synopsis: you’re spending the summer with your twin brother’s best friend. what could go wrong? maybe the fact that you’re crazy about him, and he has no idea.
contains: y/n top ten yearner (keonho too), y/n being oblivious ☺️
notes: do we wanna see more oneshots like these? lmk if u wanna be in perm taglist. based off an anon request!!
could you do cortis members sexualities and also how’d they be as bfs to another male? totally okay if ur not comfortable w it!! 🤍🤍🤍
Hiii~ ✨Thanks for asking✨
I would like to say that using tarot to guess or assume someone’s sexuality should be taken very lightly. I use tarot in my readings as very much energy based instead of assigning a specific gender or gender role no matter who it is or what card is associated with their energy if that makes sense. For example, I could do a reading on masc gay male, but to me because his energy comes off as masculine. I would assume that he’s straight. So with that in mind, let’s see!
Guessing Cortis sexuality based off tarot
James — 8 of swords + two of pentacles: possibly bi, pans, or just sexuality fluid in general. With the 2 of pentacles here possibly meaning he could go both or many ways, but the 8 of swords means this is still something largely internally and he may he have some anxieties/shame about how he feels.
Juhoon — Page of cups rx: sexually confused lol. possibly bi or gay/queer, but it’s heavily in denial/in the closet.
Martin — 3 of wands: The most open card here. Possibly Straight with some curiosity about poly relationships at the very least. Another possibly would be pans or bi, but very open minded/happy to experiment.
Seonghyeon (plz- 😭 his name autocorrected to swinger) — 8 of pentacles rx: Possibly Asexual or Demi. 8 of pentacles usually means hard work or effort, so with this being reversed he just might not care about being with anyone at the moment or just isn't attracted to anyone right now.
Keonho — 5 of pentacles: Gay gay lesbian lesbian. Gay/queer for the most part. 5 of pentacles is a sense of being or feeling "left out", so i'm using some logic here too and going with gay based on societal standards and how gayness or queerness is largely frowned upon/shunned is certain communities. (He is in korea and korea is still a bit "traditional" or conservative for the most part).
Cortis as a boyfie (in general)
James — Two of pentacles (lol i used a whole different deck for this too): As a boyfriend, he'd be fun to be around, flexible, able to juggle many things, but you would be competing for his attention because of that.
Juhoon — Judgement: This man's energy seems so mean to me 😭. Is he a mean/serious or blunt type of person? I dont really keep up with Cortis. As a boyfriend he'd be pretty serious in the relationship. He doesn't seem to do casual flings or anything like that. Very much his focus would be on you and you only...but intensely lol. Why do i see him staring at someone with his arms crossed lol. He might be a bit hard to open up to/with
Martin — 6 of wands: He is such a pisces lol. He'd be very charming and fun as a boyfriend. Loves the idea of love. Very proud and confident with whoever he's with. He might be the type to show off his partner (lets add a little reality here. He's kpop idol. He's not going to post and show off his partner on social media, but i do see him being the type to talk non stop about his S/O to his close friends/inner circle)
Seonghyeon — King of swords: A very communicative/cut to the chase boyfriend. He may be a bit blunt with his words, might even come off a bit detached sometimes. I don't see him being really affectionate, but he would be a protective type of boyfriend. It’s giving tsundere
Keonho — The star rx: Childish. is the first thing i thought of lol. He seems like he would be a boyfriend that is too playful sometimes. He'd have his moments where he might look at you like you've hung the stars (pun intended), but he also has his insecure moments. Might need a lot a reassurance.
✨✨✨
✨Reality check✨ Tarot is for funsies. I do not know any of these people personally/IRL. Everything said is all alleged, based on what I feel, what the cards say and how i interpreted it.
juhoon: in which, you needed a quiet place to study. Juhoon needed the library's books. Neither of you expected to find each other there.
JUHOON X FEM! READER
find more in masterlist!
jinni's note: hihi, this is a bit of a self-indulgent fic as i used to study like this and could've desperately used the reassurance…it's a little light on the romance as i'm still trying to find my footing and just get back into writing, but i hope you like it anyway
Is This Seat Taken?
The library always smelled the same after four in the afternoon.
Old paper. Dust warmed by the late afternoon sun. Coffee that students weren't technically supposed to bring inside, though the librarians had long since given up pretending not to notice.
Juhoon preferred it that way.
Not silent, he'd never liked absolute silence, but quiet enough that the loudest sounds were the soft rustle of turning pages, the occasional click of a keyboard somewhere across the room or the muted squeak of a chair against the polished floor.
Truthfully, he'd rather have been at home.
His room was quieter, his desk more comfortable and he rarely got distracted there. Under normal circumstances, he would've finished his assignment curled up in his desk chair with a playlist humming softly in the background.
Unfortunately, normal circumstances didn't include tracking down journals that only existed in the university library archives. His research paper was due in a few weeks, and while most of the writing would happen at home, the library was the only place he could get his hands on half the references he needed.
So, for the past few afternoons, this corner table tucked between the sociology shelves and the academic journals had become his temporary workspace.
It wasn't particularly popular.
Most students gravitated toward the sunlit tables by the windows or clustered together near the charging ports.
Which suited him perfectly.
He adjusted his glasses, flipped another page of the reference book spread open before him and neatly copied down another citation into his notebook.
