You and Cortis keep ending up in the same cities. You're in Europe? they’re there too. Asia? they’re there too. Same arenas, same cities, always just missing each other by timing. But the fans? Oh, they notice everything. It starts as jokes, threads, coincidences stacking a little too perfectly. Until one day, same arena, same time, you leave something behind and somehow it ends up with Cortis. When Seonghyeon casually flashes it on live? the fans don't just connect the dots—they decide this was never a coincidence to begin with.
Why can't you say that you want it too? I'm flyin' intercontinental with you!!
📞 idol!seonghyeon x popstar!reader, written+smau, profanity, angst, rumors, fluff, kys jokes, mental stress, burn out, ib by stateside, crack, corny jokes, sorta slowburn, yns artist profile is pinkpantheress
When you accidentally leave something backstage and when Seonghyeon picks it up, he doesn’t just keep it—he shows it off on live, calling it his ‘new & hot find.’ So what happens when fans finally figure out who it actually belongs to?
🎶 stateside by pinkpantheress
Status -> completed
🎤 series taglist closed.
iro's notes: based off of stateside becus YES IM STILL OBSSESED WITH THAT SONG
SYNOPSIS. eom seonghyeon doesn’t like you. he doesn’t like how you challenge him intellectually, he doesn’t like how effortlessly charming you are, and he really doesn’t like how you somehow manage to creep into every little crevice of his life. but as the year goes on, the line between hate and love seem to blur, and fuck, he hates being wrong, but he's just going to have to swallow his pride and admit it: eom seonghyeon thinks he might actually really like you.
or alternatively, seonghyeon realizes that he might’ve confused love and hate.
GENRE. best friend's brother, kind of academic rivals?,one-sided enemies to lovers
WORD COUNT. 26.1k (whoops! sorry)
WARNINGS. swearing, kissing, seonghyeon's kind of mean in the beginning. emotionally constipated seonghyeon (please bear with him), reader's younger by one year but in seonghyeon's grade
AUTHOR'S NOTE. it's heree!!! ambivalence is my baby and i hope you adore it as much as i adored writing it. the poem that y/n and hyeon analyse in here is called "having a coke with you" by frank o'hara. it's one of my favourite love poems ever and i had to sneak it in somewhere. happy reading and i'd love some feedback on this. much love!!! <3
“YEAH, SHE’S SKIPPING A GRADE.”
It’s the first day of school, and Eom Seonghyeon’s heart drops when he hears his younger sister Sera say those words. He’s halfway through a bite of his toast when he hears that you, his sister’s best friend, is skipping a grade. He nearly chokes on the bread, and the strangled noise that he makes doesn’t go unnoticed by Sera.
She looks at him suspiciously, and Seonghyeon makes no comment. All he does is awkwardly take a sip of his coffee (another big mistake, it’s piping hot) and forces a smile.
The thing is, Eom Seonghyeon doesn’t exactly like you.
It’s a little cruel to dislike your younger sister’s best friend, and Seonghyeon’s well aware of that. But there’s something just so incredibly infuriating about you, and he just can’t help it. You’re annoyingly clever — clearly, since you’ve skipped a grade. Seonghyeon’s always been top of his class every single year, but now that you’re going to be in his grade, he knows that very well may change.
You’re far too smart, well-read and intellectual for someone your age. You read Plato and Aristotle for fun. For fun! Seonghyeon adores reading, but even he thinks that you’re insane. There’s no reason for someone’s ideal lounge-by-the-pool book to be The Republic. While he’s being sprayed with a water gun by Keonho, you’re sitting by the lounge chair learning about justice and the idea of a perfect society.
It’s tiring for him to always be compared to you as well. Words like Seonghyeon, you’re so smart, just like Sera’s friend infuriates him to no end. He knows that it’s not your fault that other people are comparing the both of you, but it doesn’t make him feel any better.
To say the least, you make Eom Seonghyeon feel stupid. And you don’t even intend to.
Another thing that Seonghyeon dislikes about you is how effortlessly charming you are. Seonghyeon, for a lack of better words, could sometimes act like a complete dick to you. He gives you curt nods when he sees you at his house, tries to not roll his eyes at your tangents (which Seonghyeon sometimes agrees with, but he’d never let you know that), and silently scoffs when Sera reveals a new fact about you.
And you? You always smile at him when you see him in the hallways. You always ask him if he’s eaten today. You even give him book recommendations sometimes when you notice what he’s been reading, and fuck, sometimes they’re really good. It’s infuriating.
He also dislikes that you’re… pretty, or something. He sees you far too often, and there's also far too many times where he has to remind himself that you're his younger sister's annoyingly clever best friend. Especially when he sometimes catches himself staring for far too long in your direction. Seonghyeon tells himself there's just something interesting that catches his eye nearby, like the light switch or a fly. He'd never admit that it's you.
Seonghyeon has shoved the thought of you being pretty to the back of his mind many times. He’s going to do that again right now.
He’s completely lost in his own thoughts about you and he doesn’t even notice that his half-eaten toast has fallen onto his plate, and Sera’s calling out his name. “Hello? Earth to Seonghyeon?”
He snaps out of it, picking up his toast again and taking a bite. “Yeah?”
“I was asking you if you could take a bit of time to look out for (Name) this year.” Sera’s words don’t come out like a request, but rather like a command. “Obviously, she’s skipping a grade so she won’t have me there — poor girl — and she won’t know anyone. You’ve seen her so many times over the years, so… please? Just make sure she’s settling in well and everything. She was telling me that she wasn’t really sure if she should actually skip a grade, but you know. Too easy for her.”
Seonghyeon nearly chokes on his toast for the second time today. His sister wants him to look after you. Seonghyeon would rather set himself on fire.
He’s being dramatic. He doesn’t hate you that much. It’s just that Seonghyeon would much rather stay away from you if he had the chance to.
“Please,” Sera said, as if she’s able to read his thoughts. “I know you’re not the biggest fan of her, but come on. She’s really nice, if you just got to know her. And she doesn’t even care about being top of the class.” Of course you don’t care, Seonghyeon thinks. It’s because you’re too humble for your own good.
Seonghyeon sometimes wonders if he’s a bad person for disliking you when you’re basically morally perfect.
“Oh, and make sure Keonho knows that she’s off limits. You and all of your friends are. If anything happens, just know I’m gonna get violent.” Sera says off-handedly.
“Won’t be a problem,” Seonghyeon replies, rolling his eyes.
“Is that a yes? To keep an eye out for her?”
“Whatever.” Seonghyeon says, taking another bite out of his toast. He’s chewing angrily.
He just has to agree, right? Does he have to actually do it?
Five minutes later, Seonghyeon finds out that the answer is yes.
Because you show up at his fucking doorstep, of course.
You’re beaming brightly while Seonghyeon can barely hide the frown on his lips. You’re holding The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli — of course you are, Seonghyeon thinks — and there’s around 500 of those colourful plastic tabs that you use to mark where you’ve made a note sticking out of the book’s edge. You greet Sera, him, and his mom with such genuine politeness and warmth, and Seonghyeon hates that he can’t call this bullshit.
Your uniform’s now the same as his, with the tartan on your tie being the same chequered pattern of green and beige. It’s an unpleasant reminder that you’re going to be in all of his classes, and that avoiding you will be far more difficult than it used to be.
Sera greets you with a big hug, which you return. “I can’t believe you’re ditching me in Year 10.”
“I’m sorry,” you say, frowning. “You know I’ll always be around, though. And I’m never gonna bail on our after school study sessions anyways. I kind of focus better here.”
Your eyes land on Seonghyeon, and you give him a small smile. It’s tentative, a little shy, but still has that warmth that makes him feel uneasy. “Hey! Did you like the book, by the way?” you ask.
Seonghyeon’s puzzled for a second. “What book?”
“The one I gave to you a couple weeks ago. Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong? I know you like history and everything, so…” you trail off. It’s like a lightbulb switches on in Seonghyeon’s brain — oh, right. That book. The book that he found so good he pulled an all-nighter to finish. Your brilliant book recommendation and the fact that you’re attentive to his interests stirs up this strange feeling in the pit of Seonghyeon’s stomach that he can’t quite explain.
“It was… alright.” he says, feigning indifference. He shrugs before turning curtly to grab his backpack from his room. Behind him, he can hear Sera telling you to ignore him, and that he’s feeling moody today. Sera also recounts to you about how Seonghyeon choked on his toast this morning, and his face flushes pink with embarrassment. And contrary to what Sera was saying, he was not moody. He just… didn’t like you.
When he grabs his backpack from his chair, Seonghyeon spots the copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms that you gave to him just sitting on his desk. It’s a glaring reminder of you.
He groans and shoves the book in his bag.
This was going to be a long year.
Everyone looks at you in bewilderment when they see you walk into the 11th grade math classroom.
The stunned silence, their wide eyes and gaping mouths tell you everything. They’re all asking: why the fuck would you would be here? They all know you as the genius from 9th grade — you left prizegiving last year with so many medals around your neck to the point where you'd nearly fallen over.
You’re a little late because you’d gone to the administrator’s office to grab your new schedule, since you’d been moved up a year. Your eyes scan the thin sheet of paper, mumbling to yourself the order of your classes and the teachers of each course, just so that you could get that information in your head.
You look around the classroom for any familiar faces, and you don’t recognise anyone, except for Seonghyeon. He’s laughing with Keonho — you’ve seen Keonho multiple times at the Eom family’s house. You want to go up to them, simply because you don’t know anyone else. But a weird, tight feeling in your chest stops you from doing so, and you opt for a seat at the back of the classroom. Alone.
It’s next to the window, and sunlight spills through the curtains. It gives you a certain sense of warmth that you find you enjoy. You place your bag down on the floor, unzipping it to pull out your notebooks.
They’re all organised meticulously and by colour — red for English, blue for math, purple for history, green for science, orange for Korean. You pull the blue math notebook out and set it on the left side of your desk.
Your pencil case is organised just as intentionally – blue pens to the left of the box, black pens to the right. Pens are stacked above your sticky notes. Only yellow sticky notes, never in one of the fun colours, because you found that it made your notes hard to read. You pull out one blue pen and one black pen and put it on the right side of your desk.
You’re so engrossed in making sure that your table’s organised to your liking to the point where you don’t notice that everyone’s eyes are still on you. Seonghyeon and Keonho included.
“I can’t believe she’s in our class,” Keonho whispers to Seonghyeon. “She must be crazy smart then.”
Seonghyeon lets out a deep exhale. His shoulders are tense as he watches you with hawk-like concentration. “Sure. Something like that. You know how she was reading Plato at our pool party.”
“Who the hell is Plato?”
Seonghyeon suppresses a sigh. Keonho was not exactly the studious type. As the school’s favourite student athlete, he spent more time at the pool than he did anywhere else, and won more medals for the school than anyone else. Training takes up most of his days, and it’s honestly a miracle that Keonho’s even here for first period. Seonghyeon would be surprised if Keonho even showed up to half the classes this year.
“Ancient Greek philosopher. Don’t worry about it,” Seonghyeon replies, and Keonho nods. “But yeah. She’s smart smart.”
“And you hate her for it?” Keonho asks. There’s a teasing smile on his lips, and Seonghyeon lets out another deep sigh to try and release the tension in his shoulders. It doesn’t work.
Seonghyeon knows that you make him feel stupid. And he doesn’t like feeling stupid. But his feelings for you, specifically, are complicated, and Seonghyeon would rather die than focus on dissecting them, so he settles on dislike.
He feels uneasy, on edge and there’s always that constant feeling of wanting to run away whenever you’re near. He must have some sort of aversion to you.
“Hate is a strong word,” Seonghyeon musters out. It's all he can come up with. “I don’t know. She’s just… never been someone I’ve vibed with.”
Keonho suppresses an incredulous laugh. “You don’t hate her? You look like you want to bolt out of the room whenever she’s around, or even when she’s mentioned.”
“I don’t know, man,” Seonghyeon replies. He doesn’t want to keep talking about this. “Let’s talk about something else, okay? We’ll have… I don’t know – the whole year to dissect whatever this is. We don’t need to get it over and done with in the first day.”
Seonghyeon pulls out the book that he’s currently reading — No Longer Human by Ozamu Dazai — and flicks to the page where he’d left off on. He scans the words on the page, quickly engrossing himself in the novel. He doesn’t notice how Keonho’s eyeing him with a look that’s almost like he’s trying to crack open Seonghyeon’s skull to see what he thinks about you.
As Seonghyeon’s best friend, Keonho knows of his aversion towards you. But there’s this odd feeling that’s telling Keonho that there’s more than Seonghyeon’s letting on, and he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.
Keonho’s eyes flick from Seonghyeon, to you. Seonghyeon, to you. Seonghyeon, to you.
You’re a little freaked out. Keonho is looking at you like he’s trying to uncover your deepest secret, and for a boy you’ve only spoken to once at a pool party, you really don’t know why he’s eyeing you with the energy of Sherlock Holmes trying to solve a case. All you know about Ahn Keonho is that he’s Seonghyeon’s best friend, he’s a swimmer, and that he got a bruise after cannonballing into the Eom family pool.
You turn away, a little too aware of Keonho’s scrutinising eyes on you. But then you’re surprised by the sight of an unfamiliar girl, who gives you a smile that you aren’t quite sure is genuine. “Hi. I’m Haeun.” she says, and you nod.
“Hi. I’m (Name),” you say. Your voice is small — Seonghyeon, though his eyes never leave the pages of his book, notices. He realises that this is rare. He’s never heard you sound this shy, hesitant and unsure.
“We heard you skipped a grade?” Haeun asks, and you nod. “So you must be really smart then.”
You’re not quite sure what to say. Agreeing would be cocky. Saying no would be a lie. You settle for saying ‘Yeah, I did skip a grade.’ You don’t make any reply to the last thing Haeun said to you.
Her voice lowers, and she gives you this sickeningly sweet smile that makes you feel uneasy. “So… um… hypothetically. If I were to say – a friend of mine, that is – was unable to do her work due to some… circumstances, would you be able to maybe be so kind to… help out?”
This is the strangest first day of school experience that you’ve ever had. What were you even supposed to say? Haeun clearly wanted you to do her homework, but you followed a strict moral code — no was obviously going to be the answer, but you didn’t really want to get ostracised by the entire class. Everyone was looking at you expectantly. First period hadn’t even started and you didn’t really want to be making enemies.
You hear an exasperated sigh, followed by a voice that was all too familiar.
“Haeun, stop trying to get people to do your homework.”
Eom Seonghyeon was now standing in front of Haeun, and you think that things might’ve gotten even stranger. The last person you expected to even try and help you out was Seonghyeon – he’d always been cold and aloof to you. A stark contrast from the way you saw him act with Keonho.
Seonghyeon had always been distant towards you — unreachable, even. You tried your best to hash out whatever issue there was between you two, but you really couldn’t even figure out what the issue was. You were Sera’s best friend, so you sort of expected to be able to get along with Seonghyeon, considering that you had much more in common with him than Sera.
You both adored books. You both adored history (perhaps a little too much). You two even liked the same type of music, according to Sera. But Seonghyeon seemed adamant on keeping his distance. Even your book recommendations didn’t help. You thought you’d nailed it with Romance of the Three Kingdoms. You were a little disappointed when he told you that it was ‘alright’ this morning.
Haeun rolls her eyes before walking back to her seat. You’re sitting there in stunned silence. Seonghyeon’s about to walk back to his desk. Keonho’s looking at you two like he’s watching the greatest K-drama that’s ever been made.
“Seonghyeon.” You say his name without thinking. Fuck, why’d I do that? you think.
And Seonghyeon’s thinking, fuck, why did I get up and tell Haeun off? Seonghyeon also finds something new that he dislikes about you right at this moment. He dislikes how his name rolls off your tongue so sweetly, like honey dripping off the comb. He doesn’t know why his breath catches in his throat because of it. It’s absurd.
“You didn’t have to do that.” you tell him.
“I kind of did. Sera told me to take care of you,” he shrugs, and you let out a small ‘oh’. The idea that it was more obligatory on Seonghyeon’s end makes you feel a little disappointed, but you’re really not surprised that Sera had asked. She was always looking out for you. “And honestly? If you do Haeun’s homework, you’re going to end up doing the entire class’ homework. Except for mine.”
You look at him, tilting your head as you ponder on what to say. “So.. do I stay away from her?” you ask about Haeun, and Seonghyeon nods in response. He’s about to turn to leave again when you suddenly speak up.
“Thanks for sticking up for me, Seonghyeon.” you reply, giving him a small smile. There it goes again, his name rolling off your tongue like it’s honey. Seonghyeon makes a small noise of acknowledgement that’s akin to a “don’t mention it” without actually saying the words.
“I get it now,” Keonho says, voice teasing when Seonghyeon slides back into his own seat, picking up his book again. “You don’t hate her. You like her.”
Keonho’s words are so insane to the point where Seonghyeon drops his book. Not even onto his desk, but onto the floor.
“What?” Seonghyeon thinks that’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard in the world — so absurd that he thinks it makes him a little sick. Those three words land like an odd blow to his chest too. It contradicts everything that he’s told himself for the past ten years, and it’s honestly so ridiculous that it does make Seonghyeon question whether or not he likes you.
“You like her.” Keonho repeats.
“You’re ridiculous.” Seonghyeon retorts.
“You’re not denying it.”
“I don’t need to deny it when it’s that ridiculous. Your psychoanalysis of me is incredibly wrong.”
“Whatever you say,” Keonho says, in that sing-song voice that makes Seonghyeon want to elbow him in the side. “You know it’s true. Plato would agree.”
“You’ve never read Plato.” Seonghyeon replies, matter-of-factly.
“Whatever. The Greeks had Plato, you have me.” Another ridiculous statement from Keonho, but Seonghyeon chooses to laugh at it a little, because of the sheer absurdity. The first thing he said was also absurd, but Seonghyeon found it to be no laughing matter.
Seonghyeon’s going to ignore it. What does Ahn Keonho know about love anyways?
Who cares that he was born on Valentine’s Day, right?
So far, your first day as an 11th grader is nothing remarkable by your standards.
You don’t really click with anyone — you chat with your deskmate Leean from history about the Cold War. Actually, you’re really the one talking, and she’s taking notes about what you’re saying. She calls you a lifesaver, because apparently Mr Jung is incompetent. You don’t think any proper friendship will come out of it.
Seonghyeon, who’s sitting two tables in front of you, listens as you basically give an oversimplified lecture about the Cold War in the ten minutes that it takes for Mr Jung to show up to class. Seonghyeon knows that you know everything about the Cold War like the back of your hand — he does too. He makes a mental checklist in his head to make sure you’re mentioning all the things that he would’ve mentioned. You tick off every single box.
You opt to sit with Sera and Nayeon at lunch like you always do. Seonghyeon’s table, where he sits with Keonho, Martin and Juhoon is just two tables down. Usually, Seonghyeon would avoid looking in your direction. Today, it’s the opposite.
You’re talking with Sera, and you look a little less energetic than usual. You’re picking at your food — he’s never seen you do that before. You’re letting Sera and Nayeon talk much more, which is not too strange, but you’re not even interjecting with your own short remarks. You’re just picking at your food and listening. However, The Prince is next to your lunch box. Seonghyeon can tell you’re itching to open it and read it, because your fingers are tapping rhythmically against the fabric-bound cover of the book.
Seonghyeon doesn’t even realise he knew this much about your habits until now.
“Thinking about something? Or… someone?” Keonho asks with that shit-eating grin on his lips. Seonghyeon rolls his eyes and stabs his salad with a little more aggressiveness, as if to tell Keonho to not provoke him. He’s got one hand holding his book, and every now and then his eyes flick towards your table. Martin notices, and he looks in your direction too.
“Oh yeah, I heard (Name)’s in your grade now,” Martin says. Seonghyeon furrows his eyebrows – how does he know you by name? Martin never really talked to many of the younger students (he only clicked with Seonghyeon and Keonho because of the music committee). Seonghyeon also knew Martin would never join philosophy club.
“How’d you know her?”
Martin looks at Seonghyeon sheepishly, as if he was a little embarrassed. “She tutored me for ethics. For like… a month.”
“She… tutored you?” Juhoon’s stifling a laugh, and Martin is not amused. “Bro, she’s like two years younger than you!”
“Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and she’s the only person in our entire school probably who actually reads stuff about it. Let’s be real, I’m pretty sure she knows more than Mr Hwang about stuff like… deontological ethics. Don’t quiz me on that, by the way. I purged all of that from my memory after the test.” Martin shrugs, and Seonghyeon fails to find any reason to disagree.
Keonho nudges Seonghyeon, leaning in to ask a question. “Do we have to know deonto–”
“You don’t need to know, bud. I don’t even think you’re enrolled in ethics.”
Keonho flashes Seonghyeon a thumbs up and a wide grin before going back to scarf down his lunch.
Two tables down, Sera’s asking you questions about your first day as an 11th grader. You shrug, picking at your lunch with your fork. “It’s been alright. Nothing too fancy. Maths got harder, I will say. Science… not horrible. History was fun. Did some stuff on the Cold War. I’m hoping that maybe we could venture into something like medieval history, but I don’t know if Mr Jung is really qualified to teach that. He’s not… great.” you say, and Nayeon laughs.
“Tell me about it. He’s hopeless, honestly. We had him this morning too. You should just teach the class instead,” she quips, and you shake your head. You’ve been told that far too many times, but you fail to agree. You don’t really think you’d be the best history teacher — you find yourself going on and on and then venturing into areas of history that aren’t remotely relevant to the topic at hand. “But what about everything else? Made any new friends?”
“Eh,” you reply. Your tone is dull, because your entire day has been underwhelming. Your first day’s been shaping up to be academically mediocre and socially lonely. At least in 10th grade it would be academically easy and socially vibrant — you’d have Sera and Nayeon to talk and joke around with. “I talked to Leean. Or well, I lectured Leean about the Cold War. And someone named Haeun tried to get me to do her homework for her before Seonghyeon stepped in.”
Sera’s pleasantly surprised at the mention of her brother. “Seonghyeon stepped in?”
“Yeah,” you say, taking a bite of your food. “Told her to go away. Nice of him.”
You don’t have much to say about Seonghyeon. You never do, because he never really gives you anything to talk about, even if you see him every single day at school and after school. You’d think that after being friends with his sister for ten years, you’d be close with him already. But Seonghyeon seems to want to avoid you like the plague, and you’ve got no idea what you’ve done to cause him to have such an aversion towards you. Him interjecting into your conversation with Haeun was utterly shocking — perhaps it’s why it’s stayed in your mind all day.
And you wouldn’t lie. Perhaps you had been harbouring a small crush on Seonghyeon ever since… forever. When you first became friends with Sera and headed over to the Eoms’ house, you’d always try and see what he was up to. You’d often find his nose in some history book, completely engrossed in it as if he was in his own little world. You’d actually started getting into history because of how interested Seonghyeon seemed in it. Perhaps he’d talk to you after you two had something in common.
But then you realised how much you loved it too. You spent all your lunch breaks reading about historical events, figures, everything — while the other kids played in the playground, you kept your nose buried in a book just like Seonghyeon. When you started middle school, it was apparent to everyone that you’d be dux by the time 12th grade rolled around.
Much to your disappointment, after you’d started reading more about the things that Seonghyeon liked as well, he only seemed to move further away. You tried to start conversations about historical topics that you knew he enjoyed, and he’d only give you a short response or a nod, before saying that he had homework to do and retreating into his room.
Frankly, you’re not sure what you were expecting. Perhaps to Eom Seonghyeon, all you’d ever be was his little sister’s annoying best friend. Nothing more.
You look at Seonghyeon, who’s sitting two tables down from you. The shitty cafeteria lighting is somehow making him look like a fucking Greek god.
The light hits just right on certain parts of his hair to emphasise his blond highlights. He’s laughing at some random joke that Juhoon just made, and the way laughter bubbles past his lips is so beautiful, it makes your stomach flip. He comes up with some retort that makes the table erupt in laughter. Your best friend’s brother is smart, funny and beautiful. He’s perfect, but he hates you.
Seonghyeon’s eyes wander around the cafeteria before they land on you. There’s a look in his eye. Soft, unrecognisable, nothing like you’ve ever seen before. Maybe he doesn’t hate you.
But then his entire body stiffens, and the smile on his lips disappears. He coughs, and then looks away. You let out a dejected sigh before you tear your gaze away from him. That small glimmer of hope dissipates.
Eom Seonghyeon probably still hates you.
It’s been a week since you started 11th grade, and you think you’re getting more used to it now.
Leean actually makes for great company, and she ends up being the person you speak the most to in class. Through Leean, you’ve also befriended a girl named Hayoung. Keonho sometimes makes conversation with you when he’s here, but you can’t help but feel like he’s trying to psychoanalyse you or figure out your feelings for Seonghyeon.
And as for Seonghyeon, things are just about the same. He still gives you short and clipped responses, he barely speaks to you in class, and when he sees you after school, he simply glances at you and makes a noise of acknowledgement before heading back to his room. You thought maybe being in the same grade would bring you two closer together. You were incredibly wrong.
English is your last class of the day, and you’re more than ready to go home. You’re craving for a much-needed afternoon nap in your bed before you head to Sera’s house to do your homework. You don’t think you’ve done much schoolwork in your actual house, now that you think about it – you just seem to work better at the Eoms’ house.
“Looks like Keonho’s not here. We’ll need to put you in a pair with someone else, Seonghyeon,” Ms Kim says as she scans the register. Seonghyeon nods – he knew Keonho had a swim meet today. Seonghyeon just prays to God that he won’t get a partner that’s not going to do any work for this class. He knows today's lesson is about poetry analysis, according to the Google Classroom. He’s not excited.
You’re sitting alone again because Leean’s sick, and Ms Kim’s eyes land on you. You’re already highlighting a line in the poem that you found particularly intriguing, and you’re mid-grab for a sticky note when Ms Kim calls your name out.
“(Name), could you go work with Seonghyeon for this? It’s a paired exercise.” Ms Kim says. You suddenly sit up straight, stiffening as you look at her. You then look at Seonghyeon, and he’s looking down at the poem. Anywhere but you, of course. It’s like another blow to your heart. He won’t even look at you.
Seonghyeon’s hiding his face, because if anyone saw his expression right now – eyes blown wide in alarm, jaw slack and panic settling into his lungs – they’d think something was incredibly wrong. But firstly, Seonghyeon doesn’t really want to work with you, because he’s sure he dislikes you. You’re going to be making him feel stupid for the next 45 minutes.
Secondly, Keonho’s words from a couple of weeks ago are still in the back of his mind, and he absolutely despises it. Seonghyeon oscillates between his own thoughts of what he assumes to be dislike towards you, and thoughts of Keonho’s claims stating that he actually likes you.
However, he knows that he’s going to have to do it – Ms Kim is strict, and Seonghyeon thinks that 45 minutes can’t be that bad. You weren’t mean to him anyways. Seonghyeon just had to try and suppress those feelings of frustration that always bubbled up when it came to you.
“Oh, um… it’s okay,” you say quietly, and Ms Kim raises an eyebrow at your words.
“It’s okay as in… you’re going to go, or you’re not?”
“Just come.” Seonghyeon says, patting the empty seat next to him.
His eyes haven’t left the poem, and he’s highlighting with a bright yellow marker. Still not looking at you, always keeping a distance. Your heart is beating too fast. You hesitantly get up from your seat and walk towards Seonghyeon’s table, and even sitting down feels risky.
“I don’t bite.” Seonghyeon pipes up, almost reading your mind. He’s still not looking at you.
Well, you kind of hate me, you think. “No, I know. Um…” you trail off. You shake your head, and you think it’s best if you focus on the poem. You’re now the one that doesn’t dare to look at Seonghyeon, and you miss the way he’s looking at you somewhat expectantly, waiting for you to finish your sentence. “Never mind. Let’s just focus.”
You and Seonghyeon work surprisingly well together. You’re bouncing ideas off of one another like you’ve done it a million times before.
His analysis of the poem is incredibly insightful, like you expected. Seonghyeon’s always been brilliantly clever. He’s seeing these tiny, miniscule nuances and implications in the text that you don’t think you’d ever be able to notice.
He points out a line that he finds intriguing with his finger. You’re too engrossed in the commentary you’re making about a separate line on a sticky note, and instead of waiting (why would he?) he reaches over to grab an blank sticky note so he can write down his own thoughts.
The action brings Seonghyeon impossibly close to you. He’s never been this close before, and you can smell the lavender and birch from his cologne. Your breath catches in your throat, and you pause writing momentarily. Seonghyeon pretends not to notice.
You clear your throat and you get back to writing. Neither of you speak about it.
Seonghyeon twirls his pen in his hands as he watches you finish what you’ve been writing. Your handwriting is impossibly gorgeous, with letters that look too neat to the point where someone could say that it was typed. You stick your commentary next to the line that you’ve highlighted in purple.
“Why’d you use purple instead of yellow here?” Seonghyeon asks, pointing at one line.
“It’s the hinge of the poem,” you explain. “It’s the only line in the poem that’s short – it’s two words, after all. And then you realise that the rest of the poem is about the poet talking about the beauty of looking at their partner.”
As you explain your interpretation of the line, Seonghyeon realises that your voice isn’t as small as it was that morning when Haeun had basically asked you to do your homework. You sound confident and assured – you always have, when speaking to him. He’s looking at the poem and nodding along to what you’re saying. He thinks you’re right – of course you would be, he’s never doubted your intellect – but for the first time Seonghyeon’s not compelled to roll his eyes at your tangents.
“I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world,” you say, reading out the line. Seonghyeon’s eyes snap up to look at you, even though he knows that line’s in the poem. It’s also the one you’ve been talking about for the last two minutes.
But there’s something about the way you’ve said the words, or perhaps maybe the way Seonghyeon’s interpreted the manner of your speech. You say it with a breezy cadence, not stating it with any intention or deliberation. It’s a line from the poem, after all – but for some reason, the words strike Seonghyeon's chest. It makes his heart twinge in the strangest possible way.
“Yeah,” Seonghyeon breathes out. He shoves his thoughts to the back of his mind. “And then he mentions the Polish Rider right after. Perhaps he’s saying that painting is the only one comparable to his lover’s beauty?”
Your eyes light up at his words. “That’s brilliant — write that down.”
Seonghyeon doesn’t know why that weird twinge in his chest returns when he sees that look in your eyes. He nods, scribbling that thought out onto a sticky note before pressing it down next to the line that you’d highlighted for him.
He looks at the paper — there’s annotations and highlighting on practically every page. Your effortlessly gorgeous handwriting in blue dances across the page and mixes with his slightly italicised handwriting in black. He reads every single annotation that you’ve put down on the paper, nodding along as he begins to understand your interpretation of each line. Your analysis and interpretation is brilliant, and Seonghyeon makes a mental note to actually learn a little bit from you.
