#97.writings

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It starts, as it always does with this particular collection of friends, with shenanigans and cahoots. 

Well, more specifically, for Wonwoo it starts with shenanigans, when Soonyoung and Junhui somehow manage to collide brain cells. 

He had barely been awake for 15 seconds when they had barged into his room, laptop in hands, just to show him the text in a pink-colored submission box surrounded by heart emojis. Wonwoo squints, the blurry words coming into just enough focus for him to make out what they say. “Dear Cherry, I’m a third year computer science student and I’m in love with my best friend, except I’m— what the hell is this?” 

He glares at Soonyoung who grins cheerfully and points again at the screen. “Read the rest, Wonwoo!”

Wonwoo sighs and continues reading. “Except I’m a huge awkward loser and she’s so cool and pretty, and I don’t know how to tell her I like her. What should I do?”

“Alright, hit send,” Junhui instructs, tilting the laptop away and laughing maniacally. 

Wonwoo pushes his hand across his face, trying his best to wipe away the last vestiges of sleep-addled confusion, and then he realizes what’s happening.

“Wait, you can’t do that,” he tries to protest, but Soonyoung giggles and clicks a button.

“No, this will be good,” Junhui says, plopping down on the edge of Wonwoo’s bed. “Minghao told me that whoever runs the advice column in the school paper is, like, a love guru, and she has four thousand followers on instagram. And she’s never shown her face, but she’s probably also really pretty.”

Wonwoo groans. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Just trust us,” Soonyoung pats Wonwoo’s knee through the blanket, “this is a good idea.”

And for you, it starts with kahoots, when your chemistry lab partner, Mingyu, pulls your stool closer to his side and whispers a proposition to you.

“Do you want to be my fake girlfriend?”

You narrow your eyes at him through your fogged up department-issued safety goggles. “Are you insane? What kind of fumes are you on?”

“None,” Mingyu replies. “I’m Sigma’s nominee for the Greek God award at the inter-fraternity tournament this year and I’m the only nominee who’s single.”

“And so I’m your pick,” you respond flatly. 

Mingyu nods eagerly. His safety glasses slide down his nose, and he has to push them back up. “Yeah, you’re so pretty and cool, I think it’d be really impressive if I somehow managed to pull you.”

“Huh.”

“And,” he adds on, lowering his voice even more, “Jeonghan thinks my only real competition this year is going to be Jung Jaehyun from Nu Kappa Tau, and rumor has it you rejected him in high school. Twice. So I think it’d be pretty funny if we ended up together.”

You scoff and turn back toward the titration in front of you. “You can’t go up to people and ask for things like this.”

“C’mon, you know the winner gets free parking for an entire semester,” he whines. “Ok, how’s this? If you’ll pretend to be my girlfriend for the Greek God award, I’ll write our lab reports for the rest of the semester.” 

His offer makes you pause, and he jumps on that pause, wedging his way in there. 

“I’ll give you executive editing power, but I’ll do all the work,” he wheedles, “and I’ll give you a perfect peer eval at the end of the semester. I promise,” he puts a big meaty hand on your lab notebook and smears the ink under his fingers. “Kim Mingyu isn’t a liar.”

“I’ll conveniently ignore the fact that you’re lying about having a girlfriend to win this award, then,” you roll your eyes.

“That’s different, though,” he protests, “the award is dumb and meaningless and I really want it. But a promise made between buddies is important.”

He looks earnest, so you decide to lay off on him just a little. “When we’re fake-dating,” you sigh, “you can’t call us buddies anymore.”

“So that’s a…”

You groan, hating yourself for being so indulgent. “Yes. That’s a yes.”

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“Hold on Y/N, have you seen this?”

“Seen what?” You look over the top of your laptop screen, where you’re halfway through a paper on the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Minghao, your co-admin of the school newspaper’s (infamous) advice column turns his screen towards you. “Someone wrote in calling themselves a huge awkward loser.”

“Huh,” you grin to yourself as you read over the message quickly. “That’s kind of cute, actually.”

“Of course you think it’s cute,” Minghao rolls his eyes. “I’m going to assign this one over to you.”

“Yeah, sure, but please,” you mutter, “can you be a bit more discreet about it?”

Minghao looks at you over the top of his glasses. “What, about us being Ask Cherry? It’s not as embarrassing as you make it out to be.”

“Be quiet,” you hiss, looking around, “someone could overhear!” You frown, and then quietly, you add on, “and it is embarrassing. I’m supposed to be a journalism major, and I’m here making up horoscopes and giving fake relationship advice three days a week.”

This is an overstatement, and Minghao rolls his eyes. You only make up horoscopes and give fake relationship advice one day a week (Mondays are for Matters Of The Heart, your schedule says). There’s also Am I The Asshole Wednesdays, a campus favorite, and Friday Free-for-alls, when you field confessions of all types. Dear Cherry, I need to get this off my chest. I’ve been using my roommate’s shampoo this whole semester, and today I found out that our two other roommates have also been using this roommate’s shampoo. He doesn’t suspect a thing. 

You hadn’t meant to end up in this position. You write serious pieces for the school newspaper too, reporting on the Student Government’s legislative sessions and the university’s semesterly budget for grants to culturally-centered student organizations. Those articles, you have your name attached to. But at the end of last year, the new editor-in-chief Jeonghan had approached you and convinced (strong-armed) you into becoming the new writer for the infamous advice column, Ask Cherry, since Cherry himself was quitting to make more time for other priorities.

(“And the kicker is,” you had complained to Minghao, “nobody will ever believe me.” Choi Seungcheol, fraternity president, football player, gym rat, jock, fuckboy extraordinaire— relationship advice columnist? No, it’s simply not realistic. 

“I’m sitting on the juiciest piece of gossip to cross my path in my entire life, and I can’t do anything about it,” you say dejectedly.

“Hmm.” Minghao doesn’t even pretend to be interested.)

But, despite your disastrous real-world love life, your clumsily dispensed life advice, and the completely made up horoscopes, Ask Cherry readership skyrocketed under your intrepid watch. Once, you told a reader that the albino squirrel that lives in the tree next to the physics building was a good omen, and the next day, rumor spread that an albino squirrel sighting would grant you an A on your next exam. For weeks after, people would scatter peanuts and pieces of toast by the base of the tree next to the physics building, until campus facilities had to fence the area off because raccoons were starting to show up instead. 

Minghao finding out had been a complete accident, after you had lent him your laptop to print out a paper that was due the next hour, but you had forgotten to minimize the window with your Ask Chrery submissions. Minghao, being someone who loves giving advice, both solicited and unsolicited, naturally joined in on this scheme of yours. 

“Anyways,” you shrug. You look up as Junhui steps into the public study area of the library and scans the tables twice before making eye contact with you, and then waving. “Minghao, did you invite the others over to study with us?”

“Yeah,” Minghao responds, raising an eyebrow at you. “You got a problem with that?”

“No, it’s just—“ you’re about to complain about never being able to focus on your work with the rest of them around, but the words die on your lips when you spot Wonwoo trailing behind Junhui with a bemused expression on his face and a cardboard tray holding bubble teas in his hands. You can’t help the grin that spreads across your face. “Hey guys,” you wave over to them, clearing off the table space next to you to make room for them. 

“I brought you a taro milk tea,” Junhui announces, gesturing behind him, “and a Wonwoo to boot.”

“He made me walk with him because he didn’t know your favorite drink,” Wonwoo explains quietly as he slides the drinks onto the table and takes his seat next to you. “Are you working on that international relations paper?”

“Yeah.” You take your taro milk tea. No ice, 50% sweet, tapioca pearls and grass jelly, just the way you like it. 

“Do you think you’ll be done by Friday?”

“I will be free by then,” you promise him, punctuating your statement by stabbing your boba straw through the film covering the cup. You’d rather suffer through an all nighter on Sunday than miss your regular Friday night gaming sessions with Wonwoo, a tradition the two of you have kept up since both of you were in middle school and still playing Starcraft.

“Anyway,” Junhui leans over the table, resting his chin on top of his interlaced fingers. “I have a funny story.”

You tear your gaze away from Wonwoo. “Hm?”

“So, you know that advice columnist for the school paper? Wonwoo submitted a question the other day. Well, Soonyoung and I did, but for Wonwoo.”

You feel your blood run cold. It’s not that you’re ashamed of running a love advice column, but it’s more that you’re… embarrassed. And you’ve been running it in secret for so long that at this point, you can’t even fathom anyone outside of Minghao knowing. Maybe when you graduate, you’ll do an identity reveal, but you’re not quite there now.

“Can we talk about literally anything else,” Wonwoo grouses, somewhat to your relief. he glares at Junhui, but the effect is somewhat dampened when he lifts his bubble tea to his mouth and loudly slurps up some tapioca pearls.

“Yeah,” you quickly agree, not eager to have your secret identity exposed.

Junhui steamrolls on ahead, however. “So. If you’re reading the column and there’s a question from someone who has a big stupid crush, you know who it’s from.”

Your breath catches in your throat. Wonwoo? A crush?

“Junhui,” Wonwoo groans, digging his fingers into the bridge of his nose, brows furrowed in an expression of exquisite pain. 

Minghao, however, leans forward and lets his glasses slide down his nose. He laces his fingers together. “A crush? On who?”

Junhui and Minghao both turn to stare at Wonwoo, who flushes beet red. 

“Oh, hey guys!”

You feel a heavy arm around your shoulder and turn to see, to your abject horror, Mingyu, who scoots his way onto the bench to squeeze in next to you. “What are you doing here,” you hiss at your oversized interloper, but Mingyu just glances pointedly at the spot two tables down where a bunch of upperclassmen are sitting and chatting. You recognize Choi Seungcheol, the president of Mingyu’s frat, and you sigh and deflate. Fine. A promise is a promise.

You smile weakly at the other three guys sitting at your table. “Surprise,” you say flatly,” Mingyu is my boyfriend now.”

You’re momentarily distracted by a loud honking noise as Junhui narrowly avoids choking on his bubble tea and spraying the table through his nose. 

“Mingyu?!” Minghao sounds simultaneously dismayed and slightly judgemental.

“C’mon, dude,” Mingyu whines, slumping like a kicked puppy. You pat his bicep soothingly. “You don’t have to make it sound that bad.”

Minghao and Junhui share a conspicuous glance. Mingyu isn’t the type of guy you’d usually go for, but you think this reaction is a bit uncalled for. “He’s not that bad,” you find yourself defending your fake boyfriend. “Mingyu is nice, and he’s really tall.”

You blink. Mingyu turns his pout on you now. “Nice and really tall? Are you for real?”

“It’s true,” you scowl at him. “Are you here to study, or did you just come by to get on my nerves?”

“Okay, well,” Junhui interjects sharply, “Wonwoo and I should get going.”

“Wait, but you two just got here,” you attempt to protest, but Wonwoo, who had been quiet this whole time, stands up and slings his backpack over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you later, Y/N,” he says to you, before leaving along with Junhui. 

(It’s not until later, when you’re lounging with Minghao in the living room of your shared apartment, that it hits you, again, but this time with its full weight.

“Wonwoo likes someone,” you say out loud. It’s not a question.

Minghao glances up form his book at you with a frown plastered across his face, his brows creased with irritation. He evaluates you carefully over the silver rims of his glasses, which you know aren’t prescription but are mainly there to make him look elegant and intellectual.

“...yes,” he finally acknowledges.

You frown despite yourself. “I wonder who it is.”

“What does it matter to you,” Minghao scoffs, “you’re dating Mingyu, remember?”

“You can pretend to hate Gyu, but I know you like him better than any of the rest of us.” You really hadn’t been expecting to defend Mingyu twice in a day, but you suppose that’s life as Kim Mingyu’s girlfriend. “And anyways, Wonwoo and I have been friends since we were kids. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me earlier.”

“Yeah, he probably can’t believe it either,” Minghao mutters under his breath so quietly, you almost miss it. Then, in a louder voice, he chides, “don’t think too much about it, yeah? You still have to reply professionally to his advice request. His anonymous advice request.”

“Right,” you sigh dejectedly, frowning at your laptop balanced across your knees. “How do I tell him that he’s not a nerd and a loser without giving away that I know who he is?”

Minghao shrugs. “Maybe tell him to be patient. Or maybe tell him to try to start getting over his crush.”

You consider his suggestion for a moment. It’s appealing, but then the thought of Wonwoo wasting away in his dark bedroom, sighing as he pines over his unrequited love, flashes across your mind. “I just don’t want him to be sad.”)

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“C’mon, he was right on top of you,” Wonwoo complains. You can hear the creaking of his gaming chair in the background, undoubtedly as he rises from his reclined position to gulp down more of whatever energy drink he has in his mini fridge this week. You groan and dig your fingers into the junction between your neck and shoulder, trying with little success to work out the knot that’s developed over this last round of PUBG.

“Wonwoo, that’s the problem, I suck at close range,” you huff in response, “you know I get panicky and forget to turn off auto-fire.”

It’s game night, and you and Wonwoo have been at it for the past two hours. Your paper isn’t done yet, but it can wait. It’s been over a decade since the years when the two of you would spend your summers together playing video games and walking aimlessly around the neighborhood with half-melted popsicles, talking for hours. But even as your social circles diverted from his, it’s always been something of an unspoken agreement that for this, you’d always make time for Wonwoo, and he’d always make time for you.

“Another round?” You and Wonwoo both ask the question at the same time. There’s a pause, and then you’re both laughing. Even over the headset mic, Wonwoo’s laugh is loud and unrestrained. It feels like a secret, a side of Wonwoo that he saves just for you and for Friday nights spent on opposite sides of the monitor.

“So.” You’re still waiting for the next match to start when Wonwoo breaks the comfortable silence. “Mingyu?”

You fidget at the ties of your hoodie. It’s stolen from Wonwoo, and you’ve had it since middle school at least. “Yeah?”

“Interesting choice.”

“What does that mean?”

He makes a casual, noncommittal noise. “I’m just surprised. I didn’t see it coming, and you didn’t tell me about it.”

You open your mouth to tell him that it’s actually all a ruse, to explain the whole situation, but the hard, petulant edge to his voice makes you pause. Wonwoo sounds… upset. But not quite upset. Jealous?

“Wonwoo,” you laugh. Onscreen, the timer counting down to the start of the match appears, and you jam on the space bar to make your character jump over his character’s prone body. “Wonwoo, are you jealous?”

Over your headphones, you hear the sound of his gaming chair squeaking. “I’m not jealous,” he says, in a tone of voice that sounds exactly like Wonwoo when he’s jealous. 

“You are. Where are we landing?” You toggle to the map in the game and zoom in on the path that the plane is taking. The player count in the bottom starts dropping as other players jump out. 

“Blue marker, does that look good to you? There’s a few houses we can loot, and it’s not close to the flight path. If we get bad circle placement, you can shoot me in the foot, if you want. As a treat.”

“Yeah, fine. Lead the way, boss. Anyways, why are you jealous?” You suppress the flutter in your chest. There’s no reason for you to get your hopes up. 

“You’re my friend,” Wonwoo says simply. It feels like a heavy towel being thrown over you. “You used to tell me everything. Mingyu is… fine,” he admits reluctantly. “He’s a good guy. I’m happy for you.”

Your heart clenches. You want to say something soft and sincere, but instead, you return with a jab. “You can’t be upset at me for keeping secrets, Wonwoo. What was Junhui saying about you liking someone?”

“Junhui just says stuff sometimes,” he replies curtly. 

You frown. “Junhui isn’t a liar, though. Who is it?” You ask, despite everything in you telling yourself that you don’t want to know the answer. “Who are they? Maybe I can talk to them for you.”

He laughs humorlessly. “It doesn’t matter. She’s in a relationship with someone else.”

You almost sigh in relief, but you stop yourself just in time. Why are you relieved? “Oh, Wonwoo. That sucks. She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on.”

Wonwoo makes a noise that tells you he’s shrugging. “She deserves better than me.”

“Hey!” You sit up, straightening your spine in indignation. “Don’t say that. You’re great, Wonwoo. You’re criminally underappreciated. You’re smart and you’re so sincere and kind, and maybe other people don’t acknowledge it, but you’re really funny and interesting.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and the only thing you hear is the game audio as your character collects supplies and clears the building the two of you are in. “Let me know if you find any gun that’s not a pistol, by the way. I have a 2x scope on me.”

“Thank you,” Wonwoo replies. You know he’s not talking about the scope.

Even though the two of you are gaming individually in your own rooms, you want nothing more than to tug off your headphones and go down the two flights of stairs to Wonwoo’s apartment and give him a hug.

“I have an AKM and a bunch of healing items on me,” Wonwoo says, “come to me and you can have whatever you want.”

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It would have been much less embarrassing if you had realized it last week when you were walking to class and Wonwoo had stopped you in the middle of the sidewalk to pluck a fallen leaf from your hair with that stupidly fond expression plastered on his face; or maybe when you accidentally fell asleep in his bed during an afternoon study session and woke up later with your head on his shoulder, legs tangled together, the sound of his soft snoring puffing in your ear, his hand held loosely in yours. Maybe in another life, it would have been one of those soft, romantic moments, like something out of a coming of age anime. But no, because you’re you and your life is the way it is, the moment you realize you’re in love with Wonwoo goes like this:

It’s Sunday, noon already, and you’re in Wonwoo’s shared apartment. Junhui had let you in earlier when you had knocked at their door until your knuckles were sore. When you burst unceremoniously into Wonwoo’s bedroom, he’s still asleep with his glasses on, smudged and crooked, and his phone on his chest. You frown. “Wake up, Wonwoo. Did you fall asleep while watching dramas again?”

Wonwoo jumps slightly and lifts his head, brows furrowing. “Huh?”

“You said you’d go to lunch with me.” You extend your arms and spin to show off your cute, perfectly coordinated outfit, picked out specifically to match the instagram trap you’re going to. You even broke out the eyeliner and glitter eyeshadow to match the cute knit cardigan and wool miniskirt you put on. “What hat should I wear? The fuzzy bucket hat,” you hold up option one, “or the beret,” you hold up option two, looking down at Wonwoo expectantly.

Your best friend groans and collapses back onto the bed, eyes sliding shut. “Um. The beret.”

“Okay great, now get out of bed. Our reservation is soon and you still need to wash your face and get dressed.” You poke at his cheek, which is greasy from sleep and still bears the imprint of his pillow. 

“Can you get Minghao to go with you instead?” He doesn’t bother opening his eyes.

“Nope,” you respond, popping the ‘p’, “he has dance practice.”

“Mingyu?”

“He said he had a textile arts club meeting?” You frown. “I’m not sure what it is, but he’s been crocheting like crazy for it this week.”

“Um,” Wonwoo smacks his hand over his face, clearly trying to think of other options. He forgets, however, that he fell asleep with his glasses on, and ends up jamming the frames against this cheek. “Ow. Ok, what about, uh, Seokmin?”

You pout at him even though he can’t see it. “Wonu,” you whine, sitting down on his bed, “I want to go to lunch with you, though.”

At that, he finally cracks his eyes open. “Why?”

Because, you want to say, I don’t want to do this with anybody other than you. You briefly try to imagine doing this whole thing– dressing up, making a reservation, taking pictures and walking around town, huddling together in a cafe in the afternoon to watch the latest Nintendo Direct together– with anybody else, but you just quite settle on it comfortably. No. It has to be Wonwoo. Because Wonwoo is your best friend, because Wonwoo has always been there for you, because Wonwoo just gets you, better than anybody ever has, and every moment you spend with Wonwoo, you feel your mood lifting and relaxing. Because you trust Wonwoo and he trusts you, and because you know him, and you love him–

You love him.

Oh.

Oh.

You’ll have to process that later. “Because you have a car and you can drive me,” you tell Wonwoo instead, shoving the revelation down to the back of your mind and putting it in a box labeled problems for future me.

“Fine,” Wonwoo acquiesces, sitting up with enormous effort. His hair is still sticking up in all directions, making him look like a big dark dandelion. A part of you expects to see him in a different light, now that you think you love him, like there’s supposed to be cherubs singing and starlight in his eyes or something, but instead, you just see regular old Wonwoo. Your best friend. He doesn’t suddenly look like a vision sent from heaven, he just looks sleepy and crusty and a little greasy.

“Hurry up and brush your teeth,” you tell him, slapping him lightly on his belly and laughing at the resulting ouuff that jerks out of him, “you have morning breath and I can smell it from here.”

