cared about him.
perhaps he was concerning. because if loving you this much was concerning, then he had absolutely no intentions of getting better.
after all, you were his favorite person in the world. and jake thinks he’ll spend the rest of his life making sure you know that.
every single day.
thank you for reading cutie. 🧁I want a bf like this ts aint fair jake pls come into my life bai :/
THANK YOU FOR THE TAG 😭 BUT ALSO IF I MISS SOMEONE ITS CAUSE I NEVER REMEMBER YALLS USERS OK.
-> also might tag some people i follow that don’t follow me cause istg i always think everyone already follows me ok. so treat this as blog appreciation even if you don’t follow me i see you on my dash A LOTTT.
› nerd physics major!jake & literature major fem!reader
✶ ˚｡⋆ when a stupid account starts replying to your (attempted) poetic tweets with absolute logic, it ruins your deep thoughts with talk of gravity and thermodynamics. you’re already losing your mind, but for jake? that’s just his best way of flirting.
꧖ warnings: cursing. crack. jake is down bad and pathetic srs. english isn’t my first language. — masterlist.
(˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡) : he looks so dreamy in these photos… i’m so in love. how is he even real. aaaand 🥁🥁🥁 i opened a perm tag list! the post to join is linked at the end of the smau. thank u for reading 💌
synopsis: having to spend the summer working at your dad’s game shop looks boring, so why not help and flirt with your coworker jake so he can make his crush jealous. soon you started to think that flirting with jake doesn’t require as much acting you as thought
masterlist . prev . next
૮･ﻌ･ა writing about danielle and then watching nj's posts without her 😭😭
𑣲⋆ ⌗ (🚬) You’re the kind of girl who gets peonies for breakfast, so Riki Nishimura would really like to know why you’re buying weed from him.
西村 力 riki nishimura x cheer captain! reader
˗ˏˋ riki as a plug, i promise its not as bad as it sounds, romcom, fluff, crack, profanity, homewrecking but not really, cheating (not really) but not on riki dw, explicit content, smut, oral sex, m receiving, porn with plot, unprotected sex, dom ni-ki, size kink lowk, weed, toxic, mdni !
wc: 20 766
p: d.a.m. - fetty wap ; homewrecker - sombr ; i get lonely - drake ; lowkey - niki (fcking hilarious)
Riki Nishimura was a conformist by all means possible, and even prides himself as a law-abiding citizen to the normalized standards.
He does think some fractions of the government system can totally be tweaked, but he isn’t some reformist that would go out of his way — he actually really likes the stability of society and how it’s structured. He’s comfortable with the status quo.
That includes knowing who to follow on Instagram, who not to approach in the hallway, who to invite in group projects, and who to sit with in lunch. He goes by what makes sense and knows who the hell doesn’t belong in his circle, who rightfully has his phone number, and who can comment on his Instagram posts.
Except when it comes to substances. He’s not a drug addict but he does enjoy good weed.
He did listen during chemistry lectures, which basically means he knows a thing or two about pharmaceutics — at least the important parts like which produce larger surges of dopamine and intense euphoria. So while they get drug orientations every start of the school year and the addition of the entrepreneurial mindset of a businessman his father has passed down to him; Riki’s a fucking a jackpot. He simply believed every structure had blind spots, and if someone was smart enough to notice them, then maybe they deserved to profit a little.
Maybe that made him a hypocrite. He knew that. Sometimes, in the middle of his own judgment, the thought would occur to him that he was not exactly living inside the moral boundaries he pretended to respect.
So with all of these in mind — weed-seller and social scale follower — imagine his surprise seeing a text from you.
You, an A-tier cheer captain with perfect grades and perfect friends and a perfect boyfriend and someone he doubts even has ever touched weed within a 10 feet radius because of how goody-two-shoes and slightly more socially-conformed you are, texted him:
you:
hi
you sell right
The kind of surprise a priest might feel if the Virgin Mary asked to borrow a dildo.
Riki stared at his phone for a full thirty seconds. Not because he was shocked by the question itself — he’d gotten worse, far more incriminating messages from people with nothing to lose – but because of who it was from. Your name sat there, attached to a profile picture he never thought would sit on his chat log. Someone who followed the rules so well she barely seemed to touch the ground and practically flew up the school field with the school banner.
This was not how the structure worked. Nope.
He knew you didn’t look at people like him unless it was to borrow a pen or unwillingly get assigned to a lab partner. You definitely weren’t supposed to be asking him this.
Riki leaned back in his chair and rethought the logistics. He wasn’t paranoid – paranoia implied irrationality. This was risk assessment, you’re high visibility, you’re a liability, you’re a cop in disguise, you’re a prig who’ll ruin his cloak and dagger, you’re holier-than-thou. You’re interesting.
riki:
????
is this a test loll
you:
?
its a question
riki:
u fr????
you:
js tell me if its a no
i have money
riki:
3pm behind the science building
you:
ok thanks
But more than whatever you are, he knows this was stupid. This was the kind of deviation that got people caught and into the most flouting position he’ll ever be, therefore ruining his very wish to stay within a lawful system. It was, unequivocally, a very bad idea.
And yet he finds himself at the back of the building while he reevaluates the measures of bad-ness in the idea. If math really has been on his side along with his really athletic stature, he can run when you pull out as witness to his little dissenter mood. It halts when he sees you rounding the corner in your cheer uniform — ponytail perfect, knee tape slightly crooked, eyes darting like you weren’t sure you belonged back here — he realizes something his knees will give out before he can even try to walk away.
You stop a few feet away from him, awkward, out of place, glowing like a wrong answer circled in red. You stare at him with your arms crossed, hyperaware when his eyes follow the silhouette of your frame like he’s finding a covert surveillance device underneath your pleated skirt.
Riki talks calmly, like this wasn’t insane at all, like he hasn’t been in his head for the past hours: “So,” he starts, hands slipping into the pockets of his hoodie. “What do you need?”
The question should’ve been easy. You’d rehearsed it in your head on the walk here, timed it with your steps, told yourself not to sound like an idiot. But standing this near — near enough to notice the faint, clean smell of cologne and something green and earthy — you blank.
You shift your weight, arms tightening across your chest. “Um. Weed.”
Riki blinks once, and immediately he knows what this is. He studies you the way he did with lab results that didn’t line up with the predictions — or maybe it did exactly, and he can’t believe it was that easy.
“…Okay,” he said. “What kind?”
Your mouth opens. Then closes.
“What kind.” he repeats.
You felt heat crawl up your neck. “Just… normal?” you say, immediately hating yourself. “Like. The kind people use?”
A corner of his mouth twitches before he can stop it. Then he licks the inside of his cheek, shaking his head when he realizes that yeah, his guess is right. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” he says.
You bristle. “So?”
“You don’t even know dosage. Or strain. Or why you want it.” His eyes flick up to yours. “Do you?”
Your confidence wobbles, the polished composure you wore so easily in hallways cracking just a little now. He pulls out a small, neatly labeled bag and holds it between his fingers instead of handing it to you. “This is low THC,” he explains. “Won’t make you freak out. But I need to know what you specifically need so you don’t… panic.”
This was supposed to be transactional, quick, something you could tuck away and forget about. Yet every risky glance you take, he doesn’t look like someone who’d hold anything against you.
Riki sighs, about to put the bag away. “Look, let’s just forget —“
“I just,” you start, then sigh because there’s no cool way to say it. “I don’t know. I had a bad week. I wanted to try something.”
When you finally look up, he’s watching you differently. Not like you’re stupid or embarrassing, though you feel plenty of that on your own. His brows have lifted slightly, the faint amusement in his mouth fading into something quieter as he takes you in properly: your tight grip on your own arms, the way your eyes keep darting away.
And it makes it worse.
You meet his eyes for half a second before looking away with a small huff, embarrassed by the sudden attention.
He puckers his lips slightly, staring at the thing in his hand like he’s thinking. At first, you think he might be deciding if you’re worth the trouble, but then he nods once. “Okay,” he says. “So you’re not becoming a stoner. You’re just trying a new cuisine.”
You blink at him, then laugh under your breath before you can stop yourself.
His mouth twitches, but hides it. He steps closer, just enough that you can see the smoothness of his skin, like he owns expensive skincare. He’s very tall, in a way that surprises you maybe because you’d just never stood this close before.
Really, you never spent time looking at Riki Nishimura. You’ve known the name, because who can ever look past the opulent sound of it, but to know the man behind it didn’t matter. After texting him, you don’t know what you expected either, maybe someone grubbier and smelled like smoke, someone with dry lips from all the ash. You thought he’d smell like one of those hippie guys who sold sketchy shit while wearing the same beanie for three years.
But no, he smells like a familiar perfume your father owns in his fragrance wardrobe.
And his clothes are annoyingly nice, like the hoodie is probably more expensive than it looks and the loose pants are intentional, not lazy.
Also, he’s 6’1.
“This,” he taps the bag lightly, “will help you relax. Body high, mostly. You’ll still be functional. But since it’s your first time, better not fuck around too much.”
He’s still standing in front of you, close enough for you to notice the way his lashes lower when he looks at the bag in his hand, and you feel deeply, horribly stupid for only realizing now that he looks like that.
Your gaze lingers, and he catches it. Riki clears his throat, spine straightening a little. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” you say too fast.
He only hums. You tighten your arms across your chest. “Just give me the thing.”
He finally hands you the bag, and you eye it once you feel its weight in your palm; leafy and green and brown and not you — but it doesn’t look so bad right now. It looks enticing, even, which you won’t try to admit out loud.
“Twenty,” he says, not planning to converse himself with the sudden discount.
You dig into your bag, finding for the vintage pink wallet that screams the contrast of cannabis in your palm right now. “You know,” you say, hesitant but honest, “I don’t know. It’s weird how we’ve never talked before.”
That gets him. He chuckles even if there’s nothing funny about what you said, but there is something humorous about the fact he remembers shit you obviously forgot. He’s quick to question the lack of indifference, because he remembers it well that this is definitely not the first time you two talked.
“We were partners in freshman year,” Riki says.
He watches your face blank in real time, and something about it makes his mouth lift again, but not kindly enough to be mean. More like he expected it and still finds it a little funny that you are proving him right.
“English lit,” he adds. “The mythology presentation.”
For a second, he looks at you like someone who’s always known you, and you look at him like you’re seeing him for the first time. He sees it flash in your eyes, that maybe you remember him more than just some guy who sells weed to irresponsible decision-makers.
“Oh,” you say.
Riki nods once, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Oh.”
Until your phone buzzes to drag you back from this little bubble you’re in – your boyfriend’s name lights up the screen and Riki notices it too.
“Oh,” you say again, clearly out of your own head. “I — sorry.”
Something shifts, like the structure rebuilds and reasserts itself back into proper footing. You pull the bills from your wallet and press them into his hand. “Thanks,” you say. “For, um. The stuff.”
He closes his fist around the money, nods once. “Yeah.”
You hesitate like you might say something else, so you just tuck the bag away and step back. “I’ll go,” you say.
You turn the corner first. Riki exhales only when you’re out of sight, and chews on his bottom lip before hitting the side of his fist against the wall without real effort. He turns the other corner, parting from the rendezvous kept between eng lit and discounts.
The thing is, Riki knows you before whatever you are now. Miss Perfect who buys weed from Mister Lowkey Weed Seller — it’s a whole tangle in his brain in which he can’t exactly comprehend, but while he smokes a joint and music blasts through the speakers from the house party he’s dragged into, your picture’s pinned with red strings.
He’s known you since third grade. You’ve been part of the cheer team before puberty, and since then you’ve accumulated likable girls your age into your circle, then the guys from the football team after. It becomes a whole coupling session when the age came right, which Riki is convinced is just some orgy labeled friendship goals in curated Instagram. He thought you were mean mostly because that’s what someone like you would be — but he does know a thing or two about you, other than the assumption of character. You’ve been in the same group projects against your will, sometimes you’d stand next to each other by the queue lines in the cafeteria, sometimes you’d bump against him in the hallway when you’re chasing time.
Is it weird he kept tabs? Maybe.
He always noticed, obviously, why wouldn’t he? You are not exactly unnoticeable. You’re nicer than your friends, you say sorry when you accidentally bump into someone, you say thanks to the staff, you say good morning to strangers, you’re pretty, you’re talented, you’re smart, you laugh at his jokes, you bought weed from him, you’re pretty, you’re perfect, you’re funny, you’re ridiculously pretty —
Riki takes another puff, too fast and too harsh, earning a rough cough from his throat. Heeseung chuckles, giving him an aggressive pat on the back when he leans his elbows against his knees. “Geez, first time?”
Riki shoves his arm away with a laugh, unsure where this is coming from. Because on top of every other noticeable trait you have, you have a boyfriend. So. Yeah. He knows better than to think about you.
He sinks deeper into someone else’s couch — leather, cracked at the seams — while the bass rattles the walls and bodies blur together in the dim lights. Smoke hangs thick in the air, clinging to his clothes, his hair, his thoughts. He takes another drag, slower this time, lets it sit in his lungs until the noise dulls around the edges.
Across from him, someone’s laughing too loud, then a couple is making out like it’s an Olympic sport. Heeseung steals the joint from his fingers and flicks the ash into an empty cup.
“You look fucked,” Heeseung says.
“I’m not,” Riki replies automatically.
“Mhm.”
Riki pushes himself up from the couch, suddenly restless. He just wants a drink — something cold, something that doesn’t make his head spiral because even the thought of weed pulls him back to this cheerleader. So he goes to the kitchen, instinctively saying half-assed sorry’s to strangers without meaning them.
Until he bumps into someone.
For half a second, he genuinely wonders if the side effects are finally catching up to him, because his head feels several feet away from his eyes and the kitchen lights look more hazy than they should.
But it’s you, he knows that because your kind voice apologizes; the way you always do, the way your friends don’t. Your shoulder knocks into his chest and you’re already stepping back, eyes wide a fraction of a second when you look up. Riki freezes too, unsure what to do with his hands or his feet or where to look without threading too close to the sternum your lowcut top exposes. Up close, under dim kitchen lights instead of school hallways, you look unreal — hair loose, lips parted like you’ve been laughing.
“Riki,” you say, breathless, like his name slipped out before your brain could catch it.
His name on your mouth does something stupid to him.
“Hey,” he says, too softly. He’s just thankful you don’t notice the slight roughness of it.
You smile, small and polite — but there’s something else underneath it now. Recognition that shouldn’t exist, not in the structure where you’re meant to forget that you know; one where he looks up at you from beneath your echelon, now he’s standing close enough that you have to tilt your chin to look up at him.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” you say.
He huffs a quiet laugh. “I didn’t either.”
You glance past him, toward the other room, toward where your friends probably are — or your boyfriend. Then back at him, polite in a way he’s sure is because you’re you and not because he’s him.
“I don’t usually see you in… parties,” you say.
He puts both hands in his pant pockets, shoulders loose, eyes on yours like the noise around you doesn’t have enough authority to interrupt.
“You don’t usually look,” he says.
It’s not said rudely, just calm, like he’s stating something obvious enough that both of you should stop pretending around it.
Your fingers tighten around your cup. “That’s not true.”
Riki tilts his head, eyes moving over your face. “Yeah?”
You hate how it sounds coming from him, low and slow and almost amused, like he knows you’re lying before you do. You scoff a quiet laugh, eyes looking away because you can’t keep looking at him.
“I mean, I know you exist.” You look back up at him when you say it, bottom lip catching between your teeth before you can stop yourself.
His eyes drop for half a second, then he smirks and looks away, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek like he’s trying not to say something.
When he looks back, his face is calmer. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
The question is casual enough that it almost sounds harmless. You glance elsewhere instinctively, like you’re going to find him close. “Somewhere.”
“Specific.”
“He’s with his friends.”
Riki just nods, doesn’t wanna push, even though he’s pretty sure you don’t actually know where he is. Leaving is the smarter and normal thing to do. The thing a girl with a boyfriend and a reputation and a phone full of unread messages from her friends would do.
Instead, you stay there. And Riki’s got that tabbed already.
You hesitate, fingers worrying at the rim of your cup. “I, um. I haven’t — used it yet.”
Riki blinks. “The stuff?”
You nod, cheeks warming. “I just… don’t really know how.” It’s weird being this honest with someone you barely know, yet your bones don’t buzz with the prompt demand to pause. It must be the slight slosh, it’s the only real thing to excuse why you’re not pulling away.
For a second, he just looks at you. Then his mouth curves, slow and amused. “You bought weed without knowing how to use it?”
Your face warms, but you try not to look embarrassed. “Okay, well.” You lift your cup a little, like that somehow helps your argument. “You can teach me.”
Riki grimaces immediately, playful but clear. “Sounds like a bad idea.”
You blink. “Wow. Rude." You huff, looking away, but you’re smiling a little because he doesn’t sound scared of you. Or impressed by you. Or desperate to keep you there. He just sounds like he already knows better and hates that he has to be the one saying it.
He sighs, looking away for a second. “Fuck, fine.” his jaw clenches. “But not here.”
You try not to smile and fail almost immediately. You take one step back, still looking at him. “I’ll text you. Maybe later?”
Someone calls your name from the other room and you exhale, dragging back through the fracture. The music spikes and someone bumps into you again, closer this time, and Riki’s hand lifts instinctively, hovering over your waist without touching.
Your eyes flick down, then back up to his. “Nice seeing you,” you say finally, voice softer now.
“Yeah,” he says. “You too.”
You step around him, brushing past just close enough that he catches your scent — which is bad, because now he’ll have to remember that too. When you disappear back into the crowd, Riki stays rooted in place for a beat too long.
He exhales, rubs a hand over his face, and laughs quietly to himself.
He really, really knows better.
Which somehow makes it worse.
Riki glances back to see you’re sitting on the couch now, legs tucked in, your boyfriend’s arm slung easily around your shoulders. He leans in and presses a quick kiss to your cheek, which makes you smile and ease back into him. Riki turns away to open the fridge and grabs the coldest beer he can find. He lifts it and downs it in one go, throat burning at the coldness and bitter taste.
He shouldn’t do this.
He really shouldn’t.
Later, in that strange lull when the party has gotten worse and louder — you text him.
You:
bathroom upstairs
The bathroom is cramped and clean but gross in concept: flickering light, foggy mirror, the smell of cheap air freshener. You’re perched on the edge of the sink when he slips inside and locks the door behind him, eyes bright, a little nervous, because being in a bathroom with you feels worse than any sketchy deal he’s made.
“Okay,” you whisper, like you’re conspiring. “So. Teach me.”
He winces, glancing around. “This is… not ideal.”
You just grin. He laughs despite himself and sets the weed down on the closed toilet lid, grimacing when he starts rolling paper against it. Once he’s done, he holds the roll up to your mouth and he tells you to lick it. You follow through, leaning down and sticking your tongue out to lick the side. He clears his throat, trying not to think about the way you looked doing that, trying not to imagine anything else.
He’s careful, not clinical or a lecture when he instructs, just calm and reassuring like he’s trying to keep you comfortable more than correct. When he hands the final roll to you, your fingers shake a little as you take it.
“Like this?” you ask.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Slow.”
You cough immediately after trying, sharp and sudden, bending forward with a surprised laugh. “Oh my god — why does it — ”
“Hey,” he says, too fast, stepping closer, hand hovering at your back. “You okay?”
You wave him off, still laughing, eyes watering. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”
He watches you like you might disappear if he looks away. You’re laughing, which isn’t comforting Riki even in the slightest because the last thing he needs is to not be a conformist and end up in jail for accidentally supporting your homicide.
You try again, better this time. You still cough, laugh, cough again, but way more manageable as time goes by.
“Sorry,” you say, breathless.
“Don’t apologize,” he says. “You’re doing fine.”
You keep at it, stubborn in that way of yours, until the coughing eases and something in your shoulders loosens. You lean back against the wall, head tipping gently, eyes half-lidded.
“Oh,” you murmur. “That’s… actually really nice.”
Riki lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, a nervous laugh slipping out. He leans back against the wall, hand through his bangs, exposing the skin of his forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ,”
You nod slowly, smiling to yourself. “My brain’s quiet.”
He watches you for a moment: relaxed, unguarded, glowing in this tiny bathroom because you don’t belong here at all, holding a joint Riki himself rolled for you. Really, you never belonged anywhere that tried to put you in a box, and he wasn’t going to make himself an exception to that opening.
He tries thinking about who you really are, beyond what most people would take you as. Though he knows not to fantasize a tale where he saves the damsel from her golden label. He takes you with memory and not assumption: cheer girl, disciplined afternoon drills, academically smart, socially competent, good. But tonight, while you lean against the cracked sink and stand diagonally across him, he sees a side he never thought he’d secretly behold.
Your eyes flick to him. “You’re a good teacher.”
He swallows. “You’re an easy student.”
Riki rolls another one for himself, hands steadier now that you’re settled, and lights it with a quiet flick. The bathroom fills with a softer haze this time, the kind that wraps instead of hits like a downer high school series. He takes a drag, exhales toward the ceiling, letting the room reek with shouldn’ts and endorphine boosters.
You smoke more confidently now, less harsh and rough when you let the smoke run down your throat. Your eyes are a little red, lashes heavier, the sharp edges of you blurred into something warmer and looser, less polished and picture perfect the way your boyfriend would like. Riki thinks — stupidly — that he’s never seen you look better.
You lean your head back against the wall again, staring at the ceiling like it’s just told you a secret. He doesn’t stare, actually. He keeps his eyes narrowed to the broken tile in front of him like he’ll discern the reason it’s cracked (maybe someone opened the door too hard, maybe someone once stood there trying to look normal while his heart acted stupid over a girl, which was especially humiliating when the whole point of being high was to feel less insane). Sometimes he’ll permit himself to glance, but even the very glimpse of your smudged lipstick makes him look away and inhale the fuck outta that weed.
Then, suddenly, with eyes still trained to the dim bathroom light — “I thought you were,” you start, then laugh, a little too loud before clapping a hand over your mouth. “Sorry. I thought you were, like… this weirdo.”
He snorts, shaking his head. “Wow. Honesty hour already?”
“No — ” you groan, waving the joint like you’re conducting an orchestra. “I mean it nicely. You always stayed away from everyone. I figured you were judging us.”
“Us?” he repeats, amused, cocking a brow when he glances at you.
“You know. People like me.” You squint at him, trying to focus. You gesture at yourself ineptly, clearly out of the ordinary intellectual capacity you clench tight, not when rickety makes up for your feet.
He quickly looks away, trying not to smile.
“Loud. Annoying.” you clarify, hand gesturing around.
He tilts his head, considering. “Was I supposed to be friends with people like you?”
You blink, like you’re thinking about what he said and calculating the rationale behind his causes. It was a hit, one that steadies a thought in your brain.
“Is that so bad?”
The question knocks the breath out of him, especially when you look up at him like that, eyes bright and wide. He blinks, and then he laughs, coming out quieter this time, looking away because he can’t keep eye contact with you. “I didn’t think you’d want that.”
“Why not?”
Because there’s a system. Because there’s levels to this shit. Because you have a boyfriend. Because you’re untouchable. Because you’re perfect and he’s whatever this was. Because people like him didn’t get pulled into your orbit unless it was transactional. Like weed exchanges and favors on the toilet.
For now, he shrugs. “Seemed like you already had your people.”
You hum, nodding slowly, then smile. You tap the joint, watching some ash fall to the tiles. “They’re loud.”
He smiles back despite himself. “Yeah. They are.”
The bathroom feels like it’s floating away from the music that pumps loud through the pipes, a constant reminder that there’s more than the stinky bathroom you two share as a secret. It’s risky because it’s merely wood that separates the crypticity of Mary Jane from the Average Joe you two function in individually.
You glance at the joint, then at him. “You’re not weird, by the way.”
“Oh?” he says, eyebrow lifting. He even scoffs, because he (un-admittedly) finds you adorable.
“You’re just… quiet. You keep to yourself, but that doesn’t make you… eccentric.” You grin lopsided, cheeks warm but you ignore that. “You’re nice.”
That one gets him, more than he’d ever admit to anyone. Riki looks over, and for half a second, his gaze slips lower before he forces it back to your face. You’re already looking at him, all soft eyes and honest mouth, like you have no idea what you’re doing to him.
He looks away first, rubbing the side of his jaw like that might help. “You’re high,” he says.
“Maybe,” you confess. “But I mean it.”
He’s been called quiet and nice all his life, but that was never the full truth. He just knew who deserved access to the rest of him, and most people didn’t. It wasn’t personal. He could talk when he wanted to, laugh when something was actually funny, keep a conversation going if he cared enough. He just didn’t feel the need to prove he had thoughts by saying all of them out loud.
Riki takes a drag, exhales slowly, looking over the tiles of the bathroom while he rethinks the decision he’s about to drop. He clears his throat before speaking, “You’re not mean either.”
Your eyes widen a little, gaze recklessly steady at his side profile. “You thought I was?”
“Everyone did,” he says honestly, smiling a little.
You make a face, frowning at him even though he refuses to look at you. “That’s rude.”
He laughs, really laughs this time, head tipping back. When he looks at you again, you’re smiling up at him like you’ve discovered something new and decided to keep it. For a moment, it feels like maybe there was always a version of this where you talked in bathrooms and shared smoke and didn’t belong where people expected you to.
You take another small drag, then suddenly straighten when you decide to take him in. He’s wearing a jacket over his hoodie, simple sweats loose around his hips. Only a few strands of his dark blonde hair graze over his forehead, leading down to the sharp features you only really notice now.
You never thought Riki Nishimura was ugly. Now, you can’t help but think that he’s… kinda hot.
You’re high, you’re just gone. That’s why. It also explains why you nudge closer than you have been before, letting your skirt brush slightly against his pants, thighs grazing slightly against his.
You’re both still smoking — slow now, like the room itself has decided to breathe with you. The bathroom feels even smaller than before, shrinking with every second the music downstairs gets louder but muffled through the wooden door keeping you a secret. Your head feels light, buoyant, like you’re floating a few inches above your body. Maybe it’s the weed. Maybe it’s the half-drinks you’d taken before this. Maybe it’s neither.
He stares at the tile beneath his boot like it holds the secrets of the universe, or like it had the equations for him to understand gravity’s intentions and how it led to him feeling your softness against him.
“Is there something on the floor?” you laugh.
He just huffs, shaking his head because that’s all he can do right now. You’re still leaning back and he’s still standing just a little too close. Your knee brushes his again, accidental but not corrected.
He looks down at you then. The red in your eyes, the crooked smile, the way you’re leaning just a little toward him like gravity’s doing something new. You lean closer because you’re completely zooted and smart-Riki who knows better, leans away and only lets his chest tighten. His eyes drop traitorously down to your lips, and he’s not fast enough to look back up. You notice, of course, which makes you both look away and straighten back on your feet instead of the wall.
Riki clears his throat, smoking the last of his before he rids of it against the sink. “You gotta go?” he asks out of the blue, which makes you frown a little. It wasn’t exactly a statement, but you know when things are implied and telling, so you shove back the nerves and remember that he’s different from you.
You’re not his type of person. He probably likes more chill people who actually know how to roll this shit — not the sheltered ones who’s clueless with THC or terms alike it.
“Yeah. I guess.” you smooth out your clothes even though nothing’s wrong with them.
