ryan 🫧 !!

𝐻𝑒𝑦𝑦𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦!!! 𝐻𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑢𝑦𝑠 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔!! ♡ 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙣'𝙨 𝙋𝙊𝙑!

And I really don't know why the quality of the Twitter posts are so bad?? I've tried everything 😭😭

𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘥!!

⇆ㅤ ㅤ◁ㅤ ❚❚ ㅤ▷ ㅤㅤ↻

𝙃𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮𝙚𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜!!!

𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 ♥︎

𝗧𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁: @dwcior @seonghwaswifeuuuu @ung0ated @kpoplover-00005 @pinguswrld @jhoon5 @kyreverie @daishiskz @ellielumshee @cortisen5 @jeebluexx1 @inadazeee @meroomeow @haechanjawlicker @z3n4b @martinskebab @bootylicer2000 @uhmmjayla @beatbymarzz @formoreorparamore @mkissed @eomacai @freesofxx @braynsforsale @yunlissworldd @luvjimii @playdatbeat

𝙃𝙞𝙞, 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙮 𝙥𝙪𝙣𝙠 𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙠!𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙪!! Let me know if you wanna be added to the tl!!

ɪ ʟɪᴛᴇʀᴀʟʟʏ ᴅʀᴏᴘᴘᴇᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴍʏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ғɪᴄs ᴛᴏ sᴛᴀʀᴛ ᴛʜɪs sᴍᴀᴜ! 😭 ɪ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅɴ’ᴛ sᴛᴏᴘ ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ɪᴛ, sᴏ ɪ ᴊᴜsᴛ ʜᴀᴅ ᴛᴏ sᴛᴀʀᴛ ɪᴛ. ᴍʏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ғɪᴄs ᴄᴀɴ ᴡᴀɪᴛ 😭

𝙃𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮!!

𝐴𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑠, 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑! ♥︎

𐔌՞. .՞𐦯 yawnmi writes!  wishzennie anon i missed u sm 🥹🥹😢 ily wichu i hope u love this thank u for the req 😘 my reqs are always open! love ygs hope u enjoyyy!

PERM TL 🐻 comment “perm tl” to be added!

Martin hummed in response to your question, pretending to give the café, that was slowly, but surely becoming busier by the minute, another routine sweep with practiced curiosity that would have belonged to someone genuinely interested in the new environment. However, this was Martin’s fifth time doing just that, where his initial curiosity had long morphed to caution by the fourth.

The three—almost four—hours that you’ve been here, neither of you could really shake the feeling of being watched, and it was a little—well, very—distracting, especially when you were going over both physical and digital notes with the hopes of retaining the myriad of information.

It had been funny at one point; the whole RPF gag, but despite it feeding his ego (and delusions), Martin would like to enjoy his weekly alone time with you. Alone was the keyword here—where there was no audience to witness what you and he built from years of closeness.

Normally, he would have complained about you subjecting him to study with you, but with finals coming up soon, Martin had quickly complied if it meant it would lessen the need to cram. You still made the not-so-date fun regardless, and that’s like killing two birds with one stone.

“Nope,” Martin responded just as quietly and caught Gehlee, who had been doing a horrible job at being less obvious since the very beginning, in the act. She flinched and whipped her attention back to the other girls. Martin snorted, shaking his head. “None of them know how to be subtle—that’s like the ninth time I caught Gehlee staring.”

You let out an amused huff. “Everybody’s just nosy even outside of school.” you closed your laptop. “Think we should call it a day?”

“Huh?” Martin sputtered, already missing the heat emitting from the underside of your laptop when you placed it on your lap. “But it’s still early.”

“I know that, dummy, I meant,” you emphasized with a tilt of your head, “we should leave and go somewhere else where people we know won't—I dunno—be there to stare at us?”

Martin sat up straighter. “What’d you have in mind?”

You then get this look on your face. This exaggerated version of contemplation with overly pursed lips as you tap your chin in thought. Martin couldn’t help the short laugh that came out of him, covering his mouth when a few people whipped their heads to look for the source. His shoulders still shook though, even more so at the smirk you flashed him.