It was…peaceful.
Predictable.
Predictable lasted exactly twelve seconds.
The library doors swung open with enough force to make several people glance up from their books.
By the time you shoulder your way into the library, you're already regretting every life choice that led to carrying this many books at once.
You were balancing an impressive amount of things for someone who looked one misplaced step away from disaster: a backpack hanging half-open, a paper cup of coffee that had almost certainly gone cold, two teetering stacks of library books, headphones tangled around one wrist, and a half-torn folder doing a frankly terrible job of containing what looked like an entire semester's worth of loose papers. Sticky notes peeked out from random pages like tiny surrender flags.
Juhoon watched the scene unfold with the quiet resignation of someone witnessing a chain of events that was already too late to stop.
A notebook slipped.
You caught it against your elbow, but unfortunately, the movement tipped the folder.
“...No, no, no!”
The folder gave up.
Sheets of paper burst free, drifting across the floor like oversized confetti.
A few students looked over before immediately deciding that whatever was happening was none of their business.
You dropped into a crouch with a sigh, trying to rescue the papers while simultaneously preventing three textbooks from collapsing on top of them.
For a second, Juhoon simply watched. Then he closed his notebook, stood and walked over.
Without a word, he retrieved a page that had floated beneath the neighbouring table. Then another that had somehow landed beside a bookshelf. By the time you looked up, he was holding a surprisingly neat stack of rescued papers.
You stared at him, mortified. “Oh my God... I'm so sorry. You really didn't have to—”
“They were on the floor.”
“...Right.” His answer was so matter-of-fact that you couldn't even argue with it. “Still... thank you.”
He gave a small nod before returning to his table as quietly as he'd left it.
Only then did you finally look around the library.
Every table was occupied.
Every single one.
Except...
Your gaze landed on the empty chair opposite him. You hesitated for a moment before making your way over, clutching what remained of your dignity along with your books. “Um...”
Juhoon looked up from his notebook. “You okay?”
“I'm thriving.”
He looked from you to the papers threatening to spill from your folder again, then to the coffee you'd nearly dropped twice in the last minute.
You followed his gaze, then gave him a sheepish smile. “...That was a lie.”
A tiny nod. “So it would seem.”
Despite yourself, you let out a quiet laugh. “Is this seat taken?”
He glanced at the empty chair before looking back at you. “No.”
“Thanks.”
You carefully lowered yourself into the seat, taking far more care than seemed necessary.
It didn't matter.
The second you let go of the backpack, it tipped sideways. Two books slid onto the floor. The folder followed, ejecting another handful of papers as though personally offended that you'd managed to pick them up in the first place.
You closed your eyes. “...So much for making a good first impression.”
For the first time since you'd walked in, the corner of Juhoon's mouth twitched upward. “It could've been worse.”
You blinked. “...How?”
“You could've spilled the coffee.”
You looked down at the cup still miraculously clutched in your hand. “...You know what? I'll take that as a win.”
For the next forty minutes, Juhoon discovered that concentrating was significantly harder than he'd expected.
It wasn't because the library had become noisy. If anything, it remained as quiet as ever, interrupted only by the occasional turn of a page or the soft tapping of keyboards scattered throughout the room. The distraction sat directly across from him.
The moment you'd claimed the empty seat, you'd emptied the contents of your backpack onto the table with complete confidence, as though there was a perfectly logical system behind the chaos. A planner landed first, followed by two notebooks, a pencil case, a charger with its cable hopelessly tangled around itself, several loose sheets of paper, a packet of sticky notes, another packet of sticky notes and what looked suspiciously like yesterday's half-eaten protein bar.
One pen promptly rolled off the edge of the table.
Without thinking, Juhoon reached out and caught it before it hit the floor, setting it beside your notebook just as you looked up.
“Oh, thanks,” you said distractedly, already rummaging through your bag again.
He gave a small nod and returned to his book.
Or at least, he tried to.
You weren't loud. In fact, apart from the occasional muttered complaint, you barely made a sound. But there was something about the way you worked, or rather, tried to work…that kept drawing his attention despite himself.
Within minutes, your desk had transformed into what could only be described as controlled chaos. Books were stacked in uneven piles around your laptop, loose papers disappeared beneath open textbooks, and sticky notes poked out from nearly every page in a rainbow of colours. Somehow, despite having an entire pencil case in front of you, you still spent a solid minute searching for a pen that had been tucked behind your ear the whole time.
Juhoon noticed.
He also noticed that you opened five browser tabs in quick succession, only to spend the next several minutes bouncing between them without reading more than a few lines of any article. Every so often you'd return to the blank document waiting patiently on your screen, type a title, stare at it for a few seconds, then delete it and try again.
The first title lasted all of ten seconds.
The second survived a little longer.
By the fourth attempt, he'd unconsciously begun keeping count.
You still hadn't written a single sentence. Instead, you opened another article, highlighted an entire paragraph, frowned as though the yellow somehow looked wrong, switched to blue, immediately regretted that decision too, and closed the document altogether.
A long, theatrical sigh escaped you. “...Come on.”
Whether you were talking to yourself or the laptop, Juhoon wasn't entirely sure.
He looked back down at his notes and copied another citation. By the time he glanced up again, you'd finally begun typing.
Seven words appeared on the page.