He realizes what he just did, especially now that you’re not even looking back at him. He tries correcting himself, to backtrack, but the moment you glance back up, he’s silenced. You put your unfinished joint in his hand. “See you.” You say just before unlocking the door, slipping through it, and accidentally slamming it too hard.
Riki reels in from the solitude of the silence, like he’s now just realizing the ruins he broke himself. He sighs in resignation, head falling forward in defeat. “Shit.”
He stares at the thing in his hand, unfinished and yours, half-burnt and still warm.
“Idiot,” he mutters to himself, dragging a hand down his face. He can still feel the ghost of your skirt brushing his leg, the way you didn’t look back because he gave you a reason not to.
But the bathroom still smells like you — sweet perfume tangled with smoke — and the joint is there, remaining as an accusation wrapped in paper. He turns it between his fingers, thumb brushing the spot where your lipstick smudged faintly against the edge.
Riki exhales, then lifts it.
He wraps his lips around it carefully, stupidly aware of the fact that yours were there first. The thought alone makes his chest tighten, heat creeping up his neck and pelvis as he takes a slow drag.
He closes his eyes as he exhales, leaning his head back against the wall, heart thudding too loud for a room this small. For a split second, he imagines you still there — tilted smile, red-rimmed eyes, saying his name like it belongs to you, all while your boyfriend waits in the living room.
He laughs shakily under his breath. It’s so wrong.
After that, you two haven’t really talked for weeks.
That part isn’t weird. You both have lived the majority of your lives settling with the insouciance despite recognition, and one night in a bathroom, smoke and secrets and red eyes, isn’t enough to reroute that kind of muscle memory. Riki tells himself that over and over, like it’s a theorem he’s already proven.
He hasn’t been worried. He still goes to class, still shows up on time, still hands in assignments with some effort. The only difference — although barely worth mentioning — is that he’s been dipping into his stash more often than usual. A little before bed. A little after.
Riki exhales slowly, staring at the ceiling, telling himself — again — that this doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t have anything to do with the cheer girl he kinda had a moment with in the bathroom.
It’s so fucked, even if you don’t think being his friend is bad, because you’re not meant to be a part of this. He was simply curious that Miss Cheerleader bought weed from him and kinda trusted him way too fast and that wasn’t just some everyday occurrence — that’s the only best psychological explanation why you’re here even when you’re not.
You have a boyfriend. He’s not about to be a homewrecker. Yet it’s not helping.
No talking for weeks, reaching a month even. That says enough. He has to stop.
“Probably about Little Miss Perfect.”
Riki flinches like someone just snapped a rubber band against the back of his neck. He sits up, glaring at Heeseung. “What the fuck,” he blurts. “How do you know that?”
Jake slowly looks up from his laptop, eyes lighting up like he just unlocked a bonus level.
“Oh my god.” Sunghoon’s grin spreads and Heeseung laughs, clapping like he’s won because technically he did, at the mental betting at what keeps Riki Nishimura downing his marijuana greenhouse.
“Ohhh,” Heeseung says, taunting and annoying. “So it is about her.”
Riki blinks. “No.”
“That was the weakest no I’ve ever heard,” Jake says immediately, pointing a finger at Riki. “You’re a guilty man, aren’t you?”
Riki scoffs, scrambling, fingers rubbing against his temple in attempts to cool. “You’re literally insane. Why would it be about her?”
Heeseung shrugs, casual. “I saw you two talking at that party.”
Riki’s stomach drops. “You — what?”
“Relax,” Heeseung says, laughing. “I wasn’t spying. You two just kinda had a freeze frame by the kitchen. Wasn’t so hard to notice.”
Riki opens his mouth, just to close it. Then he runs a hand through his hair with the irritated slant of said illegality stamped in your name. “We were just talking. Nothing happened.” Riki snaps, defensive again, hands up like he’s caught.
Jake squints at him. “Then why are you acting like that?”
Riki looks away. Usually, it’s enough answer to more teasing and mocking, but maybe not this time. Because now, it raises actual questions that regard his very bearing at this monumental association with you — a damn unicorn of a scene snatched out a comedy fantasy movie.
Heeseung asks carefully, “Are you, like, her boy toy or something?”
Riki whips around with the flush of unpredictability and utter shock. “What? No!”
Heeseung grins again, gentler this time. “Okay, not her boy toy. What now?”
Riki exhales, long and slow, falling back supine against the floor with the decency of a man with boundaries and the understanding of someone brilliant to keep himself away. “Nothing. She has a boyfriend. She lives in a different world.”
It’s realistic. He thinks he’ll drag the shit out of his stash to get his mind off this, because Riki Nishimura was a conformist by all means.
You’re where you’re supposed to be.
You laugh at the jokes while dawdling down the hallway with girls you actually consider your friends, your boyfriend’s arm heavy around your shoulders like it belongs there. You learned how to roll your own joints now, practiced with irritated little shrieks until it stopped being embarrassing, until they came out neat and perfect between your fingers. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone, actually. Independence always looked good and natural on you.
Then Riki walks past with Heeseung and Jay.
Backpacks slung low, shoes dragging lazily against the floor, laughing about something stupid like someone’s terrible quiz score. Riki’s eyes stay forward like always, keeping his business private from everyone. Especially from you.
You don’t acknowledge each other beyond the bare minimum of peripheral awareness of two classmates that happen to be in the same class and two planets in the same orbit. Your boyfriend tightens his arm around you, leaning down to murmur something about lunch plans. You nod, glossed lips wrapped around a lollipop, sugar sweet and cherry-flavored on your tongue. You should be listening, you’re sure you are, until he passes.
Your eyes follow Riki — not openly, just enough to catch the back of his neck, the familiar slope of his shoulders, the same boy who leaned against a bathroom wall while you were high and laughing too much, knees brushing his because the room was small and neither of you moved away.
The lollipop slides down your tongue: all artificial sugar because the substance stays at home in the back of your secret drawer, while some of it just passed you down the hallway.
“I’ll catch up,” you say lightly, lifting your boyfriend’s arm off your shoulders. “I forgot something.”
You slip away before anyone can think too hard about it, weaving through the hallway with your lollipop still between your lips. You keep enough distance to make it look accidental, watching as Heeseung and Jay split off with quick fist bumps and loud voices. Riki keeps walking and pushes open the door to an empty lecture hall before disappearing inside.
You stop outside, remembering that this is probably the part where you’re supposed to turn around. Where the perfect, reasonable version of you remembers her boyfriend, her friends, her place in the hallway. Where the status quo reaches for your wrist and pulls you back into line.
Well, you push the door open.
Riki is near the front row, one hand still on the strap of his bag when he looks up from his seat, legs spread wide, thumbs midway to scroll through his phone. His eyes widen slightly, posture going still like he did not think you’d actually follow him.
For some reason, it thrills you. Because now he’s looking at you.
You pull the lollipop from your mouth, twirling the stick between your fingers as the door clicks shut behind you. “Hey.”
His eyes flick briefly to the door behind you. “You lost?”
This isn’t a bathroom of some random houseparty. There’s no smoke, no music, no excuse, just you, Riki, and an empty lecture hall in the middle of the school day — which means you came here on purpose.
“You should roll a joint for me again,” you say, like it’s so simple. “One of these nights.”
Riki blinks once. Then he huffs out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “What, you haven’t learned since last time?”
You step closer anyway, slow and unhurried, allowed to exist wherever you want. He leans back against his seat, still careful and invisibly (but truly) restless. “I did.” you answer, then you smile small and lazy. “You’re just better at it.”
That gets him (because you’ve been knowing what to say to get him). His eyes lift to you, amused now, something low and unreadable settling there which sets you on fire because you have no idea what he’s thinking, not even a little hint.
“Flattery,” he says, then scoffs.
You hum and step closer, close enough that his knee is almost in front of your thigh. Riki leans back in his seat, one arm loose over the desk beside him, phone forgotten in his lap.
“There’s another party this weekend,” you say. “At McKay’s. You and your friends should go.”
He tilts his head. “Should we?”
“I think so.” You shrug. “Good music, large pad, beer games.”
He chuckles, eyes dropping briefly to the floor before meeting yours again. “And you’ll be there.”
“Probably.”
“And you’ll want me to roll one for you.”
You pull the lollipop from your mouth, tapping it lightly against your lower lip as you think. “If you’re offering.”
“I’m not,” he says, but his mouth twitches.
You lean back against the edge of the desk beside him, copying his ease like you have any right to be comfortable around him. From far away, it would look casual, just two classmates talking before class. Except there’s only you standing between him and the empty rows, him sitting back in his seat, looking up at you with that unreadable expression while you try not to smile too much.
He should probably feel insulted that you only do this when nobody can see — maybe he does, if he still believes in self-respect. It’s just hard to stay offended when you’re looking at him like that.
Riki nods once. “I’ll think about it.”
Satisfied, you push off the table and head for the door. “Cool.”
When the door shuts behind you, he thinks about red eyes and smoke, about how your usual crowd will be there, your boyfriend’s arm around you just before you sneak away to Riki’s.
You’re trouble, which makes Riki smile. ‘Cause he knows damn well he’s going to that party.
-
McKay’s house is already vibrating when Riki gets there with Heeseung, Jake, and Sunghoon — bass rattling the windows, someone yelling about cups, someone else yelling back about something incomprehensible. Riki isn’t a frat boy at all, and he doesn’t really go to parties, but the perfume layered on top of alcohol is basically familiar territory.
“This place is a fire hazard,” Jake mutters, stepping over a discarded heel.
Riki scans the room pretending he doesn’t mean to, observing layouts and people, when really he’s actually looking for one specific designer wardrobe of a person.
He doesn’t see you, but he sees your usual crowd scattered around the room, posing with red cups they barely drink from and laughing a little too loud whenever someone points a camera at them. You’re not there, nor is your boyfriend, and that usually speaks for itself already.
Heeseung nudges him, already mischievous with the smile Riki can’t see. “Little Miss Perfect?”
“Fuck off,” Riki replies, flat.
Jake’s halfway to disbelief when he narrows his eyes at Riki. “You’re already staring.”
“She’s not even here,” the former hisses.
“Looking for her, though.” Sunghoon teases, practically grinning widely.
Riki pushes past them. “I’m getting a drink.”
He doesn’t get a drink. He goes through hallways and in between bodies that nudge abruptly into him, half-assed apologies going through one ear and out the other while he properly finds footing again and again. When he gets to the bathroom and finds it locked, he groans and leans back against the wall. For now, he flicks the light on his own joint and smokes away while he waits — for you, for the bathroom, for anything to make him think going here was worth it at all.
Too many girls brush against him, too many of them apologizing with tilted heads and lashes batting. He has no interest in rewarding the performance, not tonight, not when the party is already crawling under his skin, all bass-heavy music, sticky floors, smoke in the air, perfume clinging to his throat, and people packed so tightly he can’t move without touching someone. It’s too much at once; too loud, too hot, too bright, too dark. Then he sees it, and everything in him goes still.
Your boyfriend has another girl pushed against the bedroom wall.
Riki sees this through the crack of the door, just slightly opened enough for him to see how he moves his hand underneath her skirt really fucking aggressively. They’re kissing too, and it’s not at all sweet or even arousing; it’s just straight out gross. He chokes, coughing so rough and loud and forward he has to lunge himself off the wall and straight through the crowd because his first instinct is you.
Your boyfriend is cheating on you.
What the fuck is happening? Why’s your boyfriend fucking a girl like someone who knows nothing about clits? Now, Riki isn’t an expert about pleasing women but he’s watched porn enough to know that Exhibit A over there was straight-up persecution.
He finally spots you near the kitchen, talking to one of your friends with a cup in your hand. He starts toward you, but someone shoves past from behind, and he bumps lightly into your shoulder. You turn, already halfway to apologizing until you see him, your face already changing before you can stop it.
“You came,” you say, eyes flicking around before coming back to him.
He’s kinda out of breath, from the smoke and from hurrying, but he smiles too. “Yeah.”
While you’re still smiling, Riki clears his throat. It’s casual like he’s asking for a lighter, not like he’s abput to derail your night, ‘cause truth be told, he’s not sure he knows how you’ll react to the information. To be honest, he thinks about how it’s only fair — maybe — because he doubts your boyfriend knows you sneak into bathrooms with another guy. And sure, his hand isn’t performing DJ on your pussy, but the shared secrecy of eye contact with loaded tension is much more intimate than whatever the hell that was.
“Uh,” he says, hand rubbing on his jeans. “Can we talk? Like. Somewhere quieter.”
You blink. Then you nod, already stepping closer so he has to lean down to hear you.
“Bathroom or outside?” you ask, half-teasing.
“Outside,” he says easily.
The night is cold enough to make everything feel quieter, like it’s only the two of you standing under someone’s porch light while music leaks through the walls behind you. It’s strange, because you’re not even friends, not really, but the little space between you feels private in a way Riki doesn’t know what to do with. He exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his breath since the second he walked into the house, then leans back against the railing and looks at you standing across from him.
He tries finding the words first, but the way you’re looking at him tightens his chest faster than his brain can work out. Is this karma for your cheating boyfriend? Is he the instrument God has given you to slam notes back to the guy you’re practically cheating on too?
Then Riki clears his throat, casual as hell. “I saw something inside,” he continues, tone still chill but eyes a little sharper now. “Your boyfriend.”
Your smile falters. “What about him?”
“He’s, uh.” Riki taps ash off the joint. “He was fucking a girl. On a wall.”
You stare at him for a while, and he’s half-expecting you to lash out, on him, on the crowd, on your boyfriend, on something.
Instead, you laugh this small, amused breath that slips out of you before you shrug, like he told you your boyfriend spilled punch on his shirt and not that he had just seen him with another girl.
What the fuck is happening?
It feels a lot like you don’t care and that surprises Riki leading him down a rabbit hole of introspection. He was already expecting you to cry and sob or scream in the party about how much of a dick he is, how you trusted him and gave him everything — all things they do when they find out their boyfriends are cheaters.
No, you just, “Wow.” then huff a laugh. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
He blinks once, watching you carefully while you regather your thoughts as a woman who’s been said something paltry rather than an admission of an affair. To be honest, Riki doesn’t understand, so now he just stands there and looks stunned. And confused. Very confused, actually.
Riki squints at you like he’s trying to solve a trick question. “That’s it?” he asks. “That’s your reaction?”
You shrug, lifting your cup to your lips for a sip. “I mean. It’s been happening. “We’re just sorta together for our parents. They’re friends so… but that’s a story for another night.”
Oh. He never thought fake relationships were a thing.
That makes sense. How come Riki didn’t know? Was he so out of touch from school gossips hat he genuinely didn’t know that you’re actually not the perfect couple he thought you two were? Is that why Heeseung and Jake and Sunghoon didn’t react so badly? Has this been a thing? Oh my God, Riki’s ecstatic and he hasn’t even finished a joint yet.
He lets out a quick, unguarded sound. “Jesus.”
You lean back against the railing across from him, far too relaxed for a revelation that should have ruined someone’s eyeliner. Riki watches you for a second, waiting for the anger, the hurt, the sharp inhale before you turn and storm back inside. But you just stand there, cup in hand, looking more inconvenienced than heartbroken.
That’s when it hits him, slow and weirdly humiliating, that you might not care about the relationship at all.
“But,” you say lightly, “thanks for telling me.”
He blinks, then shakes his head a little. “Yeah.” His voice comes out slower than usual. “No worries.”
You glance at the joint between his fingers, your eyes lingering a second too long on the veins along his hand. “You always this heroic when you’re high?”
“No,” he says, deadpan. “It’s just who I am.”
You laugh, and despite everything, his mouth twitches. He looks back toward the door, half-expecting your boyfriend to come out and make the night complicated. When no one does, he relaxes, shoulders easing, but not completely.
Because this is new information.
Someone inside screams the chorus to a song, and the night’s way too cold for the silence that buzzes. Riki offers the joint without looking at you, just holds it out between two fingers like it’s nothing.
You hesitate for half a second. But you take it.
“You have a car?” you suddenly ask while you take a puff.
Riki blinks once, then lets out a quiet laugh, dragging his thumb along the bridge of his nose. Right, so this is his life now. He sells you weed one time, and somehow he’s standing outside a party while your boyfriend (?) cheats inside and you look mildly bored about it.
It’s stupid. It’s also the most interesting thing that’s happened to him in months.
So he just sighs and slumps back a little. “Yeah. I do.”
“Let’s go,” you say, completely not a question, flicking the finished joint on the pavement and trampling it beneath your heel. “I wanna smoke.”
He lets you trail after him through the side yard like this is already something you do, like he isn’t silently praying no one sees you following him away from the party. Gravel crunches under your shoes, the bass growing duller behind you as you cross the street toward his Supra, parked sleek and dark under the streetlamp. Riki unlocks it without looking back, rounds the hood, and opens the passenger door for you like it’s nothing.
You notice. You just don’t say anything.
Inside, the car actually smells clean and like coffee, for someone you’ve assumed is mad about marijuana and sorts alike (well, again, he’s proven how neat he is just for smelling so fucking good). He slides into the driver’s seat and just sits there for a second before turning the engine on, heater clicking low.
The silence settles, but it doesn’t feel awkward, which Riki finds suspicious. Maybe it’s because you’re not acting like the version of you he’s used to, all neat edges and perfect timing. Now your heels are on the floor of his car, your hair is loose around your face, and you’re curled into the passenger seat of a Supra you’ve never sat in before like your body decided to trust him before your brain could argue. He clears his throat, trying to get rid of the warmth at the back of his neck, but you only glance at him like you don’t notice. The hem of your skirt rides up consequently, and he tries his hardest not to look.
“Thanks. For caring.”
He shrugs, one hand resting loose on the steering wheel. “Didn’t feel right not to tell you.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”
The radio flicks on — some pop song bleeding through the speakers. He then pulls out pre-rolled joints from his pockets, which he sheepishly apologizes for hygiene and, well, it’s a bit delated, although you just smile and take one. He lights yours up and you two stay there, settled in his warm seats, dissolving the chill with cannabis down your system like two people who doesn’t give a shit about the system and fucking power dynamics and popularity status.
Again, weird. Hanging out in his car like you’re old buddies who smoke in free time on the usual.
If he told himself a month ago that he would be smoking weed with the team cheer captain, he would have laughed his ass off about inhaling too much narcotics that totally screwed mental frameworks. Yet now, he’s stealing a few glances at you beside him, getting high off his greens, and he doesn’t feel completely off-center about it. It’s the weed obviously, but he feels steady. It’s charged because you’re not talking but your thoughts are everywhere, and even if you protrude the profile of indifference — he knows you care. Then again, what does he know about you, right? You are the odd in the equation, the alternative hypothesis that proves the difference in variables, and talks about the impact on the situation.
Now, conformist Riki Nishimura, who has spent his whole life respecting the ladder, is starting to wonder what happens if he climbs high enough to stand beside someone like you.
He stares through the windshield the second before he speaks. “You’re not what people think you are.”
You blink, caught off guard as you turn to him. “Is that good or bad?”
He huffs. “Depends who’s thinking it.”
You smile a little, your eyes moving over him before you can pretend they didn’t. Riki isn’t brawny in that loud, gym-mirror way, but he’s taller than he should be, broader than he looks from a distance, and unfairly very put together. His throat moves when he breathes in, and you catch yourself watching it for one embarrassing second too long.
You chew on your bottom lip. “And what do you think?”
Riki shifts in his seat, hand fidgeting against the wheel like he’s weighing how honest he’s allowed to be. “I think you’re quieter than your reputation.”
You study him now — the calm posture, the way he never overdoes anything, the way his voice stays even like he’s learned not to tip his hand.
He glances at you, then back ahead. “Makes it easier.”
You look at him for a second too long. “Easier for who?”
“You tell me.”
The car feels smaller and the windows are fogged enough that the streetlamp outside is just a blur of light now, like you’ve been sealed off from everything else. Away from the reality that boxes you two into something that makes sense rather than accepts.
You laugh once, but it comes out softer than planned. “You always psychoanalyze girls in your car?”
“No.”
“Just me?”
His mouth twitches. “You asked.”
You turn your head toward the window, trying to keep your face normal. “You don’t know me that well.”
“I know.”
Riki finally turns to you, one hand still resting loose on the steering wheel. His eyes are a little low, a little unreadable, but not careless — that might be the problem.
“I’m not saying I do,” he says. “I’m saying people don’t either.”
Your fingers fidget with the joint, rolling it carefully between them even though you’re barely paying attention to it anymore. The tip glows faintly, forgotten for a second, and Riki reaches over without thinking to tap the ash into the tray before it can fall on your skirt.
You look down at his hand, then back at him when he hands it to you.
“Don’t you think that’s weird?” you ask. “Like, what kind of girl is cheer captain and smokes weed? Who gets into a fake relationship because of her parents? Doesn’t that sound kind of fucked?”
He looks at you for a moment.
Then he leans back, eyes returning to the windshield. “I sell weed.”
He says it from the driver’s seat of a spotless car that smells like coffee and cologne. It’s stupidly funny, actually, the whole contrast of him that kinda looks like you.
You laugh before you can stop yourself. “That’s different.”
“How?” he snickers.
You open your mouth, then close it again because you don’t actually have a good answer. “I don’t know,” you admit, laughing a little. “It just is.”
He hums like he expected that. Then he glances at you before back through the windshield. “I don’t think you’re weird,” His eyes flick over your face. “I think you’re bored.”
Obviously, that makes you furrow your brows. Obviously, you let him continue speaking.
“Of your boyfriend. Your friends. Your parents already knowing what you’re going to do.” His mouth twitches faintly. “Probably bored at being good at the same shit every day.”
You should probably deny it. It surprises you that you don’t, even though you’ve sworn hatred towards men that think they can assume your personality because of one little circumstance.
“That’s why you’re here, right?” Riki’s eyes drop to your hand, then back to your face.
Your throat tightens.
“With me,” he adds.
He doesn’t smile like he won, he just sits there with one hand loose on the wheel, like he already knows the answer and is kind enough not to make you say it.
The air between you feels worse, like the moment before a storm cracks open into his car, and electrocutes you with a spark you’ve never experienced in your life. Which is eccentric considering you’re not the type of girl who’d be in Riki’s car instead of a party dominated by your friends, getting high off shit that would make your parents pass out.
You scoff and look away, shaking your head like the whole thing is ridiculous. “You talk like you know everything.”
“I just guessed one fucking thing.”
You roll the joint between your fingers again, slower now. “Maybe I just wanted to try something.”
“With me?”
Your eyes cut to him, and you see there’s a slight curve to his mouth, like he heard the shape of your answer before you even made it.
You huff. “You’re so annoying.”
Neither of you moves. Just suspended there, breathing the same warm air, the song on the radio dissolving into background noise, the world narrowed down to inches and intent and maybe weak will and strong urges. The tension’s palpable, solid enough that you could feel it grow between your thighs.
You’re probably one more joint away from being zooted, and Riki knows this of course, which is why he keeps his eyes narrowed across him and not the woman who’s audibly shifting in her seat.
He’s high too — faster than usual — and it makes the moment stretch in this you know kind because he’s thinking bad. He keeps his gaze trained somewhere between the fogged windshield and the blur of your reflection in it, like it’s the only thing keeping him at bay.
For the record — you’re both twenty, obviously adults, even if the world still insists on calling you kids. Which is also the very age people let you experience the paradox of being too grown and too immature for anything consistent, so the underestimation you endure as an adult, smart woman, cheerleader, and a kinda-child — wow you’re in deep detestation for that system.
So you take control of things you can handle.
You’re a conformist, no doubt. Except in areas you loathe men’s freedom in yet expect restraint for women. So… in diminutive ways, you indulge. Like weed. Like running council. Like wearing short skirts. Like Riki Nishimura.
You glance at him sideways, voice light, almost bored. Almost. “So,” you say, like you’re asking about his major or what song’s playing on the radio. “I will ask you something kind of personal.”
Riki exhales a quiet laugh. “You’re already in my car smoking my weed. I think the line’s gone.”
You smile, satisfied, then tilt your head back against the seat.
“Are you a virgin?”
The question hangs there. Unembellished and very dangerous in its simplicity. Also, of course, bold, which makes Riki actually freeze — a half-second pause where even his breathing stutters. Then he scoffs, shaking his head like he can’t believe you just dropped that between the heater hum and the low bass leaking from the house.
He blames the weed, though part of him wishes it isn’t from that.
“You always ask things like that?”
“I’m curious,” you say easily. “And a little high.” you gesture with your thumb and forefinger.
He rubs the back of his neck, eyes flicking to you now despite himself. “Why?” he asks. “Does it change your opinion of me?”
You meet his gaze, unblinking. “I don’t know yet. That’s why I asked.”
He huffs a soft laugh. He admits to embarrassment, even if it doesn’t cover his entire skin with flush and heat, he’s never found himself in this position. But honestly, nothing from the past few weeks has ever been something he prepared for — which he has you to blame, of course.
“Yeah.” he licks the corner of his lips, refusing to meet your eyes while he taps the steering wheel. “I am.”
Your eyebrows lift, impressed but not shocked. “Huh.”
Riki looks over. “Huh?” he mocks.
You bite back a smile and turn toward the window, but the reflection gives you away. “I just didn’t expect that.”
He scoffs, looking back at the windshield. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” You shrug, still smiling a little. “You sell weed. And you drive this car.”
“And?”
“And you look like that.”
For one second, Riki’s fingers still on the steering wheel, and he learns to shut up. He lets out a quiet laugh after, but it sounds different this time, lower and almost embarrassed. “You’re so fucking high,”
That makes him quiet, makes him adjust on his seat. He’s touched a woman before, but no one’s ever sat on his dick, nor has he ever been in anyone. So maybe he’s half a virgin, maybe he’s just a sore loser. He watches you as you move, as you turn in the seat, knees pressing into the leather, facing him fully now. The space changes instantly, the air recalibrating around your movement and maybe even pushing you further toward him.
Riki stiffens — just suddenly very aware, and perhaps a little scared. “Uh,” he says, brows knitting. “What are you doing?”
You tilt your head, resting your hands casually on the seat, perfectly balanced. “Bored, like you said,” you say. “And my boyfriend’s cheating on me. Again.”
He swallows. His gaze drops, then snaps back up to your face, like he’s trying very hard to stay respectful and failing in slow motion because you’re especially gorgeous tonight. “That’s… not a great combo,” he says.
“Not really,” you agree.
You lean in just enough for him to feel it — not touch, not yet. Just close enough that he can smell your gloss, the faint sweetness still clinging to you, and the cannabis that if he warrants himself the scary concept, is his mark on you.
“At least you don’t think I’m boring.”
Riki exhales, a real one this time, like he’s surrendering to the moment instead of fighting it because what can a simple guy like him do, right? His eyes flick to your mouth again — longer now — and when he looks back up, there’s a decision there, from someone who’s tired of conforming.
You close the distance then, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted to. When he doesn’t, your lips meet in a kiss that’s brief and soft at first. Riki’s hand lifts instinctively, stopping just short of your waist, hovering there like he’s giving you the choice.
When you kiss again, you’re pressing harder, with the very intent to steal the air from his lungs. So that is what happens, you inhale and climb over the console and close your knees around his waist and he’s breathing shakily against your mouth, fighting for the oxygen he’s willingly giving away.
Your cunt presses against the zipper of his jeans, and when you roll, he pulls away like he’s burnt.
“W-wait — this isn’t — we can’t do this.” He shakes his head insistently, looking down your joined thighs while he regains composure.