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From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Re: advice

Dear Cherry, my friend is in love with his childhood friend but she doesn’t love him back :( how do we make her fall in love with him? from anonymous

“Hm,” you sigh out loud, “I wonder if Soonyoung knows that the anonymous signoff is made moot by the fact that he emailed this one in instead of using the anonymous submission box.” You’re draped on the couch with your legs propped all the way up and your laptop on your chest as you scroll through this week’s Am I The Asshole Wednesday submissions.

“You can ignore him,” Minghao says, passing by with a full bottle of wine in each hand on his way to put them away in the kitchen. “I don’t think you should be giving any love advice when your own love life is a mess,” he sniffs. 

“You’re the asshole,” you announce, not looking up from your screen. “That was for you, Minghao.” Clearly, he’s still mad at you after you had revealed the whole Mingyu situation to him a few nights ago. You still remember the blistering look that Minghao had thrown at you, like you’re the dumbest human he’s ever had the supreme displeasure of knowing.

“I guess you don’t want to go to the dance team party with me, then,” your roommate responds smoothly, returning from the kitchen. It’s only 6pm, but Minghao is already dressed in a silk pajama set with a matching robe, lenseless glasses frames perched on the tip of his nose, smelling of strawberry-scented lotion as he pours himself a glass of wine.

You scowl at him.  “Fine. I don’t care.” Turning back to your laptop, you scroll past a few more boring submissions on your hunt for the truly salacious stuff your classmates get up to. “I wonder what Soonyoung is even talking about, though,” you mumble, half to yourself, as you click on the next interesting subject line.

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In retrospect, Mingyu was definitely going to win that Greek God competition, even if Jaehyun from Nu Kapp put up a good fight.

Mingyu’s physique is certainly impressive, and the audience erupted when he won the (shirtless and oiled-up, for some reason) pushup contest, but his clumsiness eventually led him to lose at every other physical challenge. It was his overwhelming victory in the popularity vote and personality contest that got him to first place. It’s probably all because of his unwavering friendliness and his constant need for affirmation manifesting into an overwhelming desire to be helpful, but you like to think that maybe you helped too.

That’s why you’re here, in the kitchen of the Sigma house, absolutely wasted at the celebration party the frat is throwing in honor of Mingyu being crowned the best frat star on campus. Between the blunt that you, Mingyu, Minghao, and Seokmin, another friend in your year, had passed around upstairs, and all the shots that Mingyu had plied you with, you’re feeling weirdly bouncy and giggly and not entirely sure if you’ll remember this the next morning.

“Okay, so,” Mingyu mumbles, pulling you closer as the two of you nestle in a corner, away from whatever is going on at the beer pong table, “we should stage a breakup, right?”

You giggle against the hollow of his throat, arms looped over his shoulders. “Can we make it your fault?”

He whines like a kicked puppy. “Why can’t we make it mutual? Jeonghan would kick my ass.”

“Fine, fine,” you huff, not at all reluctant. “We should give it some time so it’s not suspicious, right?”

“Yeah.” Mingyu nods, accidentally knocking his chin against your forehead. “You’re so smart.”

“Which means I’m still on girlfriend duty tonight,” you conclude.

“Oh, come on.” Mingyu’s hands come down to rest at your waist, his fingertips skimming along the waistband of your skirt, eliciting a shiver from you when you feel his rough, warm skin against yours. “You make it sound like a chore.”

You sigh. Oh well, you could do much worse than Mingyu.

You’re not sure if it’s the weed or the alcohol, or maybe just jealousy at this fake version of yourself that’s happy with a boyfriend and not moping over an unrequited crush on your childhood best friend, but you find it strangely easy to lean up and attach your lips to Mingyu’s, feel the wet heat of his tongue in your mouth. and Mingyu, pliant under your grip as always, kisses you back, going along with it without a second thought.

“No offense,” he pants as he parts from you, “but I don’t think I want to hook up with you.”

You blink at him. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, no,” he clarifies quickly, “you’re a good kisser, I just don’t want things to be weird between us, which I think might happen if we hook up.”

“If fake dating didn’t make things weird, I’m not sure that hooking up would,” you laugh, more of a giggle than anything. You attach your lips to his jaw, pulling him down towards you so you don’t have to crane your neck. 

“And also,” he nudges at the hair behind your ear with his nose, “you’re like, totally wasted right now.”

“You’re not sober either,” you shoot back, accusatory.

“More sober than you,” he shoots back. He’s right, though. His large stature means that he can hold his liquor much better than you. “It wouldn’t be fair,” he pouts, stubborn, “and I’m not a creep.”

“Fine.” You tug lightly at the short hairs on the back of his head. 

“Are… are you okay?”

Mingyu’s question makes you hesitate for a moment. You lean your flushed cheek against the jut of his collarbone. “I’m drunk,” you respond flatly.

“No, not that, you’re just usually not this…” you feel Mingyu gulp, “clingy.”

You wonder if you should tell him about Wonwoo and your stupid pointless crush that’s starting to feel less like a crush every time you’re with him and more like… something deeper. Something frightening, like a yawning chasm, just waiting for you to fall in.

You’re saved the effort of further deliberation, however, when Mingyu suddenly raises his head and interrupts your thoughts. “Hey, isn’t that Wonwoo?”

You lift yourself off of Mingyu’s chest and look behind you. True to his word, it really is Wonwoo, standing by the door, jacket on, looking at you like a deer caught in the headlights. 

“Huh, he doesn’t usually come to these,” Mingyu observes, tugging idly at the bottom of your shirt. “I wonder why he’s here.”

You think you know why he’s here, though. Earlier, back upstairs, you had excused yourself to the bathroom to take a quick breather. Through an alcohol and weed induced haze, you had belatedly realized that it’s Friday night, and you’re late.

you: cn you come pick me u you: at sigma wonu: are you ok? i’ll be there in a few you: sry im drunk you: wanna go home w u

Now, staring Wonwoo dead in the eyes, you realize with a jolt that you had never told him why you asked him to pick you up. You peel yourself off your fake boyfriend and stumble, clumsily, towards Wonwoo, trying your best to ignore the way the room spins around you.

“Wonu,” you whine reaching out to him.

He frowns. “Are you okay? What’s happening?”

“I’m drunk,” you tell him.

“I know.” He extends his arm and lets you cling on to him as you stumble into his torso.

“And it’s Friday night,” you look up at him.

“Yes.”

“We’re supposed to be playing Overwatch together.” You give him the best puppy eyes you can muster, and he blinks at you, looking flustered.

“Huh?”

“Overwatch,” you insist, tugging him towards the door. “Friday night. It’s Wonwoo and Y/N night.”

“Is… is this what you called me over here for?”

You nod and begin dragging Wonwoo out by the wrist. 

The cool air outside hits your flushed skin like a wave, like you’re jumping into a pool. Wonwoo is silent and lets you continue to cling onto him as he walks you to where he had parked on the side of the street, directly under a streetlight.

You slide into the passenger seat. Wonwoo hands you a bottle of water, cap already removed for you. “Hydrate,” he orders. 

“Sorry,” you whimper, somewhat pathetically.

He frowns. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I must be so annoying,” you mumble, feeling tears welling up in your eyes.

“No,” Wonwoo reaches out and takes your hand over the center console. “You’re not annoying.”

You watch him as he drives. He’s so handsome, your alcohol-addled mind supplies. 

“You don’t think I’m annoying?”

“Never.”

Wonwoo says it like a promise.

Silence falls over the two of you as he drives through campus, all the way back to the student housing unit that both of you live in. He turns off the engine, leaving a silence that feels even more all-encompassing. He looks over at you, face half hidden in the shadows and half illuminated by the orange lamplight outside. “Is Minghao home?”

“N…no, he’s back at the party.”

“Okay, we’re going back to my apartment, then,” he decides.

You blink. “Huh?” But you’re already stumbling out of his car and spilling onto the sidewalk, all wobbly legs and loose limbs. 

“I’m taking you back to my place,” Wonwoo repeats. “You need someone to watch you and make sure you don’t wander off and get lost in the city,” he explains drily.

“‘M okay,” you whine futilely. It’s especially unconvincing, since you’re still stumbling over your own feet and leaning against him. 

Wonwoo lets you rest your cheek on his shoulder and cling onto him as he lets you into his apartment, gets you a glass of water, and digs up a pack of makeup wipes from out of nowhere and sits you on his bed and starts to get to work. 

A small (very drunk) part of you bristles at the appearance of the makeup wipes, and you try to scowl, even as Wonwoo gently wipes at your smudged eyeliner. “Whose are these? Do you have a lot of girls over here or something?”

“They’re Junhui’s, he uses them,” Wonwoo explains. He dabs at one last spot in the corner of your right eye, then announces, “there, you’re all done.”

You open your eyes to see Wonwoo grinning dopily at you. “You’re cute,” you poke at his cheek, and he laughs quietly. Seokmin used to be afraid of him, he had confessed to you, and you wonder why, because the Wonwoo you know is so soft, so loveable, so goofy and cute. 

The Wonwoo you know is shy and awkward and doesn’t quite know how to fit himself into social situations. He’s clumsy and absentminded and needs someone to take care of him, to dote on him and give him attention.

The Wonwoo that you know, you’ve known since you were in second grade, standing over the boy you had knocked over with a rubber kickball, staring at him as he sniffled on the woodchips and glared at you through big watery eyes. That day, you decided right then and there that this boy would be yours, and now…

“Wonwoo,” you blurt out without thinking, “I’m in love with you.”

His breath catches. Wonwoo pauses, digesting your clumsily delivered confession, and then he makes the most awful expression you have ever seen on him.

It’s raw hurt, sharp, painful. His mouth twists and his brows furrow and he looks at you like you’re something to be afraid of. You hate it. You hate that you’re the cause of it, that he’s feeling this, whatever it is, because of you, even though you’re not sure why.

“Really,” you insist. You reach out to grab his hand, but he pulls away from you. “It’s true. I’m in love with you.”

You hear a sharp intake of breath. “You’re not,” he says. “You’re in love with Mingyu. You’re happy with him.”

“I’m not… I’m not in love with him,” you try to explain, but your liquor-numbed lips are clumsy and you trip over your words. You lean towards him, slanting your face up, because you want to kiss him so badly it’s all you can think of. Wonwoo shoves you back, hard. 

“Don’t,” he bites, voice sharp and tense.

“I’m in love with you,” you repeat, reaching out to him, but he pushes your hand back and steps away. Like he’s afraid of you.

“Don’t do it. You’re drunk.” His voice wavers slightly. “Don’t do something you’ll regret tomorrow.”

You shake your head, but Wonwoo looks at you with so much hurt and confusion in his eyes, you can’t bring yourself to argue. “Wonu,” you whisper, reaching out to rest your fingertips on his wrist, “please don’t cry.”

He takes a long, shuddering breath, eyes closed, and then when he exhales and opens his eyes again, his expression is impassive. Unreadable.

“Go to sleep,” he says flatly. “Tomorrow you’ll wake up and go back to your boyfriend, and you’ll be happy that nothing happened tonight.”

He closes the door to his bedroom, leaving you in the darkness.

(Wonwoo is cold.

He’s always a little cold, but in his haste to escape earlier, he hadn’t gotten a blanket or even changed into sweats before closing the door behind him, and now Wonwoo lays on the couch, his feet hanging over the armrest, staring at the ceiling. 

I’m in love with you, your voice rings in his head. Wonwoo’s cheek still burns where you had gently rested your hand earlier. If he hadn’t known any better, Wonwoo might have believed you and given in to his most guilty, far-off fantasy, the one where you love him back.

But Wonwoo does know better. He saw the way you were draped all over Mingyu at the party, the way you giggled into his neck when Mingyu slipped his fingertips under the him of your shirt. Mingyu is good for you, Wonwoo decides. Like you, Mingyu is bright and out-going, popular, well-liked, good at receiving love and gives it readily in return. 

Wonwoo closes his eyes, tries to push away the memory of your body curled into his, and wills his mind into silence so that maybe he can get some sleep tonight.)

You wake up, nauseous and hung over and feeling not at all rested, in Wonwoo’s bed.

Groaning, you swipe at your face, expecting to see a gloopy mess on your fingers, but your makeup has already been removed. You squint at the dim sunlight streaming in through the closed blinds, and you reach around blindly until your fingers close around your phone. 

There’s a smattering of random social media notifications and updates from group chats, but one notification in particular catches your eye.

wonu: i’m outside wonu: where are you? are you ok? wonu: i’m gonna head inside to look for you

You feel your cheeks flush as the memories come trickling back– your drunk texts, insisting that your best friend picks you up, kissing Mingyu, leaving the party with Wonwoo, clinging on to him like a koala…

Gathering your courage and steeling your woozy stomach, you stumble out of bed and throw open the door, poking your head out. Wonwoo is sprawled across the couch, undoubtedly playing some kind of mobile game, when he looks up at you. His hair is sticking up in every possible direction and his shirt is crumpled. “Hi,” he says, expression impossibly neutral.

“Hi,” you grin, waving lamely. “I feel like shit. I didn’t say anything weird or embarrassing last night, did I?”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “You don’t remember?”

You shake your head. “I remember you picking me up from the frat, I think.”

For a split second, he looks relieved. Then, he puts his phone down and laughs at you. “You didn’t do anything embarrassing,” he grins, “except for abandoning your boyfriend at the party because you wanted to play Overwatch with me. C’mon, do you want to get brunch?”

You press your palms against your throbbing forehead. Your brain hurts, and you’re almost sure you half-remember telling Wonwoo that you’re in love with him, but Wonwoo is looking at you expectantly and you’d like nothing more than some french toast and a hot coffee right now, so you shrug. “Sure, lemme wash up and get changed in my apartment first.”

.

.

.

“Dear Cherry, my friend is hopelessly in love with his childhood best friend, who is currently dating a hot frat dude. Should he just give up? The moping is starting to bum me out and I’m worried my hair is going to fall out. Love, Wen Junhui.”

You wrinkle your nose at the message. “And has anybody ever told Junhui that the whole point of anonymous submissions is defeated when he signs his messages with his full name?”

Minghao looks up from the canvas he’s busy splattering paint on. It’s his semester final project, and you had promised to accompany him in the basement of the fine arts building as he works.

Instead of answering, he looks at you like you’re the densest human he’s ever had the misfortune of meeting. “Maybe he’s not trying to be anonymous. Maybe he’s trying to complain about someone we know.”

You squint at your laptop screen. “Who is this supposed to be about, anyways?”

This time, Minghao actually rolls his eyes at you. “Whatever. Have you broken up with Mingyu yet?”

“Yeah, we broke up two days ago. It was mutual, because Mingyu was genuinely afraid that Jeonghan would kick his ass if we said we broke up with me.”

The two of you had made a whole show of deleting all your carefully staged couple photos off your social media accounts, and then unfollowing and refollowing each other within the span of two days, because as the story goes, you and Mingyu had talked it over and are better as friends than as a couple.

“That’s nice,” Minghao says. He unscrews a jar of turpentine and starts to clean off his brushes. “Maybe you should respond to Junhui’s advice submission.”

You groan. “I’ll just tell him to tell his friend to get over it,” you scowl.

“By the way, what’s wrong with Wonwoo?”

“What do you mean?” You look up. Minghao is now attacking the canvas with a palette knife, carving some dramatic impasto into the paint.

“The last two times all of us hung out together, he’s been all…weird.” Minghao wrinkles his nose. “It’s like he’s some kind of guilty dog. He stares at you when you’re not looking, and then he looks away when you are.”

You chew on your lip, work now long forgotten on your idle laptop. Minghao is right. Wonwoo has been different, but not… different. He’s as unwaveringly weird as always, and he’s been texting you links to youtube cat videos and starting arguments on video game theories as always, but it feels like Wonwoo has been aggressively normal. Like how best friends are supposed to be. Light and easy.

“I don’t know. I feel like he’s been acting weird these days too, but I can’t figure out how.”

“You should talk to him,” Minghao says, like talking to Wonwoo about his feelings is easy or something. Or like talking about your own feelings is easy.  

“Or maybe I shouldn’t,” you sigh. Whatever is going on with Wonwoo, you’re just glad he still wants to hang out with you. You’re not entirely sure what you even did wrong, but you’d be willing to beg on your hands and knees for him to forgive you and to stick by your side. “Whatever. We’re gaming together this Friday, I’ll think about it then, I guess.”

.

.

.

“Wonu, I’m scared,” you whine into the mic. It’s another Friday night and the two of you are playing PUBG again. You’re in the endgame now– the original 100 has been whittled down to just 5 players remaining, including you but not including Wonwoo, who had been killed earlier and is now spectating you in-game like some sort of ghost. 

“Just sit tight,” he instructs. In your mind’s eye, he’s leaning back in his gaming chair, arms crossed as he observes your gameplay. 

“There’s gunshots,” you complain, “North? I think they’re hiding by those rocks. It sounds like they’ve got a good sniper rifle, too.”

“They don’t know you’re there. Just let the other teams fight it out. You have enough ammo?”

You huff. “I have like, twelve shotgun shells.”

“And you have the location advantage. Just sit and wait for now.”

You sigh, aimlessly panning the camera back and forth in your anxiety. “Fine,” you agree, because despite it all, Wonwoo is still better at this game than you are, and because you trust him. 

Seconds pass. The audio of distant gunfire in crisp surround sound keeps you on edge and tense, so that when you hear Soonyoung, one of Wonwoo’s roommates, you nearly jump out of your skin. 

“Hey, are you busy?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo replies. His voice is tinny and quiet, but still clear, like he’s slipped his headset off and mic is pushed away. “I’m gaming with Y/N. I’m muted, don’t worry.”

You’re about to shout and let him know that he’s not actually muted, but your curiosity gets the better of you when you hear Soonyoung’s next words:

“Right, speaking of Y/N, that reminds me. Did you hear that Y/N and Mingyu broke up?”

“Oh.” There’s a pause, and then you hear Wonwoo ask, “why?”

“Dunno. Mingyu wouldn’t give me any details. He said something lame, like that they’re better off as friends, or something.”

“Oh. When did this happen?”

“I think on Wednesday? At least that’s what Seungkwan told me.”

“Hm.”

“Anyways, isn’t that great? You can finally shoot your shot!”

“Are you insane, Soonyoung? It’s been less than a week!”

“Well, okay, fair. But next week? She didn’t seem too sad about it in class today.”

“That’s because she was in class. And anyways, this doesn’t change anything between us, so I’m not going to do anything either.”

“Are you kidding me? So you’re just going to keep it a secret forever?”

“Yeah. I’ll die before I tell Y/N that I’m in love with her.”

Oh.

You sit at your desk, staring at your monitor but not seeing anything. Very quietly, you press your fingers against your lips, as hard as you can, and feel the blood rushing past your ears. 

“I’m not going to ruin our friendship over nothing,” Wonwoo continues.

“It’s not nothing,” Soonyoung replies with a pout in his voice. “You’ve been in love with her for years. Since high school, at least.”

“She just sees me as a friend, that’s all,” Wonwoo sighs. 

Since high school. He’s loved you since high school.

You remember the way he looked at you after prom when he was dropping you back off at home. You had gone with him because the boy you wanted to ask you, some boring soccer player, had asked your friend instead, and Jaehyun had already asked (and been rejected by you) twice, and nobody else had asked you to be their prom date. And Wonwoo, awkward and quiet as he was, had fully expected to skip prom completely, but three days before you had shown up at his locker after school, desperate because you already had a dress and a group to go with and tickets but no date, practically begging him to go to prom with you. And without even thinking, Wonwoo had agreed.

That night, when he drive you home, you leaned your head against the car door with the windows rolled down and felt the wind on your face. At the end, when he parked his car on the side of the street in front of your childhood home, you looked over at him and told him. “I’m so glad we’re going to college together, Wonwoo. I want to be with you forever.”

And he had watched you as you said it, quiet, like he was breathless. Like you had said something terrible and incredible at the same time. 

It’s always been Wonwoo beside you, lazy summers spent playing video games, late night phone calls where you’d talk and he’d listen, after class in his car listening to the radio and eating junk food. Had he loved you then? With ketchup on your shirt and acne across your face and poorly box-dyed hair? And had you loved him then too? Before you even knew what love is?

The weight of it is heavy, settling in your stomach like a hot stone. It almost hurts, how much you feel.

You’re interrupted by a very loud spate of gunfire piercing your eardrums and making you jump,  shrieking loudly as you’re killed in-game. Onscreen, your bloodied character rolls limply down the hill as “Better luck next time! #2/48” flashes on top of your game stats.

“Aw, second place, so close,” you hear Wonwoo say. Then he pauses. “Wait. Was I not muted just now?”

“Wonwoo, I’m going downstairs,” you tell him.

“Wait–” his voice is tight and panicked, but you’re already tugging your headset off and grabbing your keys.

