Author's Note: Hi Seoulmates! I’m back from another mini hiatus. I have so many cool stories I want to write. But it’s a matter of having patience and discipline to do so. And these days, I’m struggling with that. But I decided to treat everyone to this delicious fic I thought of on a whim at work. I decided to break this up into two parts just to get it out there and motivate myself. Enjoy! Don’t forget to leave a comment. It is greatly appreciated! 🫶🏾
Classmate! Eunseok x Classmate! Reader
Synopsis: In which your hatred for Song Eunseok grows too far for it to be contained with a lid. Thus, a spilling of guts ensues when you drunkenly submit an article regarding ten things you hate about Song Eunseok to the school self-help column. Unfortunately, the “Dear Lara” column can no longer help you when the lines become blurred between love and hate.
Content: humor, angst, volleyball player Eunseok, chemical engineering major reader, petty reader, petty Eunseok, Sohee is sick of reader’s shit, loosely based off the movie “10 Things I Hate About You”, getting together, eventual happy ending
Hating Song Eunseok was never meant to become such a staple component of your life that you would treat it like clocking in for a shift every time you crossed paths. But the man had made himself so unbearable over the years that it was impossible for you to regard him with anything less than disdain. Some might think you had a personal vendetta against him (read: Sohee). But not without reason!
You see, Song Eunseok was a long-standing thorn in your side, stemming way back to the first day of freshman year. Being a renowned athlete who famously won championships as the setter for his high school men’s volleyball team, of course he was revered as top of the food chain the moment he set foot at SM University. It didn’t help that he was tall and handsome, arguably, too. Evidently, any and everyone recognized the potential beaming from within him and decided right then and there that they’d vie for his attention and affection. With his prowess, Eunseok didn’t even need to try out for the college team. He simply walked on, got a scholarship, and became a starting player. All within several hours of his domineering presence dominating the campus.
Now, these weren’t your actual thoughts regarding the man. No, they were your cousin Bianca’s, who had a raging crush on the man since the moment she saw him. Bianca was the same age as you, entering university at the same time. But she hung out with an older crowd. Why? Because she ended up becoming “little, miss popular” amongst the upperclassmen for her charming personality and beauty. Barf. It’s not like you were hating on your cousin. Of course not. The two of you grew up together in diapers and were thick as thieves, alongside your childhood friend Sohee.
You loved Bianca with your whole heart, but popularity gets to people and can truly poison them the longer they scarf down the bullshit of a social hierarchy. Unfortunately, in this case, that’s how the cards fell for your cousin. The moment upperclassmen began showing interest, she gravitated towards that circle and began pushing you away. Not in an outwardly nasty sort of way. More so in a, “Oh shoot, my friends are coming this way. Pretend you don't know me and that I was just asking for directions,” sort of way. And that became routine for the both of you any time you ran into each other on campus. Brief chit chat, the popular crowd miraculously shows up, Bianca stages the run in as some random interaction, rinse, and repeat. It's not like half of them remembered your face anyway to distinguish the difference.
That’s how you always got the 411 scoop on Eunseok. Not that you ever asked for it by the way. Eunseok ran in similar crowds with Bianca due to his level of popularity too. He was always invited everywhere because of his athletic superstardom and teammates. Your cousin never outwardly spoke to the man, but that didn’t stop her from hovering at the edge of his circle like she was a groupie in his posse. So of course, he was always a topic of discussion anytime she came around, despite your incessant remarks about genuinely not caring what the man had been up to. While constantly hearing about him had been aggravating, that wasn't the initial reason for your dislike toward the athletic man.
The entire ordeal with Eunseok’s subsequent arrival on campus uprooted all perceptions you had of college on the very first day of class. Which was a tried-and-true testament to just how insufferable his presence was. Majoring in chemical engineering, it obviously made the most sense that you’d be attending classes in the engineering building.
Ever an avid believer in the expression ‘early bird gets the worm,’ you made it a mission to be the first student to arrive at all your classes. Even well before the teacher. Punctuality coursed through your veins. It was naturally a part of your being. To you, being on time was the equivalent of tardiness. While arriving early was the true definition of being on time. It didn’t make sense to others, but it was a characteristic you prided yourself in. Color you surprised however, when you see a massive crowd of girls huddled around the entrance of the lecture hall. Thinking a spectacle to be occurring, you had simply minded your business and tried to meander through the crowd to the entrance of the class. But you were harshly pushed back as the crowd began to surge.
“Ow, what the heck?!” You demanded the student who had elbowed you. The girl in question turned to eye you up and down.
“Why did you just elbow me?!” You question angrily. She rolls her eyes and turns back around.
