ROYAL FLUSH. @hoonstrology - Tumblr Blog

ERROR 404: WORD LIMIT REACHED. ✩ PSH.

"i promise myself, while drinking a glass of water in the morning, to tell you. i'll confess what has been on the tip of my tongue tomorrow. you are pretty." — pretty u by seventeen.

PAIRING ➤ park sunghoon x fem!reader.

SYNOPSIS ➤ he wouldn't necessarily call himself talkative. sunghoon is just a normal college boy with normal hobbies and interests, so of course he likes talking about those, and he especially likes talking about you— but talking to you? it's an entirely different challenge. and he knows he has to man up and speak up before you get sick of his silence.

CONTAINS ➤ 18.3k words.⠀⠀college!au, classmates!au, slow burn-ish, strangers to lovers, lowkey loser!sunghoon, romance, very fluffy, light angst, but a whole lot more comfort, a bit of jealousy, sunghoon is a stupid dumb idiot lover boy. ✮ featuring: enhypen's 02z + heeseung, ive's gaeul and liz, and seventeen's jeonghan. WARNINGS ➤ suggestive content, making out, swearing, pet names, alcohol consumption, parties, brief mentions of blood, unintentional self injury, poor attempts at humor, sunghoon is kind of emotionally constipated but in a good way. sunghoon's taller than reader. lmk if i missed anything!

MASTERLIST. ┆ EPILOGUE SERIES.

꒰ from ! 🐰 yan ꒱⠀⠀my first written work !! i normally write smaus so writing a full oneshot has been daunting. this is my literal brain child so i hope you guys love it as much as i do. send feedback via asks/replies !! (pls be nice) ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡

𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨.ᐟ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥♡

TODAY MARKED THE FIRST DAY OF YOUR FOUR YEARS IN COLLEGE. you walked past your university’s gates, chin tipped up and proud with a book held close to your chest, thin silver glasses framing your face, and a smile that you spent an entire hour practicing in the mirror yesterday.

you wore the best outfit you could, but not in a trying-hard overdressed kind of way — just enough effort to make you memorable. you wanted to make a good impression, after all.

if you could look lost enough, maybe a senior would notice you. maybe he’d ask for your schedule, walk you to class, make light gossip about the professors you have and in a few years, he’d propose to you in the same spot by the gates, and you’d say "i do," and live a happy married lif—

clank!

you get snapped out of your sweet little daydream as pain shoots through your shoulder, down your left arm.

“fuck,” you whisper, head snapping up to shoot a frustrated glare at the thick pole in front as if it’s the one who bumped into you.

the impact was hard enough to have your book and glasses falling to the floor with a thud, and definitely hard enough to leave a bruise tomorrow because even merely moving your arm makes you wince.

thankfully, the area was mostly empty, which meant your dream of being a college cool girl was still in play, save for a tall guy just a foot beside you.

shit.

he’s already kneeling down to pick your things up and before you could even bend over to help, he just looks up and gestures to you to stay still by pointing to your outfit.

“skirt,” is all he says, his voice deep and quiet.

you’d normally blush at the gentlemanly gesture but instead, you do it out of pure embarrassment.

god, this wasn’t the meet-cute you imagined.

he hands you back your book and your glasses, freshly wiped of dirt from the hem of his faded black hoodie. you slip it on your face again and bow your head out of shame, stepping aside to escape this nightmare of an embarrassment, but before you could even attempt to, he tugs on the sleeve of your cardigan, showing you his open palm like he's telling you to stop.

and against your better judgement, you do.

the stranger slips one of his backpack’s straps off his shoulder, fishing a box out of it and begins scribbling away with a pen cap trapped between his teeth.

you take this time to look at him — really look at him.

tall, lean physique, sharp features, fair skin. he wore a pair of black thick-rimmed glasses that framed his kind-looking eyes really well. he’s stylish, no question about that.

painfully handsome, too.

the pen is closed with a faint click and he slips it back into his hoodie’s pocket and you take that as a sign to stop checking him out lest you embarrass yourself further.

his lips purse into a straight line and his thick eyebrows furrow closer as he gives the box an intense stare, the soft eyes from a while ago turning more serious and stressed as it turns to you, back to the box, and back to you again.

the suffocating silence is shattered by two men shouting from a distance, the shorter one of them comically jumping and waving his hands in the air. he turns to look at the source of the noise and lets out a small grunt, handing you the box and before jogging away without another word.

you stand there, dumbstruck, watching the three boys interact for a while before turning on your heels, slipping the box between your chest and the book.

that was odd.

you walk to class with a sore shoulder and cheeks that still feel warm from the whole ordeal. upon finding your room, new faces give you polite smiles or nods of acknowledgement and you do the same. once you're seated and settled, you put the book down on top of your desk.

the forgotten box falls on your lap, urging you to take a closer look at it.

menthol pain relief patches.

you flip the box around and you're greeted by a pastel yellow post-it note stuck on the back.

“for your shoulder. please be careful next time.”

he probably thinks you're a loser with no depth perception—and he wouldn't be wrong for thinking that—but it doesn't stop your cheeks from heating up for the nth time this morning.

you convince yourself it's okay. that your university is big, and you surely you won't meet him again. the fact disappoints you a little bit, yes, but at least you're saved from having to face him after what happened.

you press your fingers against your forehead in stress.

first day in and you’ve already made a fool of yourself in front of a man. not just any man but a handsome one. a very important distinction.

developing a crush feels on him feels pathetic. he just gave you muscle relief patches, an act of kindness that was just a little bit above the bare minimum. and he only said one word to you, for gods’ sake.

but you’ve never been one to think logically, so while your lecture starts, your head starts drifting off and it’s already incorporating the good-looking, tall stranger in your romantic fantasies.

as it turns out, the man in your dreams wouldn’t be a senior, nor would he be gossiping with you about your professors.

instead, you’d be sharing them.

during your third class of the day, the handsome stranger walks in the lecture hall with his two friends in tow and you immediately recognize him because of the glasses. his hands are stuffed into his hoodie as he settles on a seat a couple of rows in front of you, still as intimidating as he looked like when he gave you the box.

you learned of his name when the professor called him to read a passage in the book.

park sunghoon.

you think it’s a pretty name—fitting for a pretty boy like him.

sunghoon’s voice was steady while he read, smoothly pronouncing every word, clearing his throat after a mistake and resuming with the same composure. the speed at which he spoke was just right, slow enough to enunciate every syllable but not too much to bore whoever chose to listen.

"mr. park, care to share your thoughts on what you just read?"

sunghoon only stood straighter, his natural confidence in his voice making you swoon in your seat.

“i don't believe the fable's moral lesson to necessarily be applicable in real life where businesses and industries have become fast-paced. should the readers need to have a takeaway, they should focus on what the hare lacked: humility. his over-confidence is the ultimate reason for his downfall, being a creature that has already been given natural talent and an advantage on the terrain—”

and just like that, your small happy crush turned into full-blown attraction. his voice? his eloquence? damn. it’s like he’s trying—and succeeding—to make you want him.

you wish you had sat in front so you could look at him more. you could only imagine how stern he’d look, how his thick brows would meet together making him look even more gorgeous when he’s focused.

but for now, you could settle for the view of his back while trying your best to listen to your professor, and not to the voice that suspiciously resembles sunghoon's playing in a constant loop inside your head.

he’s in the rest of your classes today too, which makes the task of focusing twice as hard. you feel like a creep with the way your eyes naturally gravitate to him every time you hear his voice, or when you see a tiny bit of movement from the corner of your eye.

so when it’s almost time to go home, you do the most un-creepy thing you can think of: wait outside the door.

one student after the another, they all step out one by one.

then he finally walks out, laughing at something his friend said before freezing mid-sentence as he catches sight of you standing with a familiar box laid out on your palm.

he looked surprised for a moment, before gripping on the single strap hanging on his shoulder, shifting uncomfortably before raising a brow like he was waiting for you to speak.

“oh! i, uh– i already put some on my shoulder and on my arm a while ago. there’s too much in the pack and i figured i could give it back to you since i don’t really have any use for it.” you explain, pushing it towards him.

one of his friends gasps at the sight, quickly throwing a punch to sunghoon’s shoulder which he receives with a quiet hiss.

“what the fuck, hoon? i was looking for that! you know i have try-outs later!” the boy shouts, his australian accent thick and evident as he snatches the pack from your palm. “tch, can’t believe you lied to me.”

sunghoon gives him a cold stare, taking the patches away again before whispering something to the other boy which resulted in the rowdy blond getting dragged away by his collar.

he flipped the box over once, twice, and raised an eyebrow, seeming to notice that the post-it note was not there anymore.

“is this what you’re looking for?” taking the neatly folded paper from your pocket, you place it on top of the box. “i'm sorry for taking it. i thought it was for me. unless you also have other friends who regularly bump into poles while actively daydreaming and you actually meant to give that to someone els—”

sunghoon cuts you off with his index finger pressed on his own lips. he gives both back to you before flashing you a small smile, one that causes your poor little heart to thump faster.

“for you. keep it.” his words are clipped but you can feel the kindness behind them.

say something, anything, to keep the conversation going.

you hold your hand out. “i’m Y/N, by the way.”

"i know. i'm sunghoon.” he murmurs, looking at the hand extended towards him before shaking it.

you sense the slight hesitation but the contact makes you giddy nonetheless. It’s as sweet as it is short lived because sunghoon quickly lets go, hands returning to the safety of his hoodie’s pocket.

“huh? how’d you know? i don’t remember the professor calling me. wait—did he take attendance? shit, i forgot to say present—”

the chuckle he lets out is low and breathy, making the words halt in your mouth. sunghoon shakes his head and his eyes do a quick scan of you before pointing to the small sticker that reads 'yoon Y/N's!' on the book you've been holding.

"oh."

another beat of awkward silence.

“uh.. what’s your schedule?” you ask with a kind smile, following aunghoon as he starts walking towards your building's exit and you try not to dwell on how he started walking slower, at the perfect pace for you to keep up with his long strides.

he fishes for his phone to show you the picture and you do the same, eyes looking at your screen then his.

“we share most classes! all the ones in the afternoon.” you smile victoriously, and sunghoon releases another quiet chuckle, nodding along.

before you know it, you’ve reached the gate where his friends are waiting. he pauses, squinting his eyes at the duo who suddenly stopped talking to look between you and him, teasing grins plastered on their faces which just made sunghoon rub his temple.

“oh? who is this? a new friend?” the black-haired friend asks, a smirk on his lips while raising an eyebrow at sunghoon.

