#jungwon x reader

[dearestevan]

hello Everyone. do u guys want to see them getting together written or no 😥😥 lemme know plz

written !!

just screenshots is ok

Remaining time: 23 hours 59 minutes

REPLAY - younger!yjw x older!reader smau

[dearestevan]

REPLAY : 13 meowing for a jett main

— ᨳଓ . In which Jungwon takes "age is just a number" a little too seriously and makes it his personal mission to get Jay’s best friend's best friend to like him back, even if she’s made it painfully clear that younger boys have never been, and never will be, her type.

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[heebunnii]

on the edge 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯

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.

[wonluvzu]

DON'T BLAME ME

(TEASER)

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ Two detectives who can't stand each other are forced to become partners when they're assigned to a high profile serial murder investigation in New York City. As dangerous missions, undercover operations, and late night stake outs force them to rely on one another, constant rivalry slowly turns into undeniable attraction. With a relentless killer always one step ahead, you and Jungwon must learn to trust each other before the case... and their feelings... consume them.

𝙙𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚! 𝙟𝙪𝙣𝙜𝙬𝙤𝙣 𝙭 𝙛𝙚𝙢! 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Coworkers to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Crime Thriller, Criminal Investigation, Mystery, Action, Undercover Missions, Chase Scenes, Late Night Stake outs, Constant Banter, Mutual Pining, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Instincts, Trust Issues, Near Death Experiences, Happy Ending. WARNINGS: Violence, Murder, Blood, Crime Scenes, Strong Language, Injuries, Kidnapping, Emotional Angst, Near Death Situations. MATURE THEMES (no specifics yet) wc:?? Songs 🎧: Animals - Maroon 5, run for the hills - Tate McRae, Mess It Up - Gracie Abrams, Don't Blame Me - Taylor Swift, House Of Balloons / Glass Table Girls - The Weeknd, Into It - Chase Atlantic, Dangerously - Charlie Puth, Maps - Maroon 5, Stitches - Shawn Mendes, Party Monster - The Weeknd

I never wanted Yang Jungwon as my partner. From the moment we met, we disagreed on everything. He was calm, patient, and followed every rule, while I trusted my instincts and wasn't afraid to take risks. Every case turned into a competition, every conversation into an argument, and every victory into another reason to challenge each other. Everyone at the district knew we couldn't be in the same room without bickering, and neither of us ever tried to prove them wrong.

Everything changed when we were assigned to lead one of the biggest criminal investigations New York City had ever seen. The case was unlike anything we'd faced before, pushing us into dangerous undercover operations, intense interrogations, high speed chases, and countless late night stake outs. Every lead came with another risk, and every decision could mean the difference between saving a life or losing one. No matter how much we drove each other insane, there was no one else I trusted more when things went wrong.

Somewhere between solving cases and surviving life threatening situations, the line between rivalry and something more began to blur. Every lingering glance, accidental touch, and moment spent watching each other's backs chipped away at the walls we'd built around ourselves. We buried our feelings beneath sarcasm, stubbornness, and endless arguments, pretending the tension between us didn't exist even when it became impossible to ignore.

As the investigation spiraled into something far more personal and dangerous than either of us expected, Jungwon and I were forced to confront not only the truth behind the case but also the truth we'd been avoiding about each other. Trust didn't come easily, and neither did love, but somewhere in the middle of the chaos, I realized the person who challenged me the most had become the one I couldn't bear to lose. Now, with everything on the line, we'll have to put aside our differences, face our fears, and work together if we want to make it out alive... and finally admit that the person who drives me absolutely insane is also the one who's stolen my heart.

I was just listening to music and thought of a detective scenario 😛

Hopefully I can deliver the story well, as my thoughts were!

This is a bit different from the last two fics I did, so hopefully you are excited!!

wonluvzu taglist ;)

@royallycraftyimp @iiunique @nishimoona @yfyftd @iriskisser @aeinthe-void

[milestoone]

LOST ON YOU (1/2)

SUMMARY: Call it delusion, but you have always believed that there was something between you and Jungwon. Or, you mistake friendliness for feelings and spend your last semester of university learning the difference.

WARNINGS: f!reader, unrequited feelings, one-sided pining, fluff, angst, heartbreak, eventual happy ending WC: 6.7k - MASTERLIST

A/N: enjoy reading! i rly tried my best to convey the feelings accurately bc we've all been there amirite (⓿_⓿)

---

The lecture hall is stuffy.

Winter has finally given up its hold, the last patches of snow melting into the grass outside as spring slowly settles over campus and temperatures climb well above freezing. You adjust the sleeves of your shirt, already too warm, scanning the rows of seats and sighing.

Clearly you are the only person who has caught on to the fact that big, puffy jackets are no longer necessary. Everyone else seems intent on carrying winter with them a little longer.

Around you is a blur of muted colours and somewhat familiar faces, the other students wearing thick coats and wool scarves and yet, amongst them all, you’re always able to pick out your favourite. It’s nothing special– a black bomber– but it has never been the jacket that catches your eye, not necessarily; it’s the person wearing it. 

You’ve known Yang Jungwon since the first semester of your first year at university.

