CHERRYWON

Over the next few days, he starts noticing things he has no reason to notice. That you get to class twelve minutes before lectures start everyday, always through the east entrance, near the nurse's, which is the reason he started taking that route too, he can't even convince himself otherwise.

He notices that you like to bite your lip or repeatedly click your pen when you're thinking. That Heeseung walks you to your first class every morning and kisses you at the door.

Sunoo grabs a snack, around that time usually and watches the vending machine glass instead of watching you. It's easier that way. The glass gives him a version of it that's smaller, dimmer, a reflection instead of the thing itself, and at least it makes it somehow bearable.

He unwraps the pretzel but doesn't eat it. Down the hall, he hears your laugh again, the kind he's been trying to earn a single real version of and has only gotten close to twice. Heeseung gets it without asking.

Gets it the way people get weather, or gravity. A thing that simply happens to be there, that costs nothing to receive because it was never earned in the first place. Sunoo throws the pretzel out on his way to class. Wrapper and all. He tells himself it's only because he isn't hungry anymore, but deep down he feels the effect of a feeling he refuses to acknowledge.

A few weeks pass and your birthday rolls around. The opportunity finds him, or maybe he finds it, he isn't sure which version is true. He's in the art room after hours, the one place he's ever felt like himself, a second home at this point. When suddenly, he hears voices down the hall.

Yours, and Heeseung's, and something in your voice he's never heard before, pure anger and exhaustion. The sound of an argument already three rounds deep.

"Babe, I'm sorry…I just-"

"You forgot my birthday, this isn't just something you can bring up excuses for."

"I said I was sorry..."

Sunoo should not be listening. He knows that much but doesn't stop anyway. He sets down his pencil very quietly, like the sound of his scribbling could somehow give him away through the closed door.

"I just think if you actually thought about me for like five minutes a day instead of your fucking practice then-"

"Oh come on, that's not fair," he groans.

"Babe are you being serious right now?" The voices move off down the hall, and Sunoo sits there with his heart going too fast. So Heeseung forgot. He forgot you. He knows that if it were him, he would never forget.

That's not something he can even think to do. He knows the exact date of your birthday because you mentioned it once in passing, weeks ago, not even to him, to Jungwon actually, and he had simply been standing close enough to hear it and had mentally noted it down.

But Sunoo didn't really know if it was appropriate of him to get you a gift since you were only classmates. Not until now.

He stays in the art room for another hour after your footsteps fade. Doesn't touch the assignment he came in for. Instead he pulls out a fresh canvas, the good kind, the kind he rations for pieces that matter, and starts mixing colors he hasn't used in a while.

He knows exactly what he wants without having to think about it. The courtyard fountain. You had said it was your favorite place on campus. And he wanted to give you something special which is why he settled on it, but this time? Golden hour, the light you get around 12 PM that he's spent months studying without ever quite explaining to himself why.

He works fast and carefully at once, and it takes him until almost 9 PM. He doesn't notice the time passing. He never does, when it comes to you.

The next morning he gets to the east entrance early, earlier than usual, before Heeseung's car door slams in the lot, before the vending machine even matters. He finds you at your locker alone, headphones in. It looks like you haven't talked to anyone yet today and might not want to. You take one earbud out when you see him.

"Hey Sunoo, what's up?"

"Hey." He holds out the small paper bag, folded at the top. "For you” he smiles, “Happy birthday...sorry i'm late."

You blink at it. "How'd you-"

"Jungwon mentioned it," he says, easy and practiced.

"I wasn't sure what you'd like so I painted what reminded me of you the most." You open the bag slow, careful with it like you already suspect it's something fragile.

When you see the painting your whole face lights up. And he knows right then and there that it's an expression he's going to replay for a very long time. Surprise first, then something quieter underneath it. "Sunoo…" You look up at him.

"This is…this is beautiful, I-..." You stop yourself. "It's just nobody remembered yesterday. Not ev-..." You don't finish that sentence either, but you don't have to.

He already knows exactly who you're talking about. "It's nothing really," he says, even though it's the furthest thing from nothing. He has no idea that this is one of the kindest gestures anyone has ever done for you.

All your friends have only ever gotten you gifts they thought you'd love based on price tags, or an online trend. Never something as sentimental as this.

You're still looking at the painting, something raw in your voice that wasn't there a second ago. "You even got the time of day right. I love this so much" You laugh, almost disbelieving.

"How do you even paint something as beautiful as this?" Because I've done nothing but notice what you like, he doesn't say. "I just thought you might like it," he laughs nervously.

You look up at him, longer than you ever have, and something passes over your face. He doesn't know what name to put on it quite yet. It's not what he's felt looking at you all this time, but close enough in shape that his chest squeezes hopefully. He doesn't ask about Heeseung. Doesn't have to. He can already see the comparison sitting behind your eyes, unspoken but forming.

"Thank you Sunoo," you say, quietly. "Really, this means so much to me." A sad smile spreads across your face. You stand to pull him in for a hug. He freezes for half a second before his arms find their way around you, Sunoo's all tense and nervous, though you don't seem to notice, or well, perhaps you're just kind enough to pretend you don't.

You smell like you always do, the sweet scent he's never been close enough to fully appreciate, and his heart is hammering violently and stupidly against his ribs. He's imagined this.

More times than he'd ever admit out loud. But imagining things and having them are apparently not the same category of feeling at all, because his whole body goes warm in a way no drawing could ever prepare him for.

Finally

Something in him says, quiet and a little frightening in how much relief is packed into one word. You pull back first and he lets you, even though he'd rather stay here longer. "Sorry," you say, laughing a little, wiping quickly under your eye like you're embarrassed to have gotten emotional over a painting. "I don't know why that got to me so much."

"It's okay," he says, his voice coming out softer.

You're looking back down at the painting carefully, like you're deciding where it's going to live, a wall? Perhaps a desk?, just somewhere it'll be seen every day, and Sunoo stands there with his arms still faintly warm from where you were, thinking that he would give up every other thing he's ever wanted just to be the reason you look that happy again.

He doesn't say any of it. He just watches you tuck the painting carefully into its bag, and thinks, with a kind of brutal honesty that sits at odds with his morals.

I could give her so much more than this, if she'd just let me.

Sunoo doesn't remember walking to class. He's aware, vaguely, of the lecture ending at some point and his body carrying him through the hallway, but none of it registers the way it normally would. He can't get you out of his fucking head.

The hug replays in his mind over and over again, frame by frame to the point that he feels like he's going insane. He sits through the rest of his lectures without hearing a word of them. Jungwon leans over at one point, murmurs something about the assignment, and Sunoo nods like he's listening even though his mind is still back there with you, at your locker.

He thinks about Heeseung finding out you cried over a painting from a guy that isn't him, and something ugly and satisfied moves through his chest before he can stop it. He hates himself for that too, hates it enough that he presses the heel of his hand against his eye like he can push the thought back down through sheer pressure.

‘You're not a good person for wanting this’ the thought echoes through his head, ‘You know that, right?’ He stares ahead because he doesn't have an answer. It's an awful feeling honestly, especially when he searches himself for the guilt that's supposed to come with it, automatically and immediately, and instead has to go looking for it. It's there, he feels it, except it's quieter than the other thing, smaller…losing.

Sunoo heads to a quiet corner on campus and spends the rest of the day drawing your hands again, the ones that were just around his back. He doesn't let himself think about why that specifically, is the thing his pencil wants. And at lunch, he doesn't go to the cafeteria. He can't, not today. Some instinct tells him that if he watches you and Heeseung right now, with the memory of your arms still fresh enough to feel, he won't be able to keep his face doing what it's supposed to do.

He eats alone by the library instead, sketchbook closed, he doesn't open it once. Already knowing exactly what's on every page, and it's the first time in months he's sat with you in his head and done nothing with his hands at all.

Heeseung on the other hand knows he messed up. He's known it since the second the words left your mouth in the hallway. Since before that, really… Since he'd checked his phone at 11pm the night of your birthday and seen your name in his notifications with a message he hadn't opened three hours earlier, something small and hopeful. And he only understood what he'd missed once it was already too late to fix it.

He's not an idiot. He knows the difference between an excuse and a reason. And he knows that telling you that it was because of his practice running late, is just another excuse dressed up as a reason. He sits in his car in the parking lot longer than he needs to, engine off, phone in his lap, trying to figure out what to say that isn't just another version of sorry because he's said that one twice already, and watched how horribly you took it.

The truth, if he's honest with himself, is that he's tired in a way he doesn't know how to explain to you without sounding like he's making it about him.

The responsibilities that come with his role were sometimes too much to handle. Training in the mornings, reviews at lunch, the coach riding him about how the juniors needed more practice. Then, on top of all of that. Squeezing in some study time, a job, a social life and a girlfriend. Some days it feels like there's no version of himself left over once all of that's been taken care of.

He knows that's not your fault. He knows it doesn't excuse forgetting your birthday either. Both things are true but he hasn't figured out yet how to hold them at the same time without one of them winning.

He'd wanted to get you something good. Had a plan, actually. The necklace from the shop downtown you'd pointed at once, so casually he wasn't even sure you remembered saying it, though he had remembered.

He tries his best to keep track of your likes and interests even though he feels like he could be much better if he didn't have so much on his plate.

