#suseo

before everything: you, seyeon, seojun, and suho became the bestest friends in school six years ago because of your similar love for music and, yes, you were the only girl, but you got along with them just fine.

almost everyone in your school knew all about that friendship - popular, you could call it - because each of you had an interesting personality and was known for many things. plus you guys were pretty much inseparable.

y’all loved each other very much like brothers and sister. got each other’s back like that. you ate lunch together, hung out at suho’s after school, wrote and played music together, even bought matching bracelets, etc.

all four of you were very talented. you and suho mostly songwrote and played the instruments, while seyeon and seojun did most of the singing especially as aspiring k-pop idols. each of you could do a bit of everything though.

you had a different dynamic with each of them, like, for example, you and seojun showed your love for each other through playfulness and constant bantering; you and seyeon though, were much different, because seyeon was the most sentimental and softest of all so, in general, you had a very sweet and wholesome friendship with him; you and suho almost had a similar friendship with seojun’s with the occasional bantering, but you could get serious the most with suho because your problems at home made you relate with each other and as the only girl, you found him seeking some type of motherly affection from you, while you found a lot of protective comfort from him every time shit went down at home.

and you could count on zero hands the amount of times you’d let other people see you cry, even with your best friends, but okay, in front of suho, at times, you allowed yourself to...

but these all lasted until that incident that broke your friendship seemingly beyond repair. everything had been going perfectly fine until the day before seyeon’s death, when you had fought with him for the very first time, said some hurtful words before the rumors broke out, and up to now, you still haven’t forgiven yourself for having your last memory with him be a bad one.

upon finding out the news, all three of you ran to meet each other but when you got there, seojun and suho had already been fighting - and that was the last of everything.

though you never blamed suho for seyeon’s death, he himself, along with seojun, did, hence he stopped hanging out with you and answering your calls, isolated himself from not just his friends, but from everyone else as well.

you and seojun remained friends though, but it took you awhile to restore the old friendship you had as it felt wrong at first. you witnessed as he started getting himself involved in very loud and often violent fights for no reason, and he’d also stopped pursuing his dream of becoming a singer.

you could say everything pretty much changed.

until jugyeong came.

you and suho still come to school very diligently and even get high grades, just not together anymore. seojun though, comes to school very rarely now and hangs out with chorong and the other kids during school hours instead. honestly, if you haven’t been stopping him from doing it, he would’ve already dropped out of school. you’ve already given up trying to get him to attend more regularly or even keep up with his grades though.

sometimes you answer his homeworks for him. not that he makes you do them, in fact, he’s against it because you really don’t have to since he  doesn’t care about his grades at all. but you argue that if he doesn’t atleast get any score above zero on anything, he’d fail multiple classes and get kicked out.

you see each other after school almost everyday.

on the other hand, you also witness as suho slowly opens himself up to the new girl. sure, he’s still moody as heck, nobody can still truly understand him, but this is the first time in years you’ve seen him smile again, even letting himself eat with other people at lunch and what was that you heard? he had his own study group?

it warms your heart from afar, but deep down, you wish it was you with him instead because you miss him a lot.

like A LOT.

but there’s nobody else to tell, not even seojun - even though you’ve grown so much more comfortable with each other now. you can’t, because he still bears a lot of resentment for the other man that you try your best not to mention his name at all anymore, because it’ll only pain you to hear such harsh words from your best friend about someone you’d both once treated like family and still care for... so you have no choice but to bottle it up.

anyway, seojun comes to school one day and takes notice of suho’s friendship with the new girl, and it’s a curious sight. it doesn’t take him long to conclude that suho likes her.

because he can’t stand it and thinks his ex-best friend doesn’t deserve to be the slightest bit happy at all, he decides to play with jugyeong in order to rob suho of that happiness.

so he starts coming to school more frequently now.

and you know what he’s up to because he had no shame telling you when he first came up with it, and you were, and still are, completely against it, so you’re always scolding him over his petty game every time a fight arises between him and suho because, secretly, you’re all for the concept of suho finally finding happiness again.