“Because there’s a line and you’re trying to cut. Wait your turn.”
You huff at her rude demeanor. “This is my classroom. Furthermore, there’s literally no way this many people signed up for Engineering 101.”
The girl bellows a laugh before facing you again. “You think plenty of people haven’t tried that excuse already? You’re totally lying about this being your lecture hall. You’re only saying that to get closer to Eunseok!”
That had made you stop right in your speedy tracks. Gears started spinning in your head at her odd statement. “What the hell are you talking about?”
The sassy student makes a face at you, crossing her arms in exasperation. “Don’t act like you don’t know. You’re here just like all the other girls trying to get a peak at Song Eunseok! You’re not slick.”
You just blink owlishly up at the lanky girl towering over your frame menacingly. “What on earth are you on about?”
That is how you find out that Song Eunseok really is that popular, has a newly established fanbase, and evidently takes some of the same electives as you. Furthermore, he’s an arrogant prick who seems to think women come a dime a dozen. How do you figure that? Well, because when you finally managed to fight the good fight and emerge from the crowd of hyenas, albeit not without a few gashes of war, the man everyone had been frothing at the mouth for was doing nothing impressive other than sitting in the middle row quietly jamming out to music while scrolling through his phone.
That had really pissed you off. So much so, that you abandoned your books on the front row and stormed up the stairs of the lecture hall to scold him. Because those girls fawning all over him in the hallway were causing a traffic jam and the biggest headache known to man.
Up until that point, you were willing to give Eunseok the benefit of the doubt. Let bygones be bygones and all. It’s not his fault these girls were acting like rabid dogs. Right? Surely, he too was irate from their fangirl behavior. So, when you tapped his shoulder, you totally expected him to be apologetic for their actions and take responsibility for the inconvenience.
Instead, that was not the case. If anything, the next sequence of events was so embarrassing you’d have to keep your head down for weeks to let the humiliation boil over. Because the moment you tapped his shoulder, several other students attending the class had chosen that moment to walk in. Right as he took his headphones out to regard you with a bored look.
“What?” The word spilled from his lips monotonously.
This made you blink with surprise, shocked at his blunt expression, before anxiously continuing. “Uhhh, you’re Eunseok right?”
He stares at you blankly before scoffing, putting his headphones back in. “I don’t do autographs.” He mumbles before going back to scrolling through his phone.
Back then you had wondered what his problem was. Because there was no way he just insinuated you were of the same caliber as those psychos clogging the hallway like high blood pressure arteries. Surely, he wasn’t that deluded to think that you of all people had any interest in him. You were not a mainstream woman who liked mainstream things. No, you were a smart woman with high standards of a refined taste. He couldn’t possibly think you lacked tact to fall head over heels for his bobble head attitude.
Alas, reality had settled in quickly when several chuckles rang out in the lecture hall at the way he had brushed you off. At the time, you were so embarrassed that you simply scowled and returned back to your seat, vowing to never let Song Eunseok get under your skin again.
Except… as time went on, you’d been unable to keep that promise. Hence your present-day troubles.
Waking up with a killer headache was not part of your agenda for the weekend. Somehow, last night you allowed your best friends, Sohee and Phoebe, to convince you to go to one of the few college parties you’ve ever attended in your entire four years.
You were incredibly dedicated to your academic career and the trajectory of where you were bound to end up later in your corporate life. You didn’t have time to frolic about in the follies of youth. You had dreams to pursue. And those dreams wouldn’t come to fruition without hard work.
But it was senior year, the last absolute time you had with your friends to make memories as a trio. Because once you graduated from SM, you were totally going to get into graduate research with your dream program. It was only a matter of time. And your friends wouldn’t be able to come with you, having their own plans once you’ve graduated. So, with that in mind, they created “Operation: Friends 4 Lyfe,” which is their grand scheme for you all to enjoy your last year of college together. You just didn’t expect it to come with a pounding headache.
It was currently a Sunday, which meant prepping for the week ahead. So, groggily, you get up, patting around for your phone. It was light outside, with daytime filtering in and making your piercing headache worse. Bringing your lock screen to life, you find it to be 10:27 in the morning.
There are a few idle messages sitting on your phone from your friends asking if you made it home safely. Apparently, Phoebe woke up at 3 AM to barf her life decisions into the toilet. She had sent a photo of her disheveled face with runny mascara and crust around the mouth. She’d given a shaky smile with a thumbs up that admittedly was hilarious and did nothing to hide the regret on her face from downing those shots throughout the night.
