daydreamer

It started like any other day, which was a real cliché to put it. You walk into the station with your usual heavy eyelids and even heavier shoulders. Sleep was something you’d given up when you first started working as a detective, but the word was definitely out of your dictionary when you picked up the case. Most of your colleagues wouldn’t pick up the case. Mainly because they knew you’d be the first one to take it. However, after ten months you still haven’t found any new leads. Six months of chasing after ghosts and you always returned emptyhanded.

This morning, you had something into your hands. Flung into them, rather. A coffee and a file, courtesy of Jongin. Normally there’d be a smile gracing his face and a joke soon to follow to lighten up your mood. Instead there was a frown as he motioned down at the file in your hands.

“That’s number 21.”

You’re grim and you know it’s very apparent. How could you not be with the numbers stacked this high? You mumble a thanks and allow Jongin to linger a bit. He wants to say something, and you know it, but you also know he’s conflicted about whether or not he should continue bothering you.

“Jongin, I’m not dropping the case.”

He purses his lips and takes a tactical sip of his own coffee. After a moment to find the right words he sighs. “I know. I wouldn’t dream of trying to rip you away from that.”

A dry chuckle leaves you and you shake your head almost dotingly at your junior. “Of course.” You point a pen towards the office everyone knew too well after getting chewed out at least thrice. “But that doesn’t mean she won’t. She’s been on my ass for a while.” You’ve joked with your peers about the Boa Constrictor keeping you in her hold until you concede, but you’d never been on the receiving end of it until now. Except you definitely weren’t about to let go of this case.

There’s a moment of silence while he tries to come up with something else to say and you busy yourself with the new file. You curse when you look at the girl’s photo and information. “She’s only 15.” Jongin hums and scans over the information with you. He takes her photo out from beneath the paperclip and holds it up to the board where there were faces of 20 other girls on them.

“She doesn’t look like any of the others.”

“Not at all. She’s got some similar features to some, but… there isn’t a type.”

“If they even are getting kidnapped.” You scoff at that before taking the photo and thumbtacking it to the board. “Not that I’m saying you’re on a wild goose chase or anything, but…” He takes another sip of his coffee. You know the mug is empty. “21 girls who don’t have any connection to each other besides living in the same city… It’s really difficult to determine if they’re all being kidnapped or just-”

“Runaways, I know.”

“Look, they’re all around the ages too. Teen angst, wanting to start fresh in another city, eloping with a secret lover.” He sighs wistfully and moves to take another sip until he remembers his empty cup. “21 girls. No relation. Some of them did sports, but it’s a range. Some of them are in the same school district, but they have different schedules. Two of them lived in the same neighborhood, but that’s in a whole block of apartments.”

Your eyes linger at the girl’s face a couple seconds longer. You’ve heard it too many times by all the others to know that Jongin is implying they could be all coincidences. People runaway all the time, it’s true. You’ve definitely closed those sorts of cases and convinced a couple of them to work it out and return home. You just wish you had some concrete proof that this was different.

Jongin turns away, about to leave and continue his own work after getting more coffee. “I’ll get out of your hair now, but I’m just worried about you. You’re losing a lot of sleep for someone who looks like they’re chasing their own tail. Take care of yourself.” He’s off before you can bark a word at him, and you roll your eyes to yourself.

You take a sip of the coffee he’d given to you moments prior, but it had gotten cold since then. It was still a bit of a kickstart to your day anyhow. You had the cases of 21 missing girls all over the city resting on your shoulders. It was a miracle you got any sleep at all. You tried your hand at anything. Possible gang relations or involvements or some group or organization, and yet you found no link. Like you said earlier, there didn’t seem to be a type that was targeted as the girls were mainly different appearance wise. You’d even thought to consider some underground sex ring, but the information you’ve collected about some of them didn’t fit the bill.

There were a couple girls who were taken in their own homes. They had been the ones living alone, except one who was taken while her three roommates were all home. They had chalked it up to her not feeling well and when they decided to check up on her, she was gone. It just didn’t sit right with you that they had done everything according to their routine and yet they supposedly just ran away. Most didn’t seem to have any motive at all to do so according to their friends and family. Even though you knew everybody’s got secrets and skeletons to hide you knew that was the truth. It was a gut feeling, but it wasn’t enough.

A buzzing noise came from your pocket and you whip your phone out to see what notification it was this time. A random message from one of your friends on social media popped up. You wanted to swipe it away, but you decided against it and opened it up. It was a friend from college who had found some old photo of the two of you at some party, dressed up with a lot of skin showing but even more teeth on display. Back then the lack of sleep you had was because of the constant studying and partying, or rather taking some free booze and dipping when you got bored. It was still fun to socialize and watch everyone stumble dumbly, though. You responded back quickly by telling her to forward it to you. Before you pocketed your phone, you retyped your passcode to unlock the phone again and went into your contacts. Thinking about college reminded you of somebody.

The moment you stepped out you heard a familiar “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Kim. Just checking in like I always do.” You could almost hear the smile in the woman’s face. Tension immediately left your shoulders the moment you heard her coo your name softly. It was like it was never there at all.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while. I was just beginning to think you’d never call.” She laughs easily at her tease. She knew you would call. You always did. “I was just thinking about you actually. I heard there was another one…”

A sigh leaves your lips and you pinch the bridge of your nose before you answer. “Yeah, it’s been a rough couple of months hasn’t it?” She hums in response and you can hear her shuffling papers around, most likely sorting through the mail you know she never opens and gets to once a month at least. She pauses and you can hear her set the large pile down.

“Of course. Five months without my baby? She’s supposed to be starting school in a couple months. She was so excited when she got accepted. They have the best music program in the state, you know.” You knew all too well that her daughter was to be going to school at the best music school in the state. You listened to some of her recordings before after her mother had shown you. You like to think that it was just because of a mother’s pride, but you think it was to hear her daughter’s voice again as she talks through the piece and giggles at a small slip up in one of them.

It almost pained you that you couldn’t find her with what you had now. You were still as clueless as you were when she had gone missing five months ago.

“I’ll find her soon. I know I will. The next time you won’t get to see her is when you have to move her into the dorms. I promise you.” It was an unsure promise, to convince the both of you that you’d get it done. And soon. The shift from a lighthearted conversation had gotten grim fast. Those conversations had typically over the lunches you had with Mrs. Kim. She was the first case of this bunch and also the most optimistic of the friends and family. You felt that you had to keep her updated and in turn she continued to put her trust in you.

“I know. She’s counting on you; I just know it. She knows you’ll get it done somehow.” The words strike you in your core. That’s right, there’s a lot of people counting on you right now. One more family just got added to the list this morning. You try not to think about the handful of others that decided to have you stop looking after they’ve given up that their daughters would come back. It pained you to have them retract their hope enough to have you close their cases, but you wouldn’t stop even if they asked you. You didn’t want to have to leave them in the dark while their daughters were missing. Lord knows you were considering a murderer, but no bodies had turned up to your relief. You just hoped you didn’t have to continue praying for it not to happen.

The call ended quickly, and you spent the next couple of hours going over your information and collecting information from the family of the newest missing girl. She was hanging out with friends when she was all of a sudden separated from the group at the mall. It was a busy place, but camera footage and eyewitnesses last saw her roaming in a store before her trail goes cold. This was frustrating. Rumors had spread about the girl going missing already, but since she was a teen most people assumed that she just ran away. She was pretty social according to her friends, and they just chalked it up to her personality and hanging with the wrong crowd. You decided to ponder over it on your lunch break, calling up your regular lunch partner to meet you at some café a couple blocks away.

Sehun doesn’t have to wave you over for you to sit down at the table you know he’s already at. It’s almost a ritual, to eat at this café every other week and sitting at the same table, nonetheless. He smiles warmly at you and pushes a plate towards you. “I already ordered for you. And don’t worry, I paid for it as a thank you for last time.” You mumble your thanks with a mouthful of food, briefly remembering the time you covered for his ride home after one drink too many.

“You’re godsent, you know that?” His smile turns into a smirk at that and you roll your eyes when you see you’ve stoked his ego. “Before you say ‘I know’, take out that notepad.” His smirk drops and a look of concentration comes onto his face.

“You know, sometimes I like to think you keep eating lunch with me because you like me or that we’re friends or something. But I also tend to think you only keep me around for my work.” He’s teasing you again and you tap the top of his notepad.

“You’re very much aware how much I like having you around. And I’m very much aware about how much you love to collect the information. Sometimes I think you only come back to hang out with me is because I’m not as tightlipped as some of my peers and give you things you can actually report on.” Sehun chuckles at that and the crinkle around his eye is back with that childlike glimmer in the eyes. He looks a lot more at ease than his funky smirk and that impish gleam instead.

He uncaps his pen with his mouth, his other hand busy flipping to a brand-new page and holding a worn notepad with too many torn papers taken from it. He keeps the cap in his mouth and hums for you to signal he’s ready.

“She’s 15.” His eyebrows furrow and a lisped curse slips out of him as he jots it down. He shakes his head sadly at that. “Last seen at the mall with her friends. Eyewitnesses say that she was roaming one of the stores alone before she disappeared. Camera footage doesn’t pick her up leaving the mall, but it’s been picked clean.”

“Has her friends or family said anything about behavior? Being more secretive or distant lately?” Sehun’s habit of keeping the pen cap in his mouth makes his words very mumbled and hard to understand. However, being around him and working with him so often has gotten you used to his silly sounded sentences. You still reach over to pluck it from his lips and snicker that his playfully annoyed glare.

“You don’t think I’ve asked? No, parents and friends claim that nothing was up. They let me in her room and let me search to find any hidden notes. Even let me look through her diary and it was just about some kid drama at school. Seemed ordinary to me, nothing that made me have to investigate this drama. She’s not a part of it anyways, just commenting about how it’s the talk of the halls and dumb.”

Sehun taps the pen against his cheek while your fingers are fiddling with the cap. He’s obviously not to report your words verbatim as it’s not really relevant, but he does appreciate how you share your findings with him. He appreciates your trust in him that he doesn’t skew the details or add too much personal information about these people. He appreciates how you let your thoughts wander with him. You tend to loosely think around him, bouncing ideas off of him every so often or word vomiting to better understand things as you try to explain.

You’d finished with your food while Sehun continues writing and jotting down notes, most likely questions or other tidbits not too concerning for you. Whenever he asks a question he needs for the article you respond and then nudge his plate so that he eats. It goes on like this a couple moments longer until he’s out of food and questions. He finishes jotting down whatever else he wants to and sticks the tip of his pen out to you. You, used to this procedure, cap his pen and look back up into his satisfied eyes. You scoff at his smug look and avoid his gaze as he rests his chin in his hand. He continues to stare at you while you pick at any crumbs you find interesting.

“Got everything you need?”

“How about we get some dessert?” You almost object and tell him you should be back by now until he starts collecting his things and getting out of his seat. “And don’t worry. I’ll pay. You just have to pay me back next time.” You sink lower into your seat in defeat and groan, rubbing your hands over your face. He laughs a little and stands behind your seat, grabbing your shoulders and shaking you lightly. “Come on, Sugar. You’re gonna need some sugar to keep functioning the rest of the day.”

“You and your dumb nicknames are going to kill me before the stress from this case will.” He stops shaking you and gives you a fond squeeze of your shoulders.

“Let’s go before you die on me then.” You turn in your seat to watch him head towards the door before deciding to follow suit and grunting when you do get up. There’s a mini pep in his step and you’re guessing that’s because Sehun has another excuse to visit that favorite bakery of his that a friend of his works at. You couldn’t blame him. There were some doughnuts and cupcakes that were to die for.

As you passed by, you saw some missing persons posters hung up in some alley walls or taped to some lampposts. You’re guessing that’s how Mrs. Kim got news of the missing girl before you caught up with her. Sehun notices your gaze following the long trail of posters, most likely hung up by the gang of girls that were last with their friend. “Is that her?” The both of you come to a stop in front of a small cluster of the posters. He takes on down and holds it out in front of the both of you. You nod and Sehun folds the paper into fours and pockets it for later. “That saves me having to dig around to put that in the paper.”

He tries to keep the mood up as he hums a tune, swinging his arms around and looking around at the people walking the streets. It does little to help, but you do appreciate the thought as he glances at you every now and then to check in. He’s switched songs so many times since he opts for a different, better tune to keep him occupied. You’re trying to decipher his fifth song switch when you finally make it to the bakery.

“Kyungsoo!” Sehun sings into the shop as the door chimes noisily. Luckily, Kyungsoo isn’t tending to any customers at the moment. He pops his head out from behind the counter with a blank face and his lips drawn into a straight line. However he may look, there’s a happy sparkle in his eye at the sight of you two.

“What do you want now?” He asks sarcastically but readies himself anyways.

“I want something with chocolate.” Sehun says as he scans the overhead menu even though he knows exactly what he wants. “Please.” He doesn’t forget to add with a warm smile, which Kyungsoo returns in kind. They both turn to you expectantly and you sputter, not having anything in mind just yet.

