“CAN I TELL YOU A SECRET?”
SUM. your best friend’s best friend took an interest in you quite a while ago but never made a move in fear of messing things up for everybody. at a party where he’s desperate to see you, things go terribly wrong, resulting in you in the emergency room where he finally confesses.
• (AOUAD MLST) . lee cheongsan x fem!reader · includes: han gyeongsu, lee suhyeok, jang woojin, yang daesu · collage au, mentions a party and alcohol, swearing, blood, broken nose, hospital trip, fluff, probably crack-ish
cheongsan leans against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed over his chest as he watches gyeongsu set up the drinks on the counter opposite him.
“she’s not coming, man,” gyeongsu says for the millionth time. “she doesn’t like parties.”
“well, you invited her, right?” cheongsan responds, brows pinching together with a slight panic that gyeongsu didn’t invite his own best friend to his party.
“yes, i invited her,” gyeongsu chuckles. “she’s my best friend, why wouldn’t i invite her?”
“you just said she doesn’t like parties,” cheongsan replies.
“that doesn’t mean i’m not going to invite her.”
“okay, well then don’t say she’s not going to show up even if you invited her.”
“jesus christ, cheongsan,” gyeongsu laughs, turning his body around to face his friend. “look, i don’t know if she’s coming. you know her, she’s spontaneous, she might show up, she might not. don’t stress too much about it.”
cheongsan sighs, running a hand through his freshly washed hair.
“there’s gonna be other girls here for you to talk to tonight,” gyeongsu says, turning around and grabbing the plastic bag filled with stacks of red solo cups.
“i don’t want talk to other girls,” cheongsan mumbles.
“well, you’re gonna,” gyeongsu sighs. “you can’t complain about not making any progress with y/n if you won’t actually make a move on her.”
“and don’t use the excuse that you don’t want to upset me,” gyeongsu says pointedly, looking over his shoulder at the boy. “you know i’m all for this, but you can’t continue being upset about her if you’re not going to do something about it.”
cheongsan lets out another sigh, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. he’s liked you for as long as he could remember. all throughout middle school, he’s known gyeongsu. the two of them were on the same basketball team and still are, so obviously he’s close with gyeongsu. being one of his best friends, obviously he’s met you.
you’re another one of gyeongsu’s best friends. you’ve known each other since you were little. your mother’s knew each other and were best friends who used to see each other constantly, so obviously you and gyeongsu hung out too. you’ve always seen him as an older brother even though he was only a year older than you. it helped that he was an only child, so he took that older brother role pretty naturally.
cheongsan met you at gyeongsu’s eighteenth birthday party. he was immediately interested in you. he liked the sound of your voice and the way your eyes crinkled at the corners when you smiled. he spent the night finding excuses to keep talking to you.
the next week, he asked gyeongsu about you. he explained that you’ve known each other your whole lives, and cheongsan briefly worried that maybe gyeongsu wouldn’t be okay with him liking you, that he’d get protective and territorial. “yeah, she’s like a little sister to me,” gyeongsu had said as he dribbled the basketball left and right between his hands as they stood on the court waiting for practice to start.
cheongsan remembered feeling relief when he said that, that there was no way he could ever want you. but then he was worried that he’d get protective in an older brother way. that maybe gyeongsu would think he wasn’t good enough for you.
“you should totally ask her out,” gyeongsu told cheongsan later that day, clapping him on the back as he shoved his jersey into his backpack. “you two would be good together.”
that was four years ago. cheongsan still hasn’t asked you out.
he just never built up the courage. what if he asked you out and you said no? you’d tell gyeongsu and then it would be weird. he didn’t want to ruin anything, so he chose to stay quiet.
not quiet enough, because everybody knows but you.
you’ve been quite oblivious.
you’d met cheongsan countless times but never hung out with him one on one. you thought he was nice. he always made you laugh, but you never noticed the way he’d look at you after he said a joke to make sure you laughed. most of the time, you did, and that always made his day.
“what’s got you all upset?” suhyeok asks as he walks into the kitchen, patting cheongsan on the back.
“i’m not upset,” cheongsan grumbles.
“he’s complaining about y/n possibly not showing up to the party that hasn’t even started yet,” gyeongsu tells him and suhyeok chuckles.
“she doesn’t like parties,” suhyeok shrugs.
“that’s what i said,” gyeongsu nods in agreement.
“but that doesn’t mean she won’t come,” cheongsan responds.
“i’ll tell you what,” gyeongsu says as he finishes stacking the cups, turning around and crossing his arms. “if y/n shows up, i’ll let you slap me.”
cheongsan’s eyes widen a little bit, a slight smile on his lips. “really? you mean it?”
gyeongsu’s brows pinch together. “why do you seem excited about that?”