You read them once. Twice. Then selected the entire sentence and pressed backspace.
The blank page returned.
“...Why am I like this?” you mumbled under your breath, resting your forehead dramatically against the edge of the desk.
Juhoon's eyes lingered on the screen for a brief moment before returning to his own work.
It wasn't that you didn't know what you were doing. Judging by the number of sources you'd already gathered, you clearly understood the material. You just seemed unable to let yourself begin.
Juhoon didn't think about you for the rest of the afternoon. At least, that's what he told himself.
By the time the library announced it would be closing in fifteen minutes, he'd managed to finish annotating another journal article, make decent progress on the bibliography for his research paper and photocopy the last chapter he needed before returning the reference book to its shelf.
His assignment was finally beginning to take shape. It was the sort of work he normally preferred doing at home, tucked away in the quiet of his room with a mug of tea growing cold on his desk. The library wasn't somewhere he lingered unless he absolutely had to, it simply housed resources he couldn't access anywhere else.
Once he'd gathered everything he needed, he'd happily return to working from home. That had always been the plan.
He packed his belongings with the same unhurried routine he followed every evening. Laptop first. Notebook on top. Pencil case zipped shut before being slipped into the front compartment of his bag. Charging cable wrapped into a loose loop instead of being shoved inside carelessly.
When he stood, his eyes drifted almost unconsciously towards the chair opposite him.
You were still there.
One elbow rested on the table, your forehead pressed dramatically against the back of your hand as you stared at the glowing cursor on your laptop screen with an expression that suggested the two of you had become mortal enemies.
Your desk looked no less chaotic than it had when you'd first arrived. Books remained stacked in uneven towers around your laptop. Sticky notes protruded from every other page, each one scribbled with hurried handwriting that only you could probably decipher. Somewhere beneath the mess was the essay you'd been trying to write for the better part of two hours.
Judging by the screen, you still hadn't made much progress.
You sighed, sat up, typed something, immediately deleted it, then sighed again.
Juhoon almost smiled. Almost. Instead, he adjusted the strap of his backpack and quietly left the library.
By the time he reached his apartment that evening, the girl with the exploding folder had already become one of those small, forgettable moments that occasionally brightened otherwise ordinary days.
She'd been memorable, certainly. A little erratic. Probably carrying twice as many books as she needed. But university was full of brief encounters like that. People drifted through lecture halls, libraries and cafés every day, crossing paths once before disappearing back into their own routines.
He doubted he'd see you again.
The following afternoon proved him wrong.
Juhoon had barely settled into his usual corner table when he heard the library doors open.
He didn't look up immediately. There was no particular reason to.
Someone else would come in eventually. The library was busiest around this time, when lectures had finished and deadlines suddenly felt much closer than they had that morning.
He continued copying a citation from one of the journals spread across the table.
Only when a familiar voice muttered a quiet, “...Please still be free,” did he glance up.
There you were.
Your backpack was still hanging half-open. The same battered folder was tucked under one arm, this time bulging even more than yesterday. A coffee cup balanced precariously between your fingers while your eyes scanned the room with growing panic.
Then your gaze landed on him. More specifically...On the empty chair opposite him.
The relief that washed over your face was almost comical. “Oh.”
You let out a breath you seemed to have been holding. “You got the table.”
Juhoon looked at the empty chair. “It usually stays free.”
“Really?”
“Mhm.”
“Huh.” You adjusted your grip on the books before smiling to yourself. “Lucky me.”
Without waiting for permission, you stopped. “...Actually,” you frowned. “I should probably ask.”
He looked at you expectantly.
“Is it okay if I sit here again?”
He glanced around the room, as though checking whether another empty seat had miraculously appeared in the last five seconds. “I don't own the table.”
“I know.”
“...”
“I just didn't want to assume.”
The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly. “It's fine.”
“Thanks.”
You dropped into the chair with considerably more success than yesterday.
A pause. Then—
Your pencil case slipped from your lap and landed on the floor with a loud clatter.
“...I'll take that as an improvement,” you muttered.
Juhoon looked down at the pencil case before meeting your eyes again. “You didn't lose any papers.”
“...See?” You pointed at him with complete sincerity. “Glass half full.”
It happened again the next day.
This time, Juhoon noticed your absence before he realized he was looking for it. Four o'clock came and went. He turned another page of the journal in front of him, copied a quotation into his notebook and adjusted his glasses.
The chair opposite him remained empty.
He frowned ever so slightly, not because he was waiting. Just...Because, by now, he'd expected someone to occupy it.
At four-ten, the library doors swung open.
You hurried inside, slightly breathless, hair escaping from whatever attempt you'd made to tame it that morning.
Your eyes immediately found the corner table. “So sorry.”
Juhoon looked up. “...For?”
“I know I'm late.”
“You weren't meeting me.”
“I know,” you muttered as you shifted your backpack higher onto your shoulder. “I just..” You laughed awkwardly. “It feels rude to show up ten minutes late.”
He considered that for a moment. “You weren't keeping me waiting.”
You blinked. “...Right.”
Another pause. “I guess that's a strange thing to say to someone whose name I don't even know.”
“It's Juhoon.”
You looked pleasantly surprised. “Juhoon?”
He nodded.
“I'm Y/N.”
