#restlessmaknaewrites

The only reason you said yes to this blind date was because your mother specifically warned you not to intimidate the guy she would want to set you up with.

Which meant that you had successfully intimated some guys before, enough that she would hear back from the indignant mothers of the other douchebags you had been set up with. Also, if being honest and being yourself meant that guys were scared of you, then so be it. You needed no one’s approval to live your life the way you wanted, much less a man’s.

It’s not that you hated all men. You knew there were nice ones out there. Like your primary school headteacher, your next door neighbour when you had been living in a flatshare during university, the elderly men selling your favourite mandu, the owner of your favourite second-hand bookshop and so on…

However, all the men in your life were just disappointments. Your grandfather had never cared about you, not even before he had become a little too reliant on alcohol (your other grandfather had passed away when you had been little, so you couldn’t fault him). One of your uncles was someone who would never admit that they were wrong even when they were and completely controlled your aunt whereas the other one wouldn’t lift a finger to help out at home and as soon as he got home, he turned on the TV and stayed there until he fell asleep on the couch, so your aunt had to bring him food and drinks.

Let’s not talk about the worst of all: your father. The sad thing is that you used to idolise him. He was smart, hard-working, and seemed to know everything you were curious about as a child. For this reason, he had seemed so perfect, and you had wanted to be just like him. So you had followed his every word, his every command, and soon enough, you had lost yourself.

You had realised that you weren’t happy doing the things that he wanted, not like they were ever enough. It was like a zero sum game: you could never win no matter how much you tried. Even if you did just what he wanted - you chose the university he wanted, the major he wanted, the career he wanted -, he wasn’t satisfied. There was always something he could nitpick, and worst of all, you had started noticing how he had always put women down. He thought of his female engineer colleagues as less than him, always complained about your mother’s hobbies because he didn’t deem them sophisticated enough, and he said that business in any way was not for women.

So you had disappointed him majorly when you had left engineering behind and moved abroad to study financial management at a university that you had chosen for yourself in a country that you had chosen for yourself. Guess what? You had graduated with a first-class honours degree.

On the other hand, the most important thing was that you had found yourself in the process. Your university had offered free counselling and you had taken advantage of it, working through your past of people-pleasing, inability to say no, inability to set boundaries and holding yourself back from being yourself. Being in a foreign country on your own was challenging enough, but it was also deliberating. Away from home, you realised even more how surface-level your father’s care was, and that was the final nail in the coffin.

When you had moved back to Korea, you had also started looking for a new place because you wanted to move out of your parents’ house to start living on your own as soon as possible. You had enough money because you had worked a couple of years as an engineer and worked throughout your second degree, so you didn’t need to ask your parents for money. Of course, your father had disapproved of it, but you couldn’t care less. You had become a different person, a stronger, bolder, more confident person, and he wanted nothing of it.

Fine, it was his loss anyway. He could go back to idolising your sister no matter how much she fucked up because her? She was perfect. Even without straight As or a flawless track record of classroom behaviour, she had always been his favourite. That you couldn’t really compete with, and you hated how much you had let it affect you growing up; chasing a mirage in the desert, an illusion that had nothing to do with reality.

As for your mother, she tried in her own way to stay in touch with you including setting up blind dates for you. You were practically a spinster in their eyes, and she thought that she was doing something good by playing the matchmaker, but in all honesty, her efforts were futile because all the guys you had met so far were complete idiots. Cheating, lying, manipulating, two-faced jerks.

This time too, the date was a disaster. The food at the restaurant was at least good and more easily digestible than the nonsense the guy was spewing. Frankly, he resembled your father so much that you felt like trampling on his ego with your high heels. Did he really think that by criticizing your choice of profession, you would fall at his feet, pleading with him to marry you, so that you could be a housewife instead of working in finance?

“Look… As they say, time is money, and I feel like I’m nearing bankruptcy listening to your nonsense, so I suggest we both go our own ways instead of wasting our time here. You won’t change my mind about my career, you won’t change my mind about a woman’s place in the household, and you definitely won’t change my mind about you being a jerk, so…”

You shrugged at the end of your monologue, your smile so mellifluous that someone without context might think that you were actually harbouring feelings for this prick who was not only shocked but also annoyed upon hearing your words.

Ding-dong. That’s when they all show their true colours…

“You listen to me, you little-”

“Blablabla, I can’t hear you, and you can’t tell me anything I haven’t heard before, so let me just remove myself from this extremely uncomfortable and unsupportive atmosphere,” you announced as you stood up from the table and pushed your chair back.

You gave him one last death stare before turning on your heel and leaving the restaurant, his not-so-pleasant words thrown at you not reaching you anymore.

Needless to say, you weren’t really in a good mood after such a disastrous date. So the last thing you wanted was to run into your neighbour when you got home, but as you were fumbling with your keys in front of your door, the door of the flat opposite of yours flew open and a chatty male voice called out:

“Hey, yo! I finally ran into you.”

Hey, yo? What on Earth?

You cautiously turned around, your keys in your hands, ready to be faced with a typical fuckboy who felt like he could talk to women like one of his dudes, but instead, a boy who literally looked like a boy-next-door kind of guy looked back at you.

He wasn’t super tall, he wasn’t super muscular either, but he had these big doe eyes and boyish features that made it difficult to guess whether he was 16 or 26. Though judging by the fact that the landlord said that one single guy lived on this floor, he should have been over 18 to live alone.

“Hi!” You greeted him back, your voice neutral at best, but the guy either didn’t catch onto it or he was this merry-go-round even when faced with a girl who wasn’t in a good mood.

“I’ve heard that someone was moving in, but I guess we didn’t manage to catch each other before,” he chatted excitedly, but you just deadpanned as you mumbled.

“Apparently.”

An awkward silence filled the air which was usually the cue for the other person to whimper away, but this boy looked way too casual and friendly for his own good. Plus, he beat you to it, so instead of you excusing yourself to actually enter your flat, he introduced himself as Mark Lee.

So you had no choice but to introduce yourself too, solely out of politeness.

“Uhm, so, what do you do for a living?” He asked as if you had all the time in the world when you just wanted this day to end.

On the other hand, this Mark Lee guy didn’t look like he meant harm, so you unlocked your jaw and dropped your shoulders (you were usually tense and cautious around new people) before you answered.

“I work in finance.”

“Wait, so you’re like a finance bro! But in a female version, of course. Is there a female version to the term? Finance lady, perhaps?” He blabbered, carefree like a puppy waggling its tail.

You had to give it to him that you had never been asked the same question when people heard what field you worked in, but men didn’t usually react like this, they merely judged your choice of profession.

“I wouldn’t know. There’s only one other female employee in the finance team.”

“What? That’s not right.”

Mark looked as if you had told him that the world would end the next day. Truth to be told, it was kind of flattering that a guy could ever react like that when it came to your job and the environment you worked in. Needless to say, the only other female employee in the finance team was your manager, the one who had hired you. She had been promoted after the previous male manager had left for a different company, so she knew exactly how hard one must work in this field to be taken seriously as a woman. You were lucky that you could confide in her though.

“What about you?” You asked about his side instead of pondering over his reaction, and he immediately switched back to chatty mode.

“Oh well, I’m not really good with numbers. I’m actually a songwriter. But don’t worry, I don’t make a lot of noise at home. I have my equipment in the studio,” he explained in detail even if you didn’t ask.

When the second momentary silence fell over you, you took it upon you to break it by announcing:

“Well, it was nice meeting you, but if you excuse me, I’ll head inside now.”

“Yeah, sure. My bad,” he replied with a semi-nervous chuckle and he literally stepped back as if you were heading that way.

Instead, you turned back to your own door and let yourself in, feeling the weariness of the day taking over you as soon as you got rid of your high heels.

Ah, what a day!

It was truly astonishing how men had the audacity to make comments on a woman’s body, choice or opinion, but when women bit back, they got offended, pleaded that they were only joking or blamed women for being too emotional or uptight or perhaps being on their period.

Like that day when you went to pick up your new blanket chest from the store. Even though the order was under your name, the man at the collection point dared to ask you where your boyfriend was to help you take it home. When you proceeded to tell him that you would be fine on your own, he laughed and said that “eventually all women are broken in”.

He even dared to smirk at you as if you were ready to fall at his feet and marry him for being so witty. Instead, you picked up the box on your own and pulled your lips into a mellifluous smile as you remarked:

“Women are not horses, but how would a man like you with the brain capacity of a bathroom rug know that?”

Now, he didn’t feel like smirking anymore, but you were already out of the store by the time his comeback would have reached you. You definitely didn’t need a man’s help because though the blanket chest wasn’t that big, it weighed quite a bit, but that’s why you were exercising. Not to look good and definitely not to appeal to men, but to be able to carry everything you wanted, let that be groceries or new furniture.

Thankfully, you had a seat on the metro, so you were saved from holding the box for half an hour, but you were panting a bit by the time you reached your flat.

Obviously, Mr-eager-neighbour just had to walk out of his flat as you reached your floor.

“Oh hey, Y/N! Need some help with that?”

“What is with you men thinking that a woman can’t do this on her own?” You muttered, rolling your eyes, as you put the box on the floor in front of your door. Then, you turned towards Mark who looked back at you with his big doe eyes, ready to defend himself. Before he could do so, you continued. “I’ve brought this back on my own all the way from the store, so I think I can manage for the last few metres.”

“Oh wow, you’re strong!” He remarked in awe, but as soon as he saw your unamused expression, he explained himself. “I mean, you’re right. You were literally just three steps away from your door. I guess it just came naturally to me to offer help. Not because you couldn’t do it on your own, but in case you were struggling but didn’t want to say so yourself.”

“Oh, I will tell you if I need help. I’m not one to hold back my opinion,” you laid down your cards in case he was wondering if you were a damsel in distress.

If you genuinely needed help, you would say so without shame, without caring what others might think. You had grown a thick skin over the years, so such things didn’t make you freeze on the spot anymore, leaving you with regrets as to how else you could have handled the situation.

If Mark was like the typical example of the male species you usually encountered, he would make a comment on how you were high on your horses or how you were so brazen. Maybe he would even give you a seductive smirk, saying that he liked girls who didn’t hold back. Or he would even remark that you should know your place and this was no way you should speak to a man.

Instead, Mark looked so apologetic (like a puppy who did something wrong) that you felt bad for him for a millisecond before the walls around your heart recomposed.

“That’s absolutely fine. Honestly. Like… just be yourself, you know?” He tried to play it cool, but his wild hand gestures didn’t exactly help his awkward self. He giggled like a school girl when he realised that he had just made a fool out of himself, but then, as if lighting struck him, he snapped his fingers and asked:

“Does it mean I can also ask you for help?”

You were about to open your mouth to say something when you realised that you weren’t quite sure how to word yourself. This was not a question you had been asked. Even when you were young, your father had only asked you to help your mother (because obviously he was too mighty to help out his wife), not him. Never him. Even when he had wanted you to take after him and be an engineer, he had literally never let you see the projects he had been working on. You had never done those experiments at home together that other kids who had nothing to do with physics had done with their parents.

“I mean… sure,” you blurted out, slightly uncertain, but even that was enough to light up his whole face.

“Cool. I might ask your opinion on some songs that I’ve been working on because I need a female’s perspective on it. I’m only working with dudes, and to be honest, I don’t want my lyrics to come across negatively to the most likely female listeners that will listen to it. If that makes sense.”

Mark’s whole monologue was said in one-go, and though he was clumsily trying to get to his point, you actually appreciated his idea. Huh, a male songwriter who cares about what female listeners would feel about his lyrics? How unlikely. How revolutionary for the male species!

“Okay,” you bobbed your head, giving in.

“Thanks. That would be awesome!” Mark hollered excitedly. At times like this, it was even harder to tell just how old he was because he looked like a kid at an amusement park. “I gotta go now though. See you soon!”

He bid his goodbye with a wave of his hands and a big smile, and all you could do was to watch him go down the stairs with the most perplexed expression ever.

Just who was this guy? And what was his deal?

Surely, he would show his flaws soon. He would make those remarks, go against your opinion, try to mansplain and make you regret that you had ever allowed him to talk to you.

Surely, it will happen soon.

Mark’s personality confused the hell out of you.

You were always ready for him to drop his act, to finally act like the douchebags you had the chance to meet previously, but it never came. Instead, he just appeared more and more… innocent, if you will.

As it turned out, he was the same age as you, but he was still in awe at random things like the project you were working on at work. One time, he even showed you the picture he took of the sunset, claiming that you just had to see it because it was the prettiest sunset he had ever seen. He said it with such enthusiasm, it felt like he had just won the lottery.

Then, there was his kind heart. Even though you had been suspicious at first, the boy had literally never said anything offensive to you, had never even looked at you any differently no matter what you wore or how much make-up you put on (as neighbours, he frequently bumped into you in your PJs as you were taking out the trash or in smart casual clothes when you were going to work). He was rather clumsy and silly at times, stumbling over his words and going on whole monologues about his point instead of getting straight to it, and he got shy more often than not when you challenged him with a question or gave him one of your trademark death stares.

He was… different. For the first time in your life, you had no idea how to act around a guy because you couldn’t diss him for who he was because he was a nice guy. He didn’t even bat an eye when you vented to him about men. In fact, he even took your side! So very strange…

Also, he did end up asking you for help with a couple of songs. He said that he wanted face-to-face feedback if you were up for it and suggested coming over to his flat, but the alarms went off in your head immediately. You told him ‘absolutely not’ and asked him to choose a neutral place instead - a coffee shop or a park, for instance.

So you ended up going to a coffee shop where one of his friends allegedly worked, and sat down at a table somewhere in the back. Right away, a tall guy appeared at your table and after a few ‘hey, dude, how have you been’ questions, Mark introduced you to his friend, Johnny.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N. Just so you know, you’re the first girl Mark brought here, so I have a feeling you must be special,” Johnny gave you an amused smile, but your eyes immediately averted to Mark’s who wanted to hide his face behind his hands.

“Dude, don’t embarrass me like that,” he whimpered, and truth to be told, the sight was kind of funny.

And cute.

Good god, not cute.

Not… cute.

“I was just stating facts,” Johnny shrugged (though Mark couldn’t see it because he was covering his face with his hands), and gave you a knowing look before he went behind the counter to get started on your drinks.

It took Mark a few seconds to pull himself together and be able to look you in the eyes. Not that you would take it the wrong way that you were the first girl he brought here. In fact, it showed you that he wasn’t the womanizer type, and this wasn’t the place he frequently brought girls to. Not that you were on a date or anything, but it was good to know. He could get a cookie point for it on your non-existent nice guy chart.

“Sorry about that. He’s too…”

“Honest?”

Mark let out a semi-awkward giggle before he answered.

“Well… yeah.”

It was evident from the way they interacted with each other that their friendship was very brotherly. Which made you curious about how they had met because Johnny did look older than him, and they apparently didn’t work at the same place either.

So you decided to ask the boy about it and he let you know that he actually lived across the street when he was at uni. Johnny had already worked here back then, and they had become friends almost immediately.

“Sometimes I feel like he treats me as if I was his little brother. Which is funny because neither of us have any siblings,” he shared casually before asking if you had siblings.

“I have a sister, but we don’t really talk to each other when it’s not necessary. She’s always been the favourite child and I was not.”

“Oh, shoot, Y/N. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t. I’ve never mentioned it, and it’s not your fault that it’s the way I was brought up,” you pointed out, your voice measured.

Others’ pity didn’t help your situation, but you had learned how to be okay with that. It took you a long time, but by disappointing people around you, you actually became the happiest, most authentic version of yourself. Turns out not everyone loved you for who you really were when you finally spoke up, stood up for yourself and chased your own dreams, but that was on them, not you.

“Still. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Mark said so apologetically that coupled with his big doe eyes, you found it difficult to contain the stoic facade you usually had on.

“It’s okay, Mark. It really is,” you reassured him, your voice more gentle than ever before.

The moment was interrupted by Johnny who showed up with the drinks, his eyebrows furrowed when he caught sight of your facial expressions.

“I’m sensing a tense atmosphere here. What happened?” Johnny asked first thing first as he started serving you the drinks.

“Nothing,” you said in unison with Mark, but that just made Johnny more suspicious. He squinted his eyes as he looked between you two before turning towards you.

“Let me know if you ever need better company than Mark’s.”

“Dude!” Mark said in that boyish, whining voice of his, and for the first time that day, you found yourself smiling at their antics. That seemed to put Johnny’s mind at ease because he walked up to another table instead, a smile hiding in the corner of his lips.

As you turned back to Mark, you prompted him to show you the songs that he had prepared.

“Oh, right. The songs. Silly me. That’s what we’re here for,” he singsonged giddily before he opened his laptop and smashed his keyboard a few times a bit too enthusiastically.

You brought your own noise-cancelling headphones, so after pairing it with his device, he started playing the songs for you one by one. You listened attentively, taking a few notes in your trusty notebook, and you discussed your feedback in between songs. Mark really did appreciate your comments, and he never seemed offended by what you said. Which was a relief because you hated men who told you how you should feel.

However, at one point, you couldn’t help but chuckle and slid your headphones off because you couldn’t continue with the song.

“What is this ‘long ass ride’ part?”

“Ah well…” He let out an awkward little giggle, his hand scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. “Is it bad?”

He blinked back at you with those chocolate-brown eyes of his, worried as if you were about to say that it was the worst piece of songwriting you had ever encountered in your entire life. He really did look so innocent at times.

“It was certainly… surprising,” you decided on the appropriate word before adding with a shrug. “But it’s not really a love song either way, so I guess it’s fine.”

He seemed so relieved by your comment that he gifted you with the widest, happiest smile you had seen from him, and you instinctively followed. How on Earth did this guy have this effect on you?

Either way, you weren’t here on a date, so your smiles didn’t mean anything. Even if Mark turned out to be a nice guy, it didn’t mean that you were in love with him or something. You had so many bad experiences with men around you (even without dating them) that you couldn’t just fall for a guy like him.

Interestingly so, even if you were neighbours with Mark, you didn’t usually bump into each other in the neighbourhood. Which was funny because you had a downstairs neighbour, Xiaojun, who lived together with his friend, Ten (and Ten’s three cats), and you always bumped into him when he was taking his dog for a walk. At least his dog (Bella) was pretty quiet, so her barking didn’t disturb the peace of the apartment, but you just couldn’t imagine how two guys with four pets managed to live together.

Either way, that particular Friday night, you spotted Mark sitting by himself beside the windows at the local GS25 with a steaming bowl of noodles in front of him. He seemed quite deep in thought or maybe he was in a bad mood. Either way, something in you moved at the boy’s apparent lack of spirits, and you decided to sit beside him when you were done filling up your own plastic cup with water.

“Hi Mark!” You greeted the boy as you halted beside him, but he just kept staring ahead, so you cleared your throat and repeated yourself.

He snapped his head back when he heard you, and gave you an apologetic smile.

“Oh hey, Y/N! I’m so sorry. I was totally zoning out. My bad.”

“It’s okay,” you shrugged because it was no big deal, really. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“Not at all,” Mark replied immediately and shook his head. He even adjusted his chair, so that you could have enough space for yourself by the table even though there was already plenty to begin with.

You were never really one to comfort people, especially not men. However, Mark had been nothing but kind and supportive towards you, and you felt like fighting anyone who might have caused his smile to turn into a frown, so you couldn’t help but inquire if everything was alright.

“Ah yeah… I just…” He started cautiously, scratching the back of his neck out of nervousness. He was usually bubbly and talkative, so seeing him not just nervous but sad as well did not sit right with you. “Well, a lot of my songs were rejected at today’s meeting, and it felt… not so good. They just said that the songs wouldn’t fit the artists they wanted them for, but no constructive feedback was given. And that wasn’t so helpful, you know? Like… how else am I going to… you know… improve?”

He was trying to hide behind a nervous chuckle, but you could tell that his features were solemn instead of soft and he was clenching his jaw as well. He was so not fine despite wanting to appear fine in front of you.

“And I know it’s silly because my songs get rejected all the time because that’s how the industry works, you know? Usually, it doesn’t affect me either. But today, it just hurt,” he admitted, his voice becoming quieter and quieter by the end of his monologue.

Then, he sucked in a deep breath, and if nothing had happened, he turned his head towards you and forced a smile onto his lips.

“How about you though? I’m sure you have bigger problems than I do,” he tried to direct the conversation elsewhere as soon as the confession was out, but you didn’t have any of it.

“Mark…” You started tentatively, trying to think about your wording, so you would get the message across and he wouldn’t feel even more disheartened. “It’s okay to talk about yourself. It’s okay if something hurts you even if you usually don’t take such things to heart. But it’s not okay to belittle your own problems because you think that someone else has bigger problems. Okay? You are a completely different person and you have a completely different life. There’s no use in comparing us to one another.”

This was something that you had to learn the hard way, and you wanted nothing more than to see everyone else adopt this mindset, too. The world would be a much better place if people didn’t bring each other down but rather celebrated each other’s success. Everyone was on such different paths, there was literally no use comparing yourself to others.

You used to compare yourself to your sister as well, wondering why she was the favourite child and why you weren’t, but as years went by and you started to become more in tune with your own emotions, you realised that you were chasing a fantasy. Sisterhood should have never been about being in a race or a competition, and even if it was, being second place didn’t mean that you were a bad person. It just meant that your parents created the rules differently for your sister.

Mark’s shoulders visibly slumped in ease and he unclenched his jaw. His lips began to form a pout and he let out a sigh before he spoke up.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I guess it’s just hard since I’m surrounded by dudes all the time. They don’t really like to talk about emotions,” he pointed out what you had already assumed, but you were glad that he drew that conclusion himself.

“That’s why you’re better than them,” you blurted out without thinking twice about it, and Mark’s face literally reddened hearing your words.

“Oh, so you think I’m not like other boys?” He teased you playfully, the dimples around his lips deepening. The sudden change in his behaviour put your mind at ease, but being called out didn’t feel so good, so you turned back to your noodles and urged the boy to do the same before his food would get cold.

While having cheap convenience store food, you talked about everything from work to hobbies, misogyny to sustainability, childhood memories to future goals. Mark was an easy person to talk to because he had something to say about everything, but you meant it in the best way possible. He wasn’t trying to mansplain anything, he was rather conversational and curious, and someone willing to share so much about his life. He never wanted to tell you what you should think even if you didn’t agree with him on something, and he was such a down-to-earth person. A guy who was down-to-earth… now that was a big thing in your eyes.

