The Roommate Contract

the roommate contract

pairing: lee jeno x fem!reader

genres: fluff, crack, angst, suggestive, one-sided enemies to lovers, roommates au, brother’s best friend au, fake dating

wc: 11341

warnings: profanity, a very flirty jeno, jaemin and mc are siblings and she sorta badmouths him oops, lot of childish banter, jeno is older than the mc by two years, some angst at the end (lmk if i’ve missed anything!) 

summary: nothing could have been worse than getting kicked out of your house and having to move in with lee jeno—resident fuckboy, annoying asshole and your first heartbreak.

playlist: click here!

note: this was supposed to be slowburn but i kinda got impatient so i ditched that plan LMFAO this is a bit fast-paced imo but i hope you guys enjoy the fic! feedback is always appreciated :D

masterlist

That day, you made three mistakes. 

First: talking about your problems in public. Second: letting slip how desperate you were. Third (the gravest mistake): locking gazes with none other than Lee Jeno. 

He perked up when you yelled at Hwang Yeji, “I’ll have nowhere to go!” 

The moment the words were out, your wide eyes met his amused ones. Jeno quirked an eyebrow and smirked, walking over to the booth you and Yeji were seated at. 

“What’s this I hear about you needing a place to crash, Y/N?” he cooed, setting his cup of coffee on the table and sliding beside you. 

You glared at him, frowning when the bare skin of his arm brushed against yours. Shifting away, you snapped, “None of your damn business, Lee. Quit eavesdropping and get out of here.”  

Jeno’s smirk grew when he saw your discomfort. Throwing an arm around your shoulder, he pulled you against him. Your head smashed into his hard chest as he teased, “Now, now, is that how you treat your brother’s best friend?” 

You narrowed your eyes and craned your neck to look at him. “That’s how I treat an egotistical bastard who doesn’t know basic manners.” 

Jeno grinned at the insult, lightly bumping his forehead against yours. “You look so attractive right now.” 

Heat rose to your cheeks, and you shoved him away, cursing loudly. He laughed at your flustered state, his eyes turning into small crescent moons. 

This was Lee Jeno—a huge flirt who thought highly of himself due to the popularity he had gained as the star player of your university’s football team, and whose only personality trait was being ridiculously attractive. 

Keep reading

20 DAYS BEFORE HEAVEN — l. hs

⋆*✩⑅◡̈⃝* — news reached your school that a boy in your class has passed away and the last thing expected was for the the reaper to show up inside your room and make a bargain with you. He gives you the chance to go back 20 days to save a boy you barely knew under one condition. the question is, would you do it despite the danger?

⋆*✩⑅◡̈⃝* genre(s) — highschool au, strangers to lovers, romance, angst, supernatural

⋆*✩⑅◡̈⃝* warning(s) — profanity, suicide, internalising disorders, bullying, sexual assault, victim blaming

⋆*✩⑅◡̈⃝* wc. : 15k+

— dont forget to reblog, like, and comment about what you thought abt the fic!! lastly, thank u so so much to our dearest best girl, sei who made this banner for me !! you will forever be remembered ♡ teaser

OCTOBER 15  ༉༊

Ever since you were a mere infant, you loved the rain. Being brought into the world in the rainy month of June, all your birthdays were greeted by a storm. When you were eight years old, you and your parents decided to go to the theme park for your birthday. However, your plans for outside fun were soon soiled when the rain started pouring the second you'd entered the premises. 

Instead of being dejected, you were ecstatic. With a wide smile coated across your porcelain childlike face, you ran into the pouring rain with open arms, not giving a single fuck about your hair, clothes, or shoes getting wet nor soggy. In the background, you could hear your parents yelling at you to go back and take shelter, but you tuned them out, in love with the feeling of rain dropping against your skin. 

The next day, you woke up with a boiling hot fever. Snot was dripping from your nose, reaching your lips. Being the curiosity filled child that you were, your tongue darted up to taste it, pleased to say that you weren't disgusted by the taste but never willing to admit doing the action in front of anyone. Along that was a pounding headache and a series of sneezes but you didn't regret your actions, not one bit.

Years have gone by and sure, people change. You can say that you have for sure. You've grown taller and quieter. Though, you're still you. The same girl who loved to become one with the rain.

It rarely rained on the city of Seoul but either way, whenever it would, you'd be overjoyed. They say that if the sunny day is excitement, then a cloudy day is a well-earned chance to rest your eyes and cleanse your soul. It's a chance to daydream and breathe in a calm, reflective mood. Those very words expressed how you viewed the much-hated weather.

But today, the sky seemed as if it was sobbing— an overcast day if you would. The clouds were darker, more terrifying compared to the bright and shining ones you would see every other day in the city whenever the year would soon end.  

The rain pooled on the ground, creating muddy puddles as you walked towards your school building. A striking yellow umbrella in one hand, protecting you from the droplets of rain while the other hand grips your jacket tighter, trying to obtain more warmth.

Stepping inside the building, you shake your umbrella, trying to get rid of the water that clung to it. The water detaches itself from your umbrella, lightly sprinkling everywhere. After, you put it somewhere inside of your locker where you were sure none of your papers would get soaked.

For some odd reason, as you walk down the hallway towards your classroom, you can't help the heavy feeling that's weighing on your chest. You wonder, was there a possibility you missed something? Did you have homework that you forgot to bring? Was there supposed to be a quiz today and you didn't study? No, none of those could've been it. Being the honor student that you were meant you had to be ahead of every lecture, assignment, project, and anything that correlated to your academics and you did just that. You always carry with you a planner that holds all your schedules and work deadlines so that you could rest assured that you never missed anything.

Loud chatter fills your ears as you step inside your classroom. Some of your classmates sat atop of their desks while the others stood up as they huddled up with one another, gossiping, you assumed. You lay your belongings on top of your table, taking a seat beside the window so you could look out and watch as multiple students ran to enter the school gates, practically drenched by the rain with only their bags to shelter them from the pouring rain. A few more minutes pass and you finally hear the school bell ring, signaling that classes were starting.

Your classmates hurry to resume their places back into their own seats, not wanting to be caught out of place by your advisor and have an earful early in the rainy morning. The chattering and the noises stop when your homeroom advisor enters the room with a somber look. She takes her eyeglasses off with a sigh, resting her palms on either side of her desk upfront. 

She's tense, you could easily tell. It makes you wonder what had happened for her to act like that as you fix your gaze onto her completely. You're used to your advisor's usually bright and bubbly expression whenever she comes skipping inside the room so for her to turn like this means that something awful must've happened for her aura to stray so far from her usually energetic personality.

"Alright, guys. Can I have your attention please?" Your adviser calls out. All eyes fixate themselves on her figure, giving her the attention she wants as they wait for her to continue. "I have some very sad news that I need to share with all of you. Your classmate, Lee Heeseung," She sighs out as if merely speaking the boy's name is hard for her. "He... He won't be with us anymore."

A moment passes in silence before one of your classmates stands to speak up. "Huh?" He wonders. "Did Heeseung transfer?" He asks, voicing out your own thoughts.

"No," She answers, shaking her head "l hope that was the case." She whispers.

This time, a boy with strikingly white hair and pale skin raises his hands before standing up. This time you were familiar with him. His name, based on your recollection, is Park Sunghoon. Like your other classmates, you've never interacted with the boy. Thus meaning that you knew little to nothing about him. The only thing you could remember about him was his face and that he belonged to the same popular friend group as the boy in question, Lee Heeseung. "Then where is he? He didn't even bother telling us where he went and hyung never does that." He says.

"H-He... Uhm," Your adviser stutters before tightly closing her eyes, gripping the edges of her table even tighter to the point where her knuckles turned white and her nails dug into the wood. You can tell she's holding her tears back as much as she can. As to why, you're still not sure and you stay seated there, waiting to find out.

With a deep exhale, she finally continues. "Lee Heeseung won't be joining us anymore. Last night, the police found his dead body inside his apartment and that they've suspected that... that," Her voice breaks when she continues, saying, "He had overdosed on sleeping pills the night prior." 

Time seemed to have passed and yet, no one dared to move in their seat when those words left your advisor's mouth. Your classmates looked shocked, faces showing disbelief at the news she had just dumped on them.

"W-what?" You hear one of your classmates ask. You remember his name being Jake.

Sim Jaeyun. Member of the soccer club and Lee Heeseungs closest friend.

You had seen the two boys bond with each other all around campus. Lee Heeseung and Sim Jaeyun were in the same class as you as well as some of their other friends but you've observed that the two were the closest to each other despite the latter being a year younger. Although Lee Heeseung was older, they had managed to form an incredible friendship that you envied, so truly envied. 

You're no outcast per se, you just detested the company of people and prefered to be alone, wanting to focus on getting out of this hell hole than creating connections. However, even loners yearn for some company from time to time. You've just never bothered to scout for the right people that matched well with your personality.

Resuming, the poor boy is frozen in his seat, looking as if he was about to break down. Your eyes are trained on the way he clenches his fist into a ball with overwhelming amounts of force. It wouldn't be a shock to you if you see his hand bleed due to his nails digging into it.

"I'm sorry, Jaeyun." She apologises, her expression sad as she looks at the boy. "I wish it was a lie too but it's true, he's dead."

"Th-That can't be! We were just talking about what we were going to do for his bi—" All of a sudden, he stops talking. His eyes turn wide as if something had just dawned on him and his hand comes to cover his mouth in shock. You can see the boy's whole body start to tremble and you knew he going to break down into tears any minute now. Sim Jaeyuns chair screeches back as he runs out the room and your teacher does nothing to stop him, understanding that he was Lee Heeseungs closest friend and that this whole news is even more haunting for him.

