pairing ▸ sehyoon x reader words ▸ 2,730 genre ▸ angst, fluff | fake dating summary ▸ that was not the kind of confession you had expected
m.list | “100 ways to say ‘i love you’”
It was supposed to be one–two–dates maximum, nothing more and with the absolute smallest expectations for what was to be done on said date. If anything you had initially considered that first date to be akin to an outing with a good friend and most definitely not a conniving plan to get his ex jealous. However, fate had a funny way of wringing your heart out like a used tissue.
Three months. Yes, you had put on the facade of being Kim Sehyoon’s fake girlfriend for an astonishing three months. You could have any writer quaking in their boots at how you had been able to pull it off for so long without having garnered any real feelings for the man.
At the beginning it was without a doubt the most uncomfortable feeling to even have his hand lingering at the small of your back, guiding you through crowds or even to your dinner table. To have his eyes glazed over in an act of sweet young love for you and not gag was a feat you prided yourself on. But somehow the fake group dates with his best friend slash ex-girlfriend had miraculously turned themselves into something you weren’t absolutely ready to dig your grave over.
After a particularly tipsy evening at a bar about a month into the ordeal, you found yourself perched on Sehyoon’s lap. His arm was draped comfortably over your hip and connected with the one hugging at your waist, a rosy laugh kissing the apples of his cheeks upward. It was odd that the action was so ordinary to you. There was no tensing of your muscles or a sudden downward tug at your lips, but instead, a warmth that nearly urged you further into him.
Things only spiraled from there.
The actions the two of you had saved for public instances with his ex had grown into all public interactions regardless of whether she was present or not. He had written it off as something that, “everyone see’s us together now. If we don’t keep it up all the time then someone could easily say something to her. We can’t risk it.”
We. It was his favorite word to use when coming up with excuses to hold your hand under the table, to drum his fingers along your hip when standing in line. He chalked it up to be this thing that the pair of you no sooner became amazingly accustomed to.
If you were being honest with yourself, you weren’t entirely sure where the act ended and reality began. Obviously, you still saw Sehyoon as a friend, just one that would perhaps be filed more on the spectrum of benefits than one you saw in passing. He had become his own category in your definition of friendship, a sub-article dedicated to the kind of relationship that occurs between two people who are fake-dating.
However, it was at this particular moment in time, lounging on your couch with your head pressed to his stomach as you hiked your elbows upon his thighs, that you realized the boundary had officially been blurred.
“Hyerung want’s to go bowling tomorrow night,” Sehyoon muttered from above you.
His eyes had been glued to his phone since he had arrived at your apartment for reasons he had not said and you hadn’t bothered nor cared to ask about.
A hum vibrated against your lips as you dog-eared the page you were on and shut the book on your lap. “But you suck at bowling. Doesn’t she know that?”
Your head craned back so you could stare at him with furrowed brows, but he merely shrugged his shoulders without even a glance in your direction. A frown pulled at your lips at his demeanor but you could only sigh heavily, not bothered enough to ask what was wrong.
“I was going to order pizza for dinner. Pepperoni for you, right?” The question bubbled in the air as you pressed on Sehyoon’s thighs to lift yourself up.
The flex of his muscles didn’t go unnoticed to your fingers and although your mind instantly wandered to awe at how strong he was, you shook the thought away with mild appreciation. He was only doing it so you would have something more firm to lift yourself with. That’s all.
“Sounds good.” His short reply left you rolling your eyes as you stretched your arms above your head.
The plush material of the living room rug exchanged itself for the hardwood of the kitchen as you passed into the room to grab the delivery flyer. As you called, you let yourself lean forward onto the counter and gaze back out into the living room, eyes adjusting to how Sehyoon had proceeded to sprawl himself further onto the couch.
He was being oddly quiet, you had to admit.
After placing the order you wandered back into the living room, only you sat onto the glass surface of the coffee table, lifting a foot to poke at the blond. He rose a brow and spared you a brief look but glued his attention back to his phone. “What?”
“Are you okay?” You queried, tilting your head to the side.