“I know.” The words left his mouth before he'd quite thought about them.
Your eyebrows rose. “...You do?”
“You signed your name yesterday.”
Seeing your confusion, he nodded towards the loose sheets you'd dropped around the library floor.
“It was on the first page.”
“Oh,” You laughed, shaking your head. “Right...That makes a lot more sense.”
For reasons he couldn't explain, Juhoon found himself smiling too.
It was small, barely noticeable, but it was there.
The days that followed settled into a rhythm so quietly that neither of you could later pinpoint exactly when it had begun.
No messages were exchanged. No plans were made. There was never a conversation about meeting after class or saving each other a seat.
Somehow, it simply... happened.
If Juhoon arrived first, the chair opposite him remained empty until you wandered in, usually juggling more things than any one person should reasonably be carrying.
If you arrived first, which happened only once after oversleeping had taught you a valuable lesson about setting five alarms instead of just the one, you'd instinctively choose the same corner table, your books already spread across half of it by the time he appeared a few minutes later.
Juhoon had always assumed there were only two kinds of people who came to the library.
The first were the ones who treated it like another class period. They drifted in at the same time every afternoon, claimed the same seat, unpacked the same notebook, worked steadily for two or three hours, then disappeared just as quietly as they'd arrived.
The second were the deadline people. They stormed through the doors carrying three cups of coffee, looked permanently one inconvenience away from tears, speed-read an entire chapter in forty minutes, and vanished before anyone could witness the consequences.
After spending a week sharing a table with you, Juhoon quietly decided there was, in fact, a third category.
You.
You weren't particularly loud. In fact, compared to the study groups occupying the larger tables, you barely made any noise at all. You didn't answer phone calls in the library, you didn't play music through your headphones loud enough for anyone else to hear, and you never interrupted him while he worked.
Yet somehow, you still managed to occupy the space around you with an energy that was impossible to ignore.
It began the moment you sat down.
While Juhoon unpacked with the efficiency of someone who had repeated the same routine hundreds of times, your side of the table unfolded more like an archaeological excavation.
Your backpack landed beside your chair with a soft thud before you pulled it into your lap and reached inside without looking. One by one, objects began appearing on the table. A planner decorated with sticky tabs. A thick sociology textbook covered in handwritten annotations. Two notebooks, one considerably more worn than the other. Your laptop. A pencil case that looked suspiciously overstuffed.
By the time you finally seemed satisfied, your side of the table looked less like a study space and more like someone had attempted to recreate a stationery shop from memory.
Juhoon looked at his own side. One notebook, one reference book, one pen and a bottle of water. That was all. The contrast amused him more than it probably should have.
It became a familiar ritual over the next few afternoons. He found himself recognising it before you did. If you reached into your bag with a puzzled expression, he already knew you were looking for your headphones. If you patted your pockets twice, you'd forgotten where your pen had gone. If you sighed before even opening your laptop, today's assignment was probably one you weren't looking forward to.
He wasn't trying to pay attention. He simply... noticed. It was something he'd always done, little details tended to stay with him.
The way one of your notebook corners was permanently folded over because you absentmindedly bent it whenever you were reading. The fact that you always uncapped your highlighter with your teeth before immediately remembering you probably shouldn't. The tiny habit of pushing your sleeves up your forearms every time you settled in to work, only to pull them back down five minutes later when the library's air-conditioning reminded you why you'd worn them in the first place.
None of it was important, yet somehow, all of it lodged itself quietly in the back of his mind.
One afternoon, somewhere between you emptying half your backpack onto the table and Juhoon finishing the same paragraph he'd been reading for the past five minutes, a pen rolled free from the mess and made its way towards his side of the table.
It bumped gently against his notebook.
You noticed it a second later and immediately reached across to retrieve it. “Sorry.”
Juhoon glanced at the pen in your hand, then at the collection of papers, notebooks and books surrounding you. “For what?”
You gestured vaguely at the table. “This. I feel like I'm slowly taking over your half.”
He looked down. Apart from the pen, nothing had actually crossed the invisible boundary you'd both somehow established between your respective piles. “It's fine.”
“I swear I'm usually more organised than this.”
He gave you a look.
You paused. “...Okay. I'm usually not.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
You tucked the pen back into your pencil case, though you didn't bother closing it. “You're very calm about all this.”
“About what?”
“The mess.”
Juhoon glanced at your side of the table again. “I've seen worse.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“That's disappointing. I thought I was special.”
“You still might be.”
You stared at him for a second, trying to decide whether he'd actually made a joke. He had already gone back to his book.
You smiled to yourself before opening your notebook.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence, you looked up again. “Can I ask you something?”
Juhoon lifted his eyes.
“Why are you here every day?”
He seemed mildly surprised by the question. “Here?”
“In the library.”
He nodded towards the pile of books beside him. “Assignment.”
“Right.” You looked at the stack. “But what kind of assignment requires you to basically move into the library? You’re the only one here, other than me, who’s here every day at the same time, like clockwork.”
“A research paper.”
“That bad?”
“Not really.”
“Then why not just do it at home?”
Juhoon considered that for a moment before answering. “I usually do.”
You raised an eyebrow. “You don't seem like someone who enjoys studying around people. I mean…You look like the kind of person who would consider studying a more, um, solitary activity?”
“I do.”