“Y/N.” sunghoon says, pointing to you. “jake.” he points to the blonde boy with an aussie accent, before turning to the tanner friend with a jawline so sharp you’re convinced you’d need more than menthol patches if you touched it. “jay.”

sunghoon must have told them about what happened this morning because they looked at you, eyes scanning you up and down with a flash of amusement, maybe surprise, showing in their eyes.

“hi.” you give them a shy wave and they return it with a welcoming smile, their hands gently shaking yours.

jake pulls sunghoon away, huddling on one side while whispering, their heads occasionally turning to you every now and then with synchronicity.

“what do you mean that’s her?”

“jake, pipe the fuck down!”

you turn to jay with raised eyebrows. “are they… talking about me?”

he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose like he's grown familiar to this scenario. “looks like it. please forgive jake, he’s normally more… discreet when he’s curious about someone.”

yeah, there’s nothing discreet about jake pointing his finger at you with a wide smile. sunghoon, on the other hand, is insistent on pushing jake's hand down with a pretty pink flush on his cheeks, looking like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole. very cute.

“do you guys share all your classes?”

“yeah, we share an apartment so we were together when we chose our classes.”

“so I'd take it that you guys are close?”

jay gives you a nod, eyes fond while he looks at his best friends. “met in middle school. and we’ve unfortunately been inseparable since then.”

“that's cute. must be nice to have people you can rely on already. college is kinda scary.”

“you have us!” jake whispers from beside you, making you scream in surprise at his sudden presence.

sunghoon shoots him a sharp glare, tugging on your cardigan for the second time today to pull you by his side. the golden retriever looking boy presses his palms together, whispering a small apology before handing you his phone.

“sunghoon told me you have afternoon classes with us! so you can give me your number and just reach us whenever. not to brag, but i’m the most popular in this trio. i'll text you whenever there’s a party. i'll getcha connected to people in no time.” he adds with a wink, pulling a laugh out of you.

“i think i’ll stick to texting you for home work.” you reply with a roll of your eyes, punching your number in jake’s phone nonetheless.

a few more friendly words are exchanged before they wave you goodbye because jay and jake are going to your college’s basketball try-outs. sunghoon isn’t interested but is supposedly "required by law" to go because he’s their moral support.

you laugh and give both of them a fist bump for good luck before walking away, failing to catch sunghoon’s lingering stare as he watches your figure disappear.

that night, you buried yourself under your duvet, congratulating yourself for surviving your first day of freshman year and making three new friends on top of that.

just then, your phone vibrated.

💬 from: unknown number — this is sunghoon. :)

your friendship with park sunghoon slowly blossomed from that day onward. though your first meeting was full of chaos, the following months were anything but.

much like him, it was calm. respectful, even.

you would give each other a smile when you passed by one another in the mornings, he’d shoot you a text to let you know he reserved the seat next to him when you were running ten minutes late in the afternoon, or you'd remind him of tasks due the next day.

he even offered to accompany you to the university’s library when your friends weren't available, headphones on and only taking it off to tap on your shoulder when he notices you dozing off.

one day, you asked him to grab lunch with you under the pretense of not having anyone to eat with, and then it became routine.

usually it would be just you and sunghoon, but the boys would tag along every now and then. he would be noisier during those lunches, and you relished it because that’s the only time you get to see him be so comfortable and rowdy.

you pondered what the cause could be, and eventually landed on a theory during one of your sociology classes.

deindividuation, as your professor called it.

she said being part of a larger group can lead to a sense of reduced personal responsibility and accountability which then causes individuals to feel less inhibited and more likely to engage in behaviors they might not otherwise, including speaking loudly or interrupting.

she basically described sunghoon to a perfect T.

because your friendship with him is quiet. his half of the friendship, to be specific.

you mostly got to know him through mere observation: his habits, things he enjoyed and things he disliked. if you didn’t discover things yourself, his friends would be the one offering sunghoon's information to you.

like when jay told you he has a younger sister he adored, or when jake told you that he once wanted to go to antarctica, a dream that he left behind after he took an interest in photography.

if you were to type out every word he's said to you for the entirety of your friendship in a continuous line, you’d probably be able to fill four pages of a document in arial 11. maybe five.

if you remember correctly, his longest running sentence is “please walk on the inside part of the sidewalk next time, angel—it’s dangerous.”

a yet-to-be defeated record of fourteen words. it was also the first time he called you by a pet name and it had you screaming into your pillow as soon as you got home.

initially, you thought it’d be better to converse with him through text. and it was an improvement, yes–but only by a few notches. you’d be able to make twenty pages with the words he said through the phone, but there were still days where he’d just reply with one word.

or a single emoji.

but Sunghoon isn’t nonchalant. far from it, actually.

he laughs at your jokes, even giggles when it's done to his type of humor. if he sees you stressing out during a pop quiz, he’d slyly push his paper towards you to let you copy his answers. and he already knows to take his sweater off and hand it to you before history class because the heater doesn’t work well in that classroom.

almost always, he’d walk out of the classroom with his bag slung on one of his shoulders and yours on the other with the finesse of someone who's used to being reliable.

you’ve never had to open your own water bottles or push through doors either because sunghoon would be the one doing it for you. all of that while wearing a proud smile.

and barely any noise.

when you ask him questions, he’d either hum to affirm, shake his head no, or shrug if he didn’t know the answer. if he’s the one asking you questions, he just gesture with his hands or fingers to get his message across.

one morning when you went to class in a new hairstyle, he pointed to it with raised brows. “ah, just wanted to try something new.” you explained. his reply was a smile and a measly thumbs up.

all that to say, he's an acts-of-service rather than a words-of-affirmation type of guy.

you always try to fill that awful silence between the both of you with endless rambles, and like the reliable person he is, he always listens with a hum here and there to let you know that he was still following your story about how your neighbor scared you shitless by trying to open your door in the middle of the night.

"—he shook the knob so hard i had to call an emergency locksmith. it’s literally the second time he did that this week! and he doesn’t even have the decency to pay me back for the fee!”

by the end your tirade, you’re slumped over the café’s table, cheeks squished flat on the smooth surface. he just chuckles and taps on your head with a finger and you raise it slightly. sunghoon places a sheet of tissue down and leans back, allowing you to press your face against the table again, but hygienically this time around.

“you care for my skin more than i do.” you grumble, blowing the stray hairs away from your face.

he does it like it’s routine. because it is.

the first time you did it, he shook his head in slight disappointment. “you’ll get acne.” he said, voice flat while pointing to his cheeks.

so after months of it happening, he learned to always have tissues in his bag just in case you decided you wanted to have another ranting session.

a few minutes pass and you hear him groan before reaching over to show you his watch. two thirty-seven PM.

“man. fuck history class.” you sigh, starting to pack up your things whereas sunghoon's already a few steps past the cafe door.

“hoonie! wait for me!” you whine, running to catch up and he pauses, looking at you over his shoulder.

he only resumes his strides when he hears the familiar taps of your footstep beside him, making him smile to himself as he shoves his hands in his pocket, walking back to class with the cold autumn wind that pushed leaves of gold and orange past his feet.

this is what he does.

if he wanted to go somewhere, he’d guide you to the destination by walking instead of telling. sometimes, because you moved at the pace of a snail, he would need to tug on your shirt or on the end of your jacket to help you keep up.

he never actually touches you. not intentionally. the usual skinship he’d initiate is a tap on your shoulder, or on the back of your hand. if he was feeling extra touchy, the most he’d give is an affectionate pat to your head.

if you remember correctly, that has only happened seven times so far.

there was also that one time he touched your cheeks for a brief moment, but you don’t think that counts because he only did it to push your head away when jake jokingly leaned towards you with a kissy face.

“sunghoon!”

two heads turn around to see heeseung, a sophomore, approaching with a basketball pinned between his hand and hip. he’s a good friend of jake and jay's, and by association, sunghoon’s.

“mind if i take him away for a bit?” heeseung asks you, the usual charming smile on his face as he taps on sunghoon’s shoulder. you nod and shoo them away, but not without sunghoon pointing to an empty bench first.

you head over there, one leg crossed over the other as you observe the bright smile on sunghoon’s face. words like “girls” and “after party” are thrown, and you already know it has something to do with the boys’ basketball match this weekend.

but their words translate more like faint buzzing because you’re too busy dwelling on the way sunghoon interacts with heeseung.

it’s something that has been bothering you for a good while—the way he becomes much more animated when he talks to someone. the way sentences don’t sound strained leaving his mouth.

it’s like everyone has access to a button that activates talkative sunghoon. everyone else but you.

the theory of deindividuation didn’t apply to him anymore. and maybe it never did.

sunghoon wasn’t technically popular, no. he was still an introvert who preferred staying on the sidelines but from what you’ve seen, anyone who was brave enough to go up to him and make friends, he accepted without protest.

weren’t you already friends with him? so why can’t he be like that with you?

your mind reels back to the time you caught him talking to a senior on the way to your next class. they were having a conversation about the cameras he liked and his history with photography, and it made you wonder for a second whether he had an identical twin his friends forgot to tell you about.

you could hear the childlike fascination as he talked, voice practically dripping with enthusiasm. so when you asked him about cameras later that same day and all you got was a simple 'i like them', it simply broke your heart.

you've spent days thinking about why he couldn’t open up to you the same way he did with others.

you’d scroll through your texts with Sunghoon and it's always polite. always curt. always “how’s your weekend?” but when you ask him the same question, he’d reply with “just okay,” before turning the conversation to something about you again.

maybe he wasn’t interested in you. not in that way, at least. because why would he? he, who would make people stare whenever you walked the hallways together. he, who made every student in class stop whatever they were doing just to listen to him whenever he recited.

he, who hugged acquaintances yet can’t seem to stand the thought of his hand grazing yours.

it made you overthink whether you truly were a friend to him or just another overzealous classmate forcing your unwanted presence.

you don’t even realize you’ve started tearing up until you see sunghoon kneeling in front of you, eyes full of worry as he looks into your glassy ones.

“angel? w–what’s wrong?” he asks, a hand reaching up but he bites his lips and brings it back down to his side.

you turn your head to the side and force out a laugh. “where’s heeseung?”

“he left. tell me what’s wrong.” sunghoon places a hand on your knee. he doesn’t need to tell you how uncomfortable it was, because you could tell from his strained expression alone that initiating that simple touch burned him.

“it’s nothing. just… some dust got into my eyes.” you rub your eyes with your curled fist, exaggerating a few blinks before you gently push his hand off your knee.

not even a second passes and you already miss the warmth of his touch. it's pathetic.