You giggle at her photo and like it, receiving the wrath of your own headache in wake. Padding to the bathroom to wash your mouth out from the remnants of alcohol induced breath, a ping reaches your ears. Finishing up, you shuffle through your fridge in search of a bottle of water. Downing the cold substance, you make your way back to your discarded phone to see a text in the group chat from Sohee.
Sohee: is every1 alive???
You: Well… I’m awake. But I don’t currently feel like one of the living 😭
Sohee: oof— yeah. probably shouldn’t have had those last few shots. can’t believe I got it alllll on camera 😁
You: Why didn’t you stop me?!
Sohee: nd miss out on the greatest home video of our generation??? 😱absolutely not 🤗
You roll your eyes at his antics just as Phoebe hops in the chat.
Phoebe: I feel like barfing some more. There was so much corn and other shit in my puke last night. Like where tf did that come from??? I don’t remember having corn yesterday 😭
You grimace at the message.
Sohee: ew! really hate the visual. pls don’t ruin my morning. I’m just a little guy 🥹
You had to agree with Sohee. You didn’t want to know that either.
Phoebe: Y/N!!! Tell Sohee to stop bullying me. I’m unable to fend for myself with this hangover 😟😔
You shake your head at the antics, used to their absurd behavior on a regular basis.
You: Fi, there should be pain medicine in your drawer. I put it there last time. Also, pls drink some water or Gatorade. You need hydration and electrolytes!!!
Phoebe: mother y/n what would we do without you?
Sohee: u’d perish. i’d b alright 👼🏻
Phoebe: 😡🖕🏽shut up little man!!!!
Grinning at the absurdity of the conversation, you put your phone down and get to planning out your day for a successful week. Unbeknownst to you however, the week ahead was going to completely derail for the entire campus come Tuesday. All from your doing, no less. Nothing could prepare you for the boomerang of your carelessness from the previous night. And you are about to find out that the dildo of consequences, as they say, seldom comes lubed.
Because sitting in the outbox of your email are words that you cannot take back once said.
All hell breaks loose by Tuesday at noon.
It was supposed to be a normal day. You’d stop by the cafeteria for breakfast early in the morning, be at your engineering calculations course by 8 AM, finish at noon, meet your friends for lunch, then attend your thermodynamics course and finish up at 5, which would then lead you to the student labs to review some research for final presentations that would happen at the end of the semester. That was your regular schedule on Tuesdays. You lived by schedules a lot during your tenure at SM. But on this particular day, a set of events triggered a chain reaction that no one could foresee. Not even your drunken persona, who was responsible for the mess you were about to be in.
On this particular day, the “Dear Lara” advice column dropped in the school’s digital newsletter. Right on time, as Lara Raj always tends to be. She was a punctual woman. You’d give her that. But her gossip column, posing as advice, wasn't really your cup of tea. It never had been throughout your duration on campus. But that didn’t stop your friends, nor Bianca, from reading the pop culture referenced advice back to you when something juicy dropped. It was nothing more than the petulant antics of nosey, young adults searching for a rush of dopamine and validation through their peers rather than actual advice aimed at helping others. That's why you’d vowed to never submit anything to the column’s inbox during your four years of attendance. No matter how desperate you got, which was never, by the way. You'd never stoop so low as to reduce yourself to asking a gossip column for help. That was tacky.
So, imagine your surprise at finding out that the article that dropped on this particular day was talk of the school. And for good reason too. Because this specific article was the juiciest lore anyone had ever seen. It was evidently, so wild, that it had even the most introverted of people reading it fervently like hungry gremlins. You were abashed to say that you too decided to indulge in whatever the heck was such a jaw dropping bombshell that had even the most well-put together professors whispering about it across departments. And… imagine the greatest shock of your life in discovering that the individual seeking advice from that column… was none other than yourself.
Let’s walk through how you came to this conclusion. Well, for starters, you had met up with Phoebe and Sohee in the cafeteria when the bombshell dropped. Various pings rang out across campus and throughout the cafeteria as you made your entrance. You’d just sat your belongings down when Sohee’s eyes bulged out of his head as he greedily read the words lined neatly across his screen.
“No way.” He mumbles in shock. “No fucking way.”
“What?” Phoebe mutters behind the piece of toast that accompanied her mediterranean salad. “Is it the weekly “Dear Lara” post?”
“Yeah,” Sohee admits, eyebrows raised to his hairline. “And it is juicyyyyy.”
“Let me see.” Phoebe grabs his phone as you make your way to the line to order food.