He'd meant to go that Tuesday to get the necklace. Practice ran to seven and when he got out the shop was closed, by the time he remembered again it was already your birthday and already too late to make it feel like anything but scrambling.

He gets out of the car eventually.

Doesn't go looking for you, figures you need space, and for once tries to actually give it to you instead of just saying he will. He sees the painting later. Someone mentions it, off-hand, the way things get mentioned on campus and everyone starts talking about it.

“Did you see what he made her? Insane, right?” He overhears a group of people talking amongst themselves and something in Heeseung's chest goes tight. He tells himself it's not a competition, that a nice painting doesn't mean anything, showing up every day for two years means more than one good gesture at the right moment, that you know that too, underneath whatever you're feeling right now.

He still buys the necklace that Thursday, three days late. But doesn't know how to give it to you…

During lunch, Sunoo's at his usual table by the window, it's where he always sits, because the lighting's good there, is what he tells Jungwon. He tries not to notice Heeseung walking up to your table but his eyes follow his movements anyway. There's something small in his hand, he observes. Sunoo's fork stops halfway to his mouth as a bad feeling creeps up on him.

He watches you notice him first, the way your face does something guarded, still a little raw from three days ago, arms crossed before you've even decided to be defensive.

Heeseung says something Sunoo can't hear through the glass. You don't answer right away. Then he holds it out. A small box, baby blue ribbon on a pastel pink. Sunoo's stomach does something ugly. He knows what's inside before you open it. Somehow, he remembers. And he's right, because when the lid comes up there's a thin gold chain catching the cafeteria light, a diamond star glimmering under the sunlight.

Your hand goes to your mouth, and even from here, even through glass, he can see exactly what your face is doing. Sunoo heard you mention the necklace once, weeks ago in the art room, mentioned so lightly he almost hadn't caught it.

You were on the phone with your friend, who lives abroad, catching up on life while you and Sunoo painted a landscape for your assignments. “I saw this necklace downtown, I probably won't ever get it, it was like- quite expensive” you laughed, “I'm saving up now so i'm trying to be sensible about my spending habits but it was soooo pretty” He'd stored that info away. And apparently so had Heeseung, Sunoo didn't know that until exactly this moment, watching it undo three days of ground he thought he'd quietly gained.

If only he'd known...

He puts his fork down, appetite already ruined. Your arms uncross and that completely shatters him. Your shoulders dropping, the whole guarded shape of you softening in real time because Heeseung remembered one off-hand thing you said once and turned it into gold.

Sunoo painted you a fountain. Painted you a tangible expression of his feelings towards you. And it worked, it mattered for a bit, he watched it matter on your face at the locker.

But a necklace is fast. It doesn't take a whole night. A necklace just requires money and a memory and a Thursday, and yet here you are anyway, letting Heeseung fasten it at the back of your neck. Tilting your head to help him, the two of you finding your way back to each other through a gesture that took him an afternoon at most.

It shouldn't count for that much, Sunoo thinks, and hates himself instantly for thinking it, because he knows exactly how much his own gestures are supposed to count for considering Heeseung is your boyfriend, and can't explain why the math only ever works one direction in his head.

You say something to Heeseung, laughter already reaching your smile. One hand goes up to touch the chain where it sits against your collarbone. And he says something back. You lean into him, just slightly, and he puts his arm around you the way he always does.

Unthinking and unearned and it's like nothing happened. Like three days of silence and a painting and a hallway fight never occurred at all. His hands ball up into fists. He knows that the second Heeseung's hand comes up to your jaw, the second your chin tilts and the whole cafeteria seems to keep moving around the two of you like you're not doing anything worth noticing at all. He knows he should look down at his tray, or his phone, or literally anything else in the room.

But he doesn't. The kiss isn't long, isn't even dramatic, just a normal kiss, the kind that happens between two people who've done this a hundred times before and will do it a hundred times again. Barely worth the audience it's drawing. It costs Heeseung nothing to do this. It costs him nothing to have earned it back this fast, either. Sunoo feels it somewhere underneath his ribs, a drop. So sudden, like missing a step he didn't know was there.

He's imagined this too, fucking hell…of course he has. not this exact moment, not Heeseung's mouth on yours, but the general shape of you being kissed, being wanted like that, openly in daylight, without either of you flinching from who might see. He's drawn versions of it he'll never show anyone, careful and reverent and always, always, with a faceless person he wishes were him, right where Heeseung is now. Watching the real thing happen to someone else feels awful.

He doesn't remember standing up. Just becomes aware several seconds later, that he's on his feet with his tray still full below him and that Jungwon is looking at him with an expression he can't quite place. "You good?" Jungwon asks. "Yeah." He answers, "Just not hungry." Jungwon glances toward your table, just briefly, just long enough. And then back at Sunoo, and something in his face shifts. Subtle, the kind of shift that comes from a question forming somewhere from suspicion.

"You've been weird lately," Jungwon says. Not really an accusation. Just an observation, laid down carefully like he's testing how it sounds. "Weird how?" Sunoo shoots him a lazy glare.

"I don't know. You keep… " Jungwon stops, seems to reconsider his own words. "You sit at this exact table every day. You know that, right? Same seat, same time."

Sunoo doesn't answer that. Picks up his tray instead, movements a little too careful, a little too controlled, the way you move when you're trying to prove to someone you're fine. Jungwon doesn't push it, not yet. But he watches Sunoo walk to the trash can with his food untouched, watches him not look back at your table on the way, and sits with that info for a moment. He looks back at you, now giggling as your boyfriend whispers something in your ear and something doesn't quite add up to him. Not yet, but it's certainly starting to.

Later, in the hallway, Jungwon brings it up again, quieter this time, like he's chosen the moment on purpose. "Can I ask you something and can you actually answer me?" Sunoo doesn't look up from his locker. "What is it?" "You're not…" Jungwon exhales, like he doesn't love where this sentence is going either. "You don't have a thing for her, do you? Y/N?" The lock clicks. Sunoo doesn't turn around right away, which is its own kind of answer, and he knows it the second the silence stretches half a beat too long.

"She's with Heeseung," he says, finally. Not wanting to lie to his best friend but also not quite capable of being transparent at the moment. Jungwon can't help the frown that spreads across his face.

"That's not what I asked."

Sunoo shuts the locker. Meets his eyes, and makes himself hold his gaze. "I made her a birthday present because everyone else forgot. That's it."

"Okay," Jungwon says, in the tone of someone who doesn't believe it but has decided for now, to let it go. "Okay. Just…just be careful, man. That's someone's girlfriend."

"I know that." Sunoo says. Perfectly calm and controlled.

"Do you, though?"

Sunoo doesn't answer. Just slings his bag over one shoulder and walks. Jungwon watches him go, but doesn't follow. He can't stop wondering either, the question sitting there now, impatient and unresolved. The conversation follows Sunoo around for the rest of the day, Jungwon's voice looping in his head in a way he resents almost as much as the question itself.

‘You don't have a thing for her, do you?’ Said so casually, like it was nothing, like it wasn't the exact thought he spent months carefully not saying out loud even to himself.

For the next few hours, he's dismissive of Jungwon. At practice-run even though he doesn't mean to be, kind of snaps when he asks if he's gonna be coming to the thing on Friday. "What thing?"

"The bonfire. I told you about it last week." Jungwon says, a little confused.

"I don't know yet." His response is flat. Jungwon gives him a look and doesn't say anything.

By the time they're walking home, Sunoo's turned Jungwon's words over enough times that it stopped feeling like concern and started feeling like an accusation, which he knows isn't fair. But that doesn't stop him from feeling it anyway.

"You've been quiet," Jungwon says, like he can't help himself.

"I'm always quiet," He shrugs.

"Not like this."

Sunoo exhales through his nose, sharp. "Can you just drop it?"

"I'm not trying to be rude or anything..."

"You basically accused me of something today." It comes out harder than he wants it to, and he can hear it land that way, can see Jungwon's expression shift, but he doesn't pull it back. "In the hallway. That wasn't nothing."

"I asked a question." Jungwon sighs.

"You asked a question like you already knew the answer." Jungwon stops walking. Sunoo takes two more steps before he realizes and stops too, turning back, and for a second neither of them says anything.

"Do I?" Jungwon asks, quieter now. Not smug about it. Actually asking. "Know the answer?"

"There's nothing to know." Sunoo hears how automatic it sounds even as he says it, how practiced, the same tone he used at the locker, the same tone he's apparently started keeping in reserve for exactly this conversation.

"She's got a boyfriend. I made her a painting. That's it. Why does everyone need it to be more than that?" "Nobody said everyone, Sunoo. It's just me wondering is all. Because I've known you since we were kids, and I've never seen you time a lunch period around where someone's sitting, it's so unlike you"

"You're looking way too deep into it. Besides, since when were you and Heeseung close? You're supposed to be my best friend" he retorts.

"Sunoo."

"Just stop." His voice comes out loud. A couple of kids ahead of them glance back and he lowers his voice, hating that he has to, hating that there's a version of himself now that has to manage volume in public like he's got something worth hiding. "I don't know what you want me to say. I'm not doing anything wrong."

"I didn't say you were doing anything wrong, I said be careful."