“there. it’s gone now.” you hum, pulling him up by his bag’s strap. “let’s go? mr. shin will kill us if we’re late.”

he looks like he wants to say something but he doesn’t.

he never does.

instead, he strips off his white hoodie and hands it to you, looking at you with expectant eyes. he just stands there, your bag in his hand with the same expression until you relent and throw his hoodie over your head while rolling your eyes.

you walk to your history class warm and smelling like a pleasant mix of sunghoon’s cologne and laundry detergent.

your exit plan hasn’t even started yet and you’re already failing.

three weeks.

three cruel and agonizing weeks of sunghoon missing your presence.

he thinks it started that weekend. like heeseung suggested, he texted you an invite to the frat party to celebrate the boys’ win. He never really got a reply but he did see you arrive safely which put him a little more at ease.

you greeted him with a breathtaking smile and the same little wave he started looking forward to receiving everyday—his biggest motivator to attend and do well in class despite the hell that it is.

you wore a short ivory white dress, blessing him with far more skin than he usually saw within the confines of yours classrooms, your hair done up to show the smooth curves of your neck and the sharp angle of your shoulders.

all he could think about is dirtying your exposed skin with marks so the annoying boys in your class would get the hint to stay away from what's his, and he hated it.

you don't even know it, but you make something deeply covetous stir inside him.

you’re already beautiful in his eyes, but that night you truly looked like an angel, and he wanted nothing more than to kneel and follow you towards the light.

jiwon and gaeul snapped him out of his trance by dragging you away to the other side of the house before he can even get a word in, and all sunghoon could do is pray that you don't leave with someone else.

the after party went on. drunk people leaning against the kitchen counter, a random couple sucking each others’ faces off on the recliner by the entrance, and jay crying “foul!” when he lost another round of beer pong. for the sixth time.

sunghoon looked at his phone, brows almost meeting together as he stared at your conversation. still left on read, still no reply, but he decided to send you another one anyway.

💬 to: angel y/n. — your dress looks nice. :)

“why’s my Y/N-ie not here?” jake approached him, red solo cup in hand.

“first of all: she’s not yours. second: you’re already slurring your words, jaeyun. sober up before we get to the car, i beg. i don’t want my car to smell like vomit again.” sunghoon grunted, trying to push the boy off as jake leaned against him for support, face pressed on his shoulder while whining about how much he wanted to see you.

sunghoon sneered. “why? you gonna try to kiss her again?”

“if it’ll annoy you. like it always does.” jake snaps back, a drunken smirk on his face.

sunghoon rolled his eyes, taking jake’s cup and pushing him with enough force to make him land on the couch.

“you didn’t even get to kiss her sober. what makes you think your wasted ass can do it this time?” the laugh he let out is light, yet traced with a bit of venom.

looking at jake all sprawled out on the couch and giggling like a man without a care in the world made sunghoon's frown deepen. even thinking about that memory makes him want to knock jake out.

but he knows his best friend’s teasing is only done to get a reaction out of him, to press on a particularly sensitive bruise—the bruise being his feelings for you.

“hoon!” he turned, seeing jay from the kitchen pointing to a girl.

he approached them with ease, flashing the stranger a smile. “he’s my friend who wanted to get something done.” jay said, charming as ever, palm pointed to sunghoon.

“this is the minha, the artist i told you about. let me know when you guys agree on something, yeah?” he pat both their backs and made his exit, probably to tend to jake who was wasted and still trying to dance.

the girl turned to him with a gasp, excitedly showing the jewelry on her hand and fingers. they talked about the bracelet he wanted to be made, noting colors he did and didn’t want to include, even passionately showing her reference pictures.

in the middle of his conversation, he raised his head to look for jay but caught you instead, unreadable eyes moving from him to his new-found friend. he took a step back from her and one towards you but you vehemently shook your head, raising a hand to make him stay in place.

you gave him a smile, one that looked a little forced, a little too disingenuous and foreign in a kind face like yours. you mouthed ‘i’m heading home', thumb pointing to the door before waving goodbye.

“wait. i— i’ll be back.” he says to minha, running and pushing his way through the crowd of bodies. when he stepped out of the front door, gaeul's car had already sped off, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of dust.

💬 to: angel y/n. — i didn’t get to say goodbye. :(

the three bubbles popped up on his screen. after a few minutes of watching it appear and disappear, you finally replied.

💬 from: angel y/n. — it’s okay, sunghoon. enjoy the party! 👍

and so ensued the twenty one days of sunghoon’s torture.

the absence wasn’t loud. it wasn’t immediate. it was a gradual pull, like flowers in a vase slowly losing their petals and vibrant color to their unnatural environment.

you were gone, but not entirely. though a part of him thinks it would have been more merciful if you just left outright, because the moment he starts noticing things, it’s like he can’t stop.

it's the type of cruelty only you could do to him.

you didn’t sit beside him anymore, opting to return to your previous spot behind him during classes. no more loud cheering by his side when he attended the boys’ basketball practices after class. and just to rub salt to his open wound, you made gaeul and jiwon replace him in your usual lunch spot.

that was the final straw — the thing that let him knew he somehow, some way, truly fucked up.

now he can’t even use classes as an excuse to see you because of course, of course, it had to happen right before the holiday break. not only was there an emotional distance, but a physical one, too.

he can’t text you either—not without looking stupid or desperate. the last message he sent read “okay. good night, y/n.” which was a reply to your dry “i think i'll sleep, sunghoon. night! :)”

no more lunches, no more affectionate reminders of homework deadlines, and no more nicknames.

things changed. and the shift, though unnoticeable to others, was strong enough for his best friends to speak up.

“i swear to god if you sigh one more time, i’ll actually mix bleach in your coffee to put you out of whatever misery you’re in.” jay grunts, throwing the couch pillow to sunghoon, unfazed and still busy fiddling with his phone despite getting hit square on his arm.

jake takes a peek from behind the couch, a plate of their shared dinner in hand, laughing as he sees sunghoon pathetically typing and deleting different variations of 'how was your day?' into his phone without actually sending anything.

“is our Y/N-ie still not talking to you?” he teases, moving to the sit on the floor, right between his best friend’s legs. the nickname rolling off jake's tongue makes sunghoon's brow twitch in irritation.

“still? I thought they were okay? didn’t she visit us during a game?”

sunghoon’s head snaps up to look at jay. “she did?”

they nod. “the one we did before break.”

“without me?” he says this time, voice pitched up in disbelief.

they give him another nod.

“said she just wanted to drop by and watch us. sat with a long-haired blonde guy.” jay mumbles, giving him a shrug.

“yeah. he seemed awfully close to her if you ask me. arm around her and everything. i’m surprised they weren’t making out.” jake adds, making the other laugh as he creates horrible slurping sounds with arms wrapped around himself.

sunghoon takes the pillow from earlier and smashes it across the side of jake’s head. “you’re disgusting.” he huffs, storming to his room, feeling his heart drop lower and lower with each stomp of his feet.

he hears nothing but static, clouded eyes burning holes on the framed photo atop his bedside table: a candid shot he took using his favorite film camera of you laughing so brightly that your eyes turned into crescents.

the mere thought of someone else seeing you in that light has dinner rushing back out his mouth.

you’ve made peace with your friendship with Sunghoon.

you've long accepted that it won’t turn into anything more. at some point, you were able to tune out the girls that hang around him, not caring whether they'd confess. he rejected every single one of them anyway, and you know you wouldn't be any different than those pretty crying faces if you tried.

you only cared when people approached him to have a friendly conversation because sunghoon would happily give them a memorable one. that's what made you jealous.

hell, he even got your friends. gaeul mentioned natto once and sunghoon yapped about the delicacy like a day-one fan. he shared his favorite fashion brands with jiwon too. complete with a detailed explanation on his preferences and favorite collections.

granted, he wasn’t on the best terms with them right now because they were the ones who had to pick up the pieces of your heart when you started crying halfway through the drive back to your apartment after that cursed party.

you stood there long enough to see him laugh and giggle in amazement at whatever amazing thing the amazing girl was showing him on her phone, stood long enough to see how casually he held her hand and raised it to his face to look at her accessories.

your eyes read his lips, 'you’re so cool', right before he saw you.

gaeul held you in her arms as soon as you curled up in your bed, jiwon on the other side shushing you while stroking your head.

"i just— i don’t get it.” you grunted, brashly wiping your wet cheeks with the back of your hand, the mascara-laced tears staining your bedsheets as they dropped freely. “why he’s—why doesn't he doesn’t talk to me like that? but.. he looks at me like he likes me and, a–and he does things for me he doesn’t do with other people!”

you were inconsolable, hiccuping in between sobs and screaming more words that your friends don’t understand anymore because you’re crying too much. they just exchanged tired looks while rubbing on your arm until you were exhausted enough to sleep.

the morning after, while pressing frozen spoons on your swollen eyelids, you were determined to treat him as he did you: sweet and kind, but from a safe distance.

close enough to keep your friendship with him together, but far enough so you wouldn’t have to feel your heart get stomped on when you hear him ramble about his passions to someone else.

sunghoon still attempted to ask about you through texts, tried to talk about the weather, or your progress on a project. he never brought up the topic of this weird drift in your relationship and neither did you.

at first, you replied within the same hour, then the same day, then after three days and so on.

ignoring him became easier when you went back home because you couldn’t see him, couldn't feel the hairs on your nape stand straight whenever his inspecting gaze was stuck on you. you could put your notifications on mute and pretend you fell asleep when he shot you another text to ask what's keeping you so busy.

half-way through the holiday, the ringtone you set specifically for sunghoon stopped ringing and you knew he stopped trying to reach you.

were you sad? were you relieved? you didn't know.

but what you did know is that you have to keep up this act. so even after the second semester started, you diligently stuck to your new routine.

nods in the hallway, civil hi’s and hello’s in the classroom, hoping and praying that your feelings would slip away the same way you were slipping from him.

you marked today’s date with another X.

thirty six days since the rift, twenty nine days since the texts stopped.

ten days since random letters started appearing.

you didn’t think he was trying to hide it. and if he did, he was doing a shit job because you were able to recognize his penmanship with just a glance—sunghoon had an odd way of writing the letter y, after all: a different kind of neat with a little flick at the end.

some days, the letters would be slipped in through your locker, and on busier days, it would be on your desk accompanied with food.

the drinks varied, but the pastry stayed the same. an almond croissant from your favorite café. the one you used to hangout with him.

“i don’t know what i did, but i hope you know i’m sorry.”

that was the first letter he wrote. written in a plain piece of yellow pad, contrasting the way it’s elegantly wrapped—in an ivory envelope with a small heart sticker sealing it. y

ou made your friends read it too, and gaeul cackled loudly, teasing you for immediately turning soft and wanting to run back into sunghoon's arms.