“O-Oh! I’ll, uh… I’ll have…” You pause and bite your lips. Suddenly, you’re overwhelmed by all the choices even though you’ve been here before.

“How about some donut holes? And if you don’t like it, you can always have some of mine,” Sehun offers as he turns that warm smile to you.

“What, trying to stick with that cops eat donuts type of thing?” You joke but are grateful at the distraction from you bumbling about. Kyungsoo lets out an amused huff and prepares something for you both of you, making sure to toss in a couple extra pieces in the bag for you. You give him a silent thanks as you nod and take the bag from him as Sehun whips out his wallet in a practiced manner.

The first bite of the donut hole is full of cinnamon and a little honey. Kyungsoo’s been experimenting and you hum at the taste as you squeeze the half-bitten donut hole. As Sehun’s card is ringing up he turns to you with an eyebrow as he wordlessly asks how it tastes. Instead, you offer him the rest of your bite while you chew, and he instantly opens up his mouth to eat the rest. It’s almost like you’ve done this a million times in your life and a million more in your past lives together; you’ve known each other for that long, you think. The motion is easy and simple as he hums and turns back to collect his card and compliments Kyungsoo’s creation with his mouth full.

“It’s good. I like the new flavors, it’s better than just the boring sugar on it.” The words are muffled and both you and Kyungsoo give him a judgmental look as he wipes some of the cinnamon off the corner of his lips.

“… Thank you. I’ve been slowly trying to add more to the menu where I can,” Kyungsoo notes, and you look up again at the menu to see he’s added another couple options beside his regular few in his neat handwriting. He smiles at you again when you look back down. “Keep up the good work. Don’t push yourself, okay?”

You promise him and Sehun gently nudges you to turn and leave so he has a better exit path. It’s not like he couldn’t have gone around you, but it seems he opted to just turn and go. And with his broad shoulders, it seemed you were in his path. You nudge him back as you exit the bakery with your treats in hand.

“What are you doing tonight?” Sehun asks with his mouth full again, this time from a bite of his chocolatey pastry. Crumbs fly in the air and the snort as they do so, but your friend knows no shame and continues to look at you expectantly.

You roll your eyes with a smile. “Probably looking over the case again… and waaay more paperwork than I’m happy with.”

He hums at that as he continues to walk you back to the station. You feel like he’s about to ask you something else, but you’re cut off by your phone ringing and his own buzzing with a couple messages.

“Breaks over.” He comments with a sigh as he scrolls through the messages and tries to type back with the same hand that grips his phone.

“It is.”

The both of you look at each other and trade another bite of each other’s treats. You took a bite of his mainly since you wanted something sweet, and he had his own bite since you felt like you had to repay him for it. He gives you a wave as he, thankfully, doesn’t shout with his mouth full of donut as he heads off to his office building. While you head back, you manage to catch the phone call on its last couple of rings before it could go to voicemail.

“Hello?”

“It’s Boa. You have a couple more files on your desk regarding the girls,” she says with a tired sigh. You know the chief thinks this is wasting time and resources, but you also know she wants to give these girls justice. “Some more schedules of their routines, some stuff they had upcoming, and some chat histories. There’s also someone waiting at the station to talk to you, a friend of the most recent one.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Good,” she states and hangs up the call. You huff and make your way back to the station with a quickened pace. You wonder what this friend has to say since you’ve interviewed the family and teachers recently. Your mind is still reeling with possibilities when you make it back and find a familiar face at your desk.

“Yena, what can I do for you?” You ask kindly as you take a seat by the high school girl. She has a puffiness around her eyes that indicate she hasn’t been able to get a lot of sleep and has probably been crying a lot. You offer her some of your donut holes and she politely declines by holding a hand up before thinking of the right words to say.

Yena was the same age as her missing friend, 15 with a short bob and still wearing her school uniform. You’re wondering if she skipped school to come here, and she confirms your suspicions as she wrings her hands. “I just give you these. I found these in Chae’s locker, it’s some of her notebooks and some flyers. These events are all in the past, but one of them is her dream journal. We both keep one to achieve our dreams, except she doesn’t share hers because she thinks that the dream won’t come true then.”

You take the stack of papers and notebooks from her, eyeing the one she was referring to. It can’t be mistaken with the doodling, stickers, glitter, and large words that say ‘DREAM JOURNAL!’ right on the front.

“Thank you, Yena.” You say kindly, knowing that you’ll have even more to sort through and probably come out empty handed with, but every little bit helps. If you could be armed with even that much of a toothpick, you’d count it as a win.

“I just want my best friend to come back. That’s all I’ve been writing about in mine! I want her to come home.” Her eyes water and you push a box of tissues to her. She takes a shaky breath and dabs at her eyes gently and you realize that her eyes are redder than you thought. She dabs to prevent further irritating her eyes that have been covered in makeup to hide just how bad she’s been taking it.

“I promise, you won’t need a journal to make that come true, okay?” You say gently and comfort the poor girl. It’s another 15 minutes before she gets up and leaves, going back to school she promises.

You sigh as you look at the stack of notebooks she gave you. It was all her school notebooks besides her dream journal, which you knew wouldn’t be much of a look through unless you wanted to relieve your high school days and quiz yourself on whatever the kids were learning these days.

“You know, you shouldn’t be promising things like that.”

“Jongin, that girl was crying.”

“And you don’t think she won’t be if you can’t deliver that promise?”

You clench your hands into fists, narrowing your eyes on the word that seems to be mocking you right now. Because it might be true, you can only ‘DREAM!’ that this will all come to a happy end. Jongin sighs and pats your back.

“I’ll help you get through like 3 of those. Make sure it’s all just random notes so you know if they have anything that’s not about some ancient literature piece, okay?” He asks gently and you take a deep breath.

“Okay,” you say quietly and start sorting through the flyers first.

A lot of them are of school events, cram school, auditions for some of the modeling or singing agencies, and one was even a poster of an actor you recognized from a popular drama currently. You chuckled as you saw the sticky note still attached to it that indicated Chae’s wishes to marry a guy like him. A couple more hours pass in between you checking the notebooks, painstakingly flipping through and reading every page just to make sure, and having to deal with other logistical tasks around the office.

Like promised, Jongin eventually makes it through the notebooks and puts them all on your desk with a sad shake of his head. “Math, English, and Composition. All notes, most of it is textbook and following what they did in class. Anything else was practice problems or doodles. These are no good.”

You groan and hang your head. “I’ve just barely gotten through her other two notebooks. A music one from a piano unit and one she kept solely for cram school. The flyers are all past events or just random ones that I think were trash and she never got to throw away.” You look pointedly at the crumpled up flyer that was from her school’s ‘Fish Club’… whatever that’s about. “Had to get through all the other files from the girls too… nothing new. I saved that dream journal for last.”

“Why, so you can honor making sure her dreams come true?” Jongin asks with a smile, lifting your spirits some.

“Yeah…” You trail off absently. You aren’t sure if maybe you were truly keeping up Yena and Chae’s superstition about their dream journals or if you were hoping that the last thing you got to would prove you some substantial evidence. Maybe you should’ve gotten to that first if so. But then you would’ve needed to spend extra time on it. Ugh! Another sigh makes it way out of you and Jongin frowns now.

“Save that for tomorrow. How about you come out with some of us for some drinks tonight? Get that tension off you.” Jongin gives you an expectant look as he sits on your desk. You rub your face and look up at him through your fingers as you slouch in your chair. “And don’t even think about getting to that journal tonight. Your brain is fried, you need a break, you’re burning yourself out.”

You purse your lips at him and groan again, this time throwing your head back over the top of your desk chair and spinning in it a little.

“Fine. But only for a little bit.”

Famous last words. It was not just a little bit. Jongin kept you entertained and kept handing you drinks as you listened to your peers share drunken stories. Even Jongdae came in for a little bit to say hi to everyone and cry a little about his wife and kid, showing everyone pictures. You were sure that he was sober and just living the high of life.

A twinge of jealousy shot through you at him being able to enjoy his life so much right now. You downed your drink and stared at the empty cup grumpily. You felt just like the cup. Maybe you are a cup. Did your legs always feel like that?

“Woah, you doing okay?” Jongin asks as he gets into your space to take a look at you. He was pretty tipsy, but doing way better than you right now. Both in spirits and sobriety.

“Jongiiiiin, I’m like this cup.” He has to jump back a little as you shove your cup in his face. “You see how it’s wet on the outside?”

“From the ice?” He asks with a raised brow.

“I’m all sweaty!” You shout at him, suddenly feeling like the room is a lot hotter.

“No, you’re not.”

“Look! Feel!” You try to grab his hand to bring it up to your forehead and he grimaces. He shakes his head and you try a couple more times before he pins your hand to the table and reaches for his phone. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you home,” he says as he scrolls in his contacts. You try to look at the screen to see who he’s calling, but he brings the phone straight to his ear and turns a skeptical eye on you to make sure you don’t keep trying to bring his hand to probably stick you in the eyes.

You’re too distracted by pouting to care who he’s talking to. And your head hurts. The alcohol is hitting you fast. How much did you have again? Or was it because you drank the rest of your three-fourths of a cup in less than a minute? When was the last time you even drank like this? Since before you took on the first case ten months ago?

“He’s coming in 15,” Jongin says in your ear. You pop your head up from the table. You didn’t even know you had it down on the table in the first place.

“Who?” You ask sluggishly as you try to keep your eyes open. You don’t bother hearing a reply as you quickly make your way to the bathroom. It’s quieter in there, and colder too. You feel better already by giving yourself some space and time to think for yourself. Not really feeling like you need to get everything out just yet, you lean against the wall and take some deep breaths.

Eventually, there’s a knock on the door and a call for your name. It takes a couple more tries before you push yourself off the wall and wash your face.

“Oh, good. I thought I was going to have to pull your head out of a toilet bowl.”

You yell out in shock, water flinging everywhere when you look up to see Sehun in the mirror.

“What are you doing here?” Water drips off your chin and you remember that you were washing your face. You sigh and see if any got on your shirt – a lot did – and look for the paper towels to wipe.

“At the bar or in the bathroom?” He asks. You grunt in response, eyes blocked by the soggy paper you’re using to scrub the water from your eyes. “Jongin told me you had too much and needed to be brought home. And again, I was making sure you didn’t decide to punish yourself and give yourself a swirlie.”

“Why would I do that?” You grumble at him. Your head was a lot clearer thanks to the rest, you probably spent all of Jongin’s promised 15 minutes against that wall. Plus, the water cooling you off made you feel like you could at least walk to a car before passing out.

“He said you looked sad.”

“I’m not sad.”

He gives you a once over. Hair a mess, probably from the wall. Face still red, from scrubbing with that scratchy paper towel, embarrassment, or the alcohol, probably from all three. Clothes wet from you spilling two handfuls of water all over yourself. And the heavy burden of the finding of 21 girls coming crashing back down onto your shoulders.

“Yeah… you look pretty sad to me.”

“Thanks,” you bite a little harsher than you intend to. But, thanks to the one who made you build a tougher skin with a level of sass on his own, Sehun takes it all in stride and smiles. He merely grabs you by the shoulders and leads you out of the bar. Jongin nods and waves you off, keeping your coworkers distracted by the state you’re in so you don’t get teased when you come back the next morning.

Between the time Sehun came and got you and when he arrived, he had already transferred your stuff from your coworker’s car to his. You saw this when he helped you climb in and your bags of notebooks were sitting in the back seat. Sehun buckled you in and shut the door for you. The state of mind you were in currently clearly showed you could do at least that, but Sehun chose not to care and did it for you anyways while you watched him walk around the car to the driver’s seat.

“If you fall asleep, just know that I’m not carrying you inside.”

“So my knight in shining armor does have a flaw for tonight’s rescue.” You sarcastically bat your eyes at him and he chuckles, shaking his head and he starts towards your apartment.

“I meant to add that I’d probably be dragging you up those three flights of stairs. By your feet. Head hitting each step.” Before you can ask why in offense, he grins with a shrug. “You went through all that training, not me. All my muscles go to my ears for listening to you go on and on about cases.”

“I’m the reason why you have a job,” You grumble as you stare at the passing buildings. Sehun keeps that stupid smile on his face and laughs.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The ride to yours is a lot quicker than usual since at this hour it’s already late hardly any traffic. Again, Sehun is humming some songs and tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. At least this time there’s less of him switching it up since he’s forced to sing along for the whole 3 minutes. He’s still humming as he grabs all your stuff from the back seat and follows you up the stairs to your apartment. You silently curse the fact that the elevator is down for maintenance since you wish you didn’t have to climb that much while drunk. You feel even worse when you realize that Sehun took all of your bags and all of those notebooks, binders, and files are no joke. It’s a wonder that kids can carry all that on their backs plus whatever else you put into the bags.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sehun asks as you pause on the steps, a little behind you and huffing a little.