also because you keep finding yourself responsible of being the one to come in between, before their arguments can get too heated (like the first time when they almost beat each other up in the middle of the cafeteria) and it’s exhausting on your part.

but seojun is stubborn.

it pains you as you watch the last bits of hope of rekindling your friendship left disappear as the two grow hating each other more, competing for the girl’s attention in front of everyone. it was atleast better and a whole lot quieter when they remained ignoring each other.

and also as you watch seojun pay attention to you less... and, well, did i already mention you had feelings for the guy? oops.

for three years now.

i mean, you’d already found him attractive ever since, but that attraction unfortunately grew into something deeper. at first, you thought you were just in-friend-love with him, enjoying the friendship you had that was full of play fights and inside jokes, but you found yourself craving it every time he wasn’t there and it made sense to admit to yourself that they were real romantic feelings, and being in-friend-love was just something you made up.

you’ve been good at keeping it a secret from everyone else though. i mean, you’ve always been good at keeping everything in or holding yourself together, it’s scary sometimes.

anyway, not that you hang out less now, you still do it often it’s just, y’know, the girl’s name gets mentioned more often than anything now and, okay, maybe you do hang out less than you admit because his attention has become so divided now... though you know that he doesn’t really have feelings for her and that it’s all just a childish game he’ll eventually get tired of, it doesn’t make you feel better...

because... what’s the difference? he flirts with her like he actually likes her and everyone talks about them like they’re a couple, like, ouch...

plus you do sometimes feel out of place, especially when the boys are fighting in front of you and jugyeong’s in between and you’re just... that fourth person on the side that could walk away unnoticed.

you feel sorry for jugyeong though, so you’re always coming to her to apologize, like, poor girl did not sign up for this...

anyway, then comes the school outing…

after the school trip, everything went back to normal.

except you’re now fully aware of just how long seojun spends staring at jugyeong sometimes, or how easily he gets distracted during conversations whenever the girl is around that it just… makes you lose all the excitement you had in your story even if he’s asking you a bunch of questions to get you to continue because he’s still genuinely interested in what you have to say.

or how terribly whipped the guy is. like one time, he came to school by feet and you were happy because you’d been trying for so long to get him to stop riding that bike… but before you could greet him, jugyeong beat you to it with, “wow, han seojun, finally decided to quit your bike as i’ve been telling you to?”

and you watched as seojun stumbled through words upon denial… but you knew she was right.

on the other hand, seeing the two walk to class together that morning was the last straw for suho, so he decided to confront jugyeong during lunch and the first thing he said was: “you said you weren’t avoiding me.”

he asked her why she cried that night - something he hadn’t been able to get off his mind ever since. “do you like han seojun? why else would you cry because of him?”

this morning, you’re walking with seojun to class and you’re still corridors away when you hear shouts and cheers from whom you recognize to be his friends, and you glance at each other in what-the-hell-is-going-on?

when you reach the room, it’s in a state of disorder and it takes you both almost a full minute to register what is happening: it’s a celebration for the class’ new couple, jugyeong and seojun, with decorated banners and shirts printed with photos they took of her sleeping on his shoulder in the bus during that trip.

they’ve apparently figured out that the boyfriend jugyeong had been so insistent in hiding during the first time she had been caught on a date at a restaurant was seojun, after another one of them had secretly spotted the two having a ‘second date’ at the mall just the other day.

seojun is still wide-eyed but the only thing running through his mind at the moment is jugyeong? boyfriend? restaurant? date? and he wonders if she’d already worked it out with the other boy… which would mean all his chances gone, right?

seeing as this has nothing to do with you, you leave him on his own and walk towards your seat before he’s forced to come up in front alongside jugyeong, who explains that this has all been just a misunderstanding. you would’ve found it hilarious as you watched them act as if in a press conference, if it weren’t for the jealousy bubbling in your stomach at the thought of seojun being in a relationship with someone that isn’t you.