“you’re seriously folding as quick as he folded that half-assed letter.” she said in amusement, chopsticks roughly poking through the seaweed roll on jiwon’s lunch box.

the blonde just rubbed your shoulder in understanding, shooting the older girl a glare. “don’t blame our Y/N! she’s just a girl in love.”

"hopeless romantics, the two of you." the other girl replied with a shake of her head.

since that day, the letters have improved. still in the same off-white envelope, the same red heart-shaped sticker. the content was different each time, but they made your heart race all the same.

“your hoodie today looks comfortable. i hope you’re staying warm.” “i’ve been thinking about how you're the only one that who understands me even when i don’t say a lot. i'm grateful for that.” “i saw you crying today behind the bleachers. you said it was just from a yawn. it must have hurt a lot if you couldn’t tell anyone. next time you want to yawn again, just call for me, okay?” “i look at you a lot, but i think of you even more. what do i do with you?”

you push the small calendar inside your locker and sigh softly as you peel the heart sticker off, eyes reading through today’s letter.

“it was drizzling today and i felt so much more sullen. it made me realize how much i keep searching for the voice, the presence that made everyday brighter. i miss you, Y/N.”

you hate how your first instinct is to look around. to check if you’ll see the same annoyingly handsome, glasses-wearing face that’s been haunting you for the past month.

but of course, he isn’t there.

so you fold the letter again.another one added to the collection of the letters that you keep safely in your room so you can read it again later tonight.

away from the crowd of students flocking to their lockers, sunghoon stands with a soft smile on his face as he watches you slip the envelope in your bag. when you close the metal door shut, he takes it as a sign to walk back to jay and jake, hands in his pocket, grinning in victory.

“she didn’t throw your corny letter away this time?” jake howls and sunghoon’s smug expression falls into one of panic, making him smack the boy in the back of his head.

“she never did, idiot. and keep your voice down.”

jay raises his eyebrow. “i don’t understand why you don’t just talk to her. surely it’s easier to just do that rather than… writing all this extra shit every night. who are you? shakespeare?”

sunghoon just sighs and shakes his head, his thumb reaching up to scratch his adam’s apple. “you don’t understand, and pray that you never do. because this shit? it ain’t easy.”

too much projects still left in your to-do list, too many passive-aggressive comments from useless group mates that you chose to ignore for the sake of keeping the peace, and one-too-many snide remark from a stranger in the women’s bathroom about how ‘interesting’ your shoes are.

needless to say, it's been a rough week.

most of the students have gone home by now. your girlfriends bid you goodbye an hour ago and you stayed behind, opting to work on your essay in an empty classroom because your head wouldn't work if tried to finish it at home. the fact that you'd have a meaningful rest tomorrow gave you the last push you needed to press submit.

tired footsteps echo down the empty hallway as you use your remaining energy to trudge towards your locker. it opens with a bleary rattle and you find a square box laid atop an envelope.

huh. it’s been a while since sunghoon left you one.

you push the heavy books inside before reaching for the black suede box, the fuzzy material tickling your fingertip as you push the top open.

inside, a bracelet. fine silver chains alternating with four round glass beads– pink and green blooming from the center like ink dropped in still water. a flat silver rectangle hangs in the center with the corners of it smoothly rounded out, and embellished with detailed carvings of flowers around the edges.

on the back, an engraving of your name.

why would he do this?

you carefully return the bracelet inside its case and reach for the envelope with pursed lips. you close your eyes and let out a shaky exhale.

you need to prepare yourself for what you're about to read.

if this one's as sweet as his past letters, your resolve—the tiny amount left of it—wouldn't be able to hold you back, especially considering how worn out you are.

"you must have been having a hard time lately—the Y/N who’s precious to sunghoon. i hope we can talk again because i want you to tell me that today was tough. i want to be the one you lean on, and the one who tells you that you’re doing a good job regardless. i know you’ve been suffering through a lot, and i want you to know that i’m here.”

the corner of the paper crumples in your tightening fist as you tilt your head up to keep your tears from smudging more of the black ink. you stand in place, trying your best to control your breathing, teeth biting down on your chapped lips as your eyes run over the last words.

“you’ve worked hard, angel. i'm proud of you.”

your shaky hands close the locker door, forehead leaning against it as you hold the letter close to your chest, quietly sniffling with your head hung low, hot tears falling directly on the dirty tiles.

“he saw me. he always sees me.” you whisper to yourself, shoulders shaking as your pained cries begin to overtake your body.

there's a faint warmth radiating on your back and your nose picks up notes of sandalwood and leather cutting through the sterile scent of alcohol mixed with floor cleaners.

sunghoon.

he towers over you, body trapped in between his and the cool metal of the lockers as if to hide you from invisible prying eyes. his sturdy arms flip you around, one hand moving to your head to carefully guide it towards his chest, and the other wrapping around you to give your back gentle soothing pats.

as always, he doesn’t say anything. just wraps you in his arms while his fingers comb through the ends of your hair.

the two of you stand there until your loud cries are replaced with small hiccups.there's a small, shameful whine that leaves your lips when sunghoon pulls away from the hug, but he leans in again, long legs slightly folding to match your height until his face is just a couple of inches away from yours.

behind the thick black glasses, his dark orbs gaze into you with worry written all over his face.

you can’t help but feel irritated at how good he looks despite the cheap fluorescent lights hanging overhead.

still as handsome as the first day you saw him—just a little rugged this time around. he looks tired. frazzled. perhaps just as exhausted as you. the dilated vessels turned the whites of his eyes pink, and there’s a faint blue tint on his under eyes that make him look like he’s been losing sleep.

a selfish part of you hopes you’re the reason for it.

“i wanted to comfort you, and yet i still managed to make you cry.” sunghoon says with a sad smile, both hands cupping your cheek while his thumb brushed away the tears clinging to your lashes. “i’m sorry, angel.” he whispers before hugging you again, making you sigh in comfort.

you missed hearing that nickname. you missed his voice, his face, his scent, even his stupid glasses.

you just missed sunghoon in general.

the days you stayed apart drove him crazy too. it gave him the courage to hug you tighter, foregoing his fears and anxieties as he squeezes you in his arms.

“i missed you. i think i still do, even now.” he whispers, lips brushing on the crown of your head.

sunghoon held your wrist as he walked outside your department's building to an empty bench. the pink and peach tones in the sky have disappeared, replaced by the artificial neon orange from the street lamps. the trees are starting to grow their leaves back too, but the cool breeze still nipped at your skin like leftover air from winter trying to leave.

it was cold, but not painful nor unbearable. just enough to keep you alert, aware of how warm your side is from how close sunghoon is sitting beside you. aware of how he made more room by throwing an arm behind and casually resting it on the bench’s backrest so he could cuddle closer.

it feels like whiplash, the way he can’t keep himself from playing with your fingers when a month and a half ago, his obvious choice would be to hold the ends of your shirt like touching your skin would burn him.

and it does. it still does.

but who could blame sunghoon? he was an addicted man who got a taste of your touch and firmly decided he’d rather get simultaneously run over, stabbed multiple times, and be set on fire than spend another moment without him holding you or vice versa. kick him too while you’re at it.

he doesn’t care as long as he can feel you.

“i'm sorry.” he says again, voice as gentle as the way he’s squeezing your index fingers’ knuckles, both pairs of eyes looking at everything else but each other.

you let out a bemused laugh. “do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

he stays mum, tongue running across his lower lip and you catch the faint pink color tinting the shell of his ears. “i don’t. b–but… i do know that whatever i did was enough to push you away from me." he says eventually.

"i hope you know it was never intentional. i— i wouldn’t ever ever do anything to hurt you. i understand if you don’t want to tell me what... wrong i did, but i can promise that if you do, i’ll do my best not to do it again.”

his shy mumbles contrast the way he bravely pushes his fingers between yours, the now-interlocked hands resting on his thigh moving up and down as he anxiously bounces his leg.

laughter shatters the solemn atmosphere, causing his head to snap to its source, the evident frown on his face growing deeper. “are you— did you just laugh at my apology?” sunghoon asks with an incredulous tone, making you laugh even harder.

still, he can’t help his lips from quirking up at the sight.

he likes this. he likes holding your hand and hearing you laugh.

“it’s just— 'm sorry.” you pause, trying to swallow down another fit of giggles trying to burst out. “i just think it’s funny. that’s a new record.”

“what record?”

“the record of most words you’ve said to me at once. the previous one’s fourteen words, i think.”

sunghoon stares, head tilted to one side in confusion.

“think about it, sunghoon. classes and group lunches aside, you’ve never actually spoken to me properly. it’s never a conversation, it’s almost always just single words,” you let go of his hand only to lay yours on top of his and giving it a couple taps. “or stuff like this.”

“it’s like... like you have a word limit. but only when it comes to me.”

the muscle on his jaw twitches as he sees the little smile on your visage falter, the slight crack in your voice mirroring the one growing in his heart. he wants to object, to defend himself but he knows he wouldn’t have anything proper to say.

“at first i thought it was just because you were shy— but i’ve seen the way you talk to your friends, to my friends.. everyone. everyone loved talking to you, and you seemed to have fun talking with them too. i just don't get why you treat me so different."

sunghoon's hand grips on his own thigh to execute a punishment upon himself.

until it hurts, until it stings.

but he bears it because he knows it's too light compared to the hurt you've had to silently carry throughout your time with him.

"it sucks that you don’t like me enough to share your hobbies with me, sunghoon. that i have to know you through our mutual friends rather than getting to know you from what you say to me. i—” a pause. “i just gave up because i knew i’m not worth your time, or your effort to speak. that's why i stayed away.”

“Y/N… angel, it’s— it’s not like that. i swear.” he cups your cheek to make you look at him. you were still smiling, and yet he saw the sadness in your eyes. the uncertainty.

he hates himself for being the cause of it.

“then what is it, sunghoon? why don’t you talk to me?”

“because—” sunghoon takes a deep inhale and purses his lips before finally confessing. “because i don’t know how to.”

just as the weight is lifted from his shoulders, he feels an even heavier one get dropped back down. he knows there’s no going back. not when you’re looking at him with dissatisfaction in your eyes.

“there’s a reason why i resorted to writing letters instead, Y/N. it’s just that… just— y–you— i’m— fuck!” exasperated, he pulls his hand away from you, using it to rub on his temples.

then one travels down and you see as his fingers starts to scratch the base of his neck, nails digging deep into his skin.

it's one of sunghoon’s habits you’ve noted—an ugly one.

the first few times it happened, you tried to talk him out of it, told him how scared you were that he’d hurt himself, but he told you it was to help ground him when he feels frustrated.

like the stubborn man that he is, sunghoon continued to scratch harder and harder, half of his face scrunched up irritation. and true to your fear, he lets out a wince when a thin red gash on the space between his collarbones started to bleed red.