You frown. “Why not?”
He looks back up at you, eyes wide and glossy from the taste of your cherry gloss and his greens in your mouth. He looks like he can’t handle this. You’re high, he’s high, this isn’t a good idea. You’re perfect, he’s not, this isn’t a good idea. You’re pretty and he sells weed, this isn’t a good idea.
“Because you have a boyfriend.” he says weakly.
You smile, fingers brushing into the hair at his nape. “Not really.”
He stares at you before he laughs, quiet and disbelieving, like the whole situation is so stupid he has no choice but to let it be funny for half a second. You’re in his lap, his car is fogged, your party is across the street, and apparently your boyfriend is more of a family arrangement than an actual person you care about.
“This is so fucked,” he mutters.
Still, he kisses you anyway. His hand finally settles at your waist, firm enough to make your breath catch. His fingers press into your flesh just before he pulls you closer and his hips thrusts up underneath you.
His bulge presses hard against your clothed cunt, and a small whimper slips out his mouth. Your thighs practically clench around him, your core tightening as you rub yourself on him. Beneath the jeans secured around his hips, the start of his v-line peeks, in which you softly graze with your thumb.
“F-fuck,” he whispers, resigned while he lets his head fall back against the headrest.
When you kiss him again this time, it’s slow and languid and licking into his mouth, and your hips start rolling against his while he unconsciously bucks into you. You gasp at the feeling of his growing erection despite the jeans, and you can’t help but feel rushed because it’s been way too long.
His body’s hot and he doesn’t understand why he can’t even talk properly. “Are you okay?” you ask, kissing his cheek. He just nods.
“This is so wrong,” Riki says softly and raspy.
You just smile and kiss him again, feeling how sloppy he’s starting to become when your tongues meet. You set the pace, careful with how you bite and suck, more of a learning curve with what you like best rather than devouring. Riki realizes this and slows down too, relaxing underneath your thighs while his cock remains bulging against you. Your soft fingers slither at the back of his hair, tugging and caressing, while he finds the courage to sneak his tongue into your mouth.
When you pull to breathe, he’s practically panting. “You can touch me.” you whisper.
His gaze practically flicks up to look up at you, silently asking for clarification. You don’t use words, you instead take his wrists and start dragging his hands from your waist to underneath your shirt. His breath hitches at the feeling of your soft skin against his, watching intently as you guide his hands further beneath your cotton top, until his fingers slightly grazes the soft swell of the underside of your breasts.
“Shit.” Riki mutters, his breath unstable when you let go. He looks for your eyes, asking for instructions, except you just smile and lean in to kiss him again with your hands on his jaw.
So he takes it upon himself to move by his own. His fingers grazes the soft skin, careful and learning, testing the underside swell by gently squeezing. After that, he gains confidence, hands going further up until they touch your nipples.
You gasp, pulling away to breathe when he starts gently pinching them, rolling them against the pads of his fingertips. He plays with them for a little while, watching your reactions when you sigh heavy, when your eyes close, when you lean further against his touch. It’s so good, he doesn’t even notice how painfully hard he is when he can feel just how sensitive your nipples are, when he can feel the weight of your breast as he cups them.
After a while, he finally stops, hands gliding down your ribs instead, thumbs still grazing slightly at the curve. Your kissing eases, reduced to pecks and softness. At rest and caress, you giggle and he chuckles, finally reeling in from the moment at how high he feels.
From your taste, your softness, your clothed pussy still pressing against his hard-on.
“You’re good for a virgin.” you say.
At that, Riki huffs and leans his head back against the rest, caressing your waist while he watches your face. You’re very pretty, even when your lipsticks smudged and you’re clearly teasing him, not touching him at all.
He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t think he’ll mind for a long time. “I’m trying to make decent decisions.”
You tilt your head. “And kissing me is one?”
His jaw tightens a little, but he smiles. “It’s a very bad decision.”
“Mm.” You lean closer, but you don’t kiss him this time. “You stopped.”
“Because I don’t want to be your rebound,”
The teasing fades just a little. Your fingers, which had been lazily tracing the back of his neck, slow, and now you look at him too, at the way he’s looking at you like something cliche is about to happen now that he’s tasted something better than marijuana.
“You think I’d use you?” you ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
You study him for a moment. His nose and ears are still pink, which admittedly does something to you. It makes him look shyer somehow, less untouchable, like all that quiet control has slipped just enough for you to see he’s not as unaffected as he wants to seem.
He looks back at you, thumb moving once at your waist. “Let me take you out.”
You stare at him. “You’re asking me on a date right now? While I’m sitting on you?”
His mouth twitches despite himself. “Not my best timing.”
You laugh, soft and surprised, but he doesn’t laugh with you right away. You lean in again, slower and softer, just lips meeting and staying there, but his breath still hitches. You lets it last for a few seconds before you pull back, still close enough that your noses nearly brush.
“Ask me when we’re not high.”
Then he laughs once, quiet and disbelieving, his hand flexing at your waist. “Fine.”
Riki drives you home that night and you arrive at around 3 am, friends completely unaware of where you are or who you’re with — but you don’t care, even when your phone’s blown out of weird proportion. You laugh when he insists on walking you to your front porch, just to make sure you don’t slip and fall and he wouldn’t lose his favorite weed customer.
“You’re ridiculous, Riki Nishimura.” you shove at his arm weakly.
“And you,” he leans down enough that his nose nudges yours. “are so pretty.”
You laugh harder, admittedly a little flustered the way you never have been before. He tells you to eat something real when you head in, and you mock him for it but he just smiles and nods, agrees with the idea he is so, very stupid and funny for you.
Riki thinks the universe is testing him. Because ever since last night, every single thing reminds him of you.
The cherry gloss taste still ghosting his mouth when he wakes up, the faint perfume lingering on his hoodie, even the stupid heater smell in the car feels different now, like the seats remember the way you climbed over the console and kissed him until his dick ached for you.
“Dude,” Jake says, throwing his duffel bag. “You look like shit.”
Riki drags a hand through his hair. “Thanks.”
Jake doesn’t push it, which Riki appreciates for about three seconds before he sees where the cheer team is practicing. On the other side of the gym court, you’re standing with your friends, ponytail tied high, hands on your hips while you go over counts as the captain. You’re not doing anything special, occasionally laughing at something one of the girls beside you says, but Riki still feels his attention pull toward you like it has no discipline left.
He looks away first.
PE is already starting by the time he reaches their side of the court. He pulls his sleeveless shirt down properly and rolls his shoulders once, mostly because he needs something to do with his body. His hair keeps falling near his eyes, and he can feel sweat gathering at the back of his neck before class has even properly started.
He tells himself not to look. But then he looks.
You’re already looking too.
It only lasts a second. Your eyes meet his, then drop briefly to his arms before you turn back to your friends like nothing happened. Riki presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek and looks at the ball in his hands, suddenly way too aware of himself.
Jake notices, but all he does is glance between the two of you. “Since when do you know her like that?”
Riki bounces the ball once. “I don’t.”
Jake gives him a look. Riki doesn’t look back. “Not like that.”
“Okay.”
The drill starts, and for a while, it’s just run, catch, dribble, pass, move. Riki focuses on the court, on the PE teacher’s whistle, on the ball against his palms. It works for half the time, until your voice cuts across the space, counting with the rest of the cheer team, and he misses a pass by half a second.
“Pay attention,” Jake says, not even laughing.
“I am.”
“You’re really not.”
Later, when the class breaks for water, Riki walks toward the drinking fountain and finds you there already, refilling your bottle. Your friends are a few steps away, talking among themselves, close enough to notice if either of you makes it obvious, far enough that neither of you has to pretend not to see each other.
He stands behind you to wait for his turn, and from afar, it doesn't look scandalous. You take your time refilling your bottle, eyes forward, one hand steadying the plastic under the stream. He keeps his gaze on the wall in front of you, jaw working once, because he knows exactly what you're doing when you lean a little farther than necessary and let the silence stretch.
Your skirt shifts when you bend, showing the backside of your thighs and the slight swell of your ass, and he sighs through his nose like he's deeply disappointed in both of you. Then he looks away completely.
You bite back a smile.
When the bottle finally fills, you straighten and cap it slowly, still not moving right away. He doesn't meet your eyes when you step aside, he just moves in, bends toward the fountain, and presses one hand against the edge for balance.
Then it's your turn to look away. But you don't, not even shamelessly. Because you’re the girl who got things her way and never got scared of the repercussions.
His sleeveless shirt pulls against his shoulders when he leans down, arm tense from holding himself there, the veins along his bicep showing under the gym lights. Water hits his mouth, and you watch the way his hair falls near his eyes, the way his throat moves when he swallows. It's stupid, actually, how normal he's being and how much worse that makes it.
Riki finishes drinking, straightens, and wipes the water from his chin with the back of his hand. Only then does he look at you.
You're still staring. And for a second, neither of you says anything.
His expression barely changes, but something in his eyes does, like he caught you and decided not to make it easy. "What?"
You blink, then lift your bottle a little. "You took forever."
He looks at you, calm, unreadable, except for the faint color rising at the tips of his ears and the slight lift on the corner of his mouth. "You're one to talk."
Your friends laugh at something behind you, and the sound snaps the moment thinner, not enough to break it, but enough to remind you both where you are. You glance over your shoulder, then back at him, only to find he's still watching you. Not obviously, just enough to show that he knows exactly what that night did to you, and worse, exactly what this day is doing too.
And that he’s enjoying the view.
You tuck your bottle against your chest and step back. "Try not to miss another pass."
His mouth curves. "Then don't distract me."
The second he says it, your smile gets bigger, like a shared inside joke between you two now. Then you turn back to your team, and he stays by the fountain for one extra second, pretending the afternoon heat is the reason he can't stop feeling warm. In the locker room, he pretends it’s celibacy that’s making his cock hard again, and not the picture of you bending in front of him, the fat of your ass presenting itself to him so adorably.
In the cafeteria, while pages turn and keyboards clack for an upcoming test for biology, you try your best to stay focused the way you can on the usual. Riki was right about you — you were smarter than what people thought, and the merit beside your name is shocking to a whole lot when it’s pasted on the board.
You think you’re no longer smart. Not when you’re staring at the open reviewer in front of you, color coded with little sticky tabs but you’re still distracted.
You grab your coffee and drink, just to try if that could help with your lost concentration. Something about protein synthesis and cell division. Something about how Riki’s hands looked wrapped around the steering wheel that one night while he called you weird and interesting in the same breath.
This is so inconvenient.
“Babe.”
Your boyfriend slides into the empty chair beside you like he owns the furniture, sunglasses pushed up on his head even though the cafeteria lighting could barely offend a bitch. His hand settles automatically on your thigh beneath the table, casual and familiar, and you almost flinch.
“You disappeared last night,” he says casually.
You lean back in your chair. “I told you I left.”
“Yeah, but where?”
You think briefly about Riki’s car parked under the streetlamp — fogged windows, heated air, cherry gloss smeared on his mouth, plump lips smirking in restraint, hands squeezing you in the right place, keeping you in place.
“I just went home,” you reply smoothly.
Your boyfriend hums, clearly unconvinced, but also has about three seconds of emotional stamina left for the topic, so he lets it go and steals one of your fries instead. “My parents want dinner with you this weekend.” he says instead.
He continues talking about it but you’re staring at the flashcards and reviewers in front of you, imagining what your parents would say if Riki would’ve showed up to a family dinner instead. Maybe he’d appear in different clothes, a white button-up just to sit there and attempt to look polite in ways he isn’t with you — which makes your heart jump a little.
Dinner drags on for three excruciating hours.
Three whole hours of crystal glasses and polished silverware and your boyfriend’s parents discussing investment portfolios. The restaurant is one of those stupidly expensive places where portions are microscopic and every waiter looks vaguely judgmental — you don’t complain, you’re rather very grateful for his parents (sometimes).
You sat there in a pretty dress your mother picked out. Your boyfriend talks over you twice when you try contributing to the conversation, his mother asks about your grades before asking how cheerleading is going, like academics and aesthetics are the only two things remotely interesting about you. At some point, your boyfriend likes another girl’s Instagram story right beside you at the table and everything about the night is just bad.
You just feel tired, especially on the way home.
Tired in the way performances always leave you feeling like you’ve spent hours acting inside a role you got stuck with years ago — because it mostly worked in your favor, until that one time you decided to jump out of your comfort zone and try weed. It’s the worst thing you have done, but it’s the only thing that made you feel good.
Your heels click quietly against the marble floors when you enter your house and you make it halfway upstairs before the pressure behind your eyes finally cracks. Obviously, you don’t sob out of sadness, just frustrated tears slipping down your cheeks while you struggle with the zipper of your dress. “Fuck,” you mutter.
Your makeup’s ruined now; mascara faintly smudged beneath your eyes, lipstick mostly gone except for traces still staining your mouth.
Before you can think too hard about it — which is kind of bad — you open Riki’s contact, and your fingers move faster than your dignity can intervene.
you:
he actually sucks so bad
like genuinely i think talking to drywall has more nuance
You exhale through your nose and laugh weakly at yourself because obviously Riki probably has better things to do than babysit you after 9PM, not when you’re just another weed customer and smoking buddy he had. You toss your phone onto the bed and sit in silence for a second, still in your dress, earrings discarded somewhere.
You try not to think about anything for the minutes you’ve spent staring at the ceiling: not about Riki, or your dumb boyfriend, or your (im)perfect life, or the way Riki kissed you, or the way he looked at you, or the way he thought about you.
Because that's the part that bothers you most. Not the kiss itself, not even the fact that you wanted it, but the way he seemed to actually think about you before touching you. Like you weren't just pretty or convenient or someone people liked because you made sense beside them. Riki looked at you like he was trying to understand you, and somehow that felt more intimate than anything you've ever had.
And maybe that makes you painfully average.
Maybe you’re not special at all, maybe you’re just another girl in the long, embarrassing history of girls who developed feelings for the first boy who looked at them like they were a person. Congratulations, really. Very original and groundbreaking, for being part of the emotionally confused teenage girls.
You turn onto your side and press your face into your pillow, immediately hating yourself for how dramatic that feels.
Until something taps three times against your window.
Your brows furrow immediately because your bedroom is on the second floor and nobody normally knocks on windows like some suburban horror movie, you don’t even try to look because of what could be there. For a second, you genuinely think you’re hallucinating from emotional exhaustion and expensive restaurant food and maybe (you did not do prior research) the possibility of the long term hallucinations of marijuana.
Then it happens again. Three deliberate taps.
You sit up slowly from the edge of your bed, the strap of your dress slipping off one shoulder while your heels remain abandoned somewhere near the door. When you turn to the window, your heart practically falls from your chest when you see Riki standing outside like a fucking delinquent moron. He’s standing on the roof of the first floor near your window, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, while one hand steadies himself against the frame.
You burst out laughing while fumbling with the lock of your window. Riki’s entire expression softens the second he hears you laugh and that does something unhealthy to him.
Because he drove for twenty minutes thinking about you crying over some guy who doesn’t even look at you properly, wondering if climbing a house at this hour officially qualifies as insanity (he’s never done that before, and it doesn’t sound so conformist right now either). Riki’s usually good at self-restraint, at risk assessment, at understanding what makes sense and what doesn’t.
For the record, this doesn’t make sense. Yet here he is anyway.
“Hi.”
You stare at him in disbelief once you finally open your window. “What the fuck are you doing?” you whisper-yell.
“You sounded sad.”
“Is that supposed to be an answer?”
“What?” he says defensively while climbing inside carefully. “You said your boyfriend sucks. That sounded shitty.”
The second he lands properly inside your room, he looks at you before anything else. He’s used to seeing you fixed with perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect posture, like you just stepped out of a university brochure about good conduct and that the school cheer spirit is something one definitely needs for personal development.
This version of you feels familiar, and traitorously and selfishly, he thinks it’s for him.
Your dress is wrinkled now, your jewelry sits slightly crooked against your skin, your makeup’s smudged enough to expose the eyebags underneath, and your hair’s started falling from whatever expensive style you wore to dinner.
Riki swallows once before he can stop himself. “You were crying?”
Immediately, you look away, a bit embarrassed when you realize what you look like. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not making it weird,” he says quickly, hands lifting instinctively. “I just.”
He cuts himself off because he suddenly realizes he has no idea how to navigate this. Girls usually don’t text him while being miserable and summon him to their bedroom windows like some modern romance movie directed by a bad romcom enthusiast. Nothing is romcom-y about this.
So instead, awkwardly, he holds the backyard vegetation toward you.
“I got you these.”
Flowers. They aren’t roses and lilies, especially not the peonies your boyfriend orders because it looks better in pictures. They’re not anything arranged like the bouquets your boyfriend’s family sends during competitions and birthdays and events where impression matters. They usually screamed ‘I have money’ so I had my manager fix these for you.
Riki brought you wildflowers, which are tiny white, yellow, and purple ones bundled unevenly together like he picked them himself on the side of the road and decided, yeah, these ones are perfect. They’re crooked and asymmetrical and a little pathetic, and it weirdly looks a lot like you.
You take them carefully, looking down at the tiny flowers bundled together with what suspiciously resembles a broccoli rubber band.
“Oh my God,” you laugh quietly. “These are so ugly.”
He looks offended immediately. “Okay, first of all, fuck you.”
You laugh, open and loud. “They’re literally weeds.”
“I mean. Matches us, no?” he argues.
You’re still smiling when you bring them closer to inspect, and he notices your eyes when you admire them because he notices everything when it comes to you now, apparently.
“He made you cry?” he asks quieter this time.
You look up at him, flowers resting against your chest while you slump a little. “Not exactly.”
He raises his brows. “That means yes.”
You sigh, gaze dropping to the petals between your fingers. “He’s just…” You shake your head slowly. “I don’t know. I guess I’m really sick of it.”
Riki stays quiet — not because he doesn’t have thoughts, but because he has too many.
The thing is, he understands that social hierarchy is basically one giant theater production and he’s spent his entire life studying how to survive inside it correctly — he’s admitted to live in it quite comfortably. Which people to talk to, which ones to avoid, what behavior keeps life stable and uncomplicated, who not to sell weed to.
You were supposed to be part of that stable world, the part that he shouldn’t have had any associations with. Instead, you’re now standing barefoot in front of him holding ugly flowers with watery eyes while confiding in him like he’s become something safe. Now he’s giving a girl weeds for flowers, while his own cannabis has become untouched for quite a while now.
You narrow your eyes up at him suddenly, a teasing smile on your lips. “You could’ve used the front door.”
“And say what?” he snorts. “‘Good evening, your daughter texted me so I’m here to comfort her?”
You laugh again and Jesus Christ, he thinks he’d probably climb ten more roofs if it meant hearing that sound a second time.
Which is not good at all.
He looks around your room now, and he finds that is not in the dramatic movie sense where he’s overwhelmed by femininity and candles or whatever bullshit directors think teenage girls do in bedrooms. It’s just your space and that feels undeniably you in a way he’s never gotten access to before — never thought he would, actually. There’s a stack of annotated reviewers on your desk beside skincare products, then a half-folded cheer uniform hangs over your chair. Your bookshelf is organized by color at first glance, but he notices that some books are stuffed sideways and doubled-up like gave up halfway through organizing.
You’re contradiction after contradiction. Which feels fitting considering Riki’s currently inside the bedroom of a girl he once categorized under absolutely not my problem.
This is exactly why social structures exist. To prevent situations like this where a guy who sells weed ends up standing in the bedroom of a girl who looks expensive enough to kill him.
You set the flowers carefully on your vanity like they’re not random plants held together by produce rubber. Riki watches how gentle your hands are, watches the way your dress slips slightly higher on your thigh when you move.
You step closer to him after, eyes peeking through your lashes, and he starts to feel drunk from your perfume. “You really came all the way here because I was sad?” you ask softly.
Riki opens his mouth automatically with something sarcastic prepared because that’s safer, because joking is easier than admitting the truth. But then he looks at you looking at him like he’s become something important frighteningly fast.
Honesty slips out before he can stop it. “Yeah.”
Your eyes soften in a way that completely wrecks him, because nobody’s ever looked at him like this before — like he did something meaningful instead of useful.
You step even closer now until there’s barely space between you. “You’re really bad at being casual,” you murmur.
He huffs a laugh. “You climbed into my lap the first time we kissed.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was high.”
“And what’s your excuse now?”
Your lips twitch and his gaze drops there instinctively.
Big mistake, because now he’s thinking about kissing you again and suddenly being in your bedroom at midnight feels significantly more dangerous than it did when he drove here. Riki clears his throat and looks away first. Usually he’s good at eye contact, good at keeping composure, good at staying levelheaded even when situations become complicated, because he knows emotional regulation keeps things orderly, predictable, and safe.
You are none of those things anymore.
Standing this close to you feels like someone slowly dismantling every sensible thought process he’s ever had and replacing it with bad decisions and pretty girls in wrinkled dresses.
Riki swallows, eyes still not fully on yours. “Do you know what you’re gonna do?”
You sigh, shoulders dropping a little as you look away. “I don’t know.”
Riki nods, though he doesn’t look surprised. “Well,” he says quietly, “you aren’t happy.”
The honesty in his voice catches you off guard, because it isn’t dramatic or possessive or demanding — it’s actually the complete opposite. He says things carefully. Your boyfriend never talks to you carefully.
You study Riki for a second — the slight flush across his cheeks, the hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, the fact he literally climbed your house because you sounded sad over text.
Clearly, he’s lost the plot somewhere. He might find it in your room, but why would it be there?
You look at the boy who notices everything about you, who reads you better than anyone ever did. And maybe that’s pathetic, but after a long time of performance and image, you can’t quite find irrationality when something finally sees you so clearly.
You don’t even realize you’re crying again until his expression changes. The tears just spill over quietly, slipping down your cheeks before you can catch them, and for a second, you don’t understand why his eyes drop there with so much concern because you aren’t sad, nor overwhelmingly happy.
His hand lifts and his fingers touch your cheek lightly and carefully. His thumb brushes beneath your eye, catching the tear before it reaches your jaw. Then the other hand comes up too, steadying your face with a gentleness that makes your throat tighten worse than the crying did. You stare up at him while he wipes your face like it’s something important, his hands warm, his touch steady even though his breathing isn’t. He just keeps his palms against your cheeks, thumbs soft under your eyes, focused on you.
Riki’s thumb slows beneath your eye, his gaze moving over your face with something almost pained. “You’re too pretty to cry over him,” he says quietly.
Your hand lifts before you can think better of it, fingers wrapping gently around his wrist to keep him there. His skin is warm beneath your palm, and for a second, his whole body seems to still when you touch him. You look up at him because he’s so tall this close, broad enough to block out half your room, and he’s holding your face like you might bruise if he moves wrong.
“I’m not crying over him,” you say, and your voice comes out quieter, “I think I’m crying because I want someone else.”
His hand stays against your cheek, but his thumb stops moving entirely. He has no immediate answer right now, no dry comment waiting in the back of his throat, no clever way to make the moment smaller than it feels. He just looks at you, like he heard you perfectly and still needs another second for it to reach the rest of him.
He shifts closer, but only slightly, careful enough that you notice the restraint. “Are you sure?”
You let out a tiny, breathless laugh. “Yes.”
Then your gaze drops from his eyes, not because you’re embarrassed exactly, but because looking at him straight on feels like standing too close to something bright. Your eyes settle on his chest instead, on the front of his hoodie rising and falling with a breath he’s clearly trying to control. His hands move from your cheeks, careful and slow, until his palms settle just beneath your jaw while his fingers slip behind your ears, curling gently at the back of your neck.
For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you.
Actually, you know he is. You can feel it in the way his breathing changes, in the way his eyes drop to your mouth and stay there this time, no pretending it was an accident. He’s close enough that you can smell his cologne and whatever terrible decision-making brought him to your window.
Then something in you panics — not because you don’t want him to.
That’s the problem. You want him so much it feels insulting to every sensible part of your life (even though you’ve made many irrational choices that have shamed them anyway). You want him in your room, in your space, in the middle of all the pretty, curated pieces of yourself nobody else gets to see messy. You want him, and it would be so easy to lean up and let that be the answer. But there is still one stupid, technical, irritating thing standing between you and that, so you pull back a little.
He freezes immediately, hands dropping like he thinks he did something wrong. “What?”
“I need to do something.”
His brows pull together. “Right now?”
You turn away before you can lose your nerve, moving toward your bed where your phone is half-buried in the sheets. Your hands are unsteady when you pick it up, which is annoying because you are not the kind of girl who fumbles — you are the kind of girl who answers essay questions with proper structure, corrects formations instinctively, and pretends she’s fine so convincingly that people believe it until it becomes inconvenient not to.
Calling your boyfriend while Riki Nishimura stands in your bedroom after midnight is, admittedly, not your most elegant moment, but there’s a kind of clarity to it too.
He stays behind you, quiet, watching as you scroll to the contact you have ignored for most of the night. His name on your screen looks strange now.
The call rings twice.
Riki moves closer, though not touching you yet, just behind your shoulder, close enough that you can feel the heat of him. It makes focusing much harder, which is extremely inconsiderate for someone who climbed into your room to be supportive.
Your boyfriend answers with your name, voice already irritated. “It’s late. I’m busy.”
You close your eyes for half a second. “I’m just letting you know. We’re done.”
There is a pause. “What?”
You swallow, your grip tightening around the phone. “I’m breaking up with you.”
Behind you, Riki goes very still. Your boyfriend lets out a humorless laugh. “Are you serious right now?”
“Yes.”
“After everything? After tonight, you’re just gonna call me and say that?”
You stare at the wall in front of you. It’s absurd, actually, how little the anger reaches you. Maybe you should be shaking or crying harder or preparing a speech that starts with all the ways he hurt you — instead, you feel strangely calm.
He starts talking again, louder this time, something about your parents, his parents, how you’re overreacting, how you both agreed, how you don’t get to act innocent either. Until Riki’s hand appears beside you, and he takes the phone from your hand.
Your eyes widen. “Riki.”
He looks at the screen, hears your boyfriend still talking, then tosses the phone onto the bed, where it lands face-up against the sheets, the call still running, your boyfriend’s voice now small and furious through the speaker.
“What are you doing?” you whisper.
His eyes stay on yours. “You already broke up with him.”
On the bed, your ex says your name again, sharp and confused, but neither of you are looking at the phone.
Riki lifts one hand, not touching your face yet, just brushing his knuckles lightly near your jaw like he’s giving you one last chance to move away.
That is all he needs before he kisses you. It is not rushed, not messy from panic, just a little harsh from jealousy. But it’s slow enough to make your knees feel unreliable, steady enough that your whole body seems to understand before your brain does. You grab the front of his hoodie and he exhales against your mouth, the sound going straight through you. His hand settles at the side of your neck, thumb brushing under your jaw while his other hand finds your waist, careful but sure.
The phone is still there, your boyfriend is still talking. It should ruin the moment, but it doesn’t. If anything, it makes the whole thing feel worse in the way your heart is pounding too hard, in the way Riki keeps kissing you like he’s trying not to prove a point and failing anyway, in the way you know this is a terrible way to end a relationship and still cannot bring yourself to care.
Riki pulls back just enough to breathe, forehead almost touching yours. “He talks a lot,” he says quietly.
