u n r e a l .

—

“Jake.”

Your eyes glance up from the hot cocoa warming your hands to the sharp eyes of a boy already looking at you, maintaining his gaze even when his name is called. His piercing expression doesn’t change, but as you peer up at him, you can feel a flicker of want before you look away with warming cheeks. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the edges of his mouth lifting before he turns away.

“Jake.”

It’s odd to hear his name on it’s own like that, not when you’re used to hearing it roared by crowds through jampacked uni rinks; not when Sim Jaeyun is something bigger than himself already, a household name in premier league hockey and a constant on your university’s community forum. 

While he’s like a myth of sorts to the rest of the student body, he’s definitely very real as he sits in the living room of yours and Gawon’s shared apartment, quilt thrown over his legs that he’s claimed from years of movie nights and sleeping over. 

He’s got his hoodie pulled low, bleached hair falling over his eyes and cuffed sleeves pulled up to his elbows, crowded into the arm of the couch by your other friends talking animatedly next to him. He fiddles with the delicate silver chain around his wrist, a matching gift you got him and your brother in primary school. Because that’s what he is to you.

Before ice hockey, before uni, before amateur fame, Jake was your hometown friend. 

If you can call it that.

“Jake, dude, come back to earth.”

Jake shifts, turning to his left at your brother’s voice. 

Realizing you spaced out staring at his wrist, you snap out of it with a jolt and catch Jungwon’s expression next to you, a grin on his face as he responds to your dazed look with a raise of his eyebrows. 

It’s mid January, the bite of vicious winter air unable to get to you in the warmth of the studio apartment you lease during the semester. In here, it’s all warm tones and paper garlands — ones you made together with Gawon during the holidays — candle warmers brightening the living room as your friends litter the space, their bright chatter and the clink of mugs filling cozy, sepia air. Soft indie-pop plays from the old radio your parents gifted you and your brother Sunghoon when you had moved away for university, his grace in letting you have it lost on you (he bought himself a new speaker with cash he “borrowed” from your wallet during Christmas instead). 

If you could keep this moment ingrained in your soul forever, you’d do it in a heartbeat; tangerine light spills out from your little kitchenette, Gawon and Sunoo’s mischievous giggles ringing out as they crowd around the oven, the smell of burnt cinnamon cookies faint behind the chilli hot cocoa wafting up from next to you.

Jungwon has his head on your shoulder as he pulls a fleece blanket onto your lap, his plaid pajama-clad leg thrown lazily over yours. You can see Ni-ki and Jay in your peripheral vision thumbing through your DVD bin thoroughly as they hunch in front of your TV. 

Your friendship has been steady throughout all first three years of uni, nights made up of late movie theater runs and overcooked ramen, attempted snowboarding down empty city streets at 3am and all nighters pulled at the sauna to escape the claws of studying. 

If Jake and Sunghoon were at hockey practice, you’d all pile into Jay’s 2005 Hyundai and drive to the rink to watch them, making raunchy commentary that would have your brother slamming his stick against the plexiglass in playful warning. You all knew that they secretly liked it, Jungwon’s consistent “I’d let you slam me into the barricade” echoing out and drawing a flicker of a smile out from their coach before he would threaten to make you leave. He let you all back in every time.

It was the same during the weekends, when you and Ni-ki would be holed up in the practical arts and sculpture department of your university, hands covered in clay and silt and pottery glaze as you chiseled away at your individual term projects before the start of the week. Ni-ki’s r&b playlist drifting through the still, dusk-masked studio would be broken with the loud shouts from your friends as they filed in with snacks and bottled coffee from the vending machine, determined to give you a caffeinated sugar high to make it through the next few hours of work.

The eight of you have been consistent since the beginning, and the last thing you would ever want is to be the cause of your dependable friend group dynamic to change.

Your brother scrunches his nose at you from across the room, now squished into a loveseat definitely made for one with Jake. 

“Stop chewing in my ear, Won.”

At your soft voice, Jungwon’s eyes widen innocently before he stuffs another marshmallow in his mouth and leans in, noise amplifying.

“That’s nasty,” you can’t help but giggle at your friend, your eyes creasing as he sticks his tongue out immaturely.

Your gaze subconsciously trails to Jake again, his attention now on your brother as he throws an arm over the back of the couch to reach for the TV remote. The bottom of his hoodie rides up a bit, a sliver of his toned stomach visible before he’s flopping back into the couch again. You will yourself to look away while the back of your hand comes up to feel your cheek, startling when your skin is hot to the touch.

It was a night just like this that you realized you were hopelessly in love with Jake, more than just a friend should.

In retrospect, how could you not? He was out of every little girl’s dream future-husband-wish-list, perfect to a T in a way that you couldn’t even describe with words. 

His professors, his coach, his teammates would say that he didn’t have a bad bone in his body, always approaching others with kindness and raw honesty that made him easily likeable, even with players on rival teams. His classmates would say that he’s personable and too outgoing, attracting people everywhere during group projects and library sessions but still getting the work done on time without fail. Your parents would say that he’s the son they never had — sheepishly covering Sunghoon’s ears, of course — polite, smart, and dependable, from helping your mom carry the groceries to washing garden vegetables in the kitchen with your dad when all of you were home for break.

But it was his flaws that made you like him even more. What made Jake so loveable to you were the sides that only a few people got to see, deep and thoughtful underneath the first layer that you had to get through first.

You were there when his childhood dog passed away, trying his best not to cry and stay strong for his mom even when you and Sunghoon were bawling your eyes out on the sidewalk. You were there when he got drunk for the first time, staring with horror as he got on all fours on the dirty asphalt in the alley behind your local bar because standing up felt too “wavy.” You remember shivering in the cold in a short skirt, hands on your knees from laughing so hard as Sunghoon frantically called an older friend to come pick you up, scared that you’d get busted for being underage.

When everyone else was too busy, Jake would be the one who sat for hours as your “model” while you sketched, scolding him when he moved and exploding into fits of giggles when he would give up in the middle. He believed in your art more than you yourself did, and that meant everything to you — even now. He still sits on the plastic chair next to your work station in the sculpture studio until late at night, content with just humming to himself as you work quietly.

You were also there when Jake and Sunghoon got their official hockey gear for the first time in year five, their thrilled squeals ringing around your neighborhood as your parents set up a practice shooting pad in your front yard. Even though hockey wasn’t as mainstream as baseball or basketball at the time, it still meant everything to them.

It’s funny to see the same setup now when they come back home as big stars, bigger than your small town has ever seen. The same town with the same dingy rink that raised them to stardom, good enough until it was too small to hold them. 

The three of you grew up in a one-major-intersection, snow-filled sidewalk kinda town, lamp posts covered in taped flyers about high school hockey tournaments in obnoxious red type that were miraculously still there after years. 

Sunghoon and Jake were better friends than you and Jake were, but you’d still run from your job at your local province radio station to the ice rink at midnight with your school friends, just in time to catch the last of late night practices. Old 90’s tunes would crackle out of the janky speakers from the local radio, pre-queued by you so that the three of you could listen to your favorite songs if you timed it right.

Your friends and their teammates would go home after a bit, but you’d stay, fighting the cold to sit with your brother and Jake on the foam mats just off the ice. It was tradition, the hum of the zamboni behind you as you brought them warm, watered down coffee in styrofoam cups from the 24hr convenience store outside. They’d still be in their hockey uniforms, hair slick with sweat. 

Back then, no matter how annoying or gross you thought they were, you still looked up to them with all of the admiration you had in your young body.

You can still feel it now if you wanted to, the shared winters that fill your well-loved memories of growing up in a scuffed-up rink. Fresh ice, rough leather, and the smell of sweat that clung to your clothes long after leaving, even if you weren’t the one skating. In your hometown, ice hockey wasn’t just a sport. It was the thing that raised Park Sunghoon and Sim Jake, larger-than-life players whose jerseys were mass produced and worn by thousands across the country now. 

When Sunghoon was drafted into the Winter Olympics’ reserve team in high school — the youngest to ever be — you had watched from your small living room TV with your parents and Jake, all wide eyed and hands held in anticipation.

You can still remember the feeling of Jake’s thigh against yours on the carpet, his warm palms enveloping yours as he prayed. He was sniffling and recovering from a cold, but he still prayed with all his might that his best friend would make it big for the both of them.

He didn’t have to. A month later, Jake was chosen as the last reserve team member, and both were scouted for the top university’s first division ice hockey team. A year later, and your whole neighborhood was in your living room celebrating your own acceptance into the same school; this time, enrolled as a studio arts student.

You’re all older now, life is getting a little too real, and you realize that falling for him had to be inevitable. 

You knew Jake when he was just Jaeyun, not Yonsei’s resident golden boy with a disarming smile and his signature cobalt blue jersey, #15 stitched across its back. But you’ve never wanted him like the people shouting his name through crowded university rinks want him.

You want him like you did when you were neighbors and eight, building life-size igloos with rainbow-dyed ice blocks and jumping for hours on his frozen trampoline. Just matching mittens knit by his grandmother, building snowmen and chasing winter hares, and a whole lot of feelings to go around. Just the two of you and infinite time. 

Nostalgia will be the death of you.

As you sit in your living room now, with Jungwon’s head on your shoulder and Sunghoon’s side pressed against Jake’s, you come to the bitter realization that you might not ever get Jake the way you’ve always subconsciously yearned for. You don’t want to offset your own relationship with your brother — and especially with the rest of your friends — because once you cross that line, there's absolutely no coming back. You don’t ever want to have your friends choose a side, and what you have right now is too perfect to taint.

You’ve convinced yourself that you can live with being just friends, just like you always have.

But man, is it getting hard.

No one talks about how disorienting and weird it feels to come to the slow realization that you like someone who you're definitely not supposed to like, especially when you’ve spent your entire life as good friends. It’s disarming and you can’t help but feel icky when you look at him. You’re not supposed to want him like this, where your head pounds and you feel too warm everywhere.

Sometimes, though, you feel like his gaze lingers on you a little longer than the others too. In those moments you let yourself daydream a little, thinking about an alternate reality where he loves you just as loudly as you do in your head. Those moments get shattered though, especially when you remember where you are and who you’re with—

“—and why aren’t you getting lit right now, Jakey-bear,” Jay’s voice carries over the sound of a kitschy, low-budget horror film rolling on your TV, the glow from the screen flickering across his face as he messes with the buttons on the side. 

Jake’s eyes lazily rake across the room before they land on his friend. Snorting, he offers a small smile before holding up his cocoa-filled mug.

“I don’t drink the night before games. We’ve gone over this.”

Jay shakes his head, standing up before collapsing on the carpet next to Jake’s feet.

“If only the world knew how fucking lame you are,” he mutters, throwing an arm over his face. “Maybe I’d be a hockey star too.”

Sunghoon turns to look at his friend on the floor.

“What?”

“You know, ‘cause I have a brilliant sense of humor and a fabulous personality. God knew not to make me athletic. I’d be unstoppable,” he says, patting Jake on the ankle. “Good thing you’re cute though. Makes up for the fact that you’re a…” Jay pauses to hold an ‘L’ up to his forehead before taunting, “loser.”

“Fuck off,” Jake says with a grin, pushing Jay’s shoulder with his foot for good measure.

You tune out of their bickering as Gawon settles down next to you, poking your cheek with a pout before offering up a plate of cookies. 

“Sorry I left you for so long with these monsters,” she grimaces, glancing around at the living room in mock disgust at the scattered plates and empty beer cans. Jungwon peers at her from around you, frowning. “Not you though, Won. You’re my favorite.”

“I know,” he says smugly through a mouth full of cookie, hands already reaching for more. You look at your best friends in adoration, their smiles making you feel all warm and gooey inside.

It’s only when you turn your attention back to the TV that you catch bits of the conversation happening across the room, your brother’s loud voice dominating the movie playing.

“You better play your damn hardest tomorrow,” he emphasizes to Jake, nudging his shoulder. “There’s this hot hot girl from my stats class that’s been bugging me about you, you lucky bastard. And because I’m your best friend, I made her promise that she’d come over after the game for you if we win.”

Your heart falls out of your chest as you quietly look up at the two of them, catching onto the way Jake rolls his neck before slowly coming to look back at Sunghoon.

“And?” He says, albeit quietly.

“And? What do you mean ‘and?’” Sunghoon smirks, putting his hand on Jake's arm. “Don’t you want some good victory head? I heard she’s really good, knows how to go down—”

“Ugh, you freaks are disgusting," Sunoo laments from the kitchen, holding out a whisk to shake at the two of them. “Have some decorum, please.”

You’re used to your friends talking so casually about their sex lives, but the fact that it’s Jake is a whole different thing. You’ve heard stories, yeah, but nothing prepared you for how much it would hurt to hear after coming to terms with your own feelings.

You watch his reaction closely, his silence making you chew on your lip. It’s almost like he’s contemplating it. You can’t help the unwanted feeling of jealousy that bubbles up in you, your throat closing up as you look at your lap.

“Anyway,” your brother continues, “you definitely need it. You’ve been so tense recently.” 

You refuse to look at them, instead distracting yourself by pulling at a strand of Jungwon’s sweater next to you. You can feel Gawon’s eyes on you. 

She and Jungwon are the only ones who know about your feelings for Jake, their sharp senses catching on quick when they’d catch you staring at him more than you ever had. You had threatened them to promise never to tell after a particularly bad night, making them swear on their bloodline that Jake would never find out.  

“Should I send her our address?” Sunghoon prods.

It’s silent for a few moments, before Jake's next words make your heart sink further. 

“...yeah, I guess.”

Oh.

You feel a hand slide over your leg, Gawon’s rings cold against your skin as you look up at her.

She furrows your eyebrows, as if silently asking you if she should say something. Your eyes widen, shaking your head with a miniscule no. Don’t.

She tilts her head, as if questioning why? 

Jungwon looks between the two of you with furrowed eyebrows.

She’s about to open her mouth when Sunghoon’s voice rings out again. You snap your head back in the rest of your friends’ direction, brushing Gawon’s concerned hand off your leg.

“Are you swinging by tomorrow’s game, Rockstar?” He calls you by the nickname he’s had for you since childhood, throwing a piece of popcorn up before catching it in his mouth. “It’s gonna be against KU. It’ll be a big one.”

You feel your eyes betray you as they flit to Jake quickly, finding him already looking at you. 

“Uhh,” you start, looking at Jungwon nodding beside you for confirmation, “yeah. Yeah, I’ll be there.”

You start to get up to escape this feeling that’s creeping up your throat, but you’re stopped in your tracks by Gawon who gives you a look from beside you. You know that look. 

Raising her voice suspiciously loud, she glances at Jake before grabbing your arm. 

“Right, and who was that guy that you said was cute last time, Y/N? The top center for KU, right? He dm’ed one of my friends asking for your number, you know,” she starts, your eyes widening as you realize what she’s doing. She’s digging for a reaction from Jake.

You see Jake’s head tilt slightly, not fully acknowledging your conversation but still showing that he’s listening. Sunghoon, on the other hand, snaps his head around to give you a pointed glare. 

“The fuck? Who?”

“No one.” You reply quickly, glaring back.

“Bullshit. Tell me, Y/N.”

“No one,” you say at the same time Jungwon says “Heeseung,” his figure immediately shrinking when you shoot him a look that you usually reserve for your brother.

“You’re kidding,” your brother starts, pulling out his phone before searching for something — someone — rapidly. “I’m gonna get his ass. He’s trying to get to us through my sister? Who the fuck does he think he is?”

With a sigh, you sit back down and close your eyes. You can already feel a migraine forming.

Yeah, you had thought Heeseung was cute the last time your universities had played each other, but that was only to desperately distract yourself from thinking about Jake. You knew you shouldn’t have said anything to your friends.

“Don’t talk to him, Y/N, I’m putting my foot down as your brother. You are forbidden from talking to him,” Sunghoon continues, exasperated.

Ni-ki snorts from the corner of the room, speaking up from underneath a swath of blankets.

“What are we in, the fucking middle ages?” He grins before pointing at you. “Watch out Y/N, your brother’s gonna ride out on a horse tomorrow and demand a duel with KU’s center.” Gawon laughs out loud before Sunghoon throws a piece of popcorn at her. 

Tuning out Ni-ki and Sunghoon’s rising voices, you can’t help but notice the way Jake has seemingly clocked out of the conversation. He stares at the side of your face and then the ground when you give him a questioning glance. He doesn’t look back up after that, playing with his bracelet instead. The moment passes, and everything returning back to normal as your friends settle in around you. They pass drinks and food around, but you can’t help but overthink the entire conversation.

It’s still bothering you when you flop onto your bed an hour later, tired from talking. Everyone is still in the living room outside, but you need quiet space to think. 

You’re laying off the edge of the bed with your knees up, hair lifting from the cool wind seeping through a crack in your window, when your door creaks open. Blue light spills in from the hallway before a figure slips into your room, stopping before you.

You turn onto your stomach, your sleep shorts riding up, and shoot Jake a small smile as he settles at the foot of your bed. He doesn’t say anything; he simply reaches for the bulky hockey bag he’s had since secondary school, left in your room from coming straight from practice earlier. 

It’s a comfortable, full silence as you watch him from your position. He glances up every once in a while, careful hands wrapping the end of his hockey stick with new grip tape. He doesn’t speak for a long while, face pale from the moonlight and lip caught between his teeth like he always does when he’s focused. Long fingers loop around each other carefully as he lines the stick, finally putting it down after a few long minutes. You’ve watched him do this a million times, but it feels more intimate when he does it in your space.

You blink at him when he looks back up at you through his messy bangs, gaze full of something you can’t quite decipher yet.

His hands shake slightly from the chill in your room, so you silently offer him the fleece blanket from your bed. Instead, he gently pushes your hand away, climbing onto your bed before laying his head down next to you. 

Tucking his chin on top of your childhood plushie, he tilts his head to look at you. Faint chatter from outside seeps under the crack of your bedroom door, the soft crackling of a burning candle filling the silence. His eyes seem to sweep across the expanse of your room before landing back on you.

“Nervous?” You finally whisper, with no need to talk at normal volume when he’s this close. Your heart is racing out of your chest but you regulate your breathing the best you can. 

It's just Jake. You’ve had millions of talks like this before.

“Yeah,” he admits, shifting so that his hair isn’t in his eyes. The collar of his hoodie is loose in the position, his collarbones and a thin silver chain peeking out.

“Last game before recruiting season,” you continue, glancing down at the bandaid across his knuckles.

“Oh,” he sighs out. “Yeah, I guess.” He follows your gaze before tucking his hand under the plush.

“You’re gonna try to go pro for real?”

Jake pauses before grimacing, his dimple slightly showing itself before disappearing again.

“Yeah, if I can,” he says, your chest stuttering when he lets that smile that he reserves only for you take over his face. “Signing my soul away to the devil or whatever.”

You giggle, nudging his arm lightly.

“And you promise you’ll remember me when you end up playing in the national league, right?”

“You know I couldn’t forget you if I tried,” he reassures back, his voice heavy as if he means every word. He points at you, letting the tip of his index finger touch your shoulder. “And you can’t forget me when you’re some hotshot artist who sells paintings for more than my yearly rent.”

“Mm,” you tease, rolling onto your back, “maybe you’ll just have to buy one to see.”

“Consider me sold,” he murmurs back, tenderly staring at the side of your face.

You let your arms fall off the bed, stretching languidly before tucking your hair behind your ear. You wordlessly blink at him as he reaches out with a slight tremor in his hand, fixing a strand that’s blown into your eyes. His hand lingers for a second before he pulls away again, eyes fixed on yours with an unreadable expression.

It hurts to look at a face you’re so familiar with, one that’s been steadily by your side since you can remember. 

“I’ll always root for you, Jake,” you say softly, honestly bleeding into your words.

There’s much to be left unsaid, but some part of you feels like he understands with the way he just peers at you, dark eyes never leaving your face.

“I know,” he whispers back, gaze leaving yours to travel to the doorknob, where his old skate laces are tied around the brass handle. They then flick over to your windowsill, where dark, scuffed pucks are stacked up the wood. Just below it is his worn hockey bag, stick poking out to lean against your tall stack of old CDs. There’s remnants of him everywhere, and not just physically either. He’s part of your core memories, from all eras of your life, and there will always be bits and pieces of him in the way you speak and behave too. “I’ll see you in the crowd tomorrow, yeah?”

“Always.”

You couldn’t get rid of Jake if you tried.

—

Everyone in this part of the city knows three things for sure: winter never really ends at Mokdong collegiate rink, Friday nights are for Yonsei ice hockey, and cobalt blue is law. 

You’re wearing Jake’s worn out leather bomber with #15 stitched proudly across its back, your brother’s original faded jersey snug underneath. It smells like the both of them, woody and sweet as you lean back with your shoes up on the seat in front of you. Gawon leans over you to clip your hair with barrettes of the team color, sitting back with a satisfied hum after brushing your hair back. Jungwon bounces his leg up and down nervously from next to you, keeping an eye on the clock as he waits restlessly for the game to start.

The three if you are in your university’s home rink, chalk full as people still trickle in from all sides, pouring down the stands and settling in just before the teams skate out. It’s a blue ocean, university students and parents alike filling the seats. Bleeding dots of red can be seen infiltrating the side across from you, donning opposing team jerseys and KU colors. 

You’ve been here plenty of times, but the air feels different today. It’s electric and alive, an audible hum filling the space as remnants of chants echo around the rink. 

You can’t help but be nervous for your brother who’s most likely the first in line waiting to come out of the player tunnel as team captain. You know firsthand how hard he worked to get to where he is today, and tonight, there will be international scouts in the audience looking for the next big names in ice hockey. Your brother is already a local hero in skates, but going pro would seal his professional career for him. 

And of course, you can’t help but think of Jake, who’s probably second in line right behind Sunghoon as the center. You can sense his nerves already, the way he fiddles with his gear when he’s anxious and looks up to the heavens to remind himself of the things that keep him grounded. From years of following him and your brother around to their practices, you can bet with confidence that Jake has one hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and the other on the cross around his neck right now. They’re the faces of the team, and that means the worries they carry can't show. 

As much as hockey is pure athleticism and skill, it’s also a game of ego. 

Playing a home game means the university’s pride is on the line, and the winner be damned if it isn’t them. You, Jungwon, and Gawon aren’t the only ones waiting in anticipation; much of the student body is also here, as well as half of the hearts of the city through live broadcasting. 

You can pretend you’re not just another fan, hands wrapped around an overpriced paper cup of hot coffee, but the second #15 hits the ice, your pulse will match the drum of the crowd’s. 