“For someone who claimed he doesn’t have the strength training to carry me up the stairs, you sure are doing real fine while walking up two and a half flights of stairs and carrying all those books.” Sehun lets out another huff, shorter than usual that let you know he was working up quite a sweat.

“I work out.” He says plainly and grins at you again, which makes you roll your eyes at the statement and continue forth. He’s been over before, plenty of times. He’s come over to bring food on your sleepless nights when you just can’t sleep or spend so long trying to work on another case.

You finally make it to your apartment and eventually into your room. Sehun had set the bags down by your couch where you already had a bunch of files spread out on the coffee table. He tuts and grabs one of the papers and gives it a quick skim.

While you change into comfortable, cleaner clothes he hums and calls out from your small space. “You really need to learn about work-life balance.” He sets the paper back down and goes about preparing you some essentials for when you wake up in the morning definitely hungover.

“You know why I can’t,” you call back as you collapse onto the bed with a groan. Your body all of a sudden feels so heavy and it’s hard to keep your eyes open. You huff into your pillow as you try to block out the haunting words of all the names of the 21 girls that prevent you from sleeping at night. That prevent you from functioning unless you can figure out a way to bring them all home.

Kyungsoo is a man who keeps his house orderly and clean, not for the sake of guests but rather for his own sake. He knows where everything is and how many of each thing he owns in his cupboards save for the amount of soap there’s left. For some reason he always runs low on that. He knows the contents of the fridge, the number of silverware in the drawers, and how many white socks he owns.

He sighed as he examined the cup by the edge of the sink once more. He also looked by the floor, in the mirror cabinet, and once more in the cup that only held one thing: your toothbrush. Kyungsoo scratched at his head, wondering where on earth his toothbrush could have gone. Had he left it by the side of the sink? It was a habit before he had moved in with you before you. You had seen him place his toothbrush on the side of the sink, promptly rushed out of the bathroom with frothy paste flying into your hair and come back with a silly ladybug mug you’d painted during a pottery date with him a year before. You rinsed quickly and threw your toothbrush into the mug before looking expectantly at him. Kyungsoo chuckled to himself when he looked at the face of the turtle (yes, not a ladybug yet painted like one) on the mug.

He sighed to himself and whispered to himself. “I suppose you won’t tell me where my toothbrush went, will you?” He braced himself against the sink and looked in the mirror. With the door left open, he could see into your shared bedroom where you were sprawled out in the middle. He’d been woken up early and on the floor on a day off thanks to your kicking around. Making his way out of the bathroom, Kyungsoo shook your awake and smiled endearingly at your tousled hair. “Wake up, we have a mystery to solve.”

“Last time you said that, it was you who drank all of the milk and not me.” You grumbled. You tried falling back asleep but decided that the hairs going into your mouth wouldn’t let you. “What happened?”

“Apparently, Toothy and Mrs. Paste have been separated. Her husband has gone missing.” You shot up, wide awake and rubbing sleep out of your eyes. Kyungsoo smiled once more at the silliness.

“No way! You didn’t drop him or throw him away, did you? We just bought new toothbrushes last month!” Kyungsoo followed you as you rushed out of the bed and soon caught you as you tripped as your foot caught the blanket. The adrenaline from rushing to save you from an embarrassing faceplant did nothing to combat the swelling oh his heart as he watched you play into his silly antics. “You don’t suppose he ran off with Dawn? The dish soap from a couple blocks down?”

“Why’d he be there?” You shrugged, soon deciding to pick up your own toothbrush and get ready for the day.

“Where is your toothbrush anyways? I saw you put it in the cup last night. And I swear on my life I was sleeping like a rock at the bottom of a lake, so there’s no way I had anything to do with it.” Your boyfriend chuckled at that. He affirmed your dead point and then stated that still doesn’t explain his toothbrush going missing.

“You think the cat took it?”

“We don’t have a cat.”

“Ghost cat?” A little scoff emitted from Kyungsoo’s lips and he left as you wrapped up your routine. By the time you were done fixing your hair, he came back with a roll of… police tape? “Where did that come from?”

He started blocking off the corner of the sink where the cup was. “Remember, Baekhyun’s Halloween party? He made me buy some of the decorations, so I just took back what was left over.”

“And you’re using it on a case of your missing toothbrush?”

Kyungsoo smirked at you and tapped your hip. “I could also wrap this on your legs to see if we can solve a case of your missing pants?” You smacked his hand in a flustered manner and stormed into the bedroom.

“I’ve complained before that it gets hot! Doesn’t help when you’re a radiating oven even in the summer.” Kyungsoo let a laugh out at that and waited for you to come back in wearing shorts. “Did you check the trash? The cupboard?”

“Already did. Looks like we have a case to solve.” You looked at him expectantly. Kyungsoo grabbed your hand and led you into the kitchen. Before he could open his mouth to suggest anything, you cut him off.

“I highly doubt there’s anything amidst the forks and our bajillion cups.” You kissed him once to make sure he didn’t try to rebut. “And there’s nothing in the cereal either.”

“I was going to suggest the fruits but looks like you’re way ahead of me, partner.”

Shaking your head, you tugged your hand from his grip and planted it on your hips. “What has gotten into you this morning? Normally it’s me starting the games while you want to cuddle and hope you can wrangle me into bed so you can ‘surprise’ me with breakfast.”

“Let’s just say I woke up on the right side of the bed.” You cocked an eyebrow. “Or the floor. You could be a professional MMA fighter with that foot.” You giggled and Kyungsoo led you closer to the cupboards with a gentle grip on your elbow. With another cocked eyebrow, Kyungsoo answered your unasked question. “Why don’t we check the cupboards anyways? In case Toothy really did run off with the dish soap.”

For no reason at all, you decided to play along with your boyfriend’s strange antics. This was definitely a first. Yes, he was capable of pulling off pranks. Yes, it wasn’t frequent. But the times that he did decide to joke around he never kept up the charade this long. Especially when it took so much effort and work.

“This isn’t some plot to get me to rearrange the kitchen like I kept saying I’ve been wanting to do, right?”

“Of course not. We’re looking for Toothy. He’s gone missing and Mrs. Paste is getting worried.” Kyungsoo was searching diligently within the cabinet with the bowls while you hesitantly moved around the pots and pans in search for a familiar green toothbrush. You weren’t sure how long he was going to keep it up, much less how long you were willing to play along with it before wrangling the truth out of him by offering to do the laundry for the next three weeks.

“Why do we have to look in the kitchen?”

Kyungsoo put away the rest of the spatulas he had rearranged. “You’re right. We got ahead of ourselves.” He sat down at the dining table and motioned you over. “To do this properly, you need to take statements and questions.” To make a point, Kyungsoo took out a detective’s cap that you recognized from a couple Halloweens ago. He set the bag back on the chair it was originally hiding on.

“You really went hard with this one,” you said while he adjusted the cap on your head. He gave you a satisfied smile, you’re not sure if it was from making the clunky hat look good on your head or with how themed this was. “Do I have to?” Kyungsoo’s response was to pout at you and grasp your hands pleadingly. You bit your lip and stamped your foot before giving in. “Fine.”

“Love you.”

“You owe me dinner tonight. My favorite.” Kyungsoo agreed with a laugh while rubbing the tops of your knuckles. “So… when’s the last time you saw Toothy?”

He pretended to think hard, even moving a hand to his temple to scratch at it. If this were any other time, you’d compliment his acting skills. For now, you were patiently waiting to see where Kyungsoo would take this. “Well, I had just finished showering and doing my nightly routine. I briefly said goodnight to my beautiful girlfriend, who was already asleep before I got to the bed. I mean, can you believe her? I did the sheets so they’d be clean, put away all the dishes, and even put her phone away for her because she fell asleep watching those cheesy 5 minute DIY videos. You’d think after all I did for her she’d at least wait for me to get into bed so I can get my well-deserved cuddles-”

“Your point, Soo.” You lightly smacked him on the back of his head. You couldn’t stop yourself from smiling endearingly at your silly boyfriend, though.

“Anyways, after I checked up on my wonderful yet ungrateful girlfriend-“ Smack. “-I love her so much. I went back into the bathroom to turn off the lights, but I guess I didn’t check up on Toothy since I had placed him back where he was. I did notice the window was open by the shower, though.”

“You’re telling me that your toothbrush snuck out the window?”

“Or he was taken.”

“Why would someone just take your toothbrush?”

“My thoughts exactly! He must have snuck off when he had the opportunity.” Kyungsoo stood up from his chair and took the hat from your head. He smoothed your hair down for a second, but it didn’t matter after you were whisked away into the bedroom. “Let’s get dressed. We have a toothbrush to find.”

“What?” Before you knew it, your boyfriend was chucking clothes at you. Any other time you would have admired the view of him undressing, but you didn’t see why you’d have to be led along a string of mystery on a day off. “Kyungsoo, after the four years I’ve known you and two and a half we’ve lived together, you’ve never been this raring to go so excitedly.”

After getting a simple long sleeve over his head, Kyungsoo turned back and gave you a fond smile. “Not even when I woke you up to take you to the river when I heard there were baby ducklings?”

“It was 1pm and I was the one who told you. It’s…” You glanced at the clock while changing into the clothes he’d thrown you, completely engrossed in your conversation to realize you were still going along with it. “It’s almost 8:30am right now and I still have no idea what we’re doing.”

“We, my dear, are going on an adventure.”

“To look for your toothbrush?”

He kissed your forehead and gave you a kiss. “You got it.”

Your boyfriend took you by the hand and led you out the door. The two of you spent some time walking. Every now and then, the two of you passed by another couple or parent with their child. You said hi to every kid who would look back at you, and one of the kids informed you there was a birthday party and how excited they were to eat cake. Kyungsoo merely watched you interact with the kids and the occasional dog with clear adoration in his eyes. It took a while to walk into the block where a bunch of shops were, and you kept yourself from window shopping while Kyungsoo walked on.

“You know, we can go into the stores if you wanted.” You looked back at your boyfriend with suspicion in your eyes.

“Aren’t we supposed to be looking for Toothy?” Kyungsoo smiled at brought your interlocked hands to press a kiss on the back of your hand.

“We can go anywhere you want to. You’re leading the investigation. Where do you think Toothy went?” A hesitant hum sounded from your lips and Kyungsoo took this as initiative to bring you into a little bakery. “Why in here?”

“Toothy always had a knack for fighting off those sweets. Maybe he has a grudge against them and wanted to fight them off?” Kyungsoo began perusing the lineup of pastries and cakes along the display case. You slowly turned your eyes to the case as well, occasionally looking questionably at the man next to you as he spent his time browsing the selection. Eventually you pointed at a cute looking strawberry slice of cake and Kyungsoo bought it for you. When you walked out, you were feeding bits of it to Kyungsoo. His smug smile only grew when the two of you finished the slice and walked into more stores.

The first couple of stores he coaxed you into them with similar points as the bakery one. You began to wonder whether or not Kyungsoo’s plan for the day was to take you shopping. However, you spent most of the time browsing and when you were done Kyungsoo took you around to another store to do the same thing. You didn’t spend much, focusing mainly on what your boyfriend was up to today. Save for the cake and a couple of snacks, there wasn’t much out of your wallet. After exiting a little sandwich store the both of you stopped during lunch break (to which Kyungsoo claimed you needed to replenish your energy after using your brains deducing where Toothy would have gone), you brought up the idea of going grocery shopping early.

“Perfect. I don’t see why we shouldn’t. Perhaps it’ll bring us one step closer to Toothy.”

“I can’t believe you’re proudly saying that in public. Last time I brought it up and you had friends around, they asked if you called the mouthwash Lizzie Terine.”

“Well, we have a mystery to solve, don’t we?” You were going to comment further until you saw your boyfriend take out a notepad. A glance at it would let anyone see that it was a grocery list with little checkmarks, circles, and arrows. However, upon further inspection you saw that the little “grocery list” did include ingredients for cooking and other knick knacks. They also looked like…

“You aren’t seriously taking notes for the case of your missing toothbrush?”

Kyungsoo looks at you as if you’re the one who’s been acting weird all day. “Of course I would! Did you want to see them?” You can’t really say no when the notes were shoved into your face.

Some lines of the list were perfectly normal, with things such as eggs or more laundry detergent. Other things read: ‘Cookies… Toothy had a particularly hard time battling them. Maybe a grudge.’ Or ‘Dental floss -> Toothy might be at an old friend’s family reunion.’ You felt your eyebrow twitch at the notes and sighed to yourself. This was going on much longer than you thought, and it was kind of getting old.

“Kyungsoo-“

“Let’s go shopping then!” He cheered and tugged you forward, making sure to pocket his notepad for later. By the time the both of you got to the store, you decided to focus solely on shopping instead of playing with Kyungsoo like you’d been all day. Kyungsoo didn’t notice that you would shift gears anytime he brought up the “case”, and if he did, he didn’t bother to make it shown.