“i’m not excited about it, i just like the idea of slapping you.”
“that’s weird, cheongsan.”
“you’re telling me you’ve never wanted to slap me?”
“so you do want to slap me?”
“i kinda want to slap you, gyeongsu!” woojin calls from the living room where he and daesu were tidying up a bit. gyeongsu rolls his eyes.
“no, i don’t want to slap you,” cheongsan shakes his head. “i’d rather y/n show up over slapping you.”
“well now i’m praying she shows up,” gyeongsu murmurs as he leaves the kitchen.
cheongsan stood by the front door all night, a drink in his hand while he greeted everybody when they arrived at the party that’s not even his. he briefly scanned every group that walked through the door, looking for your familiar face.
he had just started to lose hope when it reached eleven p.m. and you still weren’t there. he figured maybe you weren’t actually coming.
but at last, you arrived.
his face quickly lit up and he smiled when he saw you, standing up a little bit straighter as you walked through the front door.
“hi,” you respond with a small, polite smile of your own. “have you seen nayeon?”
“uh.. maybe, i don’t know,” cheongsan replies as he shakes his head. he looks around the party for a brief moment before he looks back at you. “i haven’t seen her.”
that’s a lie. he had seen her. he greeted her at the door when she arrived. he just didn’t want you to know he’d been standing at the front door for hours waiting for your arrival.
“okay, well i’m gonna go find her,” you say and cheongsan nods, a slight look of disappointment on his face that he tries to hide.
“hey,” he says before you walk away, grabbing your attention. “can you tell gyeongsu, if you see him, that i’m looking for him?”
“of course,” you respond with a smile before turning around and walking away.
he keeps his eyes on the back of your head as you make your way through the crowded house, only looking away when you’re out of sight.
“y/n said you were looking for me?” gyeongsu spoke over the loud music as he walked up to cheongsan, who was now in the kitchen with woojin, making himself a drink.
instead of responding, cheongsan reaches up and slaps gyeongsu across the face.
“hey!” gyeongsu exclaims, holding a hand to his stinging cheek.
“she came,” cheongsan smiles, excitement evident on his face as he takes a sip of the drink in his red solo cup.
gyeongsu rolls his eyes as he remembers the deal he made with cheongsan earlier. “okay, well you didn’t need to slap me that hard,” he murmurs as he rubs his sore cheek.
“i personally thought it was funny,” woojin responds.
“shut up,” gyeongsu says before looking back to cheongsan. “did you speak to her?”
“no. kinda. she only asked me if i knew where nayeon was,” cheongsan shrugs his shoulders. “and then i asked her to tell you to come find me, but apart from that, no.”
“well, she’s talking to some guys with nayeon, if you wanna go find her,” gyeongsu says all too casually. “i think nayeon’s trying to set her up with one of them.” he adds.
cheongsan’s eyes widen at the mention of gwinam. “really? where?”
“by the stairs, i believe.”
before gyeongsu can speak again, cheongsan’s off to find you. he makes his way through the busy house, apologizing to anybody he accidentally bumps into along the way.
he checked everywhere for you, yet he still couldn’t find you. he checked by the staircase, in the living room, in the backyard, everywhere.
he’s been getting increasingly more frustrated every time he leaves a room without finding you, starting to think that maybe you left with one of the guys. all he really wanted was to talk to you tonight and now he’s losing hope again.
after about half an hour of searching for you, he gave up. he chose to drink instead. it didn’t take very long for him to get up on the coffee table, drunk out of his mind. he’s singing and dancing along to a second generation girl group song that’s blasting throughout the speakers.
he’s unaware that you’re standing in the doorway, a drink in your hand as you watch him make a fool of himself.
“that things gonna break, sannie!” daesu shouts over the music. “get down, you’re gonna injure yourself!”
cheongsan doesn’t respond, he just continues jumping and singing.
his face lights up when he sees you coming towards him in the crowd, a concerned look on your face.
“cheongsan, i think you should get down!” you call up to him, waving your hand to signal for him to get off the coffee table.
“come up here!” he shouts back, grabbing your hand and pulling you up there with him.
instinctively, your arm wraps around his waist as his does the same to yours, holding your body close to his so you don’t tumble off the table.
he brings his face close to yours, his lips brushing against your ear, causing your breath to hitch as he murmurs softly but lough enough so you could hear him over the music. “can i tell you a secret?”
you open your mouth to respond but all that comes out is a screech when the coffee table collapses underneath the both of you, sending you toppling to the floor.
daesu manages to catch you since you were the closest to him, but cheongsan fell forward, smashing his face on the floor and knocking him out cold on impact.
