hiatus

this was very self indulgent if you couldn't tell🙂‍↕️

Your mouth drops open at the sudden insult, and you stop in your tracks. The gasp you let out is equally as loud and incredulous, and everyone shakes their heads at your overdramatized display.

“Yoon Stephen Keeho you take that back right now. Mariah Carey has fallen off of her throne of grace and now I must rule in her place, we all know this.” You say to him.

“Double it and pass it on, the throne shouldn't even be in your sight.”

“This is why I didn't get you any chocolate, you don't deserve any.” You say pettily.

Everyone’s head perks up at the mention of chocolate, and they all get up to surround you.

“Yes, yes. Calm down kids, there’s enough chocolate for everyone. We do this every year.” You tell the guys.

That’s when everyone stops and pulls out their phones.

It’s Valentine's Day! No wonder you’re giving them chocolate. Their schedules were so busy that they forgot about it.

“Are there any notes for us this year as well?” Jongseob asks you.

You nod enthusiastically and hand him the blue envelope that was specifically for him alongside his favorite chocolate. He gives you a small side hug and thanks you. You repeat this process four more times, not giving hugs to those who don't want it because you respect boundaries.

After the chocolates and everything are distributed, your best friend slowly walks up to you with a pout settling on his lips. He puts his hand out to you and averts his eyes to look at everything but you.

“What's your hand out for? Want a handshake from me or something?” You ask cheekily.

“Don’t play with me. Give me my chocolate.” He snarkily replies.

“I don’t have any chocolate for you, I already told you that.” You tell him.

Keeho snatches the bag from your shoulder to see more chocolate in there, but none of them are attached to the infamous pink envelope you usually have just for him.

“Then who are all of these chocolates for?” Keeho asks you, confused.

“82Major, duh! Timmy and the boys all deserve some love, too!” You answer happily.

You go over to Shota to talk to him, and Keeho pouts. You’ve been friends with him since 5th grade. Ever since 8th, you’ve always given him chocolate on Valentine’s Day (except for when he went to Korea to pursue a career in the kpop industry).

Always his favorite with the infamous pink envelope and his name written on it for him to read later. Granted, he’s never had the courage to open any of them since he's always seen them as obligatory and would rather not crush his own heart by getting his hopes up and not seeing what he wants to see on there. But despite that fact, you’ve always given him one.

Keeho doesn't understand why you’re not giving him any now. Keeho doesn't understand what he’s done wrong.

𑣲

The next day, Keeho wakes up with an attitude. Unfortunately for everyone else, he makes it their problem. The maknae’s are in a corner talking about the contents of their letters and it just dampens Keeho’s mood even more.

Why do they get chocolate and a heartfelt note this year? They knew you because of him but only they can get chocolates and not him? This was absurd.

He sulked and sulked the entire day. All throughout their breaks, during their practices, during their recordings. All he did was sulk and ask why he didn't get a chocolate when he always did.

When you showed up later that day, he didn't even want to speak to you. So he walked out of the room without even acknowledging you. You didn't even follow him, just looked at the guys with a sorry smile.

“He sulked all day, didn't he? Sorry to put you guys through that.” You apologized.

“Don’t sweat it. He’s the idiot who didn't read your letter last year. You had to get him to read it somehow.” Jiung tells you, encourages you.

“Yeah. Dude could've been in a relationship now if he didn't hoard the envelopes like a creep.” Theo jokes.

Everyone laughs. You rub your nape. You hope he actually goes to his vocal room and sees the obviously not obligatory chocolate you placed on the table.

𑣲

Keeho smiles like an idiot once he notices the chocolate on his table. He picks it up and turns around to run back to the practice room to brag about it. Then he notices the slight mess in your handwriting that has him stopping in his tracks.

To: Keeho

“Open It As Soon As You See It Bro I’m Not Kidding”

He contemplates on whether he should or shouldn't. He knows it's obligatory, but maybe this year it isn't? Oh who is he kidding, it’s always obligatory and it’s always gonna be.

But you wouldn't tell him to open it if it wasn't important. Maybe some big news is in the infamous pink envelope this year. He should open it.

He carefully peels off the red heart sticker that closes his envelope down for the first time, and pulls out the paper inside of it. He opens it with shaky hands and slowly reads every word that you wrote on the page.

The longer he reads, the more his eyes well with tears. You actually like him. The chocolates were never an obligation to you. You confessed through those envelopes a while ago. A long while ago.

Keeho realizes just how stupid he was. He finishes the letter and places it back in the envelope, and then walks back to the practice room quickly. When he gets inside, none of the other members are there.

It’s just you by the mirror with your back pressed to it, hunched over your laptop as you scroll through a website to window shop. You look up to see your best friend with tears in his eyes and immediately get up to comfort him.

And when you’re close enough that he can reach out to you, he pulls you in, cups your face and kisses you. Keeho kisses the breath out of your lungs and the feeling out of your legs. He bites your bottom lip before pulling away, and stares into your eyes.

“I’m an idiot.” He says, resolutely.

“Yes you are.” You say back to him.

