starlight

“look, i told you,” jeno says, shoving his phone in your face as he points aggressively at the picture he had taken a few hours ago. “there are eighteen of them, look!” he repeats, finger shifting about the screen in an attempt to point out all eighteen statues he was referring to.

“you missed four out,” you sigh, putting your chopsticks down. “i think i got a picture,” you mumble, entering your gallery, scrolling through the photos in search of the one that would prove jeno wrong. he inhales another spoonful of rice, commenting, “you can’t find it, right? because it doesn’t exist?”

you roll your eyes, trying your best to recall when it was that you had taken the photo. you jump in excitement when it hits you - you had taken it on your boyfriend’s phone.

“babe?” you call out, reaching out for mark’s phone and unlocking it swiftly. “is it okay if i scroll through your gallery? i need to find the photo of the statues we took last fall,” you continue, peeping over at mark who was still busy doing the dishes.

“sure,” he replies, giving you the green light. you enter his gallery, scrolling in a hurry, deadset on proving jeno wrong.

jeno waits for a few moments, but instead of a retort, he notices your halted thumb, and your quirked brow. he doesn’t want to intrude mark’s privacy, so instead of just looking over at whatever that is on the screen that has caught your attention, he asks, “what’s wrong?”

in your hurry, you had accidentally scrolled way past last fall. instead, you have entered (probably) summer of two years ago. you manage to tear your eyes away from the screen, shifting your gaze to return jeno’s, with, “what are these?”

you turn the screen to face jeno. he takes a glance, before stuffing down another spoonful of rice, with a nonchalant, “mark’s aglio olio.”

you already knew that. mark’s aglio olio. mark’s signature aglio olio that you have engraved in the deep depths of your heart. it was the first dish he made for you, seven months into your relationship after the one time you had casually remarked that it’s sweet to be surprised with a homecooked meal. you’d never even imagined mark would surprise you with one, given the known fact that he isn’t the most talented in the kitchen.

but he proved you wrong.

the real question is, why are there more than twenty pictures of the same aglio olio that you had only had once?

“why are there so many pictures of it? with so many different plating styles?” you question, clicking into the first photo, then swiping left to look through the rest of them. looking through the pictures this way makes it look like they’re a bunch of progression photos. as though every new picture, was an improved dish or plating style from the last.

“oh,” renjun exclaims, taking a sip of water. “we ate that for a whole month,” he states, faking a shiver. “yeah, we swore off italian for the longest time after that,” jeno adds on, making a disgusted face.

you can’t help the smile that brightens your features when the realisation dawns upon you.

mark had been practising to make sure it was the perfect aglio olio.

you get up, making your way to the kitchen. as you approach the familiar back view of your boyfriend, your smile only tugs wider. you snake your arms around his waist, pulling him close as you rest your cheek against his shoulder blade.

you can hear the smile in his voice when he speaks gently with, “why? bored of the guys?”

you take in his scent, shaking your head. “no, i just wanted to tell you i love you,” you gush, pressing your lips against his shoulder.

he turns off the tap, wipes his hands down with a dry towel, then turns around and rests his arms around your waist. “suddenly?” he says, raising a brow.

“i love you,” you repeat, your heart oozing with nothing but love and affection for the boy in front of you.

you chew on your lower lip, unsure of how to break the silence. it is a comfortable kind of silence, but whenever you found yourself cooped up in this treehouse with jung jaehyun, you'd always be talking about something. it's the first time he's just sitting there, deep in thought.

"what's on your mind?" you finally decide on, sneaking a glance to see if he'd answer you. jaehyun looks over, only for you to quickly avert your gaze. you still find it difficult to look jaehyun in the eye. and yes, you're not ashamed to admit that you still find it difficult because of how one look from him, you'd immediately become the ice cream melting under the glare of the hot sun.

"the guys thought you were my girlfriend," he states. you feel your heart stop for a second - he said it so matter-of-fact, almost too nonchalantly, that you find yourself questioning before you can even think it through. "and that's out of the question?"

you can feel his stare. maybe you're wrong, maybe everything that has been going on for the past few weeks isn't mutual attraction. maybe it's all unrequited attraction.