You nearly avoid tripping over your feet as you run to the stairwell at the end of the hall and fly down the two flights of stairs, to where Wonwoo is. By the time you’re banging at their door, you’re out of breath and flushed. You’re not sure if the pounding of your heart is from the exertion or if it’s from something else. Anxiety, maybe. Fear. Exhilaration.

Wonwoo answers the door. He looks exactly like you’d expect, with his rumpled tee shirt and sweatpants and bare feet, his glasses on and his bangs pushed back with the bunny shower headband you bought for him last year.

“Hi,” you grin breathlessly at him.

“Hi,” he replies.

“Can I come in?”

He takes a deep breath, like he’s steeling his nerves. “Yeah.” He opens the door wider and steps aside to let you in, and you follow Wonwoo to his room.

It’s dimly lit with the rainbow glow of his gaming setup and the ready screen for PUBG still up on one of his monitors. Wonwoo flicks on the overhead light, which throws the room into sharp relief. The sudden brightness makes everything feel more real, somehow. 

You sit on the edge of Wonwoo’s bed and pat the spot net to you, which he takes. “Wonwoo,” you say.

Wonwoo purses his lips. “How much of that did you hear earlier?”

“All of it,” you chew the inside of your cheek, drumming your fingers against the bedspread. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “You can pretend I didn’t say any of that.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Huh?” He stares at you with wide eyes.

“What you said earlier.” You pick at a loose thread poking from the hem of your shirt. “Did you mean it when you said you’re in love with me?”

He hesitates, frowning as a conflicted expression briefly flashes across his face, eyebrows drawing together. 

“Wonwoo?” You call his name gently to get his attention. “I’m in love with you too, Wonwoo.”

“I–what?” Wonwoo looks at you like you’ve brown another head. “But, you...  Mingyu?”

You furrow your brows at him. “Mingyu? Didn’t I tell you? We were just faking so he could win that Greek God competition and get free parking next semester.”

“Wait,” he sputters, “so all of that was fake? You were just pretending to be in a relationship?”

“Yeah. I don’t care about Mingyu, I have feelings for you, Wonwoo.”

“You.” Wonwoo takes a deep breath. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I did!” You widen your eyes, adamant. “At karaoke back in October. You, me, Minghao, and Junhui?” It had been after a particularly grueling set of midterms, and the four of you had gone out for some korean barbeque, followed by boba and an extended noraebang session. While Junhui was crooning to an old Cantonese ballad, you were squished on a couch with Minghao and Wonwoo, and the three of you were talking idly about Junhui’s most recent date.

It’s funny, you remember turning and mumbling to Wonwoo, did I ever tell you that Mingyu and I are faking our whole relationship for clout? But Wonwoo hadn’t responded, so you assumed that he didn’t care. Now, it’s looking more like he didn’t even hear you.

“I was asleep,” Wonwoo states in flat disbelief.

“You were asleep,” you repeat slowly.

“It was dark and I was tired. You didn’t notice that I passed out as soon as we dimmed the lights?” He raises his eyebrows as he defends himself, and you bury your face in your hands.

Click. The pieces are all falling in place.

“Wonwoo. I’m so dumb,” you moan. “I run the Ask Cherry column. All those messages from Junhui and Soonyoung. They were about you, weren’t they?”

“Messages? There were more after the first one?!”

“And they were about you being in love with me,” you recall. “This whole time, I thought you liked someone else. Someone who isn’t me.”

There’s a pause. You can hear the sound of Wonwoo’s PC whirring in the background. And then, Wonwoo starts laughing, choked and quiet at first, and then loud, incredulous, almost.

“God,” he gasps between laughs, “we’re both so, so stupid.” And then you’re laughing too.

In retrospect, it’s all ridiculous, this entire situation. You collapse back onto Wonwoo’s bed and laugh until your ribs hurt, and when you turn your head to the side, there’s Wonwoo laying beside you, glasses askew, grinning.

You giggle and reach out to straighten his glasses. “Hi,” you say to him.

“Hi,” he says back, getting up to lean on one elbow. “I’m in love with you, Y/N.”

You feel your smile widen so much, your cheeks hurt. “I’m in love with you, Jeon Wonwoo.”

He looks at you with so much fondness, it takes your breath away. It’s the way he’s always looked at you, you realize, since the two of you weren’t much more than a pair of kids.

“So, now what?”

“Hmm.” You pretend to think. “Can you kiss me about it, then?”

Wonwoo nods, and his hair flops over the bunny headband as he moves his head. “Yeah,” he says, “I think I can do that.”

.

.

.

(Afterwards, a lot less changes with your relationship with Wonwoo than you thought. After all, he was your best friend for much, much longer than he’s been your boyfriend. He still sends you cat videos at strange hours of the night, and he still sticks sullenly by your side during social outings. Friday nights are still game nights, of course, but now it’s mostly spent on your shared Stardew Valley co-op or cuddling in bed while playing Pokemon together. 

But one thing that changes is the kisses. You kiss Wonwoo whenever you can, because you have so much love to give him and not enough time in the day to tell him all the ways you love him. You try, though, to tell him every moment you can that he’s the cutest, smartest, sweetest, kindest, funniest boy in the world, and that he’s the best friend and boyfriend you could ever ask for.

Wonwoo has a harder time with his feelings, but you know, even without saying. It’s in the way that his fingers linger over your hand when he drops you off in front of your classroom, and the way he gives you first pick on all the best loot when you’re gaming together. And when it’s really late at night and the two of you are huddled under the blankets together, listening to the way your heartbeats collide, he whispers it too. “I love you.”

.

“--military campaigns of the past four years, supplying iron ore and–”

“Guh!” You jerk awake when you feel the gentle tap of an invisible finger against your cheek. Heart pounding, you look to the side to see your advisor, Wonwoo, frowning at you with a spent talisman on his desk. Wonwoo shakes his head very slightly, as if to tell you off for being rude.

The man sitting opposite to you hadn’t noticed the flagrant display of magic or your unceremonious awakening, however, and continues to drone on about politics, or whatever he’s talking about. You can hear cicadas buzzing from the verdant trees outside, and the silk robes layered on your body are starting to feel oppressively heavy in the summer heat. 

You glance to the side again and make eye contact with Wonwoo, this time shooting him a desperate, pleading look. Get me out of here, you scream at him in your mind. Wonwoo rolls his eyes and shrugs, and you take that as permission.

“I apologize, Lord Sui,” you interrupt, folding your hands neatly in your lap, “but I’m afraid I’m not feeling well.” You sway slightly in a show of mock fragility. 

“Oh, of course! Shall I help you back to your chambers?” He reaches across the table and places a hand on your arm, and you fight back the urge to grimace at the uninvited touch. From the corner of your eye, you see Wonwoo stiffen. “Allow me to assist you, your highness.”

“No need,” Wonwoo interrupts, rising to his feet. “I’ll escort her back to her chambers. Thank you for your visit, Lord Sui.” Your advisor bows politely, the very picture of decorum, but you can hear the irritated edge to his voice. 

“Of course,” Lord Sui frowns. He doesn’t remove his hand from your arm, however, so you gently extract yourself from his grasp and stand, nodding your head in his direction. Lord Sui looks up at you hopefully. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow then, I hope–”

“Safe travels back,” you interrupt, folding your hands in front of your stomach. “I hope you were well-served by my staff.”

Lord Sui looks like he’s about to swear at you, and you raise your eyebrows at him expectantly. A second passes, before Lord Sui is lowering his head again into a deep bow. “This humble one thanks your highness for her audience,” he says, gritting his teeth like he’s tasting something unpleasant.

Later on while you’re walking through the gardens accompanied by Wonwoo, your heavy outer robes tossed over his arm, you ask him, “so, Scholar Jeon, what do you think about this one? Yes or no, should I marry him?”

Wonwoo laughs, a quiet, deep chuckle. “You made your disinterest very clear with your rudeness, I think.”

“I did, but I’m asking you.” You trail your fingertips along the decorative stone formations along the path, not caring if your white inner robes get dusty. The two of you are taking the long way back to your chambers, because the weather really is too lovely not to. It’s days like this when you really miss the freedom of your youth, when a perfect summer afternoon like this would have been spent sparring on the training grounds, or with the other children on the roof of the library shooting down kites with bows and cotton-tipped arrows. 

“He was rude and pompous,” Wonwoo replies. “His grasp of military strategy is cursory at best, and his grasp of court etiquette is even worse. He touched you without permission,” he says, sounding very offended on your behalf at the last bit. “He’s lucky your father wasn’t present, or he’d be missing his hand.”

“I suppose this is what I get for rejecting all the good ones,” you smile crookedly. “We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel with these ones. How many suitors have I rejected this summer already?”

“Lord Sui is the twenty ninth,” Wonwoo supplies.

“Twenty ninth rejection in a row,” you laugh. “No thanks to you, Scholar Jeon,” you glance at him. For the past four months, even if you haven’t personally turned them away, each of your suitors have been systematically dissected by Wonwoo’s sharp eye, sometimes even in front of the court. Each of their personal and political failings, no matter how minuscule, laid in front of them like a bill of faults. Nothing escapes Wonwoo.

“I want to make sure your suitors are of satisfactory quality,” Wonwoo replies.

“With your standards, I think you’re overestimating the position of my potential consort,” you scoff.

“It’s not just the prince consort,” Wonwoo says quietly. “It’s your husband. I think you deserve something better than what you’ve been offered so far.”

You soften at his tone. “Who, then, Jeon Wonwoo?” You turn toward him, halting in the middle of the jasmine-scented pavilion you find yourself in.  “Who would you let me marry?”

At this, Wonwoo doesn’t reply. 

Looking up at him, you plead silently with your eyes. Please, see me. See how I look at you, how I adore and admire you, Wonwoo. See how I love you. But for all his endless brilliance, your advisor still remains blind to this one thing. 

“What about you, then, Wonwoo,” you press. Wonwoo averts his gaze when you take a step towards him. “If I were to marry someone like you… or if I were to marry you–”

“You flatter me, your highness,” Wonwoo interrupts you. He bows, deeply. “This humble scholar thanks her highness for her kindness.”

Your heart falls as he shifts into formal language. His voice is distant, cold.

“But,” he adds quietly, rising from the bow, “you needn’t bother yourself with such kindness. I’m simply doing my job.”

“A-alright,” you say. Despite the summer heat, you suddenly feel too exposed, like you’re undressed in the middle of the pavilion. “You… you can take your leave now.” You hold out your arms for your robes, and Wonwoo hands them to you, maintaining careful distance.

“Thank you,” Wonwoo bows again, still speaking in formal language. 

You can’t help but to shake the sinking feeling in your stomach and the regret that bubbles up. Why did you have to bring it up? Look, your brain supplies unhelpfully, you’ve scared him off again.

.

.

.

Wonwoo is used to watching you– after all, he’s been doing it since the two of you were children. Wonwoo, the son of your childhood tutor, accompanied you and the other royal children as you took your lessons. For as long as he can remember, the two of you have been as different from each other as two people could be.

Wonwoo had always been a weak and sickly child. He spent much of his time reading, holed up in the library and watching as you and the young lord Kim Mingyu would play outside in the afternoons after classes had adjourned. Wonwoo watched as you climbed trees and swung wooden swords and shot down apples with pebbles. And a few years later, Wonwoo also watched quietly from the side as you picked up your first real sword, saw the awestruck expression on your face as you admired the glint of steel in the sunlight. He was there the first time you fell off a horse, the first time you won an archery competition, the first time you cast a spell, and he was there when Mingyu received his army commission and all you could do was cry while your best friend rode off, a general in shining armor, while you were locked in a gilded cage and forbidden from picking up a weapon ever again. 

And for as long as he can remember, Wonwoo has been in love with you. After all, how could he not? You shine, like the sun, and Wonwoo can’t help but to turn toward you and hope that some of your light falls on him.

Wonwoo remembers the way his heart thudded in his chest, clumsy and heavy against his ribcage, that night years ago when you appeared outside his door for the first time. He had been awakened by frantic knocking and when he opens his door, it’s you, holding a book in your hands. Your geopolitics tutor had given you assigned reading, and you just can’t seem to understand it, you explain, pushing your loose hair behind your ears. Your father had asked you to attend negotiations tomorrow, and you couldn’t think of anyone else who would help you, so here you are, still dressed in your robes from the day, standing in front of Wonwoo.

And when you drop to your knees to beg, Wonwoo’s heart drops too, because here you are, the princess, the future ruler, begging him to help you understand some ancient treatises. Before he knows it, he’s on his knees too, pleading for you to get up, because it’s not right– he can’t have a royal lowering themself in front of him, nothing but a commoner. 

That very night as he helps you study and prepare for the upcoming day of meetings, Wonwoo has a realization: if he can’t give you his love, at least not in the light, he can at least give you his devotion. Throughout the years, as your personal scribe, as your assistant, and now as your official primary advisor, Wonwoo has devoted every breath, every heartbeat to serving you. 

And occasionally, Wonwoo can fool himself into thinking that devotion is enough.

These days, it’s become a habit for the two of you to take tea in the peony gardens after your father holds court. You’ve grown into your position now, with more grace than anybody ever expected from you, and now you sit behind your father as he listens to the grievances of the commoners and negotiates with dignitaries. As usual, you keep Wonwoo with you at all times, and later over cups of tea and flower-scented sweets, the two of you discuss the happenings of the day. 

It’s on one of these afternoons when the quiet peace that Wonwoo has made for himself is broken and the illusion falls away. There’s footsteps, the sounds of metal against leather, the jingling of steel, and then through the garden gates steps a soldier. 

But it’s not just any soldier. Wonwoo recognizes that face in an instant— it’s Kim Mingyu, back from war after all these years. In an instant, you’ve jumped to your feet, the conversation and tea forgotten. Without a second thought to the delicate silks that float across your body or the jewels and flowers in your hair, like you’re a teenager again, rough and wild, you run across the garden and throw yourself into Kim Mingyu’s arms.

And once again, Wonwoo finds himself watching, lingering in silence, like a shadow. Wonwoo watches the way Mingyu’s tanned face splits into a radiant smile, the way his broad body fills out the ceremonial armor, the worn and well-used grip of his sword, the thin red scar that runs between the knuckles of his left hand and disappears under the edge of his leather vambrace. 

Wonwoo watches, and he knows, with a sinking feeling, that this is it. Of course it was always going to end like this. How could he blame you for loving brave, dashing, charming Mingyu? Mingyu, the war hero with noble blood running through his veins? 

And Wonwoo? He’s just a commoner, he’s nothing special. He doesn’t deserve you, and to even hope… to even begin to imagine a world in which you could love him back…

Wonwoo smiles to himself as he pours himself another cup of tea. He must have been delusional. 

.

.

.

You know you shouldn’t be doing this. It’s against the rules, but it’s Mingyu, and how could you resist?

It’s been years since you last sparred with him, years since you last picked up your sword with intent, even. The muscle memory comes quickly, and you manage to parry a quick blow from your best friend, but your movements are sluggish and labored and your arms are already aching. It seems like Mingyu notices how out of practice you are, because he instantly shifts into a more relaxed stance and his movements become wider, easier. You grit your teeth, half wanting to chastise him for going easy on you, but then again, your teenage years are long behind you. 

“Eat shit, Mingyu,” It feels good to cuss at him. It’s probably been years since the last time you swore, too. 

“I missed this,” Mingyu says, grinning as he slashes with a light flick of his wrist. You block, again, but the action sends shockwaves up your arm. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were visiting?” Your swords clash again as he deflects your blow without even sparing an extra glance your way.

“Wanted it to be a surprise,” he grunts. “Your mother wrote.”

“My– my mother,” you frown, knowing where this is leading.

“She wanted me to come home. Asked me to court you, officially,” Mingyu sighs, easily tossing his sword from his right to his left hand. You prepare yourself as he adjusts his grip on his dominant hand, and then he strikes. You don’t block it fast enough. The flat of his blade bounces off the simple leather training armor you’re wearing, but it’s a heavy enough blow that it knocks the breath out of your lungs.

You wheeze. “You can’t be serious, Mingyu,” you laugh humorlessly as you fall onto your butt, sword held loosely in your hand. From the edge of your vision, you see a royal attendant move forward, undoubtedly ready to administer whatever medical aid they think you need, but you hold out a hand, stopping him in his steps. “That will be all,” you call out to the servants surrounding the training fields, indicating that you wish to be left alone. “You’re all dismissed.”

Mingyu joins you on the dusty ground, crossing his legs daintily and resting his sword across his lap. “She personally granted me three months of leave. I think she wants everything to be wrapped up by the Moon Festival.”

“I can’t believe she still hasn’t given up on…” you wrinkle your nose, “us.”

Mingyu just shrugs. “Maybe her highness is getting impatient. I’ve heard stories about all your suitors, even up north at the outposts.”

“Then,” you reply testily, “you must have heard about how they were all summarily rejected.”

Your best friend nods, his lips cracking into a grin. “Absolutely humiliated Lord Gui, I heard.”

“He shouldn’t have challenged me to an archery competition for my hand if he didn’t want to be humiliated,” you snort, rather impolitely. “I’m glad stories of his humiliations have traveled all the way to the border, though. It’s what he deserves.”

“What kind of man courts a princess by challenging her to an archery competition, anyway?” 

You shrug. “Clearly the other approach didn’t work.” There had been gifts, chests full of silk and jewelry that you didn’t glance twice at. “One of them even wrote a poem about me. It was terrible.”

“What, you’re a poetry expert now?” Mingyu scoffs, and you extend your leg to kick his ankle in retaliation.

“Didn’t you hear? I’m cultured now. I’m being personally advised by the best poet to come out of the capital in decades.”

“Ah.” Mingyu tilts his head in the direction of the palace. “What about Scholar Jeon, then?”

“What about him?”

“Has he submitted his name for consideration yet?” Mingyu asks the question as easily as if he were asking what’s for lunch. 

The question gives you pause. What about him, then? “Wonwoo, he…” pursing your lips, you look down and pick at the hem of your training robes. “I don’t think…”

“What, you don’t think he’s just as besotted with you as you are with him?” You don’t have to look up to know that Mingyu is rolling his eyes. “Come on, your highness, be serious.”

“I am serious!” You glare at him and kick him again. 

Mingyu whines and withdraws his leg, looking at you with big petulant eyes. “Me too!”

“I asked him if he would be satisfied if I married someone like him, and he just… thanked me and spoke to me in formal language. It was terrible.” You grimace at the memory.

Mingyu scratches the top of his head. “Yeah, that’s pretty bad,” he admits. “Uh, have you considered that maybe he’s just awkward? Like, really, really awkward? And maybe a bit dull, too.”

“He’s smarter than you are,” you scoff, and Mingyu is quick to put a hand up in surrender.

“You’re right, he’s cleverer and wiser than I am, but when it comes to matters of the heart, it’s like watching a foal learning to walk,” Mingyu grimaces. “It’s terrible. The secondhand embarrassment gives me heartburn. But, if you trust me, you’ll believe me when I tell you that your feelings are returned.”

“That’s the problem, Gyu,” you sigh. “I do trust you, and I do believe that, but Wonwoo, he just.. Won’t open up to me. I can’t… I can’t do this if he’s terrified of me.”

“I think you should talk to him. Frankly and honestly. Throw away all the decorum,” Mingyu says, “and just tell him how you feel.”

“You say that like it’s easy.” You pick up your sword again, driving it into the group and using it as leverage to pull yourself back up. Your whole body smarts and the palm of your sword hand is stinging where you know there are blisters.

“Do it,” Mingyu stands easily and dusts himself off. “At least do it for me, so your mother will stop haranguing me,” he wrinkles his nose. 

“Fine, alright, I’ll do it,” you huff, “but give me some time.”

“Promise?”

You hold out your pinky. Like you were children again, Mingyu links his pinky with yours, sealing the promise with a press of his thumb against yours. It’s not a contract, there’s no magic binding the deal, but it’s enough that Mingyu relaxes a bit, shoulders slumping. 

“Good,” he says, “I’m tired of the two of you dancing around each other.”

.

.

.

Wonwoo is one of the few people in this entire palace complex that has access to your chambers 24 hours a day. It’s cause for whispers and glances, but you insist on it, and nobody dares to publicly question the character of the crown princess anyway.

Tonight, he carries with him a wooden lunch box filled with various summer pastries, cut and molded into delicate flower shapes. You hadn’t taken your dinner tonight, Wonwoo noticed, because you had been preoccupied with reports of failed crops in the southern river delta. It’s late, and most of the palace lights have been dimmed, so Wonwoo carries with him a lantern as well. 