“We need more seasonings, right?” Kyungsoo hummed. He checked the list and nodded while reaching up on the shelves of the market to snag a couple bottles and inspect them side by side. At this moment, Kyungsoo looked totally normal and not your strange boyfriend who went bonkers over a toothbrush. Well, except for the fake toy pipe he brought along that went with the detective’s outfit. He shuffled the pipe in his mouth and you weren’t sure whether it was attractive or goofy. After he chose a seasoning, Kyungsoo dropped it in the basket and walked to the next aisle with his hand in yours.

“Can’t we just use the spare pack of toothbrushes we bought?” Kyungsoo squeezed your hand and a teasing smile rested upon his lips. “That way you can stop fussing over… Toothy.”

“You used them to paint one of those DIY projects you saw on social media, again. Remember?” Thinking back on it, he was right. You had been hunched over some painting project and were using the bristles of the new toothbrushes to spray a small amount of paint to look like stars. You ended up having to clean your sleeves and table afterwards, but Kyungsoo decided to hang up your mini painting in the hall anyways.

“Ah, I remember now,” you said and took two packs of new toothbrushes to put in the basket. “We really need to invest in one of the electric brushes, though.” Kyungsoo hummed and asked if you wanted one. When you shrugged in response, Kyungsoo spent time perusing the ones available at the store until he decided you guys would just order one online. For now, the plastic toothbrushes from the shelves would do just fine.

Kyungsoo is silent the rest of the way home. He doesn’t even bring up Toothy like he had been doing all day. You’re unsure what caused this sudden shift in behavior. Before he was so insistent on making you play along, but now he looked nervous.

“I’m not mad, if that’s what you’re worried about.” His attention snapped to yours and his furrowed eyebrows shot up instead. “You look nervous. If it’s because of the game you’d been playing for so long, don’t worry. I was just confused and frustrated why I wasn’t getting answers, but I’m not mad at you because I think it’s dumb.”

Your boyfriend only nods in response and returns his gaze back ahead of him. He takes his hand from yours to wipe it quickly against his pant leg. It’s sweaty. You wanted to continue reassuring him but decided against it since you were pretty sure your last phrase went in one ear and out the other. When the two of you got to the door, Kyungsoo paused.

“I love you, you know.”

“I know.” You were the one now feeling nervous. Kyungsoo’s multiple and drastic changes in behavior made you curious yet afraid for what it all meant. Kyungsoo gave you a warm kiss on the cheek and headed inside. He set the bags on the counter and twiddled with his thumbs, wondering which bag to unload first. You took the bag with the toiletries inside of it and left Kyungsoo to unload the food. “I’ll do this one. That way I don’t have to rearrange the fridge.”

He hummed and turned stiffly towards the fridge. This time, you were the one who gave a soft kiss to the cheek. You hoped that was enough to calm his nerves so that he would tell you what was bugging him earlier. As you headed down the hall, you missed the way Kyungsoo whipped his head around to watch you leave.

“Alright, let’s get you out of your plastic prison, Toothy 2.0.” You opened up the plastic bag to dig around for the little case. Looking up at the ladybug mug your own toothbrush resided in, you paused your actions. “Kyungsoo!” He called back from the kitchen, and you heard the clanging of items in the fridge. “Your toothbrush is in here. It’s in the cup!”

You took another close look at the cup and saw that yes, indeed there was a toothbrush sitting in the cup alongside yours. In fact, you knew without a doubt that it was Kyungsoo’s. You hesitantly reached out to it, wondering if you had gone crazy over your boyfriend’s weird antics and started hallucinating about the toothbrush. Once your fingers reached it, you noticed that it was in fact real. Kyungsoo finally joined you in the bathroom, a telltale sign by the shuffling of his socks against the floor. Before you could grab it and show it to him, Kyungsoo pulled his toothbrush out for you.

“How did you miss it? I swear it was there before we left.” Kyungsoo fiddled with the toothbrush for a while. You noticed him tug at it and he hid whatever he pulled off of it in his closed fist.

“Toothy never went missing.” Kyungsoo still couldn’t meet your eyes since the walk and he chewed at his bottom lip. “I… asked him to run an errand for me.”

“Kyungsoo, I’m still so confused. You’ve been acting so strange all morning and then you couldn’t even talk to me. What’s going on?” He took a deep breath and steadied himself, deciding that he wouldn’t let his nerves get to him. It was all or nothing now.

“The errand… was to hide something while I took you out today.” He now brought his eyes to your face. The depths of your eyes always took his breath away, especially in that moment. He felt like he was drowning in you. He cleared his throat and then put Toothy back in the cup. Once his hand was free, he filled it with your fingers and laced them with his own.

Patiently, you watched. He licked his lips nervously once more. Soon, he was on his knees. Or rather… one. He brought his closed fist up and in between his fingers there was a gleam. This time it was your breath that was unsteady, and you couldn’t bring yourself to look at Kyungsoo either for your eyes were focused solely on the ring.

“Kyungsoo…”

red - you had taken me out for spaghetti on our third date. you told me you really liked me and looked fearless even though the marinara sauce stained your white shirt and you didn’t know. your ears were just as red if i squinted, but my face was redder so i can’t say much.

“Are you okay?” It was a simple question, but Jaehyun treated it like it was a matter of life or death. He chuckled lightly and continued to push his food around the plate. You kept your eyes on his hands. They had the tendency to drift from his food to his face. He hadn’t eaten since getting his food, and you were almost a third done with your meal.

“I’m fine,” he said. He hoped you didn’t catch the way his hand shook when holding the fork. To be honest, you completely intimidated him. Intimidated him enough so that asking you out on another date make him feel like he was about to combust. Yet the feeling was so, so addicting and he just had to feel that way again. He finally lifted his fork up to eat some of his food. His nerves were so strong that he didn’t notice the bit that slipped off his fork and onto his chest. His crisp white dress shirt that he wore to the dinner with you was clearly stained. You couldn’t comment due to him speaking up again. “Listen, I’m sorry I’m acting this way.”

You quelled the thousands of thoughts rushing in your head and waited for him to continue. When he didn’t you decided to speak in his stead and gauge his reaction. “It’s no big deal. I was just concerned to see you acting so different than before.” It was true. Jaehyun had not been this silent or fidgety since you had first gone out. He’d been very charming and all smiles the entire two weeks of talking and meeting up. Now? You were beginning to wonder whether or not he was actually interested in you, even though he was the one who asked to out for a nice dinner. You wondered if the past two dates and constant chattering and texting were all a fluke. This wouldn’t have been the first time you were strung along like this, and Jaehyun was showing all the same signs as the others. He avoided your questions or questioning glances. When you tried to initiate some flirtatious skin contact, he practically jumped away. You liked him… a lot. You could only hope that he wasn’t going to suggest you just stay as friends and he was trying to be nice about it. Which would then lead to both of you ghosting each other…

Jaehyun cleared his throat and you stopped twirling your fork in the air. There wasn’t any spaghetti collected on it, but you hadn’t realized since his nerves were getting to you as well. “I just… I think…” He hummed as he collected his thoughts. Your heart was dropping to your stomach and you no longer wanted your spaghetti. You wished he just delivered it cold to you instead of beating around the bush. “I just wanted to say that I’ve been enjoying my time with you.”

You couldn’t stop yourself from letting out a little huff. “But…?” Jaehyun blinked quickly and stared back into your awaiting eyes in shock. He caught on quickly as to what you were trying to pull out from him. Or, rather, what you thought he was trying to hide.

“I didn’t mean—It’s not—Look, what I’m trying to say is…” Jaehyun took a deep breath to steady himself. He wouldn’t mess up now. The confident gleam in his eyes took you completely off guard. It was so different than the timid glances from before. “I really, really like you.”

These words you were not expecting. His intense gaze made your face turn red. You had your fair share of dating and love, but Jaehyun’s words made you feel like it was your first crush… your first love. Maybe it was his earnest stare, or his blunt words, or maybe you were just flushed from being proved wrong. Perhaps a combination of all three. He didn’t wait for you to respond and continued going on.

“I want to continue doing this, seeing you. I really like you and am interested in dating you. If you’re also on the same page, we’ll take it from there.” Jaehyun patiently waited and took another bite of his food to make sure he wouldn’t shake in front of you. By leaning his head closer to the plate, you were able to see the redness of his ears… but you yourself were too focused on processing his words to notice. His sudden confession was the last thing you were expecting that night, that’s for sure. You reached over and grabbed his free hand and his smiled at you, false confidence on display for the sake of saving face. You didn’t even need to think about your response after seeing the hope in his eyes and dimples by his cheeks.

“I like you, too. A lot. Where do we go now?” The warmth never left your face as you said this, and you quickly jerked your hand back to fiddle with your hair after Jaehyun’s smile somehow got even brighter. He quietly exhaled in relief. The redness in your face remained the rest of the night, but it lacked the anxious pounding in your ears. His jitters remained, but they stemmed from his excitement rather than anxiousness. In his happy state he didn’t even notice that he spilled more sauce on the cuffs of his shirt. And he surely wouldn’t have noticed the spilled wine on your dress from when you couldn’t stop smiling.

He hid a shy smile from behind his food. “Happy day one.”

orange - three weeks after we officially started dating, we went to get ice cream and you chose the orange sherbet, which i teased you about. the cashier asked if we were together. when saying yes, you slipped up and called me your wife on accident. i thought it was cute. they meant if we were paying together.

The weekend was hot, which inspired the impromptu visit to the ice cream parlor. You and Jaehyun were supposed to be going on a double date with one of his friends and his girlfriend. It was kind of a big step in terms of how early in the relationship it would be to hang out with his friends, especially with a best friend. Jaehyun argued that he hadn’t met Johnny’s girlfriend and that he was a relaxed character, so it would be fine. You knew deep down he also wanted to officially call you his girlfriend to others. You wanted to hear it, too.

The AC was a welcome hit to your sweaty skin and Jaehyun squeezed your hand as the both of you paused after entering. Both of you sighed in relief and smiled politely at the cashiers who welcomed you in.

You breathed happily and gestured into the parlor. “Where to first, good sir?”

Jaehyun let out a small laugh and merrily led you towards the counter. His arm swings your interlocked hands and he takes the moment your hands come back to intertwine your fingers. You couldn’t stop the smile easily gracing your features even if you wanted.

You’re the first to order when someone comes by to help the two of you. A scoop of vanilla with another one of mint chocolate chip. Jaehyun scrunched his nose when you order and clasped his hands behind his back. He smiled cheekily and you rolled your eyes when he leaned forward. His face was mischievously close to yours and his warmth radiated easily. A slight blush rose up your cheeks as his sly chuckles caused him to breathe coolly on your neck.

“Don’t say anything, Jae. I actually like this flavor.” You mimicked his scrunched nose. “It’s an acquired taste.”

He stuck his tongue out at you and was helped to his own cup. You began to take your wallet out while he was ordering. Jaehyun easily saw this out of the corner of his eyes and paused halfway through his sentence to fumble for his own wallet.

“Here, I-“

“I got it.” He doesn’t even have room to protest as you repeat the words to the cashier in front of you. This caused Jaehyun to move even faster, not wanting you to cover both of your ice creams.

“No! No, I got it.” Jaehyun was still in the process of getting his wallet open until your hand closed his wallet and keeping it in his hand. He stopped in his tracks and gave you a firm glare. “I said I got it.” He was challenging you to back down. But the smirk on your face made him think twice about trying to convince you.

The cashier turned towards you once Jaehyun lowered his hand and stuffed his wallet back in his pocket with an annoyed sigh. “You got it?”

“I got it.” They smiled and start ringing you up. There was an amused smile plastered on their face.

“Are you together?” Hearing that, Jaehyun jumped up and was no longer bugged by your insistence.

“Yeah! Me and my wife have been together for almost a month now.” You couldn’t even mask your shock at Jaehyun’s slip up. However, he hadn’t even noticed it. He was too excited to be mentioning that you two were together to realize, and too excited to word it correctly. The word rang in your head multiple times and caused your heart to pound. You’d been excited to be introduced as his girlfriend, but his wife? Even with how young your relationship was… let’s just say it didn’t sound too bad.

“I meant if you were paying together.” Jaehyun only nodded, still not processing what happened. The cashier eyed the both of you knowingly and rang up your cups. You took care of paying smoothly and off you went to meet up with Jaehyun’s friends. He hummed happily to a tune he had heard on the radio on the drive to town. The slip up seemed to be the last thing on his mind, and you knew you had to bring it up in the presence of his friends to tease him. For now, you’d let him remain blissfully unaware of his fate.

“Orange sherbet?” Jaehyun looked at his ice cream and back to you, confused. He raised an eyebrow to mirror yours.

“What about it?”

“Oh, nothing.” You sang. “I just didn’t think anyone ate that besides my grandpa and my crazy aunt.” He scoffed and you only giggled at him.

“It’s an acquired taste.” He mimicked your words and you rolled your eyes in a silly way. Jaehyun gazed at you with such a fondness you’d melt on the spot along with your ice cream. But you never noticed as you were too distracted with eating.