He was also really funny and had a childlike innocence to him. He also used big hand gestures and made funny noises when reacting to things. You couldn’t really put it into words, but the way he saw the world was both mature and full of that kind of curiosity that kids possessed. You had long lost that kind of curiosity in the world, in the little things in life, in the positivity hiding behind the negativity. You were usually focused on major problems like global warming and gender inequality, but he did see the good in everyday interactions and he did see the good in people. You wished that you could see the world through his eyes a bit more, too.

After talking for what felt like hours, you ended up walking home together, but before you would have opened the door to your flat, Mark called after you and thanked you for today.

“Anytime,” you responded with a smile, and you were surprised to realise that you were actually being serious.

You didn’t help Mark with his lyrics to get something in return, but the boy kept telling you that he wanted to repay you, especially after doing a couple more sessions together when you helped him finetune his words.

Obviously, Johnny was there to witness the other sessions too, and you caught him staring at you two whenever he wasn’t serving customers. Which could have been scary and outright creepy under different circumstances, but he was a nice guy, and he really acted like a big brother to Mark, so you had a feeling that he was just watching over you two. Plus, you generated some extra income for him and the coffee shop because the sessions did stretch for a couple of hours at times, so he really couldn’t complain.

At first, the boy just kept dropping things off in front of your door - such as your favourite brand of mango juice or your favourite flavour of Pepero -, then, he kept paying for your drinks at the coffee shop. Then, he ended up asking you if he could take you somewhere, but it would be a secret, so you couldn’t know beforehand where it was. When you told him that you hated surprises, he insisted that you would enjoy it.

And oh boy, was he right… Because the guy literally took you to the very same exhibition that you had wanted to attend the day later, the one about gender inequality globally and in Korea, dissecting topics like the underfunding regarding women’s healthcare research, gender pay gaps in the workplace, the freedom (or the lack thereof) of women’s clothing choices back in the day vs modern times and such. It was an exhibition put together by sociology students from two Korean universities and their partner universities in Europe, and displayed at an art gallery where mostly men’s art pieces were shown, further encouraging conversation around these issues.

“You like it?” Mark inquired tentatively when you set foot inside the art gallery (after getting lost because he was terrible with directions), and when you looked at him, he appeared genuinely nervous, biting down on his lower lip as if he was ready for a scolding.

Which, to be fair, wasn’t unwarranted coming from you, but this time, your lips curled into a smile, and your voice was free of sarcasm when you admitted:

“I love it! This is an exhibition I’ve also wanted to attend!” 

“Oh my gosh, really?” Mark’s eyes widened to twice their size before he let out a joyous giggle. “Gosh, I’m so relieved. I was scared for a second when you didn’t say anything,” he confessed truthfully, his eyes twinkling with mirth. You joined in on the laughter before sharing with him that you were actually at a loss for words because you were surprised that he knew about this event in the first place.

Mark chatted your ears off about how he had come to find out about this exhibition, and what other ideas he had in mind to repay you for your help. Some were more fitting for your personality than others, and you laughed when he mentioned that it had even crossed his mind that you should have attended one of Johnny’s barista workshops because he was sure that you wouldn’t hear the end of it from the older guy if you had ended up attending it. Though Mark was more afraid of embarrassing himself in front of you (and Johnny) than you actually being there with him.

The exhibition was fascinating, but Mark’s presence did make it even better because he was his usual curious self and oftentimes asked you if you felt the same way about the experiences that were shared or admitted that he didn’t even know about such inequalities when it came to women. Most men you knew would never admit that they were in the wrong, but he was unashamed about it, and you loved that about him.

Wait, what?

Love?

No, nope… not in that way, of course. You loved that about his personality, that was a better way to put it.

After the exhibition, you headed to a coffee shop together, and as you were waiting for your drinks to arrive, you asked the question that had been on your mind for quite some time now.

“Why don’t you ask about it?”

“About what?” He asked back, his eyebrows furrowed in question. He looked genuinely perplexed, but you were more surprised by the fact that he hadn’t yet inquired about the reason behind your hatred towards men.

“About why I hate men so much,” you stated (what seemed like) the obvious, and his features softened hearing your words.

“You don’t have to tell me anything that you aren’t comfortable sharing. Besides, I’m sure you have your own reasons, I know some men can be real jerks,” he shrugged as if it was common knowledge, but yet again, you were at a loss for words because how could you object? How could you go against his words?

You simply couldn’t because he was yet again being understanding and empathetic, and given that you had not really encountered men who had admitted such things, you weren’t sure how to react. On the other hand, you were saved by the barista who showed up with your drinks, and gave you some time to think.

You decided on telling him the reason either way. About how you had not had a positive male figure growing up; about your father’s obsession with getting you into engineering and his disapproval when you had chosen to do a degree in finance; about your grandfather never really caring about you even before he became an alcoholic; about your uncles being lazy and controlling and not helping out their wives at home, even when they had kids they could have taken care of. You had talked about high school classmates who had objectified women and watched porn during breaks besides the sports field, and men during your time abroad who had looked down on you simply because you were a woman studying finance.

Mark was big on reactions, and even though he was listening attentively, he couldn’t hold himself back from saying things like “Whaaaat, that’s crazy” or “Oh my god, are you being for real? That’s insane” when you had told him what you had been through. Of course, not every single male had been a complete jackass in your life, and you made sure to point that out, but the ones who should have been role models and who should have set good examples were exactly the ones that had made you feel small, uncared for and easy to control.

Mark apologised on behalf of all the men who had wronged you before, and said that he completely understood why you acted the way you did. Then, he added that he hoped that he could set a good example, and show you that not all men were bad.

“Don’t worry. You aren’t in that category,” you eased his nerves as you turned towards him, and he gifted you with the kind of smile that also made his dimples visible.

“I’m glad then.”

So were you.

But you were equally concerned about what your feelings might have been hinting at, and you weren’t sure that you were ready to face them head-on, so you turned back to nursing your drink instead, and let the conversation steer towards a different topic.

One would think that just because you hated most men, you also hated romcoms.

However, you were actually a big fan of romantic movies, dramas and books because fictional men were way better than real ones. Fictional men couldn’t cheat on you, disrespect you or disappoint you as real men could, so what could go wrong?

That Friday too, you were binge-watching a newly dropped Netflix series when you heard muffled sounds from the corridor. You usually didn’t pay attention to such noises because you lived with others, so it was natural that they made some noise. Mark was usually quiet, but it was odd that he would talk to someone outside of his flat for more than a few minutes close to midnight.

So after you gave it a couple more minutes, you decided to look through your peephole to see what Mark was doing, and realise that he was actually not with someone, he was talking to himself.

The boy was swaying in front of his front door, dramatically clutching his chest while singing something about not remembering the numbers (what a weird thing to sing about), and you could already tell from his miniature version through the peephole that he was drunk.

You opened your door much to the boy’s surprise who almost stumbled over his own feet when he turned around to face you.

“Oh heeey theeeeere,” he singsonged giddily and hiccuped after his words.

You rolled your eyes at his antics but to be fair, you were more afraid of him falling down the stairs than him making a bigger fool out of himself.

“What are you doing out here, Mark?”

He pouted like a little child, his eyes shining dreamily, and even his cheeks were tinted pink, so there was no way you would not call the sight cute even though he had very obviously underestimated his limit and you usually didn’t condemn such behaviour.

“I forgot the numbers to my doorlock,” he whimpered, looking back at his front door with such a sad expression that you would have thought somebody died.

Oh, so those were the numbers he was singing about…

You tried to ask him if it was his birthday or his parents’ birthday or anything like that, but he said that he had tried everything that he could think of. He faintly remembered having it changed recently, but he couldn’t recall as to what the new combination was.

“Oh my god… do you think I’m going to have to sleep on the streets? Alone? In the rain?”

His voice was so desperate (yet dramatic), you had a feeling that his tipsy self actually believed it to be true. That’s when you noticed that he was already wet, tiny raindrops sitting on his pitch-black hair, and the sleeves of his puffer jacket was darker than usual.

“Stupid, stupid me… why did I change the numbers? I mean, I had to… for security reasons or whatever the doorlock company said, but argh…”

Mark continued acting like a child, complaining about his lack of memory regarding the new combination, but when he started saying that he will just sleep on the floor in the corridor, an alarm went off in your head, and you immediately said something that you would have never thought you would say to a man:

“Are you crazy? Stay at my flat instead!”

Despite his drunken state, the guy looked as shocked as his sober self would, and his eyes widened as well. Then, he drooped his head low and mumbled something akin to:

“But I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Don’t be silly! I don’t hate you, and you better believe it because I wouldn’t offer such a thing to someone I hate,” you stated matter-of-factly.

He still seemed pretty reluctant, but when you opened the door wider to let him inside, he tentatively walked in and immediately started taking off his shoes. Gosh, he had manners even when he was drunk…

You gave him a pair of unused slippers, and beckoned him inside. He looked around as if he was Alice in Wonderland while you were busy getting him some water and some towels for his hair from the bathroom. When you went back to the living room, he was sitting on your couch, looking at a framed photo of you with your peers on your graduation day abroad.

“There were so many guys in your class just like you’ve said,” he pointed out when you put the glass of water on the table in front of him. It was pretty amusing that he remembered such a small thing that you had said to him a while aho but not his new doorlock combination.

“Groupworks were pretty gruesome. None of the guys really wanted to pull their weight.”

“Ah, such a shame…” Mark noted as he put the photo back on the table. “Your parents must have been so proud,” he added as he turned towards you, but when he saw the change in your expression, he hit his forehead with his right hand. So dramatic, even when tipsy!

“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. I just remembered that your father didn’t approve of your studies. I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“It’s alright. My mother actually said that she was proud of me when I graduated, so there’s that,” you shared with him, and that seemed to put his mind at ease.

Instead of dissecting your graduation story, you inquired why he had been drinking so much. He said that one of his songs got an award, and he was really proud of it, but because he wasn’t the artist, he wasn’t invited to the ceremony, and only got to know about it at work, so he and his colleagues went out for some drinks to celebrate.

“I swear I started with apple juice!” He tried to save some face, but you just shook your head.

“Sure…” You replied, but there was a smile in the corner of your lips. “Now, dry your hair and drink some water!” You practically ordered him, but you didn’t want him to catch a cold. Or to wake up with a throbbing headache tomorrow morning.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He saluted for you and you couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. Gosh, he was really something.

However, Mark was quite childish when tipsy, and though he did gulp down the glass of water you had given him, he was fussy about the towels. He said that he wasn’t even that wet and that he was actually more sleepy than cold, but you just rolled your eyes at him as you reached for the towel.

“At least don’t wet my couch,” you reprimanded him before starting to dry his hair yourself, but you realised at the same time as him how awfully domestic this scene was because he suddenly seemed all too sober, his foggy expression replaced by a surprised one.

However, instead of making a comment on your odd behaviour, he blurted out something that no one had ever told you before.

“I’m so sorry that men have been such jerks to you. You deserve better. You’re such a wonderful person,” he confessed gently, and though it was rare that you were rendered speechless by a man’s actions, you were unable to form a response. What is more, you felt a squeezing sensation around your heart.

You were staring into each others’ eyes for what felt like an eternity before his sudden hiccups ruined the mood and you decided to drop the towel on the edge of the couch. The boy picked it up himself this time and ended up drying his hair to a pretty chaotic mess but at least it wasn’t wet anymore.

“The bathroom is to the right. If you need anything, just knock on my door. I’m a pretty light sleeper,” you told him before turning away and closing yourself in your room, your heart hammering away rapidly.

Thankfully, Mark didn’t make things awkward the next day. He profoundly apologised for his behaviour and ended up gifting you a hamper box as a token of his apology two days later with all your favourite things (which, by this point, didn’t surprise you because he was perceptive like that).

On the other hand, you weren’t sure what to do with your feelings because surely, you should have been frustrated, angry and disappointed. You never liked people who drank too much (mostly because of your grandfather), and you definitely wouldn’t let just any man sleep over at your place. However, Mark was not just any man, and somehow, his tipsy antics didn’t put you off. Rather, you found it endearing. The thought itself should have disgusted you, and you were very surprised by how you were feeling, so you tried to give yourself enough time to ponder over it.

After all, Mark was the first and only guy you let close to yourself, and he went against anything you had against men in general. He had never acted like a walking red flag, had never disrespected you (or for that matter, any women), and he had seemed so genuine, you were sure that he wasn’t just acting. He was curious and empathetic, and yes, he was a bit silly and childlike, but not in a bad way. 

On the other hand, you had always been alone, and your experiences with men were rather disappointing, so you had never imagined yourself beside anyone, let alone a man. You had never liked any boy either, not as a crush, not as a boyfriend. You had been perfectly fine on your own, and even though admitting to yourself that you liked Mark was nowhere near a confession, you were kind of torn about what the next step should be. After all, just because you liked Mark didn’t mean that he liked you back even though his words and actions sometimes made you think so.

Your unsaid questions were answered when you bumped into Xiaojun one day who was taking Bella on a walk while you were walking back to your flat after work.

“Hey, Y/N!” The guy greeted you cheerily, and as he halted in front of you, Bella also followed suit and started sniffing your shoes enthusiastically.

“Hi Xiaojun!” You greeted him back before crouching down to pet his dog. Sometimes you wondered if your love for dogs replaced your love for men because you sure would have liked spending more time with dogs.

You had a little chit-chat about work and Bella before Xiaojun’s question made you freeze for a moment.

“You’re coming to Hendery’s wedding, right?”

“What?” You furrowed your eyebrows in question, sending him a deadpan look.

“Hendery and Ahyun’s wedding, you know,” he looked back at you quizzically, but that didn’t help your case one bit. You still had no idea what he was talking about. The name ‘Hendery’ rang a bell (was it one of Mark’s colleagues?), but the girl’s name… not so much.

“I don’t know whom you are talking about.”

The guy let out a surprised ‘huh’ before he asked a question that yet again made you confused.

“Mark hasn’t asked you to be his plus one yet?” He quirked an eyebrow, but you just shook your head hearing his words.

You stopped petting Bella to be able to stand up and look him in the eye for further explanation. As if hit by lighting, the guy hit his forehead with his hand before he exclaimed as if he had set something on fire:

“Oh shit… I shouldn’t have told you that. Mark asked me to keep it a secret.”

He looked genuinely remorseful, but you were more intrigued by the ‘why’ behind Mark’s actions than Xiaojun’s guilt.

“Why would he want to bring me as a plus one though?” You questioned as you laced your arms in front of your chest, becoming uneasy.

You were sure that you had not met the said Hendery or the said Ahyun, but if Mark wanted to bring you as a plus one to their wedding, he must have been serious about it. He wasn’t flimsy about these things, especially because he knew how much you hated surprises and last minute plans.

“Because he likes you,” Xiaojun shrugged as if it was common sense, but when he caught sight of your flushed cheeks and your surprised expression, he hit himself on the forehead yet again.

“Damnit, I shouldn’t have told you that either. He hasn’t told you yet how he feels, has he?” He asked for confirmation, and you shook your head in return.

He let out an aghast sigh, so loudly that even Bella perched up, wondering what her owner was so dramatic about.

“Oh no… I just ruined everything for him. He said he wants to wait until he feels like you’re ready to hear his confession because he wants to respect your feelings, and he doesn’t want to force you to reciprocate his feelings. Oh gosh! Act like you haven’t heard anything,” he frantically shook his hands in front of his chest and immediately made an excuse about having to take Bella closer to a green area because she had that pooping face on her.

Poor dog looked so confused at the mention of her name, and though you knew Xiaojun was chaotic like this, you would have never thought that you would one day get to know that Mark liked you back thanks to his loose mouth.

The remaining question was how to let Mark know about it, too.

The thought of confronting Mark about what you had heard didn’t entirely scare you. It was rather unsettling because you had no idea how to bring up the topic and also admit that you liked him back without him thinking that you were joking.

You knew that you could come off rather standoffish and stiff, and you wanted nothing else than the boy to think that you weren’t serious or worse, that you wanted to make fun of his feelings. Of course, you didn’t care about men’s feelings on the daily because if they said something rude or misogynistic, women weren’t allowed to feel hurt, but if a woman said something slightly offensive about men, they were ready to start a revolution.

However, Mark was different. You had to realise that you did care about his feelings because he deserved it. That wasn’t an easy feat when it came to you, but you genuinely cared whether your words hurt him or not, because he was so gentle and kind and honestly too good for this world. You weren’t even sure how he had ended up liking you, but if he did, who were you to question his feelings? You felt the same way, so you should have been happy.

On the other hand, you had never done anything like this before, and being sentimental wasn’t your forte either. So you decided on sleeping on it, but it seemed like someone had other plans because Mark ended up knocking on your door about an hour after your encounter with Xiaojun.

You had just finished putting in a load of laundry and were about to have some dinner when you heard the frantic knocking on the door, and instead of a busybody neighbour fussing about the upcoming residents’ meeting or an elderly lady asking you to help her cat get off a shelf (both had happened before), it was the boy with the big doe eyes who turned up on the other side of your door.

“Hey! Do you have a minute?” Mark asked, panting as if he had run up the stairs. You furrowed your eyebrows in question, but he seemed rather indignant, so it was either about something unexpected or Xiaojun had confessed everything to him and he wanted to come clean.

Either way, you weren’t one to be suspicious of his intentions. Not anymore.

“Sure,” you bobbed your head and invited him inside.

You had not done so since the day he had drunkenly sung to himself in front of his own flat after forgetting the password to his doorlock, but you deemed this matter quite urgent and personal if he came up to your door without asking about it via text beforehand.

“Thanks,” Mark let out a long sigh before he walked inside.

You closed the door behind him and turned to him, totally expecting him to already make himself comfortable on the couch or maybe by the kitchen table, but instead, he just stood there, frozen, as if his mind had drawn a blank.

“Are you okay?” You quirked an eyebrow, slightly concerned. The boy, as if woken from a stupor, started talking so fast that you could barely follow.

“Look, I know that Xiaojun has told you about Hendery and Ahyun’s wedding. I know he has spilled the beans that I wanted to ask you to be my plus one. Hendery is one of my colleagues, by the way, he is a songwriter and producer on the team, and Ahyun, you probably know her by the name ‘Little Miss’. The solo singer, you know. Hendery has contributed to a lot of her songs as did I, as you know because you helped me with some of her lyrics…”

“Mark, breathe!” You reminded him with a slightly amused smile, and though the boy let his lips curl upwards for a few seconds, his features returned to solemn afterwards.

“So anyways, he’s also told me that he’s told you that I like you, and that’s why I wanted you to come with me to the wedding. But I was hesitant, and I am still hesitant whether you like me back, and you know that I would never, ever force you to do something that you don’t want to. Let that be accompanying me to the wedding or liking me back. And I also know how much you hate men and even though I like you that doesn’t mean that you have to like me, too. But since he’s already-”

“Mark, I like you, too,” you broke his monologue, but he was so lost in his own monologue that the words just seemed to fly over his head.

“Told me about what happened, I was like, might as well let her know that it’s cool if she doesn’t like me-” This was the point Mark’s whole demeanour changed, and the first flicker of hope glinted in his chocolate-brown eyes. “Wait, did you just say you like me?” His eyes grew to twice their size, completely appalled.

It was funny how much you had agonised over you finally coming clean with your feelings towards him, and yet, all it took was a simple sentence to actually make it real.

“Yes, I did. I like you too, Mark Lee.”

Mark was frozen for a moment, then he started giggling, and then, he finished off his performance with a long sigh. He shared with you that he had been running all the way from the first floor where he had talked to Xiaojun in-person after his friend had frantically texted him regarding your encounter with him.

“I could guess that much,” you blurted out with a smile, and that was enough to ease the tension in the air. The boy let out a chuckle before his lips finally pulled into a boyish grin.

“So are we good then?”

“We’re good,” you hummed. “And if the date is okay with me, I’ll be happy to be your plus one for the wedding,” you added on a second note, and he seemed like he had just won the lottery.

“Oh gosh, I can’t believe it! I’m so happy. I thought Xiaojun had blown up everything for me,” he admitted candidly, and you couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling up in your throat.

“I mean, if he hadn’t told me that you like me, I might not have been sure enough to bring it up myself, so I think we should thank him one day,” you pointed out and even though you knew that Mark felt the same way, he went on a whole monologue about how long he had known that he liked you (since you had comforted him in the GS25 after his lyrics had been rejected without constructive feedback), and how he had even changed his doorlock’s password to the day that you two had met, but completely forgot about it when drunk, but was too ashamed to say anything about it afterwards, so he was glad that you didn’t ask about it.

“That’s so corny… but it’s also very much something that you would do,” you admitted before you asked the boy if he wanted to have some dinner with you.

Needless to say, he was more than happy to join you, and he even said that it was the best day of his life.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine. Let me know what you think. I'm always happy to hear your feedback. 😊

Header taken from this Mark vlog.

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for NCT/Mark or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

➳ NCT masterlist

I started writing this story before Mark's announcement to leave NCT, so I will put the story into the NCT masterlist for the time being. However, I might move it to the 'Other' masterlist that contains soloists' stories and Kdrama fics in the future, so just a heads-up!

To say that you had a terrible week would have been an understatement.

Not only did your microphone malfunction during your comeback showcase, you had a stomachache during a live show which made performing and singing live twice as hard as it should have been, and now that your official first-week album sales were in, you felt like the waves were crashing down on you.

You had sold half as many albums this time as during your first comeback and even that had been less than for your debut. If this trend were to continue, you would be better off packing your bags and leaving the whole idol life behind before your company told you to do so.

Needless to say, you were desperately in need of something comforting, and at 2am as an idol, the 24/7 cinema on the corner of the agency seemed like the best choice. You didn’t want to get into trouble for getting wasted at a bar or caught crying your eyes out whilst doing karaoke, so a dark room (hopefully on your own) seemed enticing.

Until you happened to catch sight of someone else in the room, and that someone else was no other than the person you wished to see the least. That pink ‘N’ etched into his trademark oversized black hoodie was all you needed to know about his identity even though he wore a cap and a mask to hide behind.

“What are you doing here?” You seethed furiously as you walked up to his seat because for whatever reason, the girl in the ticket booth thought that it would be a good idea to assign you a seat in the same row with Wang Yixiang.

Or more commonly known as Nicholas.

As he looked up from his phone, he narrowed his eyes for a moment, but when he registered who was talking to him, he just shrugged his shoulders while answering.

“Watching a movie, obviously.”

“I mean, why are you here right now, right at this cinema?”

“I guess for the same reason as you are. It’s the closest to the agency and it’s the only one in the area that’s open 24/7,” he replied nonchalantly, and went back to typing on his phone.