Back then, a boy named Jake was nothing more than your assigned partner for a chemistry lab, but slowly, he became one of your closest friends. And unlike most other first-years, he’d opted out of rooming in the university residence, choosing instead to rent a small three-bedroom apartment just off campus with two guys he’d known since high school. When he invited you over for the first time, you were expecting nothing more than a quiet evening spent studying for a midterm together.

What you had absolutely no idea would happen, however, was that you would end up meeting the person who would completely occupy your every thought for the next three years.

Your phone buzzes in your lap. 

jungwon: where are you??? i saved you a seat

you: look behind you silly

You watch as Jungwon tilts his head back, eyes sweeping across the lecture hall for a few seconds before finally landing on you. The moment he sees you, a smirk pulls at his lips, and he nods toward the empty seat to his side.

It’s almost embarrassing, you think, the way your body moves on its own, already gathering your lecture notebooks and shoving your pens back into your bag. You make your way down the steps two at a time, stumbling over backpacks and outstretched legs, trying to rein in the eager expression tugging at your face, but to no avail.

“Finally,” he whispers, nudging his knee against yours softly. “I thought you abandoned me.”

There’s a teasing glint in your eyes as you glance over at him and feign thoughtfulness. “Well, I was thinking about it.”

He lets out a chuckle, shaking his head as he focuses back to the front of the room, where the professor is getting ready to start the lesson. “Liar,” he mumbles under his breath.

You grin. He’s right, you’d never do that. And even though you should turn to the front too, you let your gaze linger on his features for a moment longer. The curve of his nose, the sparkle in his eyes, the small birthmark at the bottom of his jaw... You’ve memorized these details, traced them so many times in your mind that they feel permanently etched there. 

But if you were smarter, you’d realize that just because you can predict the way his smile will form before it reaches his lips, it doesn’t guarantee that he can do the same for you. 

—

“And then he nudged my knee! when I tell you–”

A squeal cuts you off. “He what?!” Yunjin practically launches herself upright on the couch, eyes widening. “I’ve been saying that he likes you.” 

As your roommate and best friend, she has been by your side throughout what you guys have jokingly started calling the Jungwon Saga since day one. She was there when you got back to your dorm in first year, rambling about the cute boy Jake lives with, and she was there when you embarrassingly spent an entire evening analyzing the meaning behind a good luck text before your first final exam. Yet perhaps most importantly, she’s always there to tell you that you aren’t imagining things.

Not that you need much convincing. You pride yourself on the fact that you’re pretty good at reading body language and gauging the signs someone might give off. After all, you can always tell when one of your friends has a crush. You notice how their eyes track the person a little too long, the way their voice changes when they talk about them, how they somehow always end up bringing them into every conversation despite there being zero correlation.

It’s obvious because it's almost exactly what you do with Jungwon. 

“I’m serious,” she insists, watching the flush on your cheeks grow. “You cannot tell me you don’t see it after all this time.”

You laugh as you tuck your legs beneath you on the couch. “I mean... I’d like to think he likes me too,” you give her a pointed look, “but it’s not like he’s actually done anything about it.”

Though humbling to admit, not once has Jungwon actually made a move on you. And as much as you can sit here and list every little thing he’s done that makes you believe there are underlying feelings, you know there is one thing you don’t have. A confirmation, in words. What was that famous phrase going around on social media? If he wanted to, he would? Something like that. So far, he hasn’t done the ‘would’ part, which is a bummer, but there are still so many other hints that point to some sort of romantic inclination that you choose to ignore what the relationship gurus on TikTok say. 

“Okay, but still,” your friend says, waving her hand dismissively. “The year isn’t over.” 

“Hm?” You raise an eyebrow.

“I’m mean,” leaning forward, her hands coming to rest on your shoulders. “Maybe he’s just waiting for the right moment.” 

“The right moment?”

“Yeah! Think about it: you’re in the final semester of your final year, lots of work and studying to do. He’s probably aware of the fact that you are stressed and wants to make sure he doesn’t add to it.”

“I bet,” she continues, raising a finger, “maybe he’ll ask you out after graduation. You know, when things calm down.”

You tilt your head, considering it.

One thing you’ve noticed about Jungwon is that he is extremely thoughtful, always taking his time to consider how his actions might affect other people. So perhaps Yunjin is right, to some degree. Then, because there’s only so long you can spend dissecting your (lack of) love life before remembering you have actual responsibilities, you glance toward the kitchen. “Anyway,” you say, pushing yourself off the couch, “what do you want for dinner?”

Yunjin blinks. “What do we have?”

“Well…I kinda forgot to go grocery shopping, so our options are pretty slim pickings right now.”

Grabbing her phone, she opens the local food delivery app. “Order in?”

-

So after consuming an amount of pizza that must not be voiced aloud, you eventually decide that moving to your bed is a battle you are no longer willing to fight. By the time you’ve showered, changed into your pyjamas, and completed your nightly routine, the apartment has gone quiet. Settling into your bedsheets, you scroll on your phone, catching up on missed messages you’d forgotten to reply to throughout the day. 