Gawon clenches your hand in anticipation as the lights of the arena start flashing, beams of blue and red circling the ice. The crowd erupts in animated cheers, Jungwon sliding to the edge of his seat so he can be closer to the plexiglass. The analog scoreboard resets with a click, displaying a blinking ‘00’ for both teams, and the large screens hanging from the ceiling of the rink switch to show the entrance of the player tunnel. 

And then — in all their glory — there they are. 

The notorious Yonsei men’s hockey team pours out of the tunnel with their easy grins and bright blue gear, skating a lap around the large rink before lining up across its expanse. You can’t help but let your mouth fall into a wordless “wow,” the view awing you no matter how many times you see it. 

Your eyes naturally find Jake by habit, your breath catching as you spot him gliding to his spot just meters away from where you’re sitting. 

He looks like a true celebrity from here, slipping his helmet off and ruffling the resulting wavy hair with a gloved hand. His skates skim the ice with quiet precision, cutting effortless lines across its surface. The cold makes his breath come out in pale clouds, but his face is composed with a kind of stillness that only comes from someone deeply comfortable in their body and their sport. His jersey hangs off his body prettily, stretching across broad shoulders that shift with every movement as he handles his hockey stick with years of experience, hand wound around the handle tightly.

Coming to a sharp hockey stop just short of the barrier, he sprays snow towards the reactive crowd before reaching down to wipe the excess off his blades. The metal and the white of his teeth glint under the fluorescent lights as he shoots the stands a charming smile, screams ringing out in immediate response. 

It makes you feel faint in the head. 

Shaking out his hair again, his eyes shine with determination as they rake over the seats. Pink dusts his nose and cheeks, stiff eyelashes a result of the arena’s chill. He finds your familiar face in the crowd easily and gives a small nod in acknowledgment, your friends waving back excitedly before you turn to Jungwon. 

“I’m so fucked,” you whisper, forehead falling against his shoulder as he shakes with laughter. 

You turn back to the ice as the opposing team skates out, Gawon hitting your leg repeatedly when she spots Heeseung in all his glory, his blinding smile easily recognizable through the grates of his helmet.

You don’t catch the way Jake looks down and tenses when Heeseung glances in your direction, throwing a smug look your way from across the arena, but Gawon sure does. She observes Jake quizzically, trying to figure him out from the stands like staring hard enough will make everything clear.

The striped refs throw up symbols with their hands as the lights dim, the sharp crack of sticks startling you as both teams hit the ice once in unison. Coaches and managers in suits stand off to the side of the penalty box, guiding most of the team as they skate over to the players’ bench.

The air tastes metallic as you snuggle into Jake’s jacket further, eyes following his figure as he moves towards the middle of the ice with Sunghoon flanking him. Their postures are relaxed but you can see how tightly they grip their hockey sticks, moving into the starting face-off position. The arena quiets down as the timer gets ready to drop, Heeseung and Jake turning to face each other as both of their teams’ respective centers. 

The referee crouches low between the circles, puck balanced on his fingertips and breath fogging the air as steadily as the arena lights flicker overhead. His skates are planted wide, knees bent, eyes flicking back and forth between the two. Measuring. Waiting.

Jake positions himself tensely, blade angled, stick laid flat to the ice, and knuckles wrapped tight in black tape under his gloves. The position of his shoulders gives him away, coiled and predatory as Sunghoon backs him up from outside the circle. His visor catches the glare of the lights, briefly obscuring his eyes, but when he tips his chin down you could see them; sharp and unblinking, locked directly onto Heeseung across from him.

It’s a waiting game. For a beat, the rink feels impossibly quiet, like live wire. The crowd stills.

Jake doesn’t move, just lets a slow breath drift past his mouthguard, eyes never leaving his opponent’s face.

The referee’s hand hovers.

Then, in a flash, the puck drops between them, and the stillness is shattered into motion.

Heeseung is quick but Jake’s quicker, dashing out to shoot the puck to his teammate who appears in his peripheral. They pass it back and forth with practiced ease, moving down the rink towards the visiting team’s goal and attacking zone, slapshots echoing across the arena as it bounces off of the dasher boards.

The first point passes in a flash as the puck gets shot around the rink, Yonsei taking the lead within the first fifteen minutes.

Tension rises as KU scores a match point in the second period, the score tied neatly. An hour passes and neither team scores a second point in the third period, which means the game is launched into sudden-death overtime. The coach whistles, signaling a line change, and the crowd watches with tight suspense as Jake skates back onto the ice with a shout from the team manager. His finger subconsciously rubs over the tape on his stick that he redid in your room the day before. 

You can hear Jungwon get serious from beside you, leaning back with a steep inhale.

“He better not mess this up,” he mutters under his breath. You turn to him, tilting your head. “ALIH scouts,” he explains, pointing across the rink to a group of people you had missed, their clipboards and sharp suits a stark contrast to those around them. “They’re watching.”

With a bated breath, the puck drops for the last time, and Jake chases it like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Blue jerseys swarm into the opposing defense zone as he skids behind the goal and straight towards it. 

What he doesn’t account for, however, is a figure who comes in hot from the opposite side. Heeseung barrels towards the edge of the rink, colliding straight into Jake as they both slam against the barrier in front of you. The whole thing rattles, a whistle slicing through the rink as he tries to shove the opposing center away to go after the puck.

The snow of ice spray is still glittering in the lights when the crowd erupts. The row of people in front of you bang on the plexiglass, egging on a potential fight like they always do in hockey culture. It’s something you’ve never gotten used to, but never have you seen Jake at the center of it. He’s always prided himself in keeping his anger in check, so when he turns around to bodycheck Heeseung, your friends look at each other in shock. You see your brother ready to interfere on the ice, pushing his visor up.

You don’t even have time to register what’s happening before you see a glove come off, hard fist against hard chest as their skates dig into the ice with fervor. You don’t see whose it is, just that Jake’s got a mean snarl on his face that he rarely shows.

The puck skids uselessly away as the game comes to a pause, teammates hovering nearby as the refs standby, not a single person interfering just yet. It’s rooted in the sport’s culture to let fights play out, which renders you speechless as you watch Jake get aggressively pushed down onto the ice. You let out a worried sound as you jump up, straining to see what’s happening.

“What the hell is your problem?” Heeseung grits out, teeth bared through a mouthguard. Jake doesn’t answer, jumping right back up to shove him back into the plexiglass in uncontrolled anger. The impact makes the sound rattle up into the rafters, jolting the crowd as they leer in excitement. The people around you lean forward as one, the noise swelling into something feral and hungry.

“Holy shit,” Jungwon exclaims, grabbing your arm. “Get him, Jake!”

“Jungwon what—” you exclaim back, looking around wildly in worry. “Oh my God, guys, he’s bleeding.”

A punch lands fast, from Heeseung this time. It’s violent and cracks against hard plastic as Jake’s head is snapped sideways, silent fury locked behind his eyes.

“Look at me,” he hisses, grabbing Jake’s jersey and yanking him close. “You don’t do that to me. Ever.”

The refs rush in then, bodies wedging between them and arms locked around waists to pull them apart. Jake brushes them off, skating off himself with undeniable rage in his clenched jaw and stormy eyes. You can see the red already blooming from behind the grating of his helmet, lip most likely nicked in the short brawl.

From the stands, all you can hear is your own heartbeat pounding in your ears as you sit back down in your seat with wide eyes. The crowd is still jittery from the fight, the air buzzing with chatter.

The two of them are dragged to opposite penalty boxes, separated by a strip of frozen blue. Even just sitting there, breaths ragged and cheeks’ split, they stare each other down.

The crowd roars as the game plays on, but your eyes are locked on Jake and his defeated figure. He’s slumped on the bench unmoving, eyes closed and head against the plastic board behind him. He breathes slowly now, chest rising in controlled increments as the match comes to an end with a draw.

It’s over.

They tied.

Somewhere in the noise, he looks up and finds your eyes in the mass of people. He holds your gaze for a moment before furrowing his eyebrows and dropping his head down.

It feels like you don’t move for a long time until Gawon jostles you, a hand on your shoulder as Jungwon stands up with a stretch. 

“I can’t believe he actually did that,” he chatters excitedly, hands waving around. “I’ve literally never seen Jake fight like that before. That was so hot, right Y/N-ie,” he adds with a smug grin pointed at you. You’re still at a loss for words, unable to tear your eyes away from Jake’s form. 

Gawon shushes Jungwon before shooting you a concerned look.

“We’re gonna go meet Sunghoon out back, maybe head to the bar. Are you gonna… do you wanna stay and wait for Jake?”

You feel your head nod, not even hearing yourself as you tell them to go ahead without you. All you can see is him, and the way that he doesn’t even seem to know that he’s bleeding as he sits on the bench alone. Sunghoon whispers something to him before heading to the locker room himself.

You sit with your knees up in your seat as the arena clears out, the few people lingering behind the ice paying him no mind. The lights have faded, the scoreboard shut off for the night. It’s a complete 180 from just twenty minutes ago when the game was at its height. You feel like you’re watching Jake quietly lose his mind, his eyes blank as he touches his lip with his fingers. They pull away bloody, but he doesn’t even flinch.

The only people left are some helpers shoveling away the excess snow off the ice, so you decide to get up and make your way towards Jake. The familiar chill of the rink seeps into your bones as you wrap his jacket around you tighter, coming to a stop next to the penalty box he’s trapped himself in.

Knocking on the glass once, you lean down to catch his attention.

“...Jake?” You call, offering what you hope is a comforting smile, even when your heart breaks at the sight of his bruised mouth and torn knuckles. “I’ll drive you home. C’mon.”

He finally lifts his head at your voice to look at you, eyes softening as they catch you in his jersey number. 

He nods slowly, letting you pull him out of his confinement and back onto solid ground, the added height from the blades of his skates making him tower over you as you lead him out of the rink.

—

You can never tell what he’s thinking, Jake’s normally clear eyes thick with something heavy that you can’t quite place. 

Neither of you have said a word since getting to his and Sunghoon’s shared apartment, the latter most likely getting black out drunk at this very moment. The silence is new to you, especially when you’re used to your brother filling it with his outloud-thoughts at every waking moment. You appreciate the fact that he’s not here to ruin this moment though, especially when you’re currently closer to Jake than you’ve ever been.

You’re standing snug between his legs as he sits sprawled on the living room couch, bending down so that you can gently apply ointment on his lips without it getting everywhere. One hand cradles his jaw while the other brushes the medicine on, his sharp intakes of air letting you know that it stings more than he lets on. He’s close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath on your face, his eyelashes fluttering close with a grimace when you brush on another layer. His hands settle naturally on your hips — more so to keep him grounded than anything — his grip tight as you wipe away dried blood from his skin.

You chew mindlessly on your bottom lip in concentration, not even noticing until Jake reaches up to pull it from your teeth. His voice is hoarse as he speaks for the first time tonight. 

“Stop that,” he breaks the silence to scold you lightly, hand dropping back down when you still. “The skin will tear.”

“And look who’s talking,” you frown back, brushing a finger over the blooming bruise at the corner of his mouth. Even as pain flickers across his face, his gaze never drifts. He studies you from below, lids lowered, the heaviness in his eyes betraying how exhausted he really is.

His lips fall into a natural pout as you busy your hands, searching aimlessly for bandages on the coffee table behind you just to keep yourself from saying something you don’t mean. He’s so beautiful looking up at you like this, but thinking about his injuries and what caused them confuses you.

Your hands subconsciously tremble as you rip open the pack of bandages, Jake’s eyes on you as he leans back on the couch, legs spread wide. 

Hesitating, you ask the question that’s been running laps in your mind all evening. 

“Why did you do that? I’ve never seen you like that on the ice before,” you end up rambling, not accusing, just curious.

Jake stills. 

“...are you mad at me?” 

“Why would I be mad at you?” you muse, careful fingers gently lifting his right hand into yours. His fingers curl into your palm naturally, letting you brush over his knuckles before you begin to wrap gauze over them. His features soften as he observes the way you hold up his hand to inspect it for any missed injuries.

“I don’t know,” he admits, brows knit together in a shallow furrow.

You pause, dropping his hand before sighing.

“I was just worried, Jake.”

He lets a few moments pass before looking back up at you.

“Why were you worried?” He seems to hesitate before he whispers, as if fishing for a specific answer.

You say nothing, not sure if you can admit to him just yet why you care so much. You can’t even admit it fully to yourself. Biting your lip from saying something stupid in the heat of the moment, you toss the extra gauze behind you before sliding down onto the couch next to him.

He scans you for a moment. Realizing you’re not going to answer him, he reaches for a small metal tin on the table with shaky hands. He doesn’t prod further.

You can tell — through all these years of knowing him — when he begins to sink into one of his moods, the ones that make him turn to his vices to cope. It’s the way his eyes gloss over, unfocused as his mind drifts elsewhere. You saw it plenty when you were both eighteen and stupid, deep in the alley behind your local karaoke bar sharing a cig when the pressure of parents, school, and expectations got too much.

“You know, you’ve always been too good to me,” he mutters, voice low as he rolls a King Palm onto his open hand. Out of pure muscle memory, he sifts sativa in a line along his palm before packing it into a blunt. “...want a hit?” he whispers, almost like he’s ashamed of asking you to indulge in something that’s supposed to be his bad habit.

You’d usually chastise him lightly for smoking as an athlete, but you can tell he needs it tonight, the dimness in his eyes concerning you. 

You hesitate before nodding slightly, eyes in a trance as they follow his nimble fingers. You can physically feel your resolve crumble when he brings the cone to his lips, tongue darting out to slowly wet the edge of the rolling paper.

It takes everything in you to look away, hands furling and unfurling in your lap.

“I’m good to you because you deserve it, Jake. And don’t get used to this,” you admit, tucking your legs underneath you. You pause with a blink before admitting, “I’m only saying yes because it’s you.”

He swallows hard at your words, tension leaving his shoulders as he watches you. It’s as if he can see right through you, see your walls slowly crumble.

Holding a lighter up to his face, he lights the blunt with a sharp click before taking a deep drag, letting the warmth take over his body before blowing the smoke away from you. Color rises back into his cheeks as he holds it out for you to take. 

It’s been a while.

He must see the hesitation in your face because he pulls away suddenly, tilting his head like a puppy. His usual easy confidence seems to flicker. 

“Would it be better if… is it easier for you if I shotgun it?” He barely gets the words out without a stutter, eyes averting as your face burns at his suggestion. “To get a smoother high, maybe…” he tacks on with a mumble, like it changes anything he just said.

You stare back at him with wide eyes, mouth parting before slowly nodding.

“Maybe,” you peek at him before repeating yourself in a whisper. “I’d- I’d like that.”

His throat bobs like he’s holding himself back before scooting himself closer and bringing his hand up slowly to your face. You can sense his hesitancy, the way there’s a slight tremor in the movement. 

Your lungs stop working as his skin touches yours, fingers warm as they cup the side of your face gently. 

Both of you seem to pause, faces so close that you can see the way the space between his eyebrows creases, full lips just centimeters away from yours. The air feels warm and charged, your skin buzzing as he shifts to pull you in closer by the thigh. Strands of his wavy hair brush your forehead.

He braces an arm against the couch cushion before taking a long drag, eyelashes fluttering as he pauses before you. His eyes look different, like he’s fighting both something inwardly and the pull of the moment. They lower, betraying, and flicker to your mouth, lips pressed flat.

“Are you okay?” He asks so quietly that you almost don’t catch it, careful not to let any smoke out.

It only takes one nod from you before he leans forward in the slightest, coaxing your mouth open with his thumb before breathing out, letting it permeate your mouth.

“Breathe,” he talks you through it, letting his palm rest against your chest as it rises to feel the large inhale you take. “Let it go all the way.”

The smoke burns as it goes down, resulting in you coughing lightly as Jake moves to rub smooth circles into your back. His other hand falls from your jaw to your knee, bracing himself before taking another hit and letting the smoke curl its way up the ceiling. The smell clouds your senses, making your vision hazy as you let yourself relax into his side naturally.

His arm tightens around your back, a small smile making its way up his face — as if he can feel your eyes on him — as he continues to take long, sharp inhales. The tips of his finger drum against your waist for a moment before they tighten to pull you closer into him. 

“Again?”

“Mm,” you mumble in a daze, looking up with sparkling, wide eyes that take every last bit of his resolve. “Feels good.”

You don’t really know how you ended up in this position, with your body half in his arms, but you don’t complain. He doesn’t either.

Resting your head against his shoulder, he tilts your head back up to meet him halfway. He brushes your hair out of your face and behind your ear slowly, looking intently between your eyes before leaning down and blowing another bout of smoke into your mouth.

This time, your lips touch just a hair, his breath hot on yours. You jolt slightly.

Neither of you move away, scared to cross a line that’s been drawn since the first time you met him. 

He lets you inhale the smoke fully before starting to pull away.

Your hand comes up ever so slowly, shaking slightly, until your fingers make contact with his face. The space between his brows pinches when your thumb presses near the bruise on his mouth, then slowly smooths when he meets your eyes again.

Jake finds himself naturally leaning into your touch, a glimpse of his dimple appearing as his bottom lip gets caught between his teeth.

And when you see that, you decide you can’t take it any more. 

You’ve waited long enough.

You’re done being scared of consequences.

Threading a hand through his hair, you pull him down gently until his lips fully touch yours.

And then you’re kissing Sim Jaeyun. Your brother’s best friend. One of your best friends. And you don’t care, because this is the moment you’ve wanted more than anything, ever. 

And then he’s kissing you back. 

Jake doesn’t pull away like the fear in the back of your head thought he might.

It starts off sweet and short, chaste until he deepens the kiss slightly. After a few seconds, his eyes glaze over as he sits back to admire the way your lips glisten. 

A charged moment passes before his gaze turns dark, leaning in and invading your space once again. He captures your mouth even more intensely as he reaches out to cradle the back of your head, blunt forgotten to the side on an ash tray. His lips mold around yours, the pace escalating quickly like he’s been waiting for this moment just as much as you have. You can taste it on him, the bitter dregs of the sativa mixing into your saliva. 

His tongue darts out to drag against yours, taking advantage of your little gasps to deepen the kiss. Letting you melt into him, he nips and tugs at your lip gently with his teeth before licking it better. It’s hot and bothered and strained, and you’re not sure if you’ll ever be able to let go after getting him like this. He unabashedly moans straight into your mouth, the sound shooting straight to your core as you whine against him.

“Jake—” you gasp into his mouth, hand on his chest to slow him down. 

He brushes your hand away, pulling you onto his lap so you can sit with your thighs around his waist — all without disconnecting his mouth from yours. Tilting his head, he lets your hands roam across the expanse of his chest before threading themselves back in his hair with a tug.

“Shit— Y/N,” he barely gets out, lips on yours again. “Keep doing that, baby.”

You can barely keep up with his pace, overcome with white hot pleasure that renders you momentarily incapable of thinking about anything else. You let out another gasp at hearing the way he calls you ‘baby,’ the name so unfamiliar to you that you almost feel tears sting the back of your eyes. It feels so right hearing them fall from his mouth.

Dropping your head into his neck, you lick a stripe up to his jaw and press wet kisses over his bruises. His hips immediately jerk in reaction, hands squeezing your waist as his head falls back over the edge of the couch. You’re in the middle of sucking a hickey into the skin next to the bulge of Adam's apple when he starts rambling, hand sneaking up under your tank to press against your stomach.

“Sweet, sweet girl,” he starts, taking a breath and moaning out loud when he sees the string of saliva that connects where your mouths part. “I’ve wanted this for so long, you don’t even know.”

“Jakey,” you mumble into his skin, voice breaking when his hand wanders up to cup you through your bra. Jake’s at war with himself, but he can’t fight desire, especially not when he can feel you shiver against him like you’ve never trusted someone more.

“Fuck, say that again f’me,” he curses before dragging your shirt up your stomach with his teeth, dipping just below to press kisses just below your chest with fervor. His nose presses against your skin as he inhales, mumbling about how he feels like he could stay in this position forever.

“Jakey please,” you whine, needy hands reaching out so that Jake can pull you to him again. “Need you. Bad.” 

He complies happily, groaning at the way you fit perfectly in his hands.

At some point, the pleasure gets too much and you find yourself rocking into him, head tucked into his neck as he sings praises into your ear.

“Shit baby, c’mere,” his hands can’t seem to keep still, dragging down your back to your thighs and back up to your face. “Take what you need from me.”

Your face burns as you lay the side of your face against his chest, his hand guiding your hips right against the bulge growing in his sweats. The other holds your head to him, making sure you’re comfortable before matching the pace of your rocking. 

“I’m all yours,” he whispers down at you, smiling when you cry out his name in response.

Your stomach seizes when you feel his hand start to creep under the waistband of your sweats, playing with the string before dipping under the elastic of your panties. You’re pressed flat against him, and feeling his arm creep against your stomach makes you feel things no man has made you feel before.

“Is this… is this okay?” He hesitates, pausing as he watches you carefully.

You nod against his chest rapidly, shutting your eyes when his pointer and middle finger finally push against your heat. You’re embarrassingly wet, the sound clearly audible as he begins to move.

“Oh baby,” he coos, resting his chin on top of your head as he starts to move his hand back and forth slowly, coating himself in your juices. “Someone’s needy, mm? Can’t believe you were hiding this from me…” he trails off, biting his lip.

You fail to hold back a moan, muffling yourself with his shirt and biting the fabric between your teeth. Jake chuckles as he feels the fabric get wet against his chest from your saliva, gently pulling it from you. Tears prick against your waterline at the pleasure. 

“Let me hear you fall apart, baby.”

You shake your head against him, babbling nonsense as his fingers get quicker, rolling your sensitive bud between his fingers before dipping into you. It feels like all the times you’ve pleasured yourself thinking of him mean nothing — the real thing isn’t even close to being compared. It’s ecstasy that you’ve never felt before, the second-hand high from earlier hitting you fully now. White appears at the edge of your vision, your breath catching as you fall against Jake.

The second he feels your thighs start to tremble around him, the pleasure in the pit of your stomach starting to build, he pushes two fingers into you slowly, spongy walls swallowing them right up. He sets a rhythm, coaxing you to ride his fingers while he kisses along the crown of your head. 

“There you go,” he whispers. “Just like that. Made for me, aren’t you?”

His fingers are cold as they curl inside of you, hitting that spot deep in you that you’ve never been able to reach yourself.

Jake’s jaw clenches as he watches you fall apart on his fingers, the sight of you coming undone unlike anything he’s ever seen before. His erection is almost painful at this point, and if you keep making those noises, he knows he’ll be ruining his pants in no time.