The wooden walkways are normally deserted, this part of the palace being off-limits to most staff, but there’s someone standing outside the doors of your quarters. Wonwoo frowns, footsteps slowing as he raises his lantern and casts the scene into light— a man, hunched forward and whispering to a maid. Something sparkles gold in his hands.

“-can’t,” the maid’s voice drifts as her tone rises in pitch, “unless you have the seal of her highness yourself, I can’t let you— Scholar Jeon!” Her face softens in relief as she makes eye contact with Wonwoo over the man’s shoulder. “Scholar Jeon, this person is trying to enter Her Highness’s chambers!”

The man turns around, and Wonwoo’s face sours into a scowl. “Lord Sui,” Wonwoo says flatly. “I thought the royal palace had sent you away.”

“It must have been a mistake,” he replies, straightening himself and fixing his robes. “The princess wasn’t in her right mind. I’m here to talk to her. You,” he points his finger at Wonwoo, “Scholar, is it? I trust you’ll have more sense than this maid here— unlock this door for me right this instant!”

“Apologies,” Wonwoo dips his head in a semblance of propriety, “but I can’t let you in without express permission from the princess.”

“What permission do I need,” he snaps, “I’m the Lord of the Chujie territory and I’m courting the crown princess. What right do you, a servant, have to be questioning me?”

Wonwoo doesn’t flinch. Instead, he sighs slowly, suppressing the enraged trembling of his hands as he pitches his voice low and cold and repeats, “I can’t let you in without express permission from the princess.”

“What makes you think you can speak for Y/N?” 

Lord Sui’s lips curl in a snarl, and Wonwoo’s patience runs out. “You,” he says steadily and quietly, dripping with derision, “are not qualified to say her name.” He takes a step forward. “You are not qualified to speak to her or to set your dirty eyes on her, much less touch her.”

Lord Sui sputters, red-faced, “w-who do you think you are?”

“You’re lucky the princess, with her endless mercy, only sent you away after what you did last time,” Wonwoo continues, stone-faced. “If it were up to me, you would be missing the hand you touched her with right now.”

Pulling himself up to his full height, Wonwoo glares at Lord Sui with all the venom he can muster. “Now get out of my sight,” he spits, “before I call the guards on you and have you thrown in the dungeons.”

Wonwoo can feel the adrenaline running through his veins. He’s never spoken to anyone like this, much less a member of nobility, but something in him fills him with a rush of defiance.

Lord Sui turns puce. He opens his mouth, sucking in a breath. But, before he can get the words out or his mouth, his lips clamp shut. 

“Mmmf—“ Lord Sui lets out a strangled yell, hands flying up to his neck in disbelief.

“That’s enough,” you say quietly, sliding open your door with your maid in tow. You’re dressed in only your nightclothes with your hair loose, but you’re gripping your personal sword tightly in your hand. “Lord Sui,” you dip your head slightly, “I apologize for my rudeness, but it’s late and I’m not receiving guests.”

“Mmmf-mmmgh!”

“Ah, yes, it was me who sealed your mouth.” You hold up a used talisman, the paper dissolving into ash between your fingers. “I hope you’ll forgive my transgression. The spell will expire in the time it takes for a stick of incense to burn. I’ve called the guards already.” 

You turn toward Wonwoo, and suddenly the lantern and wooden lunch box feel heavy in his hands. “Come inside, Scholar Jeon.”

Lord Sui makes an outraged noise, but his lips remain sealed. 

“Safe travels,” you nod again at him as you usher Wonwoo in through the door. “Thank you,” you smile at your maid, “that will be all tonight.” 

“Wait, no, I was just going to drop these off,” Wonwoo tries to object, but then you’re tugging him across the stone tiled courtyard by the sleeve. Wonwoo feels his throat close up, like he’s having an allergic reaction— he’s never seen you in such an intimate appearance before. Your brow is damp and Wonwoo can almost feel the rose-scented steam wafting off your skin. You’ve clearly just emerged from a bath. 

“Come on, I know you’re worried about what this looks like,” you laugh, “but worry not, nobody is going to question the crown princess’s maidenhood without risking their neck. Especially after you just defended my honor like that.”

At that, Wonwoo flushes red, all the way down his neck. “That’s not what I meant,” he mumbles uselessly. 

“Come in! You shouldn’t have, really,” you say as you open the door to your private quarters and take the food out of Wonwoo’s hands. “Here, sit and eat.”

“They’re for you,” Wonwoo sputters, but you’re busying yourself frantically cleaning up your bedroom, fluttering like a moth around the walls. 

“Sorry about the state of this,” you grab a handful of half-written letters and shove them haphazardly into a box under your desk. There’s a forgotten pot of tea on your desk and the remains of a few sticks of incense in a porcelain brazier, which you hurriedly shove the lid onto. 

“You didn’t eat dinner,” Wonwoo tries to explain, but all of his previous confidence is gone now and his voice fails him. “I brought you food. I thought you’d be hungry.”

“Wonwoo,” you turn toward him with an expression of disbelief plastered across your face, “you can’t be serious. You were with me all evening. You didn’t eat dinner either. We’ll be eating together.”

“But—“

“I know there’s a rule against that, but I don’t really care,” you grin, laughing as you slide into a seat at the table in the center of the room. There’s a small stack of novels haphazardly pushed against the edge of the table, and as Wonwoo hesitantly takes his seat across from you, he catches the title of the one on top.

“‘The Cruel Emperor’s Requite, Volume 3’,” he observes drily.

“Oh,” you laugh nervously, clearly embarrassed. The wooden lid of the lunch box clatters against the table as you start removing the dishes inside. “I asked Mingyu to sneak me the latest volume. They’re… salacious, to say the least, but it’s a fun read, and I’ve been hooked by the plot.”

At that, Wonwoo resists the urge to tilt forward and slam his head against the table. The mention of your best friend has his stomach churning with ill-suppressed jealousy, and the thought that Mingyu has been delivering bawdy romance novels to you? 

You lean across the table to place a tiny delicate porcelain cup in front of him and you fill it halfway with pale yellow tea. “The leaves are spring maojian, brought to the capital from the mountains last month. Here,” you place a dish next to the tea, “have an osmanthus cake.”

The lamps in your private quarters are warm and bright behind white paper shades, and Wonwoo can still smell the perfumed bathwater in the air. When you dip your head to sip your tea, giving Wonwoo a glimpse at the slope of your shoulders and the way the little hairs at the back of your neck stick to your damp skin, Wonwoo feels like he’s about to explode. 

“Wonwoo?” You tilt your head and peer into his blank face. “Are you alright?”

“Uh,” Wonwoo responds intelligently. 

“Try some of this tea,” you say, and because the part of Wonwoo’s brain that’s normally in charge of forming sentences is currently mush, he shuts up and drinks the tea. 

When he looks up at you again, you’re wearing an apprehensive expression on your face. You twist your fingers in the hem of your sleeves, winding and unwinding the silk tape around your hands. It’s an anxious habit, Wonwoo recognizes. “Um, Wonwoo,” you begin haltingly, “do you remember when we were twelve and I fell out of a tree and died for a few minutes before Master Liu summoned my spirit and put me back in my body?”

Wonwoo nods. He remembers it vividly. You had been shooting down kites with the other children, and one of them had landed in the upper boughs of one of the pine trees outside the library. Of course you, brave, reckless, had volunteered to retrieve it. Wonwoo remembers sitting at the window, a book in his lap, and watching as you scaled the ancient tree. And he doesn’t think he can ever forget the sound of branches cracking, the small scream and the sickening thud of your body landing on the grass below. 

As soon as he realized what had happened, his mind had gone fuzzy with panic, because you were laying there, so small, broken, and Wonwoo was just a child but he had to do something. So, he slid out the window and as soon as his feet hit the ground below, he was running toward you, panicked tears prickling at his eyes as he called your name.

“You gave me a protective charm,” you tell him hesitantly. Wonwoo remembers reaching into his robes and grabbing the jade tablet, pulling so hard that the cord hanging it around his neck snapped, and placing it in your hands. It wasn’t a powerful charm— it was just the simple kind given to children to protect them from danger, and Wonwoo knows now as an adult trained in magic that it wouldn’t have done anything. But as a twelve year old child, it was all he could think of when faced with your unconscious body and the blood seeping through your robes. 

“Wonwoo,” you begin quietly, reaching a hand under the collar of your robes, “I’ve worn it every day for thirteen years.” And then you pull out that jade tablet, carved into the shape of gnarled peach boughs and inscripted with tiny runes. 

Wonwoo blinks. “You kept it? It… it’s not…” he licks away the dryness on his lips, and tries again. “I can have an artificer prepare something much more powerful for you if you’d like, your highness.”

Immediately, Wonwoo knows that he’s said something wrong, because you look sad as you tuck the jade tablet back under your collar where it rests against the bare skin of your chest. “No, Wonwoo,” you shake your head, “that’s not the point. I don’t wear it for protection. I wear it because you gave it to me when I was dying.” 

Something hurts in Wonwoo’s chest. He supposes that this is what unrequited love does to a person— it squeezes at his heart, twisting until every last drop has been pressed out. Wonwoo is so in love, he thinks he could drown in it.

“Um. So.” You chew your lower lip anxiously. “Wonwoo, you know that I value your presence in my life very much, don’t you?”

Wonwoo stares at you. 

His lack of response doesn’t faze you. “Wonwoo, can I tell you something?”

Oh no. This is the part where you break Wonwoo’s heart, where you tell him that you’ll be marrying Kim Mingyu and living happily ever after, without Wonwoo. 

“I have to go,” Wonwoo blurts out, clumsily rising to his feet. 

“Huh?” Your mouth is slack and your eyes are round. “But your tea—“

“I have… I just remembered, I need to send some letters,” Wonwoo says lamely, offering you the worst excuse of all time. He cringes at your incredulous expression- you’re clearly not fooled.

“At this time of night?!”

“I have to go!” And then Wonwoo is making his way through your courtyard as fast as he can without inciting suspicion. He walks and walks, furiously keeping his face impassive, until he locks himself in his room and collapses face-first into his bed and lays there, motionless, wallowing in misery and self-pity, until he falls asleep.

.

.

.

It was supposed to just be a regular ride in the royal woods. You’re not even dressed for a hunt, and you’re supposed to have tea with your grandmother, the empress dowager, this afternoon, but of course when Mingyu is involved, nothing can go as planned.

Three hours after you depart for a leisurely morning ride, the two of you return, muddy and exhausted, with a dismembered wyvern carcass split between your horses. You’re scowling and Mingyu is pouting, and the monster flesh is starting to attract flies in the heat.

“I hate you so much, Mingyu,” you scowl, swatting away a fly attempting to land on your gore-spattered cheek, “if we just left the wyvern where we killed it—“

“C'mon, what kind of hunter doesn’t take their catch home,” he immediately whines.

“We have grounds staff for that! Just dismembering the carcass took us most of an hour!” The two of you are approaching the stables now, and you’re acutely aware of the horrified stares of the servants who are unfortunate enough to have been standing along the path. You reach up to wipe at your face with your sleeve, but you only succeed in smearing the monster blood sprayed across your face. 

“Whatever,” Mingyu rolls his eyes. “I‘ll be competing in the exhibitions for the moon festival, we’ll see who’s laughing then.”

“I’m not even laughing now, I’m just—“ you look around and lower your voice before continuing, trying to at least pretend to act the part of the princess, “I’m just pissed that you went behind my back and made a mistake and now you’re putting an arbitrary countdown on my relationships!”

(Right. That was the whole reason Mingyu had asked you to go riding with him in the morning, before it ever came to monster-hunting and butchery.

When you set off with your best friend, you have a quiver full of arrows and a freshly re-stringed bow, and the woods are misty following the previous night’s rainfall. “I don’t know how many strings you had to pull to get me alone,” you grin. “What’s the plan? Do you want to hunt pheasants, or do you just want to ride?”

“Um,” Mingyu scratches the back of his head. He looks nervous, which is never a good sign. “About that.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “Mingyu?”

He looks to the side, avoiding eye contact like a guilty dog. “So. The reason I was able to get you alone. I have something to confess.”

“Mingyu!” You tug on the reins and bring your horse to a stop, dawning horror spreading across your face. “What did you do!”

“I might have…” he chews his lip, before blurting it all out, “I might have accidentally thrown my hat in the ring.”

“What?” You blink at him, dreading his response.

“Your father requested a private audience with me yesterday, and I was nervous because I was alone with the emperor!” Your best friend’s voice pitched up in a near hysterical whine. “I thought he was going to send me and my men out west, but instead he told me that court etiquette typically required a gift of ten taels of gold but he’d waive that for me, and…”

“…and?”

To his credit, Mingyu looks distraught. “And I thanked him and accepted his offer! And now… and now your mother thinks I’m taking you on a ride to court you.”

You feel a dull headache beginning to throb behind your brow. “Kim Mingyu, you need to go to my father and withdraw your proposal. My mother would never let me refuse.” 

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, “but I’m scared your father is going to throw me in a dungeon, or worse, into an administrative job.”

“I’ll make sure you get smuggled back into the army with a new identity if he does,” you tell him, but his expression doesn’t change. 

“You need to tell them, today, that you’re going to marry Jeon Wonwoo,” he whispers even though the two of you are the only ones in the vicinity. 

You choke on air. “W-what are you talking about?!”

“Tomorrow,” he explains, “is when he’s bringing the matter to the court. And that’s when it’ll be publicly announced.” 

“I can’t just spring this on Wonwoo,” you sputter at him, “it’s not fair for him either!”

“Then what are you going to do? Let him learn about it himself tomorrow when it’s announced?”

“I’m going to talk to my father myself,” you tell him, full of confidence, “and stop all of this. Nothing will change between me and Wonwoo.”)

The moment you see Wonwoo, however, your confidence falls away and your plan completely leaves your head. He turns away from his conversation with a stable hand when he hears the sound of hooves. First, he sees Mingyu, and furrows his brow. And then he sees you, covered in blood, and his face falls with abject horror.

“What did you do,” he hisses, turning on Mingyu and fixing a glare on him.

“I swear, it’s not my fault,” Mingyu blabbers, clambering off his horse. You’re already on your feet leading your horse to the stable hand when you hear the edge to Wonwoo’s voice and realize that he’s truly pissed. 

“What do you mean it’s not your fault,” he hisses, “you’re supposed to be the soldier here, why is her highness covered in blood?!”

“I can hear you talking about me,” you remark, crossing your arms. “I’m fine. It’s not my blood.”

“It’s not– that doesn’t help,” Wonwoo sputters, ears flushing pink. “You’re still covered in blood!”

“I need to get washed off, Wonwoo, I need to request an audience with my father,” you tell him. You grab his wrist and start making your way back to your quarters. He stumbles a little bit but quickly manages to regain his footing.

“What are you talking about? Your father isn’t receiving any visitors today,” Wonwoo tells you as he follows behind you, letting himself be pulled by the wrist. 

“It’s urgent!” The deeper into the palace complex you go, the more stares the two of you receive— you, the princess, dirty and covered in dried blood, dragging your respected advisor behind you.

“What is it? He’s resting for the evening, but I can bring it up Minister Choi this evening if you need.”

“It’s not… it’s nothing that Minister Choi can help with,” you sigh miserably. 

“Tell me what you need help with, then.” Wonwoo furrows his brows, an expression of concern written across his face. “Anything you need.”

Chewing on your lip, you make the sudden decision to take a sharp detour through the chrysanthemum gardens and into a narrow walkway into a secluded part of the garden, behind a cluster of trees and some large decorative rocks.

You stop abruptly, and Wonwoo, caught off guard, walks right into you. 

“Ouch,” he mumbles quietly, rubbing at the spot in his shoulder where one of your hairpins jabbed him. 

“Wonwoo.” You twist anxiously at the ties of your riding robes. “Um. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this. Maybe there have been rumors, or maybe not.”

“What are you talking about?”

He’s watching you, carefully, almost like he’s afraid of you. 

Impatient, your swordsmanship master used to chide you. Your greatest strength, when it comes to armed combat, is also your greatest weakness— you’re too reckless, you act too quickly. You think you know what your opponent’s next move will be, and sometimes you’re right, but sometimes you’re wrong.

“Kim Mingyu is courting me,” you tell Wonwoo, the words directly bypassing your brain as they emerge from your mouth. “He spoke to my father yesterday, and it’s going to be official tomorrow.”

Wonwoo stares at you, silent.

“I can’t marry Kim Mingyu,” you continue, voice rising in volume, not caring about eavesdroppers in your panic. “I can’t marry him, because I’m already in love with someone else.”

“Oh,” Wonwoo says, and for a split second, you think he’s going to argue. But then he schools his expression back into the placid mask that he wears every day in court, your faithful Scholar Jeon. 

“I’ll send for some servants to draw a bath for you,” he says, bowing deeply. And then, without looking up at your face, he turns and walks away from you, leaving you speechless and with the deep sinking feeling that you just made a huge mistake. 

.

.

.

That night, Wonwoo has a dream. It’s not just a dream, though, it’s a memory— one that he’s re-lived in his head so many times, it still feels as fresh as the day it happened.

It’s ten years ago. It’s your fifteenth summer, and Wonwoo’s sixteenth. You’re still a little too loud, a little too brash— a child, still, not yet burdened with the responsibility of the title of Crown Princess. You had spent all summer sparring with Mingyu, hunting low-level monsters in the woods, and practicing your archery.

It’s the morning of the annual hunt, a chance for noble cultivators across the kingdom to show off their skills, and you’re finally old enough to participate. The only event that the administrators would let you compete in was the archery competition, so you had practiced for weeks, until your fingertips were bloody and your vision blurred.

Wonwoo sits with his father at the side, along with all the other spectators, hands folded neatly in his lap. He watches as you line up with the other contestants and raise your bow, knock your arrow, and draw back the string. 

And then, you hesitate and lower the bow. Wonwoo sees you turn your head to the crowd, eyes moving back and forth, like you’re searching for something— until your eyes lock with Wonwoo’s. There’s no question about it, Wonwoo knows you’re looking directly at him. You’re terrified, he realizes. And so Wonwoo does what he can, and he smiles at you, something small but reassuring, or at least, as reassuring as he can make a smile. 

When you see the smile, you exhale slowly, visibly relaxing. And then you turn back to the target, bow raised and drawn, sharp eyes focused on the target, and you let your arrow fly.

It lands in the center of the target. A perfect shot.

The air shifts and swims, glittering like sunlight does when it shines through leafy branches, and then Wonwoo’s dream changes into something else, another memory. This one is even clearer— it’s replayed in Wonwoo’s mind thousands of times since it happened, sitting in his thoughts, heavy, like a stone weighing on paper.

It’s the night of your twentieth moon festival. The first chill of autumn is starting to permeate the air, cutting through Wonwoo’s fancy new robes that you had ordered for him just for the event. It’s his first year as your personal scribe, barely three months after your father had given you the title of crown princess and officially designated you as his heir. 

The whole palace is celebrating the feast in the banquet halls, but Wonwoo is standing with you on the roof of one of the minor pavilions away from the festivities. The full harvest moon is bright and warm, almost gold tonight. The tiles beneath Wonwoo’s feet are slippery, but you promised him earlier that he wouldn’t fall, and he can’t bring himself to be too worried. Not when you’re smiling at him like that.

In your hands, you hold a paper lantern that Wonwoo had painted with a pair of white rabbits earlier. Wonwoo holds a matching lantern, painted with a pair of wood ducks frolicking near some reeds. 

“Let’s release them together in three,” you whisper, grinning in the flickering light of the lantern, “two, one.”

You let go of the bamboo scaffold and laugh in delight as it rises, floating into the silvery night. Wonwoo releases his lantern too, and watches as it hangs in the air for a moment before being caught by the wind to join yours.

“Wonwoo, you have to make a wish.” 

I wish we could be like this forever, Wonwoo thinks. He looks down at you, at your closed eyes and clasped hands held to your lips. He’s so fond of you, it aches. 

“I wish for the health and safety of the kingdom,” you murmur against your fingers. “May our lands be blessed by the Goddess of Mercy.” You open your eyes and look up at him. “What did you wish for?”

Wonwoo grins crookedly. “I’m not telling you.”

“Fine,” you laugh. You’re twisting your fingers into your sleeves. “Wonwoo,” you say softly, taking a step closer to him. Wonwoo’s breath catches in his chest— you’re so close, he can smell your rose-scented bath powders on your skin. 

“Yes, your highness?”

“We’re… we’re friends, aren’t we?” There’s an edge of uncertainty in your voice. A hint of something fragile.

“Of course,” Wonwoo replies. Then, in a softer voice, he says your name— your personal name, the one that you haven’t been called by in public since you were a child. It’s the name Wonwoo only calls you in private, away from the formalities of palace life. 