You watch as all your classmates bow their heads down, a heavy feeling looming around the room as everyone mourns Lee Heeseungs death. Some even start crying in their seats; one of them being Jay, otherwise known as Park Jongseong, another one of Lee Heeseungs friends.

"Heeseungs family will be having his funeral tomorrow and... I hope you all can come." Your teacher says. "We won't be having any lessons for the entirety of this day and you can all go home early. We just want to give you all some time to mourn such a bright student's unfortunate death. Class dismissed."

Now, you've found the reason why the air was so gloomy and why the rain didn't seem to stop no matter how long it's been pouring. It was because the sky was crying, mourning the death of Lee Heeseung.

"Y/N? God, I just heard the news."

As soon as you step inside your home, your mom is there to envelop you in a warm hug. She places your head on her shoulder as she caresses the back of your hair— something your mother has always done when consoling you.

"I wasn't even that close with the guy." You say, words coming out automated as you assumed she was talking about the suicide announcement that your advisor had made not even an hour ago. "How did you find out anyway?"

"Mrs. Lee told me." She says, frowning afterwards. "Don't tell me you didn't know the Lees are our neighbors?"

Your expression is a dead giveaway that this is new news to you. You're never one to dwell on your mother's business since you had no interest in gossiping nor did you have time to with all the studying you were doing. However, it does come out as a surprise to you that Lee Heeseung lived close to you and yet, the two of you never seemed to have bumped into each other.

"Gosh, YN. You really should stop and listen in sometimes. I know I'm your mother and I'm supposed to be happy that my child is a genius but I don't want you to waste your youth." Again, she's frowning at you.

What's so bad about wanting to focus on school? It's not like being stupid will make a difference.

"It's fine mom. I'm okay." You assure.

"Nonsense. I'll tell you what, I'll go into the kitchen and make you some soup. You can go and take that upstairs. You're looking too thin these days." Once again, her motherly nature surfaces.

"Sure, Mom. That'd be nice." She smiles at you, feeling satisfied with your answer and afterwards scurrying into the kitchen to bring you some food to eat.

You lay down on your bed, staring at the blank ceiling of your bedroom. The chicken noodle soup your mom had made for you sat cold and untouched on top of your desk, making no move to eat it.

Lee Heeseung isn't a close friend of yours nor was he an acquaintance. He was just simply a boy in your class that seemed to have his life put together. From what you knew, the boy had excellent grades, powerful friendships, and skills that exceeded everybody's expectations.

He was a boy with a smile that could rival the suns. 

You remember catching sight of him while he was talking with one of his friends. The other must've said something extremely funny because that day, you were graced to see the way Lee Heeseungs eyes crinkled in happiness, his nose scrunching in glee, and his teeth on full display as he laughed; his head thrown back and his protruding adam's apple bobbing every time he gulped while doubling over with laughter.

"That's all I knew of him." You lie. 

But why was his death affecting your mood this much? Maybe because he was such a nice and talented boy that you saw it as a great shame he had to go so early.

Eventually, your mind wandered around why he did what he did. Granted, you knew nothing about the boy's personal life but you could only imagine how hard it was for him to push himself into committing such a horrific act.

He took his life. 

Was it because behind that bright and perfect smile was a boy bearing a shattered soul? What drove him to do something like this?

You're a quiet person and you usually stay in your own company. You don't like big crowds and you loved it whenever it rained because it made you feel at peace whenever you listened to the way it pitter-pattered, drenching everything and anything blocking its way, but today, you just wished it stopped. 

The rain reminds you too much of Lee Heeseung, the boy who took his life and the rain is making you feel restless.

You hope wherever he is right now, that he's finally at peace with himself. You hope that he's happy and that he can rest. Again, you never bothered to get close with anyone, meaning you never knew Lee Heeseung personally but you wish, for once, that you could have done something, anything, to change his mind.

OCTOBER 16 ༉༊

As you open your eyes to greet a new daydream, you immediately frown. The skies are so dark and bitter that you don't even notice that it's now morning. There's no sign of the bright warm sun on top of a blue horizon nor are there any white fluffy clouds covering the sky. 

A storm is brewing and it's evident it'll hit your area soon. 

Tempestuous, bleak, and angry. 

The heavens are angry. 

It's the next day but you didn't get a wink of sleep. You supposed it was because of the never-ending thoughts that flowed inside your head. 

It may have been two days since Lee Heeseung died, assuming that he killed himself at the strike of twelve on his birthday. You still can't wrap your head around it nor can you stop wondering why it's affecting you so much. 

Still, you begrudgingly get up from your bed. You look around and everything is the same spot it used to be and nothing has changed. Your books are still in the same place on top of the shelves, your cabinet is still open like how you left it, heck, even the wall clock that's been there for five years is standing strong. So why is it that you feel so lost? 

Fuck Lee Heeseung. 

"Can you stop occupying every single space in my brain for at least five minutes?" 

The boy is dead yet he's bothering you even more than when he was alive.

You groan once you hear your bitter thoughts. Immediately, you realize how cruel you were being and you mutter a silent apology to the boy in heaven before falling back onto your bed. 

A soft knock on your door catches your attention as your mom's head peeks through the space. "Darling, Are you awake?" 

You sigh. "Yeah. I'm up, Mom." You reply dryly, feeling the symptoms of a headache brewing inside your head.

"Great. Get ready, we're going to Heeseungs in a few minutes."

Lee Heeseungs funeral was a poor sight to witness. 

Everybody at the funeral was either crying, yelling out for the dead boy to come back, or had a sad look on their face. Bouquets of pretty and colourful flowers decorated the place and you wished you got the time to bring one for him too. There's also a huge chandelier hung in the middle of the room and rows of chairs adorned the place. At the front is a huge picture of the boy, smiling brightly like how you've mentioned before; lively and perfect. If only the casket holding his dead body wasn't there, then you might have smiled too.

The room was packed with Lee Heeseungs friends, relatives, and classmates. You even spot some of your teachers in the room as they pay their respects and you're not at all shocked when you see the school principal there either.

Your school principal is a fake, to say the least. You've watched him work and you've seen the way his face falls and scrunches in disgust when a person's back is turned to him. When he doesn't get his way, he manipulates people like the bastard he is just so he can get what he wants. You scowl as you watch him look into Lee Heeseungs casket, fake tears rolling down his cheek, continuing his act to seem like he cared for his students. You choose to ignore his presence for the time being because this night isn't about him, it's about Lee Heeseung and you intend to keep it that way.

A couple dressed in white stood at the front, right beside Lee Heeseungs coffin, catching your attention. 

Trailing behind your mother, you follow as she walks towards the said couple, greeting them with a sad smile, proving the hunch you had that these people were Lee Heeseungs family. 

"Hello, you must be YN. " The woman says, smiling fondly at you as she reaches for your hands, holding them inside hers and although her hands were cold due to the air-conditioned room, you let her. "Heeseung told us so much about you." 

At her statement, you're only able to reply with a confused smile. This confuses you because as you recall, you've never had any sort of interaction with Lee Heeseung that'll leave him wanting to tell his parents about you. You weren't close friends, nor were you ex-friends. So why does it seem like his mother already knows a lot about you? 

"Mom!" 

Suddenly, a boy who looked a few years older than you yelled from a few meters away, effectively catching your attention. He takes a quick jog towards you and scratches the back of his neck, awkwardly. "Hi, I'm Lee Heewon. Heeseungs older brother." He introduces, stretching his hand towards you. 

"It's nice to meet you" You smile politely, grabbing his hand before releasing it. "I'm YN." 

Lee Heeseungs older brother nodded, however, it seemed as if he already knew that. 

He reaches to wrap his hand around his mother's waist, whispering something to her. She replies with a confused look, scrunching her brows together and eyes squinting in confusion, yet she replies with a nod either way. Lee Heeseungs brother pulls away, looking at you and then asking if you would follow him. 

Although confused, you agree. "Mom I'll be right back, okay?" You tell your mother who is now sitting on one of the chairs, talking with Lee Heeseungs parents. She simply smiles at you and agrees, letting you off on your own with the boy before turning back to their conversation.

Looking back at the male, you nod as he gestures for you to follow him towards the corner of the room, where not that many people were around so the two of you could have a conversation in private. 

"Hi, so uh. Listen." He starts, eyes unable to look at yours as they shift everywhere, feeling awkward. "Heeseung-ie... he told us a lot about you because— uh, y'know what, I— I don't think it's my place to tell you this." 

"Huh?" You reply, stunned.

"Sorry, forget it." He dismisses. "It's just... he said he was going to do it." He finally heaves out. 

By the way his hands started getting clammy and shaky, you could tell the boy was nervous to tell you something. "I'm sorry but I don't understand what you're trying to say." 

He releases a hefty breath befor continuing, "Heeseung, he likes you, or at least he did." He whimpers at that, hands coming up to comb his unruly hair. "He would talk to us a lot about you and we always teased him about it because... he just couldn't confess to you." He finishes with a sad laugh. "B-but now, he's g-gone and..." His voice trails off and his face wears a sad smile as he remembers the moments he spent with his dear brother. 

Upon hearing those words, you stood rooted to your spot, unable to form a coherent sentence to respond to him. Like you've said before, you and Lee Heeseung were never close so when you found out that he had that big of a crush on you, so big that he couldn't help but tell his family, you were speechless, to say the least. "He... likes me?" 

The older male chuckles, incredulous. "You didn't know?"

You shake your head in response, "We weren't really close." 