You laugh before you can stop yourself, and he kisses you before you can even finish a thought he physically cannot hear another word about your boyfriend tonight, earning a gasp from your mouth. It’s soft at first, his mouth catching yours that makes you go still for half a second, surprised, and then your hand tightens around his wrist as you kiss him back. He exhales through his nose, quiet and shaky, and his fingers press a little more firmly into your nape, not pulling you in too hard, just holding you.
You make this soft startled sound against his lips and he swears it nearly kills him on impact. When he pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead bumps lightly against yours.
“I don’t wanna talk about him anymore,” he says quietly.
His voice comes out rougher than before. You stare at him for a second, and your lips twitch.
“Okay,” you whisper.
He kisses you again almost immediately, and this time you kiss him back just as fast, your chests pressing against one another until you can feel the rapid beat of his heart through his hoodie. His hands find your waist, the weight of them warm and steady through the thin fabric of your dress, like he’s grounding you and keeping himself grounded too.
You tilt your head up to meet him properly, rising slightly onto your toes without meaning to, and he bends down into you like the movement pulls something out of him. His fingers press carefully at your sides, thumbs shifting once against your waist. The kiss deepens then, your hand sliding up the front of his hoodie until you’re holding onto him too.
Riki exhales against your mouth, almost shaky, and his grip tightens for one second before he loosens it again, like he’s reminding himself to be careful.
Without so much as a few words, your gaze meets his. But that’s not enough for him, not when he needs to hear that you want this too. The zipper you struggled with earlier starts undoing when his hand finds the back, before he leans in just enough for his voice to drop between you.
"Words, baby," he whispers.
He isn't teasing now. His voice is low, but careful, like he needs to hear you say it before he lets himself want anything more.
You swallow, fingers tightening lightly in his hoodie. "I want you."
Riki watches your face for a second, and when he sees the true genuineness and want in your eyes, he lets himself have it. He dips down to your height, capturing your lips in a kiss again, before fully pulling the zipper down to the small of your back. With barely any effort, the dress slides off your body and pools around your feet on the floor.
Too busy getting drunk on his plump lips, you don’t even notice his hands roaming over your skin, his fingertips memorizing the arch of your spine, before gliding up to the curve of your ribcage. You don’t notice how close he really is until his fingers find the underside part of your breasts. You pull away with a gasp, seeing him smile coyly when you finally realize you’re naked in front of him, and how he’s massaging your mounds in his hands.
He lets his thumbs brush your hardened nipples, watching your face scrunch and melt with fluster. He holds you so well, heat rushing all over your skin with the way he studies your body, eyes carefully taking in every detail about you. He continues stroking your nipples and massaging your breasts when he bends down again, kissing the corner of your lips before trailing over to your jaw. He presses open mouthed kisses on your pulse next, sucking and biting to leave love bites there.
You moan, all breathy and heavy, and his cock twitches in his sweats. For a man that’s been so cautious with you, he can’t help but fight the urge to pound into you recklessly right now.
“On the bed,” he prompts softly, taking a step forward.
You obey with no fight, pathetically stepping backward until you sit back on the soft mattress. You adjust a little to get on your knees, eyes finding his through your lashes again. He’s looking at you with half-open lids, hand already reaching up to the back of your head, fingers tangling with your hair. He likes you like this, on your knees and your face so fucking close to his bulge, he can practically see it.
And because he has been so kind to you, you want to recompense for all of it. Your fingers hook at the hem of his sweatpants, keeping your gaze steady on his face to watch the way he reacts when he realizes what you’re about to do. You drag his pants down, enough for it to slip down his legs.
His cock bulges in his briefs, begging to be set free. You cup it gently and he lets out a low moan, deeper than his usual, and when you look up, he’s just watching you. You lean in, only to lick a stripe from the bottom to top — his grip on your hair tightens, and you feel him pull you closer. Since you both don’t hold any godly kind of willpower, you waste no time lowering the fabric.
Riki’s stupidly long cock springs forward once you remove his briefs, and everything about it just makes sense. It isn’t excessively thick in girth, but it’s length makes you wonder if it can even fit at all. It’s pale at the base and turns pink towards the tip, the slit lathered with pre all over the head, all for you.
You bite your lip, not being able to help the thrilled grin on your face, eyes bright at the sight of it. He clears his throat, caressing the back of your head gently. “You good?”
You snicker, reaching up to wrap your hand around the base. He chokes out a gasp, stilling completely yet his hips buck forward. He watches you handle him so delicately, even the way you start pumping his dick, watching the way pre-cum leaks out the tip. You lean forward, tongue flat against the head, tasting him.
“O-oh, s-shit —” his breathing becomes heavy, arm flexing involuntarily as he keeps rubbing the back of your head.
You giggle, tilting your head a little to press soft pecks all over his length. “Watch me, sweet boy. Okay?”
You’re a fucking tease. That’s all he manages to come up with before his brain completely blanks out when you tilt forward and let your mouth close around the head of his dick. You start to suckle on it, tongue playing with the slit a little. Then you push forward, enough the tip touches the back of your throat and your cheeks hollow around his length.
And he’s still too fucking long.
You start choking a little, tears touching your waterline. You stroke the part you can’t reach, and he can’t help but smirk arrogantly.
Heavy breaths turns into deep groans, trying to keep his sounds to himself but the way you look as your head bobs on his dick, practically choking as you suck on it, and his hand flexing a tight grip on your hair — this has got to be better than any fucking narcotic ever. He bets morphine won’t ever feel this good. “Y-you’re fucking sublime, baby,”
You retract your mouth, going back to suckle on the tip, before taking him all back down your throat. His hips jerk forward, you can tell just how gentle he’s trying to be even when he’s losing all control.
And it’s too good, because twenty years of chastity has started to reach him faster than the way you rub him. He feels his abdomen tighten, and fuck does his balls feel tense. So as any illogical, preposterous, unsound idiot ever, he pulls you away from his cock. He holds you by your hair, slowing you down as you stare up at him, eyes wide and confused, lips wet from your saliva and his fluids.
“What the fuck?” you mutter, catching your breaths.
Riki licks his bottom lip, and you can see every restraint holding him back from breaking you. The tips of his ears are red, and his eyes, once so tender and meticulous, looks down at you like he just can’t wait to fuck you senseless. They’re sharper than they ever have been, and once since this night began, you’re scared.
“Easy,” he drawls, hand withdrawing from you completely. He takes a step back, just enough to admire the way you look, panting and on your knees, breasts exposed and perky. Then with a small smirk, he pinches the edge of his hoodie. “You always this impatient?”
He slides the hoodie over his arms, the cloth revealing flesh that practically glow from your vanity lights. His chest and shoulder width is broad and wide, flat in that boyish way you love, expanding to the chiseled arms. You can feel yourself salivating at the muscles, at his taut abs, delicate grooves that trace down to a sharp v-line. Even his obliques and traps are so defined.
“Get on your back.” he rasps, and you don’t let yourself react before lying down, head against your soft pillows. He kneels in between your legs, eyes trailing over your body. He hooks his fingers over the elastic of your panties, just before he slowly pulls them off you, slow enough to make you embarrassed.
“Riki,” you murmur sheepishly, but he ignores you, keeping his eyes narrowed to the way your cunt glistens, your own fluids leaking out of you. She’s perfect, and his already frustrated cock twitches.
Blonde hair sticks to his forehead, and his eyes are dark when your gaze meets again. He hovers over you, caging you against the bed before he leans in, kissing you again. Your lips part for him, breaths mingling, getting hot and heavy as his hand finds your ass. He squeezes the fat there, fingers digging into your skin. “You’re making it hard to think, pretty girl.”
You manage a giggle, though it quickly turns to soft moans when he kisses your jaw and presses his cock against your cunt.
“Riki, please,” you can see how swollen his cock has gotten.
“I don’t know if I can be gentle,” he breathes, his arms tensing as he keeps himself up. He strokes himself a bit, just before he aligns the tip with your aching hole.
Your brain has gone hazy, not being able to process anything other than the way he kisses your neck when the head of his cock pushes through your folds, and immediately your arms come to his back, nails digging into his muscles. He tenses too, giving a sharp exhale when his length slides past the tight muscle and rubs against your gummy walls.
“Fuck,” he groans, burying his face against your neck while your teeth bite down your bottom lip. “G-god, that’s so good,”
His hips closes against your pelvis, while his tip brushes against your cervix so good he’s pretty sure you’re sucking him in. And you feel stuffed, more than you ever have been, by Riki’s long cock. “Good fucking pussy, shit —”
Your legs are open wide for him, pressing flat against the mattress. And that’s enough for him, just to see you so spread beneath him, cunt squeezing him so tight; enough for him to pull back and watch the way your fluids wrap slick around his cock. Your hips wiggle for him, and that’s all he takes before slamming his hips back into you.
Riki’s jaw hangs open, a low moan gushing out him, strained and heavy into your ears.
“R-Riki — f-f-fuck —”
The sounds of squelching pussy and skin slapping echoes throughout your entire room, walls so tight around his cock as you gasp. The pace is set already, quick and fucking drilling into you even though you’ve known him for his care and caution — yet he pounds into you like he doesn’t give a fuck about anything but his pleasure.
“S-s-so good — ugh, Riki — fuck,” you scratch his back muscles, tensing underneath your nails. His pelvis and abs are tight, slamming himself so hard against your cunt like he can’t keep himself apart from you.
He continues groaning, his eyebrows furrowed, eyes half-lidded watching you, completely fucked out while he admires the way your tits bounce every time he rocks his dick deep into your cunt. His lips part to moan your name, and you love how he almost whimpers when you squeeze around him.
Then he stills, though only fast enough before he slides an arm beneath your waist and gathers you closer, like he’s scooping you into him without fully lifting you.
“W-what are you —”
“On your stomach.”
You can only blink and nod, before turning around, suddenly feeling empty when his dick slips from inside you. You settle on your hands and knees, then lie on your chest, face pressed to the soft pillow. “Fuck, my good girl.”
You can’t see him anymore, and you’re not sure with how you feel about it — not until you feel his warm body press against your back, his chest hovering slightly over you. He presses a hand on the back of your thigh, gently adjusting your knee higher, the position immediately spreading your folds more than you would have thought.
“Lift your hips for me, baby,” he breathes, voice low and strained.
You obey, pussy clenching around nothing when he whispers quiet praises as your ass perks up and your folds glisten for him again, slick oozing out from you. You get on your hands a little, just enough to lift yourself and look over your shoulder. Without much of a warning, he pushes his cock back deep inside you again, walls welcoming him with a dirty squelch, your breath catches, then escapes in a quiet gasp.
“There, just like that —” Riki moans, his v-line pressed tight against your ass.
Then he continues, retracting his hips only to slap back inside you. The new positions doing fucking wonders to you, stretching you a whole lot more, his dick fucking you so raw that you can’t help the screams you let out. He presses his hands against your waist, fingers ingrained to lift your ass up and pound into you right after, grip so tight it’s already bruising.
You fuck yourself against him too, slapping back against his hips, cock choking in your tight walls. His eyes are almost rolling back, if not for how obsessed he is watching your ass shake and tits bounce every sloppy stroke, his hand sliding under you to grope your mound. He fondles with it, pinching your nipple and loving the weight of it against his palm.
Sweat’s getting hot and the air’s smells too much of sex, he can feel it when his balls clench and how desperate he’s starting to get.
You look over your shoulder and he meets you halfway, leaning over to capture your lips in a passionate kiss. It’s full of saliva and it’s warm, messy in a way that tells how close you both are.
Then with so little strength (can’t compare to Riki Nishimura, really), your weight falls back to the pillow, face and chest pressed against the softness while your ass stays up. If not for his large hands keeping you up and still, you would’ve fallen over completely.
Your abdomen clenches and pressure builds in there, and he continues rutting into you while you become a puddle of sweat and moans. “R-right there — fuck, Riki — !”
“I-I’m gonna fucking cum, s-shit – I’ll blow a fucking load in you —” his hips drive into your pussy with a new kind of intensity, faster and deeper somehow, his tip hitting your cervix that has you throbbing around him.
“Cum all over me, baby, please —” he whines, face pressed against your shoulder.
You feel hot spurts of him fill you the same time your cunt clenches around him one final time, legs twitching while his hips come to a stutter. Cum settles in your hole, warm and full and sticky and practically seeping out of you. He collapses on top of you, unconsciously maybe, his heavier weight pressing over your body.
Your vision goes white for a bit, then it comes back, only for you to see hair all over your face, stuck with sweat and saliva. He’s still on top of you, but you can feel him carry himself a little, making sure not to crush you right after cumming in you.
Quiet beats stretch out the moment, and you don’t even notice his arm tucking underneath you to massage your tit, a tired laugh leaving your mouth when you do. When you both muster enough strength, he straightens just enough to lift himself off of you, while you manage to get on your hands. By the time you look over your shoulder, he’s already leaning in, his mouth finding yours again, a hand still fondling with your breast.
“Riki,” a small sheepish smile curves on your lips, all while he presses soft pecks against your mouth and jaw.
“Hm?” he hums, tired and spent, clearly having nothing else to do but to kiss you. His breaths are still shallow, eyelids heavy before shutting completely.
You giggle, putting your hand over his on your breast. “Get off me,” you say with a playful grin. “You’re so heavy!”
WIth a quiet groan, he listens. He slides out of you, unplugging you to let your fluids out. Then he lies down, and he hasn’t realized how strained his muscles are until he sinks into the softness of your bed. He relaxes inevitably, while you stay up just to admire him for a bit.
Riki Nishimura is never going to be insecure about his looks, but the way you stare at him with dilated pupils that match his, especially post-sex, he can’t help but grow a bit bashful.
He huffs out a laugh, one hand reaching out to squeeze your waist because you feel so far. "So do you have a no-cuddle policy, or," he murmurs.
You laugh before you can stop yourself because he's so stupidly funny for someone trying to sound serious. Instead of answering, you shake your head and lean more of your weight against one hand, the other resting against his chest as your fingers trace lazy, thoughtless shapes.
He watches you do it for a second, his expression going quiet in that way that makes your stomach turn. Then you glance up at him. "Can you roll one for me?"
He sighs so heavily it almost sounds personal. Before you can even react, his arm hooks around your waist and pulls you down against his chest, firm and immediate, like the idea alone offended him. Your hand lands against his abs to catch yourself, your cheek nearly brushing his shoulder as he keeps you there.
“Throw that shit away,” he says, voice low near your ear. “I swear to God.”
You blink, caught against him. “What?” His arm stays around you, warm and unmoving. “Why?”
Riki looks at you with half-lidded eyes, sleepy and a little strained, like even answering takes effort. “Because,” he murmurs, his grip softening at your waist, “after tonight, I think I found something better.”
Your jaw actually falls open. For one second, all you can do is stare at him, because there’s no way Riki Nishimura just said that to you while looking half-asleep and impossibly calm, like he didn’t just say something that made your entire stomach turn over and tighten all over again.
Then you smack his chest lightly. “Riki.”
He chuckles, low and tired, the sound vibrating against your palm. His arm stays around your waist, keeping you close even when you try to lean back enough to glare at him properly.
“What?” he murmurs, eyes barely opening more. “Use my dick instead, I won’t get mad.”
You smack his chest harder, earning a yelp from him. “Riki!”
He laughs under his breath, but before you can pull your hand back, his fingers wrap around your wrist. His eyes open a little more as he looks at you, still tired, still amused, and then he tugs you.
You land over him, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips as his arm settles around your waist to steady you. For a second, neither of you moves. Your hand stays pressed to his chest, his heartbeat is faster than he's pretending. "Careful," he murmurs, like he wasn't the one who pulled you.
"You're so annoying," you whisper again, but it comes out softer this time, a quiet breath as you lean down to him. You're close enough now that your noses brush, close enough to feel his smile fade against your mouth.
Riki's gaze drops to your lips, then back to your eyes. Your fingers stay flat against the broad hardness of his chest while his hand stays warm at your waist, slowly smoothing over the curve of your ass.
“Ride me?” he whispers against your lips.
You sigh, rolling your eyes while your mouth curves to a grin, back straightening. You act like you think about it, only for your exposed cunt to start grinding against his cock — which, obviously, because he is a very simple man, erects again.
A simple man such as he, all he knows is that he is yours.
✶ ˚｡⋆ when hr assigns you a new assistant (that you didn't ask for, after the last one quit), you give him a week before he gets tired of you. but kim sunoo is literally love made human.
꧖ warnings: workplace romance. cursing. crack. heeseung, jay and sunghoon cameos. english isn’t my first language. timestamps don't matter. — masterlist.
pairing :: yang jungwon x reader
warnings :: nerd!won, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, angst, fluff, happy ending, uni/college au, bff!enha, she fell first he fell harder, crying, kiss, food mentions, alc mentions, light drug usage, awkwardness, they’re both overly overdramatic😒
a/n :: it was so much harder to write him like this after being dadawon brainrotted so i’m thinking nerd!won smut hcs otw🤓 ALSO i know there’s much longer fics out there and many more writers who can write this much with ease but this is my first Monster Demon Baby™️ so #talk2menice
word count :: 25.8k (ꃋᴖꃋ)
summary :: you’d never really been friends with jungwon. run in the same circles, sure! seeing him twice a week at your little game nights before realising you guys take the same course, also sure! but never friends. that is until, a missed lecture changes that for the better ><
university had settled into something comfortably predictable. the frantic first weeks of introductions and orientation events had faded months ago, replaced instead by routines that seemed to repeat themselves without anyone really noticing. monday mornings always began with students rushing across campus twenty minutes later than they’d intended. the library was impossibly full by lunchtime despite everyone insisting they worked better in their own rooms. by friday afternoon, every coffee shop had queues stretching through the doors, fuelled by exhausted students convincing themselves they deserved an overpriced coffee after surviving another week.
somewhere between all of that, you’d found your place. looking back, it was strange how quickly everything had happened. you’d arrived expecting months of awkwardness, eating lunch alone, second-guessing whether anyone would remember your name after conversations, wondering if uni friendships really were as effortless as people had made them seem.
instead, they’d simply… happened.
sunoo had been the first. he’d sat beside you before your introductory lecture had even begun, complaining dramatically about the size of the campus before asking if you’d figured out where the nearest coffee shop was yet. neither of you had. by the end of the afternoon, the two of you had spent almost three hours wandering around hopelessly lost before accidentally stumbling across the student union together.
after that came jay, who somehow possessed the remarkable ability to complain about absolutely everything while still being the most dependable person you knew. then jake, whose boyish eagerness felt almost impossible to rival, and sunghoon, who’d seemed intimidating right up until you’d realised ninety percent of his sarcasm disappeared whenever someone offered him food.
before long, dinners became shared instead of solitary. library sessions somehow turned into six people studying different degrees around the same table simply because nobody wanted to work alone. birthdays, movie nights, grocery trips, midnight walks to convenience stores after collective assignment breakdowns… somehow, they’d all become normal.
it wasn’t that your newfound group spent every waking moment together. everyone’s timetables were different. there were weeks where assignments swallowed whole days, where some people disappeared beneath deadlines while others barely had a lecture scheduled. but somehow everyone always found their way back together eventually, as though it had become an unspoken expectation rather than something anyone actively organised.
you liked that. how there wasn’t any pressure, only familiarity. outside of your own friends, uni had a funny way of making people feel familiar too.
your course was large enough that you couldn’t possibly know everyone, yet small enough that faces started repeating themselves. people you’d exchanged exactly one conversation with would smile as they passed you on campus. classmates whose names you’d never learnt would wave from the opposite side of lecture theatres. baristas recognised your coffee order before you’d even reached the till.
jay insisted it was because everyone knew you, you insisted he was exaggerating. the truth probably sat somewhere in the middle. you’d always found it easier to smile first than wait for someone else to. if someone looked nervous before a presentation, you’d wish them luck. if someone sat beside you in a lecture, you’d introduce yourself before either of you had time to overthink the silence. conversations came naturally enough that you rarely realised you’d always be the one to start them until they’d ended.
people remembered kindness more than confidence, something you’d learnt a long time ago. which, to give jay some credit, was probably why you recognised so many faces despite knowing so few names.
one of those faces belonged to someone you’d never actually spoken to, you couldn’t even remember the first time you’d noticed him. he’d simply always seemed to exist somewhere on the edge of your life.
sometimes you’d catch sight of him crossing the courtyard with headphones resting loosely around his neck, one hand buried in the pocket of an oversized hoodie while the other balanced an impossible stack of books against his chest. other times he’d already be sitting near the front before lectures began, quietly reading through notes while everyone else chatted around him.
he left classes quickly. professors barely finished dismissing everyone before he was gone, disappearing into hallways crowded with students until he became impossible to pick out from everyone else.
you didn’t know much about him, only fragments gathered accidentally over the course of a year. he was ridiculously smart. heeseung lived with him and you’d hear his complaints, albeit fond ones, about how when jungwon had an exam or assignment coming up, however small, he wouldn’t leave his room until he was impossibly sure of himself, which never happened.
riki also complained (in much less detail) that he spent too much time studying.
sunoo had once described him as “one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet once he forgets to be nervous.”
that last one had surprised you. from a distance, he always looked composed, quiet, sure. but never nervous. if anything, he’d struck you as someone perfectly content staying in his own company. the kind of person who preferred observing conversations rather than joining them. you weren’t sure you’d ever heard him raise his voice. or laugh loudly. or even stay somewhere longer than he absolutely had to.
still, he was difficult not to notice. perhaps because everyone around him seemed louder by comparison. heeseung laughed with his whole body. riki rarely stood still for longer than thirty seconds. jay somehow managed to turn ordering lunch into a competition. sunghoon teased sunoo relentlessly and jake always seemed to be stuck in the middle, trying his hardest to swat sunghoon’s persistent hands away from sunoo as he tried not laugh himself, for sunoo’s sake. jungwon simply… existed quietly amongst all of it, as though he occupied a completely different pace to everyone else.
you never gave it much thought, he was simply another familiar stranger. someone whose face had become a comfortable part of your life without ever crossing fully into it.
despite sharing more mutual friends than either of you probably realised, you and jungwon had somehow managed to spend the better part of a year existing almost entirely on the edges of each other’s lives. it became one of those things you only noticed after it had already been happening for months. the two of you would be invited to the same birthday dinner, only for one of you to arrive after the other had already settled into conversation. someone would suggest a movie night at heeseung and riki’s flat, and while everyone else gradually drifted into the living room, you’d somehow end up helping jay order food while jungwon disappeared into the kitchen to make more drinks. group photos would be taken at the end of the night, proving you had, in fact, spent several hours in the same room, despite barely exchanging more than a passing glance.
it almost became funny, but not in a way anyone ever pointed out. just one of those strange little coincidences that seemed to happen naturally whenever enough people were involved. if there was a seat beside jungwon when you arrived, someone would inevitably call your name from the opposite end of the table before you had a chance to sit down. if you wandered over to ask heeseung something, jungwon would suddenly realise his cup was empty and excuse himself to refill his water. if everyone split into smaller conversations, the two of you somehow always ended up in different ones. not deliberately. just… somehow.
the closest thing you’d had to a conversation happened sometime during the first semester. you’d arrived at heeseung and riki’s flat with two bags of snacks balanced awkwardly against your hip after volunteering to stop by the corner shop on the way over.
the front door was already unlocked. you’d let yourself inside, calling out a quick hello that was immediately drowned out by riki shouting something unintelligible from the living room. before you could make sense of it, someone appeared around the corner.
jungwon. he’d looked just as surprised to see you as you’d been to see him. for a second, the two of you had simply stared at each other.
“…hey.” you grinned. he noticed the hopeful sparkle in your eyes before he noticed the way the left side of your face tilted up slightly more than the right when you gave him one of the blinding smiles you seemed to dish out so abundantly to his friends. he thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.
“…hi.” he muttered back sheepishly, dropping his gaze to the floor on instinct.
then he’d stepped aside to let you through with a small, polite smile before disappearing down the hallway again. that had been it. looking back, you weren’t even sure if it counted as a conversation. it obviously hadn’t felt like one.
after that, much to your dismay, the pattern simply continued. you knew who he was, everyone did. if someone mentioned jungwon, nobody ever had to ask, “which one?” he’d built something of a quiet reputation around campus without ever seeming to try.
people on your course didn’t know much about him beyond the obvious. they knew he studied computer science, that he consistently did well in every module he took and that professors seemed to like him. every now and then, his name would come up when someone was complaining about an assignment.
“jungwon finished it last week.”
“apparently he got full marks.”
“does he ever sleep?”
the answer, according to heeseung, was apparently “not during exam season.”
you’d lost count of the number of times he’d shown up somewhere and casually mentioned that jungwon hadn’t left his room all day.
“he’s revising.”
“again?”
“he says he isn’t ready.”
“his test’s tomorrow.”
“exactly.”
heeseung always said it with the same mixture of affection and disbelief, like someone talking about a younger brother who worried far more than he needed to.
riki, on the other hand, had much less patience for it.
“he acts like every quiz decides his entire future.”
“it kind of does,” heeseung had replied once.
“no, it doesn’t.” riki muttered out, rolling his eyes as far back into his head as he could.
“to him it does.” heeseung smiled, swatting riki on the shoulder as he teased him for his dramatics.
the conversation had moved on quickly after that. most conversations did. people laughed, someone changed the subject and eventually everyone started talking over one another again. still, little comments like that stayed with you, simply because they slowly filled in the gaps around someone you barely knew. the version of jungwon everyone described never quite matched the one you saw. they talked about someone who panicked over assignments, second-guessed himself constantly and somehow managed to convince himself he’d fail exams everyone else expected him to ace. the jungwon you’d always seen seemed unnaturally calm. he walked across campus at an unhurried pace, never looking particularly rushed even when everyone around him was sprinting to lectures. he’d sit quietly before classes with a notebook open, reading through something while conversations buzzed around him. when people spoke to him, he always looked up immediately, giving them his full attention before answering. reserved, maybe. quiet, definitely. but never anxious.
you wondered, briefly, if he simply hid it well. or maybe people behaved differently around those they were comfortable with. the thought didn’t linger for long. everyone was different around their friends, you probably were too.
one friday evening, the two groups ended up at heeseung and riki’s flat after jay had declared that nobody should be spending the end of the week working. the plan had been to order takeaway, watch a film and, in jay’s words, “pretend deadlines don’t exist until monday.”
predictably, the film never really happened. jake and heeseung couldn’t agree on what to watch. then sunghoon decided he was hungry before a decision had been made, so much so that he refused to talk about anything else. by the time food finally arrived, everyone had split off into different conversations scattered around the flat. you found yourself squeezed onto one end of the sofa beside an exasperated sunoo while jake and sunghoon argued over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. jay had wandered into the kitchen to find more drinks, heeseung followed after him. riki disappeared for reasons nobody questioned. at some point, you realised jungwon wasn’t in the room either. you only noticed because he returned a few minutes later carrying a stack of clean plates balanced carefully in both hands. without interrupting anyone, he set them down on the coffee table one by one before disappearing back into the kitchen.
he came back again with cutlery. then napkins. someone thanked him absentmindedly. he nodded once.