You bite your lip. “Wonwoo, can I ask for a wish from you?”

Anything, Wonwoo thinks. Anything for you. But what he says is, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Can…” you suck in a deep breath, like you’re gathering your courage, “can you kiss me?”

For a moment, Wonwoo feels like his heart has stopped. His mind is racing, a thousand thoughts a second. There has to be an explanation, something logical. You’re the crown princess, you’re kept under careful watch, scrutinized wherever you go, Wonwoo reminds himself. At an age where most people are flirting, giving and receiving gifts and engaging in late-night dalliances, you’ve been locked up in the palace. It’s only natural that you would want to experiment, and Wonwoo is likely the only person your age that you trust. 

It’s an explanation that makes sense. It’s solid— at least, solid enough for Wonwoo, so he acquiesces. 

Your eyes are closed and your lips are slightly parted, like you’re wishing on a lantern again, waiting. Wonwoo leans forward and carefully brushes his lips against yours, like the faint touch of a dandelion seed, barely perceptible. 

He tries to withdraw, but you reach out and fist your hands in the front of his robes, almost desperate. You open your eyes and look up at him dazedly. “Again,” you whisper. It’s an order, but Wonwoo would have complied even if he wasn’t your personal scribe and you weren’t the crown princess.

He kisses you, this time firmer. It’s not like the careful touch of his lips against yours before. This time, you kiss him back and press into him, warm and soft, searching, hungry. Wonwoo’s head swims. He can feel his heart thudding in his chest as his mind is emptied and replaced only with the way you taste, the way you feel, you, you, you.

No. No, this is wrong. Wonwoo breaks the kiss and takes a step back, gasping sharply as he regains control of his senses. Suddenly, the air feels a little too hot and the rooftop feels a bit too exposed. 

“I—,” Wonwoo’s voice breaks in his panic, all words leaving him. “I, uh,” he stammers.

You’re still looking up at him with that dazed, almost drunken expression on your face. “Wonwoo,” you say his name like a request. “Wonwoo.”

His brain starts working again, and immediately, it begins to panic, filling every inch of Wonwoo with anxiety and dread. This is all wrong. “Thank you, your highness,” he bows, automatically shifting into formal speech. “I’ll take my leave.” The moment the words come out of his mouth, he’s already cursing himself in his head. Dumbass. He couldn’t be any more awkward if he tried. 

Wonwoo scrambles off the rooftop, cheeks pink, heart pounding as he leaves. He’s almost out of the courtyard when he looks back at you one last time over his shoulder. You’re still standing on the rooftop, arms held at your sides, looking oddly small and slumped in your festival finery.

You look sad.

Bong. Bong. Bong.

The scene dissolves, snapping to black in an instant.

Wonwoo wakes up to the sharp sound of the morning bell and yellow sunlight filtering through his window shades. It’s morning already, and Wonwoo is slowly beginning to realize his mistake.

“Oh my god.” He buries his face in his hands. “She’s been in love with me this whole time,” he groans into his palms.

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Your father is holding court today. You’re seated in your usual position, on the dais but off to the side, a position befitting your rank. Wonwoo isn’t here yet, which does nothing to settle the anxious butterflies in your stomach.

“Stop that,” you hear your mother hiss at you from her seat beside your father. You look up at her, and then you follow her gaze to realize that she’s glaring at your lap, where your hands are anxiously crumpling the fine silk ties of your sash. 

Immediately, you smooth out the fabric and place your hands against your thighs, flat and still. The anxiety doesn’t abate, however, so you worry at your lower hip with your teeth while your father discusses something with his Minister of Justice. 

Maybe you thought too much of your relationship with Wonwoo. Maybe he’s quitting the job and moving to the countryside to focus on scholarship. Maybe he hates you. Maybe you should just accept your fate and marry Mingyu.

Your mind is blank as the proceedings of your father’s court continue. All you can think about is the impassive expression on Wonwoo’s face as he bowed and walked yesterday after you had stupidly blurted everything out to him. 

“And lastly,” your father announces, gathering his papers on his desk, “there’s the matter of my daughter’s future.”

“Twenty nine rejections,” one of the nobles sniffs, disdain dripping in his voice. “That’s twenty nine grudges against the crown.”

“The relationship with the southern warlords is already strained,” someone else says, “and with the recent affair with Lord Sui, well…”

“Settle down, both of you,” your father’s chief advisor orders as he thumps the edge of his folded fan against his table. “May I remind you all that Lord Sui attempted to intrude on her highness’s personal quarters at night? Her highness was merciful to only seal his mouth and throw him from the grounds.”

You glance up at your father’s chief advisor and give him a grateful smile as your father clears his throat and brings his hand down to the table. “Regardless of the decisions made on previous suitors, I have news of a new suitor, a promising candidate. His grace, Kim Mingyu, has put his name in for consideration.”

A murmur goes through the court. You can see them nodding in approval, whispering to each other like this is a favorable tariff proposal and not your future husband. 

“Does anyone have any objections to this arrangement,” your father asks, his voice booming over the noise. Your breath catches in your chest. This is your chance to speak up. This is your escape. But you remember the way Wonwoo turned away from you yesterday, like how he’s turned away from you time and time again over the years. And anyways, at least you like Mingyu. You’re tired of the constant game of cat and mouse, the constant rumors and gossip and the endless stream of insincere men begging for a sliver of your favor. 

“Wait!” The side door bursts open, nearly falling off the hinges.

In unison, every head in the large hall turns to face a very disheveled Wonwoo standing at the door. There’s a long awkward silence as everybody stares at him. 

“Wonwoo?” You gather your skirts and scramble to your feet, not caring that you’re drawing attention to yourself, or that you just called him by his personal name in front of all the members of your father’s court. “Wonwoo, what’s going on?”

Wonwoo’s eyes are wide and frantic, his mouth silently opening and closing as if he’s suddenly realizing the spectacle he just made of himself. 

“Scholar Jeon,” your father raises an eyebrow in Wonwoo’s direction and you can almost see the way he freezes up, like he’s caught in the midst of a death ray. 

“Wonwoo,” you repeat, stumbling towards him, “it’s okay.” You’re not sure what he’s here for, but you know that you’ll do everything in your power to make things okay for him.

“I—I’m submitting myself for consideration,” Wonwoo announces to the crowd but he’s looking directly at you, as if he’s speaking to you and only you. “For the crown princess’s hand in marriage.”

There’s more murmurs, more scandalized titters. Whispers about how he’s just a commoner, whispers about the lack of decorum. 

“Wonwoo.” You’re not sure if you’re hearing him correctly. 

He falls to his knees in front of you and lowers his head, and you gasp in shock. You try to pull him up, but he doesn’t budge.

“And,” he says, “I’m here to beg for her highness’s mercy and forgiveness. This humble servant has been a fool for all these years.” He raises his head and looks up at you. 

Wonwoo’s body is like a tense, tightly strung bow, trembling with anxiety and terror. 

“You’re a fool, alright,” you breathe out in a quiet whisper that only Wonwoo can hear.

Your father clicks his tongue in irritation. “Scholar Jeon, you do realize this is all quite unconventional and inconvenient, do you?”

Wonwoo’s face is flushed bright red, all the way down his neck. You know he’s quiet and shy by nature, and to come bursting in and create the biggest spectacle the court has seen in years must take an absurd amount of courage and energy, but Wonwoo is unwavering. He flashes the tiniest smile at you. “Do you want to marry me?”

You nod at him. “I accept,” you say quietly, and then in a bigger voice, “I accept. It’s him.”

The room explodes into raucous yelling, but over the din, you hear your mother clapping her hands and laughing, voice pitching near hysterical. “God, finally, do any of you know how difficult it is to host thirty suitors here? Thirty! And on the thirty first try, finally!” She turns to your father and grips his arm. “Darling, this is the last time. You need to let this happen.”

Your father, on the other hand, looks bewildered at the mixed reactions of the court. Minister Lee is waving a fan in the air, shouting about Wonwoo’s scholarly qualifications, while Lord Guan is pointing at Minister Choi and ranting about construction of a mountain pass for spice trade routes. 

“Do you think anybody would notice if we left for tea,” you turn toward Wonwoo. He’s still on his knees, wearing a dumbfounded expression on his face as the room devolves into chaos at the recent development of events.

“Get out of here, you two,” your mother waves a long sleeve in your direction with a scowl on her face, “before you somehow incite a riot.”

“I think that counts as a dismissal for the day,” Wonwoo says. 

“Tea,” you decide, tugging Wonwoo up by the hand. “And just a fair warning, I’m going to ask you to kiss me. Are you going to run away?”

“No,” Wonwoo nods, self-assured. “I’m done running.”

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extra:

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“They kept calling me your highness,” Wonwoo complains as soon as the door is closed behind him. “And your handmaidens bowed to me, like I’m some kind of royalty.”

You sit patiently on the bed, still veiled behind red silk. “That’s because you are royalty,” you reply. “You’re the prince consort now.”

“Does it ever get any less awkward?”

You hear the clinking of gold and jade as he removes his belt. You shrug at him, but the action is lost under the silk that you’re still draped in. “Don’t ask me, that’s how I’ve been addressed since I was born.”

“I suppose I won’t be able to hide away during conferences anymore,” he sighs. 

You grin. “Nope, you’ll be forced to accompany me for all social events now, darling husband.”

“How do you make that sound like a threat?” 

You hear something that sounds suspiciously like paper rustling. 

“Wonwoo!” you lift a corner of the veil and peer out into the bridal suite. At your desk, Wonwoo jumps and looks at you, only slightly guilty.

“Yes?”

“Did you bring work to our wedding night?!” 

Wonwoo puts down the scrolls in his hands. “You have work tomorrow,” he says, “and you haven’t appointed a replacement for me, so I assume I’ll still be accompanying you.”

“That’s beside the point,” you exclaim incredulously, “Wonwoo, I know you’re nervous, but you can’t just hide behind work, and especially not on our wedding night!”

He opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, but then, evidently, he thinks better of it. “I’m sorry,” he says, shoulders slumping. I feel like I’m about to lose my mind.”

“Come here, Wonwoo.” You remove the veil and toss it to the side before patting the bed. 

He takes a seat next to you. The mattress dips slightly and you scoot closer, until your thighs are touching. You can see his neck starting to flush a dark blotchy red as he looks down at his hands. 

“Wonwoo.” You tilt your head and smile at him. “One wish, anything you want.”

He turns his head and blinks at you. “Anything?”

“You’re a prince now. You can have anything you want.”

“Are you trying to seduce me?” He’s smiling now, shoulders slowly slumping into something a bit more relaxed than his ramrod-straight posture from earlier. 

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Is that so bad? Seducing my own husband?”

“I think I’ll claim my wish now,” he says quietly, fondly. “Can you kiss me?”

You step out from behind the curtain separating the back room from the shop and come face to face with a very disgruntled looking Jihoon. Blinking at him, you slow to a stop, damp fingers still twisted in the fabric of your apron. “Jihoon? I thought you weren’t picking up your order until next Wednesday.”

“There’s been a change of plans,” Jihoon sighs. “The flowers for the venue can stay the same, but the bouquets need to be blue.”

You raise your eyebrow. “All of them?”

“And the boutonnieres too,” he says. “I know it’s short notice, I’m sorry,” he sighs, running his fingers through his already-tousled hair. He looks like he hasn’t slept in two days. 

“No, I can do it,” you smile at him. “I’ll come in this weekend to work on them. Chan,” you turn toward the boy, “can you go back and finish stripping the camellias?”

“O-oh, sure,” he responds, glancing briefly toward Jihoon before slinking past you and disappearing behind the curtain.

“Here, Jihoon,” you turn toward the wall of humming refrigerators along the back of the shop, “let’s see what we can do.”

Jihoon follows you, watching silently as you deftly pick out your selections. 

“What’s the vibe?” You pick out a small cluster of periwinkle-colored hydrangeas.

“Something with texture,” he responds. “Modern, not traditional, but not minimalist.”

“Some sage,” you pluck out the greenery and tuck it in with the quickly growing bundle in your arms. “These silver-dollar eucalyptus sprigs would be good too. As for the statement blooms, I’m thinking these delphiniums would do well. I have some dried blue thistles in the back as well. Some queen anne’s lace for extra texture. Um.” You look down at the mess of flowers and greenery in your hands. It’s a mess, completely unarranged, but you can already see the colors coming together.

Chewing on your lip, you shift some of the stems around, then you look up at Jihoon. “What do you think?”

Jihoon looks down at the flowers, then up at you. He might be looking at you more than the flowers, in fact. “I think,” he says, "you’re a genius.”

From behind a curtain of leaves and tightly-shut buds, you beam at him.

(Later, over steaming bowls of instant ramen and scattered thistle stems, Chan asks you how you know Jihoon.

It takes you longer than you’d like to answer that question, but you settle with what Jihoon would say if he was here: “we work together frequently.”)

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(August)

By the time Jihoon comes around, iced coffees in tow, it’s pouring rain outside. The perfect Sunday morning of just a few hours ago is now gone, replaced with low-hanging gray clouds and relentless sheets of stinging rain. It’s so humid, the large glass walls of the greenhouse are covered in a dense layer of condensation.

You, too, are covered in a sheen of sweat as you twist green florist’s wire around stems of sunflower and seeded eucalyptus into a wreath. 

“It’s terrible in here,” Jihoon groans as he takes his place on the stool next to you. “It feels like I’m inhaling water.”

Laughing, you glanced over at him. “Jihoon, it’s a greenhouse. What did you think it was gonna be like?” 

Jihoon ignores your question, instead choosing to ask a question of his own. “Aren’t you hot? Look, you’re sweating. Here.” He holds out an iced coffee at you.

You take the cup from his hand and relish the feeling of ice-cold condensation on your skin. “Thank you, Jihoon,” you tell him, watching as his ears instantly flush red, “you’re too nice to me.”

“I’m not,” he says automatically. “You work too hard.”

“Aren’t you being a bit of a hypocrite?”

“Yes,” he answers easily. “And here.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out a small earthenware vase with streaks of blue-green glaze. “Saw this at a gallery last night. It made me think of you, so I bought it for you.”

“Oh, Jihoon,” you smile fondly. He places the vase on your work table, and then he rotates it slightly so the most interesting glaze pattern is facing you. “I love it, Jihoon. Thank you for thinking of me.” In your little office in the shop, you have a bookshelf filled with trinkets and knick knacks. There’s a school art project that Chan had gifted to you, various books on horticulture and the Victorian language of flowers, dozens of your own notebooks detailing watering orders and deliveries and watering schedules and soil formulas, and a small smattering of little glass vases and earthenware pots that Jihoon has collected for you over the years. Every week, you dust them all and wipe them down with a damp cloth so that they shine in the afternoon sun.

(A week from today when Jihoon visits and drops by your office to pick up an invoice, he stops dead in his tracks when he spots the newest vase on your desk placed between your monitor and printer. It’s prime desk real estate, dedicated just to his vase and the small arrangement of wildflowers that you’ve placed in it.)

It’s the weekend, but Jihoon is restless and itching for some work to do, so you give him a plastic tub full of loose ribbon and twine and set him to the task of spooling and organizing everything. He puts his laptop on the work table, right between your side and his side, and the two of you watch anime quietly while working. At the end of the afternoon, you have a dozen bright sunflower wreaths, and he has a full rack of spooled ribbon. 

When he helps you put everything away, back in the fridges and cabinets where they all belong, he accidentally brushes against you. For a moment, you’re so close to Jihoon, you can smell the coffee on his breath, and you wonder would it would be like to kiss him.

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(December)

“Sorry,” Jihoon says, looking genuinely apologetic under the rising and falling waves of light coming from the passing streetlights. He’s driving, and you’re pleasantly tipsy, leaning your head against the cold window and watching him.

“It’s okay, I’m not cold.” The heating is wonky in his car, and he’s bundled up in a big puffy coat with his pressed white cuffs peeking out from under his sleeves every time he moves his hands on the steering wheel. His suit jacket had been given up for you to put over your legs like a blanket, despite your protests that you would wrinkle it. It’s okay, Jihoon had shrugged, ears red, I gotta bring it to the dry cleaners anyway.

“Oh, good,” Jihoon says. He pauses and laughs. “That’s not what I was apologizing for, but I’m sorry about the heating too.”

You frown. “What are you sorry for?”

Jihoon shrugs, and for a second, he doesn’t say anything. It’s just the sound of the highway and the soft music from the radio that filters over the noise. Then, Jihoon tells you, “sorry for dragging you to a wedding and making you sit in a corner all night.”

“Oh.” You blink at him, and then you laugh. “Jihoon, you didn’t drag me to a wedding. You invited me to be your plus one, and I accepted. And you didn’t make me sit in a corner all night, we sat at a table and spent all night talking and eating.” Feeling very sleepy and warm, you grin dopily at him.  “And, for the record, I had a lot of fun.”

Jihoon doesn’t respond again for a few seconds, and you almost doze off before he speaks again. “Thanks. I, um, also had a lot of fun.”

“Thanks, Jihoon-ah,” you mumble. “Wake me up when we get to my place, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Sweet dreams.” 

(Later on, when he parks and stops the engine, he waits for a while first. You’re already awake, of course— you had woken when he turned off the highway and onto the quieter streets of your neighborhood— but you sit with your head leaned against the window and eyes closed, breathing quiet and even, and you let him have this moment. Here, in his parked car, where it’s dark and quiet, you let him watch you and chew on the inside of his cheek, hand balled up in a fist in his lap, clenching and unclenching as he struggles over whatever internal turmoil he’s working through. 

You decide to save him from his struggle and shift slightly, putting on a show of blinking awake, all dazed and bleary. 

“Cute,” Jihoon mumbles quietly.

You look up at him, wincing at your sore neck. “Huh?”

His eyes widen. You have an inkling that he didn’t mean for you to actually hear that, but he just flushes and pulls his lips into a thin line. “Did you have a nice nap?”

You smile at him and nod. “Thanks for driving, Jihoon. And thanks for inviting me to come with you.”

Jihoon nods, cheeks pink, and accepts his crumpled jacket when you hand it back to him. “Um,” he starts, looking at your right ear, “I had a really good time. With you.”

“Me too,” you grin, leaning forward. He leans back for a moment, and then he seems to recollect himself and he straightens his spine again so that the two of you are just inches apart. 

“And, I think it would be nice if we could do this again,” he finishes his statement. 

He’s so cute and flustered, you can’t help but to tease him a little. “What, go to other weddings? As guests? Just how packed is your social calendar?”

“I mean, not weddings, necessarily,” he rushes to clarify, “but, like, other things. The two of us.”

Your heart feels so full, you’re afraid it’ll bubble over. Jihoon reminds you of the gardenia plant you keep in your kitchen. You had rescued it from a hardware store, purchased at a discount when it was sickly and yellow, and you spent months and months caring for it– running a humidifier next to it, timing the amount of sun it was getting and supplementing with grow lights, testing the moisture of the soil every week, and after half a year, your little gardenia shrub produced just one large, beautiful, white blossom. Gardenias are sensitive– they like sun, but only a little bit; they like humidity, but water on the leaves will cause spots; and they won’t tolerate being moved around. You had originally planned on moving the gardenia to the shop eventually, but you ended up keeping it for yourself, this fragile little resident of your kitchen counter. 

You decide to take mercy on Jihoon. “I like you,” you smile, unable to suppress the fond way you melt at him. “We don’t have to go on dates if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, I do want to go on dates! I just…” he huffs out a quick bark of laughter and pushes his hand through his hair, messing up his perfectly styled hairdo. “I like you too.”

“That’s perfect, then.” You lean forward, even closer. “Jihoon, can I kiss you?”

“I–I,” he stammers, flushing even harder, “yeah. Yeah.”)

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(May, again)

“Hi, boss,” Chan pokes his head through the curtain separating the shop from the greenhouse. It’s his last summer before he goes off to college, so you’re having him train his younger brother before he leaves town. You’ll miss Chan, that’s for sure, but Geon is a sweet boy. “Your scary boyfriend is here again.”

You frown. “Don’t call him that.”

Chan shrugs. “I think Geon is gonna cry if you don’t come out.”

please reblog from this link! tumblr is dumb as usual 😡

1.

Not even a day into your senior year of college, you open the door to find Seungcheol on the other side and you immediately know you have a problem on your hands.