So rude!

“Argghh… why do I have to see you even outside of the company?” You threw your hands in the air as if your theatrics could help anything, but you weren’t having any of it today. If the news of your album sales weren’t enough, now you had to be in the same room as the person who had ruined your chance to debut as planned when you just wanted to forget about being an idol for a few hours.

Clearly, that plan failed.

“What is your problem, really?” Nicholas decided to look back up at you, resting his phone in his lap. “It’s not like I’ve done anything wrong.”

You scoffed. Even though you couldn’t see his whole face because of his mask, you could tell that he was trying to act oh so innocent when he should have known exactly why you had started acting cold towards him after that meeting. What other reason could it have been for?

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know why I’m like this!” You gritted your teeth, lacing your arms in front of your chest defensively.

“But I don’t.”

You eyed each other for a few seconds before you decided to take the last of your dignity with you and walk to a different row, far enough from him, so that he couldn’t see when you started sobbing once the lights were turned off.

One could say that you cried so much during the movie because it was a romantic drama, so it was warranted, but you were crying because of everything that had happened in the past few weeks. The preparation for your comeback had been difficult, but it didn’t seem to pay off, and now, you had no idea what to do because you had given it your all. Besides, the formula was the same for your debut and first comeback as for your second one. Love songs, kind of girly, kind of edgy, catchy chorus, easy-to-follow choreography to use for dance challenges and guest starring on reality shows. So what had happened this time around?

You only realised that the movie ended because they turned the lights on, you were so deep in thought. As you made your way out of the building, you hoped that Nicholas wouldn’t follow you, but of course, you were wrong.

“How did you know it was me?” He inquired as he caught up with you, but with his stupid long legs, it wasn’t a surprise that he did so.

You rolled your eyes visibly before turning to look at him. He looked as if he was genuinely curious even though it was for the most obvious reason in the world.

“You have that hoodie on with the pink ‘N’ on it. Everyone knows it’s your hoodie,” you broke it down to him, and he looked down at his choice of hoodie as if he had just put it on without a second thought. Surely, he would have been careless if he had done so because it was just so obvious that it was him. His fans even created a trend based on it, sewing their initials into their own hoodies.

“Huh, you seem to know a lot about me despite seemingly despising me,” he huffed teasingly, but you just rolled your eyes. Again.

“Or maybe I’m just observant as opposed to someone who doesn’t see the obvious,” you noted with an edge to your words, hinting at your earlier conversation about him not knowing why you couldn’t stand him.

However, he picked up on something else.

“You’ve been crying, I could tell, but I didn’t want to ask if you cried because of the movie or something else because I didn’t want to be insensitive.”

“I didn’t-” You started to object, but when the weight of his words finally hit you, you felt like a deer caught in the headlights. Well, you might have been wrong about him not being observant if he had even noticed that you hadn’t been crying only due to the movie.

You let out a sigh, defeated. You just wanted him to evaporate, so you could finally go back to the dorms in peace, but of course, being artists at the same company meant that you two actually lived in the same building. There was a girl group living on the fourth floor, you lived on the third floor alone after two trainee girls left when you were the only one chosen to debut, Nicholas lived on the second floor and a bunch of trainee boys lived on the first floor. You couldn’t tell how many of them lived there because you always bumped into someone new. Or maybe they were already renting out the fifth floor, who knew.

“It was the movie,” you lied, hoping that he would drop the topic, and he did. Instead, he asked about your comeback, but you were very diplomatic when you answered that you were enjoying it, and that things were going well.

“That’s good. Keep up the good work!” Nicholas wished when you arrived at the dorms, and you couldn’t tell whether he was saying it because he wanted to flex his more experienced self (he was your sunbae after all even if you had trained longer than he had), or because he was actually genuine.

Either way, you mumbled something akin to a thanks and let the door slam behind you, hoping to leave this random encounter behind.

“I’ve told you, we weren’t on a date.”

You told your manager, Mijoo, for the second time after you were interrupted mid-practise by your hyperventilating manager because it was your first dating scandal, and you had barely been an idol for a year. Besides, she was more hurt by the fact that you hadn’t told her about dating the boy than about the actual rumour. So you had to tell her again that you were, in fact, not dating as opposed to whatever the internet claimed.

Mijoo was a very cool manager, she was laid-back and always up for a chat, but she managed your schedule like a maniac. May it be because she was energetic either way or because she had about five cups of coffee a day, but she could never be caught dozing off or lazing around while you were performing. Even if you called her at the break of dawn, she didn’t get mad and got ready to help you out immediately.

“Clearly, that’s not what it looks like in the photos, so the public now thinks that you two are, in fact, dating,” she pointed out as she handed you her phone, so you could have a look at the original Dispatch article that published photos of you and Nicholas leaving the cinema together the previous night. According to your manager, since Dispatch’s article, dozens of others were talking about you two, already hinting at the fact that you had been dating for quite some time because you seemed close.

“We were actually arguing. How can they not tell?” You huffed, looking up from the phone and handing it back to your manager. She seemed to have calmed down by now, and instead of panicking, she actually pinched your side with a mischievous smile.

“On the bright side, the fans are loving it. Both yours and his fans.”

“What?” You furrowed your eyebrows in question. Surely, you couldn’t have it easy. Fans of male idols always went crazy when said idol was dating a female idol, and it was always the female idol who got the short end of the stick.

Always.

“They’ve kind of come up with the theory that your new song must be about Nicholas, and they’re making fan edits of you two already. Some of them are reeeeally good! Like I could also believe that something’s going on between you two,” she shared quite enthusiastically, but you were still gaping at her like a fish.

This just couldn’t be real life. It couldn’t be. You had been crying about your poor album sales the night before, and now you were in the news for allegedly dating Nicholas? This had to be a joke…

“That’s crazy! I would never write a song about Nicholas.”

“Well, you did mention a black hoodie and a boy who seems intimidating but is actually sweet which does fit Nicholas,” Mijoo pointed out, and for a moment, you were rendered speechless. Come on, was your manager siding with the fans now?

“Uhm, excuse me? I wrote that about my high school crush! Besides, everyone has a black hoodie!” You said factually, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

“To be fair, you did attend a lot of events together because of the agency insisting on you two supporting each other, but of course, the fans don’t know that you didn’t go willingly,” Mijoo mused out loud while she was typing on her phone. “Like look at this!” She handed you the phone again. “They edited all of your appearances at said events into one video, and Nicholas looked at you quite a lot. He even helped you with your dress at this award show if you remember.”

Of course, you remembered. It had been so humiliating. You had stepped on your freakingly long dress with your high heels, and if it had not been for him walking behind you and helping you with the dress, you would have surely fallen down. It just had to be him out of all people.

“Like look at his smile when you were performing ‘To The Moon’. He’s sooo cute,” Mijoo cooed, totally like a fangirl, and if you had not known that she didn’t have time to listen to anyone else’s songs apart from yours, you would have said that she was actually a secret fan of his.

When she caught sight of your unamused expression, she pulled herself together and turned back to her professional self instead.

“I’m just saying… it might actually boost your comeback that they think you are dating.”

“What’s the management’s take on it?” You asked tentatively as you reached for a nearby towel and patted your head a few times to soak up the sweat. At least the news had broken out when you had been done with your schedule for the day and you were practising for tomorrow’s show because it would have been really awkward if they had asked about it while you had been unprepared. No PR training prepares you for such a scenario.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We’re meeting in 20 minutes with Nicholas, his manager and the PR team on the sixth floor.”

“20 minutes? I’m a sweating mess!” You shrieked because the girl looking back from the mirror was less than presentable with locks in all possible directions and clothes more sweaty than intact.

“Let’s make it 25 minutes. I’ll try to have some small talk with the head of the PR team to save you some time, so go!” Mijoo ushered you after checking the time on her watch.

You didn’t need to be told twice. After she talked to your dance teacher about the change in today’s practice, you sprinted to the nearest female bathroom and got ready to face a room full of people who were convinced that you were dating the boy you detested the most.

To be honest, this dating rumour was by far not the worst thing the company and its PR team had to take care of.

Four years ago, when you had still been a trainee, one member of a boy group - that was no longer active because it disbanded a year after the incident - committed suicide. At first, the statement had just been that he had passed away tragically, but after the post-mortem examination had been completed, it had turned out that he had ended his own life. There had been a lot of whispers around the company about why it had happened, and a lot of trainees had actually left during that time in fears that it had been the company’s fault.

Since then, the company had eased some regulations regarding schedules, dieting, phone usage and crisis communication (such as dating scandals), and had implemented well-being sessions into not only its artists’ but also its employees’ activities. It had never come to light why exactly the tragedy had happened, but you remembered promising to yourself that you would always keep in mind how it felt to have had that kind of atmosphere at the company.

However, it seemed that your time had come because this was the first time you had an emergency meeting with the PR team, but in all honesty, they were just a bunch of men and women in their 30s and 40s who were professional about the whole situation, they weren’t actually invested in the details unlike your fandom.

Even though both of you denied the dating allegations, they said that they needed to play their cards right because you were currently doing your second week of promotions, so any kind of hasty statement could impact your comeback. You knew that it was showbiz, and the company had to take things such as company stocks and album sales into consideration, but you felt like they were implying that denying the dating rumour could impact your comeback negatively, and you hated how small you felt because of that. Out of the two of you, even though Nicholas was the more popular artist, you had more to lose because your stats didn’t look as dazzling as expected.

In the end, it was decided that the PR team would publish a statement that night after the meeting, saying that they were checking the facts. Then, they wanted to wait three days to see what the public sentiment would actually be and how it would affect the business before publishing another statement. You didn’t really understand why they wanted to wait so many days during comeback season when all they had to do was deny the rumours, but alas, it wasn’t like you had any say in it.

Even though you and Nicholas shared some glances during the meeting, it wasn’t until you left the meeting room that you two finally spoke about the matter.

“I’m sorry that it happened during your comeback,” was how Nicholas broke the awkward silence that fell over the four of you when you shared an elevator ride with him, his manager, Yudai and Mijoo afterwards.

You didn’t want to admit that it seemed uncharacteristically gentle of him to say such a thing and that it moved you in a way you couldn’t imagine being moved by him, but you also didn’t want to be rude and say nothing.

“Thanks,” you mumbled without sparing him another glance.

“It’ll be fine, guys. Trust me,” Mijoo reassured you all with a wide smile before turning towards you. She leaned closer as if sharing a secret. “But I’ve had to ask Fuma to accompany you everywhere in case something happens. Even if it’s just you going back to the dorms or going out in incognito like yesterday.”

“Do I really have to? I’ll end up having dating rumours with my bodyguard at this rate,” you whined childishly, but you didn’t see a point in having your bodyguard with you all the time. Fuma was a nice guy, but you didn’t want to alter his whole schedule just because he was now supposed to accompany you everywhere, even if it meant your impromptu cinema visits at 2am.

“Just for the next few days, okay? I’ll sleep better at night knowing that he’s with you.”

“You actually sleep?” Yudai chirped in teasingly, and your manager couldn’t stop herself from laughing out loud.

“Well, I try,” Mijoo replied with one of her toothpaste commercial-worthy smiles, and you felt so awkward as if you were third wheeling between them in that elevator. You instinctively looked at Nicholas who mirrored your quizzical expression, so at least he was also caught off-guard by what was going on.

Thankfully, the elevator halted on the ground floor a few seconds later, so you could escape this awkward atmosphere, and be greeted by your bodyguard instead who was ready to escort you back to the dorms.

To be honest, the dating rumour had a massive impact on your comeback.

Suddenly, you were one of the top searches online, the streams of your songs tripled within 12 hours, and due to the (false) narrative that you wrote your song about Nicholas, there was even a trend going where fans used the audio of your song under Nicholas fan videos and edits. There were, of course, the said ship videos about you and Nicholas too, and even though you hated to admit it, you could kind of see why they were misled about the whole situation. The dress incident came up most often, but reality show appearances together and showing your support for one another on social media closely followed. Not to mention the dance challenges…

You debuted 8 months after Nicholas did, but before his debut, the company had last debuted a group three years prior. So they wanted to build momentum by forcing you to support each other and appear together at a lot of public events. Which you hated, of course, because he had taken away your chance of debuting as planned given that yours had been pushed back, so that he could debut first.

He was talented, you couldn’t deny it, but you often wondered how successful you could have been if you had debuted as planned. Why? Because Nicholas had a successful debut with five music shows, and he had gotten two different rookie awards at the end of the year. His album sales had kept increasing comeback after comeback, and he had even been named one of the most promising solo artists by a US-based music magazine.

You, on the other hand, had debuted during a period when BTS and TWICE had both promoted, and you had been overshadowed by a new rookie group by YG, too. Needless to say, you had no music show awards or rookie awards to your name either. Compared to him, you barely scraped by.

You weren’t angry because of his achievements though. You were angry because when that meeting had been held when the change in the order of your debuts had been announced (due to a viral cover of his), he had said nothing. He had stayed completely silent and he had even avoided looking in your direction. Since then, he had acted like he had nothing to do with it, and as if he had no idea why you were acting this way when it should have been so very obvious.

And now, this fantastic plan of forced support blew up in everyone’s face because the fans actually had evidence of you two interacting online and offline, going to each other’s comeback showcases, concerts and sitting beside each other at award shows. After this, how could anyone think that you had nothing going on?

By the time the three days the PR team wanted to wait out passed by, your album sales had gone off the roof, you had become one of the most talked about artists in the first quarter of the year already and your title track was expected to be nominated during the weekend music shows. Suddenly, people were discovering your songs, your albums, your social media accounts and fan community platforms, no wonder the company didn’t want to break the news that you two were not dating and that your title track wasn’t about Nicholas.

“How about saying ‘they are in the stage of getting to know each other with positive feelings’? That always lands well with the public,” the head of the PR team suggested, and so that is how it was announced.

Thankfully, you and Nicholas weren’t asked to go on dates or anything of the sort, though the company was looking into ways his presence during your schedule could further boost the sudden interest in your comeback. For now though, it was enough for them that they could post the above announcement and everyone could stop guessing what was going on.

On the other hand, even though the fact that your career took off should have made you happy, you were feeling rather remorseful. After all, none of this would have happened if the dating rumour had not been posted. You were indeed desperate, allowing the company to do whatever it took to help your comeback, even if it meant that they didn’t deny the rumour. It didn’t mean that you didn’t feel guilty though. Plus, it made you wonder if you were ever enough to begin with, if your music and stage presence and concept were ever enough on their own, or you would have always needed a little push from someone as influential as Nicholas to thrive…

Needless to say, you weren’t in a good mood when you bumped into your alleged boyfriend in the corridor of the company. Since you were ready to go back to the dorms, you were only accompanied by your bodyguard, but the boy must have been up to something because he was conversing with his manager when he caught sight of you.

“Hey, Y/N! How are you doing?” Nicholas inquired casually, and all four of you came to a halt in the middle of the corridor.

You were anything but fine. However, you were an idol, so not feeling fine was nothing new, and he was the boy you had a grudge against, so you were not going to pour your heart out to him.

“Good. How about you?” You lied through your teeth, and even tried with a polite albeit fake smile.

The boy furrowed his eyebrows for a few seconds as if he didn’t believe you, but he answered nevertheless that he was also doing fine, just on his way to record a song for his next album. You were about to wish him luck and bid your farewell when his question made you freeze on the spot.

“Have you seen the comments about us?”

This was a loaded question, one that could either indicate that he cared whether you felt hurt by some comments saying that you were a worthless bitch and you didn’t deserve Nicholas, or one that could indicate that he didn’t spend enough time going through those comments to see the nasty ones.

You were not ready to face option 1, so you replied accordingly.

“Oh, you mean the ones saying that we should totally do a couple stage soon because they think we’re the next power couple in the industry?” You asked as you tried to recall some exaggerated yet positive comments, and though it was obvious that he didn’t mean these comments, his lips curled into a boyish smile.

“I like the sound of that,” he commented almost proudly, and for a moment, you wanted to believe him. Yet, there was that evil little voice in your head saying that he couldn’t be serious, he couldn’t truly believe such things, and sometimes it was easier to believe its lies than what was right in front of you.

So you just smiled and told him that you were about to go back to the dorms because it had been a long day. He didn’t want to hold you up any longer, so you wished him good luck with the recording and he wished you goodnight.

It felt so weird. Like you actually cared about each other.

No wonder Fuma looked so out of place, not knowing what to say afterwards, but you were fine with silence, and it wasn’t a long walk anyway.

The first week after the company’s announcement went by fast, and apart from you going through comments at night and actually receiving your first music show win, the days went by quite uneventfully.

You were thinking of asking Mijoo to stop ordering Fuma to accompany you everywhere when one night, as you were leaving the company building, a bunch of girls showed up with posters, and chanted ‘break up, break up’ as if they were protesting.

You had been trained how to handle flashing lights, big crowds and fans who didn’t understand the concept of keeping a distance, but you had never been important enough to be a part of something like this. You had never had a scandal, and false allegations about your behaviour from your school days had never surfaced (yet again, you had been no one important back then, and you hadn’t made any trouble). You had lived a quiet life and your fandom had been mostly supportive.

However, these girls were literally coming up to shout in your face and if it had not been for Fuma’s broad shoulders and athletic build, you were sure that they would have managed to grab you and push you around.

“Please, respect her privacy, and stay away from her!” Fuma shouted over the crowd, but it was as if it had added more oil to the fire. 

The girls became louder, their posters seemed larger and the space around you seemed to become smaller and smaller. You felt your heart drum against your ribcage, and you felt a wave of nausea come over you at the thought of being trapped. Because that’s what it felt like. Fuma was alone and he was only strong enough to keep them away from you, not to clear the path ahead of you. So you just stood there, unable to do anything, and it seemed like your body was betraying you as well.

You felt dizzy and light-headed, and you just wanted them to stop shouting because you couldn’t hear your own thoughts. Your palms started getting sweaty and you felt a sense of panic, something that you had never felt with much bigger crowds. But these girls… they wanted to make you feel small, they wanted to hurt you and they wanted you to stay away from their precious idol.

“Everyone, please, stand back!” You heard Fuma exclaim at the same time as you felt something slimy on your head. You reached to see what it was, and if it hadn’t been for your panicky state, you would have surely laughed at the way you had just become a Kdrama female lead because these girls had just thrown eggs at you, and you had only seen that in dramas before.

“Y/N, we need to go back into the building. Is that okay with you?” Fuma turned towards you, his back taking most of the eggs thrown at you. You nodded frantically and as you walked back to the entrance and got your company card out of your purse with shaking hands, the door flew open, and a very much distressed Nicholas stepped out.

The girls had gone quiet at once, and for a moment, you felt like you could breathe again. Nicholas spared you a glance before he turned towards the crowd and spoke as sternly as you had never heard him speak before.

“I apologise if I hurt you in any way with the news of my relationship, but please, refrain from channeling your anger at Y/N. If you hurt the people that I care about, you also hurt me. I hope you understand,” he announced matter-of-factly, and murmurs ran through the crowd.

However, Nicholas didn’t wait to see their reactions, he stepped up to you and led you back into the building. That’s when it registered in you that the security guards who were usually stationed by the card reader gates inside took your place outside and held up the crowd while you went inside followed by the idol and your bodyguard.

“Are you okay?” Nicholas inquired gently, a stark contrast to his angry self a few seconds ago. He looked at you so tenderly, as if you were something precious, that you felt your throat close up for a moment. Even when he reached out to get an eggshell out of your hair, you stayed still, frozen in place.

Unable to form words, you just nodded and turned towards Fuma instead. After all, he had taken most of the hits thrown at you.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. It’s just more protein, you know,” he tried to lighten up the mood and even though Nicholas snickered at his joke, all you could do was look at him out of worry. “I’m fine, don’t worry,” he added after seeing your concerned expression.

You felt so bad for causing trouble for everyone, but of course, news travelled fast, and by the time you were ushered to clean up in the female bathroom, Yudai had already shown up, and alerted Mijoo about the incident. When you finished and put on a new set of clothes, she was standing outside in the corridor, talking to the boy’s manager about something that you couldn’t quite hear. When your manager caught sight of you, she ran up to you immediately.

“Oh, Y/N! Are you okay?” Your manager asked as she gave you a bone-crashing hug. You hugged her back, enjoying the way people cared about you because those nasty comments could sometimes make you think that no one was on your side.

“Yeah, sure. I’m fine,” you reassured her with a weary smile, but when she let go of you, she wasn’t entirely convinced. So you had to tell her again that you were fine and that Fuma had been hit with more eggs either way.

“The company will seek legal action and publish a statement about it as soon as possible. Since they were right in front of the building, they were seen on two different CCTV cameras, so that should deter them from coming back again,” she concluded in her usual professional manner before her features softened. “Are you sure you’re okay? We can cancel or postpone some of your activities if you need time to process this,” she added because ever since that idol’s suicide four years ago, the company took such things seriously and gave time off for mental health reasons.

On the other hand, as much as the incident shook you, you also knew that you wouldn’t have done anything differently. You had given your consent that the company could go ahead with the dating confirmation statement because you had been desperate to make things better for you and for your career. Everything had worked out for the better, so a few eggs couldn’t hurt. It was the pure hate and disgust in those girls’ eyes that you had not been used to, but you were sure that you would be fine. You just needed some peace and quiet and some time to process everything.

“There’s no need. That would just prove that the haters won,” you talked her out of it before adding that you wanted to go back to the dorms now if the entrance was cleared.

“I’ve sent Fuma home for the day, so that he could clean himself up, and though he objected, he gave in when I told him that I would give you a lift and drop you off just in front of the dorms. That should minimise contact with anyone else,” Mijoo mapped out her plan, and you had to give it to her that she was right. Even though the dorms were close, her giving you a lift would also put your mind at ease.

You almost forgot about Yudai being there in the first place, but Mijoo asked him if they wanted to join. He said that he would do the same for Nicholas, but he wasn’t sure where the boy had gone, so he should locate the idol first.

As odd as it was that Nicholas had gone missing, you were hoping that he was just packing up his stuff or something along those lines. Either way, Mijoo dropped you off at the dorms, and you went back to your quiet apartment, setting your phone to silent. Your manager would probably be the only person calling you, and you told her that you would head to bed after taking a shower, so it should be fine.

However, you couldn’t sleep at all, so you headed to your favourite place to clear your head: the dorms’ rooftop.