“no worries.”
and sat down as though he’d done nothing at all. it was such a small thing that nobody else seemed to pay it any attention. conversation carried on without missing a beat. sunghoon was still insisting pineapple absolutely belonged on pizza.
jay, now involved, disagreed so passionately that you’d begun to suspect it was personal. across the room, jungwon listened with the same quiet smile he’d worn all evening, occasionally laughing under his breath whenever riki deliberately tried to make the argument worse. he looked just comfortable enough to let everyone else fill the room while he quietly existed alongside them. for someone who supposedly struggled around people, there was something unexpectedly reassuring about the way he never seemed to force himself to keep up.
somewhere between arriving and leaving, you realised you’d learnt something new about jungwon. that he wasn’t quiet because he had nothing to contribute, he was quiet instead because he never seemed to feel the need to compete with everyone else for the conversation.
and, for reasons you couldn’t quite explain, you found yourself thinking that was admirable.
the problem with missing lectures wasn’t usually the lecture itself. it was everything that came afterwards.
lecturers had an unfortunate habit of squeezing the most important information into the last ten minutes of class; the reminders about coursework, changes to seminar groups, little comments that never made it onto the slides but somehow always ended up appearing in exams.
normally, you really wouldn’t have worried. one of your friends would send their notes eventually. except this lecture unfortunately happened to be shared with almost none of your friends. by the time you’d made it back onto campus, your phone was already buzzing with messages.
jay
Where are you?
sunoo
u alive??
jake
thought you’d overslept 😭
you smiled to yourself, typing out a quick explanation as you walked across the courtyard.
doctor’s appointment. i’m alive, unfortunately.
three dots appeared almost immediately.
jay
Truly devastating news
you rolled your eyes. he still texted like your dad.
the lecture theatre ahead was already emptying by the time you reached it. students spilled into the corridor carrying half-zipped backpacks and takeaway coffees, conversations blending into one another until it became impossible to tell where one ended and another began. a few familiar faces smiled as they passed. someone from your seminar waved. you returned it automatically before stepping to one side to avoid a group hurrying towards the stairs. too late. you’d known it before you’d even arrived. still, disappointment settled somewhere in your gut anyway.
“you look like someone just told you christmas is cancelled.”
you turned to find sunoo weaving his way through the crowd, balancing a coffee in one hand and his laptop under the other arm.
“i missed it.” you pout, poking him in the arm. he followed your gaze towards the lecture theatre.
“…ah.” he realised, mirroring your pout almost mockingly. you’d take it as an insult if his eyes didn’t have that affectionate sparkle in them, seeming to be naturally ever present around you anyways.
“i even left home early.”
“that’s rough.” he said, more gently now. you only sighed in return.
“did i miss much?”
sunoo considered it.
“…honestly?”
your shoulders lifted hopefully.
“…i wasn’t really paying attention after the break.”
you stared at him blankly, eyebrows just starting to furrow.
“you’re unbelievable.”
“i’m honest.” he giggled, winking at you.
“you’re hopeless.”
“a little.” he didn’t sound remotely apologetic.
the two of you drifted further into the corridor to avoid blocking the doorway as more students filtered past. somewhere nearby, someone dropped a folder, sending loose sheets skidding across the floor. three people immediately crouched to help gather them, the interruption lasting all of thirty seconds before everyone continued on with their day. nothing never really stopped moving. sunoo took another sip of his coffee before speaking again.
“you need the notes?”
“unless you’d like to sit my exam for me.” you deadpanned.
“…hard pass.”
“thought so.”
he made a thoughtful noise.
“mine aren’t great.”
“i know.”
“wow.”
“last time i borrowed your notes you wrote ‘i’m hungry’ halfway through a paragraph.”
“because i was.”
“you’d also drawn a cat.”
“…it was a cute cat.”
you laughed. there was a brief pause. then, as though the answer had only just occurred to him, sunoo clicked his fingers.
“ask jungwon.” he exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.
the suggestion came so casually that it took you a second to process it.
“…jungwon?”
“yeah.”
“why?”
“because he actually listens. and because his notes are terrifying.”
“terrifying?” you replied, eyes wide.
“you’ll see.”
you frowned slightly. asking someone for notes wasn’t unusual. you’d obviously done it before, many times in fact. people asked you all the time too.
still…
“i’ve never actually spoken to him.”
sunoo looked back at you, genuine confusion etched onto his face.
“yes, you have.” he said, suddenly so sure of himself.
“have i?”
“you’ve said hi.”
“…i don’t think that counts.”
“close enough.”
you weren’t convinced, he seemed to notice.
“seriously,” he said. “he won’t care.”
“how do you know?”
“because if someone asked him for notes, he’d probably apologise that they weren’t neat enough.” you couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“…you’re exaggerating.”
“i wish i was.”
before you could answer, his phone buzzed. he glanced down, groaned dramatically and shoved the coffee into your free hand while he typed out a reply with both thumbs.
“seminar?”
“unfortunately.”
he took the coffee back.
“come on.”
“what?”
“he’s probably still inside.”
your eyes drifted towards the lecture theatre doors.
they’d almost emptied now.
through the small window, you could just make out a few remaining students gathering their things.
“…i’ll feel weird interrupting him.”
“you won’t. okay, you might.” sunoo admitted, eyes narrowed as he mused. you gave him a flat look in return.
“helpful.”
“but he’ll still say yes.”
the lecture theatre was almost empty by the time you finally walked inside, a little while after sunoo had walked off to his seminar. you’d stood outside the door for a little longer than you probably needed to, fingers resting against the handle while you tried to convince yourself that this was not a big deal. because it wasn’t. it really wasn’t. you weren’t asking him for anything unreasonable. you weren’t about to have some life-changing conversation or confess some huge secret. you weren’t even asking for help with something complicated. you just needed notes, that was it. you still couldn’t for the life of you figure out why it felt like so much to ask, but that was obviously the reason for your unusually timid lingering outside the door.
you’d seen jungwon’s notes before. not properly, but enough to know that they were probably going to save you from spending three hours trying to piece together half-remembered information from the slides. the problem was not the notes. obviously.
the problem was that you had never actually spoken to jungwon before. something which always seemed to be nagging at you when you were around him. clearly, you knew which people he was friends with, because you were their friends too. you knew little things you had picked up without meaning to, the same way everyone did when they spent months around the same people. but knowing about someone and knowing someone were completely different things. and for some reason, the thought of walking up to him made you hesitate.
if anything, he was the opposite of unapproachable. he was always easy to be around, yet strangely hard to interpret. there was something about approaching someone who always seemed comfortable in their own space that made you feel like you were stepping into something you hadn’t been invited into.
which was silly. you knew that. you were really not someone who usually overthought things like this. especially not so much so that you were loitering outside like an idiot, rocking on the balls of your heels with too much running through your head. you rolled your eyes at yourself, and how all of this was so unlike you. instead, taking a small breath, you pushed the door open. the sound was louder than you expected in the quiet room. it felt completely different after everyone had left. earlier, it had been filled with voices and movement, people packing away their things while talking about assignments and plans for later. now, it was almost peaceful. the rows of seats stretched out in front of you, sunlight falling across the desks near the windows. a few forgotten papers were scattered around, abandoned by students who had already moved on to their next class.
and there he was. you spotted him almost immediately. you weren’t surprised. if anything, you would have been more surprised if he wasn’t there. he was still sitting near the front, his attention focused on his laptop while he finished whatever he was doing. for a second, you just stood there. you almost laughed at yourself. because why had you made this into such a big thing? he was just a person, a friend at that. a friend who you needed notes from. a friend who would probably definitely say yes.
still, your feet felt slightly heavier as you walked closer. you stopped beside his desk. he didn’t notice immediately. and you were glad he didn’t, because it gave you one last second to collect yourself. then you spoke.
“hey.”
his head lifted. the reaction was small, but you caught it. the slight surprise, the way his attention shifted fully towards you. for a moment, he looked like he was trying to place why you were standing there. then, recognition settled it, not dramatically, just a quiet moment where you felt like you could hear his every thought as you glanced sheepishly at his eyes behind his thick rimmed glasses. something about that made you feel strangely less nervous. because, obviously, he knew who you were. and he wasn’t looking at you like an inconvenient interruption.
“hi.” he said, sounding his voice muffled as he cleared his throat behind his hand. his voice sounded softer than you expected. you smiled slightly.
“sorry, i hope i’m not bothering you.”
he shook his head almost immediately. the response came so quickly that you wondered if he was worried you had mistaken his surprise for annoyance.
you relaxed a little.
“okay. good.” you muttered out, unusually shy.
there was a small pause after that, not really awkward, just unfamiliar. you were two people who had existed around each other for months without ever having a reason to talk. and now suddenly, you did. you explained that you had missed the lecture and needed the notes. you found yourself adding the reason why, even though he hadn’t asked. you mentioned the appointment running late. maybe because you didn’t want him thinking you had skipped class. maybe because there was something oddly important about really wanting (needing) for him to have a good first impression of you, even though technically this was far from his first impression.
the whole thing was ridiculous. you didn’t even know why you cared. jungwon just nodded. as always, there was no judgement in his expression. no teasing. no comment about catching up. a tiny part of you almost wished there was. maybe then you’d be able to open him up a little bit. you told him sunoo had said his notes were really good. and almost immediately, jungwon tried to downplay it, which, to be honest, you’d expected somehow. there was something very predictable about the way he refused to make a big deal out of himself.
you looked at the notebook beside him and pointed out sheepishly that his notes actually had structure. you admitted yours usually consisted of random words that only made sense for the first ten minutes after typing them. this earned a small reaction from him, not quite a smile, but close, and for whatever reason, that felt like a really big victory. jungwon just turned back to his notebook and started gathering the pages. you watched quietly, noticing how there was no rush in the way he moved. he seemed to take care with everything, making sure he had everything he needed before handing it over. as always, it was strangely comforting.
when he looked back at you, he hesitated.
“i can send them.” he said, looking up at you again.
“really?” you smiled.
he nodded and you watched as he glanced between you and his notebook like he had reached the obvious next step but hadn’t figured out how to get there. for a moment you just looked at him with confusion until you realised, he didn’t know how to send them. because neither of you had actually exchanged any way to contact each other. you grinned again before he had the chance to overthink it.
“i can give you my number.” you offered hopefully, his eyes lifting to meet yours again.
“okay.” he mumbled, finally returning your smile, a lopsided grin taking over his features. you thought there was something oddly sweet about how willing he was to help even whilst being unsure of what to do next. you unlocked your phone and handed it to him.
“just put yours in.”
he typed his number in, saved the contact, and handed it back. you looked down.
jungwon
“that’s it?” you said without thinking, he merely blinked up at you in return.
“what?”
“your contact.”
he looked down at the phone.
then back at you.
“yeah?”
you laughed softly.
“i don’t know. i expected maybe something else.”
“like what?”
you glanced at the screen.
“an emoji or something.”
the silence that followed was so genuine that you had to stop yourself from laughing. you don’t even know why you’d said it, you wouldn’t have even done it yourself.
“i don’t really use emojis.”
you smiled brighter and then immediately noticed the tiny hesitation in his expression. you manually tried to soften your own face in hope that he wouldn’t take it as making fun of him.
“i’m not judging.”
“i know.” he mumbled quietly.
almost like he was reassuring himself as much as he was reassuring you. you added that you never used emojis either, which was absolutely not true. you know your friends would have laughed out loud if they’d heard you say it. but something about the small look of relief on his face made your white lie worth it. there was another quiet moment.
“thank you, by the way.” you said, trying to fill the silence as quick as you could. again, he nodded.
“it’s okay.”
you picked up your phone, looking down at his contact one more time before putting it away. now jungwon wasn’t just someone you sat near in lectures or someone you merely shared mutual friends with. now he was someone you had spoken to, someone who had your number. someone who would probably text you later.
“see you later, jungwon.” you motioned to wave before stopping yourself and putting your hand back down again.
“see you.” he replied, another lopsided grin taking shape after he caught your stifled gesture.
and that was it. you walked out of the lecture theatre with his contact saved in your phone, the unexplainable stress finally lifted.
you didn’t expect jungwon to send the notes so quickly. not because you thought he would forget. if anything, forgetting seemed like the least likely thing he could do. from everything you’d heard about him, jungwon was probably the type of person who made reminders for his reminders. you had already accepted that the notes would arrive eventually, probably later that evening after he had checked through them one more time and decided whether they were good enough to send. what surprised you was the fact that your phone buzzed before you’d even reached the other side of campus. you felt oddly good about seeing jungwon’s name. there was a difference between seeing his name appear in a group conversation and seeing it sitting privately in your own messages. it was such a stupid and small thing that you almost laughed at yourself for noticing.
jungwon
hi
i've sent the notes over
underneath were the files. you clicked on the first one while continuing to walk, expecting exactly what sunoo had described. you were prepared for them to be neat. you were prepared for them to be organised. you were not prepared for them to make you question whether you had been approaching uni notes incorrectly this entire time. the document was almost painfully structured. everything had a place. every topic had been separated clearly, important points marked out without making the page look overwhelming. there were small explanations beside certain concepts, things he had probably written down for himself because he knew he would want to remember them later, but obviously, they were equally as helpful for you too.
you stared at the screen for a few seconds. you barely knew him, but you could already imagine the process. him sitting somewhere quiet after the lecture, going through the notes again, deciding what was important and what wasn’t. because that was simply how his brain worked. you typed back before you could overthink it.
these are actually ridiculous
you paused. you didn’t want to sound like you were insulting him, especially not after he so graciously did you this favour.
quickly, you added:
in a good way 😭
the response did not come immediately. you found yourself looking at the little typing bubble appear, disappear, then appear again. it made you smile slightly. you’d never considered yourself someone who intimidated easily. you were usually the person who filled awkward silences, who introduced yourself first, who made conversations easier for other people (so you’d been told). but jungwon had a way of making you acutely aware of every small interaction. maybe because he seemed so careful in comparison.
eventually, his reply appeared.
jungwon
thank you
i think they’re okay
you giggled under your breath.
jungwon there are diagrams
my notes look like i was writing during an earthquake
this time, his reply came a little quicker.
maybe your handwriting is just fast
you stared at the message. it wasn’t exactly a joke. not one you’d typically laugh at anyways. but there was something about the fact that he had tried to lighten the mood.
that is the nicest way anyone has ever called my notes terrible
jungwon
i didn’t call them terrible
you could practically hear the seriousness behind the message.
you didn’t have to
after that, your conversations stayed small. you preferred it that way. you didn’t suddenly become attached to your phone waiting for him to reply, and jungwon didn’t become someone who messaged constantly. that would have felt unlike both of you. instead, he became someone who existed slightly more in your day. a message about a lecture, a question about an assignment, a quick clarification when you didn’t understand something from the notes he had sent. you noticed quickly that jungwon was much easier to talk to through messages than you had expected. however, he was occasionally so formal that you wondered if he had accidentally written an email instead. but you’d like to muse there was warmth underneath it. maybe that was wishful thinking.
he always answered properly. if you asked something, he didn’t just send a vague response and disappear. he explained and he made sure you understood. and, perhaps more surprisingly, he started asking things back. small things; how your assignment was going, whether you had managed to catch up on the lecture, whether your exam preparation was going better. obviously simple questions, but they mattered to you because they meant progress. and because jungwon was not someone who asked things just to keep a conversation alive… when he asked something, he genuinely wanted to know the answer. you found that oddly refreshing. you were used to people knowing you. that was the strange thing about being naturally social. people often assumed familiarity. they knew your name. they knew your friends. they knew what you were studying. they knew the stories you told at parties or the jokes you made in group chats. but there was a difference between being known and being noticed.
jungwon noticed.
the next time you saw him outside of lectures, it was at one of your usual gatherings. not big enough to call a party, but usually, nobody was sober enough for it to be just an average hangout. by now, heeseung and riki’s place had become almost a second home for your progressively more tight-knit friend group. nobody really planned anything properly anymore. someone would mention they were bored, someone else would suggest going over, and within an hour half you’d all somehow end up there. it was comfortable in a way you hadn’t expected relatively new friendships to become.
you arrived with sunoo and jay, already listening to them argue about something completely unnecessary. the moment you walked in, the usual noise surrounded you. music playing quietly from heeseung’s speaker, riki complaining about losing a game he insisted he wasn’t taking seriously, jake laughing unabashedly from somewhere in the kitchen, heeseung attempting to stop everyone from making a mess while very clearly contributing to it.
it took you a moment to realise jungwon was already there. he was sitting at the edge of the sofa, listening while jake explained something animatedly beside him. before, you probably wouldn’t have approached him. you would have smiled. maybe waved. eventually, someone else would have pulled you into another conversation. but now it felt different. you obviously weren’t best mates. but friends enough that when your eyes met across the room, you wouldn’t hesitate to smile. and this time, he smiled first. it was a tiny thing. so tiny that you wondered if you imagined it. but you didn’t. something about that made you feel strangely content, you noted the way your cheeks flushed an embarrassing pink, feeling the heat spread up your neck as you took in his lopsided smile again.
later, after everyone had settled down, you found yourself sitting near him while the others argued over what film to watch. you weren’t sitting beside him intentionally. at least, that was what you told yourself. there simply happened to be space there. and he happened to be there. the conversation moved around you naturally, everyone speaking over one another the way they always did. jungwon wasn’t the loudest person in the room, but you had started noticing that he never seemed left out.
people included him without thinking. heeseung would always ask for his opinion on whatever niche topic they were discussing like their lives depended on it, jake would show him stupid memes on his phone that rarely prompted a reaction from anyone, riki would jab and poke at him until jungwon’s face broke out in one of his endearingly wonky grins. at some point, your conversation shifted towards classes. you mentioned the lecture you’d missed to sunoo and jay, mostly as a joke about how much work you had to catch up on.
jungwon glanced over.
“did the notes help?” he said, perking up as he did so.
“they did,” you said, smiling. “actually, they helped more than the lecture probably would have.”
he immediately shook his head.
“no, they wouldn’t.” he replied, brows furrowed.
“jungwon.”
“what?”
“you literally explained half of it better than the slides and the prof did.”
he looked like he wanted to argue, but didn’t have a response ready. that happened sometimes. you were beginning to notice it. jungwon was always prepared when it came to academics, but when it came to compliments, he never knew what to do with them. again, you found yourself thinking it was so endearing. obviously not enough that you would ever admit it, not right now anyways. you mentioned one part of the topic that you still didn’t fully understand, not expecting anything from it, you were really just babbling on at this point, to anyone that’s listen, although sunoo and jay had moved on and were having their own conversation now.
but jungwon listened.
and after a moment, he just started explaining. in the middle of heeseung’s living room. not with overly complicated definitions or phrases that made you feel like you were supposed to already understand. he broke it down slowly, making sure you followed each step, like he could see the cogs moving in your head and the moments things clicked for you.
“‘was easier to understand than the actual lecture.” you stared at him blankly after he’d basically summed up the entire second half of the module.
“was it?” he asked, confusion plastered onto his face yet again.
you nodded in reply, realising that you were probably making uncomfortable with the sheer amazement in your eyes. he looked down, a pink flush slowly creeping up his neck.
“i just explained it differently.” he shrugged, pushing his glasses up his nose as he lifted his gaze to meet yours again.
before you could respond, sunoo, who you now realised had clearly been listening despite pretending not to, looked over.
“you know, you could literally just tutor her.” the suggestion was casual, almost thrown away.
you just looked at jungwon. he looked back at you. and immediately, you saw the thought cross his face, like the idea had never occurred to him.
“i don’t know if i’d call it tutoring,” he said eventually, a deeper flush now making its way up to his cheeks.
“well, what would you call it?” sunoo (almost) snapped, raising an eyebrow.
jungwon opened his mouth. then stopped, because he didn’t actually have an answer. you giggled softly, and this time he didn’t seem as embarrassed. he just looked away, a small smile spreading across his features despite himself. the conversation moved on soon after. jay changed the topic, riki started another quietly fond argument with sunghoon. the moment just passed, much to your forcibly subdued dismay.
the idea of jungwon tutoring you was never supposed to become an actual plan. at least, that was what you’d told yourself after his brief hesitation. it had been nothing more than something sunoo had thrown into the conversation because he found amusement in pointing out things before anyone else noticed them. for as long as you’d known him (albeit it’d only been a year), he had a habit of doing that, noticing the typically imperceptible shifts between people and making them obvious before anyone involved was ready to acknowledge them. you’d learnt that about him quickly. sunoo always knew when dynamics had changed before either person realised it themselves. so, when he suggested jungwon tutoring you, you had laughed, because it felt too soon to call it anything like that. you and jungwon had exchanged a handful of conversations. you had his number. he had yours. he had sent you notes. you had made unfunny jokes about his lack of emojis. that was hardly enough to suddenly turn him into your personal academic support system.
except, as the weeks went on, you started noticing how often you ended up relying on him. there was a question you couldn’t figure out, so you checked the notes he had sent you. there was a topic you didn’t understand, so you found yourself wondering how jungwon would explain it. that strangest part was that you weren’t someone who usually needed help. not because you felt so uncomfortable that you were were incapable of asking, but because you were normally the person other people asked. it was a role you’d always fallen into without noticing, until now, that is. you were organised enough to remember deadlines, social enough to know who to ask if you needed something and patient enough that people felt comfortable coming to you. your friends joked that you somehow became everyone’s emergency contact despite barely being able to keep track of your own schedule.
you liked being helpful. you liked feeling useful. but there was something unexpectedly comforting about having someone who was willing to do the same for you. jungwon never made you feel like you were behind. he never responded to questions with the kind of surprise that made you feel embarrassed for asking. he simply answered, without fail, every time. and maybe that was why you started asking more. jungwon noticed too. just probably not in the same way you did. you were aware of the changes because they happened around you. you noticed that you no longer hesitated before saying hello when you passed him on campus. you noticed that seeing his name appear on your phone no longer felt surprising, but instead comfortable. for jungwon, it was less obvious because he wasn’t used to analysing his friendships in that way. he had always been someone who let things happen naturally. he had friends. good friends. people he trusted. but most of those friendships had formed slowly, through repeated exposure and familiarity. he wasn’t usually the person who approached first. not because he didn’t want to, but because he had never been particularly good at knowing when he was truly welcome.
with you, he never had to wonder, that was the part that caught him off guard. you made things really easy for him. you spoke to him with your soft, unguarded voice like there was no reason not to. you included him in conversations without making a performance of it, which obviously made it feel more genuine. you looked up at him with your big sparkling eyes through long lashes and nodded attentively when he was talking you through something, so he wouldn't have to guess if you were listening or not. jungwon was used to people noticing him for specific reasons; his grades, his ability to solve problems, the fact that he was reliable. he wasn’t used to someone being interested in what he had to say even when the topic had nothing to do with your syllabus. and you did that often. you asked him small things. what he really thought of the film you’d all watched at heeseung’s place. whether he thought the fancy coffee shop near campus was actually worth the price. whether he agreed with jay’s very strong opinions about literally everything.
none of the questions were particularly important, but jungwon always found himself thinking about them afterwards. he wondered if he’d still be thinking about the things you asked him if they’d come out of anyone else’s mouth. which was becoming increasingly inconvenient for him. because he had assignments. and exams. and a schedule that already felt too full. yet somehow, he always found time to reply to you.
the first time the tutoring idea became a genuine possibility was after another lecture. not because you had planned to ask, in fact, you'd actually been trying very hard not to bring it up. there was something slightly embarrassing about admitting you were struggling with a topic that everyone else seemed to understand. logically, you knew that was ridiculous. uni was difficult and everyone struggled sometimes. but there was still a part of you that hated feeling like you were falling behind. you had spent the better part of an evening trying to understand a section of your module notes, moving between your own work and the lecture slides until the information started blurring together. eventually, out of frustration more than anything else, you sent jungwon a message. you stared at the text blankly for a while before sending it.
hi Lol sorry this is random but do you understand this part?
you attached a screenshot.
almost immediately, you regretted the wording because you realised you’d apologised before even asking. something you did more often than you liked to admit. also, something jungwon had bought up with you before. telling you gently that he felt it was unnecessary to apologise for shivering next to him on heeseung’s sofa while you were sat right next to an open window.
you put your phone down and tried to focus on something else. it lasted approximately three minutes. then your phone buzzed.
i can explain if you want
you smiled before you could stop yourself at the way he’d always phrased his messages. he left space for you to decide. you replied that you would appreciate it, expecting another explanation over text.
instead, a few minutes later:
are you on campus tomorrow?
you stared at the message. your first thought was that you had somehow misunderstood.
yeah, why?
the reply came a little bit slower this time.
i can teach you properly
you looked at the screen for a moment. it was such a jungwon thing to suggest. practical and straightforward, completely unaware of how much trust was involved in what he was offering. because for jungwon, explaining something to someone wasn’t a big deal. it was simply something he could do, and did, regularly in fact. for you, though, there was something different about it. this wasn’t borrowing notes or a quick explanation during a group hangout. it was choosing to spend time together. just the two of you. you found yourself smiling slightly at the thought, then immediately questioned why. which was annoying. because there was nothing strange about spending time with a friend. and jungwon was becoming a friend! you thought that you really needed to stop treating every small interaction like it meant more than it did.
the next day, you met him outside the library. or, more accurately, you met him in the library because jungwon had apparently arrived early enough to secure a table before the usual afternoon rush. you weren’t surprised. when you approached, he was already there, laptop open, notebook beside him, two drinks sitting on the table. you slowed slightly when you noticed the second one.
“i didn’t know what you liked,” he explained before you could ask, gesturing towards it. “so i just got water.”
you looked at the bottle, then at him.
“jungwon.”
he paused.
“what?”
“you’re genuinely the most prepared person i’ve ever met.” you smiled.
for a second, he looked unsure whether that was a compliment. you had started noticing that happened often.
“i didn’t know if you’d have something to drink.”
“most people would just assume.”
“i didn’t want to assume.”
the answer was so simple that it caught you slightly off guard. jungwon always considered things other people overlooked. not because he was trying to impress anyone but because that was simply how he moved through the world. you sat down across from him, opening your laptop. and for the first time, you saw what everyone else probably saw when they studied with him. which wasn’t the intimidatingly smart person people talked about, not the student everyone went to when they were stuck. just someone patient, someone who genuinely wanted you to understand. which, somehow, made it much easier to admit when you didn’t.
the two of you didn’t study for very long before you ended up talking about other things, nothing particularly meaningful. just little conversations that happened naturally between his long, thought out explanations. you found out jungwon hated overly sweet drinks. you found out he had a habit of tapping his pen against his textbook when he was thinking. you found out he actually had a much drier sense of humour than you expected. and, perhaps most surprisingly, he found out you weren’t as effortlessly confident as he’d assumed. you admitted, almost accidentally, that you hated asking questions in lectures because you worried they would be obvious.
jungwon looked genuinely surprised.
“you?”
“what does that mean?” you muttered out through a frown.
“you talk to everyone.”
you laughed quietly.
“that doesn’t mean i can’t get nervous.”
he looked down at his notes. you mused that he probably understood that better than most people. because maybe that was the thing neither of you realised yet. everyone else saw the obvious parts of you; they saw someone friendly, someone confident, someone who belonged everywhere. everyone else saw the obvious parts of him; someone deeply intelligent, someone capable, someone who always knew what he was doing. but none of those things had ever fully summed either of you up. and maybe that was why the two of you got along. because you were both much more complicated than the versions people had decided on.
by the time you packed your things away, the library had started to empty. you hadn’t finished everything. technically, you had probably spent too much time talking. at the end of the day, you’d still understood bounds more than you had when you arrived. you looked at your notes, then at jungwon, a shy smile playing at your lips.
“i think sunoo was right.”
“about what?” he looked up and met your eyes.