“cheongsan!” you gasp as everyone does the same, rushing over to him.
you roll his unconscious body over, seeing his eyes closed and mouth open as blood pours out of his nose. his face is covered in blood, leaking down his chin and neck and onto his knit jumper. there’s a big gash on his forehead with a piece of wood from the coffee table lodged into his skin.
“shit,” suhyeok sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks between you, cheongsan and woojin who’s currently slapping the unconscious boy’s cheek, trying to wake him up.
“what- what do we do?” you ask, looking frantically between daesu and suhyeok. “do we call an ambulance?”
“i think we should just bring him to the hospital,” suhyeok responds.
“i’m gonna go get a towel,” woojin tells you, standing up and pushing his way through the crowd.
gyeongsu comes barrelling into the room as woojin leaves, bumping shoulders with the boy. “what the fuck happened?” he asks, brows pinched with concern as he reaches you and cheongsan on the floor.
“gyeongsu, i’m so sorry about your coffee table,” you say, looking up at him. “i was trying to get him down but he’s so drunk, he wouldn’t-”
“it’s fine, y/n,” gyeongsu responds, waving you off. he winces as he takes a closer look at his friend’s face. “shit, that’s bad,” he murmurs.
“okay, everybody out!” suhyeok suddenly yells, standing up and ushering everybody out of the living room. people abandon their red solo cups and leave, murmuring apologies and quiet goodbyes as gyeongsu and suhyeok urge everybody to leave the crowded house.
woojin returns a moment later into the empty living room with a wet towel, crouching down next to you.
“do we take that out?” you ask, looking up at him.
“i.. i don’t know,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “i think we should leave it in for the doctors,” woojin responds as he starts gently cleaning up cheongsan’s face.
when he touches cheongsan’s nose, which is definitely broken, a soft groan leaves his bloody lips as he starts to wake up.
“ah, fuck!” cheongsan rasps, his face scrunching up at the pain. “fuck.”
“sorry, man,” woojin murmurs, keeping his focus on cleaning up the mess. “we’re gonna take you to the hospital, okay?”
cheongsan doesn’t respond but his eyes move to you, seeing the concern written all over your face.
“what happened?” he mutters, squinting his eyes from the bright ceiling light above him.
“the coffee table broke and you fell,” you murmur, moving some hair out of his face. his eyes close when you gently touch his cheek. “you hit your head on the ground and your nose is probably broken and.. you’ve got wood in your forehead.”
“fuck,” cheongsan lets out a frustrated sigh.
“are we taking him to the hospital?” gyeongsu asks as he re-enters the room after kicking everybody out of the house, which is now trashed, by the way.
“gonna have to,” suhyeok nods his head, his hands on his hips as he looks down at cheongsan.
“did you hurt yourself?” cheongsan murmurs with concern evident in his voice, checking over your face.
“no, i’m okay,” you respond, shaking your head slightly. “daesu caught me.”
cheongsan nods a bit, still checking you just in case. you look pretty much unscathed. he’d much rather be all broken and bloody instead of you.
“i’m fine,” you assure him.
“should we get going?” gyeongsu asks, grabbing his car keys from his pocket.
“yeah,” you murmur, moving away from cheongsan as suhyeok and daesu helped him up. the boy cries out in pain as his friends hold him up, his hand clutching his ribs.
hours later, you’re in the emergency room with cheongsan. he’s sat on one of the beds in the small makeshift room where you’re surrounded by curtains. you’re sat on a chair beside the bed, watching cheongsan sit there idly.
daesu and suhyeok went back to their dorms, but gyeongsu and woojin are still here. they just left to go get some food for everyone. the doctors want to keep cheongsan overnight for evaluation since he’s got a concussion.
the cut on his forehead is bandaged up and clean, but his nose is broken and currently has some tape on it. his ribs are also pretty bruised and tender but there’s nothing else that needed urgent medical attention.
you haven’t left cheongsan’s side as he’s still a little intoxicated and you don’t feel right about leaving him alone. and you have a feeling he doesn’t want you to leave too.
“how’s your head?” you ask, watching as he stares at the foot of the bed blankly. when he hears your voice, he looks up at your face. he’s quiet for a few seconds as he just takes in your details, admiring your pretty, untouched face.
“it’s fine,” he replies softly. “bit of a headache, but i’ll be fine.”
you nod slowly, keeping your eyes on him.
there’s been something on your mind for a little while now. it’s nagging at you, but you can’t figure out if now is the right time to ask about it. so you decide to just bite the bullet.