He also realises that for the first time in years, he hasn’t had to do most of the work in English. You two work together seamlessly, and Seonghyeon doesn’t think that he’s worked on a better literary analysis than this in a long time.
“We did a good job,” he says, nodding approvingly. He puts his pen back into his pencil case before smoothing down the sticky notes on the page. “Ms Kim’s going to be really happy.”
“You think?” you ask. You’ve never been taught by Ms Kim before, and you knew that she was notorious for being strict. English had always been one of your favourite subjects, but you knew that it got harder in 11th grade. It was a step up from anything that you’d had to do before, and you certainly didn’t expect this level of intensity early on in the year.
“I know,” Seonghyeon says with assertiveness. “Don’t worry. You’re good at English. The class won’t be too difficult for you.”
He’s still giving you these shorter, clipped responses, but you notice how his tone lacks that sort of iciness that you were accustomed to. It still doesn’t have that sort of melodic warmth that is evident when he speaks to his friends, however, you enjoy the slight change. It’s nice and gives you just enough hope that he doesn’t despise you as much as you think he does.
“Thanks,” you reply. You give him a soft smile. The corner of his lips quirk up just enough that you take it as a return of your gesture. He then refocuses his attention to the poem, reading it from start to finish once again.
The end of the poem sticks out to Seonghyeon.
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it
It’s printed on the page with no capital letters, no punctuation in between, and there’s no period at the end. It reads like a tangent, breathless and a little rushed, but it’s ever so romantic. The words leave an enduring mark in Seonghyeon’s mind. He wonders if this sort of love — breathtaking, all-consuming and fervent — is even attainable.
As these thoughts run rampant in his mind, there’s a strange, compelling urge for him to divert his eyes to you. Seonghyeon listens to that urge.
That twinge in his heart returns. Maybe he’s just having casual heart palpitations at the young age of 16. That conclusion is completely illogical, but for the first time ever, Seonghyeon wants to believe in something that doesn’t make sense.
His thoughts, the weird twinge, the ambivalent feelings he’s having towards you... Seonghyeon’s not going to tell you about it.
The route to the Eoms’ place is something you know like the back of your hand.
You’ve changed out of your uniform, opting for a hoodie and a pair of jeans. Your books, laptop and pens are in your bag, and you’ve brought a tub of acai that your mom had bought a couple days ago from the supermarket. Sera had been talking about how much she was craving it at lunch, and you figured that since you hadn’t opened the tub yet, you might as well share. You weren’t going to finish all of it anyways.
You knock on the Eoms’ door, tapping your foot on the concrete as you wait for someone to open it. The door swings open, and it’s Seonghyeon who answers the door this time. He looks a little stunned to see you at his doorstep, but he quickly recovers. He’s no longer in his uniform too, and he’s got a striped t-shirt and dark-washed jeans on.
The blond highlights frame his face a little too well, with a few strands falling just in front of his face. You muster up a smile at him so that you’re doing something to acknowledge his presence rather than just gawking at how perfect he looks.
“Hey,” he replies, opening the door a little wider to let you in. “Sera’s asleep. I’ll go wake her up.”
You kick your shoes off and place them neatly on the shoe rack while Seonghyeon closes the door. “Oh, it’s okay. I just woke up from a nap too,” you say, waving him off. “She can come study with me once she wakes up. ”
Seonghyeon nods at your words. He hopes that you didn’t notice how he quite literally seemed to short-circuit when he saw you at the door. He knows he shouldn’t be surprised that it’s you, but he’d really never been the one to greet you first; it was always Sera.
He’s about to head back into his room until he sees you pull a cooling bag out of your already overstuffed tote bag. He’s eyeing you with a certain sense of intrigue, and he plans to stay silent until you pull out a tub of something that looks like ice cream.
“Did you bring ice cream? We have like, three tubs in the freezer already.” he pipes up, and you turn to look at him.
“It’s not ice cream,” you say, shaking your head. “It’s acai. My mom bought it a couple of days ago from the supermarket, and Sera was talking about how she wanted acai at lunch, so I figured I’d bring it over. I’m not going to finish this anyways, and my parents don’t like acai, so…”
“Oh, I see,” he says. Seonghyeon’s trying to hide his excitement over the fact that you’d brought acai. He doesn’t think you know how much he loves the stuff, but god, it’s taking everything in him right now to quite literally not devour the entire tub before Sera wakes up. “Thanks for that.”
“Do you want some? I can just put it in the freezer later so it doesn’t turn into melted soup before Sera wakes up.” Your offer is exactly what Seonghyeon wants to hear right now, and he nods in response.
“Yeah. I’d love some, actually. I haven’t really eaten.” he says, and you nod, opening the tub of acai. He heads towards the kitchen to grab two bowls, two spoons and an ice cream scooper, rinsing them with water before setting them on the table in front of you.
“Do you want toppings, or anything?” he asks, opening the fridge. “We’ve got strawberries. And there’s cornflakes in the pantry if you want to put them on top of it, or something.”
“No, it’s okay,” he hears you say. You’re busy scooping the acai out into a bowl, and you give Seonghyeon a generous amount considering that he told you he hadn’t eaten much. Seonghyeon takes out the strawberries and cornflakes for himself anyways. “Thanks for asking, though.”
He returns to the table, sitting down on the chair next to you. You realise he’s never done that before, and you try and ignore how your stomach does a flip as you wrestle with the ice cream scoop to get more of the acai out of the tub.
You push a bowl towards him. “Here, take this one. If you want more, just let me know.”
“Thanks,” he replies. He opens the box of strawberries, placing them on top of the acai in a deliberate, artistic manner like he’s a staff member at the most popular shop in the city. He sprinkles just the right amount of cornflakes on top of it, and when you peer over to look at his bowl, it genuinely looks like something you would’ve bought at the store.
“You’ve decorated it nicely,” you hum, and Seonghyeon’s eyes flick over to you.
“Hmm?” he looks back down at his bowl. “Yeah, I suppose so. Thanks.”
You put the lid back on the acai tub, placing it in the freezer next to the three different ice creams that they’ve got in there. There’s mint chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla – the vanilla one has a sticky note on top of the lid that’s got Seonghyeon’s name scrawled on it in big, bold capital letters along with three exclamation marks. You smile to yourself at the sight.
You sit back down next to him, pulling out your math notebook from your bag before taking a bite of the acai. Seonghyeon sits there awkwardly, observing you as he takes another bite of his acai.
He realises that he doesn’t exactly know how to act around you, after being cold and distant for ten years. English today made him realise that he didn’t really mind you that much. You were nice to work with as a study partner, you two got the work done in half the time it took everyone else to, and Ms Kim had said it was ‘the best analysis she’s read by 11th graders.’
“So…” he starts, scooping up more acai with his spoon and taking a bite. “How’s the first week been?”
You’re surprised that Seonghyeon is making small talk with you. Eom Seonghyeon. Your best friend’s older brother who has been avoiding you for ten years like his life depends on it. You’re so stunned to the point where you momentarily forget to answer his question until you snap out of it.
“Oh, um… it’s been chill,” you reply, shrugging. “It’s not great, not horrible.”
Seonghyeon nods. “You’ll get used to our class. It’s just the first week,” he hums, taking another bite of the acai. You can hear the cornflakes crunch as he chews. “They’re all mostly nice people. I know you’ve been getting close to Leean and Hayoung.”
He noticed. You thought Eom Seonghyeon wouldn’t even spare a glance at your direction. You nod, unsure of what to say. This time you’re the one giving shorter, clipped answers, and Seonghyeon’s actually talking to you more. His voice isn’t as monotonous as it used to be, it’s even a little warmer than it was in English, and you think – hope – the change in tone is signaling a change of heart. Regardless, today’s been incredibly confusing.
There’s an awkward silence that falls between the two of you amidst bites of acai. You don’t know how to make conversation with him anymore – should you bring up history? Math? Science? You just want to talk to him.
Seonghyeon’s almost finished, and you’ve barely gotten halfway. He clears his throat as if it’s a signal that he’ll be heading back to his room now, and you just get the sudden urge to say something so that maybe you’ll be able to talk to him for just a little longer.
“Is the acai good?” you ask, and Seonghyeon nods.
“Yeah, it’s really good. If you could, ask your mom where she bought it. Sera and I like the stuff a lot, so… would be good to have some at home all the time.” he says, getting up. He’s holding his now-empty bowl in one hand as he scratches the nape of his neck with the other. His eyes dart around the room, as if he’s unsure where to look. Seonghyeon thinks this might be the longest conversation he’s ever had with you, apart from in English today.
You learn a new fact about Eom Seonghyeon today. He likes acai. You keep that fact safely tucked in the back of your mind. “Sure,” you reply. “It’s good to know that you — you guys — like it.”
The quick correction of your words doesn’t go unnoticed by Seonghyeon, but he chooses not to say anything about it. Instead, he gives you a small smile, one that’s a little more obvious than the one he gave you in class. Your heart does a somersault.
Seonghyeon washes his bowl in the sink before he walks back to his room, and you’re left reeling from the interaction. You don’t even know if he said goodbye – that’s how out of it you were. Your acai’s starting to melt, and you only jolt out of it when you hear Sera loudly announce her arrival and give you the tightest hug ever for bringing acai.
And as you complete the worksheet Ms Seo had given to you today about integration, you still can’t get Seonghyeon out of your mind.
Three weeks pass, and you and Seonghyeon fall into a strange sort of rhythm.
He’s not as distant as he used to be, but he still keeps you at an arm’s length. He gives you a nod of acknowledgement when you pass by him in the hallways rather than ignoring you, accompanied by the faintest hint of a polite smile – even when Keonho’s blabbing his ear off about how ridiculous his swimming coach is.
But then there’s also this strange sort of dynamic where you two are competing for the top of the class. Every now and then, you pull ahead after a quiz, but a week later Seonghyeon would snatch the top spot by just the slightest margin. You don’t pay too much attention to who’s leading – you just want to do your best, but it adds an extra awkward element to whatever you’ve got going on with Seonghyeon.
Sometimes he’s a little colder, especially when there’s an upcoming test. You knew that Seonghyeon was competitive. You notice how his jaw tightens ever so slightly when Leean makes some off-hand comment about how Seonghyeon used to be the top of the class. Past tense.
The math topic test is coming up next week, and you genuinely would rather gouge your eyes out than to try and solve another equation. You were a humanities student – maths and science never came easy to you, but you managed to get good grades purely out of sheer effort rather than natural intellect.
But 11th grade math might actually kill you. You’re sitting at the Eoms’ dinner table, eyebrows knitted together in frustration as you try to figure out what went wrong in the last integration problem you’d solved. Your handwriting is neat and legible across the page, but there’s so many different answers that you’ve started and ditched to the point where it looks almost like a warzone by your standards.
“I don’t get it,” you groan, and Sera’s so taken aback by your words to the point where she drops her pen. You? Not understanding something? That was completely unheard of. “The math in 11th grade is so difficult. Or maybe I’m just not doing it right – no, scratch that, I’m definitely not doing it right – but I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.”
Sera peers at your paper, and her face contorts into one of confusion. “Yeah, I have no idea what that means,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t know how you and Seonghyeon are doing this. I'm dreading next year already.”
Seonghyeon somehow miraculously appears at the sound of his name. He bounds down the corridor holding his empty mug, smoothing down the creases in his hoodie as he heads towards the kitchen to refill his cup.
He looks over at you and Sera as he pours more water into his mug. He spots you with your head in your hands, shaking your head. “Um…” Seonghyeon looks at Sera – he’s never seen you this distraught over academics before. He assumed that everything was a complete breeze for you, considering your intellect.
“Maths. It’s killing her too.” Sera whispers, and Seonghyeon furrows his brows.
It’s like his body moves before he can think. He sets his mug down on the table, sitting down on one of the empty chairs. And then without thinking, he says: “Can I see the question?”
It’s too late, and Seonghyeon wants to slap his hand over his mouth. Why would he say that? He’s technically competing with you for the top spot in the class, and also, he thinks that he still doesn’t like you very much. The latter was slightly debatable after spending a whole month in the same class with you, but still – Seonghyeon had no idea why he said that.
You slide the paper towards him, hands still covering your face. You were so tired and you quite simply never wanted to see a question about integration ever again. Also, you didn’t really want Seonghyeon to see your embarrassing work. His eyes scan the paper and your working, trying to figure out what you’d done wrong.
“Oh, I see,” he pipes up. He taps your shoulder ever so gently, and you’d be lying if you said that his touch didn’t linger. “There’s a concept here that you didn’t apply – that’s why you don’t get it. I’m pretty sure we learnt it last year, but… you skipped a grade, so you never learnt it.”
He gestures towards the blue pen next to you. “May I?”
You nod, handing him the pen wordlessly. Seonghyeon writes down the working and the answer on a blank piece of refill paper, and an explanation of the concept that you didn’t learn. He hands the pen, the worksheet and the explanation back to you.
“Here,” he says. He still doesn’t know why he’s helping you. “Ask me if you have any other questions.”
Fuck, he thinks. He’s speaking before he thinks again. He tries to hide a grimace before he gets up from the chair, ready to head back to his room to finish his book. He glances at Sera, who’s looking at him like she doesn’t recognise him.
“When were you two chill?” she mouths at him, and Seonghyeon furrows his brows. He wants to know the answer to that question too. Were you and him chill, per se?
He still had that uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he saw you, he still disliked how you always were able to seamlessly challenge him in everything, and seeing you all the time did not help out at all. That wouldn’t necessarily describe chill.
But then again, Seonghyeon sometimes works with you in English, and that tension between you two seems to dissipate. And now, he’s helping you with the very same math worksheet that he had complained about to Martin mere hours ago. So maybe… you were chill.
You’re reading Seonghyeon’s explanation of the problem, and it all makes so much more sense now. He’s written the steps so clearly you think a child could understand it, and you’ve never been more grateful. “Oh,” you say, and Seonghyeon notices the excitement in your voice, how your eyes light up and how the corners of your lips pull upwards into a smile. “I get it now! Thanks, Seonghyeon.”
He nods, gulping when you say his name. Your voice is smooth and mellifluous – Seonghyeon thinks he’s going insane. His thoughts about you contradict every other second. Seonghyeon thinks he dislikes you, but then you manage to captivate him in a way that he just quite can’t explain. Something inside him compels him to look out for you, care for you – why?
“All good,” he chokes out. Sera looks at him with confusion plastered all over her face. Seonghyeon grabs his mug from the table, and turns around curtly to head back to his room. He closes the door and locks it. Then, Seonghyeon lets out a deep sigh that he didn’t know that he was holding back in the first place.
He’s so confused. He’s convinced himself that he doesn’t like you, but then his body, his words, his actions – all of it betrays his mind. He wasn’t this unsure and hesitant of his feelings when he was avoiding you like the plague, so should he start doing that again?
But then he hears you laugh, and Seonghyeon knows that he can’t stay away. He hates himself for immediately thinking that it’s one of the most beautiful sounds he’s ever heard. He knows you’re probably at some joke that Sera made — he just hopes it’s not at his expense — and that strange twinge in his heart that he’d dismissed as early onset heart palpitations returns.
“Whatever,” Seonghyeon grumbles, trying to convince himself that he doesn’t care that much. He grabs the first book he sees lying on his desk before settling into bed. He checks the cover before he starts reading, and of course it’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It’s like the universe is either giving him a sign, or playing some sick prank that’s making Seonghyeon lose his damn mind.
There are glaring reminders of you everywhere. From you quite literally being outside, to the book that he’s holding in his hands right now.
So, like always – Seonghyeon pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind, and tries to lose himself in the book.
Nobody likes exam week.
Everyone’s stressed and running on four hours of sleep. The cafe line is packed, with students drinking an ungodly amount of caffeine to even be able to function.
11th grade is taking a far bigger toll on you than you expected, or maybe it’s just because you feel like you really need to impress in the first round of exams this year. Sera tries to convince you to watch a movie with her just to take a break one Tuesday evening, but you reject her suggestion and opt to do another chemistry worksheet. You think the periodic table is going to be burned into your brain by the end of the week.
The cafeteria is much quieter than usual, with most students deciding to study. Seonghyeon’s tapping his foot on the cafeteria floor as he tries to write a practice essay for English. He writes two or three sentences, takes a bite of his food, and then picks up his pen to start writing again. It’s a cycle that lasts for most of lunch.
His eyes scan the cafeteria when he’s giving his hand a break from writing too much. The muscle of his hand hurts, and he winces a little as he massages it to try and ease the pain. He spots you two tables down. Sera’s talking to you, and you’re nodding at her words as you write.
Seonghyeon notices how you’re tapping on the cover of the book that he’s seen you carry around all week – Plato’s Symposium. The sheer presence of the book reminds him that you’re just that well-read for your age, but this time, Seonghyeon doesn’t grit his teeth in frustration when he sees it.
Maybe his feelings towards you have changed, he thinks. The two of you talk much more now after he helped you with math, and he notices that you’re actually comfortable with him. You always have been, but you seem to be a little bit more upfront with it now – perhaps it’s because you two actually have an excuse to talk because of school, but Seonghyeon finds that he actually likes speaking to you.
You're a great conversationalist, and you're somehow able to make even the most boring topics interesting. Seonghyeon has never enjoyed ethics class, but hearing you talk about morality in a class last week might've been one of the most interesting things he's ever heard.
Sometimes he’ll even be the one to start a conversation with you. Never in a million years would he have thought that would happen.
But Seonghyeon notices how your fingers are drumming on the cover quickly in a nervous manner, and your eyebrows are knitted together tightly. Your shoulders are tense, and he thinks you haven’t breathed in the last fifty seconds. He knows what you look like when you’re concentrating. But this was something different.
You were anxious.
When you were concentrating, your eyes would never leave the paper. Your eyebrows would still be furrowed, but not knitted together this tightly. Your shoulders were also never this tense, and Seonghyeon doesn’t think that he’s ever seen you fidget this nervously before.
He sees Sera say something to you before getting up, and he notices that you don’t really seem to register it – you just nod, but it’s in an absentminded manner. His eyes quickly flick back to his own paper when he sees that Sera’s walking up to him, and he would rather die than get caught staring at you by his own sister.
“Hey, Hyeon,” Sera says, sitting down next to him. “Could you tell Mom that I’ll be home a little late today? The art committee is having a meeting today after school and Yeseo was saying that we’ve got a lot to go through.”
“Yeah, sure,” he nods. “How late will you be? Do you need her to pick you up?”
Sera shakes her head no. “I’ll probably be at home just before dinner. And it's fine – I’m gonna take the bus. I think (Name)’s still going to come over to study though. She says she focuses better at our place,” her eyes flick towards you, and you’re writing at an alarming pace. “Exam season’s not treating her well.”
“Is she okay?” Seonghyeon asks. There’s a flash of surprise on Sera’s face – she didn’t expect Seonghyeon to ask. She knew that he wasn’t as distant as he used to be, but she also didn’t think that Seonghyeon would notice how stressed you were.
“I mean, not that I care that much.” Those words make Sera look at him with an even stranger look on her face. “No, not like that. I’m just saying… tapping on that book that quickly is sure to shake a window nearby, or something,” he stammers. “And she just looks really tense. You should probably check up on her.”
Sera eyes him suspiciously, and Seonghyeon’s eyes dart towards the first thing that isn’t her. They settle on Keonho’s lunch. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m gonna go do that. Or… you could. After school today.”
Her voice is insinuating in that one way that Seonghyeon doesn’t particularly like. If they were at home right now, he knew that she was going to prod him for answers about how he feels about you. But with Martin, Juhoon and Keonho around, she knew better. Thank god for that.
“Sure,” he says breezily – as if he’s not internally freaking out over the way Sera’s looking at him like she just knows his deepest secret. “Thanks for taking care of my best friend.” Seonghyeon doesn’t like the amount of emphasis she puts on the fact that you’re her best friend. He’s well aware of that. Far too aware.
Sera walks away, and Seonghyeon lets out a small sigh of relief. Keonho notices, and he’s about to say something before Seonghyeon stops him by holding his hand out.
“Not a word.” Seonghyeon says, and Keonho obliges, but that teasing smirk doesn’t leave his lips.
When he’s home, it actually hits him that you’ll be coming over. He’s never had one-on-one time with you in his own house. It’s always been you, Sera and him. He jumps out of his bed, rummaging through his closet to find a better outfit to wear – he’s already felt enough embarrassment today after making it obvious to Sera that he was worried about you.
The least he could do was look somewhat presentable and change out of his pyjamas. He opts for a band tee and changes into a clean pair of sweats. As he’s pulling his shirt on, Seonghyeon realises that he’s trying to impress you. The realisation really sinks in when he’s looking at his reflection in the mirror, tucking in his shirt in just the right way. He gives himself an approving nod when he thinks that he looks half-decent before walking out into the living room, his cheeks tinted pink already from that realisation.
He pours two cups of water, one for him, one for you, and sets it on the table. He makes sure to take out the mug that you always use whenever you come over – it’s pink, with doodles of cherry blossoms on it. He pulls his notebook and laptop out of his bag, placing it on his side of the table. Just then, he hears the doorbell ring.
Seonghyeon heads to the door a little too quickly.
He opens it, and there you are – Seonghyeon swears that those heart palpitations return just at the sight of you.
You give him a bright smile, waving with your free hand. The other is holding a new book – Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.
“You finished Symposium?” he asks, and you’re stunned at his words. You never told Seonghyeon that you were reading it. “You’ve been carrying it around all week,” he quickly adds. “Was it good?”
“Yeah, it was,” you stammer. You didn’t know that Seonghyeon actually paid attention to you like that. “Have you read it?”
“No, not yet,” he says, gesturing for you to come on in. “Should I?”
“I think so,” you chuckle. “It’s one of my favourite books, actually. That was actually a reread. It’s a short one too, so you can get it finished quickly. Exam week’s just cut into a lot of my reading time, so I picked a shorter one.”
You put your bag down next to one of the chairs on the Eoms’ dining table, taking out your notebooks, laptop and pencil case. You notice how Seonghyeon’s seemingly filled the cup that you always use when you’re at his house with water.
“Thanks for the water, by the way.” you beam, sliding into the chair. Seonghyeon sits down next to you, opening up his laptop.
“Don’t worry,” he replies. “We’ve got soda in the fridge if you want some. And there’s tea. You know which cabinet it’s in.” The Eoms’ house is practically your second home, considering how often you’re there. You think you’ve spent more time at their house than your own, oddly.
You thank him, taking a sip from the mug. The two of you make casual conversation as you both do your work – it’s remarkable how the two of you can still stay focused even while talking.
You find that studying with Seonghyeon is comfortable. You’ve never really hung out with him alone, with the exception of working together in class. Whenever you’re at his house, Sera’s usually always there too. For someone who you thought had hated you for the longest time, getting along with Seonghyeon is unexpectedly easy, and you really enjoy his company.
However, it really doesn’t help when it comes to the crush you have on him. The more you speak to him, the harder you fall. It’s hopeless, but you can only pray that you’re hiding it well enough from both him and Sera.
“I really hope Ms Kim’s nice enough to give us a good poem for the unfamiliar text paper,” you groan, highlighting a line in the poem that you’re analysing. “I looked at all the past papers that she gave the last year group – one of them was straight up evil.”
“They’re all evil,” Seonghyeon sighs, shaking his head. “Honestly, the play that she gave us two days ago to analyse might’ve been worse. At least we can mention more language techniques in poems.”
“True, but then I just feel like I’m rambling,” You’re quickly writing a note next to the line that you’ve highlighted so you remember what you want to mention in the essay. “Hopefully she won’t be so mean to give us something horribly difficult for the actual exam. We only have 45 minutes for each unfamiliar text, for god's sake.”
“I don’t think she’s given us anything easy for weeks,” Seonghyeon sighs. “Maybe it’s good that we’re getting challenged before the exams? Like… she’s preparing us for harder content so maybe the exam will seem easier because we’ve already gone through hell.”
“Hopefully,” you chuckle. “I do remember one poem that I really liked though. The one she gave us in the first week that we had to work on together?” you hum, highlighting another line in the poem that you’re working on. “The one where he mentioned The Polish Rider.”
“I liked that poem too,” Seonghyeon smiles. “Especially the last stanza – and the last line, actually. I thought it was really simple but also really romantic.”
“Yeah, definitely!” you say, putting down your highlighter as you nod in agreement. “I also really liked that he mentioned The Polish Rider. I love Rembrandt’s paintings. They’re all so lifelike – we’ve got this visual arts assessment coming up, so I think I might do a commentary on a painting of his. I was thinking maybe I’d do the painting he did of Aristotle, kind of merge two of my interests into one.”
“Sorry, I just realised I went off track from what we were originally talking about.” you chuckle.
“No, it’s okay. What do you like about the painting? Like the Aristotle one.” Seonghyeon genuinely seems interested in what you have to say – perhaps you never noticed it before, but you think this may be a first.
As you go on about what you like about the painting, Seonghyeon takes in every single word. From the way you’re talking about the thick paint that Rembrandt always used, the colours that he’s chosen, how Rembrandt’s depicted Aristotle’s eyes — he listens to every bit you say intently, burning it into his brain.
He also doesn’t miss the way your eyes light up in excitement, the way your hands are gesturing to describe it all, and how the corners of your lips turn upwards ever so slightly when you’re talking about something you’re so passionately interested in. It’s awfully endearing, and Seonghyeon’s heart skips a beat.
He then realises that he hasn’t even seen the painting. He types the title into his search engine — Aristotle with a Bust of Homer — and it pops up on his screen. It’s exactly as you described it, just based on your memory. The thick paint highlighting the brushstrokes. The dark colours of the painting. How Aristotle’s eyes are concealed by deliberate shadows that you’ve interpreted as him being lost in thought.
“Yeah, that one!” you say excitedly, pointing at the screen. “Isn’t it great? Now you get why the poet and I are so keen on Rembrandt’s work.”
“It is great,” Seonghyeon says. He’s more so impressed by how amazingly well you’ve remembered the painting and how eloquently you’ve described and analysed it. Dare he say, it may be more impressive than the painting itself — but Seonghyeon was biased. “Have you ever seen it in person?”
“No,” you reply, shaking your head. “I do want to, though. But it’s all the way at The Met, and I’m really not planning to go to New York any time soon.”
He clicks off the painting, typing up Rembrandt’s name instead. The first link — a paid ad, which Seonghyeon usually hates — is a link to an art gallery.
“There’s going to be an exhibition of his work in here in a few weeks,” Seonghyeon pipes up. “You might wanna go.”
Your eyes snap towards his screen, and when you see the details of the exhibition, your eyes light up. “Oh my god. What a crazy coincidence – I have to get tickets,”
“You should come!” you blurt out. Seonghyeon looks at you, surprise evident on his features. “If you’re interested in this kind of stuff. I don’t think you take visual arts, but Rembrandt’s work is really, really nice.” you add hastily, to not make things awkward. It’s definitely not because you want to talk to him more and that you enjoy his company far too much.
Seonghyeon lets your invitation hang in the air as he processes your words. Seonghyeon’s never been one to wander around art galleries willingly – he was far more fond of history museums, and could spend all day in them.
But Seonghyeon finds that he wants to go to this art gallery. With you.
“I’ll come,” he says, and the excited smile on your lips makes him all the more certain of his decision. “It sounds like fun.”
“It will be! I hope you don’t mind me rambling about the paintings, though. I’ll try and shut up about it.”
“No, it’s fine,” Seonghyeon says, giving you a soft smile. “I like hearing you talk.”
He wants to slap himself across the face for letting those words slip. He can see your stunned expression, and all he can do right now is hope he hasn’t freaked you out with his words. His cheeks heat up out of sheer embarrassment.
Should he say something like ‘because you talk about really interesting things’, or ‘you’re a great storyteller’? Seonghyeon doesn’t know if he should add anything to alleviate the awkwardness and tension that his words had just inadvertently created. Gosh, think before you speak, he thinks.
“Oh,” you stammer out before he can say anything new. Your cheeks are heating up at his words. “That’s kind of you.” You give him a soft smile as well, unsure of what to say next.
Seonghyeon realises that he wants you to smile at him like this forever. It’s also then when he realises that he definitely doesn’t hate you at all. Nobody would feel butterflies in their stomach and a blooming warmth across the chest when they see their archnemesis smile. And after studying with you today, he doesn’t really think he even cares about being the top of the class anymore.
Seonghyeon realises that logic needs to take precedence now. What he’s feeling is most definitely not early onset heart palpitations. He should never have believed in something so incredibly unrealistic and illogical.
Fuck, he thinks. He might actually like you.
Seonghyeon gets a violently sick feeling when he sees Sung Minjun walk up to your desk.
His jaw immediately tightens, eyes widening in the slightest hint of alarm. Sung Minjun is bad news, and everyone in the grade knows it. But you’re new to the year, and you haven’t been told about his reputation for messing with people’s feelings.
“Hey, (Name).” Minjun’s voice is sickeningly sweet in a way that makes Seonghyeon want to throw up. It’s never been more obvious that this sweet guy act is just a facade of his. You’re definitely unaware of his reputation, and you simply smile at him.
“Hi, Minjun. What’s up?” you ask.
“I was just wondering if you were free this afternoon? I’ve got two tickets to this amusement park, and I wanted to go with someone who I find pretty cool,” he says, and Seonghyeon rolls his eyes at Minjun's feigned shyness. “Would you wanna come?”
“Oh,” your voice is hesitant. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ve already got plans.”
Minjun pouts, and Seonghyeon examines your face for any sort of reaction. He swears that he sees your eyebrow twitch in just the slightest way.
“Really?” Minjun asks, disbelief evident in his tone. “Come on, they can’t be that important. And the amusement park is fun — it’s one afternoon.”
You nod, sure of your decision. “I’m good, really. Thank you though.” Seonghyeon fails to hide the smile on his lips.
“What’s got you so giddy?” Keonho asks, nudging Seonghyeon gently with his elbow.
“Oh, nothing,” Seonghyeon replies breezily, eyes still fixated on your conversation with Minjun. Keonho’s eyes follow in the direction Seonghyeon’s looking at, and when his eyes land on you, he lets out a knowing ‘ah’.
“Admiring your girl?” Keonho quips, and Seonghyeon takes in a sharp breath.
“Not my girl,” Seonghyeon mutters.
“Yeah, definitely not your girl if you don’t make a move soon. Look at Minjun.” Keonho says, and Seonghyeon groans. Minjun’s giving you that awfully fake smile, leaning in closer to perhaps make you try and feel something for him just because of proximity. Seonghyeon just hopes for your sake, Minjun didn’t spray that dreadful cologne that he uses all the time.
“She’s not into it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I hate you.”
“You’re jealous of Minjun,” Keonho teases. “And it’s because you like (Name). Tell me I’m wrong all you want. You’ll never be able to convince me otherwise.”
“Minjun’s a dick anyways,” Seonghyeon says. “I’m just…”
“What?” Keonho interjects, an amused smile on his lips. “Looking out for her because your sister said so? Which excuse is it going to be today, our lovely Seonghyeon?”