The answer came so matter-of-factly that you laughed. “Then I'm confused.”
“I need some of the reference books here.” He tapped the thick volume beside his notebook.
“They aren't available online?”
“Not the ones I need.”
“So you're basically being held hostage by the library.”
“Pretty much.”
You glanced at the books again. “How long do you have left?”
“A little while.”
“That sounds suspiciously vague.”
“I'll finish it.”
“I wasn't doubting you.”
“I didn’t think of it that way.”
“I was asking.”
“Mhm.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You're very difficult to interrogate.”
“And you're very nosy.”
“I prefer curious.”
“I'll remember that.”
You smiled and turned back to your notes, finally beginning to highlight the material you'd been avoiding for the past ten minutes.
Juhoon returned to his assignment as well.
Neither of you thought much of the conversation after that. Not then, anyway.
To you, it was simply the first time you'd learned something about the quiet boy you'd somehow ended up sharing a table with every afternoon.
And to Juhoon, it was simply an explanation for why he was there. He needed the books. That was all. At least, that was still true.
Your conversations never felt like interruptions. They slipped into the quiet between studying almost by accident, lasted a minute or two, then disappeared again without either of you feeling obligated to keep talking.
He found... that he didn't mind. The realization surprised him.
Juhoon liked silence, liked predictability. He liked knowing exactly how an afternoon would unfold. By every reasonable measure, studying across from someone whose belongings seemed determined to migrate across the table should have irritated him. Instead...He caught himself waiting to see what would happen next.
By the time another week had passed, Juhoon had stopped being surprised by the state of your side of the table. He'd learned that the mess was mostly temporary. By the end of every afternoon, you would gather your papers into their respective folders, shove your notebooks back into your bag and somehow leave the table looking almost respectable. The real problem was never the mess itself. It was everything you did before you allowed yourself to begin.
He started noticing it more clearly once he'd seen it happen enough times.
You would arrive with a new assignment, determined to finish it that day, and for the first twenty minutes you would work with almost frightening efficiency. Your laptop came out, your notes were arranged and your planner appeared with a list of everything you needed to accomplish. You'd check each requirement against the syllabus, underline the important parts, divide the assignment into sections, and sometimes even write yourself a little timeline for the evening. Juhoon had watched you make schedules so detailed that he was fairly certain there was once a schedule for when you were supposed to stop making schedules.
Then the research would begin. One article became another, which led you to a study referenced in its bibliography, which reminded you of something you'd read in a lecture slide, which sent you searching for another source to make sure you hadn't missed anything. Your browser tabs multiplied until the titles became unreadable, and every few minutes you would pause over one of them, frown, and open another.
Juhoon didn't interrupt. At first, he assumed you were simply being thorough. Then he noticed that you weren't actually getting any closer to writing.
You'd already have enough sources. More than enough, probably. Your notebook would be filled with notes, your outline would be sitting neatly beside the laptop, and you'd have underlined the exact points you wanted to discuss. Yet instead of starting, you'd keep looking. Another article, another source, another possibility.
It was as if you were waiting for some final piece of information to arrive and give you permission to begin.
The first time Juhoon pointed it out, he didn't mean to. You had been staring at your screen for so long that he eventually looked up from his own work.
“How many sources do you need?”
You glanced at him. “For what?”
“That essay.”
“I don't know.”
“You have twelve.”
You looked at the browser tabs. “I know.”
“Your professor asked for five.”
You frowned. “I know that too.”
“Then why are you looking for another one?”
You opened your mouth, paused, and glanced back at your screen. “...Because I might need it.”
“For what?”
“I don't know yet.”
Juhoon nodded as though you'd just confirmed something for him. “Right.”
You narrowed your eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It definitely means something.”
He returned to his notes, leaving you to stare suspiciously at him for another few seconds before turning back to your laptop.
You lasted perhaps three minutes. Then another tab opened.
Juhoon didn't say anything this time, he only glanced at the top of your screen.
You caught him. “Don't.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“Your face did.”
He looked down at his notebook again, but you could have sworn there was the faintest hint of amusement in his expression.
You closed the new tab…for approximately thirty seconds. Then you opened it again.
Juhoon sighed quietly. That was when he began to understand that your problem wasn't that you didn't know how to study. You were, in fact, incredibly good at preparing to study. You could organise a mountain of information into colour-coded categories and produce an outline so detailed that someone else could probably write the paper from it.
The problem came afterwards.
The moment you had to turn all that preparation into something imperfect and unfinished, you seemed to freeze.
He saw it most clearly with your writing. You'd type a sentence, read it twice, and delete it. Sometimes you'd change one word and read it again. Other times you'd rewrite the entire thing because it didn't sound as intelligent as you'd imagined it in your head.
One afternoon, he watched you spend nearly ten minutes on the opening sentence of a paper. Eventually, you leaned back and groaned.
“It sounds stupid.”
Juhoon looked up. “What does?”
“The sentence.”
“What does it say?”
You turned the laptop slightly towards him.
He read it. “It's fine.”
Your expression immediately soured. “That's not helpful.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don't know. That it's good.”
“It's good.”
“You said that like you don't mean it.”
“I mean it.”
“You sound very convincing.”
He looked at the screen again. “It's an introduction. It doesn't have to be brilliant.”
You stared at him. “...Excuse me?”
