the special birthday cookies were a legendary treat you made only your close friends. the only people who know the recipe were in your family. you had contemplated telling shinwon, but he would have been underwhelmed by the simplicity of it.

“of course they’re the special birthday cookies, Wonnie, why wouldn’t they be.” you hand the still warm package to him and he clutches it in both hands.

“you’re still taking me out to dinner.” he turns his nose up as he opens his locker. you laugh.

“i know i know, i’ve had the reservations for a month.” he smiles down at you. you’re leaning on the lockers next to his, not looking at him. you don’t see the pure love in his eyes as he takes in your figure. you snap out of your zone with a shake of your head and look at him, he looks back into his locker.

throughout the day you catch brief glimpses of shinwon. you both drifted into only having morning conversations and the drive to your house to talk, but at this point in both of your lives you wouldn’t change it.

he made many friends after joining leadership while you chose to stick with band. he came to every function, and not because he was expected to. many people skipped the band performances, but he hadn’t missed a single one in three years. you thought it was because he was being a good friend, and because he was also close with your brother. but he did it because it was a way to see you how he remembered you best.

at your closest, you would mindlessly play music while you hung out. he missed seeing you go into a music induced trance. completely vulnerable, at peace and in your element. he kept a guitar tuned in his room without your knowledge because he hoped to either have you play it for him or to gift it to you.

at lunch you saw him with his friends. but this was strange. they were in the band room, huddled around the piano. you were sat near the instruments, silently observing.

his friends were playing the piano in turns. horribly, if i might add. shinwon glances at you and when you meet eyes he flashes you a smile. you wave.

at the end of the day, you beat him to his car. as ten minutes pass you wonder where he is. you’ve texted him a few times already, but he hasn’t read them.

at the twenty minute mark you hear his laughter approaching you. you look up to see him walking with one of his leadership friends. you pretend you didn’t see them and turn your attention back to your phone.

their laughter stops suddenly and then after a minute you hear footsteps walking both away from and towards you. you look up and see shinwon walking up to his car.

“sorry for keeping you, clean up took a little bit longer than expected. you know how the soccer team gets.” he smiled a little, when you didn’t return it he gave up.

“is something wrong, y/n?” you locked your phone with a huff and slid off the trunk of his car.

“what really happened? we both know the soccer team doesn’t even start practice for another half hour.”

shinwon sighs, unlocking his car. he motions for you to hop in. you do and once both of you are in, he turns to you.

“Y/n can i be honest?” he says. he’s holding his hands together tightly so they don’t visibly shake.

“i hope you would be honest without having to ask, shinwon.” you say lightly. you keep trying to meet his eyes but he keeps looking at his hands.

“i took so long because i was asking kino for advice.” you assumed kino was the boy he had walked up with.

“why would you need advice, shinwon? you’re probably the most confident guy i know.” to your surprise rather than agree with you like he usually would, he just blushed.

“not when it comes to this.” he mumbled. he finally met your eyes. “i really hope that the fact it’s my birthday doesn’t influence your reaction to what i’m about to do.” his blush deepens for a second.

his hands come up and hold your face for a second. you think he’s going to kiss you but he doesn’t move any closer.

“y/n y/ln, i’m madly in love with you. it took a year of not talking consistently for me to realize this, but i was scared if i had told you sooner you’d think i was insane. i love that you remember to take the time to bake people cookies, i love that you’ve put your life into the band, i love that you haven’t given up on our friendship. i love you, y/n. i’ve been terrified that you’d push me away if i told you.”

as he spoke something inside you did a flip.

“shinwon i stopped making cookies for anyone else two years ago. if you had told me sooner i would have made them for you every day. Shinwon i dot know if you know this but i’ve had feelings for you since high school started. the first lunch you didn’t spend with me i realized you had become my life. now, either you get your clammy ass hands off of my cheeks so i don’t break out tomorrow or you kiss me.”

you said all of this never breaking eye contact. you felt him start laughing as he leaned in, smiling into your lips. you only seriously kissed for a few seconds before his giggling caused you to laugh as well.

he pulled back and let go of your face. “how much time do we have before the reservation?”

“about three hours or so, why?”