“Yeah,” he shrugged and flicked his thumb over his screen. “Why?”
“Well, usually when you come over you’ll tell me about your day or some new scheme to get Hyerung to notice your new ‘super soft’ blond hair.” Your fingers hung in the air as you left the end of your sentence in air quotes, a playful grin on your face, but he still wasn’t looking at you.
Huffing, you crossed your arms over your chest and prodded at him with your foot once again. “Sehyoon, seriously, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he sighed dramatically with another glance at you. “I just wanted to come over and relax. Not everything has to be about Hyerung.”
“Oh come on! Our entire relationship is because of her. It’s always about Hyerung,” you scoffed playfully, a smile spreading over your lips before you moved to stand up. Clearly he wasn’t in a mood to talk, so you took the queue to go back to your book at the counter.
The room was silent as you moved back into the kitchen where you had discarded your current read. As you pulled out one of the bar chairs you heard Sehyoon let out another sigh behind you, drawing you to turn around and catch him sitting upright. His hands combed through his hair before cradling his head as he hunched forward.
You shrugged and turned back to your book.
“This time, it’s not,” his voice was soft as he spoke but his words left you concerned. Shifting around in your seat, you faced him once again only to find his back still anchored away and cast toward the floor.
Taking the queue, you stood up and made your way back to your prior position on the coffee table, elbows pressed to your knees as you leaned toward him. You lifted a hesitant hand to his shoulder, giving him a slight shake. “Yoon, what’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“No,” he snapped, lifting his head to look at you with a smile that quickly faded into irritation. “Nothing happened and that’s the problem.”
Your brows furrowed in confusion as you sat upright. “Are you talking about with Hyerung? Sehyoon, we went over this. Winning her back isn’t going to happen overnight and–“
“I’m not talking about her! Now could you please stop bringing her up?” He pleaded angrily and you could see the vein in his neck strain against his skin as his emotions began to bubble to the surface. His normally calm and playful demeanor was nowhere in sight, something that was quickly becoming alarming the more he talked.
“Okay, no more Hyerung” you bobbed your head and rose your hands in defense. “But if you’re going to sit around in my apartment and stew in your emotions all gloomy-like, then I think I have a right to know what’s going on.”
“There’s no point in talking to you about it, there’s nothing you can do that would actually help.” He shook his head in defeat and collapsed back into the couch, eyes drifting to look outside.
“How do you know that? You haven’t even said anything to me yet,” you countered in your own defense.
“Trust me,” he deadpanned and abruptly turned his attention back to you with steeled eyes. “You can’t help me.”
“Alright, whatever,” you scowled at him as his words stung at you like knives. “There’s no need to be an asshole about it.”
For a moment the two of you remained there, staring at each other in equal frustration for the other, a tension growing steadily until you shook your head and shoved away from the table. You stood for a moment in thought before moving to leave for your bedroom. “I’ll leave some money on the counter.“
As you had begun to leave, words cutting at the air sharply in a warning of your mood, Sehyoon once again cut you off. His hand had shot up as you started to walk away, grabbing at your wrist and tugging you back toward him in a swift movement. You stumbled backward for a moment and could feel yourself almost fall but he was standing before you in a second, grabbing you around your waist and pulling you flush against him.
“Look,” you sighed, shutting your eyes and leaning your head back, “whatever you have to say can wait until–“
Of the many times you had found yourself kissing Sehyoon (or vise versa) there had never not been a valid reason behind it. Kissing under the mistletoe at Hyerung’s boyfriends Christmas party. Kissing for a couples photoshoot Hyerung had set up because it’d be “so cute!” Kissing him out of the blue simply because Hyerung had dared you to. Every instance was backed up by something that both of you could talk yourself into believing.
But there was no reason for this. At least none you could possibly think of at the moment.
His lips were moving languidly over yours with a firm press that left goosebumps dancing across your skin. The pads of his fingers had drawn upward to your neck, hands cradling you gently as he pushed himself closer to you in a way that had you feeling light-headed. A moan drew from his throat as your lips moved on their own accord, returning his affections just as intensely.