“The weather looks nice,” you commented, letting your gaze linger beyond the windows framing the lush greenery outside. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

So long as Martin got to be with you, he’d probably say yes to sky-diving if you asked.

“Sounds good,” he said and moved to put away your stuff before you even had the thought to do so yourself.

You let him anyway, seeing how fascinating the sight was.

It was almost like watching yourself gather your pens one by one and stuff them neatly into your pencil pouch, down to Martin lining up your notebooks from size to thickness was almost exactly the way you did with measured precision. You handed him your laptop just to see what he would do and as expected, Martin plucked it from your hands without much thought to it, gently pushing the laptop into the designated compartment in your bag.

You didn’t even try to keep the fond smile from spreading on your lips when Martin did one final check in case he missed anything. Then, with a satisfied smile aimed more to himself, he zipped your bag closed and slung over one shoulder while standing up.

The entire thing had you letting a giggle slip, which in turn pulled a wry chuckle from Martin. More of an automatic response if anything, as he glanced down at you, gaze softening at the way your cheeks bunched up from the wide smile brightening your face.

“What?” Martin asked, grinning as you composed yourself.

“Oh nothing,” you tittered, waving him off, still tickled pink by the fact Martin had, over time, picked up on your habits. “You sure you wanna carry that?” You nodded towards your bag.

“Light work.” Martin shrugged, hooking his thumb over the adjustable strap and then offered you his other hand. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Although Martin’s grip was firm, he remained careful when pulling you up from the couch and earned him a softly uttered ‘thanks’ while fixing your skirt, your fingers still tingling from the warmth of your best friend’s hand.

On the way out, you caught the eyes of the four girls who all had the decency to appear chastened once you gave them a playful, narrowed stare, only for the tough act to drop completely when Ella gave you a thumbs up. Heat flooded your face as you scrambled to herd Martin out of the café before he could glimpse at what flustered you that bad.

Martin made a startled sound. “What? What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, feeling the urgency once you picked up the sound of giggling from the quartet of girls and then stage-whispered, “hurry before they get the idea to follow us.”

Braving the late afternoon with nothing but Martin’s jacket and your knitted cardigan wasn’t so bad. The sun’s rays were less harsh around this time and the mild breeze was a perfect addition to keep both of you from breaking out into sweat. Though to be on the safer side, you took a detour and got yourselves drinks before resuming your walk.

No words were exchanged. Just the crunching of gravel beneath your boots was what mostly accompanied you. Sure, there were brief chats that mostly involved pointing out things like the cute puppy on the leash sitting with its owner Martin had urged for you to check out. Or a cloud formation that resembled the stuffed bunny Martin had painstakingly won for you years ago from Lotte World that still found its way into your arms every night. There was also this weird looking tree that made both of you laugh so much to the point of almost tripping over yourselves.

A joke was written here somewhere. Something along the lines of spending so much time with each other that you’ve simply had nothing else left to talk about, so your eyes wandered instead.

To Martin’s sneakers, significantly bigger than your own pair of boots, taking long strides that always left you exerting more effort in keeping up by walking faster. To the half-empty water bottle he held, dwarfed by his hand, then to his face—all sharp angles of his jaw and nose, softened by the delicacy of his big, round eyes and his lips that appeared to be in a perpetual state of pout, having a heavier bottom lip that jutted out—then all the way up to his grown out blonde hair you helped bleach and tone last summer and maintained whenever his roots grew in.

There was a time where inclining your neck like this wasn’t at all necessary too, and all you could think in the moment was—

“When did you get so tall?”

“Huh? What brought this on all of a sudden?”

“Just thinking.” You gave a lazy shrug, shifting your gaze forward again. “About how I used to be taller than you for like, five minutes. The one day I was staring at your shirt instead of your eyes. You grew a head taller than me the summer I turned eleven.”

Martin snorted. “Genetics played a huge role in it—like, my dad’s white, which makes me half-white, so—tall,” he said the later half in English just to emphasize his mixed heritage, making you laugh.

“I’m very aware,” you replied, also in English, because of course you had to pick up on the language growing up as well as his habits. It’s only natural. “You could afford to lose a couple of centimeters though—so my neck would hurt less from constantly looking up at you. Maybe give me some of those cms so we could be the same height at least.”