“sunghoon, stop.” you sigh, his wrists tightly trapped in your hold. when he turns his head to look at you, he looks like his world has collapsed in itself.

he's devastated.

broken.

“i.. i want to explain. i swear, i just—” he closes his eyes tight, hands curling into tight fists under your hold as his chest puffs from how heavy he's breathing.

you gently pry each finger open to see deep crescents on his palms. a frown is etched on your lips at the sight, and you know sunghoon’s not faring any better with the way he slumps against you, head rested on your shoulder.

“they won’t come out..” he finally says after prolonged silence, his voice thin and raspy.

"what won’t, hoon?”

“... nothing. please let me—” his breaths are trembling, and though you don’t see it, you could feel him holding back from scratching at his neck again.

“whatever it is can wait. just.. don’t. don't do that again.” you let go of one of his hands so you could wrap your arms around his shoulder, your palm running up and down his tensed arm while he messily wipes the bleeding scar with his sleeve.

he waits until his breathing turns even before he speaks again. “are you doing anything tomorrow, angel?”

you hum in thought. “no, why?”

“i… missed you. it’s been so long since i last talked to you.”

“that’s weird. i clearly remember that i was the only one doing all the talking.” you reply with a nudge to his shoulder, hoping your teasing voice is enough to lighten the atmosphere.

“hey! don’t be a smart-ass. you know what i mean. it’s been.. what? like, forty one? maybe forty two days since we hung out properly.”

you lean away from his side. “you’ve been counting too?”

“too? so you also did it?” he raises a brow, the previous frown growing into a teasing smile as soon as he sees your expression, like you're glitching between the choice of fight or flight.

“would you look at that. seems like the misery over winter break was mutual.” he says, tone a little too proud for your liking, so you choose fight. you take the soft skin of his cheeks in between your fingers, pinching and stretching it with a whiny sunghoon trying to push your hand away.

you succumb to his pained pleads to stop.

you lean in closer to soothe the skin with your thumb while laughing under your breath and sunghoon’s eyes slowly flutter close at the touch, head tilting closer to your hand as if to encourage you to continue.

“this is nice...” he whispers, raising his hand and laying it on top of yours to keep it there.

you want to ask him what stopped him from asking for your touch because it wouldn't even take a heartbeat for you to say yes. you wanted to know why you weren’t given the privilege of seeing him this needy, this vulnerable and bare. yet you kept your mouth shut.

“the university is a place for learning, kids. not dating.”

the sweet little moment is interrupted by an older man, a security guard, pointing his plastic baton at the two of you. “and it doesn’t look like you’re in grad school either, which means you’re not allowed to loiter in university grounds.” he adds, making sunghoon stand straight, head tilted forward to give him an apologetic bow.

“we’re sorry, sir! w–we didn’t notice the time. we’ll be heading home, i promise.” his taller body instinctively stepped once to the side, covering you like shield.

the guard tilts his head, brows raised at the odd couple in front of him but his eyes soften as soon he sees the dopey smile on sunghoon’s face when his hands blindly reach out behind him in search of yours.

“i better not catch you staying here after-hours again, alright? now go. scram!”

sunghoon turns around and smoothly slings your bag over his other shoulder like he always used to, your hand held firmly in his as the both of you run to the exit gates giggling like children.

“girls. he just texted me. said he’ll pick me up in an hour.”

you set your phone screen-down on your vanity. jiwon’s behind you, scrolling through pinterest in search for a proper hairstyle inspo and gaeul’s lying on her stomach on top of your bed, busily typing away as she tries to cram her essay.

thank god you had the foresight to finish it yesterday because one, that meant you got to reunite with sunghoon—who apparently waited for you by the lockers that day—and two, because he was serious about hanging out today.

he double, no, triple checked that you actually wanted to go with him while he walked you to the bus stop, refusing to let go of your hand until you safely got in.

“i can’t believe that doofus finally got the courage to ask you out. we were wondering how long he’d take.” gaeul chirps up, fingers still busy tapping on her keyboard.

“finally? what do you mean finally? and what you do mean we?” your hands pause from applying your blush, head craning towards your bed to stare at your dear friend who just stares back with a straight face.

“oh, Y/N. don’t be dumb."

"i'm serious!"

"jake and jay? us? we’ve all seen it since we started hanging out. you’re the only one who gets mister congeniality all nervous and speechless. now look in the mirror before i accidentally burn your cheek.” jiwon says, carefully taking your curling wand and a section of your hair.

“it’s so cute, it’s almost pathetic. but i’m still mad at him for making you cry like that, you know. he better make it up to you today, or else i'm gonna drag his stupid ass through the school field. by his ears.” gaeul says with a face that let you know she intends to follow up on her words.

jiwon continues to hum whilst curling your hair and you try your best to keep your hands from shaking as you apply your gloss.

when you look in the mirror, you can't help but ponder how much your body knew you needed sunghoon because you’re glowing. you look well-rested despite only catching three hours of sleep because of how badly you anticipated this date.

meanwhile sunghoon, alone in his car, is practically vibrating in excitement. or nervousness. he doesn’t know, really. he thinks he stopped being able to differentiate which feeling is which since he saw you that day.

he spent those thirty minutes routinely checking his rearview mirror.

is something stuck between the gaps of his teeth? he flossed again just in case.

is his hair styled correctly? didn't prevent him from running his fingers through it a few more times.

should he put on his coat or would that look too much? fuck, what if he over dressed and you think he’s cringe?

god, he wasn't even this jittery with his exes.

it's different because he's never actually hung out with you without the excuse of classes or other university-related events. it's different because he's never actually seen you outside the usual café you spend free periods in or under the flashing strobes of the college frat house.

it's different because it's his first date with you, and he's adamant not to make this the last.

ding.

💬 from: my angel. — hoonieeeeee ! i’m almost done. :D

he glanced at his watch. fifteen minutes left.

enough time for him to drive once around your block, get out of the car, walk to the passenger’s side and coolly lean against it while pretending he wasn’t an inch away from having a mental breakdown a few moments earlier.

and when sunghoon finally sees you walk out in a satin dress, he’s convinced he might actually have one.

“hey there, big guy. you look handsome today. well—you always do. but today especially! i really like your fit!” you say, adorning that bright smile that sunghoon found so captivating.the plan to look cool immediately got crushed.

he tried to stand up straight, he did. but he ended up leaning again on his car— not to look charismatic. rather, he needed to, because he was barely feeling his knees.

his heart was racing, his breathing turned short, and he began feeling the all-too-familiar prickling sensation in his throat.

“don’t go quiet on me again, or i’ll ignore you. forever this time.”

he looks more made-up, different from the usual hoodie and jeans combo you always saw. still knee-buckling attractive, but clean. khaki trousers adorning his long legs, thin black belt around his hips and a loose blue-colored polo with thin stripes, the sleeves folded to accentuate his forearms.

there’s a small sense of satisfaction that comes to you when you realize your outfits make you look like a couple. it seems gaeul made the lucky choice of getting you to wear a baby blue today, but you’ll just thank her for that later.

“your hair’s.. n–nice.” sunghoon says, a bashful smile growing on his face. “o–oh! and... and i have this!” he opens the rear door of his car, and you hear it slam again before he turns around to present you with a bouquet of flowers. white petals with vivid yellow blooming from the center, wrapped in crumpled iridescent foil and pastel blue paper.

“daffodils. the lady at the flower shop said it symbolizes new beginnings. and— a–and i want that. a new beginning. with you.” he stammers awkwardly, nibbling on his lower lip as his hands push the bouquet towards you.

you can only coo at his words, fawning over how cute and small he looked right now despite his height. so fucking adorable, this one.

pushing past the bouquet, your arms find purchase around his torso and you squeeze him in your arms. it takes him a second to return it and you feel him release a sigh, one done out of relief and longing, before leaving a gentle kiss on your hair as he lets you go.

sunghoon opens the passenger seat of his car for you with his signature shy smile, tipping his head to the side.

“get in, angel. i have a lot of making up to do.”

he takes you driving around first, wanting to spend a little more time together with you in the privacy of his car before he shares you with other people. one hand on the wheel and the other keeping yours warm, he aimlessly drove around while narrating how he spent his winter break with his family.

his dad took him and his two honorary siblings, jay and jake, to a ski resort. his mom bought him a new camera as his holiday present, and he casually slipped in wanting to test it out next time with you.

in between those stories, sunghoon admitted that his younger sister was the one to suggest the idea of leaving you letters. the confession leaves his lips in between sheepish laughter, resulting in both your cheeks turning pink.

your heart felt full listening him be so engrossed in his stories, at one point even letting go of the steering wheel to imitate how jake wobbled in his snowboard.

sure, he still stuttered every now and then, still held himself back from cussing too much on the off chance you’d get turned off, but those are tiny details you’re determined to work through with him.

he asked about you too, and you talked about the boring train ride back to your old little town, how the place looked like it was frozen in time with the same faces, same remarks about how you look like a carbon copy of your mom. sunghoon just listens intently, a smile on his face as he steals glances of your face from time to time.

you also talked about how you spent a week trying to get dye stains off your hands when your older brother painstakingly made you dye his blonde hair to black in preparation for the new season.

sunghoon’s hand tighten around yours. blonde.

“what about.. uh.. dates? did you go out with anyone while we weren’t in contact with each other?”

“hm. not that i recall? there were a few boys in my town, but i know they’re just messing with me.”

sunghoon’s right hand leaves yours to grip on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white and lips turning into a straight line as he stares at the road ahead.

perhaps he’d been mistaken. maybe this is just how you get when you’ve grown closer to someone. maybe the hand holding or the comforting touches you gave him were ones you also gave to other people. maybe you had taken his invitation as a hang out rather than a date and that’s why you agreed despite having someone else waiting on you.

“the boys saw him, you know. if you’re still talking to him then… t–then what are we doing right now?”

the change in his tone isn’t lost on you, nor the hardened expression he wears. from the side of his eye, he catches the befuddled look on your face like you genuinely cannot remember the accusation being true.

“him? who? hoon, what are you talking about?”

the mere memory of his friends’ words, of that man, urges sunghoon to pull over to the side of the road so he can face you because when call him an presumptuous loser and friend-zone him, he at least wants to see your pretty face do it.

“jay said he saw you come to their game with a guy. long hair. blonde. said he was clinging on you like a damn shirt.”

when you laughed at his confession yesterday, he’ll admit he found it cute. but when you do it today, it does nothing else but make his scowl look more sour.