“It just has to introduce the paper.”
“But if the opening is weak, the whole thing is going to feel weak.”
“Why?”
“Because it sets the tone.”
“It's one paragraph.”
“It's the first paragraph.”
“Which means there are several more after it.”
You opened your mouth, then closed it. Juhoon went back to reading.
After a moment, you quietly muttered, “You're very annoying.”
“I've heard that.”
You looked back at the screen. For once, you didn't delete the sentence.
That was the first time he noticed something else, too. You weren't simply trying to do well. You seemed to believe that doing well only counted if you did it exceptionally well. Anything less appeared to register in your mind as failure, even before you'd actually failed.
It showed up everywhere. You'd get halfway through an assignment and decide the entire thing was going badly because one section wasn't perfect. You'd make a perfectly reasonable study plan, miss one task because a lecture ran late, and immediately conclude that the whole evening was ruined.
You were always reaching for the version of yourself who could do everything perfectly. The problem was that she never seemed to arrive.
And the more Juhoon noticed it, the more he began to suspect that you were exhausting yourself trying to catch up to her.
He didn't say that. Not yet.
Instead, he started doing small things.
When you opened too many tabs, he'd glance at them and ask, “Are you actually going to read all of those?”
When you began rewriting an outline you'd already finished, he'd quietly ask, “What was wrong with the first one?”
When you stared at a blank document for too long, he'd occasionally look up and say, “You've been thinking about the same sentence for ten minutes.”
You'd glare at him. “I am thinking.”
“I know.”
“Then let me think.”
“I'm letting you.”
“You sound very unconvinced.”
“I am.”
It should have irritated you, and sometimes it did, but slowly, you started listening.
Not because Juhoon pushed particularly hard. He never did. He didn't tell you what to do, didn't take over your work and never made you feel stupid for struggling with something that seemed easy to him. He simply noticed when you were making something harder than it needed to be and when he thought you might let him, quietly pointed it out.
That was what surprised you most about him. He never seemed impressed by the version of you that was trying desperately to impress everyone else. He didn't care whether your essay sounded sophisticated enough, whether your notes were colour-coded, whether you'd read every article available or whether you'd managed to finish three assignments in one night.
When you apologized for falling behind, he'd simply ask, “Behind who?”
When you complained that someone else in your class had already finished their paper, he'd tell you, “You're not writing theirs.”
When you looked at a long list of things you hadn't done yet and insisted you should have accomplished more, he'd glance at the list and say, “You did four things today.”
“But I was supposed to do seven.”
“You did four.”
“It wasn't enough.”
He'd pause then, studying you with that same calm expression that somehow made it difficult to argue with him. “Why?”
You never had a good answer.
Because that was the thing Juhoon was beginning to understand about you. You were constantly measuring yourself against some invisible standard that moved further away every time you got close to it. No amount of preparation ever felt like enough because there was always another source to read, another sentence to improve, another assignment to do better on. You weren't afraid of hard work. If anything, you were willing to work yourself into the ground.
You were afraid that if you stopped pushing, you'd discover you weren't doing enough after all.
And somehow, without ever making a big deal of it, Juhoon became the person who noticed when you were doing it again.
The real conversation happened a few days later.
The library was unusually quiet. It had rained earlier that afternoon, leaving the windows misted at the edges and the sky outside washed in a dull grey that made the warm lights above the tables feel softer than usual. You arrived later than you normally did, but you didn't make your usual comment about nearly missing the bus or your professor assigning an unreasonable amount of reading. You simply sat down, pulled your bag onto your lap, and began unpacking.
Juhoon noticed immediately that something was wrong. He didn't ask right away.
You were quieter than usual, and although your movements looked normal enough, there was something strangely deliberate about them. You took out your planner, your laptop and your notebook in the same order you always did, but you didn't make the little adjustments you usually made before settling in. Your water bottle remained untouched beside you. Your phone stayed face-down. Even your backpack, which usually ended up half-open beneath your chair, was zipped properly and pushed out of the way.
Then you pulled a sheet of paper from between the pages of your notebook and stared at it.
Juhoon watched your eyes move down the page once, then again. You folded it in half, unfolded it, read it a third time.
He went back to his book, though he wasn't really reading anymore.
A few minutes passed before you finally spoke. “I got my practice paper back.”
Juhoon looked up. “How did it go?”
You gave a small shrug. “Fine.”
The answer came too quickly. He waited.
You looked back down at the paper. “I got seventy-two.”
There was no reason for the number to sound like an apology.
Juhoon frowned slightly. “That's not bad.”
You laughed under your breath. “I know.”
Something about the way you said it made him close his book. You were still staring at the paper.
“I know it's not bad,” you repeated, quieter this time. “That's the stupid part.”
“It's a practice paper.”
“I know.”
“You have time to improve it.”
“I know.”
“You did well.”
“I know.”
Your voice cracked slightly on the last word, as you pressed your lips together and looked away.
Juhoon stayed silent.
For several seconds, neither of you moved. Then you exhaled shakily and dropped the paper onto the table. “I just thought I'd done better.”
There it was.
It wasn't really anger, and it wasn't disappointment in the grade itself. It was disappointment in yourself.