Seonghyeon doesn’t reply, eyes fixed on you and Minjun. He’s still trying to get you to go to that damned amusement park with him – Seonghyeon saw the advertisement for it online and he distinctly remembers that it looked like shit. Or perhaps his distaste for Minjun spending one-on-one time with you was clouding his judgment at the moment.
Oh. Oh.
He really was jealous.
“What is it that you have to do then?” Minjun asks. “Could I join you?”
Before he can even think, Seonghyeon’s already walking towards your desk. He interrupts your conversation with Minjun, and the boy looks almost offended.
“Hey, (Name), Sera has another art committee thing that’s going to run late today. You’re still welcome to come study and stay for dinner like usual, though.” Seonghyeon wasn’t lying, Sera had told him that this morning. But he’s shocked that he somehow came up with something so coherent and true when this was completely impromptu.
Seonghyeon notices how you visibly relax in his presence. He smiles softly at you, and you return the gesture. “Hey, Seonghyeon. That’s okay – I’ve got plans later today, so don’t worry,” you beam. “I also don’t want to trouble your mom again.”
“Nonsense,” Seonghyeon waves off your worries. “You know she loves having you around anyways.”
Minjun’s watching you and Seonghyeon interact with a stunned expression on his face. His eyes darted from you, to Seonghyeon, and then back to you again. He didn’t know that you and Seonghyeon were close at all – but seeing how you smiled brightly when Seonghyeon showed up out of the blue, and how comfortable you seemed to be in conversation, Minjun knew that he stood no chance.
“Alright, I’m gonna… go,” he announces. Seonghyeon lets him leave, not even bothering to look back.
“He’s not got a great reputation in our year,” Seonghyeon says, when Minjun’s out of earshot. “You dodged a bullet.”
“Well, you helped me dodge that bullet,” you reply, putting your books in your bag to pack up. “And I have heard murmurs, to be fair.”
“Makes sense – word does spread fast around here. So… are you still coming today?” Seonghyeon asks as you put your last notebook in your bag. You shake your head as you zip it up, and he looks at you with furrowed brows, clearly confused. It was unusual for you to not be studying at his place in the afternoon. And Seonghyeon would never admit it out loud, but he really wanted to see you.
“I’m going to a bookstore to pick up some books,” you hum, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “I ordered them a while ago, and James is only opening up shop Thursday afternoon this week.”
“Oh,” Seonghyeon didn’t know that you were on a first-name basis with the owner of the bookstore. “Is this like a small shop?”
“Yeah, I found it a few years ago – James actually went to our school! He graduated two years ago. They’ve got a really good selection of philosophy and history books, so I go all the time. I really love it there. Once, I spent like… 6 hours just reading there. Time went by so fast,” you laugh.
“You’re more than welcome to join me, if you’re not busy. I think you’d like the place.” you add hastily. You’ve never brought anyone to James’ bookstore, but Seonghyeon seemed like the perfect person to bring. He loved reading, James’ bookstore had a fantastic history book collection, and you enjoyed his company. He was already coming to Rembrandt’s exhibition with you, but you did want to grasp at any opportunity that you may have to spend time with him. After all, you had been pining for basically 10 years now.
Seonghyeon’s somewhat stunned by your invitation. You want to spend time with him. Alone. It fills him with a sense of joy that makes him feel like he’s floating on cloud nine. Take that, Minjun, he thinks. A smile spreads across his lips before he nods.
“Yeah, of course. I don’t have plans after school today, and I do need to look for some new books to read, actually.” he replies, and you smile at him. Seonghyeon’s heart flutters again.
“Perfect! I’ll meet you after last period,” you beam. “It’s not far from here, so we can walk there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he says, and you bid him goodbye, saying that you’ve got to meet Sera now. Seonghyeon nods, waving at you before he walks back to his seat, a giddy smile on his lips.
“Look at that smile,” Keonho comments. “You’re in love.”
For the first time, Seonghyeon doesn’t correct him.
The walk towards the bookstore that you love is quite short.
Or perhaps time just flies when you’re having fun.
You and Seonghyeon talk the entire way there. It first starts off with complaints about Mr Jung being an absolutely hopeless teacher, to the dreadful worksheet that Ms Seo had given for Math, and then into every other thing that somehow pops into the two of your minds.
You find out a lot more about Seonghyeon on the walk there. He shares his favourite music with you, telling you which albums and artists that he likes. You download them, making a mental note to listen to them when you study next. He tells you that he hates mint chocolate, and that he always has to watch a movie before bed.
“I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once last night,” he hums. Your eyes light up – it’s one of your favourite movies in the world. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” you reply. “I think I cried like three times. But to be fair, I am a crier when it comes to movies. I never leave the theatre without crying at least once. Unless it’s a comedy.”
Seonghyeon’s eyes crinkle into crescents when he laughs. Your heart beats faster in your chest at the sight. “I’m going to have to see this for myself – we’re going to have to go and watch a movie together.”
It slips out before he thinks (again), and his eyes widen slightly in alarm. He looks at you, and you simply nod happily. He lets out a sigh of relief – he was so worried that he’d embarrassed himself just then.
Seonghyeon finds that this happens all too frequently with you. He prided himself on knowing exactly what to say at the right time and always thinking before speaking. But when it comes to you, all of that just goes straight out the window – he lets comments that he planned to leave in his head slip and he’s stammering and stumbling over his own words. Nerves, he claims. He thinks he has an inkling of an idea of where those nerves may come from.
Meanwhile, all you can think about is how Seonghyeon wants to watch a movie with you. Now, you’re sure that he doesn’t mind your presence – rather, he seems to enjoy your company. You’ve never been happier – maybe you do have somewhat of a chance.
“Here it is,” you say, pointing at the bookstore. It’s tucked away in the corner of a back street. You open the door, the windchimes hanging on the handle jingling as you gesture for him to enter. He does, thanking you politely as he takes everything in.
He sees shelves and shelves of books, all organised by genre. The smell of books and bergamot infiltrates his senses, and the soft yellow light from the chandelier he sees hanging from the ceiling illuminates the entire room. There’s a record player in the corner that’s playing some music from the 80s’, and there’s a small corner with a table and a few chairs for people to read at.
Seonghyeon knows why you love this place so much instantly. It’s so distinctly… you.
“James!” you call out, and the boy working at the cashier turns to look at the two of you. His eyes light up, giving you a wave. Seonghyeon suddenly recognises James – they’ve never spoken, but he’s pretty sure James was the captain of the dance team.
“(Name)! Thanks for coming today – I’ve got some of the books you’ve ordered here,” he says, gesturing to a pile in the corner. His eyes then land on Seonghyeon, and he looks at him with an intrigued smile. “You brought a friend!”
“I did,” you beam. “Just gonna show him around the place and maybe pick out a few things before I come and pay for everything, if that’s cool.”
James nods in response. “Take your time,” he replies. “I was just finishing up an essay for uni anyways. We’re open until 7, by the way, just in case you two wanted to stay and read a few things.”
“Sounds good,” you reply. Your eyes land on the marigolds on the counter, perched in a porcelain vase. “Nice flower choice for the vase this week, by the way. Marigolds are my favourites.”
You like marigolds. Seonghyeon makes sure to remember that. You then turn your attention to him, who’s looking around the store and bobbing his head to the music.
“I’ll show you the history section, since I know you love the stuff. I’m pretty sure they just got some new books about the Cold War in.”
“Perfect – that’s my favourite topic, by the way,” he says, eyes lighting up.
“I know,” you laugh, and Seonghyeon’s surprised that you do. “You talk to Keonho about it all the time in history. It’s my favourite topic too, to be honest. Mr Jung does teach it horribly, though.”
You lead him to the history section of the bookstore, and there’s three whole shelves dedicated to books about the Cold War. You look at how Seonghyeon’s eyes light up, immediately scanning the section to see what interests him. He notices a few that he’s already bought, but there’s also so many that he’s never heard of before – you were right. This place truly was a treasure trove of books, and Seonghyeon’s stunned that he’s never heard of this place.
You watch as he pulls out books from the shelves, flicking through the pages with his brows furrowed in concentration. A soft smile makes its way to your lips before your eyes flick back to the shelves too, picking out your own books as you hum along to the music that James has picked.
You’re mid-grab for a book about the Middle Ages when you hear Seonghyeon ask you if you’ve got any recommendations. You can see that he’s picked out three books about the Cold War, one of which you’ve read.
“That one’s really good,” You tap your finger on the spine of the book, nodding approvingly. “I think you’ll like it. But recommendations… do you want them to be Cold War related or something else?”
“Anything’s fine,” Seonghyeon shrugs. “You always seem to give me good recommendations anyways. Even before this year.”
You’re somewhat shocked. You didn’t think that Seonghyeon actually liked your recommendations. You still remember when he said that Romance of the Three Kingdoms was just ‘alright’. You gulp, drumming your fingers on the edge of one of the shelves as you try and think of books that you think Seonghyeon might like.
“Maybe The Art of War,” you hum, eyes scanning the shelves to see if you can spot it. Your eyes light up when you do, pulling it off the shelf and handing it to him. “Flick through it to see if you like it first, though.”
“What’s the last book you really really liked?” you ask him, your eyes still fixated on the shelf in front of you.
“Oh, um…” Seonghyeon is silent for a moment as he thinks about your question. He’s read so many good books this year – it was hard to really pick one. “ Probably No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. I read it a while ago, though.”
A book immediately pops into your head. It’s something you read recently as well.
“Camus,” you mumble, trying to find the book that you’ve got in mind. Seonghyeon follows you as you wander off to the philosophy section. “Ah, this – The Myth of Sisyphus. It’s a little bit more on the philosophy side, if you don’t mind. I quite liked it though, obviously.”
Seonghyeon stacks the book on top of the ones he’s picked out. You look at him, tilting your head at him quizzically. “You’re not gonna flick through it to see if it’s your taste?”
He merely shrugs in response. “I trust your recommendations,” he says casually. “Plus, you’ve kind of made me develop an interest towards philosophy books.”
The smile that graces your face is absolutely infectious. You’re overjoyed, and you immediately look for your favourite books on the shelf to recommend to him.
“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that, holy shit!” you say, and your excitement is evident in your tone. You’re pulling out books here and there from the shelf, and Seonghyeon can barely keep up. “Okay, Symposium is one of my absolute favourites, and it’s short. But you can just take my copy, to be honest.”
You’re mumbling to yourself as you pick out all of your favourite books, stacking them on top of one another. When you’re done, you look at a pile of eight books – you didn’t realise that you’d picked out so many.
“Oh. That’s way too many. We’re going to have to thin this herd,” you hum, eyeing the books you’ve selected. “Maybe The Prince. It’s quite short, like Symposium. So you can kind of get a taste of how these books usually are, and if you end up liking them, just let me know. We can always come back here.”
Seonghyeon nods, taking the book from you and adding it to the pile that he’s holding.
“I saw you reading The Prince on the first day,” Seonghyeon hums. “You had a lot of tabs in there.”
“Oh, yeah,” You’re surprised he remembered, but you feel as if you shouldn't be. Seonghyeon was incredibly observant, as you've noticed throughout the year. It’s kind of why I figured that you should probably get your own copy, because I’ve written all over it. I think I had a lot of opinions on that book.”
“We can talk about it when I’ve finished it then,” he smiles softly. “I think I’m gonna go put these on the counter and pay for them first, because my hands are starting to hurt. Do you wanna take the ones you’ve picked out and put them there as well?”
You nod, following him to the counter where James is sitting. He’s engrossed in watching an anime, and you clear your throat. His eyes snap up, and James immediately changes his tab to his essay.
“You saw nothing,” James hisses jokingly, and you raise an eyebrow. “I’m just procrastinating, okay? You and your friend here found some books you liked?” he asks, changing the topic.
“He’s picked his out. I’m gonna go grab something else from the history section, and I’ll be right back.” you say, and James nods. You give Seonghyeon a smile before placing the books that you’ve chosen on the counter, and you run off. Seonghyeon’s eyes follow your figure before James clears his throat to catch his attention.
“You like her, don’t you?” When you’re out of earshot, James looks at Seonghyeon with a teasing smile. He picks up a book from Seonghyeon’s pile, scanning the books that he’s planning to buy. Seonghyeon’s eyes widen, cheeks heating up as he’s caught off guard by James’ words.
“What?” he stammers – if a stranger that he’d only met five minutes ago could tell, surely everyone else would know. He’s hoping that James is just excellent at reading people, because god – if anyone else knew, especially Sera, he was done for. His friends at school already knew enough, with Keonho incessantly teasing him about it whenever he’s around.
“You like her,” James repeats. “It’s all in the eyes, man. And you’re buying all of her recommendations. I would’ve thought that you’d be buying Symposium too.”
Seonghyeon furrows his brows – how did James manage to hear the entire conversation? He opens his mouth to speak before James stops him, seemingly reading his mind.
“Yes, I heard. This store is small enough for me to eavesdrop on everyone. And even though I was focused on the anime, I was also focused on listening to you two.” James places a sticker on one of the book that Seonghyeon’s buying before putting it into a paper bag.
“She’s giving me her copy to read,” Seonghyeon stammers. “And well, about the other thing, I wouldn’t… I’m not sure.”
“No, deep down you’re sure.” James says, as if he’s some love expert. “I think you just don’t really want to admit it to yourself yet.”
Damn, Seonghyeon thinks. James is really good at reading people. Too good to the point where it makes Seonghyeon a little uncomfortable.
“She doesn’t just take anyone here, by the way. She’s been coming here for four years, and I’ve never seen her show up with anyone. Said it’s her secret spot, or something,” James adds breezily.
Seonghyeon stiffens at his words. He may be saying this in a casual manner, but the fact that James is basically saying that Seonghyeon is special to you makes his heart stutter. “So maybe she likes you too – but she keeps going on about this one guy named S–!”
“James!” you cut him off just as he’s about to reveal a name, and Seonghyeon winces at the missed opportunity to figure out who you’ve been raving about to James. “Did this just come in?”
“Yeah,” James replies, taking the book out of your hands. “Dream of the Red Chamber. You’ll like this one, since you liked Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Speaking of that book – you bought two copies, right? Did the person you give it to like it as well?”
Oh. Oh.
You bought the book specifically for him. All along, Seonghyeon thought that it was your copy that you’d given him. He supposes that he should’ve guessed, considering how there weren’t any tabs sticking out the edges and the pristine condition of the book. He was going to give it back to you too, but he just found himself rereading it over and over and over again.
But now he just feels guilty. You’ve been too kind to him for all these years, and it was only until a couple of months ago – weeks, even – that Seonghyeon was sure that he didn’t hate you. The feeling settles in his stomach, and he knows that he has to do something to make it up to you.
“I actually gave it to him,” you chuckle, gesturing towards Seonghyeon. You recall the words that he’d told you on the first day of school – that it was fine. “I don’t think he was a big fan.” Your voice is sheepish, and Seonghyeon shakes his head at your words.
“No, no,” he hastily interjects. “I really liked it.”
You look at him, surprise evident on your features. “I thought you didn’t like it that much,” you say, puzzled. “You told me it was fine on the first day of school.”
Seonghyeon scratches the nape of his neck, unsure what to say. He wasn’t going to straight up say that he had to hide how much he liked the book for the sake of his pride, but there really was no other logical explanation.
“I… reread it,” he mumbles. “I liked it better the second time.”
You nod, letting out a soft ‘oh’. Seonghyeon doesn’t think you’re actually convinced, but you don’t end up questioning it. James is much more obvious about how unconvinced he is, eyeing Seonghyeon suspiciously. The teasing smile on James’ lips is still there, as if he’s quite literally telling him to keep thinking about what he said earlier.
“So… do you want this one?” James asks, holding up Dream of the Red Chamber.
You nod without thinking, and James stacks it on the pile of books that you’re planning to buy. He looks at the large pile, and chuckles. “You’re going to be singlehandedly paying for my lunches for the next few weeks with this order. Thanks, (Name.)”
“Glad that my allowance is going towards something good,” you say. “I think that’ll be all for today.”
Seonghyeon looks around the store quietly as James finally finishes scanning all of your books. “That’s 250,000 won with the discount,” he says. “Do you have enough?”
You count together the notes in your wallet. Shit. You’re about 5,000 won short. You hiss before shaking your head, looking through the titles of the books you’ve selected to see which one you’ll just have to get next time. It’s a difficult choice, though – all of them are books that you want to read really badly.
“I can pay for her,” Seonghyeon pipes up.
Your eyes snap up to look at him. “Seonghyeon, what? No – I couldn’t let you do that.”
“It’s fine,” he fishes his wallet out of his pocket, taking out his card. “Think of it as a gift, or something I’m doing in return for the book that you gave me.”
“Seonghyeon, that was one book!” you exclaim, holding up one finger. “There are eight books! You must let me pay you back if you’re going to pay.”
“No, it’s okay,” he says, tapping his card on the reader before you can protest more. “I’m more than happy to pay for these – you’re going to read them anyway, and I know how much you like books.”
James is watching the interaction between you two like it’s his favourite television show. The two of you are bickering like an old married couple as you frantically search through your wallet for 250,000 won so that you can pay Seonghyeon back. He’s trying to grab onto your wallet so he can shove it back into your bag so you don’t have to.
Seonghyeon wins the battle, and you reach out to grab your wallet. “I’ll only give it back if you promise not to pay me back.”
“Seonghyeon, I can’t do that! 250,000 won is an insane amount.” you say, and Seonghyeon shakes his head, holding your wallet even further away from you now. You groan as you try once again to grab it from him, but to no avail.
“I’ve been saving.” Seonghyeon shrugs.
“Just let the man pay,” James interjects, and Seonghyeon smiles.
“Thank you – see, (Name)?” he says, and you groan.
“Okay, okay,” you sigh. “Thank you, Seonghyeon. That was really nice of you.”
Seonghyeon nods, finally satisfied. He hands you back your wallet, albeit eyeing you with a certain sense of caution as if he’s worried you’ll try and shove money into his backpack.
“You really didn’t have to do that.” you say, tucking your wallet back inside your bag, making a mental note to yourself that you have to get him something in return.
“I wanted to.”
Those three words carry far more weight than either of you expected.
A blush creeps up on Seonghyeon’s cheeks as he lets those words slip out without thinking. Your cheeks are hot as the gravity of those three little words sink in. James silently packs your books in a paper bag with an amused smile.
James hands you your books, and you thank him gratefully. It’s incredibly heavy – to the point where it nearly knocks you off balance. A little ‘oomph’ escapes past your lips as you get used to the weight of the bag. You’re honestly more concerned that the bag is going to break.
“I can carry it for you,” Seonghyeon says softly. “It looks heavy, and we’ve got to walk back home.”
“Yeah, that may be best,” you say, handing him the bag with a grateful smile. “Thank you, Seonghyeon.”
Your heart is pounding in your chest right now. Every single interaction that you’ve had with him at the bookstore feels awfully romantic, but you don’t want to delude yourself into believing that Seonghyeon perhaps has feelings for you too.
Maybe he’s just realised that he actually enjoys your company as a friend. Or maybe he just has an obligation to take care of you as his little sister’s best friend. The prospect of that makes your heart sink a little, because you’ve always wanted him to be something more.
Even James knows that, considering how much you’ve talked about Seonghyeon to him.
“Thanks for coming today, (Name) – sorry I had to get you to come after school, I know how much you value your study time. I hope it wasn’t a big hassle,” James’ voice cuts through your thoughts, and you wave his worries off. His eyes divert to Seonghyeon, and it’s then when James realises that he hasn’t asked for Seonghyeon’s name.
“And you are…?”
“Seonghyeon.”
James’ eyes widen in a comically exaggerated manner. “You’re the Seonghyeon? Oh, no wonder you’re the first person she’s ever brought here. (Name)’s said so much about you–!”
“Okay, thanks James! See you next week!” you cut him off, practically pushing Seonghyeon towards the door. Your voice is panicky, and Seonghyeon barely has time to register everything until the two of you are outside the shop.
“Please ignore him,” you say, cheeks hot from embarrassment. “He’s always pulling shit like that on me.” Seonghyeon looks at you, and he can tell that you don’t want him to pry about what you’ve been telling James. But oh, he is so curious.
“I’m was just telling him that you’re in my class and how you’re Sera’s brother,” you lie through your teeth. You hope Seonghyeon thinks it’s an acceptable answer – James really didn’t have to air out all of your dirty laundry by basically implying that you had been going on and on and on about him. “It’s… not like he made it out to be.”
Seonghyeon doesn’t know why he’s disappointed.
“Oh, look, an ice cream shop!” You don’t give him time to ponder over why he’s disappointed, as you change the topic. His eyes flick over to look at where you’re pointing, and sure enough, there’s a quaint little ice cream shop across the road that’s neatly tucked away from all the hustle and bustle from the main street. “Let me treat you to ice cream – it’s really the least I can do after you paid for all of my books. And then we can head to your place to study, since we left James’ earlier than I expected.”
Seonghyeon nods, thanking you as you lead him towards the shop. He opens the door for you, and you smile at him gratefully. It makes his heart flip.
The two of you look at the ice cream case for what flavours the store’s got. Seonghyeon always gets vanilla – in a cup, never a cone – so he doesn’t really know why he even bothers. You hum in satisfaction when you’ve made your decision.
“Hi,” you say, calling over to the girl who’s working the cashier. “Could I get one scoop of the chocolate?”
He’s about to pipe up about what he wants until you say his exact order. “And a scoop of the vanilla?” you turn towards him, tilting your head questionably as if you’re asking him to confirm if you’re correct. He nods, and you turn back again to look at the girl. “Separately, please. Thank you.”
He’s stunned. He doesn’t know how you know that he always gets vanilla. “How did you–”
“You guys have three tubs of ice cream in your freezer, and the vanilla one has your name on it. With like three large exclamation points. I figured that it was your favourite – I’m glad I got it right.”
Seonghyeon didn’t know how attentive you actually were to his interests. From his favourite history topics, to books, and even to ice cream. You noticed things about him too.
You pay for the ice cream, handing Seonghyeon his cup. He takes a bite, and it’s really good. Much better than the tub that he bought from the supermarket, even if it is just plain vanilla. “Woah,” he says, taking the wooden spoon out of his mouth. “I’m surprised I’ve never been to this place.”
You seem to be similarly shocked at how good the ice cream is. “Yeah, oh my god. I’ve been to James’ too many times to even remember and I’ve never even thought of coming here. I’m glad I did, though – we have to come back again.”
We. It’s an invitation. You want to spend more time with him.
“Yeah,” he beams. “I’d like that.”
As you and Seonghyeon walk back to his house, making casual conversation as the two of you finish up your ice cream. Your shared laughter rings through the summer air, and his eyes flick over to look at you.
There’s an undeniable feeling of being drawn to you like a moth to a flame. Warmth and all-consuming affection settles in his chest, and for the first time, he’s comfortable with letting it linger.
Everything clicks into place.
Eom Seonghyeon is certain now. He does like you.
“Okay. I need your help.”
Keonho, Martin and Juhoon’s ears immediately perk up. Seonghyeon asking for help? This was unprecedented. It was usually Seonghyeon running around to help the three of them.
“Well, not me,” he says, sliding into his seat next to Keonho. He opens his lunch box to buy him time on figuring out what he’s supposed to say. “I have a friend who needs help.” Seonghyeon’s voice is unconvincing, and Keonho raises an eyebrow.
“So…” Seonghyeon starts, drumming his fingers on the table as he tries to articulate his thoughts properly. “My friend’s a little bit stuck on how they feel about someone, because they thought they hated them for the longest time. But I – sorry, my friend – thinks that they might actually like them now. Maybe a little too much and maybe as something more than friends. So… how should they go about it? Like should I – my friend – confess, or just… I don’t know. Wait it out?” Seonghyeon’s slip of the tongue makes Martin smile in amusement.
“I fucking knew it!” Keonho yells, pointing at Seonghyeon. The entire cafeteria goes quiet, and Seonghyeon’s eyes dart to you, sitting two tables down. You’re looking at Keonho with a confused look in your eye, clearly startled by his outburst. Your eyes then land on Seonghyeon, who feigns confusion too. You two share a small smile as you chuckle at Keonho’s antics, shaking your head before your eyes return to your book. Seonghyeon is absolutely mortified.
“Dude, be quiet,” Juhoon says to Keonho, before focusing his attention back onto Seonghyeon. “But yeah, we all fucking knew it. It was just a matter of time.”
“What?” Seonghyeon sputters. “You don’t even know who this friend is.”
Martin looks at him with a deadpan stare. “Come on, man. You clearly said ‘I’ before you changed it. It’s fine – we all thought you were gonna admit this at some point. I don’t really think you ever hated (Name).”
“Or maybe the hatred was fueling that romantic tension,” Keonho says with a shit-eating grin. Seonghyeon regrets asking for advice now, and he buries his face in his hands to hide the blush that’s creeping up on his cheeks. Juhoon, ever so attentive, notices how the tips of Seonghyeon’s ears turn pink too.
“You like (Name),” Keonho teases, and Seonghyeon groans, his hands never leaving his face. “I swear that weird feeling you always said you got when she was around was just you being nervous and not knowing how to act around her. And another thing – being annoyed that she was smart? Admiration. Maybe a bit of jealousy too. You’re just emotionally constipated and don’t know how to deal with your feelings.”
Fuck, Seonghyeon thinks. Why is Keonho’s psychoanalysis of him right?
“Oh, and another thing!” Keonho pipes up. Seonghyeon just knows Keonho’s going to have 500 of these ‘another things’ to bring up. “You’ve always looked out for her this year. It’s so obvious. First, the Haeun situation. Then you’re helping her with math. And you were glaring at Minjun so hard that day I thought you were trying to make him explode.”
“Oh my god,” Keonho’s eyes light up as if he’s had an epiphany. “You care about her. You’ve always cared too much about her. Maybe that’s why you didn’t like her. You care too much that she’s really smart, she’s really charming and she’s always around! And you also care about what she thinks of you – which is why you were so opposed to her being in our year. Because you don’t want to seem stupid in front of her.”
Juhoon hums, pointing his finger at Keonho in agreement. “Also, don’t forget about the time where you told Sera to make sure she wasn’t feeling too anxious because you saw that she was tapping her fingers on the cover of her book too quickly. Only a lunatic or someone madly in love would notice that.”
Was he that obvious, or could his friends just read him that well? He stays silent as he digests everything that his friends are saying. But then he remembers James reading him like a book on the first time that they’d met. Fuck, maybe he was obvious, Seonghyeon thinks. Was he the only one oblivious to his own feelings?
“Yoohoo, earth to Seonghyeon?” Martin asks, waving his hand in front of his face. “I know you’re daydreaming about (Name) again, but we were saying that you should probably do something about it.”
“Like what, though?” Seonghyeon stammers. His voice drops to a whisper. “I don’t… you know I’ve never really liked anyone before. How am I supposed to go about this?”
“He’s growing up,” Juhoon coos.
“You and Martin have literally both never had a girlfriend — you can’t be saying that to me right now.” Seonghyeon says pointedly. Then he realises that none of his friends will be of help, because they’ve simply never confessed to anyone.
“Woah!” Martin says, shocked by the sudden mention of his name. “What do I have to do with what Ju said?”
“Nothing,” Seonghyeon replies, drumming his fingers on the table as he tries to think of what to say to you. Juhoon was awfully secretive of whoever he liked — Seonghyeon’s convinced he has a crush, he just wasn’t talking about it. Keonho, despite being the crush of far too many people in the year group, was too busy with swimming to even consider a relationship. Martin was a romantic, but he’d never found someone he actually liked enough to direct his affections to.
They’d been able to analyse him correctly because they knew him well. But they wouldn’t be able to help him devise a plan on how to confess. None of them knew you well — except maybe Martin, who you tutored.
“I just… I don’t know if you guys will be able to help, actually. No offence — it’s just… you guys don’t know her at all.”
“I think you should just tell her how you feel,” Martin hums. “What’s the worst she could do? Reject you?”
Seonghyeon looks at Martin like he’s crazy. “Yes? Obviously that’s the worst, and I don’t want that to happen. She’s Sera’s best friend, remember? If she rejects me, I’m still going to have to see her all the time.”
“Well, your other option is to silently pine forever,” Keonho says, and his eyes dart over to Minjun, who’s sitting nearby your table. Seonghyeon looks in that direction, and that ugly feeling of jealousy creeps up his spine again. His jaw clenches, and Keonho doesn’t miss it. “And I know for a fact you’re not going to do that when Minjun could very well make another move.”
Keonho’s right. Of course he is.
Seonghyeon’s eyes land on you, and you’re laughing at something that Sera’s saying. The look of pure unadulterated joy on your face is infectious, and the corners of his lips quirk up into a smile.
You somehow catch his eye, and you beam at him, waving before returning to your conversation with Sera. Seonghyeon gently raises his hand to wave at you back.
“And you never know,” Martin hums, watching Seonghyeon’s expression with a knowing smile on his lips. “She might like you back.”
It’s another late night of studying for you and Seonghyeon. Sera complains that you’ve replaced her with her own older brother, but she’s the one who decides to sleep early while you and Seonghyeon make your way through the stack of practice papers that you’ve printed out.
But something tonight just feels a little different. The silence feels a little too loud, the scratching of your pencils is too unsettling, and the brushing of yours and Seonghyeon’s knees every now and then makes your stomach flip.
The room is dimly lit, with the only light on being the one from the kitchen. Seonghyeon’s eyes flicker towards you every now and then. He tries to talk to you a little bit, but there’s a certain sort of tension that he just can’t quite name that seems to stifle any conversation from continuing.
His stomach grumbles, cutting through the silence. He looks at you, wondering if you heard. “Sorry,” he mumbles, getting up from his chair. “I’m gonna grab some of the acai – do you want some?”
You stretch your arms, nodding. “Yeah, that would be nice. I’m also just going to take a little bit of a break too. I’ve been writing far too much.” You get up from your chair as well, grabbing two clean bowls from the cabinet and setting them on the counter. Seonghyeon grabs the tub of acai from the freezer and two spoons.
“Here,” He scoops a generous portion into one bowl, and he hands it to you first, along with the spoon. “Eat first.”
“Thank you,” you beam, taking a bite of the acai. It’s cold, and you wince as it hits your tongue. Seonghyeon chuckles gently at your expression – you know he doesn’t mean it mockingly. There’s a hint of affection that’s evident in the way he smiles afterwards.
The tension between you two still remains, and you’re just not quite sure what to say. There’s something about the way the kitchen light illuminates his features that makes your heart flip, and you find yourself at a loss for words. You like Eom Seonghyeon far too much, but after 10 years, you’ve kind of become an expert at acting ‘normal’ around him.
But right now, it was different.
You don’t know how to act around him right now.