seeing jugyeong’s struggle and discomfort in denying the silly rumor on her own, seojun commands the room to shut up, and the sudden silence makes it easy for suho to catch jugyeong’s attention when he walks out of the scene, causing her to run out and follow him.

that is all the confirmation seojun needed.

at the rooftop, suho, though hurt, calmly confronts jugyeong. why did she lie about going out with seojun?

after hearing her explanation (didn’t want him to worry, she owed seojun a favor so they’d gone out to the mall together to pick a gift for gowoon’s birthday), he makes jugyeong promise to be more honest with him from now on, as his girlfriend.

but it doesn’t mean he’s any less irritated by the other man. so when he accidentally bumps into him during break, an argument inevitably escalates and you happen to be walking nearby when suho’s voice full of rage catches your ears.

your first instinct is to look around to make sure no one else is hearing this, before you reach the spot where you find him gripping your best friend by the collar. the scene looks painfully familiar to you.

instead of pulling them away from each other like you usually do, something keeps you rooted in place, and you stand just distant enough not to be noticed by the pair as you continue to eavesdrop.

“why does it have to be lim jugyeong?!”

“i don’t know either!” your best friend’s voice catches you off-guard. “why it has to be jugyeong… is something i can’t control.”

you feel your heart plummet at this the same way it did the first time you learned about his feelings for the other girl. it’s not just the words, but the way he said it… the pain and frustration tied around seojun’s voice that feels like daggers to your chest; the tinge of desperation - desperation to get rid of feelings he never asked for in the first place - that hits too close to home for you.

you decide to hear none of it anymore, so you walk away just before the bell rings.

but add this to the list of things for your mind to replay every night.

the next time you hang out is at seojun’s place. he doesn’t mention anything to you about it and neither do you. for once, you want to have a time with him where jugyeong doesn’t get brought up at all. the girl is a sweetheart and all, there’s nothing to dislike about her even if you tried, but the mere mention of her name has the ability to rip your heart into pieces, and you’ve had enough of that these days.

so you’re minding your own homework when he goes, “ah, what the hell’s so special about this anyway?”

“about what?”

then he shows you his phone and it’s a photo of a lip gloss from a brand you know everyone’s been raving about these days with the words ‘OUT OF STOCK’ in big letters.

gowoon’s birthday is soon and seojun has mentioned that his sister’s recently gotten into makeup so you realize that this is him being the best brother that he’s always been. you memorize the name of the item and take a mental note to look it up later.

you spend the rest of your time at his house studying for your nearing exams, and you make it a point to recite all the important information that you come across so your friend is able to absorb them as well. never trust the guy to study on his own.

eventually, it gets dark out and it’s time for you to leave. your house isn’t far but seojun insists in walking you home even if you tell him you’ll be fine by yourself.

“hey. don’t overwork yourself and take breaks,” he scolds with a pointed finger when you stop in front of the gate of your house. seojun knows you have the tendency to push yourself too hard and deprive yourself of sleep whenever exams are (by your definition of) close. “you’re already smart. you don’t have to pull all-nighters to ace them, okay?”

“yeah, yeah, i know,” you wave him off, gesturing him to leave. if your heart is fluttering right now, you’re doing a good job hiding it. “worry about yourself. if you barely pass the exams, i’ll tutor you myself. you wouldn’t like that.”

he continues staring at you like he has more to say, so you forcibly turn him around by the shoulders and push him off on his way with a laugh. “jeez dad, just go!”

“alright, alright, i will! you eat dinner!” he yells over his shoulder as he waves, which you return with a huge grin.

and, as always, he deduces that the fluttery sensation in his stomach is due to hunger.

so he stops by the store to grab food before he heads home.

when you enter your house, you’re greeted by a mess of bottles of alcohol all over the floor, along with other things that seem to have been thrown around in a fit of anger. you find your mom on the dinner table with her face buried in her hands and you don’t have ask what happened to know. because you’re used to it. instead, you do nothing and walk up to your room in silence, where you stay up all night in distress.

the next day, you don’t know how you managed to get to school, when someone grabs you by the shoulders and startles you. “seriously, you’re so out of it, y/n.”