“Happy?” He asked. His fond gaze was warmer than the sun, as it always would be. You only nodded at him and stole a bite of his ice cream. It wasn’t much of a steal as he had made it easier to access by moving it closer to you when you made the motion to eat it. It tasted citrusy and sweet. You kissed his lips next, something that was also an easy task as Jaehyun eagerly leaned into it and met you halfway. You hummed and licked your lips.

“With you? Very.”

yellow - we move in together after six months and decide we might want to paint the walls. i suggest the kitchen should be white, you want the bedroom to be grey. we make a good compromise painting yellow sunflowers along the bottom of the hallway to make it easy and fun. we did not get into a paint fight.

“I’m just saying, we spend a lot of time in the kitchen together. It’d be nice not to have to look at the tacky seafoam green all the time.”

“And I’m saying with how long we spend in the bedroom…” Jaehyun’s voice trailed off as he swung behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Jaehyun!” You whispered sternly through gritted teeth. You had uttered the two syllables of his name harshly and yet he still payed you no mind. He began to sway with you in his arms and nuzzled his face into your neck. “We are in public.”

“What?” He drawled lazily into your ear. He kissed up your neck to your ear and just when you started to become putty in his hands he twirled away and looked at the countless paint swatches on the wall. The smug look on his face did nothing to calm the erratic beating of your heart. “I was just referring to…”

You gave him the side eye and picked out another color. “Referring to…?”

“How long we spend in bed-“

“I dare you to finish that sentence, Jung.”

“-Watching movies!” He played an innocent type of act with you and you playfully swat his arm. The goofy smile on his face remained even as he gave you a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “We spend a lot of time in bed watching movies that make you laugh and scream and cry and ignore lil’ ol’ me because you want to cuddle a popcorn bowl instead of the boyfriend you moved in with just to cuddle everyday.”

“That’s because if you hold it the popcorn will go flying. You can never sit still and jump more than I do during horror movies.” Jaehyun wanted to rebut until he picked out another grey swatch. It was almost identical to the grey one he picked out earlier except it was slightly lighter. You had to hold the two colors up to each other to be sure.

“How about this one? I think it’ll go good with the sheets and the curtains.”

“Jae, the sheets and curtains don’t even match.” He shrugged and pouted when you motioned for him to put it back.

“The color matches both of them separately though.” Jaehyun went back to perusing the endless sea of greys while you looked at the variants at white. It surprised you at how many there were, but at least it allowed you to stick close to Jaehyun as the whites blended into the greys. The both of you had stayed connected by your pinkies. It was kind of cheesy and silly, but it was the most convenient way for one of you to get as far as possible to search for other possible paints without disconnecting. While you were looking at the potential of the browns and beiges, Jaehyun looked back at the cart.

Only when he let go of your hand, your pinky actually, did you notice why he was staring so long at the shopping cart. There were some items in there that you were planning on incorporating in your now shared living space. There were some towels, extra pillows, sheets, and even some random decor that you thought would look cute. Jaehyun picked up the little painting you had arbitrarily placed in the cart.

“Why is this $16.99?” It was a painting of a little flower field overlooking the sea. You didn’t even know where you were going to place it. You also weren’t sure why you had picked it out in the first place. Jaehyun scrunched his face as he looked it over again and then back to you. “And why does this have a strangely shaped mermaid?”

“Where?” He pointed to the mermaid on the beach that was definitely a little wonky shaped. “Oh. She looks like a blob head.” A little laugh erupted from Jaehyun and he cheekily eyed you again.

“Reminds me of someone in the mornings. Your bedhead makes you look more like Ursula’s legs from The Little Mermaid, though.”

“Shut up, Jae!” You hit his arm again, but you were laughing as well. You gave the painting another once over and pursed your lips. “Yeah, I dunno why I put that in there. I like the sunflowers in it, though. It makes the place look bright. It’s cute.”

Jaehyun held the painting out again and walked it over to some other colors. You merely watched him as he grabbed a couple swatches and started comparing the colors to the ones in the painting. When he was satisfied, he came back up to you and passed you the swatches to judge for yourself.

“Let’s paint the hallway instead!” You squinted at the painting and then gazed back up at his happy face. He looked very much like a young child with his smile.

“We’re not painting a whole mural of this thing.” Jaehyun grabbed your arms and shook you a little, laughing a little at your statement and then rubbing his nose on yours.

“No! Let’s paint the flowers along the hallway. It’ll be fun and make it look like we’re walking in the field of sunflowers.” The idea didn’t seem that bad. Picturing the hallway with flowers along the lower trim actually looked kind of cute and made a bland wall full of life. It’d also be more fun than figuring out where to put the painting and end up throwing it out or giving it away. “What do you say, baby?”

Mulling over the idea a little more, you found yourself unable to deny the little dimples and crinkles by his eyes. “Why not?” The little jump Jaehyun did entertained you and it seemed like he liked the painting way more than you did all of a sudden. “I can’t guarantee that it’ll look good, though.”

Jaehyun planted a happy kiss on your lips as he looked at the swatches again. “I mean, I took an art class before.” He looked at your unbelieving face. “…In high school. But I passed with an A!” Your hands on your hips made him sigh. “An A-… it was a solid 90, almost a B+.”

Instead of replying you laughed and placed your hand in his again. He lifted your hands up to place a content kiss on the back of yours and placed the painting on a random shelf. Jaehyun was absolutely giddy to get to paint with you and make your home… a home. Even though some of the flowers were more weirdly shaped than others, you made do as some of the yellow sunflowers had heart petals instead. A lot of references also made it easier to design better looking sunflowers. By the time you had finished painting the wall, you had also begun painting each other and making a mess of each other’s clothes. Tied within the endless giggling and screaming were whispered ‘I love you’s as you held the other close only to run away after smearing yellow and green paint on each other’s faces.

green - our one-year anniversary, i had just got in a dress i ordered online. they gave me a green dress instead of the blue one i ordered, and i didn’t have anything to wear for the night. you brought out an old neon green tuxedo you had as a joke for your sophomore homecoming to match me. they didn’t match and it was two sizes too small, but you wore it out anyways. the colors didn’t match exactly, but we made it work.

You were so frustrated you wanted to cry. Jaehyun would be getting back from work soon to pick you up for your one-year anniversary dinner and you were nowhere near ready. The dress you ordered from an online shopping site had just come in on time when you got home. Showering and doing a bit of chores that had to be done didn’t give you time to open up your package and try on the dress until it was pretty late, an hour until Jaehyun would be home. This was a mistake as your order was, in fact, a mistake.

Instead of a deep navy blue dress, a foresty green kind of dress sat mockingly in the box. You had quickly fumbled to get your receipts and order information to see who it was who screwed up. Another sigh left your lips as you ran your hand through your hair and angrily leered at the green dress. You had planned to match Jaehyun’s crisp blue suit that he had hanging by the bathroom for after his own shower. Sure, you had some other dresses, but you wanted to match with him for a special day. It also would have been nice to dress up for Jaehyun in something new. Had you figured this out earlier you would have been able to do some last-minute shopping for another dress.

In the midst of your anger and panic, you didn’t even notice the sound of Jaehyun coming back home until he called out to you. He had found you in the room and there was a dopey smile on his face as he poked his head through the door. “Hey, baby! I’m home and you weren’t there to greet me with my welcome back kisses.”

“Jae! I didn’t even notice you came home.” You jumped and Jaehyun’s grin quickly turned into a small frown. He became quickly concerned by the obvious irritated features on your face and lack of enthusiasm.

“Hey, what’s up? What happened?” He neared you and you roughly grabbed the material of the dress and held it up.

“This! They gave me the wrong order.” Jaehyun gently took the balled-up dress from your hands and unfolded it. He then held it up to your form and made a thinking noise. When he told you it looked fine anyways you sighed but felt slightly calmer this time. The frustration was fading and instead it was being replaced with disappointment and guilt. “It was supposed to be blue. I wanted us to match.”

“Why not use that other blue dress you have? It’s a pretty blue. It’s looks good on you.”

“It’s a royal blue. It looks brighter than your suit.” The stoic face you got in response made you want to roll your eyes at your own silliness. “It’s fine. It’s dumb.” You sighed and Jaehyun watched you carefully. After thinking some more, Jaehyun opened up the closet. He began rummaging around and you felt guilty for making the anniversary problematic and somewhat depressing. “Your suit’s in the bathroom.”

“I know,” he said matter-of-factly. There was a box in his hands, and he brought it to the bed where your dress laid on top of. He opened it up and the sight of what rested inside pushed away all the doubts you had before. “Behold!”

“Jaehyun. What is that?” You were looking at a very, very bright looking tuxedo. It was a neon green tuxedo that looked like it belonged to a leprechaun who wanted to make a fashion statement by going against regulation green.

“I wore this to one of my homecomings on a dare.” He almost cringed thinking back on it and how bright the suit was. It definitely did not look like it would complement anybody. Jaehyun didn’t mind at all when he fiddled with it and looked at some misplaced sequins on the shoulders.

“Why do you still have that?” You gazed at his suit and the suit only stared right back at you. The neon was so bright that you were sure it would hurt your eyes if the lights were any brighter.

Jaehyun smiled proudly at you and his eagerness almost put more tears into your eyes. “I always had a feeling it would come into use. I guess I was right.”

“You’re seriously not going to wear that, are you?” Jaehyun looked at you like you were dumb. There was pure seriousness in his eyes that told you he was not joking and intended to do what you feared. He was going to wear it regardless of what you said or not. “Jae! It looks too small for you! Don’t embarrass yourself for me.”

There was a proud smirk on his face. He was going to be defiant and you knew this was one of the few moments that he would say no to your pleas. “I am going to wear it because we’re going to match.”

“What- Jaehyun, no!” He held the suit to himself to measure it. Like you said, it was too small. However, Jaehyun’s determination did not dwindle. “Besides… the dress I got is a darker green while you look like the Onceler from the Lorax trying to impress his little gremlin date.” Jaehyun chuckled and began collecting his stuff to quickly shower and then dress in that abomination.

“You don’t look like a gremlin, especially not in that color.” He grabbed the dress again and tossed it to you. “You’re going to look like a princess in that while I’m just a lowly peasant who could only dream of having you grace my presence.” He told you to put it on as he began to undress and collect his stuff to go shower.

“Jae, you don’t have to do this. It’s going to make you uncomfortable with all the people looking at you and with how tight it is. I’ll just wear one of the old black dresses I have. They’re not even the same shades of green.” Jaehyun stood shirtless in front of you and you tried not to let your resolve waver. He knew his effect on you like this. Of course. He did this on purpose because he knew he’d get his way.

“Nope. I am going to wear this suit and you’re going to wear that dress because we are going to match. We’re both green. Doesn’t matter what fancy type of green it is, we’re going to match because it’s our one-year anniversary.” His smirk slowly softened into an endearing smile. The insistence you knew came out of the love he had for you, and he was proving his love for you by doing this.

“Jaehyun,” you chided softly. You were giving in and you felt guilty for making him do that to himself. One look at your face made him quickly put the ghastly suit down and rushed towards you. He cupped your face and rested his forehead against yours. The silly smile on his face never faded as he comforted you and stroked your cheeks softly. “I love you so much, you know that? Even when you look like Shrek’s secret lover.”

He pecked your forehead and then moved to kiss every inch of your face. “I do know, but say it again. I just love to hear it.”

“Well, Jaehyun, I love you.”

Jaehyun pressed another kiss to your lips and it was lingering, laced with so much love and affection for you. He whispered gentle words on your lips in between the countless kisses for you. “I love you, too. Happy one year.”

blue - for some reason you wanted to do a mini photoshoot with me on this day. you’ve come prepared. there are little plastic butterflies you bought from a dollar store and you’re pining them all to my hair. the pictures turn out fantastic, actually, and i look mystical against the blue sky with my hair waving with bright blue wings. you tell me you love me. i hear it all the time and know you mean it, but for some reason it sounds different this time. like there’s more emotion than ever.

“Stay still, babe. You’re making some of the clips fall out.”

“I could be staying still if I was in bed and still sleeping instead of being woken up to take pictures in some foggy weather.” Jaehyun’s deep chuckle rumbled next to you as you closed your eyes. The way his fingers ran through your hair felt nice, but you wished the feeling was rather in bed as you dozed off.

By the time he was finished, the sun had come out through the clouds and warmed you up in the chilly morning air. Jaehyun stepped back and cheered when you looked ready for pictures. He had been strongly resisting the urge to kiss you in your sleepy state. He wished he was also back in bed to be able to kiss your sleepy face, but for some reason he had wanted to take pictures of you. Why it had to be at 7AM with blue butterfly clips in your hair, nobody knew. Not even him.

“Okay, let’s do this!” You groaned tiredly and put your hands out for him to help you from your seat in the grass. His energy was unmatched, and he pulled you into him with such force that you almost crashed into him. “Careful, sleepyhead.” You mumbled that he should have been the one who was careful since he did the pulling, but your boyfriend was bumbling around so excitedly that he didn’t notice.

“Shouldn’t I be more awake for this? I haven’t even brushed my teeth.”