"Damn, if Heeseung-ie heard you say that right now, he probably would've cried himself to sleep. The guy basically only had eyes for you." He comments, shaking his head as he laughs at the possibility.

Lee Heeseung likes me.

A sudden memory from about twenty days ago flashes in your mind and you're reminded of the time when you found a cute letter that was slid inside your locker on one warm afternoon.

'Hi, Y/N! If you're free, can you please meet me on the rooftop after classes end? 

- your secret admirer ♡' 

The short yet adorable note made your heart flutter and your chest bubble up in excitement as you read it. No one had ever bothered to confess to you, much less become your secret admirer. With you being so focused on your studies, you never made it a task to make yourself look good to please yourself and even more for other people. Of course you never want anyone to see you at your worst but at the end of the day, you don't really care as long as you don't look at yourself in the mirror.

After reading the letter multiple times, you finally concluded that you'd spent enough time fangirling and so, you eagerly folded the note and put it in a safe place inside your locker afterwards.

You were a loner, had no friends, and were basically isolated from everyone. You did feel sad about the fact you couldn't go to someone and gush about the letter to them— with no friends or siblings to approach, to whom were you supposed to go? But as you stood there alone on top of the rooftop with the sweet letter at hand, you were glad you didn't have anyone as you were greeted by no one other than the faltering light of the sunset.

No sign of anyone and certainly no signs of your secret admirer. 

So it was him. 

Lee Heeseung, you fucking coward. 

'Why did he not show up? Was he too embarrassed? What on earth did I even do to make him like me? Well, if he bailed on me just like that then he mustn't have liked me as much as his brother says he does.'

So many questions flew around your head that you didn't even notice that long gone was Lee Heewon, older brother of Lee Heeseung and instead, your mother stood in his place. The tapping on your shoulder is what brings you back to your consciousness, your eyes turning to look at your mother as she continues to look at you in wonder.

"Sorry, just spaced out." You apologise, blinking.

The evening goes on smoothly— as smooth as you'd expect a funeral to be. You saw his friends there; Sim Jaeyun, Park Jongseong, Park Sunghoon, and a few other juniors that you've seen around campus. Although you had so many questions in mind— so many questions to ask him, you brushed them off and prayed for his well-being up there with God instead, hoping that he was no longer suffering. 

His father, along with many others, gave tribute to the boy in the form of a long and heartfelt speech. With suicide grief, they’re dealing with trauma on top of the loss. With most people who die by suicide, it’s usually violent or tragic in some way— like what happened to Lee Heeseung. So, the person grieving has to deal with the fact that a person chose to take their life and that is how they died. That changes the grief process entirely.

Death can be tragic, like a murder or a car vehicle accident. But the stigma around suicide still exists today, and so family members have to contend with that piece as well. It makes their grief different.

"... I'm sure to everyone here, you all know that Heeseung was a kind and caring son. He was also a hardworking and honest student. A fun and talented friend." He continues. Your eyes danced across the room and situated themselves on his friends that were sitting in front. All of them were crying, gripping each other closer as they hugged one another, afraid that if their grip loosened, one of them might leave the others behind— just like their fallen sibling has. "And I'm sure he was a wonderful stranger to many of you as well."

"We'll never accept his death, for our Heeseung was one of a kind. Our family will continue to carry the sadness of losing him as grief is not something we ever get over, and it doesn’t ever stop. What we'll learn to do is grow around our grief, to encompass it and incorporate it or manage it into our own life,” He says. “We walk with it.”

“Every time you turn around— there’s a reminder of him, there’s a statement, there’s a feeling, there’s an emotion— and we ask you to not look past it,” His father says. “As we walk with this grief of losing him, we also hope that you don't forget him. Even though he isn't here anymore— physically, our family hopes that you'll still carry your memories of him inside your heart. Where he'll be forever until we see him again."

It's already nine in the evening when you get home. Feeling exhausted, you step inside the darkness of your room with a sigh, carelessly tossing your bag onto your desk as you plop down on your bed, staring at the ceiling— something you've been doing so much as of recently.

"Lee Heeseung..." You say to no one in particular. "You're such a loser" 

"Ouch," a voice suddenly says. Your eyes unnaturally widen in shock as you sit up from the position you previously laid in because as far as you knew, there's no one in your room besides you. Looking at the knob on your door, you see that it's locked, making it even more impossible for someone to come inside without you noticing. "That was a little harsh, dont you think?"

But finally, there, in the corner of your room, you watch as the figure of a boy suddenly appears out of thin air. He stood there with a smirk playing across his red lips. He has stunningly dark hair, a pointed nose, and cheeks that look lively and soft. You would assume he was just some normal boy who slipped into your bedroom but the intimidating dark aura that coats his figure, spreading throughout the space of your room says otherwise. 

A sense of fear envelops you as you stand up, stance as if ready to fight. "Wh-who are you!?" 

"Ah, that's a complicated question, y'know. I go by many names." He says. "Some call me the Grim Reaper, some call me Death but I prefer the name Sunoo the most so make sure to call me by that!" 

What 

the 

actual 

fuck 

?! 

Sunwoo— or whatever his name is, smiles deviously at you. His eyes crinkle in amusement as he watches you with your mouth agape, struggling to wrap your head around the fact that an otherworldly being might actually be in your room wearing a plaid shirt and Nike sweatpants. 

"Th-this can't be happening. This is all just a dream." You say, smiling freakishly as you move to pinch your arm, hoping to wake up from whatever nightmare this is, but all you do is yelp at the pain you've caused yourself. Feeling the pain you inflicted, your eyes take frantic turns looking at your reddened arm and the magical being sighing defeatedly at you.

"Listen," He calls out for your attention. Hearing the authority in his voice makes you tense up, stopping all your actions in the process. Your ears are tingling for some unknown reason but you can only guess that it's because of the overwhelming amount of panic being struck in your veins. "I'm here because I need a favour from you—" 

Before he could continue with what he was saying, you cut him off "No! No, you can not have my soul!" You scream out, hugging your body tightly around your shaking arms.

His eyes widen, index finger coming up to his lips to shush you "Stop. I'm not here for your soul—" 

"Good because I'm not giving it to you anyways." You humph. You're still scared of the boy as his powers and true intentions are still unknown to you. However, hearing that he isn't here to take your soul just yet is already enough for you to relax and gain some sort of fake confidence. 

"Will you stop cutting me off for a goddamn minute!" He shouts in a whispering manner. "I'm starting to regret coming to you for help." 

Your eyes squint. "What did you just say?" 

"Okay," He says before releasing a breath. "Do you want Lee Heeseung to come back?" He asks you slowly, watching your every move as if he expected you to scream out for your mother if he's not careful. 

Thankfully— or not, you don't. All you do is stand there, unmoving. In a swift move, Sunoo pushed himself off the wall he was leaning up against and made a cautious step towards you. 

"Do I want to... what?" 

Sunoo sighs in relief, thanking his familiars that your body hasn't frozen due to shock and that he doesn't have to collect another young body again. "Do you want Lee Heeseung to live again?" 

"H-How is that even possible to begin with?" 

"I can make it happen. I can send you back twenty days from now to when he was still alive and you can change his future." He explains. "Only if you are willing to." 

"Why me? Why not his friends? I'm sure they'd be willing to help. " 

The Grim Reaper shrugs, "I simply don't believe they can change the outcome and besides, I wouldn't have chosen you if I didn't think you could do it." He explains, smiling softly at you.

You stay in place, taking a moment to catch up with your thoughts as well as the events that are currently taking place. The reaper, who took the form of an incredibly charming looking boy, is inside your room asking if you would be willing to go back exactly twenty days so you could— 

Wait, what? 

"Twenty days? Why twenty days? There must be some sort of reason." 

"Because it took Lee Heeseung exactly twenty days to decide whether or not he was going to kill himself or not." Hearing that, you nod.

"And what will happen if I fail?" You ask, looking him in the eye. Afraid of what the answer might be, you caress your earlobe; a habit you had developed over the years when you would get nervous. "There must be some sort of consequence for tampering with time like this."

"I'm afraid there is, yes." The Reaper answers, head bowing in defeat. "Apollyon. If he finds out that I've messed with the cycle, he's going to try and do everything he can to stop you. He might hurt you or Heeseung I’m not sure. Although he can't kill you, there’s a possibility he might hurt you if you defy him." He exhales. 

"But don't worry too much about it." He composes himself and continues, "I'll try and do everything I can to stop him. If you succeed, then Lee Heeseung will come back and he'll be alive." 

This creature in front of you, this conversation, it all feels surreal. Naturally, your mind jumbles through all the possible horrendous outcomes of this bizarre situation. Someone could get fatally injured— not just you but the innocent could too. Is the life of someone you barely knew really worth all the pain you might cause someone else? Is it worth it to play this dangerous game of tag with Apollyon?

Lee Heeseung is someone you barely had no connections to. Besides the fact that you share a few classes together and have interacted even fewer, you knew nothing of the boy. The only feeling you have of him is a slight distaste but even that seems like a lie.

If only you didn't know that he was such a good person. If only you didn't know that he was a volunteer tutor at the daycare. If only you didn't see how many people loved and cried for him when they heard the news. If only you didn't know that he committed suicide on the same day as his birthday. If only you didn't see the way his bullies punched him.

Maybe, just maybe, if you didn't know any of these, you would've declined. But you couldn't.

Why is it that even despite hearing the danger you'll face, you're still yearning to agree? 

If you had the chance to save someone's life, wouldn't you debate on saying yes as well?

There's a risk of you getting harmed but you throw that away because there's only one thing that occupies your head. 

