. . . ENHA HYUNG LINE AND ROMANCE TROPES
warnings none / genre fluff, office & college & friends to lovers & second chance au / word count 1.3k (~300 per member)
LEE HEESEUNG is your work colleague at suh enterprises, a fellow data analyst. his cubicle is just across the walkway from your own and you’ve been enamored from day one; outside of your supervisor, heeseung was the first person to greet you on your very first day, telling you that if you had any questions or needed anything, he was more than willing to help. with soft doe eyes and a gentle smile, you were gone at first glance.
since then, it’s been a slow march forward in your relationship with him. for a long few months, it was one-sided yearning glances and little keurig meetings in the break room, chatting about your weekends and the office birthday parties coming up, mundane things that really don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.
but then he’d started peeking his head into your cubicle, asking if you wanted the rest of his lunch because he was full, passing you his half-empty bento box and a clean pair of chopsticks. on days you were sick, you’d come back to work with vitamin c packets on your desk; other days, a mug of coffee would be waiting on a coaster in your cubicle, made just the way you like it. sometimes, heeseung even waits for you on late nights, slowing down his own pace so you can leave together.
what neither of you know is that the office has a betting pool on when you’re going to realize you’re in love with each other and make it official; beomgyu, resident office gambler, has a hundred won placed on another year of suffering through your “disgusting” beating around the bush (turns out, he’s a few days short and wins close to four hundred won).
PARK JONGSEONG changes your ideology on love at first sight. he’s a regular at your favorite study place: the cafe just down the block from your apartment building. you’re five semesters deep into your bachelors in psychology, so you’re in the coffee shop often (give or take every single day of the week). there’s a table you love that’s close to the front, but not so close that you’ll be blinded by the sun when it cuts into the gaps between buildings as it sets.
he waltzes in on a random stormy saturday morning, dripping wet and protected only by the leather jacket he wears. your eyes trail him from the entrance to the register, meeting his gaze once as he passes by you. he even grants you a tiny shimmer of a smile, one side of his mouth quirking up as he ghosts by your table. it’s enough to have you bristling under your sweater and you have to drag your attention from his black leather-clad figure to your laptop, word document cursor blinking at you from an unfinished sentence in a paper for your criminal psychology class.
no matter how much you try to refocus and make progress on this paper, you just can’t (thank god it’s not due for another three weeks). your mind is just far too preoccupied with the pretty boy you made eye contact with, mind whirling with questions about him: what’s his name? is he a student like you? what are his hobbies? lost in your thoughts, you almost jump out of your fucking skin when the chair across from you screeches against the tile floor and the very boy sits down at your table, an iced americano cradled in his hands. when you finally meet his eyes again, your granted a deeper smile and a name: jongseong, or jay, if you’re lucky (which you seem to be because you sit and talk for so long that your laptop dies… and you don’t care).
SIM JAEYUN is the brother of your best friend, so he’s always been distinctly off limits. she’d sworn you to that one night in the darkness of her bedroom after getting buzzed off of some wine she’d skimmed from her mom’s collection; or rather, she’d sworn you to be off limits from him. “i met you first, which means you’re my person, not his. you’re off limits, ‘kay? don’t let him get to you.” and you’d giggled and told her that you wouldn’t even look in his direction if it was that important to her.
but that was a couple years ago and you’re not high schoolers anymore. in fact, while she moved cities for university, you stayed home and ended up going to the same school as her brother, living in the same dorm and sharing a couple of gen ed classes with him during that first semester. with so much distance between you and your best friend, jake was the next best thing and you were spending an increasing amount of time with him. so how important was that promise you’d made when you were half-gone on dry wine?
you go on study dates at the library, he shows up at your dorm room with your favorite coffee order in hand when you’re having a rough day, he saves you a spot next to him in every class you share together. there are other little things he does that having you falling for him in a way that your friend forbid all those years ago, but you can’t stop yourself, not when you’re watching him run across the quad, an umbrella in hand, because it started pouring down rain during class and you’d forgotten to bring yours. if this is how he loves, then surely it’ll be worth it to break that promise.
PARK SUNGHOON was the one who got away. you were the star figure skating duo at your hometown rink, perfectly in sync and a beautiful couple on the ice. out of everyone you’d ever trained with, sunghoon was always the one you felt most comfortable with; your chemistry was undeniable, but it was the way he supported you on and off the ice that made him your favorite partner by far.
so of course you’d gone and fallen in love with him, just a naive teenager who was itching to have your first taste of romance. how fitting would it be to have sunghoon as your first love, seeing as so many of your performances were romantic in nature anyways? but then he’d told you one night after practice, sitting on the bleachers and taking your skates off, that he was quitting and moving away to chase a new dream and you’d sat there, staring at him, waiting for him to say that he was just kidding. when he leveled that icily serious stare of his at you, the gravity of it settled in deep and fast, and you’d stood up abruptly without a word and walked away stiffly, willing away tears, even as he called after you.
it was the last time you’d seen him.
you’re older now, more mature than you were a handful of years ago. you’re not a figure skater anymore, at least not professionally, but you coach young skaters five nights a week at a rink in the city, your new home, while you shoot for your bachelors in sports medicine.
it’s tuesday evening and you just waved goodbye to the last of your students a few minutes ago. as you’re cleaning up a few things from practice, you hear the door open and slam closed, echoing loudly. you start to make a joke about one of your students who always forgets something of theirs on the bleachers, but when you turn to face them, a much taller, much older park sunghoon stands before you, a pair of skates in hand. his shoulders are broad, waist just as slim as you remember, but he’s so much more handsome.
it’s been a while since you saw him last, but the soft lopsided smile he offers you awakens some old feelings. and you hope that maybe this time, they’ll stick.