This isn’t the first time you’ve met Seungcheol. The two of you have been neighbors since freshman year, when he joined the frat next door to your sorority. He’s naturally friendly and likeable, everybody’s friend, and it’s no surprise to anyone when he’s elected the secretary, vice president, and then, this year, the president of Sigma Beta Tau. This isn’t a problem at all. And anyways, you’re also friendly and likeable, an organized, responsible leader, going into your senior year as the president of your sorority. That’s not the problem.

The problem is the broken glass littering the carpet of the downstairs hallway between the first sitting room and the study room, the empty window frame next to the mess, and the guiltily sulking forms of Mingyu and Seokmin towering behind Seungcheol.

“I’m here to apologize,” Seungcheol says, “on behalf of Sigma.”

You blink at Seungcheol. Just a moment ago, you had been in the hallway inspecting the mark on the wall left by the errant football, cussing out the mysterious perpetrator with a few of the other girls who were in the study room at the time of the incident. There’s a cut on your hand from a jagged piece of glass and a careless swing of your arm when the knocking on the front door had startled you. 

“Seokmin and Mingyu are here to clean up the glass and board the window,” Seungcheol says, tilting his head in the direction of each boy as he mentions their name. “They were playing catch in the backyard and got careless. It won’t happen again, and Sigma will foot the bill for repairs.”

But the thing is: it’s been a while since you last saw Seungcheol. He’s gotten his ears pierced and his hair is a bit grown out and pushed back, and he’s wearing a sleeveless muscle tee that shows off his broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, and he’s so fucking hot that your brain short-circuits and all words leave you.

“Kim Mingyu,” you hear a loud voice come from over your shoulder as one of your sorority sisters rounds the corner, her hands on her hips, “tell me how I just knew that it was your clumsy ass that did this? Do you not know how to throw a football? Do I need to teach you how to aim?”

“Stop it, Minjeong” Mingyu whines, immediately putting on his puppy eyes, “Seokmin was the one who threw it-“

“And you’re the one who couldn’t catch it,” Seokmin immediately counters, pointing an accusatory finger. 

“You boys are both so dumb,” Minjeong rolls her eyes, “it’s a miracle if either of you ever manages to hold hands with a girl.”

“Take that back,” Mingyu gasps, mouth falling open in shock. “Excuse me, but I’ve held multiple girls' hands before!”

“You’re the one who got dumped on Valentine’s Day last year ,” Seokmin accuses, and Minjeong’s eyes flash with rage, her mouth opening to deliver something biting and mean.

“Both of you, knock it off,” Seungcheol suddenly interrupts, his voice deep and commanding, and Mingyu and Seokmin immediately close their mouths and look guilty. You feel a not-completely-unpleasant shiver travel down your spine for some reason.

“Whatever,” Minjeong says, turning with a flip of her short hair and heading up the stairs haughtily. 

“Um,” you say, opening the door a bit wider, mouth suddenly dry, “sorry about that.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Seungcheol says again, looking genuinely apologetic. “These two are clowns, and they’ll be cleaning up their mess.” From behind him, the two guilty parties in question nod sheepishly.

“We’ll handle the broken glass. We brought gloves and everything,” Seokmin says, raising a pair of leather work gloves.

“Thanks,” you say haltingly, turning to the side to let the boys in. “The broken window is in that hallway.” You point toward the opposite end of the sitting room in the direction of the disaster zone.

“Y/N!” Seungcheol’s loud voice, bordering on a shout, startles you into a jump. When he takes your hand in his own large, warm hands, your heart nearly bursts out of your chest through your esophagus. “You’re hurt,” Seungcheol says, turning your hand over and inspecting the cut on your palm.

You blink, willing yourself not to overreact. “Oh, yeah, I think I cut myself on some broken glass.”

“Let me clean that up for you,” Seungcheol says, gently passing the tips of his fingers near the site of the wound.

Your brain isn’t functioning. It’s all static, half panicked and half dazed, as you hear yourself say “the first aid kit’s in the kitchen,” and proceed to lead Seungcheol there, with your hand laying palm-up on his the whole time. 

Later on, as he dabs at the cut with a damp paper towel and sprays it with antiseptic before patting it dry and placing a band-aid over it, you realize that you’ve made a terrible impression, even if it’s not your first. Seungcheol is an innate leader and his presence commands respect, and all you’ve done today is stand around dumbly and let your sorority sister insult Mingyu and Seokmin. 

Seungcheol gives you his number, saving himself in your phone with a cherry emoji by his name, telling you that he’ll be in contact to arrange for repairs to the window. You thank him, graciously accept his apologies once again, and send him back on his way next door, the band-aid on your palm burning a hole into your skin and tugging at the embarrassing fluttery part of your heart, and you think: you have a problem on your hands, and it’s called Choi Seungcheol. 

2. 

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

The boy in front of you falls on the ground with a shout, jumping at the sound of your shriek. He turns and you recognize him as one of the new Sigma pledges, a freshman named Chin or Cham or something. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammers, scrambling up to his knees, “I was looking for a girl—“

“Obviously! But you can’t be up here,” you snarl, pulling your bathrobe tighter around your body. You’re wearing fluffy slippers and there’s a towel around your hair. Pointing the curling iron in your hand at the boy, you glare at him. “Come with me.”

He slumps, avoiding eye contact, and lets you lead him down the stairs as if you were holding a gun to his back instead of an unplugged curling iron. You’re still in disbelief at the sheer nerve of the boy to try to sneak into the upper floors of the sorority house— your sorority house, at 9pm on a Saturday night, no less. 

“Sit,” you wave the curling iron at the bottom step of the staircase in the center of the large foyer, and the boy plants his ass on the hardwood ledge obediently, looking like a kicked puppy. “I’m calling Seungcheol.”

The boy’s eyes flash with panic. “Wait, I said I’m sorry!” But his pleas fall on deaf ears, and you already have your phone held up to your ear anyways. Seungcheol picks up almost immediately.

“Hey,” his voice is somehow deeper and rougher on the phone, “what’s up?”

“I caught one of your pledges upstairs, Seungcheol,” you say, narrowing your eyes at the topic of conversation. “Come pick up the kid.”

“Oh my god,” Seungcheol groans. “Who is it?”

You point your phone in the kid’s direction. “What’s your name?”

“Chan,” he supplies helpfully, looking miserable. “Lee.”

“Yeah, that’s one of mine,” Seungcheol sighs. You hear some rustling in the background. “I’ll be over in a minute.”

“Thanks,” you reply primly, hanging up. 

True to his word, a minute later, there’s a knock on the door. When you open it, Seungcheol stands on the other side, wavy black hair hanging over his face and dressed in an oversized sweatshirt. 

“Sorry for the kid,” he jerks his head in Chan’s direction, looking thoroughly exasperated. “Chan,” he calls out, frowning, “what’s the number one rule of sorority houses on this campus again?”

Chan pouts. “Um. Don’t break windows?”

“Wrong,” you cross your arms, letting your curling iron hang from your fingers, no longer wielding it like a police baton. “Rule number one. No boys allowed upstairs. I know it’s archaic and patriarchal, but this is literally a house full of young women with no self-preservation instinct, and college still isn’t a safe place for women, statistically. So, no boys allowed upstairs, and if we catch another one of you past the first floor again, I’ll have to ban Sigmas from this house completely.”

Chan’s jaw drops. “But Jeonghan told me that rule didn’t apply if I was invited in!”

You raise your eyebrows in disbelief the same time Seungcheol pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs a heavy, long-suffering dad sigh. “Do you think we’re vampires? And, who invited you?”

“Oh my god, Chan,” you hear a voice come from upstairs and turn to see Yerim hanging over the bannister on the third floor, lashes on, glittery makeup on her lids, wearing a tiny going-out skirt. “I was just flirting when I told you to come over! I didn’t think you’d take it literally!”

You shake your head. “We have got to raise our standards a bit,” you huff under your breath, and Yerim rolls her eyes.

“Please, sometimes I just want to have some fun with a cute himbo. We can’t all fuck fraternity presidents, can we?” 

There’s a slight choking noise from Seungcheol that’s quickly drowned out by Chan and Yerim cackling in tandem and the sound of blood rushing to your face, your heart thudding in your ears, the last of your patience leaving your body. “You,” you point at Yerim with the curling iron, once again wielding it like a weapon, “go away and stop antagonizing everyone. You,” you direct the curling iron at Chan, “don’t let me catch you back here again. And you,” you turn to Seungcheol and falter, not sure why you’re angrily rounding on him when he didn’t do anything wrong. “Um. Thanks for coming over.”

“Yeah, any time,” he fluffs the hair at the back of his flushed neck and motions awkwardly for Chan to get up. “Give me a call if you need anything. C’mon, let’s go.” 

The freshman gets up from the staircase and follows Seungcheol obediently, turning and giving Yerim a friendly wave before leaving and closing the door gently behind him.

“Hey Y/N, hurry up and finish getting dressed,” Yerim calls down from the third floor, “you said you’d sober-monitor us at the Nu Kaps’ party.” 

It’s then when you belatedly remember that this entire exchange happened while you were still in a long fluffy bathrobe covered in a pattern of little fried eggs, fluffy slippers on your feet, a wet towel piled on your head, an unplugged curling iron in your hand with the cord dragging on the floor. 

“What is wrong with me,” you huff under your breath, turning to head up the stairs.

3. 

You derive a considerable amount of pleasure from being the opposite of a stereotypical machine shop hand, you with your lip gloss, sorority letters on your laptop, and Starbucks in your hand. It’s a far cry from the burly dudes that typically run the shop, but you’re a mechanical engineering major, goddamnit, and you’re smart and friendly and you love getting paid just to help other engineering students with their projects. 

But perhaps the only downside to being a shop hand presents itself when Mingyu shows up at the tail end of your shift with a tupperware container of homemade cookies in his hands and a pout on his lips. “I need help,” he says, his voice small and helpless despite his towering stature and large biceps peeking under the sleeves of his tee. 

“Ask Johnny,” you tell him as you replace your safety glasses on the rack and scribble your time out on the sheet hanging by the door. “I’m not the shop hand on duty anymore.”

“Um, but I want your help,” he insists, following you as you shoulder your backpack and leave the shop. “Some of the brothers are trying to build a loft and we can’t figure it out, and we need an engineer.”

“A house full of dudes, and not a single one of them can put a few pieces of wood together?” You raise your eyebrows at Mingyu. He sticks by your side as you walk back home, which, unfortunately, is the same path and direction that he takes to walk home. 

Mingyu whines, “yeah, but I want your help. Did I ever tell you that you were my favorite calculus TA? And look,” he holds out the tupperware in his hands, “I made red velvet cookies stuffed with cream cheese frosting, just for you.”

For such a large, buff, fuckboy-appearing guy, Mingyu is surprisingly pathetic when he wants to be. It’s hard for you to say no when he curls his shoulders in like he’s trying to make himself small, like the world’s saddest little Victorian street urchin. “Fine,” you sigh. “I’ll help you.”

But when he leads you upstairs to the half-finished construction project, instead of the group of boys he had mentioned, you find yourself face-to-face with a sweaty, frazzled-looking Seungcheol in his bedroom, surrounded by plywood and pine beams. 

“Mingyu,” he says, furrowing his brows, “I thought you were going to get Johnny.”

“Johnny wasn’t on shift when I got there,” Mingyu replies quickly, stuffing the box of cookies in your hands. “I remembered wrong, I guess, and Y/N was the shop hand on duty, so I brought her back here instead.”

Seungcheol turns to you. He’s wearing another one of those muscle tees that shows off his large arms and broad shoulders and you can smell the scent of his aftershave mixing with freshly cut wood, and suddenly your mouth is dry and you can’t find it in you to chastise Mingyu for lying. 

“You don’t have to stay,” he tells you apologetically. “I think we can figure it out.”

You blink, snapping out of your trance, and step forward, walking over a stray pile of scattered power tools to frown at the mess of tiny holes in the drywall. “Do you boys not know what a stud finder is? You can’t just attach things to drywall and expect it to support any weight.”

Mingyu backs away, putting himself between the door and the doorframe. “A stud finder? Isn’t that you?” he squeaks, before escaping and closing the door behind him.

“Ignore him,” Seungcheol says, burying his face in his hands. “I just wanted more storage space.”

You don’t need Seungcheol to tell you to ignore Mingyu, however, because you’re already distracted by the materials laid out on the floor, quickly putting together a plan in your head. “Okay, so we’ll have these as horizontal supports,” you point to a stack of wood by the wall, putting the cookies down on Seungcheol’s desk. “But I don’t think the studs in your walls can support the shear that we’ll be putting them under, so we’ll want some diagonal beams too, to redirect the force this way and minimize torque,” you hold up your palm vertically and point your finger downward, then into your hand, to indicate the direction of force. “It’s all a really simple statics problem that Mingyu should have been able to solve.”

When you turn back towards Seungcheol, you’re surprised to see him staring at you, his eyes dark and intense. You’re caught off guard to see his attention so fully directed toward you. “Uh,” you lick your lips, suddenly feeling very awkward, “I have a stud finder at my place. I’ll grab some eye protection for us, too, and some drywall fasteners. I hope you don’t mind if I make you do all the heavy lifting, though,” you laugh nervously, eyeing his bulky arms. “I’ll, uh, be back in five.”

And while you’re grabbing the requisite supplies, you think, it probably wouldn’t hurt to spray a little perfume on yourself and refresh your lip gloss while you’re at it.

4. 

Sometimes, you resent the mom-friend reputation thrust upon you by virtue of being a senior and the president of the sorority this year, but there’s a few good reasons why you’re usually the one sober-monitoring the girls, and most of them include the fact that you’re terrible at holding your liquor. That’s why it’s a surprise when Sooyoung offers to sober-monitor at the Sigmas’ Halloween party. She’s not the most responsible sober-monitor, usually disappearing halfway through, but at least she’s one of the older ones, and it’s been a while since you last let loose.

And, besides, it’s Halloween. In the wise words of Cady Heron: in girl world, Halloween is the one night a year a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girls can say anything about it. Tonight, you and Yerim are in matching playboy bunny costumes, at her insistence. Despite the sexy alien costume hanging in your closet, you had let Yerim persuade you into the black lacy teddy, iconic white cuffs and collar, and mandatory bunny ears, with the promise of the Nu Kaps’ Halloween party tomorrow and the Betas’ Halloween party on Sunday.

You’re already drunk when you walk into the Sigmas’ house, arm linked with Yerim. It’s dark and there’s a fog machine somewhere and there’s an actual DJ in the corner, one of the brothers that you don’t recognize. Sooyoung greets you, her tall figure and eagle eyes giving her a vantage point over the costumed crowd, and pushes a drink in your hand. “Come on,” she grins, eyes twinkling, “it’s your designated night away from responsibility. Drink up!”

Already tipsy and bubbly-drunk, you tip the shot back, ignoring the burn of shitty vodka, and let Yerim drag you to the packed dance floor. You’re not sure how much time passes, but somewhere in the middle, you dance with a dude dressed as a sexy priest, you’re handed two more shots and another cup of the Sigmas’ homemade jungle juice, and you dance with a girl dressed as Harley Quinn. You end up drinking way more than you should, justifying it to yourself as just blowing off steam from midterm season. 

At some point, you find yourself laughing and hanging off Tony the Tiger (it’s Soonyoung, but you had mistaken him for Johnny, who is also dressed as Tony the Tiger (this is somehow something that happens to Johnny quite frequently)), when you see Mingyu (a fireman who can’t seem to find a shirt) accompanied by Jihoon (the world’s most miserable teletubby). You remove your arms from around Soonyoung’s tiger-striped torso to wave at your friends. 

It’s at this exact moment that you feel Soonyoung’s shoulder jerk to the side after undoubtedly having been pushed by the crowd, sending you, drunk and wobbly in your high heeled pumps, stumbling away from Soonyoung and into someone’s chest. Luckily, a pair of warm, strong arms close around you before you can fall.

You look up at your savior, and in your drunken state, it takes you a moment to realize what you’re looking at, but when your brain finally processes the visual input and translates it into a meaningful image, you bark out a short laugh. It’s Seungcheol, dressed in a maroon velvet smoking jacket, tied loosely to expose his chest. 

“Cheol! You’re dressed as Hugh Hefner,” you grin, staggering to your feet.

He frowns at you. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” you blink, struggling to clear your vision. “I think  I’m a little drunk.”

Seungcheol laughs, putting an arm around your waist to steady you. “I think you’re a lot drunk,” he says. “Come on, let’s go upstairs. I’ll get you some water. You should sit down.”

“‘M fine,” you mumble, but you still let him guide you away from the party and up the darkened stairs, his hand firmly placed against the dip of your waist, catching all your little stumbles and sways. You blink again, hard, and suddenly, you’re seated on Seungcheol’s bed in his room. The lights are on and Seungcheol is handing you a bottle of water.

“Drink,” he orders, uncapping the bottle and placing it in your hands. “You’ll regret it tomorrow if you don’t hydrate.”

Instead, you point to the wooden structure over his window, which now holds cardboard boxes and a few suitcases. “Our loft. It’s still up. I’m glad it didn’t collapse. It’s, like, our baby.”

“Yeah,” you hear him say, nudging your hands gently. “Water, remember?”

“Oh.” Obediently, you lift the bottle to your lips and drink, spilling some from the corner of your mouth and down your chest in your haste. When you’re done, you hand the half-empty bottle to Seungcheol, who caps it and places it on his nightstand. (His ears are strangely pink, but you forget about it almost as soon as you notice.)

The mattress dips as Seungcheol takes a seat next to you and places something heavy over your shoulders. You look down to see an oversized denim jacket belonging to Seungcheol covering your frame. With just a little bit of swimming, you manage to put your arms through the sleeves. The jacket smells like Seungcheol’s cologne, warm and spicy, mixed with the pleasant aroma of freshly cut softwood that still permeates his room. 

“How are you feeling?” Seungcheol’s voice is gentle, and you can’t help but to stare at his plush lips bitten cherry-red, the pale column of his neck, the exposed V of his chest. 

“Cheollie,” you whine, the nickname rolling off your drunken tongue easily, “why are you so hot?”

This time, Seungcheol flushes all the way pink. “Stop, I’m not,” he responds automatically, but you’re relentless in your current state.

“We’re matching,” you mumble, shifting closer to him until you’re almost in his lap. “We’re practically wearing a couple costume. Did you know I’d be dressing as a playboy bunny today?”

“No,” he puffs his cheeks, “the guys put me up to it. I had no idea.”

“You look so good,” you press your hand flat against his chest, tilting your head when Seungcheol shudders under your touch. “I’m normally a feminist, but I’ll make an exception for you.”

Seungcheol laughs and you feel his body vibrate underneath your palm. “That sounds like something you’ll regret saying tomorrow,” he grins, relaxing a little bit.

“Mm,” you consider his words. “That’s a problem for sober me. But Cheol, can you please just entertain drunk me for tonight? I want to kiss you so much,  it’s all I can think about,” you murmur, shifting to throw your leg over his lap and straddle him.

Seungcheol groans when you rake your nails lightly up the back of his neck, burying your fingers in his dark hair. With your other hand, you reach up, sliding your palm from his chest to his shoulder and pushing away at the collar of the velvet smoking jacket. 

“You’ll be the death of me,” he rasps, his hands settling on your hips and squeezing, before tilting his jaw up and meeting your lips with his. Seungcheol’s mouth is hot and slick, and he makes a small noise of surprise when you drag your teeth over his lower lip.

The party continues downstairs, floorboards rattling with the heavy bass from the music, but you’re focused on the quiet hitch of Seungcheol’s breath when you grind down on him, rolling your hips over the bulge in his pants. The tips of Seungcheol’s fingers ghost across the edge of your teddy, where the lace and satin stops, demarcating the line between your hip and thigh. 

Seungcheol moves down to your throat, licking and sucking lightly at the flesh under your jaw. When you feel his teeth graze against your skin, you can’t suppress the high whimper that escapes your mouth as you press your chest against his, needing to be closer to him, closer. You want his mouth everywhere, his hands everywhere, you want him everywhere on you.

And then, you wake up. 

It’s morning and the sun streams through the half-closed blinds of the window, covering the room with stripes of gold. Your head pounds with a nasty headache and you feel like something small and furry crawled into your mouth and died. You blink and, slowly, the world materializes. You’re laying on Seungcheol’s bed, still dressed in your costume from the night before, rolled on your side and propped up with a pillow against your chest so you don’t choke during the night. There’s a trash can by the bed placed to easily catch any vomit, and it’s thankfully empty. 

You blink again and realize that across the room from the bed, Seungcheol is asleep on his couch, dressed in oversized sweats with the hood pulled up over his head, cheeks squished, full lips stuck in a pout, curled into a ball with his knees drawn up to his chest. 