"Don't worry too much, once you've completed your task and I'm assured of Heeseungs future, I'll take you back to the present." His smile somewhat brought a tinge of comfort in you, finding a small bit of relief at the small gesture which only further jumbled your mind.

"I... fuck— Okay."

Lee Heeseung can come out of this whole mess alive. It's damn worth a try, isn't it? There's a possibility that everyone will be able to see that endearing smile again. You can save him from his unfortunate future. And lastly, you can give his grieving family their son back. 

So, with feigned bravery, you nodded before breathing out heavily, eyes locking with Sunoo's. "Let's do it."

Upon hearing your agreement, he expresses his happiness with your decision with an excited giggle. You're left once again to debate whether he was actually supposed to be what people called 'Death' as he claps his hands, finding him inconveniently cute. "Yes!" He cheers. "Tomorrow, when you wake up, it will be September twenty-five— exactly twenty days from now. Everything that happened before will be the same, except for the things you will change, of course. Remember YN, you only have one shot at this. I'll be with you along the way so don't hesitate to call me if you feel like you're being watched or just simply need help. I'm rooting for you."  

Change Lee Heeseungs fate. Sounds easy enough.

The Reaper— I mean, Sunoo grabs your shoulders and you still as he pushes you gently so you could sit on the edge of your bed. You give him a weird look but say nothing in return, getting the signal that he probably wanted you to go to sleep now. 

"Good luck, Y/N." You hear him whisper before your eyes close, suddenly feeling incredibly heavy as you fall into an effortless slumber. Being an insomniac meant that you didn't spend a lot of time sleeping at night. But as the moon shone, joined by the soft sound brought by the pitter-patter of the rain, you fell into one of the most comfortable slumbers you've had in a long long time. 

"Y/N! Darling you're going to be late for school!" 

The piercing sound of your mother's voice mixed with the relentless knocking on your door makes you jolt awake. Indeed, as you turn to look at the huge clock in your room, you're late. 

You bolt up, making a beeline towards your dresser, grabbing your uniform and hurriedly putting it on, not caring to bathe or comb your unruly hair. However, when you catch sight of your calendar, you stop, limbs frozen in place as your eyes focus on the piece of paper. 

September 25... 

'Fuck, so that wasn't some weird dream after all.' You physically slap yourself for forgetting such crucial information, your forehead stinging because of your actions— though, you don't have the time to look if a red mark shaped like your hand is imprinted on it or not, before shrugging it off and focusing on continuing to put your clothes on. If you don't get to school today then you'll miss an important chance to find out something about the boy— and no one wants that.

After saying goodbye to your mother, you step outside, the rays of sunlight hitting you. The warmth of it makes you feel cozy in contrast to the feeling of the heavy rain you've been experiencing since a day ago— or should you say in the future? You have no idea.

"This time travel shit is messing with my head."

"Just stop thinking about it and it'll be easier." A voice says, popping out of nowhere, making you jump.

"Will you stop doing that!?" You scream out, feeling lucky that no one is in the vicinity to witness your outburst. "Seriously, you're going to give me a heart attack before I even get to Lee Heeseung."

"By the way, why do you call Heeseung 'Lee Heeseung'?" Sunoo asks. "Sounds a bit too formal for a classmate don't you think?"

"That's because we aren't close." You reply monotonously as you fish for your planner inside your bag, sighing gratefully once you've found it.

All you get is a hum from the boy before he disappears and you let out a satisfied hum of your own, happy that he's left you alone to do your own bidding.

As you step inside the establishment of your school, you go straight to the destination of your locker. After entering the right combination, it prompts open with a click and there, you see it. Your heart flutters the same way once again as you see the familiar note but this time, it makes you smile sadly, knowing what'll happen to the sweet boy who gave it to you— not to mention how he stood you up that evening either, or this evening? You still have no idea why your secret admirer, who you now knew was actually Lee Heeseung, ditched you when he was supposed to confess but you're sure as hell that you're going to find out why. 

Instead of putting the letter back in your locker as you did before, you grasp it in your hands, making the sudden call to look for the boy who gave it to you, wanting to see that he was alive and well. 

However, as your eyes scan over the halls, you find no traces of Lee Heeseung. A sudden feeling of nervousness consumes your chest as you look around for him but fail to spot a single trace of him or his friends. Before you get a chance to search the school grounds for him, however, the school bell rings, signaling that classes are going to start soon. Begrudgingly, you make your way inside the classroom you've been in several times before. 

The looming feeling of nervousness drops, your breathing fastening when you finally catch sight of him. 

Lee Heeseung is there, sitting on top of his desk, his nose wrinkling the same way his eyes are. His smile is bright and it showed his perfect teeth as he laughed at whatever conversation he and his friends were having. 

You don't care about the conversation, you care about him being there, looking so real that you almost ask yourself if you were dreaming until you remember what you're here for and why you've gone twenty days back into the past.

After finding out from his family that he likes you, all of the longing gazes and the shy smiles he sends you whenever the both of you make the smallest and shortest eye contact are now so crucially visible to you it hurts that you were so dense before not to notice. 

As you make your way towards your usual seat beside the window, you almost miss the way his eyes trained on you and the letter you held inside your hands. 

Lee Heeseung, why is my heart hurting? 

From the corner of your eye, you can see the way he bites his lip nervously as you open the letter he sent you. 

Like before, nothing has changed in the letter; it's the same words, the same question, the same handwriting, and the same stupid little heart that he put at the end of the note. You smile adoringly at the letter, folding it neatly before tucking it inside your bag as if it's a treasure.

From across the room, Heeseung suppresses his grin when he catches you reading the letter he slid inside your locker. His heart bubbles up in happiness to see that you didn't gag at the sight of it, knowing that you weren't the romantic type and basically never showed any kind of interest towards male suitors. Even though you barely ever throw a glance his way, his heart seemed to have a mind of its own when it fell for you. He admired your effortless beauty and the way you were so driven to always come out on top.

The first time he saw you was years ago when you had just moved into his neighborhood. He remembers looking out of the window, annoyed at all of the noise the truck hauling your furniture was making. His scowl immediately left his face however when he caught sight of you trying to pick up a box that looked like it was twice your weight. From his window, he watched as your small, flimsy body struggled to carry just one box inside.

He could have offered some help but the thought flew way past little Heeseungs mind as he was too shy to approach you at that time. Years have passed and it seems as if nothing has changed over the years. Sure he's grown taller, and gained more confidence— he could even say he was more attractive than most. But whenever it came to you, all his ego seemed to fly out the window and he would go back to the same shy boy he used to be.

However, nearing the age of nineteen he's grown tired of it all. That's why he slid that letter inside your locker, opting to make a big change. Its purpose is to finally express to you his undying feeling of admiration. And he's determined to pull through with it.

After minutes of hearing the same lecture, the school bell eventually rings, signaling that classes are finished and that you can all go and take your breaks. Yes, this meant lunch for your growling stomach. However, this is also the time Lee Heeseung is supposed to confess to you on the rooftop but will eventually fail to do so and you ought to find out why he stood you up. So, you hurriedly gather all your things, trying to catch up to the boy so you could follow closely behind him.

Making sure none of your stuff got left behind, you dash towards the door, eager to follow the said boy when a sudden voice calls out to you. "YN, Can I talk to you for a second?"

Fuck. You forgot today is the same day your teacher asks you to stay behind in class. It's so he could talk to you about the details regarding the literary contest in Busan that the school is going to compete in in three days. As the top student in your year, you're good at many things that involve using your wit, intelligence, and logic— physical labor isn't your strongest asset, thus, you're always the top option whenever it comes to district competitions.

The conversation doesn't go the same as before— the result of your intention to leave immediately. However, it doesn't end as quickly as you'd like it to. Your English teacher is known to be a chatterbox throughout the students of your year as he's known to beat around the bush, prolong the conversation, and dwell on non-school related topics— all of which you don't appreciate at the moment, but either way, much to your distaste, the conversation goes longer than you want it too. 

If this continues, you might not be able to catch Lee Heeseung at all and he'd think that you stood him up.

"Right. Great. I understand. I'll make sure to send you an email if I have any questions just like you said. Bye!" You say all in one breath, giving the man a thumbs up before sprinting out of the room, giving him no space or time to open his goddamn mouth which smelled like outdated anchovies by the way.

Frantically, you search every hallway in your building, desperate to find Lee Heeseung before it's too late. As you near the corner leading towards an exit, you hear a loud slam— as if something or someone was thrown against the lockers, followed by a thump as it hits the ground. 

Peaking at the edge of the corner, careful not to be seen, you see three boys huddled around one guy who looked vulnerable amongst the others and you immediately recognise who these people are. To any outsider, they would assume that these people are your typical high school bullies who liked to pick on people for fun but no.

These people, they're dangerous.

Associating oneself with these people automatically gives you a free pass into doing whatever wrong you can imagine. With their leader being the son of the biggest investor of your school, Choi Yeonjun, meant that every teacher, staff, and even the guidance counselor you're encouraged to approach for help will turn a blind eye to their actions as they tell you to forget the events ever happened. Beside him is Choi Beomgyu, a boy with undeniable anger issues. One trigger, one wrong action or move will have you six feet underground with him waving you off.

"Yah, Heeseung." One of them squatted down beside the said boy, who stayed seated on the filthy ground. You could only assume that the third guy who's squatted down beside him is Kang Taehyun as with him, their trio would finally be complete. Your eyes go wide as the realization hits you that the boy being picked on is actually Lee Heeseung, the boy you've been searching for for the past five or so minutes.

'So this is why he couldn't meet me at the rooftop before.'