You’re halfway through watching an Instagram reel your friend Sunghoon sent when your phone vibrates in your hand; a new notification blooming at the top of your screen. Your eyes flick up toward the same of the sender, and your heart does a heavy, traitorous thud in your chest. 

jungwon: hey, i think you’d like this song!

Quickly, you click the link to the song, and within seconds, you’re smiling and rolling around your bed in giddy excitement. The minute it ends, you replay the song from the beginning, letting the melody fill the quiet of your room as you stare at the little message bubble above it. 

He heard this and thought of you! Out of everyone he could have sent it to, he chose to send it to you!

As cringe as it may be, you take a screenshot of the text and open your chat with Yunjin. She may be in the room next to yours, and definitely awake, but you’re so comfortable there’s no way you’re getting up. Just as you’re about to press send, your phone buzzes again, and it’s another message from Jungwon, but this time, it’s not a private message. Rather, it’s sent to the group chat you have with him and Jake, and some more university friends. 

jungwon: guys this song is a banger and a half 

Below that is the exact song he sent you.

Okay… so you guess it isn’t the cute shared moment between the two of you that you thought it was, but he sent it to you first, so that should mean something at the very least. You try not to let the disappointment lodge itself in your throat as you switch back to your private chat with him, and like the message. 

—

You might honestly have a heart attack.

Seated across from you, Jungwon has his head buried in a textbook, one hand lazily playing with the edge of the page while the other scribbles notes into the margin. He’s wearing a black beanie pulled low over his forehead, a plain black t-shirt, and grey sweatpants. Altogether, it might just be, and this is objectively speaking, the single most lethal clothing combination a man can put together, and it takes everything in you not to spend the whole studying session checking him out— a Herculean task, really.

To your left, Jake is meticulously making flashcards for the upcoming midterm, mumbling definitions under his breath (you know he’ll ask you to quiz him on them later), and on your right, Jay is asleep, to nobody’s surprise. This is how your afternoons usually go: after dying of boredom in a lecture, the four of you, or whoever else you share a class with, move to the campus library to do extra reading and review any new information.

“Yo,” Jake says suddenly, not bothering to look up from the stack of flashcards in his hands. “Y’all going to that party on Saturday? I think it’s at Yeonjun’s.”

You'd already been invited by the man himself the last time you ran into him, though you hadn't exactly been counting down the days. Loud music, sticky floors, and squeezing through a house shoulder to shoulder with strangers weren’t usually included in your idea of a good time. Still, Yunjin had made it abundantly clear that she intended to go, and after nearly four years of knowing each other, you'd learned a very important lesson: What Yunjin wants, Yunjin gets. 

“Yeah,” you shrug. “I’ll probably be there.” 

At that, Jungwon’s head lifts as he looks at you. “You’re going?”

“Mhm.”

He hums once, absentmindedly, then looks back down at his notes. “I’ll go too.”

Biting the inside of your cheek, you force yourself to look anywhere but him to avoid getting caught cheesing. You totally influenced his decision! It’s times like this when you’re 100% convinced he likes you. Like who would say that if they weren’t interested? You’re not complaining. Plus, if he wasn’t going to go, your already non-existent motivation would have dropped tenfold. Perhaps with a little bit of alcohol in the system...

The right end of the table wobbles as Jay stirs, peeling his cheek off the textbook he'd been using as a pillow. There's a deep, blotchy imprint pressed into his skin where the pages had folded beneath him.

You burst out laughing before you can stop yourself, slapping a hand over your mouth, eyes wide as you try to smother the noise (rookie mistakes). A few heads turn from nearby tables, searching for the source of the disruption.

“Are you going to go?” You whisper once you've composed yourself.

From the corner of your eye, you see Jake’s cheeks puff up with air as he, too, tries his very best to hold in his laughter. 

“I’m too tired to make a decision right now,” Jay grumbles back, dragging his hands through his hair. It makes you roll your eyes. That’s code for ‘No, unless there is weed.’

From under the table, you feel something pushing against the front of your calf, and your gaze flits over to Jungwon, who’s leaning a bit further back in his chair, peering at you with one eyebrow raised. Wordlessly, he looks at Jay and gives you a look, and you know immediately that he’s thinking exactly what you are.

“I’m pretty sure Yeonjun’s plug will be making an appearance.” He coughs behind a fist, and Jay sits up so quickly you’d think he’s been possessed. 

“Heeseung? No way. I thought he transferred.” The fact that that is what gets Jay to be the most alert he’s been since entering the library…

“He did, but he’ll never turn down a party.” 

—

Said party is already well underway when you step through the front door of Yeonjun’s place. 

It has been propped open to let in the cool spring air, though it does very little to combat the heat trapped inside, and it makes you feel bad for the neighbours, who are undoubtedly debating whether or not they should call the cops with a noise complaint. Music spills out from somewhere deeper in the house, loud enough that the bass rattles faintly beneath your feet as you step over the piles of abandoned shoes and get past clusters of people gathered in the entryway. The living room is stuffed full of students from every faculty imaginable, many of whom you vaguely recognize just from walking around campus, or the dining hall from first year.