“i- i’m sorry, were you talking to me?”

suho bends down a little for a better look at you, but you shy away as you try to recall if you’ve applied enough concealer this morning to cover the lack of sleep on your face. or if you even have at all.

“i was asking if you’ve seen…” jugyeong. but it’s useless since you hadn’t even been paying attention to your surroundings to notice anyone at all. “nevermind.”

you give him an apologetic look when he starts to go off on his way, but it doesn’t take long for him to eventually stop in his tracks because a feeling of unease nagged at his chest to come back and check on you.

“hey, watch your way, will you?” he snaps you out of your thoughts once again, causing you to turn around to face him and realize that you’ve been walking in the wrong direction all along. “aren’t you coming to class?”

"oh, um.”

“are you sick?” he asks, reaching a hand to feel your forehead but then he withdraws when he finds that your temperature is normal. “then what’s up with you today?”

“ah, just…” you’re about to say ‘nothing’ but your eyes meet his expectant ones and you’re suddenly contemplating whether you want to be honest with him or just keep it to yourself. a large part of you feels like it’s a silly idea, but suho had always been the person you confided in with family matters, the only one who had been able to get you to open up… and right now you’re feeling a lot of weight on your shoulders you’re not quite sure you’ll be able to handle on your own. “n…one, really.”

so now you’re sitting on the bench together with a few more minutes to spare before class, because your response wasn’t convincing enough. after telling him the details to your personal problem, you’re not sure if you made a wise decision, but the look of understanding in suho's eyes somehow makes you feel relieved. and thankful.

“seojun’s had a lot of part-time jobs in the past, hasn’t he? go ask him to refer you to one.” you bite your lip as you consider his suggestion and he sees the doubt in your face. “y/n. i’m sure he’d be willing to help you rather than let you take a semester off.”

but it’s not a question of whether or not seojun’s willing. something about coming to him for help, letting him know what you’re going through and allowing him to see you like this… feels like something to be ashamed of. even if you're badly in need of his aid.

“if… anything else happens at home… my number’s still the same,” suho shyly offers, and you feel a sudden rush of affection for the boy, an urge to give him a hug. you realize just how badly you've missed him. it makes your heart ache a little.

but right now, you think, you’ll settle with a verbal thanks. “for taking the time to listen.” you smile. for allowing you to be friends again.

suho hums and returns your smile, but soon you're breaking the silence with, “oh, jugyeong’s here,” as you nod towards the direction of the school gate to which the guy turns to look. “i’ll head first then, see you!”

you stand up and start walking towards the entrance of the building on your own, but a taller presence purposely blocks your way that you have to take a step back to see their face. “seojun!”

“you, didn’t i tell you to stop talking to strangers?”

you roll your eyes and nudge him on his side.

after spending the last day of the trip doing team-building activities, they finally give y’all a break and let you enjoy the rest of the night with live music and more food like last night. seojun, whom you’ve barely interacted with all day, wanted to eat dinner minus the commotion, so now you’re waiting for him by a bench far enough from the group of people.

“ya, where did you get this?” you gasp in disbelief as you bring out the bottle of soju from the paper bag seojun brought along with the containers of food he’d taken from back there, but you quickly put it back in fear that someone else might see it. “this isn’t allowed!”

he shrugs and tells you “just ‘cause” when you ask him why he has alcohol when he’s never really been a drinker, let alone on a school trip. you’re not entirely convinced so you raise your brows at him, and then he goes, “kids can’t drink,” as he steals the bag away from you.

and then you take out the containers from the other bag one by one and you’re like “wow, han seojun!” and give him two thumbs up because he didn’t disappoint in getting you as much of your favorite food and extra sauce packets as you always liked.

he smiles proudly and replies with “i know you so well,” when you’re patting the space beside you so he sits and you lay some of the containers on his lap.

suddenly he goes, “i’m sorry.”