"Well, I don't need to be careful about something that isn't happening." Jungwon studies him for a second, the way he does when he's deciding whether to push or let it go, and Sunoo hates being read like that, hates that he's apparently transparent enough now for his best friend to have started keeping notes.

"Okay," Jungwon says finally. "Fine. Forget I said anything." They walk the rest of the way in a silence that isn't really silence, just the two of them separately holding something neither one wants to be the first to put down.

Sunoo tells himself, once he's home alone, that he was right to shut it down. That Jungwon doesn't understand, can't understand, the enormity of what he feels or how carefully he's kept it contained. He doesn't let himself think about it like that.

Jungwon might be the only person who's actually seen him clearly in months, and the reason it stung so much wasn't that the accusation was untrue. It was that it wasn't.

The very next day, Heeseung finds Sunoo by the vending machines, and Sunoo knows something's wrong before a word gets said, just from the way Heeseung stops a little too close, a little too deliberately, the kind of distance that isn't accidental.

He doesn't say anything at first. Just looks at Sunoo, slow, head to toe and back up, the way you'd size up an opponent before a game. Checking for something, weighing it, deciding how much of a problem you actually are.

Sunoo's used to being looked at like he's harmless. He's not used to being looked at like he's being measured. He lets him though. Doesn't straighten up, doesn't posture, just leans against the machine like he's got nowhere better to be.

"Hey." Heeseung says it easy, but there's nothing easy in the way he's standing, shoulders squared, taking up more of the hallway than he needs to. "Got a sec?"

Sunoo's stomach drops before his face has a chance to catch up, "Sure.” He feeds a coin into the machine, unhurried like this conversation is a mild inconvenience to his snack schedule and nothing more. "What's up?"

"The painting." Heeseung doesn't waste time getting to it. "The fountain thing. For her birthday."

"Yeah." Sunoo watches the pretzel drop, retrieves it, but doesn't open it yet. "What about it?"

"It's really good." Said plainly, no warmth in it. "She won't shut up about it, actually." Sunoo keeps his face still. "That's nice to hear, I'm glad that she likes it."

"Yeah." Heeseung's eyes don't leave his, and there's a stillness to him now, the kind of quiet that's doing more work than shouting would. "You two are close, huh? Art partners or whatever."

"We had a project together." Sunoo adjusts his bag over his shoulder. "You should ask her to show you our works sometime. I think she'd like that."

Heeseung doesn't take the bait the way Sunoo half-hopes he will. Just steps closer instead, close enough that Sunoo has to try not to react to it. Has to stand his ground, not to give him the flinch he's clearly checking for.

"Right." He pauses, "She mentioned you a lot. Before the project too.” Sunoo doesn't answer that. Doesn't trust what would come out if he tried. "We go to the same school. People come up in conversation." Sunoo shrugs and takes a bite of the pretzel like his pulse isn't beating all fast and ugly underneath all of it. "I don't really control what she talks about."

"Look man, I'm not trying to make this weird." Heeseung's voice stays level, almost friendly. "I just want to make sure I'm getting it right. You gave her a painting because you're a nice guy and she's a friend. That's the whole story, correct?” It isn't a question. Sunoo can hear exactly what's underneath it, and he makes himself hold eye contact anyway, even though every old instinct in his body is telling him to look at the floor, to make himself smaller, the way he's made himself smaller around guys like him his whole life.

Instead of flinching from it, he tilts his head slightly considering, like he's actually entertaining the question in good faith. A small, deliberate performance of thoughtfulness that's more unsettling to watch than anything else would be. "That's the whole story," he says. "Though I'll admit, I don't love being interrogated like this. Feels a little dramatic for a birthday present? Don't you think”

Heeseung's jaw tightens. But sunoo continues. "y/n's a good friend, talented too. I've learned a lot from her actually," Sunoo says, keeping his voice even. "She's better than she gives herself credit for." Something shifts in Heeseung's face, not quite surprise, more like recalculation, like he'd expected Sunoo to fold faster than this and is adjusting for the fact that he hasn't.

He doesn't back off the space between them. "Didn't ask about her work."

"No. You asked if I'm a nice guy who gave a friend a gift." Sunoo's extremely nervous but he doesn't let it reach his voice. "That's what happened. I don't know what else you want me to say." He stares right back at him but still doesn't step down, despite the odds.

Heeseung is way taller than him, the build of someone who's spent years being the biggest person in every room he walks into, and he uses it now without needing to do anything. Just presence, just proximity and the quiet certainty that he could make this physical in about one second if he decided to.

"I'm just saying." His voice drops quieter, closer to something honest and something dangerous at the same time. "I know what it looks like when a guy's got a thing for someone's girlfriend. I'm not stupid. And I don't really care how good you are at painting fountains or whatever the fuck this is."

"I never said you were stupid," Sunoo says it gently, somehow managing to piss Heeseung off even further. "And?"

"And so nothing." He shrugs, though his hands have curled slightly at his sides without his permission. "I think you're just having a bad week and looking for somewhere to put it. That's allowed. I get it.”

"You being fucking serious right now?"

"I'm not being smart with you." Sunoo assures him. "I made her a painting because nobody else remembered her birthday. That's the whole story." He knows the moment the words leave his lips, it's not gonna be looking good for him but he doesn't stop himself anyway.

Some old and hungry part of him wants to watch what it does to Heeseung. Wants it more than he wants to be safe right now.

Heeseung's face does something sharp and immediate. "Say that again.” He studies him a moment longer, close enough that Sunoo can see exactly how little he'd need to close the rest of the distance between them. His jaw works once, like he's deciding whether words are still going to be enough. "Go on," Heeseung says, quieter now, the friendliness gone out of it entirely.

"Nobody remembered her birthday. That supposed to mean something?"

"It means what it means," Sunoo shrugs.

"Watch it." A half step closer. Sunoo's back is nearly at the vending machine now, glass cold through his shirt, and there's nowhere left to give that wouldn't look like backing down entirely.

"Yo Heeseung!" Jungwon's voice cuts down the hallway, loud on purpose, clearly meant to be heard from a distance and change whatever's happening before he even arrives. "Dude, there you are." Jungwon jogs the last few steps up, inserting himself into the space like he doesn't notice anything's wrong, but the look he throws Sunoo over Heeseung's shoulder says otherwise.

"Coach was looking for you. Something about Friday's game." Heeseung doesn't move for a second, still locked on Sunoo, like he's deciding whether Jungwon's arrival actually changes anything or just delays it. "Now?" He says, not looking away yet. "Said it was urgent. Recruiter stuff, I think." Jungwon nods, casually buying it more weight than it probably has. "You know how he gets."

That does it. Heeseung straightens up, the tension in his shoulders resetting into something more ordinary, more public. He glances at Sunoo one more time. A last, flat look, more warning than anything that got said out loud. and then steps back fully. "We're not done,"

"Sure," Sunoo says, unbothered, already turning back to his pretzel like the whole thing didn't affect him at all. Heeseung claps Jungwon on the shoulder, already turning, already recalibrating into someone who has practice and recruiters and a life that doesn't orbit this hallway, and then he's gone, footsteps fading toward the gym.

Jungwon waits until he's sure Heeseung's out of earshot before rounding on Sunoo. "What the hell was that?" Sunoo lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, shoulders dropping the rest of the way now that there's no one left to hold them up for. "Nothing."

"Didn't look like nothing bro. Looked like he was about two seconds from putting you through that vending machine."

"He wasn't going to hit me."

"You sure? Because from where I was standing…" "Jungwon." Sunoo rubs a hand over his face, suddenly exhausted. "Can we not? Not right now."

Jungwon looks at him for a long moment, the same read he'd given him in the hallway days ago, except sharper now, less like a question and more like confirmation of something he already suspected.

"There was nothing urgent," he says finally. "I made that up. Coach isn't even here today."

"I know."

"I just needed him to walk away before it turned into something actually stupid."

"I know, Jungwon." Quieter this time. "Thank you, really…" Jungwon exhales, some of the frustration draining out of him at that, replaced by worry. "You gotta tell me what's actually going on with you. Because this-" he gestures vaguely at the space where Heeseung had been standing, "this isn't nothing. Guys like Heeseung don't get in someone's face over nothing."

Sunoo doesn't answer. Just picks his bag up off the floor where it had slid without him noticing, and starts walking. Jungwon falls into step beside him, not pushing further, but not dropping it either. Just walking close and watchful.

They end up on the benches behind the gym. The ones nobody uses during the day, and Jungwon doesn't say anything for a while. He just lets the silence sit there until Sunoo either fills it or doesn't. "I like her," Sunoo says finally. Flat, like it physically hurts him just to get the words out in that order. "y/n. I like her. Like, actually like her. Not the way I've been pretending it's just the painting thing, or the project thing, or whatever else I've been calling it so I don't have to say it like this."

Jungwon doesn't look surprised, which somehow makes it easier and harder at the same time. "Yeah," he says. "I figured."

"I mean it more than that." Sunoo stares at his hands. "I think about her all the time. Like, embarrassingly all the time. I know when she gets to school. I know her schedule better than my own. I've got- " he stops himself, almost says a whole sketchbook of her. He can't, he's not ready for that part yet, Jungwon would think he's insane, "I can't get her out of my mind"

"Sunoo..."

"I know." He laughs, short, no humor in it. "I know how it sounds, trust me I do."

"She has a boyfriend." Jungwon stares at him.