“I thought I'd finally gotten it right,” you continued, staring somewhere beyond the table. “I checked everything. I re-read it three times. I fixed the citations, I changed the introduction, I went through all my notes again because I thought there might be something I'd missed, and then I got it back and...” You swallowed. “Seventy-two.”
Juhoon's eyes moved to the paper. Then back to you. “You thought you'd done better.”
You nodded. “I thought I was finally getting somewhere.”
“You are.”
“It doesn't feel like it.”
Your fingers tightened around the edge of the paper. “I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.”
Juhoon was quiet for a moment, before reaching across the table and gently pulling the paper out of your hands before you could fold it again. “You're not doing anything wrong.”
You looked at him. “I got a seventy-two.”
“Yes.”
“That's average.”
“Yes.”
Your expression twisted. “Exactly.”
Juhoon set the paper down between you. “Y/N.”
Something in his voice made you stop. He didn't usually say your name like that…Not because it was particularly soft, but because he sounded certain.
“You need to listen to me for a minute.”
You blinked.
He held your gaze. “I've been watching you do this for weeks.”
You looked down. “Do what?”
“This.”
He gestured towards the paper, then towards the stacks of books surrounding your laptop.
“You get an assignment, and you immediately decide you have to do better than everyone else. You research until you know more than you actually need to know. You make a plan, then another one because the first one isn't good enough. You spend an hour trying to write one paragraph because you don't think the first version sounds intelligent enough. You look at one mistake and decide the entire thing must be bad.”
You were silent.
He continued, his voice calm but firmer than you'd ever heard it. “And when you finally do something well, you don't let yourself feel good about it because you're already thinking about how you could have done better.”
Your eyes stung as you looked away. “I don't do that.”
“You do.”
“I just want to do well.”
“And there's nothing wrong with that.” His answer came immediately. “But there's something wrong with thinking that anything less than perfect means you failed.”
You swallowed hard. “I just...” You rubbed at your eyes before the tears could fall. “I don't want to be mediocre.”
Juhoon's expression softened. “You're not.”
You shook your head. “You don't know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because I've seen you.”
The words were so simple that they hurt more than anything else could have.
Juhoon leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms against the edge of the table. “I've seen how much you work. I've seen how much you know. I've watched you explain things you thought you didn't understand. I've seen you spend hours trying to make something better when it was already good enough.”
His voice lowered. “You're not stupid.”
Your eyes finally met his.
“I know you're smart.”
The tears you'd been trying to hold back slipped free.
Juhoon didn't look away. “And you're allowed to get a seventy-two.”
You gave a small, broken laugh. “That sounds awful when you say it like that.”
“It isn't.”
“It feels awful.”
For a moment, he simply looked at you, then he reached across the table and pushed the practice paper a little farther away from you. “One grade doesn't decide how good you are.”
You wiped your cheek with the sleeve of your sweater. “But what if I keep getting average grades?”
“Then we'll figure out why.”
“We?”
His expression didn't change, but something warm flickered briefly in his eyes. “You don't have to figure everything out alone.”
The words settled between you, quiet and certain.
You looked down at your hands. “I just don't know how to stop doing this.”
“I understand.”
He said it so gently that your throat tightened again. “But you can start small.”
“How?”
“Stop trying to make everything perfect before you let yourself move forward.”
You nodded faintly.
“Write the bad first draft.”
You looked at him. “Bad?”
“Bad.”
A tiny smile appeared despite yourself. “And if it's terrible?”
“Then we'll fix it.”
“We?”
This time, his mouth curved properly. “You're very focused on that word.”
“Because you keep saying it.”
“Maybe I'm trying to make a point.”
You looked down again, and for the first time since you'd received the paper, the knot in your chest seemed to loosen.
Juhoon picked up his pen and turned his notebook back towards himself.
After a moment, he added quietly, “You don't have to earn the right to be proud of yourself.”
You went still.
He didn't look at you when he said it.
Maybe because he knew the words were enough.
Maybe because saying them directly had already required more courage than he'd expected.
Either way, you sat there for a long moment, staring at the boy across from you and wondering how someone you'd only known for a few weeks had somehow managed to understand a part of you that you'd spent years trying not to explain.
When your last exam finally ended, you walked out of the building with the strange, almost disorienting feeling that you had forgotten how to be a person who wasn't constantly working.
For the past several weeks, your life had been measured in deadlines. Lectures had blurred into study sessions, study sessions had stretched into late nights, and every time you finished one assignment, another had been waiting behind it like some particularly cruel game of academic whack-a-mole. Even your free time had somehow become productive. If you weren't studying, you were thinking about studying. If you weren't thinking about studying, you were feeling guilty for not studying.
Now, suddenly, there was nothing.
You stood on the steps outside the building, staring at the afternoon sky with your bag hanging loosely from one shoulder. “...What am I supposed to do now?”
Your friend, who had been celebrating beside you for the last five minutes, stared at you. “Enjoy your life?”
You frowned. “That sounds fake.”
“It's not fake.”
“It feels fake.”
“You're telling me you don't know how to have free time?”
“I don't remember the instructions.”
By the time you reached the library that afternoon, you had already decided that doing absolutely nothing for at least three hours was going to be your reward.
Unfortunately, Juhoon was already sitting at your usual table. He looked up when you approached, and his eyes immediately narrowed slightly. “You look suspicious.”