“Do you think I care?” To prove his point, Jaehyun placed a lovely kiss on top of your lips and sighed happily before pulling away. “I also think your tired look adds to the mystical look I was going for.”

You hummed, not really processing any of his words as he sets up an old camera of his. At any time, you could have denied going outside and just staying in bed. It was hard to say what made you come outside to do this in the first place. After thinking back on it more, you probably did it because it was Jung Jaehyun and you could never say no to your boyfriend.

Jaehyun instructed you on how to pose or stand, with most of his shots being angled upwards so he had the blue sky peeking through behind you. You complied easily. That was mainly because you bribed him into rewarding you with a kiss every time you did something well. That happened to be every ten seconds or so.

Perhaps an hour was spent taking pictures with the two of you moving around the yard or having to adjust the butterfly clips somewhere else. When you were more awake you suggested you change into an airy dress that might add to the magical look. You spent a little longer than you thought changing into that as Jaehyun was more focused on kissing your shoulders and snuggling into you from behind rather than helping you zip up the dress.

“I’m hungry.” You pouted while sitting in the grass. Your hands tossed your hair up lightly and Jaehyun quickly shot the picture. He checked it and decided that he was satisfied with his work.

“Let’s go get you breakfast, then.” He offered his hand out and you graciously took it. You squeezed his hand as a thank you and he kissed your cheek in response. While you ate a random cereal from the cupboard, Jaehyun spent his time carefully undoing the clips from your hair. You swatted him away when he tried to cheekily undo the dress and sent you an impish smile when you complained about it being too early for such an activity.

“Hey, Jae,” you called while he scavenged the kitchen for his own food. You came back from the room and changed out of the dress. The material started to itch your legs and it would be much more comfortable in your pajamas… which were rather Jaehyun’s clothes instead of yours. He made a noise of acknowledgement and quickly glanced at you. If seeing you look like a fairy in the early morning light made Jaehyun full of wonder, then surely witnessing you in your most comfortable form put him in a state of awe. “Can I see the pictures?”

He handed you the camera and caged you between himself and the counter as you looked through all the pictures. They turned out very beautifully. The light blue sky was not a bad combination with the cerulean wings laid atop your hair. Your sleepy gaze into the lens made it seem all the dreamier and you didn’t think you were looking at yourself. To be frank, you thought you would have looked more like a mess. Your boyfriend’s eye for art came in handy at bringing out your best features for others to see. When you voiced your observations and compliments, Jaehyun heard none of those as they went through one ear and out the other. He was far too focused on the way your gentle features shone thanks to the light streaming through the window. The light was brighter and warmer compared to earlier in the morning, but Jaehyun thought you looked absolutely heavenly.

Time stopped once you stop speaking and looked up at him through your lashes. He breathed softly and gazed deeply into your eyes. He spoke softly, just above a whisper. “I love you.”

This was a familiar phrase. A welcomed one that made you feel warm and at home, but this time it felt different than all the other times. It was different than the first time he said it, when you were crying one night about feeling very stressed and pressured and he was there for you through it all. Different than when he said it before he left for work, soft and intimate and with promise of coming home to give you more affection. Different than when you would dance together in the kitchen at 3AM and sing stupid love songs to each other.

At this moment, Jaehyun loved you. You felt it stronger than ever.

indigo - we had a fight and i’m spending a good hour or two outside because i didn’t want to be around you before i said more hurtful things. you finally come join me and look at the sky. there are no stars, but you can see the moon. for some reason you think the sky looks like a deep shade of blue instead of black, like indigo. we make up and make out in the night.

Goosebumps littered your arms and you remembered to roll your sleeves back down. In the process of getting worked up, you also got heated. Very heated. It felt suffocating and you had rolled your sleeves up in attempts to cool off. It didn’t work, obviously.

You couldn’t remember the finer details, but it just frustrated you to dwell on it. Something had gone down about how Jaehyun thought you were spending too much time at work because there was this other guy you talked a lot about. Insecurities got the best of you as you pointed out this one girl who had been present at so many of his work functions. She always came up to him even while you were glued to his side and glaring daggers at her.

Hurtful, and irrational, accusations were flung across the room one after another. It became so much that you stepped out. You couldn’t handle it, hearing all those cutting words as well as saying them. Guilt clawed its way out of your stomach with each jab you took, so you left without another word. You didn’t even go anywhere, just outside. You needed your space and some time to think.

An hour and a half went by easily as you cleared your head and stared at the sky, trying to find the stars. Just the moon gazed pitifully down at you as your tear stained cheeks glistened in the light. They felt uncomfortable so you used your sleeves to wipe away at them. The harsh material left a stinging burn on your cheeks. You kind of hated how you wished it was the softness of your boyfriend’s hands wiping them away instead. The door opened and shut behind you.

“No stars?” Jaehyun asked. You weren’t in the mood to look at him, feeling too sad to. He got his answer through you shaking your head. Jaehyun wrapped his jacket around you before you could even shiver. He knew you were cold, and not just on the inside. The two of you continued to stare up at the sky and look for anything other than the moon.

“I’m sorry,” you said first. Jaehyun took a moment to let that settle in before nodding and using an arm to wrap around you.

“I’m sorry, too.” He finally broke the tension and looked at you first. You followed right after and the pain in his eyes was almost too much to bear. The same was for him. The hurt tone of your voice absolutely broke him. He was glad everything was fixing itself for now. Jaehyun turned back to the night sky the same time as you did. “The sky looks funny tonight.”

“How so?” He shrugged and rubbed his hand along your arm, trying to warm you up. You pressed further into his side to gain more warmth from his chest. His arms came fully around you and his chest pressed into your back. He placed a kiss on the crown of your head and hummed. Talking was somewhat strange with his chin resting on the top of your head. You wouldn’t change it for the world as the comforting vibrations of his chest as he talked reminded you he was still there for you.

“No stars. Can’t really see any clouds either.”

“Light pollution?” He made a noise and held you closer. It was a move he made absentmindedly.

“Not sure. The sky has a kind of purplish color, though.” Looking up at the sky, he was right. It was very different than the normally dark and ambiguous night sky. Tonight, it looked rather blue… or purple. “Indigo,” he declared. You made a confirming noise and nodded. His chin rubbed against your scalp as you did so. A moment of comfortable silence passed. Once it passed, the both of you began to get antsy. You turned in his arms and he held you just as close as before, if not closer. He hugged your head into his chest for a while longer.

“Hey.” You leaned back and looked into his eyes. They were full of love and apologies. “Kiss me.”

And so you did. You reminded him and yourself of your love for each other and he held you there. A different kind of passion blossomed between the two of you. The rest of the night was spent whispering love affirmations to each other in bed and holding each other close. He was just as gentle as he was fierce in making you aware of his devotion to you. You kissed apologies into his skin until the both of you fell asleep.

purple - to celebrate our two-year anniversary, you gave me flowers even though they weren’t my favorites. they were purple cosmos. i pointed out they are usually given on a second wedding anniversary. you proposed to fix that. the ring was hidden within the bouquet of flowers. you knew all along.

“Happy two years, Jae.” You hugged Jaehyun from behind and softly massaged the skin of his stomach. He turned around and the look in his eyes filled you to the brim with love. Pure honey seeped from his irises. His smile was sugary sweet even as you kissed him and felt the corners of his lips moving upwards uncontrollably. He repeated the same phrase back and the two of you shared a sweet kiss. You noticed the bouquet of flowers sitting on the table. “You got me flowers?”

He followed your line of sight and smiled knowingly. “I did. They’re purple cosmos.”

You accepted the flowers with a sappy smile. “Any reason for the choice?” The cosmos were soft to the touch and their fragrance was faint. Jaehyun kissed your temple as your thumbs softly stroked the petals.

“Not really. They’re to celebrate two years together.”

“Are you sure?” You pressed. He smiled knowingly at you and you had to coax more out of him. “I do my research, Jae. Purple cosmos aren’t to celebrate just any two years. They’re for two years into marriage.”

Your boyfriend feigned surprise, however, you didn’t know he was faking it. “Oh, shoot. Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s fine, though. They’re very pretty and I love them.” Jaehyun’s hands squeezed your hips.

“You sure it’s fine? I can fix this.” You looked questionably at him and set the flowers on the table behind him. You didn’t notice that he was shuffling the bouquet over a tad. “After all, I made a pretty egregious error, did I not?”

“I wouldn’t say that big… but you don’t have to buy another bouquet just for this.”

“I’m not.” Asking him what he meant only added to your confusion as he laughed mysteriously. “Two years, huh? And I got the wrong bouquet?”

“That you did.”

A teasing smile rested upon his face this time. “Are you sure we’re not married? After all, you won’t ever let me live it down that I called you my wife…” You laughed at that and shook your head. Of course, you wouldn’t. It was a funny story and there was no way you would pass on the opportunity to tell his and your friends the story if they hadn’t already heard.

“Please, it was cute. But cut the beating around the bush. What do you mean about not buying another bouquet?” He smiled at you and the silence began to unnerve you. You feared that he might actually go to buy another one just for the sake of it. He’s deliberately gone against your words before and you know the last time wouldn’t be the final occurrence. “Seriously, these things are expensive. Don’t buy me more flowers.” Instead, your boyfriend shook his head.

She waves you off dismissively, but the red in her cheeks shows that she appreciates the comment. One look at your paper shows her that you really were in need of the help. No offense, of course, but the factoring you had done so far somehow led you to completely get rid of the variables. While this led to much confusion on her part where to begin, she was amused by your doodles on the page.

“You draw?” You peer down to see what she’s referring to. There’s small little sketches of your favorite characters from some show you were currently watching. A slight flush of embarrassment moves across your cheeks, as if it were a crime to like your shows. However, you just shrug to play it off cool.

“Kind of... I usually do this when I’m bored.” You realize that you’ve just admitted one of the reasons why you are behind in class. Wendy only reassures you with a smile, deciding not to point that out if she caught it at all.

She tries to help you as much as she can before the period’s over. You’re much too distracted by the curve of her bangs over her forehead and wonder how she must have done it. Done what? You know... looking so effortlessly stunning. You’re well aware of how she uses a hair curler in her bangs sometimes. You’ve seen it at lunch a couple times when she’s laughing loudly with her friends, but you could never bring yourself to look away.

About to be caught again, you quickly busy yourself with whatever problem you left off on. Wendy watches you for a couple more moments before deciding that she should start packing up and taking some last minute questions. You’re scribbling down the answers to the next couple of questions and she makes a mental note to check in with you later. In the mean time, she hopes you don’t mistake her number she wrote on the corner of your page for some polynomial without variables.

Luckily you caught it fairly quickly before the school day ended, when you had decided to continue your doodling on a previous sheet. And just like that, you were meeting Wendy after school to go over your homework that you had completed in class. Nerves began building up inside of you. Both at the idea of seeing Wendy again, but also... her relation to your math class reminded you of an upcoming test. As well as your low grade. It wasn’t that bad per se, but it wasn’t exactly ideal. You were bordering from a C+ to a B- and you knew you’d be in for it if your parents saw that as a final grade. 

Your leg bounces as you wait by one of the lunch tables, and it distracts you so much that you miss the text from Wendy that she’s on her way and should only be another minute. By the time you’ve formulated your runaway plan and to make sure your FBI agent can’t track you down when you fail your next test, Wendy arrives with a chipper smile and taking a seat right next to you. Immediately her smiles drops at your worried face.

“Hey, are you alright? We don’t have to be meeting up right now if you don’t want to.”

“No! You’re fine.” Her concerned eyes don’t stop trying to figure out what’s eating you until it clicks.

“You’re worried about next week’s test, right?” You nod and Wendy pats your shoulder. However, she doesn’t take her hand away and instead squeezes your shoulder so that you feel the warmth through your shirt. You’re not that surprised to find that warmth has spread all throughout your body as well. “I can totally help you with that! I often see you looking frustrated in class but didn’t want to pester you. I figured today wouldn’t hurt.”

You shake your head and find that you were grateful she stepped up today. You could never with how preoccupied you were with trying to reteach yourself concepts as well as her being almost intimidatingly pretty. If it wasn’t obvious, your crush on her really made you freeze up. You remember developing your crush on her in your sophomore year, when the two of you shared a literature class together. The two of you got to interact some, but not much. What stood out to you was the reenactment of Romeo and Juliet where she played Romeo and you read the part of Juliet. Her character building and voice somehow made you feel as if you were really Juliet, easily swooning by her love confessions. You really began to daydream that they were real... and in modern english.

“If I bomb this next test, then I’m easily set to get a solid C instead of a C+. I have almost an 81 in the class, but just barely.”

Wendy hums and fixes her ponytail to stall while she thinks. Suddenly she brightens up and snaps her fingers. “Have you thought about doing the extra credit? It could definitely bring your grade up to an 85 at least! It can act as a safety net in case you do poorly on the test, but I won’t let that happen!”

“How so?” She takes your hands into hers and looks you earnestly in the eyes.