"I know that too." He says it too fast, he's said it to himself so many times it's stopped meaning anything. "I know she's with Heeseung. I know it's not- well, I know what I'm supposed to feel about that. Guilty, probably. Like I should back off and let it be what it is."

"But?" Jungwon watches him expectantly.

Sunoo's quiet for a second. When he answers, his voice comes out lower, more honest than ever, honestly the admission's been sitting behind his teeth for months waiting for someone to finally ask the right question.

"But I don't really care that she's taken." He says it slowly, testing how it sounds out loud, like he's checking whether it's as bad as it feels. "I can't…I know I'm supposed to care. I know that's the whole thing that's supposed to stop me. And it doesn't. It hasn't, this whole time. I just keep thinking, if he doesn't get it, if he doesn't actually see her, then why does it matter more that he was there first. I hate that he gets to be with her, he doesn't deserve her.”

Jungwon's quiet for a long moment, and Sunoo can feel him judging, the way you do when someone you thought you knew says something that moves the whole picture of them somewhere new. "That's…" Jungwon exhales. "That's not really how it works, man."

"I know how it's supposed to work."

"Then why are you telling me you don't care?"

Sunoo doesn't have an answer for that one that makes him look okay, so he doesn't try to find one. "Because it's true. Because I've been lying about it to myself for months and I'm tired of doing it, and you're the only person who was ever going to ask me the actual question."

Jungwon runs a hand through his hair, looking out at the empty field instead of at Sunoo, like he needs the extra second before responding. "You know this doesn't end anywhere good, right? Whatever this is. If you keep going."

"I don't know that it ends anywhere at all. I just know I can't seem to stop." He laughs humorlessly.

"That's not the same as it being okay."

"I didn't say it was okay." Sunoo's voice cracks slightly, the first real crack in the whole conversation. "I said I can't stop. Those aren't the same things."

Jungwon looks back at him, and there's something careful in his face now. Something that isn't quite judgment but isn't quite acceptance either. The expression of someone trying to hold on to his friend and his conscience at the same time and not sure yet which one's going to have to give.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," he says finally. "But I'm not going to pretend this is fine, either. And if it gets worse, Sunoo. If you do something that hurts anyone…I'm not covering for that. I covered for you today because you're my best friend. And it looked like you were about to get your teeth knocked out, not because I think what you're doing is okay."

"I know."

"Do you, though?"

Sunoo doesn't answer. Just looks out at the same empty field Jungwon's been looking at, and for once doesn't have a clever deflection ready, doesn't have a technically-true sentence to hide behind. Just the quiet, uncomfortable fact of having said the real thing out loud for the first time, and finding that saying it didn't make it feel any smaller.

He tries avoiding you for a few days after that, mostly because he's pretty sure Heeseung wouldn't be too kind about it the second time he has to confront him.

The next time he sees you, you're standing by the library. Phone in your hand, staring at something on the screen like you're reading it for the third or fourth time. Sunoo almost turns the other way, tells himself that this won't end well, even now, even after everything he said to Jungwon. Even after promising himself vaguely, unconvincingly that he'd try to pull back.

It's too late now because as soon as you switch off the phone, jaw tight. You look up and spot him immediately. "Hey Sunoo," you say, already approaching him. Your voice comes out thin. "Can I ask you something weird?"

"Sure" He leans against the wall, giving you the sense, the way he always does. That whatever you're about to say, he's got nowhere else to be but exactly here for it.

That gets the ghost of a smile out of you. "Like, a guy thing?. Maybe you'd have a better read on it than me." "What's up?" He raises his brows.

"Do you think it's normal?" You say, picking at the strap of your bag, not quite looking at him, "for guys to just forget stuff? Important stuff like in their relationships, is that a busy schedule thing, or what is it? Are guys always like this? I feel like I can't tell anymore if I'm being dramatic."

Sunoo's careful here, though nothing in his face shows it. He's had a lot of practice making careful look like ease. He could tip this somewhere ugly. Somewhere with a name attached to it, and he wants to, badly, some envious part of him leaning toward it the way it always does.

He doesn't. Restraint he's learned, has its own kind of charm. It makes you trust him more than the easy answer would. "I think it depends on the person," he says thoughtfully, like he's actually turning it over instead of already knowing exactly what conclusion he wants you to come to "Some people are just bad at that stuff even when they care a lot. But if it keeps happening. That's usually less about being busy and more about what's actually a priority for them. People generally make time for the things that matter most, no matter the outcome." He nods.

"Hmm, that's annoyingly reasonable. Didn't know you were so wise Sunoo"

"I hold myself back." A small smile spreads across his features. "I can try to be less reasonable if it helps." That gets a laugh out of you this time and something in his chest goes warm and pleased at having produced it.

"I don't know. I keep making excuses for him in my head and I don't know if I'm doing that because they're good excuses or because I don't want to deal with what it means if they're not."

"That sounds exhausting," he says. And he actually means it, one of the few sentences tonight that isn't doing double work, and somehow the sincerity in it touches you deeper. "It is." You exhale, shoulders dropping, "I don't want to keep doing this," you add, so quiet it's almost to yourself.

"I don't think I can keep doing this." Sunoo's heart is going too fast, though nothing on his face gives it away. He could reach for you right now. He knows exactly how it would go, has known for months, has practiced the whole shape of it in his head more times than he'd ever admit. He doesn't.

Instead he does what he knows works better than reaching ever could. He stays still, steady, lets you come to your own conclusion in your own time, because he's learned that you alone with your thoughts, does so much more than anything he could hand you outright.

"You deserve someone who shows up," he says. On the surface, every word of it is technically true. Which is exactly what makes it so effective. You look at him for a long moment. "Yeah," you say, softer. "Maybe I do."

Neither of you says anything else. The hallway empties out around you, the last few people heading out, and Sunoo stands there wanting, more than he's ever wanted anything. To close the distance between you and him. But he doesn't. He can't. Not yet.

it's all just a matter of time...

He's on the benches behind the gym, finishing up his assignment with Jungwon when he overhears Heeseung on the phone. Voice pitched low but not low enough to not catch. Something about a game on Friday, the kind of opportunity that doesn't come around twice.

Then, tacked on like an afterthought, “yeah, I know it's her thing that night too, I'll figure it out.”

Her thing. The showcase. The one you've been nervous about for weeks, the one where your work finally hangs on a real wall. Jungwon doesn't seem to notice, too invested in his work but Sunoo doesn't hesitate the way he used to. Doesn't think much about it. Doesn't perform the ritual of telling himself this is different, a choice, a line he's crossing. He's past that now. He just turns the information over once and decides plainly, that it's useful.

The next day in the art room, you're rambling about the showcase. Where the painting should hang, whether the lighting's right and Sunoo waits for the exact pause that gives him the best opening.

“I can't wait Sunoo! Also thank you for supporting me, i'm glad I'll have someone as talented as you standing right by my side” you beam, finishing up the final touches to your painting. Sunoo's heart skips a beat at that but he quickly recovers. He's really curious about your painting, aside from the small parts of it that you've showed him, you havent really let anyone see it yet.

"Heeseung's gonna be there right?” He looks up at you from his own work. “It's cool he made time despite his game” He says calmly, light and careless. You go still almost immediately. "What game?"

"Oh, I heard there's a game on Friday" He shrugs, doesn't even look up from his sketchbook. "He'll probably mention it."

He knows Heeseung's already trying to fix it. Swap the visit, talk to the coach, find some way to make both things work. He knows this because he heard the whole call, start to finish. He leaves all of it out. Hands you the information and watches, without a flicker of hesitation, as you build the worst version yourself.

Your face folds. Quiet and hurt before Heeseung's even had the chance to explain himself. "Of course," you say, soft. "Of course there's a game, how could I forget?" Sunoo feels nothing that resembles guilt. What he feels, watching you fold in on yourself over something he engineered on purpose, is closer to satisfaction. The specific pleasure of watching you drift further and further away from Heeseung.

He doesn't flinch from that feeling anymore. Doesn't examine it. If anything, the certainty of it steadies him. He's not doing this because he doesn't care. He's doing it because he does, more than Heeseung ever has, more than Heeseung ever will. "I might be wrong," he says easily, and reaches over to brush a smudge of paint off your wrist. Gentle and warm, completely at odds with what he just did to your afternoon.

"Don't spiral before you know the whole story. Heeseung's a good guy" You lean into the comfort of it and he lets you. He doesn't think about Heeseung finding out later, blindsided, having no idea why the girl he's been trying to fix things with suddenly won't look at him the same way.

He thinks instead, about how easy you are to read now. How he can make you happy. How you deserve better. Walking home, he doesn't tell himself he's awful anymore. He’s known it for a while. What's changed is that he's stopped trying to make himself feel bad about it. He just feels like he's getting good at this.

The big day finally arrives and the gallery's half-full by the time Sunoo gets there, string lights strung along the ceiling in loose, uneven loops, plastic cups full of refreshments sitting untouched on a folding table by the door. Someone's playing soft instrumental music off a laptop in the corner. He finds your painting before he finds you. Can't really help it, his eyes go to it the way they go to everything that's yours and he stands in front of it, soaking it all in.