“Nah, I mean—I could just do this”—he hunched over, demonstrating the most atrocious posture you’ve seen him in and then turning his head to look at you. “How ‘bout it?”

You were perfectly eye-level this way, but Martin looked too ridiculous to take seriously, the goofy expression he had offering no help at all that your cackles were immediate.

“Stop,” you snickered as you lifted your hand and pushed gently at his cheek. “that’s kind of insulting.”

He stood back to his full height, grinning and face slightly flushed. “I was trying to compromise.”

“You're fine just the way you are.” You elbowed his side. “Maybe you’re just like Clifford The Big Red Dog.”

“You’re comparing me to a fictional dog?”

“Okay, but hear me out”—you raised your pointer finger—“runt of the litter puppy—you. You used to be smaller than me. Puppy was loved and cared for by his owner, Emily, so much that he grew twenty-five feet tall”—you raised your middle finger—“I’ve seen your family, Tin. You’re really, really loved—it’s so sweet, actually. Not just them, but anyone who gets to know you.”

Martin’s grin morphed to a teasing smile. “You’re awfully sentimental today. Are you dying? Will I get to keep your stuff?”

“Fuck off,” you laughed. “I’m not. I just think it’s cute, and it makes sense to me—so I’m choosing to believe it.”

Maybe Martin would like to believe that as well. Would like to believe that not only his family, but you too had indeed loved him so much long before either of you could understand how complex the concept of love could turn out to be. Poured so much of it into his being that his body had no choice but to grow and grow and grow to size big enough to contain all of it, and maybe one day give it back to you tenfold.

The walk lapsed into silence once more, but something else hung in the air after your comparison. Something that had Martin’s pulse racing just a touch faster than usual. Then there was you, still glowing from your own discovery, a faint smile pulling at the corners of your mouth.

With each step you both took, the back of your hands brushed against each other’s. Martin would feel a knuckle, sometimes even the full length of a dainty finger—namely your pinky because Martin can differentiate them, apparently—gently trace a nonsensical pattern with each sway across the length of his hand.

And it was when he felt your pinky almost hook around his—a barely-there tug against his own did Martin decide to say fuck it and make a decision that could possible change the trajectory of his life for the better, or for the worse. Whichever it was, he’s already planned ahead for both. He just hoped he wouldn't end up doing the most drastic plans of action out of the two.

Martin’s lips flattened into a thin line as he took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose, steeling himself.

He started slow. As careful as someone could be when dealing with an easily spooked cat. His fingers brushed your wrist covered by the sleeve of your knit-cardigan. He chanced a peek and you didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.

Martin took this as a go-ahead.

Lower and lower, and finally, the pads of his fingers settled into the middle of your palm with his thumb hooked around yours. Your steps slowed, and so did he.

It was now or never, or the possibility of ruining something perfectly good. Safe.

“Is—is this okay?” He asked, too flustered to even look at you.

He heard your breath hitch and Martin had to close his eyes to brace himself for the worst. 

Then Martin felt it—your hand sliding up and pressing flat against his, meeting him in the middle, the unmistakable sensation of your fingers slotting in between his longer set and closing and Martin honest to god could have started tearing up then and there when you squeezed his hand; as if you’re telling him that this is okay, more than okay, that he didn’t need to second guess himself when you pulled him closer so that your arms were flushed.

“Yes,” you said, voice quiet as you gave his hand another reassuring squeeze. “Yes, it’s okay.”

Tenderness bled through your simple, yet earth-shattering answer to his request that had Martin glance at you, only for his breathing to stutter when he found you already looking up at him. The same tenderness your words carried evident in your bashful expression, a smile that made his chest swell with an insurmountable amount of affection Martin was sure he was about to burst at the seams.

The look on your face had something in Martin shift. A place deep within him that was once hollow slowly filled with each second he had your hand in his.

Martin’s held your hands plenty in the past, treated it—you like an anchor whenever you were outside to play. As you both got older though, plenty had become less and less, especially when you reached adolescence. A time where you start becoming conscious about yourself and everyone around you. Martin didn’t want to make himself come across as clingy, didn’t want any problems with guys who took a second longer staring at you.