There was a bench close to the edge of the rooftop which provided the most magnificent view of Seoul. You could see Namsan Tower all lit up at this late hour, the bridges illuminated by many different lamps and the buzzing of the nightlife district not too far. No matter which time of the day you sat up here, the city was always alive, always living, always breathing.

You used to not understand what people meant when they said ‘a city that never sleeps’. However, since you had moved from the countryside to the capital city, it all made sense. Shops were open 24/7, there were always people on the streets, and even the tiniest alley seemed to be illuminated. As opposed to Seoul, you had come from a small city where shops closed at 8pm, you could rarely see anyone on the streets after sunset, and it had often been a concern of locals that not all streets had functioning lamps lighting the way at nights.

You liked coming up here because the view put everything into a different perspective. You felt a bit smaller here, but not in a bad way. It was more like a realisation that you weren’t the centre of the world, and as much as you would have thought that people would always know you were an idol (especially these days), you were sure that many people in the distance had no idea who you were. Which was reassuring, really. Sometimes you felt like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders, but maybe it shouldn’t have felt that way. Especially because in Seoul, you were one of the many millions of people living in the city. Back home, you were one of thousands, so you should have felt less exposed here.

It was an odd thing to be in the public eye after dreaming about it for so long. It was both easier and more difficult than you could have imagined. You were surrounded by a more supportive group of people than most idols, and you had more freedom regarding your own music. For instance, you were allowed to write your own songs or contribute to their lyrics. You could use your phone and didn’t have to follow a crazy diet plan, just had scheduled pilates classes three times a week on top of dance practices. Your health was monitored by yearly check-ups and you had the chance to speak to a counsellor if you wanted to. 

On the other hand, you had to cover up if you wanted to go anywhere, you were PR-trained to say what the company wanted you to say, you had to follow a rigorous skincare routine, you had no say in what you wanted to wear on stage and you had also undergone plastic surgery to fit the ideal beauty standards.

Yet, worst of all, you had to realise that even if you were an active idol now, even if you were on TV and even if you had received your first music show award last week, your family didn’t care more about you. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Maybe that’s why you were suspicious when people showed concern towards you.

Just like the boy who literally threw himself onto the rooftop and ran up to you, falling to his knees in front of the bench, panting.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Why haven’t you answered my calls?” Nicholas exclaimed desperately, and you could barely string a sentence together, you were so shocked by his sudden appearance and his disheveled state.

His hair was a mess, drops of sweat ran down his cheeks and he looked like he had been running for sometime now. He looked nothing like the polished, perfectly presentable Nicholas you saw on TV. He seemed humane, thus vulnerable, and you weren’t sure how to deal with what you saw, so you tried to avoid his worry once again.

“I’ve put my phone on silent, and I don’t know your number, so I wouldn’t have answered your call either way,” you justified matter-of-factly because what were you supposed to say to that? On the other hand, your voice was more gentle when you asked:

“Why have you been looking for me?”

Nicholas looked up from the ground, straight into your eyes, and you had this feeling again that he saw right through you. Through the fake smiles, the dodged questions and the lies. His intense gaze sent a shiver down your spine.

“I’ve been worried about you,” he admitted loud and clear, no hesitation in his voice. You were uncertain as to how to react when he looked at you like that, as if he had been running all the way from your apartment to the rooftop, while he was literally on his knees because he had been searching for you.

Worried about you.

“You should worry about yourself. You look like a mess,” you dodged his concerned words again, and reached out to help him up because you couldn’t bear to see him like that any longer.

He accepted your assistance and sat down on the bench beside you. As you let go of him, you caught sight of his scraped hands that were slightly bloody.

“Oh my god, Nicholas! You’re bleeding!” You shrieked, the sight frightening you more than the incident earlier today.

“I’m fine,” he claimed, trying to hide his hands, but you were not having any of it. You grabbed his hands and examined the bruises. It didn’t look like he had scraped his skin just now. Besides, he fell on his knees, not his hands. So where could he have gotten the wound from?

“You’re not fine.”

“Says the one who claims that she is fine but she shuts herself off from everyone the moment she is not fine,” he pointed out rather flippantly, but when you averted your eyes to look into his orbs, all you could see was concern and care. You immediately had to look away because it was too much, his worry was too evident.

You were caught red-handed, there was no doubt about that and there was no use denying it because you had been right. He had seen right through you. Not just here and now but many times before.

So instead of arguing with him, you murmured under your breath, dejected:

“Because that’s what didn’t get me into trouble back home.”

There it was, the habit that you hadn’t yet unlearned, the coping mechanism that got you through the worst of your trainee days. You were the youngest child, the one with the dream of being an idol, and you had an older sister who became a doctor and an older brother who became a lawyer. Respected career paths, traditional education and stable futures.

On the other hand, you had always been chasing after the uncertainty and the instability in return for a life in the spotlight. If you had complained about singing lessons or auditions, you had been told to follow in your brother’s or sister’s footsteps. It had never been about “we’ll support you no matter what your dreams are” or “you can do it, we know it”, it had always been “you’ve chosen this life for yourself, why are you complaining?” and “you’re capable of so much more than this”.

So you had learned to say that you were fine, always fine, and it had gotten you to where you were today. Yet, the support and the caring messages had never arrived from your family. As if you had done them any wrong by choosing this path.

Nicholas’ features softened, his hands squeezing yours that were still in his.

“You don’t have to act fine beside me. We work in the same industry. If anyone, I understand what you’re going through.”

You understood the words, but you had a hard time actually believing them. Even if he looked at you as if he was ready to get you the stars from the sky for you, as if he was ready to walk through fire for you. And it scared you that someone cared, and didn’t care just a little bit. He cared a lot.

“I know. I just…” You started, uncertain how to continue, but then you were suddenly overcome by an overwhelming wave of emotions, and it felt like a dam burst, everything came out all at once. “I find it hard to believe that anyone would care about me. If my family doesn’t care, why would anyone else do it? And I know it’s such a toxic way of thinking, but I haven’t really been proven wrong before. That’s why I believe the hate comments more because I can understand why they would think like that, you know? I just…”

Your voice broke by the end of your monologue and your breath was shaky when you tried to take in a deep breath. Even though you were trying to hold back tears, they started falling recklessly, relentlessly, and there was no use trying to stop them. It was a rainstorm that could not be avoided. Not anymore.

“It’s okay,” the boy whispered gently as he started patting your back. Gentle and caring, long gone the nonchalant boy he sometimes displayed. “Let it all out,” he added, and you never knew that permission to feel your feelings would be so deliberating.

And that it would come from the boy you used to hate, but now you just wished you could hate him because you realised that you hadn’t disliked him for sometime now.

As it turned out, Nicholas had separated from Yudai on the day of the egg incident to post stories on his private Instagram account that he didn’t condemn such behaviour and that he would be on your side, no matter what, so if those so-called fans thought that they could bully him into breaking up with you, they should stop once and for all.

Which was shocking because idols didn’t really stand up for each other when they were dating, especially because it wasn’t supported by their PR teams. Nicholas had been so caught up in his anger that he had posted the messages without prior approval from the company, no wonder his stories had been taken down, and the official statement from the agency had been published instead as promised.

As much as you would have wanted to shout his head off for doing such a reckless thing and risking his career, you were actually quite touched because yet again, no one had cared as much about your feelings as he did so. Not to mention the fact that he had gotten the bruises on his hands from pounding on your apartment’s door when you hadn’t answered his calls because he had been worried that something had happened to you or you had done something to yourself.

“Are you serious?” You furrowed your eyebrows in question when Mijoo told you the story about your fake boyfriend’s actions. Your manager confirmed that she had heard it from Yudai who had been worried about Nicholas these days because he had been quite reckless.

Then again, you were actually quite thankful for him because he did show that he cared and not just on the surface, not just because of your fake dating pact.

“You know how much I love my Kdramas, but it feels like I don’t have to watch them these days because you and your boyfriend provide enough drama and entertainment for me,” Mijoo commented on a lighter note, and you just gave her an eyeroll as you corrected her.

“Fake boyfriend.”

“Whatever you say,” she shrugged, but she didn’t seem convinced.

On the other hand, she did have something going on with your new bodyguard who was hired to watch over you alongside Fuma, and it seemed like it wasn’t just her usual flirty self, she actually did have eyes for Changkyun. You would have been frustrated that you had suddenly been accompanied by even more men than before if it hadn’t been for her interactions with your new bodyguard. The seemingly cold and mysterious man couldn’t maintain his unfazed demeanour around your manager which was quite amusing to watch.

As far as you and Nicholas were concerned, you actually started talking to each other after that night on the rooftop. You saved his number, so that you would know it was him if he called, and you checked on the other when you didn’t bump into each other at the agency. Since you were allegedly dating, it was easier to spend time talking to each other in the corridor or have lunch together at the company’s canteen much to Mijoo’s entertainment who kept asking you if you were actually dating.

You told her quite fervently each and every time that you weren’t, but you started questioning if that was true. You did act quite domestic sometimes, you did spend more time together, and you genuinely cared about what the other was up to. Hell, you even spent time together on the dorms’ rooftop, venting about your days or just needing some company away from the curious eyes of the public.

To be honest, you had never really been good at expressing your feelings, so it was still new for you that you could be honest with him, and he wouldn’t mind. You had even told him that night on the rooftop why you had hated him at first, and he admitted that he hadn’t said anything during that meeting because he had been too shocked that he needed to debut sooner. He had been afraid that he wouldn’t be ready, and he hadn’t been that confident in his Korean at the time either. It made perfect sense, really, and you had felt so bad for assuming things when he had been shocked and worried.

Nevertheless, since that was out of the way, you could finally see him for who he was, and though you tried to keep up your walls, you realised that sometimes you could let people in. Nicholas proved to you day after day that he wouldn’t suddenly change his mind about you, so you could be yourself beside him. And boy, did it feel good…

Even though there were no more egg incidents in the next couple of weeks, so your bodyguards had a more laid-back period with you for the rest of your promotions, the company decided to delay your shooting for ‘My Dream Buddy’. It was because they had made a deal with the production team pre-incident that they could have not only you but Nicholas as well which would mark your first public appearance together as a couple.

They wanted to wait a bit more time though because Nicholas’ messages did have an impact on his fandom, but he liked to say that true fans would understand his actions, and he was right. His reputation bounced back within three weeks as if nothing had happened, and most of his fans were super proud of him for stepping up and supporting you.

On top of that, you weren’t really good with children, so you actually didn’t mind having someone on the show with you who was apparently good with children. Like really good. Like you watched him play with the baby with a smile on your face, and that wasn’t your initial reaction when you saw babies. Even his voice was softer when he spoke to the baby who could only babble back at him, and he made sure to get rid of his beloved accessories, so that he wouldn’t hurt the little girl.

You swore you could have watched him do all the work, but Nicholas made sure you could play with her even though you were quite reluctant at first. The baby also seemed more shy around you, but as time went by, she loosened up and you three did everything from listening to Baby Shark on a kids’ toy, acting as if you were calling each other on a plastic phone, playing with balls of different sizes and watching a bit of Frozen until she started crying, and then it was time for lunch.

Nicholas was such a natural, cutting everything into tiny pieces and feeding the baby as if he had done it multiple times before while you were cleaning up the food that had fallen to the floor and cleaned the baby’s lips and jaw area. In the meantime, he shared stories about his childhood and even though he was the younger one out of two children, he did have experience playing with younger cousins, and he had also been on the show before, so he was looking forward to coming again.

On the other hand, you shared that you were the youngest child out of three, and that you only had older cousins, so you didn’t really have experience with kids before, that’s why you were glad that Nicholas could accompany you. Which was 100% genuine coming from you, and probably the best idea the company had come up with in recent times.

“That’s why we make a good couple. We complement each other,” Nicholas remarked with that lopsided grin that you wanted to hate (but couldn’t) because it was charming and attractive, and you hated how you felt watching him at times like this.

Because when he was being flirty and teasing, and you even had an audience (who cooed excitedly), it was hard to maintain your PR-trained facade. You were sure that your cheeks were red as hell either way because it felt like someone lit up a torch in front of your face.

Thankfully, the little girl decided to throw a tantrum at this exact moment, so you were saved from reacting, but not safe from trying to decide what could be the problem. Whether the food bugged her or she was thirsty or she was sleepy or her diapers needed to be changed (which you were assured would be done by her mother on site, it wasn’t a view to be broadcasted).

In the end, it seemed like she was tired because the moment Nicholas held her in his arms, she started blinking more and more rapidly until she eventually drifted off. Even though you would have not admitted it out loud, the sight was adorable, and you took some pictures of him with the baby sleeping on his chest, so that he could have them for himself.

It was during this time though that you noticed an old yet rather big scar on his arm below his elbow that you decided to ask about once the filming was done and you were back inside the dorms, taking the stairs together.

“Oh, it’s nothing too scary. When I was little, we were just playing with a friend and there was something sharp nearby. I was running fast, fell and got cut by it, so the skin tore a little,” he explained in detail before raising an eyebrow, teasing.  “Why? Were you worried about me?”

The sheer confidence with which he asked the question made your jaw drop. You could tell that something had shifted between you two since the night on the rooftop, but you would have never assumed that it would mean that Nicholas would become bolder or more… flirty.

“Well, no. I was just curious,” you objected fervently, and started stomping even harder on the stairs like a frustrated child. However, that only led to an almost fall because you miscalculated your steps, and if it hadn’t been for Nicholas grabbing your arm, you would have surely hurt yourself.

For a moment, you forgot how to breathe. His touch was firm yet gentle, and his eyes were concerned and warm. From this close, you could see the exact shades of brown that were swimming in his orbs and how his eyelashes casted a shadow on his skin, where his make-up ended and where his real skin shone through, and the slight blemishes that they tried to cover it up with. From this close, you could feel his hot breath fan over your skin, and you could see how his chest rose and fell with each of his inhales and exhales.

Given his previous behaviour, you would have thought that Nicholas would appear teasing or amused by the situation, but instead, he seemed rather shy as if he was caught off-guard. Even the tips of his ears turned red, but you would never dare to point it out because you were sure that your face was on fire as well.

“T-thank you,” you stuttered, still trying to recover from both the misstep and his close proximity. Your voice seemed to bring him out of his thoughts and he helped to steady you before he let go, his hands scratching the back of his neck instead.

“No problem,” he replied after clearing his throat.

You were both quick to resume walking, and soon enough, you reached the second floor where Nicholas’ apartment was. He opened his mouth (to probably bid his farewell), but before he could do so, you decided to confront him about what he had done before you wouldn’t get another chance like this. Even though you had been talking ever since that night on the rooftop, you hadn’t dared to bring up the topic until now.

“Mijoo told me how you scratched your hands,” you blurted out, and you saw the exact moment he realised what that meant. His face showcased surprise at first, then guilt before his features softened.

“Well… I was really worried,” he admitted sheepishly, but you could tell that he was waiting for some kind of lecture or reprimanding. Instead, you managed to surprise him with your response.

“Thank you for looking out for me that day,” you confessed, your voice coming out quite shaky.

You could tell that Nicholas was also taken aback by your vulnerable response, so before you would feel even more embarrassed, you wished him goodnight and jogged up to your floor. Your heart was still wildly thumping against your ribcage when you closed the door behind you, and you knew very well that it wasn’t because of the stairs.

It was because of him and how he made you feel.

By the time your birthday rolled around, the whole fiasco with your fake relationship had died down, and both your episode with Nicholas on ‘My Dream Buddy’ and a guest appearance on Lee Youngji’s ‘Nothing Much Prepared’ had aired. Both had been received positively by the public, and it seemed like the support that you two had gotten for being in a relationship outweighed the hate and nasty comments.

The end of your comeback promotions also meant that you had some time to rest whilst Nicholas was busy preparing for his next album. That’s why you were so surprised when he remembered your birthday and sent you birthday wishes first thing in the morning. You thanked him and couldn’t stop hiding your smile for the rest of the day when you were going around Seoul with Mijoo and your two bodyguards, posing with fan project billboards for your birthday.

After your little tour was done, you and Mijoo had a little celebration in her flat and you had never felt more thankful for such a lovely manager. She got you a cake and a tumbler (because she couldn’t stop reminding you to hydrate), but your favourite part was her talking about her boyfriend who was none other than your bodyguard, Changkyun. You knew that they had something going on, but she had broken the news down to you a week ago that they were now official, and she was glowing even more than usual. You were happy for her (and him), truly.

However, if you thought that you didn’t have any more surprises waiting for you when you got back to the dorms, you were dead wrong. When you halted in front of your flat, you found a hand-written note put on your door with sticky tape.

‘A surprise is waiting for you on the rooftop - N’

You had to hold yourself back from squealing because this was such a sweet gesture, and you were sure that you would love whatever he had in mind. However, you spent an awful lot of time deciding on an outfit that you would wear because you wanted to dress up for the occasion, but you also didn’t want to stay in your casual wear. You ended up opting for a light floral dress before making your way to the rooftop and finding the platform beside your usual bench filled with bowls of noodles and side dishes as if it was a picnic.

The boy himself was also standing by the bench, nervously fixing his black-framed glasses that you knew by now he only wore for fashion. He also seemed to have dressed up for the occasion, wearing a pink cardigan with a black top underneath and blue jeans. Much softer than his usual dark outfits, but you liked it that way. Especially because his hair was also dyed pink for his next album’s concept.

When the boy heard your footsteps, he looked up, and a wide smile spread across his face. Then, as you walked towards him, his mouth formed an ‘O’.

“Oh, you’ve changed clothes!”

“How do you know?” You asked more out of curiosity than frustration, though now you couldn’t deny that you had actually dressed up for him.

Damn it.

“I’ve seen your photos with your birthday billboards on Instagram,” he explained with a smile, but you told him in a reprimanding tone not to stalk your social media. To which, he laughed and said that he was allowed to. After all, you were his girlfriend and you didn’t send him photos yourself.

You decided to focus on the second part of his sentence because you were still not used to being called his girlfriend (albeit a fake one) even though it had been three months since those Dispatch photos had come to light.

“So now you want photos of me?” You quirked an eyebrow in question, teasing.

“I send you photos of my OOTD all the time. You can do so, too,” he suggested, but he was also grinning the entire time.

You dropped the topic as you both took a seat on the edge of the platform. You were conscious not to flash him in your dress, so you didn’t end up crosslegged like he did, but he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he started listing what he had prepared and teased that he also got you a present (on top of everything!), but he would give it to you after you finished eating. He admitted that he had looked up your favourite foods on a fanpage of yours, but you just appreciated the gesture even more because of that.

“Thank you so much, Nicholas! This means a lot to me,” you voiced out, visibly touched, because in the past few years, it was rare that you had such an intimate birthday celebration with someone. Last year, you had been too busy with your debut to care about such things, and before that, your birthday was like any other day of the year, spent practising and rehearsing as a trainee.

Nicholas seemed a bit shy hearing your compliment, and mumbled that he hoped you would enjoy it. Whilst eating, you inquired about his day and how his schedule would look in the next couple of days before you ended up talking about everything and anything that came to mind.

That’s one of the things you liked about him. It was easy to talk to him because he listened to you attentively but also shared his opinion with you. Obviously, he did drop a few flirty or teasing remarks here and there, but you were used to them by now. That didn’t mean that they didn’t make you blush.

It was a lovely warm day, but as you were nearing sunset, the weather got colder as well and a shiver ran down your spine when a sudden breeze hit you. Nicholas took note immediately and shrugged off his carding to cover your shoulders with it. However, the gesture also revealed that he wasn’t wearing a black top underneath as you had assumed but only a tank top. Which meant that his muscles were on full display, and it was difficult to tear your gaze away from them even if you tried. He just boosted a content grin seeing your reaction, and you knew there was no use denying what you were looking at.

To divert the topic and his attention from your face, you asked about your present and he stood up to get a paper bag from the nearby bench. You eyed him for a few seconds before grabbing the bag, and when you looked inside, you couldn’t hide a smile forming on your lips.

As you got the pink hoodie out of it, you realised that your initials had been sewn into it in black. So it was just like his hoodie but with opposite colours because he had a pink ‘N’ on his black hoodie. It awfully felt like a couple hoodie, and the thought made you blush deeply.

“Thank you so much! I absolutely love it!” You exclaimed giddily, and gave back his pink cardigan, so that you could put on your hoodie. You twirled around once in front of him before putting your hands on your hips. “How do I look?”

“Like my beautiful girlfriend,” he replied instantly, but there was no hint of playfulness in his voice. He seemed serious which was odd considering the circumstances, but it made you think that he actually meant the words. Which made you feel fuzzy and warm in return, and you couldn’t help but diminish the distance between you two and plant a soft kiss on his cheek.

Nicholas seemed surprised for a few seconds before a cunning smile made its way onto his lips. He clicked his tongue before tilting his head, looking down at you.

“I’m sorry, but that wasn’t convincing enough. Could you do it again?”

He was messing with you, but you didn’t mind. You were far too gone for that.

So you stood on your tiptoes and were about to give him another cheek kiss when he turned his head to face you, so your lips were now dangerously close to his. You only hesitated a second before you planted them on his lips either way. You could feel him smile into the kiss as his left hand came to cup your cheek while his right hand landed on your lower back, pulling you even closer.

You melted into his touch, you melted into him, and it just felt so right. When you placed your hand on his chest to steady yourself, you could feel the erratic beating of his heart underneath, and you realised that he wasn’t as unfazed about your kiss as you would have thought so. Good.

“How about now?” You asked playfully when you came up for air, and he donned that lopsided grin that made you feel weak in the knees.

“It was better, but I think we could practise a bit more.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” you played along as you let your hands run through his hair when you leaned in for another kiss.

Nicholas tasted like summer nights, playful banter and gentle care, and you felt like you just couldn’t get enough of him. Might as well write a song about him. Or an album.

For real this time.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine. Let me know what you think. I’m always happy to hear your feedback. 😊

The story behind Nicholas' scar was based on his real-life scar's story.

The last scene’s outfit inspiration and the header pic are taken from this X post.

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for &TEAM/Nicholas or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

➳ &TEAM masterlist

You’ve always known that it would be your sister getting married first. Not just because she was older but because she’s always been the type who cared too much about how many of her friends had boyfriends, and she felt like she had to follow in their footsteps.

You couldn’t blame her for that part because peer pressure was a tricky thing, but it doesn’t mean that she had to lie about meeting her boyfriend on an “elite dating site” when it was, in fact, Tinder.

You also couldn’t blame her for wanting to get married, so that she and her boyfriend could take out a loan for married couples only because she’s always been eager to have her own house, settle down and have kids whereas you’ve liked your independence, freedom and you would rather have a dog than kids.