“Starting today, I will tutor you everyday to make sure you feel prepared and confident for the test. It doesn’t have to be just after school either. We can meet at lunch, during class, before school, or any time we can work it out. I promise you I will be there for you so that you don’t fail.” Your heart beats a little quicker at her promise, but the intensity also adds butterflies to your stomach. You can only nod in response and realize you’ve been holding your breath by the time she turns around to get some papers out. “Here, I keep these on me in case anyone approaches me outside of class for help. These are some of the extra credit sheets that’ll help you. They also pertain to the test so it’s a double whammy.”

She helps you get started on the sheets, telling you they’re honestly easy points to boost your grade. They really are with how much time Wendy spends talking you through the concept and making sure you’re not iffy on a problem. It’s like this the rest of the week. However, you also realize she’s been super affectionate once you get a problem right or giving herself whatever excuse to get as close as possible.

Sometimes her pencil might roll away from her as you work and she allows it to roll far enough so that it hits you. She either brushes her fingers against your hand or arm or she purposely touches her fingers loosely against yours if you happen to pick it up before she does. Some comments or corrections she makes on your paper also come in the form of hearts. It’s hard for you to keep your cool when she is being playfully flirty with you, but it also saddens you that it’ll most likely no longer happen once the week is over and you’ve taken your test.

“Here,” she interrupts during your last session on Friday. The two of you are sitting together at lunch and she decides to write down some problems for you to practice.

“Wendy, this is basic math. I did this in, like, second grade.”

“I just want to warm up your brain. Go ahead!” You look back down at the 2+2 written on the paper. Once you write down a hesitant 4, Wendy adds more simple math problems to your paper. The lunch bell rings signaling that you get to your next class. “Make sure to do the last one! I’ll see you next Monday on test day. Oh! And make sure to text me on the weekend if you have any questions.”

You’re too busy packing up to see what she’s written on your paper, but you assume it was something like 1+1. You figure that she must be doing this to reassure you and give you a slight break since all you’ve been doing is working on factoring for the past couple of days. By the time you get into your history class, a friend of yours points to the paper on the top of your notebook.

“How’s it going with Miss-I’m-too-pretty-to-make-you-function?”

“Shut up, it’s not like I’ll be seeing her after the test. She’s just tutoring me.”

“But you said the touches-”

“I’m overthinking it. It’s fine.” They roll their eyes at your dismissiveness. You’d been trying to swallow down the crush over the past couple of days, but Wendy honestly made it too hard. Her subtle touches and words of encouragement did nothing but make you hopeful. It also didn’t help that her bright smile plagued your mind whenever you went home and you were... looking forward to going to your math class.

“Hey, I think you’re overthinking the part where you think you have no chance.”

“That’s because I don’t.” They tap your paper and say otherwise. You’re unable to question them since they turn away to focus on the teacher beginning the lesson. You try to focus on the material about some revolution somewhere, but you can only focus on running through equations, the quadratic formula, perfect squares, and Wendy in your mind.

She stays on your mind the entire weekend as well, and you’re worried about the material even though you’ve run through it so many times you can practically do it in your sleep. On test day, you’re so focused on your work that you can’t even bring yourself to look at Wendy in fear of all your work together going to waste or seeing her be disappointed. But her quick squeeze of your hand as she passes by while handing out the tests lets you know that she’s rooting for you. She doesn’t mention the last problem she wrote down for you on that Friday. You don’t mention it either because you forgot.

It feels like time flies by so quickly, and you practically run up to the front desk to turn in your test. You’re unsure how to feel about it and wring your hands nervously. Wendy gives you a thumbs up with a determined look while mouthing “You did it. You made it through.” The gleam in her eyes sets your heart fluttering with all the confidence she has in you. It makes you disappointed that soon the two of you would part ways just like you had after the brief interaction during your Romeo and Juliet reading. However, Wendy makes sure to continuously check in with you about the material of the test to see what you thought of it. 

The day you get your test back, Wendy looks just as nervous as you. It’s been only two days since the test, and your teacher has graded the test faster than normal. You look at Wendy while your hands are balled up into fists on the top of your desk. She’s biting her lip and you can she her feet are kicking at the floor in anticipation. It looks like she’s running while sitting, and you wish you could do just that. Run. The teacher has her pass the tests back while they begin writing up some commonly missed questions. Before they could, they call for Wendy’s attention right before she reached your row of desks.

“Wendy, could you pass me one of the tests? I can’t find my answer key.” She nods and immediately hands one of the tests over. Once she’s finished passing out the tests you realize whose test is up with the teacher. Ah, how fickle fate seems to be with you. Wendy realizes that she’s passed your test up when she looks over at you and your anxious form trying your best to peer at the front of the paper by the board. She hadn’t seen your score either, which makes her just as anxious as you. From where you were, you couldn’t figure out what red marks meant what on your test.

The rest of the period was spent with you writing down all the right answers on your test just in case you got something wrong and you could figure out why, hopefully with Wendy’s help. Throughout the class, the two of you had been communicating with nervous looks while trying to put each other at ease at the same time. It didn’t work for both of you since you had started biting your nails and she was picking at threads of her sweater. You absolutely hate that the test review spent the entire period. Especially the fact that the teacher asked to see you when the class ended. Dread fills you when you hear the bell ring. Your footsteps seem heavier as you walk up to the front desk.

Wendy wanted to hang back, she really did, but she knew that it’d be better to respect your privacy and head out with the students. She waits for you to come out and you find her tapping her foot to a song in the middle of the hall. The second you spot her you squeal and throw your arms around her.

“Oh my gosh, Wendy!”

“What’d you get? How did you do? Are you okay? I’m so nervous, I didn’t even know it was your test!”

You shake your head and show her the test. You got nearly full marks, some rounding errors or accidentally using the wrong amount of sigfigs cost you a couple points, but not enough to bring it lower than an A.

“I can’t believe you practically saved my grade!” You’re jumping now and she’s still in your arms. It’s not a problem since she’s also jumping along with you with a large smile on her face. You pull away with a frown.

“What’s wrong now? Did your grade not rise enough to where you thought it was?” There’s panic in her voice and you’re quick to deny her question, but a pout remains on your lips.

“I won’t get to hang out with you anymore since I won’t need any more tutoring...” Wendy pauses for a second and looks as if she’s trying to find something in your eyes.

“... Did you see the last problem I gave you on Friday?” You think back on it and return her questioning gaze.

“You gave me basic addition. Are you telling me I need to work on what I learned in elementary school?” She shakes her head quickly and asks if you still have the paper, to which you nod your head since you haven’t cleaned your binder yet. She has you take it out and you’re about to tell her you’re not that bad at math until you see the problem she wrote.

Underneath the 2+2, 4+4, 3+7, and 1+9...

You + Me = ?

You look up at her and she smiles, but it’s wavering. She’s nervous about your reaction, but she’s somewhat relieved. She thought you had seen it and decided to ignore it, thinking she was weird or that you were trying not to be mean by rejecting that.

“What... Wendy, does this mean what I think it does?” Wendy puts on an air of fake confidence and takes a pencil out.

“Well, it’s simple really. You, that’s you, plus me, Wendy, equals...” She trails off and begins to write on the paper. A little drawing of a heart takes place at the end of the equation and you can only look at her in shock. She decides that it’s now or never to explain what it meant. “I was just... too nervous to approach you since I didn’t want to scare you away thinking I was there to bug you about getting help. I thought you were really cute at the beginning of the year, and after I finally got to talk to you I started developing a crush... I really worked the courage up to write that.”

You look back down at the heart and can’t help but smile at her. Wendy smiles hesitantly in confusion. 

it basically started at that party and y’all were having fun and the mingling of groups was happening where everyone was getting to know each other

y’all didn’t really interact during the party besides hanging around the general area

but that didn’t stop you from giving each other the slight stink eye, which may have started on your part when he accidentally spilled some drink on your friend’s pants

and he thought nothing of it so he assumed you were just a stick in the mud and thought it was dumb you were there to cramp on his fun

obviously you hadn’t added each other on social media, so when hendery was doing something especially dumb you smirked and had been recording it

in all fairness it had started with you recording one of your friend’s rants about how nobody treats them right and how they deserve the perfect lover but there’s just trash people and their trash lists of who’s the best kisser or whatever

but all of a sudden your camera had switched to hendery’s group of friends where he was standing on top of a table and slipped off due to all of the snacks and drinks spilled on it

he ended up getting caught by his friends before he got hurt, but he clonked heads with one of them and was wincing while the others laughed or were more focused on whether or not he was okay

you were chuckling to yourself and captioned it ‘bet he doesn’t have any braincells if this is what keeps happening... makes sense alrdy tho 💀💀’

and you thought nothing of it until the next morning you’d woken up to a couple of messages and whatnot

you’d been debating whether or not you wanted to go to the bathroom and check later on during lunch after you spent some time to yourself but you chose to continue laying in bed and read through everything

a couple of the typical ‘what was the homework’, ‘lunch?’, and ‘did you know that this happened...’ type of things

but what caught your eye was the ‘hey, did you know that you have a bounty on your head rn?’

you were so confused because you had no clue what that was supposed to mean and typed back a simple ???

and one of your friends ten responded back pretty quickly and he was just like yeah, hendery apparently hates your guts rn so i suggest don’t run into him

you’re just like????? hUH????? who?????

he sends you a picture of himself and a whole group of others and he’s just like furthest dude on the left

you squint at your phone because wow ten you could have chosen a better picture or maybe screenshotted something huh

however once you recognize him, you’re like UH???? KnUcKLeheAD?

ten’s just like yeahh, apparently he found out about your story and has been asking everyone who you are

someone must have told him because ten sent you a screenshot of the story hendery posted that captioned your story with smth like

‘this person rlly don’t have anything better to do besides play therapist for their friends at a p a r t y :///’

you’re gaping at the message and it’s so bad you sit up from bed so fast with your phone in the tightest grip

like what??? and followed by that there’s another screenshot of another story that basically was some poll or something about whether or not you were fun or some lame-o

you were fuming at that and saw the username in the stories ten sent you and basically looked him up and found out who hendery was

your phone was practically thrown to the other side of the bed as you got ready for the day 

part of you was so confused as to who sent him the story but you were also really confused as to why he’d just project you onto his as if you’d see it (which you did soooo)

and you found yourself complaining to your friends about it like who would do that??? it was a joke anyways and plus why does he care when you barely know each other???

they’re all on your side of it too since most of them had met hendery that same night or only knew a couple of the other guys and him by extension

your food was feeling your wrath as you chewed on it and your friends tried to find a different subject to talk about

“hey, did you transfer classes like you wanted? 

you finally smile at that and give a satisfied hum to them

“yep, i finally got out of that blasted quantum mechanics class or whatever”

“why were you in that anyways?????”

you shrug and it’s just confusing to you because you were trying to get an elective course in but they decided to put you in a big science class where people with big brains and bigger egos liked to flex their knowledge and lord it over you when you didn’t understand

“doesn’t matter!! i’m in advanced hip hop dancing now! no more 8am lectures about one dimensional applications anymore”

“but you still have to wake up at 8am to walk across campus to the theatre rooms?”

“it doesn’t matter if you like what you do”

which was the best part since you took hip hop last semester and had some background in dancing before, so the instructor suggest you move to intermediate

but the worst part was the voice you heard behind you

“oh no way in-”

you whipped around and saw the shocked and irritated look on the one and only hendery

“you!” you pointed your fork accusingly at him and he has the audacity to look offended and point both hands at himself

“me???”

“yeah you! who are you to put me on blast to social media even though i’m a total stranger to you?”

“exCUSE ME?????!! the same goes to YOU!”

“tHE sAmE GoES tO YOu. it was a joke, especially by someone you barely know!!!! i didn’t want to have to see your face first thing in the morning to find out you got butthurt because you bonked your head as a kid and wanted to reenact that??”

hendery almost revolts backwards and holds a finger up

“first of all? do you think i’m happy about getting to see you first thing in the morning either??? and do you think i’d be happy seeing you at 8am every other day?”

you quickly put two and two together and you’re clenching your teeth

“you don’t mean-”

“yeah, see you in advanced hip hop, lame-o”

you (and practically the entire lunch room alkfnskfn) are left in shock as hendery takes his leave without even ordering food

you sit there in shock and think all of a sudden you might not like hip hop anymore

and you’re complaining about it to ten as he sits across from you at dinner, a couple hours after your lunch and having enough time to sit on it

“i should have taken modern dancing with you........ or maybe even ballet 3 with sicheng?”

ten only laughs and you scowl as he attempts to keep his snickers quiet

“you wouldn’t have lasted more than two days. you’d be itching to get your feet moving faster than they can get their toes pointed”

you roll your eyes because he’s right. one of the best parts of dancing hip hop was that you felt you could lose control of yourself in a more reckless way than the other styles of dancing could

“i hate it when you’re right?”

ten smiles at you and pats your shoulder from across the table

you’re just internally screaming that you have to wake up at 8am to see hendery’s dumb face again

“why is it because i’m right so often?”