He loved you, yes. Loved you more than words could ever give justice to the all-consuming feeling of wanting someone he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want or have. But Martin didn’t want to keep you from exploring life on your own, and he definitely didn’t want to make you feel like you had to stay wedged to his side at all times.

It was one of the worries that disrupted what peace was left in his mind at times, and it would sometimes make him wonder if he had been holding you back all this time.

But as you looked at him, smiling so sweetly like this was everything you’ve wanted from him, maybe Martin had been too trapped in his own head to actually see beyond the expectations he had limited himself to.

“Tin, look.”

It was both lost to you how long you had been walking, finding yourselves face-to-face with a newly built playground just across the walkway separating it from the edge of the Han River.

As Martin took a closer look, he saw two kids playing at the swings. A boy and a girl around the same age he and you met for the very first time.

The boy didn’t appear to be having much fun pushing the girl—obviously having the time of her life—on the swing, though he also didn’t look like he’d be stopping any time soon. From here, Martin could hear the young girl’s shrieks of delight whenever the boy managed to push her hard enough to have her going higher, and as he squinted, he caught the boy’s triumphant smile when he was praised for ‘being so strong that she was almost flying’.

“Wow,” you said. “I wonder where I’ve seen this before?”

Martin laughed. “Looks familiar, huh?”

“Gosh. It’s crazy to me how we were that small once,” you mused, gaze still lingering on the kids still in their own world—a fragment mirroring the past playing itself out in the present you still shared.

Martin feels your cheek press into his arm, warm even through the material of his coat, followed by you holding onto the crook of his elbow. Martin had bitten down on his lower lip to keep himself grinning like a goddamn fool. He was right where he wanted to be.

“I’m really happy we’ve found each other that young.”

There was a niggling thought in the back of Martin’s mind where it was persistent in its claim of you possibly meaning something else with that. Though he didn’t linger on it for long and instead let himself bask in this quiet moment with you, wishing that this tender moment, where a mirror from the past reflected the now, would never end.

That’s how Martin found himself in your bedroom an hour later, both of you still in your outside clothes minus the shoes you left back at the hyeongwan. He couldn’t find it in himself to leave you just yet and it was still early anyway; both to his and his family’s standards, and they knew where he was, so they didn’t need to worry.

He rested against your headboard, phone in hand while you laid on your stomach, painting the nails of his other hand with black nail polish. Something low and bass-heavy thumped from your speakers, courtesy of Martin, as this all was happening, and this here was the quintessential of your hangouts—just simply enjoying each other’s company without much else.

“Do you think we’ll still be together in every universe?” you asked, and Martin forgot how to breathe.

Together. You said together. A more broader term than the definitive ‘best friends’. A label that has been attached to both your persons since forever that he feared that’s all that there was for you both. That has to mean something, right? You’ve called your duo as best friends so many times that Martin had lost count. It was an automatic thing where it really required much deliberation. It just is. A fact known by many.

Maybe he’s putting too much thought into a question that you didn’t mean to come off as loaded, so he stopped himself from spiraling and humored you with an honest answer. Honest as it was hopeful that there would be multiple versions of himself that would choose you every single time.

“A hundred percent.”

“Yeah?” you grinned, “I think so too,” you agreed, ducking your head with a shy smile as you resumed painting his nails, your hair falling from where it was previously tucked behind your ear.

You didn’t seem to mind the slight obstruction to your eyesight, carrying on as if there wasn’t anything out of place. Martin, on the other hand, was a little peeved by it that his other hand, now free of his phone, reached out; thumb brushing the hair out of your face then followed by his fingers retucking it behind your ear.

And somehow, he ended up cupping your cheek.

At some point in his life—probably in his pre-teens—Martin had wondered what it would be like to have the world at the palm of his hands. It was a thought he had when he had fixated on space back then. This was the closest feeling to it he’ll ever get—the soft skin contrasting the roughness of his hand, the warmth of your cheek, the gentle swell where what remaining baby fat resided fitting perfectly into the curve of his palm.

This was definitely crossing so many lines. Martin was very aware of that, though it didn’t look like it bothered you in the slightest when you paused your work to blink up at him in question. 