However, they just had to organise the wedding for the weekend you were supposed to leave for your European trip with Nicholas, the one that you had already started planning a year ago. Which had been 2 months prior to the engagement, and they knew about it and could have easily chosen a different date. But no, you couldn’t complain about it because as your father said:

“This can’t be the first family function where the whole family won’t be present. Your sister will only get married once, but you can go to Europe anytime you want.”

Except that you’ve already booked everything from hotels to flights by the time your sister chose this exact Saturday when you were supposed to leave yesterday. Your father even offered to pay for your non-refundable flights (the accommodations were all refundable), but has seemed to forget about it ever since. Such typical treatment towards the not so favourite child…

If it hasn’t been enough, after all the wedding preparations that you’ve helped out with, after all the last minute errands and “could you just pick it up for me after work?” messages that you obliged like the kind little sister you are, you’re now sat in the last row for the ceremony.

The very last row where nobody else is supposed to sit, except you and Nicholas.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nicholas deadpans when he catches sight of your name cards on the only two chairs in the last row. “We’re sat behind literally every single far far far away relative and the neighbours from the time your sister and her boyfriend lived elsewhere?” He eyes the elderly couple who sit in front of you and all your little cousins who’re running around the place instead of sitting in their assigned seats.

The seats that should be yours…

“At least, we can make judgemental faces and nobody will say a thing,” you try to shrug it off because you and Nicholas have both tried your best to not make faces at every family function that had some drama or unhinged comments involved. Which meant all of them.

“This is not right!” Nicholas exclaims and is about to leave your side when you catch his arm. You shake your head, defeated.

“You really can’t imagine this coming from someone who got engaged on the day of my graduation?” You quirk an eyebrow, reminding him of another one of your sister’s big (figurative) slaps across your face.

Your sister’s boyfriend proposed to her after your graduation ceremony, at the restaurant where you were supposed to celebrate you graduating with a distinction, not her getting engaged. Needless to say, nobody had a thing to say about it except you, and your sister’s boyfriend reasoned that the whole wider family was already there either way, so why not?

“Damn, you’re right,” Nicholas replies, and his shoulders sag in helplessness.

You know that he could throw a fit if he wanted to, but you don’t want to add more oil to the fire. It was enough that your sister got mad at him instead of the other way round when he dared to point it out loud that your European trip was something that she knew about well in advance, so she could easily choose a different date.

Ever since then, even if your sister and her boyfriend are the guests in the flat you live in because they needed a place to stay at while waiting for the wedding to go through (so they could purchase their house), and it’s actually one of Nicholas’ parents properties, your sister acts like it’s Nicholas who’s in the way. You and Nicholas used to have separate rooms, but now you’re forced to live together while your sister and her boyfriend are in your original room.

Needless to say, they don’t know about the fact that Nicholas charges them more rent than you pay on your own, but it’s the least they can do after begging Nicholas to let them stay because no one wanted to rent to them for less than a year. Plus, they had a fallout with the landlord at their previous flat, so yeah…

Your best friend gives you a knowing look before you take your seats, but the more relatives and friends of the married couple walk by, the more hurt you feel. You’ve tried to hold onto the hope of your sister changing and your parents taking your side at least once in your life for so long, so damn long, and for what? To suffer through her entitled behaviour, be tossed to the side time and time again, and be called a bad little sister for not wanting her to inconvenience Nicholas before he agreed to let them stay?

Nicholas must sense your unease because he gently pokes your hand with his finger. It gains your attention and you turn towards him, waiting for him to say something. He doesn’t, he just gives you a bittersweet smile before he flips his palm, motioning you to take it. You slip your hand into his, letting him intertwine your fingers while you wait for the ceremony to start.

Nicholas has always been quite touchy, but he’s also been super respectful about it, so he’s always asked you in the beginning of your friendship if you felt comfortable with him hugging you or poking your cheek or ruffling your hair. After a while, you’ve become used to it even though you’ve always hated having to give relatives a kiss on the cheeks or hugging them when you only see them once or twice a year. With him though, it’s different. It’s safe. It’s comforting. It feels like home.

However, living in the same bedroom with him and sharing a bed (albeit a double bed) has made you question where you stand because you often catch yourself staring at his peacefully sleeping form or watching him play on his phone beside you. You’ve never really thought of him as more than a friend, but lately, you’re quite confused by your own feelings, and the whole drama with your sister’s wedding doesn’t really allow you to spend too much time wondering about your emotions.

“Wait, isn’t it…?” Nicholas turns towards you when a song starts playing in the background while the bridesmaids start lining up, and your eyes immediately widen when you realise what it is.

“Yep. ‘I See The Light’,” you note, letting out a huff in disbelief. Huh, your sister who has never seen Tangled because she thinks that Disney movies are corny and have always made fun of you for loving them even as an adult has chosen a song from Tangled for her wedding? What a joke, really…

You exchange a judgemental glance with Nicholas because he’s been your Disney buddie ever since you became friends and knows what your family thinks about your affection for such movies before turning back to the spectacle.

You’ve only attended your aunt’s wedding, so you don’t have much experience with how such things go, but since you haven’t been chosen as one of the bridesmaids despite being the only sibling of the bride, you couldn’t even care less. Sure, it’s your sister’s big day, and you won’t cause a scene, but she’s made it quite clear that she doesn’t want you to be a big part of it even though you have done everything she has asked you to do to make it happen.

So you just sit back, occasionally exchange glances with Nicholas while relatives weep (even your always stoic father tears up) and your cousins start running around again at one point. Your sister almost falls down the stairs in her high heels that she’s bought just for the occasion which causes momentary shock, but everyone recovers from it quite quickly.

When the ceremony is over, people line up to take pictures with the bride and the groom. Your parents also pose with your sister, and though she asks all of your cousins to take a picture with her, she doesn’t call for you. It leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth that not even the non-alcoholic champagne (that’s primarily reserved for kids) can wash away.

“Today, we could have been in Paris, eating a croissant by the Seine instead of being here,” you murmur to Nico as much as to your empty glass. The boy takes it out of your hands and drops something into your hands.

You look back at him, puzzled, before looking at the object sitting in your palm which is none other than a necklace with your favourite Mulan quote engraved into it: “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.”

“What is this for?” You look up at Nicholas, your lips curling upwards for the first time today.

He just shrugs his shoulders, but there’s a boyish little smile in the corner of his lips that you love oh so much. Everything softens, everything dulls around you because he’s there, he’s still there with you, and as much as this day sucks, at least you’re together with him.

“I’ve wanted to give it to you when we get to Paris, but since we had to postpone that to September, I thought I would give it to you now,” he reasons gently, and you can’t contain your emotions, you throw your arms around him and embrace him.

He lets his hands rest on your lower back, holding you tight, holding you safe and sound. For someone who doesn’t like hugs, you’ve always loved his hugs.

“Do you wanna ditch the afterparty and go somewhere else?” He whispers into your ears, and his voice sends a shiver down your spine.

You recompose yourself in a second and give in without a second thought. You have a feeling that you won’t be missed either way because that’s just the way it is with your family.

So you hail a taxi to get into the city centre and start walking by the riverside, watching the full moon paint white strikes onto the water while a bridge in the distance is lit up by a light show. You went to school with Nicholas on this side of the river, so you’ve always loved walking this path after school even if it was a longer route to your bus stop. It was funny, really, how you two met, and went from complete strangers to best friends in a couple of months. Back then, Nicholas just arrived in the country, and didn’t know the language that well whereas you were preparing for an English exam, so you naturally started conversing in English, and he helped you with the preparations, too. In return, you helped him learn your language, but he was a fast learner, so he became fluent in it over the years.

He’s been someone who was supportive of your dreams, interests and aspirations from day one. He loved your enthusiasm towards Disney movies, and you applauded him for his interest in fashion. You had a shared love for sweet drinks (no strong coffee!) and pink sweaters. Oh, and of course: good old family drama.

Nicholas’s family is the completely opposite of yours. His parents treat him like a friend instead of a child to discipline, and they’ve welcomed you into their circle from the very first moment you set foot inside their home. At their house, you could take your plates to the couch and eat dinner while watching TV, no one bat an eye if you left leftovers on your plate, and you could engage in conversation with his parents, getting to know more about his father’s love for interior design and his mother’s love for gardening than your own parents’ interest for literally anything.

Back home, you always had to sit down for meals together with the whole family, you couldn’t leave anything on your plate, and no one was allowed to turn on the TV while eating even though most meals were spent in silence. Or worse, conversations revolved around your grades and extracurriculars, and after your sister’s husband came into the picture, you became a background character in their story.

It was sad to realise that you could feel so distant from your own family when your best friend’s family treated you like one of their own. That’s why they let you move into the flat Nicholas got, and though they insisted you don’t pay for rent, you insisted that you do.

Looking back, you weren’t sure how you would have survived the hell of high school and the shitshow of university without having Nicholas’ support. Not to mention everything that’s happened since with your sister’s wedding, them moving into the flat whilst you were both starting your first adult jobs.

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t met?” You muse out loud, watching the serene ripples on the surface of the river.

“Nah. I wouldn’t dare to,” he replies, and you avert your gaze to his face, examining his expression. He seems calm and composed under the light of the street lamps, but you can sense an edge to his words.

“Why?”

“Because I was a completely different person before I met you,” Nicholas reasons, and though it’s not the first time he admits that his life before moving here was quite tough, your silence is enough answer to prompt him to go on if he wants to. You wouldn’t push him for an answer, but he continues nevertheless, telling you about how strict he’s been with himself, how much he’s wanted to please everyone around him, and how his behaviour pushed others away. He’s rarely smiled or laughed because he’s been so busy working towards his dream of becoming a professional dancer.

Then, one accident changed everything, and his dream shattered. The doctors said he would never be able to dance professionally again. You’ve known the part about him having surgery because he couldn’t participate in all of the PE activities at school, but he’s never gone into too much detail before.

“I’m so sorry. It must have been so hard,” you whisper gently because the moment seems so fragile, you don’t even dare to speak up loudly. “I wish I could have been there for you then.”

“You were,” Nicholas admits, his eyes finding yours under the curious gaze of the moonlight. You hold your breath for a moment, waiting for him to continue, and when he does, you feel your stomach drop. “We moved here because of my dream to become a dancer, and the accident happened here. My first semester at school here was the one when I met you.”

Now it all makes sense. The way he used to be so cautious around people, and how he seemed a bit distant. You thought that it was because he was new and struggling with the language, but it was for a different reason.

“Why have you never told me?” You inquire, but it’s more of a gentle nudge than an offended question.

“I’ve wanted to start with a blank page at school,” he reasons quietly, and the way he’s staring into the distance tells you that he’s thinking about that time. You can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for him, to let go of that dream of his because of an accident. You can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for him to still stay here whilst everything must have reminded him of his missed chances.

The thing is, you wouldn’t have changed anything about your friendship because you’re sure that you would have still become friends if you had known the truth, but still… You really wish you could have been there for him even before you actually met him.

“Oh, Nicholas…” You find your voice waver as you come to a halt. Nicholas does the same, and when you don’t say anything more, he quirks an eyebrow in question.

You hug him instead of an answer, holding him even closer than before. Maybe it’s because you’re more emotional today already, but his confession seems to hit extra hard today. You don’t blame him for not telling you sooner because it must have weighed on him, but it still pains you that he had to go through that. He didn’t deserve any of that.

“It’s fine, really,” he remarks quietly, but his grip doesn’t loosen. He lets you hold onto him while he’s also holding onto you. “I’m fine now, I really am. Plus, I wouldn’t have met you if it had worked out, you know. So it’s all good. The universe must have wanted to repay me.”

Despite the fact that he’s probably right, you’re still heart-broken over his teenage self having to go through that. As you let him go of him to be able to look at him, you find yourself saying:

“You deserve the world, Nicholas.”

You’ve never met anyone who was as supportive, caring and loyal as he’s been, and you truly wish him all the best. On the other hand, he looks at you as if you reached for the stars and gave them to him, and something in you breaks and mends at the same time. His very expressive set of eyes soften, and his orbs glisten in the pale light of the street lamps.

“You are my world, Y/N,” he confesses, tender and soft, and your breath hitches in your throat.

He gives you a sweet and somewhat shy smile before he leans forward and plants a kiss on your forehead. Your eyes close instinctively, savouring the moment and focusing on the sensation only, the outside world long forgotten.

When he takes a step back, he looks back at you expectantly, and you just smile, coy and giddy, and that’s all the answer he needs to know.

You feel the same way, no doubt about that. Not anymore.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine! Let me know what you think!

This story may have been inspired my real-life events...

Header taken from the 'Maybe' MV, and title is taken from keshi's 'UNDERSTAND'. I suggest you give it a listen because it's really fitting to the story. *-*

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for &TEAM or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

A figure steps out. A car door is being shut. A camera flashes.

Like fireworks blooming in the sky, more and more momentary flashes blur your vision. You aren’t even sure if you walk in a straight line. You just move ahead, your legs heavy as if weighted down by sandbags, and all your limbs feel funny like they aren’t even a part of you.

You gulp down a nervous knot in your throat, but the tightness doesn’t leave your chest. It weighs you down, so damn heavy, and you place your hand on your heart, afraid what this sensation might mean this time when deep down, you know that it’s not a heart attack. You know exactly what it is because it’s not your first time experiencing it, not even the second.

You feel like you can’t take a deep breath and that everyone will notice it and will ask you what’s wrong, but they wouldn’t understand, they never understand, not even your parents, not even your friends. The panic grows deeper, thicker, sticky like honey, slowing your steps even more as you walk around the grand ball room, looking for a way out, looking for a safe haven.

An unassuming waiter comes up to you, asking if you want champagne, and you shake your head. You ask about the restroom instead, and he shows you the way, albeit with a stare that shows that he doesn’t understand either. He would never understand how all this glamour and glitter isn’t the remedy to all the problems one might have and instead how it’s the poison injected into your veins with every breath you take, with every smile you force, with every good thing you let go of.

Like him.

You shake your head, trying to get rid of the memories, but if anything, your resistance just makes the longing more unbearable. Because you know that he will be there in the same room as you but he wouldn’t be yours.

You pushed him away. You told yourself that it would be better for both of you. You needed to work on yourself, and you didn’t want him to get pitiful stares or belittling questions once everyone got to know that you weren’t the perfect daughter everyone thought that you were and that you weren’t the perfect, delicate little girl everyone used to gush about.

“You don’t get it, Wonbin. It’s like there’s a ticking time bomb in my brain, ready to explode,” you told him, numb and bleak as so often lately.

“Let me help,” he pleaded, his jet-black eyes so dark and so captivating. It was easy to fall into them and imagine never making it out because it was just right. It was right being with him.

Until it wasn’t.

“How could you help? Help me? Help this?” You pointed at your head as if you were holding a gun to it to make all the noise inside go away.

He knew that he lost. He didn’t know how to counter that, and you knew that he would never be able to. Because someone who had so much money shouldn’t have ever felt this way, let alone for years.

You thought that you had it under control, and falling in love with him at the boarding school you had both attended helped because it helped to make the problems feel far away. Your parents, your siblings. The rivalry, the expectations. The path that you were supposed to follow.

Once you graduated and went back to the city, to live with your parents and siblings, everything came back crushing down on you. You were going to the university that they had chosen for you, studied the course that they had chosen for you, attended the events that they had wanted you to, and yet, you had never been more lost, more scattered, more agitated.

Time and distance kept you away from Wonbin, and slowly, you started to convince yourself that he would be better off without you. You were nothing but a shell of yourself, a ghost in a living body, a soul without spirits.

So you let go of him, thinking that it wouldn’t hurt anymore because nothing did anymore. You didn’t feel joy, you didn’t feel sadness, everything was the same.

Instead, letting go of him felt like letting go of the last thing that kept you grounded, that held you back from floating, and you were slowly crumbling.

You crawled back to your old self, not sure anymore if the you with Wonbin was the real you or the one you left behind in your childhood bedroom. When you looked into the mirror, you didn’t even recognise yourself anymore. You were someone, but was it really you?

You grab onto the bathroom sink when you make your way inside. When you look up and into the mirror, your reflection shows a pretty face with all the right make-up to cover up her pale skin, the dark circles under her eyes and the acne scars that her mother couldn’t stand to watch, so she spent a fortune sending her daughter to all kinds of doctors. Doctors who said the same thing.

“You can’t be stressed,” she reasoned when you came back from another appointment with the same conclusion. “You have everything you need. Besides, how could you be stressed when you look like that every day? You don’t seem angry or tired, so why?”

Yet, when you showed any kind of negative emotion, it was dismissed and belittled. You couldn’t be sad. You couldn’t be frustrated. You couldn’t be mad.

It was your fault, not your sister’s, they said. They are on everyone’s side but yours. Be grateful for what you have, they said. People would kill to live the life you have.

And you would kill to live a life that’s not yours.

The restroom feels stuffy, and you look around, frantic.

Is there a window here?

Why isn’t there a window here?

You need air, fresh air.

You need to get out.

You need to leave.

As soon as you open the door and step outside, the tight throat feeling comes back and coupled with the tight chest, it really feels like you can come undone any moment now.

That’s when a hand reaches for yours and pulls you away from the crowd, the room full of people, and through corridors and empty staircases, he guides you to a door that leads to the back garden.

But the fresh air doesn’t help.

It’s the lack of people around that does.

“No one’s here,” Wonbin notes as if reading your mind, and you let the sounds in your throat escape.

You gasp for air like there’s no tomorrow, your breathing hijacked by the panic rushing through you. It’s like there’s no beginning and no end, you continuously try to fight for air. Your lungs are working perfectly well, you know that, but it doesn’t feel like it, and the panic just makes it ten times worse. It convinces you that you’re having a heart attack, that you will collapse and that your lungs will give up and that…

“It’s okay, it’ll pass,” Wonbin reassures you gently as he crouches down to be at eye-level with you.

You didn’t even notice that you fell to the ground, your knees on the neatly cut grass, your dress soaking up its earthly fragrance. It’s always like this though; your surroundings cease to exist the moment the panic attack sets in, and it’s game over for what seems like an eternity. Or until someone’s voice cuts through all the scenarios in your head.

You can feel Wonbin drawing tiny circles on your back, tenderly as if he’s trying not to break you. He keeps repeating his earlier words like a mantra, his voice low, his whispers loud enough to keep the voice in your head at bay.

He’s been through it with you, not once, not even twice. That’s why he knows what to do, but you wish that he didn’t. He should have never seen you deal with it, he should have never seen you any less than perfect. Not because you wanted to hide it, but because you had to hide it from others, and you just wanted him to see you the way you wanted to see yourself. Not the girl who was depressed despite all the things she had and not the girl who had panic attacks when there were too many people around.

And he’s right, it passes. Not like a particularly beautiful landscape on a trip but like the excruciatingly long and cold days of winter. Each and every time, it feels like it’ll never end, and you won’t make it out, but you do.

And each and every time, he’s there. His presence is like taking a painkiller; it makes the pain go away for a while, but never enough to end it completely.

But tonight, you take a dose of him, so that you can make it through the night as if nothing happened. 

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine. Let me know what you think.

The storyline was purposefully scattered to convey the reader's state of mind and dissociation. Through this story, I wanted to portray the shame/stigma that's associated with mental health issues, especially for those who seem to have it all, and I know it's a big problem in South Korea, too.

As always, if you're struggling yourself, please, don't hesitate to reach out for help!

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for RIIZE or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

The first thing that popped into your mind when you saw him walking into the gym hall was that he was so damn pretty.

Which, considering the fact that he was supporting Jihye who was using crutches after her injury, was probably not what you should have thought about, but you just couldn’t help it. He looked like he had just stepped out of a manhwa with his proportions and that face that ancient painters would have made multiple portraits about. He was tall with broad shoulders but his features were soft, his eyes shining gently when he looked at Jihye and he was ready to help her with anything when she got to the bench and was ready to sit down.

Alarmed, it crossed your mind that he might have been her boyfriend (even if you didn’t know whether she had one), and you were horrified that you ever dared to have such thoughts about someone else’s boyfriend.

Then, Jihye dissolved your worry when she introduced the boy to you all.

“Girls, this is my twin brother, Junseo. Junseo, these are the girls on the dance team.”

Oh… so he was her twin brother. The Junseo you had barely heard about and had never even seen at parties because he was the smart one out of the two of them while Jihye was the athletic one. Though seeing the boy’s muscles, you were sure that he was hitting the gym pretty frequently between study sessions because damn…

Junseo caught your eyes in that moment, and you felt like you got caught red-handed even though you knew very well that he couldn’t have read your mind.

Still, you averted your eyes, ashamed of staring at him and his muscles so much.

Get it together, girl!

“Let me know when you finish with practice and I’ll come back,” Junseo turned to his sister after his introduction, and the girl nodded at his words. He seemed gentle and considerate, no hint of malice in his voice and it shocked you because you weren’t even this close to your sibling and you had a sister, not a brother. Your sister was such a drama queen though, but at least dance practices kept you occupied enough to not have to spend too much time with her.

Just like that, he walked away without as much as looking back whereas your heart was going crazy at the brief interaction. Gosh, this was the first time a boy had such an effect on you, and it could only mean one thing: you had a big fat crush on Kim Junseo.

You were usually casual, flirty even, with guys. You weren’t afraid to initiate a conversation at a party, or test the waters because what was there to lose?

However, even just the idea of seeing Junseo again made you feel oddly nervous, and you weren’t sure how to function around him even though most of the time he merely helped Jihye into the gym hall and then picked her up in the parking lot because Jihye left with one of her best friends.

You and Jihye weren’t super close either way. You talked here and there, but when one was a part of a dance team, it was impossible to be best friends with everyone because there were just so many of you. Not to mention the fact that you weren’t on the same course in the same year with anyone from the team, so you didn’t see each other outside of dance practices, except for parties.

On the other hand, on this particular Friday, Junseo was sitting on the bench beside his sister during the last 10 minutes of practice, and you were uncharacteristically edgy. You didn’t have the best day to begin with, and seeing him there just made everything feel ten times more nerve-wrecking. It’s not like you had to prove anything to him, but you still wanted to leave a good impression. Deep down, you knew that it was silly, you were practically strangers, but you couldn’t help feeling this way.

So you were super focused on the choreography, afraid to mess anything up, but it also meant that your usual confidence didn’t shine through the steps. Which just made you feel worse, and you couldn’t help but finish practice with nothing but regrets. Gosh, you just wanted this day to end as soon as possible…

You walked up to the bench to grab your water bottle from your bag, only to realise that Junseo was sitting beside it. You glanced quickly in Jihye’s direction as if you should ask for her permission to talk to her brother, but she was talking to Ryujin, so she didn’t pay much attention to the boy who seemed quite awkward sitting by himself.