Your hips jerk, movements uncontrolled as the pleasure inside you builds quickly. You know you’re close when he drags his thumb against your puffy clit, pressing down before drawing shallow circles around it.

“Come on, baby. Let go for me.”

You shudder at his tone that’s dropped an octave lower, an obvious rasp in his voice from all the overstimulation. His fingers are coated in you, your saliva still on his skin. The pace of his fingers double, helping you chase your release as he leans down to press a messy kiss to your lips.

It’s finally when he thrusts up against the fabric of your pants that you shatter, coming apart with a broken moan as you bite his shoulder. Jake rocks you through it, helping you ride out your high with his fingers still inside of you. He doesn’t stop, continuing to push in and out until you push against his hand in protest.

“Jake,” you whine out, unable to say anything except his name as you slow your movements. His fingers slowly slip out of you, completely soaked before he brings them up to his mouth. His eyes burn into yours as he licks them clean, tongue circling around them before pushing against his tongue with a smile. You almost climax again at the sight, cheeks burning as you watch him hum around his own fingers.

“You were so good for me,” he praises.

You look down in embarrassment, not getting very far before he’s capturing your mouth in a searing kiss once again. You taste yourself on him this time, eyebrows furrowing at the taste of cum and weed. 

Jake doesn’t give you even a second to think before he’s pulling away again, adjusting himself in his sweats. You shift your hips to reveal a dark stain on the front of his grey sweats, gaping in awe when you realize that he came from the mere act of getting you off. Your movements had dragged his pants halfway down his hips, the band of his boxers completely out as he makes no move to fix them. He lifts his hips, manhandling you to sit almost against his stomach as he settles back into the couch, breathing heavily.

“Did you…?” you start, staring at the space when your bodies connect.

Jake turns his head to the side, the tips of his ears reddening.

“You did this to me,” he says with a pout, dragging a finger through the wetness that’s both a mix of yours and his. Poking his tongue into his cheek in mock annoyance, he squints up at you. “Little minx.”

You hover, letting your hand drag slowly over his bulge and down his leg as he hisses at the feeling.

His jaw drops when you slide to the ground before him, knees hitting the ground between his open legs. Looking up at him with innocent, blinking eyes, you tilt your head before tossing your hair to one side and getting comfy with your arms in his lap.

Jake thinks he can cum from the view alone, that pretty mouth pouting at him as you paw at his sweats. You pull at the strings, focused. His head swirls with warning sirens, closing his eyes as he thinks about all the things you’ve already done and what would happen if he took it further. 

Would Sunghoon murder him in cold blood? Probably.

You make noises of protest from the back of your throat when Jake gently takes both of your hands in his, pulling you up until he can press his nose against yours. You can see the internal conflict in his gaze, guilt flickering through him as he looks from your messy hair to your swollen lips.

“Want you in me…” you start, clumsily trying to pull out of his hold before falling forward as he tugs you into him.

Smoothing a hand over your hair, he shakes his head before wrapping his arms around you. 

“Not today, baby.”

You frown, suddenly overly conscious of everything. The way the strap of your tank is halfway down your shoulder, the way Jake’s still out of breath, the way you almost just went all the way with him. You seem to shrink, shifting out of his hold to sit back on your heels. The heat drains from your face, hands suddenly cold as you fold them together.

“Why? You don’t want me…?” You say quietly, almost like you don’t want him to hear you. Your heart drops, and it doesn’t help that he stays silent as your mind runs through all of the possibilities as to why. Does he regret it? Already?

…maybe his friendship with my brother is more important than this.

“What? No— what, that’s not—” he splutters, bewildered at the way you start to pull away. He can feel his chest stop as he watches your face fall, starting to turn away from him before he desperately reaches out to have you close again.

“Y/N, listen to me,” he says firmly, heart aching when you look back at him with confused eyes. “Listen to me before you jump to any conclusions. I know that head of yours.”

Your throat tightens, lashes lowered.

“There’s nothing I want more than you. All I’ve ever wanted is you, actually.”

Your mouth parts, surprised at the sincerity in his voice as he clasps your hands with a film shake. He sounds firm and sure, gaze determined as he confesses. He looks to the side, pausing.

“I hate that you’re doubting yourself because of me. And I know I’ve been terrible at showing it, my feelings towards— towards you. I know I’ve fumbled maybe a thousand times at telling you how much you mean to me, especially considering our friendship and your brother and our friends and all that— but I want this to be real, and I don’t want you to think this is just a heat of the moment thing. You mean much more to me than just this… and you deserve a love that’s patient,” Jake stares at you, the one that you only see when he feels like he’s won something worth fighting for. 

“I want to stop running away from my feelings, and I’m so sorry I let my fear get in the way of telling you this earlier. Can’t stop thinking about the time we could’ve had together if I just told you how I felt,” he shakes his head, a bittersweet taste on his tongue. “I’m sorry that you had to be the one to initiate something for me to be honest with you. I want to take it slowly with you, if you’d let me—”

“Jake—” you interrupt his chain of thoughts, putting a hand on his knee.

“—and instead of telling you, I would get jealous on my own and do stupid things like bodycheck Heeseung—like fuck, why did I even do that? Now he probably hates me too, oh god—”

“Jaeyun,” you say firmly, cupping your hand over his mouth to shut him up. He stares at you at the abruptness, lips twitching against your palm.

“Where did that come from?” You say softly, unable to hide your grin as giddiness overtakes you. “I— I’ve been the same way, silly. We’ve both been stupid.” You rest your chin on his knee, peering up at him. “Don’t apologize.”

His whole body seems to release all the tension that’s been building up, fingers carefully brushing the hair out of your face.

“God, how did I get this lucky,” he sighs out, throwing an arm over his forehead at your cute expression.

You giggle, overcome with the fact that Jake likes you. Jake likes you too.

“So you like me, huh,” you tease, scooting forward. Moonlight bounces off the side of your face as you shift, every tiny sound amplified: the wind rattling against the windows, the hum of the fridge, the soft shift of fabric when Jake leans forward. You can still feel where his hand had been on your waist, the ghost of his thumb at your jaw.

“Shut up,” he mumbles with a bashful smile, slightly mortified at how intently you’re looking at him. “Yeah. Badly.”

“And you want me— mmph!” you exclaim in surprise when Jake hooks his arm around your waist, his biceps flexing against you as he pulls you back into his lap. He spreads out on the couch, letting you curl comfortably in his chest with your face buried in his neck. The scent of cedar and bergamot orange clouds you, snuggling into him as he chuckles.

“Hm? What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s what I thought, baby.”

You’re squirming in his arms, trying to get away from his wandering hands when the front door clicks open with a beep. You jump, flinching as it creaks open. Jake doesn’t seem surprised. A head peeks through the crack before rolling his eyes at the scene before him.

“Get out of my apartment,” Sunghoon deadpans, kicking off his shoes, shimmying off his jacket and throwing it at the two of you. It hits you in the leg before falling to the ground. Tossing his keys and wallet onto the kitchen island, he grabs an apple off the counter before taking a bite and leaning his weight against it. Raising an eyebrow, he eyes the two of you.

You blink at him nervously, staring off into space somewhere between his shoulder and his wall. You hope Jake says something, because you sure aren’t. What if he gets mad? What if he hates this? What if—

Your brother must see the look on your face because he sighs, putting his apple down before gesturing vaguely at you. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Rockstar,” he snorts, pointing at Jake. “Bro’s been pining after you since we were like ten. This,” he looks pointedly between you and his best friend, “was gonna happen at some point.”

You whirl around to look at Jake, a dusty rose spreading over his cheeks as he glares at your brother.

“Really?” You ask in wonder, ignoring the sound of Sunghoon’s fake retching behind you.

“God, I hate love,” he continues in the background, fully ignored by you and Jake as the latter stammers his words at your attention.

“Yeah, our friends always say that I’m painfully obvious,” Jake confesses quietly, thumb rubbing circles against your leg.

“But… but what about earlier today?” You hesitate to ask, turning back to Sunghoon who’s now spinning himself around on a bar stool. “The girl from your stats class?”

“What?” your brother says absentmindedly, spinning himself once more before stopping with a snap. “Ohh, the girl from stats!”

“There was no girl… I— I wanted to make you jealous. It was so stupid,” Jake admits, his face heating up even more as Sunghoon bursts out into laughter behind you.

“Actually,” your brother starts, a smirk spreading across his face as he takes another bite of his apple. “She’s very real. And she also just sucked me off in the bathroom of the bar I came from, sooo,” he trails off, “I think the real winner tonight is me.”

“Holy TMI, dude,” Jake complains from under you, the timbre of his voice humming against your side. He covers your ears from Sunghoon’s crass mouth as you make a face at your brother, his laugh reaching you even with Jake’s hands protecting you.

“Anyway,” Sunghoon swings his legs off the stool, grabbing his phone before sneakily taking a picture of the two of you snuggled together on the couch. “Imma send this to Jungwon so he can stop blowing me up on Kakao. He’s been waiting for this since our first year, probably.”

You just sigh contently, happily pushing yourself into the warmth of Jake’s chest and relieved that you don’t have to hide your feelings anymore. The softness of his arms around you are no longer a daydream. The world shrinks to just this, the smell of him, the heat of his skin seeping through the fabric of his old hockey tee, the gentle press of his chin near your temple. His embrace is possessive and reverent, like you’re the most precious thing to him.

Your own breath finally slows.

For so long you’d been orbiting him — watching from across rooms, stealing glances, cataloging every laugh and look — and now, wrapped in his arms, that ache resolves into something quiet and full. You feel small in the best way, tucked against him, fitting into the hollow of his body. His hand moves absentmindedly along your side, curling into your skin and reminding you that this is very real.

There’s no more guilt humming at the edges of the moment, the pressures of facing your brother or telling your friends gone.

You finally have him.

“So sorry to interrupt,” Sunghoon’s voice bursts the moment, popping up in front of you with an exaggerated smile. “Love that this is happening. Super cute. Mom and dad will be thrilled, I bet.” He pauses, biting his pointer finger between his teeth before looking at the two of you with a pointed stare. “If you have sex on my couch though, different story. I’m shooting everyone in this room and then myself. Thanks.”

You gape at him as Jake mutters a smug “can’t promise I won’t try” from behind you, earning a hard smack on the arm.

“Joking, I’m joking, holy shit,” he chokes out, dodging to the side with you in his arms as your brother tries to land another hit. 

“You better be,” he says, eyes snapping down to the wet patch on the crotch of Jake’s pants. “‘Cuz that’s fucking nasty, man. I should’ve let Heeseung knock some sense into you while we were still on the ice.”

You groan in mortification, burying your face deeper into his chest like you could disappear into the fabric of his shirt. From above you, Jake lets out a low, amused breath, his arms tightening instinctively around you as you hide. You can feel his chest shake beneath your cheek as he looks up.

You let out a muffled whine against him.

Jake, infuriatingly, only smirks, chin resting lightly atop your head. “You only said she was off-limits, not the couch.”

“Jaeyun,” your brother warns, raising a hand at him.

“Okay, okay,” Jake chuckles, finally easing back just enough that you can peek out from behind him, cheeks burning.

Your brother’s expression softens when he sees your face. You’re mortified and flustered, but still fully in Jake’s arms.

He exhales. “You’re lucky I trust you more than any guy at this goddamn university.”

Jake’s laugh follows him down the hall, and his arms don’t loosen. If anything, he pulls you in a little closer. Not for show, but because he needs it.

“I know,” he looks down at you, determined.

“And for what it’s worth,” Sunghoon adds with a wicked smile, already turning toward his bedroom, “if you make her cry, you’re benched for the season, Sim.”

END.

—

NOTE. thank you for reading this very self-indulgent fic ‪‪❤︎‬ I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. pls leave any and all feedback, it always makes my day and helps improve my writing so so much! this was all solely fueled by my first college hockey game of the semester. ts was lit asf, i was so into it that i literally lost my voice the next day LMFAO [ i thought i'd share a small clip from the game, esp because of how much of this fic was inspired by the strong hockey culture where i grew up. for your viewing pleasure HAHA ]

xx, kiachiako

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[m] SUNGHOON | rocket science | @heesmiles 33k — You’ve always been the girl everyone knows: sharp-witted, magnetic, the kind of pretty that makes people turn their heads. By day, you’re just another college student with a popular face and a spotless reputation. By night, you’re something far less innocent, an anonymous camgirl, raking in tips from strangers who only know your voice, your body, and the way you make them feel. It was never personal, until it was. When Sunghoon — Heeseung’s nerdy, painfully shy roommate. You’ve barely spoken beyond polite small talk, he’s the kind of guy who still blushes when someone brushes past him. Or at least… you thought so. Until one late night, you hear something you shouldn’t: your own voice spilling from behind Sunghoon’s bedroom door. He doesn’t know you’re still in the apartment. He doesn’t know you can hear him or that you’re about to walk in and catch him in the act. And he definitely doesn’t know the girl on his screen, the camgirl he’s been tipping more than anyone else: is you. So naturally you agree to teach him: it's not like it's rocket science or anything.

[m] HEESEUNG | player rank: platinum | @simpjaes 30k — You’re not sure what’s worse, your sister’s boyfriend or your sister’s boyfriend’s friends. What you thought would be a great deal in living with her throughout college turns into a major game of cat and mouse, where you’re unsure if your moral compass is pointing in the right direction solely because you suspect someone is wearing a giant sex magnet to throw it off. 

[m] NI-KI | yes, professor | @kissued 29.5k — an upcoming anatomy final leaves you teetering on the edge of exhaustion, buried under stress and self-doubt. but when professor nishimura offers a steady, guiding hand, the pressure starts to lift — and suddenly, the lines between mentorship and something more begin to blur.

JAKE | strikes out | @enhaflixer 23.5k — Five years ago, Jake Sim walked away to chase his soccer dreams, never knowing he left more than just a broken heart behind. Now, he-s back—unwittingly running a soccer clinic where his five-year-old daughter is signed up. The daughter he doesn't know exists.

SUNGHOON | the red knight | @twocupsofsuga 22k — When a notorious nomad tribe dared to strike your kingdom, your parents responded by assigning you a protector—the kingdom’s most disciplined, unyielding knight. He made it painfully clear that his oath to guard you outweighed your protests, your stubbornness, and your every attempt to slip past him. Yet lately, the man who once felt carved from stone seems to unravel in your presence. And nothing in his contract mentioned losing his composure for you.

[m] JAKE | user error | @gyuuberryy 21.8k — getting partnered with jake, the tall awkward nerd from on of your computer science classes, should've been simple—work on the project, get your grade, move on. except now you're completely obsessed with him and he's totally clueless about it. between tutoring sessions you definitely don't need and "coincidental" dorm hall run-ins, you're pulling out all the stops. too bad jake's more interested in his textbooks than your very obvious flirting. you've never been rejected before, so this should be fine. …right?

[m] SUNGHOON | your eyes only | @m-hypen 21.8k — Enemies to Lovers | Camboy!Sunghoon x Reader

JUNGWON | secrets | @theothernads 21k — After making it to university, you found yourself finding comfort in a cat café worker not too far from your lectures. The cute worker seemed to have a knack for making you fall for his charm. And, how could you not? Your chemistry was perfect- but you never thought that he had secrets and that Jungwon was your secret as well. As much as you two tried to keep everything behind the scenes, things don’t always work out the way they should.

[m] HEESEUNG | waiting room | @heejamas 21k — for three years, you and heeseung have hovered between friendship and something more—stolen glances, late-night car rides, hands brushing under tables. but when the waiting finally ends, you realize you were never just friends to begin with.

JAY | just like heaven | @heejamas 21k — you never planned to fall for your brother’s best friend, jay. but the summer before college, on 1989, something shifts—between mixtapes, quiet drives, and the kind of closeness that sneaks up on you. and after a few cassette tapes and long drives, the love you never planned for starts happening.

[m] SUNGHOON | a con for a heart | @faeyun 19.4k — when an elusive man known as “the curator” hires you under his organization of con artists, you know it’s for more than just your skill set. you accept his offer with motives on your own—find out just what his name is and expose it to his enemies to put yourself on top of the chain. but, as the two of you play a game of cat and mouse, you realize that that’s much easier said than done.

[m] HEESEUNG | one hundred and one | @heesdreamer 19k — returning back home from a failed year at college, you’re reunited with your little brothers best friend who always had a crush on you. this definitely hasn’t changed, but he sure has.

[m] SUNGHOON | honey on ice | @liuhsng 18.4k — you were supposed to save his daughter from loneliness—not him. park sunghoon has it all: medals, money, and a schedule too packed for bedtime stories. when his little girl starts closing off, he hires you—a broke college student with a bright laugh and quiet charm—as her nanny. you’re warm, young, and everything his cold, controlled world isn’t. or where saving him was never in the job description—but you did it anyway.

[m] JAKE | scene one | @rikiliu 17.8k — Working solo in adult content was easy — no crew, no co-stars, no one watching while you filmed. But after signing with the biggest studio in the industry, everything changes. New rules. New cameras. New people. Including Jake — your first scene partner — who just happened to catch every second of your audition tape… and hasn’t stopped looking since.

[m] JAKE | bruises | @dazzlingjaeyun 17.3k — engineering major!jake x nursing student fem!reader

[m] SUNGHOON | bite me | @babyjinsu 17k — a young wife discovers her husband's secret—a bloodied creature chained beneath floorboards. drawn by pity and curiousity, she visits him in secret when her husband falls asleep. but mercy has its price, and hunger always finds a way to bite back—the neck that feeds.

[m] JAKE | the pushover | @jaysbaefie 16.5k — in which jake sim finally stops letting you run the show—only to prove he’s always known how to handle you.

JAKE | love, lies, and sim jake | @shy9-29 16.4k — You were the quiet girl with the not-so-quiet crush on Jake Sim—campus heartbreaker, smooth talker, and everything you should’ve stayed away from. But when a bet turns your name into a game, the rules change fast. He didn’t expect to fall for you… and you didn’t expect to find out. Now it’s your move—and this time, you’re not playing nice.

[m] JAKE | cunnilinguist | @simpjaes 16.1k — Unfortunately for you, no man has ever given you some good head. Fortunately for you, your best friend is more annoyed by it than you are. It’s just a favor, right? or the one where your best friend jake eats you out as a way to admit his own feelings for you, also, apparently sunghoon existing is an issue.

JAY | sugar in the soil | @liuhsng 16k — your fascination with flowers was a quiet love you turned into your future. majoring in biology at decelis university, you often found yourself needing rare blooms, fresh clippings, or just the scent of something calming after long hours in the lab. that’s why the little flower shop down the street became your second home. the staff knew your name. mrs. park always had tea ready. until one afternoon, the usual calm was replaced with someone entirely unexpected—park jongseong, of all people. golden boy. heir to a business empire. the last person you'd expect to be arranging sunflowers behind the counter like he belonged there. or, where your love for flowers leads you to someone who’s far more than just his reputation.

[m] HEESEUNG | rage quit | @guliexe 15.9k — gamer!au, you started as friends who played games at night—now he’s the one making you moan into his pillow.

[m] JAY | losing the war | @babeyun 15k — regency!au, even when the world seems bleak, he can't help but try and prove that love still exists. the love you yearn for exists, because he is full of it - and so are you.

[m] HEESEUNG | beautiful strangers | @si3rren 15k — The world ended in shades of purple. An aurora called the Violet Hour swallowed the sky and never left. In its ruins, you and Lee Heeseung begin as strangers—until survival turns into something softer, and holding each other becomes the last beautiful thing left.

JAY | notoriously yours | @jakesimfromstatefarm 14.7k — jay park is a rich kid. it’s safe to say he has everything every broke college student on his campus could dream of and more. but the one thing he doesn’t have, which money definitely can’t buy, is a girlfriend. and his friends won’t see of it. literally. so what happens when his friends bet him to date someone for more than three months? what happens when jay decides that fake-dating someone would be easier than actual dating (because god forbid Jay–the campus’ notoriously known fuckboy–decides to commit to something once in his life)? and what happens when that someone is you, his childhood best friend he hasn’t spoken to in years..who has absolutely no interest in being in his life anymore?

SUNGHOON | ancient dreams | @stllmnstr 14.3k — vampire hunter reader x vampire sunghoon, enemies to lovers, angst, fantasy/sci-fi

[m] HEESEUNG | adonis | @velvetdolor 14k — You’re a prolific photographer, renowned for your unconventional devotion to your craft. Enter Lee Heeseung—top model, golden boy, and muse extraordinaire. When you discover a leaked tabloid photo of him in bondage, you arrange a meeting and make your offer: become your muse, and in return, you’ll pave the way for his redemption after a career-shattering scandal. The unexpected follows—an intense entanglement and obsession to photograph your muse who serves every whim of yours, offering his unrelenting submission. Yet beneath Heeseung’s charismatic persona and dangerously alluring beauty lurks an unsettling darkness: a possessiveness with a taste for murder and destruction.

[m] HEESEUNG | reflexion | @lassiie 14k — The three of you always had a strange relationship. Heesu, the wallflower twin, loves you in secret when you are in Heeseung's palm, stuck in a one-sided love. But when his twin dies and Heeseung grows closer, his smile, his words, and even his touch starts to feel like someone else's—like the dead twin is slipping through him... or worse.

[m] HEESEUNG | like an angel | @bambidollies 13.8k — In which Heeseung is obsessed with his sweet, innocent, shy sister’s best friend, and not in a healthy way.

JAKE | auld lang syne | @heethera 13k — you ask jake to teach you how to flirt so jay will notice you. he says yes...despite having a 10 year crush on you.

NI-KI | everybody loves jungwon | @heethera 13k — ni-ki likes his best friend. but sunoo thinks he likes self-sabotaging himself more.

JUNGWON | sure thing | @stllmnstr 12.9k — coworkers au, underground boxer jungwon

[m] JUNGWON | sweet talk | @enhaflixer 12k — You’re used to observing Yang Jungwon from a distance. Campus golden boy, dance department star, the kind of person you warn your podcast listeners about—the ones that are too charming, too smooth, too easy to love. But then he starts looking back. Smiling at you across coffee shops. Sitting next to you in lectures. Texting you late at night. Before you know it, you’re in a relationship that feels too good to be true. And that’s because it is. He was supposed to make you fall for him. And he did. The problem? He fell too. (But love doesn’t erase betrayal, does it?)

[m] JAKE | deal with it | @m-hypen 12k — Your best friend, Jake, gets frustrated by your cockblocking and has you make up for it.