When Lee Heeseung doesn't give any sort of reply, they scoff in annoyance, throwing a harsh kick on his stomach. Although you weren't the one hit, you wince in pain as you could only imagine the torture Lee Heeseung is going through.

"Come on, Heeseung-ssi. Just do as we say and we'll stop bothering you." Kang Taehyun says, grabbing a fist full of Heeseungs hair in his hands and forcing the boy to look up. "It's that simple."

Now, you can see the boy's face clearly— all thanks to the asshole that was pulling his hair away from his face. Lee Heeseungs lip is bruised up and there's a stray line of blood dripping down towards his chin. There's also blood gushing out from the damaged skin of his cheekbone, undoubtedly punched. By who? You have no idea but you could only guess it's from one of them.

"Fuck you." He spats out to the boy who's gripping his hair, blood mixing in with his saliva. From his position standing up, Yeonjun only scoffs in utter disbelief, poking his tongue on the side of his cheek to show his impatience.

Kang Taehyun wipes his face slowly using his hands. You can tell he's annoyed however he doesn't show it. Only showing how his temper has been running thin, and now, even thinner because of the blood mixed with saliva running down from his eye all the way to his cheek. "You son of a bitch!" He screams out before throwing a nasty punch at Lee Heeseungs already damaged cheekbone, worsening the wound. "Why're you defending that whore anyways, huh? I thought you liked that quiet kid in your class. Did she get too boring or did she finally find out how much of a stalker you are?"

Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath trying to calm yourself down but it seemed that doing so only made it worse as now, you're focused on their voices, their words, and at the way, every kick, punch, and slap is directed towards Lee Heeseung. 

The three of them let out an annoyingly loud laugh and it makes your skin crawl. Tearing your eyes away from the scene, you lean against the wall, unsure of what to do. You're sure you want to help Heeseung but the question is how? 

You're itching to do something, anything just to make all of it stop because you can't bear hearing his grunts every time they throw a punch his way or his small screams of pain as they kick his stomach. Lastly, you can't bear hearing their insults, the names they call him. Lee Heeseung doesn't deserve any of it but what can you do? There's only a handful of options you can think of that may benefit the both of you in the outcome. You can't just go out there to fight them. You're no boxer and you're certainly no athlete. One punch from them can easily knock you out, rendering you useless. The option of going out there and threatening them with a weapon isn't good either. It's three against two and you dont think Lee Heeseung can even stand up and fight so really, it's just you against three well-built bullies. 

Running out of time and favourable solutions, you choose to run. With all the strength you could muster, you dash away from the scene, running out of the building, praying to God that you find someone, anyone who you know is willing to help you fight against them.

His friends are your first option so you scurry around trying to find at least one of them when finally, sitting there at the bottom of the stairs leading towards the rooftop, you see Sim Jaeyun with his head propped up on one hand that rested on top of his knees and the other on he's using to scroll through his phone, seeming as if he's impatiently waiting for someone.

"Sim Jaeyun!" You're out of breath but you don't stop for air as the only thing in your jumbled mind that stays coherent is your drive to relieve the boy in need from his pain. "It's Lee Heeseung! He's… They're beating him up and I—I don't know what to do. Please help him." You ask, voice desperate and pleading.

Sim Jaeyuns eyes turn wide, immediately jolting up from his seat as he gestures for you to lead the way. The boy doesn't ask questions like "What happened?", "What's wrong?", "Is he badly hurt?" as his mind is too occupied with the thought of his brother being in trouble. The boy follows you as the both of you sprint back towards the same corner you had initially found Lee Heeseung and finds that the four of them are still there.

At the sound of your heavy running footsteps, the three of them turn their heads towards the both of you, followed by Lee Heeseung whose head felt heavy due to the endless beating he's received and the amount of blood he's lost. As the man beside you takes the scene of his friend looking battered and beaten, rage fills his veins as he lunges towards the three of them, not giving a damn even if he's outnumbered. You had guessed that Sim Jaeyun is stronger than he looked with the way three of them are struggling to contain the outraged boy. 

While they're preoccupied with each other, you use this as a chance to come to Lee Heeseungs aid. Running up beside him, you crouch down to his level, cautiously pushing his bangs away from his face so you could inspect his injuries. His wounds have gotten worse, bigger and bloodier. His lip is completely busted, swollen and full of cuts— even worse than when you left.  His cheeks are purple and swollen and you're angered to have found a new injury directed towards his left eye. Looking at him now, you can't help but feel like shit for leaving him alone to suffer at the hands of Choi Yeonjun and his friends, feeling useless that you couldn't have taken them all at once— like his friend is doing.

"H-Heeseung?" You ask him in a whisper, cupping his swollen cheek in your hands so you could turn his head to look at you and so that he could feel you there. He winces in pain and you immediately retract your hand, afraid to hurt him even further. "I-It's me, YN." You smile nervously, shy to have been so close to him.  "You're okay now. I got your friend? Sim Jaeyun, right? He's here."

Upon hearing that, he smiles dreamily, as if out of it before sighing comfortably, closing his eyes and passing out after due to exhaustion. "H-Heeseung?" You call out, stuttering as you tap his cheek. When he doesn't answer, you panic, quickly turning to Sim Jaeyun who just threw a punch at Choi Beomgyus face, knocking him to the ground. "J-Jaeyun! H-Heeseung isn't… He passed out, Jaeyun. I don't know what to do." You whimper, feeling helpless.

Endless punches, kicks, and shouts were exchanged by the four of them with Sim Jaeyun miraculously coming out on top. 

"You fucking bastards!" He screams, swinging his fist at Choi Yeonjuns face. Afterwards, he grabs the boy's collar, pushing his face closer as he threatens their leader. "I thought I already told you to stay away from him?!"

"Aw come one, Jake. You act like you're so different from us." One of them manages to cough out.

The boy is fuming as he takes in the unconscious figure of his dear friend lying on the ground and your distressed figure beside him, trying to make Lee Heeseungs unconscious body as comfortable as you can. There's a line of sweat coating his forehead but that's the least of his worries. Kang Taehyun is down on the ground, writhing in pain while clutching his stomach. Choi Beomgyu is leant against the wall as he spits out the blood that pooled inside his mouth, body swaying in dizziness. The only one left standing is Choi Yeonjun but you doubt he'd last long as you're proven right as he's immediately knocked down to the ground by the other.

"I swear, if you touch Heeseung hyung again, you three are really going to pay." He seethes out as neither of them reply, too tired and beat up to do so. Afterwards, he takes quick steps towards the two of you, immediately hooking Lee Heeseungs arm around his shoulders as you help him, the three of you exiting and going towards the nurse's office.

You're flabbergasted, to say the least. This is the first time you’ve ever witnessed a fight happen first-hand and you have a feeling this won't be the last if you keep associating yourself with his friend group. This side of Sim Jaeyun is unknown to you— as any side of him is. Having only known the boy as a mere bystander through the year, you had expected the boy to be an adorable puppy— much like his face. A happy-go-lucky friend that's cheerful and always ready to bring a smile to your face, not a punch. Perhaps you've judged too quickly as not everyone is the same as their cover shows. However, what makes your mind confused the most is how there's not a single ounce of fear in your body as you stand beside the boy.

The way his body moved so naturally in that setting made you wonder whether he's done this before, fighting. It seemed as if they had a history together, based on the words Sim Jaeyun let out in anger as he defended the older.

Speaking of the boy, you wonder what the reason for Choi Yeonjun and his crew targeting Lee Heeseung is— as you know they don't just mess around with random people. This eventually takes you back to the conversation they had prior to when you called Sim Jaeyun over for help. Lee Heeseung did something they didn't like, that's for sure. What is it? You have no idea but you ought to find out.

This might be the reason Lee Heeseung chose to take his life. The beating, the constant haunting done by the trio. Whether your hunch is fact or not, you'd do whatever it takes to find out, because after all, saving him is the reason you agreed to be sent back despite the danger, right? You only have one chance, so there's no room for failure. Soon enough, the creature named Apollyon is going to find out and you know for a fact that when he does, you're going to get hurt— much like how Lee Heeseung is right now. Standing beside Lee Heeseungs unconscious body which lay peacefully across the hospital bed placed inside the nurse's office, you can't help but feel a sense of responsibility to look after the boy when the creature does come and try to hurt the both of you. You wonder, is there a possibility that he's already found out? Within a day? Was this his doing?

Your mind buzzes as questions flow endlessly and you make a point to ask the Grim Reaper or rather, Sunoo, about this later, hoping that he can spare some details about what's going to happen.

You almost forget the fact that Sim Jaeyun is standing there beside you until he speaks. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that, YN." The said puppy-dog-faced boy apologizes, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"O-Oh it's fine, really. I understand." You try to assure him but your tone seems to have betrayed you. "I'm just glad Lee Heeseung's going to be fine."

"Yeah," Sim Jaeyun agrees, rocking his feet back and forth as he nods. "The nurse says all he needs is some ice and rest and then he'll be good to go."

You nod in understanding, happy that the damage dealt was minimal. There's a moment of silence that passes between the both of you as the other is unsure of what to say next. 

"Say, YN. I-I actually have a favor to ask you." He says smiling sheepishly, digging his hands inside the front pockets of his pants. You let out a hum, prodding him to continue as your eyes stay glued to the way Lee Heeseungs chest heaved every time he breathed. "If… um… Can you keep what happened earlier a secret?"

You tilt your head to the side as you tear your eyes away from Lee Heeseung to look at him. "Don't you think Choi Yeonjun and the others will tell someone before I even peep a word in?" You reason.