“the tutoring thing.”
his expression immediately shifted, not really dramatically, but just enough for you to notice.
“oh.”
you giggled.
“don’t look so terrified.” you replied, pouting slightly involuntarily.
“i don’t.”
“you do.”
he just looked away. which, unfortunately for him, proved your point. you smiled as you packed your laptop away.
“i’m joking.”
but the idea didn’t disappear. and neither did the small smile that appeared on his face when he thought you weren’t looking.
the following tuesday arrived with the kind of weather that never seemed to make up its mind. the morning had started bright enough for people to leave their accommodation without coats, only for grey clouds to roll across the sky before lunchtime, threatening rain without ever fully committing to it. by the time your last lecture finished, the air had turned cooler, carrying the familiar scent of damp pavement that always seemed to settle over campus before autumn properly arrived.
you stood outside the building for a moment, adjusting the strap of your bag as students spilled around you. your phone buzzed.
hi
i’m already at the library
second floor
i found us a table
you couldn’t help smiling. there was something strangely unsurprising about the message because of course he was already there. of course he had arrived early enough to secure one of the quieter tables before the afternoon rush started. of course he had somehow managed to phrase a simple text so politely that it almost sounded like an apology for disturbing you.
you typed back as you crossed the courtyard.
i’ll be there in five :D
you hesitated for a second before pressing send. the smiley face stayed. it wasn’t until your phone disappeared back into your pocket that you remembered your conversation about emojis. you laughed quietly to yourself. he was either going to think nothing of it… or spend the next ten minutes wondering whether there had been a hidden meaning behind one tiny :D
for some reason, the thought made you smile all over again.
the library was busier than usual. students filled almost every table on the ground floor, conversations kept deliberately hushed beneath the steady hum of printers and keyboards, while the occasional sigh or rustle of paper floated between shelves lined with textbooks that looked far too expensive for anyone to actually buy. you climbed the stairs two at a time before slowing your pace. there he was. he had chosen a table tucked beside one of the tall windows overlooking the centre of campus, far enough away from the busiest part of the floor that it felt almost secluded. his laptop was already open. two notebooks sat neatly beside one another. highlighters arranged in a straight line. a mechanical pencil resting precisely across the top page.
he looked up almost immediately. for a second, neither of you spoke. then his expression softened into a small smile.
“hi.” you whispered, hoping he wouldn’t notice the pink you could feel spreading across your cheeks for no apparent reason.
“hi.” he whispered back, his lopsided grin deepening, his dimple now visible.
you slipped into the chair opposite him, dropping your bag onto the floor with considerably less grace than he’d arranged the table.
“sorry if i’m late.”
jungwon glanced towards the clock hanging above the staircase.
“…you’re three minutes early.”
you blinked.
“…oh.”
“just had to find something to apologise for, didn’t you?” the corner of his mouth lifted slightly again as he whispered. you just looked at him for a second before laughing under your breath while pulling your laptop from your bag, bringing it up to your face because now you really had to hide your red cheeks from him. it wasn’t much, barely even a joke. but you were beginning to realise something about jungwon. he was funny! not loudly and definitely not in the way jake was, where half the room inevitably ended up laughing with him. jungwon’s humour appeared quietly, tucked between otherwise serious conversations, almost hidden beneath the way he spoke. if you weren’t paying attention, you’d probably miss it entirely. which somehow made it even better.
“thank you for doing this.” you said quietly, breaking the comfortable silence while settling your things across the table.
“for what?” he looked genuinely puzzled, eyebrows furrowed and face devoid of that grin you’d come to really like.
“helping me.”
“you asked.”
“exactly.”
“i don’t mind.” he said with so much conviction that it caught you off guard, like he was urging you to believe him. there wasn’t any awkward insistence that it was nothing, no dismissive shrug. just a straightforward answer, as though helping you had never been something he needed convincing to do.
it made something in your chest feel unexpectedly warm. you had always been the friend who offered. who stayed behind after seminars if someone needed something explained again. who reminded everyone about deadlines because you knew at least one person would forget. you liked taking care of people. it wasn’t something you thought about very often until someone quietly returned the favour.
jungwon opened one of his notebooks.
“which part?”
you pulled your own notes closer.
“this.”
you pointed towards a page that had become increasingly covered in question marks over the past few days.
“i understand the beginning.”
your finger moved lower.
“and then somewhere around here i completely lose whatever’s happening.”
he leaned forward slightly, just close enough to see the page properly. without thinking, you did the same. your shoulders almost brushed. you didn’t notice until you caught the faint scent of clean laundry and something woodsy. not cologne. nothing strong. just oddly fresh. you blinked quickly, forcing your attention back towards the notebook. jungwon, meanwhile, had already started reading. he didn’t seem to notice the distance between you at all, and you couldn’t help feeling like a little kid about the fact that you were so aware of it, and liked it in fact. perhaps he had simply decided it wasn’t worth acknowledging.
“okay,” he murmured after a moment. “i think they’re explaining it backwards.”
you looked up.
“backwards?” you asked, confusion painting your features like it rarely did. jungwon thought your scrunched eyes and tilted head was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen.
“kind of.” he replied after clearing his throat. he reached for his pencil before hesitating.
“can i?”
you looked down, he was gesturing towards your notebook.
“oh.” you nodded quickly.
“yeah, of course.”
only then did he start writing. his handwriting was somehow just as neat as you’d expected. he drew a small diagram, crossed something out, rewrote it differently. then turned the notebook back towards you.
“try thinking about it like this instead.”
there was no rush in the way he explained things. he never made you feel as though you were slowing him down. if you interrupted to ask another question, he answered it without sighing or trying to move on too quickly. if you looked unconvinced, he simply found another way of explaining the same concept.
after about twenty minutes, something finally clicked. you stared at the page.
“…oh.”
jungwon looked up.
“does that make more sense?” he asked, hint of a knowing smile spreading across his face.
“a lot more.”
you looked between the diagram and him.
“why couldn’t the prof just say that?” he looked almost embarrassed by the compliment.
“they probably did.”
“they definitely didn’t.”
“maybe they explained it differently.”
“jungwon.”
he met your eyes.
“you’re being modest again.” you whispered, poking him playfully in the shoulder. colour crept faintly into his ears.
“i’m not.”
“you are.”
he looked away first. you smiled to yourself, you were starting to recognise his little pattern. whenever anyone complimented him, jungwon reacted as though they had accidentally handed him something that belonged to someone else. time passed easier than either of you expected. somewhere between diagrams, explanations and comparing lecture slides, the awkwardness that had hovered around your first few conversations dissolved into something quieter. more comfortable. you found yourself talking without thinking about it. sometimes about the work, oftentimes not. you learnt that jungwon almost always studied in the same spot because he liked the light from the window. he admitted, after a surprising amount of persuasion, that he couldn’t concentrate if people chewed too loudly. you confessed that you sometimes highlighted entire pages of content because you could never decide what was actually important.
“that defeats the point of highlighting.”
“i know.”
“then why do you do it?”
“panic.”
he looked down at your notebook.
“…fair enough.”
again, that tiny smile. small enough that someone across the room probably wouldn’t even notice it. you did, every time. and each time it appeared, it seemed to linger a fraction longer than the last. it happened gradually enough that neither of you noticed the hours slipping past. outside, the sky had darkened. students came and went around you, chairs scraping quietly across the floor as people packed their things and left. you only realised how long you’d been there when your stomach growled. loudly. the sound seemed to echo across the table, jungwon’s head snapping up at the sudden noise. your entire body froze. you covered your face with one hand.
“please pretend that didn’t happen.” heat rushed to your cheeks almost instantly.
“i left straight after my lecture this morning.” you laughed awkwardly.
“i completely forgot to eat.”
jungwon didn’t laugh. he didn’t tease you. he simply looked at you for a second before quietly reaching down beside his chair. you frowned. he unzipped his backpack, rummaged around for a moment, then placed something gently on the table between you. a packet of chocolate almond pepero. you stared at it blankly, then up at him.
“…what?”
“you should eat.”
you blinked.
“jungwon…”
“before you try and study anything else… your stomach sounds unhappy.” he mumbled out after being interrupted mid sentence by another grumble from your tummy. despite your embarrassment, you couldn’t help the tiny giggle that escaped.
“thank you.”
you picked the packet up slowly, still looking at it.
“…hang on.”
he looked up from his notebook.
“how did you know these were my favourite?”
for the first time all afternoon, jungwon hesitated.
“i…”
he looked as though he genuinely hadn’t expected the question.
“jay and sunghoon used to buy them for you.” he replied sheepishly, hand scratching at the back of his neck.
“yeah, but that was only once or twice.”
“it was eight times. that i was around to see it at least.”
you stared.
“…you counted?”
“not intentionally.” he said, his eyebrows knitting together slightly.
“jungwon.”
“they were always the same… so i remembered.”
your heart did something strange. you weren’t even sure why. it wasn’t the snack. it wasn’t even the fact that he’d brought one. it was that he’d noticed! months ago, during noisy evenings where everyone had been talking over one another, he’d quietly remembered something so insignificant that even you would’ve forgotten mentioning it. you looked back down at the packet in your hands.
“that’s…”
you searched for the right word.
“…really thoughtful.”
he seemed almost confused.
“it’s just a snack.”
“yeah i know, ‘m just saying thanks anyways.” you spluttered out quickly and now, shyly, hoping he wouldn’t notice your immediate backtracking after his dismissal. you looked back up at him. for a second, neither of you spoke. jungwon rubbed absentmindedly at the back of his neck again, suddenly looking far more interested in his notebook than he had been a moment earlier.
“…i wasn’t sure if they were still your favourite.”
your smile softened again before you could stop it. it seemed like he was giving you an out from your previous embarrassment. you didn’t feel as much like you’d made an unnecessarily big deal out of it.
“they are.”
he just nodded once in reply.
“…okay.”
for some reason, that answer seemed to make him happy. and as you opened the packet, handing the first stick across the table towards him without really thinking about it, you couldn’t shake the growing feeling that somewhere along the way, tutoring had quietly become one of your favourite parts of the week.
by the time the packet of pepero was empty, the stack of notes between you had doubled. it hadn’t happened all at once. one explanation had turned into another, then into comparing lecture slides, then into jungwon suddenly deciding that one of the examples in your textbook was unnecessarily complicated and rewriting it from scratch in the margins of your notebook. you watched him for a moment while he worked. his brows drew together whenever he concentrated, creating the faintest crease between them that disappeared almost immediately whenever he looked back up. every so often, he would stop writing altogether, not because he had forgotten what he wanted to say, but because he was deciding how to say it. that was something you were beginning to admire about him. jungwon never explained things to prove that he understood them. he explained them so that you would.
it was a small difference, but one you hadn’t appreciated until now.
you had met plenty of people who enjoyed being the smartest person in the room. people who answered questions in ways that somehow made everyone else feel a little smaller for asking in the first place. jungwon was the opposite. if anything, he seemed happiest when the person sitting across from him finally understood. the little smile that appeared whenever something clicked for you was never smug, it was relieved. you caught yourself watching him again. this time, it wasn’t because he was explaining anything. he had reached up absentmindedly to push his glasses higher on his nose, only for them to slip straight back down again a few minutes later. he sighed so quietly you almost missed it before repeating the same movement without even thinking. you smiled to yourself before realising you probably looked like a bit of a perv, hastily bringing your hand up to your face to hide your smile as casually as you could.
“what?”
his voice pulled you out of your thoughts.
you blinked.
“huh?”
“you smiled.”
“…did i?”
he nodded once.
“…why?”
heat crept into your face before you had a chance to stop it. he tilted his head ever so slightly. the expression wasn’t suspicious, just curious. you debated telling him. it wasn’t that embarrassing. not really. still…
“your glasses keep falling.”
his hand immediately lifted towards his face.
“…oh.”
“you’ve pushed them up about six times in the last ten minutes.”
“…have i?”
“i’ve been counting.”
for the first time since you’d met him, you watched jungwon look genuinely flustered. it wasn't dramatic, he didn’t splutter or hide his face. instead, his eyes widened just enough for you to notice before he looked away with a quiet, “i didn’t realise.”
you laughed softly.
“it’s kind of cute.”
the words left your mouth before your brain had caught up. silence settled between you. your smile disappeared.
oops! to be really honest, it was something you’d say to most people with ease. it wasn’t even typically an odd thing to point out, you remembered only yesterday telling jake how adorable he looked when he let his hair grow out a little longer. but something about the way jungwon looked up at you, like you’d just done something jail time worthy, almost made you wince. again, you felt like a kid, a really stupid one at that. you looked down at your notebook so quickly you almost gave yourself whiplash.
“i meant…”
why were you trying to explain it?
“they’re just…” you gestured vaguely towards his face without looking directly at him. “very… you.”
that somehow sounded worse.
“forget i said anything.”
you squeezed your eyes shut for the briefest second after seeing a lack of the lopsided grin you’d become accustomed to on his face. across the table, jungwon had gone completely still. he didn’t look offended. if anything, he looked as though his brain had momentarily stopped working.
cute. you had called him cute. he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that information. compliments had always made him uncomfortable. they tended to sit awkwardly somewhere in the middle of gratitude and disbelief, leaving him unsure which emotion he was supposed to choose. this one felt… different. because you hadn’t said it to be polite. if anything, you’d oddly seemed horrified that you’d let it slip, in a way so unlike what he’d seen of you these past few months. his ears felt warm. he was fairly certain they were turning pink. he hoped they weren’t.
“…thank you,” he managed eventually, the words quieter than he’d intended.
you looked back up, relief written plainly across your face. something in jungwon relaxed. the smallest laugh escaped him before he could stop it at the sheer speed in which the alleviation of your panic ensued. later, as the conversation drifted away from coursework and towards anything else that came to mind, the atmosphere around the table changed almost without either of you realising. the books remained open. pens still rested between pages. yet neither of you seemed particularly concerned with the fact that you hadn’t looked at the lecture slides in nearly twenty minutes. instead, you learnt that jungwon always listened to the same playlist whenever he studied because changing songs distracted him. he learnt that you couldn’t revise in complete silence because your thoughts became louder than whatever you were trying to memorise. you admitted that you had once colour-coded an entire set of flashcards only to lose them the day before a test. he admitted, after a surprising amount of hesitation, that he alphabetised the folders on his laptop.
“you’re joking.” you said, probably too loudly considering the fact you were in a library.
“…no.”
“every single one?”
he nodded.
“…it makes finding things easier.”
you stared at him for a moment before laughing under your breath.
“that’s…”
you searched for the right word.
“the most jungwon thing i’ve ever heard.”
“that’s probably true.”
“you agree?”
“…yeah.”
the consistent honesty of all of his answers no longer caught you so off guard. most people would’ve defended themselves, or laughed it off. jungwon simply accepted it. there was something strangely attractive about that. not because alphabetising folders was attractive.
obviously. but because he never seemed interested in pretending to be someone else. he wasn’t trying to seem cooler than he was, or louder, or more confident. he simply existed exactly as he was. and somehow, that made you want to know him even more. jungwon, meanwhile, was trying very hard not to stare. he wasn’t succeeding particularly well. he was trying so hard to make his constant glances look unintentional but his eyes simply kept drifting back without permission. you smiled all the time. he had noticed that weeks ago. not the kind of smile people put on automatically when they greeted someone. your smiles were different. sometimes they were quick and amused. like when jake would show you some stupid meme on his phone that only ten year olds would typically find funny, you usually ended up laughing at jake himself for his endearingly regressed humour. sometimes they spread slowly across your face before you even realised you were doing it. like when you and riki came to the conclusion that jay was in fact wrong about whatever he’d been arguing about with sunghoon with so much conviction.
sometimes, when you laughed properly, your nose scrunched ever so slightly. he had never consciously paid attention to something like that before. now he couldn’t seem to stop noticing. every time you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear while reading. every time you frowned at a sentence before chewing lightly on the inside of your cheek. every time you looked up after finally understanding something he’d explained. he kept remembering them.
which was again, extremely unhelpful. he was supposed to be helping you study. he felt like he’d just been gawking down at you the whole time. eventually, the announcement echoed gently through the library.
“the building will be closing in fifteen minutes…”
you both looked up instinctively, then towards the windows. outside, the sky had turned almost completely dark.
“…what time is it?” you frowned, surprise colouring your features.
“…eight forty-five.” he said, whispering long forgotten as he checked his phone.
your eyes widened.
“jungwon! we got here at one.”
“…yeah.”
you both looked down at the notebooks covering the table. then back at each other. somewhere between studying and talking, almost eight hours had disappeared.
“i didn’t even notice.”
jungwon nodded slightly.
“…me neither.”
the admission just lingered between you. it probably should have felt awkward. eight hours was a long time to spend with someone you’d only recently become friends with. instead… it felt strangely easy, comfortable, even. like the afternoon had passed exactly as it was supposed to. you packed your things away together, neither of you rushing despite the librarian beginning to switch off lights further down the floor. as you zipped your bag closed, your hand brushed against jungwon’s where both of you reached for the same pen lying between your notebooks. it barely lasted a second. just enough for your fingers to touch before both of you instinctively pulled back.
“sorry.”
you spoke at exactly the same time. then stopped. then looked at each other. a little giggle escaped you first. jungwon’s followed a second later. it was quieter, warmer. and somehow, hearing it felt like accomplishing something. walking out of the library together, you realised something that should probably have worried you a little more than it did. for the first time since uni had started you weren’t looking forward to the next tutoring session because you wanted better grades. you were looking forward to it because you wanted another afternoon exactly like this one. with jungwon. and, a step behind you, jungwon found himself thinking that perhaps he’d start arriving fifteen minutes early next week instead of ten. not because the library got busy. that was simply the excuse he gave himself, the truth was much harder to admit. he liked waiting when he knew you were the person he was waiting for.
a month passed quietly. not in the dramatic way some movies liked to pretend time moved, where seasons changed overnight and entire lives somehow transformed between one scene and the next. nothing about the last few weeks had felt particularly significant while you were living through them. lectures came and went. assignments accumulated faster than any real human being could finish them. the weather grew colder, the mornings darker, and somewhere along the way, the trees lining the paths across campus began shedding leaves that collected in damp piles beneath benches no one wanted to sit on anymore.
life carried on. the only difference was that, at some point, jungwon had become woven into it. you couldn’t have pinpointed exactly when. there hadn’t been a conversation where the two of you had agreed to keep meeting every week. nobody had suggested making tutoring a regular thing. it had simply… happened.
the first time, you’d arranged to meet because of one particularly confusing lecture. the second time, because there was another topic you wanted him to explain before a quiz. by the third week, neither of you really needed an excuse anymore. thursday afternoons had quietly become yours. sometimes you studied in the library, tucked away in the same corner beside the windows where jungwon always managed to find a table before anyone else. sometimes you ended up in the little coffee shop across from the engineering building after discovering every seat in the library had already been taken. once, when it had started raining halfway through the afternoon, the two of you had spent almost an hour sitting on the floor outside an empty seminar room because neither of you wanted to carry all your textbooks somewhere else.
it didn’t seem to matter where you were. eventually, one of you would arrive first. the other would appear a few minutes later. and somehow, without ever talking about it, the afternoon would disappear. your friends noticed before you did, not in an obvious way. little comments slipped into conversations so naturally that you rarely thought much of them.
“aren’t you with jungwon today?” sunoo had asked one thursday when you’d turned down lunch because you wanted to finish a reading beforehand.
you’d blinked.
“…yeah.”
“thought so.”
that had been the end of it. another time, heeseung had wandered into the kitchen while jungwon was packing his bag.
“library?”
jungwon hadn’t even looked up.
“…yeah.”
“she’s already there?”
“…probably.”
heeseung had smiled to himself but wisely chose not to say anything else. it wasn’t strange. at least, it didn’t feel strange. friends spent time together, friends studied together. if anything, it made sense that you and jungwon had become close. you were taking similar modules, he explained things well, and somewhere beneath all of his quietness, he’d turned out to really make you laugh. you liked being around him. that was all. or at least, that’s what you told yourself.
by now, your study sessions had developed their own unspoken routine. jungwon still arrived first. you still apologised for being late, even when you weren’t, he poked fun at you for this and made you promise you’d stop (knowing full well you never would). he still insisted on explaining concepts from the beginning instead of assuming you understood the foundations. you still interrupted him halfway through with questions that somehow sent the conversation in completely different directions. he no longer looked surprised when you reached across the table to steal whichever pen he happened to be using. instead, he simply sighed with exaggerated patience before sliding another one towards himself.
“you’re unbelievable,” he’d muttered the week before.
“thank you.” you grinned out through a mouthful of apple.
“that wasn’t a compliment.”
“it sounded like one.”
“…maybe a little.” he muttered out, mask of feigned disbelief broken by his lopsided smile.
you’d giggled so hard that people had actually looked over from neighbouring tables. jungwon looked faintly horrified, which only made you laugh harder. somewhere along the way, he’d stopped apologising every time the silence settled between you. you’d stopped feeling responsible for filling it. there were afternoons where the two of you barely spoke for twenty minutes at a time, completely absorbed in your own work before one of you quietly asked a question. the silence never felt uncomfortable. if anything, it was becoming one of your favourite parts. there was something strangely peaceful about existing beside someone who didn’t expect constant conversation.
“you’re staring.”
your head snapped up.
jungwon looked at you over the top of his laptop.
“…what?”
“you’ve been looking at the same page for five minutes.”
heat crept into your cheeks. had you? you glanced back down at your notes. the paragraph you’d supposedly been reading hadn’t changed. because, apparently, you’d spent the last five minutes watching the way sunlight caught against the rim of jungwon’s glasses instead. the way his dimple emerged slightly when he scrunched up one side of his face in concentration.
brilliant.
“i was thinking.”
“…about operating systems?”
“…yes.” you muttered out after a pause.
his eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. you tried to keep a straight face. he tried to keep a straight face. neither of you managed it.
“you’re terrible at lying,” he said quietly, poking you playfully in the arm.
you pointed your pen towards him.
“that’s rich coming from the person who once tried convincing me he didn’t alphabetise his desktop.”
“…i don’t.” jungwon replied, still trying to make you believe what you knew was false.
“jungwon.”
“…it’s organised by colour now.” he replied, eyebrows raised.
you giggled again so suddenly that you had to press your lips together to keep the sound from carrying across the library. he smiled fondly, hoping you wouldn’t notice the affection that he felt was radiating off of every bone in his body. obviously not because he’d made a joke, but because you’d laughed.
it wasn’t until saturday evening that everything unravelled. everyone had ended up at heeseung’s flat again, the same way they always seemed to. sunghoon had suggested ordering takeaway (again). jay had complained about the prices before ordering it regardless. jake and riki were arguing over a game neither of them seemed particularly good at, sunoo had somehow convinced heeseung to help him bake cookies despite the fact that neither of them appeared to know what they were doing, leaving jay and sunghoon occupying opposite ends of the sofa. you wandered into the other living room (which heeseung has fashioned into a bar of sorts) in search of something to drink. jay followed a minute later.
“can you pass me a glass?”
you reached into the cupboard without looking.
“thanks.” he replied simply, and if you’d met his gaze, you’d have seen the slight raise of his eyebrows and the hint of a smirk playing on his face.
he leaned against the counter while you filled your own glass with water. there was a comfortable quiet between the two of you, broken only by the distant sound of riki insisting someone had cheated.
“so.” he started.
you looked over.
“so?”
jay shrugged.
“nothing.”
“…you’re doing that thing again.” you exclaimed, probably louder than you should’ve.
“what thing?”
“where you say ‘so’ because you actually want to ask something. that thing that all older women do.” you said, poking him. you thought maybe riki was rubbing off on you, making fun of jay’s mannerisms even though he was only a junior, not too far off of you. he didn’t even bother denying it, just rolled his eyes at you exaggeratedly.
“…are you and jungwon dating?”
the question landed so casually that, for a second, your brain didn’t register it. you just blinked up at him for a second.
“…what?” you muttered, eyes wide.
“you heard me.”
“jay.”
“yes?”
“…what?”
he frowned slightly, as though you were the confusing one.
“i’m just asking.” he smiled, poking at you as if to reassure you. he didn’t expect you to have an expression on your face akin to that of someone who’d just been stabbed.
“why?” you said, forcibly narrowing your eyes as you tried to steel yourself.
“because you spend half your week together.”
“we study together.”
“you also get coffee afterwards.”
“because we’re already there.”
“and then you walk each other home.”
“…we live in the same direction.”
jay just hummed in response, doing that annoying, all-knowing thing with his eyebrows again.
“interesting.”
“what is?”
“how you’ve got an answer for every single one.”
you opened your mouth. closed it again. before you could muster up another aimless defence, sunghoon wandered into the living room.
“what are you two talking about?”
jay answered before you could.
“whether she and jungwon are dating.”
sunghoon paused.
“…i thought they were.” he said casually.
your heart stopped. you actually thought this in your head before coming to the gross realisation again of how childish you probably seemed. sunghoon turned to glance between you and jay, looking genuinely confused.
“wait…”
his eyes moved between you and jay again.
“…you’re not?” he almost exclaimed, shock painting his features.
“…nope!” you said, popping the p in a desperate attempt to seem unbothered.
“oh.”
“…my bad.” he sounded almost disappointed.
you stared at both of them.
“…why would either of you think that?” you muttered, bringing your cup to your lips in a quiet plea that they’d take that question rhetorically.
much to your dismay, jay just gave you a look that bordered on incredulous.
“because every time one of us asks where you are, the answer is jungwon.”
“because he’s put almond pepero on the ‘essentials’ section on heeseung’s shopping list. and we all know you’re the only one who likes them.”
to your horror, sunghoon continued counting on his fingers.
“because i’ve seen him smile more in the last month than i did during the whole first year.”
“because you both look for each other before anyone else when we all meet up.”
your mouth opened. nothing came out. jay’s expression softened almost immediately, a twinge of regret in his eyes.
“hey.” he nudged your shoulder gently.
“i wasn’t trying to embarrass you.”
“…i know.” you mumbled, now even further embarrassed realising he’d probably noticed the flush on your cheeks.
“just forget i asked.”
you nodded. you tried to smile. you weren’t sure whether it looked convincing. because the problem obviously wasn’t that jay had asked. the problem was that, for the first time, you couldn’t stop replaying everything he’d just said. you did look for jungwon first. you’d never noticed that. and much more terrifyingly, had he?
jungwon had always preferred kitchens to living rooms. not because there was anything particularly interesting about washing dishes or collecting empty glasses, but because kitchens gave him something to do. there was a certain comfort in keeping his hands occupied while conversations carried on around him. from the sink, he could still hear everyone laughing from the other room, hear riki loudly accusing jake of cheating at whatever game they’d inevitably started, hear sunoo protesting about something that was almost certainly insignificant.
it was familiar. comfortable. he liked that. he was rinsing the last of the glasses when footsteps approached behind him, quick enough that he didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. riki had never been particularly subtle.
“avoiding us already?”
jungwon glanced over his shoulder briefly before returning his attention to the sink.
“i’m just washing dishes.”
“that’s not what i asked.”
he smiled faintly to himself. “i know.”
another pair of footsteps followed a moment later, slower this time. heeseung. without a word, he picked up a tea towel and began drying the plates jungwon passed across the counter. it was something the two of them had done often enough that neither of them thought about it anymore. for a while, the three of them worked quietly. or, more accurately, jungwon and heeseung worked quietly while riki stood nearby looking as though he were waiting for the perfect opportunity to interrupt.
it didn’t take long.