The previous night is hazy, but you can still remember some things. Soonyoung, dressed as Tony the Tiger. Yerim passing you another shot. You, straddling Seungcheol, his lips parted against yours, moaning into your mouth. Then, Seungcheol pushing you off his lap, cheeks flushed but firm in his insistence that you go to sleep despite your whines, your hands reaching out for his body. Seungcheol telling you that you’re too drunk for anything and putting you in bed.

“Oh my god,” you groan, voice hoarse. You’re a messy drunk, you know this, and you never should have let Sooyoung offer to sober-monitor while Yerim supplies you with drink after drink. You’re not sure if you can ever face Seungcheol again after your behavior the night before. “What is wrong with me,” you murmur to yourself, reaching out for the bottle of water and painkillers left on the nightstand for you.

(Later on when you get back to the sorority house, dressed in a borrowed tee and sweatpants from Seungcheol, you’re immediately crowded by Minjeong and Yerim, demanding updates. “Did you hook up with him,” Minjeong asks, following you into the bathroom and sitting on the counter.

“No,” you respond, pouring makeup remover onto a cotton pad and working at the smeared mess of mascara under your eyes.

“What?! You’re so hot,” Yerim huffs, crossing her arms. “He’s insane if he didn’t want to fuck you.”

“No, it was totally my fault.” You sigh, discarding the dirty cotton pad and wetting a fresh one with makeup remover. “I got way too drunk, no thanks to you, Yerim.”

Minjeong and Yerim share a look. 

“Anyways, he was just being a gentleman. We made out, but it never went past that. He said he didn’t want to do anything while I was drunk. Remember,” you wave a finger at the two younger girls, “sex happens between two consenting adults, and you can’t consent to sex if you’re a sloppy blackout drunk bitch like I was. I was lucky that I ended up going upstairs with Seungcheol, and not some random weirdo.”

“So,” Minjeong grins, pushing right past your lecture, “you’re saying that you made out with him? Is he a good kisser? How big is his dick?”

You sigh. “Get out and let me shower,” you snap, waving them out of the bathroom. “And stop being nosy about my sex life!”)

5.

You’re drunk again, this time at a club, after having been dragged out on the insistence of Mingyu and Seokmin. 

Ever since the Halloween incident, you’ve been too embarrassed to show your face around the Sigma house anymore in fear that you’ll run into Seungcheol. Which is why it’s a surprise when Mingyu and Seokmin show up at your front door, asking to see you and insisting that you join them and a few other friends to go clubbing. Predictably, all it takes for your resolve to crumble is an expertly pathetic pout from Mingyu and a whine of “I haven’t seen you in forever, I miss you,” from Seokmin.

When you arrive at the club with the two boys, however, you see a small gaggle of friends already seated in a corner booth, heads leaned together and conversing. You recognize Minjeong and Yerim instantly, but it looks like Chan and Soonyoung are also in the mix.

Yerim spots you first, turning and grinning brightly while waving her arm to flag you down. “C’mere,” she shouts over the booming music, “finish the rest of this cocktail for me, I don’t like it.”

You slide into the seat next to Yerim, pressing your thigh against hers and leaning into her side affectionately, and take a sip of the drink in her glass, only to grimace and frown. “Yerim, why would you order a long island iced tea? And, why should I trust you to hand me drinks, after what happened last time?”

“Just one drink,” she wheedles, looping her arm around yours, and you sigh, because it’s your last weekend out before you need to hunker down for finals, and because it’s Yerim and you can’t deny your favorite freshman, and because you can’t make good choices all the time.

Which is how you end up here— a little drunk, on the dance floor after having been dragged by a Seokmin who has been insisting all night that you meet one of his friends from high school, Jaehyun, who’s really cool and you’ll definitely really like, he promises, offering up his pinky when you gave him a dubious look. The guy in question, who you’re dancing with right now, is tall and broad and well-dressed, and he’s so handsome, you’re not sure you’re seeing correctly, because it shouldn’t be possible for a person to be so conventionally attractive. 

You put your arm around his shoulder, cupping your hand around the back of his neck for leverage, and lean up to speak in his ear over the music. “You’re one of the Nu Kaps, right? Aren’t they throwing a party at the house tonight?”

Jaehyun shrugs. “Yeah, but Seokmin and Mingyu made me come out here,” he tells you, tilting his head toward your neck so you can hear him over the noise. “Hey, aren’t you a TA for MEC 3110? I need some help with the problem set due tomorrow. Wanna get out of here?”

You burst into laughter, tilting your head back and swatting his chest. “Is that how you flirt?”

“No,” Jaehyun grins, “but I really do need help. I’m not actually hitting on you. I don’t want to get murdered by that guy,” he jerks his head toward the crowd behind you. You turn to look over your shoulder, only to see Seungcheol making his way through the crowd with a scowl on his face.

“Oh, that’s my friend,” you turn back towards Jaehyun. “He’s not scary, I promise.”

“Not taking my chances, sorry,” Jaehyun says, his cheeks dimpling with a smile. “So, can we meet about that problem set? I got a study group and everything. That unit on combined bending and axial loading is killing all of us.”

“Fine,” you puff, patting the side of his neck as he retracts his hands from your waist. “Text me, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll ask Seokmin for your number,” he calls, disappearing into the crowd just as you feel Seungcheol’s hand close around your wrist. 

Seungcheol tugs on your arm, spinning you around and pulling you into his chest smoothly. “Who’s that, and why does he need your number,” he asks, holding you against him with a hand on the small of your back. 

“That’s Jaehyun, a friend of Seokmin’s. He needs help with some mechanics problems,” you say, looping your arms around his shoulders easily. “He’s in my deformable bodies class.”

“He needs your help studying?” Seungcheol raises an eyebrow dubiously. “Doesn’t sound likely.”

“Maybe he has other motives. Why do you care? I’m his TA, I can’t not help,” you reply testily, frowning. Seungcheol’s hand presses tighter against the small of your back.

“I don’t care,” he says, clearly lying. “You can do whatever you want with whoever you want.”

He’s sulking, you realize. You stop dancing and stare at him. “Cheol, you’re not jealous, are you?”

Seungcheol flushes all the way to the tips of his ears and he looks away. Against your better judgement, you laugh at the sudden awkwardness that comes over him. “We’ll talk,” you promise, grabbing his hand and interlocking your fingers between his, “but not here. C’mon, let’s get out of the dance floor.” Seungcheol doesn’t put up any resistance as you pull him through the crowd, letting you lead him back to the table, linked by your clasped hands in the middle. 

The two of you slide back into the booth occupied by your friends in the back, who all zero in on your linked hands. 

“God,” Mingyu groans, slapping a ten dollar bill in Seokmin’s hand, “fine, you win.”

Seokmin holds out a hand in Chan and Soonyoung’s direction, raising his eyebrows. “Twenty from you two. I haven’t paid Minjeong and Yerim for Halloween, so we’ll count it as even.”

“Hold on,” you frown, pulling your hand from Seungcheol’s (you nearly miss the tiny sulky pout that he makes the second you stop holding his hand). “What’s going on here?”

The kids all freeze, eyes widening as they exchange looks. 

“Um,” Mingyu squeaks, shrinking back in his seat.

“I see a friend of mine,” Soonyoung blurts, springing up from his seat and escaping onto the dance floor.

“I’ll ask again,” you frown at the remaining individuals, “what’s going on here?”

It’s Yerim who speaks up. “We had a bet,” she says, coming clean. “About you and Seungcheol, and whose idea would get the two of you together.” Yerim stares at you defiantly, ignoring Chan’s panicked swats under the table, Seokmin’s deer in the headlights stare, and Mingyu’s continually shrinking frame.

“Wait,” Seungcheol pinches the bridge of his nose with a grimace, “so the loft, Chan’s break-in incident, Halloween—“

“Yes, it was all planned,” Yerim says, still defiant.

“You guys broke a window for your dumb plan,” Seungcheol exclaims, aghast. 

“No, that was an accident,” Minjeong interrupts, “Seokmin and Mingyu are really that dumb, but we all saw how obsessed with each other the two of you were then, and it just progressed from there.”

“You all do realize how inappropriate and invasive this is, don’t you?” Seungcheol scowls, and they all have the decency to at least look ashamed.

You slap your hands on the surface of the table as you get up, abruptly interrupting the conversation. “I’m leaving,” you announce. Seungcheol makes a motion to follow you, but you give him a glare that pushes him right back into his seat. “Don’t come with me,” you snarl, “any of you. I can call my own damn uber without your help.” 

As you stalk through the club, you feel a lump forming in your throat while your skin burns from embarrassment. Just moments ago, you had been ready to ask Seungcheol out on a real date, bubbly with the thought that maybe you liked him and maybe he liked you too. But now, you feel humiliated. Played by everyone, your stupid crush used as the subject of a bet, reeling from the possibility that everything you thought was true may just be a lie, after all.

+1

You spend the week after that furiously avoiding the Sigmas, but you can only hold a grudge for so long against your own girls, especially when Yerim and Minjeong come into your room with a tray of homemade brownies and guilty faces, apologizing for their intrusion into your love life.

On the other hand, it’s a lot easier for you to hold a grudge against Mingyu, who approaches you for help on a 3D printing project and immediately turns around and goes to the other shop hand on duty as soon as he sees your glare, and Seokmin, who smiles and waves to you when he sees you in line at Starbucks only to lower his hand and look at the floor when you scowl at him in response. 

Then, half out of spite and half because you’d feel bad letting them just struggle, on Tuesday night, you end up going to the Nu Kappa Tau house on the other side of campus to help Jaehyun and his friends study for their final. It’s almost 2am when you finish up and head back home for the night. By then, the shuttles have stopped running, so your only option is to make the thirty minute trek across the deserted campus. 

It’s cold and you can see your breath as you walk. Shivering, you zip your coat all the way up to your chin and pull the hood up over your head to shield your ears from the wind, in the process muffling the sound of scattered leaves blowing in the wind. It’s likely because of the hood that it takes you so long to notice the figure following you, always maintaining a distance of about half a block behind you. You don’t really register it until you see his reflection in the windows of the darkened English building as you pass. When you pass the Psychology building, he’s still there, trailing behind you, and that’s when you start to get nervous.

This late at night, there’s nobody else on this side of campus. You take a sharp turn and loop through the liberal arts campus, your pace quickening, but when you pass by the Psychology building again and check the reflection in the windows, your follower is still there. 

Panic shoots through you when you realize that you still need to walk through the quad and past the engineering campus to get home, which contains a stretch of road lined by trees and heavy landscaping. It’s lovely during the day, but at night, it’s dark and creepy. 

You lower your hood to make sure you can hear everything, and then you pull out your phone. Hands trembling, you tap on the first contact that comes to mind.

Seungcheol picks up immediately. “Y/N?” He sounds confused as to why you’re calling, which you can’t blame him for, since you had iced him out even though the whole fiasco with the underclassmen’s bet wasn’t his fault at all. “Are… you still upset?”

There’s a lot to unpack, but you have more pressing concerns on your mind right now. “Seungcheol, there’s someone following me,” you say quickly, glancing backward. He’s still there. “I’m walking past the law library right now, heading down 34th street. I took a loop around the liberal arts campus and he followed me the whole time.”

There’s a pause, and then he replies urgently, “I’ll be there in ten. Can you meet me at the student center?”

“Yeah,” you mumble.

“Good,” he says. You can hear rustling in the back and the jingling of keys. When he speaks again, it sounds like he’s jogging. “Now, can you put your phone on speaker?”

“Okay,” you pull your phone away from your ear and hit the speakerphone button with numb fingers. When his voice comes out again, it’s deeper, and the volume makes you jump.

“Hey babe, what are you doing right now?”

It takes your panicked brain a moment to figure out what he’s doing, but when you realize, you thank your lucky stars that at least one of you can think clearly under pressure. “I’m heading back,” you respond, trying your best to keep the tremble out of your voice. 

“Perfect,” he responds, still on the move. “I’ll see you soon then. Tell me about your day, baby.”

“Um.” You search your mind for non-identifying details that you can give. “I don’t know.” Stupid, you berate yourself. Stupid, stupid, but you can already see the student center building down the street. 

“That’s okay, babe, I’ll just tell you about my day,” he says in a voice that somehow manages to soothe your frazzled nerves. “I went to the gym with some of the guys this morning, then I went to the new cafe on 14th for lunch. I gotta take you there for a date sometime, it’s really nice. I think you’ll really like the cheesecake. Did some studying in the afternoon for my MGT 4350 final.”

“Which one is that again,” your teeth chatter, “Law, Management, and Economics, right?”

“Yeah,” he sounds genuinely surprised. “You remembered.”

“Of course, Cheol, I’m not completely self absorbed.” You check over your shoulder again. You’re still being followed, but the distance is wider now. Looking back forward, you see the distant figure of Seungcheol lightly jogging over the hill towards the student center. “Look,” you say suddenly, slightly louder than you intended, “I’m sorry for what happened at the club last week. It wasn’t your fault, so I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“What, no, you don’t have to apologize,” is his immediate response. 

“Are you mad at me, Cheol?”

“No, I’m not. I was a little bummed this week when I didn’t see you, but I’m not mad, or upset at you at all.”

“Oh.” You sniffle. “Thanks for understanding. I was worried that I had fucked everything up.”

“No, no, no. I, um, I’m glad you called me.”

“Yeah, me too,” you say, walking up the well-lit path leading to the student center entrance. Seungcheol greets you there, his hair mussed, a light sheen of sweat over his forehead, dressed in pajamas with a leather bomber jacket haphazardly thrown on top, and you end the call and shove your phone back in your pocket.

Seungcheol takes your hand and pulls it into his pocket as the two of you walk back, pulling you close into his side. “You doing okay?” 

“Y-yeah,” you respond, still tense, but considerably less anxious. “Can you check if he’s still back there?”

Seungcheol turns his head, craning his neck as he scans the darkened streets. “No, I don’t think so,” he frowns. You breathe a sigh of relief.

“Hurry, let’s go home,” you tug at his arm and hold him close to your side like a shield.

The walk back is silent and tense, with Seungcheol occasionally turning back to check for anybody who might be following. The whole time, you feel like you’re hyper-aware of each cracking twig and each dry rustle of the fallen leaves lining the sidewalks, so much so that even the distant hooting of an owl makes you jump and tug Seungcheol in front of you. 

Eventually, the two of you make it back to your sorority house. You enter the password in the keypad with trembling hands, and when Seungcheol hesitates by the threshold, you tug him inside after you. “Stay with me for a little while,” you insist.

The inside of the house is dark. Seungcheol trails after you while you make your way through every room on the ground floor, watching as you flick on the lights and check each window and exterior door to make sure they’re all locked.

By the time you’re done, it’s 3am. The two of you are standing back in the foyer by the front door. “Um,” you tug at the sleeves of your coat, “thanks for… everything.”

“Of course,” Seungcheol smiles, “anytime.” And you know he’s telling the truth, that he’d drop everything and come to your side, to any of your friends’ sides, any time anybody needs help. 

“I meant what I said on the phone earlier,” you tell him.

“I did too.” 

You think you might melt under his affectionate gaze. “You know I’m going to have to kick you out now, right?”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol laughs. “Give me a call if you need anything, though. Anything.”

“Okay. Um.” You suck in a breath. Well, here goes nothing. “Thanks for pretending to be my boyfriend earlier. But you don’t have to pretend, if you don’t want to. I like you a lot, Seungcheol.”

His entire demeanor lights up. He reaches out and takes your hand in his, running the pad of his thumb over your knuckles. “I think I’ll take you up on your offer,” he grins, eyes sparkling. “I like you a lot, too.”

“Good,” you respond, letting a smile spread across your face. 

Seungcheol steps forward, closing the distance between your bodies. “Can I kiss you?”

“Please,” you breathe, your heart fluttering. You feel his hand come up to cup your jaw and angle your face up toward him. When he kisses you, it’s a soft, chaste press of his lips against yours, short and sweet. It’s barely a peck, but it carries the promise of more.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he assures you as he steps back and opens the front door.

“See you tomorrow,” you grin dopily. You feel like you’re floating.

“The kids are gonna riot,” Seungcheol laughs.

For the past four nights, every night, his new neighbor has ordered their delivery to the wrong apartment— his apartment, to be specific. The first time, Chan wrote it off as a mistake. After all, it’s a new address, and his new neighbor is probably still settling in. He smiles at the delivery driver and redirects him to the correct door, and then he  doesn’t think about it again, until the next night, when there’s a knock on his door again. Okay. Maybe his new neighbor is just dumb.

And then it happens again. And again. 

Once is a harmless mistake, twice is annoying, but three times? Four? At this point, Chan is irritated. No, he’s more than irritated, he’s fuming. That’s why, this time, instead of just redirecting the delivery driver, he takes the plastic bag and shoves his feet into a pair of slides and stomps down the hallway, planning to confront the perpetrator of these delivery crimes himself. Chan imagines his neighbor and their stupid face and how annoying and gross they must be. After all, who the heck orders delivery for dinner every single night? They must be hideous and stinky, Chan tells himself. 

(He had complained to Soonyoung, but instead of the sympathy and cooing he had expected, his hyung had just stared at him blankly. “You could just talk to them,” Soonyoung had said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

Chan huffed. Nobody in this world understands his struggles. “You’re useless,” he announced dramatically, but in his head he’s silently wondering why he hadn’t thought of that himself. Still, Chan would rather die than admit that Kwon Soonyoung had given him helpful advice.)

Chan knocks on the offending door with a bit more force than necessary, and he’s half expecting to meet Shrek on the other side of the door. But instead, when the lock clicks and the knob turns, Chan’s world stops spinning. His mouth is open, ready to unload a week’s worth of complaints on his new neighbor, but his words die on his tongue, because his neighbor just happens to be the prettiest girl he’s ever seen in his twenty four years. 

There’s music playing somewhere, and Chan swears it sounds just like a romance drama OST. Everything is suddenly a little hazy and a little sparkly, like he’s been plucked from his ordinary life and placed in an impressionist painting. If he didn’t believe in love at first sight before, he certainly does now, because there’s no other explanation for the stirring in his chest or the hot flush that spreads across his cheeks. 

His neighbor blinks at him, with her big shiny eyes, eyes that Chan could drown in, and then she opens her pretty mouth, with those sweet, kissable lips, and she speaks to him.

“Thanks!” 

She takes the food from his hand and a second later, Chan is looking at the closed door. 

He looks down at his oversized tee shirt with the ramen stain near the hem and his ratty basketball shorts and his old Adidas slides, and he groans. 

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.

.

Your new apartment is nice. For one, it has stainless steel appliances and a basement laundromat. Not to mention, it’s nicely located next to a subway station. It’s quiet at night and gets plenty of sunlight during the day. And, the best part, is that you no longer have to deal with your annoying former roommate Mingyu, who you’ve lived with ever since your second year of university. 

The major drawback, however, is that you no longer get to deal with your annoying former roommate Mingyu. Which means the free meals you’ve enjoyed for the past few years in exchange for grocery money are gone, and now you’re faced with the daunting task of cooking. 

Well, cooking can wait until another day. 

For now, you’re happy ordering delivery from the jjampong place down the street again. 

Twenty minutes later, when your doorbell rings, you pull yourself off the couch and pause the drama you were watching, stomach already grumbling at the prospect of a hot, steamy bowl of noodle soup. You open the door and come face to face with someone you recognize as the cute delivery boy from yesterday. 

Except today, the delivery boy is wearing a suit?

He flashes a dazzling smile at you and reaches out, proffering the plastic bag containing your noodles. “Hi,” he says, eyes curving into crescents. Oh. The cute delivery boy is really cute. And even if the suit is a weird choice for a delivery run, it looks good on him. 

“Thanks,” you smile at him politely. “Wow, I didn’t know I ordered the VIP service.” 

He leans against your door frame, posing in a very suave way, or at least that’s what you think he’s trying to do. Okay, now this is definitely weird, and you’re still starving, so you smile at him again. 

“Thank you, have a nice night,” you say, “you have a stain on your shirt, though. Here.” You turn and hand him a wet wipe from the purse hanging by your door. 

“D-huh?” His mouth hangs open. You pause and wait, and when he doesn’t say anything else, you step back and close the door.

(The same cute delivery boy twice in a row? Maybe this is a sign for you to order from the jjampong place tomorrow too.)

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.

“I’m really not sure why this isn’t working,” Chan sighs, burying his face into Junhui’s shoulders while he helps him stretch. He’s at the studio tonight with his little dance group. Soonyoung is in the corner, scowling at Chan because he had the nerve to show up to dance practice late. (Chan has a good excuse, though– he had to wait for his neighbor’s delivery to get there first!)

