pretty📎
“popular”! jungkook x underclassman! reader
genre: angst + hurt/comfort + fluff
synopsis: trying to get some alone time at taehyung’s party is practically impossible. So here you are on his veranda trying to avoid a certain boy in a certain costume matching yours…
series: part of my papercuts smau
Escaping the stuffy air of Taehyung’s apartment, you found yourself at his veranda. You wanted some time alone to yourself to process your thoughts and feelings… and ultimately get yourself space to calm the fuck down. The cool October air brushed against your cheeks as you stood shivering, trying to will yourself not to think about a certain boy in a certain Gryffindor costume.
It felt odd… truly… to continue liking him even after knowing who he was. You were sure that when Jeon Jungkook graduated, he was out of your life. For good. He was like a broken bone that had healed over the course of a few months. The thought of him was painful but a good lesson that shaped how you acted in the present. You had changed, Jungkook had certainly changed… So why in the world was it so hard to move on from who he was? When he was Jeon Jaegguk, his past didn’t matter to you. But why did it matter so much now?
You glanced back at the familiar locks of black hair that waved drunkenly with the happy birthday tiara on top. You knew why, you just didn’t want to admit it… Miya reminded you numerous times that her relationship with Jungkook was far too toxic and unstable that even if you hadn’t been in the picture, their façade would’ve fractured sooner than she wanted to admit at the time. You weren’t blind. Miya was attractive, charming, and overall beautiful. You noticed how boys from all departments mooned over her little giggles and numerous smiles, yet she never went on a date after her break from Jungkook.
She said she was over him, but was she really? You had told her the same only a few weeks ago but the identity of your current boyfriend suggested otherwise. Your teeth slightly chattered through the thin black cloak that was draped over your shoulders, the cold air didn’t seem to do what you wanted it to do and instead brought memories of Jungkook more intensely than you wanted.
At the sound of the veranda door sliding open behind you, you sighed. So much for being alone.
“Sunny?” You turned around to see the certain Gryffindor uniform that you were trying so hard to block out of your mind.
You quickly pulled your mask back up as if hiding behind your mask would act as some kind of shield to your identity that Jungkook seemed ignorant of. You wanted to scream internally, how did he not recognize you? He’d seen you without your mask before, why didn’t he notice? Had you changed that much?
“Jaegguk.” You smiled with only your eyes, “What are you doing here?”
“Needed some air.” He shrugged as he leaned on the railing next to you. His sweater brushed up against your sleeves making heat rush to your face. Why did everything feel so hot suddenly? “You?”
“Same.” You looked down, hoping that the darkness would shield the color that was blooming on your face.
He nodded before his eyes darted to your shivering figure, “Are you cold?”
“No.”
“Sunny you’re shaking like a leaf.” He stepped back and pulled off his cream sweater, exposing tattooed arms in the process for a few seconds. You had to look away before your face glowed from the amount of blood that would rush to it. “Here.”
You stared at the sweater for a second before pulling it on. Fabric softener. You buried your nose into the drooping collar, how did his scent change so much from high school? Back then he smelled like a well-groomed boy. Deodorant, soap and tangerines. But now… he smelled like a soap shop. Bath and Body Works seemed to have a new competitor.
“Thanks.”
“It’s nothing.” He continued to look at the empty night sky, void of any stars or light except the crescent moon that illuminated parts of his face. “So…” He tried, “We’re matching.”
“Slytherin and Gryffindor.”
“Ah…”
“They’re enemies.”
“Enemies to lovers?” He nearly snorted with amusement.
You nearly choked at the mention of such ship dynamic, “I’m not sure if that’s what I’d call us.”
He cocked his head to the side to look at you, “Oh? Then what would you suggest?” His voice dropped slightly as he stared, moonlight illuminating the twinkles in his eyes, “As a fanfic connoisseur?”
Damn him, no one should look that alluring while talking about ship dynamics.
You cleared your throat, exes to lovers, “Friends to lovers.”
Jungkook seemed to consider the trope, “Makes sense.”