you look at him all confused and mumble, “why are you apologizing? weirdo,” as you tap his arm twice to get him to move away a little for more elbow space and he obliges.

it’s because he remembers seeing you walking away last night, and he says he thought you were mad that he wasn’t able to hang out with you. you hand him his pair of chopsticks and tell him that it’s nothing, that you went to bed early and when were you ever clingy with him? because for a fact, you’ve always been the easy-going, low-maintenance type of friend… never once pushed yourself on him or whined whenever he cancelled on you (which didn’t happen often).

it’s partly true - you did go to bed early, but you don’t tell him that you actually stayed up for another hour or two overthinking what you’d seen until finally settling with the belief that it was none more than friendly between seojun and jugyeong so now you swear that it’s nothing to you anymore.

you can’t help but be curious though as you watch him open the bottle of soju for himself and dive first into the food, so you tell him you saw jugyeong crying to him that night and ask him why she was.

“jugyeong… likes lee suho? and what about it? i mean, it’s obvious he likes her back.”

seojun scoffs. “she thinks he likes someone else.” and he makes eye contact with you at the words someone else.

and just like him, you think it’s ridiculous.

so you finally dive into your food and once you’ve swallowed, you go, “well, you could’ve spared her the tears and told her the truth. you’re not that cruel, are you?”

the word ‘cruel’ makes seojun stop chewing his food in guilt, blinking a couple times at you as you wait for an answer.

“i… didn’t want to.”

you tsk and you’re about to scold him, but when you open your mouth, he shuts you up with “i-like-lim-jugyeong” and you freeze. he initially waits to see the reaction on your face but then all of a sudden, he’s feeling small under your gaze and looks away, because this is the first time he’s actually said it out loud (excluding all the times he’d done it to lee suho without actually meaning it) and he’s not sure if the pounding in his chest is due to pain or excitement.

the silence is agonizing because he’s not sure what’s going on in your mind, but he’s thinking somewhere along the lines of ‘see, karma’s a bitch’ or ‘you get what you deserve’ or ‘you’re on your own now’ or maybe worse, and he readies himself for the onslaught…

but it doesn’t come. how? when you’re unable to form words… as your mind is too busy willing your now even more fragmented heart to cooperate with you - at least long enough to last through dinner until you can be on your own again - plus, you’re suddenly feeling quite suffocated.

“h-hey, stop looking at me like that. i—eat your food,” he says, taking it upon himself to pick up food from the container and urge you to open your mouth with an “ah.”

but then your brain finally catches on and you push his hand away gently and quietly mumble, “i can feed myself.”

the next morning, as you’re waiting for the buses to pick you up, sua pulls some of her friends and a few others from your class into a game of truth, so you’re all sitting down in a circle on the grass, holding inflatable hammers and passing the lie detector around.

“lee suho! have you kissed before?”

jugyeong looks at him with hopeful eyes. you’re curious yourself if suho has already had his first kiss during the time you’ve been separated. i mean, it’s unlikely but… who knows?

but suho hesitates until the time is up and he’s hit by a bunch of toy hammers.

so he’s next and he attempts to challenge seojun with “love or friendship?” and the question surely has some layers in it, with the way he’s looking at the other.

but seojun looks all serious when he grabs the lie detector and answers “love” without even giving it a thought - as if it were the easiest question in an exam. the device pings without a shock and seojun looks satisfied with that. you’re not entirely sure what that means but your face falls and suho doesn’t fail to catch that.

sua cringes and goes, “ah, must he be so cheesy?” and then tells everyone to get him so he’s attacked by the bunch and you don’t participate.

you’re still distracted by your own thoughts when suddenly seojun’s pointing his hammer towards you. “am i handsome?”

there’s a smug look on his face while he waits for your answer, so you say “no” pointedly but the toy betrays you when it sends you a shock, and you barely flinch because you’re annoyed. you know he’s never going to let you live that down.

suho straightens up in his seat when jugyeong enters the bus and he calls out her name as an invitation to sit next to him, but he receives only an awkward nod from the girl before she finds herself a seat near the end of the bus.