“can i ask you something?” you ask again. you watch as cheongsan nods. “before.. you know, all this happened.. and we were up on the coffee table, you said you wanted to tell me a secret.”
cheongsan’s breath catches a little in his throat. despite the concussion, he’s not forgotten what he wanted to tell you. he’s been preparing it in his head for years now. he couldn’t forget it even if he tried.
“uh, yeah..” he murmurs, picking at a loose thread on his jumper. he doesn’t say anything else.
“what was it?” you ask curiously with a small tilt of your head. the room falls silent for a moment. you can only hear the sounds of the machines beeping and the hum of the hospital.
“um,” cheongsan sighs, scratching the back of his head. “just..”
you stay quiet, keeping your eyes on his face as he nervously looks away, avoiding eye contact with you completely.
“if this is, like.. too weird, just stop me,” he tells you. a tiny smile pulls at your lips as you nod a little bit. “but, uh… i like you.”
you blink at the confession. you don’t say anything, you just stare.
you certainly weren’t expecting that.
“a lot, actually,” cheongsan sighs like he’s embarrassed about it. “since we were, like.. fifteen. since i met you, actually,” he rambles as he continues to avoid eye contact with you.
after moments of silence where you don’t say anything, he finally looks back up at you. for a second, he starts to think that he made a mistake telling you that. that now you’ll think he’s weird for having a crush on his best friend’s best friend.
“you like me?” you ask, your voice quieter than it was before.
“yeah..” cheongsan mutters under his breath.
“why didn’t you tell me?”
“i didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he murmurs with a small shrug of his shoulders. “i mean.. you’re gyeongsu’s best friend. he’s like your brother. and we don’t know each other that well. i just figured it would be too much if i just randomly told you out of the blue that i had a crush on you.”
you listen to him talk. his voice sounds different to how it usually does. it’s still got that deep smoothness to it, but now he just sounds nervous. like he’s trying to appear cooler than he actually is.
“it’s not weird,” you tell him.
cheongsan’s eyebrows raise ever so slightly. “it’s not?”
you shake your head a little bit. your eyes stay locked on his drowsy ones, watching the nervousness fade as it turns into hope.
“i think you’re pretty cool,” you admit with a small smile.
cheongsan scoffs out a quiet laugh as he shakes his head, keeping his eyes on yours. “cool, huh?” he questions. “sitting in a hospital with a concussion and a broken nose doesn’t feel very cool.”
“no? well, you look cool,” you tell him sarcastically.
the smile on your face gets a little bigger as you continue to look at him.
“so.. you think i’m cool?” he continues. “does that mean… i’m cool enough to go on a date with you?”
“oh, i don’t know,” you try to hide your smile but it doesn’t work. “i’m pretty cool, too. might be a little too much.”
“i’m still a little drunk, so you’re gonna have to give me a yes or no answer.”
you laugh at that, your eyes crinkling in the corners. it makes cheongsan’s heart flutter.
“yes, i’ll go on a date with you,” you tell him. cheongsan feels like weight has lifted off his shoulders immediately as he relaxes. suddenly, his head doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.
he doesn’t even have time to respond before the curtain opens and in walks gyeongsu and woojin with a plastic bag from a fried chicken restaurant. woojin hands cheongsan and gyeongsu their food before walking over to you and handing you yours. he plonks himself down in the chair beside you, his shoulder bumping into yours. he grabs a box and digs in.
gyeongsu looks at cheongsan, noticing that he didn’t seem as dull as he did earlier. he’s got a big smile on his face. gyeongsu glances over at you and notices how you’re already having a conversation with woojin.
“you’re very smiley for a drunk, concussed guy,” gyeongsu says observantly.
“yeah, well,” cheongsan just shrugs his shoulder and takes a bite out of a leg. “things change.”
gyeongsu tilts his head and squints his eyes at cheongsan, trying to figure out what happened. then it hits him.
“you asked her out, didn’t you?”
“you fucker!” gyeongsu says a little louder than he meant to, causing you and woojin to look over at him. there’s a big smile on his face as he pats cheongsan on the back, and then he notices you guys staring. “what?” he asks, shrugging his shoulders as he tries to remain nonchalant. “i like the fried chicken.”
a small smile pulls at your lips as you watch gyeongsu take a bite of his wing, before your eyes flicker over to cheongsan.
he’s already staring at you with a tiny smile on his face, but it only gets bigger when you smile too.
you definitely weren’t expecting this outcome, but you’re not complaining.
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