And the both of you fell silent again, he stared at the moon, and you pretended to stare at the moon while stealing glances toward him. That was when you took a look at him, a good look at him. He looked so similar yet so different. Similar enough that it made you want to repeatedly bash your head against a wall for failing to recognize him but different enough that you could recognize how much time had passed. He looked older, more mature. The baby fat that he had once carried almost completely disappeared, leaving a sharp jawline and more angular cheekbones. He grew into the nose that he had once confessed to you in whispered facetime calls at midnight to have made him insecure. And his doe eyes seemed to have lost some of its glimmer of mischievousness. He was a man. Different from the boy that you had fallen for so easily at 14.
But the man and the boy seemed like different entities entirely, Jungkook was loud, chaotic, understanding and had an aura of confidence that 14-year-old you had found very much attractive. But Jaegguk… He was patient, calm, witty and calculated. He was goal-oriented but accommodating, his body had been the thing to catch your attention but his ability to strive for self-improvement while remaining humble had been what had kept your attraction from fleeting. How could you fall for two completely different people, people that were near polar opposites of each other, and still find out that you fell for the same guy? You glanced at the doe eyes that made you melt, whether he was Jungkook or Jaegguk, your knees were always weak for those eyes. Damn, maybe Tae was right. Maybe you did have a thing for bambi eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Jungkook’s concerned voice snapped you out of your thoughts, you didn’t realize that you were staring at him until now.
“I- you- we- um…” You fumbled over your words; you hadn’t been this awkward since you were 17. What the fuck was wrong with you? “You’re different.” You blurted out, “You’re really different from the first time we met.”
Jungkook’s eyes seemed to widen slightly, “I am? Since when?”
Since high school.
“Since the gym.” You lied, fumbling with the sleeves of his sweater, “I didn’t… expect you to be so…” You struggled to find a word that encapsulated the man in front of you.
Funny? Well, you didn’t exactly expect him to be boring, did you?
Charitable? You didn’t really expect him to be the Grinch either…
Understanding? What was he? A therapist?
“Pretty.” You wanted to pull your hair out in frustration.
How can you explain in a mere adjective that you found him so and utterly mesmerizing? He, in a sense, was like unknown specimen in some ways. He was intriguing, mysterious and surprising. You wouldn’t have guessed a gym rat was so interested in guitars or art. You would’ve never guessed that for someone who hated to read so much, he excelled in your marketing class. And for someone so gentle and keen with his camera, you wouldn’t have expected him to box. He had a range of interests that seemed to clash and melt so perfectly into one another. He was like a new species that you had originally taken interest in for its rarity but found so much more. He didn’t seem real. He couldn’t be real. How again, in the fucking world, could you fall for the same guy?
Jungkook laughed, bringing butterflies fluttering against your stomach once again. But if these butterflies were from the remnants of your heartbreak with Jungkook or the newfound interest in Jaegguk… you did not know.
“Pretty.” Jungkook rolled the word off his tongue before staring down at you, “You are too.”
Such simple words. Such cliché words. But from him they sounded like a love song.
You froze. Fuck, you wanted to kiss him.
You had kissed Jeon Jungkook once. No… Twice now. The first time was your first kiss, an awkward and stomach-butterfly-releasing affair that you would rather not dwell upon at the moment since it was laced with the memory of the very man breaking up with you less than 72 hours later. The second was when you were intoxicated and thought he was a different guy… only a week ago.
The air between the two of you seemed to thicken, both of you glancing towards the bottom of the other’s faces before darting back to the eyes. No one dared to make the first move until he brought his hand over so that his thumb brushed against your ear. His thumb danced around the side of your mask, bambi eyes asking for permission.
And for some reason, you nodded.
His hands slowly pulled off your mask and he stared. Did he know?
He stilled, a painting against a backdrop of illuminated darkness.
“You’re pretty.” He finally whispered before he guided your chin towards his own.
He was so close that didn’t take much energy for you to rise on your toes so that his lips met yours. They felt familiar yet so foreign like he did. You grasped onto his shirt to bring him impossibly closer as his hands made their way to the railing on each side of you. Your back was pressed onto the cold metal, making you shiver against his chest.