[m] NI-KI | every inch | @liuhsng 10.4k — ni-ki isn’t the type to dwell on annoyances. he fixes the problem, gets the job done, and moves on. but when you ask him to come over to help with a project you can barely finish—your deadline bleeding closer by the hour—while talking his ear off about your mutual friends, something ugly and possessive finally claws its way to the surface. maybe it isn’t annoyance at all. maybe it’s the last push he needs to stop holding back.

[m] SUNGHOON | love is cannibalism | @mssishipi 10k — “To love,” they said, “is to consume.”

[m] SUNGHOON | save a horse, ride a cowboy | @hoonkitti 10k — what's better than riding a big horse? ride the owner, and his bigger horse!

[m] NI-KI | fallen angel | @guliexe 9.1k — you were his softest secret in a world full of violence. and even bleeding out, he still only wanted to hold you.

[m] JAKE | shoreline | @guliexe 8.8k — surfer!au, you've loved jake for years, but he's never looked at you the way you wish he would. one summer night, he finally does, and everything changes.

JAY | the prince of polo | @khioneee 8.5k — after a fall in the field, his polo career is at risk. you're the sports therapist assigned to his recovery.

[m] JUNGWON | needy | @jaysbaefie 8.4k — in which jungwon gets too drunk, too honest, and far too handsy, and somewhere between the pulled-over car and the way he begs for you, everything you thought you knew starts to snap.

SUNGHOON | right next door! | @gyuuberryy 8.1k — you and park sunghoon have been tangled in hogwarts' most explosive rivalry since fifth year—all duels in corridors and sabotaged potions and lingering stares across the great hall. now in your last year, you're forced to share prefect duties, and between his infuriating teasing and surprisingly caring moments, you can't decide if you want to hex him or kiss him. but when old wounds resurface and the line between rivalry and something else blurs, you'll have to confront why his attention still makes your pulse race—and whether some bridges are better left burned.

[m] JUNGWON | intact | @dollhoonki 7.8k — yours and jungwon's union is pre-destined, foretold by the founding fathers of your commune. despite your initial hesitations towards him, you learn to love him, as he embraces you - in more ways than one. with your wedding approaching soon and the departure of your best friend, your mind is a mess. with one decision you make costing you that destiny, it's up to jungwon to do whatever it takes to keep it intact - even if that means revealing skeletons buried deep inside of your mind.

[m] JAKE | dancing with our hands tied | @ikeukiss 7.7k — What began as a simple friends-with-benefits situation with your brother's best friend has turned into something deeper, and you now find that your emotions are more complicated than you initially thought.

[m] JAY + SUNGHOON | friends to worry about | @intromortal 7.3k — heeseung hasn't been the best boyfriend, and the further apart you two grow, the closer you get to his best friends. all you need is for him to slip up one last time to finally make your fantasies come true.

[m] HEESEUNG | dirty little secret | @sincerelyneo 7k — Hooking up with the hot soccer player who doesn’t believe in labels (and just so happens to be your brother’s best friend) obviously had to stay a secret.  His rules, not yours. And it’s easy…until Heeseung starts acting like any other guy who so much as looks at you is a problem. Because apparently, he doesn’t do labels. But he does do jealousy.

[m] SUNOO | the best friend syndrome | @si3rren 7k — you always thought sunoo was off-limits—sweet, soft, possibly into guys. you undressed in front of him, slept beside him, teased him without shame. but the moment jealousy breaks him, you realize he’s not safe. he’s obsessed. and he’s been waiting to take you for years.

[m] JAKE | the giver | @sincerelyneo 6.5k — Something doesn’t sit right when Jake hears his childhood best friend’s back in town. It’s worse when he finds out your city-boy boyfriend dumped you. But what really sends him over the edge is learning that the asshole never got you off once during your entire relationship. And as a self-proclaimed giver… Jake’s pretty damn set on fixing that himself.

[m] JAY | backseat | @jaysbaefie 6.2k — in which your older brothers best friend finally stops teasing you and shows you just how much he wants you.

[m] JUNGWON + JAKE | final girl | @xoseong 5.7k — When you agreed to cleaning up the aftermath Halloween night left on Moonstruck Theater, you expected a calm shift with little distractions. But that all changes when a mysterious car pulls into the parking lot, and suddenly you don’t feel so calm anymore.

[m] JUNGWON | the one he waited for | @cbeargyu 5.3k — when you’re finally forced to confront the simmering attraction between you and jungwon, your brother’s best friend, the result is unexpected. one late-night encounter, charged with tension, ends up crossing a line neither of you thought you’d dare. what started as a playful game turns into something deeper and more intense, and now there’s no going back.

JAKE | way back home | @sjyuns 5.1k — breaking news! the friendly neighbourhood superhero spider-man has been caught trying to swing into a girl’s heart — but why is he failing miserably?! is this the spider-man we all know and love? or has our hero lost his spark? or in which sim jaeyun asks you, his best friend out, forgetting that he was still in his spider-man suit.

[m] JAKE | no doubt | @vampelic 5k — jake having an awful reputation with being head over heels.

JUNGWON | breakaway | @wispyn 5k — you’re a sweetheart, which makes you the most popular girl in school. and that has perks, being with the most popular guy in school. what was once a beautiful relationship, suddenly turned toxic and abusive. as a final senior project, you’re partnered up with the one and only—yang jungwon. the nerdiest yet sweetest boy. and the more you hang out with him, the more your heart suddenly heals.

[m] HEESEUNG | the color violet | @velvetdolor 4k — You’ve always liked that Heeseung is cool and calculated—easy, uncomplicated. He’s the ex you can still run to, the Casanova who somehow never held a grudge after you left him the moment things got too serious, too close for comfort. But on an unsuspecting night, you slip back into his life with your usual storm of chaos—crocodile tears, mascara running—and something in his composure finally cracks. In the violet haze of the party, two avoidant storms collide, and the night confesses everything left unsaid.

JUNGWON | hesitation | pt. 2 | @stllmnstr 3.7k — university au, reader is three years older than jungwon

SUNGHOON | drabble | @babyjinsu 3.4k — 90s couple and their toxic arguments

HEESEUNG | fiend | @sa1co 2.8k — Heeseung may be addicted to the drugs, but you're addicted to him in a way that'll probably kill you too.

SUNGHOON | pink white lilies | @hoonkitti 2.5k — you were born into silk and scandal. sunghoon wasn't born to be noticed at all.

[m] JAKE | leave me wanting | @elikajinnie ??k — The tension with Jake has been building for months. You try to ignore it, to play it safe. But when another ruined date ends in a heated confrontation, the truth slips out and so do his hands. One kiss, and suddenly, pretending you don’t want him isn’t an option anymore.

[m] JUNGWON | a crown between us | @wonsiwon ??k — in the halls of the palace, where secrets are dressed in silk and love is the greatest betrayal, a maid finds herself caught in a dangerous entanglement with the crown prince, jungwon. though bound by duty and royalty, their stolen glances and whispered promises bloom into something neither can escape. but when the queen announces his arranged marriage, everything shatters.

[m] HYUNG LINE | drabble | @drunkhazed-archive

[m] JUNGWON | heartbeat | @s4ilorrr — You only signed up for biology because you thought it’d be an easy A. You didn’t expect Jungwon, your too perfect for his own good lab partner, to turn a simple heart rate experiment into something you’ll be thinking about long after the monitor stops beeping.

[m] JAKE | puppy princess | @bambiihee — jake agrees to watch heeseung's puppy hybrid while he's away.

JAKE | drabble | @xoami — In which, Jake is down bad for his older classmate, and it becomes almost too much.

series'.

[m] SUNGHOON | teeth | @romancentold — 𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗄 𝗌𝗎𝗇𝗀𝗁𝗈𝗈𝗇 𝗆𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝗋𝗈𝗎𝗀𝗁 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗅𝖽 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝗂𝗍 𝗐𝖺𝗌 𝗉𝗋𝗈𝗆𝗂𝗌𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝗁𝗂𝗆—𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗒𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗍𝗂𝗅𝗍𝗌 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗐𝖺𝗒, 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗒𝗈𝗇𝖾 𝖾𝗅𝗌𝖾 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝖿𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗌 𝗂𝗇 𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾. 𝗈𝗇𝖼𝖾, 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗄𝗇𝖾𝗐 𝗁𝗂𝗆 𝖻𝖾𝖿𝗈𝗋𝖾 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗌𝗁𝖺𝗋𝗉 𝖾𝖽𝗀𝖾𝗌, 𝖻𝖾𝖿𝗈𝗋𝖾 𝖼𝗋𝗎𝖾𝗅𝗍𝗒 𝖿𝗂𝗍 𝗁𝗂𝗆 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝖺 𝗌𝖾𝖼𝗈𝗇𝖽 𝗌𝗄𝗂𝗇, 𝖻𝖺𝖼𝗄 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗇 𝗁𝖾 𝗐𝖺𝗌 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝖺 𝖻𝗈𝗒 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖽𝗋𝖾𝖺𝗆𝗌 𝗈𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗂𝖼𝖾. 𝗇𝗈𝗐, 𝗒𝗈𝗎’𝗋𝖾 𝖻𝗈𝗍𝗁 𝗈𝗅𝖽𝖾𝗋 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗆𝖾𝖺𝗇𝖾𝗋, 𝖻𝖺𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗍𝖾𝖾𝗍𝗁 𝖺𝗍 𝖾𝖺𝖼𝗁 𝗈𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋 𝖺𝖼𝗋𝗈𝗌𝗌 𝖼𝗋𝗈𝗐𝖽𝖾𝖽 𝗁𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗌 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖽𝗂𝗇𝗇𝖾𝗋 𝗍𝖺𝖻𝗅𝖾𝗌, 𝖽𝗂𝗀𝗀𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗎𝗉 𝗈𝗅𝖽 𝗐𝗈𝗎𝗇𝖽𝗌 𝗇𝗈 𝗆𝖺𝗍𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝗁𝗈𝗐 𝖽𝖾𝖾𝗉 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗍𝗋𝗒 𝗍𝗈 𝖻𝗎𝗋𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗆. 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖺𝖻𝗈𝗎𝗍 𝗁𝖺𝗍𝖾? 𝗅𝖾𝗍 𝗂𝗍 𝗌𝗂𝗍 𝗈𝗇 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗍𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗎𝖾 𝗅𝗈𝗇𝗀 𝖾𝗇𝗈𝗎𝗀𝗁 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗂𝗍 𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗌 𝗍𝖺𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗉𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗅𝗈𝗎𝗌𝗅𝗒 𝖼𝗅𝗈𝗌𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝖽𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗋𝖾.

JUNGWON | safe and sound | @thatfeelinwhenyou — Navigating one year post-apocalypse, when the dead began to walk and the living proved to be no better, you decide that trust is a luxury you can no longer afford. But after a run-in with a group of seven peculiar survivors, you learn that there are bigger problems than just the undead roaming the streets. You also start to wonder if there’s more to survival than simply staying alive.

JAKE | the law of unintended consequences | @chogiwow — astrophysicist!jake x assistant!reader; posits that actions often have unforeseen and unanticipated effects, which may be positive, negative, or neutral, that are not part of the actor's original intent.

[m] SUNGHOON | my baby is a bird | @paarksunghoon — Is three years enough time to heal and move on? Just when you think you’ve got your life figured out, Sunghoon comes barging in and disrupting the peace you’ve built for yourself in the name of fixing his mistakes. It stirs up old feelings and dangerous habits, but Sunghoon is determined to show you that you’re the only one for him, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make you love him again.

[m] JAKE | tell me lies | @baekguwu — Keeping Jake Sim off-limits should’ve been easy. He was your twin’s best friend, the one line you swore you’d never cross. But one reckless night was all it took to ruin that promise, and now you’re trapped in a secret you don’t want to quit. Worse? Your big and one of your closest friends has been obsessed with Jake for years, and as far as everyone else knows, she’s the only one who’s ever had a real shot with him. So you lie to everyone, over and over, and find that the deeper you sink, the easier it feels because maybe the truth is uglier than you’ll ever admit. 

[m] JAKE | nicest guy | @heejamas — SMAU; you decide to go to your first college party after two years, and after having to take care of two different drunk men, your college life changes drastically.

-

+ shamelessly, a lil smth smth I wrote... just in case you have more time to kill o.o SUNGHOON | as far and close as here | 21.3k — you meet sunghoon at twelve, fall in love with him at thirteen, and get your heart broken at eighteen. a collection of summer vignettes, some growing up with him as your lover and some without. you never expected that years later, you would be forced to look him in the eye as he recounts what his life has been like without you. [in otherwords] a story about piecing together what it means to love someone who left, and learning that fate has a funny way of bringing people back together again.

I. ONE — somewhere only we know.

TWELVE

It would be a lie to say that your young world doesn’t revolve around a certain Park Sunghoon.

Since the morning of your twelfth birthday, he’s been a staple of your long summer days. Sunghoon this and Sunghoon that, your parents most definitely tired of the boy’s name on your tongue in the moments that you weren’t together. 

That morning, it’d been barely after dawn that newly twelve-year old you had wandered far from your parents’ estate and traipsed out into the fields alone, the little birthday ribbons in your hair billowing in the wind as you ventured on with determination. Vast and empty rye fields would’ve been intimidating to anyone, but not to you. You were raised by your family as a child of the hanging willows and rich soil, certainly no stranger to the tall grasses covering the rolling landscape behind your property. Your parents liked to joke that even the dandelions bent to follow your path as you marched on. 

You breathed in the scent of crushed stems, green blood bruised and roused by your trek up a small hill overlooking acres of land. It was simply lovely; skin sticky in the after-heat of a dewy morning, the rushing sound of a drowsy inland meadow stream accompanying you as you progressed. 

The top of the hill was nearly visible now, the thin branches of a towering peach tree peeking over the tall grass. With one last tired step, you pulled yourself onto the little plateau on top with an exaggerated exhale. 

You distinctly remember the exact way your eyes had widened in that moment out of genuine surprise. Not only was there a familiar, rewarding view to reward your climb, but there was a boy crouched in front of the tree that resided alone on the peak of the hill as well. 

Your tree. 

You had visited this spot thousands of times throughout your life, but never had there been someone else on the hill that usually housed your criss-crossed figure and array of picked wildflowers; nonetheless someone that looked to be about your age. 

You stepped forward to peer over at the boy with curiosity. 

With mussed dark hair, a slender frame, and his crinkled summer linen shirt ruffling in the breeze, he looked at peace as he sat with his back to you. 

Amused at his failure to notice you creeping up next to him, you lightly blew on his ear until he jolted in surprise. Flinching, he whipped his head around to find the culprit. You offered a small wave as your eyes met for the very first time. His gaze seemed unable to leave yours, staring until you grinned.

“Watcha lookin’ at?” You had sing-songed curiously as you nodded your head towards the tree, mouth creased in what you hoped was a friendly smile. You didn’t want to scare away a potential new friend for your lonely summers — and maybe a partner in crime, too, if you were lucky. His pupils wavered slightly before he brightened up, smiling shyly up at you with the nicest smile you had ever seen in your twelve years of life. 

The boy appeared to be a bit hesitant at first, opening his mouth to respond but no sound escaping. 

“Umm… this peach tree. It’s pretty,” he finally mumbled, cheeks warming with a faint red. He crossed his teenage limbs awkwardly, eyes flicking to look anywhere but at you. 

“It’s my tree,” you had teased, “but I guess we can share.” He cracked a smile at your words. Picking up the hem of your skirt, you dropped down next to him in the grass. “I’m Y/N. What’s your name? I’ve never seen you around before.”

You remember how he’d held out a gentle hand for you to shake, his warm palm enveloping yours. 

“Sunghoon. I’m not really from here,” he answered shyly, looking down at his shoes. “I’m just visiting my grandparents for the summer, but i-if you uh- if you want anyone to hang out with, I don’t really have any friends here yet so…” Sunghoon trailed off as his eyes darted to yours. 

You beamed at him, nodding enthusiastically before brushing off your clothes and standing up with a huff. 

“Of course we can,” you look to the side, the sunlight casting a halo around your hair. “You’re probably gonna regret asking, Hoon, really. You’ll be so sick of me by the end of the summer...”

“Hoon?” His lips quirked up at the impromptu nickname, his shyness slowly dissipated, and he let you grab his hand to pull him up from the ground. Putting his hand up to his face to hide his smile as you brushed the dirt off his clothes casually, Sunghoon couldn’t hide his joy at the prospect of a new friend. “I really don’t think I will. Any company is good company, and ever since I got here, I’ve-”

You hummed and nodded along to his voice as your distracted eyes wandered to a little, jagged tree stump on the base of the hill. 

Turning back to Sunghoon, who was still rambling, you blew him a little raspberry before nudging him with a grin, shouting out a “race you!” and getting a head-start at sprinting down the hill. You were already a third of the way down before he realized with a jolt. 

“-make friends. Hey, no fair! That was so childi- wait for me!”

You squealed in happiness as you reached the stump first, breathing out laughter in huffs as you watched Sunghoon stumble down the hill. 

Bending over to catch his breath, he reached out a hand to give you a playful push. 

“Hey!” he panted, still trying to catch his breath, “And after not even ten minutes of being friends too, huh?”

In contrast with his words, he looked over at you with the brightest grin you had seen on him so far, shaking his head with a laugh and no longer the hesitant boy you met just a bit ago. 

And even at twelve, you knew. Your body gave you signs, your chest seizing up and your heart stuttering. You were addicted to that pretty smile. If getting it was the reward for teasing him, you bet you were gonna try as hard as you could to draw it out of him as much as you could. 

With a warm look, he had let you drag him all the way back to your family’s house before you tried learning everything you possibly could about him. 

You took it all in; the way he marveled at the peach trees outside your bedroom window, how excited he was to try the homemade fig jam your mother had brought out in celebration of a new friend. The way he thanked you so genuinely when you gifted him a stray dandelion from the open kitchen windowsill, his hand patting your hair affectionately. The way he got along with your older brother Jaeyun right away, their excited chatter carrying across the dining room as you slumped in your chair with jealousy. Sunghoon was quiet and reserved and polite, but your brother drew him out of his shell right away.

“Jaeyunnn! He’s my friend, not yours,” you had pouted, tugging at Sunghoon’s sleeve possessively. Sunghoon turned to look at you with wide eyes that crinkled at the edges when he realized how upset you actually were, at least as upset as a twelve year old could get. Your brother only stuck his tongue out at you before turning to the door to let the dog out. “You’re so annoying,” you huffed under your breath, making Sunghoon laugh out loud.

“Says you! He can be my friend too, you know.” Jaeyun’s eyebrows creased, not impressed by your petty insult.

“He’s my friend.” And in an attempt to take another jab at your brother, you added an angry “-by the way, mom and dad told me to tell you that you’re adopted.”

Jaeyun breathed out exasperatedly at your immaturity, squinting at you from across the kitchen.

“So we’re just lying now? Okay. Cool,” Jaeyun grinned, “we both know I’m the favorite anyway.” He turns to Sunghoon before patting him on the back and cupping his hands to whisper. “Run while you still can. She’s genuinely the worst.”

Sunghoon covered his mouth to hide his giggle as you stomped around the counter towards Jaeyun, undoubtedly having heard what he had just said. His playful shout rang out when you reached for him with less than good intent.

“Jaeyun! I’m actually gonna to kill you!” You had glared at him, frowning when he skirted out of reach and ran up the stairs all while laughing at your frustration. You slumped back into your chair, hands wrapping around yourself.

“Hey.” Sunghoon leaned towards you, arms out on your chair to balance himself. “You still get me all afternoon. Every afternoon, if you want. You're my very first friend here, remember?”

With his words, you couldn’t stop yourself from letting a shy smile take over your pout before grabbing his hand and pulling him to the stairs.

“Wanna see my room then, Hoon? My dad just hung these cool paper cranes from the ceiling, and they spin by themselves.” 

Sunlight spilled into your room as the two of you laid side by side on the floor for the rest of the day, patchwork quilt pillows under your elbows as you talked about everything your minds could conjure up. You stared at the side of his face as he spoke, admiring the way his eyes beamed and nose scrunched up every time he laughed. 

You learned that he was from the heart of the city city (“The worst train-ride ever here, Y/N. Like almost four hours of doing absolutely nothing,” he had mumbled into the pillow, huffing as you giggled at him), he was in the same year as you in school, and his grandparents lived in the same countryside province as you. His parents had sent him to live with them for the summer because they wanted a “break from him.” It just sounded like a sorry excuse of parenting to you.

You told him about your family life; how you hated the countryside sometimes and how you wished you could live the exciting city life that you saw on TV, which he responded to by looking at you incredulously. You told him all about your childhood best friends Jungwon and Gawon, who you were attached at the hip to during the school year, and about how your brother secretly enjoyed your company the most even though he pretended not to. 

You learned that Sunghoon’s laugh sounded like your grandmother’s chimes in the summer wind, ringing out in your bedroom and becoming ingrained in your walls forever. 

You also found out that the peaches that rest at the tip of the branches just outside your window were the first real ones he’d ever had, not like the canned ones from the grocery store. His eyes had widened impossibly big as the juice dribbled down onto hardwood floors, his mouth full of peach as he tried to say something about the nectar before pointing to you. The points of his canines peeked out as he grinned.

“I think you just changed my life, nectar girl.” The apples of your cheeks turned a blushing shade of pink at his teasing. Embarrassed, you quickly stood up and tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“L-let’s go look for flowers outside when you’re done!” You stammered out, nudging a knowing, grinning Sunghoon with your foot.

And of course, he had followed you without a complaint. As much as you were infatuated with him, he came to realize he also was with you. You had some sort of magnetic energy that he had never seen before in his life, and he couldn’t understand why he grew so fond of you so quickly. You were just so easy to be with. All he knew was that he was glad you had found him, a girl who gave him dandelions and fresh peaches outside of her bedroom window and had a smile that felt a lot like home. Away from the chaos of the city, away from the friends he felt like he didn’t relate to anymore, away from every bad thing he had ever felt in his world back in the city. 

You were untainted. 

Under the watch of the intense summer heat, you came to realize that Sunghoon was an easy person to be friends with. You both adored the tree at the top of the hill, and he loved exploring as much as you do. Maybe even more, which was impossible for you to comprehend. He was quiet with most people, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking when it came to you or your brother. You balanced each other out — you’d soon learn — personality wise, and through the lull of the long summer days, you found yourself seeking out his presence more often than not. 

You became so close that he ended up sleeping over at your home most nights, his voice a constant one in your household. Your parents already knew to keep an extra sleeping mat and pillow in your room for the boy.

And by the end of that first summer, twelve year-old you learned that you didn’t ever want Sunghoon to leave you alone.

…

THIRTEEN

It’s the first day of June, and thirteen year-old you waits patiently on the dirt path leading up to your house. Jaeyun sits with the family dog, Mandu, beside you, giggling to himself as he plays in the grass with him.