“is this little laughing-at-sunghoon thing a habit you’ve developed over winter break? because this isn’t funny to me.” he glowers, brows furrowing as your laughter increases in pitch, palms repeatedly slapping against your knee.

“you—” your fingers point to him with a snicker, face looking pained as you try your darndest to hold back a laugh but it comes out anyway.sunghoon crosses his arms over his chest, thick eyebrow cocked up while gazing at you with an unamused expression.

“Y/N. i’m serious. if you have a guy back home, you can tell me. it’ll break my heart, yes, but i don’t want to take part in whatever open relationship you guys hav—”

“sunghoon, that was my brother."

“what?”

“tall guy. long hair. blonde. my brother.”

“that was... jeonghan hyung?”

“yes, dummy. jeonghan just wanted to take see at how the basketball team was keeping up now after he graduated. he’s an alumni, remember? you know he had blonde hair. you even hogged my phone all to yourself when he facetimed me that one time.” it’s your turn to have your arms folded on your chest, tilting your head with a little sass, lips curled in a smirk.

wordlessly, his body snaps to the front and he attempts to start the engine again, but you clutch his wrist just in time.

“no— you can’t just say that and ditch the conversation. you’re gonna explain yourself right now, park sunghoon.” the sound of his full name said in such a stern voice makes him squirm in his seat.

“i– i was jealous, okay? what more do you want me to say?” he grumbles, looking out the window while weakly attempting to shake your hold off of him, letting out a grunt that barely sounds like your name as you refuse to back down.

he sighs in defeat, and you can see the sharp tic of his jaw tensing up. “you weren’t talking to me. barely even looked my way. of course i was worried when my friends started talking about how you went to their practice without me. with a new guy, at that. it just.. the thought didn’t make me feel good. c–can we leave it now? this is embarrassing.”

a satisfied smile pushes your cheekbones up as you turn the keys, giving his shoulder a pat.

“drive, big guy.”

sunghoon made a reservation for the restaurant you mentioned months ago in passing. it’s nothing upscale or expensive. no wines or steaks. just the regular korean food you’re used to, but elevated just a little bit to make it taste more contemporary rather than home-made.

but you didn’t really care for that. the sole reason you wanted to go was their aesthetic: the dining area looked like the inside of a greenhouse with its sunroof ceiling, leaves and flowers hanging from wooden beams, and the lighting was just warm enough to set the ambience.

a hand on the small of your back courteously guided you towards your seat, and you’re too enamored by the interior to notice sunghoon staring at you with eyes full of admiration, his elbow resting on the table so he could comfortably continue to look at you in silence while you take in every detail of your surroundings.

true to his words, sunghoon makes up for his shortcomings.

he refills your drinks, debones the meat for you, constantly fills your plate before your food even runs out, and he apparently even paid for the meal in advance.

throughout the meal, sunghoon indulges you in short stories, letting you take on the role of the listener rather than the yapper this time around. he's telling you about penguins in antarctica and you hum, taking a sip of your drink when you notice one tiny, yet very clear difference in him today.

he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

you know he has a collection of them, and he switches things up every now and then. from thick boxy clear glasses, to the trendy ones you’ve seen models rock on social media.

your favorite pair would have to be the rimless silver ones he wore during your department’s post-exam party because they make him look unreal—like a real-life manhwa character. but he usually wore the good ol’ reliable thick black ones to lectures.

the glasses had their charm but without them, he’s a different kind of handsome. his features look sharper, especially with the warm lighting casting shadows from his tall, unobstructed nose bridge. his eyes look clearer and more expressive too.on the side of his chin, a tiny mole. and then another one.

black dots mapped out across his fair skin, all varying in size and but your eyes lock on the distinct one under his eye, and one on the side of his nose, right below where his glasses’ nose pad would sit.

no wonder you didn’t see it.

“you’re checking me out? so blatantly?” sunghoon pipes up, and you notice how the mole under his eye moves when he raises an eyebrow at you.

it makes you giggle, reaching forward to poking the round dot under his eye. “i didn’t know you had moles.” you rub on the skin with extra gentleness before leaning back. “kind of reminds me of someone i met when i was a kid.”

“hm? do tell.”

“ah, it’s nothing. there used to be this kid in my hometown who had moles like yours. god, that was years ago. i was really young—around eight or nine years old, i think. i met him at a playground where older boys were making fun of him for it.”

“let me guess. you defended him from the big bad bullies and he fell in love with you?”

“defended him, yeah. jesus, they were assholes. the memory is hazy, but i tried to comfort him by chasing him around and stuff. i tried to go back to the playground again the next day after my classes, but he never came back.” you poke at your leftovers with your fork, the distant memory making a grin dance on your lips. “but falling in love? highly doubt it. told him my name but i never got his back. all i remember's his cute moles. he might as well have been an imaginary friend.”

“i say defending a kid like that can definitely make them fall for you.”

“are you speaking from experience, mister?”

he grins. "partly."

you smile and cup your hands behind your ear, making sunghoon chuckle as he wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “when i was a kid, i used to be so timid. waaaaay way worse than i was with you,” he says, and the way his eyes widen when he extends his words make you giggle.

“never talked to my classmates, always stayed at home. even my cousins who visited can’t get a word out of me. my parents tried making me do hobbies to get me out of my shell. you name it, i did it. and it helped, but only by a little. then they thought maybe going to the city might help my introversion. my little sister was growing up, too, so they started looking for a place here in seoul.”

your elbows perch on the table, chin resting above your interlocked fingers as you give him a dreamy nod. “mhm. and then?”

“and then the day before we moved, i decided i’m gonna try playing with the kids from my town. just to give it a last shot. except they teased me a lot because i wasn’t talking. they made fun of my moles, too. but then—” sunghoon pauses.

“this strange girl came shouting. i’ve never seen her before. think she went to a different elementary school, but she fought the boys off even though they were taller than her. she threatened to throw rocks at their heads and pull their hair out. and you know what? they looked scared. i think that was the first time i saw genuine fear.” he says, breaking out in a fit of giggles.

“picture this: i was half a foot taller than her but she was reprimanding me and pushing me to stand up straighter, saying i should learn how to speak up and fight back. that no one would fight my battles for me but me. since then, i started doing it—practicing my speech skills and self confidence. eventually, i stopped cowering whenever strangers approached me and i learned how to speak without my voice shaking. it's all thanks to her.”

when his monologue is over, sunghoon just grins at you like reminiscing alone was enough to comfort him.

you feel a little irritated, jealous of the way he speaks so affectionately of her memory. but at the same time, you can’t help but smile back. that's how you feel about your own little friend after all.

“so you fell in love?"

"i wouldn't be so hasty to call it love. perhaps admiration. deep admiration."

"don’t tell me you never told her your name like my old friend?”

his chuckle is mirthful as he shakes his head. “oh believe me, i did. swear on it. either she didn’t hear me, or she’s deaf because she just started calling me ‘pengoo’ instead of my name.”

pengoo.iIt’s familiar.

you squint your eyes once more as you see the dimple on his cheek appear, the indentation becoming deeper as he flashes you a knowing smile.

pengoo, pengoo, pengoo.

wait...

“his shirt. that was the shirt he was wearing...” you trail off in a whisper, the words barely audible as you point your hands at sunghoon, and he just smiles even wider, nodding his head slowly.

you sit there in stunned silence, hands crossed over your mouth as you stare at sunghoon whose look of pride turned into concern, nervous of the crystal clear shock on your face.

he's cautious as he offers his open palm on the table, skittish and biting his lip when you still refuse to hold his hand. he calls out your name with such gentleness that you’re transported back to that day—to the little, but still taller boy who had tears in his eyes, looking ridiculous and snotty while sporting a white shirt with a penguin patch.

the one who you affectionately called 'cookies and cream' for the specks of black splattered across his face, whose tears you wiped using your special barbie handkerchief, whose arm you scribbled your name on with your glittery purple pen that he wanted to taste because it smelled like grape juice.

though the memory isn’t as clear as it was to you years ago, he was a constant in your life. whenever you encountered people who leaned more towards timidity, it's him who appeared in the back of your mind: the nameless friend who you never saw again after his worried mom fetched him from the playground.

except he's not nameless anymore, and he's sitting right in front of you.

the salty tears burn when you try to hold them back, but they're insistent on coming out so you hang your head low and attempt to contain your sniffles.

panicked, sunghoon gently holds on your arm and guides you outside of the restaurant to a more secluded spot in the front lawn.

“Y/N,” he calls out again, pale hands gently squeezing on your hips as he bends down, trying to take a peek of your face that you insist to cover. “angel… did i make you cry again?”

you shake your head, quickly taking him in your arms, hugging him like how a mother would her child who’s come back from war. “my pengoo... my pengoo.” you choke out in between stifled sobs, stroking his head.

his arms wrap around your waist, lifting you off of the ground for a moment as his face settles on the crook of your neck, nose brushing against the skin as he whispers back. “it’s me. pengoo’s here. you're okay, i'm not leaving.”

his words do nothing but make you cry harder, tears staining his shirt and fists crumpling the fabric on his back. "i can’t believe it’s you. i—”

"do you want to talk about this somewhere else, angel?” sunghoon asks in a soft voice, a tone he reserved only for you, carefully wiping your damp under eyes.

a nod is all he needs.

the travel is silent aside from the small little sniffles you do and the faint melody from the car’s speaker. your eyes blankly stare outside, the view of the buildings just as blurry as the thoughts and memories running in your head.

meanwhile, sunghoon’s trying his best to console you. his thumb lazily rubbed the skin on the back of your hand while stealing glances every now and then.

“where are we?” you croak out when the car comes to a halt.

sunghoon opens the car door, his fingers nimble as they take your seatbelt off for you. “a park near my neighborhood. in one of my favorite spots to rest my head which you need to do.”

his hand return to yours so he can pull you towards the picnic area.he sits down on a bench and you elect to sit on the wooden table itself, head craning as you take in the new environment.

the place is beautiful. quiet, serene and full of trees that made it look like a modern glitch in the middle of a forest.

“you’re not gonna kill me for knowing your secret, are you?” you sniffle, feet gently nudging the side of his thigh with a soft chuckle.

“no people, no witness. i’m sorry, Y/N. can’t have people knowing i was a loser back in the day.” he says in a gurgled voice after looking around, playfully pinching your arm which made you squeal and swat his hands away.

in the middle of play fighting, your eyes catch the swing set nearby and you remember him again.pengoo.

the flashback is so clear you could almost see a younger version of yourselves: you, pushing sunghoon on the swing, and him using his voice properly for the first time to scream ‘stop!’ when his seated body lifts too high off the ground.

you turn to sunghoon, the real, grown sunghoon, and he’s already looking up at you with one hand resting on your covered knee, giving it languid strokes with his thumb. "penny for your thoughts?"