“Sorry. Would you mind…?” You asked as you pointed at your bag. He probably didn’t realise that he was literally sitting beside your half-open bag, your water bottle touching his thigh, because he turned on full on apologetic mode once he caught sight of it.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he replied, his eyes wide in shock, and he helped put your water bottle back into your bag before he handed it to you and let you take a seat, widening the distance between you two.

“It’s okay,” you just shook your head, trying with a friendly smile, but you weren’t sure that your smile was convincing because he furrowed his eyebrows and asked:

“Are you okay?”

This wasn’t the question that you wanted to hear from him, but you were sure that you didn’t look that appealing with a few locks stuck to your forehead and drops of sweat rolling down your back as you were speaking.

“Yeah, sure,” you blurted out feebly, and tried to take care of the locks sticking to your forehead, but you just felt more pathetic by doing so, so you felt like adding an explanation. “Just didn’t have the best day, that’s all. It was one of those days when nothing worked out, you know.”

Oh my god, why were you oversharing to your crush? This was the first proper conversation you two had, so why were you pouring your heart out to him? Not like you expected him to empathise with you or anything, but still…

Damn those beautiful eyes of his that looked like little galaxies, sucking you into their endless depth. His features literally softened when you admitted that you actually weren’t fine, but instead of feeling happy about it, you were nervous. What if he thought that you were a drama queen, and he would never want to speak to you again?

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he remarked gently, and despite being practically strangers, he said it so convincingly that you wouldn’t have thought that he just said it out of politeness. Or did you just want to believe in it? “It’ll get better, so hwaiting!” He cheered you on as he balled his hands into fists and lifted them up, smiling.

You blinked at him for a few seconds, totally frozen on the spot. Did Kim Junseo try to cheer you up? Were you not dreaming? What was going on?

You were so shocked by his antics that you couldn’t mutter a single word, and the boy might have misunderstood it because he let out a semi-awkward giggle before retreating his hands.

“Thanks. I appreciate it, I just… didn’t think that anyone would notice that I wasn’t doing fine, and that they would try to cheer me up,” you blurted it out in one go, afraid that he would misunderstand you.

Now it was your turn to let out an awkward giggle because what were you doing, trying to explain yourself like that?

You just looked at each other for a few seconds, both your and his cheeks red from embarrassment. Then, you finally remembered that you were there for your water bottle and took a few sips of it. Junseo looked away as if he was trying to give you space, and though you appreciated it, you were also awfully aware of the fact that he was still there.

Feeling like you just had to say something, you broke the silence by offering that any of you could help Jihye into the gym hall and walk her to the parking lot if it was of any assistance. The boy thanked you for the offer, but reasoned that he was on campus either way, studying in the library, so it was no bother.

“What’s your major?” You inquired because you didn’t remember Jihye mentioning what he was actually studying, just that he was super good at it.

“Sociology. Yours?”

“Business management.”

You couldn’t have been more different, it seemed, and yet… the fact that he was studying sociology and with the way he was so perceptive, you weren’t exactly taken aback. Yet, that just made him more attractive in your eyes, and you weren’t sure you could fall for him further, but here you were…

Thankfully, you were saved by Jihye patting him on the shoulder to gain his attention, and as they started conversing, you slowly packed up and left the gym hall, your face scarlet red not just because of the dance practice, but also because of the interaction you had with him.

Junseo was the last person you would have expected to see at Beomgyu’s party. According to Jihye, the boy spent most of his time studying at home, studying in the library or studying at a café.

As usual, you attended the party with the girls from the dance team, and since Jihye didn’t come because of her injury (and because she didn’t want to maneuver around people with her crutches in a crowded place), it didn’t even cross your mind that Junseo, out of all people, would come.

However, there he was in the corner of the kitchen, talking to a boy who was even taller than he was, and once you noticed him, you couldn’t tear your gaze away. It looked like he was trying to give a pep talk to the other guy who looked quite fidgety, and you swore that he ran his hands through his hair like every five seconds. Junseo then patted him on the back and gently shoved him, prompting him to move.

Your eyes followed the person the guy walked towards which just so happened to be a girl you actually knew. Byeol from the Leadership and Management course was kind of well-known in the business department because she had made history for being the only first-year female student who had created a club, a debate club on top of that. You had shared a class with her last year, and though she seemed really cool and determined, sometimes she seemed pretty intimidating, too. No wonder the tall guy was nervous to approach her.

As you averted your eyes back to Junseo, you caught him already staring at you. You had no idea what to do with yourself, so you ended up giving him a little wave with your hand which just made you feel even worse.

For gods’ sake, what were you doing?

“I’ll be right back,” you turned towards Chaeryeong and Remi who were deep in conversation about the latest Kdrama they were watching, so they (thankfully) didn’t notice your awkward little wave.

Then, you made your way towards Junseo who still stood there by himself in the corner, seemingly not knowing what to do with himself. Though from your point of view, he just looked extra precious looking like a lost puppy.

“Hey!”

“Hi!”

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” you noted with a smile, trying to speak over the loud music that was blasting from at least three different speakers on this level.

Junseo scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, and god damnit, you felt like your insides were melting. How could anyone look this pretty and handsome, and be so gentle and attentive as he was? Not to be dramatic, but he was literally like an angel, you could almost see the halo around his head.

“Oh yeah. I just accompanied Hyunsuk because he didn’t want to come alone, but we came because he wanted to talk to Byeol. Byeol is the-”

“Head of the debate club,” you finished his sentence, and he nodded with a smile in return. “Yep, I know. We had a class together last year.”

“Oh right. You’re both business students,” he connected the dots with an airy laugh.

You ended up telling him that you also felt like Byeol was a bit intimidating but she was also pretty nice once you got to know her. It turned out that Hyunsuk actually joined the debate club because of her (because he had a crush on her), but he felt like things had not turned out the way he wanted it to between the two of them, so he was trying to make a move.

It was kind of cute of Junseo to accompany his friend to a party to help him out, but of course, you didn’t phrase yourself like that. Instead, you said that it was nice of him to do so.

After a while, when you got tired of shouting over the music, you decided on continuing the conversation outside on the patio where only Heeseung and Sungchan from the basketball team were around. Junseo (as the gentleman he was) held the door for you and let you go first, so you decided on the opposite corner of the patio where the two athletes were. Not that you were afraid that they would gossip about you and Junseo because they were pretty introverted, but still… You didn’t want them to hear any of your nervous rambling or anything of the sort.

“Y/N…” Junseo called out your name so gently that you felt like you were the main character in a movie and you were about to hear his confession when you knew very well that would not happen. Still, when you turned towards him. your heart was beating against your ribcage so wildly that you thought that it would malfunction in the next second.

What followed was the furthest thing from a confession though…

“Don’t be scared, but…” He started quietly, and despite the fact that he told you not to be scared, your heart was beating erratically for a different reason now. “You have a red stain on the back of your dress. I’m guessing it’s your… you know,” Junseo continued, and though his face was as understanding as ever, you wanted the ground to swallow you up whole instead of seeing his big doe eyes and bittersweet smile as he was telling you that you had most probably leaked through your pad.

Great.

Absolutely fantastic.

You had never ever been happier before.

“Oh my gosh, no…” You whimpered frantically, mentally calculating with every possible way to just evaporate right then and there. You closed your eyes for a few seconds, too embarrassed to face anyone, much less the boy you were having a big fat crush on. This couldn’t be happening right when you were about to have a lovely conversation with him on this lovely patio under the dim lights.

The thought that others might have seen it too (or worse: will continue to see it) made you open your eyes instantly, but then again, you wore a light dress with nothing to cover up your bum because it was late April and there was no need for extra layers.

“Here…” Junseo’s voice brought you back to reality, and as if he read your mind, he shrugged off his flannel shirt, revealing a simple white tee underneath, and held the shirt  out for you.

You blinked down at the piece of clothing, feeling like you could burst into tears any moment because bless him and his caring soul for being so willing to help you out even though most boys would probably freak out over seeing period blood on a girl’s dress. Then again, he had a twin sister, so he was probably used to the period talk at home.

“You sure?”

“Yes, absolutely,” he nodded fervently, and there was a smile in the corner of his lips when he added. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Why did Kim Junseo have to be the best boy on Earth?

“Thank you so so much. This is literally a lifesaver!” You exclaimed gratefully as he handed over his shirt and you used it to cover up your embarrassing little spot. Or maybe it wasn’t even little, it crossed your mind, but you hoped that it wasn’t too bad. You had to get home somehow because you were 100% sure that you wouldn’t stay any longer after such an accident even though you wanted nothing more than to talk with Junseo.

“You girls deal with the tough stuff, I’m just glad if I could help out at times like this,” he shrugged casually as if he did this every single day, and you swore you could kiss him right and there. If you weren’t so horrified about the actual circumstances of your conversation, that is…

“Thank you, really. I’ll give it back to you as soon as I can, but I think it might be best if I went home now,” you announced, awkwardly gesturing towards your back body even though you knew that he would get what you meant.

You were about to bid your goodbye when he asked:

“Do you want me to give you a ride? I’ve parked just right around the corner.”

Oh. My. Gosh. This guy just couldn’t get any more perfect. After handling the situation so well, he was willing to give you a lift? Seriously, what did you do in your past life to deserve him?

“Are you sure? Don’t you need to wait for Hyunsuk?”

“I think he’ll be fine,” he replied, boasting a boyish smile. Under different circumstances, that smile would have made you feel all giddy and warm, but this time, it just reminded you of another thing you would miss out on because you had to cut the night short due to your messy period.

After making sure that it was 100% okay with Junseo to give you a ride back home, you followed him to his car and got in (he held the door for you, of course). You were usually fidgety when you were nervous, but you were so aware of wearing his flannel shirt in his own car’s seat on your period that you dared not to move at all. Why did today have to be the day your emergency pad wasn’t enough because you bled through it, so now you had to leave the party that just got interesting because Junseo was there?

At least, Junseo still didn’t seem weirded out by the whole situation. In fact, he started talking about how he had saved up for this car and when he had learned how to drive, and soon enough, your nerves settled, and you were ready to engage in the conversation instead of worrying about your stain.

Yet again, you realised just how sweet and precious Junseo was, and even though you had met him because of Jihye, you hadn’t talked about her up until this point when Junseo remarked that he had gotten his driving license just in time to help Jihye out. Instead of admitting if it had inconvenienced him to drive her everywhere, he remarked how devastated Jihye had been when she had learned that it would take her 2-3 months to recover and even more to regain her full strength and mobility to go back to dancing like before. That’s why she insisted on attending dance practices, so that she wouldn’t miss out on the routines during her recovery. He talked about his sister in such a caring way, you were sure that he was a great brother even though he spent a lot of time studying.

Time flew by in his company, and by the time he dropped you off in front of your house, you almost forgot about the whole fiasco with your dress. Almost.

“Can we exchange numbers? So that I could let you know when I can give your shirt back. Washed and dried, of course,” you promised earnestly, actually not making an excuse to get his number, but you could get it either way which was just crazy.

The boy didn’t even protest, so you exchanged contacts, and after thanking him a couple more times, you wished each other good night. Despite the fact that you could have imagined walking back to your front door with his shirt on, with his number in your phone after being dropped off by him under very different circumstances, he managed to turn this night around, and you would forever be grateful for him for that.

After you gave Junseo’s shirt back as promised, you weren’t sure when you would see him again because technically, it wasn’t guaranteed that you would be in the same place again.

However, he continued to drop by occasionally to see the last few minutes of the dance practices before picking up his sister, and you even managed to bump into him in the library a few times as exam season rolled by. He was always eager to hear about your days, and after a while, you developed the habit of getting late night snacks from the 24/7 convenience store on campus together when you needed a bit of a pick-me-up during study sessions. Nothing was planned, nothing was re-arranged, but you couldn’t deny that you were spending way more time studying on campus this semester than you ever did before.

If anything, your feelings for him just grew stronger and stronger as days went by, but how could you have not fallen for him when he was such a green flag? He was kind, caring, perceptive, and he had that adorable shy laugh that you wished to remember forever, tucked into your memory as one of your favourite sounds.

He was also very pretty, like a real-life prince, and you had to force yourself not to stare at him too much when the sun was shining on his features while studying or the way his muscles were on display while he was driving. He insisted on driving you back when you finished studying late at night, and you just couldn’t say no to him.

However, when you submitted your last assignment for the semester, you knew that it also meant that you wouldn’t need to come to campus every day because of summer break, only for dance practices. You kind of dreaded this day because it would mean not having your study sessions together with Junseo, something that you had grown fond of over the last few weeks. Not to mention the fact that Jihye could now walk without crutches, so she didn’t need her brother’s assistance.

That night, when you packed up your stuff and headed outside of the library together, you were uncharacteristically quiet. You submitted your assignment around 6pm, so it wasn’t even dark, but you stalled in front of the building, not knowing whether he would offer to drive you back or not, and you were too embarrassed to bring up the question.

Instead, you found yourself asking:

“Do you want to grab dinner together? You know, to celebrate my last assignment for the semester,” you suggested casually, and the smile he gave you in return turned your legs into jelly.

“Sure. What do you have in mind?”

Truthfully, you had nothing in mind, you just wanted to spend more time with him, but you suggested a place anyway. While waiting for your orders, you inquired if Junseo had any plans for summer, and he said that he had a summer class that would involve working on a research project. The project would also help him prepare for his final thesis next year, so he didn’t mind spending more time doing it. When he asked about your side, you shared that you had a dance bootcamp lined up and a competition later on, so you were preparing for that.

Your answers made it very clear that you would not see each other during summer, but you tried not to show that you were affected by it. However, that also meant that you were rambling on and on, afraid to put an end to this conversation, to say goodbye to him for the next few weeks. You knew very well that you were being dramatic, but you just couldn’t help it.

After dinner, Junseo offered to give you a ride back home, but the closer you got, the more disheartened you were. When he stopped in front of your house, you looked ahead of yourself for a few seconds before turning towards him.

“I guess it’s time to say goodbye then. Good luck for your summer class, Junseo!”

You put on a friendly, cheery smile when inside you felt like crawling a hole for yourself and not getting out of it until the first week of the next semester rolled by.

Junseo looked at you, perplexed, as if you said something confusing.

“W-wait, you don’t want to see me during summer?”

Now it was your turn to be confused. What was he talking about?

“What do you mean?” You asked, furrowing your eyebrows in question. Of course you wanted to see him, but you weren’t going to. Right?

“Just because Jihye doesn’t use her crutches anymore, I can still come by your dance practices. I’ll be on campus either way,” he broke it down to you, and you felt like facepalming yourself because why had you not thought about it before? “But if you’re uncomfortable with me there, I don’t-”

“No! I would love for you to come. Anytime, really. Please, come by!” You cut him off instantly.

Junseo gave you a coy little giggle hearing your eager words, but the damage had already been done, so you had to bear the consequences of your actions. He still had the chance to back away if he found your antics annoying or awkward or-

“Besides, I would love to take you out on a date someday if you wouldn’t mind.”

Wait, what?

You almost got whiplash when you decided to turn towards him in a swift motion because you weren’t sure that you had heard it right. Did Kim Junseo just ask you out? Did your crush just ask you out? Oh my gosh, it was really happening. You weren’t dreaming!

“No! I wouldn’t mind. Not at all. I would love to. I would be more than happy, actually,” you blurted out in one go, and you saw the boy’s shoulders drop in relief.

Now it was your turn to let out a chuckle because gosh… you were majorly overreacting, weren’t you?

He didn’t seem to mind though, so that was good.

You were all good.

It would be just fine.

More than fine, actually.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine. Let me know what you think. I'm always happy to hear your feedback. 😊

Header taken from the 'FAKE LOVE' MV by WEi.

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The hardest thing about moving away isn’t in the things you left behind, but in the change that happens after you leave. In the places, the people and the feelings that are no longer familiar.

It’s about how that frozen yoghurt shop that was once the favourite of every school kid because it was new and different has been turned into a BBQ restaurant.

It’s about how the park where you used to have a picnic on the last day of the school year has been turned into a parking lot.

It’s about how the flower-dotted cliff that has once been your little hideaway whenever you were upset, frustrated or had enough of the world has become a tourist spot for all the world to see.

It’s about how your old school building has been repainted, expanded and modernised, and now doesn’t look like your old school building at all.

It’s about how you can no longer feel the sweet fragrance of your mother’s pancakes in the house because she’s no longer here.

It’s about how your father and you converse in the silence because he’s not the person you used to know before moving abroad. 

It’s about how a part of you still feels like this little seaside town is your hometown even though it no longer feels like it.

It’s about how you’ve never stopped being reminded of the little things that used to be yours including this house, your mother’s resting place and the boy who had your heart, but now that you are actually here, it doesn’t feel like closure.

Because even though you have moved away - or more like run away - to study abroad, your mother’s lack of presence in your life, your first love’s bitter ending and the girl you once were have been haunting you all these years. You have busied yourself with studying because it has been your and your mother’s dream that you study abroad once, but she has passed away before she could see you submit your application. You have worked throughout summers, so that you wouldn’t have to come back home to the house that reminded you of your mother more than anything else, to the father that has turned to alcohol ever since her sudden and tragic death and to the boy who has deserved better than you, who deserved the world.

The house has been legally yours since her death because she has left it for you in her will, but you have been underage back then, so it has not been a concern of yours, not yet. Throughout the years, you have never even been back here, but when you decided to come back to the country after graduation and got a job in the capital city, your father finally asked the inevitable question:

“Do you want to sell the house? I really don’t need such a big house all to myself.”

You had a feeling that the day would come, but you didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. However, after you have made sure that he would have a place to stay at and someone would be willing to buy it, you came back only to pick up your remaining things before the new owners would move in.

You have previously put your things away into boxes neatly, not intent on ever coming back, but here you are, deciding on what to keep or throw away because you know very well that the hole that has been left in your heart can’t be filled with material things.

It’s been messy, how you have left. You have kept your decision to study abroad a secret from Junghwan until the very end because so many things could have gone wrong. You were used to things going wrong since you lost your mother. One nail in the coffin after another, your heart falling apart more and more.

She was gone, your father turned to alcohol more often than not, everything of hers was left to be divided up in a piece of paper, people looked at you differently, and you felt like you lost your axis. Even though you really did like Junghwan and you dated for a few months before you left, you didn’t feel like you were yourself beside him. Everything was dark and messy and complicated.

You were actually kind of relieved that he got mad when you told him the news. You had been preparing yourself for it for so long: for the goodbye, for things to hurt again, for you to lose another part of yourself.

So when you left, you left not only him, your father, your mother’s memory and the place you called home behind, you also left all those hurtful memories in hopes of a brighter, better future.

The beginning was perfect. The new environment, the new people, being away from the gossip of a small town all made it feel like you were someone new, something new.

But the homesickness and the hurt and the grief hit in unexpected moments. Moments when you wished someone could go and fetch you medicine when you were sick and didn’t have the energy to go out yourself. Moments when you did worse on an assignment than expected and wished to vent. Moments when you broke down crying because you missed all the smells, sights and sounds of home, to cry into the crook of his neck like you used to. Moments when you wished you didn’t lose your father and he would come and visit you, but he never offered, and you never asked. Moments when the kids playing in the park reminded you of little you and little Junghwan playing together in the sand on the beach, careless kids back then, oblivious to what is about to come. Moments when you wished nothing but to climb to the top of the lighthouse that was no longer in use, and that was the favourite place of yours and his, where he confessed his feelings to you, and where you had your first kiss.

You’ve become stronger, that was true, but at what cost? Sometimes you’ve wondered if you could ever open your heart up to someone like you did with Junghwan. Sometimes you’ve wondered if you could ever feel like yourself again, if you could ever be as joyful and as optimistic as before. If you could ever put the pieces back together or you would be like a forgotten puzzle, missing pieces here and there.

You don’t stay for long. You go through your boxes faster than expected and decide to take a stroll through all your favourite places from the cliff to the beach, and around sunset, you climb up to the top of the lighthouse like you used to. With him.

When you get to the gallery deck, you’re ready to take a seat on the side of the lighthouse that overlooks the sea and the cliff just like you used to, dangling your legs from the deck, but someone is already there. For a moment, you freeze on the spot, but when he turns around to look at you, he follows suit.

It’s him. Older, more mature with broader shoulders and a more defined sense of style, but it’s still him. His moles are still dotting his skin, ones that you liked to trace with your hands, saying that they reminded you of constellations. His eyes are still chocolate brown and warm, reminding you of those nights you spent watching romcoms on the couch of the Shin family house, and blushing like crazy when he caught you looking at him instead of the screen. His hair is still soft and fluffy, and makes you want to ruffle it even though it’s been 4 years since you last did it.

And his voice… it’s still gentle when he speaks up while he’s reluctantly searching for the words at this unexpected encounter.

“Y/N… What… What are you doing here?”

There’s no malice in his voice, only surprise and a hint of concern. He’s trying to stand up, but he forgets about the fact that his legs are under the lower set of the railing and kicks them against it, earning a yelp from him.

Your lips curl up at the sight because he’s never learned his lesson, has he? He used to do it all the time as if he kept forgetting about the fact that he had grown long limbs during puberty, longer than anyone who had probably tried to dangle their legs from this deck.

But then, he catches sight of your expression, and he’s smiling again, just like in old times, and for a moment, with him bathing in the orange palette of the sunset, you feel like your 18-year-old self again, laughing at his clumsiness, your heart full with joy by just the way he looks back at you and the fact that now you know that he likes you back.

The moment is gone as quickly as a shooting star, and your lips press into a thin line, your heart churning when the avalanche of memories that followed those precious days in love hit you.

“I’m back to pack up the rest of my things. Dad has managed to sell the house,” you reply raspily, looking down at your feet instead of his hurt expression.

“Are you… moving again?” He inquires after he manages to free himself from the railing this time, and his pair of shoes enters your vision when he steps closer to you. You look up at him, and you’re so not used to craning your neck at him that your eyes land on his lips at first.

You regret it immediately and look him in the eyes instead.

“I got a job in Seoul.”

Even though his question was tentative, you can see the way his shoulders sag in relief when you answer.

“That’s great! So you are staying… for good?”