You dropped into the chair opposite him. “I'm free.”
He blinked. “That's what you're excited about?”
“Do you understand what this means?”
“No.”
“I have no deadlines.”
He considered that. “For how long?”
You paused. “...Don't ruin this for me.”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
You leaned back in your chair, stretching your arms above your head until your shoulders cracked. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“I can breathe.”
“You've been breathing.”
“Not emotionally.”
Juhoon shook his head and returned to his book.
You watched him for a moment before grinning. “You know what's weird?”
“What?”
“I don't have to study today.”
“Mhm.”
“I could go home.”
“Mhm.”
“I could watch something.”
“Mhm.”
“I could take a nap.”
“Mhm.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Are you even listening?”
“I'm listening.”
“You're not reacting.”
He looked up, and there was the faintest smile on his face. “You've been talking for three minutes.”
“And?”
“I'm impressed you haven't mentioned needing a schedule yet.”
You gasped. “I have changed.”
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“You've been here for less than five minutes.”
“...That's unrelated.”
The laughter that followed came easily, without either of you having to think about it.
It was strange, in a way, how ordinary it felt.
A month ago, you'd barely known his name.
Now, you could tell when he was amused by the barely-there curve of his mouth, knew something was wrong when he grew quieter than usual, and had learned exactly how he liked his books arranged on the table. You could even recognise the particular look he gave you whenever he realised you were about to make another questionable academic decision.
Somewhere along the way, the table had stopped being a place where two strangers happened to study. It had become yours.
The thought made something warm settle in your chest.
You looked down at your hands. “Hey, Juhoon?”
“Hm?”
Your voice was quieter when you spoke again. “Thank you.”
He looked up. “For what?”
You smiled faintly. “For... all of this.”
He seemed genuinely confused. “The library?”
You laughed. “No. You.”
His expression changed almost imperceptibly.
You picked at the edge of a sticky note on your notebook, suddenly finding it easier to look at that than at him. “I don't think I ever told you properly.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know.” You paused. “But I want to.”
He waited.
“You noticed me.”
His brow furrowed slightly.
“I mean it. You noticed things that I didn't even realise I was doing. You noticed when I was making things harder for myself. You noticed when I was spiralling over something that probably didn't matter. You...” You smiled to yourself. “You somehow knew when I needed someone to tell me to stop.”
Juhoon's gaze softened. “You would've figured it out.”
“Maybe eventually.”
“You would've.”
You shook your head. “Not like this.”
He was quiet for a moment before saying, “I didn't give you anything you didn't already have.”
You looked at him.
“You already knew how to do all of it. You just didn't trust yourself enough to believe it.”
Something about the simplicity of the statement made your chest tighten. You smiled. “You're really good at making things sound obvious.”
“They usually are.”
“That's an annoying quality.”
“I know.”
You laughed softly. Then, after a moment, you added, “Still... thank you for noticing.”
This time, Juhoon didn't immediately answer. His eyes stayed on you for a second longer than usual, and there was something in his expression you couldn't quite place. It wasn't quite amusement. It wasn't quite the calm attentiveness you'd grown accustomed to either.
Something softer.
Something that made you suddenly very aware of the fact that you were sitting across from him, close enough to see the faint reflection of the library lights in his glasses.
Eventually, he looked away. “You were hard not to notice.”
Your heart gave a strange little stumble. You opened your mouth…Then closed it.
Juhoon, apparently unaware of the effect his words had produced, picked up his pen.
You stared at him for another second before deciding that if you stayed quiet, you were going to make the moment far more awkward than it needed to be. “So...”
He glanced up.
“You know how you've been coming here every day because of that assignment?”
There it was, the perfect subject change.
Juhoon nodded. “…Yeah, the assignment.”
“How far along are you?”
He looked at you. “Pretty far.”
“Good.” You grinned, leaning back in your chair. “Because now that my exams are over, I can finally help you. You've been sitting here with that thing for weeks. What do you still have left?”
“Nothing.”
You blinked. “Nothing?”
He shook his head. “It's done.”
You frowned. “Done as in... almost done?”
“Done as in submitted.”
You stared at him. “When?”
Juhoon looked down at his notebook, completely calm. “Well…”
He turned a page. “I submitted it ages ago.”
You went completely still. “...What?”
He finally looked back at you. “I submitted it weeks ago.”
For a moment, you could only stare. Then your eyebrows drew together. “Wait.”
Juhoon waited.
“You've been coming here every single day.”
“Mhm.”
“For an assignment you finished weeks ago.”
“Yes.”
You looked at him suspiciously.
“But...” You laughed softly. “You had to stay back at the library for the reference books. Your assignment's been done for weeks, so why have you been coming here every day?”
“...Because you were.”
Juhoon went back to closing his notebook as though the answer were the most obvious thing in the world.
you've already learned how to keep moving forward after spending enough time untangling yourself from old feelings. you promised yourself you wouldn't keep returning to the same emotional patterns, and that's why he catches you off guard. at first, you can't even tell what you're feeling; one moment you're interested, the next you're questioning whether you're reading too much into it. the more you try to make sense of him, the more complicated it becomes, and somehow, that only makes you want to understand him more. before you realize it, you've fallen into the exact kind of emotional maze you swore you'd avoid again, and the most frustrating part is that you don't even want to find your way out.