"I told you we'd be late," Yunjin yells back to you as she catches your wrist, weaving the two of you through the crowd before you lose each other. "If we'd left forty minutes earlier, we wouldn't have to fight for our lives like this just to get inside."

You laugh, nearly bumping into someone. "This is your fault. You wanted to pre-game for an hour before coming.”

“Yeah, yeah, but imagine arriving here sober? I’d probably turn right back around.”

A fake scoff escapes you, and she lets go of your hand, looping her arm through yours as the two of you finally emerge into a slightly less crowded corner of the room. The drinks table has already been picked over by the time you reach it, with only a few bottles of cheap liquor and beer sitting scattered amongst half-empty bags of chips and melting ice. You settle for a random bottle of gin and what’s left of the tonic. 

"There you are!"

You turn to find Kazuha and Chaewon making their way through the crowd, each carrying drinks of their own, and it takes no time to get comfortable with them. Along with Yunjin, they round out your closest friend group. The four of you quickly fall into conversation, joking about the horrific midterms and about the potential ‘prospects’ at the party. Chaewon is eyeing some guy in a wifebeater, and you suppress the urge to gag at his outfit choice.

Every few minutes, someone new comes by to say hi and hug you all before going back to their little party group, and despite originally not wanting to come that much, you can’t deny that you’re having a good time. 

Yet, your eyes seem to have a mind of their own, because they keep drifting toward the direction of the entrance, hoping to catch sight of Jungwon or at least one of the other guys, since you know that once you see one of them, the rest aren’t far behind. Before your focus shifts back to your friends, a wave of loud cheering rolls through the room. Even from another part of the house, you can easily pick out his laugh first. 

Not long after, the boys filter in, Jake animatedly telling some story that has Sunghoon and Riki cackling, while Jay trails behind with his hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. Following him is Sunoo, and beside him is, of course, Jungwon.

It takes him less than a second to spot you and your friends, his face brightening immediately as he pushes through some students to greet you. 

"There she is," he says warmly as he reaches you, slinging an arm around your shoulders, and pulling you briefly into his side. “You made it.”

Your heart flutters so violently it almost distracts you from the fact that, a moment later, he lets you go and turns to Kazuha, greeting her with the same easy side hug. Then Chaewon. Then Yunjin, his smile never changing. After him, Jake, Sunghoon and Niki come and give you hugs of their own, while Sunoo waves and Jay, well, Jay has already vanished, presumably in search of Heeseung. 

"Good to see you guys," Jungwon says, looking between all of you. "I'm gonna go steal some drinks before they're all gone." 

“Pretty sure they already are,” Chaewon snorts. He laughs, disappearing back into the crowd, and the second he’s out of sight, three pairs of eyes swivel and land on you. You give them a warning look as their eyebrows wiggle in unison, trying your best to wordlessly point out the very important fact that his friends are still standing with you.

Choosing not to indulge them, you deliberately turn your body to the left, starting up a conversation with Sunoo and Sunghoon. Before long, you're laughing again, the conversation having drifted between upcoming finals, summer plans, and the general excitement of graduating. At this point, ten or so minutes have passed, and you secretly wonder where your favourite boy is. Luckily for you, the next time you glance away, you spot him. 

Jungwon has a cup in one hand and appears to be making his way back when someone reaches out, fingers wrapping gently around his forearm to stop him. A girl you don’t think you’ve ever seen before stands on the tips of her toes, and she leans in to say something you can't quite make out from where you’re standing. He pauses immediately, turning his body downward and moving his face close to hers. Oh?

Knowing it’s probably nothing, your own attention returns to whatever ridiculous story Sunoo has now moved on to. He’ll be back soon. 

But time passes faster than you realize. "We're gonna move to the sunroom," Kazuha announces suddenly, gesturing toward the hallway. "It's impossible to hear anyone in here." 

And as your group makes their way to the new spot, your movements pause for a brief second when you see Jungwon is still talking to the same girl. She’s speaking, both hands moving as she speaks, and he’s listening attentively. They look completely absorbed in each other, standing very close together as they converse. And although you may like him, you would never stoop so low as to interrupt or join them, as much as the urge is there. It isn’t your place to swoop in and attempt to mark your territory, so you continue on.

A few hours later, it's clear everyone has hit their limit. Between the dancing, the socializing, and getting dragged into games you barely understand the rules of, your social battery is well and truly dead. So it's no surprise that the second someone floats the idea of leaving, it's met with unanimous approval. "I am starving," Riki groans dramatically, clutching his stomach.

"I vote convenience store," Jake pipes up. "I'm craving instant ramen."

"Nah," Jay counters. He came and found you guys a while ago, having wandered off to find Heeseung, and if his eyes are anything to go by, he definitely found more than just his friend. "Ice cream."

"It's three in the morning."

"I’m high."

Nobody can really argue with that. Within the next few minutes, everyone has managed to find their shoes and sweaters, put them on, and exit onto the street. Even Jungwon, who had been AWOL practically the entire night, appears. The difference in temperature from when you arrived versus now hits you right away, and you instinctively pull your sleeves over your hands as you step onto the sidewalk.