The way he looks up from under his eyelashes makes your heart race just like in old times, and it’s crazy, it’s absolutely crazy that all that distance, all those timezones and all those years have not managed to make you feel differently about him. Maybe you’ve only wanted to stay away from him because you’ve never believed that you were good enough for him, especially not after your mother’s death, not because you haven’t loved him the same.

You nod because words seem too heavy, too loaded now. It’s as if you’re afraid that if you broke the silence, this moment would dissolve and you would wake up from this dream. Because it feels like a dream, seeing him again after all these years, and him smiling at you as if he’s not mad that you’ve left just like that, cutting off all contact with him after your argument.

“I’m glad to hear that. I’m also in Seoul, you know… I’ve been doing an internship since graduating uni, so I’m just visiting home for the weekend,” he tells you without you directly asking him to, and you wait for him to bring up how you left things behind, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, you inquire about how his parents have been doing, and what kind of an internship he’s been doing. You don’t plan on asking so many questions, but the more he talks, the more curious you grow. You’ve never stopped wondering how he’s been and where he could be, you’ve just never asked because you were convinced that he would be better without you. Once and for all.

Then, he asks about your side, and suddenly, you’re at a loss for words. There’s just so many things you could say and so little time, so you end up telling him a bit about everything in short. The academic part, the personal life part, the career part… He listens attentively, but asks questions when he sees it fit, and it feels so familiar, so comforting, it honestly scares you.

“Do you need a ride back to Seoul tomorrow?” Junghwan asks tentatively, averting his eyes from the scenery in front of him to your face. You’re both leaning against the railing, facing the cliff, the last rays of sunset hitting your face. “I’ve got dad’s old Kia, so your stuff should fit in there better than on a train,” he adds when you don’t give him an answer, but it’s not because you want to object, it’s more so that you don’t want to believe that he would want to spend more time with you after how you treated him four years ago.

But maybe it’s time to leave behind what you think he should be feeling instead of letting him decide for himself.

“Thanks. That’d be great,” you decide as you turn your head towards him, and when he gives you a tender smile in return, your heart feels lighter than in the past four years.

It feels like coming home, finally.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine. Let me know what you think. I’m always happy to hear your feedback. 😊

Header taken from the 'OVERDRIVE' MV. Title put together from two different lines in 'Back To Strangers'.

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➳ TWS masterlist

You watched the snowflakes melt against the glass as you looked out of the window, so serene and so scenic. You saw a group of kids throwing snowballs at each other in front of the corner shop, and a couple linking arms while crossing the street. You saw a businessman with an umbrella, trying to shelter himself and his perfectly neat tuxedo from the snow. You saw the currently playing ad on the skyscraper opposite the office building, its bright colours attracting everyone’s attention.

This time of the year came again. The shivering cold, the blinding whiteness of the accompanying snow and the memories of him, you and him, and the break-up. One week, you had been throwing snowballs at each other. The next, your whole world had come crumbling back down, and since then, each and every year in December, the memories came back to haunt you as vivid as if the break-up had only been yesterday.

Sometimes, you wondered if any of it had been real. If any of it had actually happened because it had all been a secret. You had not even told your parents, your friends, your colleagues. No one.

Ever since then, you hated winter, and especially December. You had already bought him a present and been looking forward to spending some time with him (in secret, of course) by the time you had broken up. That year, you had experienced for yourself how cruel and cold winter could be.

“Sunbaenim?”

You whipped your head back at the voice of the cheery marketing assistant, Haewon, and looked at the slide she currently presented.

“Yes?” You tried to appear professional despite very obviously zoning out, and looked at her with a polite smile. Haewon didn’t seem affected, and that’s one of the reasons you loved working with her. She was hard-working, proactive and didn’t let anything faze her.

“I was just asking if we can move on to the possible candidates for our ‘Begin Again’ product line launch?”

“Yes, sure. Please, proceed,” you bobbed your head, and Haewon flipped onto the next slide. Your fingers froze above your laptop’s keyboard when you saw the pictures on the slide, the cursor blinking back at you relentlessly.

“We have three candidates for now. We have the model, actor and singer Cha Eunwoo who has just finished his military service and this could be his first campaign after coming back. He’s very popular with our target audience, has a youthful look and a clear image, but one drawback is that he only worked with bigger brands before, even our competitor, mixsoon, a few years ago, so we are not sure if he would be willing to work with us. Even if he was to accept our offer, his pricing might not fit our budget.

Then, we have the actor Gong Myung who has a similarly youthful look and a clear image, and he was voted as the celebrity our customers would most want to see in our campaign according to the mid-year survey. However, he is currently filming overseas for an American movie, and it has not been publicly disclosed when he would return, so the timing might not be right.

Thirdly, we have Park Junhee, who has made a successful debut as a solo artist after his group went their separate ways. He’s currently trending on multiple charts with his song going viral, he’s also active on social media which we could use to our advantage, and he might be willing to work with us again since he did so when he was still in ‘Favourite Boyz’.”

He did work with you, you remembered all too well. That’s how you had met. They had been in their second year as a group whereas you had been just an intern back then, and Junhee had gone out of his way to comfort you when he had overheard your then manager scolding you for messing up a document. You had instantly fallen for him, hard and fast and oh so naive.

However, you had been merely 20 back then and utterly obsessed with the idea of being in your first relationship. Too bad the years had hardened you…

“Thank you, Haewon,” you managed the words out after clearing your throat. “Do any of you have anything else to add?” You turned to your two interns - Kyujin and Woonhak -, your marketing executive - Nayeon - and the social media content team members - Yudai and Yeonjun.

Nayeon briefly pointed out the budgeting details before Yudai took over and said a few words about the said celebrities’ social media activities. Since you wanted to focus on a lot of different paid campaigns and even proposed a small dance challenge launching a new hydrating sunscreen, it was important to have a celebrity promote your product who was active on social media. In all honesty, Junhee beat out everyone else in this category.

“Thank you so much for your hard work. I will take it to Mr Seo, and will come back to you with the results as soon as we get the green light,” you wrapped up the meeting professionally and confidently walked out of the meeting room even though all you wanted to do was to hide in a corner and cry, suddenly remembering your 21-year-old self, sobbing into your pillow because Junhee had broken up with you.

Back then, it had seemed like the end of the world, and you had not known why he had wanted to push you away when you had been so good at hiding your relationship. However, his band member had been caught red-handed going on a date not long before, and it had nearly ended their rise to fame. So Junhee had not wanted the same to happen to you, especially because you weren’t a celebrity, and he had wanted it to stay that way.

Now looking back, it was probably for the better because it would have not worked out either way. He was a celebrity, and you weren’t. He had to follow a strict diet, he could only contact you via a secret phone that the company didn’t know about, and he sacrificed his precious free time to be with you when he should have spent it sleeping or resting. You had seen it all - the gruesome side of the idol life, the sacrifices and the behind-the-scenes secrets -, and yet, you had foolishly thought that you could be together.

Despite all the good times, you wished that you had never fallen in love with him. It was worse loving him and then losing him than never having loved him at all because the memories didn’t leave you, not even after all these years.

Now, all you could do was try and hope for the best: that it wouldn’t be Junhee who would be the face of your new campaign.

Your manager had made some inquiries, and it turned out that Cha Eunwoo had just signed with a competitor brand, so his contract wouldn’t allow him to work with you, and Gong Myung would not return to the country for a few months, so that left you with the most plausible choice either way.

Park Junhee.

It wasn’t like you could avoid him completely because his song was going viral, and it was even more difficult to avoid thinking about the implications behind his song. He knew that sunflowers were your favourite flowers, and the lyrics of his title song said ‘I made you turn away like sunflowers turn away from the gloom’, and it couldn’t be a coincidence. Neither could the temporary sunflower tattoo that he had on the inside of his wrist during promotions. Not that you cared, really…

Nevertheless, now it would be impossible to avoid him altogether because as the manager of the marketing team, you were required to accompany your line manager to the first in-person meeting with his company, and he would be there. Not just as the artist but as the CEO because it was his company. You were about to work together with your ex.

You told yourself that it would be fine, you were more mature, more responsible and less likely to be swayed by anyone, much less him. After all, the break-up had happened six years ago. In the meantime, you had finished university, climbed the corporate ladder and fought tooth and nail to become a successful, respectable manager. You rented your own place now which was a significant upgrade from living with others all throughout university and your first years working full-time. You had a driving license and had your own car, and could start saving up for the future.

On the other hand, you practically lived for your job, so that you would have no time to feel alone (and therefore lonely). You tried to make some friends by going to social events and joining your local pilates studio, but you gave up trying after all of them either faded into silence or never came to fruition at all. Let’s not even mention dating…

So really, sometimes you were wondering if all that success and glamour was worth it when you had no one to come home to, not even a freaking plant. Your sister moved abroad and started a family in the meantime, and your parents still lived in the small town you detested growing up in because it had been everything you had wanted to run away from. Not just from the restrictive beliefs that you would never be able to work for a big company and carve a life out for yourself in the big city, but also from the version of you that you had been back then.

Hence, you had practically no one to lean on, and at times like this, you liked to reminisce about the year you had spent being in love, deluding yourself into naive fantasies about growing old together with Junhee. You had been so stupid because how could it have ever worked out with a celebrity like him?

A celebrity who, though was a bit surprised to see you at his company, acted friendly and polite towards you like any other famous person you had ever worked with. You also had a feeling that you were the only one who noticed the slight falter in his movements when he turned towards you after shaking hands with your manager.

He was gorgeous, even more so in person than on the screen, and as he grew into a man from a 20-year-old boy, his features matured, the soft edges hardened. His black blazer accentuated his broad shoulders, and paired with black cotton pants and a white shirt, his appearance was sophisticated yet not pompous. He was a CEO now, not just a rookie idol, and the confidence he carried himself with showcased the years of experience he had under his belt.

“And this is Y/N. She’s our marketing team manager,” Mr Seo introduced you, and you bowed out of respect. Junhee did the same and extended his hand that you shook as politely yet swiftly as humanly possible. He wore the same smile that he did around everyone back in the days, even if it had been an ahjumma at a random food court, and it made you falter for a second.

The touch that you had craved so much back then still had its effect on you, but you told yourself that the tingling sensation in your fingers was due to your cold hands meeting his warm ones, not because it was him.

“I am looking forward to working with you.”

“Likewise,” you echoed the artist’s words, and put on a friendly smile that mirrored his. From the outside, you probably acted like usual, but from the inside, you were trying to fight the avalanche of emotions that came over you.

Junhee was very professional throughout the meeting though. He had his manager and an artist development director with him, but their team worked well together, and he even came up with a few reasonable points that you needed to cover before starting the product launch project. Though he did make a few jokes here and there like he used to, he was also acting in a more responsible, more mature way, something that surprised you a bit. However, you needed to remind yourself that you were also not the same girl who had messed up a document all those years ago, so you couldn’t expect him to stay the same carefree jokester he had once been.

Too bad that he was still as charming as ever - if not more -, and had that aura around him that made you not want to peel your eyes off him. You had the excuse of doing so though. After all, you were paying a lot of attention to what he was saying. That wasn’t so wrong, was it?

However, looking at him from your position now, you couldn’t help but wonder what had prompted him to open up his own agency and become a CEO instead of signing with an already established one. You knew very well that Favourite Boyz’s company had been harsh on all of them, but you mused if he felt comfortable being responsible for his employees as well as the financial performance of the agency as its sole artist. Sometimes you felt small and inept when it came to the management of your own team, so what could he possibly feel as the director?

Anyway, you managed to conclude the meeting without any mishaps, agreeing on further actions and the next time you would meet face-to-face. You were proud of yourself for keeping it together even though the minutes seemed to go by impossibly slowly.

Yet, that traitor heart of yours still skipped a beat when he called after you while you were exiting the meeting room.

“Yes?” You turned around, your eyes immediately finding his. Your voice was as stable as ever, but there was a hopeful undertone to it despite your best efforts to remain neutral.

“You left it behind,” Junhee pointed out as he held up your scarf. Damn it, it must have slipped out of your coat when you stood up from the chair…

“Thank you very much,” you forced a smile as you reached for your scarf, and for the briefest moment, for a small eternity, when you looked into his eyes, you saw the boy you fell in love with, and felt the same kind of warm embrace that his presence brought out in past you.

Then, just like that, he let go of the accessory, and your heartbeat went back to its natural state, forgetting that it ever thought of this moment, of this interaction as something significant.

If you wanted to be honest with yourself, the resentment from the break-up lasted maybe a year. You saw more and more idol dating scandals surface in the meantime, and realised that Junhee was right. As much as you hated to admit it to yourself (especially in the beginning), he was really trying to protect you from all that gossip, stalking and death threats by breaking up with you. It was for the better for both of you.

On the other hand, he was your first love, and first loves just had a special place in people’s hearts, didn't they? Sure, you had silly little crushes here and there at school, but those were just crushes, nothing more. Your first love was him.

Being in a relationship, albeit a secret one, taught you so much about how deeply and intensively you could love someone who wasn’t even family, and also about how much you could be loved by someone so unconditionally. Despite the bittersweet ending, you had never felt more loved as someone coming from a dysfunctional family.

Now that you saw him in person for the first time in 6 years, you had no idea how to deal with the wide array of emotions that invaded your heart. You weren’t angry at him, not anymore, but you also couldn’t say that you would be able to strike up a friendly conversation with him if needed. You were rather confused as to how to act around him, and he didn’t make it any easier because he was being so kind, so very kind.

You had no idea whether your shared history had an impact on his work ethic or not, but he always sent back his responses and approvals on your documents within mere hours, and as Mr Seo put it, he was a joy to work with. You had a few emails exchanged with a chain of people from both his side and yours, another in-person meeting and an online meeting before him and his team came to your little studio to shoot the promotional photos and videos.

When Favourite Boyz had worked with your company before, there had been no separate filming studio inside the building, but over the years, the company had bought another floor and turned a part of it into a studio that was mainly used by the social media content team (Yudai and Yeonjun) and the online catalogue team.

So his surprise seeing the studio in person was genuine, and you had to hold yourself back from smiling at his reaction. He really did look like an excited child at an amusement park at times, and it seemed like some things didn’t change.

“Aww… isn’t he the cutest?” Haewon cooed beside you, affectionately clutching a folder to her chest.

Your lips curled up at the way she eyed the celebrity, someone she was so excited to meet. She had tried to hide the fact that she was a fan of Junhee (as a solo artist, she didn’t really follow Favourite Boyz), but when it was announced that it would be him you would work with, she came up to you and confessed, worried that it would mess up her professionalism. You had told her that it would be totally fine, you would be there either way, and you were sure that he wouldn’t mind knowing that someone he worked with liked his music. That had seemed to put her mind at ease, and she had been nothing but enthusiastic during the last few weeks leading up to the shooting.

“Do you think it would be weird if I asked for his autograph?” The girl blinked at you with a pondering expression, and you chuckled at her earnest reaction.

“I think you should go for it. Maybe at the end of the day though.”

“Nice!” She clapped her hands, giving you one of her trademark eye smiles before she scurried away to get herself a drink before she was needed anywhere else.

You checked that everything was in place, everyone knew what they had to do, and you also checked that Junhee was feeling comfortable and knew what was required of him. Maybe it was the fact that it was your territory (a place that you knew oh so well rather than an unfamiliar one) or maybe you felt more confident than the last few times, but your heart didn’t go crazy this time when he gave you a relaxed smile.

“Everything will work out just fine,” he mentioned as if he knew that with the added responsibility, you were also more nervous that things would go south. As the manager, you were the one who needed to make sure everything ran smoothly, and you were also the one who needed to take responsibility if mistakes or accidents occurred.

For a moment, you felt like your 20-year-old self again, feeling like the weight of the world was on your shoulders, and if anything went wrong, it would be over for your internship. Then, there he was, with a smile on his face, a kindness that was unmatched in the tense atmosphere, and his words felt more comforting than a band-aid on a fresh wound. He had no idea how much his presence meant in that moment, in that heartbeat, in that desperate state of yours.

You were not that girl anymore though, you reminded yourself, and shook off the sudden flashback.

“It will… yeah,” you squeezed out the words before turning on your heel and busying yourself checking emails until the shoot started. Then, you took your place behind the photographer’s monitor where you could see the pictures he took on a bigger screen.

The shoot went by in a blink of an eye. Junhee was a professional, his years in the industry evident in every pose and the ease he carried himself with. However, his true colours shined through the dance challenge promoting the new sunscreens because he could be more goofy and finish with a big smile which was so like him. It was also a look that you liked on him. Another reminder though that he was so perfectly fine and thriving on his own, and you felt like questioning your own definition of being fine seeing him.

Your heart was heavy when you wrapped things up, and you felt like you desperately needed some fresh air even though the others were going out for dinner (after lunch had been covered by Junhee himself). You told them that you would head home, but instead, you escaped to the rooftop like you always did when you felt stressed.

One of the reasons you loved your office building was because it had a rooftop, and one of the main reasons you chose your apartment was because it also had a rooftop. Some people liked to go to parks to let off some steam whereas you liked to look over the city from rooftops, away from everyone, away from the hustle-bustle, being a nobody with no responsibilities, no title to live up to, and no one to please.

You were so lost in thought that you barely registered the door to the rooftop opening and closing behind a new visitor, but his voice didn’t go unnoticed by you. It could never go unnoticed by you.

“Mind if I join you?” Junhee inquired as he walked up to you standing beside the railing, looking over the buzzing city centre bathing in the dazzling colours of the sunset. Thankfully, after the cruel winter, spring has been kind so far and mild in temperature, so it was perfectly pleasant weather for a rooftop escape.

“No,” you shook your head, and watched the way his whole face lit up at your answer. His lips pulled into a wide smile, the toothy kind that you loved so much.

“It was so cool to see you work today! Oh, and of course, congratulations on becoming a team manager,” he beamed enthusiastically, and he made it seem so natural to strike up a conversation with you that you felt a bit more at ease beside him now than you did back in professional settings.

Even though you thought that working with him would provide an excuse to keep your distance, this felt safer than any interaction that you had with him in the past months. Maybe it was because it was just you two here, and now you didn’t need to hide your reactions from your colleagues.

“Thanks.”

“I remember that it was your dream to become a team manager, so how does it feel now?” He raised an eyebrow, his head tilted curiously. He seemed so genuine that you didn’t want to lie to him and say that it was exactly like how you had imagined it.

“It’s only been a year since I became one, but…”

“But?” He prompted, sensing your hesitation. You tore your gaze away from his face because it was suddenly too much to look him in the eye. You were afraid that if you did so, you would tell him things that you had never told anyone before. Like how you had told him all those years ago about your emotionally immature parents and the favoritism towards your sister, and how it had impacted you.

Alas, he had the same effect on you after all these years, and you found yourself telling him the truth.

“It’s not really what I’ve expected. I’ve realised that I don’t really enjoy leading people. The added responsibility just makes me more stressed, and I’ve never really thought I would need to fire people, for instance, until I was the one who needed to do it,” you admitted, watching the opposite building being painted in a purple hue. You felt like an invisible weight had been lifted off your chest after your confession, but your previous musings regarding his CEO status resurfaced, and you immediately added:

“But I don’t want to complain to you. After all, you have your own company.”

You heard him suck in a deep breath before he spoke up. His voice was gentle and caring, no hint of playfulness.

“Y/N, we are two very different people working in very different industries and we have very different circumstances. So complain all you want because I’ll listen, and I won’t think that you’re just complaining for no reason,” Junhee said, and it was like he knew exactly what you needed to hear.

That’s one of the things you loved about him. May it be because he was the leader of his group or his generally well-spoken personality, but he always seemed to know what to say, he knew how to read the room, and he was never afraid of voicing out his fears and worries, things that others might have deemed too vulnerable and not so manly.

So you told him about how you had needed to dismiss someone who was actually older than you, but kept messing up on purpose since he had wanted you to fail because he couldn’t accept that a younger woman could be his manager; about the first time you had to be there for a team member whose loved one had been diagnosed with cancer; how you had needed to take responsibility for an inaccurately set-up spending limit for an online ad that you had also overlooked, and how you had been so afraid that you would not seem like a good manager if you had not come first thing in the morning and left the latest that you practically lived for your job.

It was easy to tell him anything because he listened attentively, never interrupting you, but rather trying to comfort you, so you wouldn’t feel so alone with your concerns. He also shared that despite having more artistic freedom, he was worried that he wasn’t that good of a CEO, but he had to trust his employees when they said that they liked working with him. He was happy, doing something that he enjoyed, and you truly wished him all the best because he deserved it after all those years of hard work and sacrifices.

However, when he brought up the time you dissed your manager during your internship whilst he dissed his company on their dorm’s rooftop, and how similar it was to today, after laughing about it initially, your smile gradually faded. Suddenly, you were reminded of the girl you had been back then, so naive, so foolish, unable to stand up for herself, unable to speak up when her manager mistreated her, unable to quit, and it felt like a knife was twisted in your heart. You realised that you worked so hard and you were so strict with yourself because you dreaded becoming that girl again. Or worse, realising that you were still the same girl.

It was like waking up from a stupor, you were suddenly all too aware of his closeness and of your heart thumping against your ribcage with the foolish hope of going back to how things were before. You had to remind yourself that he was still an idol, and all those years ago, you promised yourself that you would never want anything to do with an idol ever again.

“I’ll get back to you with the finished material as soon as I receive it, but I have to go now,” you excused yourself sternly, and without looking back at him, you turned on your heel to walk towards the door.

“Y/N!” Junhee called after you almost immediately, and when you didn’t stop, he reached for your wrist. You let out a sigh before turning around, facing the man whom you would have once given everything but couldn’t even face now.

You could see that he was battling with himself over what to say, the struggle that you had also been fighting while working together with him, but in the end, he said the words that he had said over and over again on that snowy winter night six years ago.

“I’m sorry,” he confessed as he let go of your hand, your arm feebly falling back to your side.

You had cried so much back then, your tears blurring the sight of him, shielding you from seeing his face while he had been trying to console you. Even when he had been breaking up with you, he had tried to comfort you, to tend to your heart, and you had hated him even more for it. It would have been better if he had just coldly walked away without batting an eye. Instead, he had held you in his arms until you had stopped punching him in the chest, weak attempts at trying to channel your anger at him. Afterwards, you had been the one to let go of him, push him away and leave the room.

“It’s fine, Junhee. I’m not mad at you. I was stupid enough to believe that we could be together in the first place, but it would have never worked out between us either way,” you said tartly, keeping the eye-contact.

It was true. If anything, you blamed yourself for thinking that you could date an idol without getting caught, and he was right to break up with you to prevent it from happening.