It's hung well, centered on one of the side walls, a little card beside it with your name in it. He's seen how hard you worked on it, watched every layer of it happen in real time, and there's still something different about seeing it finished and framed. "You came." He turns around at the sound of your voice. Noticing you're in something nicer than your usual, not dressed up exactly, but professional and neat, he can't help but think how effortlessly beautiful you are.

"Of course I came." He smiles "Wouldn't miss it for the world"

You glance toward the door, quick, involuntary, and he watches you do the math. "Heeseung's not here yet,” You sigh. "He'll probably show," Sunoo says generously. He saw Heeseung himself earlier, trying to get out of the game, swap his spot, beg his way free somehow. He doesn't say any of that. Just lets the sentence sit there under your own judgement. "Yeah," you say, not quite believing it. "Probably."

He steers the conversation somewhere gentler since this day is about you. Your happiness. And God, he loves to see you happy.

“Okay, but have you seen how many people have actually stopped in front of yours? I watched some woman stand there for genuinely, four whole minutes." Your face lights up immediately as a smile touches your lips. "Four minutes? No way" "I counted.” He winks, glad that he's making you laugh. “So…” he nods toward the painting.

"Walk me through it properly this time. I've seen it in pieces for weeks, I want the whole story." And you do, completely animated now, hands moving as you talk him through the color choices, a reference photo you took last spring, some details he doesn't fully follow but listens anyway. Because to him, you're the most important and interesting person in his life.

Other people drift by, offer compliments, a sponsor stops to shake your hand and say something about a scholarship program you should look into, and you glow through all of it, checking the door only every few minutes now instead of every few seconds. Sunoo asks a follow-up question at exactly the right time. Doesn't check his phone once. Doesn't glance at the door the way you keep doing. He makes himself, without ever seeming to try, the single most present person in a room full of people who are technically supposed to matter more to you than he does.

Half an hour passes like that. Then an hour. Around eight-thirty you start doing the thing where you check your phone without really checking it. Pull it out, glance, put it away too fast, like you're hoping if you do it quickly enough you won't have to feel the disappointment of an empty screen.

Sunoo notices every time but says nothing. Just keeps the conversation moving, keeps you laughing. By nine, the crowd's started to thin. The organisers who run the gallery, begin quietly stacking the leftover plastic cups, a soft signal that things are winding down. Sunoo can see the disappointment in your eyes. He doesn't tell you that you deserved someone here on time, doesn't really have to. He just keeps being, patiently, everything Heeseung currently isn't.

Your eyes find the door one more time, hopeful despite yourself, and this time when nothing happens your face doesn't hide it as well as it did an hour ago. Something in it starts to crumple, and you look away fast, pretending to study the painting like it's suddenly become interesting all over again for the first time all night. "I'm being dramatic," you say. "It's fine. This isn't even a big deal, I guess."

"It's a big deal, y/n." Sunoo says, "This is the first time your work's ever hung on a wall like this. That's not nothing, you should be proud of yourself. And that's not something anyone should've missed." You look at him for a second too long, something shifting behind your eyes, unspokenly grateful. “You always know what to say."

That's when the door swings open, hard. And Heeseung comes in fast, jersey still half-damp with sweat, hair a mess, breathing like he ran most of the way here. Which he probably did.

Heeseung scans the room fast, finds you, and starts moving before he's even caught his breath. "Hey baby, I'm sorry i'm late, the game ran over, I left as soon as I could-" "You're an hour and a half late, Heeseung." Your voice isn't loud but tired. Tired of standing here, tired of waiting.

"I know. I tried to leave at half-"

"Sunoo's been here since it started." Heeseung's eyes flick, just once, toward where Sunoo's standing a few feet off, and something moves across his face. "I had a game, baby" Heeseung says, quieter now, like he can already feel how thin it sounds coming out. "You knew I had a game tonight."

"I knew you had a scout coming. I didn't know you'd already decided which one of us mattered more before you even showed up."

"Now that's just not fair."

"Not fair?" Your voice cracks, "This is the first time anything I've ever made has hung on a wall, Heeseung. And I spent the whole night checking the door for you."

A few people nearby have gone quiet, realizing something private is happening in public. Heeseung notices the attention and lowers his voice, but not the intensity behind it. "I asked the coach if I could leave early. He said no. What did you want me to do, walk off the court in front of a recruiter?"

"I wanted you to have at least texted me that you'd be running late. I wanted this to have mattered enough for you to plan around it. The way I know damn well I would've, if it were your thing instead of mine."

"Baby, that's not-" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair, feeling frustrated and cornered, and for a second he looks less like the guy who backed Sunoo against a vending machine and more like his usual exhausted self. In over his head with more things than he knows how to hold at once. "I'm trying, y/n. I know I keep messing this up. But I really am trying."

"I know you are." Your voice softens, just slightly, and Sunoo, who's standing close enough to hear, feels something sharp twist in his chest at that softness. "I know you're trying hee, but it still isn't enough, and I don't know how much longer I can keep waiting for you."

Heeseung's jaw works. And for one unguarded second he looks like he might actually lose it. It's in that exact second, that he's looking for anywhere to put his eyes that aren't yours, that his gaze lands on Sunoo again. This time he doesn't look away right away. Something passes over his face, slow, pieces sliding into place one after another where they'd been sitting loose this whole time.

The painting, the timing, the way Sunoo always seems to already know things he was never told, the vending machine, “nobody remembered her birthday” said with a softness that had nothing to do with just being a nice guy.

Heeseung's eyes narrow slightly, and something in his face goes cold and still in a way Sunoo's never seen on him before. And it makes his blood run cold. He doesn't look away either but he can feel the exact moment Heeseung stops wondering and starts knowing.

Heeseung looks back at you. His voice, when it comes out, is different now "Is there something going on with you two?" You blink, caught off guard by the turn. "What? No. Sunoo's just-"

"Because I think there might be," Heeseung says, still looking at you, though the words are aimed somewhere past you, at Sunoo, close enough to a threat that the air around the three of you goes tight. "I think there's been something going on for a while, actually. And I think I've been an idiot not to see it."

"Heeseung, that's not-" You look between the two of them, something shifting in your face, confused now. "I'm not trying to make a scene." His voice shakes, anger and hurt tangled together, “I just need you to actually answer me. Is there something going on? That's the least you can do"

"No," you say firmly, "He's a close friend." Heeseung looks at you for a long moment, like he wants to believe it and doesn't quite manage to. Then he turns over to Sunoo. "You've got nothing to say?"

Sunoo keeps his face still. "I think tonight's about y/n and her artwork. Not about me." It's a good answer. Deflecting and impossible to argue with without sounding petty. Heeseung knows it, Sunoo can see his frustration of being cornered like this but it doesn't make him feel a thing. "Yeah," Heeseung says bitterly. "Course it is." He looks back at you once more, letting out a long and exhausted sigh, "I can't keep doing this baby," he says, something closer to pleading in his voice.

"I don't want to keep doing this. Losing you, that is. I don't want that. Tell me what I need to fix, I'll fix it, just-...please" "That's the thing, Heeseung." Your voice is quiet now, “I don't think you can fix this. I think you can only actually show up next time. And I don't know if next time is ever really going to come."

"It will. I swear it will, I just need one more chance."

"I don't want to keep hoping it will," you say, and something in your voice finally breaks open after a whole night of holding it together. "I'm tired, Heeseung. I'm tired of being the only one who cares. I don't want to do that anymore." His face goes through something fast and awful, the words catching up to him a beat behind, like he can't quite believe the shape of the sentence forming.

"Wait. Are you… is this you breaking up with me? Right now? Here?"

"I didn't want it to be like this..." Your voice wavers, but you don't take it back. "I've been trying to talk myself out of this for weeks. I keep making excuses for you in my head, and I'm tired of it. I don't think that's fair to either of us anymore." "No, no wait, can we not do this here? can we just-" He reaches for your hand and you let him take it for a second, just a second, before you gently pull it back.

His face crumples at that small withdrawal more than it did at anything you've said all night. "Please. Just give me a real chance to fix this. Not tonight, not right now, but don't end it just because I was late to one thing."

"It's not one thing." Your voice is gentle even now, "It's everything…the missed birthday, the cancelled dinners…tonight, and I keep telling myself it's not a pattern but it is one, and I don't want to keep pretending I don't see it."

"I'll change y/n. I know I keep saying that, but I mean it this time, I'll be better..."

"I believe that you mean it," you say gently, "I just don't think meaning it is the same as doing it. And I can't keep waiting to find out."

Heeseung looks genuinely lost, like the ground's moved and he's standing on borrowed time. His eyes flick to Sunoo, sharp, searching, like some part of him is grabbing for anything solid to blame this on instead of himself. "Is this because of him?" His voice cracks. "Did he say something? Do something?"

"This isn't about Sunoo." You say it plainly, the accusation deflating before it can even fully form. "This is about you and me, Heeseung. It's been about you and me the whole time."

He doesn't have an answer for that. Just stands there breathing hard, looking at you like he's trying to memorize the last version of this that isn't already over. "I don't want this," he says again, quieter now, almost to himself. "I love you, y/n...you know I love you."

"I know." Your voice is soft, "I'm sorry. I really am." He looks at you a moment longer. Then slower, at Sunoo and this time there's nothing calculated in the look at all, just raw, unguarded panic curdling fast into something colder. "You," Heeseung says, voice low, already stepping closer. And Sunoo feels his heart sink for a second. He keeps his face soft for you, but something dark and pleasing settles in his chest as he watches Heeseung’s world come crashing down.