“so…”
jungwon didn’t look up.
“…what?”
“where’s y/n?”
the question was so casual that it took him a second to process, he frowned slightly in response.
“in the living room?”
“no.” riki shook his head.
“she went to get a drink.”
“…okay.” jungwon said blankly, obviously confused.
“and you didn’t follow her.”
jungwon finally looked up.
“…was i supposed to?”
the grin that spread across riki’s face immediately made him suspicious. heeseung noticed too, hiding a smile behind the rim of his glass.
“he genuinely doesn’t realise,” riki muttered, sounding almost impressed.
“realise what?” jungwon almost exclaimed, frustrated now.
instead of answering immediately, heeseung rested the plate he’d been drying on the counter and regarded jungwon thoughtfully.
“when was the last time the two of you weren’t together for more than a day?”
jungwon just blinked. the question felt oddly specific. he thought about it for a moment. lectures, the library, coffee after studying, group dinners, another study session.
“…i don’t know.”
the answer came more honestly than he’d intended. because he genuinely couldn’t remember. somewhere over the last month, seeing you had become part of his routine. not in a way he’d ever consciously planned. you were simply… there. thursday afternoons belonged to the library now. if one of you finished class early, the other usually received a message asking whether they wanted to start studying sooner. if you both happened to be on campus longer than expected, one of you would inevitably suggest grabbing something to eat before heading home. none of it had felt unusual. it still didn’t. friends spent time together, and that was all.
“exactly,” riki said, sounding far too smug and pleased with himself.
jungwon frowned, which riki took as a sign to continue.
“that’s exactly my point.”
“…i don’t know what your point is.”
“you never do.”
heeseung laughed quietly, folding the tea towel over one shoulder.
“he means that you’ve become close.” heeseung finally chipped in, fond look ever present in his gaze when regarding you or jungwon.
“we are close.” the words slipped out defensively before jungwon had really considered them. he paused, then looked back down at the sink.
“…i think.”
heeseung’s expression softened.
“you don’t have to sound so unsure.”
jungwon wasn’t unsure, that wasn’t the problem. he knew the two of you had become friends. good friends, probably. it was just strange hearing someone else say it aloud. because once they did, he found himself replaying the last few weeks in his head. you reaching across the table without asking to steal his pen, the way you always thanked him, even after he’d insisted you didn’t have to. the fact that you now complained whenever he skipped lunch, as though it had somehow become your responsibility to make sure he ate. he hadn’t noticed any of those things changing. they simply had.
“she’s good for you.” heeseung said it so matter-of-factly that jungwon looked up again.
“…what do you mean?”
“you seem happier.”
jungwon almost laughed.
“because i’m helping someone study?”
“because it’s her.”
the kitchen fell quiet. jungwon looked away first, he didn’t really know how to answer that. he liked spending time with you. that much was obvious. you made difficult afternoons feel lighter somehow. studying, something he’d always considered a solitary task, had become something he looked forward to instead of simply getting through. you made him laugh. more than he’d expected. sometimes without even trying. but that didn’t mean anything, did it? before he could untangle the thought, riki nudged his shoulder.
“you’re a lucky bastard, you know.”
jungwon looked at him.
“she’s pretty.” he continued, heeseung rolled his eyes in response, exasperated with riki’s instinct to always state the obvious.
“and she’s really really nice. everyone likes her.” there wasn’t any jealousy in his voice, just simple certainty.
“she could’ve asked loads of people for help.” heeseung added, much to jungwon’s dismay.
“yeah, well, she asked me.” jungwon almost snapped back, frown deepening further.
“exactly.” riki smirked.
“that’s what we’re saying.” heeseung added on.
jungwon opened his mouth before closing it again. but it was true, you had. for reasons he still didn’t fully understand. before he could think about it any longer, riki ruined the moment completely.
“seriously, hyung.”
he grinned.
“if i were you, i’d be feeling pretty lucky.”
jungwon rolled his eyes, reaching over to swat him lightly around the back of the head.
“you’re unbelievable.”
“i know.”
riki rubbed the back of his head dramatically despite the fact that the hit had barely registered. heeseung only shook his head, amused. neither of them pointed out the faint colour settling across jungwon’s ears. neither of them needed to. because jungwon was already wondering why a perfectly ordinary conversation had left him thinking about you. not about your coursework, or the next tutoring session. just you. and for the first time since the two of you had become friends, he found himself lingering on the thought much longer than he meant to.
somewhere along the way, jungwon stopped feeling like someone you were trying to get to know. for months, he had existed at the edge of your life. someone you recognised before you knew him. someone whose name you heard often, whose face you saw across lecture halls and at group dinners, but never someone you expected to become important to you. now, you couldn’t remember the last time you went an entire day without speaking to him. it wasn’t intentional. that was what maybe made it worse. there had never been a conversation where the two of you decided to become close. no dramatic turning point where you suddenly realised you were friends. it had happened in the quiet spaces between everything else. a message after a lecture because you’d both complained about the same assignment, a five minute conversation that somehow became forty, a walk back from the library that became a regular thing because your routes happened to overlap. you had started knowing things about jungwon that you never would have noticed before. aside from the obvious, everyone knew he was smart. everyone knew he was reliable. everyone knew he was the person people went to when they needed help understanding something complicated. you knew the smaller things. you knew he always checked the weather before leaving the flat because he hated being caught in the rain, you knew he got quieter when he was tired, not because he was upset but because he was saving what little energy he had left for anybody else that needed it, you knew that when he was trying not to laugh, he pressed his lips hard together like he was physically stopping himself.
you knew he pretended not to care about things he absolutely cared about. and somehow, those were the things that made him impossible not to like. which was becoming a bit of a problem. because you were starting to notice him in ways you hadn’t before. you realised it one evening in the library. not in some huge, overwhelming way. you weren’t staring dramatically across the table, suddenly struck by how much you liked him… it was much more inconvenient than that. you were working through a practice question, completely stuck despite having already read through the explanation twice. jungwon was beside you, typing something into his laptop while occasionally glancing over to check your progress. you had gotten used to that, his quiet attention. the way he never interrupted unless he thought you genuinely needed help, the way he somehow knew when you were about to give up before you even admitted it.
“you’re doing that thing again.” he whispered, breaking the silence.
you looked up.
“what thing?”
his eyes moved briefly to your notebook.
“you’re staring at the paper like it’s a death sentence or something.”
you looked back down.
“feels like one.”
a small smile appeared on his face. that tiny reaction you had somehow become weirdly proud of causing. jungwon didn’t often laugh loudly. he didn’t have the dramatic reactions that some of your friends did. but when you made him smile, it felt like you’d earned something. which was ridiculous, you knew that. still.
“you’re impossible,” he said, rolling his eyes fondly.
“and yet you keep tutoring me.” you whispered back, scrunching up your nose as you did so.
“that’s because i’m nice.”
you looked at him, really looked at him with that quizzical glare he’d come to love.
“that sounded suspiciously like you were complimenting yourself.”
“i was stating a fact.” he muttered back, flush rising to his cheeks as he suddenly turned his head back to his laptop.
you giggled under your breath.
and that was when it hit you. not because he looked particularly different, or because something magical happened. just because you realised you wanted to remember this. you wanted to remember sitting in this library with him, you wanted to remember the way he looked when he was trying to defend himself, you wanted to remember the sound of his voice when he was amused. and that was when the thought finally settled.
oh. you liked him. and not in the vague way you liked people, the way you liked your friends. you liked jungwon. and instead of feeling terrifying, the realisation was strangely calm. like your brain had finally caught up with something your heart had already known for weeks.
after that, you didn’t suddenly become a different person. if anything, you became more yourself around him. because now that you knew why you enjoyed being around him, you stopped trying to explain it away. you stopped pretending that you didn’t look forward to thursdays. you stopped pretending that you didn’t check your phone more often when you knew he might message. you stopped pretending that you didn’t notice when he walked into a room. and maybe you became a little less subtle. not intentionally. you just found yourself wanting to make him smile, wanting to hear his little laugh, wanting to see the moments where he forgot to be reserved. you teased him a little bit more. you stole his pens more often despite having your own. you sent him random messages that had absolutely nothing to do with studying. sometimes he replied immediately. sometimes it took him hours because he was busy. but he always replied. and every single time, you caught yourself smiling. which was embarrassing because you had never been someone who cared this much about a notification.
jungwon noticed. he wasn’t sure when it started. at first, he thought nothing of it, you had always been friendly. that was one of the first things he had noticed about you. you made people feel instantly comfortable, you talked to literally everyone, you remembered names with an ease he wished he had about him. you smiled at strangers like it was the simplest thing in the world. so when you started saving him a seat before he arrived, he assumed you were just being considerate. when you started bringing him into conversations more often, he assumed you were making sure he didn’t get left out. when you started teasing him more, he assumed you were simply comfortable. all of those explanations made sense, because they were true.
but jungwon was also beginning to realise there was a difference between how you treated everyone else and how you treated him. you were still yourself, but there were moments. small ones. like the way you sometimes seemed to look for his reaction after saying something funny. like how you remembered things he mentioned once and brought them up weeks later, similar to what he did with you. how you had somehow learned his coffee shop order without him ever telling you, however simple it was.
he noticed. he noticed everything. that was the problem. because the more he noticed, the harder it became to convince himself that you were just being friendly. and he didn’t know what to do with that. jungwon had never been someone who rushed into things. he liked certainty, he liked understanding situations before acting on them. but with you, everything felt slightly unfamiliar. because he understood assignments and he understood programming, he understood problems with clear and correct answers. he didn’t understand why he felt disappointed when you had to leave early, he didn’t understand why he checked his phone more often than usual after sending you a message. he didn’t understand why, whenever everyone was gathered together, he always seemed to know where you were without trying. and he definitely didn’t understand (and was beginning to feel very frustrated by the fact) why he had started looking forward to fucking tutoring sessions of all things even when there was usually very little actual tutoring involved.
“you’re coming tonight, right?”
jungwon looked up from his laptop. you were standing beside the table, your bag already over your shoulder.
“coming where?”
you stared at him.
“jungwon.”
he blinked up at you before realising.
“oh.”
“game night.” you said, smiling at him and pumping your fist with excitement. right. the group had been planning it for nearly a week, he knew that. he just hadn’t connected the reminder to the fact that you were the one asking.
“yeah, sure, i’m coming.”
“good.” you replied, flashing him a toothy grin. your answer came too quickly but you didn’t seem embarrassed by it. if anything, you looked pleased.
“because i need someone on my team.”
jungwon raised an eyebrow.
“you lost last time.” he deadpanned, glare flat but not devoid of a soft affection behind it, an affectionate which he secretly hoped you wouldn’t miss.
“because everyone cheated.” you whined, before remembering to keep your voice down.
“everyone?”
“everyone.”
“including me?”
“especially you.” you whispered back after hesitating a little.
he shook his head, but he was smiling. and you noticed. of course you noticed. you felt like you noticed everything about him now. however, the thing you didn’t notice was the way he watched you walk away. or the way he smiled slightly to himself when he realised he’d started looking forward to the evening for a reason that had nothing to do with the silly games jake and heeseung put him up to.
by now, nobody questioned where jungwon would be sitting. it wasn’t something that had been decided. there had never been a conversation where someone had pointed at an empty chair and declared it his, or where you had officially claimed the space beside him as yours. it had simply become another one of those small, unnoticed habits that appeared when people spent enough time together. the same way sunghoon always complained about being hungry approximately ten minutes after eating. the same way jay pretended he wasn’t invested in whatever game everyone was playing despite somehow knowing every rule. the same way jake always arrived a little bit late and acted as though everyone else had been waiting up specifically for him. and the same way jungwon always ended up beside you. sometimes you noticed it, sometimes you didn’t. that was probably what made it feel so natural. there was no awkwardness anymore. no carefully choosing where to sit, no wondering if you were bothering him, no hesitation before sending him a message that had nothing to do with coursework. at some point, jungwon had stopped being someone you were trying to get comfortable around. he was just someone you were comfortable with. which was arguably much more dangerous. because once you got used to someone being there, you really started noticing when they weren’t.
game nights had become a regular occurrence in heeseung’s flat. not weekly, because everyone had enough assignments and deadlines to make that impossible, but often enough that it had become part of everyone’s routine. the first few times, you had still felt like you were unwelcome, entering someone else’s space. jungwon, heeseung and riki lived together, and although you were friends with all of them, there had always been something slightly different about being in their home. it was where jungwon existed outside of uni. where he wasn’t the person sitting at the front of lectures with a laptop open and a notebook full of impossibly neat handwriting. here, he was different, softer. he wore old t-shirts and pyjama shorts instead of structured outfits. his hair was usually messy from running his hands through it while studying. he complained more than people would expect, especially when sunoo purposely chose the most frustrating games possible.
it was strange how much you liked seeing those parts of him. not because they were really that surprising, but because they were his. you had spent so long knowing him as someone everyone admired from a distance that getting to see the ordinary parts made you feel oddly special. tonight was no different. you were sitting on the floor between the sofa and coffee table, surrounded by half-finished drinks, snacks and discarded game pieces. everyone was talking over each other, which meant nobody was actually listening properly. except jungwon. he always listened, you had noticed that early on. even when he wasn’t actively involved in a conversation, he was paying attention. he remembered details people mentioned casually. he noticed when someone looked uncomfortable and quietly changed the subject. you had once asked him how he remembered so much. he had just looked genuinely confused, as though he hadn’t realised he did it, it was just so ingrained in his being, to care for others. that was probably one of the things you liked most about him. he never seemed to understand how thoughtful he was.
“you’re overthinking it.”
you looked beside you. jungwon was looking at your cards.
“you don’t even know what i’m thinking.” you frowned.
“yes, i do.”
“you’re very confident.”
“you’ve been staring at the same card for three minutes.”
you looked down, then back at him.
“that doesn’t mean anything.” you pouted, glaring slightly at him now over the top of your deck. he just smiled in response.
you should have been used to that by now. his tiny grins, just for you. the way he was much funnier than people gave him credit for because most people never stayed around long enough to notice. but you weren’t, not really. because every time he made you laugh, some part of you still felt ridiculously pleased that you were the one who got to see that side of him. which was a thought you tried not to examine too closely.
the thing about liking jungwon was that it hadn’t changed your friendship. that had surprised you. you had expected the realisation to make everything feel different and much more complicated. like suddenly every interaction required careful consideration. instead, you had simply become the tiniest bit more aware. you noticed when he pushed his glasses further up his nose while reading. you noticed how he always checked whether everyone had arrived before starting anything. you noticed that he never took the last of whatever odd snack jake had bought over from the table unless someone specifically told him to. you noticed that he always walked slower when leaving places with you. that last one had taken you a while to figure out because jungwon never made a show of it. he never said he was waiting, he simply adjusted his pace. and somehow, you always ended up walking together. you wondered if he knew he did that. you wondered if he realised how many little things he did that made you feel important. you also used to wonder if you were the only one who noticed, which now you suspected was false after jay’s earlier interrogation. you were right. you realised this when you returned from the kitchen with two drinks and found everyone looking at you. well, not everyone. specifically just jay, sunghoon and sunoo. which was somehow worse.
“what?” you murmured, your voice lacking any real bite because of the probably too loud sigh that followed it.
sunoo immediately looked away too quickly for your liking.
“nothing.” he said, voice an octave higher.
“that was suspicious.” you narrowed your eyes at him.
“you’re suspicious.” he snapped back, sticking his tongue out immaturely.
“that doesn’t even make sense.”
“exactly.”
you stared at him blankly, then forced your gaze upon jay, who seemed like he was trying very hard not to smile.
“why are you all being weird?” you whined.
“we’re not.” sunghoon muttered, wiggling his eyebrows in that annoying way he often did.
“you are.” jay whispered at you, smug expression still pasted onto his sharp features.
before the conversation could continue, riki interrupted from across the room, completely unaware that he had saved you from being questioned further. or maybe he was aware. with riki, it was impossible to tell. you sat back down, handing jungwon his drink without thinking. only after you had done it did you realise you’d remembered exactly what he liked. again. not because he had told you, but because you just knew. jungwon accepted it with a quiet thank you, looking down at the cup before glancing back at you.
“you remembered?”
the question was innocent, he just sounded oddly surprised. you weren't quite sure why when he did the same kind of thing tenfold when it came to remembering your preferences and favourite things. but something about it made you feel a disappointed. because you weren’t sure why it surprised him so much.
“of course i did.” you shrugged forcibly, doing a bad job of feigning nonchalance.
you said it before you could overthink it. for a moment, jungwon just looked at you. then his expression softened.
“right.” he replied, face now weirdly blank other than the remaining fondness in his eyes.
that was all, just one word. not worth overthinking, you repeated in your head like a mantra.
later that night, when everyone had started leaving, you found yourself standing near the front door with jungwon. it wasn’t unusual because he always walked you out. sometimes he walked you home. sometimes he didn’t, depending on how late it was and how much work you desperately urged him to finish. you peeked out of the open door to see that it was raining lightly.
“i didn’t bring an umbrella.” you said sheepishly. jungwon just glanced towards the coat rack.
“i have one.”
“you don’t have to walk me.”
he looked at you. not confused, just slightly surprised. as though the idea had never occurred to him.
“i know.” he replied blankly.
there was a pause. you immediately thought about backtracking, embarrassment probably evident on your face at how you seemed to just expect him to follow you to your accom, so used to it by now that you didn't even think of the other possibility. a feeling akin to shame burned at the back of your neck. then, he picked up his jacket.
“i want to.”
the relief that spread across your features was palpable. you hoped he didn't notice. jungwon said things like that so naturally, without hesitation, without realising how much weight they carried for you. you just smiled.
“okay.” you said so quietly it was almost a whisper.
the walk home was quiet. not awkward, never really awkward anymore. you talked about small things. things that wouldn’t matter tomorrow. complaints about assignments. something stupidly funny jake had said to him earlier. a random story sunghoon had told you and sunoo about his crazy ex. ordinary things. you found yourself thinking that ordinary things with jungwon never really felt ordinary. and beside you, jungwon was having a similar thought. he had spent most of his life believing that comfort was something you built alone. in a quiet room, a familiar routine, a predictable schedule. he had never expected another person to become part of that. but somehow, you had. and the strange thing was, he didn’t feel like you had interrupted his life. you felt like you had always been there. when you reached your building, you turned back towards him.
“thanks for walking me.”
jungwon shook his head.
“you don’t have to thank me every time.”
you smiled.
“i know.”
a small pause, which you’d both seemed to be accustomed to by now. then, almost unconsciously, he smiled back. and neither of you noticed how long you stood there before saying goodbye, neither of you noticed that you were both reluctant to be the first person to leave. but maybe that was the thing about something becoming important. you didn’t always notice the moment it happened. sometimes, you only noticed when you realised you didn’t want it to stop.
the dinky coffee shop you two had discovered months ago had become quieter as the afternoon wore on. the lunchtime rush had disappeared almost an hour ago, leaving behind only the occasional student hiding from the rain outside and a few people scattered amongst the tables with laptops propped open in front of them. neither of you had noticed how late it was until one of the baristas began wiping down the empty tables nearby, a subtle reminder that perhaps spending nearly four hours discussing coursework wasn’t entirely normal behaviour. not that either of you minded. you couldn’t remember when studying had stopped feeling like studying when it was with jungwon. assignments still frustrated you and deadlines still came far sooner than they should have, but somewhere along the way, the time between arriving and leaving had started disappearing far too quickly. it was becoming increasingly difficult to separate whether you enjoyed the afternoons themselves or simply enjoyed spending them with him. if you were being honest with yourself, you had known the answer for a while now.
it was still strange thinking about it sometimes. not because it felt wrong or overwhelming, but instead because it felt so obvious in hindsight. you wondered if everyone else apart from jay and sunghoon had figured it out before you had. judging by the increasingly knowing looks from the rest of your friends whenever his name appeared in conversation, you suspected they probably had. you smiled faintly at the thought as you closed your notebook, reaching across the table to collect the loose sheets of paper that had somehow migrated onto his side over the last few hours.
“i think we’ve done enough work for today,” you sighed, stretching slightly in your chair.
jungwon looked up from his laptop, his expression softening into something quietly amused.
“we’ve been here longer than some of my lectures.”
“exactly my point.”
he laughed quietly before also beginning to pack his things away. over the last few months, you had grown used to moments like these. comfortable silences had become second nature between the two of you now. there was no pressure to fill every moment with conversation anymore. it was nice. you had begun to realise recently that your favourite part of the week wasn’t thursday afternoons themselves. it was the fact that they belonged, in some small way, to the two of you. uni was unpredictable and busy and constantly changing, but somehow this, whatever it was, had remained untouched by all of it. you knew that probably meant more to you than it should. probably meant more to you than it did to him.
“everyone keeps asking me about you, by the way.”
the words left your mouth casually as you zipped your bag shut. it wasn’t entirely untrue. all of your friends, not just your mutuals, had become increasingly interested in jungwon’s existence over the last few months, much to your embarrassment.
his eyebrows lifted slightly as he glanced towards you.
“why?”
“i don’t know.” you laughed quietly. “they’re nosey.”
“that’s unfortunate.”
you smiled to yourself at his response before continuing to pack your things away. there was something about talking to jungwon now that felt so easy compared to those first few conversations. you didn’t overthink every sentence anymore. you had long since stopped wondering whether you were bothering him. he was your friend. hopefully more than that, if you were thinking positively. the thing was, lately, you had started wondering whether perhaps you weren’t entirely alone in all of this. there were moments where he looked at you for slightly longer than necessary, moments where he remembered things you were sure you had only mentioned once, moments where he would choose to stay just a little longer when neither of you really needed to. you weren’t foolish enough to assume that meant anything on its own. but, naturally, sometimes you wondered. perhaps that was why you foolishly felt brave enough to continue the conversation.
“you know,” you smiled, resting your chin briefly against your hand as you looked across the table at him, “jay’s like… convinced that there’s something going on between us.” you blurted out as quickly as you could, as if not to give yourself time to immediately regret it.
his expression shifted immediately into something slightly embarrassed.
“i know.”
“it’s getting difficult to convince people otherwise at this point.”
“is it?”
“a little bit.”
there was a brief pause as he packed away the last of his things. you weren’t sure what the fuck possessed you to say what came next. perhaps it was because things had been so good lately. perhaps it was because you were tired of wondering whether you had imagined every small moment between the two of you over the last few months. or perhaps it was simply because you liked him enough to be a little brave! you smiled softly, looking down at your notebook rather than at him.
“i don’t know,” you admitted quietly. “i don’t think i’d mind all that much.”
the words were deliberately vague. gentle enough that you could pretend they meant very little if you needed to. however, you realised they weren’t ambiguous enough to fully shroud your true intentions after mumbling them out. the silence that followed lasted only a few seconds. it felt significantly longer. jungwon seemed to have froze. for a moment, he wasn’t entirely sure he had heard you correctly. his mind immediately began trying to make sense of what you meant, each possibility somehow more terrifying than the last. he knew his friends joked about the two of you often enough. he knew people made assumptions about your friendship. except suddenly, sitting across from you now, he realised there was another possibility he had spent months refusing to acknowledge. you. liking him. the thought shouldn't have felt so shocking anymore. it still did. because if you liked him, then suddenly every feeling he’d spent months carefully ignoring demanded to be acknowledged in return. and jungwon had never been particularly good with uncertainty. friendships made sense to him because they had rules he understood. this didn’t. he didn’t want to lose what the two of you had now. he didn’t want to make things difficult or uncomfortable or complicated. he didn’t want to ruin this.
“i don’t think…” he began quietly before stopping himself, hand reaching up to scratch awkward at the back of his neck. “i don’t think that’s a good idea.”
your smile faltered almost imperceptibly, a grimace attempting to fight its way through.
“oh.”
it was such a small sound that he almost missed it entirely. he rushed to continue, unaware that the conversation the two of you were having had become entirely different ones.
“i just mean…” he paused, struggling to explain thoughts he’d barely managed to understand himself. “things are good how they are.”
you pasted on what you thought was your best smile before he had the chance to notice your expression properly.
“yeah.” you replied, nodding your head almost feverishly so he really understood that you meant nothing by it, ignoring the sinking feeling in your gut.
well, at least you had your answer now. looking back, you supposed you should have expected it. jungwon had never really been someone who sought out change when he was happy. perhaps you had simply allowed yourself to become a little too hopeful over the last few weeks. it was embarrassing more than anything else. how stupid of you to have misread things so badly.
“you’re right,” you smiled quietly, standing from your chair and slipping your bag over your shoulder. “they are.”
jungwon just smiled back, relieved that you seemed to understand him. what he didn’t currently realise was that you’d heard blatant, painful rejection, when he’d simply meant to reassure you, and in turn, himself. somehow, that hurt you far more than if he’d simply said no.
if jungwon was really being honest with himself, he thought things had gone surprisingly well. he had spent the entire walk home from the coffee shop replaying the conversation in his head, wondering whether he had explained himself properly. he hadn’t. he’d hardly gotten out a full sentence, much less explained to you everything that was on his mind like a normal person. he knows why he said what he said, because things are good how they are. it had felt honest. reassuring, even, to him at least. and to you too actually! you had smiled afterwards, you had agreed with him. the conversation hadn’t become uncomfortable or tense or anything he had spent the previous five minutes worrying it might become. so, all things considered, he had gone home thinking he’d done the right thing. for approximately twenty-four hours. because the strange thing about spending so much time with someone was that you became accustomed to all of their little habits without ever consciously meaning to. they simply became part of his own routine before he had realised they were there. jungwon knew exactly how long it usually took you to reply to his messages. he knew that you hated studying in complete silence and always put together strangely specific playlists whenever assignments became particularly difficult. he knew that you had an endearing tendency to become more affectionate when you were excited about something, talking slightly faster and laughing a little louder than usual. he knew that when you were tired, you absentmindedly played with the sleeves of your jumpers while trying to stay focused. he knew these things in the same unconscious way that he knew the walk back to his flat or his coffee order or his timetable for the semester. he simply knew them. which was why he noticed almost immediately when something had changed. not enough for anyone else to pay attention to, just enough that he couldn’t stop thinking about it. the first few days afterwards, he convinced himself he was imagining things. you still smiled at him when you saw him. you still sat right beside him whenever the two of you studied together. you still laughed at his jokes, even the terrible ones that never seemed to land with anyone else. nothing had changed. except, somehow, everything had.
you’d stopped doing that stupid thing where you stole his pens. it was almost like tradition now, like a routine, however childish and intentional you both knew it was. that one shouldn't have bothered him nearly as much as it did. for the last few months, he had found himself bringing extras whenever the two of you studied together because you always seemed to lose yours or decide his were somehow better despite being exactly the same. the first tutoring session you’d had after the coffee shop, he had unconsciously placed two pens beside your notebook before he’d even sat down, like he always did. one of them remained untouched for three hours. he told himself he was being ridiculous for noticing, yet he noticed anyway. you thanked him more often now, which somehow felt worse than if you hadn’t thanked him at all. there was a distance in your gratitude that hadn’t existed before. before, your appreciation had always been accompanied by teasing or laughter or some dramatic declaration that he’d saved your degree. now, they sounded almost formal.
you were still kind. still yourself. just… quieter around him. nobody else noticed it. of course they didn’t. you were exactly the same around everyone else. he watched you laugh so hard at something jay had said one evening that tears had gathered in the corners of your eyes, heeseung watching you fondly from the other sofa. he’d watched you complain dramatically to sunoo about an assignment you’d been putting off for nearly two weeks, riki mocking you right to your face, much to your feigned annoyance. he’d watched you lean comfortably against sunghoon’s shoulder during a movie when you’d become sleepy halfway through. and then he’d watched you be stirred awake by jake’s constant fidgeting on the other side of you. you hadn’t changed. not really. except somewhere along the way, you had become slightly more careful around him. and that was infinitely worse. he found himself thinking about it far more often than he cared to admit.