At school, things were normal. It was only when you got to the Eoms’ house, something had seemingly changed. Perhaps it was how nice Seonghyeon looked in the gray striped shirt. Or how he’d fixed you a plate for dinner before making his own. Or how his touch had lingered when your hands had brushed while you were grabbing a sticky note.
Either way, small little moments that you had initially deemed insignificant had snowballed into creating tension so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
The two of you eat your acai quietly, but you can’t help but steal glances at Seonghyeon every now and then. It just so happens that he does the same too – only when you’re not looking at him.
It’s driving him crazy. After realising his feelings for you, everything felt right. He finally had all the answers.
But having to act on them was making him go mental. Because Seonghyeon simply doesn’t think that he can bottle up all his feelings and wait – you were always there, and if you weren’t, reminders of you were everywhere. His mind, more often than not, is consumed with thoughts of you.
You set your bowl on the counter, and you steal a glance at Seonghyeon again. This time, he’s already looking at you. Your eyes flick towards a smudge of acai on the corner of his lips.
“You’ve got something there.” Without thinking, you reach up and swipe it away with the pads of your thumbs. Seonghyeon’s breath catches in his throat.
You don’t know why you did that. Your eyes widen ever so slightly, and your face heats up. The tension between the two of you becomes even more intense – you didn’t even think that was possible – and you’re hesitant to even breathe. The two almost empty bowls of acai are left on the table, completely forgotten now. Your touch still lingers on the corner of Seonghyeon’s lip, and on instinct, he gently reaches up to touch where your thumb had been.
Your eyes flick to Seonghyeon’s lips. You realise that you really, really want to kiss him right now.
He notices.
You don’t know when you and Seonghyeon’s faces inch even closer to one another – it just happens. You gravitate towards each other like two magnets, and suddenly your face is just mere inches away from his.
It’s tonight when Eom Seonghyeon swallows his pride and finally admits it. He likes you far too much, and he has to do something about it before he drives himself mad.
“Seonghyeon,” you whisper his name like you’re begging for him to close the distance. He can feel your breath on his lips, and exercising restraint right now is agonising torture.
He hates you. He hates that you make his heart race, hates how you make him lose all clarity and self control, and he hates how much he wants to just press his lips to yours right now. But when your eyes flick to his lips once again, Seonghyeon just can’t hold back anymore.
Self control be damned.
His lips find yours in a manner that you can only describe as desperate. He kisses you like he’s been wanting to do this forever – urgent, certain, determined. You kiss him back, and you don’t miss the soft, small sound that escapes past his throat when you do. It’s one that’s barely audible, like he’s surprised that you’re kissing him back with the same kind of certainty.
As your lips mold against his, you allow yourself to believe that maybe Eom Seonghyeon never hated you in the first place. Maybe he just didn’t know how to show it all along. Maybe he had always secretly longed for you, and everything just finally clicked.
You can taste the acai that still lingers on his lips, and the smell of lavender and birch from his cologne envelopes you in a way that is maddeningly intoxicating. When Seonghyeon’s hands find your waist and pull you closer, pressing your body to his, you allow yourself to melt like putty in his hands.
He whispers your name against your lips, and the low hum of his voice sends shivers up your spine. You press your mouth against his like you’re trying to memorise the outline of his lips, and his breath stutters.
Seonghyeon is too aware of everything right now; from the smell of your shampoo, from the way you’re clutching onto his shirt like your life depends on it, and from the taste of your mint lip balm.
He kisses you with more urgency, and Seonghyeon doesn’t know how he’s lived so long without having you like this. He can’t believe he had actually convinced himself that he despised you for 10 full years. Because with his lips on yours, all Seonghyeon knows is that he is maddeningly and absurdly addicted to you. The world melts away, and it’s like you and him are in your own little bubble.
“You’re so pretty,” he mumbles against your lips. You melt against him – every touch of his lingers, and you’ve waited 10 years for this moment. For Seonghyeon to finally see you as something more.
She’s off limits. You and all your best friends are.
The bubble pops.
Fuck. Sera’s voice suddenly rings in his head, and Seonghyeon stops even if he doesn't want to. He pulls away momentarily, confusing you. You chase his lips again, but he puts the slightest bit of distance between you two.
“We can’t.” Seonghyeon mutters silently against your lips. But those words ring loudly in your ears. “You’re… you’re her best friend.”
You’re stunned for a second. His words strike like a knife to your heart. Of course. To him, you were always his little sister’s annoying best friend. Why would it change, even after he kissed you like that?
“Right,” you gulp. Your heart is heavy.
You slip away from his grasp, and Seonghyeon already misses having your lips on his. You hastily collect your things and put them in your bag. The air is thick with tension, and not the kind that filled the air before Seonghyeon kissed you like you actually meant something to him. You blink back tears — you feel stupid for leaving your heart right in the palm of his hands.
Eom Seonghyeon only kisses you once before he loses you.
He watches you disappear past his front door without a word, and he realises:
He already wants you back.
You’ve been avoiding both Seonghyeon and Sera like the plague.
You can’t get the kiss out of your mind. Seeing Seonghyeon hurts. Seeing Sera means that it’s only a matter of time before the dam breaks and you tell her everything.
Seonghyeon notices — you never show up to his house after school to study anymore. You pair up with Leean for English now. You don’t even look at him in class. Keonho catches him staring at you a little too much, but a gut feeling of his tells him not to pry.
You know that he’s trying to come find you so you two can talk it out, but you’re somehow able to expertly dodge him for an entire week. It’s making him go insane.
You make some lame excuse about needing to study in the library to Sera so you don’t need to sit with her at lunch. You notice the hurt that flashes across her face before she agrees, and you feel awful for lying to her. It gets worse when you tell her that you’re going to study at home for the next week or so.
It’s a Wednesday afternoon when Sera corners you in the history classroom.
“Why are you avoiding me?” she asks you bluntly. You can’t even bear to look at her face. All you can see is that her arms are crossed over her chest, and after 10 years of friendship, you know that her eyebrows are likely tightly knit together in anger. If she was furious, you wouldn’t blame her.
“I’m not,” you lie through your teeth, shifting uncomfortably as you stare at the floor. She looks at you incredulously. “I’m just busy, Sera.”
“We’re best friends, (Name). I know when you’re lying to me. What happened?” Your stomach twists with guilt when you hear the hurt in her voice. Your eyes flick up to look at her, and you just can’t lie to her anymore.
The dam breaks. You let out a choked sob and Sera’s face immediately contorts into one of alarm. She quickly wraps her arms around you in a hug as you cry into her shoulder, your tears staining her uniform.
“I’m sorry,” you choke out. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay,” Sera gently pats your back in a move to comfort you, her voice soft and understanding. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
You don’t say anything for a few seconds, taking deep breaths to compose yourself before you speak. The feeling of guilt, hurt and pain twists in your stomach when you think of Seonghyeon. You think of how he kissed you and how sparks flew, and then how he crushed all of that hope that you’ve been holding with just a few simple words.
“Seonghyeon and I kissed,” you confess. You can hear Sera take in a sharp breath. “A week ago.”
“You… and Seonghyeon?”
You nod. “I thought maybe it could’ve been something. I thought maybe I… meant a little more to him. And then he said we shouldn’t.”
Sera’s brows furrow in confusion. “What? Why?”
“Because I’m your best friend,” you mumble. “I get it. I’ll just… always be his little sister’s annoying best friend, right?”
“Do you like him?”
Of course you do. You like him a little too much, even. Even though he crushed your heart in his hands, you still can’t bring yourself to hate him.
“Yeah,” you whisper. “I do. I really, really do.”
“And I hate how much I do, actually,” your heart hurts as you pour out all the feelings that you’ve been keeping to yourself for the past week. “Fuck, Sera – I know he’s your brother and everything, but I’ve liked him ever since I can remember. I started reading these goddamn history books because I wanted to find something in common with him just so we could talk. Before this year, I didn’t even think anything would happen – he always tried to avoid me, hell – he barely could look at me even when we were in the same room. I don’t even know why I kept on yearning when it was obvious that he didn’t want me around.”
“But then, this year,” you chuckle, thinking about how Seonghyeon’s entire demeanour had changed. “He cared. Maybe begrudgingly at first and at your request, but then I noticed that he actually cared about me. He noticed these things about me that I never even noticed about myself – like how I apparently tap on the covers of my books too quickly when I’m nervous.”
“And then we started spending more time together, and I fell even harder. He was just so easy to talk to, so nice, and we had so much in common. Then he paid for my fucking books at the bookstore when it was ridiculously expensive. And he had no reason to!” you exclaim. “And after, I just started thinking that maybe I wasn’t crazy to have waited for so long, because it was going to pay off.”
“And then when he kissed me, I allowed myself to have that sort of hope. That something would actually come out of my years of yearning. That I meant something more than just being your best friend. That… he actually liked me.”
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you want to hear. Your best friend is in love with your brother,” you say, shaking your head. You know how awkward it is for Sera to hear this – she hated whenever anyone came up to her and asked her if Seonghyeon was single. It must be worse hearing it from her best friend. “This is all so stupid.”
There’s a moment of silence that falls between you and Sera. It’s incredibly nerve-wracking, and your heart sinks. You’ve already messed up your relationship with one of the Eom siblings. You can’t bear to lose the other one too.
“I always told myself that if I got to pick who Hyeon ended up with, I would want it to be you,” Sera confesses. You look at her through teary eyes, your face evidently shocked. “I mean… you two are too similar and too compatible. To me, it was just a matter of time until he realised that he didn’t dislike you, he just… never got to properly know you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m dead serious. And for the record, I’m not mad at you, (Name),” Sera replies. You search her eyes to see if she’s being honest, and you’re certain she is. You let out a sigh of relief – the last thing you wanted was your friendship with Sera to be ruined. “I get why you were avoiding me, as much as I didn’t like it. And that somewhat explains why Hyeon has been so… weird this week.”
“Look. I’m going to go talk some sense into him,” you gulp hearing her words. “I will most definitely yell at him and smack him over the head. I don’t want to promise anything, but… would you be okay to speak to him if he came up to you?”
You take a deep breath. You’re not too sure how you can face Seonghyeon right now. But some sense of closure, some explanation to that night would be better than nothing. If things didn’t end up the way you wanted them to, at least you could move on.
“Yeah,” you say. “I’ll have to mentally prepare myself a bit, but yeah. Might as well get that conversation over and done with. I don’t want to avoid him forever.”
Sera gives you a comforting smile before hugging you a little tighter. “Great. I love you, okay? And if it’s my loser brother who makes you happy… then of course I’m okay with it. I just wish you’d told me at first, so I could actually be a good wingwoman.”
Her words lighten up the atmosphere, and you wipe the tears from your eyes. “I love you, Sera. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything earlier – I just didn’t want to make things strange between us, you know?”
“I know,” Sera nods. “You don’t have to justify yourself. Seonghyeon on the other hand though… he’s going to have a lot to explain.”
“Go easy on him,” you say. Sera looks at you like you’re crazy.
“I can’t believe he broke your heart and you’re telling me to go easy on him,” Sera groans. “You’re too kind for your own good.”
“I don’t know,” you mumble, staring down at your shoes. “I think unfortunately, I’m just in love.”
“Eom Seonghyeon!”
He’s woken up to Sera hitting him with a pillow. He didn’t even realise that he fell asleep – his copy of Plato’s Symposium is now somewhere near the foot of his bed, and he realises that he’ll have to flick through the entire book again to pick up from where he left off.
But right now, the more pressing matter is how his little sister is looking at him with a glare so intense he thinks she’s trying to shoot a laser through his skull. Her eyebrows are furrowed, anger evident on her face. Seonghyeon knows that he’s fucked up. He doesn’t need Sera to remind him.
“How fucking dare you?” she hisses at him. Her voice is laced with venom, and Seonghyeon has never been scared of his little sister before, but there’s a first time for everything. “You kiss my best friend and then you tell her that ‘you can’t’? Are you serious?”
“Sera, I—”
“I’m not finished.”
“I told you at the beginning of the year to look out for her, and this is what you do? Fuck with her feelings? She’s been avoiding me for a whole week because of you!”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Seonghyeon stammers. “I didn’t intend for it to.”
“No shit, Seonghyeon — couldn’t you have thought it through before you made a move like that?”
“I didn’t intend to actually end up liking her, Sera!” Seonghyeon exclaims. “You don't think I feel guilty for saying that and pushing her away? Because it’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past week.”
“I replay that kiss in my mind every second. I hate how just mere moments later I pushed her away. I hate that I made her feel like she meant nothing to me, because she doesn’t — I… I… fuck.” Seonghyeon’s voice cracks. He clutches his head in his hands as he tries to fight back the tears threatening to spill past his eyes. “I don’t… I don’t know how it happened — it wasn’t supposed to. I thought I hated her, and then somewhere along the way I guess I started liking her. I don’t think I ever hated her, actually. I just… I just didn’t realise it.”
Sera looks at him in stunned silence. She lowers the pillow, seemingly unwilling to attack Seonghyeon again now.
There’s guilt, regret and desperation written all over Seonghyeon’s face. As Sera looks at him a little closer, she notices the eyebags and the dark circles from tossing and turning at night, losing sleep because Seonghyeon just can’t stop thinking about you.
She looks at the book that’s at the foot of his bed — Plato’s Symposium. Seonghyeon had never shown remotely any interest in philosophy, and Sera’s shocked that he’s actually reading a book of that genre. But then she notices that there’s multiple plastic tabs sticking out of the book, and Sera knows only one person who does that when reading.
It’s your copy.
“You’re in love with her,” she gasps.
“Yeah,” Seonghyeon admits quietly. He thought it was just like initially, but when his heart physically hurts at the thought of losing you, it must be something more. It must be love.
He thinks he should feel some sense of relief at that realisation, but all he feels is guilt. How could he not when all he’s replaying in his head is kissing you like that before he just had to push you away?
He sees you in class and all he notices is that you’re awfully quiet, you barely smile, and there’s a certain dullness in your eyes that wasn’t really there before. Seonghyeon hates knowing that he’s the reason why.
“I am. And I fucked it all up.”
“I didn’t want to make things weird with you and her. You told me at the beginning of the year that she was off limits to me and my friends,” Seonghyeon mumbles.
“But this is killing me, Sera. I’m rereading this goddamn book like a madman.” he says, holding up Symposium. He really thinks that he might be going crazy without seeing your face. “I keep trying to find her and try to talk to her, but she won’t even look at me and avoids me every chance she gets. I think that even if she did want to talk to me, I wouldn't even be able to gather up the courage to say anything. That's how fucked I am."
“When I said that she was off limits… it wasn’t a definite thing. You should’ve just talked to me, Seonghyeon,” Sera’s voice is a little softer now, sitting down on the edge of Seonghyeon’s bed. “I want you both to be happy, and if you’re the one making her happy, why wouldn’t I be okay with that?”
“I don’t know,” Seonghyeon confesses. “I didn’t realise I didn’t hate her until a few months ago.”
“Yeah, you’re pretty bad with emotions,” Sera replies bluntly. “Sorry. Like I told you earlier in the year, you didn’t hate her – you just never got to know her properly.”
“Look, I’m probably not supposed to be telling you this, but… she told me today she’s liked you ever since she can remember.” Sera jabs her finger at Seonghyeon’s chest.
Seonghyeon's breath catches in his throat. You’ve liked him for that long. You’ve waited for him.
“I, for one, can’t believe I was so blind. But seriously, Seonghyeon – I know my best friend, and she’s not going to stop liking you anytime soon. She really likes you and I’m more than willing to bet money on the fact that she’s going to give you another shot. But you really have to apologise and tell her how you feel, because I know you feel the same way.”
“She told me to be nice to you,” Sera pipes up. “Even when you were a dick.”
God. Seonghyeon had hurt you that badly, and you were still asking Sera to be nice when you really had no reason to even extend the slightest amount of kindness to him. The guilt is eating him alive, and he knows that he has to do something about it. He has to find the courage to actually tell you how he feels.
“Go fix things tomorrow. You have to talk to her.”
“I will,” Seonghyeon sighs softly. “I just… don’t really know what to say.”
Sera scoffs. “You don’t need to say something perfect, Seonghyeon.”
“Just say something real.”
You’re nowhere to be seen.
Seonghyeon is freaking out.
He’s been running around the school like a madman, sprinting across campus just to see if you’re around. Keonho notices how restless Seonghyeon is in class, tapping his foot anxiously on the floor and barely listening to the teacher. He’s never seen Seonghyeon act this way before.
When the bell rings, Seonghyeon’s the first one out the door. Seonghyeon’s sheer speed as he runs out the door makes Keonho question whether or not he should try and convince him to try out for athletics.
By third period, Seonghyeon’s nearly convinced himself that you’re dead. You never miss classes, let alone three of them. You also show up when you’re sick, so whatever your situation is – it must be dire.
He can’t find Sera because they’re in different grades, so he decides to go up to the person you’re closest to in class, besides himself.
“Leean, I need your help.” Seonghyeon’s breathless as she approaches her desk — after all, he had been running around the entire school today to see where you were. It was unusual for you to not be in class at all.
“Is this about (Name)?” She doesn’t seem surprised, but there’s a certain coldness in her tone that’s never been there before. She must know, he thinks.
Usually Seonghyeon would be embarrassed and flustered that for some reason his classmate knew that he was looking for you, but he didn’t care anymore — he had to make things right.
“Yeah, yes — where is she?”
Leean looks away, clearly hesitant to tell him. “Look, I don’t know if I should tell you,” she sighs. “She’s not… really doing well. You know why.”
“Please. I messed up,” He’s desperate. He doesn’t even care that Leean probably knows everything he’s done. “I have to make it right.”
She, too, notices the dark circles under his eyes and the urgency in his voice. His hair is unbelievably messy, probably from running his hands through them all day in frustration. She's never seen Seonghyeon — the boy known for looking too perfect and put-together — look this distressed and disheveled.
Then it hits her. The desperation in his eyes, the worry in his tone, even how his hands are shaking slightly – Eom Seonghyeon is in love with you.
She remembers how you were describing that night when you confided in her about everything. You couldn’t tell Sera, but you had to tell someone – bottling up your feelings simply felt awful. The hope that you had of him maybe liking you back, and then the heartache when he’d pushed you away. Leean knows that you’re in love with him, and you wouldn’t stop loving him anytime soon.
She knows that she really shouldn’t tell him. But she also really couldn’t get in the way of what she now realised was real love.
“Fine,” she exhales. “She’s not here today. She’s out all day at an art gallery for a visual arts assignment. I don’t know how you’re going to be able to find her, since there’s so many in the city.”
Art gallery. Visual arts assignment.
Rembrandt.
Seonghyeon knows exactly where you are.
“Okay,” he says, nodding. Leean notices the shift in his demeanour. “I’m gonna go. Please tell Ms Seo I’m not going to be here for math.”
Leean thinks Seonghyeon’s crazy. Missing any other class without a valid reason was fine, but missing math with Ms Seo was a death sentence. “You’re missing math? For what?” she sputters.
“I have to find (Name),” he says, running his fingers through his hair. He takes his phone out of his pocket, searching for the art gallery that he knows you’re at. It’s a 15 minute drive away — he’s just going to have to call a car to pick him up. “Yeah. I’m not gonna make it back in time for class.”
“Seonghyeon, Ms Seo is literally going to kill you. I know you’re worried about (Name), but can it wait? Maybe until lunch?”
“I’ve stalled for too long,” he shakes his head, clicking onto the rideshare app he rarely uses. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Seonghyeon has never felt this desperate. “It’s fine. I’ll take the detention and the six different worksheets she’ll give me. I’m going to go crazy if I don’t do this.”
The conviction in his voice is enough to tell Leean that nothing she’ll say is going to stop him. She sighs, nodding. “At least just head to admin and sign out? Say that you have some health appointment — I don't think (Name) would want you to face Ms Seo's wrath either.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Seonghyeon says absentmindedly. He looks at his phone, and he sees that the cab is almost here. “Okay, I’m gonna go.” He slings his backpack over one shoulder, thanking Leean hastily before he runs out the classroom.
He runs right past the nurse’s office and the admin office – Seonghyeon really doesn’t care about the repercussions right now. Ms Seo is definitely going to kill him. His mother’s going to scold him when she finds out. Keonho, Martin and Juhoon are going to tease him about this mercilessly.
But love makes people do crazy things, and Eom Seonghyeon thinks that this is going to be one of the craziest things he’s ever done.
When Seonghyeon steps into the art gallery, he’s reminded about why he doesn’t go there willingly.
He likens them to mazes. To him, there’s no logical direction like there is in a history museum. Seonghyeon also especially hates that the map that he was given at the door doesn’t tell him where a specific painting is.
He's stopped by a ridiculously overpriced flower shop right at the front of the gallery, and he doesn’t hesitate to buy a bouquet of marigolds – your favourites. The ticket is also insanely expensive, but it doesn’t really matter. He can justify it to his mother later.
And considering that he has to find you in this maddeningly confusing place, Seonghyeon thinks that he’s really got his work cut out for him. He runs past every single painting, eyes flicking up to check if it’s the one that you mentioned. Much to his disappointment, the first few corridors that he runs down don’t have the painting displayed on the wall.
The other people in the museum – tourists, artists and critics – all look at him disapprovingly as his footsteps clack loudly on the wooden floor, disrupting the quietness and serenity of the space.
Seonghyeon grimaces when he spots someone glaring at him, muttering an apology for disrupting them. But he’s too preoccupied with finding you.
The stupid map he’s holding is of no help, and Seonghyeon practically wants to rip it apart until he wanders into a corridor that he thinks he’s never been to before. He doesn’t know where he is at this point, and he’s clutching onto the flowers for dear life as if they’ll somehow keep him sane. He’s been running around for 15 minutes, and he hasn’t found you yet. He’s starting to think that perhaps he’d gotten it wrong – maybe you weren’t here.
Seonghyeon turns the corner. His eyes flick up to the painting quickly, prepared to already groan in disappointment before he has to slink down another hallway that looks just about the same. But this time, he gasps.
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.
Most people who go to art galleries would marvel at the painting for a few minutes before looking around the space.
Seonghyeon’s eyes immediately go to the figure sitting on the bench in front of the painting.
It’s you.
You’re writing something down in a notebook, one earphone in your ear with your brows furrowed in concentration. To Seonghyeon, you look unbelievably beautiful – you always do. His breath hitches in his throat, and suddenly all the words that he was preparing to say in the car are lost on him.
He can’t even bring himself to speak just yet — he just stands there for a few seconds, admiring you. Is it bad that he doesn’t care much about the painting?
Seonghyeon takes a deep breath before he clears his throat to catch your attention. You turn to look in the direction of the noise that had disrupted the silence, and you’re stunned when you see Seonghyeon standing there, with a bouquet of marigolds in his hands.
“Hi,” he says breathlessly. “I thought I’d find you here.”
You furrow your brows, setting your pen and notebook on the bench. “How’d you find me?” you ask in disbelief, taking out your earphones. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t happy to see him, but the ache from that night still stings a little.
“Rembrandt. You told me about his paintings and how you wanted to make your assignment about this exact work once when we were studying. And…I had to come find you,” he says, taking a hesitant step towards you. “I messed up that night.”
The mention of that night makes you grimace. “Seonghyeon, it’s fine — we really don’t have to talk about it. It was like a spur of the moment thing, or something. Just go back to class before Ms Seo literally kills you.”
“It wasn't,” The certainty in his voice surprises you. “I meant it. I wanted to.”
You don’t say anything in response, and Seonghyeon takes it as a cue to continue talking. Sera’s words ring in his head – just say something real.
“I always thought I disliked you,” he blurts out. Wow, bad start, he thinks. It couldn’t get any worse, could it? He sees your face fall slightly. “No, no, that came out wrong – um, let me finish. I don’t hate you. I’m just… really bad at realising my own feelings.”
“I always felt nervous around you, I never knew what to say, and I suppose I jumped to conclusions and thought that I hated you. But then this year… I realised that it was actually the opposite. My nerves really just stemmed from the fact that I… I cared about you. Cared about how well you were doing in school, cared about how you were always around, and I really cared about what you thought of me. I didn’t want you to think I was stupid or anything or that I couldn’t match your intellect, as strange as it sounds.”
“And then this year I realised that I just knew things about you, even though I – stupidly – never made any attempt to try and get to know you better earlier on. Like how you tap the cover of your books when you’re nervous, and how you only use purple sticky tabs for pages in your books with annotations, and that you only use blue pens for essay subjects and black pens for subjects with numbers. His throat burns as he rambles. “Juhoon said that only a lunatic or someone madly in love would notice these things, and I know I’m the latter.” Seonghyeon doesn’t miss the way your breath catches in your throat when you hear him say that he’s in love with you.
“I’m sorry. I’m not good with emotions. I’m really stupid to only have realised it now. And I’m sorry that I pushed you away that night when I felt like… this. I got scared – everything got too real, I suppose, and thinking about what Sera said about you being her best friend and everything… I didn’t want everything to become strange.”
“But this week made me realise that I don’t think I could possibly live with myself without telling you how I feel and giving this a shot. I keep reading Symposium over and over again because it just reminded me of you, and I just… yeah. I know they're kind of mostly talking about platonic love there, but this line stuck out to me and I think it works. It was something about love being the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole, and... yeah. You just make me feel whole.
"I don't even know if that makes a lot of sense," he sighs, but Seonghyeon could not care less about looking dumb right now. "But I’m so stupidly in love with you.”
“I love how passionate you are about the things you’re interested in. I love how much you chat my ear off about Plato and Aristotle and Rembrandt’s paintings. I love how much you care about everyone – and how you care about me, such as knowing what kind of books I like, or my favourite flavour of ice cream when I’ve never even mentioned it to anyone before. It was that day at the bookstore where everything clicked for me – that I really, really liked you. And after that realisation, everything just finally felt right.”
“And I suppose what I’m trying to say here with all my rambling, is that if you’d still have me… I’d really want to be yours.”
He lets out a deep exhale after he pours his heart out to you. He quickly looks back down at his shoes once he’s finished speaking. He’s hesitant to even look at you and witness your reaction to his words. He’s never said anything this raw, this genuine, this honest – especially not regarding his feelings. But saying it out loud feels right. He loves you. Seonghyeon has never been more sure of anything in his life.
There's a beat of silence that falls between the two of you. Seonghyeon’s heart drops.
“Do you really mean all that?” you pipe up. You blink rapidly, as if you’re still trying to digest everything that he just said.
“Yeah,” He’s never said anything more real. “I do. Every word.”
“You’re… you’re insane,” you finally breathe out. Seonghyeon looks at you, and there are tears in your eyes. But you don’t seem angry or repulsed, and you’re not running away. He wants nothing more than to reach out and wipe the tears from your eyes for you, but he doesn’t know if you’re willing to let him get that close.
“I know,” he admits. His voice is low in a whisper, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. “But I love you.”
He hopes it’s enough.
You step closer towards him, and Seonghyeon slowly looks up at you. “I thought I’d be the one to say all that first,” you shake your head almost in disbelief. After pining for him for so long, Seonghyeon ended up being the one who had confessed. You don’t think you ever saw that coming.
“So are you saying – you feel the same?” Seonghyeon stammers, panic evident in his tone. He doesn’t know why he’s actually asking that, considering that both Sera and Leean had confirmed it for him. He supposes that after that night, he didn’t know if you would actually still have feelings for him. “Like, I know it’s a lot to process, and I can wait–”
Your hands grab the lapels of his uniform, pulling him closer to you and capturing his lips in a kiss. He’s slightly taken aback at first before he kisses you back. One hand cups your cheek as the other finds your waist like he’s done this a million times before, and Seonghyeon kisses you like you’re oxygen and he’s struggling to breathe. Finally, he thinks. Everything feels right.
It was messy and desperate, but it couldn’t have been more perfect. It was the kind of kiss that conveyed every single emotion that the two of you felt for the last week after being separated for so long.
There couldn’t possibly be a more picturesque location for a first – well, second – kiss. The world crumbles away, and it’s only you and him. Seonghyeon doesn’t care that there’s other people in this damned art gallery that are acutely aware of their presence and what they’re doing. They’re no doubt either glancing at them oddly, or understanding that this is just young love.
When you pull away, your lips quirk up in a wide grin. “I love you too. I have, for a really long time now.” you say, whispering against his lips.
“I know,” he replies, remembering what Sera had told him. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
“Did Sera tell you everything?" You don’t seem surprised, but you are slightly embarrassed that Seonghyeon knows how long you’ve been waiting for him to like you back. He nods in response, and you try to hide the flustered expression on your face. “I figured. God, I can’t believe you know that I started reading history books just because I wanted to talk to you more.”
Seonghyeon now looks shocked. “You did?”
Your eyes widen – great, you’d just tattled on yourself. You groan, embarrassed as you bury your face in your hands. Seonghyeon’s airy laughter rings through the gallery, his hand gently caressing your shoulder. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. That’s… really sweet of you, actually. But I’m sorry for pushing you away all these years. And for pushing you away that night. I was a massive idiot.”
“I’m glad you know that,” you joke, but you’re still slightly embarrassed by revealing that small fact about yourself. “I really did want to speak to you, but I was just scared of getting rejected by a guy I’ve liked for a really long time. But I suppose this grand gesture does make up for most of it, though. I can’t believe you’re skipping Ms Seo’s class just for me.”
“This was important. And I know all the content anyways,” Seonghyeon hums. He suddenly remembers that the bouquet of marigolds is still in his hands, and his eyes widen in alarm. He checks them to see if the arrangement is ruined, and he breathes out a sigh of relief when they’re not. He nervously hands them out to you, and you accept them with a bright smile. “Sorry, I forgot to give you these earlier.”
“Marigolds,” you grin, admiring the flowers. You press a quick peck to his cheek and watch as his cheeks tint pink. “You remembered. They’re gorgeous.”
“I’m happy that you like them.” he beams. You think about every word that Seonghyeon said in that confession, and your heart blooms with warmth. “But I hope I’m not distracting you too much from your assignment with my confession. You wouldn’t mind if I stayed here with you, right?”
You shake your head. You’re more than happy he’s here, but you’re genuinely worried that Ms Seo’s going to kill him when she finds out that he’s skipped her class. “I’m kind of done, I think. I made my notes and everything, and I just have to put everything together when I get home. But I was planning to stay and walk around the gallery a little bit more, since I’m signed out for the whole day. I just don’t want Ms Seo to… you know… make you suffer for the rest of the year?”
“I’ll tell my mom to maybe lie for me,” he replies, and you can tell that it’s sinking in for him that Ms Seo is not going to be easy on him unless he’s somehow able to pull an acceptable excuse out of his ass. “Surely my mom would understand. Sera would help me convince her too. Or maybe, Ms Seo would be totally okay with me saying that I had to pull off a grand gesture to get the girl I love back.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “That would be lovely, but also… no chance.”
“I’ll take the 15 worksheets she’ll give me. This was worth it,” he gives your hand a tight squeeze. “So… will you show me around the gallery? Just tell me everything about all of his paintings. We can start with this one?”