“no, because i tend to owe you money because i lost the bet”

he snickers and then offers his student id to you

you take it questioningly and he pats the hand that has the id in it

“take it out at the dance studio. they’ve closed it from regular students after 9 since someone decided it’d be funny to steal one of the mirrors”

you roll your eyes but smile gratefully at him

“gotta love TAs with their magical access for ‘tutoring hours’”

“hey they’re actually convenient for when it doesn’t fit someone’s schedule!”

you’re already walking towards the door by the time he says that and you look back cheekily

“tell me that again when you haven’t used it for a private picnic date with someone you met on tinder!”

by the time you reach the dance studio you’re absolutely giddy and so glad you wore comfortable clothing to dinner so you didn’t have to go back to change

your giddiness changed when you already saw somebody in the studio

and as fate would have it, of course hendery had to be there, jamming out to some 80s hip hop song

before you could turn around and leave, he spun around during once of the dances and opened his mouth in shock

“there is no way-”

“save it! i’m just as shocked as you are”

he huffs and turns off the music and stands with his arms folded 

“well?”

“well what?”

he makes a face and over exaggerates your irritated one with a “wELl WhAt?!?!??!!!?!?”

you set your jaw and mimic his stance but the awaiting look in his eyes told you everything

“i’m not here to apologize if that’s what you’re thinking” you put a hand and put your other on your hip before he could say anything

at least he had enough respect to listen to your cue even though he exasperatedly threw his hands in the air and huffed loudly

“and even if i wanted to, i wasn’t so immature to go around asking everyone about who made me cry because they laughed when i decided to climb a table and almost fall because it was slippery”

“i didn’t cry” he’s got this childish tone to his voice and you know better than to instigate but the fiery look in his eyes only lights up one of your own

“i can give you a reason”

you don’t even realize you’ve stepped in the middle of the dance floor until he huffs out a laugh and meets you in the middle where you have your hands on your hips defiantly and a cocky smirk on your face

he hates it and you feel so powerful seeing him seethe

it only adds to your satisfaction that he ends the stare down by walking away rigidly

however it quickly melds into confusion when he turns the music on again, this time to a more recent song on the radio and one of the songs you were thinking of dancing to actually

he starts walking again, but in circles around you

he adds a spin here and there and a little kick of the leg

“what are you, constipated?”

he takes your comment in stride and backs away again to give you the floor

“you obviously came here to dance, and if you’re all talk about it then why don’t you up me one?”

“gladly”

there’s a bite in your tone but there’s even more snap in your hips

you don’t miss the way hendery’s eyes trail up and down as you flow into another move

you smirk once he trails back up to your eyes and instead of looking caught he only smirks right back

it peeves you a little how confident he looked now and he slowly clapped once you finished up another spin

“not bad for a freestyle”

you hate how much his ego has been stoked and you hate how you absolutely know how much he absolutely seemed to live for your annoyance with him

you two circled each other for a while, none of you really knowing who started moving first and why you both continued

but it was you who stepped forward first, and he responded in kind and it would have been so off putting that you both were so close

when he chuckled at your determined gaze you could practically feel his breath against your face

you felt the anger bubbling in your core once the warmth hit your cheeks

but a closer look at his eyes showed you that he was definitely affected by your snappiness with him and the irritation was practically pooling in his irises 

“you know, for someone who’s in advanced hip hop you sure don’t seem good at motor functions. you could barely stand at that party”

“you know, having fun tends to have that effect. but you wouldn’t know. nobody does anything with you besides stand against a wall and try to talk over the music. there’s a reason why the lyrics are the only words you’re supposed to be hearing”

normally you’d bite your tongue and walk away or tell him he’s being the immature one once again, but those words were dumb and it mad you livid

“funny, for someone who claims to move so well yet you haven’t really shown me anything”

in a flurry of motion, hendery has grabbed your arm and spun you around so that you fall hard into his chest

you can hear a huff of effort from him as he twirls you out again and then back into him but with his hand at your waist

his cocky grin makes you almost growl at him, but you were too shocked to say anything

“cat got your tongue?”

he releases you and then dusts himself off

“you know when you want to act up.......”

he gets in your face and the cockiness as dissolved into the pure annoyance that you are already familiar with from feeling it yourself

“make sure you’re not just all talk.” he turns and grabs all his stuff, but he waves over his shoulder before he leaves “see you in class”

and oooooOOOOOH do you see him in class the next morning

the instructor has greeted you since you transferred in the class two weeks in 

they were glad you decided to come in even though the class was already working on some dances and it would take a couple classes to see where you were at since it’d been a while and also with a different instructor

so..................

“hi, i’m hendery. i’m the student instructor/TA, i’ll bring you up to speed”

and GOSH did you feel so angry for waking up at 6am to have breakfast and having to walk across campus in the cold morning air just to figure out you’d have to work 1:1 with hendery for a couple of classes

and he wasn’t too happy about it either

mainly because he had some of your friends on his tail for blasting you on social media and all of a sudden it was talk of the two friend groups and even in some other circles

but while he was getting told off for being immature about it and even about being teased about his clumsiness and somewhat recklessness (which got old real fast)

you were also getting constantly teased by your “boringness” but also some people had the audacity to actually stop inviting you to some things because they thought so

little did you know hendery was sort of in the same boat because they were afraid he’d break something and when he heard that boy did he really want to

and both of your indirect interactions with each other in that method only fueled the spite you had with the direct contact with each other

the next couple of classes you purposely would hit him with an arm when you had it swung out or maybe accidentally stepping on his toes

but he was also quick to make sure to “accidentally” not teach you the full dance to a song or even give you the entirely wrong song to dance to

but the instructor assumed that it was because you were logged from all the physics shenanigans so they wanted hendery to run it through with you during class

you were practically seething over a lunch with your friends about all of this and they gave you tired glances

ten was the only one who seemed unfazed, as he was the only one in the two circles with direct connections to both of you

“i just don’t understand why this keeps happening. if he just wasn’t so immature and keeps insulting me about my way of spending time with friends then i’d stop fighting back”

“but you started it”

“we didn’t know each other, ten! it was just some light jabbing” you scoff at that because it was just so annoying at this point “besides, he was so obnoxious in the first place”

ten gives you an encouraging pat on the back

you groan and say you haven’t been able to spend a good weekend of fun in a couple of weeks thanks to wary eyes or not knowing where the parties are

“didn’t know you could have fun~”

you also smack ten but his cheeky grin lets him get away with it, like it does every time

but he soon makes up for it by giving you the location and time of another party by a friend of his and that he’d be there to hang with you

by the time you got there he was already tearing it up on the dance floor after taking one too many

he was all the more excited to see you though and had jumped into your arms happily and was laughing the whole time

“hey, you made it! you won’t believe who-”

but he was whisked away before you knew it

so you left to get something to drink on your own

somebody you vaguely knew recognized you and started chatting with you on the way

“hey, haven’t i seen you around before?”

“yeah..... i think we took physics together?”

“oh right!!!! i remember, you transferred out right?”

you knew where this was going since they obviously wanted to sound smarter in this situation

they had been your lab partner and it totally sucked to hear them complain about having someone ‘not competent enough to do anything’ as a partner

you only nod and listen to them ramble a little more, looking for someone familiar to latch onto so you could leave this conversation

until you heard

“i didn’t know you went to parties”

“uhhhh....... what made you think that?”

they shrug and they look amused to keep making jabs at you 

“well, i heard you were kind of a stick in the mud. not to mention you don’t really do much at parties, so i figured it wasn’t your scene”

“what? excuse me??”

“oh. well i thought since you were a little slow in class then you wouldn’t be doing anything besides standing around. the dorm’s more your place, yeah?”

before you can go off on the dude, the person’s shoved against the wall and they’re not going anywhere

especially when hendery’s face is in theirs

“that’s enough, buddy. you’re a little harsh, no?”

they give out a nervous laugh and look around to see if anybody is going to come to their aid, but the others have decided to keep moving and ignore what’s going on

you on the other hand are shocked to find that hendery’s here, much more that he’s defending you in a sense

“whatT? didn’t you...... you know, start all of this?”

hendery rolls his eyes but shoves a little harder

you hate to say it, but you were feeling pretty proud of this

“first of all, they did”

“hey!”

“but second of all, you’ve been skating on thin ice ever since you thought it’d be funny to start insulting someone as your first interaction”

“that’s RICH coming from you” and the person’s right, but they’re also toeing the line reeeeeal far with agitating hendery

“oh yeah? i didn’t realize how much of a stuck up twerp i sounded like before i heard those words coming out of your mouth”

you merely watch on and hendery takes a glance out of the corner of his eye to look at you

there’s a hard glare in his eyes but they soften a bit once you come into sight

you’re................... confused????

but you also recognize the anger in his eyes since the person also began jabbing at hendery, so you were prepared for his next line

“by the way... you hungry?”

“huh?”

and hendery had raised his fist up and the person recoiled hard

but it never made contact.....

they timidly looked up to see the fist 

he scoffed and straighted out his clothes as he backed away

“yeah, don’t act though if it’s just that. an act”

he walks away from the person and heads for you

“come on, let’s get you a drink”

you just stand there as he searches around for an empty cup and fills it with water quickly before walking you outside

you didn’t need to be pulled along to follow with him

you wanted answers

by the time you’re outside you just give him an expecting look with your eyebrows raised and he seems almost frustrated to admit his thoughts

“what, cat got your tongue this time?”

he chuckles as he remembers that one instance in the dance studio together but he hums, thinking of his next words

“i mean, i’m not sure how else to phrase it”

“i can wait. i don’t do much besides not have fun anyways”

at this he hangs his head

“okay, well i do feel bad about that. i didn’t realize how harsh those words all sounded until it was being played back to me”

“it took this long to figure out why i was upset by it and not just me being a ‘stick in the mud’?“

he nods and you can see instead of irritation.... there’s sincerity in his eyes now

a.......... sudden, but also welcome change

“yeah... well! no, not really.......... i kind of thought it was childish to keep this whole fighting thing going on, so......”

“why keep it on then?”

he shrugs and looks away, almost like he was embarrassed

“i......... really, really............. really liked the fiery look in your eyes whenever we’d bicker”

you laugh at that this time

“you thought it was hot?”

he almost whines out a “kinda!” but then groans and mumbles

your mischievous look makes him throw his hands up and he’s frustrated again but this time there’s a civil air between you two.... almost...... flirtatious

“yes! i thought it was attractive most of the way through... but even when you’re not mad..... you’re still pretty cute”

you find yourself blushing even though you’re practically glowing in amusement, but then you find yourself turning practically red when he defends himself with an almost equally red face

“and don’t lie!! i know you think i’m attractive too. i saw the way you were eyeing me when i was telling that person off. i was all macho man and you were swooning!”

“i was not!”

“i literally said don’t lie, didn’t i!”

and you keep throwing bickering comments back and forth, but it’s amusing and you both...... like it

after a while there’s a silence in between you before you make a light jab at hendery.... only this time it’s in a soft teasing kind of way

one that the both of you can stand and put smiles on your faces instead

“so you weren’t too chicken to actually land the hit?”

“shut up, i’ll fight if i have to”

“aww, even for me?”

and he’s silent at that but there’s a slight tint of pink you can make out from the lights outside

he purses his lips and decides now is the time to make the move to patch things between you two

“i still think there’s apologies left to be said”

“from both of us?”

“..... yeah”

and you hate to admit that you’ve also been super immature about it, but you’re pretty glad that it’s getting moved past now

but it was so awkward to just do this so suddenly

he notices the tension in between you and decides to make the first move

“okay........ let’s just start over..... hi, i’m hendery. i’ve seen you before. i’m the TA of your advanced hip hop class, right?”

“right! i think i can recall you staring at my butt a couple of times”

“shut up!!” he pushes you slightly but his grin tells you he’s not that shy to admit it and he’s goofing around now “besides...... can’t lie you’re kinda cute though”

and suddenly there’s a crash behind the two of you and you see ten bounding his way for you

“i cannOT believe it, wow! the two of you together and not ripping each other apart. BUT I knEW this would happen”

and you just look at each other like ?????????? huh?????

“that you would look so cUtE together!!!!! everything turned out juuuust right, like i thought it would since the beginning”

and all of a sudden you both made ten explain everything to the both of you

because ten had shared the initial stories to the other person, not thinking it’d go down like this

but most of it was forgiven since you were more distracted by hendery leaning against the railing and having that as an excuse to wrap his arm around you

and you were practically leaning into his side since it was ‘too cold outside’ while you were listening to ten ramble on and on about how his plan ended up being messy but he was living for it

while the both of you gave him an earful about how setting the two of you up could have been done where you didn’t hurt each other’s feelings for so long, he shut you up quickly with a

“oh please, you two bickered like an old married couple. with the way you guys act just get married already! some of those sparks weren’t just angry, there was some love in there too!”

“ten!”

“and do NOT get me started on the sexual tension-”