Still, it was like cotton filled Martin's mouth with his inability to say anything to save face. He scrambled to come up with anything—an excuse, a made up emergency to get him out of here with no questions asked, or something ridiculous to make you laugh as a distraction. Anything.

Martin’s crash out didn’t last too long, nor did it go long enough for it to be even considered a crash out because you were smiling at him.

The kind of smile that was content, yet shy—an honest, devastating mix exclusively detrimental to Martin who was already taken by anything you did, and as the cherry on top, you giggled. The short, yet cute giggle you would let out when you found something cute and funny as you leaned into his touch, looking absolutely darling in his hold. He was going to explode.

God, you were going to be the death of Martin one day, and he was going to be so pissed if death came at his door before he could even tell you how much he loved and adored you.

shane's notes IDGAFFFF 😂😂😂🤣🤣😂🤣🤣😆😆🤣😂 (she gave a fuck. many fucks even. she lost the idgaf war) [Martin’s last tweet to Keonho: you will start coughing in seven days keonho ahn] as always, thank you for reading <3

PREVIOUS — MASTERLIST — NEXT

Martin hummed in response to your question, pretending to give the café, that was slowly, but surely becoming busier by the minute, another routine sweep with practiced curiosity that would have belonged to someone genuinely interested in the new environment. However, this was Martin’s fifth time doing just that, where his initial curiosity had long morphed to caution by the fourth.

The three—almost four—hours that you’ve been here, neither of you could really shake the feeling of being watched, and it was a little—well, very—distracting, especially when you were going over both physical and digital notes with the hopes of retaining the myriad of information.

It had been funny at one point; the whole RPF gag, but despite it feeding his ego (and delusions), Martin would like to enjoy his weekly alone time with you. Alone was the keyword here—where there was no audience to witness what you and he built from years of closeness.

Normally, he would have complained about you subjecting him to study with you, but with finals coming up soon, Martin had quickly complied if it meant it would lessen the need to cram. You still made the not-so-date fun regardless, and that’s like killing two birds with one stone.

“Nope,” Martin responded just as quietly and caught Gehlee, who had been doing a horrible job at being less obvious since the very beginning, in the act. She flinched and whipped her attention back to the other girls. Martin snorted, shaking his head. “None of them know how to be subtle—that’s like the ninth time I caught Gehlee staring.”

You let out an amused huff. “Everybody’s just nosy even outside of school.” you closed your laptop. “Think we should call it a day?”

“Huh?” Martin sputtered, already missing the heat emitting from the underside of your laptop when you placed it on your lap. “But it’s still early.”

“I know that, dummy, I meant,” you emphasized with a tilt of your head, “we should leave and go somewhere else where people we know won't—I dunno—be there to stare at us?”

Martin sat up straighter. “What’d you have in mind?”

You then get this look on your face. This exaggerated version of contemplation with overly pursed lips as you tap your chin in thought. Martin couldn’t help the short laugh that came out of him, covering his mouth when a few people whipped their heads to look for the source. His shoulders still shook though, even more so at the smirk you flashed him.

“The weather looks nice,” you commented, letting your gaze linger beyond the windows framing the lush greenery outside. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

So long as Martin got to be with you, he’d probably say yes to sky-diving if you asked.

“Sounds good,” he said and moved to put away your stuff before you even had the thought to do so yourself.

You let him anyway, seeing how fascinating the sight was.

It was almost like watching yourself gather your pens one by one and stuff them neatly into your pencil pouch, down to Martin lining up your notebooks from size to thickness was almost exactly the way you did with measured precision. You handed him your laptop just to see what he would do and as expected, Martin plucked it from your hands without much thought to it, gently pushing the laptop into the designated compartment in your bag.

You didn’t even try to keep the fond smile from spreading on your lips when Martin did one final check in case he missed anything. Then, with a satisfied smile aimed more to himself, he zipped your bag closed and slung over one shoulder while standing up.

The entire thing had you letting a giggle slip, which in turn pulled a wry chuckle from Martin. More of an automatic response if anything, as he glanced down at you, gaze softening at the way your cheeks bunched up from the wide smile brightening your face.

“What?” Martin asked, grinning as you composed yourself.