“I kind of talked way too much about this during that study session, Hyeon,” you laugh. You called him Hyeon. A giddy smile creeps up on his lips. “Wouldn’t you get bored?”
“I’d never get bored of hearing you talk.” he replies. You chuckle before flicking open your notebook. You read out the commentary you’ve made on the painting, pointing up at the specific parts that you’re mentioning. Seonghyeon listens to every single word with your hand laced in his, putting in his own thoughts here and there.
The two of you wander around the entire museum, and miraculously, with you by his side, Seonghyeon doesn’t get lost at all. Suddenly, he thinks that he loves art galleries.
He sneaks in a couple of kisses here and there as you’re rambling. He smiles in amusement as you completely forget what you’ve been saying after he presses his lips to yours.
The last painting the two of you see in the museum is The Polish Rider, and Seonghyeon finds it awfully fitting. The last painting he sees with you in this exhibit is the painting mentioned in the first poem that had in some ways, brought you two together.
As you’re telling him about the painting, he allows his eyes to wander a little. They land on you, and instantly, a lovesick smile stretches across his lips.
And it’s then when he just knows that the kind of love that had been described in the poem that you two had analysed together — breathtaking, all-consuming, fervent — was very much so attainable.
Because he feels it.
Despite being surrounded by paintings revered by all, Eom Seonghyeon would much rather look at you than all the other portraits in the world.
📬 ❤︎ seonghyeon 𝔁 gf!reader ─── ৻ꪆ when the coffee on the nightstand is the only thing left behind.
❤︎ warnings+tags (contains spoilers) ─── ৻ꪆ ANGST, non-idol!au, slice of life (?), established relationship, major character death, illness, grief, panic attack, hurt / comfort, ft. keonho
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ this is inspired by a k-movie i’d seen this year but idk what possessed me to write this now of all times 😭 i forgot the name of the movie but i think about it every fucking day omfg.
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 2.4k
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── glimpse of us—joji ❦ supermarket flowers—ed sheeran ❦ fourth of july—sufjan stevens ❦ spring day—bts ❦ breathe—lee hi ❦ untitled, 2014—g-dragon ❦ above the clouds—day6
he hated that the mugs didn’t match.
when seonghyeon first brought his boxes over, stacking them neatly by the door of your cramped third-floor apartment, he had stopped dead in front of your open kitchen cabinet.
“they’re all different,” he said, pulling out a chipped blue tourist mug from a city you’d never visited.
“they all hold coffee,” you told him, barely looking up from your phone.
“not the point.”
“it literally is.”
the next day, there were four identical cream-colored mugs sitting neatly on the shelf. they were heavy, smooth, and expensive enough that you scolded him for spending the money. but he just smiled, that slow, lopsided thing that always made your chest feel tight, and filled one up to the brim for you.
☆
you hated mornings; he lived for them.
every single day, he’d slide out of bed before your alarm could even think about going off. you’d bury your face under the heavy duvet, groaning at the sudden shift in weight beside you, but he’d just chuckle, a low, gravelly sound thick with sleep.
he’d tie his long hair back with whatever stray hair tie of yours he’d managed to steal from the nightstand, padding down the hallway in his bare feet.
he didn’t even like coffee, he thought it tasted like burnt earth, but he made it anyway. because you loved it.
twenty minutes later, he’d return, pressing a soft, cool kiss to your bare shoulder. “angel.”
“mmm…”
“coffee.”
“five more minutes.”
“you said that ten minutes ago.”
“i’ll say it again.”
he’d sigh, that dramatic, fond sound he always made, and place the warm mug on your nightstand. then he’d crawl right back under the blankets, wrapping his long limbs around you like an anchor, pulling you back into the warmth until you were both running hopelessly late.
☆
the apartment slowly became a beautiful, tangled mess of the two of you.
his oversized hoodies migrated into your closet, smelling of cedarwood and your shared laundry detergent. your expensive skincare started crowding his shaving cream by the bathroom sink.
and then, there were the sticky notes. it started as a way to remember groceries.
buy eggs. and chocolate! LOTS of chocolate!!!!!!
don’t forget rehearsal <3
but then it turned into a game.
he’d hide neon yellow squares with i love you scrawled in his messy handwriting in the cruelest, funniest places—you’d open your laptop in the middle of a serious lecture and find one stuck to the screen. you’d pour a bowl of cereal and see it staring at you from the bottom of the box.
once, you walked three blocks with a scratchy feeling in your left shoe, only to pull it off and find a crumpled note that read: you’re really cute when you’re annoyed.
☆
you knew every version of his habits, just like he knew yours.
you knew that when he was deeply anxious, his hand would automatically go to the back of his neck, rubbing the skin until it turned red. when he was thinking about a problem, he’d bite the inside of his cheek.
and when he was upset, he didn't scream or slam doors. he just got quiet. not a cold, angry quiet. just… heavy. like he was carrying something too big to share.
☆
“you’ve been quiet today,” you remarked one rainy tuesday, leaning your chin on his shoulder while he stared out the window.
“just tired,” he murmured, turning his head to press his lips to your temple.
“you’re lying.”
he’d just laugh, a little hollowly, the sound getting lost in the patter of rain against the glass. “had a rough day at work. don’t worry about it.”
you wrapped your arms tighter around his waist, burying your face in his back. you didn’t know it then… you didn’t know that he wasn’t tired from work. you didn’t know he was just standing there, looking at you, and silently grieving a person who was still sitting right in front of him.
☆
there was a small, irregular dent in the hallway wall right outside the bathroom.
neither of you ever repaired it, even when the landlord came by for inspections. you’d cover it with a poorly placed coat rack.
it had happened during your second winter together—an old, cheesy playlist was blasting from the living room speakers, and both of you were sliding around the hardwood floors in thick wool socks. he had grabbed your hand, spinning you around with entirely too much momentum, and attempted to dip you dramatically.
instead, his foot slipped and you both went airborne.
your shoulders collided with the drywall, leaving a perfect, shallow crater. you had laid there on the floor for ten minutes, tangled in each other’s limbs, laughing so hard that your stomachs ached and tears streamed down your faces.
“you know, we should fix that,” he had said months later, tracing the edge of the dent with his thumb.
“mhm.”
“we’re never fixing that, are we?”
“nope.”
it was your favorite mistake.
☆
then came the morning the air felt freezing. you blinked your eyes open, the bedroom unusually bright. the sun was already high, cutting sharp lines through the blinds. your alarm hadn’t gone off.
you turned your head. the other side of the bed was empty, the sheets cold. but the nightstand had a cream-colored mug on it. a faint wisp of steam was still rising from the dark liquid.
“you’re spoiling me,” you murmured into the quiet room, stretching your arms above your head. no answer.
you sat up, the silence in the apartment suddenly feeling incredibly heavy. it wasn’t the warm, sleepy silence of a lazy sunday. it was empty.
“seong?”
nothing.
you pushed the covers off and walked out into the hallway. the kitchen counter was spotless. the living room was perfectly still. you glanced at the entryway—his keys weren’t on the brass hook.
a strange, fluttering panic started to rise in your throat, entirely irrational.
you opened the hallway closet to grab a jacket. his heavy winter coat wasn’t there. only yours, hanging lonely on the rack.
you ran back to the bedroom, throwing open the closet doors. the left side—his side—was completely bare. the hangers were empty, rattling against each other from the draft. you pulled open the dresser drawers. no hoodies. no sweatpants. no silver watch left on the vanity.
“no, no, no,” you whispered, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird.
you stumbled out to the living room, your eyes darting to the photo wall. the grid of black frames you had spent hours leveling together. you stopped breathing.
you were standing alone in every single frame—you at the beach, smiling broadly at an empty shoreline; you at a cafe, holding up a forkful of cake toward a camera that captured nobody; you standing by the dent in the hallway wall, laughing hysterically at nothing at all.
there was no seonghyeon. there had never been a seonghyeon in the prints. it was just you, posing with a ghost. your hands started shaking so violently you had to grip the edge of the drywall to keep from falling.
you stumbled into the bathroom, splashing cold water on your face, trying to wake yourself up from whatever nightmare this was. but when you wiped your eyes and looked up, you saw it.
a neon yellow sticky note, taped neatly to the bottom corner of the mirror.
the handwriting wasn’t yours. it was his.
good morning, angel. if you’re reading this... today’s one of the days you forgot me again. it’s okay, though. the doctors said it would happen. read the notebook in the bedside drawer. i’ll wait.
—s.
your legs gave out. you crawled back into the bedroom, pulling open the nightstand drawer with weak, trembling fingers. underneath a stack of old mail sat a thick, leather-bound notebook.
you opened the cover. the first page was dated three years ago.
if you don’t remember me today, my name is eom seonghyeon. i’m your boyfriend. we’ve been together for six years. you have early-onset alzheimer’s. some mornings you wake up remembering everything. some mornings… i’m just a stranger in your bed.
—s.
the world collapsed in on itself. you looked back at the wall of photos—it’s the cruelest part of the routine he built for you.
on your good days, when you remembered him perfectly, he would take photos of you. he loved capturing your laugh, the way you looked when you were happy, or just you standing in the apartment you shared. but he purposefully didn’t put himself in the frames on the wall.
because he knew what happened on your bad days—if you woke up with a completely blank mind, looking at a stranger in your bed, and then went out to the living room only to see photos of yourself hugging a man you didn’t recognize, it threw you into a violent, terrifying panic. you’d feel trapped, paranoid, and unsafe in your own home.
so, to protect your sanity on the days you forgot, he curated the apartment to look like it belonged only to you. he took down every photo of himself. he made sure the wall only showed you—looking happy, safe, and entirely at peace.
he hid the photos of the two of you together inside that notebook, buried in the nightstand, waiting for the moments you were strong enough to look for them. he erased himself from your sight just to keep you from being afraid.
suddenly, the memories rushed back, but they were warped, recontextualised with a sickening clarity.
the repeated conversations. the moments you’d wake up in the middle of the night, terrified, asking the man beside you who he was and how he got into your apartment. the way he would gently, patiently introduce himself all over again, showing you his driver’s license, showing you the matching mugs, never once raising his voice.
he had been rebuilding your entire shared life from scratch, every single morning, one agonising memory at a time.
you flipped the page, tears blurring the ink.
today you cried because you thought i deserved someone who could remember me. you apologised thirty-two times until you fell asleep.
angel… i don’t stay because you remember me. i stay because you’re still you.
—s.
you flipped further, the pages turning into a blur of dates, sticky notes pasted onto the paper, small polaroids of the two of you actually together—the ones he kept hidden from the walls so you wouldn’t get confused on your bad days.
and then, you hit the final page. it was dated two months ago. the handwriting was shakier than the rest.
my cancer came back. i didn’t tell you because every day you still knew my name felt too precious to spend being scared. i didn’t want your remaining memories of me to be filled with hospital gowns and machines, you know? if you’re reading this… i probably couldn’t wait any longer. my body gave out.
i’m sorry i won’t be there to make coffee one day. but i know you’ll still check the nightstand. so i asked the hospice nurse to come by early and leave one there for you that day. just one last time.
love you. always.
—your seonghyeon
you looked back at the nightstand. the coffee was still warm. it had been made by a nurse who barely knew your name, following a strict set of instructions left behind by a dead man. because the only person who loved you enough to learn exactly how many seconds to pour the milk was gone.
he had spent his final years keeping you whole while his own body was quietly falling apart, and even when he was completely out of time, he had still managed to remember enough for the both of you.
did you love him? did you miss him?
you stared at the cream-colored mug, your mind a blank, terrifying slate, crying for a man you couldn’t even fully picture anymore.
then, the front door clicked open. the sound was too loud in the dead silence of the apartment, making you flinch. heavy, hesitant footsteps padded down the hallway, stopping right at the bedroom doorway.
“hey,” a voice whispered.
you looked up through a thick blur of tears. it was keonho, seonghyeon’s younger brother. you knew his face—your fractured brain held onto that much—but his eyes were red, his shoulders completely slumped under a dark jacket.
keonho took one look at you sitting on the floor, the leather-bound notebook clutched to your chest, and the single cream-colored mug cooling on the nightstand.
he didn’t ask what was wrong. he didn’t have to. he connected the dots the second he saw the pages open in your lap.
he dropped his keys on the dresser and crossed the room in two strides, dropping to his knees right into the dust beside you. he didn’t care about space or boundaries; he just pulled you into his arms, wrapping you in a tight, crushing hug that felt like a desperate attempt to hold your breaking pieces together.
“he’s gone, isn’t he?” you sobbed against his shoulder, your fingers digging into the fabric of his jacket. you couldn’t even visualise seonghyeon’s smile clearly right now, but the hollow space in your chest was agonising. “keonho, please. where is he?”
he squeezed his eyes shut, a hot tear spilling over his cheek onto your hair.
“he died yesterday afternoon,” he whispered, his chest heaving as he finally let himself break down. “at the hospital. he went really quietly. his last couple of days… he was so weak, but he kept making me promise over and over that the nurse would bring the coffee this morning. he made me swear it.”
you buried your face into keonho’s shoulder, the two of you shaking, crying so hard the small bedroom felt suffocating. you were grieving a ghost you couldn’t fully see, and keonho was grieving the brother who had loved others more than his own life.
“i’m sorry,” you sobbed, the guilt suffocating you. “i’m so sorry i forgot him. i forgot him while he was dying.”
“don’t say that, please,” keonho wept, rocking you back and forth on the hard floor. “don’t say that. he knew. he always knew it wasn’t your fault. he loved you so much.”
the room grew cold as the morning stretched on, the mug on the table turning completely icy, but neither of you moved. you just held onto each other in the wreckage of a story that had ended a day too soon.
warnings + info. bridgerton au, enemies to lovers, best friend's brother, forbidden love, situationship (as much as it could be in the 1800s), kissing, reader is an edwards, morally grey characters, bordering emotional infidelity, lowk toxic mindsets, love triangle w keonho kinda… LOL chill ik i packed this one HEAVILY
TAoR— TABLE OF CONTENTS...!
synopsis. the edwards family and the eom family have always moved in the same circle. you and seonghyeon have spent years perfecting the art of avoidance after... well. after his father's funeral when you both said things you couldn't take back. but the ton is small, his sister is your best friend, and eventually you run out of excuses and arguments. especially when he's looking at you like that across the ballroom. the only thing is… you’re soon to be engaged. will he get to your hand before a ring does?
TAoR PLAYLIST
LISTEN TO… enchanted, guilty as sin? all too well: ten minute version and illicit affairs by taylor swift ... fallen star by the nbhd ... self control by frank ocean ... almost is never enough by ariana grande ... iloveitiloveitiloveit by bella kay ... close to you by gracie abrams ... we'll never have sex by leith ross ... i couldn't be more in love by the 1975 ... 18 by one direction ... memories by conan gray
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wc. 16.2k
▸ feedback & reblogs are highly appreciated
maddy's note. long time coming LOL justice for both hyeon and yn............. song easter eggs btw lmk if u find heh i also added a bunch more bc ugh so many songs fits them
also this ones for my baby claire i Heart u
It had been two days since the ball, and Seonghyeon had not slept properly once.
Two days.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw you. Blue silk and moonlight and that expression on your face when he had cupped your jaw, when his thumb had traced your cheekbone, when you had whispered his name like a prayer.
Seonghyeon. Akin to a damned siren in his ear.
He ran a hand through his hair—for perhaps the hundredth time that morning—and tried to focus on what his mother was saying. Something about returning a book to Lady Edwards and Eunji wanting to see you. Something that had resulted in him standing in the entrance hall of Edwards Hall, his cravat feeling too tight and his mouth impossibly dry.
"The ladies are in the drawing room," the butler intoned, and Seonghyeon felt his pulse kick up.
You would be there—of course you would be there. It was your home.
He had not prepared himself to see you again so soon. Had not prepared himself at all, if he were being honest.
His mother swept ahead, Eunji at her side, and Seonghyeon followed with the reluctance of a man walking to his own execution. Through the familiar corridors of Edwards Hall—corridors he had run through as a boy, chasing you and your brothers, back when everything was simple and uncomplicated and he did not lie awake at night thinking about the curve of your mouth.
The drawing room doors opened, and there you were.
You stood near the window, backlit by the afternoon sun, and for one terrible moment Seonghyeon forgot how to breathe. You were dressed in a day gown of pale green muslin, your hair arranged simply, and you looked...
You looked exactly like someone he should not want as desperately as he did.
Your eyes met his across the room, and he watched your expression shift. Surprise, then something that might have been hope, then shuttering into careful neutrality. It had been like this since the ball. Since he had nearly kissed you on that terrace. Since he had come so dangerously close to forgetting every rule he had ever set for himself.
"Mrs. Eom, Eunji!" Your mother rose, all warmth and welcome. "What a lovely surprise. And Seonghyeon, how good to see you."
Seonghyeon bowed, murmured the appropriate pleasantries, and tried very hard not to stare at you.
He failed. He felt like a moth to a flame.
You were looking at him too. He could feel it. He could feel the weight of your gaze like a physical touch, and his fingers twitched at his sides with the urge to—
No. He would not think about touching you. Would not think about how your skin had felt beneath his palm, how you had leaned into his touch, how close he had come to—
"I brought your book back," Eunji was saying to you, smiling brightly. Far too brightly for an innocent visit. His sister knew exactly what she was doing. "The one you lent me last month? I finally finished it."
"Oh!" You seemed to shake yourself, tearing your gaze from Seonghyeon's. "Yes, of course. It is in my room. Perhaps you could help me fetch it?"
"Perhaps your sisters could help," Eunji said sweetly. "I wanted to ask your mother about the charity event next month."
Seonghyeon watched you blink. Observed the realization cross your face that his sister was meddling. That she was trying to orchestrate time alone between the two of you.
Unchaperoned. Yet again.
"I shall help," Wonyoung volunteered, rising with perhaps too much enthusiasm. "Come, Wonhee. Eunji. Mama can spare you for a moment, can she not?"
And suddenly, somehow, the drawing room was emptying. Your mother and his being led away by Eunji with promises of discussing charitable endeavors. Your sisters disappearing under the pretense of helping find this mysterious book. Your brothers nowhere to be seen—likely in the study or out riding.
Leaving you and Seonghyeon alone. The silence that fell was deafening.
You stood by the window still, beautiful and looking at him with an expression he could not quite read. He stood near the door, every muscle in his body taut, hands clenched at his sides to keep from reaching for you.
"Well," you said finally, your voice carefully neutral. "This is not awkward at all."
Despite everything, he felt his lips twitch. Almost a smile. Almost.
"Eunji has never been subtle."
"Neither has Wonyoung, apparently." You paused, worrying your lower lip between your teeth, and Seonghyeon made himself look away before he did something foolish. "We should—we need to talk about what happened. At the ball."
His throat tightened. "There is nothing to discuss."
"Nothing to—" You laughed and your eyes flashed in disbelief, but there was no humor in it. "Seonghyeon, you nearly kissed me."
Hearing you say it aloud—be it in a hushed whisper—made something crack in his chest. He had been trying very hard not to think about it in those exact terms. Not to remember how close he had been. How desperately he had wanted to close that final breath of distance until that scoundrel of a Lord Pemberton interrupted.
"I am aware of what nearly happened," he croaked, his voice coming out rougher than intended.
"Then how can you say there is nothing to discuss?"
He made himself meet your eyes. He forced himself ignore the way his pulse was racing, the way his mouth had gone dry, the way every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to cross the room and finish what ungodly thing he had started on that terrace.
"Because it was a mistake." The words tasted like ash on his tongue. "We were caught up in the moment. The moonlight, the ball—it was all very romantic, I am sure. But it cannot happen again."
He watched you flinch. The way your hand came up to rest against your collarbone—that gesture, the one you made when something hurt you deeply.
God, he was doing this all wrong.
"A mistake," you repeated slowly. Your voice had gone very quiet and very careful.
"Yes."
"And the moment?" You took a step toward him, and he felt his breath catch. "Was that a mistake as well? When you touched my face? When you called me by my given name? When you looked at me like—"
"Yes." He cut you off before you could finish. Before you could put into words what he had been trying very hard not to acknowledge. "All of it. A mistake. A lapse in judgement."
It was not. None of it had been a mistake. It had been the most honest thing he had done in two years, and now he was standing here lying about it because he was terrified. Terrified of wanting you, terrified of losing you. Terrified of becoming the kind of man who put his own desires above his responsibilities.
You were quiet for a long moment, studying him with those too-clever eyes, and Seonghyeon wondered what you saw. Could you see the way his hands were shaking? The way his throat kept working as he swallowed? The way he was fighting every instinct he possessed not to cross the room and take back every word?
"You are lying," your ever-so-sharp cleverness concluded finally.
His jaw clenched. "I am not—"
"You are." You took another step closer, and he found he could not move. He could not step back even though every rational part of his brain was screaming at him to maintain distance. "You are lying to me, and you are lying to yourself."
He scoffed and avoided your eye contact, "This is not productive—"
"What are you so afraid of?" Your voice rose slightly, frustration bleeding through. "That you might actually feel something? That you might actually want something for yourself instead of martyring yourself on the altar of duty and responsibility?"
The words hit like physical blows to his resolve. He ran a hand through his hair again, fingers catching in the strands, pulling slightly. The pain helped him focus on your voice in the way that mattered. That was allowed.
"You do not understand."
"Then explain it to me!" You were directly in front of him now. You were close enough that he could smell rosewater. Close enough that he had to clench his fists to keep from touching you. "Explain why you looked at me like that on the terrace. Why you touched me like—like I was something precious. And then why you are standing here now telling me it meant nothing."
His gaze dropped to your mouth. He could not help it. Could not stop himself from remembering how close he had been to tasting it, how your lips had parted in invitation, how desperately he had wanted—
He dragged his eyes back up to yours, and something must have shown on his face because your expression shifted. Softened. As if you
"Seonghyeon," you pleaded quietly, and the sound of his name on your lips did devastating things to his composure. "Just tell me the truth. Please."
The truth.
The truth was that he had been half in love with you since he was fourteen years old. The truth was that pushing you away after his father's funeral had been the hardest thing he had ever done. The truth was that seeing you in blue silk had undone two years of careful distance in a single moment. The truth was that he wanted you so desperately it terrified him.
But he could not say any of that.
"The truth," he heard himself say, his voice hoarse, "is that this—whatever this is—cannot happen. I have responsibilities. Obligations. I cannot afford to—"
"To what?" Your eyes were bright now. Suspiciously bright. Were those tears? God, if you cried he did not know what he would do. "To be happy? To want something? To let yourself feel?"
"To be reckless!" The words burst out of him, louder than intended. "To put my own desires above what is right—above what is safe."
"Safe," you repeated, and there was something almost broken in your voice. "You want to be safe."
"I want—" His throat was so tight he could barely speak. His hands flexed at his sides. His entire body was taut with the effort of standing here, having this conversation, not crossing the final foot of distance between you. "I want to protect you."
"From what?"
"From me!" He ran both hands through his hair now, destroying whatever careful arrangement his valet had achieved that morning. "From the inevitability of loss. From the pain that comes with caring too much. I watched my mother nearly break when my father died. I will not—I cannot—"
"Cannot what?" Your voice was barely above a whisper now.
"I cannot be the one who breaks you." The admission tore out of him. "I cannot let you care for me that deeply when I know what it costs. When I know that one day I would leave you to grieve just as my father left my mother."
For a moment, you just stared at him. And then, with the voice of an angel, you whispered an incredibly raw truth that seemed to rub salt into his deepest wound: "That is the most cowardly thing I have ever heard."
He flinched as though you had struck him.
"Seonghyeon, you are simply being cruel in the name of being honest," you sniffed as you blinked profusely, taking a few more steps toward him.
"You are so afraid of loss that you refuse to live," you continued, and there was anger in your voice now. Real anger. "You hide behind duty and responsibility, but really you are just terrified. Of feeling. Of wanting. Of admitting that you care about my wellbeing."
"I do not—"
"Do not dare." You stepped even closer, and he could see the way your chest was rising and falling rapidly. Could see the flush on your cheeks. Could see everything he was trying so hard to deny. "Do not dare stand there and tell me you do not care when I can see it written all over your face."
He was staring at your mouth again. Seonghyeon could not seem to help himself. His gaze kept dropping to it, lingering, remembering how close he had been. How it had felt to hold your face in his palm. How you had whispered his name, not his family's.
His throat clicked as he swallowed hard.
"What do you want from me?" The question came out almost desperate.
"The truth!" Your hands came up, and for a moment he thought you might touch him. His entire body tensed in anticipation. But you stopped just short, your fingers hovering between you. "I want you to stop lying. To stop pretending. I want you to admit that the terrace meant something, Seonghyeon. That I mean something. That you feel this too."
He did. Curse it, he did. Every atom of his being was screaming it. The way his heart was racing. The way his hands trembled. The way he was leaning toward you even as he tried to maintain distance. The way his eyes kept dropping to your lips. The way breathing felt difficult when you were this close. But admitting it would change everything. Would mean acknowledging that he wanted something he could not have. That he had fallen for the one person he had spent two years trying to avoid.
"I—" His voice cracked. He swallowed again and licked his lips. "I cannot give you what you want."
Your features crumpled, and it was like a knife to his chest.
"Cannot?" you asked quietly. "Or will not?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes." Your voice was fierce now despite the fire dwindling in and out within your eyes. "Yes, Seonghyeon, it matters very much. Because if you cannot, then there truly is no hope. But if you will not—if you are simply too afraid to try—then you are exactly the coward I accused you of being."
The words should have made him angry. They should have made him defensive. Instead, they just made him feel hollowed out and empty. You were right. He knew you were right. But knowing it and being able to do anything about it were two different things entirely.
"Perhaps I am," he admitted quietly. "Perhaps I am a coward. But at least that way, no one gets hurt."
"You are already hurting me!" The tears were visible now, though you were fighting them valiantly. "You hurt me when you pushed me away after your father's funeral. You hurt me when you spent two years avoiding me. You hurt me on that terrace when you gave me hope—" Your voice broke. "And you are hurting me now by standing there and telling me it meant nothing when we both know that is a lie."
His hands were shaking. His throat was tight. Every part of him wanted to reach for you, to pull you close, to kiss away those tears and tell you everything you wanted to hear.
Instead, he took a step back. He watched you register the movement. Watched the realization flood your face. Closely observed something that might have been hope flicker and die in your eyes.
"So that is it, then," you said flatly. "You are simply going to walk away."
"It is for the best—"
"Do not." Your voice was cold now and you took a step back that felt an awful like a landmine exploding in his world. "Do not tell me what is for the best. Not when you are making this decision entirely out of fear."
"I am trying to protect you—"
"I do not want your protection!" You were almost shouting now. "I want your honesty. I want you to stop hiding behind this—this facade of noble self-sacrifice when really you are just too afraid to admit what you feel."
He opened his mouth and shut it. he simply had no idea what to say. Because you were right... about all of it.
The silence stretched between you and it was incredibly heavy with everything unsaid. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. He could hear the way your breathing had gone unsteady. Could feel the weight of this moment—this choice—pressing down on him.
"Say something," you whispered finally. "Please. Say anything."
He looked at you. Really looked at you. At the tears on your cheeks that you were trying so hard to hide. At the way your hands were trembling. At the devastation in your eyes that he had put there.
And he made a choice.
The wrong choice but the safe choice. The coward's choice, you would likely say.
"I am sorry," he said quietly. "But this—we—it cannot work. It is better if we simply—"
"Stop." You held up a hand, and he fell silent immediately. "Just stop. I understand perfectly."
"I do not think you do—"
"Oh, I do." Your voice had gone very calm. Very controlled. The tears were still there, but your expression had shuttered completely. "You have made yourself abundantly clear. You do not want this. You do not want me. Fine."
"That is not what I said—"
"It is exactly what you said." You stepped back now, putting distance between you, and he felt the loss of it like a physical ache. "You said it was a mistake. That it cannot happen again. That it is better this way. I heard you perfectly."
His chest felt tight. His throat burned. "I am trying to do what is right—"
"No." You cut him off with a sharp shake of your head. "You are trying to do what is safe. There is a difference."
He watched you draw yourself up. Watched you wipe at your cheeks with quick, angry movements. Watched you transform before his eyes into something cold and distant and nothing like the woman who had smiled at him in the moonlight two nights ago.
"You want to pretend it meant nothing?" Your voice was like steel now. "Fine. We can pretend. We can go back to being perfectly civil strangers who happen to share a social circle."
"That is not—"
"No more dances," you continued, speaking over him. "No more private conversations. No more—" Your voice caught slightly, but you pushed through. "No more anything. We will be polite when forced into proximity by our families' friendship. But that is all."
"You are being—"
"What?" Your eyes flashed. "Reasonable? Practical? I learned from the best, after all."
The barb landed precisely where you had intended it. He flinched.
"I am merely trying to—"
"I do not care what you are trying to do," you said flatly. "I do not care about your noble intentions or your self-sacrificing reasoning. You have made your position clear. So allow me to make mine equally clear: we are done."
The words hit him like a physical blow. Done. As if there had been something to be done with. As if you were ending something that had barely begun.
"If that is what you wish," he heard himself say, even though every part of him was screaming to take it back. To tell you the truth. To be honest for once in his gods-damned life.
"It is." Your chin lifted in that way it did when you were hurt but determined not to show it. "Believe me, Mr. Eom, it is absolutely what I wish."
Mr. Eom. Not Seonghyeon. The formality of it was like a door slamming shut. He should have felt relieved. This was what he wanted, was it not? Distance which translated to safety. No risk of loss because there was nothing to lose.
Instead, he felt like he was being hollowed out from the inside.
"Very well," he managed. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Distant. "I apologize for—for any misunderstanding. It will not happen again."
"No," you agreed quietly. "It will not."
You both stood there for a moment longer. Him lingering near the door, you by the window. A room between you that might as well have been an ocean.
He wanted to cross it. He wanted to close the distance and take back every word. He yearned to pull you close and tell you that you were right, he was a coward! He was terrified, yes, but he wanted you anyway.
Instead, he bowed—stiffly. So disgustingly formally.
"I should—the others will be returning soon. I should go."
"Yes," you said, turning to face the window. Away from him. "You should."
He made it to the door before the words burst out of him, unbidden and entirely without permission from his rational mind. He dared and turned to face you again.
"For what it is worth—"
"Do not." You did not turn around. He stared at the beautiful frame of your back that he had learned to memorize over the past few years of you having it towards him. "Please. Just go."
So he did.
He walked out of the drawing room on legs that felt unsteady. Down the corridor. Past the entrance hall where voices echoed—his mother, your mother, Eunji, your sisters, all still occupied with whatever pretense they had manufactured.
Seonghyeon walked out of Edwards Hall and into the afternoon sun, and with every step, he told himself he had done the right thing.
The safe thing... the thing that would protect you both from inevitable pain.