It felt as if the moment was frozen in time and the pair of you were stood in your living room, anchored to each other by this bare confession of emotion. Yet, as his lips became fleeting and you both left each other with heavy breaths, his eyes locked onto yours with their own gravity.
“I’ve felt like I’ve been going crazy for the past two months holding all of this in, seeing you day after day and coming to term with the way my heart beats rapidly when you walk in a room. I kept telling myself that this was all just a side effect of what I had asked of you, that it was me appreciating you as a person, but.” He licked his lips and paused, flickering his eyes to each of yours. “It’s not. It’s so much more than just some basic appreciation because these feelings I’ve been pushing down only fight me back just as hard. This hasn’t been about Hyerung for a long, long time. It’s been about you.”
He breathing was heavier now, chest rising and falling rapidly and he was positive you could hear just how loudly his heart was beating in his chest at his rushed confession. But you could only stand there in complete and utter shock.
“Wow.”
The unintelligible response slipped past your lips in a quiet breath and he could do nothing but blink blankly back at you before a crestfallen expression began to take over his features.
“Look, I know I’m not the best with words and saying what I feel, but you’ve gotta give me more than that.” His brows were turned in concern and his eyes almost seemed to be shaking in terror as he stared at you in baited silence.
However, you couldn’t bring a single word to form on your lips, instead settling on gently pressing a hand to his chest and pushing away from his embrace. You collapsed backward onto the couch with your lips parted and eyes trained ahead toward the black screen of the TV.
How could you possibly find a proper response to everything he had just laid out for you? The very thought of bringing your own feelings to light was something you, too, had shoved very far down into the depths of your mind. This was all supposed to be an act, a notion that you reminded yourself of on a daily basis when you were in Sehyoon’s presence. So how come, now, of all times, when he was pleading for you to give him some kind of an idea as to how you were feeling, those emotions remained hidden.
He had since crouched down before you, knees pressed into the rug and hands gently braced on your knees as he looked up at you. “Y/N?”
Your glazed eyes shifted to meet his own glassy gaze, a look that sent your skin alight once again. His lips were moving again but you couldn’t hear anything as your attention became transfixed on the way his mouth curved this way and that, surely saying something to urge you on. Yet the action ignited a growing heat in your chest and trickled down to every edge of your body, picking out all the crevices and casting a warmth.
Much as he had, you found yourself crashing back into his chest, fingers splitting through his hair as your lips pushed to his in a manner you only hoped spoke to your own feelings. Unlike you first had, he didn’t waste a moment in reciprocating, drawing in a deep breath as he drew his hands around you to pull you close.
Your legs anchored on either side of his kneeling form, back pressed against the edge of the couch as he leaned into the kiss. The glide of his mouth over yours was littered with tiny silent affirmations that reflected in the way his hands gripped at your hips. Every single movement was amplified as you became undone in his arms until you were breaking away in heavy breaths.
His eyes were still shit, lips parted with deep reds and purples from the kiss. He remained silent and held you still in his lap as both your minds came back from the high you became wrapped up in. Then, with a choked laugh, he smiled and leaned his head forward, nestling himself into the crook of your neck where his breath tickled at your collarbones.
“Wow.”
The small word sent a shiver down your spine and you couldn’t help but to laugh too.
In more ways than one the both of you should have seen this coming, regardless of the way you had suppressed your feelings into a corner of your mind that was tucked away into a dark corner. It should have been obvious to you the way things you had written off as part of the act, or simply platonic, were far more.
His eyes were softer when they looked at you, filled with a radiance that couldn’t possibly be meant for someone who was just a friend, but that’s what you had told yourself. The way his touches transformed into a craving should have been a clear indication that it was more than a surface level attraction. And his words, the comments of your beauty, compliments for how extraordinary your mind was, they had always been more than friendly.
So, sitting there with the sunset casting hues of orange and pink across your living room, you let your fingers wander through the hairs on the back of Sehyoon’s neck, marveling in the way you both had been so oblivious. Well, at least you had. And a smile stretched itself over your lips, head hanging next to his and a whisper of a laugh meeting the air.
“Wow indeed.”