"Heeseung don't," you start, already seeing where this is going. He shakes his head in disbelief, backing up a step, something wild and shaken in his eyes. Heeseung turns before you can say anything else, pushing back through the crowd, he bumps into someone, too deep into his head to apologize, just keeps moving until the door swings shut behind him.

You stand there in the sudden quiet, the room slowly remembering itself around you, people pretending not to have watched. Your hand comes up to wipe under your eye, quick and embarrassed, shaking slightly now that the adrenaline's got nowhere left to go.

Sunoo doesn't quite know how to comfort you, he doesn't want to overwhelm you. "I'm sorry," he says. The most complicated sentence he's said all year because part of him means it, watching you shake in the aftermath of something you clearly didn't want to have to do tonight of all nights. But part of him, the part he's stopped bothering to argue with anymore, doesn't feel sorry at all. He just feels like something he's been building for months has finally, quietly come apart the way he needed it to.

And if he’s being honest, it was all worth it. Every part leading up until now. You don't leave your room much, the first few weeks after your breakup. Sunoo notices you miss lunch anytime you’re on campus, then Jungwon mentions you weren't in class again and each time it happens something in him sharpens with worry.

He starts showing up anyway. Small things at first. A text checking in, nothing pushy. Then, when you don't answer for two days straight, he shows up at your door with takeout from your favorite soup place. You open the door in an old hoodie, hair a mess, eyes swollen in a way that seems like you've been crying on and off for hours.

"You didn't have to come," you say, voice rough. "I know." He holds up the container. "I wanted to." You let him in and eventually, it becomes a routine over the next few weeks.

Sunoo there most evenings, sometimes with food, sometimes with nothing but himself, sitting on the floor of your room while you lie curled on the bed not saying much of anything. He doesn't push you to talk. Doesn't offer opinions about Heeseung, he just stays. Patient and endlessly available in a way nobody else in your life quite manages to be right now.

You start to notice it, how much steadier the days feel with him in them. How much smaller your own sadness seems once he's sitting there with you.

Heeseung meanwhile, doesn't buy it. The story you gave, the “this is about you and me.” He's turned it over too many times, replayed that last look on Sunoo's face too many times, to believe it was ever really that simple. He doesn't have proof. But he knows, with total, utmost certainty that he’s not being crazy about it. He can’t do anything about it though because he has no texts, no confession, no proof, nothing but a gut feeling.

He finds Jungwon in the parking lot one afternoon and corners him before he can get to his car. "You knew," Heeseung says, no greeting, nothing soft in his voice at all. "Don't tell me you didn't know."

Jungwon doesn't answer right away, which is its own kind of confirmation, and Heeseung's jaw tightens at the silence. "He's my best friend," Jungwon says finally, careful. "I'm not going to stand here and confirm something I don't have proof of."

"That's not a no."

"It's not a yes either."

Heeseung laughs. humorlessly, and there's something dangerous coiled just under the surface of it. "He took her from me. Slowly. On purpose. And everyone including you just watched it happen, helped it happen."

"That's not fair, man."

"It isn't?" Heeseung's voice cracks, somewhere between fury and something rawer underneath it. "I love her. I know I messed up, I know I gave him every opening he needed, but I never, ever would've done what he did. Not like that. Not in a way nobody could ever call it what it actually is."

Jungwon doesn't have an answer for that either. Just watches Heeseung get in his car and slam the door harder than he needs to, and thinks uneasily, that he doesn't disagree with a single word of it.

It's a Friday night tonight, one of the ordinary ones now, the two of you tangled up on the couch in your dorm's common room. The movie flickers on, not really grabbing your attention, the bowl of popcorn between you gone mostly untouched, the chocolate Sunoo brought, knowing it's your favorite. Half-eaten and melting on the coffee table.

"Thank you," you murmur at some point, your head against his shoulder. "For all of this. These past few weeks. I don't know what I would've done without you."

"You'd have been fine," he says quietly, though something warm spreads across his chest. "I don't think I would've." You shift, looking up at him, faces close enough that you can feel his breath on your cheek, "I think you're the only reason I've been okay at all."

He should pull back, he knows he should. Redirect it somewhere safer and all. But he doesn't.

The movie plays on, forgotten. And for a long moment neither of you says anything, just the closeness of it, charged now with all the pent up frustrations and emotions the two of you had been holding back. The air shifts. All the months of careful distance, all the times he swallowed his feelings while you belonged to someone else, suddenly feel unbearable.

You kiss him first.

Desperate, a little messy and he lets you, but only for a second. Then he kisses you back like he’s been starving for it. His hand cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheek as he deepens the kiss, tongue sliding against yours with a slow, controlled hunger that makes your toes curl.

You climb into his lap, straddling him, and he groans softly into your mouth as you settle your weight on him. His hands find your waist, fingers digging in just enough to guide your hips down against the growing hardness below you. You take control immediately, rocking against him, grinding slow and deliberate. Sunoo’s head tips back, lips parted, breath shaky, but his grip stays firm.

Guiding you, encouraging every roll of your hips with subtle pressure. He lets you lead it. His fingers pressing bruises into your skin like he’s claiming you. “God… you f-feel so good,” he murmurs against your lips, voice low and rough.

One hand slides up your spine under your shirt, palm hot on your bare skin, while the other grips your ass, pulling you harder against him. You kiss him deeper, biting his bottom lip, and he lets out a quiet, wrecked sound that goes straight between your legs. You push him back against the couch, pinning his shoulders as you grind down more purposefully, chasing the friction.

His shirt is rumpled in your fists, his hair messy from your fingers, cheeks flushed. He looks beautiful like this, yielded to you yet still guiding your touch with heated whispers. You trail your mouth down his neck, sucking a mark just below his jaw, and his breath hitches, hips bucking up involuntarily to meet yours. The friction pulls a soft moan from you, and he swallows it with another deep kiss, tongue teasing yours while his hand slips lower, in between your thighs.

But then he pulls back, breathing hard, forehead pressed to yours. One hand stays curled at the back of your neck, the other still possessively on your hip. “Wait,” he rasps, voice strained. “Wait. We should-...not like this. Not tonight."

You blink still feeling dazed, lips swollen. A little embarrassed at how far you'd both let it go. “I’m sorry, I-” “Don’t apologize.” He brushes his thumb tenderly across your cheek, “You just got out of something painful. I just don't want this to be something that happens because you're sad. I want it to be something you actually want. Not just tonight, not just right now."

It's the right thing to say. It's also, quietly, the smartest thing he could've said because it doesn't push you away, it draws you closer, cements him as the one person in your life who's ever cared enough to slow things down instead of taking what was so clearly being offered.

You settle back into his side instead, quiet, blood still pounding in your ears, and he holds you like that until the movie ends, saying nothing else, thinking about how close he'd just come to having exactly what he's wanted for a year and how much better it'll feel once you're the one who comes back and asks for it again.

Over the next few weeks, you become handsy in a way that surprises even you. It's like your body's decided to make up for months of being neglected. You reach for his hand walking to class before you've even registered doing it. Kiss his cheek when he says something that makes you laugh. Curl into his side at the food court. Head on his shoulder, like proximity itself is the only thing keeping you sane.

Sunoo never pulls away from any of it. If anything he leans into it, always finding some quiet moment to tell you you're beautiful. You've never had anyone make you feel like this. Chosen, constantly without ever having to ask.

The campus paths are quieter in the late afternoon, golden light filtering through the trees the same way it does in that courtyard fountain he once painted for you. Sunoo walks with your hand firmly laced in his, your fingers always find his now. Tugging him close without hesitation. You squeeze his hand, then let it go only to loop your arm around him, pressing yourself into his side.

“You’re warm” you murmur, tilting your head up to kiss his cheek, then lingering with another soft press just below his ear. Sunoo turns and catches your lips properly. “You’re pretty,” he whispers against your mouth. “Especially like this, under the sun.” His eyes drag across your face. You laugh softly, the sound vibrating against his chest as you hug him tighter.

The two of you have fallen into this rhythm. Stolen kisses in the art room, heated makeouts against the side of the library, lazy afternoons on your couch where your hands wander under his shirt. Today you pull him toward the old oak trees. A spot so empty that the two you had fooled around here so many times.

You remember how you pulled him here a few days back, heart racing with that familiar thrill. The second you were hidden, he dropped to his knees like he couldn’t wait another second. Shoved your skirt up, tugged your panties down your legs, and buried his face between your thighs.

Then his mouth was on you, hot, relentless, and filthy. His tongue dragged slowly up your dripping folds before latching onto your clit, sucking hard while you had to bite your lip to stay quiet, one hand tangled tightly in his hair as he devoured you.

The wet, obscene sounds of his tongue filled the quiet air while you rode his face, hips grinding desperately. You were right on the edge, thighs shaking around his head, when you heard the footsteps. A senior walked along the path, earbuds in, only a few meters away. Your eyes flew open in panic, but he didn’t stop. If anything, he looked up at you with that dark, provocative glint in his eyes and sucked harder on your clit, fingers curling relentlessly against your g-spot.