seojun takes advantage of this opportunity to sit next to her and normally you wouldn’t mind, if only you didn’t know he had feelings for the girl… so you’re left feeling disregarded and you mindlessly drop down to the nearest empty seat before you can even realize that it’s suho next to you when you notice him stiffen… so now you’re looking at each other and it’s an awkward situation you’ve put yourself in.

you grab your phone as a distraction and soon you’re swiping and tapping at it harshly as you continuously ignore the new message notifications asking you where you are and what you’re doing…

and then eventually you get tired of it so you lock your phone and shove it in your bag with a sigh. slowly, you turn your head to look at suho in curiosity, who happens to also have been looking at you.

“um…” is all you say before settling to just looking at the back of the seat in front of you for the rest of the bus ride.

meanwhile, the boys are hollering and seojun is the object of their teasing. you hear him say “wake her up and you’re dead,” but this only causes them to tease him further, calling him a simp and saying that he’s whipped so you sneak a look and jugyeong is asleep on seojun’s shoulder, and the boys are taking pictures until he tells them to piss off.

he catches your eyes and looks a bit surprised to see you because he’s been wondering all along where you’ve been sitting but before he can even mouth anything to you, you immediately shift your gaze back to the front.

later on, boredom gets the best of you and soon you’re unexpectedly poking on your seatmate’s arm to get his attention and he looks at you perplexedly.

you mouth ‘what are you listening to’ but suho merely stares back at you with eyes that speak why are you talking to me before turning his attention away and back to the window. 

you resign with a small pout, resting your back against your seat and mentally cursing at yourself at the poor decision. you close your eyes instead.

but then you open it not long after and there’s a hand offering an earbud in front of you, much to your surprise. you try to hide your disbelief and take the earbud from his hand before he even changes his mind.

your ear is met with a familiar tune that you haven’t heard in ages and you gasp, looking at him with wide eyes and a grin. “you still listen to this?”

suho nods his head once in response. it’s barely noticeable, but you catch him smile a little and you can’t help the warmth that spreads across your chest. 

“remember when we competed over this to see who could sing the highest note?”

“o,” suho replies with an initial frown, before he chuckles slightly at the memory while you giggle. 

seeing his smile almost reach his eyes makes you feel a little bolder and more comfortable so you say, “ah, let me see what else you have,” when you grab the phone from his hand. he’s startled and defensive at first but lets you do it anyway. 

you scroll through his list in a mix of both amazement and excitement. “wah, lee suho,” you mutter as a wave of nostalgia hits you at the sight of the different titles of old songs you used to love together before everything went… downhill. 

you hum along to the music and tread through different memories, laughing and arguing over which person remembers the details more correctly, and you’re careful not to step anywhere near the sensitive line so as to not kill the mood.

to be honest, you’re not sure where the line is, so when he points out and says, “that was on seyeonie’s birthday…” you look up because you weren’t expecting him to mention his name or acknowledge his memory even once at all. you feel comforted by that. 

you don’t even realize that you’ve been smiling at each other, or that the bus had pulled into a stopover sometime ago, until you’re pulled out of the bubble by a familiar voice calling your name. 

your head shoots up to the source and seojun is giving the boy next to you the iciest glare you’ve ever seen, but then he switches to look at you and it’s less piercing, but he doesn’t look happy with you either. you quickly pause the music and the movement steals his attention, so now he’s looking at the phone in your hand. 

you’re used to the tension that’s always forming whenever the two men are in close proximity with each other, but this one feels a bit unfamiliar.

seojun drops a plastic bag from the convenience store on your lap and you take a brief glance at its contents. you see snacks and what’s looking like hangover pills. (you’d accidentally gotten drunk last night after, well, you know… and he was actually forced to take care of you without being caught by the teacher.)

“learn how to answer your texts,” he says coldly before walking back to his seat. 

you feel like you’ve just been caught in the act of committing a crime, but then you try to laugh it off to ease the awkwardness. “ah, don’t mind him…”