He told himself this all the way home. He told himself through dinner, through the evening, through another sleepless night where all he could see was the devastation on your face.
He told himself he had made the right choice. He told himself it would get easier. He told himself a lot of things.
None of which were true.
𝑰𝑰.
You cried.
You hated yourself for it, but you cried anyway. Great heaving sobs that you muffled into your pillow so no one would hear. So no one would know that Eom Seonghyeon had broken your heart twice now, and you had been foolish enough to let him.
"It was a mistake."
"It cannot happen again."
"We are done."
The words played on repeat in your mind, each iteration cutting deeper than the last.
A soft knock at your door. Then Wonyoung's voice: "Can I come in?"
You did not answer, but she came in anyway. Your youngest sister had always been too perceptive for her own good. She took one look at you—at your tear-stained cheeks, at the way you had curled yourself small against your headboard—and said nothing at first. Simply crossed the room and climbed onto the bed beside you, tucking herself against your side the way she used to when she was very small and frightened of thunderstorms.
You let her. You were too tired to pretend.
"He is an idiot," she said finally, into the quiet.
Despite everything, you almost laughed. "You do not even know what happened."
"I know you went into the drawing room fine and came out looking like your world had ended." Wonyoung pulled her knees to her chest, her expression far too wise for sixteen. "And I know Seonghyeon Eom left looking like he wanted to throw himself into the Thames. So unless I am very much mistaken, he said something monumentally stupid."
"He said several monumentally stupid things," you admitted, your voice hoarse. "In a row. With great conviction."
Wonyoung made a sound of deep disapproval. "Typical."
"It is not—" You stopped. Swallowed. "It is not entirely his fault. He is frightened. I understand that. I simply—" Your throat tightened. "I am so tired of understanding it. Of making excuses for him. Of waiting."
Your sister was quiet for a moment, studying you with those dark, careful eyes that had always seen more than anyone gave her credit for. She had always been like that. Even as a child, Wonyoung had possessed an uncanny ability to read the room, to feel the currents beneath the surface of things. It had made her seem younger than she was, somehow, that quietness. People often mistook stillness for ignorance.
"Do you love him?" she asked.
The question hung in the air between you. Plain and incredibly devastating. You had never said it aloud. You had barely admitted it to yourself in the dark hours when sleep would not come and your mind circled back to him like water finding its inevitable course.
"It does not matter," you concluded finally.
"That is not what I asked."
You closed your eyes. Behind them, you saw the terrace. The moonlight hitting the sharpness of his features. His hand cradling your jaw with a tenderness that had undone two years of careful distance in a single moment. The way he had looked at you—like you were something precious. Like you were something he was terrified of wanting.
"Yes," you whispered. "God help me, yes. I love him. And he—" Your voice broke cleanly. "He does not want me."
"I do not believe that for a single second."
"You did not see his face, Wonyoung. You did not hear him." You opened your eyes, and the ceiling swam slightly. "He pushed me away. Again. And I—" You pressed the back of your hand to your mouth for a moment, steadying yourself. "I cannot keep doing this. I cannot keep putting myself in front of someone who only knows how to walk away."
Wonyoung reached over and took your hand in both of hers. Her grip was firm and warm and achingly familiar. "Then we shall find you someone who stays."
You wanted to argue. You wanted to say that you did not want someone who stayed in theory, that you wanted him specifically, that your heart was not the kind of thing that could be redirected like water in a channel. That loving Eom Seonghyeon had not been a choice so much as a slow, inevitable accumulation of years and moments and the particular way he looked at you when he thought you were not watching.
But you were tired. So very tired.
"Yes," you heard yourself say instead, squeezing her hand back. "We shall."
Wonyoung rested her head on your shoulder, and you both sat like that in the dimming afternoon light. Neither of you spoke for a long while. Outside, you could hear the distant sounds of the house settling into evening—your brothers' voices somewhere below, the clatter of the kitchen, the world continuing on with perfect indifference to the fact that your heart had been broken rather thoroughly this afternoon.
"For what it is worth," Wonyoung said eventually, very quietly, "I think he loves you too. I think he is simply the worst kind of fool about it."
You did not respond to that, you could not afford to.
But you thought about it long after your sister had gone, long after the candles had burned low and the house had fallen silent. You thought about it, and you hated yourself a little for the way it made your chest ache with this familiar feeling that had been clinging to you since you started whatever this was with the fresh Lord of Eom house that felt dangerously like hope.
You could not afford hope either.
Not anymore.
𝑰𝑰𝑰.
Three days later, disaster struck in the form of Lady Whistledown's Society Papers.
You were at breakfast—your second cup of tea going cold beside you, staring at nothing in particular—when Wonhee swept in with the energy of someone who had slept perfectly and found the morning entirely delightful. She dropped into the chair beside you, reached across to steal a piece of your toast without asking, and unfolded the scandal sheet with the reverence of someone opening scripture.
"Do not," you said flatly.
"I have not done anything yet."
"You have that look."
Wonhee ignored you entirely. Across the table, Martin wandered in looking half-asleep, hair still a bit disheveled, followed by Juhoon who was already dressed and composed in the way that perpetually made the rest of you feel vaguely inadequate. James arrived last, poured his coffee in silence, and settled at the head of the table with the bearing of a man who had also not slept particularly well.
Nobody commented on it. The Edwards family had learned, over many years of living in close proximity, when to push and when to simply pour more tea.
"Oh," Wonhee exclaimed in her seat.
Something in her voice made you look up.
"What?" Martin reached across to steal a corner of Juhoon's toast without looking. Juhoon moved it precisely two inches to the left without acknowledging him.
"Whistledown." Wonhee's eyes cut to you briefly, and then she straightened in her chair. "She has written about our family."
The table went very still.
"Read it," James beckoned, his voice even as he continued to slice on his plate.
Wonhee cleared her throat.
"Dearest Gentle Reader,
This Author has observed a great many things in her considerable tenure documenting the social machinations of London's finest families, but she confesses a particular delight in identifying those rare individuals who manage to captivate the ton without appearing to try. Such a creature has emerged this season in the form of the eldest Miss Edwards.
The daughter of the late Viscount Edwards—a gentleman whose absence is still felt most keenly in certain circles—Miss Edwards possesses what this Author can only describe as an unfair combination of attributes. Wit sharp enough to draw blood, beauty that requires no artifice to recommend it, and a dowry substantial enough to make even the most discerning fortune hunter weep with longing.
Though she entered society two years prior, it seems the gentlemen of the ton have only just taken notice of her particular charms—and taken notice they most certainly have. Several gentlemen of considerable standing have expressed interest, though this Author understands that no formal courtship has yet been established. One wonders if the eldest Miss Edwards is simply unbothered, or if she is waiting for something—or someone—rather more specific.
Either way, this Author suspects the coming weeks will prove most illuminating. Place your bets, dear Reader. This Author certainly has.
Yours in devoted observation, Lady Whistledown."
Silence from your family.
Then Martin said, with great feeling: "She called your dowry substantial."
"Thank you, Martin," you said. "That is precisely what I took from it as well."
"I think it is rather flattering," Wonhee offered, watching your face carefully. "She called you captivating."
"She implied I am waiting for someone specific," you corrected flatly. "In print. For all of London to read."
"Are you not?" Juhoon asked, very quietly, without looking up from his plate.
You had nothing to say to that. Thankfully, you did not have to say anything, because your mother chose that moment to arrive at the table with the bright, purposeful energy of a woman who had already read the column and formed several opinions about it.
"Well!" She settled into her chair and looked at you with an expression of supreme satisfaction. "It seems Lady Whistledown has done us rather a favor."
"Has she," you said.
"She has brought you to the ton's attention in the most favorable terms possible. Now we must be strategic." She reached for her teacup, her eyes already distant with scheming. "James, we must think carefully about the coming weeks. There will be more callers now, I expect. We should be selective."
"I am always selective," James said mildly.
"You have been passive," your mother corrected, with the gentle precision of a woman who loved her son and would not flatter him unnecessarily. "There is a difference. You have not turned anyone away, but you have not encouraged anyone either. That was perhaps reasonable when there was no urgency—but Whistledown has rather changed the landscape."
James looked at you over the rim of his coffee cup. Something unspoken passed between you.
"I am aware," he said finally.
"Several gentlemen showed interest at the Eom ball," Martin offered helpfully. He was grinning in a way that suggested he was enjoying this more than was strictly brotherly. "Hartwell. Beaumont. That fellow from Derbyshire whose name I cannot remember."
"Pemberton's nephew," Juhoon supplied.
"Not Pemberton's nephew," you and James said simultaneously.
Martin raised his hands in surrender.
"The point," your mother continued serenely, "is that we should be thoughtful. We want someone worthy. Someone established. Someone who will—" She paused, a new thought clearly occurring to her, and turned with bright eyes toward Wonhee. "Oh, Wonhee darling, won't you ask dear Eunji if her brother has any prospect ideas for your eldest sister? He must know several eligible gentlemen, and we do so value the Eom family's judgment."
You choked on your tea.
Actually choked. Coughed and sputtered with considerable violence, felt your eyes water, pressed the back of your hand to your mouth while the table erupted into varying degrees of concern and poorly concealed amusement.
"Are you quite alright?" James half-rose from his seat.
"Fine," you managed, voice entirely destroyed. "Just—went down wrong."
"Clearly," Martin said, and had the audacity to look amused.
Wonyoung, from across the table, was watching you with entirely too much understanding in her expression. When you met her eyes, you saw it there plainly—the knowledge, the sympathy, and beneath it, the very faintest flicker of mischief.
"What a lovely idea," she said sweetly, her voice perfectly innocent. "I am certain Mr. Eom would have excellent suggestions. He is so very—" a delicate pause that only you would understand the weight of— "discerning."
You were going to have words with your youngest sister. At length.
"Yes, quite," your mother agreed, entirely oblivious to the undercurrents running beneath her breakfast table. "The Eom family has such good sense. And Eunji is your dearest friend—surely she would want to help see you well-matched."
The irony of it was genuinely staggering.
Eunji. Your best friend. Whose brother you were hopelessly, devastatingly in love with. Whose brother had broken your heart not three days ago in your own drawing room. Whose brother was now being cheerfully volunteered by your mother to assist in finding you a husband.
As though Eom Seonghyeon's opinion on the matter of your romantic future was something you could survive hearing.
"I am certain Eunji will have many suggestions," you said, weakly, reaching for your tea again with a hand you hoped no one was watching too closely.
"Settled then!" Your mother beamed. "Wonhee, you must—"
"Actually." You interrupted perhaps slightly too quickly, and every head at the table turned toward you. You collected yourself. "I believe Eunji mentioned she intended to call today. Something about returning a book I lent her. I can ask her myself."
A lie. A complete and total fabrication. But you could not—would not—sit by while Wonhee innocently asked Seonghyeon Eom for husband recommendations on your behalf. The mortification of it would be genuinely fatal.
"How convenient," your mother said, pleased. "Yes, do ask her, darling."
You nodded and took a careful, measured sip of tea, and prayed with considerable feeling for the conversation to move elsewhere.
It did not.
"Lord Hartwell seemed promising," Martin offered, apparently committed to this particular form of torture.
"Too eager," James said.
"Eager is not necessarily—"
"He asked me twice if you had expressed any preference regarding the country versus the city for a primary residence." James's tone was dry as dust. "Before he had been introduced to you."
"That is—" you started.
"Alarming," Juhoon finished quietly.
"Borderline alarming," James agreed.
Martin subsided. Juhoon returned to his breakfast. Your mother began a detailed analysis of the eligible gentlemen currently in London that you absorbed approximately none of, because you were sitting very still and thinking about the fact that three days ago you had told Eom Seonghyeon you were done, and meant it, and were now being served your future husband for consideration over toast and cold tea.
This was fine. This was entirely fine.
"You do not have to pretend," Wonyoung said, very quietly, under the cover of Martin and James resuming their debate about Lord Hartwell's various merits and deficiencies.
"I am not pretending anything."
"You have been staring at the same spot on the tablecloth for four minutes."
You looked up and met her eyes. She looked back at you with that expression she had worn last night too. It was this one that was somehow both sixteen and a thousand years old.
"I am fine," you told her.
"You are not," she scolded simply. "But you will be." A pause. "We will make sure of it."
You said nothing. You could not trust your voice with anything more than the silence you offered her, which she accepted without pressing further.
Across the table, James caught your eye over the rim of his coffee cup. He did not say anything either. His narrow eyes simply looked at you for a long moment—and in it you recognized something that might have been an apology, or a question, or simply the particular brand of helpless concern that older siblings carried for each other in quiet moments.
You gave him the smallest nod. I am alright.
He nodded back. If you say so.
Outside, London was waking up. Somewhere across the city, Lady Whistledown's column was being read at a hundred breakfast tables, and the ton was forming opinions about the eldest Miss Edwards and her matrimonial prospects and what fortunate soul might succeed where others had not yet tried.
You wondered, briefly, whether Seonghyeon was reading it. You wondered what his face looked like when he did.
Then you picked up your cup, drank your cold tea, and resolved very firmly to stop wondering about Eom Seonghyeon's face entirely. You resolved this with great conviction.
It lasted approximately four minutes.
𝑰𝑽.
Seonghyeon was going to murder his sister.
Not literally, of course. He was not that far gone. But the thought had crossed his mind approximately seventeen times in the past hour alone, which seemed like a reasonable enough foundation for at least considering justifiable homicide.
"—and I do think the embroidery on the sleeve is what truly elevates the design, do not you agree, Mr. Eom?"
He blinked and refocused on Miss Hartwell, who was looking at him with an expression of patient expectation. She had been talking for—he checked the position of the sun against the oak trees—approximately fifteen minutes about needlework. Or possibly fashion. The two topics had blurred together somewhere around the ten-minute mark, at which point Seonghyeon had made the executive decision to simply nod at appropriate intervals while his attention remained fixed on far more pressing matters.
Matters which were currently standing near the refreshment table in a gown of pale yellow muslin that made you look like concentrated sunlight.
"Indeed," he said to Miss Hartwell, because it seemed safe.
"I am so pleased you think so!" Miss Hartwell brightened considerably. "I was telling Mama just yesterday that—"
Seonghyeon made what he hoped was an encouraging sound and let his gaze drift back across the Ashford gardens.
It was a perfect afternoon for a garden party, objectively speaking. The May sun was warm but not oppressive, filtered through the new leaves of the old oaks that lined the sweeping lawn. The Ashfords had gone to considerable effort—tables laden with refreshments, musicians tucked beneath a canvas pavilion playing something light and inoffensive, enough seating scattered throughout the grounds that the guests could cluster in whatever groupings best suited their social machinations.
Under normal circumstances, Seonghyeon might have even enjoyed it. The Ashfords were pleasant enough hosts, their gardens were genuinely lovely, and the weather was cooperating with unusual grace.
But these were not normal circumstances.
These were circumstances in which he had spent the past week attempting and failing spectacularly to stop thinking about you. Circumstances in which he had not slept properly in eight days. Circumstances in which his sister had ambushed him at breakfast this morning with information so mortifying he had genuinely considered fleeing to the country and never returning.
"I had the most interesting conversation with Wonhee Edwards yesterday," Eunji had hummed, setting down her chocolate with the careful precision of someone delivering a killing blow.
Seonghyeon had not looked up from his coffee. "How delightful for you."
"She asked if I might inquire whether you had any prospect suggestions for her eldest sister."
His hand had frozen halfway to his mouth. Coffee had sloshed over the rim of his cup. He had stared at his sister with what he could only imagine was an expression of complete and utter horror.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Prospect suggestions," Eunji had repeated, her eyes gleaming with something that looked suspiciously like vindictive satisfaction. "For matrimonial purposes. Apparently Lady Whistledown's column has generated quite a bit of interest in her, and the family is being strategic about potential matches."
Seonghyeon had set down his cup before he dropped it. "And they asked you to—"
"Ask you, yes. For your opinion on eligible gentlemen who might be suitable for your—" a delicate pause "—dearest sister's dearest friend."
The irony of it had been genuinely staggering.
You. The girl he had pushed away one week ago in your own drawing room. The girl whose face he saw every time he closed his eyes. The girl he was desperately, devastatingly in love with and too much of a coward to do anything about it.
And now your family wanted his recommendations for your future husband.
"What did you tell them?" he had managed.
"That I would ask you, of course." Eunji had smiled sweetly. "What else would I say?"
"You could have said no."
"I could have," she had agreed. "But where would be the fun in that?"
He had seriously considered disowning her on the spot.
Now, standing in the Ashford gardens with Miss Hartwell chattering beside him about sleeve embroidery or whatever it was, Seonghyeon found himself replaying that conversation with increasing levels of mortification. Your family wanted him to help find you a husband. As if he were some neutral third party with no personal investment in the matter. As if he had not nearly kissed you on a moonlit terrace. As if he had not cupped your face in his palm and felt the exact moment you had stopped breathing.
As if he were not currently tracking your every movement across a garden party while pretending to care about needlework.
You were still by the refreshment table, he noted. Still in that yellow gown that he absolutely was not thinking about. Still surrounded by—he counted quickly—three gentlemen now, down from four. Lord Rathord had apparently given up and wandered off, which showed some measure of good sense.
The remaining three were less wise. Or perhaps more persistent. Seonghyeon watched Lord Beaumont say something that made you smile politely, the same smile you gave everyone, the one that did not reach your eyes.
His throat felt tight. He swallowed and refocused on Miss Hartwell, who had apparently moved on from embroidery to—gardens? Yes, gardens. She was gesturing enthusiastically toward a rose bush.
"—and the Ashfords really have done wonders with the landscaping this year, have they not?"
"Quite," Seonghyeon agreed. He had absolutely no idea what the Ashford gardens had looked like last year. He had not attended their garden party last year.
He had been in mourning. Everything had been different last year.
His gaze drifted back to you automatically, pulled by some gravitational force he had long since stopped trying to resist. You had moved slightly, he noted. Closer to the table. Lord Beaumont was still talking. You were nodding, but your attention had drifted toward—
Seonghyeon's eyes narrowed. What were you looking at?
He followed your line of sight and felt something uncomfortable twist in his chest. You were watching the musicians. Or rather, you were watching the space beyond the musicians, where the lawn sloped down toward the pond and the willow trees created these pockets of shade that looked like they had been designed specifically for private conversations.
Were you thinking about leaving? About escaping?
He would not blame you. The circling gentlemen were relentless, and you looked... tired, he realized. There was something in the set of your shoulders, the careful neutrality of your expression, that spoke of someone who had been performing for too long.
He knew that feeling intimately.
"Mr. Eom?" Miss Hartwell's voice pulled him back. "Are you quite alright? You seem distracted."
"Forgive me," he apologized immediately, forcing his attention back to her. "I am afraid I have rather a headache coming on."
It was not entirely a lie. His head did ache, though he suspected it had less to do with the sun and more to do with the fact that he had not slept in over a week.
"Oh, how dreadful!" Miss Hartwell's expression transformed into something like genuine concern. "Perhaps you should sit down? There is a lovely bench just over—"
"I am fine, I assure you," Seonghyeon interrupted, perhaps too quickly. "Merely need a moment. Would you excuse me?"
He did not wait for her response. Simply bowed, murmured something about fetching refreshment, and extracted himself from the conversation with the practiced efficiency of someone who had spent years navigating social obligations he would rather avoid.
Free of Miss Hartwell, he moved toward the refreshment table with the vague pretense of actually getting something to drink. In reality, he was simply recalibrating. Finding you in the crowd again. Making sure you were—
You were gone.
Seonghyeon stopped mid-stride, his chest tightening with a feeling akin to one that felt uncomfortably like panic. The spot where you had been standing was now occupied by Lady Pemberton and her niece, both of whom were examining the lemonade with far more attention than it warranted. The three gentlemen who had been circling you had dispersed—Lord Beaumont was now talking to the Brook sisters, the others had vanished entirely.
But you. You were nowhere.
His gaze swept the garden with increasing urgency. Past the musicians, past the refreshment tables, past the clusters of guests arranged in careful social groupings across the lawn. He cataloged faces with the efficiency of someone who had been doing this all afternoon—Miss Ashford, Lord Hartwell, the Beaumont family, half a dozen others whose names he could not immediately recall—
There. The Edwards family.
He spotted Martin first, because Martin Edwards was difficult to miss, what with his striking blonde hair and height for days. Seonghyeon often found himself wishing the boy would spare some inches to him. He was standing near the rose arbor with—Seonghyeon squinted slightly—the Ashford twins, apparently. And he was gesturing with the kind of wild enthusiasm that suggested he was telling a story that probably should not be told in polite company. The twins were laughing, and one of them had her hand pressed to her mouth as if trying to contain herself.
Beside Martin, Juhoon stood with his characteristic quiet composure, hands clasped behind his back, contributing the occasional word but mostly just watching his brother with an expression that managed to convey both affection and mild exasperation. The twins seemed utterly charmed by both of them, which was—well. Typical. The Edwards brothers had always possessed this effortless charisma that Seonghyeon had never quite understood how to replicate.
He scanned the rest of the garden. Wonhee was near the musicians with Eunji, both of them bent over what looked like a program, probably discussing whatever piece the ensemble planned to play next. Wonyoung was—he searched for a moment—there, sitting on a bench beneath one of the oaks with a book open in her lap, apparently having decided that social interaction was optional.
Everyone accounted for except...
His heart stopped. There you were.
Near the far edge of the lawn, where the gardens opened up toward the walking paths that wound through the more wooded sections of the Ashford estate. The afternoon light filtered through the oak leaves in a way that turned everything golden and soft, like the world had been dipped in honey.
And somehow, impossibly, you managed to look like you belonged to that light. Like you had been created specifically for this exact moment in this exact garden with the sun catching in your hair and turning it to silk.
James Edwards stood perhaps three feet to your right, the very picture of a responsible older brother fulfilling his chaperoning duties. His posture was relaxed but attentive. His attention was split between you and the broader garden, clearly keeping watch in that way protective siblings did at social gatherings.
But James was not the problem.
The problem was the boy standing directly in front of you.
Seonghyeon's breath caught—properly caught, the way it did when you took a blow to the chest and your lungs forgot momentarily how to function. Because you were not wearing yellow. How had he thought you were wearing yellow? The gown was pink. Pale pink, the exact shade of the wild roses that climbed the garden walls behind you, the ones that had just begun to bloom in these past weeks of unseasonably warm weather. The same roses his father had planted when Seonghyeon was a boy, the ones that came back every spring without fail, persistent and lovely and entirely unbothered by the passage of time.
The same roses you used to tuck behind your ear when you were twelve and thought no one was watching.
The fabric moved when you did. It was some whisper-light muslin that caught the breeze and made you look almost ethereal, like if he blinked you might disappear entirely. Like you were something he had conjured from want and memory and two years of desperate denial finally taking physical form to torment him.
The sun loved you. That was the only way to describe it. It found every angle of your face, traced the line of your jaw, caught in the few strands of dark hair that had escaped their pins to curl against your temple. You were backlit in gold, completely haloed in it, and the pink of your gown made your skin look luminous—like porcelain, like something precious and breakable that should be kept behind glass where careless hands could not reach it.
But someone was reaching.
The boy standing in front of you was tall—nearly Seonghyeon's height, maybe taller unfortunately, which meant you had to tilt your head back slightly to meet his eyes. Well-dressed in a way that suggested money but not ostentation, all clean lines and understated elegance. Dark hair, good posture, and a face that Seonghyeon could not quite make out from this distance but suspected—knew—was probably handsome.
Of course it was handsome. Of course you were standing in a garden surrounded by roses that matched your dress, bathed in golden light like some sort of painting, talking to a man who looked like he had stepped out of a fairy story specifically designed to torture Seonghyeon.
And you were smiling at him.
It was completely not the polite, distant smile you had perfected over two years of navigating the marriage mart. Not the one you gave Lord Beaumont and Lord Rathord and every other gentleman who circled you at social gatherings with varying degrees of transparent interest. Not the carefully practiced expression you wore like armor when you were performing the role of the eligible Miss Edwards for an audience that would judge you for any crack in the facade.
No. This was different.
This smile was small. Reserved, even. Your guard was not entirely down—Seonghyeon could see it in the set of your shoulders, the way you held yourself with that particular careful grace that meant you were being cautious. But there was something genuine in the curve of your mouth. A soft emotion in your expression that he had not seen directed at anyone in...
How long?
Weeks? Months?
Not since before his father's funeral, certainly. Not since the last time you had looked at him like he was someone worth smiling for instead of someone to be tolerated for the sake of your friendship with his sister. Not since he had pushed you away and spent two years pretending he did not notice every single time you entered a room, stupidly cataloging the exact shade of whatever you were wearing, the particular way you moved, the sound of your voice even when you were not speaking to him.
Not since he had ruined everything by choosing fear over honesty.
The roses behind you swayed slightly in the breeze. The petals were the exact color of your dress, and Seonghyeon thought about how his father used to say that roses were stubborn things. That they came back every year no matter how harsh the winter, no matter how badly they were pruned, no matter what. They simply refused to give up.
You had been like that once, he thought. Persistent. Refusing to let him retreat entirely even when he built walls. Coming back season after season, year after year, still trying.
Until you stopped. Of course, until he had pushed too hard and you had finally, mercifully, decided you were done with his stubbornness.
His hands flexed at his sides. His throat had gone completely dry despite the lemonade he was still holding in one white-knuckled grip. He ran his tongue across his lower lip and tasted copper—he had been biting the inside of his cheek without realizing it, hard enough to draw blood.
Who was that?
The boy said something. Seonghyeon could not hear it from this distance, could not make out the words, but he watched your reaction with the attention of someone reading text in a language they desperately needed to understand. Your eyes widened slightly. Your lips parted. And then you laughed.
The sound carried across the garden even at this distance, bright and clear as bells, and it hit Seonghyeon like a physical blow. Like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed. He had not heard you laugh like that in so long he had almost convinced himself he had imagined how it sounded. He had almost convinced himself that memory had sweetened it, made it better than reality could possibly sustain. He almost forgot.
No. That was a lie. He had not forgotten. He remembered it with painful clarity. He thought about it late at night when sleep would not come and his mind circled back to you like water finding its inevitable course. He thought about it every time he saw you at social gatherings and you smiled politely and looked through him like he was made of glass.
But no.
It was exactly as he remembered. Low and genuine and entirely too appealing. The kind of laugh that made everyone in its vicinity want to know what had prompted it, want to be the reason for it, want to bottle it up and keep it close.
The kind of laugh he used to pull from you with embarrassing regularity when you were children and everything was simple. When making you laugh was as easy as pulling faces behind your governess's back or deliberately missing your steps during dance practice just to watch you try to correct him while fighting a smile.
When had he stopped trying to make you laugh?
He knew the answer. God, he knew the exact moment. His father's study. Papers he did not understand and responsibilities he was not ready for and you, sitting with him in silence because you somehow knew that words would make it worse. You had not tried to fix it. Had not offered empty platitudes. You had simply been there.
And it had terrified him how much he needed that. How much he needed you.
So he had pushed you away. Built these walls. He retreated behind formality and distance and every defense mechanism he possessed because needing someone that desperately felt like handing them a loaded weapon and hoping they chose not to pull the trigger.
And now you were laughing at something someone else had said, standing in a garden full of roses that matched your dress, and Seonghyeon understood with sudden, devastating clarity that he had handed you that weapon and then walked away before you could decide what to do with it.
He had made the choice for both of you.
And now someone else—someone better, someone braver, someone who apparently knew how to make you laugh without years of shared history to draw from—was standing in the space Seonghyeon had abandoned.
The afternoon light caught in your hair again as you tilted your head, and Seonghyeon watched one of those loose curls brush against your cheek. His fingers twitched with the sense memory of tucking that same curl behind your ear on a moonlit terrace barely two weeks ago. Of feeling your skin warm beneath his palm. That awe of watching your eyes flutter closed for just a moment when he touched you.
Had it only been two weeks?
It felt like a lifetime and yesterday all at once. It felt like something that had happened to someone else entirely because the woman standing in that garden, laughing in pink and gold and rose-petal softness, felt as unreachable as the stars.
And it was his own fault.
Now, he thought about your laugh all the time, and hearing it directed at someone else made him want to do something inadvisable. Like march across the garden and insert himself into whatever conversation you were having. Like demand to know who this man was and what he had said to make you laugh. Like—
"Seonghyeon."
He jumped slightly and turned to find Eunji standing beside him, her expression a careful blend of concern and something that looked suspiciously like I told you so.
"You are staring," she said quietly.
"I am not—"
"You absolutely are. And you look like you are about to do something foolish." She followed his gaze across the lawn, and her expression shifted into something unreadable. "Ah."
"Ah?" Seonghyeon repeated. "What does 'ah' mean?"
"That is Ahn Keonho," Eunji said, and there was something in her voice that made his stomach drop. "He just returned to London. His family estate is in—Derbyshire, I believe? Or perhaps Yorkshire. Somewhere north, at any rate. He has been managing it for his father, but apparently the old man decided it was time for him to rejoin society. Find a wife. That sort of thing."
Seonghyeon's jaw clenched so hard he felt his teeth ache.. "I see."
"He is very nice," Eunji continued, and he could not tell if she was being deliberately cruel or simply stating facts. "Kind. Well-regarded. Reasonably wealthy. Good family. No scandals."
Everything Seonghyeon was not. Everything you deserved.
"How fortunate for him," Seonghyeon managed.
Eunji was quiet for a moment. Then, very softly: "You could simply tell her the truth."
"There is nothing to tell."
"You are such a liar." But her voice was gentle. It was almost pitying, which was somehow worse than if she had been angry. "You love her. Everyone with eyes can see it except apparently you and her."
"It does not matter what I—"
"Of course it matters!" Eunji's voice rose slightly, enough that a few nearby guests glanced over. She lowered it immediately, stepping closer. "It matters more than anything. But you are so determined to martyr yourself on the altar of responsibility and duty that you cannot see what is right in front of you."
"Eunji—"
"She loved you too, you know." Past tense. Loved. As if it were already over. As if he had already lost you though it was merely a few nights ago. "Maybe she still does, I do not know. But you pushed her away, and now she is trying to move on, and you—" She gestured helplessly at him. "You are standing here watching her with another man and doing nothing."
Seonghyeon's throat was so tight he could barely breathe. "What would you have me do?"
"Fight for her!" Eunji's eyes were bright now. Almost angry. "Or let her go. But stop—stop this. Stop hovering. Stop watching her like you are dying while refusing to do anything about it. It is not fair to her, and it is not fair to you."
Before he could respond—before he could even process what she had said—Eunji turned and walked away, leaving him standing there with his heart in his throat and his hands shaking and the sound of your laughter still echoing in his ears.
He looked back across the lawn.
Keonho—because apparently that was his name now, Ahn Keonho, a name Seonghyeon was absolutely going to remember for all the wrong reasons—had said something else. You were smiling again, and James looked pleased in that particular way older brothers did when they approved of someone talking to their sister.