"They won't tell anybody about it, I'm sure." He assures you before sighing deeply, looking back and forth between you and his palms— as if he's debating on whether to tell you something. Noticing this, you give him an encouraging smile, motivating him to continue. This seemed to have worked as he finally found the courage to open up to you. "I've known those guys a while back. I— I'm not proud of my past with them. Those guys have big egos. They aren't going to admit to anyone they lost a fight with three against one."

Laughing at how convenient this all is, you ask "You used to be friends with them?"

"Yeah, I— um… used to." He answers. "We used to get into all sorts of trouble. Luckily, Heeseung hyung pulled me out and I left that life behind."

Nodding, you take the information in, failing to find the right words to reply with. Clearly, you aren't as observant as you thought you were as you had barely even noticed how Sim Jaeyun used to be in the same group as them. "It's a good thing he knocked some sense into you then." You conclude.

"He was great, really. He saw the good in me even when I didn't— when no one did, and I'm forever going to be thankful for that."

"You're a good guy, Sim Jaeyun. I'm glad Lee Heeseung has a friend like you by his side. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone about what happened today, I promise." You smile at him and he smiles at you back. 

After a while, he tells you that he'll be right back, informing you that he's going to go and tell the others what happened. Understanding the worry the others might have been feeling at the absence of two of their oldest, you nod, allowing him to leave you as you stay beside Lee Heeseung so you could provide him with some company when he wakes up.

"Oh, and YN— fuck. Wait, sorry. Is it okay if I call you that?" He asks and you nod, appreciating how he's asked you for your consent at the smallest thing like calling your name. He gives his own nod back, biting his lips to conceal his grin. "Great! And call me Jake, yeah? And I'm sure Heeseung hyung will appreciate it if you just called him Heeseung instead."

A few hours passed and it's already three in the afternoon. Classes are almost done and you're happy to walk into the nurse's office hearing Lee Heeseungs voice talking and laughing, his body is now well and awake. The six of them came in about thirty minutes ago and you left for a moment to provide them some privacy. 

Upon your entry, his gaze locks with yours and all chattering and banter seem to stop as all heads turn to look your way. Now, all their attention is directed towards you as their expressions vary between shocked and speechless to mischievous and teasing— the latter being directed mostly towards the boy who laid in bed. It's not only theirs but his too. Lee Heeseungs eyes, you mean. You fidget with your hands from where you stood as heat pools across your cheeks, offering him a small, shy smile.

"Hi." Whispering, you wave a hand curtly towards his way. "You okay… Heeseung?" You ask, your voice faltering towards the end when you had said his name as you threw a glance at Sim Jaeyun, who you now refer to as Jake. He gives you a satisfied grin and a thumbs up, appreciating that you had accepted his previous request.

Calling him just by the name 'Heeseung' is still new to you and it sends your tongue into a frenzy every time you say his name as a rebellious surge of heat makes its way all throughout your body. Still, you love the feeling it gives you when it rolls out.

Heeseungs bambi-like eyes seem to widen, heat making its way to his bruised up cheek, seemingly forgetting your question as cheers and screams erupt around the room. Clearly, the younger ones like to tease their oldest. You're sure of this because of the way Park Sunghoon pokes Heeseungs shoulder, snickering at the older. Heeseung throws the boy a playful glare whilst telling him in a whispering manner to shut up. This doesn't seem to be the remedy for his problems however as now, everyone seems to be doing the same all at once; poking, teasing, snickering, and smirking.

You can't hide your own giggle as what you had expected to be an awkward check up on the boy had turned into pure chaos as you use the back of your hand to hide the grin on your face.

"Alright guys, that's enough." Park Jongseong is the one that finally shuts the others up, Heeseung throwing a thankful glance at the boy. "We'll leave you guys alone for a bit. I think Heeseung hyung has something to say to YN?" He inquires, casting a knowing glance towards the oldest who's now blushing an even deeper red than before.

The rest erupt into cheers, patting his shoulder as they make their way outside the door. Before they go out of sight, they give you a small wave, seemingly shy now that they're in front of someone they don't know as they sport a few small teasing grins. You bid them your own farewell, shaking your head at their nonsense, leaving Heeseung and you alone inside the nurses office.

"Um…" He starts, chewing the bottom of his lip, a nervous habit, you assume he has. "Hi, YN."

You tilt your head, smiling at him, happy that he's okay and finding the situation silly as you could only guess what's about to happen next. 

He's going to confess, like he initially planned.

"Hi, Heeseung." You reply, simply. "How're you feeling?" You ask.

His eyes widen, seeming to have forgotten his current state as he realizes and takes a look at the multiple bandages covering his healing wounds. "O-Oh! These? These are nothing. I'm okay!" He assures you quickly, shaking his arms in front of him as if to show you he was well.  "Nothing I can't handle."

"Don't tell me you're used to getting beaten up, Lee Heeseung. I never took you as a scuffler." You say in a teasing manner. 

For the umpteenth time since seeing him in a conscious state, he widens his eyes cutely and he's quick to deny your playful accusation. "N-No! That's not what I meant! I don't get into fights, I swear!" He says, shaking his head cutely and it makes his hair sway. "I'm a good guy. You can ask Jake!"

You shake your head, finding his reactions funny. "I know, Heeseung. I'm just messing with you."

Taking a look inside Heeseungs mind, it's filled with thoughts of you; how you're talking to him right now, how he's managed to say coherent words to you, how pretty you look, how you're looking at him, how he's in the same room as you are. He's in chaos right now, trying to calm his fastening heartbeat. 

He's always found you so beautiful, his adoration only growing as he grew taller. In his mind, he thinks that you probably don't pay attention to him much but still, you have all of his. He's seen the way you act around your parents, so caring and gentle. How you're so unbelievably smart, winning all the competitions and gaining the highest marks. How passionate and driven you are when you set your mind on something. Those were only some of the things he loved about you.

Out of the blue, he takes a deep sigh. "Y-YN…" He calls out and you reply by humming as you tilt your head, waiting for him to continue. "I actually have something to tell you."

His face has only grown hotter by the second, trying to gather the confidence to finally tell you what he's been dying to confess for years. In a way, you feel as if you're cheating, already knowing what he's about to do and thus, lacking the suspense you're supposed to feel. But you can only feel a tinge of guilt as you take a look at his expression, so adorable and deer-like while you wait for him to confess. 

Still, you feel giddy regardless of knowing. "Yeah? What is it?"

"I— I've actually liked you… for a while now." He says, shyly, looking at your expression. "This might actually seem kinda weird— is it? Umm, I-I don't know. Sorry, this is so awkward. I'm awkward! Not you!" He rambles on. 

"This is definitely not how I wanted this to go." He mutters the last part mostly to himself but still, you hear it. Giggling at his antics, you shake your head, using the back of your hand to cover the shit-eating grin that's on your mouth, not wanting to make him feel embarrassed any further as you tell him to go on. Breathing out, he clears his throat before speaking, " I-I like you, YN."

Although you already knew that, your heart still seems to be flustered, beating faster than you had expected. As you take in his confession, a surge of heat dances across your whole face, much to your protests. Truthfully, you're not sure what to reply and you have no idea where this side of you that's all shy and playful came from. Does he bring out a side of you that even you were unaware of having? Maybe. Talking to him seems so comforting, so calming that it seems to just come out naturally when you're around him— albeit, this is the first time it's happened. 

Did you have any interest in Lee Heeseung before knowing what happened? 

'No, no, I definitely didn't.' 

Way to make it more obvious, smartass.

Okay, so maybe you did have some interest in him way back then. It was a simple crush really. He's your classmate. You found him nice to look at. You also found out that he's an incredibly nice person. Thus, just for the sake of having someone to crush on, purely for inspiration purposes, you chose him, reasoning that he's the best candidate and suited your 'ideal man'; tall, big and pretty eyes, tall nose, pouty lips, huge ears, prominent Adam's apple. You inwardly sigh whilst rolling your eyes, realizing that you've been describing how Lee Heeseung looks and him being your 'ideal man.'

Being the introvert you are, you never bothered to make a move and confess to him about it, nor did you assume that he was the secret man who left a love letter to you so he could confess.

Would you have still saved him if you were oblivious to the fact that he loved you? Yes, definitely. There were no questions asked about that. But now he's here. Sure, you admit this isn't how you expected him to confess to you; him laying on a hospital bed, all bruised up after you had just helped save him from a fight, but it's real and true and that's all you desire in a man.

"R-Remember the love letter that you got this morning? That was actually me. I'm sorry I didn't get to confess to you on the rooftop like I said I would. And I'm sorry I'm confessing to you like this." He says, apologising although it's not his fault. "But I'll take my chances and ask anyway. YN, would you… err… mind dating me?"

And now, the answer seems so simple, so clear. You like him and he likes you. What idiot are you to pass up a chance to fall in love with someone like him? Taking this mission on, you didn't expect to come out of it with a potential boyfriend. That is, if you succeed in saving him. 

You're still not too confident, thinking that you aren't the best person for this as changing someone's mind about committing suicide when they're so set on doing so is harder than you it let's on to be. However, The Grim Reaper's words resonate in you, reminding you that you're the only person that can do this, and so, you'd like to think that being close to him like this will help and also because maybe acting upon your feelings doesn't seem so bad. Even if there's a chance he might leave you heartbroken in the end.

So, yes. "Yes, I'll gladly date you Heeseung. I'd be really happy to." 

And now, you're really in it. You're going to save Lee Heeseung.

SEPTEMBER 26 ༉༊

After Heeseung had confessed to you in the nurse's office and being the head-over-heels man that he is, Heeseung immediately sprang up the idea of the two of you going on a date this Saturday— which is tomorrow. Grinning, you happily agreed, completely forgetting the literary contest you had to prepare for. However, as of the moment, that's the least of your worries because if things go according to how it happened before, you'll win the contest in Busan and go back home with a medal and certificate in your hands.