"well, i've only ever been casual," he says, followed by sounds of him shifting in his position. you turn to look out of curiosity, only to take a sharp breath and lean so far back your head is practically against the wall of the treehouse, because you didn't expect jung jaehyun to have his face in such close proximity to yours.

you fixate your gaze on his lips, because if they were to meet his eyes, you know your heart wouldn't be able to handle it. he leans in even closer, while you try to lean further back, but you've hit the limit. at this distance, you can feel the heat of his breath, and smell the faint scent of alcohol that always lingers around him.

"how can i have a girlfriend who doesn't even look me in the eye?" he taunts. you clench your fist in an attempt for some control - at this rate, your heart would literally burst right out of your chest. he must be used to this - it's always been about fun and games, no strings attached for him.

but you want to be the one that's different. you want to be the one that actually sticks around, regardless of the time of day; the one that jung jaehyun claims to be his, and most importantly, the one that can claim jung jaehyun as theirs.

once again, you're not sure where the courage comes from, but you find your body reacting faster than your brain can process this whole situation. as though on instinct, you lean forward, closing the gap between the two of you with a quick peck to jaehyun's lips.

realising what you've done, you gasp, cupping the bottom of your face. you can feel the burning heat from your face; you can only imagine how red you must appear in jaehyun's eyes.

you see jaehyun's lips curl into a dimply smile. you can't help but look up at his eyes - they're smiling too. and for the first time, you're looking into jung jaehyun's eyes. he doesn't even need to do anything to make you swoon.

you duck down behind the island, heart thumping as you hold your breath, sensitive to every little movement, every little sound. you weren’t sure of what was going to happen next, and the tension was already getting to you.

officer haechan, whom was following right behind you, taps your shoulder, leaning forward as he whispers, “what do we do next?”

with a dismissing hand, you hush him, trying your best to listen for any clues. eavesdropping with the barrier of a thick wooden door was never easy to begin with, but it was a lot harder with the extremely loud breaths your partner was taking.

“would you quiet down?” you hissed, turning to face haechan. he had his lips pursed, eyes wide, a smile starting to peek through. “we’re supposed to be in hiding. you’re going to draw attention to us,” you chimed, furrowing your brows in the process.

haechan shrugs nonchalantly, replying, “if anything is going to draw attention, it’ll be that cute little face of yours.”

you continue to scroll through the catalogue of the new jewelry shop you had found online. you’ve been meaning to buy some new and unique earrings, but you’ve yet to be able to find a physical store that caters to your taste.

sitting across the table from you, haechan lets out a sigh; he’s been staring at you for a good thirty minutes, and you’re still not done with selecting the earrings you want. to ease his boredom, he grabs your phone, swiping into the camera application. he turns on the self-camera, pressing record as he introduces, “it’s the 6th of july, 2021. it’s currently 9:19PM and we’ve been sitting here for thirty minutes already.”

he looks up at you, only to see that you’re still too engrossed in the application to pay any attention to him.

“my girlfriend over here,” he turns the camera towards you, “look at her. she’s been searching for her earrings.” he pans the camera towards the ipad in your hands, capturing the way you’re scrolling through the many pairs of earrings.

“do you like this?” you question, still oblivious to whatever haechan is doing. before haechan is able to reply, you’re already picking the colour you want and adding it to your cart.

“oh my gosh, did you see that?” he exclaims dramatically, bringing the camera back up to focus on you. “when she asks me if i like it, she doesn’t even look up at me, and she just chooses what she wants,” he says, gasping for added effect.

he shakes his head in disappointment when he fails to elicit even the slightest bit of a reaction from you. he brings the camera towards him once more, yawning to show how bored he is.

disclaimer: all written works are my works of fiction, hence, all rights reserved. please do not repost, translate, or alter my works without my permission. thank you.

last updated on ⇢ march 22, 2022.

21:19 // ❥ new alert! // mundane dates with haechan

18:45 // ❥ new alert! // haechan makes your heart flutter

15:09 // ❥ new alert! // bad boy jaehyun or boyfriend jaehyun?