Which meant James approved.
Which meant this was not some casual conversation. This was a courtship beginning. This was you moving on from his foolish tribulations, just as Eunji had said. This was everything Seonghyeon had told himself he wanted when he pushed you away in your drawing room and said it was for the best.
This was what he deserved.
His hands were still shaking. He shoved them into his pockets and made himself turn away. He made himself walk in the opposite direction, toward the refreshment table where he had told Miss Hartwell he was going. He picked up a glass of lemonade he had no intention of drinking.
He forced himself to ignore the way his ears were burning, the way his throat felt like it was closing, the way every part of him was screaming to turn around and cross that lawn and tell Keonho to stay the hell away from you.
But he had no right.
He had given up that right when he chose safety over honesty. When he chose his fear over your heart. When he said it was a mistake and walked away.
He watched Keonho say something that made you tilt your head in that way you did when you were genuinely interested in what someone was saying. He watched James nod approvingly at something—probably whatever perfectly appropriate topic of conversation Keonho had chosen. He watched the afternoon light continue to paint you in gold and rose-petal pink like the universe itself was conspiring to make this moment as devastatingly beautiful as possible.
He stood and watched you be happy.
And the worst part—the absolutely worst part—was that you looked like you were trying. As if you wanted to be interested in whatever Keonho was saying. Like you were actively attempting to move on, to find someone else, to do exactly what Seonghyeon had told you to do when he said it was a mistake and walked away.
This was what he had wanted, was it not?
For you to find someone suitable. Someone kind and stable and brave enough to actually court you properly instead of pushing you away out of fear. Someone who would not break your heart twice in the span of two years. This was exactly what he had told himself he wanted when he chose duty over honesty.
So why did it feel like he was being carved open with a dull blade?
"Mr. Eom?"
He startled badly and turned to find Miss Hartwell had somehow materialized beside him again, her expression one of polite concern.
"Are you quite certain you are well?" she asked. "You have been standing here for some time without moving."
"I am—" His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. "Yes. Merely lost in thought."
"Perhaps you should sit," she suggested. "The heat can be rather overwhelming."
It was not the heat. But he nodded anyway, let her guide him toward one of the benches beneath the oaks, let her chatter about something he would not remember five minutes from now. But even seated, even with Miss Hartwell providing a wall of sound that required no actual participation from him, Seonghyeon found his gaze drifting back across the garden.
Back to you.
To the roses that matched your dress and the light that loved your face and the man who was making you laugh when Seonghyeon had forgotten how. And he understood, with the kind of clarity that only came from watching something slip through your fingers, that Eunji had been right.
He was losing you.
It wasn't immediate, thank god. But slowly, inevitably, like water finding its course downhill. You were moving on. Building a life that did not include him and his antics. Finding happiness with someone who had not spent two years proving that he was too afraid to choose you.
This was the consequence of cowardice. This was what safety cost.
And Seonghyeon sat there in the dappled shade, surrounded by the sounds of a perfect garden party, and told himself this was fine. So he stood there, lemonade untouched in his hand, and told himself this was fine. This was what he had wanted.
You deserved so much better than what Seonghyeon had given you.
He told himself this with great conviction. He told himself a lot of things to aid in his delusion, to stay sane.
And again and again, he failed to believe himself.
You had not intended to laugh.
Truly, you had not. You had come to the Ashford garden party with every intention of remaining politely pleasant but ultimately distant from any gentleman who approached. You had armed yourself with appropriate responses, perfected your smile, prepared yourself for another afternoon of deflecting interest you had no desire to return.
And then Ahn Keonho had introduced himself, and all your careful preparations had promptly deserted you.
"Miss Edwards," he had greeted, bowing with exactly the right degree of formality. "Forgive the presumption, but I believe we have a mutual acquaintance. Lady Ashford suggested I introduce myself."
You had looked at him properly then. Tall—nearly as tall as—
No. You were not going to think about him. You had promised yourself you were done thinking about Eom Seonghyeon, and you meant it.
Keonho was handsome in an understated way. Dark hair, kind eyes, a smile that seemed genuine rather than calculated. Well-dressed without being ostentatious. The sort of person your mother would call "suitable" and mean it as the highest compliment. You were sure your brother was salivating in his boots next to you at the sight of such a proper gentleman.
"A mutual acquaintance?" you had asked, because it seemed the appropriate response.
"Lord Beaumont's sister," Keonho had said. "We grew up together in Derbyshire. She mentioned you had a rather cutting response to her brother's... persistent attentions at the Eom ball last week."
Despite yourself, you had felt your lips twitch. "Did she."
"She said you told him that if he asked you to dance one more time, you would be forced to develop a sudden and dramatic illness that would require you to spend the remainder of the season in the country."
"I may have said something along those lines," you had admitted.
"I have never heard my friend laugh quite so hard," Keonho had said, and his smile had widened. "Her brother is—well. He means well, but subtlety has never been his strength."
"That is a remarkably diplomatic way of saying he has the self-awareness of a particularly determined terrier."
And that was when you had made the mistake of laughing.
Because it had been... unexpected. Refreshing, even. Most gentlemen who approached you at social gatherings did so with the careful calculation of someone making a business transaction. They asked appropriate questions, made appropriate observations, and maintained an appropriate level of interest that somehow managed to feel both overwhelming and completely impersonal.
Keonho was different.
He was easy to talk to, you discovered. He did not hover. He did not position himself between you and potential escape routes. Did not look at you like you were a prize to be won or a problem to be solved.
He simply—spoke. He asked questions that seemed genuinely interested rather than socially mandated. He listened when you answered. He made observations that were actually clever rather than trying desperately to appear so.
"I understand congratulations are in order," he had said after a few minutes of surprisingly pleasant conversation. "Lady Whistledown's column was quite complimentary."
You had felt heat creep into your cheeks. "Lady Whistledown has a remarkable talent for making observations that are simultaneously flattering and deeply mortifying."
"I cannot imagine being scrutinized by all of London," Keonho had said, and there was sympathy in his voice. "Though if I may—she was not wrong. About... any of it."
It should have felt like flattery. Like every other compliment you had received in the past week from gentlemen who had suddenly noticed you existed. But something about the way he said it—straightforward, matter-of-fact—made it feel less like he was trying to curry favor and more like he was simply stating an observable truth.
"You are very kind," you had said, because it seemed the only appropriate response.
"I am honest," Keonho had corrected gently. "There is a difference."
From the corner of your eye, you had been aware of James positioning himself slightly closer. Not intrusively so, but near enough that any onlooker would understand you were properly chaperoned. Near enough that James could hear every word of the conversation and form his own opinions.
You suspected he was forming favorable ones.
"Have you been in London long, Mr. Ahn?" James had asked, entering the conversation with the practiced ease of someone who took his responsibilities as head of household seriously.
"Only recently returned," Keonho had said, turning to address James directly. "I have been managing my family's estate in Derbyshire for the past several years. My father felt it was time I—" A slight hesitation, a rueful smile. "Rejoin society, as it were."
"Find a wife, you mean," you had said, because apparently you had decided that directness was the approach you would be taking with Ahn Keonho.
He had laughed and it was surprised and genuine. "Yes. That was the implication, though my father was rather more diplomatic in his phrasing."
"And have you?" you had asked. "Found one?"
"I have been in London for all of three days," Keonho had said, eyes bright with amusement. "My father is ambitious, but even he does not expect miracles of that magnitude."
It should not have been charming. Really, it should not have. But somehow—impossibly—you found yourself smiling. Found yourself relaxing in a way you had not at a social gathering in longer than you cared to admit.
You found yourself thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, moving on might not be as impossible as you had feared.
"Miss Edwards," Keonho had said after a few more minutes of conversation that had somehow remained interesting despite covering thoroughly conventional topics. "I wonder if I might—that is, would it be terribly presumptuous to call upon you? At Edwards Hall?"
You had glanced at James, who had given the smallest nod. Permission, or perhaps encouragement.
"I do not think that would be terribly presumptuous at all," you had heard yourself say.
The smile Keonho had given you then had been warm. It was genuinely pleased in a way that suggested he had not been entirely certain of your answer.
"Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps?" he had asked. "If that would be convenient?"
"Tomorrow would be lovely."
And that, apparently, was that.
Ahn Keonho had bowed—to you, to James—and made his excuses with the same easy grace he had demonstrated throughout the entire conversation. You had watched him walk away, had felt something in your chest that might have been hope or might have been relief or might have simply been the absence of the constant ache that had taken up residence there since Seonghyeon had walked out of your drawing room one week ago.
"He seems pleasant," James had observed, in that carefully neutral tone that meant he approved but would not pressure you.
"He does," you agreed, pursing your lips together in a small attempt to fight a smile.
"Shall I expect him tomorrow, then?"
"It would appear so."
James had been quiet for a moment, studying you with that particular expression older brothers developed—this one that saw too much and said too little.
"You do not have to," he had said finally. "If you are not ready—"
"I am ready," you had interrupted, perhaps too quickly. "I am—it is time. To move forward."
James had not argued. He had simply nodded and offered you his arm, and together you had made your way back toward where your siblings were clustered near the musicians. And if you had felt eyes on you from across the garden—if you had been acutely, painfully aware of exactly where Eom Seonghyeon was standing even though you had not looked directly at him once since you arrived—well.
That was something you would simply have to learn to ignore and avoid the urge to further engage. Because that was not welcome anymore.
Just as you would learn to ignore the way your chest had tightened when Keonho smiled at you, because it was not the right smile. Just as you would learn to ignore the way his laugh had sounded pleasant but wrong, because it was not the laugh you had spent two years listening for across crowded ballrooms. Just as you would learn to stop comparing every man you met to someone who had made it abundantly clear he did not want you.
You would learn. You had to.
Because Eom Seonghyeon had made his choice, and now it was time for you to make yours. Even if your choice looked nothing like what you had imagined. Even if it felt like settling for something safe when what you wanted was entirely different. Even if every part of you was screaming that this was wrong, this was not what you wanted, this was not—
You told that part of yourself to be quiet. You told yourself that Keonho was kind and genuine and exactly the sort of person you should want.
You told yourself a lot of things.
And if none of them made the ache in your chest any less pronounced—well.
You would simply have to learn to live with that too.
𝑽𝑰.
Ahn Keonho arrived at Edwards Hall at precisely three o'clock in the afternoon, which was the correct time for a social call. He brought flowers—pale pink roses that matched the gown you had worn yesterday, which to you, suggested either remarkable memory or careful planning. He was dressed impeccably in a dark blue fabric, his manners were flawless, and when your mother invited him to sit in the drawing room, he did so with the exact appropriate degree of comfort that suggested confidence without presumption.
He was, in every measurable way, perfect.
You hated how much that bothered you.
"Mr. Ahn," your mother said warmly, settling into her chair with the air of a woman who had already decided she approved. "How kind of you to call. I understand you have recently returned to London?"
"Yes, my lady," Keonho replied. "I have been managing my family's estate in Derbyshire for the past several years, but my father felt it was time I—" That same slight hesitation you had noticed yesterday, followed by a self-deprecating smile. "Reconnected with society."
"How very sensible," your mother said. "And your family—they are well?"
"Very well, thank you. My father's health has improved considerably since I took over the daily management of the estate, which has allowed him to enjoy his retirement without the burden of constant decision-making."
It was exactly the right answer. Dutiful son, responsible, capable of managing an estate, devoted to family. Your mother was practically glowing.
From his position near the window, James was doing an admirable job of appearing relaxed while clearly cataloging every word Keonho said. Martin had wandered in halfway through the introductions and taken up residence on the settee beside you with the air of someone who had decided this was going to be entertaining. Juhoon had claimed the chair nearest the door, book in hand, ostensibly reading but you knew for a fact he was paying attention to every word.
Your brothers had deployed in formation. This was an assessment.
"And what brings you to London specifically, Mr. Ahn?" James asked, his tone perfectly pleasant and absolutely calculating.
"Several things," Keonho answered easily. "Estate business, primarily. Some investments that required personal attention. And—" He glanced at you briefly, warmth in his expression. "The season, of course. My father was quite insistent that I make an effort to—engage with society."
"Find a wife," Martin supplied helpfully. "You can say it. We are all aware that is what 'engage with society' means for gentlemen of a certain age."
"Martin," you scolded warningly.
"What? I am merely being honest. Mr. Ahn seems like the sort of person who appreciates directness." Martin turned to Keonho with interest. "You do appreciate directness, do you not?"
"I do, actually," Keonho chuckled, and you could hear the smile in his voice. "And yes. My father believes it is time I married. He has been—insistent on the matter."
"How very paternal of him," Martin said. "And have you? Found anyone suitable?"
"I have been in London for four days," Keonho said dryly. "Hardly sufficient time for such an important decision."
"Some people decide rather quickly," Martin said, and you had the distinct impression he was enjoying himself far too much. "Love at first sight and all that."
"Martin," James said, in a tone that suggested their younger brother was dangerously close to being ejected from the drawing room.
But Keonho was laughing. "I confess I have always been somewhat skeptical of that particular concept. Love at first sight seems rather—impractical. How can one know someone well enough to love them based solely on appearance?"
"How indeed," you murmured, and tried to ignore the way something in your chest twisted painfully.
Because that was the sensible answer. The rational answer. Love was not something that happened instantaneously. It was built over time, through shared experience and genuine understanding and all the things that could not possibly exist in a single glance across a ballroom.
Except you had been half in love with Eom Seonghyeon since you were twelve years old, which rather definitively disproved that entire theory.
"Miss Edwards?" Keonho was looking at you with polite inquiry. "Forgive me, I fear I have lost you."
"No, I—" You collected yourself. "I merely agree. Love at first sight seems rather—unlikely."
"Though not impossible?" Keonho asked, and there was something curious in his expression.
"I suppose anything is possible," you said carefully. "But it does seem impractical to base such an important decision on something as ephemeral as initial attraction."
"Precisely," Keonho said, looking pleased. "Marriage is—it should be built on something more substantial. Mutual respect and shared values. Genuine compatibility and whatnot."
Everything he was saying was correct. Reasonable. Exactly what any sensible person would want in a marriage.
So why did it feel like he was describing a business arrangement?
"Do you not believe in love, Mr. Ahn?" Wonyoung asked from the doorway, where she had apparently been eavesdropping for an indeterminate amount of time.
"Wonyoung," your mother said, though without much force. "We did not realize you had joined us."
"I have been here for several minutes," Wonyoung said, moving into the room and settling herself on the arm of Juhoon's chair. "No one was paying attention. Mr. Ahn—you did not answer my question."
Keonho looked slightly taken aback by the directness, but recovered quickly. "I believe in love," he responded carefully. "I simply think it is something that grows over time, rather than something that strikes like lightning."
"How very practical of you," Wonyoung said, and you could not tell if she approved or not.
"Wonyoung," you said, in a tone that suggested she should perhaps demonstrate some restraint.
She ignored you entirely. "And what are you looking for in a wife, Mr. Ahn? If not love at first sight?"
"Wonyoung," James said, more firmly this time.
"It is a reasonable question," Wonyoung protested. "He is calling on our sister. Surely we are entitled to know his intentions."
"You are sixteen," Martin pointed out, though he was not to talk. "You are entitled to sit quietly and perhaps offer our guest some tea."
"I do not see why age should preclude me from—"
"I do not mind the question," Keonho interrupted gently, and something about the way he said it made the room fall quiet. He was looking at Wonyoung with the same patient interest he had directed at everyone else, as if he took her question seriously despite her age. "I suppose I am looking for someone I can talk to. Someone who is honest. Someone who—" He paused, as if considering his words carefully. "Someone who challenges me. Not in an adversarial way, but in the way that makes one want to be better."
It was, objectively, a lovely answer. It was the kind of answer that should have made your heart flutter.
It did not make your heart flutter.
"How very romantic," Wonyoung droned dryly, in a tone that suggested she found it anything but.
"Wonyoung," you, James, and your mother said simultaneously.
She subsided, but not before giving you a look that you absolutely would be discussing later.
"Forgive my sister," you said to Keonho. "She is—"
"Honest," Keonho supplied, smiling. "I appreciate it, actually. Too many people say what they think others want to hear rather than what they actually believe."
"A diplomatic way of saying she can be rather rude," Martin offered.
"I prefer 'refreshingly direct,'" Keonho said.
Despite yourself, you felt your lips twitch. He was charming. Genuinely charming and it was not in the calculated way some gentlemen deployed charm like a weapon, but in an easy, natural way that suggested this was simply who he was.
He was clever. He was kind and funny which was rare. He treated your family with respect, even Wonyoung's borderline inappropriate questions. He looked at you like you were someone he wanted to know better, not a prize to be won or a problem to be solved.
He was everything you should want.
So why did it feel like you were playacting? Going through the motions of something that should feel natural but instead felt like you were reading lines from a script you had not properly memorized?
"Mr. Ahn," your mother said, rising from her chair with the practiced grace of someone who knew exactly when a social call had run its appropriate course. "It has been delightful to meet you. I do hope you will call again."
"I would be honored," Keonho said, standing as well. He turned to you, and there was that warmth again in his expression. "Miss Edwards—might I have the pleasure of your company for a turn about the garden? Briefly, of course. With your mother's permission."
"Of course," your mother said, before you could respond. "James—perhaps you might chaperone?"
"Naturally," James said, in a tone that suggested he had been planning to do exactly that regardless of whether he had been asked.
And so you found yourself walking through the Edwards Hall gardens with Ahn Keonho on one side and your brother trailing at a respectful distance on the other, and trying very hard not to think about how this should feel different than it did.
The garden was lovely at this time of day. The roses your father had planted years ago were beginning to bloom, the same ones that grew at the Ashford estate, the same ones that climbed the walls at Eom House—
You cut that thought off immediately.
"Your family is wonderful," Keonho shared, pulling your attention back to the present. "Very warm. Welcoming."
"They are also very nosy and entirely too invested in my matrimonial prospects," you said before you could stop yourself.
Keonho laughed. "Is that not what families are for?"
"Yours is not, I take it?"
"My father is—persistent in his suggestions. But he tends to express his opinions through strongly worded letters rather than direct interrogation." Keonho's expression turned wry. "Though I suspect if you met him, you would find him and your brother James rather similar in their approach to familial responsibility."
"James takes his role very seriously," you agreed.
"As he should. You are fortunate to have him."
There was something in the way he said it that made you look at him more carefully. "You sound as though you speak from experience."
"I lost my mother when I was young," Keonho said quietly. "And my father—he did his best, but he was not equipped for the day-to-day care of a child. I was largely raised by tutors and governesses. Kind people, certainly, but not—" He paused. "Not family. Not the way yours so clearly cares for one another."
Your chest softened at that. "I am sorry. That must have been difficult."
"It was," he acknowledged. "But it also taught me to value genuine connection when I find it. To not take it for granted."
He was looking at you as he said it, and the implication was clear. He was interested. Genuinely interested, in a way that had nothing to do with your dowry or your family's social standing and everything to do with whatever he had seen in you yesterday and again today.
You should have been flattered. You should have been pleased.
Instead, you felt... guilty.
Because you were standing here with a genuinely kind man who was making a genuine effort, and all you could think about was how wrong it felt. How his voice was pleasant but not the voice you wanted to hear. How his laugh was nice but not the laugh that made your chest ache. How his eyes were warm but not the eyes you saw when you closed yours at night.
How he was absolutely everything you should want, and somehow not what you wanted at all.
"Miss Edwards," Keonho said gently. "May I be honest with you?"
"I thought we had established that you value honesty," you managed.
"I do. And in that spirit—" He paused, as if weighing his words. "I find you remarkably interesting. Yesterday at the garden party, I watched you deflect no fewer than five gentlemen with varying degrees of politeness, and yet you agreed to let me call on you. I am—curious about that."
"Curious?"
"About whether you agreed because you wanted me to call, or because it seemed easier than refusing."
The directness of it caught you off guard. Most gentlemen would have simply assumed your agreement indicated interest. Would not have questioned it.
But Keonho was not most gentlemen, apparently.
"I—" You paused, searching for honesty that would not be cruel. "I am not certain."
"That is fair," Keonho said, and he did not look offended. "May I ask what you are uncertain about?"
"Everything," you admitted. "I am uncertain about everything."
It was too honest and far too revealing for a gentlemen you had just met. But Keonho had asked for honesty, and you found you did not have the energy to lie.
"Then perhaps," Keonho said slowly, "we might simply—spend time together. With no expectations. No pressure. Simply two people getting to know one another. And if, at the end of it, you remain uncertain—" He smiled, and it was gentle. Understanding. "Then we part as friends, and no harm done."
It was a remarkably generous offer. More generous than you deserved, given that you were standing here comparing him to someone else and finding him wanting through absolutely no fault of his own.
"That is—very kind of you," you said.
"It is practical," Keonho corrected. "I have no interest in pursuing someone who does not wish to be pursued. That benefits no one."
"And if I do wish to be pursued? Eventually?"
"Then I will consider myself remarkably fortunate."
You wanted to cry. You desired to bawl your eyes out=, standing there in your family's garden with this perfectly kind man who was offering you exactly what you needed and somehow nothing that you wanted.
"I would like that," you heard yourself say. "Time. To—determine what I want."
"Then time you shall have," Keonho said simply.
The rest of the call passed pleasantly enough. Keonho was easy to talk to, you discovered. He did not fill every silence with unnecessary chatter, did not seem to need constant reassurance that he was being interesting or clever. He simply existed beside you. Comfortably. Without expectation.
It should have been perfect.
When he finally took his leave—with promises to call again, with appropriate farewells to your family, with one more warm smile directed at you that you returned with an effort that hopefully did not show—you found yourself standing in the entrance hall feeling inexplicably exhausted.
"Well," your mother said, appearing beside you with that expression mothers developed when they had Opinions. "He is lovely."
"He is," you agreed.
"And so polite. Did you notice how he engaged with Wonyoung? Even when she was being—"
"Wonyoung," you supplied.
"Precisely. Most gentlemen would have been put off. But he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say."
"He did."
Your mother studied you for a moment, but she knew you all too well. "But you are not certain about him."
It was not a question.
"I—" You exhaled slowly. "I do not know what I am certain about, Mama."
"That is alright," your mother said gently, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear in that way she had been doing since you were small. "You do not have to decide anything today. Or tomorrow. Or even next week. Take your time."
"Lady Whistledown seems to think I should decide quickly," you said, aiming for light and landing somewhere closer to bitter.
"Lady Whistledown," your mother said with feeling, "can mind her own business. You will choose when you are ready. And you will choose wisely. I have every confidence."
You wanted to tell her that you had already chosen. Had chosen years ago, actually. And your choice had pushed you away twice and made it abundantly clear he wanted nothing to do with you.
But you did not say any of that.
"Keonho is kind," you said instead.
"He is."
"And genuine."
"He seems to be."
"And he is offering exactly what I need."
"Is he offering what you want?" your mother asked quietly.
And there it was. The question you had been avoiding since yesterday. Since Keonho had first smiled at you and you had felt absolutely nothing except the absence of something.
"I do not know," you admitted.
"Then find out," your mother said simply. "Spend time with him. Get to know him. See if what you need and what you want might, eventually, become the same thing."
It was sensible advice. Practical and exactly what you should do in such a perfect scenario like this.
So why did it feel like settling? Why did it feel like giving up?
That evening, after dinner, Wonyoung cornered you in your room with the determination of someone who had been waiting all day to have this conversation.
"You do not love him," she blurted without preamble.
You looked up from the book you were not actually reading. "I have known him for two days."
"That is not what I said. I said you do not love him. You do not even particularly like him."
"That is not true. He is very—"
"Nice? Kind? Perfectly suitable?" Wonyoung crossed her arms. "You are describing a pleasant acquaintance, not a potential husband."
"What would you have me do?" The question came out sharper than you intended. "He is offering exactly what I should want. What I need, even. And I am trying—"
"To force yourself to feel something you do not feel," Wonyoung finished. "I know. I watched you today. You smiled at every appropriate moment. You laughed at his jokes. Engaged in perfectly pleasant conversation. And you looked absolutely miserable the entire time."
"I was not—"
"You were. You are." Wonyoung's expression softened. "And I understand why. But pretending to like someone because you think you should is not going to make you happy. And it is not fair to him either."
"He knows," you said quietly. "I told him I was uncertain. He offered to simply—spend time together. With no expectations."
"That was kind of him."
"It was."
"But it does not change the fact that you are comparing him to someone else."
You said nothing. You could not, because she was right and you both knew it.
"He is not Seonghyeon," Wonyoung said gently. "And he will never be Seonghyeon. No one will be. And if you are waiting for Keonho to somehow transform into the man you actually want—"
"I am not waiting for that," you interrupted. "I know he is not—I am not trying to make him into someone else. I am trying to—" You stopped. "I am trying to move on."
"I know," Wonyoung said. "But moving on does not mean forcing yourself to fall for the first kind man who pays you attention. It means giving yourself time to heal. To actually heal, not just pretend you have."
"I do not have time," you croaked, and your voice came out more broken than you intended. "Lady Whistledown has made me the topic of the season. James is being patient but I know he wants to see me settled. Mama is being understanding but I can see the concern in her eyes every time I hesitate about a suitor. And Seonghyeon—" You stopped. "Seonghyeon has made his position clear. So I do not have the luxury of time. I need to move forward."
"Even if moving forward means settling for someone who does not make your heart race?"
"My heart racing is what got me into this mess in the first place," you said bitterly. "Perhaps I should try for something more—stable. Less likely to break me in half."
Wonyoung looked at you for a long moment, something like pity in her expression. Then she crossed the room and pulled you into a hug that you had not realized you desperately needed.
"I care for you," she said into your hair. "And I want you to be happy. Genuinely happy, not just... settled."
"I know," you whispered.
"Promise me you will not marry him unless you are certain," Wonyoung pleaded as if it were her own relationship at sake. "Promise me you will not sacrifice your happiness just because you think it is what you are supposed to do."
"I promise," you said.
You told yourself you meant it. You told yourself you would know when you were certain. You told yourself a lot of things.
And if none of them made the ache in your chest any less pronounced—if Keonho's kindness only made you miss someone else's sharp edges more acutely—if every smile you gave him felt like a betrayal of something you were supposed to be letting go...
Well.
You would simply have to learn to live with that. Just as you would learn to live with the fact that Eom Seonghyeon had chosen his fear over your heart. Just as you would learn to live with a lot of things.
Even if learning to live with them felt remarkably like dying.
𝒮YN ╱ Eom Seonghyeon is way out of your league, he'll never like you back. He's a basketball team member, loved by everyone and anyone, and you? Well, you have pretty good grades. You knew he’d be at this party, but what you didn't know was that you would interact. All you really hope is that this night never ends ( and hopefully he does too ). ( part two )
𝒫AIR crush!seonghyeon & gn!reader﹒( hints at cortis as bball team ) ⸝⸝⸝
•ㄑ𝒞ONT ★ oneshot angst fluff high school au party setting ( nothing crazy ) overthinking lmk if i missed anything
𓂅 emi choi the woman u are… pls listen to this song when reading! trust… it’s peak ╲ 1.6K+ ( 1636 words )
YOU HATE PARTIES and have no clue why you’re currently standing in one. The suffocating room that is filled to the brim with people, loud music blasting to the point where your ears are starting to ring, and the watered down fruit-punch that sits in the red polo cup you’re holding onto—tightly.
Anything is better than being in this house. You need to get out. With the way your breath is quickening in pace, you’re sure that you need a breather. The fact you don’t know anyone at this party is making things even worse.
You feel out of place.
The cold breeze that hits your bare skin creates goosebumps on your limbs. You didn’t think it’d get this cold later on. You didn’t even think you’d be at this party for more than thirty minutes. It’s been an hour. Way longer than you ever intended.
You take a pause in front of the porch railing, resting your arms on top of it. The coldness of the wood numbs your arms as you sigh, laying your head on top of them. The sky is dark with a full moon illuminating the ground beneath it. The streetlights are on, effortlessly guiding those who walk down the sidewalks to their homes with no worries.
You wish life was just as easy. You don’t want to have any of these heartaching feelings for the boy who’ll never see you the same way. There are no chances that his heart skips a beat and he briefly forgets how to breathe when he sees you. You’re the only one who feels that way.
The way he focuses his gaze on the court, eyeing the ball everywhere it goes, is the same way you sneak glances at him in the middle of class or in the busy hallways, hoping that one day you two will lock eyes even if that’ll send you into a spiral.
He’s out of your league. You’re practically a nobody in his world. Even if the two of you share a class with one another, you’re pretty sure he has no clue of your existence. You don’t make your presence known, ever. Unless the teacher is to call on you for assistance that is.
Let’s be honest, you’re only here at this party (even if you hate them) because you know he’ll be here. The whole team will be here, so of course, he’ll be here too, right? Perhaps not. You haven’t seen him for the past hour, even if you didn’t look around much, you’ve seen the rest of the basketball boys but him. Ignoring that piece of information, it’s a good thing you got out of your house tonight. If not, you would’ve been cooped up in your room putting your brain to work for a consistent eight hours with no breaks.
A classic studying routine of yours. If it helps you get the best results, then of course, you’re going to continue doing it, ignoring all the people against it.
You sigh once more. You’re exhausted. It’s a good thing you got out of your house, but you’d rather be there instead of here. The house of who knows who. At least, you don’t. You’re tired, feeling homesick, and even sick as a whole. Either it’s from the cold weather, the numerous people here, or whatever was in that fruit punch.
Hopefully, not an expired fruit.
“Oh, I didn’t think anyone else would be here.” A voice mumbles as the door slides shut behind you. Your head perks up at the sudden sound, leaving you in a slight panic.
Crap. What if you aren’t supposed to be here?
You turn, ruining your comfortable position in a blink. “Sorry, I’ll—” You pause, locking eyes with the owner of the said voice. It’s Seonghyeon.
“—Leave…” You mumble, voice lowering in volume. This is embarrassing.
Seonghyeon’s eyebrows raise and eyes narrow all at once. “What? No, it’s fine. If anything, I’m the one invading your space instead.” He lets out a laugh that can be mistaken for a soft exhale.
“I’ll leave, don’t worry,” you say, already on your way to the door. You aren’t leaving to give him space, you’re just not sure how much longer you have left until you become a flustered mess. You feel the heat creeping through your body, forehead heating up as if you’re getting a fever. Is it the sickness you were feeling earlier? Is it from the cold weather?
Or is it from Seonghyeon?
The answer is quite obvious.
Seonghyeon’s body moves before his mind does, grabbing onto your wrist and bringing you to a stop in your tracks.
“Wait,”
You hesitate. You don’t want to turn around. You don’t know what might happen next nor do you want to know. Things can either go south, and well, only south. There’s no good outcome from this.
“Sorry,” he inhales, trying to recollect himself. “I don’t know why I did that.” He lets go of your wrist, his touch still lingering.