You shake your head at their obsession with that column. Nothing productive came from that page. Just loads of bullshit advice that probably needed to be consulted by a licensed therapist to be honest. You’d often wondered why the school allowed this part of the newsletter to continue. You suspect it had to do with the President and Dean both being religious gossip-addled addicts too. However, you were about to become just as obsessive as your peers over this article in just a few short minutes. You really had intended to brush off every single comment regarding the article, until you overheard the lunch ladies talking.
“You see that article? Apparently this time it’s about that Eunseok boy. Ya know, the one with the long legs that plays volleyball.”
“Oh that baby. I love serving him. He’s so sweet! What could that advice column possibly post about him?”
“Evidently, whoever was asking for advice was asking how to get over their hatred for him. I don’t see how anyone could hate him. He’s the sweetest boy.”
That had given you pause, perplexed that someone could dislike Eunseok just as much as you that they’d submit an ask for advice in the campus newsletter. Feeling vindicated and petulant, you slide your phone out of your pocket and pilfer around in your phone for the newsletter just as the lunch lady slaps a serving of sloppy joe on your plate. You grimace wondering if you should’ve followed Phoebe’s route and gone for the salad. Moving to the drink dispenser, you click on the newsletter and scroll to the “Dear Lara” section. There, in black bold letters, is the title.
“Dear Lara: 10 Things I Hate About Song Eunseok” by Lara Raj
Holy crap, someone really was bold enough to submit their intrusive thoughts to Lara. Which was bold considering she was merciless in posting everything. Even the clear parentheses where someone strictly asked her not to publish said words, as it served as placeholder thoughts to get the point across. It wasn’t until you started reading through it though that you noticed similarities between your own sentiments and the anonymous post of the article. It reads as follows:
‘Dear Lara: I’ve been a student at SM University for a few years now and have always been a keen supporter of the university. While I may not attend every single home game, I’ve kept school pride in attending games of all the major sports teams at least once, per my friends’ persistence. One sport, however, that I cannot make myself attend, even in spirit, is none other than the most lucrative sport of our campus’s glory. Volleyball. And for valid reasoning too. One might ask, why? Well, it’s simple. Because I hate Song Eunseok.
Now I know what you’re going to say. “What?! Who could possibly hate him? He’s one of the biggest superstars of our campus!” Well, the answer would be— myself. I absolutely despise Song Eunseok. Why? Well, I’ve procured a list to navigate us through exactly just that. For starters:
I hate Song Eunseok because he’s a cocky jock. And everyone knows they have brains the size of peas. (There isn’t much critical thinking going on there.)
I hate Song Eunseok because he’s a pretentious jerk who thinks every woman on campus is head over heels in love with him.
I hate Song Eunseok because unless you’re important to his social sphere, you’re completely disposable.
I hate Song Eunseok because he thinks he’s so witty and clever when really, he’s just a stupid dolt.
I hate Song Eunseok because he thinks he can coax his way into anything using his stupidly “good looking” face and his horridly “dashing charm.”
I hate Song Eunseok because he is a womanizer.
I hate Song Eunseok because animals apparently love him.
I hate Song Eunseok because everyone else seems to love him when I can see right through him.
I hate Song Eunseok because he doesn’t know what he wants in life.
But the biggest reason why I hate Song Eunseok is because…
10. He lies to everyone… including himself.
You see Lara, that is why I hate him. At least… I thought I did. Because in between all my interactions with him, I began to understand the real Eunseok. And I realized he kept it hidden from the rest of the student body. Which was scary, but also exhilarating. Because it meant he was deliberately choosing to show me a side of himself that everyone else was not privy to. And that confused me, messing with my head more than it should. It gave me whiplash, especially when the warmth of his truth began to recede. Because I’d never thought myself to be so gullible as to believe in someone like Song Eunseok. But I did. Perhaps, for a brief moment, I held the true version of himself as my treasure. But all that glitters is not gold. And my pot of riches turned out to be phony. Song Eunseok is a liar. He lied to me, dismantling everything that I thought I knew. Not only because he pulled the wool over my eyes, but because I began to care.
So, Ms. Raj, what do you recommend I do to get over this heartbreak?
Dear Disappointed: That’s a doozy. Have you simply tried confessing? Because to me, it sounds like you are in love. Not like the cheesy way every fangirl claims. Like love in the sense Sasuke and Naruto had. One that was destined to be taboo but held so much weight and meaning that it became canon. Disappointed, you and Eunseok sound like the type of canon fanfic writers would love to read about. Go get your man. Best wishes. XOXO.’
Putting your phone down, you come to a terrifying conclusion. This list sounded suspiciously like the one you had created in light of your anger for Eunseok three years ago… right when you had first met him.
Well shit, this complicates everything.
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