The walk to the convenience store isn't long, though it takes nearly twice the time as it probably should, due to the collective effect of the night's… substances. Jungwon remains a few paces behind the rest of the group as you make your way over.

His head is tilted toward his phone, thumbs moving quickly across the screen as the glow of a notification lights up his face every few seconds. He doesn't seem to notice that the distance between himself and everyone else has slowly grown when he smiles faintly at whatever he’s reading before typing something else, and you wonder who he's texting. Whoever it is, he manages to catch up again by the time everyone reaches the convenience store.

Twenty minutes later, you’ve migrated to the small park a block away, planting yourselves around a weathered wooden bench. Riki, Sunghoon and Jake sit on the grass despite the cold, while the rest of you perch on the backrest or sit properly. Wrappers begin stacking up in the middle as everyone steals bites from one another's snacks. You barely notice Jungwon has gone quiet until Riki suddenly points at him with a mouthful of chips. “Dude. Who are you texting?”

Looking up, and maybe shy from the sudden attention, the other boy quickly shuts off his phone, turning the screen over against his thigh before slipping it into the pocket of his hoodie. “No one.”

The younger one’s eyes narrow. “I’m calling cap.” 

“Whatever, bro.”

He doesn't touch his phone for the rest of the night, but you can tell he wants to.

—

The weeks continue on much the same, except something feels... different.

Initially, you can't quite put your finger on it. After all, nothing has changed in any obvious way. You still see Jungwon at group hangouts, you still exchange the occasional text, and he still talks and jokes around the way he always does. But at the same time, you’re no idiot. You’ve been in love with the guy for quite a while now, over-analyzing his every move, so it would be stupid for you, of all people, to not notice even the slightest shift in behaviour.

Evidence #1: He’s begun skipping lectures.

Now, Jungwon isn’t exactly the type to colour code his notes or chase extra credit opportunities, but he does take his studies seriously. He stays on top of assignments, shows up to class, and rarely falls behind. He wouldn't miss a lecture unless he was genuinely sick or something important had come up. Which is why seeing the seat beside you remain empty for an entire hour and a half without receiving a single text, makes zero sense. It’s just one time, though, so you don’t need to worry about it too much. 

But when it happens again, just one week later, you begin to question things. You don’t know if it’s your place to text him, or not. Unfortunately, one of the things that comes along with liking someone is the inability to be casual about literally anything. With him, you tend to overthink even sending a quick message, because what if he doesn’t reply? Or what if he does reply, but it’s super dry? Either way, you’d feel bad. Ultimately, you choose not to text him.

If he wanted to keep you in the loop, he’d do it himself. 

"You know where Jungwon's been lately?" you ask Jake one afternoon as the two of you walk out of your advanced analytical chemistry lab together, your backpacks slung over one shoulder.

He shrugs. "Not really. I think he's just been hanging out with some other friends recently."

“Oh.” There's a brief pause before you nudge his arm. "Well, tell him he can't disappear forever. We have one of our last miderms coming up and it's worth like thirty percent of our final grade." 

“Trust me,” your friend says, “he knows. I’ve been on his ass about it for ages.”

Evidence #2: He no longer keeps his word.

And that evening, after putting it off for nearly an hour because you don't want to seem like a desperate loser, you finally cave and open your messages.

you: heyyy wanna study together tomorrow? 

It doesn't take long for his reply to come through.

jungwon: yes i would love to :)) let's do our usual spot at 3pm

You blow out a breath of relief, a soft smile gracing your features. Maybe you were truly going crazy. He has a life, and though you’d love to be privy to more parts of it, you aren’t, but at least you have this. 

The next afternoon, you arrive at your usual table in the library ten minutes early.

In first year, the two of you found it, tucked into the far corner beside the windows, hidden just enough from the rest of the floor that nobody else ever seems to claim it, and ever since then, it’s become the study location. You spread your notes across the surface and take your laptop out of your bag, arranging everything exactly how you like it, and while you wait, you start studying. 

Truthfully, you don't even realize he hasn't shown up until nearly thirty minutes have passed. You've been too busy reconstructing proteins on Py-Mol to bother checking the time, your fingers typing away on the keyboard as you add more beta sheets. It's only when you finally glance at the clock hanging on the wall that your stomach sinks.

Huh. That’s… unlike him. 

You expect him to show up soon, stumbling in, apologizing for his tardiness, anything, really. You don’t expect for an entire hour to pass, then another, and another. With each minute that slips by, the knot in your chest ties itself a little tighter. The rational thing would be to send another message, like hey, are you still coming?  But the longer you wait, the more humiliating the idea becomes. If he forgot, reminding him would only make you feel worse, since you wouldn't want him to rush over, and if he didn't, well, then you'll have your answer anyway. 

Drowning in the embarrassment for having been stood up on a study session of all things, your thumb presses his contact until the mute notifications option appears. You don’t know why you do it. Perhaps the only explanation is to help silence your growing anxiety, your growing dread. 

You flip your phone over, set it down beside your pencil case, and compel yourself to look back down at your notes. 

Evidence #3: When you do interact, he gives you nothing. 