You nearly mumbled ‘Jungkook’ against his lips but luckily his own voice stopped you, “I like you.” He muttered in between kisses.
Sunny or Y/N?
And in all honesty, you didn’t even know who you were. You were Y/N, yes. The girl you were from 17 was almost long gone but she lingered. Her behaviors and habits had been amended and criticized by your current self. The self that had molded itself in the gym and through self-love journals into a caricature of perfection and wellness. You were her too. You were Sunny, you had to be Sunny.
Sunny was confident and beautiful. She was well-liked and intelligent.
But there would be glimpses of Y/N… time to time. Her laugh, her facial expressions, her little quirks and habits would suddenly bleed into your current self. The mask would crack, the caricature melted. You bashed her back into the deep parts of your mind in those moments. You were Sunny. Well, Y/N still… but a better version. You were “that girl,” you were healthy, you were beautiful.
And you had continued that mantra for the last 18 months. You were better, you were happier and healthier than Y/N. You were a new, updated version of her.
You are better.
You failed to realize that you hadn’t used that mantra for a while.
“I know, Kook.” You replied with hesitation that you hoped was masked. For a fraction of a second, he seemed to still before you started pulling at his shirt tighter. You were half afraid you would cause it to rip.
“No…” He trailed off as he placed his hands gently over yours before guiding them to his hair where you kept them buried while he continued to kiss you. His lips started to move away from your own and to the curve of your jaw, planting butterfly kisses along your throat that made your skin burn with contact as he uttered something you couldn’t catch against your skin.
You fluttered your eyes open when he pulled away for a moment, he looked unsure of how to proceed. How you would take him. So, you took in his appearance. The mussed hair, untucked dress shirt and swollen lips as his eyes travelled from your eyes to your lips then to your jaw. His tatted hands slowly traced your jawline before the fingertips grazed your throat with impossible delicacy. He was agonizingly slow and careful as if you were made of glass. He then pressed a kiss against the base of your throat, it took all your willpower not to mewl.
You pulled at hair at the base of his neck, urging him to continue, “Kook-“
He earnestly pressed his lips against yours, swallowing your whines of his name with his lips. And you melted into him with fervor. Each mumble sending you deeper into him. There were no questions answered, no words exchanged, but one thing was made extremely clear: You and Jaegguk were falling. Quickly. Dangerously. And maybe you had been for some time.
But you weren’t sure if Jeon Jungkook was falling with you.
*A/N: So, I literally wrote this part of the fic like 6 weeks ago and waited until I updated the chapters before it. And guess what? I scrapped the whole thing.
When I originally drafted Y/N, I wanted her to be a superhero. I wanted her to be unhesitant and unyielding and willing to accept every challenge that came her way. But the more I wrote Y/N, the more insecurities surfaced, I realized that even confident people… can be insecure. That even the people we regard as “perfect” (or seemingly so) can be faltered and fearful.
Y/N is confident, she had moved on from Jungkook and she had herself a “glo-up.” But I don’t think self-love can come before self-acceptance, what Y/N has been doing is just locking her past self away and hoping she doesn’t return. Without Y/N coming in terms to with who she was… this would just become a cycle. So, I wanted to write a character who’s still learning. She needs practice to really accept herself just like Jungkook needs practice as well. She’s still struggling, but that’s okay…
I know this may sound very annoying for the plot but it was really important to me to create a character who was able to develop into herself and really learn to accept herself fully.
also I know I said I would post this on Friday but maniac is still horribly edited and I already had this laying around… so… hahahha
thanks for reading! please remember to hit that rblg button as a pat on the head for me for a good job (•ᴗ•◍)!*
synopsis: flirting with your crush of 3 years wasn’t something you thought of when first getting twitter, a nasty breakup wasn’t what you expected either… but why is it that after 3 years and loads of droning on self-improvement and trying to become “that” girl, your gym buddy reminds you of the one person you wanted to forget?
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