A soft moan escaped your lips and the senior slowed down, glancing toward the trees like he’d heard something. Your heart pounded wildly in your chest, pleasure and fear twisting together. Sunoo’s tongue flicked faster, refusing to let up. And no longer able to hold it, you came hard. Biting down on your hand to muffle your cry as your pussy fluttered around his fingers and gushed against his tongue, spilling into his mouth.

He kept licking you through every wave, greedy and possessive for every drop of your pleasure, even as the senior stood there for a long, terrifying second before finally continuing on his way. When the footsteps finally faded, Sunoo rose to his feet slowly, lips glistening with your release. He pulled you into a sloppy, deep kiss, tongue sliding against yours so eager that you moaned into his mouth when he pressed a leg between your thighs.

He broke away only to trail wet kisses down your neck, sucking lightly while his hands stayed firm on your waist. You started giggling breathlessly as he nipped at that sensitive spot below your ear, the overstimulation turning ticklish. “Sunoo stop,” you laughed, pushing weakly at his chest. “That tickles!” He smiled against your skin, hands fixing your clothes as he tugged your panties back into place before pressing one final kiss to your cheek.

The memory slips away as you blink back into focus. A light wind rustles through the thick leaves overhead, sunlight cracking through in warm patches across the ground. Birds chirp softly in the distance but nothing calms the warmth still lingering between your thighs.

The moment you’re half-hidden behind the trees, you push up on your toes, arms wrapping around his neck, and kiss him deeply. Sunoo meets you eagerly, one hand cupping your jaw while the other settles at the small of your back, pressing you closer. Your body melts into his as you deepen the kiss with a quiet hum.

He trails his lips along your jaw, then lower, pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses to the side of your neck. You shiver and tilt your head to give him more access, your hands fisting in his shirt. That's when Sunoo feels it…the weight of eyes on you both. A gaze so strong it burns into his senses.

He doesn't pull away. Instead he opens his eyes, lips still pressed to your throat. And looks straight across the path. Heeseung stands frozen near the edge of the trees, backpack slung over one shoulder, face tight with something raw. Sunoo locks gazes with him, unblinking. A slow, provocative smile curves his lips against your skin, barely there, but unmistakable.

Amused. He holds the stare as he kisses down your neck again, slower this time, deliberately sucking a faint mark just below your ear. You moan softly, completely unaware, your hands tightening in his shirt as you arch into him. “Sunoo…” The glint in his eyes sharpening into pure possession.

Heeseung turns away first, shoulders rigid, and disappears down the path. Sunoo pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, breathing steady. “Let’s go somewhere more private,” he murmurs, voice low and gentle. He brushes a thumb over your cheek when you smile up at him. A final kiss pressed to the tip of your nose.

The door to his bedroom barely clicks shut before your hands are all over him, pushing his jacket down his arms and tugging desperately at the hem of his shirt. Sunoo backs you toward the bed with a low chuckle that melts into a groan when you shove him down and climb on top, straddling his hips. “Calm down, baby. I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs, hands settling on your thighs, squeezing the soft flesh as you lean down to kiss him hard.

You hum against his mouth, grinding down on the growing bulge in his jeans. Your fingers yank his shirt up and off before your lips trail down his neck, sucking marks into his skin while your hands roam every inch of his chest. Sunoo lets you have control for a while, head tipping back, hips rolling up to meet yours. But the heat in his eyes soon shifts.

In one fluid motion he flips you underneath him, pinning your wrists above your head with one hand while the other grips your hip. “My turn,” he says, voice dropping. He kisses you deep and filthy, tongue sliding against yours as his fingers slip inside your panties, stroking your slick folds until you’re whimpering into his mouth.

He releases your wrists only to strip you completely, leaving you bare beneath him. His mouth latches onto your breast, sucking hard on your nipple while two fingers push inside you. You cry out, back arching as he curls them perfectly, thumb circling your clit. His dark, hungry eyes never leave your face.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, pumping his fingers faster and adding a third, stretching you open. His mouth moves to your neck, sucking another mark as you tremble on the edge. Then he suddenly pulls back, smirking at your needy whine.

He sheds the rest of his clothes, cock hard and leaking as he settles between your thighs. “My turn,” you tease, voice dripping with lust as you straddle him. You sink down onto him in one smooth motion, moaning loudly at how full you feel. Sunoo’s head falls back with a groan, hands reaching to grip your hips. You don’t go slow. You ride him hard and fast, desperate and hungry. Rolling your hips and grinding your clit against him with every moan.

Your hands brace on his chest, and he looks up at you, eyebrows furrowed while you take what you want. “Fuck s-slow down,” Sunoo pants, but his voice cracks into a whimper when you clench around him. His cheeks flush bright red, eyes fluttering as he tries to hold back. You lean down, lips brushing his ear. “Are you about to cum?,” you whisper, amusement visible in your tone. Sunoo’s breath hitches.

A broken whimper escapes him and his face burns deeper red. His hips jerk up helplessly, no longer able to control himself and he cums hard, spilling deep inside you much faster than he wanted to. His whole body shudders as he gasps your name. White ropes spilling inside you and leaking down onto the sheets when you circle your hips.

He looks mortified the second it’s over, cheeks still flushed. “Shit- I’m sorry,” he mumbles, covering his face with one arm. “I didn’t mean to…”

You laugh softly, warm and affectionate, as you pull his arm away. Leaning down to kiss him tenderly. “You’re so cute, you know that?” you murmur against his lips, smiling. “Do you like me that much?” you tease.

Sunoo’s ears turn even redder, but he nods, pulling you down for another kiss. You stay like that for a moment, kissing him sweetly while he’s still buried inside you, before he flips you again with a playful smile, ready for round two.

You reach for his dick, taking it in your hands but he lays you onto your back. “Not yet,” he murmurs, teasing the head against your entrance. “I want to feel you cum around me.”

He pushes in slowly, groaning at how tightly you clench around him. Once buried deep, he sets a punishing rhythm. Deep, powerful thrusts that make the headboard knock against the wall. One hand pins your hip, the other braced beside your head as he fucks you exactly how you need it, whispering how perfect you feel between every thrust.

You cry out, feeling overwhelmed as your nails rake down his back, legs wrapping tight around his waist. Just when you’re about to tip over the edge, he slows down into deep, punishing thrusts that make your eyes roll back and your toes curl in pleasure.

Each slow drag of his cock against that perfect spot has you whimpering, hips chasing him desperately. He watches you with dark, slightly amused eyes, a smug little smirk tugging at his lips as he drinks in your frustration.

“Sunoo p-please” you gasp, trying to grind up against him, but he keeps the torturously slow pace, clearly enjoying how needy you look.

That’s it.

With a frustrated growl, you push at his chest and roll him onto his back in one swift motion. Sunoo’s eyes widen in surprise, but he lets you take control without resistance.

You sink down onto him with a loud moan again. Sunoo’s head falls back, a broken groan escaping him as you start moving. Rolling your hips, bouncing harder with every thrust. His hands grip your ass, guiding you, but he lets you set the pace completely. “Shit- yes, just like that,” he pants as you grind your clit against his pelvis with every thrust.

“Fuck- yes,” you moan, feeling up your body as you quicken your pace. Sunoo’s head falls back against the pillow, a broken whimper escaping his lips, no longer able to watch you. His cheeks flush as he feels himself getting closer again, “Baby slow down, I- ah-!” You fuck yourself on his cock even harder, clenching around him on purpose.

His whimpers grow louder, hands gripping your thighs tightly. The heat of his breath against your nipples. You feel the tingling feeling building and you just know it's going to ruin you.

When your rhythm starts to falter, Sunoo takes over again, hands clamping on your waist as he thrusts up into you fast and deep, hitting that perfect spot over and over again until you cum with a sharp cry, clenching hard around him.

He follows right after, burying himself deep with a guttural moan of your name, spilling inside you as his body shudders. You collapse onto his chest, both of you panting and slick with sweat. Sunoo wraps his arms around you immediately, one hand stroking down your back while the other tilts your chin up for a slow, tender kiss. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers against your lips, soft and genuine. “Every single part of you.”

You stay tangled together, your hands lazily tracing his skin as his fingers thread through your hair. In the quiet afterglow, that deep satisfaction of possession settles in Sunoo’s chest.

You’re finally all his now. No one would ever take you away from him.

Things settle into something neither of you name out loud but both of you understand. You stay over most nights now, your toothbrush living permanently in his bathroom, a drawer of your clothes taking up space in his dresser without either of you having had a conversation about when that happened.

You've never felt this wanted by anyone. Not even, if you're honest with yourself, by Heeseung at his best.

You touch him constantly, almost compulsively. A hand on his arm mid-sentence, your fingers finding his under the table at dinner, your lips against his temple when he's focused on something and you just want him to know you're there. He never once makes you feel like it's too much. Never sighs, never pulls away, never gives you that look people sometimes give when they've quietly reached their limit for affection. If anything he seems to want it, leans into every bit of it.

He's always there for you, always present. Tells you constantly how lucky he is to have you, how beautiful you are, how he will always be there for you.

You believe him completely. Why wouldn't you? He's the closest you've ever gotten to true love. And you really want to make it work.