You’re trying your hardest to give Jungwon the benefit of the doubt, since it’s only fair. People get busy, plans can change, you know that. You aren't some unreasonable person who expects Jungwon to drop everything the second you ask to spend time together. It’s not like you need to be his first priority– you don't even need to be close to the top of the list– but a small part of you thinks that if he cared even the slightest amount about your feelings, then he would try. 

The next time you see him is a few days later in the Enzyme Chemistry & Biocatalysis course. Like always, as you’ve been finding lately, you notice him before he does you. Regardless of the fact that he ditched you in the library, you refuse to be petty, save him the seat beside you, and when he sits down next to you, you smile. “Hey.”

“Hi,” he replies, pulling out his notebook. You brace yourself for his apology, ready to wave it off and move past it, but then, to your shock, neither of you speak. In fact, minutes pass without a single word exchanged. You’ve never felt so awkward around him before. 

“So…” you begin in an effort to break the weird atmosphere, shifting in your place, “you never came to the library the other day.”

“Oh, oops”

Breathing out, “Yeah, I waited for a while."

Jungwon exhales, leaning back slightly in his chair. "yeah, sorry. Something came up."

Your nose scrunches at how thin that sounds, at how much more you feel like you deserve. "Okay.” The word comes out slowly, although you do your best to keep your voice light. "I get that. I just wish you had texted me or something."

He looks like you from the corner of his eye, not even bothering to turn his head fully. Then, “alright, my bad.”

You force out a nod, just to end the conversation, before turning back toward the front of the classroom just as the professor begins setting up the lecture slides. The words on the screen blur together as you attempt to focus, but your mind keeps replaying the interaction over and over again. Was it too much to expect a proper apology? You can’t help but think that the Jungwon of five months ago would've handled this differently.

The rest of the lecture passes in silence.

Usually, you and Jungwon walk out together afterward to go to the library or cafe. Today, you pack your bag and leave without sparing him a glance. 

At night, you lie awake staring at the ceiling, hating how much power one person has over your emotions. It makes you want to shake yourself. You’re about to graduate from university, for crying out loud! You’re not some high schooler anymore; shit like this shouldn’t get to you, but it does. 

When you interact with him, your entire day brightens. The bare minimum, like one joke, one smile, or one small gesture, and suddenly you feel euphoric. But when he feels distant or doesn’t seem to pay you any attention, it ruins everything. Today, your entire mood hinged on a conversation that lasted less than ten seconds.

Less than ten seconds!

You turn onto your side, pulling your blanket closer, your phone sitting untouched on your nightstand as your mind wanders off to a place it’s never dared to explore. Have you just been imagining it all, him pulling away and acting differently? It’s as if something between the two of you has shifted. Or it could be that there was nothing there to begin with. 

The thought is painful enough that you instantly try to push it away, but once it appears, you can't seem to get rid of it.

Did Jungwon ever actually like you? Because when you like someone, you want to spend time with them, you look for excuses to talk to them, you notice when they're gone, you make an effort.

You have spent years convincing yourself that there was this thing between the two of you. The shared moments, lingering glances, casual touches, inside jokes. You have replayed conversations so many times that you could probably recite his own words back to him. It couldn't all have been nothing, right? There's no way.

A realization settles somewhere deep in your chest, heavy and uncomfortable. 

Frustratingly, your eyes begin to burn. You squeeze them shut, willing the tears away before they have the chance to fall. 

—

Along with the last weeks of the semester, comes a resolve. A resolve to get over him. To enjoy the little time you have left of university and allow yourself to exist without Yang Jungwon taking up so much space in your life.

At first, it's liberating. You hadn't realized how much energy you'd been pouring into thinking about him until you finally stopped. Now, you can hang out with your friends without being that one person who can't stop bringing up some guy, and your friendships are better for it. The version of you from first, second, or even third year would never have believed you could go nearly a month without talking to Jungwon. And yet here you are, deep in your fourth-year glory, proving it's possible after all.

For a while, you believe that this is it, that getting over him wouldn’t be nearly as hard as you anticipated it would be. Except, faintly, in a hidden corner in the deepest, darkest crevices of your heart, you note that he hasn’t even tried on his end of the friendship. He hasn’t cared to reach out to you, only interacting in the shared group chat. And while you do see him attending group hangouts, he’s really only there physically, and even then, sometimes he’ll leave early or just stay to the side, too busy being preoccupied with his phone. Has he always been like this, and you just chose not to see it? Were you always the one initiating things? You'd like to think not, but honestly, you don't know anymore.

The only two times his name appears on your phone for the rest of the school year are when he needs something.

jungwon: hey do you have the notes from yesterday's lecture? couldn’t make it to class today

And because old habits die hard, you send them over. The second time, however, you find yourself hesitating. 

jungwon: missed another lecture sry. notes??

His audacity should be studied, you surmise. You don’t owe him anything! 

you: no sorry, come to class next time

jungwon: alr i’ll just ask jake then

you: kk

As hapless as it may be, not a single ounce of guilt courses through your veins. You’re past the point of deluding yourself that he likes you based on some arbitrary interactions, and you’re no longer going to try to get him to like you by doing random tasks that, in any other world, he wouldn’t need help with.