“you’ve been staring at absolutely nothing for ten minutes.”
jungwon blinked before looking up from where he’d been sitting at the kitchen table. riki was looking at him suspiciously from across the room, eating cereal directly from the box despite heeseung’s careful placement of perfectly usable bowls right next to the boxes, to try and make it easier for him to just do the normal thing.
“i haven’t.”
“you have.”
heeseung looked up briefly from where he’d been making coffee before glancing between the two of them.
“you have.” he agreed through a grimace, much to jungwon’s dismay.
jungwon frowned slightly. “i’m just tired.”
“you’ve been tired for two weeks.”
“uni is difficult.”
riki snorted loudly from his seat.
“no, y/n is difficult.”
the words caught him so off guard that he nearly dropped his pen. heeseung, as always, looked considerably less surprised.
“i was wondering how long it would take for you to say it.” heeseung muttered, rolling his eyes.
jungwon just stared at both of them.
“…what?”
“you’re moping, won.” riki snapped, his tone of voice not matching the sympathetic look on his face.
“i’m not.”
“you’re staring into space all the time.”
“i do that anyway.”
“you’ve made coffee twice this week and forgotten to drink it.”
he paused.
“…that’s happened before.”
“not because you’ve been thinking about someone.” heeseung finally interjected, annoyingly all-knowing look in his gaze. jungwon went suspiciously quiet after that. because that wasn’t possible. was it? he’d spent so long trying not to think too carefully about his feelings for you that he had somehow missed when they’d become something entirely different. he missed hearing from you throughout the day. he missed the way you’d absentmindedly rested your chin against his shoulder while trying to read something on his laptop screen. he missed the familiarity of knowing exactly what you were thinking before you’d said anything at all. more than that, though, he simply missed feeling close to you. he found himself looking for you whenever he walked into a room before he’d even realised he was doing it. he knew immediately when something had happened that he wanted to tell you. he’d begun associating particular songs with you because you’d insisted on adding them to his playlists weeks ago. you had somehow become woven into the fabric of his everyday life so gradually that he’d never noticed it happening. and now, suddenly, he noticed your absence everywhere. perhaps the cruelest part of all of this was that he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done wrong.
you were still there. you still smiled at him. you still sat beside him every thursday afternoon. but somewhere between two tuesdays ago and now, he had lost something he couldn’t quite name. for someone who had spent his entire life preferring certainty, he had never felt more confused. he was beginning to realise that things were no longer good how they were, and they hadn’t been for a while.
there was something particularly embarrassing about realising you’d been wrong. not devastatingly wrong or life-altering or anything dramatic enough to warrant crying over to your friends at two in the morning. just quietly, painfully wrong in a way that made you wish you could go back and shake yourself from three weeks ago. you weren’t upset with jungwon, you couldn’t be. that would imply he’d done something wrong when, if anything, he’d been much kinder than he needed to be. looking back now, you weren’t entirely sure where your confidence had come from that afternoon. maybe the months of small moments, insignificant accumulating into something bigger in your mind. perhaps it had been everyone else’s comments beginning to blur the lines in your head. or perhaps it had simply been wishful thinking.
whatever it had been, it had been yours. not his. that was the important part. you had offered him an open door and he’d quietly, gently closed it. that was all there was to it. it should have been easy enough to move on from.
the embarrassing part was that you found yourself replaying months worth of memories and wondering how many of them you had gotten wrong. moments that had made your stomach twist pleasantly suddenly felt different when viewed from another perspective.
of course he remembered your coffee order, because jungwon remembered everyone’s. of course he walked you home whenever it got late, because he was simply thoughtful. of course he stayed a little longer whenever the two of you studied together because he enjoyed spending time with his friends.
you hated how quickly your own thoughts began correcting themselves now. there had been a time, not even a month ago, where those moments would have made your heart race for entirely different reasons. now, they simply made your cheeks warm with embarrassment, hot shame burning in your gut.
perhaps that was why you had unconsciously started pulling back. not because you were upset or angry or trying to punish him for anything, but because liking someone who didn’t like you back was difficult enough without making yourself feel disgustingly foolish every time you looked at them.
you still wanted to be his friend. more than that, really. you couldn’t imagine suddenly removing him from your life after everything the two of you had become over the last few months. jungwon had become one of your favourite parts of uni so gradually that you hadn’t noticed it happening until it already had. that hadn’t changed simply because he didn’t feel the same way. you still smiled whenever he sent you something funny. you still looked forward to your thursday afternoons together. you still thought he was one of the kindest people you’d ever met.
you simply couldn’t afford to like him quite so loudly anymore. it was wierd, the little things you stopped yourself from doing without ever consciously deciding to.
you stopped reaching for his sleeve whenever you wanted his attention. you stopped sending him photographs of random things throughout your day simply because they reminded you of him. you stopped sitting quite so close whenever the two of you studied together.
small things. almost insignificant things. except they weren’t insignificant to you. because each one had been an unconscious expression of your affection before you’d realised what it was. you had never meant for him to become so woven into your everyday life.
some days were easier than others. there were moments where you forgot entirely and everything felt comfortably familiar again. then there were moments where he laughed quietly at something you’d said or looked at you with that same soft expression he always wore around you and your heart would ache just a little before settling once more.
you wondered if that feeling would ever completely disappear. hopefully, eventually, it would. for now, though, you thought friendship was enough. it had always been enough before you’d become so greedy for more.
maybe that was why you felt guilty sometimes when jungwon looked slightly confused whenever you thanked him for something or didn’t immediately steal the pen he’d unconsciously left beside your notebook.
because none of this was his fault, he hadn’t changed. you had.
and if protecting your own feelings meant becoming slightly more careful around him for a little while, then you thought that was something you could live with.
jungwon couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt quite so out of place.
looking back, he probably should have refused when heeseung asked him for what felt like the hundredth time if he wanted to tag along. in his defence, it had been a particularly long week and an even longer month. assignments had begun piling up again, he’d somehow managed to spill coffee over half of his notes two days ago, and, perhaps most embarrassingly of all, he’d spent the better part of three weeks pretending he wasn’t miserable whenever he noticed that things between you two had changed.
he was tired of moping around his apartment. riki had become particularly ruthless about pointing it out over the last fortnight and heeseung had long since given up pretending to be subtle whenever he brought your name into conversation.
apparently, staring sadly at your contact for twenty minutes before deciding against sending a message about a video he’d seen was gross and pathetic behaviour. at least according to riki. who was probably right as he knew a whole lot more about these things than jungwon.
despite that, jungwon had still voiced that riki’s assessment of his conduct was unnecessarily harsh. heeseung had wholly disagreed. which was how he’d somehow found himself accepting a drink from jake less than two minutes after arriving.
and then another. and then one he’d accepted entirely because he’d forgotten he’d already had two. he wasn’t drunk. he never really had been. well, at least, he didn’t think he was.
he was simply pleasantly warm and considerably more relaxed than usual, leaning against the kitchen counter while only half listening to whatever story sunghoon was currently telling him. the music was louder than anything he would ever willingly choose to listen to himself and there were significantly more people crammed into the house than he’d initially anticipated, but he was enjoying himself more than he’d expected. granted, he was doing his best to ignore the heavy smell of weed emanating off of jake.
he’d laughed more tonight than he usually did in an entire week. perhaps heeseung had been right after all.
“you should do this more often,” heeseung smiled, nudging his shoulder lightly as he handed him another drink.
jungwon looked down suspiciously at the cup before looking back at him.
“i’ve learnt enough from tonight to know that’s a terrible idea.”
heeseung laughed quietly.
“you’re surprisingly tolerable when you’re tipsy.”
“thank you.”
“that wasn’t entirely a compliment.”
before jungwon had the opportunity to respond, riki appeared between them carrying approximately four different bags of snacks tucked beneath one arm.
“he smiled at a stranger twenty minutes ago.”
jungwon frowned. “i was being polite.”
“you apologised when they walked into you.”
“…that’s also polite.” jungwon muttered back after a moment of hesitation.
“no,” riki laughed, “that’s just wierd.”
heeseung just smirked into his drink. there was something strangely amusing about watching jungwon slightly tipsy. he’d spent so much of uni worrying and overthinking and analysing every situation presented to him that removing even a small amount of that caution left behind him considerably softer than people expected. he laughed easier. smiled more readily. he allowed himself to simply exist amongst conversations rather than constantly listening from the outside of them.
he seemed lighter somehow. it really suited him.
“where’s y/n?” jungwon asked quietly before quickly taking another sip of his drink, pulling his cup up to his mouth with slightly shaky hands.
the three seconds of silence that followed were perhaps the most suspicious seconds of silence he’d ever experienced in his life.
slowly, against his better judgment, he looked up, only to be met with a slightly unsightly view of heeseung and riki garishly grinning at him, their eyes wide but gaze lacking the surprise that usually went hand in hand with this kind of exaggerated expression.
somewhere behind him, he was reasonably certain he could hear jake giggling, although, he could be mistaking it for a cough, courtesy of jake’s persistent tendency to inhale too quick.
“…what?” jungwon snapped, eyebrows furrowed.
“nothing,” riki replied immediately.
“you asked where she was before you’ve asked where literally anyone else is.”
“i asked where you were.”
“after i’d been standing beside you for twenty minutes.”
jungwon chose not to dignify that observation with a response. instead, he just looked towards heeseung expectantly.
“sunoo said she should be here soon.” heeseung said reassuringly, supportively placing his hand on jungwon’s shoulder. although, in hindsight, that may’ve just been to hinder his incessant swaying.
jungwon nodded absentmindedly before returning his attention towards the conversation around him. he didn’t think very much of it. after all, asking where you were wasn’t particularly unusual anymore. he was simply accustomed to knowing whether or not you’d be somewhere.
that was all.
at least, that’s what he’d spent the last three weeks desperately trying to convince himself. it was considerably easier to maintain that delusion when you weren’t standing in front of him.
he heard your laugh before he saw you.
that wasn’t unusual either.
he thought he’d probably recognise your laugh anywhere now, which was perhaps a more embarrassing admission than he’d ever willingly make aloud. his head turned instinctively towards the front door before he’d consciously registered why and suddenly there you were, laughing quietly at something sunghoon had said as you slipped your coat from your shoulders.
you looked really pretty tonight. the thought came so quickly and naturally that it startled him slightly. you always looked pretty, obviously. he’d realised that a long time ago. he simply didn’t allow himself to think about it very often.
perhaps alcohol was significantly more dangerous than he’d initially given it credit for. he watched absentmindedly as you smiled brightly at everyone gathered in the room before your eyes eventually found his. the smile that appeared faltered slightly, but almost immediately afterwards became softer somehow.
“you’re here?”
there was something oddly sweet about the genuine surprise in your expression.
“i’m beginning to regret it already,” he smiled quietly, suddenly all too aware of the heat on his cheeks and the smoky smell clinging to his hoodie.
you laughed softly at that before making your way towards him.
“that’s because you’ve only been here for an hour.”
he wasn’t entirely sure why he’d spent the last few days forcibly convincing himself things hadn’t changed all that much between the two of you.
they had. he’d known that. he simply hadn’t realised quite how much he’d missed this. you still smiled at him exactly the same way you always had. you still laughed quietly whenever he made particularly terrible jokes. you still seemed happier somehow whenever the two of you were talking.
the difference was subtle enough that nobody except him would ever notice it. you didn’t touch his arm absentmindedly anymore when you laughed. you left slightly more space between the two of you than before. and perhaps most noticeably of all, you no longer looked at him first whenever something happened that you thought was funny.
they were impossibly small things. he noticed every single one of them anyway.
the rest of the evening passed comfortably enough. conversations blurred together as more people arrived and the music grew louder, everyone splitting themselves into smaller groups before eventually finding their way back together once more.
somewhere throughout all of that, jungwon had unconsciously begun following you around. it wasn’t intentional. at least, not consciously.
if you were in the kitchen, he somehow found himself there five minutes later. if you sat beside sunoo on the sofa, he’d absentmindedly occupy the empty space beside you without thinking very much about it.
he simply preferred being wherever you happened to be.
heeseung had noticed approximately thirty minutes after you’d arrived. riki had noticed considerably faster than that.
“oh my god.”
heeseung looked up from where he’d been talking to jake.
“what?”
riki gestured vaguely towards the living room where jungwon was currently laughing quietly at something you’d said.
“he’s literally following her.”
heeseung just shrugged noncommittally in reply, grin still pasted onto his face.
“no, hyung. look.” riki urged him, poking at his arm before pointing at you and jungwon.
there was something strangely amusing about watching jungwon tonight. he smiled more whenever he was speaking to you. his shoulders relaxed whenever you sat beside him. if somebody asked him a question whilst he was looking at you, there was an unusually chance he’d need it repeated.
he was completely hopeless. his tipsy state wasn’t helping matters, especially considering it was more or less his first time.
“that’s actually insane,” jake laughed quietly as he watched you fix the hood on jungwon’s hoodie where it had folded awkwardly against itself.
jungwon thanked you absentmindedly before immediately continuing whatever conversation he’d been having with you moments earlier. he hadn’t even seemed to notice he’d paused talking entirely whilst you’d fixed it, neck hot as you’d brushed it slightly with your fingers.
sunghoon laughed quietly beside him.
“i don’t think i’ve ever seen him look at another person that much.”
heeseung smiled into his drink.
“i’ve been saying this for months.”
riki looked genuinely offended.
“and nobody thought to tell him?”
“we have.”
“repeatedly.”
the younger boy’s expression somehow became even more scandalised.
“he’s more oblivious than she is.”
perhaps the most ridiculous part of all of this was that jungwon remained entirely unaware of every observation being made about him throughout the evening. he was too busy wondering whether you’d always looked quite so beautiful whenever you laughed.
he was beginning to suspect that perhaps you’d always looked exactly like this and he’d simply spent too much time pretending not to notice. for someone who had spent weeks mourning the small changes in your friendship, he was finding it increasingly difficult to remember why he’d ever thought things were better before.
it was approaching three in the morning by the time people began discussing leaving.
the house had quietened considerably over the last hour or so, conversations becoming softer as people sank further into sofas and armchairs, unwilling to brave the walk back home just yet. somebody had long since changed the music to something significantly quieter and there was something strangely comfortable about the aftermath of nights like these.
jungwon found that he didn’t mind this part nearly as much as he’d expected to.
he was pleasantly tipsy now, the warmth from the alcohol still lingering comfortably in his chest as he sat amongst conversations that seemed to weave together around him. for perhaps the first time since beginning uni, he wasn’t thinking quite so carefully about every little thing he said or did. he simply existed amongst it all.
more importantly, though, he’d spent most of the evening sitting beside you.
it had been strangely easy to fall back into old habits tonight. somewhere between laughing quietly at your complaints about one of your assignments and listening to sunoo dramatically retell something that had happened earlier in the week, jungwon had almost forgotten that things had ever changed between the two of you at all.
almost.
because every so often, he’d catch himself waiting for you to unconsciously lean your shoulder against his before remembering that you didn’t really do that anymore. looking back, he wasn’t entirely sure when he’d become quite so selfish.
“you seem suspiciously happy tonight.”
jungwon glanced towards riki sitting opposite him before quietly rolling his eyes.
“i’m fine.” he replied, forcing back a pout.
“that’s somehow significantly more suspicious.”
heeseung laughed quietly from beside him before following riki’s gaze towards where you were sitting, your cheeks slightly pink from both the alcohol and your laughter as you listened to jake explain something particularly enthusiastically with his usual accompanying hand gestures.
“…oh,” riki deadpanned. “never mind.”
jungwon frowned slightly. “what does that mean?”
“nothing.”
it meant considerably more than absolutely nothing.
you looked so beautiful tonight. he thought perhaps indulging in so many drinks had simply removed whatever part of his brain usually stopped him from acknowledging thoughts like that because he’d lost count of how many times he’d found himself looking at you throughout the evening.
it wasn’t only physical attraction anymore either, although he’d long since realised he found you beautiful. it was smaller things than that. he liked the sound of your laugh when you were tired because it became slightly quieter than usual. he liked listening to you talk excitedly about things he knew absolutely nothing about simply because you always looked so happy when you did. he liked that you still became flustered whenever somebody complimented you despite spending your entire life being loved so easily by the people around you.
he liked who you were when you thought nobody was really paying attention. which never truly happened. people were just drawn to you in that way, himself included.
you caught him looking at you from across the room and smiled instinctively, lifting your hand slightly in a small wave before continuing your conversation. his expression softened almost immediately. heeseung watched the entire interaction over the rim of red plastic cup before looking towards riki.
“‘s painful to watch.” he whispered into riki’s ear.
eventually, conversations again turned towards leaving. sunoo had somehow managed to fall asleep against sunghoon’s shoulder almost twenty minutes earlier and jake had been unsuccessfully attempting to convince everyone to stay for another hour despite complaining about how tired he was himself.
jungwon had been helping clear empty glasses from the coffee table when he’d heard you shyly giggling beside him. he glanced towards you immediately.
“how much have you had to drink?”
you thought about it briefly before laughing again sheepishly.
“that’s probably not something i should have to think about.”
he just smiled quietly at that. you weren’t drunk, not really. simply pleasantly tipsy in much the same way he was. your movements were slightly slower than usual and your smile was somehow impossibly softer than it had been all evening.
still, it was enough for him to dislike the idea of you walking home by yourself. you’d always gone out more than he had throughout uni. if he was being honest with himself, he had worried about you walking home late more times than he would ever willingly admit aloud. that wasn’t particularly new. what was new, however, was his willingness to actually voice it.
“i want to walk you home.”
the words came so naturally that he didn’t really think about them before saying them.
“you don’t have to.” you said, not bothering to stifle the way your jaw temporarily dropped open at his words.
“i know.” he whispered, turning quickly before you could see the further flush on his cheeks, half flustered, half guilty at the way you seemed so shocked by the simple words he usually just held back.
i know. you felt your heart ache slightly before reminding yourself that jungwon had always been thoughtful. he would have offered regardless. you smiled softly up at him.
“okay.”
the walk back was quieter than most. perhaps because the world always seemed gentler after midnight or perhaps because the alcohol had left both of you softer around the edges than usual. your fingers brushed accidentally once when the two of you reached for the sleeve of your jacket that had slipped from your shoulder and neither of you commented on it.
somehow, though, neither of you immediately pulled away either.
and for perhaps the first time in weeks, things didn’t feel quite so different between the two of you anymore. not yet, at least.
there was something comforting about walking through the city this late at night. the rush of the evening had long since disappeared, leaving behind little more than the occasional passing car and the sound of quiet conversation spilling from restaurants preparing to close for the evening. you’d always loved nights like this.
perhaps that was why you’d never minded when jungwon walked you home after studying ran particularly late or movie nights stretched far longer than anyone had originally intended. somewhere along the way, walking beside him had become one of the most familiar things in your life. you were very grateful for that.
the last few weeks had been easier than you’d expected them to be. difficult sometimes, certainly, but easier nonetheless. enough time had passed now that the burning humiliation had softened around the edges into something a little more manageable. jungwon was still one of your favourite people and, if you were being honest with yourself, you thought he probably always would be.
beside you, jungwon was unusually quiet. perhaps he was simply tired after an evening spent far more socialising than he usually subjected himself to. still, there was something different about him tonight. he’d spent almost the entire evening beside you. every time you’d looked around the room, he’d somehow found his way back to wherever you happened to be. even now, his hand brushed occasionally against yours as the two of you walked side by side down familiar streets.
it reminded you a little too much of before.
“thank you for walking me home.”
his eyebrows pulled together slightly at that.
“you don’t have to thank me every time.”
you smiled faintly. “it’s still polite.”
“you never used to.” he blurted out, voice dropping an octave. the words were quiet enough that you almost missed them.
for a moment, neither of you spoke. there were some conversations that seemed easier to avoid than begin. you looked down at the pavement briefly before laughing quietly to yourself. “i’m trying to be better.”
“i don’t think you… needed improving.” he slurred his words a little at the edges.
you hated how easily he could still make your heart ache sometimes. the thing about jungwon was that he had always said the kindest things when he wasn’t thinking about them first. before you had the opportunity to reply, he spoke again.
“i’m sorry.”
you frowned slightly as you looked towards him.
“for what?”
he was quiet for longer than usual this time, his attention fixed somewhere ahead of the two of you. he’d spent the last few weeks thinking about very little else besides what he’d said to you that afternoon and every moment that had followed afterwards. he missed things he hadn’t even realised he would notice before they disappeared. he missed you in ways that felt increasingly impossible to ignore despite the fact that you’d never actually gone anywhere.
it had become difficult pretending that nothing had changed when he thought about you constantly. he was tired of pretending.
“everything.”
your expression softened immediately.
“jungwon…”
“i’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”
you laughed quietly. only then did he notice the deep shame behind your eyes before you lowered your head. “that doesn’t surprise me very much.” you mumbled.
that earned a small smile from him before it disappeared just as quickly.
“i lied.”
you felt yourself pause slightly beside him.
“about what?”
his laugh, usually filled with affection, sounded soft and self-deprecating somehow.
“things being good how they were.”
you froze, gaze still locked onto the floor. suddenly, the walk home didn’t feel so quiet anymore.
“i thought they should be,” he admitted quietly. “i thought if i ignored it for long enough it would just…” he trailed off before shaking his head slightly. “i don’t know.”
there was something almost unfair about hearing him say the things you’d spent weeks trying to convince yourself you’d imagined. you let him continue, feeling a prickling in the corner of your eyes.
“i miss you.”
the confession was so quiet that it almost disappeared amongst the sounds of the city around the two of you.
“i’m right here,” you muttered, watery smile still pasted onto your face for as long as you could muster.
“that’s not what i mean.” he cleared his throat, steely gaze locked onto you.
your heart was beating far too quickly now. so much so that it felt like it’d pop out of your throat.
“then what do you mean?”
he wasn’t entirely sure when he’d become brave enough to say these things. maybe the everflowing drinks had simply quietened the part of him that usually overthought every feeling before allowing himself to voice it. or perhaps he was simply tired of slowly losing the bits of you he liked so much.
“i miss the way things were before that day in the coffee shop,” he admitted honestly. “i miss you texting me about things that don’t matter and sitting too close to me whenever we study and stealing my pens even though we both know you’ve amassed such a collection that you could probably make good money selling them.” he babbled out, suddenly feeling like he was speaking at the speed of light.
your eyes softened almost immediately.
“jungwon…”
“and i know i don’t really get to miss those things because this was my fault.”
a long pause. you didn’t want to fill the silence.
“heeseung says i’ve been insufferable for like… three weeks.”
that startled a giggle from you despite yourself.
“only three?”
“apparently riki thinks that’s generous.”
the two of you smiled at each other softly before the moment settled into something quieter once more.
“i was really scared,” he admitted finally. “and i think i still am.”
you waited patiently for him to continue.
“but i’ve realised i’m… significantly more scared of things staying like this.”
the honesty in his voice stole whatever response you’d been preparing.
slowly, he reached for your hand, his fingers slipping carefully between yours as though he was still giving you the opportunity to pull away if you wanted to.
you didn’t.
“i like you,” he smiled quietly. “which is unfortunate because i’m beginning to think i’ve liked you for a really long time.”
“that is unfortunate.” you whispered, unable to hold back your pout now.
there had never really been anyone else who made him feel the way you did. not in the way you had slowly become part of his everyday life without either of you noticing. not in the way he searched for you the moment he walked into a room, or how easily his mood changed simply because you were there. not in the way he had spent weeks feeling the absence of things he hadn’t realised he depended on until they were gone.
and now, standing in front of you, he finally understood just how much he had been avoiding. the moment he finished speaking, there was a quietness between you that felt different from all the others you’d shared before.
then your eyes filled.
jungwon froze.
the guilt hit him almost immediately. he hadn’t expected that. he’d imagined this moment so many times over the last few weeks, but somehow he’d never considered that you might cry. not because he thought you wouldn’t care, but because he hadn’t realised just how much his hesitation had hurt you.
“i’m sorry,” he whispered.
his hand lifted almost without thinking, fingers brushing gently against your cheek as he wiped away the tear before it could fall any further. the familiar gesture felt strangely unfamiliar now, like he was finally allowing himself to do all the things he had spent months stopping himself from doing.
“jungwon,” you murmured, shaking your head slightly.
you weren’t upset with him. that was the worst part. even now, even after he had made you feel like you had imagined everything between you, you were still looking at him like you were worried about him feeling guilty.
because that was who you were. and maybe that was the exact reason he had fallen for you without noticing. you had always been patient with him. you had always made space for him. you had always understood the things he struggled to say. and he had spent weeks convincing himself that keeping things the same was safer, when losing the little pieces of you that had become so important had been far worse. the small smile you gave him was enough to ease some of the tension in his expression.
“you’re so unbelievable,” you whispered, voice still slightly unsteady.
he let out a quiet laugh, relieved despite himself.
“i know.”
and somehow, that was enough.
enough for you to stop worrying about whether you were misunderstanding him. enough for him to stop wondering whether he had ruined everything. because for the first time in weeks, neither of you were holding back.
the hands resting on your shoulders crept up to hold your face again, brushing away another stray tear as jungwon motioned to tilt your head up a little further, his reassuring gaze meeting yours again. he cautiously brought this thumb around to brush over your lip, searching your eyes for any unwillingness. he took note of the way your face fit perfectly in his grasp before leaning in, lips finally meeting yours.
the kiss was hesitant at first, almost like both of you were waiting to make sure this was real. but when you leaned into him, when you didn’t pull away, the uncertainty slowly disappeared. he took your bottom lip into his mouth as you somehow reached between the little space between you two to wrap your arms around his head, fingers resting at the nape of his neck, softly carding through the dark hair at the bottom.
to your dismay, the tears you had tried to hold back slipped free anyway, caught between relief and the overwhelming feeling of finally getting what you had spent so long trying not to want.
jungwon noticed immediately. of course he did.
he pulled back, despite your unintentional and somewhat embarrassing whine at the loss of his soft lips against yours. his hand stayed against your cheek, thumb brushing gently beneath your eye as his expression softened with that same guilt from before.
but before he could apologise again, before he could turn this moment into another thing he needed to fix, you kissed him again. softer this time, a quiet reassurance. the way you pressed against him serving as a reminder that he didn’t have to keep apologising for caring about you.
and maybe that was what finally made him let himself believe it, that this wasn’t something he had accidentally ruined. this was something you both wanted. and he’d no longer be living on the edge of your life anymore. he’d make it his mission to get closer and closer to the centre everyday.
synopsis: having to spend the summer working at your dad’s game shop looks boring, so why not help and flirt with your coworker jake so he can make his crush jealous. soon you started to think that flirting with jake doesn’t require as much acting you as thought