“Oh nothing,” you tittered, waving him off, still tickled pink by the fact Martin had, over time, picked up on your habits. “You sure you wanna carry that?” You nodded towards your bag.

“Light work.” Martin shrugged, hooking his thumb over the adjustable strap and then offered you his other hand. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Although Martin’s grip was firm, he remained careful when pulling you up from the couch and earned him a softly uttered ‘thanks’ while fixing your skirt, your fingers still tingling from the warmth of your best friend’s hand.

On the way out, you caught the eyes of the four girls who all had the decency to appear chastened once you gave them a playful, narrowed stare, only for the tough act to drop completely when Ella gave you a thumbs up. Heat flooded your face as you scrambled to herd Martin out of the café before he could glimpse at what flustered you that bad.

Martin made a startled sound. “What? What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, feeling the urgency once you picked up the sound of giggling from the quartet of girls and then stage-whispered, “hurry before they get the idea to follow us.”

Braving the late afternoon with nothing but Martin’s jacket and your knitted cardigan wasn’t so bad. The sun’s rays were less harsh around this time and the mild breeze was a perfect addition to keep both of you from breaking out into sweat. Though to be on the safer side, you took a detour and got yourselves drinks before resuming your walk.

No words were exchanged. Just the crunching of gravel beneath your boots was what mostly accompanied you. Sure, there were brief chats that mostly involved pointing out things like the cute puppy on the leash sitting with its owner Martin had urged for you to check out. Or a cloud formation that resembled the stuffed bunny Martin had painstakingly won for you years ago from Lotte World that still found its way into your arms every night. There was also this weird looking tree that made both of you laugh so much to the point of almost tripping over yourselves.

A joke was written here somewhere. Something along the lines of spending so much time with each other that you’ve simply had nothing else left to talk about, so your eyes wandered instead.

To Martin’s sneakers, significantly bigger than your own pair of boots, taking long strides that always left you exerting more effort in keeping up by walking faster. To the half-empty water bottle he held, dwarfed by his hand, then to his face—all sharp angles of his jaw and nose, softened by the delicacy of his big, round eyes and his lips that appeared to be in a perpetual state of pout, having a heavier bottom lip that jutted out—then all the way up to his grown out blonde hair you helped bleach and tone last summer and maintained whenever his roots grew in.

There was a time where inclining your neck like this wasn’t at all necessary too, and all you could think in the moment was—

“When did you get so tall?”

“Huh? What brought this on all of a sudden?”

“Just thinking.” You gave a lazy shrug, shifting your gaze forward again. “About how I used to be taller than you for like, five minutes. Then one day I was staring at your shirt instead of your eyes. You grew a head taller than me the summer I turned eleven.”

Martin snorted. “Genetics played a huge role in it—like, my dad’s white, which makes me half-white, so—tall,” he said the later half in English just to emphasize his mixed heritage, making you laugh.

“I’m very aware,” you replied, also in English, because of course you had to pick up on the language growing up as well as his habits. It’s only natural. “You could afford to lose a couple of centimeters though—so my neck would hurt less from constantly looking up at you. Maybe give me some of those cms so we could be the same height at least.”

“Nah, I mean—I could just do this”—he hunched over, demonstrating the most atrocious posture you’ve seen him in and then turning his head to look at you. “How ‘bout it?”

You were perfectly eye-level this way, but Martin looked too ridiculous to take seriously, the goofy expression he had offering no help at all that your cackles were immediate.

“Stop,” you snickered as you lifted your hand and pushed gently at his cheek. “that’s kind of insulting.”

He stood back to his full height, grinning and face slightly flushed. “I was trying to compromise.”

“You're fine just the way you are.” You elbowed his side. “Maybe you’re just like Clifford The Big Red Dog.”

“You’re comparing me to a fictional dog?”

“Okay, but hear me out”—you raised your pointer finger—“runt of the litter puppy—you. You used to be smaller than me. Puppy was loved and cared for by his owner, Emily, so much that he grew twenty-five feet tall”—you raised your middle finger—“I’ve seen your family, Tin. You’re really, really loved—it’s so sweet, actually. Not just them, but anyone who gets to know you.”

