#tryhard

You muttered some godforsaken gibberish at your brother Jungwon, who was now full blown pounding on the bathroom door.

“Hello???? Are you wiping your shit on the walls?” His annoying voice at seven in the morning pissed you off even more. “you’ve been in there for forty minutes!”

He flinched a little when you violently kicked the door open, your wobbly lips meeting his squinted eyes.

“Are…you wearing makeup?”

You ignored your brother and walked past him to grab your backpack, leaving him fighting invisible comments inside his head ranging from insults to curiosity. But as much of an asshole as Jungwon was, he knew everything had a place and time, and currently your situation came before everything else. Most importantly, chasing after someone just to prove you didn’t care about standing your ground when something was wrong was pathetic. But unfortunately, this time you were wrong.

Small arguments and bickering between you and the senior you had started seeing almost six months ago were very normal, something Jungwon had always witnessed. As skeptical as he was about Lee Heeseung—the very person he looked up to, whether as the head boy of school, captain of the baseball club, or just the dreamiest senior as titled by almost every girl—actually liking you and ending up as your boyfriend, he realized at the end of the day it wasn’t his business. He knew you were fake as hell when it came to your feelings.

Even before dating Heeseung, you used to boast about how you never understood what was so special about him anyway, but the sight of you practically melting whenever he came to your class for choosing club volunteers or catching up with his brother Jeno, who was your classmate, was noticeable to literally everyone. The truth was, even you didn’t know how or why Lee Heeseung had started liking you. And you weren’t even interested in knowing. I mean, let’s just have some fun before both of us graduate, right?

But oh boy, you soon realized it was a lot more than just fun.

As much as you hated it, Heeseung loved riling you up just to get those little reactions out of you, which he thought were cute for some reason. Cute?! How dare he? You were almost the same height as him ( after tiptoeing a little, but that still counted! ) and you swore you weren’t any less hotter than all those badass female characters from movies Karina rented during sleepovers at your house. How dare he call you, the brother beater, cute? And you were so damn adamant about making Heeseung believe you weren’t just some cute girl he was dating. If he really wanted a cute girl, he could go date the pretty captain of the cheerleading team, Risa, who was practically waiting for you to slip up.

The one sided argument went on until you overdid it last weekend, right after heeseung lost an important match. He had just been trying to rest his head on your shoulder, teasing about how it was easy because of your “model like height,” but your already wounded heart took it as an insult and started arguing out of thin air. Heeseung expected you to understand he was only teasing, but you were also expecting him to realize you were tired of being insecure and wanted him to just pull you close already like he always did. But pushing the baseball team captain’s buttons was something only his girlfriend was capable of.

So you and Heeseung went practically no contact. And even when you expected him to text first like he always did, there was nothing. The next update you got was from Jeno’s Instagram story, a picture of Heeseung and Risa posted together, holding the new trophy Heeseung had won during Sunday’s match. There was a match on Sunday, and you weren’t even aware of it.

Karina scooted a little away from you, followed by a glance at Sunoo, who looked equally terrified noticing the metaphorical black smoke coming out of your ears.

“hey so… about the movie—”

“Go to hell,” you whispered, and that was enough to shut both of them up.

In the middle of classes, Heeseung came into your classroom exactly five times for five different reasons, which eventually annoyed even your homeroom teacher, who was usually a fan of the older boy. But everyone knew those were all pathetic excuses because whether he was asking Jeno for an extra pen, checking Riki, Jake, and Jungwon’s free schedules for baseball practice, complimenting Karina’s shit handwriting, or asking Sunoo if the movie plans were still on, everyone noticed how his eyes always glanced toward you just to see your reaction. The actual reaction came from Karina and Sunoo when you showed up in front of the movie plaza wearing a sleeveless dress that reached your mid-thigh.

“Girl, you look bomb but look at the weather,” Karina shivered while checking you out up and down. You ignored the goosebumps on your skin while kicking her leg lightly and turned to Sunoo.

“When is the movie starting?”

“We still have time, but Heeseu—oh, here he is!” Sunoo cut himself off and waved at the taller boy crossing the road. You gulped the moment you dared to look at Heeseung and immediately felt your throat drying up. How does he make casual clothes look so good on him? He took long strides toward your group, and then your heart dropped when you realized the figure behind him. Fucking Risa.

“Sorry, guys! Hope we’re not late! I’m kind of crashing y’all’s date!” she chirped, rubbing her palms together as a blush spread across her cheeks. Soon her eyes fell on you. “Oh my god, Y/n, aren’t you cold?”

You ignored her and grabbed Sunoo’s hand “let’s go.”