Leaving with each other's phone number, you bid the other goodbye, wearing the same identical grin on your faces. Leaving the room, you left with the promise of meeting each other again tomorrow lingering in the air while the last school bell rings.

That confession would've never happened if you weren't given the task to be sent back in time to save him. Although it's irrelevant, now, you hold no grudges towards your secret admirer because the reason he couldn't meet you wasn't because he stood you up, but because he was actually getting beaten up. If you didn't opt to search for the boy, the fight would've lasted longer, leaving him with an even more horrible outcome.

Currently, you're sprawled across your bed with nothing to do but think and reminisce about the events that happened and that're going to happen. You opt to think of a course of action ahead of time, trying to remember all the events that are going to take place in the next twenty days so you could maneuver around it.

Tomorrow, instead of going on a date with your highschool crush, you stayed in your room to practice for the literary contest and the same will happen tomorrow.

On Monday, you and a few other willing students who want to show their support for the school will go to Busan. This leaves you wondering if Heeseung was there because when school work is involved, you don't pay attention to anybody else but the work at hand. So it's hardly unlikely for you to remember or to even notice his presence. But in the end, like you've said, you'll win and come home happy as the rain will start pouring on your way back home. The next day, you were absent as you had played in the rain the night prior, rendering you sick and unable to go to class.

Amidst your thinking, a gust of wind suddenly made your windows fly open, curtains swaying wildly. Your heart rate slightly picks up, suddenly feeling nervous as chills run along your arms, giving you goosebumps. You sit up and kneel on top of your bed, peeking out the opened window only to see a cat walking along the roof of your neighbours house. This makes you calm down, sighing in relief as you close the windows shut. Suddenly, you hear a whip of air followed by a thud coming from behind you. The sound makes you turn quickly, eyes widening in shock to see Sunoo there, looking out of breath.

"Sunoo! For the last time, will you stop scaring me like that!?" You scream as you rush to stand up, stopping once you're in front of him as you hold a hand above your beating heart.

But all he gives you is a guilty smile. "Sorry, YN. It's fun seeing your reaction every time I scare you."

Rolling your eyes, you huff at the boy, crossing your arms at your chest. "It's not funny, you ass." Your eyes narrow, leaning your face close to his. "Where have you been anyways? I've been waiting for hours." 

"Nowhere. Just trying to keep things unnoticed as much as I can." He shrugs as if it's nothing, pulling your desk chair back to sit. "Anyways, I have good news." He smiles widely, making his cheeks look plumper.

"Yeah, well that sucks because you have to answer my questions first. I assume you saw what happened today." You ask, quirking your eyebrows up, daring him to protest and you let out a satisfied hum when he only replies with a nod. "Say, what happened to Lee Heeseung before? I was busy preparing for a contest back then, I barely took notice of him." You casually ask, turning your back to him as you start walking towards the small shelf at the corner of your room.

He sighs, the cheerful and bubbly aura on his face wavering, showing remorse and pity in its place. "Heeseung went into a short coma after almost getting beaten up to death." He starts and you listen with wide eyes, shocked that you were so preoccupied to the point where you didn't know that something so life-threatening happened to one of your classmates.

As if to reminisce about the past incident, Sunoo looks outside, moonlight hitting his face as he admires it. "That day when he was supposed to meet you at the rooftop, he got stopped by those three. They started beating him up because he was a witness to something horrible they did. Heeseung wouldn't agree to turn a blind eye like they wanted him to so they beat the crap out of him. He got beaten up over and over after he woke up and was well enough to go back to school again. His family isn't that rich and they already have trouble paying their usual bills. As you know, hospital bills aren't cheap and they have to work themselves to death just to pay their debt. Heeseung could tell they were all having a hard time because of him." Picking up a random pencil on your table, he starts fidgeting with it, twisting the object between two fingers as he continues to tell you Heeseung's story.

"Heeseung changed after that day. He suddenly got more serious, more stoic and he even stopped hanging out with his friends all together. He stopped doing everything he loved and drowned himself in work. He was still getting beaten up by those three until all of it became too much to bear for a high school student. That, along with carrying the guilt of knowing… N-Nevermind. Eventually, you know… He… He killed himself."

"So if I didn't arrive there at all he would've gotten into a coma and all of this would've happened?" Sunoo nods sadly, speaking the truth. Your heart feels dejected and hurt as drops of what would usually be rain but —are now replaced with tears of your own— make their way down your face for the first time in what seemed like forever. Your thoughts are scrambled, filled to the brim with emotion, when suddenly, you remember something that doesn't quite make sense to you still. "You said he was a witness to something, what was he a witness of?"

"I-I don't know if it's my place, YN." He's hesitant to say as he tries his best to avoid eye contact with you. Already feeling the guilt of not knowing something so vile happening to someone, you're speechless when he doesn't tell you.

"Oh for goodness sake! You already brought me back here against the universal laws, I'm doing this with the fear of me and the people around me getting fucking hurt. I'm sure you can tell me what he saw." You scoff. Still, he seems conflicted about whether to tell you or not but his hesitance only annoys you so you press him on even more. "What did he see, Sunoo?" You ask, pausing in between words.

"YN… I-I really think you should ask Heeseung, instead. I won't be able to give you the full—"

"Just tell me what you know!" You scream out. "I'm so sick of this! You want me to help him yet you give me nothing to go off of. How am I supposed to save him if you won't tell me why he's getting beaten up?!"

"That's the thing! You've already saved him, YN!" He replies back enthusiastically, hoping you'd change your mind. "You're a smart kid YN. I'm sure you know what the butterfly effect theory is, don't you?"

You pinch the bridge of your nose in annoyance. "Yes, I do and what about it?" You deadpan.

"You managed to save Lee Heeseung from his coma! Meaning, his family won't get flooded with debts and he won't feel guilty for being the reason for it. That's enough to lessen the pain Heeseung felt and he won't be pushed to take his life anymore." It sounds absurd but his theory pans out right. With you arriving early to the scene, Heeseung didn't get beaten to the brink of death, saving him from his coma and lessening his feeling of being a burden. It seems like a small change but the effect is massive. Just like what the butterfly effect entails.

"We can go back right now while they still don't know about it and you won't be harmed." His offer seems too good to be true but you see no signs of error with his plan.

But still, you're bothered, itching to know what Heeseung has seen. "If we continue now won't Heeseung still get beaten up by those shit heads?" 

"He'll fight back this time. With you and the others by his side, his resolve is now stronger." He's not telling you the whole truth.

By the way his hands are moving and the tone of his voice, you can tell he's lying. He might be an otherworldly being but the boy doesn't know anything about being a good liar.

"And what about the thing he witnessed, are you willing to tell me now?" You ask, leaning your body weight onto on foot whilst crossing your arms over your chest.

"No." He tries to answer simply. However, you notice the way his jaw clenches along with his fists whenever you touch upon the subject. "You don't need to know about that, YN."

"And why is that? You've told me useless information before. Surely this isn't any different than those." 

"It is, YN." He tries convincingly but in the end, his gaze falters as he locks eyes with your persistent ones, finally realizing that you weren't going to stop asking until he told you. So with a sigh of defeat. "Five days ago, when Heeseung was on his way back home from school, he saw a girl being assaulted by those people who beat him up. Before they could do anything to the girl, Heeseung managed to rescue her and get away. In the original timeline, Heeseung and the girl will press charges and fail. The girl… she'll continue living her life in fear of them coming back. She blamed Heeseung for not being able to do anything. She said that if he couldn't help her put them in jail then he should've left them to do what they wanted with her; that it was all his fault."

'Ungrateful bitch.'

You don't have any idea who the girl is but your blood feels like it's going to boil through your skin with your hand itching to touch a certain someone's cheek. Despite what you know she's been through, all you feel is hatred and malice towards the girl as there's not an ounce of sympathy as you're unable to wrap your head around her thought process.

"How can someone be so ungrateful!?" You scream out in shock. "He's just as much of a victim than she is and she has the fucking audacity to blame him? The person who saved her?" You don't expect a reasonable answer from the boy, more so saying it out of disbelief and anger.

Far from his usual bubbly self, Sunoo only replies with a nod, seeming to be ashamed as he bows his head down, unable to look you in the eye.

"Why did you keep this hidden from me?" You sigh in exasperation, nudging your chin towards him.

"She… She's actually my sister, sadly." He smiles both in shame for her sister's actions and sorrow for what could have almost happened to her. "I guess I was just ashamed."

Speechless, you stammer for a few moments, mouth open and closing in shock as you try to compose a more coherent sentence. "Wow, I guess we can't really choose our relatives, can we?" You sight out, smiling sadly. "I'm sorry for talking crap about her like that."

All Sunoo does is shrugs. "It's okay. She wasn't always the best sister." 

"Okay then. As long as Heeseung is fine, I'm willing to go back." You breathe out, patting the sides of your thighs to ready yourself. Sunoo smiles at you, nodding in appreciation.

OCTOBER 16 ༉༊

Opening your eyes, you're met with the same frost that the rain brought you like the last time you went to bed. The only difference your half-awaken body could comprehend is the amount of pillows suddenly decorating your bed— not to mention how hard the one placed on your back feels. Gripping the blanket tighter around your body, you turn in place, humming in satisfaction when the pillow wraps its arms around your waist tighter. In your state, you snuggle deeper into its warm embrace.