“You’re in love with me.” He follows up.

“Yes I am.” You respond.

“I’m in love with you, too.” Keeho declares.

“I would hope so. You kissed my legs into jelly.” You cheekily respond.

“And I’m going to do it again.” Keeho asserts.

Then he captures your lips once again.

𑣲 BONUS

Keeho walks over to his closest, looks to the floor and moves a few of his crates over to get to the back of it. When he picks up the green shoebox he was looking for, he has to dust them off.

There, he opens up the box to the first ever pink envelope you ever gave him. Your handwriting is a little more wiggly, but it’s yours and it makes him smile all the same.

To: Keeho

“Happy Valentine’s Day. If You Open This In Front Of Me You’re Dead!”

The other members look at you with tight smiles, and they all pass you with a little greeting or a comforting nudge. You even got one from Minho (who doesn’t like touching you – so you know something was wrong), and it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The boys all left you alone, the dance instructor left, the staff left, heck even the cameramen left, yet Yang Jeongin stayed on the floor with his chest inflating and deflating and his arms over his eyes. 

You stood by the door in a kind of awkward fear that you’ve never felt around Jeongin before. You’ve always been not that great at comforting people, and since the relationship was still just a tad bit new, you’ve never really been in a predicament as dire as this, so you had no idea how to deal with the egregious decline in your boyfriend’s mood. 

But you knew that something was wrong. So, you willed your legs to move, and you sat in front of the mirror closest to your boyfriend. You notice a bottle of water left standing there, and slowly reach over to grab it, alongside a towel. Then you scooch over to him and sit beside him with the stuff in your hand, ready to give it to him. 

He notices your presence when you get close enough for your arm to touch his knee, and he moves his hands abruptly to look at you. There was a certain emotion swimming in his eyes that you can’t particularly place, but it’s something you didn’t like seeing all the same. You hand him the towel and water bottle with shaky hands, but your hands get tired of holding them up the longer your boyfriend stares at you and doesn’t make headway to take them. 

Your hands drop at the indirect rejection, and you blink rapidly as your mind immediately starts to fill in the gaps that didn’t exactly need your input. Then your boyfriend slowly picks himself up. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, a tilt in his tone that feels accusatory to you all of a sudden. 

“I wanted to see you today.” You slowly respond, your mind blaring off sirens at the tone he used on you that you couldn’t exactly tell the emotion of. 

You prided yourself in being able to read people, their body language, their intonation, their gestures. Years of being silent and observing people around you made you better at noticing the patterns in people like that, but for some reason, the switch up in your boyfriend throws off your pattern recognition because it’s a negative reaction coming from someone who’s never negative to you. 

“And you couldn’t text me to let me know this beforehand?” He asks, eying you up and down in a way that feels wrong, as if he was scrutinizing you with contempt. 

“I wanted it to be a surprise. Can’t really be one if I run it by you.” You explain, blinking quicker and quicker and looking everywhere, but at him. 

“What if I didn’t want to see you today, (name)? What if today and the last four days that you’ve wanted to see me were days where I didn’t want to see you?” He asks, his voice getting a little louder towards the end in a way that makes you flinch. 

Jeongin notices, and then sighs out in what you assume is frustration. 

“I’m all for a surprise or two every once in a while, but this has been the same excuse you’ve given me for the last five times you’ve shown up here (name), and that’s been in the last week. If you have nothing better to do with your time, then maybe you should find a hobby or a job, and stop randomly showing up to mine.” Jeongin continues. 

He pushes himself up from the wooden floor, and walks over to his bag with a limp and a battered spirit. And you? You’re still sitting on the floor with a water bottle in one hand and a towel in the next, blinking a million times a second and trying to figure out why your senses are going haywire right now after the words your boyfriend just said to you. 

Before you can even start to process the obvious implications of his speech, he opens his mouth again. 

“Y’know. When we first started dating, I enjoyed it. You always communicated with me about meeting up and setting boundaries and I just went along with whatever you said because it made sense to me. But then you started texting more. Spamming really. Sending random messages at almost all hours of the day. Randomly showing up when I’m working and expecting me to stop doing my job just to take care of you. You’ve gotten so clingy.” He rants. 

You look up at him to try and read his lips because this voice starts to grate at your ears. Your eyes can’t focus on him anymore. The floor is too hot, your pants feel too itchy, your arms feel too heavy, your shoes are too tight, your throat is slowly closing and your mouth feels dry. 

The tag on the back of your shirt is making itself known and it feels very disturbing on your nape. Everything just feels wrong. 

You slowly stand up with wobbly legs, holding onto the water bottle in one hand and the towel in the other, and the only thing that’s clear enough for you to understand is your brain yelling at you to GET OUT NOW. 

You look up at Jeongin to see him looking up at you expectantly even though you have no idea as to why. Then you bow at him like you did when you first met, jumbled up apologies slipping past your lips, and you walk over to your bag to pick it up. Only for your hands to be full. 

What were they full with again? You can’t remember. You stretched out your two smaller fingers to grab it, and you scurry over to the door. It opens before you could even reach it.