It’s the first unofficial day of summer, and “your boy” — as your mom and dad like to joke — still hasn’t come back from the city.

You tuck your chin to your knees as you watch a butterfly flitter and land on your sundress, its nectar-colored wings flapping up at you. It's quiet and not quiet at the same time, the sky humming with singing songbirds and rustling leaves. The unmistakable warmth of sweet summer air hugs you tight, its arms of cool breezes and the scent of roses surround you alike.

Summer is stagnant, you think to yourself. 

That is, until it’s not. 

The sharp noise of tires against gravel picks up in the distance and you can see a brown car kick up dust before pulling around the hills of tea fields in front of your house and head straight towards you.

You screech in delight when you see a familiar boy and his midnight hair pop out from the backseat window as he waves to you and Jaeyun. It almost feels like a dream, the way the car has barely stopped moving before his figure jumps out excitedly and runs up to the house in long strides. 

He’s barely halfway across the yard before you hop up to race and meet him in the middle, colliding with him ungracefully and melting into his open arms as he rocks you back and forth in his embrace. You breathe in his familiar scent and tuck your face into his neck, arms squeezing him as tight as you possibly can while Mandu jumps around your legs in excitement.

“Hi there Hoonie.” You look up at him, the biggest smile you’ve ever seen on his face as he looks down at you with a familiar look of adoration. His warm palms tingle against your skin. 

“Hey, Nectar. I heard from a little birdie that you missed me while I was gone?” 

You don’t respond, merely leaning back into him and refusing to let go as your parents watch fondly from the door.

It’s okay. Sunghoon knows, and you don’t need words to tell each other how much you missed the other’s constant presence in your life.

So for now, he just holds you close with your head on his chest and a rapid pulse in his heart.

—

It smells like bergamot and wet soil, the ground awoken from the night with dew covering its limbs and roots and trestles. You sit next to a boy that sings quiet silences and gentle words, Sunghoon’s soft voice floating in and out of your ears like a melody that you can’t quite grasp. 

You shift comfortably and let your eyes flutter close. A pleasant breeze picks up your hair as you rest your head on the elegant slopes of his shoulders. He relishes in the way you snuggle into his side and pats your cheek affectionately, letting his fingers rest against your sun-soaked skin while the other hand nimbly turns the frayed pages of a well-loved book.

“—this story is a Greek tragedy laced in a Sunday hymn of soul, lingering like a stubborn songbird. It's about chasing glory, pride, and the kind of love you never really walk away from—” He reads, smoothing over your hair with his palm.

You’ve spent every single day of summer so far with Sunghoon. The two of you seem to never run out of things to do; two weeks ago it was digging up clay and painting silt drawings on each other’s skin, the ghosts of misshapen swirls and hearts seared into your arms forever. 

Five days ago it was sneaking into a crater pond behind the tea hills together along with your brother, Jaeyun trailing a cooler of ice pops behind the three of you as you made the trek. You had stayed in the water until your skin was ripe and pruning, head bobbing above the surface as you floated across its width. 

Three days ago, it was a confession, sung boldly from within the walls of your childhood home. A secret that would stay there forever. 

Sunghoon’s leg thrown over yours. Your arm haphazardly splayed across his stomach. Burning skin seeking the chill of your kitchen’s cool ceramic tiles, the aroma of your father’s cooking wafting over your figures with the savour of ginger, wood smoke, and charcoal poignant. You had laid there on the kitchen floor and hummed to each other, making up songs that only made sense to the two of you. 

“I think I like you more than I like my parents, Y/N.”

You turned to him, eyes wide. You didn’t know what to say.

He simply stared at the ceiling with a faraway look in his eyes, hands folded neatly behind his head. Your father chimed in as a floating voice from behind the island counter towering above you. 

“Sunghoon, you know you’re always welcome to stay in our home as long as you’d like.”

You furrowed your eyebrows and peered at Sunghoon through makeshift binoculars that you made with your fingers, zeroing in onto the sage threads of his cotton shirt, his new wire rimmed glasses that fogged up at the edges from the heat, the way he chewed his lip while deep in thought.

You frown. “You don’t mean that, Hoon…”

“No no, I do. You’re my favorite person in the world,” he says matter-of-factly, fiddling with his shirt. As if his words didn’t carry as much weight as they did. Your father clutches his heart from the sink to himself while you simply just gape at the boy next to you. “I don’t even wanna go back to the city anymore.”

“I don’t want you to either,” you mumble, “but- but what about your friends?”

It was funny to think about the life he lived when he wasn’t with you in the countryside, the complete other side of him you’d never get to see. It made your tummy turn in a weird way, knowing there were people important to him that you would never meet and parents you would never get to scold for making your best friend feel sad sometimes. Life is weird that way, and you don’t think you can imagine your Sunghoon with a crisp academy uniform, pretty summer tan gone and metropolitan blood running through his veins.

He just shrugged, closing his eyes to the sound of your father chopping up vegetables and the simmering of a hearty stew on the stovetop.

“I never want to leave here.”

You’d heard about Sunghoon’s home friends before, his fleeting descriptions of them giving you an overall sense of the kinds of people they were. Whenever he talked about them, you tried to imagine him doing all the things they did — getting into trouble at school and staying late to clean the classroom as punishment, prowling the convenience stores after late night classes, going to PC cafes at ungodly hours of the night, attempting to skinny dip in the river — and you really couldn’t see it.

You knew him and his friends were close, but somehow pride still surged through you knowing that you were his favorite. 

“Then stay here forever,” you concluded, eyelashes fluttering as you gazed at him.

He grinned, peering over at you through those glasses of his that you loved so much.

“Was planning to anyway, Nectar. What else would I ever want to do?”

—

Today, you’re under the tree again. Yours and Sunghoon’s tree.

It’s been a relatively calm day, a picnic of half eaten dried meat and peppers scattered between the two of you. The wildflowers have started to multiply around you, if the small white daisies tucked into the folds of your hair say anything. You carefully lean over the food to tuck the prettiest little bluebell bunch you could find behind Sunghoon’s ear, his skin hot to your touch.

Leaning back to admire your handiwork, you gasp when a butterfly with vibrant nectar wings flits past you with the breeze and lands in his hair.

“Sunghoon, don’t. Move,” you whisper, your eyes lighting up at the sight. “She’ll fly away!”

He coos at your awe, sitting as still as possible at your words. Its wings still for a beat against his head.

“It’s okay.” He slowly leans towards you, his hand bracing himself against your knee. “Even if she flies away now, she’ll always come back, right?” He stares as the butterfly eventually flutters away from him and into the sky, straight towards the sun. 

You can’t help it when a cool shutter runs through you at his words. 

You stare at the sky in search of the butterfly but startle when Sunghoon sidles up closer next to you. Looking back at him, his hand stays on your leg and it seems like he’s leaned impossibly closer. His dark eyes peer at you curiously through his glasses before tangling an experimental hand in your hair, liking how soft the strands feel against his skin. It’s a different version of him that you’ve never seen before peering at you.

Breathing out quickly, you mumble a distracted “yeah” before your eyes flit down to his lips for just a millisecond. Your face reddens with shame when you suddenly wonder what it would feel to have your best friend’s mouth against yours, to know him in a way that you haven’t gotten to before. Even though you’ve never kissed anyone, you’d like to think that he would be a good first. Someone who you would trust with everything in your life. You don’t know a whole lot about what would happen after, but you do know that you want this now.

Neither of you move for what feels like eternity, nonblinking gazes locked on each other as Sunghoon moves a subtle, shaky hand to your face. His thumb brushes your cheek gently, eyes moving back and forth between yours before falling to your lips. Neither of you dare to breathe. This would change everything.

He’s nervous, you realize.

“Sunghoon…” you bite your lip, looking down at the way he holds you with the utmost care. 

“We’re best friends, right?” He blurts out, hands tightening around you. His eyebrows furrow as he searches your face for any sign of doubt, a million thoughts rushing through his mind at once. 

Your mouth parts but nothing comes out. You nod with the slightest of motions.

“Of course we are,” you whisper.

Sunghoon releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“...then- then we can do this for each other.”

Before you can ask what he means, he pulls you closer by the fabric on your waist and carefully slots his mouth with yours. You feel his hand tilt your chin up so that your lips can meet more comfortably against his. It’s short and sweet and everything you’ve ever wanted, your stomach exploding into warm butterflies that batter against your ribcage with fervor. Something you’ve never felt before overcomes you, your eyes fluttering closed at the feeling of existing like this together. You taste the savory and sweetness from the food he’d eaten before on his tongue and revel in the fact that Sunghoon is kissing you.

It’s quick, but for you, it feels like something you want forever. The kiss is laced in innocence and hesitance, intertwined with the subtle, bitter thought of insecurity that you push away into the depths of your mind.

What if this is the only time he wants me like this…

You blink when he pulls away slowly, committing this moment to memory. You can still feel his warm breath as he nudges your nose with his and beams at you with an innocent smile. Not a word is spoken until you break away from his hold with a shy smile and hands scrunched into balls by your side. You don’t really know what to do with yourself. Your eyes flit to everywhere but his face, although you can feel his gaze searing into you nonetheless. It feels like you’re on fire.

Sunghoon leans back with a satisfied look, his fingers digging into the grass. 

“You taste good.”

“Sunghoon!” You splutter out with burning cheeks, shoving his shoulder as he giggles at your reaction, “you can’t just say that!”

Before he can tease you further, the tiniest drop of water lands on your nose. Neither of you had noticed the darkening sky before, too distracted with each other to look up.

A dark film of clouds filters out the sun, a light drizzle hitting your skin in soft pats before doing a sudden 180 into harsh pellets. Water taps across the ground with a sizzle as Sunghoon tugs you to your feet, fingers circling around your wrists tightly. 

You giggle when you catch a sight of the boy in front of you, his shirt soaked through and his wet hair matted to his forehead. Droplets dip across his eyelashes and down the slope of his nose, your hand reaching up instinctively to wipe some of the water off his skin. You doubt you look any better, your wet and cold clothes sticking to your body to the point of almost sheerness. He peers at you through the rain, admiring how pretty you look even when the rain downpours over the two of you relentlessly.

Sunghoon’s only thirteen, but he doesn’t think he’s ever known love like this.

“Look,” he grins at the dark sky, hands out to feel the water against his goosebump riddled skin. “The sky, she’s crying for us.” 

Your mouth parts as you stare up with him, blinking when the rain gets in your eyes. 

“Happy tears?”

“Happy tears,” he nods, smoothing a thumb over the back of your hand. “Are you cold, Y/N?” Your teeth chatter, making him laugh. “Let’s get you back before we both get sick.”

Nodding, you wipe some of the water off your face before he’s dragging you back in the direction of your house, shoes muddied and figures soaked to the bone. Dirt and gravel stick to your skin as you run through the storm, splashing back through familiar tall grasses and the shallow flooded waters of clay roads. Your favorite lace socks are brown with mud, but you can’t bring yourself to care when Sunghoon’s warm palm is in yours the whole way back, fingers laced tightly.

When the two of you rush through the back door of your house, tracking water all over onto the hardwood floors, Jaeyun’s stare lingers on your intertwined hands for a second before looking up and bursting out laughing. 

“Bro, mom’s gonna kill you for making a mess,” he raises his eyebrows, staring at your bodies wilted with the summer storm as Mandu laps at the stray water on the ground. “But not before making you clean that all up.”

“I know I know, we’ll clean it before she sees, Jakey,” you sigh out his nickname, exasperated. You shake the excess rain off before you feel a towel being laid gently across your shoulders. Looking up, Sunghoon’s soft gaze is already on you as he gets some of the remaining droplets around your face. His eyes scan yours before they crinkle with warmth, his fingers lingering on your skin.

“Don’t get sick, okay? Not when you’re shivering like this from the rain,” he lightly scolds, drying himself as well. Jaeyun gapes at the two of you, eyes jumping between Sunghoon and you. Your brother mutters something inaudible under his breath before throwing you more towels that you barely catch, stumbling and distracted with the boy next to you.

“You look like Mandu after a bath, Y/N-ie. Like a rat,” Jaeyun says matter-of-factly, smirking when you swat him with the towels in your hands. Of course he ruins the moment by opening his mouth. That’s what brothers are for.

“Well at least I don’t wake up looking like one,” you bite back, furrowing your eyebrows at him, “unlike someone I know.”

“Okay, cow.”

Your mouth falls open.

“You’re actually the worst Jaeyun! That was so mean! You- you’re really gonna get it this time!”

Sunghoon calmly folds the towels as you and Jaeyun fight back and forth, used to the sibling arguments he always finds himself in the middle of. He smiles as he watches you pout out of the corner of his eye, finding your determination to win against your brother adorable. What he doesn’t expect, however, is to be pulled into the argument as you grab his arm and attach yourself to it.

“-but Sunghoon thinks I look nice. Right, Sunghoon? Jaeyun thinks I don’t look nice.”

Your brother just groans as you glare at him from across the room.

“That’s not fair Y/N, Sunghoon likes you! Of course he’s gonna say you’re the prettiest girl he’s ever seen!”

At his words, Sunghoon’s cheeks fire up and redden faster than you’ve ever seen them. You feel your own face heating as he bashfully looks away from you, the verbal acknowledgement that there is something more than platonic between the two of you making it that much more real.

“Woooow,” Jaeyun drawls, raising an eyebrow at his friend’s inability to speak. “Hah, this is so annoying.”

You can’t look either of them in your eyes anymore, instead mumbling something about taking a shower and making a run for it upstairs. After your bedroom door slams shut behind you, you slump against it with your damp skirt pooling around you and your heart pounding out of your chest.

I like him. You bury your face in your arm. I like my best friend.

Sunghoon’s thoughts are racing far faster than his brain can catch up to as he’s left alone with Jaeyun, who’s staring at him like he’s grown five extra heads. 

“I’m not gonna pretend like I know what’s going on between you and my baby sister,” Jaeyun starts, a smirk growing on his face as he glances up at his friend. “But I just wanna say that I knew it was going to happen eventually.”

“Hey!” Sunghoon splutters, tripping over his words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Your brother snorts, peering incredulously at him before turning his head to look up the stairs.

“So now that we all know that you’re in love with my sister, you’re not gonna hang out with me anymore, is that right?”

“Why are you like this,” he whines, nudging Jaeyun’s shoulder with his. “Of course I will. We’ll always be friends, Jakey. There’s that anime you wanted to watch, right? Let’s watch an episode right now.”

Jaeyun just stares as Sunghoon makes his way to the living room alone with dripping hair and his clothes half dry, crouching down and carefully thumbing through the DVD bin on the ground while mumbling to himself. “Y/N takes long showers anyway, maybe we can even get two episodes in…”

Shaking his head, your brother just sighs and sits down next to him, not ready for whatever new dynamic you and Sunghoon were going to bring to his house next.

—

There’s a certain image that you know will stick in your mind for as long as you live, the kind of memory that would replay itself during cold, lonely nights and a hypothetical wedding day, the type of scene that the greatest playwrights include in both their most adored romances and tragedies alike. There are variations that every person in the world experiences, yet this one is uniquely yours. 

It’s a scene that you know will stay with you forever.

From your house’s back gate left open for the dog, to your lovely peach tree in full bloom looming overhead, and to the wildflowers that grow loose tickling your ankles. The way his eyes light up with an indescribable emotion upon seeing you in the sundress he found at the Sunday farmer’s market for you. The humid air that lingers after a summer rain clouding your senses, encapsulating the two of you in warmth. The sky is saturated with a rich sunset of amber and coral pink, birds chirping happily even though it is well into the evening.

But nothing is as clear as the image of your first love standing before you with his hands in his corduroy pockets and his beating heart on his sleeve, staring at you like you’ve hung every star in the sky with your own two hands as he tells you that he likes you.

His hands tuck yours carefully into the warmth of his pockets, looking down at you with awe before pressing a sweet kiss to the tip of your nose. You’ve gradually come to the startling realization that you feel for Sunghoon just as much, a kind that only the first love can hold.

And he stares at you like you’re his first love, something to be kept and treasured and taken care of. You’ve had dozens, no, thousands of evenings like this with Sunghoon, but nothing strikes you in the heart quite like this. 

Not when the summer has gone by in a blink and now he’s leaving tomorrow, swept away back into a city life you’ve never touched.

The two of you are happy just to exist like this with each other, within the same timeline and under the same starry sky, because what are the odds that this happens? What are the odds that you’ve found the person that knows and understands you to the core this early on in life, giving you love in the form of time and care you would to something akin to family? You don’t know how the universe knew you needed each other, but you do know that you hope the two of you never change.

But change is inevitable, and it doesn’t happen in a blink. Change is gradual, sneaking up on you like the rolling hills of the countryside, like a dip in the lake floor when you’re walking and walking and walking and all of a sudden you can’t feel the ground anymore. And then you’re drowning.

It’s a shame that you can’t see change until it’s too late and you have to ask yourself when it happened, scouring through memories for an answer that you know you’ll never find.

Because when Sunghoon comes back to you the next summer, you know in your heart that he’s not the same boy that left you.

But you still sob when his grandparents drive up the lonely dirt road to your house to take him back home to the city — not your home — Mandu’s sad cries ringing out as your boy gives you a hug that takes your breath away and a whispered promise that lingers in your ears through your choked tears.

“Don’t cry, love. I’ll be back, I always will.”

Even your brother has tears that streak down his face, hiding his face from everyone as he waits silently on the porch by himself with his knees tucked closely to his chest. He refuses to say bye because it makes it feel too real.

You watch Sunghoon in the car as it screeches off, your legs carrying you as far as you can go as you run after dusty tire tracks. The boy cranes his neck out of the window at your figure falling back behind him. 

You run until your legs burn and you physically can’t anymore, your worn sneakers halting to a stop where the red dirt ends and hits hard pavement.

He was yours for the summer only.

-

FIFTEEN

The next summer doesn’t come fast enough.

You’re taller now, but not nearly as tall as your beanstalk of a brother who towers over your dad at only sixteen. Your parents remark at how much the two of you have grown, teenagers now who don’t rebel outwardly but do in every emotional sense. The aunties next door comment on how you and Jaeyun could audition to be idols or models or announcers, your mom teeming with pride when they fuss over you. The both of you just look at each other with the same expression, used to their antics.

Your brother still makes fun of you relentlessly, commenting on the changes you are so obviously going through at your age. You buy the clothes you like now, learning from your friends at school how to do your makeup and hair, how to fold your uniform skirt a little shorter than the length it comes in. You fill into your features a bit more too, surprised when even some of Jaeyun’s intimidating, older friends at school take an interest in you.

None of them don’t matter though, not when your boy came back to you two weeks ago. 

Sunghoon is the same as he’s always been, you reassure yourself.

You dismiss the slight change in his boyish personality as a result of transferring schools to a fancier, private one that he can’t stop talking about to you and Jaeyun. Even his face is sharper now, his hair longer, his gait more confident. His voice a tone deeper to accompany a more mature face. Dark hair falls over his forehead in gentle waves, his shoulders broader and figure growing to a height that rivals your brother’s. Sunghoon has always been beautiful to you, but you know now that he might be the prettiest boy you’ve ever seen.

He tells you about his new friends at school and how cool they are, you and Jaeyun nodding along in wonder as he describes the kinds of fancy homes they live in and the cool cars their parents drive as the three of you wander the fields like you always have.

You now know them by name; Heeseung, who he’s grown the closest to over the school year, and who wants to go to the same uni that he does.

You haven’t even thought about university yet. 

And then there’s Aeri, a girl who he’s mentioned a few times. You hate how your fingers tingle in jealousy when her name crosses his tongue, a bitter reminder that his life extends beyond anything you’ve ever experienced.

But underneath all that new gunk, Sunghoon still calls you his nectar girl and holds you close to him like he never left. His laugh still rings out like wind chimes in your childhood home, his kind words still making your parents swoon. He looks like he’s always belonged when he’s in your sun soaked bedroom, picking peaches from the branch outside your window and sitting between your legs as you play with his hair.

He’s got a lovely summer glow back now too, one that matches yours as he steals sweet kisses from you when you least expect it. You don’t know when he got this bold, no longer shy about showing his affection towards you.

All you know is that he’s still your best friend, through and through. A best friend that you’re in love with vehemently.

You know that for sure, especially when it’s just the two of you. 

When it’s just you and him, you’re reduced back to the children you met as.

You take a deep breath and your eyes flutter close, a sweet scent filling your room as you lay under a makeshift fort constructed out of pillows and quilts and stray sheets to escape the heat. A wooden tray of fresh garden figs and acacia honey sits next to you, vicious against plush lips as the seeds bite into your tongue. Your white sundress sprawls across cushions and hikes up your thighs as a lone fan’s wind picks up the fabric and puts it back down. It makes Sunghoon’s hair flutter as he lays there next to you, his skin adorned with a slight sheen of sweat. It’s hot, but your skin still finds a way to touch his.

“My pretty girl,” he murmurs, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. Heat fills you as you open your eyes to his face just inches from yours, his eyes warm with the afternoon sun. An orange halo surrounds his head from its rays, making him look angelic as you run a hand through his bangs. “I could look at you forever.”

“Forever is a long time,” you whisper back, squealing when you feel a whisper of his fingers on your thigh.

“Not long enough.”

You blink at each other slowly before you feel his palm trail up the side of your leg and up to your hip, a curious, innocent hand inching slowly under the cotton of your dress for the very first time.

One hand works to unbutton his linen shirt while his mouth works wonders into your skin, sharp canines dragging down the column of your throat carefully. 

It’s a sweet disposition, all shy smiles and hesitant movements. But you trust him fully, more than anyone in the world, so you let him take you. You’d give him your firsts in every lifetime.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

-

SIXTEEN

“Sunghoon?”

“Mm?”

You bite your lip, hands fiddling mindlessly with the tulips poking out of the ground next to you. Sunghoon drags a steady hand up and down your arm, drawing small circles along the way. He came back a few weeks ago, settled back into your daily routine.

“Do you… do you have a phone?”

Sunghoon stills for a few moments, staring at the grass between the two of you blankly as it rustles in the breeze. Your bikes lay discarded in front of you, plants poking through their wheels and woven baskets as your careful fingers weave a crown of green in your lap. 

He seems to swallow hesitantly before looking up at you.

“Yeah, I do.”

Your heart falls just a little, the edges of your mouth crinkling down as you chew on the inside of your lip. Your fingers still against your dress, gripping tightly to the flower crown in your hand.