During the last group get-together of the semester before finals, your friends notice the change. Yunjin’s eyes flick between you and Jungwon as she takes a sip of her drink, brows furrowed in confusion. “Are you seriously not even going to say hi?”

Shaking your head, you look around the room “Nah, we’ve already waved eachother.”

That earns you a suspicious look. "Okay...?"

You chuckle, bringing your hand up to pat her shoulder. "Yunjin, I'm fine."

She doesn't look completely convinced, and neither do Chaewon and Kazuha once they clock it too. Throughout the night, they keep trying, doing things like trying to casually suggest getting another drink from the kitchen when Jungwon is there, or steering the conversation toward wherever he’s sitting. You’re on the receiving end of increasingly unsubtle looks every time he walks past, your friends essentially begging you to make a move, though to no success.

—

The final nail in the coffin is the night before graduation, on a walk down the same streets you’ve walked thousands of times. 

There is something oddly comforting in it, knowing that soon enough these familiar paths will no longer be part of your daily routine, that the late night visits to the convenience store and the early morning gym sessions before campus grows crowded will fade into memory. Everything feels a little more sentimental now, pulled down by the knowledge that tomorrow marks the end of this particular chapter of your life.

Jake walks beside you as the two of you take your last late night walk as university students, reminiscing about the memories made over the years: some of them silly, some surprisingly tender. He has always been your safe space, a friend who has never once judged you for anything, and maybe that's why the confession slips out so easily.

“Jake?”

“Hm?”

You stare below at the pavement beneath your feet, watching your shoes move with each step. "You know I've had the biggest crush on Jungwon for the longest time, right?" 

After a small pause, "yeah," he says quietly, "I know." 

"Ugh, I honestly thought something was going to happen this year." 

"I don't know why,” you continue, “I think I had some wild delusion that after all these years of knowing each other, something would eventually change." You laugh self-deprecatingly, "Obviously not." 

To you right, Jake doesn’t laugh. Instead, he looks ahead, his expression thoughtful. "For a while I thought he liked you too.”

Your steps falter. “What?”

He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly looking uncomfortable. "Like, there were moments where I was pretty sure. The way he acted around you sometimes..." 

You kick lightly at a loose pebble on the sidewalk; it skitters ahead. "Yeah, well, whatever he felt for me wasn't romantic."

It is at this moment that Jake turns to face you fully, and the expression that paints his features has your lips pursing in immediate suspicion. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Hearing him say your name so gently is enough to send your stomach twisting into nervous knots. With the hesitation lacing his voice and his obvious refusal to meet your eyes, you feel as though you already know what's to come. “I’m sorry I’m the one telling you this.”

“Telling me what?”

Jake looks genuinely upset. “Jungwon has a girlfriend now.”

At first you don’t react, not because you don't understand what he means, but because your brain seems to reject the information before it can fully settle. You had spent this entire semester slowly coming to terms with the fact that Jungwon probably didn't see you the way you saw him, and that was fine. You were able to accept that him not returning your feelings wasn’t going to ruin your life, and that once you let go of any expectations, the ache would eventually fade. But this is different.

Knowing he doesn't like you is one thing. Knowing he likes someone else is another.

The world around you continues moving, completely unaware that something inside you just broke. You hope it’s not your heart. 

“Who?” Your voice cracks.

Hesitating again, Jake watches you carefully, reluctant to cause you any more pain. "I think they met at Yeonjun's party." 

Ah. 

He doesn’t need to explain any further; your mind has already filled in the blanks. She’s the girl who grabbed Jungwon's arm when he came back with drinks, the one he was talking to for the rest of the night while you waited for him to come back to your group. The girl he had been texting when everyone went out for snacks after the party, who somehow became more important than the lectures he stopped showing up to, more important than spending quality time with his friends, and evidently, you.

All of a sudden, everything makes sense. 

You feel the familiar sting growing behind your eyes and let out a small, broken laugh that doesn't sound like you at all. "This is so embarrassing," you whisper, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to bury your face in both hands.

The tears come quickly after that, and you hate how easily they fall, hate that after all this time, after convincing yourself you were finally moving on, you were just lying to yourself. You don't want Jake to see you like this, not over something that feels so foolish and immature, but you're only human, and you wear your emotions like a badge.

"Hey," he says tenderly from beside you. Your friend’s hand settle against your back, rubbing slowly as he tries to offer as much comfort as he can. His voice is soft when he speaks again. "It's not embarrassing, okay? I promise it's not." 

Still, the reassurance only serves to tighten your throat more. Your voice is muffled behind your hands when you choke out, "It just hurts so much.”

And Jungwon having a girlfriend somehow isn’t even the worst part of this revelation. It is the realization that for almost four whole years, you carried around this hope that maybe one day he’d finally make a move, and yeah, he was making moves, just not on you.

You can’t stop your thoughts as they spiral, searching through every possible version of events, every moment where you wonder if you could have done something differently. What if you had told him in first year? What if you had been more obvious? What if you met him at that party, instead of her? What if, what if, what if. 

"I'm so stupid," you rasp, shaking.

Jake immediately shakes his head, squeezing your shoulder. "No, you're not."