He sighs. “What I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to leave. Having one person here is better than that whole crowd of people in there.”
He isn’t wrong at all. But why does it have to be you? Although you’ve been daydreaming about such a moment, you didn’t expect it to come so soon, leaving you so unprepared and acting on impulse.
You turn around to face him. You’re entirely sure that your face has a faint reddish colour to it, but hopefully he misunderstands and assumes it’s from the cold weather.
“Feel free to join me.” He insists. There aren’t any signs of discomfort on his end which only tends to confuse you. You make your way back to your previous spot, hoping to find the same comfortable position as earlier. However, of course that doesn’t happen easily.
Are you the only one thinking this way?
He has no clue who you are and yet he doesn’t care about being near a stranger?
“(Name), right?” Seonghyeon utters.
So, he has a clue who you are. That somewhat explains why he doesn’t feel odd.
You hum in response, refusing to look his way. You don’t want to embarrass yourself (even if you already did). You can’t go for another round.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
What?
Your head whips over at him. So much for refusing to look his way…
“What do you mean?” The question leaves your lips faster than you intended it to. You couldn’t even process the words, only going off of his reaction to read the room.
He looks at you, a slight smile on his face and hands in his pockets. He’s surprised that you’re clueless of any of this. “You’re quite popular among our grade. Mainly for your perfect grades.”
“Oh,” you mumble. You’re not surprised. Teachers react the same way. However, you’re glad he knows who you are. You didn’t think he noticed you in class, ever.
“It took me some time to put a face to the name though. My teammates always spoke about you, leaving me curious. I wondered who you were and where I heard your name from.” He explains, looking away with his brows furrowed in thought as if he was reenacting the whole scene.
“Then one day, I looked back in class after I heard your name during attendance.”
His head turns to you again. “You’re quite the quiet person, aren’t you?”
You nod, your mind too jumbled to even formulate a sentence. You can feel your face heating up again. It’s not as subtle as before. There’s no way it’ll go unmissed to him this time.
There’s a brief pause between the two of you. Your gaze is travelling everywhere and anywhere besides his face. You’re too flustered for this.
“Are you cold?” Seonghyeon asks.
Thank God, he didn’t jump to a different conclusion.
“A little. It’s quite breezy.” You reply. Plain and simple.
“Here.” Seonghyeon mumbles as his hands leave his pockets. You’re watching him in confusion. What does he mean by the word ‘here’?
He slips off his sweater as your eyes widen.
“It’s okay.” You’re quick to say.
“You’re the one with goosebumps, not me. I’ll be fine.” Seonghyeon replies. He gestures for you to take his sweater and you shake your head.
You’re still a stranger to him. How can he trust you with his personal belongings?
“You’ll get sick.”
“You will too.” You say back.
He purses his lips, thinking of another response. “I’m more covered than you are. Just take it.”
You hesitate once more, but with the way he’s insisting, there’s no way you’re getting out of this. You take his sweater into your hold, slipping it on as he smiles in satisfaction. You’re also quite the stubborn person too. Not what he expected at all.
His attention shifts to the sky as you turn around, returning to your previous resting position. It smells just like him, obviously, and it’s really warm.
Way better than how you felt earlier.
The air around both of you falls silent as you sink into your arms that rest on top of the railing. It’s comforting, but hurts. It leaves you thinking about more thoughts than before.
What happens after this? Is he going to brush this under the rug and walk past you at school like before? Will the two of you continue to talk and become even closer? Will the thoughts that cross your mind on their own finally become true? The ones where you wonder what it’d be like to be his.
At least as of right now, he isn’t acting like a stranger. You really hope it stays this way, even if it’s only for the night.
synopsis. you’re tasked with profiling eom seonghyeon, the cocky football captain—but the more you see him, the harder it is to stay professional.
genre. fluff
wc. 4.4k
authors note. tysmm for 600 followers in the span of like 2 months, i appreciate every single one of you! this is kinda rushed but i love this sm bcs this is how me and my bf met 🥹🥹 (the article at the end is the article i wrote about him)
the newsroom always smells like burnt coffee and printer ink, a comforting mix that usually puts you in the mood to write. usually.
today, the moment you step inside, you already feel dread brewing.
daniela swivels around in her chair when she hears the door creak. “perfect timing,” she says, way too cheerfully for someone about to ruin your life. “just the journalist i needed.”
jungwon glances up from his layout screen and gives you a sympathetic wince. he probably already knows.
you sigh, dropping your bag onto your desk. “okay. hit me.”
daniela taps a stack of printed schedules on her clipboard. “next week’s athlete profile. you’re on it.”
you’re already nodding—this is routine, easy, automatic—until she adds, “the football team captain, eom seonghyeon.”
you freeze.
jungwon chokes on his iced tea.
riki, sitting on the edge of a desk, slowly raises his eyebrows. “oh boy.”
you blink. “i’m sorry. the who?”
daniela repeats it like she’s announcing a raffle prize. “eom seonghyeon. captain. star striker. campus heartthrob. the reason half our viewership even opens the sports section?”
you stare at her, deadpan. “i don’t write thirst traps. i write interviews.”
she sighs and presses the bridge of her nose. “look, i know you’re not thrilled. but you’re the best writer we have. and the coach specifically requested our strongest columnist.”
“i’m flattered,” you mutter, “really. except he’s—”
“cocky?” jungwon offers.
“arrogant?” riki adds.
“emotionally allergic to shirts?” daniela supplies.
you snap your fingers. “that one.”
daniela places a hand on your shoulder, the way professors do when they’re about to deliver bad news. “remember the rec letter i promised for your grad school application?”
your jaw drops. “you’re bribing me?”
“i’m motivating you.”
“that’s the same thing.”
“not legally.”
you groan, leaning back in your chair, staring at the ceiling like the fluorescent lights might show you a way out. there is none.
riki swings his leg idly. “you know… he’s not that bad. once you get past the ego. and the smirk. and the… everything else.”
you glare at him. “you’re friends with him.”
“yeah, but i’m friends with you too, which means i’m legally required to say he sucks. but he doesn’t. not always.”
you bury your face in your hands. “why me.”
daniela pats your back like you’re about to be deployed to war. “you’ll meet him after practice tomorrow at four. do your magic. ask deep questions. don’t murder him.”
you groan again.
jungwon pipes up from behind his computer, “if you do murder him, can i take his section of the story?”
riki stares at him. “bro.”
“what? it’d trend.”
you drag yourself upright, defeated. “fine. i’ll do it. but if he says one condescending thing, i’m walking out.”
daniela beams like she just won a scholarship. “that’s my girl. you’ll crush it.”
you pretend not to hear the tiny voice in your head whispering: please let him be tolerable. just once.
you have a bad feeling he won’t be.
the football field is louder than you expect.
late afternoon sun, grass still damp, players shouting across the turf as practice winds down. you stand awkwardly near the benches, clutching your notebook, praying no one notices you exist.
they notice.
“yo, isn’t that the newspaper girl?” martin calls, wiping sweat off his forehead with his jersey.
james doesn’t even look up from tying his laces. “she’s here for the captain.”
keonho grins like he’s just witnessed cosmic comedy. “ohhh, he’s gonna love this.”
you narrow your eyes. “what is that supposed to—”
“seonghyeon!” martin yells at full volume. “your journalist is here!”
you want the earth to swallow you. you’re two seconds from throwing your notebook at his head when you hear footsteps, light but confident, approaching from behind.
“my journalist?” a voice says, amused. “wow. didn’t know i had one.”
you turn.
he’s… annoyingly pretty. tall, sweat-damp hair pushed off his forehead, jersey clinging to him in ways that should be illegal. and that smirk—god, that stupid smirk—like he can see the exact moment you regret signing up for higher education.
“eom seonghyeon?” you ask, voice flatter than paper.
“that’s me,” he says, grabbing a towel and wiping his face. “you must be the famous columnist.”
“i’m not famous.”
“you are,” he answers instantly, slinging the towel over his shoulder. “everyone on the team reads your pieces. they’re like… intense. in a good way. kinda scary. but good.”
you blink. “thank you?”
he grins. “you’re welcome.”
there it is. the ego. the arrogance. the i-know-i’m-charming-and-i-use-it-like-a-weapon vibe.
you clear your throat. “can we start? i have other articles to edit.”
“of course,” he says, spreading his arms like he’s posing for a magazine. “go ahead.”
you stare. “…what are you doing.”
“presenting myself.”
“you’re not a product shoot, i’m not photographing you, and that’s not how interviews work.”
he drops his arms, laughing, and something in your chest does a weird flip—annoyance, irritation, maybe something else you refuse to acknowledge.
“okay, okay,” he says, sitting on the bench with an exaggerated sigh. “ask away, scary journalist.”
you sit a good two feet away from him, flipping to a clean page in your notebook. “first question. what motivates you as a captain?”
he leans back, eyes scanning your face instead of thinking about the question. “you’re very serious, aren’t you?”
“answer the question.”
“is that your serious voice?”
you grip your pen. “seonghyeon.”
“fine, fine.” he raises his hands in surrender. “what motivates me? um… winning?”
you stare at him.
he grins.
you inhale sharply. “could you give me something that doesn’t sound like it came from a bad sports movie?”
“ouch.” he presses a hand to his chest dramatically. “you wound me.”
you close your eyes for exactly three seconds so you don’t strangle him.
“look,” he says, softer now, leaning forward slightly. “i can give you real answers. but you look like you’re two seconds from quitting journalism forever. relax a little.”
“i am relaxed.”
“you’re holding your pen like you want to stab me.”
you check. you… are. you lower it.
“okay,” you say stiffly, “real answers. please.”
he shrugs. “fine. but only if you loosen up.”
you grit your teeth. “i’m loose.”
he chokes on air laughing.
you want to throw your notebook at him again.
you go through the questions anyway—he answers half-seriously, half-teasingly. every genuine moment is ruined with a smirk. every thoughtful line ends with a joke. it is the worst interview of your life.
by the time you close your notebook, you’re exhausted.
“that’s it?” he asks, tilting his head. “already done? didn’t even get to ask about my skincare routine.”
“i don’t care about your skincare routine.”
“heartbreaking.”
you stand. he stands with you. too close. way too close.
before you step back, he reaches forward and gently lifts your recorder—adjusting the angle, clicking the stop button with careful fingers. his hand brushes yours.
your breath catches.
he notices.
oh no.
his voice dips, amused. “didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I’m not scared,” you say instantly, too fast.
“sure.” he steps back, eyes lingering on your face. “so… same time tomorrow?”
“tomorrow?” you echo.
“you need more material, don’t you?” he says. “captains are complicated. many layers. like onions. handsome onions.”
you stare at him.
he bites his lip trying not to laugh.
you give up. “fine. tomorrow.”
you start walking away before he can say anything else.
behind you, you hear martin whistle. “bro, she hates you.”
“no,” seonghyeon says, voice warm with something you can’t name, “she just doesn’t know me yet.”
the worst part?
you hear the smile in his voice.
and your heart stutters—just once.
the next afternoon, the football field is somehow louder, the crowd thicker, the energy buzzing. it’s not even a full match—just an open scrimmage before the weekend game—but apparently the entire student body has nothing better to do.
you tighten your grip on your press badge as you weave through clusters of excited students.
daniela’s voice echoes in your head:
“go get pre-game observations. you need more depth.”
depth. right.
you’re praying today will be easier—maybe seonghyeon will be less annoying, maybe you’ll get real answers, maybe hell will freeze over—
but then you spot him.
captain eom seonghyeon in full uniform, jogging across the field, water bottle swinging in hand, sunlight hitting him like it’s personally obsessed with making him look good.
he sees you immediately.
of course he does.
his entire face lights up. like he’s been waiting.
you refuse to acknowledge the flutter in your stomach.
he jogs over, stopping right in front of you, slightly breathless. “you came.”
“i literally told you i would.”
“yeah, but people say things. then they bail. didn’t want to be abandoned.”
you blink. “you? abandoned? please. half the campus is in love with you.”
he leans in a little. “so not you, then?”
you push your press badge into his chest. “do your warm-ups.”
he laughs—that laugh, the bright one that shakes out of him like he can’t hold it in—and jogs back to his team, who all immediately start teasing him.
“why are you smiling like that, captain?”
“he’s got his journalist girlfriend watching again.”
“bro, stop flexing. some of us are single.”
“can you guys shut up?” seonghyeon groans, cheeks definitely pink.
you pretend you don’t notice.
you take notes instead. you are a professional.
…mostly.
you expect arrogance. but as the team warms up, you see something else—him correcting posture, encouraging freshmen, clapping for small improvements. he’s focused, calm, good at explaining things.
james leans over and says something to him; seonghyeon nods, immediately adjusts their formation.
you scribble it down.
he’s not just playing—he’s leading.
and he’s good at it.
too good.
you tear your gaze away, irritated at yourself.
and then he catches you staring.
from across the field, he spots you watching. he raises one eyebrow, smirking like he knows exactly what you’re writing.
you whip your head down to your notes.
“don’t flatter yourself,” you mutter under your breath, even though he can’t hear you.
the scrimmage begins.
the whistle blows, and the team disperses. you watch from the sidelines, tracking seonghyeon automatically.
he moves differently in a game—sharp, strategic, reading the field like a map only he can see. confident, but not showy. efficient. almost elegant.
ugh.
you hate that it’s impressive.
somewhere in the middle of the scrimmage, a freshman defender messes up a pass, sending the ball flying to the wrong half of the field.
you anticipate yelling, or something condescending.
but seonghyeon just jogs over, pats the kid’s shoulder, and says something quiet. something you can’t hear—but whatever it is, it makes the freshman exhale with relief instead of shame.
you pause, pen hovering.
that… wasn’t cocky at all.
“you getting good stuff?” a voice asks suddenly at your elbow.
you jump. riki stands beside you, hands in his hoodie pockets, amused.
“don’t sneak up on me.”
“you’re too easy to scare.”
“i will push you,” you threaten without looking up.
he leans in, peering at your notes. “you’re impressed.”
“i’m observing.”
“uh-huh.”
you frown. “you’re on his side.”
“he’s my friend, yeah. but i’m also on your side. and honestly?” riki shrugs. “you misjudged him.”
you don’t answer.
because you’re starting to think he might be right.
players scatter for water and cooldown laps. you flip to the next page in your notebook just as footsteps stop in front of you.
you don’t need to look up to know who it is.
“so, journalist,” seonghyeon says, voice still slightly breathless, hair sticking to his forehead, jersey clinging to every stupidly defined line of muscle. “how’d i do?”
you keep your face neutral. “you were fine.”
“just fine?”
“acceptable.”
he presses a hand dramatically to his heart. “you wound me again.”
before you can respond, he steps closer—close enough that you can smell grass and sweat and the faint smell of his body spray—and tilts his head.
“you were watching me a lot.”
your brain short-circuits.
“i was taking notes.”
“sure.” the corner of his mouth lifts. “for… journalism.”
you snap your notebook shut. “i’m leaving.”
“wait—” he laughs and catches your wrist lightly, just enough to stop you. “hey. seriously. thanks for coming. i… liked seeing you here.”
your breath stutters.
he realizes what he said, ears turning the faintest shade of pink but his eyes still locked on yours.
you pull your hand back gently. “i’ll… see you tomorrow for the interview.”
“yeah.” his voice is softer now. “tomorrow.”
as you walk away, your pulse is embarrassingly loud.
behind you, you hear keonho shouting:
“BRO, JUST ASK HER OUT ALREADY—”
followed by seonghyeon yelling, mortified,
“SHUT UP!”
you don’t look back.
you don’t need to.
the smile tugging at your lips is bad enough.
you tell yourself you’re calm on the walk to the football building.
you’re not.
your heart is doing unnecessary cartwheels because today’s interview is supposed to be the real one — the one where you get deep quotes, honest answers, the emotional core of the article.
you’re not nervous about him.
you’re nervous about what he does to your brain.
you push open the door to the empty meeting room daniela reserved for you two.
he’s already there.
of course he is.
leaning back in his chair, legs stretched out, scrolling on his phone. hair still damp from a shower, hoodie slightly oversized, sleeves pushed up to reveal the veins on his forearms (rude). he looks up the moment you enter.
and he smiles.
not the stupid cocky smirk.
a genuine smile.
“hey,” he says, softer than yesterday. “i thought you might bail.”
you drop your bag onto the table. “i’m a professional. i don’t bail.”
“i’m honored.”
you ignore the warmth crawling up your neck and sit across from him, pulling out your notebook and recorder. “okay. let’s actually try to get through this without you flirting every thirty seconds.”
he grins. “no promises.”
“seonghyeon.”
“fine, fine.” he sits up, elbows on the table, eyes more serious now. “ask away.”
you click the recorder. “what does being captain mean to you?”
he opens his mouth—probably to say something dumb like power or being hot—but stops.
you see the shift in his face. the drop of his shoulders. the sincerity creeping in.
“it means…” he exhales slowly. “responsibility. i guess.”
you blink. “responsibility?”
“yeah.” he taps his fingers on the table nervously. “people think it’s about being the best player. but it’s actually about making sure everyone else feels like they’re good enough. that they belong.”
you stare at him, stunned.
that’s… not what you expected.
“the younger players,” he continues, “they get scared. nervous. i used to be like that. so i want them to feel supported.”
you swallow, your chest strangely tight. “that’s… surprisingly thoughtful.”
he makes a face. “why does it sound like you’re shocked i have a personality?”
“because—”
you stop.
because you are.
and he knows it.
he laughs, shaking his head. “you’re brutally honest, you know that?”
“i’m a journalist.”
“you’re also kinda cute when you’re flustered.”
you choke on nothing. “i—i’m not flustered.”
“sure.”
you glare at him, but your hand is shaking just a little when you turn the page of your notebook.
“next question,” you say quickly. “what do you think people get wrong about you?”
his expression changes again — the teasing fades, replaced by something softer. something real.
“they think i don’t take anything seriously,” he says quietly. “that i’m just… some dumb jock with a big ego.”
your stomach twists.
you don’t say anything.
he looks down at his hands, voice still low. “i know i joke around a lot. but that’s just… how i deal with pressure, i guess.”
you realize suddenly, painfully, that you’ve been wrong about him.
wrong in ways that feel unfair.
and you hate that you feel guilty about it.
you clear your throat, softer now. “thank you. for being honest.”
he meets your eyes, and something in the air shifts — not tense, not charged, but warm. gentle. like he’s letting you see the real version of him, the one he doesn’t show anyone else.
“i like talking to you,” he says suddenly.
your pen freezes. “…why?”
he shrugs, a little shy for the first time. “you listen. and you don’t treat me like i’m… perfect. or some campus celebrity. you talk to me like i’m a real person.”
you forget how to breathe for an entire second.
“i… didn’t know that mattered to you,” you admit quietly.
“it does.” he smiles, small and real. “more than people think.”
you’re not supposed to feel this kind of softness spreading in your chest. you’re supposed to keep distance, stay objective, stay professional—
but then he leans forward slightly, eyes searching yours.
“you know,” he says lightly, “you’re different from the way people talk about you.”
you blink. “what does that mean?”
“everyone says you’re intimidating,” he says. “but you’re not. you’re… passionate. stubborn. smart. and you care more than you pretend to.”
oh god.
that’s too much.
too close.
too accurate.
you shut your notebook abruptly. “we’re done for today.”
he startles. “wait—did i say something wrong?”
“no,” you say too fast. “i just… have enough material.”
he watches you pack your things with an unreadable expression. then he stands, hands in his hoodie pockets, voice calm but curious.
“can i walk you out?”
you should say no.
you absolutely should.
but instead you nod.
the hallway is quiet as you walk side by side, neither of you speaking. your hand brushes his once — barely — but both of you feel it.
he stops at the exit door, looking down at you with that soft smile again.
“same time tomorrow?” he asks.
you meet his eyes, your heartbeat embarrassingly loud. “yeah. tomorrow.”
he steps aside to let you pass, but before he does, he murmurs:
“i’m glad it’s you writing about me.”
you walk out into the cold air before he can see the way your face burns.
and for the first time —
you’re not sure if you hate interviewing him anymore.
you tell yourself you’re not thinking about him.
you’re lying, and jungwon knows it.
he doesn’t even look up from his layout screen when he says, “you’ve rewritten that same sentence six times. is the captain infecting your brain?”
your pen stops mid‑scribble.
“no,” you say, way too quickly. “i’m just… editing.”
“sure,” jungwon mutters, sipping his iced coffee. “editing. totally.”
daniela walks by, glances at your flushed face, opens her mouth—
“don’t even start,” you warn.
she raises her hands. “i wasn’t going to say anything.”
she was absolutely going to say something.
you go to the library to hide.
the universe laughs at you.
you’re walking down an aisle, arms full of books, when you turn the corner and crash straight into someone’s chest.
a very solid chest.
your books nearly fly everywhere, but two large hands reach out and steady you instantly.
“whoa—careful.”
you look up.
of course it’s him.
eom seonghyeon, hoodie on, hair messy, reading glasses.
reading glasses.
on him.
you genuinely stop breathing.
“you okay?” he asks, voice low, hands still lightly on your arms.
you step back like he burned you. “i’m fine. you just—appeared.”
he laughs softly. “i come here a lot.”
you blink. “you… read?”
he squints at you. “wow. the disrespect.”
“i just—i didn’t know—”
“i’m not illiterate, you know.”
you flush violently. “that’s not what i meant.”
he reaches for one of the books you dropped, handing it to you. his fingers brush yours. again.
your stupid heart does its stupid thing. again.
“what are you researching?” he asks, peeking at your stack.
“sports psychology,” you mumble.
“for the article?”
“for context.”
he smiles. “you’re so thorough. it’s kinda cute.”
you shove a book at his chest. “stop calling me cute.”
“never.”
he says it so casually you nearly drop everything again.
you go to grab iced tea from the campus café.
you see riki at a table and head over, relieved to see a familiar face.
until you see who’s sitting across from him.
seonghyeon.
of course.
riki beams. “hey! sit with us.”
“no,” you say immediately.
“yes,” riki corrects, grabbing your sleeve and yanking you into the seat beside him.
you glare at riki with enough intensity to set him on fire. he just sips his drink.
seonghyeon nudges his cup toward you. “want some?”
“i’m not sharing drinks with you.”
he shrugs. “worth a shot.”
you hate that you almost laugh.
riki watches the two of you like he’s observing a rare science experiment. “wow. i can literally see the tension.”
“there’s no tension,” you say.
“there’s so much tension,” riki replies.
“please stop,” you both say at the same time.
you and seonghyeon freeze, then look away from each other, flustered.
riki grins.
the menace.
you’re carrying a stack of edited drafts when someone behind you calls, “journalist!”
you don’t have to turn to know.
still, you do.
seonghyeon jogs up to you, breath a little uneven like he literally ran through the halls.
he stops right in front of you, hands on his hips. “i thought i wouldn’t see you today.”
“we have an interview tomorrow,” you say, adjusting your papers.
“yeah, but that’s tomorrow.” he pauses, looking a little nervous. “today’s today.”
your heart does a somersault.
you hate it.
you love it.
you hate that you love it.
“so… what did you need?” you ask.
he hesitates.
and it hits you: he didn’t actually have a reason.
he just wanted to talk to you.
your chest tightens painfully.
“uh—” he clears his throat. “i just wanted to ask if you… needed anything for the article. more info. quotes. stats. background. uh… pictures?”
you squint. “pictures?”
he flushes instantly. “i mean—of the team. not me! unless—unless you, like, needed those. for journalism reasons. not personal reasons. not that you’d want personal ones anyway—”
he’s rambling.
adorably.
you stare up at him. “you’re cute when you’re nervous.”
the words slip out so fast you clap a hand over your mouth.
his eyes widen.
yours do too.
oh no.
oh no. oh no.
he steps closer, expression shifting into something warm, slow, dangerous. “say that again.”
“no.”
“come on.”
“no.”
he grins like he’s discovered your deepest secret. “you think i’m cute.”
“i didn’t say that—”
“you did.”
“i didn’t mean to!”
“still counts.”
you want to evaporate.
instead, you push past him, muttering, “i have work.”
he calls after you, voice bright, almost breathless:
“see you tomorrow—cute journalist!”
you nearly trip.
later that night
you sit on your bed, notebook open, heart still racing like you just ran a marathon.
this was supposed to be a job.
an interview.
professional.
objective.
but instead?
you can’t stop thinking about his smile.
his softness.
the way he looks at you like he’s discovering something new each time.
and worst of all —
you’re starting to look back.
the weekend match is bigger than any practice. the stadium bleachers are packed, the crowd buzzing with energy that makes your chest thrum in sync. you sit in the press section, notebook open, recorder ready, and tell yourself this is purely professional.
of course, you’re lying.
the players run onto the field. the captain, eom seonghyeon, leads them with that same confident stride, helmet in hand, eyes scanning the crowd before landing on… you.
ugh.
he waves—subtle, almost casual—but your stomach flips anyway.
the whistle blows, and the game begins. it’s intense. fast. loud. and he’s electric. every movement precise, every command calculated. you scribble notes, trying to focus, but your eyes keep drifting to him.
and then it happens.
midway through the first half, there’s a heavy tackle. your heart stops. he hits the ground hard, clutching his shoulder, grimacing. the stadium gasps. your notebook drops without you noticing.
“seonghyeon!” you hear yourself shout. instinctively, you’re out of your seat and running toward the field, ignoring all professionalism.
he looks up, half-grimacing, half-smirking. “are you worried about your article or about me?”
“shut up!” you yell, heat flooding your face, and drop to his side. your hands hover, unsure if you should touch him or not.
he laughs weakly, shaking his head. “you care… don’t you?”
you grit your teeth. “i’m… just making sure you don’t die.”
he coughs, trying to make it sound like a joke, but his eyes are soft, watching you.
the medics take him off the field. you trail behind like a shadow, ignoring the curious looks from the crowd.
he sits on the hospital bed, shoulder bruised but thankfully not broken. you perch on a chair beside him, notebook forgotten, heart still thundering.
“professional curiosity?” he asks, smirking faintly.
“yeah,” you say, voice tighter than you intend. “purely professional.”
he studies you. “you really care, don’t you?”
“i’m just… concerned about the team captain,” you lie. badly.
he smirks again, but this time softer, almost shy. “i like talking to you. about everything. even when you’re angry at me.”
your stomach twists. “that’s… great for you, i guess.”
he reaches out, just a fraction, brushing your hand lightly with his. “you think i don’t notice you… noticing me?”
you pull your hand back, but slowly, reluctantly, your fingers linger near his. “don’t tease me.”
“not teasing,” he says, voice dropping. “i like it when you’re… honest. with me. like now.”
the air between you is thick, heavy, soft. your professional barrier—the one you’ve clung to—starts to crack.
he smiles gently. “i like you. a lot. more than i should for… you know… a journalist.”
you freeze. heart racing. the words you’ve been denying yourself for days are now loud in the room.
“i… i—” you start, but he leans slightly closer.
“you too,” he whispers. “right?”
your chest tightens. you nod, unable to trust your voice.
his smile widens, warm and slow. “then i guess… that makes us… a thing?”
your pulse races, your brain short-circuiting, and you finally, quietly, allow yourself to imagine… yes.
him.
you.
something more than professional.
something real.
and it’s terrifying. and thrilling. and exactly what you never saw coming.
it’s friday evening. the campus is buzzing—not for a game, not for a party—but because seonghyeon’s football team has been conspiring for weeks. you have no idea.
you’re walking across the quad after your last class, earbuds in, notebook tucked under your arm, and you notice the usual crowd near the fountain has grown… suspiciously large. banners. balloons. streamers.
and then you see it.
a massive banner stretched across the center of the quad:
“y/n, will you be our captain’s girlfriend?”
your jaw drops. you can feel your heartbeat in your ears.
before you can process, a whistle blows, and from the corners of your vision, the football team appears. martin, juhoon, keonho, and yes—seonghyeon—marching like they’re leading a parade.
he’s holding a single bouquet of flowers, smirking like he’s been planning this for months.
“y/n,” he calls, voice carrying over the crowd, “i tried subtle hints. texts. lunch invites. library run-ins… but clearly subtlety isn’t my forte. so here it is.”
he steps forward, flowers extended, eyes locked on yours. “will you… officially be my girlfriend?”
your knees weaken. the ridiculous banners, the cheering teammates, the dramatic music someone inexplicably set up—it’s absurd. perfect. and entirely him.
you stare at him, a grin breaking across your face despite the fluttering in your stomach.
“are you serious?” you whisper, though your smile says it all.
“dead serious,” he says, dropping to one knee in mock hoco fashion, bouquet still extended. “i’m captain of the football team. i demand your answer.”
you laugh, tears threatening your composure. “yes,” you say, voice firm, heart soaring.
the crowd erupts into cheers. riki high-fives you from the sidelines. martin and the others do a synchronized cheer. juhoon starts tossing confetti.
seonghyeon stands, slides the bouquet into your hands, and pulls you close. his forehead rests against yours. “best. answer. ever.”
you grin, resting your hands on his chest. “you’re ridiculous.”
“i know,” he whispers, “and now you’re officially stuck with me.”
you laugh, leaning into him, because yes. ridiculously, impossibly… you’re his.
and for the first time, everything feels exactly like it should.
the banners flap in the wind, the team cheers, the quad echoes with laughter and applause—and you can’t stop smiling, because somehow, somehow, the cocky football captain you swore you hated has become the boy you can’t imagine letting go.
——
behind the captain’s smile: eom seonghyeon, beyond the field
captains are often judged by what they do on the field: their speed, their strength, their ability to score under pressure. eom seonghyeon, captain of our college football team, could easily be defined by any of these. but to see him only in motion is to see half the story.
there is a weight to leadership, and seonghyeon carries it quietly. i’ve watched him correct a freshman who stumbled during practice, offering encouragement instead of criticism. i’ve seen him calm a nervous teammate, speak words of belief and confidence that linger longer than any cheer from the bleachers. he takes responsibility not for glory, but for the people who depend on him.
on game days, he is electric. precise. commanding. every decision deliberate, every play calculated. yet even amid the roar of the crowd, there is thoughtfulness. there is care. a mindfulness that can easily be missed if you are only looking at the scoreboard.
he jokes, yes—he teases, he smirks, he knows how to make people laugh—but beneath the surface, he is deeply earnest. he knows what it means to lead, to protect, to inspire. and somehow, he does it effortlessly, with a humility that surprises everyone who thinks they already know him.
seonghyeon is a paradox: confident yet considerate, competitive yet compassionate, a star on the field yet quietly grounding for everyone around him. he makes you want to play harder, do better, and be better—not for him, but because of him.
and maybe the most extraordinary thing? he notices the little things. he sees people, not just numbers, not just teammates. he listens. he understands. he cares.
writing about him, interviewing him, spending time in his presence, has been an unexpected privilege. he is, by every definition, remarkable. and i can finally say—without fear, without hesitation—that i get to call him mine.