He never told you he had a phone, always relying on communication between your parents and his grandparents to arrange the times when he’d be over. You barely heard from him throughout the year, the cold mouthpiece of the transmitter on your dad’s old landline phone working fine for when you wanted to call his family’s apartment number. No one picked up, usually. If someone did, it would be his mother’s cold voice telling you that he was at cram school and to not bother calling back.

…why didn’t he tell me?

“Oh. I guess I’ve just never seen it.” You can feel a tremor creep up your throat through your voice, trying your best not to get upset. “Have you always had a phone?”

“No! No, I uh- my dad got me one like, last year maybe? Yeah,” he coughs, looking away. “Yeah, about then.”

Right, of course. Kids in the big cities always had those new phones, the ones that had taxi apps and food delivery service and texting. Your parents still hadn’t gotten you one, claiming that it would just distract you from school and chores. You hadn’t really desired one that strongly, but now you felt off about not having a phone when most people your age did in TV shows and magazines. 

“Why have you never given me your number?”

You’ve never felt this feeling before, this ugly sort of insecurity as to why he’s never done so. Doesn’t he want to talk to you like you do with him? Or was he too busy during the year, busy with his friends and all the people you didn’t know. Your gut feels off, the first instance of distance you’ve ever felt with him bleeding into your heart until you have to physically look away from him, scared that your eyes will betray you and water. Were you too clingy?

“...Sunghoon?”

It’s nothing to cry over, you frown, there’s always a reason.

“Hey hey,” Sunghoon frowns in worry as he sees you turn away from him. He reaches an arm behind you so that he can pull you snug to his chest, eyes peering down at you with regret through his glasses. “Let me explain, I swear to you that I didn’t do it to make you feel sad like this. That’s the last thing I would ever want, love.”

You refuse to meet his gaze, opting to tug at a thread on his shirt instead.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to call and hear your voice, Y/N, you know that’s all I ever want when we’re so far from each other,” he starts, brushing a tender finger against your cheek. “It’s just- every time we call and I hear how much you miss me but I can’t see your face, I get so upset that I feel like,” he lets out a frustrated breath, “like I can’t breathe. Like a part of me is missing, like you’re supposed to be there sitting next to me. And then I turn, and you’re not.” He traces the lines of your palm, continuing.

“I don’t think I could ever explain how much you mean to me, and I’m so so sorry that I kept this from you. You’re the most precious thing I have, truly and- and you’re like,” he takes a deep breath, “my safe space. Away from the city and all the bad things I associate with it. I’m sorry, I selfishly wanted to keep you to myself so that none of those negative feelings could taint you. I don’t like the person I am when I’m not with you, and I was scared that I would let those bad feelings into our conversations if we called-” “But Sunghoon, I like every part of you,” you blurt out. “I understand that you’re different when  your environment is different and there’s more… pressure on you with your parents and friends and stuff, but you don’t have to hide any of it from me. You forget that I have so much room in my heart for you, no matter if you’re feeling tired or frustrated or sad.”

His eyes soften as he gazes down at you in his arms, your little frown making his chest hurt.

“Y/N…” he trails off. “It’s just- when I call you, it- everything reminds me of what I can’t have when I need you there with me,” he whispers, “I always need you, you have no idea.”

“Sunghoon…”

“And my parents can see my phone records too. You know them, they’re the- the worst. I don’t want them to take you away from me. If they see you as a distraction, they’re not going to let me come to my grandparents’ anymore. That would kill me, Y/N, it would ruin me.”

You don’t say anything for a bit, just allowing the warmth radiating from Sunghoon to envelop you as his words sit with the silence. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his voice slight and quiet as he places a gentle kiss in your hair.

“I know, Sunghoon, I know.” You lift your head so that you can look into his eyes. “It’s okay, I forgive you.”

His shoulders relax, not even realizing they were tense in the first place. Smoothing over the spot he kissed with his thumb, he tucks your head under his chin.

“You can always call our home and come here. Always,” you murmur.

Breathing in your scent, he closes his eyes and lets the weight of his head drop, pressing his cheek to you. He feels your hand curl around his forearm with the utmost care and can’t help the smile that takes over his face.

“I’m already home, love.”

—

“When we’re older and married, I want three kids.”

You almost choke on the stew halfway down your throat, your eyes widening incredulously as you whip your head to stare at Sunghoon. He freezes in surprise, rushing to offer you a napkin as you try to try to compose yourself. You make eyes at him before pointedly looking at the silhouette of your dad’s back, who’s chuckling to himself as he stirs stew at the kitchen counter.

“What?” Sunghoon grins, his usually more reserved demeanor gone. “You don’t want three kids? I guess we could settle with two…”

You just gape at him as he scoops more radish cubes onto his plate, eyes completely focused on the task in front of him. “It’s up to you, of course. I always wonder how my mom carried an entire baby in her.”

As he rambles on, you just sit in your own little puddle of thoughts that brew inside your head. 

Me and Sunghoon? Married? Kids?

You blush at the thought, feet swinging slowly under your chair as you imagine it.

Getting to grow old with him. Buying a house. Visiting your parents together when you’re away, getting to make home-cooked meals together in the quaint kitchen of yours and Sunghoon’s home. Spending every day with him, getting into more adult messes with him. Tending to the loveliest garden that would be completely yours and his, a shared room, a peach tree outside. Never ending roads, fresh flowers, sunsets, all with him.

You want it all.

As you stare off into space, eyes glassy, Sunghoon smiles to himself, eating the food in front of him happily as he admires you like you’re everything he’s ever wanted. Your father simply shakes his head, talking to himself as he stirs the stew in front of him patiently. 

“That boy is going to break our poor girl’s heart if he ever leaves her.”

-

SEVENTEEN

“How’s my favorite girl?” Sunghoon coos as you sink into his touch like it’s the only thing keeping you grounded. You slump your weight against him as he holds you up, laughing at your antics. “Missed me?”

You nod, stuffing your face into the soft cloth of his shirt.

“Lonely?”

You nod again, wilting in his arms.

Jaeyun had left for the city last week to move there for the foreseeable future, wanting to get settled into his housing accommodations and a different type of lifestyle before his first semester at university started. You were undeniably sad, a constant presence in your life now missing. You knew Sunghoon was upset that he missed him by a sliver, getting to your province when Jaeyun was already gone. 

Your brother had parted with tear-filled hugs and promises to phone home often, but even that wasn’t enough to mask the fact that you hadn’t ever really experienced life without him before. He had always been there from birth to adolescence and now, the beginning of adulthood. Now he felt worlds away — well, he technically was now — and not a bedroom away where you could run down the hall and situate yourself in his space if you needed him.

“I have a present for you.”

You perk up at that, looking at Sunghoon curiously as he ruffled through his backpack. You can’t help but let your eyes run up and down him, noting how much he’s changed in the last year. He’s always been handsome in a timeless way, his dark hair longer and curling at the nape of his neck now. A delicate silver chain rests against the column of his throat, where the marks you had left last summer are long gone by now.

“What is it?” You peer curiously over him, giggling when he reaches a hand up to block your vision.

“Patience now, Nectar,” he says softly, the bag swallowing his arm before he pulls it out with an, “mm, found it.”

Your mouth falls open as you spot the prettiest watch you’ve ever laid your eyes on in Sunghoon’s open palms. It’s intricate and delicate, the face frozen in time with its minute and hour hands stuck at 12:12. The thin metal band that holds it is cold to the touch as he carefully clasps it around your wrist, careful not to pinch your skin.

“Do you like it?” He asks nervously, glancing between your wrist and your reaction. “I saw it at the flea market a few days ago and immediately thought of you. Look, there are even peach tree engravings along the side. It’s perfect.”

Sunghoon tucks his hair behind his ear, anxiously waiting for you to say something. Instead, he’s caught by surprise as you leap up and wrap your arms behind his neck, voice muffled by his shirt as you sing your praise.

“Oh Sunghoon, this is stunning! I love it so so much,” you gush, holding your wrist up. “I want to wear it forever.” You feel him wrap his arms naturally around your waist, holding you to him. “You always know just what will make me feel better.”

“The vendor said that it doesn’t work anymore, but we can bring it to the jewelry store tomorrow in town. My grandmother says they fix watches for free there,” he looks down at you to find your gaze focused on the watch, admiring the way it shines under the sunlight.

“I like it like this,” you reply, nestling your chin onto his shoulder. “It's like it’s frozen in time so that I can always remember this moment.”

Sunghoon snorts, tilting his head at you.

“What, was that too cheesy?” 

“No, no,” he reassures, patting your head. “I like the way you think.”

A satisfied smile overcomes you until your gaze finds its way back to Sunghoon’s open backpack, noticing a sliver of something white poking out of an inner pocket.

Is that…

Your brows furrow as you squint, trying to make out what seemed like the corner of a little box. Breaking out of Sunghoon’s tight grasp, you approach his bag hesitantly before pulling at it.

Your face falls as you stare at the little white box in your hands, moving away when he reaches to take it from you with an unreadable expression. It burns fear into your hands as you stare at it.

Your voice is quiet when you finally turn to him.

“You smoke?”

Sunghoon sighs before looking away, sounding slightly peeved, tucking his hands into his pockets as his tongue subconsciously pokes at his cheek.

“It’s nothing, Y/N, don’t overreact.”

“I’m not over… I mean it’s just, were you trying to hide it from me?”

“Don’t be like that, Nectar, everyone in the city smokes. A pack is cheap,” he mumbles. You frown at the way he says ‘nectar,’ as if your concern is bothering him more than anything else. “You just live in a little bubble here. I bet Jaeyun is off doing worse things that he’s never told you about, okay? Put it back now, love.”

You let him grab the pack from your limp arm as it drops to your side.

“Just because I care and you don’t doesn’t mean you can do this to yourself. Sorry that I worry about you when I haven’t seen you for a year,” you whisper rapidly, tone cold as you pull your cardigan around you tighter. “And I thought that’s what you liked about me. That I’m ‘untainted’ or whatever.” He flinches when you throw his own words back at him.

“That’s not what I meant- please, Y/N-” he frowns when you choose to ignore him, instead sitting down and pulling your knees to your chest.

You know you’re acting slightly immature but you can’t help the hurt that bites inside of you by the way he’s talking. It’s like whiplash, the conversation turning sour so quick as you twist the gifted watch around your wrist in circles. 

Your brain is a jumble of different emotions, overloaded by your brother leaving and college applications and not seeing Sunghoon and now this stupid fight. You’ve fought before but not over something like this, not over something that makes your unwavering trust in him waver. You notice that he has a habit of keeping things from you, and you really wish he wouldn’t.

It’s silent except for the far off echo of a barking farm dog, your body facing away from him as you sit side by side on the edge of your porch. Neither of you speak for a while, your disinterest in looking at him making Sunghoon nervous. He finally breaks the silence when he sees the slight glitter of tears against your waterline, the sight making his heart shatter. A clumsy hand comes up to brush the tears away, floating hair in the evening wind getting tangled in your quick fingers.

He hates seeing you cry, especially if he’s the cause.

“You’re right,” your boy admits softly, fiddling with his hands in his lap. “I’m really sorry, Y/N. I feel like I keep fucking up… I- I didn’t mean to make you more upset.” He reaches out a hand as if to touch your arm, but it just floats between the two of you instead when you don’t turn to face him.

“I just wish you wouldn’t hide parts of yourself from me,” you say, hurt laced in your voice. He grimaces.

“I know, love. There are parts of myself that I’m not proud of, that I try to hide because-” he looks off, lip caught between his teeth, “the best version of myself is when I’m with you, and I want to separate the two in my mind so desperately that I keep on hurting you in the process. And I know I do, and it kills me that you feel this way.”

“Then stop, Sunghoon, I’ve always said that you could show me anything and I wouldn’t run.” You swallow, turning to him with red-rimmed eyes. “As much as you think I don’t understand you, I do. It makes me sad that you don’t think I have the ability to just listen whenever you need it and empathize with your situation. I will always be here with open arms and a quiet heart no matter what goes and happens to you back home or how much you change,” your breath shakes with emotion, mouth pressing into a thin line. “I’ll always give you everything because you deserve it.” 

Your words hang heavy in the air, and Sunghoon doesn’t say anything — not right away. His eyes search your face like he’s trying to memorize it, like he’s scared you don’t mean every word that’s just come out of your mouth.

“I just need you to let me in, Sunghoon. That’s it.”

His lips part as if he’s letting his tongue catch up to his thoughts, but nothing comes out. Instead, he slumps forward slightly, hesitating to see if you flinch away before letting his forehead drop to your shoulder. You feel his weight slump against your still body, your gaze trained on the golden horizon and the sun descending slowly, bringing the warmth of the summer evening with it. You don’t trust yourself to look at him just yet, the fluttering strands of his bangs tickling your chin.

Ever so slowly, you feel it.

The ache of his arm as it slips around your shoulder, rooting itself in your hair and cradling the back of your head. The other holds your waist, as if you’re anchoring him to the earth. His touch is trembling and warm, and you can feel the slight wetness of his tears against your shirt as he crumbles. It feels like an apology without words and without shame. You don't even realize you're not breathing until your lungs give in, body slowly coming undone in his hold.

“I know,” you whisper into his hair, your cheek brushing the top of his head. “I know you never mean to. It’s okay.”

Maybe when you’re older, you won’t forgive as easily as the young heart does, but for now the words leave you before you can even register them.

At your voice, he pulls you in impossibly tighter like he’s trying to fold you into himself and tuck you away from the rest of the world. You feel his breath stutter in your ear, and when he finally moves, it’s to brush a gentle thumb over the face of the watch he’s gifted you.

The only thing you can do is just hold him, arms coming to rest around his shoulders.

For now, you don’t need him to promise he’ll change overnight. You only need the reassurance that he understands how you feel and respect it, and acknowledge the slow, silent way that he lets himself be seen to you.

For the first time in a long time, the quiet between you feels whole.

-

The rest of the summer falls away to days of just you and Sunghoon, the occasional call from your brother filling cozy afternoons and spilling into the evening.

Both of you try to live in ignorant bliss, ignoring the ticking of the summer clock that always looms when you’re together. 

He lets you read your treasured poems to him from your leather-bounded journals, and you let him teach you old-school games on Jaeyun’s broken, forgotten gameboy. Your parents cook for him like always, bellies always full with the bare-grown foods of the countryside and pre-dinner chores to keep you tired and resting all through the night. He earns back the healthy, country tan he always gets when he’s here, cheeks a permanent dusty pink as he chases you between the rows and rows of berry bushes behind your house. Your limbs are a little longer, your heights a bit taller, but some things never change. 

He still sweeps you off your feet like he did when you were children, barely understanding the ways of the world and how cruel it can truly be. 

“I can’t believe we have to go to university so soon,” you lament, tongue poking out of your mouth in focus as you snuggle into his side under your shared tree at the top of the hill. Its branches are full with peach blossoms, little leaves matting the ground as the two of you lean against its trunk.

“I know,” Sunghoon groans, head hitting old bark with a thump as he sighs. “All these applications are gonna fucking kill me.” You frown, playing with the grass beside you.

“Jaeyun said he’d give me his old application references, but he never did, that little shit,” you mutter bitterly. Sunghoon just laughs, wrapping an arm around you.

“Maybe you’ll get into his uni. Wouldn’t that be fun, seeing his face everywhere?”

“He’d probably hate that, knowing him. Pretty sure he’d pay me not to apply.”

“Hey, we both know he’d secretly love having you close.” Sunghoon chuckles out. “How about me? Do you think he’d want me to follow him there?”

“Probably. Then you’d guys would start hanging out without me and forget all about me."

Sunghoon nuzzles into you, lips tickling the shell of your ear.

“That would never happen, nectar baby.”

“You never know!” You giggle, attempting (and failing) to push him away.

He just smiles into your skin in response, breathing in a deep breath of your shampoo and the scent of the fresh grass around you.

“Where do you think you’re going to go?”

“Hm? For university?” he hums, pursing his lips.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know…” he trails off, hands tensing against your stomach. “My parents want me to stay close to home, in the city. My dad wants me to get into one of the top three schools, or else they'll probably pay for my way in or some shit. I don’t know.”

You look at the ground.

You’ve always known that his parents were wealthy, but you guess you didn’t know the extent to their power or who exactly his parents were — in a world that you were sure you had no part of. Could they really do that? 

“Where are you thinking of applying?” Sunghoon interrupts your train of thought, prompting you to speak.

“SNU.”

He stills. 

“In the city?

“Yeah. I think the change would do me good. Plus, the likelihood of me getting in are slim.”

He doesn’t respond, arm falling from around you. You continue, oblivious.

“I just want to experience living there at least at some point in my life. If I don’t like it, I’ll come back. Plus, Jaeyun’s there already in Seoul and he said he likes it better than the countryside.” You smile up at Sunghoon, not noticing how his expression seems to have shifted from earlier. “What if we get into the same university? I think I would cry out of happiness.” You fiddle with the watch on your wrist. “I can’t stay in this town forever.”

“I know, love, I just can’t imagine you anywhere but here,” he admits, scuffing his shoes against the dirt. You move back, mouth open, before nudging his shoulder. 

“Heyy, what’s that supposed to mean?” 

Sunghoon just tilts his head at you, tucking a wildflower behind your ear. 

“You’re one with the wind and soil, Y/N. The unforgiving city is no place for someone like you,” he says lovingly, patting your hair. His hand slowly trails its way down your arm and settles at your waist, twisting itself around the chiffon of your dress. Your cheeks burn at his flowery words; honey pours out of his mouth so easily. 

“I can be one with the concrete too…” you mumble, pouting. He simply laughs in response. 

“Of course, love.”

Sunghoon already looks distracted, his gaze dropping dangerously low to the way the flowy fabric hugging you dances in the breeze, twirling around your legs and allowing his wandering hands to travel up your thighs. 

“And what if we end up far away from each other?” he breathes out, not waiting for an answer before surging forward to press a sweet kiss into your lips. As if he couldn’t hold himself back any longer. 

You’ll never get tired of his kisses, each one feeling like the first time all over again. The lingering taste of berries transfers from his tongue to yours, his hand gripping your chin tight as he shifts to kiss you more comfortably. Tilting your head, he licks into your mouth before letting his fingers tangle in your hair. 

Sighing in delight, you press the worried crease between his brows out with your fingers and let your body be completely enveloped by his. 

“It’s okay. As long as I exist, you’ll always be able to reach me. No matter how far I am.”

Sunghoon shutters at your words, swallowing your voice with his own as he lets out a soft moan at the feeling of your hand in his hair.

“As long as I exist, you will always have someone that’ll be proud of you.”

With an arm behind your head to cushion your fall, he gently pushes you down into the soft grass and covers your body with his. You feel his knee dig gently into the sides of your legs. He’s careful not to hurt you or snag the hair that fans out underneath you, pushing his face into the flesh of your neck and nipping at it gently before collapsing next to you. 

“As long as I exist, Sunghoon, you’ll never be alone,” you reassure softly, pressing a light kiss to his nose. He shivers at your touch, wrapping his arms and legs around you possessively in response. 

“I love you,” he mouths, tucking his head against your chest. 

When the summer of seventeen finally comes to an end, you part with the comfort of knowing that he’ll be right back here in one year’s time, hearts still beating for the other. He’ll be here to enjoy your parents' food, make up songs in the kitchen with you, and sit under the shade of your tree. He’ll end every night in your arms again and again and again, love burning into the sheets and walls of your childhood bedroom. 

The tears aren’t as bitter as they once were when summer gave way to autumn. Goodbyes are easier knowing they’re not the last. You’ll see him soon. 

He promised, after all. 

—

EIGHTEEN

The books that filled your teenage years described heartbreak as something loud and theatrically tragic, the kind of thing that leaves mascara stains on your pillowcase and screaming matches echoing down apartment hallways. Pain embedded in pages, sentences ending in slamming doors and tearful conversations in the rain. Always catastrophic. Always loud. 

Your mom had told you about her first heartbreak in high school; a hushed whisper of “don’t tell your father” accompanying it. She still thinks about the boy occasionally, his initials dotting the end of her bank password that she never changed like an oath. She had told you over chipped mugs and tea gone lukewarm about an attraction that consumed her and left her with a ghost of someone very much still alive. He’d haunt her every quiet Sunday morning and when she was alone in the grocery aisle, making his presence known with a very specific 60s jazz recording that presented itself thirty years later as her boss’ ringtone. 

You’d witnessed your grandfather’s biggest heartbreak with an aching heart of your own, tiny hand clutched in his as you had knelt with your head bowed in front your grandmother’s sadang shrine at her funeral. It was a shared hurt.

You watched Jaeyun’s first heartbreak when you were twelve and he was fourteen, a fresh teenager with too much love to give to a young girl who didn’t know what to do with it. He wasn’t embarrassed by his feelings. Rather, he just didn’t know what to do with all the love he had left over after she moved away without a word.

Real heartbreak isn’t so generous. 

Real heartbreak is ruthless and silent, clawing for blood until you run dry. 

Real heartbreak leaves you with no answers and no explanations, cutting a heart cleanly in half. 

Your first heartbreak comes quietly and deadly, creeping up in the biting dead of winter when everything around you is already half gone. It’s camouflaged in the ice and hail and ugly slush-colored snow that covers the dirt when all of the half harvested crops have started to rot. 

You just turned eighteen two weeks ago, the milestone celebrated in the warmth of your kitchen with your parents and school friends, as well as Jaeyun, who’s back from uni for a long winter break after finishing his first year. His presence is noticeable by the presents on your bed and the missing food in the fridge, his familiarity bringing great comfort when you don’t have your boy to hold and comfort you through the cold.

School started back up again four days ago, your days of doing nothing but baking sweets with your brother coming to a halt. Now, it’s back to long days in the cold walls of your school building for the beginning of your final year before university. 

Your fleece lined tights do nothing to hide your legs from the chill as you walk to school with your best friends Jungwon and Gawon, thick, fluffy scarves covering your faces as you make the trek. Your uniform’s plaid skirt does nothing to help, gloved fingers tugging at it helplessly as you walk.

“I wish our winter uniforms were thicker,” Gawon complains, her voice muffled by her mittens as she shields her face from the wind. “It’s fucking cold.”

Jungwon just smiles, giddy steps quickening as your high school comes into view.

“You know what else is cold? Look,” he beams, dimples on display as he ruffles through his puffer’s pockets before pulling out a shiny new phone. “My sister’s fiancé gifted it to me for chuseok!”

Your eyes light up, shuffling over to your friend curiously as you admire the device in his hands. 

“Oh, that’s pretty,” you marvel, your warm breath fogging up in front of you.