Martin’s grin morphed to a teasing smile. “You’re awfully sentimental today. Are you dying? Will I get to keep your stuff?”

“Fuck off,” you laughed. “I’m not. I just think it’s cute, and it makes sense to me—so I’m choosing to believe it.”

Maybe Martin would like to believe that as well. Would like to believe that not only his family, but you too had indeed loved him so much long before either of you could understand how complex the concept of love could turn out to be. Poured so much of it into his being that his body had no choice but to grow and grow and grow to size big enough to contain all of it, and maybe one day give it back to you tenfold.

The walk lapsed into silence once more, but something else hung in the air after your comparison. Something that had Martin’s pulse racing just a touch faster than usual. Then there was you, still glowing from your own discovery, a faint smile pulling at the corners of your mouth.

With each step you both took, the back of your hands brushed against each other’s. Martin would feel a knuckle, sometimes even the full length of a dainty finger—namely your pinky because Martin can differentiate them, apparently—gently trace a nonsensical pattern with each sway across the length of his hand.

And it was when he felt your pinky almost hook around his—a barely-there tug against his own did Martin decide to say fuck it and make a decision that could possible change the trajectory of his life for the better, or for the worse. Whichever it was, he’s already planned ahead for both. He just hoped he wouldn't end up doing the most drastic plans of action out of the two.

Martin’s lips flattened into a thin line as he took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose, steeling himself.

He started slow. As careful as someone could be when dealing with an easily spooked cat. His fingers brushed your wrist covered by the sleeve of your knit-cardigan. He chanced a peek and you didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.

Martin took this as a go-ahead.

Lower and lower, and finally, the pads of his fingers settled into the middle of your palm with his thumb hooked around yours. Your steps slowed, and so did he.

It was now or never, or the possibility of ruining something perfectly good. Safe.

“Is—is this okay?” He asked, too flustered to even look at you.

He heard your breath hitch and Martin had to close his eyes to brace himself for the worst. 

Then Martin felt it—your hand sliding up and pressing flat against his, meeting him in the middle, the unmistakable sensation of your fingers slotting in between his longer set and closing and Martin honest to god could have started tearing up then and there when you squeezed his hand; as if you’re telling him that this is okay, more than okay, that he didn’t need to second guess himself when you pulled him closer so that your arms were flushed.

“Yes,” you said, voice quiet as you gave his hand another reassuring squeeze. “Yes, it’s okay.”

Tenderness bled through your simple, yet earth-shattering answer to his request that had Martin glance at you, only for his breathing to stutter when he found you already looking up at him. The same tenderness your words carried evident in your bashful expression, a smile that made his chest swell with an insurmountable amount of affection Martin was sure he was about to burst at the seams.

The look on your face had something in Martin shift. A place deep within him that was once hollow slowly filled with each second he had your hand in his.

Martin’s held your hands plenty in the past, treated it—you like an anchor whenever you were outside to play. As you both got older though, plenty had become less and less, especially when you reached adolescence. A time where you start becoming conscious about yourself and everyone around you. Martin didn’t want to make himself come across as clingy, didn’t want any problems with guys who took a second longer staring at you.

He loved you, yes. Loved you more than words could ever give justice to the all-consuming feeling of wanting someone he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want or have. But Martin didn’t want to keep you from exploring life on your own, and he definitely didn’t want to make you feel like you had to stay wedged to his side at all times.

It was one of the worries that disrupted what peace was left in his mind at times, and it would sometimes make him wonder if he had been holding you back all this time.

But as you looked at him, smiling so sweetly like this was everything you’ve wanted from him, maybe Martin had been too trapped in his own head to actually see beyond the expectations he had limited himself to.

“Tin, look.”

It was both lost to you how long you had been walking, finding yourselves face-to-face with a newly built playground just across the walkway separating it from the edge of the Han River.

As Martin took a closer look, he saw two kids playing at the swings. A boy and a girl around the same age he and you met for the very first time.

The boy didn’t appear to be having much fun pushing the girl—obviously having the time of her life—on the swing, though he also didn’t look like he’d be stopping any time soon. From here, Martin could hear the young girl’s shrieks of delight whenever the boy managed to push her hard enough to have her going higher, and as he squinted, he caught the boy’s triumphant smile when he was praised for ‘being so strong that she was almost flying’.