From the corner of your eye, you saw Heeseung open his mouth, but you ignored him completely. He could shove his questions up his ass. The movie was infuriatingly slow, and you cursed both Karina and Sunoo for choosing a romance genre knowing damn well you hated revealing your obsession with cute stuff and pda—especially when Lee Heeseung was sitting right next to you. You noticed Risa glancing his way, and you couldn’t help but feel weird.

Did he and Risa really grow close during these few days? Was your absence exactly what Heeseung needed to realize who his true love was?

There you went again with your overactive imagination. Your eyes welled up despite hating the fact everyone could hear you sniffle.“bitch why are you crying? This isn’t even a sad scene,” Sunoo whispered behind you.You replied by letting out an even louder sob. Karina looked around worriedly to see if people were getting annoyed, but she stopped soon after noticing Heeseung forcefully or maybe not so forcefully pulling you against him, your face pressed into his arm while your shoulders shook slightly. She smiled to herself, and her eyes met a very wide eyed Risa staring directly at her.

The movie ended with you missing more than half the plot and crying on Heeseung’s arm.

Burning with embarrassment, guilt, and ego, you stood up as soon as the credits rolled and started walking toward the exit with Risa trailing behind you.

“Y/n, wait!!”

You stopped in your tracks hearing her voice as she stood in front of you, panting a little from running.

“Oh my god you walk so fast!” You rolled your eyes “no shit, Sherlock. I’m tall.”

She flinched slightly at your aggressive tone but quickly broke into a shy smile again “I—hey, so I actually needed some advice from you…”

Your breathing sharpened as you tried calming your racing heart. What was it? Was she going to ask if you and Heeseung were still together? Or tell you to leave him because you clearly weren’t suited for him at all? Or worse…What if she asked how to impress Heeseung? Oh no no no no. Lord, this can’t happen.

“Is Karina single?”

“No, I can’t tell you! He’s mine!!”

Both of you stared at each other in shock as you recollected what you just muttered and what your ears picked up.

Risa was the first to break the silence with a gasp “oh no–no! You got the wrong idea! I—I…” she stammered while you mentally facepalmed. Oh my god. How stupid could you be??? Suddenly, you heard faint laughter of Karina and Sunoo behind you. Risa grabbed your hand desperately. “Text me once you reach home safely! I’ll be waiting for your answer!” You barely managed to give her a slow nod and watched her disappear into the crossing.

“Where did Risa go?” Karina asked, whipping her head left and right. As much as you were bubbling inside, you cleared your throat and sighed “her mom called her for some emergency. Speaking of which, I need to return home too…”

Karina and Sunoo exchanged knowing smiles immediately. “Aye aye captain,” Sunoo nodded. “We’ll leave you and your personal home walker alone.” he winked at you ignoring your fake ass scoff. As they walked away, Heeseung’s figure became visible again. He started walking toward you, making you take a deep breath, ready to settle whatever unfinished business you still had with him.

Once he stopped in front of you, you crossed your arms.

“Take off your jacket. I’ll give it back after washing it tomorrow.”

He immediately started taking off his jacket, making you irrationally irritated. You were just trying to act cute! How were you even supposed to wash that heavy ass leather jacket? Whatever. You were down to do anything for your stupid boyfriend anyway—You let out a shriek when Heeseung suddenly wrapped the jacket around your shoulders, warmth immediately engulfing your shaking figure “tomorrow’s a holiday baby.”

“Don’t call me that! I know!” you squeaked despite feeling your heartbeat thunder inside your chest. Heeseung giggled. Oh now he's giggling after stressing you out for days.

“You’re so cute when you do that by the way…” he whispered, instantly earning a smack on the arm from you. “Again? I told you not to call me tha—”

You got cut off when he grabbed your wrist and pulled you closer, noses bumping effortlessly “—and so hot when you keep riling me up like this.”

Blood rushed to your face so quickly and you felt your ears turning hot.“W-whatever…” you muttered before lightly kicking the pavement. “You’ve lost all your boyfriend privileges to call me any of those after choosing not to tell me about your baseball match last Sunday.”

“But I’m blocked on every platform” he buried his face into your neck, and squeezed you tight. You prayed he stay like that until the abnormal smile on your face was completely gone. Ugh he smelled so obnoxiously good too.

“yes and it’s going to stay like that”

Heeseung pulled away with wide eyes “the postal system is fucked up here, and I don’t own any pigeons. My baby please have some mercy,” he pleaded, his round eyes meeting yours and leaving your stomach in complete chaos.

“Fine…” you mumbled “not until you act cute in front of me.”

“Y/N.”

“I don’t wanna hear anyyyy excuzezzzz,” you sang while turning away and felt Heeseung’s arms wrap around you from behind.

“Seriously? You’re making me do this in the middle of the road?”

You burst into laughter when he awkwardly made a pathetic kitty ear pose. Then you tiptoed slightly and pressed a soft kiss against his lips.“Try harder,” you whispered against his mouth. “You’re almost there.”