“I think he just wants to win me over. My parents don’t like him that much so he’s resorted to bribing me instead,” Jungwon shrugs. “Not that I’m complaining…”

Gawon’s laugh fades into the background as your mind naturally drifts off to Sunghoon, his face filling your thoughts as you zone out.

Maybe I should try calling him again today.

He’d been radio silent for over a week now, your calls going straight to voicemail before beeping out. This used to happen often when his parents would take his phone, but he would usually let you know before it happened.

Shaking your head, you nestle into your scarf and purse your lips.

Maybe I’m being too clingy.

“- after cram school. Y/N?” 

You look up with a startle at Jungwon peering over at you, worried gaze brushing over you.

“What? Sorry, I was spacing out.”

He just gives you an understanding smile in response, nodding.

“I know. You’ve been doing that a lot lately. You okay?”

“Mm! I’m fine,” you reassure, forcing yourself to look a little less out of it. “What were you saying?”

You can tell your two friends don’t quite believe you, but they let you off this time. Gawon moves closer to you, looping an arm through yours before stuffing your hand into her warm pocket.

“We were just wondering if you wanted to go with us to the fish market after we’re done for the day. My mom asked me to pick up some roe for dinner and I don’t want to go alone,” she pouts, “Plus, I promised Jungwon I’d buy us all hot fishcakes. And maybe some laver snacks too, but only for you.”

“Hey!” Jungwon protests, playfully shoving her to the side. “I always buy you snacks after studying.”

You can’t help but smile at your friends, your eyes crinkling as they take turns pushing each other off the road.

“I’m down,” you say, pace quickening to catch up with them.

“Yaay! Y/N’s coming!” Gawon shouts into the howling wind, throwing her hands up excitedly. 

Sunghoon fades from your mind as your two friends pull you enthusiastically the rest of the way to school, their chattering voices erasing the worry.

-

You chew at your lip relentlessly as you watch your friends bounce on the balls of their feet lightly, their eyes trained on the old man pouring soup into cups behind his food stall. The warm smell wafts over you, but you can’t let yourself get distracted when all you can focus on is the fact that Sunghoon still hasn’t picked up. Your phone sits lifeless in your freezing hands, gloves tucked under your arm as you jitter nervously.

You lasted the whole day without thinking about him, classes and studies and friends successfully distracting you before you succumbed to your worries when you opened your phone to a missed call from Sunghoon’s grandmother.

Come on, pick up.

You stare at the screen like her name will magically appear before you.

Gawon and Jungwon make their way back to you with three full cups in their hands, a stick already halfway into Jungwon’s mouth. When they realize you aren’t looking back up at them, they walk up to you with worried glances.

“Who is it? Sunghoon?” Gawon mutters, stealing a look.

Both of your best friends know of him, and from what you’ve told them, they’ve had their doubts about his character based on how he’s treated you in the past. They’ve never gotten the chance to meet him, but his lack of communication with you makes Jungwon especially suspicious.

“What, he’s not picking up again? Does he even wanna talk to you at this point,” he mutters, rolling his eyes.

Gawon jabs an elbow into his side, giving him a dirty look. “That’s mean, Jungwon.”

“It’s true!” He whisper-yells, eyes widening. “Not that it’s Y/N’s fault, but he just sucks at calling her and it’s pissing me off.”

Gawon is silent before she sighs, rubbing your arm comfortingly. “Wonie’s kind of right, Y/N. I don’t know how you guys make this work.”

You can only stare at the ground, eyes glassy as you try your hardest not to cry in front of them.

“I don't like him, Y/N. You’re letting his lack of effort throughout the year affect the way you think about yourself, and I hate just standing by and watching your- your you-ness drain because of it.” 

You crack a smile at the way Jungwon crosses his arms in frustration, his care for you seeping through every word.

Before you can thank your friends for always cheering you up, your phone screen lights up and vibrates in your hand.

You gasp, quickly pressing the answer button and pushing the phone against your ear in anticipation. Two pairs of eyes look at you expectantly.

“It's his grandmother.” you whisper, eyes wide.

There’s a moment of silence before a small cough breaks it.

“Y/N?”

You swallow, blinking rapidly before answering.

“Yes! How are you doing? Is everything alright?”

Another silence.

“Well, honey, your parents called me early last night when I was already asleep so I didn’t get a chance to answer. But I called them back this morning, and they say you’ve been worried sick about my grandson not answering your calls. They’ve been concerned about him as well so they reached out hoping that I’d have some answers.”

You hold your breath, refusing to make a sound.

“I’m so sorry dear, I thought he would’ve told you. My son and daughter-in-law aren’t letting him visit us here in the countryside anymore. I’m upset too, but they are very strict with him. Something about focusing on college admissions and putting his career first.”

Your heart drops, sinking to the depths of your chest. The edges of your vision go blurry, your hand reaching out mindlessly to hold onto something. Your fingers end up curling around Jungwon’s wrist.

“My guess is that they’re not letting him be reminded of anything here so that he’s not tempted to run away and come back, including contact with you. It’s very cruel. I’m so sorry.” 

You can’t say anything, your throat closing up as you slowly sink to the ground. The hand with your phone in it falls weightlessly to your side. Everything fades from around you and the busy hatter of the market fades into nothing as you stare at the ground.

Since you were young, your parents have always said that in any situation you can always pick yourself up — no matter how many pieces there are — dust yourself off, and move on.

For the first time in your eighteen years of life, you really don’t know how to get back up from this.

-

April arrives in all her grace and beauty, bringing tender cherry blossoms to litter your walk to school and bustling flower markets on the weekends to get lost in after a morning of studying. It’s finally pleasant enough outside to ditch your sweaters and jackets, instead donning a light cardigan as you sit along the bank of an inland meadow stream with your two best friends.

Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, you let the cool breeze wash over you and tussle your hair as Gawon’s careful fingers braids dandelions into it. Your bare feet swing back and forth over cool stones of the stream, the water rushing over your skin through its soothing current. Jungwon is crouched on a raised boulder in the middle of the water, gentle fingers submerged as he pulls pebbles from its depths before adding them to the little rock tower next to his feet.

It’s peaceful, but your mind can’t help but wander during times like these when you feel the lingering touch of someone’s hand in your hair, or the familiar scent of summer peaches just breaching the air.

You’re not the same as you were two months ago. You know you aren’t, your parents know it, Jaeyun knows it, and your two best friends especially know it.

After that day where Sunghoon’s grandmother’s call had left you sobbing in the streets of the fish market, hours had bled into weeks had bled into months, people and tasks cycling in and out of your routine with less purpose than they ever had.

Sunghoon had been more than the boy you were in love with — he was your best friend.

You were in denial at first, helplessly calling Sunghoon’s number every free chance you had and hoping that it was all one big misunderstanding. You’d jump at the sound of car tires on gravel, hoping that you’d see his face one last time standing in front of your house. 

Your mind ran through all the possibilities; maybe you could run off to the city to find him, or maybe his phone had stopped working and he’d call you back soon. He had friends and other relatives whose phones he could use, right?

Everything became clear when you had already left probably hundreds of voicemails with no return calls back, and that was enough for you to come to the brutal realization that he wasn’t going to. He was never going to call and explain to you why he up and left without a trace, leaving no closure for the girl that loved him and thought he loved her too.

The overthinking hit you hard, then the sadness came, then the anger, and then acceptance.

You imagined how it would be when you finally saw him again, but you realized it was fruitless and just made your mental condition worse. There was no situation in which you’d see him unless one of you actively seeked the other out, and there was no way in hell you would lose your dignity by hunting him down no matter how much you wanted to deep inside. Your friends were tired of seeing you crash and burn over him, and your parents became increasingly worried when you would go days without talking like you once did. Instead, you channeled your anger into your studies, locking yourself in your room at night and burying yourself in your books to distract from the pain of heartache.

How could you move on, when you’d lived half of your life with him in it? You felt as if you deserved closure at the very least, but if he didn’t want to be found, then you wouldn’t go out of your way to seek him out. 

You were tired of fighting for him when there was no sign of life on the other side.

It was the physical pain too that got you bad, needles stabbing into your chest whenever you’d brave your feelings to go visit the tree that you used to share. You’d sit there alone for hours at a time, barely even registering the sunset and nightfall until your mother would go out looking for you, her frantic voice echoing throughout the valley.

Even Jaeyun came back early from university, hearing through your parents what had happened over the phone.

When he had burst through the front door, his luggages forgotten in the foyer, you had only stared with tired eyes before he rushed over and gathered you in his arms like a teddy bear. He didn’t say a word and just held you, the name of your shared closest friend not even getting the honor of gracing his lips. He refused to, especially not when the boy he thought was his friend too had broken his baby sister’s heart and pushed him out of his life as well.

That winter was kinder to you in its later months, the clouds less of a troubling grey and the wind less vicious on your walks to school. You started many days by simply sitting in your loft bedroom all by yourself, staring out the window at the bare-bone branches of your peach tree and thinking about a future version of yourself where you would be okay again. 

An epiphany came to you one morning as you were sipping an experimental cup of coffee, where you realized that going back to the old you would never be the case, but that maybe you could live with this pain and grow from it. 

Life doesn’t wait for you to heal, and the world will carry on without you.

So with your coffee taken a little more bitter in the mornings and the encouragement of your loved ones clouding your ears, you slowly tried to move on. Even if you were faking it at the beginning, it was enough.

It’s still enough now, when you’re able to put on a smile and have it grow into a real one. You’re surrounded by the best people you could ever wish for who fill you back up with life.

Even now, when Gawon’s hands leave your hair to pick up a call. 

The ringtone you recall as one of Sunghoon’s favorite folk songs, and you’re proud of yourself for not flinching when it breaks the peaceful silence.

When Jungwon’s fingers have gotten pruney from being in the stream for too long and you can hear the growing complaints of Gawon saying she’s tired, the three of you make the uphill climb back towards her house. 

You’re halfway there when a little notification pops up on your phone screen, catching your attention immediately.

“Oh my god,” you say breathlessly, immediately going to open it.

“What what what,” Jungwon turns around, curious as to why you’ve stopped. Your body is still among the rustling trees, and it feels as if the birds have stopped singing just to hear what you have to say.

“Decisions for SNU… they just came out…” you mutter.

Both of your friends’ eyes widen, immediately going to check their inboxes as well.

“Shut up, you’re lying. No they did not. I don’t think I’m emotionally prepared for this. Fuck,” you hear Gawon say as her eyes are glued to her screen. Jungwon paces next to her.

“Wait. Should we all open it together or is this a terrible idea,” he looks up at his two friends, pupils blown out. You simply blink at him once before shrinking away.

“I think I’m gonna open it… oh my god, I’m too nervous. I have to do it now.”

Your friends both nod, their figures tense. 

You know they have nothing to worry about, both top of the class and worked incredibly hard in school to get where they are now. You, however, are slightly worried about your dip in grades when you were an emotional mess because of Sunghoon. It could go either way for you, and you aren’t sure you’re ready to face this.

Closing one of your eyes and squinting out of the other, you try to calm yourself before hesitantly clicking the letter open.

It’s dead silent for at least ten breaths. 

And then, all the tension you’ve been holding releases at once as you drop to the ground in disbelief that you did it. 

I got in!

You can barely register Jungwon and Gawon jumping around and shaking you by the shoulders in excitement as they shout, your body in shock. 

And when it finally hits you that you’re actually going to your dream university with not just one, but two of your best friends, you finally feel a sense of ease that you haven’t felt in months. 

Everything’s going to be okay. 

II. TWO — hold me without hurting me.

“You look pretty,” Jaeyun says into his coffee cup, looking up at you. “Be safe, m‘kay?”

You give your brother the most incredulous look from across the café table, taking a big bite from your croissant before blinking at him and his freshly dyed hair, the chestnut color shining prettily under the warm lights.

“I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Not true! I’m always nice,” he insists, turning to his right to stare at Jungwon who’s mid-bite. “Right bro?”

He just shrugs, swirling his latte around in its mug before bringing it to his lips. 

“She’s always pretty,” he mumbles into his drink. 

“You guys are so weird,” Jaeyun shoots him a questioning look, tugging on the collar of his knit and shrugging on his trench coat. “I’m gonna head out so I can make my first class. You two,” he points his chin at your Jungwon and Gawon, their eyes wide behind their mugs, “make sure she eats before class. If she ever doesn’t text back after her evening lecture, the code to the apartment is 5342.”

“I’m not fucking five, Jaeyun…” you grumble under your breath, letting out a noise of protest when he tussles your hair. 

“Is that any way to talk to your lovely brother?”

“…fine. Love you, I’ll call you later.”

“Love you too. Have a good first day at uni, hm?”

With a satisfied smile, he squeezes your shoulder before disappearing into the cold, bustling streets of a city still waking up. The sun is still low in the sky, its morning rays casting a slit of light across your face as you blink at the untouched chamomile tea in front of you. 

You tuck your hands into your sleeves and let warmth envelop them as your best friends finish their breakfast enthusiastically, the air humming with liveliness and excited chatter as the morning ticks on. Students and working people bustle in and out of the café alike, the hum of coffee machines and soft conversations swirling around you nonstop.

Slipping her arms through her fleece, Gawon gives you a tight hug before rushing off with her bag slipping slightly off her shoulder, the frazzled glance at her watch making you giggle.

“I told her she was late and she still wanted to finish her toast,” Jungwon shakes his head, the chilly breeze slipping through the front door as another customer comes in. His cheeks are tinted a dusty rose from the cold, smile growing as he watches you snuggle further into your monogram scarf. “Our classes are in the same building anyway, let’s just go together.”

“Okayy,” you hum, looping an arm with his as you venture out into a city that’s still unfamiliar to the both of you. “You’ll find me after all our classes are done today, right Wonie?” 

He simply coos in response, poking at your cheek with a gentle finger.

Settling into a completely new environment had been a hard adjustment for all of you, but at least your brother had made the transition feel a little lighter for the first few days. You weren’t used to the biting remarks of the taxi drivers and the lack of warmth from city-folk, the constant honking of cars and the clumps of wet snow that covered the roof of your new apartment every so often. You missed your parents’ home cooking already and the aunties that would pinch your cheeks whenever they saw you, no matter how mature you had gotten. The tan that had come naturally from days spent in the sun had already faded like Jaeyun’s had, your eyes sharper as they slowly learned to take in everything from street culture to capital talk.

Jaeyun’s engineering undergraduate program took up most of his time, but you still had Jungwon and Gawon to accompany you as you grew to enjoy your morning walks down your new street that was never quiet, edgy coffee houses and little pet cafes alike littering your neighborhood.

Jungwon and you part ways as you get to the building, sharing a wistful look as you complain about how nervous you are. He pulls you into a tight hug before leaving for his first class.

You try to calm your breathing and morning jitters before looking for the lecture room number on your schedule, your bottom lip raw from biting.

Pushing into the lecture hall, you sweep your gaze across the room and the sheer number of students before choosing a seat in an empty row in the back. Fiddling with your bag and laptop, you look around curiously before a pair of sneakers appear in your peripheral vision.

You look up, blinking as you take in the boy who meets your eyes with a smirk.

His hair is a stark frosty blond, bleached to the tips and falling lazily into his eyes; it’s his gaze that gets you, piercing and sharp as it trails up and down your body, finally landing on your face again, tall stature intimidating as he shoves his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans. The whole look screams nonchalant, silver chrome adorning his fingers and glinting under fluorescent lights as he drops his leather messenger bag on the ground, keychains hitting the ground with a clank.

“Is this seat taken?”

You freeze for a moment before shaking your head and offering a small smile.

His tongue darts out to link his bottom lip and plops into the seat next to you, immediately relaxing into the seat.

Tilting your head at the handsome boy, you huff before observing him.

“I mean, I feel like you would’ve sat down no matter what my answer was.”

“Got me,” he grins, holding his hands up in mock defeat. “I couldn’t help it, you caught my eye as soon as I walked in.”

You can’t help the blush that creeps up your face at his words, a first since Sunghoon — much more than a year ago by now. It feels freeing in a way when you realize that he doesn’t plague your mind like he used to, heart beating excitedly at this new character in front of you.

His leg moves to slightly brush up against yours as he leans towards you, drinking you in.

“What’s your name?”

“Y/N.”

Tapping his pen against his curled lips, the boy bites the nub of the tip before speaking.

“Let's be friends, Y/N. I’m Heeseung.”

Heeseung… why is his name is so familiar…

The thought gets shaken out of your head when the professor walks in and sets his binders down, your attention stolen from Heeseung.

Giving him a warm smile in response, you turn your attention to the front of the classroom.

—

It’s an hour into your first lecture, and you don’t think you’ve ever been more confused in your life. Looking down at your notes, you compare them to Heeseung’s and realize that he isn’t doing much better than you.

He catches your eye and tilts his head, as if asking what’s wrong, before leaning over to whisper in your ear.

“You should come over tonight.” Pulling back, he raises his eyebrows at you before pointing to your phone. “Give me your number.”

You make a face before tugging at his sweater to lean in again.

“For what?” You whisper, slightly scared of what he could possibly be insinuating.

“Nothing weird, Y/N. I just like your vibe,” he says, a wicked grin painting his face. You watch his eyes flick down to your outfit. “My friends and I are doing a little get together tonight at my apartment. They all go to our uni or ones nearby. You should come.”

Heeseung finds himself grinning when you nod hesitantly, reaching for your phone. 

It’s almost like you don’t even know how attractive you are, your whole demeanor screaming innocence and nervousness around him. He’s obsessed with how you peer at him with your curious eyes, fiddling with the sleeves of your cardigan and eyelashes casting shadows on your pretty face as you bite your lip out of habit. 

“Some of my female friends will be there too, if that makes you more comfortable. To be honest, you look a little lost.”

He giggles at you when you take the phone back from him, pouting. “I’m not lost.”

“Nah, you look like a baby lamb without her parents for the first time. You’re not from here, huh? It’s cute,” he adds on, “Imma text you my address later, m‘kay?”

Nodding, you whisper an ‘okay’ back before turning from him with new determination. The two of you even chat long after the lecture is over, grabbing coffee before heading to your next class.

You made a new friend, and he wants you to meet his friends.

Score.

—-

It’s 7:30 pm, Heeseung told you to pull up at 8, and you kind of feel like you might throw up.

Jungwon frowns as he stares at your reflection in the mirror, his legs pulled to his chest as he sits on your bed behind you. His shoulders are tense as he observes the way you fuss with your hair and smooth down your clothes. He can tell you’re nervous, if the way you adjust your jeans a thousand times over says anything. He tries not to stare at the way they hug your hips and expose some of your skin, averting his eyes when you turn to him with that sad face you always make when you’re scared.

“I don’t think this a good idea,” he hears himself saying, jolting forward when Gawon’s socked foot shoves his back from her relaxed position behind him.

“You just want her all to yourself,” she snorts, looking at the two of you through her glasses. “She made a cool new class friend. Be happy for her, Wonie.”

“I don’t trust men.”

“You’re a guy.”

“Well all guys except for me, duh.” He turns from Gawon with a huff before standing up. “You have to call us if anything happens, Y/N. Please.” He gives you a look of genuine distress as he takes your hands into his, smoothing a thumb over your skin.

“I will I will, you know I will. Don’t worry, I’ll be okay!” You chirp back, trying to give your friends a reassuring smile. Gawon gives you a kiss on the cheek before glancing at her phone.

“You gotta go now, huh?” She asks, showing you the time.

“Shit, you’re right,” you mutter, straightening your top. “I should’ve left ten minutes ago.”

Grabbing your jacket and scarf and mittens while simultaneously trying to open the door, you blow your friends a quick kiss before slipping out into the city night.

—

You try not to stare as Heeseung ushers you into the foyer of his apartment. 

“You look good, Y/N.”

You blush. Not only does he look devastatingly handsome in his loose collared shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a silver pendant that falls out of view, but you’ve never comprehended wealth like this until you walked into his building’s lobby; veiny, marble floors and suede furniture covered the entrance, tressels of diamonds dangling from the ornate chandeliers lining ceiling. A man in a suit had greeted you from behind the security desk, asking you for your name before directing you to the elevators.

It was insane.

And now, said boy has his arm around your shoulders like they belong there as he brings you into his home. You can hear the chatter of unfamiliar voices and the clinking of wine glasses grow louder, a nervous hand coming up to tuck your hair behind your ear.

As you round the corner, you’re met with a scene out of an indie film.

A sage-green record player hums softly in the corner, spinning free jazz that spills lazily into the air and mingling amongst the voices of Heeseung’s friends as they litter the leather living room couches and open kitchen. The wood floor is rich and darkly stained, chorong lanterns casting an amber glow onto the floor-to-ceiling windows that stretch across an entire side of the apartment, Seoul skyline glittering behind sheer drapes that flutter from the balcony door left slightly ajar. 

You try not to gape at the designer jackets slung casually over chair backs, someone’s laugh echoing through the apartment as they sip their wine. It’s almost pretentious, your eyes flitting from the ink paintings on the walls to a bookshelf spilling over with thick art books and imported vinyls. Everything smells faintly of cedarwood and incense, the expensive kind that comes with bamboo sticks and black matches. It feels well lived in.

You’re so taken by everything that you don’t even notice Heeseung guiding you to a group of people on the couch, eyes drawing to you immediately as their conversations pause. 

“These four are my closest friends since high school.”

It’s almost overwhelming, the way one of them, a girl, gets up immediately to hug you and introduce herself.

“Oh! You must be Y/N,” she flashes a smile at you, manicured hand brushing her hair over her shoulder. “Heeseung wouldn’t shut up about this pretty girl in his class and told us to be on our best behavior tonight.”

“What the fuck, Aeri.”

She giggles before dragging you down to the couch.

“We told him that if he brought you here as a first impression, it would make him seem cool,” she whispers, albeit quite loudly. “But his friends are way cooler. Like me.”

“God, please shut up,” Heeseung groans, a hand dragging down his face as he collapses next to you. “Anyway, ignore her.” He turns to you before finally letting you acknowledge the boys who stare unabashedly from across the coffee table. “Guys, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Jongseong,” he points at a sharp looking guy who’s splayed on an armchair, clean cut hair almost covering the diamond stud adorning his ear. He gives you a lazy grin before leaning forward to shake your hand, eyes drawn to your curious gaze.

“And Ni-ki, say hi.” A boy with hair almost as white as Heeseung’s offers a small smile as a greeting, hoodie pulled intimidatingly low over his head, the chain around his neck glinting under the light. 

“And…” Heeseung pauses, glancing around with furrowed eyebrows. “Wait, where did he go… why does he always disappear out of nowhere,” he frowns, looking at Aeri with a questioning face as she shrugs back.