“Wow,” you said. “I wonder where I’ve seen this before?”

Martin laughed. “Looks familiar, huh?”

“Gosh. It’s crazy to me how we were that small once,” you mused, gaze still lingering on the kids still in their own world—a fragment mirroring the past playing itself out in the present you still shared.

Martin feels your cheek press into his arm, warm even through the material of his coat, followed by you holding onto the crook of his elbow. Martin had bitten down on his lower lip to keep himself grinning like a goddamn fool. He was right where he wanted to be.

“I’m really happy we’ve found each other that young.”

There was a niggling thought in the back of Martin’s mind where it was persistent in its claim of you possibly meaning something else with that. Though he didn’t linger on it for long and instead let himself bask in this quiet moment with you, wishing that this tender moment, where a mirror from the past reflected the now, would never end.

That’s how Martin found himself in your bedroom an hour later, both of you still in your outside clothes minus the shoes you left back at the hyeongwan. He couldn’t find it in himself to leave you just yet and it was still early anyway; both to his and his family’s standards, and they knew where he was, so they didn’t need to worry.

He rested against your headboard, phone in hand while you laid on your stomach, painting the nails of his other hand with black nail polish. Something low and bass-heavy thumped from your speakers, courtesy of Martin, as this all was happening, and this here was the quintessential of your hangouts—just simply enjoying each other’s company without much else.

“Do you think we’ll still be together in every universe?” you asked, and Martin forgot how to breathe.

Together. You said together. A more broader term than the definitive ‘best friends’. A label that has been attached to both your persons since forever that he feared that’s all that there was for you both. That has to mean something, right? You’ve called your duo as best friends so many times that Martin had lost count. It was an automatic thing where it really required much deliberation. It just is. A fact known by many.

Maybe he’s putting too much thought into a question that you didn’t mean to come off as loaded, so he stopped himself from spiraling and humored you with an honest answer. Honest as it was hopeful that there would be multiple versions of himself that would choose you every single time.

“A hundred percent.”

“Yeah?” you grinned, “I think so too,” you agreed, ducking your head with a shy smile as you resumed painting his nails, your hair falling from where it was previously tucked behind your ear.

You didn’t seem to mind the slight obstruction to your eyesight, carrying on as if there wasn’t anything out of place. Martin, on the other hand, was a little peeved by it that his other hand, now free of his phone, reached out; thumb brushing the hair out of your face then followed by his fingers retucking it behind your ear.

And somehow, he ended up cupping your cheek.

At some point in his life—probably in his pre-teens—Martin had wondered what it would be like to have the world at the palm of his hands. It was a thought he had when he had fixated on space back then. This was the closest feeling to it he’ll ever get—the soft skin contrasting the roughness of his hand, the warmth of your cheek, the gentle swell where what remaining baby fat resided fitting perfectly into the curve of his palm.

This was definitely crossing so many lines. Martin was very aware of that, though it didn’t look like it bothered you in the slightest when you paused your work to blink up at him in question. 

Still, it was like cotton filled Martin's mouth with his inability to say anything to save face. He scrambled to come up with anything—an excuse, a made up emergency to get him out of here with no questions asked, or something ridiculous to make you laugh as a distraction. Anything.

Martin’s crash out didn’t last too long, nor did it go long enough for it to be even considered a crash out because you were smiling at him.

The kind of smile that was content, yet shy—an honest, devastating mix exclusively detrimental to Martin who was already taken by anything you did, and as the cherry on top, you giggled. The short, yet cute giggle you would let out when you found something cute and funny as you leaned into his touch, looking absolutely darling in his hold. He was going to explode.

God, you were going to be the death of Martin one day, and he was going to be so pissed if death came at his door before he could even tell you how much he loved and adored you.

shane's notes IDGAFFFF 😂😂😂🤣🤣😂🤣🤣😆😆🤣😂 (she gave a fuck. many fucks even. she lost the idgaf war) [Martin’s last tweet to Keonho: you will start coughing in seven days keonho ahn] as always, thank you for reading <3

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