On the other hand, he looked at you as if he had committed a crime, and your reaction made him seem even more remorseful. Long gone was his toothy smile and that joyful glint in his eyes, and you hated seeing him like that, but you had to put out the sparkle before it could ignite a fire.

“Y/N…” Junhee whispered, his voice sorrowful, but you couldn’t waste any more time being around him. The more time you spent around him, the weaker you grew for him, but you couldn’t let history repeat itself. It would end the same way after all.

You turned around once more, but you didn’t stop this time. You opened the door to the rooftop and let it close behind you. Junhee didn’t come after you either.

You should have not seen Junhee again. Approvals and finishing touches were discussed via email or online meetings if needed, but you weren’t supposed to meet him again.

However, Haewon accidentally put the whole chain of people whom she had addressed before on the project launch celebration invitation, meaning that Junhee, his manager and the artist development director were also invited. The mistake was only found out when they came back with an answer, and said that they would be able to attend the event at the time and date mentioned.

You mentally prepared yourself for the event, making plans of sitting beside your team members instead of him or anyone from his company, leaving early and such, but you managed to come down with something on the day of the event, so you had to work from home that day and decline the celebration. It could have worked as an excuse to avoid seeing him again, but you were genuinely feeling poorly, fighting shivers, fatigue, a blocked nose and a sore throat.

You were too worn out from your day, and fell straight into bed after ending your last work call. You were too tired to even go to the pharmacy, you told yourself (and Haewon who couldn’t stop worrying about you) that you would go the following morning if your condition didn’t improve.

With everyone at the celebration and not having invited anyone over, you were surprised to hear the doorbell ring after about a two-hour nap. Groggily, you walked up to the door and opened it slightly ajar.

If you had not been ill and half-asleep, you would have probably voiced out your shock of seeing Junhee on the other side, dressed business casual for the occasion, holding a plastic bag in each of his hands.

Yet, this way, you could only gape at him, unable to form words or coherent thoughts.

“Hi!” Junhee greeted you a bit awkwardly, and tried with a wave, but since both of his hands were full, he could only lift one of the bags in the air in the process. He chuckled at his clumsy antics, but when he looked back at you, his eyebrows furrowed out of concern. He hesitated for a moment before he continued.

“So sorry to just barge in, but Haewon said that you’re sick and that you haven’t even gone to the pharmacy, so I picked up some for you, and also got some ingredients for soup.”

“Did she tell you my address?” You asked weakly, but you immediately regretted it because you burst into a coughing fit afterwards. You could feel his concerned gaze even before you recovered from it and looked back at him, waiting for him to answer your question.

“Yes, but she said that she would keep it a secret, and that she sensed that something was going on between us,” he recalled with a bit of a coy smile, but you should have known that she would sense something like this. She was observant like that.

Not having the energy to object or send him away, you opened the door fully and let him in. You made your way back to your living room couch while he was prepping your medication and a glass of water. He put them down on the table in front of the couch, prompting you to take them.

“I’ll take them later,” you shrugged it off, your head too heavy from the fatigue and the remains of your nap to be able to function properly.

“Y/N, please…” Junhee pleaded gently, and crouched down to be at eye-level with you. You blinked back at him, and you were glad that the sickness numbed your senses because his closeness would have surely had a more devastating effect on the state of your heart if it had been for different circumstances. “Your colleagues are worried about you. I’m worried about you. Please, let others take care of you,” he added tenderly, his chocolate-brown eyes shining affectionately.

You had always said that his smile and his eyes were your weakness, and this time was no different. The more you gazed into them, the more you felt pulled in, his power magnetic. He was like a black hole, and you were drawn to him like stars whose formations are influenced by his creation. You felt defenseless, falling into his love, but the thorn in your heart didn’t let you forget about the past.

“An idol shouldn’t take care of an ordinary girl like me,” you bit back, and though you could see the hurt flashing across his face, he recomposed his features within a few seconds.

“I’m not here as an idol now, and you were never just an ordinary girl to me,” Junhee confessed, rendering you speechless.

You felt your eyes burn from unshed tears, the weight of his words making you emotional. He looked at you like he was ready to walk through fire for you, and despite what had happened in the past, you couldn’t question his sincerity. Even when he had been breaking up with you, he had been honest, not hiding the reasons for his decision, so you knew that you could trust him that he was telling the truth.

On the other hand, you were terrified of opening up your heart again only to have it broken into a million pieces, and you could only avoid falling for him if you didn’t spend time together with him. Once you were near him, you couldn’t lie to yourself that your heart was beating faster and your head was filled with hopeful thoughts.

However, you weren’t strong enough - neither physically, nor emotionally - to push him away today. Your limbs were weak, your body heavy, and the physical symptoms were more uncomfortable than his presence.

You were saved by a sneeze, and Junhee immediately got to his feet to get you tissues from the box of Kleenex on the table. You accepted them without a word whilst bearing the weight of his concerned gaze. You decided to take the meds he had bought for you in hopes that he would leave afterwards, but he mumbled something about making some immune-boosting soup for you while you slowly drifted into sleep.

When you opened your eyes, you weren’t sure whether you were dreaming or he was actually there in your kitchen, an apron around his waist, chopping up vegetables. It was such a domestic scene, something that you had not seen for yourself, let alone in the same space as him, only through the variety shows Favourite Boyz had been on. You had fantasied about such scenarios in the past, so it all seemed too good to be true now.

You told yourself like a mantra while drifting in and out of sleep that it wasn’t real, that he wasn’t really there because it helped to put your mind at ease, knowing that he didn’t know how you were actually feeling, how you actually wanted him to stay.

The first rays of the sun painted orange lines onto your living room table when you woke up in the morning. It took some time for your eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness, but when they did, you realised that you had managed to fall asleep on the couch, and that Junhee was still there, his head tilted to the side as he was sleeping soundlessly in the armchair beside the couch. Something in you came undone as you watched his chest rise and fall, his breathing rhythmic, his face completely still and soft.

You had watched him grow into a man in the past few years because it had been impossible to avoid news of him and his band and then their disbandment. Plus, you couldn’t lie to yourself, sometimes you had deliberately checked his social media or listened to the songs you had heard he contributed to. Despite everything, you wanted him to do well, and you were glad to see it happening.

However, now that you were in the same space as him, you let your eyes travel over his features: the sharpness of his jawline, the broadness of his shoulders, the evident muscles highlighted by the tight black turtleneck he wore. You let yourself wonder for a moment what would have happened if you had stayed together, but the little fantasy was ruined by a cough that you couldn’t suppress even if you wanted to.

The sound woke him up, and when he blinked his eyes open, it took him a few seconds to realise where he was. When his eyes landed on you, his lips curled into a soft smile, the kind that made you feel cared for.

“You didn’t have to stay the night,” you remarked, your voice coming out hoarse. Feeling the dryness of your throat, you pushed yourself up to a seated position and reached for the glass of water on the table.

In the meantime, he stretched his neck and straightened his back, adjusting his position to a more comfortable one.

“You asked me to,” the idol pointed out without malice, but when you merely looked back at him, confused, he mumbled something akin to:

“Ah, you don’t remember…”

“I thought it was a dream,” you admitted, your memory hazy from the night before. You had been drifting in and out of sleep, so it was difficult to tell what was true and what was just the creation of your imagination.

“I didn’t want to wake you up when I finished making the soup, but I wanted to get you some more water and put your next round of medication on the table. When I did that, you opened your eyes and told me to stay. I asked you if you were sure and you said yes,” he recalled gently, but if anything, you just felt embarrassed for keeping him here when you were sure that he had a lot of things to do.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m sure you’re busy.”

“I stayed because I wanted to,” he stated, no room for doubts, but you felt like you didn’t deserve his kindness, his care.

Even though he had been the one to break up with you, you also had regrets about how you had handled some things back then like how you had wanted him to remove his mask when you had gone out in public and no one had been around, or how you had complained when he had left your messages on read. You should have been more understanding, more aware of how cruel the entertainment industry could be, but you had fallen so deeply for him that everything else had dulled around you.

On the other hand, Junhee looked back at you as if you were something precious, something that he wanted to protect, and you were sure that if you had been perfectly fine, you would have been blushing under his caring gaze. Damn him and his captivating eyes, you had to look away to keep the last bit of your dignity.

“Plus, I don’t have anything to do today. That’s why I said yes to your company’s event. My next schedule is an interview tomorrow, but I don’t have to prepare for that today,” he added, saving you from further musings. You just nodded before you had some of the cough syrup and used the nose spray he had bought, busying yourself with something to avoid thinking about your feelings.

Truthfully, you didn’t feel like eating, but you also didn’t want him to leave without having breakfast. Even though he said that he was fine, you insisted that he had some of the soup he had made. So he warmed it up for the two of you while you tried to somewhat pull yourself together in the bathroom.

The soup turned out to be exceptionally good, warm and flavourful yet not too heavy, exactly what you needed. When you complimented him on his cooking skills, he said thank you shyly, looking away for a few seconds as if he was embarrassed by your praise.

You were silent for a while, but you didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t know what to say or because he didn’t want you to speak a lot since your throat was hurting. However, there was something that you wanted to check, and you knew that if he left today, your paths wouldn’t cross again, so it was now or never.

“Do you regret it? The time we spent together?” You asked, looking down into your bowl instead of his face.

You could only hear the clattering of his utensils for a few seconds before he spoke up.

“Is that how you think I feel about us?”

Us. Because once there was an ‘us’, not just a ‘you’ and ‘me’.

“I don’t know. I was a risk for you, a liability. You could have felt this way,” you muttered before clearing your throat. You were unable to look at him, to look him in the eye until he called your name so softly, so fondly, your eyes were immediately drawn to him.

“You know how difficult it was for the group that year with the pressure to do well after the success of ‘Our Little Secret’, but you kept me going. You were the reason I could go on, I could give it my all and not care about what others might think because I only cared about what you thought and how you felt about me. So how could I have ever regretted it? I was just worried about you because I knew that you could get death threats and receive harassment over dating me, and I didn’t want that. I was used to such treatment as an idol, but I couldn’t expose you to that side of my life.”

It felt like all the air was punched out of your lungs after his confession. All this time, you thought that he must have regretted dating someone because he could have been caught and it would have risked the group’s future. Like how the news of his band member dating the actress from one of their music videos had affected their reputation and led to the company tightening rules even more. He had broken up with you not long after the incident, so you believed that he must have felt ashamed.

“Even yesterday… I haven’t slept so well for a long time because I knew that I could be there for you and you let me. We were just us, not an idol and a girl he cares about. I could be just Park Junhee beside you,” he continued as confidently and passionately as if he had been delivering a speech on behalf of his past group. And he looked so genuine, so desperate while doing so, you felt bad for ever thinking otherwise.

“Thank you for yesterday,” you managed the words out, and even though you wished you could have said more, it felt like nothing could convey your feelings accurately because there was just so much to say and so little time. Not to mention the fact that if he left today, you wouldn’t even have work as an excuse to see him.

He just bobbed his head, his lips curling into a bittersweet smile. You finished eating in silence, and when he insisted on washing the dishes himself because you needed to rest, you felt the itch to reach out and hug him from behind, resting your chin on his shoulder. You imagined how warm his body would feel, and how joyous his giggle would sound, and how your heart would skip a beat just like the first time he had touched you.

Instead, you retreated to the couch, throwing a blanket over your shoulders and watched him act so domestic, so that you would be the furthest from him while still being able to see him. It was crazy how even sick, the one thing that hurt the most was your heart. Even as he was leaving, you were contemplating whether to reach out, whether to hold onto him, whether to call out his name one last time, but you didn’t. You couldn’t.

So he left, gifting you with one last toothy smile and the remains of his cologne, and the tears surfaced only when the door closed behind him.

After his solo debut last summer and a mini album in December, Junhee went on to release another full album in spring and another one in autumn before he announced that he would have one last concert before he would step back from being an idol and focus on producing and recruiting talent for his company.

The news was met with intense reactions, but those who had followed him from the start knew that he had already spent 7 years being a trainee, another 7 years with Favourite Boyz before doing solo activities for a year and a half. That summer, he fainted after a concert and halted promotions for two weeks after losing his grandfather, so it was an intense period for him.

You had a feeling that it must have been a difficult decision to make because you had gone through something similar. After much thinking and discussion within your team, you decided to part ways with the company after almost 8 years, your new job lined up for January. You would continue working within marketing but in the nonprofit sector and with a smaller team, a fresh start. You would surely feel bittersweet saying goodbye to your colleagues, but you knew that Nayeon would be an excellent successor.

You also decided to take advantage of the opportunity and see Junhee’s last concert since you had not wanted to attend any of the Favourite Boyz concerts to avoid being embroiled in rumours in case old pictures of the two of you would surface, and fans would connect the dots.

However, you weren’t afraid anymore, and since you knew that you wouldn’t have a chance like this again, after fighting for tickets like your life depended on it, you managed to secure one.

It was ridiculous how nervous you felt seeing him that December. You knew very well that he couldn’t possibly see you or know that you were there, but still, you felt a thrill going through your body when the lights went out and he showed up on the stage.

He was as captivating as ever, his obvious passion for music evident in his singing, his dancing and the way he interacted with the audience. He had guests as well - the other members of Favourite Boyz and a group of trainees from his company -, but still, he was the one your eyes were always looking for.

As the concert came to an end, the idol took his time to explain his decision of stepping back from his idol life. He touched upon the loss of his loved ones over the years, the exhaustion he felt from packed schedules and the realisation that whenever he visited back home, his parents got older and older. He realised how precious time was, and he said that he wanted to lead a more ordinary life. To live and to love freely. Instead of watching out for him, he teased that the trainees at his company were working hard to bring cool performances in the future, and that fans should look forward to their debut.

He did tear up when he said goodbye as ‘idol Park Junhee’ for the last time, and he couldn’t even finish his encore stage, so the fans finished the song instead of him. You felt emotional too, flashbacks of hiding on rooftops, walking beside the Han river with masks and caps on, watching his music show appearances first things first after you finished with your internship for the day coming back, sewn together with the memory of the break-up and checking on him throughout the years. So much had happened during these years, and it was crazy to think that you were the same people, yet you were so different to who you were when you had first met.

When it was over and you went back to your flat, you spontaneously sent Junhee the picture that you had taken of the stage before the concert started and congratulated him on the show, plus wishing him good luck for his future endeavours. You didn’t even know if he had the same work phone number as before or if he carried it with himself to shows or if he was looking for you to text him out of the blue, but you did it anyway and there was no turning back.

His reply came an hour later, and he thanked you profoundly before sharing with you that he was currently celebrating with the staff members, the Favourite Boyz members and the trainees, but if you felt comfortable, he would love to catch up with you someday.

“I’d love to,” you wrote back and smiled at your screen giddily like the first time he had messaged you.

It seemed that amidst all the changes in your life, some things never changed.

You felt emotional leading up to the day you would see him again.

When you had started working together with Junhee, you had kept your distance because you had been scared that if you had started being friendly again, you would have inevitably fallen for him again. By doing so, you would have disrespected his decision to break up with you, the decision you had learned to accept and see as the only solution. He had still been an idol, still working in the public eye, and though he had established his own company, what he had wanted to protect you from hadn’t changed.

You would have never asked him to choose between being with you and being an idol, that would have been so unfair. However, he had made his own decision to step back from his idol life, and though you had not expected him to suggest meeting up after your message, you wondered if it had anything to do with how you had left things after your last conversation, and how he had said that he could be just Park Junhee beside you, not idol Park Junhee. He had also said at his last concert that he wanted to live and love freely, and you had a feeling what he meant by that.

After your compliments regarding his cooking skills last time, he offered to cook for the two of you. Since he had recently moved into a new flat and still had boxes lying around, you suggested he come over to your place, he already knew the address.

He didn’t even protest, so you set a date and time, and despite the fact that it wasn’t a date, you still spent an awful lot of time deep cleaning the flat and picking out an outfit for the occasion. You didn’t want to go with anything too vivid or revealing, but you also didn’t want to look like you were attending a business meeting. You opted for a white knitted sweater with a turtleneck with light blue jeans.

When you opened the door for Junhee, he immediately let out a giggle and pointed at your sweater.

“Guess what! We’re matching,” he announced as he got rid of his scarf and unbuttoned his coat, revealing a similarly white knitted sweater with a turtleneck. You couldn’t hide your smile when you saw it before beckoning him inside.

He came with two plastic bags full of ingredients, and after instructing him where he could find some kitchen essentials, he got started on preparing the kimchi stew. You inquired if you could help with something, but he told you that you should tell him what you had been up to instead of assisting him.

So you told him about work and your new job lined up for January, and why you had made the change. He was genuinely happy for you, asking a multitude of questions regarding your new position, the charity’s work and whether his company could also work with them, even if it was just for a volunteering day for the staff members.

He had this thing where his eyes widened whenever he was listening attentively and also processing the information, and your lips curled up at the realisation that such things had not changed. It also didn’t change how his dimples popped off when he was focusing on his task at hand - cooking now -, and how he pursed his lips cutely.

When he looked up from the cutting board to catch you smiling at him, he even asked why you smiled like that.

“Ah, it’s nothing, really,” you objected, trying to come up with a topic for a smooth change of subject, but he didn’t let you.

“You think I’m really cool cooking like this, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows, a boyish grin invading his lips. You shook your head seeing his antics, but your smile didn’t fade.

“What can I say? I’m impressed.”

“I knew it,” he clicked his fingers at you before averting his eyes back to the cutting board and chopping up some spring onion for garnish. The scene was so domestic that just like last time, you were sure that you could watch him cook all day and not be bored of it. The difference was that this time, you weren’t even trying to suppress such thoughts.

“You know, I’ve never thought that I would see you cook in my kitchen again after last time, but I’m glad that you’re here,” you mused out loud, and right immediately, Junhee stopped in his tracks, holding the knife above the cutting board and looking straight into your eyes.

Then, his lips pulled into a tender smile, the kind that made you feel all fizzy inside, his effect on you not fading with time.

“I’m glad, too,” he echoed your sentiment.

When he kept staring at you with that intense, all-consuming gaze of his, you started feeling bashful, so you busied yourself with setting up the table and listing the drinks Junhee could choose from. He settled on some juice since he was driving, so you poured some for him before you did so for yourself. You knew that it was a way to distract yourself from the very man that was in your kitchen, but even if he noticed your restlessness, he didn’t say a word.

When Junhee was done, he put the steaming pot of kimchi stew on the table. You thanked him for the food before digging in, and oh gosh, it was even better than the soup he had made you last time. He was visibly proud of himself when you shared your opinion with him, and it was a good look on him.

While eating, you inquired about his side and what he had lined up for him now that his final concert was over. He said that he was busy preparing the first album for his trainees, and it was rather adorable how much he talked about each and every member as if they were his little brothers and he was recalling their mischievous pranks yet hard-working attitude. Calling them so cute and so young was funny because as you reminded him, he was that cute and that young once.

“Come on, I’ve always been cool,” he insisted between two spoonfuls, but you shook your head.

“You think all those badass outfits stood a chance against your naturally cute antics? Absolutely not! As soon as you smiled, you dropped your mysterious boy act,” you clicked your tongue, recalling debut era Junhee. Even though Favourite Boyz used to have a bad boy concept in the beginning, one just had to look at an interview with them, and they knew that the boys were far from bad boys.

“Okay, fine. If you say it like that, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Junhee gave in, giving you a boyish smile. You smiled back at him, and the conversation continued to flow naturally as if you had been old friends reminiscing about the past and laughing over how you had acted back in the day.

It was easy to forget now that he had once broken your heart, and that you had tried to avoid him as much as you could because everything reminded you of him. However, his close proximity was making you remember the way you had felt, the way your body had gravitated towards him, and you were genuinely hoping that he wouldn’t be able to tell. Whenever your hands brushed or you stepped closer to him to get something from the cupboards, you felt a bolt of electricity zip through your body.

On the other hand, it seemed that you weren’t the only one who felt this way because when you finished washing the dishes (you insisted that you do it since he was the one who cooked), and turned around, Junhee was right in front of you, and you could have crushed into him if he had been just a few inches closer.

“Sorry. I just…” Junhee apologised immediately, his left hand reaching to scratch the back of his neck in embarrassment.

You just blinked up at him, your eyes wide in surprise, and you were unable to mutter a word because you were waiting, no, yearning for him to finish what he wanted to say.

“Hmm?” You hummed instead, your eyes not leaving his face. He let his arm fall back to his side before he let out a somewhat awkward laughter.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” You questioned, your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Junhee was still standing there, not moving an inch, but there was something desperate in the way he stayed so still. As if he was forcing himself to do so.

The air was heavy with tension, his unsaid words aggravating the silence that fell upon the two of you. You were unable to look away as if you might miss out on any of his microexpressions, as if they could give away how he felt, as if they could give you hope. Your heart was dancing wildly against your ribcage, your breath erratic and uneven. You were not even touching and yet this was how he made you feel.

Junhee looked away first in what felt like forever, but looked back a few seconds later, his body still rigidly still. He let out an aghast sigh before he broke the silence.

“That it takes everything in me to not reach out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear or cup your cheeks or hold your hand or just touch you anywhere because I want to respect you and the distance between us.”

The air was squeezed out of your lungs hearing his words, and for a moment, you wondered if you had just imagined him saying those words because you had been daydreaming about a confession like this for so long. Yet, there he was, standing close to you yet not too close, not yet touching, and he was looking at you like he was waiting for the sun to rise to end his endless darkness.

Without a word, you took one step closer to him, closing the distance between you two. This close, you could smell his sandalwood and citrus cologne, see the slight creases on his forehead, and appreciate all the blemishes that his idol make-up usually covered up.

This close, he didn’t seem so far away, not figuratively and definitely not literally, and self-restraint was lost on you because you didn’t waste more time reaching out to place your hands on the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

Junhee was surprised for a moment, but he eased into your touch easily, and put his hands on your lower back, pulling you closer to his body as if it was even possible given your close proximity. It was nowhere near the uncertain and coy kiss you had shared for the first time; both of you were desperate and impatient this time. You squeezed all those years of yearning and longing into it, exploring each other’s mouths with fervor. The knot in your stomach loosened, your heartbeat calmed and the familiar electricity was buzzing through your body.

Panting, you came up for air after what felt like a pleasantly long time, and his lips curled into a smile when he looked at you. You smiled back at him, and you knew that this time would be different, this would be the right time to fall in love again, and this time, you would not let each other go.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine. Let me know what you think. ❤️

Header taken from the 'Supernova' MV.