“why, hoon? i mean.. if you knew all along, why didn’t you tell me?” you reach for his cheek and his eyes close at the contact, letting out a soft sigh of comfort.

he holds it in place, tilting his head to leave a light kiss on your palm. “i’m sorry. if you want me to be honest, i had no plans to let you know. i wasn’t even aware you remembered that day. for all i knew, i was just one of the strangers who got bright little Y/N’s help.”

“you… you grew up so well.” salty tears blur your vision again as you lean down to press your lips against his forehead.

“i couldn’t have done it without you. that was a significant event in my formative years—i seriously can’t imagine what kind of life i'd live if i hadn’t met you that day.” he stands up so he can tower over you, looking down to wipe the wetness from your eyes.

“you're my savior. my angel in every sense of the word.”

you walk around the area holding each other’s hand, going over your first meeting. the actual one. the one you had before you met again as grown ups.

he apparently tried talking his parents out of moving, and though they were surprised at his sudden enthusiasm to stay, they ultimately refused because the new house in seoul was already paid for.

he waited for you that morning, until the last second—until his parents were yelling at him from the car.

"i think i left a piece of my heart in that playground."

his search didn't stop there. night and day he bothered his parents to contact anyone they could from their previous town, to ask if anyone had a child with your name. but because his parents were like him—aloof and private—nothing really turned up.

but he was a kid determined to keep you alive and present in his mind so when he met you again that fortunate morning at the university, he immediately knew it was you without even hearing your voice.

every day he stayed by your side was spent in awe, marveling at the woman you’ve become. there wasn’t much difference, physically nor emotionally. obviously you’ve matured and grown into your features— but you still talked in the same cadence, spoke your mind with just as much enthusiasm, and still cared for people the same way you did to the young boy in the playground.

still the same girl who’d get him too flustered to talk properly.

“so jay and jake knew about me the whole time too?” you ask after arriving at the parking area and sunghoon lifts you up to sit on the hood of his car.

he nods, comfortably settling between your parted legs as his hands rest on your thighs. “of course. they were the first to know about my childhood crush after all.”

“childhood crush, huh. what about now? am i still a crush?” you wiggle your eyebrows at him.

sunghoon rolls his eyes, the cute little dip on his cheek becoming more evident. “you know the answer to that already, angel.”

he pulls you closer to him by your hips and your arms naturally loop around his neck like they were always meant to be there.

you don’t know whether it’s the long day you’ve had, or the insane revelation of who sunghoon has been this whole time, but your head’s starting to spin.

perhaps it’s his cologne, how it’s starting to smell is stronger and stronger as his body leans closer to yours. or maybe it’s the way you feel too warm in your own skin whenever his eyes drop to your lips, and how he his sharp fangs poke out when he bites his in return.

it’s like the air turned heavy in a matter of a few seconds and the cool breeze is doing nothing to thin out the tension in the wide empty space.

from this close, you could hear his breath get slower, thicker, eyes never leaving your mouth. he brings a hand up to cup your cheek and your breath hitches when his thumb brushes over your lower lip.

sunghoon closes the distance first.

the kiss is sweet and gentle but filled with yearning and just a little bit of hesitation. your lips are the softest too, practically erasing any memory left over from the other irrelevant girls he’s kissed before.

and you’re so damn sweet.

despite every inch of his body wanting to have more, he does the gentlemanly thing to do and breaks the kiss, but not without biting on your plump lower lip first. when his eyes finally focus, your cheeks are flushed, tinted a rosey color like your slightly swollen lips that reflect the distant street lights.

sunghoon's grip on you is as tight— just a hair above bruising. it’s taking everything to hold on his self-control, to not take you for himself right then and there. he just had you back. he doesn’t want to scare you away by being so forward with his need and indecency.

but it’s so, so hard to behave when you’re like this.

so small and flustered, looking up at him with half lidded eyes and your lower lip trapped between your teeth. so when he feels you attempt to press your thighs close, his instinct tells him to pull you even closer to keep them open, the movement making your dress ride up, the slit on its side exposing more of your skin.

and you whine—either from his touch or from the cold air—but sunghoon doesn’t care. not anymore.

the noise you make is more than enough to snap whatever’s left of his restraint and he leans down to capture your lips again. but it isn't soft this time.

it's sure. it's hungry, handsy.

still full of yearning, but mixed with the raw, physical need to be closer to one another.

your heads tilt to opposite sides, lips weaved together while letting out small whispers of sweet nothings in between. sunghoon takes your lower lip in between his again, sucking on the flesh while his hand slip underneath the slit of your dress, palm rubbing up and down the skin of your upper thigh, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

while his lips keep your mind fuzzy, he busies his hand by trailing it higher and higher beneath the loose fabric of your dress until you feel his thumb graze your bare hips, just a fraction of an inch below where your panties are resting, making you gasp against his mouth.

a chance opens up for sunghoon to snake his tongue past your lips, and he greedily takes it, determined to explore every possible inch. you taste like decadence. like the coffee ice cream you had for dessert combined with something celestial.

it's fucking heavenly.

you try to fight him back with your tongue, and for a while, he lets you. convinces you that you’re winning when you try to push your tongue against his. pink muscles twirl together in a dance full of lust and wanting, but sunghoon eventually grows tired of it and he gives your thigh a reprimanding squeeze, making you moan again, providing him the perfect opportunity to take over the messy liplock.

you take the small bit of revenge you can by threading your fingers through the jet black locks on the back of his head, tugging on it once, twice, until he’s growling your name against your open mouth.

his lips wrap around yours, your tongue graze on the sharp end of his canines, his fingers wander near the plump of your ass, and you kiss until both of you are literally seeing stars.

you part, heaving oxygen back in your deprived lungs and your foreheads meet with eyes still in steady contact as your heavy breathing mingles.

sunghoon’s hands never leave your thigh or your cheek. rather, he gives them a final brush with his thumb before stealing a quick peck, damp lips brushing against your skin until it reaches your jaw, giving the spot a kiss as well.

“perv.” you say, raising your thigh a little just so you could push sunghoon’s hand away. “first kiss and you’re already feeling me up?”

“okay, Y/N. let’s pretend your eyes weren’t on my arms the entire time i was driving. i know you like how veiny they look.” he replies after leaning back, the same canines that were grazing on your tongue a while ago now in full display as he flashes you a cocky grin.

“i.." you clear your thraot. "you noticed that?”

“i did. i notice a lot of things about you.”

“like what?”

he's quiet for a moment. “like how you’re starting to shiver,” his muscular arms lift you up and safely bring you back down to the ground. “i think it’s time to get you home, angel.”

a cacophony of cheers erupt in your classroom as the announcement blares from the speaker. an early dismissal due to seniors needing several classrooms to prepare for something you didn’t care enough to pay attention to.

all you knew was you needed to get out as soon as possible so you can see sunghoon again.

from: pengoo. 🐧— heard the announcement yet? :) to: pengoo. 🐧 — yep!! i'll just grab a few things from my locker and head there. see u! ♡ from: pengoo. 🐧 — see you, angel. :)

the two of you made the university garden your official hang-out spot. specifically the one near the big ginkgo tree where the both of you have spent hours under either people-watching, eating or reviewing.

and stealing kisses from each other, of course.

so when sunghoon asked to meet you there this morning, the answer was an automatic yes.

just as you sit down on the picnic mat, you see him appear from behind a tall shrub, bag slung over his shoulder and a big plastic bag hanging from his hand.

“did i take too long? i'm sorry, angel. it was lunch rush and there was a line in the restaurant and jake was arguing with a girl and—”

“hoon. i just got here. it’s okay.” you say, chuckling at his never-changing nervous demeanor.

he leans forward to give your lips a chaste peck, an apology leaving his lips again before he busies himself by taking your lunch out of the plastic and making sure your bottle is uncapped and your utensils are cleaned before tending to his own food.

a fond smile creeps on your lips as watch him try to talk about his morning in between bites. he really has improved since that date.

gone is the boy who shied away from your touches, and is replaced by one who openly asks for a hug and whines when he doesn’t feel your hands on his whenever you walk together.

his hand is always in yours when he drives both of you to school (despite the fact that he has to drive 20 minutes earlier to do so.) his arm consistently curled around your shoulder or your waist when you walk to class together. you always tease him for it too, but he just takes it with a smile because he knows it’s true.

he’s whipped for you.

after you eat and clean up, you offer to keep the picnic mat in your locker but sunghoon mentions he wants to stay for a bit more, and you appease him, letting him lie down with his head comfortably laying on your plush thighs while you lean back, palms pressed on the mat to support yourself.

silence envelops the both of you, but it doesn’t make your head run through a million thoughts anymore. it isn’t tense this time.

your eyes wander to him again—your not-quite-boyfriend boyfriend.

your finger pokes at the mole at the side of his nose out of habit, the glass beads in your bracelet reflecting bright spots on his smooth skin. you go from one mole to the next, moving it down the sharp bridge of his nose, then to his jaw, and you giggle upon feeling sunghoon shiver under your featherlight touch.

you move your middle finger down his neck, choosing to poke at the peak of his adam’s apple before noticing the pink lines on his neck.

again?

before you can even point it out, sunghoon’s voice cuts through the silence. “i feel like pengoo whenever i’m with you.”

you sit up properly. “pengoo?”

he gives you a nod and you stare, giving him a look that spells ‘i don’t know what you mean’, making him smile.

“whenever you’re around… it’s like i become that kid again. the one that can’t speak or think properly. i don’t know, it’s weird. the same girl that gave me the confidence to talk being the same one i can’t be around without making a fool of myself? i can’t even give you a proper compliment for gods' sake.”

that’s true. he always compliments your outfits, or your accessories, or compliments you through implications. things like “you’re making everyone stare.” or “that cute puppy looks just like you.” but nothing that’s actually a straight forward compliment.

you never had the courage to bring it up to him, partly because you’re afraid he might find you too needy, but also because deep down, you know the words he did say already took a lot of courage from him.

“i don’t.. really mind. not that much.”

“don’t lie to me, angel.”

“i’m serious!” you laugh, fingers forcibly pushing the edges of his frowned lips upward. “i do have a question though."

“what is it?”

your fingers ghost over the exposed skin on the base of his neck, fingers gently pressing on the spot between his clavicles, tracing over the faint red scratches over it. "have you been scratching your neck again? why do you do it when you know i don’t like it?”