You finish greeting his friends before getting distracted by the jade figurines on the table, zoning out. 

“Ah, there he is, that fucker… I swear he’s an addict or some shit, always going out for a smoke at the craziest times.”

You pause.

You don’t even see him at first. 

You hear him.

“Heeseung.”

You'd recognize that voice anywhere.

No fucking way.

No fucking way this is my life right now.

Of course this Heeseung is his Heeseung. 

Of course this Aeri is his Aeri, how could you be so stupid.

Of course the universe puts you directly into his circle in a city of ten million people.

You almost don’t believe it.

It’s just a coincidence. It’s just a coincidence. It’s just a coincidence.

It’s just a-

You look up. Bad idea.

Fuck.

Your jaw goes slack and your mind goes blank. You can’t breathe.

Park Sunghoon — the man who used to plague your dreams and nightmares and made up your childhood in the most bitter of ways — is standing right in front of you. 

And it’s not a hypothetical anymore.

He is very real, from the cashmere of his sweater to the moles on his face to the plush of his lips. Piercing dark eyes that widen at the sight of you, long lashes winter-tipped from being outside and fingers chilled. Sharp cheekbones cutting through a colder face, one that you don’t recognize. It’s like meeting him for the first time all over again.

And judging from the sudden haunted look on his face, he never thought he would see you again either.

It’s very still for a long, long time. At least you think time stops.

Time stopped as soon as he gave you up all that time ago. Time stopped as soon as he left you behind, with the sentiment of a coward and the shattered pieces of your heart on the roots and soil of the peach tree that was yours and his.

You barely feel the tap on your shoulder from next to you as you stare at the boy you gave all of your firsts to, the familiar slopes of his matured face haunting you in real time as he stands, unmoving. He looks older, face thinner, hair longer, a delicate cross resting across the column of his throat. You’ve never seen him look this pale, his crisp clothes all black and dark eyes burning into your skin with a look you’ve never seen before.

“What, do you know each other or something?”

For the first time since meeting him on your twelfth birthday, Sunghoon looks terrified.

The pressure of Heeseung’s arm around your shoulders shakes you out of it, blinking rapidly as you try desperately to look away from the boy you were just starting to push out of your memories completely.

I can’t do this. Not now, after all this time.

Sunghoon’s mouth opens and closes, then opens again, as if he’s trying to find words that don’t exist. His eyes flick to Heeseung’s arm over your shoulders, a flash of something unreadable flickering through them.

“Wait-” Aeri looks between the two of you in contemplation, trying to figure out if her hunch is correct and realizing that it is. “Is this that Y/N- the-”

“What are you doing here?”

You visibly recoil at Sunghoon’s icy tone, the words out of his mouth before it looks like he even registered saying them. It cuts through the air with malice and even his friends frown at the abruptness. You can tell by the dilation of his pupils that he regrets it the second he says it, but the damage is already done. You flinch, blinking at his tone.

A beat passes. 

“I- no. I’m sorry,” you’re definitely not sorry, “am I not supposed to be here? Sunghoon?” 

It hurts to say his name out loud after all this time, the syllables feeling foreign on your tongue and aching with betrayal. You used to say his name with so much warmth and adoration, but it’s clear that his name has a different meaning to you now.

You’ve never been more taken aback in your life. It’s like he can’t comprehend that you exist out of his little summer paradise that he’s built for you in his head, like you’re a secret that no one was supposed to know.

Sunghoon says nothing, unblinking and silent. You miss the way his hand twitches by his side before curling into a fist, fingernails leaving red crescents along his palms from forced restraint and guilt.

Speechless, you turn to Heeseung and his friends with an empty smile. They have the conscience to look sorry for you, coming to a belated realization.

“It was really nice to meet you guys, and thank you for inviting me,” you say with a hollow laugh, throat closing up as you feel the tears well up in your eyes. You fight it as much as you can, clearing your throat and turning away from their sorry faces. “I’m so so sorry, I just- I really don’t think I can be here right now. I’ll see you in class tomorrow, Heeseung.” You don’t even finish your sentence before turning on your heel and making a beeline for the front door, chatter fading back into your ears from the other people. You can’t even think of anything except for getting out of here as fast as you can. 

You can’t be in the same room as Park Sunghoon anymore, not when he made you like this.

Not when he gave you his everything — when you gave him your everything — and he has the audacity to ask why you’re here? 

I can’t even move on for a second before he has to come back and-

You struggle to breathe, tugging your scarf over your face as you push out of Heeseung’s apartment complex and into the busy night. You can’t even see in front of you, tears blurring your vision as you let them fall.

You don’t even know how far you’ve gotten when you feel a hand encircle your wrist, tugging you around to face the other way.

When you look up, your eyes meet the emotion-filled ones of Sunghoon’s. He looks like he ran out in a rush, standing in the middle of the sidewalk in only his sweater. He lets go of your wrist immediately, sensing your rising anger.

“Wait, Y/N, please-” He starts, taking a step forward and reaching out, but not touching you. 

“No-” you interrupt, voice quiet as you look away. Moving backwards, you angrily blink away your tears. “No. Sunghoon, you don’t get to do this to me.”

For once in your life, you want him to feel all the anger and pain and confusion you felt when he ghosted you. You want to know that he had a hard time too, and seeing him doing just fine with his friends makes you beyond frustrated.

Your heart betrays you and you look back at him once more.

He looks like he’s searching for the right words to say, like an apology is on the top of his tongue. And even after all these years, you know how weak you are for him; if he’d just explain, explain why he left, explain why he never called, tell you that you meant something to him, you fear you’d take him back in a heartbeat. 

But it’s the way that he hesitates that breaks your heart all over again. Eighteen year-old you was destroyed, but twenty year-old you really feels like you’re about to die.

Biting his tongue, he speaks before he thinks again and regrets it immediately.

“You fit in just fine with my friends here, huh?” he blurts out, hurt silently laced in his tone as his hands shake in the cold air.

You stop dead in your tracks at his voice.

Whipping around, you march right back up to him and give him a hard shove. He doesn’t budge, but you know it catches him by surprise when he stumbles back at your force.

“Don’t be an asshole, Sunghoon,” you grit slowly, voice deathly quiet. “You have no right to be- to be jealous of Heeseung or whatever,” you swallow, “whatever the fuck this is.”

His face immediately falls, eye twitching subconsciously as he tries not to break at the sight of you in tears.

He doesn’t know why he said that.

“I haven’t seen you in almost two years and I thought I would never see you again,” you start, voice cracking. “And the first thing you say to me is, ‘why are you here?’ Who are you? Really, Sunghoon. I don’t think I’ve ever truly known who you are if this is how you speak to me for the first time again.”

He moves to talk but you stop him.

“And your friends were nice to me. Heeseung was so kind, especially after the hard time I had been having after- after everything and moving and starting anew and… after you.”

Sunghoon swallows back the sob clawing up his neck. He doesn’t cry often, but he can feel the lump in the back of his throat too well.

“It was hard for me too,” he chokes out, putting a hand to his chest. “It was hard for me too, Y/N. Do you think I would willingly choose to leave the girl I love?”

You try not to linger on the fact that he used present-tense, instead hitting him again with a weak fist. Your head falls forward in defeat, tired and in pain from all the crying.

“Stop saying that! You don’t get to say that.” Looking up, you curl a weak fist around his sweater. He shivers lightly underneath your touch, the warmth of his breath on your face as he breathes shallowly in quick puffs. “I’m not yours here anymore, okay? You made that clear the second you looked like I was the last person you wanted to see after all this time. I’m just trying to make friends and get over the fact that I’ve left almost everything I know behind. And you weren’t,” you choke over your words, hoping that he feels how fast your heart is beating with adrenaline, “you weren’t here when you were supposed to be. To help me through this transition like you always said you would. I’m doing it myself, so don’t you dare say anything about how hard this is for you.”

Once you start talking, it’s like a floodgate. Everything you’ve been building up inside comes spilling out at once, your voice starting to raise and garnering stares from the people walking around you.

“And you know what you used to say to me when we were kids?” You take a deep breath, making sure Sunghoon sees your eyes when you say this. “You’d say that you’d follow me to the ends of the earth if you could, that you’d never leave me. ‘When I say jump, you say how high,’ remember?”

He does. He remembers everything, from the very moment he met you to the last phone call where he heard your voice over the line. He tries to bring a hand up to your face, but you move away.

“So the fact that I’m here now — I’m in your hometown now — and you don’t care is really…” your voice catches again as Sunghoon unfurls in front of you, brushing a shaking, anxious hand through his hair.

“Please, Y/N…” you hear him whisper weakly.

“...it’s really cruel, Sunghoon. I,” your voice shakes as your hand falls from his sweater, “I really can’t do this.” You let out a shuddered breath. “It’s really fucking cold here, and if I just had you for this part of my life-” You trail off, letting your gaze fall to the subway station across the street. “I’m just tired, Sunghoon. Tired and cold and- this is too much. And after all this, I hate myself for the fact that I'd still do anything for you and I'm trying to figure out whether you mean that much to me or I mean that little to myself.”

You can see Sunghoon’s face fall at your words, tears slipping down his red, cold cheeks in a line.

You let out a laugh but there’s no amusement in it, just an empty sound to fill the silence. Gathering your courage to say what you want in an unwavering tone, you turn to him with furrowed brows.

“The only thing I ever wanted from you was to explain why you left and never came back. I would’ve understood. You always seem to forget that I would always give the most grace when it came to you, Sunghoon… how could I not.”

The boy in front of you crumbles, knees weak as he buries his face in his hands and gathers his thoughts.

If I don’t say this now, I’ll lose her forever.

 “Y/N-” you start to leave, but he spins you back around with his hands on your shoulders. Your eyes widen at his sudden determination, his grip tight around your jacket. The feeling of his hands burn through the fabric after all this time, his proximity and familiar scent hitting you all at once.

“Y/N. I need you to know that I've never regretted something so much in my life. That my parents are fucking insane. They would’ve made sure that I never saw you again if I came back to you.” He searches for something in your eyes, looking back and forth between them. “I thought of running back to you so many times, you don’t even know. I couldn’t sleep for months because of how much I thought of just getting up and getting on a train to you, and never coming back here again.”

You frown at his pain-filled words, eyes watering.

“And I was this close to doing it every time,” he holds his fingers up in front of you, a sliver of space in between them. “But the more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that you deserved someone who could give you more than I could. When we were younger, we never defined our relationship. We just knew that we loved and needed each other and that was enough, but it never was in the end.”

“Sunghoon, that make no sense-”

“Listen to me, Y/N, please,” he pleads with you, hands moving down to hold yours in front of him. “No one could ever love you as hard as me. As much as I do. I promise you that. But because of this, I wanted- no, I needed you to have someone who would give you the life you deserve. Someone who could be with you always, not just during the summer months or out of school. Someone who’s always happy and emotionally stable and has parents who would take care of you as much as yours had for me. I saw myself with you in the present, but I couldn’t see a future where you would be satisfied with me. That was my own insecurities getting the best of me, I realize that now.” 

He takes a deep breath before continuing. 

“I was immature and young and thought that the only way I could do this was to cut you off completely, so that maybe you’d hate me so much that you wouldn’t ever come looking for me again. It pained me to imagine you trapped in a colorless house with in-laws that would never have your best interest in mind. I know how our society works, Y/N, and you and I both know that we’re on the losing end. It killed me to not respond to your calls Y/N,” he whispers, squeezing your hands tightly in his palms. He prays you can hear the sincerity in his voice, desperation seeping through when he still can’t read your expression. 

He hasn’t seen your face in years, and all he can think about is how much you’ve grown without him into a force of a woman, with your same soft eyes but a fresh, hard bite to your gaze. You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and the world be damned if this is the last time he gets to hold you like this. 

“You’re the most precious thing I’ve ever had the privilege of loving.”

It feels like everything has come to a stop around you, chilly wind stuttering as crisp leaves swirl around your feet. You look down at your hands in Sunghoon’s and the way they’ve always felt so right in his grasp. His words ring in a loop in your head, his eyes shining under the street lights as he watches you carefully. 

The city hums, alive, around you. Traditional neon signs flicker kanji in the reflection of rainwater pooling between curb stones, traffic lights breathing red and green in a lazy rhythm. You can hear distant laughter from a rooftop bar, the metallic rattle of night buses, the smell of street food drifting from a narrow alleyway.

Your chests rise and fall in tandem.

Seoul doesn’t pause, doesn’t hold its breath when hearts break. But tonight, even the noise seems to stop and listen. The two of you stand still as the lives around you continue. 

For a moment, it feels like you’re fifteen again, standing knee high in the fields where you first learned what forever with Sunghoon should’ve felt like. Sunghoon looks broken and small before you, and you try to see him like he was back then. Gentle, eager, yours. And just for that instant, the years between you fold like paper, bringing him almost close enough to forgive.

You tuck your bottom lip between your teeth, looking up at him.

“Sunghoon. I don’t know how we got to this,” you start quietly. “But it was always your hesitance and insecurity that stopped you from loving me with confidence. I just needed you to love me wholly without running away.”

“And I'm making this promise to you now.” He brings you closer by the sleeves of your jacket. “I can show you that I am not the same person I was when I left, if you let me. My parents have nothing to hold over me anymore for leverage, I’ve moved out, I make my own money, I pay for my own tuition. I know you’ve grown, I’m seeing it right now, but I’ve grown too. My friends have helped me get to know my feelings and thoughts better, and I now understand that to keep a love is to nurture it and face it, even if it terrifies you.”

You shudder at his words, warmth running up your spine as his thumb smoothes over the back of your cold hands familiarly. It's silent for a long stretch. You finally open your mouth after watching the water from melted snow trickle down the drain next to your feet.

“I don’t know if I can believe you, or if I I'll ever forgive you fully,” you admit, nodding to yourself as you think back to how much pain he caused you. His composure breaks, nodding with his chin tucked into his chest to hide the tears.

You look up at the boy you’ve spent half of your life loving, his usually strong frame turned fragile and meek under your heavy look. 

“But… maybe I can try,” you whisper, the words barely rising above the sound of the city breathing around you. It feels foreign in your mouth, this willingness to give in to him after years of trying to move on. You wish you could tell him how hard it’s been to forget the sound of his voice, how every summer since he left has tasted like something’s missing. How Jaeyun sits in your living room alone during university holidays, watching reruns of the anime he and Sunghoon used to binge together. How Mandu still waits in front of the peach tree for the sound of his grandparents’ car to come barrelling down the dirt road. You wish you could tell him that you spent so long convincing yourself that you could find love in someone that wasn’t him.

Sunghoon has always been your undoing. Even now, standing beneath floodlights, you can see the boy from your childhood behind the man he’s become. 

You've always had the bad habit of forgiving him.

“You broke something in me,” you say finally, voice steady despite the way your body shakes. “And I can’t pretend like I haven’t hated you for a long time. But I can’t pretend that I don’t still love you, either.” You pause, swallowing hard. “Give me reasons to forgive you and it will come with time, Sunghoon.”

His breath catches, and for a moment you don’t feel cold anymore.

“Come here, Nectar.”

Your heart stops at his words, face warming in a way only he could ever make you feel.

There’s only the two of you and the space between. It isn’t forgiveness yet, not fully. But it’s a beginning.

“Just let me hold you.”

You let him wrap his arms around you, fitting perfectly as one hand slips around your waist and the other weaves into your hair comfortably. The scent of his cologne invades your space, and you allow yourself to breathe it in as his chest rises against yours, trembling faintly, and you realize how long it’s been since you’ve last been held like this.

“Is this okay?” He asks softly, checking your comfort level. You nod against the plush of his sweater. 

You don’t move, afraid that if you do, the moment will end. When you tilt your head back, his eyes find yours. They’re close enough that you can see every passing light of the cars around you, the flutter of his eyelashes in the cold. You smell the faint of cigarettes on his skin and trace the dark circles under his eyes, memorizing all the things that have changed on his face all this time.

His breath brushes your cheek, and something changes in the way he holds you, in the soft catch of his thumb at the back of your neck. 

His hand hovers before finding your jaw hesitantly, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth. The air between you feels charged, his eyes carefully flicking down to your mouth as if asking for silent permission. 

You give him the slightest nod, sliding your fingers through his hand and around his neck.

Then he leans in, slow at first, and the world tips out from under you.

It isn’t desperate like your kisses used to be, in the fervor of the hot summer sun and hiding from your parents.

The touch of his lips steals the air from your lungs, but he’s careful, like he’s afraid you’ll crack if he pushes too hard. It’s slow and reminiscent, a familiar taste on your tongue as he shifts your head so that he can kiss you even deeper. Your heart stumbles, and your hands move across him on instinct, fists curling into the fabric of his sweater for support. He kisses you like he’s trying to speak to you, to show you how much he’s missed you.

You feel the shake in his hands as they slide along your shoulders, kneading down to your waist, holding you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear. Your lips part slightly in a gasp, just enough to draw in a breath before he kisses you again, faster this time, his tongue slipping into your mouth and licking into you.

All you can hear is his breathing and your own, the quiet rush of blood in your ears. Your pulse jumps when his fingers find the base of your neck, tracing the edge of your collarbone and slipping under the fabric of your jacket.

You break apart only long enough to catch your breath. His forehead rests against yours, and for a second neither of you move. Both of your lips tingle, swollen, the taste of him still clinging, your chest aching with the force of seeing him so close to you. 

You don’t know if this is forgiveness or weakness, but you do know that you’ve missed the way your body remembers him before your mind does.

With a final gentle kiss on your nose, he keeps you close to him before lowering his face and whispering sweet nothings only you can hear.

"I've missed my sweet girl."

The weird thing about growing apart from people is that you can never fully be rid of them. We cry at goodbyes, because we know that, deep down, the person who comes back isn’t the same person who left us.

But we’ll learn to love each other like this too, with open hearts and nectar stained palms sticky with love.

Forgiveness is learned.

✫

ty for reading

if there’s anything i’ve learned from writing this monster, it's to not let your mind talk you out of things. there’s a shortage of art in the world, especially now, so write/make/talk out the ideas you have! it’s been two years since i started this draft, and i've added to the idea on and off throughout college. i wanted to share my writing before I get too self conscious, even just to make one person happy that they read something that could distract them for a while. 

i had this idea of growing up with the characters you read about before watching "reply 1988" and "when life gives you tangerines," but after completing both series', it made me so emotional and i wanted to channel that into the ending :))

XOXO,

kiachiako <3 hope you enjoyed. leave comments! i love reading your thoughts

series

[m] HAECHAN | settle down pt. 1 | pt. 2 | @hyuckmov — rockstar!hyuck, genre: angst, smut (18+ minors dni), fluff

oneshots

[m] MARK | sweet cream, cold brew | @lucyandthepen 26.4k — something about mark lee keeps you up at night, and you’re pretty sure that it isn’t the lingering smell of espresso on his shirt.

[m] MARK | my little doll | @haechansdoll 20k — Humans have hormones, you understand that much. But does that explain why you can't stop the filthy daydreams that fill your head whenever you see a specific redhead? Does it excuse you for getting turned on by him simply breathing in your direction? And to make matters worse, he is off-limits, if your father found out you were messing with his prized boxer? You would be chained to a tower and your red-haired crush would be used as mincemeat.

HAECHAN | one, two, three | @cherryeoniis 19k — In which you devise three different ways to get your best friend to fall in love with you, but things never really go quite as planned.

[m] JENO | summer hair = forever young | @setsugekka 18.1k — Only three weeks after being broken up with by your long time partner, you’re dragged along for your friends summer vacation plans despite your best attempts at staying home to do little more than feel sorry for yourself. Day one? Dinner and a movie. Day two? The bar down the street that smells like old socks. Day three? Well, that’s the waterpark, and the cute, blonde lifeguard that seems to make the lazy river his mainstay is a bit of a sight for sore eyes.

JAEMIN | written in ink | @cherryeoniis 15.3k — professor!jaemin, historical au (early 19th century), fluff, angst, strangers to lovers

[m] MARK | watch me | @sluttyten 14.6k — you pick up the voyeuristic habit of watching your neighbor that never closes his curtains and whose face you never see. on an unrelated note, you start dating the cute barista from down the street that also happens to live in the building across from yours. what could happen?

TAEIL | in earnest | @neonun-au 12k — a letter written in haste when you were fifteen and in love with your best friend gets sent out in the dawn of your engagement. when a reply is sent, revealing feelings you had long thought forgotten, you are left with a choice to make amidst a rather awkward visit. 

[m] JENO | fight club | @tyonfs 11.9k — after park jisung introduces you to his shady after-school activity, you realize it’s far too dangerous to be involved with the underground fight club in any way. their members are rough around the edges—except for lee jeno, who keeps you coming back for more.

MARK | a series of white lies | @tyonfs 10.5k — in which it takes you six years to accept that you’re in love with mark lee. (it takes him one.)

HAECHAN | wicked games | @cherryeoniis 10.1k — angst, fluff, suggestive, university! au, friends with benefits, fuckboy! haechan

MARK | baseball (& other disasters) | @tqmies 10k — Everyone admired Mark Lee, starting pitcher of your school’s baseball team and famed ladies man. You, on the other hand, only know him as the boy who broke your dorm lobbies microwave the first time you met.

[m] JAEHYUN | dive | @yougotthatbilly 9.2k — frat boy!Jaehyun: Jaehyun calls shotgun.

[m] RENJUN | high-waisted shorts | @tyonfs 7.8k — huang renjun might be the least committed to all this “bitch hunting” bullshit, and he doesn’t want to stoop to the level of stupidity his friends are at. that’s why he’s pissed when you’re strutting around in those high waisted shorts wherever you go, making renjun lose all sense of reason.

[m] JAEMIN | blur | @jaeminvore 7.5k — Waking up to the sunlight blazing onto your face and hungover was one thing. Waking up to the sunlight blazing onto your face, hungover and in a bed that wasn’t your own in nothing but a pair of sweatpants that were obviously not yours, was another and a punishment specifically made for you—your own personal hell.

[m] JAEHYUN | racer | @smileysuh 6.7k — street racer!Jaehyun, star-crossed lovers, secret relationship, step-brother!Johnny

[m] HAECHAN | tattoos together | @cherryeoniis 5.4k — rockstar!haechan x reader

[m] DOYOUNG | hungry for you | @sluttyten 4.9k — doyoung is your best friend’s older brother, and you hate each other until one evening you’re alone together and the tension finally breaks

HAECHAN | dance to this | @cherryeoniis 3.8k — dancer! haechan x dancer! reader, university au, slight enemies to lovers

. . .

drowning in college rn :((