Junhui is sinewy and flexible like a cat, melting easily into the stretch. Chan swears he hears a purr rumbling from the older man. He looks up, and Junhui is smiling at him through his reflection in the mirrored wall. “Channie,” Junhui sings, lips curling in mirth, “oh our poor baby has a crush!”

“He’s a grown man,” Minghao points out flatly. 

“Right, I’m a grown man,” Chan agrees.

“Which means,” Minghao continues, “you’re too old to be acting like this.”

Chan can’t help the weird frown that flashes across his face. Not a pout.

“C’mon,” Junhui laughs, somehow even bending forward further in a slightly freaky way, “you have to know that this is an insane way to approach the situation.” 

“Well, how was I supposed to go about seducing my neighbor?”

Minghao narrows his eyes. “Definitely not by bringing her dinner every night like some kind of misguided housecat.”

Junhui perks up at the mention of cats, but is immediately and silently shot down by a glance from Minghao. Junhui grins. “Fine, maybe that’s not the best cat behavior to emulate. Have you considered rolling on her carpet and showing her your belly? I mean, there’s got to be a reason you insist on spending all your free time at the gym instead of cuddling with me, Chan.” 

“You have to admit, though,” Minghao edges closer, legs crossed, “it’s all kind of pathetic. I mean, she doesn’t even know your name.”

“Ok, how am I supposed to fix this then?”

Chan’s despair is evidently the impetus Soonyoung needs to stop sulking and join the rest of the group. He shuffles across the floor on his hands and knees to slide into the circle. “Oh, I got this. You go to her door and say, ‘did you order coffee? Because I like you a latte.’” He nods, self-satisfied. “Foolproof.”

“Or,” Junhui sits up, “something like ‘I may not have the jumbo cucumber you ordered, but I have something better.’” He jerks his hips slightly to punctuate the terrible pickup line and Chan physically recoils.

Soonyoung, on the other hand, cackles in delight. “Oh! ‘Do you wanna buy a hot dog? Because you make my wiener stand!’”

“Definitely don’t try any of those,” Minghao says flatly, “unless you want to get pepper sprayed.”

Chan is too worked up by Soonyoung and Junhui’s combined energy to be deterred by Minghao now, however. “Ok, how about this,” Chan says, “my name is Lee Chan, and I’m your biggest Lee Fan!”

“Perfect,” Soonyoung crows, clapping Chan on the back. 

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.

“I can’t believe you haven’t cooked once since you moved in,” Mingyu whiles as he chops scallions, like you’ve somehow personally offended his sensibilities. “I mean, delivery every night? Who does that?”

“Me,” you huff. Mingyu is back from his three month sabbatical in Thailand and had offered to make dinner for you in your apartment, like a belated housewarming. As soon as he entered your kitchen, he immediately began fussing over the sorry state of your spice cabinet and your nearly empty fridge. “And anyways, I do cook sometimes.”

“Instant ramen and hard boiled eggs don’t count,” he counters, knife in hand.

What you refuse to admit, however, is that you’ve started to enjoy your frequent visits from the delivery boy. You’ve gleaned that his name is Lee Chan, he’s a student at the local university, he’s part of a dance team, and he’s very, very, very cute. One of these days, you’ll ask him out, but you still feel like you couldn’t do it while he’s working. Maybe you’ll get lucky and meet him out on the street or something.

Though, it might be a while before you see Lee Chan again, now that Mingyu is back in town. The delivery boy is cute, but you’re not one to turn down meals by Mingyu.

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.

Chan has a dilemma. It’s been an entire week since his cute nighbor has ordered delivery. An entire week since he’s seen her face. An entire week since he’s handed over her food, his fingers missing hers by mere centimeters. At this point, he’s getting desperate– the other day, he woke up at 3am and hallucinated that in the shadows, his bedside lamp kind of looked like her face. 

It’s dinnertime, and yet again, she hasn’t ordered anything. So Chan takes matters into his own hands–

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.

—you open the door to see the delivery boy. He’s holding a bubble tea takeout order in his hand– your favorite– but as much as you love to see his cute face and as much as you love bubble tea, this is still a very strange random encounter.

“Hi,” he says, grinning dopily. 

You smile at him. “Um. I didn’t order this.”

“I know.” His smile starts faltering. “I, uh, bought this for you.”

He holds out the bubble tea, but you don’t take it. “Thanks, but you didn’t have to.” You’re still smiling at him, though, and he seems slightly bolstered by your response. 

“You should take it.” He holds out the bag again. “I mean, I bought it anyway, and I don’t even like bubble tea.” 

Well, fine. You take it, somewhat reluctantly. “Do you want to come in?”

“Yes,” the delivery boy says, “especially because I have something I have to tell you.”

The nurse is patient as she gently guides you away from her cheek. “He dropped you off earlier. Why don’t you take a seat?” With wide eyes, you obediently plant your butt in one of the waiting room chairs. Not the one next to Wonwoo, of course, but the next one over.

Wonwoo stands, making your careful chair selection moot. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes, everything went fine,” the nurse responds, “she’ll probably be out of it for the next couple of hours.” Her eye catches on something. “Look, why don’t you show her her phone? That might make it a bit easier to take her home.”

“Oh,” Wonwoo raises his eyebrows and his mouth forms a small ‘O’ shape. He looks so cute, you think you might burst into tears. “Here,” he hands you your phone, which he was holding right on top of his own. You take it.

The lock screen flashes on as you lay it flat, and you stare at the picture set as the wallpaper. It’s you and Wonwoo, taken at some sandy beach. It’s either sunrise or sunset, because in the picture, your eyes are closed and you’re laughing while Wonwoo looks at you with the most tender, lovesick expression possible.

While the nurse talks to Wonwoo about painkillers and solid food and when to take out the gauze and whatnot, you flip the phone over in your hands to see a polaroid under your clear phone case. It’s a picture of two hands, pinkies linked. Even in your drug-addled mind, it doesn’t take much deduction to figure out who the hands belong to.

You look up. “You’re my boyfriend,” you stammer, mouth thick with wads of gauze. 

Wonwoo nods. “I am.”

You feel tears welling up in your eyes. “How did I manage to pull Mingyu’s hot roommate?”

He ignores your question, but you can see the tips of his ears turning pink. “Do you want to go home now?”

“Home?”

“Home,” he repeats. “Come on.”

He takes your hand, pulling you up out of the chair. His hands are so firm, you marvel. “Are we going back to your apartment?”

“We’re going back to our apartment,” he corrects you. 

“We live together?!” You stumble over flat pavement, but Wonwoo’s grip on your hand is tight and you manage to keep your balance. 

“We’ve been living together for a year.” Wonwoo opens the passenger side door for you and you scoot in. 

“Wow.” 

Wonwoo gets in the driver’s seat and after getting settled, he turns his head to check on you. “Here you go,” he says quietly as he reaches across your body. You feel like your heart is about to beat right out of your chest— he’s so close to you, you can feel his breath across your neck. He sits back up, and you hear the click of the seat belt buckling. 

“W-why did you do that?” You try your best not to sound flustered.

“What, put on your seat belt for you? It didn’t look like you were going to do it.” He starts the car and you try not to squeak when he puts his hand on the back of your seat to check before pulling out of the parking spot. 

“You were so close to me! It’s… it’s weird!”

“Oh?” Wonwoo laughs, and you think it’s the nicest sound you’ve ever heard. You must be a saint in this life if he’s your boyfriend. 

“Yeah!” You nod furiously. “What if we accidentally touched or something?!”

“I don’t mind if we touch,” he says. “Do you?” He signals and makes a smooth turn at an intersection. Meanwhile, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the side mirror. 

“Oh no,” you moan quietly, leaning forward to squint at your reflection, “my mouth is full of blood.” You reach up, but you’re stopped by Wonwoo’s hand around your wrist.

“Don’t,” he orders, not looking away from the road. “You can take the gauze out after 30 minutes.”

You pout. “But there’s blood,” you mumble. “My mouth is full of blood and you’ll never kiss me.”

Wonwoo laughs again. You’re not sure what’s so funny, because if you’ve somehow managed to bag Jeon Wonwoo, that means you should be able to kiss him, and you can think of nothing else you want more. “Don’t worry,” he says, grinning. He pulls into a parking spot in an underground garage. This must be where you live, you think. Wonwoo lifts your hand to his mouth and kisses your knuckles, like some kind of Victorian gentleman. “I'll kiss you as much as you want later,” he promises.

You squeak and hide your face as he steps out of the car and comes around to the other side to open the door for you. “You’re flirting with me,” you blubber, cheeks hot, as you let him help you out of the car. 

“Mhm. Is that okay?” Wonwoo takes your hand again and guides you toward an elevator. 

“I’m shy,” you lie to him, and Wonwoo bursts out into laughter. You watch as his nose scrunches and his eyes close, and you try your best not to trip over your feet.

“Huh, I don’t think that’s quite right,” he grins, and you realize he’s teasing you. 

“Are you really my boyfriend?”

Wonwoo nods.

“Wow,” you sigh to yourself. “I’m so lucky. Are we going to get married?”

You turn just in time to see Wonwoo flush entirely pink, all the way down his neck. “W-we’ll see,” he stammers, unlocking the front door. As soon as the door swings open, there’s the tiniest sound of a bell jingling, and you instantly enter the apartment and fall to your knees. 

“Tuna!” The fat gray cat pads cautiously around you, sniffing at you before rubbing his haughty head against your leg. “Tuna,” you blubber, petting at his cute triangle-shaped ears, “I missed you, Tuna.”

“So you remember the cat, but not me,” Wonwoo mumbles as he kicks off his shoes and closes the door behind him. 

“Don’t be jealous, Wonwoo.” You pick up the cat and hold him like a baby. Tuna looks alarmed, but makes no attempt to escape. “Wonwoo, why is our cat so chubby?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Wonwoo replies. “You’re the one who keeps giving him treats.”

You look around. Tuna’s flabby belly spills across your arms while he cranes his head to watch Wonwoo set the bag from the oral surgeon’s office down and head to the kitchen. There’s a small collection of novelty magnets on the fridge, and a row of shoes lines the entryway. A ratty little banana-shaped catnip toy is wedged in one of Wonwoo’s boots. You can see into the dining room, where a stack of law school textbooks sits next to two mugs. 

Tuna twists and leaps out of your arms, escaping down the hall. 

“Wonwoo,” you feel tears spilling down your cheeks. Immediately, Wonwoo pokes his head around the corner. 

“Are you okay? What’s wrong,” he asks gently, coming to kneel next to you.

“Wonwoo,” you throw your arms around his shoulders, “I love you so much.” You’re sniffling and sobbing into his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, he hugs you back and rubs circles into your back, familiar and comforting. 

“Don’t cry,” he murmurs. You think you can hear him smiling in his voice.

“I love you so much,” you blubber. “I love you, Wonwoo.”

You stare at him. “What?” You must be wearing a particularly dumb expression on your face, because your boyfriend laughs and squeezes your knee affectionately. 

How Wonwoo tells it is like this: he’s gaming with Seungcheol and Jihoon on Wednesday night when they bring up their regular Saturday night overwatch sessions, and that’s when Wonwoo drops the bomb, as casually as if he was discussing a particularly good play, “oh, I can’t do this Saturday. I have plans with my girlfriend.”

There’s a pause, nearly fifteen seconds of silence, before Jihoon and Seungcheol break out into raucous laughter. Jihoon cackles, as Wonwoo describes. “Sure, Jeon,” Jihoon says, presumably wiping a few mirthful tears from his eyes, “your girlfriend.”

“She’s not a pillow, is she,” Seungcheol asks suspiciously. 

With his saint-like bottomless reserve of patience, Wonwoo waits for his friends to finish laughing before explaining, “she’s friends with Mingyu, Minghao, and Seokmin. We’ve been dating for two months.”

“Sure, whatever,” Jihoon says, “you could have just said you wanted to jack off and pass out at 9pm, we don’t judge.” Which is a lie, you tell Wonwoo as he recounts this encounter to you, because evidently, Seungcheol and Jihoon are great at judging.

Wonwoo is a lot more forgiving than you, however, because he just smiles and shrugs. “Their loss if they want to believe you’re imaginary. I think you’re great.”

“Shut up,” you sputter, shoving him lightly in the shoulder, and he just laughs, deep and comforting.

.

.

.

You’re tipsy and angry and clumsy as you slide into the passenger seat of Wonwoo’s car. Fifteen minutes ago, you had called him to pick you up from this shitty house party, and like the perfect boyfriend he is, he had dropped everything to come to your rescue. 

“Are you okay?” He hands you a bottle of water as he pulls away from the curb, placing a hand behind the headrest of your seat while he checks the road behind him. 

“Thanks,” you grumble, uncapping the water and chugging half the bottle. “I’m fine, just pissed.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He glances at you out of the corners of his eyes. The orange street lights flash through the windows as the car passes under them.

You sigh, balling your fists up. “There’s this guy, he’s kind of in mutual friend circles with us, and I might have hooked up with him freshman year,” you admit. You turn to make sure Wonwoo isn’t upset, but he just shrugs and motions for you to go on. “Anyways, he was at the party, and he kept hitting on me. I told him that I was taken, but he didn’t believe me. He was convinced that I was lying,” you say, scowling as you remember the way he laughed at you. Mingyu’s roommate? You couldn’t have thought of a better excuse? “And he got weirder and touchier until Mingyu and Minghao kicked him out.” 

“I’ll come with you next time,” Wonwoo offers, but you just shake your head.

“I know you don’t like going to these things,” you deflate, slumping in the seat. “You don’t have to make yourself uncomfortable just because some assholes don’t understand boundaries. I mean, even if it was a lie, he was still in the wrong.”

“I know.” Wonwoo reaches across the center console and rests a soothing hand on your thigh, and the skin contact calms you almost instantly. “But I don’t want you feeling uncomfortable either.”

“I don’t know,” you sigh. “It’s okay, I have Minghao to keep me company. He knows how to fight.”

“Hmm,” Wonwoo hums, his expression inscrutable.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” You entwine your fingers with Wonwoo’s, holding his hand over your lap as he drives. “Can I stay over at your place tonight?”

“Of course, baby,” he lifts your hand to his lips and presses a soft kiss against your knuckles.

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.

When you and Wonwoo arrive at Seokmin’s birthday party, it goes nearly unnoticed. After all, you’re late (through no fault of your own– it’s not your fault if your skirt is short and Wonwoo got handsy in the car), the party is in full swing, and the front door is down the hall and out of the way.

“C’mon,” you tug on Wonwoo’s hand, pulling him toward the sound of thrumming music, “it sounds like Seokmin and Seungkwan got their hands on the karaoke machine.”

Wonwoo laughs quietly, following you as you amble into the kitchen in search of a drink. “Do you want me to make you something,” you ask as you rifle through the fridge for some limes. “Seokmin usually doesn’t mind if I help myself to his secret mixers. He can’t mix a cocktail to save his life.”

“I’m good,” Wonwoo replies, watching as you pull out a bottle of tonic water from the back of the fridge. He settles a comfortable arm around your shoulder, watching as you make yourself a gin and tonic. “And anyways, if you’re going to get as crazy as I think you are,” he says as you pour yourself a 1:1 mix, “at least one of us has to be able to walk straight at the end of the night.”

You grin at him. “You’re the best, Wonwoo,” you kiss his jaw, curling into his chest briefly before grabbing your drink and heading out to the living room where the rest of your friends are partaking in a particularly rowdy rendition of Like Ooh-Ahh. 

But, before you can pass the doorway out of the kitchen, Wonwoo stops you with a hand around your waist. You turn, looking back at him. “Hmm?”

He doesn’t explain himself. Instead, Wonwoo curls his other hand around the back of your neck, tilting your head back, before delivering a searing kiss against your lips. You make a quiet muffled yelp as he licks against the seam of your mouth, and automatically, you part your lips for him. The hand that’s not holding your drink flies up to his chest, fisting in his shirt as you feel your knees go weak. For a moment, all you can think about is the heat of Wonwoo’s mouth, his teeth dragging against your bottom lip, the way he kisses you like he’s tasting you– just his, ripe for the taking, like he could devour you if he wanted, taking you apart piece by piece. 

His hand is firm against your waist, holding you in place against his body. When he pulls away, you gasp at the sudden loss of contact, heart pounding in your chest, and then you hear the shrieks.

“In front of God and everyone,” Seokmin says directly into the karaoke mic as Soonyoung rolls on the ground, laughing hysterically. Minghao is covering his face with his hand, steadfastly ignoring your existence, while Jihoon and Junhui stare in open-mouthed shock. 

ten minutes and two allergy pills later, you’re furiously lint rolling your pajamas, which is futile considering the fact that your rude intruder is currently meowing and rubbing itself against your legs while headbutting you affectionately.

“i know, i know,” you sniffle, “you’re very sweet, but you make my eyes hurt and the benadryl hasn’t kicked in yet.”

“meow,” the cat replies plaintively.

“how did you get in anyways?” you wrack your brain for any entry points to your ninth floor apartment that this cat could have possibly used, but your brain is coming up blank. “you’re clearly somebody’s pet,” you tell the cat. he’s a fat grey cat with large eyes and little white feet— feet that are too clean and white to belong to a stray. “you’re clean, and you’re friendly. somebody is missing you.”

“mrrrrrow,” the cat says, standing up on his hind legs to place two delicate paws against your knee. “meow?”

“what is it, buddy,” you put down the lint roller, having given up on de-catifying your pajamas, “do you want attention?”

“mow,” the cat responds.

“okay, well the allergy meds are finally kicking in,” you sigh, crouching down and scratching the cat behind the ears. he instantly flops over and rolls onto his back to expose his fluffy belly. “i know it’s a trap,” you frown. the cat looks at you with those wide amber eyes, almost expectantly.

“mrow,” the cat demands, and you sigh.

“fine.” you reach out toward the cat’s belly, only to be met with gleeful biting and pawing as he attacks your hand. “ow!”

.

.

.

it’s almost noon when you step out of your apartment, dressed in real human clothes with the little demon wrapped in a towel in your arms.

(“i don’t have a cat carrier,” you tell him, “and we gotta get you to the vet to check for a microchip. is it okay if i carry you?”

“meow,” the cat responds, lamp-like eyes round as you extend your hands.

he bats your arm as a warning, leaving faint red streaks. “ow!”

five minutes and an instructional youtube video about cat handling later, you’ve got him bundled up in a fluffy towel and he’s managed to calm down, too. if someone isn’t looking closely, they might even mistake the bundle in your arms for a baby.)

you’re walking down the hall of your apartment building, cat held close to your chest, when the door next to yours suddenly opens, flying towards you. jumping back, you let out a strangled yell as the cat in your arms makes an angry yowl of protest and manages to writhe out of the towel burrito. for a few seconds of terror, the grey cat in your arms scrambles up your shoulders and presses up against your face before he jumps to the ground and scales a pair of very long legs to settle in a pair of arms.

“soup!”

you recognize your new neighbor standing there, cradling the cat in his arms. he looks absolutely terrible-- his socks are mismatched and his sweatpants are ratty and his tee shirt is on backwards. through his round glasses, you can see dark circles under his eyes. “oh, soup,” he repeats, his deep voice wavering, relief apparent in every fiber of his being,

“you named your cat soup,” you say incredulously, holding the towel in your hands. your new neighbor looks up and meets your gaze, and you realize, miserably, how tall and handsome he is. “he broke into my apartment,” you explain lamely, pointing at the cat currently hanging off his shoulder.

he stares at you for one very long second before straightening himself and running a hand through his tousled hair, making it even more effortlessly tousled. “um, thank you so much,” he says, eyes wide, “for taking care of my cat. i’m wonwoo.”

he extends his hand. soup the cat is unfazed and remains on wonwoo’s chest, looking over his shoulder. you begin to introduce yourself, reaching out to accept his handshake, when you’re rudely interrupted by a sneeze.

“euugh,” you rub at your nose with your sleeve, which is covered in cat hair, and then you sneeze again, this time with tears springing to your eyes.

“um,” wonwoo says, still standing in front of you with his hands extended.

“sorry,” you sniffle, eyes narrowing as they begin to sting, “i’m allergic.”

wonwoo’s mouth drops open into a small ‘o’ shape as the realization sets in.

“i’m glad soup is home,” you say as you step backwards, “but i gotta go and take some benadryl. nice to meet you, wonwoo. see ya around. bye, soup!”

.

.

.

“thanks for being a good neighbor” reads the card attached to the vase of flowers outside your door. “sorry about the cat, can i take you out for dinner?” is written underneath, and then there’s wonwoo’s name and a string of ten numbers.