Jungwon watches all of it from a distance that keeps growing. He still shows up when Sunoo asks him to. Study sessions, the occasional dinner, the group chat he can't quite bring himself to leave. But something's shifted in how he looks at his best friend now, careful and a little sick, like watching something he doesn't have the vocabulary to judge.

He finds Sunoo alone one evening, in his room, and doesn't bother easing into it. "You need to hear this from someone," Jungwon says, closing the door behind him. "This isn't okay, man. She's not okay" Sunoo doesn't look up from his laptop right away. "Who?”

“Come on, don't play dumb now. You know i'm talking about Y/N"

"Y/N's fine, we're fine. She's happy"

"That's not the same thing." Jungwon's voice is tight, careful, like he's been holding this in for weeks. "She can't go five minutes without checking where you are. Like…she literally dropped her Thursday class to match your schedule. She's basically stopped hanging out with anyone who isn't you."

"She's had a hard year. People get close to the person who was there for them." He shrugs, and there's nothing defensive in his face at all. Just a flat, easy calm that's somehow more unsettling than Jungwon had ever seen him. "I don't think that's something I need to apologize for."

Jungwon steps closer, frustration cracking through. "I'm not asking you to apologize. I'm telling you what I see. You're bad for her…she used to have a life. Friends, hobbies, interests. A whole life that wasn't just, y'know. Orbiting you. And little by little all of it's just gone. And you don't even seem worried about that."

Something cold flickers behind Sunoo's eyes, brief, gone almost before it registers. "So you think I planned all of this? The whole Heeseung thing?"

"I think you've never once tried to stop it." Jungwon says quietly. Sunoo is silent for a moment, and when he speaks again his voice is completely detached. "She’s happier now than she’s been in a long time. What’s your problem?”

“She’s happy because you made her world small enough to only fit you in it,” Jungwon replies, voice cracking. “That’s not love. That's not even close to it. It's control…this is toxic. I need to tell you, as your friend I have to tell you this. I care about you"

"Seems like you only care about Heeseung getting his feelings hurt" Sunoo tilts his head. Something almost curious in the gesture. “I saw you talking to him the other day, heard what he said” his gaze turns ice cold.

Jungwon swallows hard, not quite knowing what to say.

"I show up. I remember things. I make her feel safe and wanted every single day. If that's not love, I don't know what you think love's supposed to look like."

"It's supposed to make her more of herself, not less." Jungwon shakes his head, something like grief moving across his face now. "I've known you since we were kids, Sunoo. I know exactly what this took. I know how patient you can be when you want something. Months of patience, careful and on purpose. I fucking know how you can get…and I saw the way you looked at her and let it happen because I told myself you wouldn't go that far. That you're a good person…I don't know if I believe that anymore"

Sunoo doesn't flinch. Doesn't offer anything. Just watches Jungwon with a stillness that's almost bored, like he's waiting for the conversation to arrive somewhere useful.

"Mind your own fucking business, Jungwon. What do you want me to do? Break up with her? Tell her the truth? That I spent months making sure Heeseung looked worse than he was so she’d end up right here? You really think that helps her?"

Jungwon stares at him, something like grief settling on his face. "The fact that you can say that so easily… I don’t know who you are anymore."

"I’m the same person I’ve always been," Sunoo says simply, turning back to his laptop. "I just stopped pretending. You should try it sometime."

Jungwon stands there a moment longer, waiting for something. An apology, regret, guilt, anything that would make this easier to walk away from. It never comes. Sunoo doesn't even look up again.

Jungwon leaves without another word, closing the door softly behind him.

Outside in the hallway he stands still for a second, phone in his hand. For a moment he considers texting you. Warning you. Telling you something, anything.

He doesn't.

Tells himself it's because you wouldn't believe him. But deep down he knows underneath that it's really because he's not sure anymore what happens to people who get in Sunoo's way.

The next day, Heeseung finds you alone for once. A rare occurrence, where Sunoo is in class and you’re sitting outside the library by yourself, headphones in. He almost keeps walking, but he can’t. “Hey.” His voice is careful, uncertain of his welcome.

“Can we talk? Just for a second.” You take one airpod out, expression wary. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Heeseung.”

“I know.” He exhales, hands deep in his pockets. And there’s none of the old confidence left in him. Just something worn down, tired and a little desperate. “I’m not here to get back together. I promise. I just… I need you to hear me out. Even if you don’t believe me.”

You don’t tell him to leave so he takes it as permission enough.

“He did this on purpose,” Heeseung says quietly, like he’s rehearsed it. “Sunoo. All of it…the timing, the things he knew, the things he said at exactly the right moments. It doesn’t add up as coincidence anymore. He stole you from me, y/n. Slowly and on purpose.”

Your face closes off instantly, something protective and hard sliding into place. “That’s not fair, Heeseung. You fucked up out relationship. That was you, not him.”

"I know that." He winces, "I'm not saying I didn't mess up. God, I know I did, more than once. I'm not asking you to forgive any of that. I'm just asking you to actually look at the pattern instead of all the lies he's been telling you.”

"I don't want to hear this anymore," you say, voice shaking now. "I don't want to hear his name from you ever again. Do you understand me? I don't care what you think you saw, or what you think you know. He's the only person who's actually shown up for me, and I won't let you take that from me too."

"Y/N-"

“No.” You cut him off, sharp and final. “Leave me alone, Heeseung. Stop talking about him like that. You don’t get to do this. Not after everything.”

“Hey.” Sunoo’s voice arrives before he does.

Unhurriedly, coming up the path like he has nowhere else to be. He's got his bag slung over one shoulder and two drinks in hand.

Heeseung's whole body goes still.

It isn't fear, exactly. or is it? He can't tell anymore. It's not the kind he'd recognize as fear if you asked him to name it. It's something quieter and colder than that, extremely unsettling. Something that runs straight through him the second Sunoo's eyes find his and hold there, calm, patient and faintly amused in a way that has his blood boiling. Heeseung's known plenty of guys who could hurt him with their hands. He's never known anyone who could do this. Stand there smiling, and make him feel like something small and irrelevant, sending a cold shiver down his spine.

"Everything okay?" Sunoo asks, looking at you now, voice gentle. "Yeah." You wipe quickly under your eye, already moving toward him. "Yeah, I'm okay."

You reach him and wrap your arms around him without hesitation, burying your face against his chest, he lets you hold him, pressing a kiss into your hair. His eyes return to Heeseung and he doesn't say anything else. Doesn't need to. He just holds his gaze from over the top of your head, something settled and satisfied mercilessly sitting behind his eyes.

Heeseung doesn't move. He can't. Caught somewhere between the urge to say something and the sick, certain knowledge that nothing he says will ever matter here again.

"Let's go," you murmur, pulling back just enough to look up at Sunoo, eyes red but calmer now, grounded by him the way you always are. "Yeah." Sunoo presses another kiss, this time to your cheek before handing you one of the drinks. "Let's go."

You take his hand and he laces your fingers together, the feeling so familiar.

When the two of you turn to walk away. Only then does Sunoo glance back once more, just long enough to make sure Heeseung is still watching. He is. Sunoo holds the look a beat longer than he needs to. Then he turns forward again, already asking you something small and ordinary about your afternoon as if the entire moment never happened.

Heeseung stands there long after you’re gone, the library steps empty again, the campus moving on around him like nothing has changed.

He stands there and finally understands that it will never be enough. that you will go on being happy, genuinely, deeply happy, inside a life someone built for you brick by brick with lies so careful he's not sure they can even be called lies.

That Sunoo will go on being gentle, and patient and endlessly good to you, for exactly as long as it serves him to be. That nobody will ever believe the truth, because the truth doesn't come with the endless dedication. The months of showing up. It doesn't come with painted fountains and remembered birthdays and a someone who always, always knows exactly what to say. He's perfection.

He walks away first, this time.

There's nothing else to stay for. Somewhere behind him, you're laughing at something Sunoo said, the sound of it carrying faintly all the way back to him. He thinks back on how much he's made you cry. How he didn't treat you right. An image of your tear stained face looking up at him begging him to notice you, to love you. Something painful spreads across his chest.

And as much as it bothers him, at least you're happier now...

-> made by @taexvan ●RULES ●MASTERLIST ●TAGLISTS ●IMPORTANT ☆taglist! @baekgufx @melodisic @evelynevie1009 @hooniepatootie @xonlyifyousayess @gyubdaengi @marylovedaspiders @heeseunggnueseeh @kristynaaah @sugarbunny1221 @minionlover4ever @insannities @pulsingtapestryturtle @kenzijk @anaraeraerae @michelle99black @kourtneyspellbook @alicaaile17111 @nikismymannn @rikicoolpuma

(a/n:) hihi guys! so Sunoo's Sweet Lies is probably my longest and well...most toxic so far from my 7DS series, I reallyy really wanted to incorporate the envious & possessive traits deep into his personality. And he just came out toxic af...helllo??? Soo this is just a gentle reminder that this is fiction and does not portray anyone involved as they are in real life!! :p Sunoo's my bbg frr. Anyways plz ignore any errors, I proofread this kinda half asleep...part 4 shall be coming soon though (as well as another request i'm working on!) and all my taglists shall be closing by the end of next week, so if you'd like to be added, now's a good time! also do make sure to look through the information carefully before choosing! <33 - vivi

Read the rest of the series below! enhypen x the seven deadly sins: heeseung | sunghoon