Out of all the emotions crowding your chest right now, you’re surprised to find that anger isnt one of them. It couldnt be. Jungwon never promised you anything, or intentionally gave you false hope.

He was kind to you, he cared about you, and he treated you like a friend. The problem was that you took every small act of kindness and every moment of platonic intimacy and built them into something bigger because you wanted them to mean more, despite them not having that deeper message you seeked. And when you broke through that façade and saw his actions for what they really were, you didn’t know what to think. He didn’t start hating you or ignoring you on purpose; he just got a girlfriend. 

You wish you could go back to first year and tell yourself not to bother, because now, with graduation only a day away, all you can think about is how much time you lost on him.

---

A/N: there will be a part two!! i split it bc there will be a time skip, and i didn't feel it meshed well all in one fic. i will keep the taglist the same for pt2 but please comment if you want to be added! comments & reblogs are always appreciated :)

taglist @mariwon @boundlesselixirflux @periwinkleandtwilight @kkuroumi @sievenderz @bestboileeknow @won1yoiz @cinnawons @lotusglowii @human1errorth1ngs @dollhoonie @jakey1115 @raevyl

[dearestevan]

REPLAY : 12 shade sunghoon party

— ᨳଓ . In which Jungwon takes "age is just a number" a little too seriously and makes it his personal mission to get Jay’s best friend's best friend to like him back, even if she’s made it painfully clear that younger boys have never been, and never will be, her type.

TW: mentions of past grooming, emotional abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, unhealthy relationship dynamics, age-gap relationship (minor/adult)

please read at your own risk :)

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT

taglist 1 (50/50) — @heelariously @chanceonceli @beamyniki @jakhoon @wonsmommy @cigsaftermiaa @m-hypen @woninlove @justpassingdontworry @saewaes @xolaufeyberry @meikstv @aresverlac @rautfleii @ly1ro @foreveronez @cosm1cgarbag3 @apriglw @nishihyun @serenelypulsingheretic @eternalpuppetremnant @fleumurr @evxnsbae @theothernads @jaerisdiction @simplyangelixa @megamatt43 @boundlesselixirflux @hsbae @letwiiparkjay @firstclassjaylee @seyoungiesleeps @parkinghoon @amivine @jwoniq @lilllslayswanderwoodsan @dollhoonie @tenaciousfamiliarphilosopher @aphantassia @just-agirl-lol @kaustraphobic @saaaaaaaai @lilyhaslowiron @ladybugjin @yurilover249 @oreomuncher4life @yethoughts @ikeu05 @dina-10s-blog @luv4dani @keylawnduh

[wonnes]

i’m working on iwby after lowk forgetting abt it for a week 😓😓

[strwbwonhee]

❀ fanfic recommendations - fanfics i’ve read & love ❀

disclaimer !! none of these works contain smut !! this is also targeted towards readers who like longer fics, although it contains some shorter ones as well :3 - fawn (@strwbwonie)

ENHYPEN .ᐟ

⊹ safe & sound - @thatfeelinwhenyou 142k | dystopian, post apocalyptic, angst, slow burn romance side plot

⊹ I like my coffee with you - @yoursinink 12k | idol!jungwon x barista!reader

⊹ secrets - @theothernads 21k+ | boxer!jungwon x fem!rich!reader, fluff + angst

⊹ every side of tenderness - @nephynes 4k | mute!prince!sunghoon x reader, marriage, some angst, sign language

BOYNEXTDOOR .ᐟ

⊹ your lips, my lips, apocalypse - @dat-town 5.9k | biker!leehan x reader, brothers rival trope, illegal motorbike racing au

⊹ the earth is just a star, and she becomes my entire world - @mwotgata 18.4k | leehan x reader, forbidden love, rival gangs (inspired by west side story)

⊹ language of quiet hearts - @hancorys 9.5k | leehan x reader, slow burn, fluff, strangers to lovers, school romance

⊹ lightphobia - @coriihanniee 59.2k | leehan x reader, forbidden love, romance, thriller, slow burn, heavy angst, hurt + minimal comfort (note: read at your own risk !! while this is beautifully written, it had me sobbing to my mom. this fic is not for the weak.)

⊹ love(bug) on the line - @taestulipss 49k | spider-man!leehan x reader, fluff, action, angst, hurt + comfort

⊹ no butterflies allowed - @shaxyzstuff 3.2k | idol!leehan x reader, fluff, comfort, takes place during what? door! ep 5-6 (note: this fic has a special place in my heart as a leehan bias that also shares a phobia of butterflies.)

&TEAM .ᐟ

⊹ why do you deny yourself—heaven? - @astrae4 2.3k | asakura jo x reader, romance, slight angst, intense yearning

⊹ boyfriend for the week - @p1eceandharmon1 8.9k | maki x reader, fake dating, fluff, romance

to the writers : I want to show appreciation for these fics, as I genuinely enjoy & love them so much !! some i’ve read multiple times. as i’m an introvert, i’m a silent fan who doesn’t really interact; this is my way of showing you all some love. special shout out to @coriihanniee - i’m obsessed with everything you write & cheering you on !! <3