“angel… i just—” sunghoon sighs softly, reaching for your hand. “i get frustrated.”

you frown. “you always say that. but there has to be a way for you to release your frustrations without scratching? the scar from last time isn’t even healed yet.”

below you, sunghoon releases a soft sigh and raises a hand to poke at the same spot on your neck. “what is this?” he asks.

“my neck…?” you reply cluelessly, to which he just shakes his head, poking at the skin again, and you flinch from the ticklishness of his touch. "what's inside here?"

“my throat?”

he finally nods, pointing to his own. “they get stuck here,” he opens his mouth, tongue sticking out and points to it as well. “and here.”

“they? hoon, you have to stop talking in riddles. you know i’m stupid.”

sunghoon runs a hand over his face and sits up, moving behind you until you're settled between his legs, back comfortably leaned against his firm chest.

“okay. i’m doing this.” he whispers mostly to himself before squeezing you in his arms as if to reassure himself. “don’t interrupt me, okay? because if i don’t get this out completely, i might not be able to say it at all.”

you press your palms on the arms wrapped around your waist and nod.

“you see those those?” sunghoon asks, and your eyes follow the direction of his finger pointing at the different florae.

the green leaves of the bushes look even brighter next to different bundles of spring-born tulips: colors of white, red and vibrant yellow scattered throughout the garden.

you're unsure of where this conversation is headed, but nod anyway.

“it’s like i have that inside me.aa garden. of words.” he says slowly, taking pauses between every words. “at least that’s what i started telling myself after i left years ago to aid me in my quietness, and it helped. a lot. i realized that i don’t really have to give people anything of value, and it made talking easier. if i don’t like someone, i can give them dead leaves or even weeds. but if i do, i can give them grass or the most common roses and it’ll do. maybe even an arrangement of better flowers for the people i want to keep in my life.”

he stays quiet for a beat, and you can feel his nose poke on your skin as his lips press on the exposed skin of your shoulder. “but you… you know you mean a lot to me, right?”

you reply with a hum, eyes glued to the leaves and petals swaying in the wind.

“i'm slow to speak because i take so long walking through the garden. because it's so difficult to choose what to give to you. because i want to pick and gather only the prettiest flowers—the prettiest, kindest words. for you. i want them to be neatly arranged and looking just as beautiful as the way you appear to me. because you’re precious to me... and you deserve nothing less.”

the words tug on your heartstrings in a way you’ve never felt before. to be adored and admired so much to the point of speechlessness wasn’t something you’ve ever experienced, or frankly, ever expected.

so when he speaks of you in such a way, it overwhelms your chest with a sense of safety— of knowing your heart is safe with him.and the way he says it too: voice low, shaky, and starkly different from the composed sunghoon you usually hear in classes.

it's then that you realize the apprehension you saw you wasn't done out of malice. sunghoon only did it because he wanted to protect something dear to him.

he shifts and pulls his hands away from your waist only to sit cross legged in front of you. it seems like you aren’t the only one feeling vulnerable because when you see him, he looks just as flustered.

his cheeks are rosy and his ears are in an even deeper shade, almost matching the petals floating above the grass.

“don’t laugh at me for this, okay?” a defeated chuckle leaves his lips and he reaches for your hand, threading his fingers through yours before looking you in the eye. "jake and jay know about how much i've been rehearsing."

"hm?"

“i’ve dreamt of meeting you again, you know? so when i saw you on our first day, i told myself that i’ll do it. i’ll show you my gratitude. i’ll show you i’ve changed. that i've grown. that i’m not the sickly and shy kid in the park anymore," sunghoon pauses. “so every night in front of my mirror, i rehearse the different ways i could talk to you— and it worked. it always goes smoothly,”

“but i’ll see you again in the morning and it’s like the hours i spent practicing rush out the window— because.. b–because i’ll hear your voice, and you’ll laugh, and you'll smile. and you’ll look at me the way you are right now… and it’s like all the bouquet of flowers get stuck here.” sunghoon explains, finger accusatorily pointing to the still-healing scar on the skin above his throat.

“it feels like their thorns are piercing me from the inside, angel. it sucks and it’s frustrating. and the only way to relieve it is to scratch, but they won’t come out even if i do. and then i’ll beat myself up over it, go home, and the cycle will repeat itself. and—you’re doing that smile again. s–stop it!” he stammers, finger now angrily pointed to you.

you chuckle because you don’t even know what kind of smile he means and sunghoon just sighs, reaching for his neck again, palm over his throat like he’s trying to relieve the itch without scratching.

he looks annoyed and irritated, nose scrunched up as he clears his throat one, two times.

“i— i love you, Y/N.”

the three words he’s been itching to confess for months, now breaking free from the tip of his tongue.

both of you freeze in your spots.you can’t believe the words he just said, and he looks like can’t believe it either.

“i love you.” sunghoon repeats, gnawing on the flesh on the inside of his lip while his hands squeeze on the base of his neck as if physically forcing the words out. “i think you’re so cool. and you’re pretty. but even that isn’t enough. beautiful is the closest i can get, but i hope you get what i mean a–and… fuck, i should’ve just written a letter.”

an intense battle of eye contact ensues, his free hand curled tightly atop his lap as he takes a deep breath in.

“i— i've admired you since i was a clueless kid in the playground. liked you s–since you talked to me on our first day. and i’ve loved you since our first kiss, but i was too much of a pussy to say it then because i didn’t want you to think i only loved you because of it.”

he grunts, knuckles pressing on his temple. “and i’m sorry that i don’t talk much because every time i do, it just makes you cry and i don’t want to see you crying because it breaks my heart too—”

the speed at which his words come out begins to pick up, making it barely understandable so you call out his name in an attempt to slow him down but he just looks at you with determination in his eyes.

“no! listen to me. i know i’ve had my moments, and i’ll probably keep having them, but i want you to know that i love you. sincerely. you’re precious to me, Y/N. and i don’t want you to doubt what i feel any longer so believe me when i say i’m trying my best right now, even though i’m babbling.”

he pauses just to take another inhale, and when he finally speaks again, both his voice and his eyes turn softer. so soft you can't hear his words.

"i'm sorry, hoon. i didn't quite catch that."

"Y/N. will you please be my girlfriend? you can say no, o–of course. i'm just throwing the idea out there but if you think i haven't proved myself yet then i'll be fine just waiting, i swear i c—”

you swallow the rest of his words in your mouth as you press your lips against his, eyes closed while you grab sunghoon’s hand by his wrist and guide it to your nape.

he lets out a meek sound of surprise but you can immediately feel him melt into you, fingers tightly holding on the neckline of your shirt as his soft, pillow-soft lips locked against yours in a slow but passionate kiss.

when you pull away, sunghoon’s eyes are glassy and you can see love pouring out from the way the beautiful chocolate brown orbs gaze into yours.

you leave a gentle peck on the mole under his eye—a thing you’ve picked up after multiple make out sessions—and lean back to appreciate the full view of a flustered sunghoon.

“i love you too,” you finally reply with an elated smile. “and i'd love to be your girlfriend.”

if humans had the chance to have heart-shaped eyes, you’re convinced sunghoon would have it at this moment.

his cheekbones are pushed all the way up, pearly whites flashed at you before he tackles you down into the picnic mat with a tight bear hug making you giggle loudly as he rolls the both of you from side to side while pressing kisses all over your face.

“hoon!” you squeal while wriggling in his hold and he relents, standing up to run in a wide circle around the garden, arms spread out wide while yelling.

“she said yes! Y/N’s mine! my girlfriend!”

thankfully, the few people meters away only flash the two of you confused looks before going about their business.

"can't believe you're my girlfriend now." he giggles breathlessly as he ends his run in front of you, only to wrap his arms around your figure once more, lifting you off the ground and spinning in place while professing his love at the top of his lungs.

it’s dizzying to be his, literally and figuratively, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

you're his, and he's yours.

you love park sunghoon.

from the thorns, to the long stems and rough leaves, up until the prettiest petals that are finally able to leave his soft lips.

but sunghoon is determined to spend the rest of life growing his garden until he can find the words that'll convince you that he loves you more.

BONUS SCENE:

"let me get this straight. you're telling me that you got jealous of me.. so you made my little Y/N cry three times?" jeonghan's voice is low, face void of any emotion as his arms cross over his chest across the both of you.

"technically it's seven, if we count the times i cried over winter break too." you mumble, meekly raising seven fingers.

sunghoon turn to you with wide eyes in disbelief. why would you throw your boyfriend under the bus? during his first time personally meeting your brother, no less.

"Y/N, what the hell?"

jeonghan's hand slammed on the table, making the both of you flinch. "don't look at her. look at me. i was asking you a question, and now you're going to explain."

he thought jeonghan was cool—and he still does—but he reminded sunghoon so much of you whenever you get stern, and it's like deja vu of the time you got serious with him during your first date.

"no, i— it wasn't necessarily because of that, hyung. i just so happen to have made her cry after i got jealous so it isn't really a cause-and-effect scenario—"

"love, you're getting a little off track..."

"he said he wanted me to explain—"

your brother's giggles echo throughout your family home's dining area and he shakes his head, leaning over to tap on sunghoon's shoulder. "nah, man. i'm just fucking with you. but you knew i had blonde hair so you really should've known better."

"ah.. y–yes, sir! i mean hyung! sir— i.. i mean... yeah." sunghoon sighs in defeat, head hanging low in an apologetic bow while jeonghan just nodded in acknowledgement.

"but if you make my little Y/N cry again, i'll make sure you really won't be able to use that throat of your ever again, got it?" the way your brother's able to make those words sound sweet make even your heart race, your hand finding sunghoon's underneath the table to give it comforting pats.

"and you're sleeping in my room. no nicknames or pda as long as you're under the yoon household."

your boyfriend's eyes travel between you and your brother and he only grips your hand, nodding.

he can't wait to go back to seoul.

꒰ from ! 🐰 yan ꒱⠀⠀aaaaaaaaaaa!! it's finally done. i'm gonna cry. ૮₍˶ ╥ ‸ ╥ ⑅₎ა i saw the video of i-lander sunghoon dancing to pretty u again and i just had to. if you can't already tell, this is heavily inspired by the song, especially the confession part! i'm thinking of writing shorter drabbles of other members so just shoot me an ask if you have an idea. < 3

⌗ taglist — @neozon3nha @zerocoded @firstclassjaylee @yuyita-rosier @chiiyuuvv

#shameless plug but if ur into emotionally constipated men who can't confess #and resort to acts-of-service instead #like rtf!jungwon #then maybe ... give this one a read ehehehehhehehehe #i miss my yearning loser so much oh my baby :(