You stay like that for a couple of minutes, trying to catch your dreams as you relish the comfort both your pillows and blankets were giving you when out of nowhere, a chuckle breaks its way through your ears, catching you off-guard. With wide eyes, you turn around in a quick motion and sure enough, like a male lead in a teenage romantic drama, Lee Heeseung is laid there beside you on the bed, looking at you with stars in his eyes. Seeing your expression, he giggles and it feels like he's serenading you with tooth rottingly sweet songs while his nose crinkles with glee as strands of his hair decorate his puffed up face.

In this moment, you could tear up. In fact, that's just what you do, you burst into tears the moment you lock eyes with him. Sobbing, you bury your head at the crook of his neck as your hands wrap around his waist tightly, afraid to let go because you think that if you do, you might wake up. Your own tears stain his neck but he doesn't seem to mind, more so showing concern towards your actions. He pats you in the back, asking you what's wrong, but you only reply to him with a defiant shake of your head and a hard squeeze as he tries to take a look at you.

"YN?"

He's alive and he's laying down beside you. Your heartbeat is fastened, stupefied by how you could feel his touch on your skin, how you could feel his breath on your forehead, and how you can feel the beating of his heart through the thin layer of his plain white t-shirt. He’s the only thing you can feel and you’re over the moon by it.

“H-Heeseung.” You hiccup, leaving his neck to look at his face as you cup his cheeks with both hands. “You’re here.” You breathe out, chuckling as you smile through your tear stricken face.

His eyes are filled with worry as he looks at you, hand coming to mirror your actions as he wipes the stray tears that left your eyes. “I’ve been here since yesterday, baby. What do you mean?”

Although you’re confused by how Lee Heeseung, your classmate who had just confessed to you, is in your room, sleeping beside you, you don’t question it. Wanting to indulge in the moment longer, you bury your head in his chest in a hug, overjoyed by the outcome of your crazy adventure. Truely, it's a blessing in the skies to have Heeseung beside you, living and breathing. What’s more lucky is how your relationship with him has seemed to blossom after your obscure confession, but you wouldn't have it any other way because right now, Heeseung will be right beside you, always— just where you want him to be.

“Did you have a nightmare again?” He pouts with furrowed brows. “I didn’t cheat on you in your dreams again, did I? Dream Heeseung is actually such an asshole.” He finishes by rolling his eyes in disgust.

He’s insulting himself and normally, you would be against it, voicing your distaste through your inner thoughts, however, instead of doing that, you laugh, finding his humor comforting while his body is pressed against yours.

Now, you don’t mind the thunderous rain anymore. With Heeseung beside you, you feel like you can have a positive view on everything bad that gets thrown your way. Besides, what's the worst that can happen? Him dying? No problem, you have a reaper as a friend to help you with that. 

Although yours and Heeseungs relationship hasn’t been online for that long, you’ve come to the realization that in your case, time is irrelevant. Time is complex and always changing. Some may say that time goes by too fast and for some, too slow, however, there is one thing you know that will never change, and that’s Heeseung. With time, your admiration for him will only grow, turning into love and the next is what’s beyond that. As you watch the way his eyes shine every time he talks, you dive in deeper, willingly drowning yourself in him until he’s all that you can see, hear, feel, touch, and taste. With time, the both of you will grow, change, and mature, but that doesn’t scare you. You aren't frightened that he might turn into someone else and leave the highschool Heeseung behind him, no, because like time, Heeseung is ever so changing.

How you know your relationship was formed might not be what others perceive as normal, but to you, it’s perfect. No matter how many lives you live nor how many universes there are, you’ll still choose him because at the end of the day, who doesn’t want Lee Heeseung to sing them to sleep. It’s like walking around with a spotify premium wherever you go!

Nevertheless, you’ll protect him and he'll do the same for you. With this frail and useless body of yours, you’ll defend him. It doesn't matter who you're dealing with or how big the problem is because he knows that you’ll be there by his side. With that thought and your love in mind, Heeseung feels like he could conquer the world— not that he wants to anyways. All the things he wants in life are already right in front of him, in the shape of you. Sure, it’s short, messy, and can get incredibly emotional at times but that doesn’t matter because he wouldn't want you any other way than yourself.

"Belated Happy Birthday, by the way." You whisper through your tears..

From outside the water stained window of your room, two prying eyes are peeking in, looking at the loving couple sprawled across their room on a rainy day.

“Sunoo, you’re lucky this didn’t cause any trouble with the time cycle.” Apollyon says whilst sighing in defeat once he turns his head and notices that the reaper he came here with just continues to blatantly stare at the both of you with longing in his eyes. “You’re new that’s why im letting you get away with this but I'll have you know that if you do something like this again—”

“I know.” The boy simply replies.

Tired, he shakes his head at the boy in defeat. Like the other, he turns his head to look at the unknowing couple happily talking to each other. Heeseung leans his lips near your ear, whispering. You listen to him eagerly, eyes growing animatedly wide once he’s finished and a feverous red-hot blush coats your face. He leans away to look at your reaction, however before he could, you turn your head away, slapping his chest and pointing a lecturing finger at him afterwards. 

“They’re good for each other.” Apollyon comments, complimenting the both of you. “You’re more suited to be cupid instead of reaper, don't you think?” He jokes which the other only shrugs in response.

“By the way, about the soul you're looking for—”

“Leave it.” 

Apollyon stops and looks at the boy with disbelief written across his face. “A-Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. She deserves peace and I’m not going to be the one taking it away from her.” Sunoo says, smiling even though his heart felt like it was chipping away.

“Besides, she killed herself to get away from me, didn't she?”

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bad news first - sjy (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. From the moment you'd met at eight to the day he moved to South Korea at fourteen, you and Jake were inseparable. But after years of being apart, you've come to terms with the fact that at twenty, you and Jake just aren't what you used to be. That is until you get a text from him, and all of a sudden, he's back by your side, doing his year abroad at the university you study at, and all your feelings for him float back up to the surface. genre. college au, childhood friends to ???? to lovers, painful mutual pining, one bed trope..... a sprinkle of angst (my hand slipped) but mostly fluff i promise and smut (mdni!!!), also i made sunghoon really weird in this and idkw, this is set in scotland.. edinburgh uni rep!! word count. 23k author's note. everybody say happy belated birthday to @zreamy.. happy belated birthday zo!!! being 22 years and 6 days old is cooler than just 22 years old anyway.. hope you like it bestie... if you dont... well theres a building on campus thats 17 stories high sooo.. enjoy! i hope everyone else enjoys too, since this is a bday fic for zo she couldnt beta read so i had to raw dog this so if its terrible.. not my fault! lmk what u think!! i also made a playlist for this, do listen along!!

“Alright kids, good news or bad news first?”

You looked at your teacher, then at the boy next to you, then back at your teacher. “Bad news first,” you said in unison.

You were only eight, but you were both wise enough to know that hearing good news second would assuage the blow of whatever these bad news were. Miss Dawson sighed as she crouched in front of you. “The bad news is your bus driver is on strike and won’t be coming. The good news is that your parents have been informed and are coming to pick you up soon.”

Following her instructions, you headed to the gymnasium and sat there silently among the other kids. Not many kids in your class rode the bus home, and the ones who did seemed to have drivers not on strike, so it was just the two of you. You were used to that, though - over January and February, you had made a sort of silent pact to stand and wait for the bus together. You sometimes shared snacks, but you never spoke. For some reason, you felt at ease with this boy, even though you didn’t know much about him. You had heard he had moved to Brisbane just at the start of this year, all the way from South Korea. You were pretty sure his name was Jake.

You handed him one of your Twix bars. Then he spoke. “I thought a strike was when you did really well in bowling.”

“Same,” you replied, mouth full of chocolate and caramel. “I’m not sure why that would keep the bus driver from picking us up.”

Jake looked at you with wide eyes, distress clear in them. “Do you think he went bowling instead of picking us up?”

This made you frown. “That’d be really rude.”

“It would. I always make sure to go bowling on the weekends, ‘cause if I missed school that’d be rude to Miss Dawson.”

You nodded your head in fervent agreement. “For sure.”

That weekend, his mum called your mum to ask if you wanted to go to the bowling alley with them. From then on, for the next six years, you were stuck together by glue. 

--

Twelve years later, Jake’s name appearing on your phone screen has become such a rare sight, you don’t believe it right away. It takes you a few seconds of intense squinting at the letters to actually realise your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

jake.sim15 hey y/n!! you go to edinburgh uni right?

You type and delete three different responses before settling for a simple yeah, I am! what’s up?, hoping you sounded nonchalant even though you very much felt chalant. You thought that whatever you sent wouldn’t be as weird as taking forever to answer such a straightforward question. 

As you wait for Jake’s reply, you scroll through your previous shared messages, noting with sadness that for three years in a row, the only instances you’d texted were to wish each other a happy birthday or when he reacted with a fire emoji to Stories of your dog, Milo. Before that, your last conversation was to congratulate each other about getting into your top choice universities and to discuss plans for your respective futures.

Futures that used to include each other, you think. His reply appears at the bottom of your screen before melancholy can fill your heart.

jake.sim15 i applied to go there for my year abroad next year annnnd i got in !! heh

You shoot up straight from your seat on the lounge chaise you’d been sunbathing on, a loud “Oh my God!” involuntarily escaping your mouth. 

“What? What happened? Is everything okay?” Chaewon asks frantically, rushing over to your side. “Oh,” she says when she sees your phone. “It’s a text… from a boy?” 

This makes Yunjin, previously unbothered by your panic, rise from her seat and take off her sunglasses. “A boy? Show me,” she demands, snatching your phone from your hands before you can protest. Upon seeing the texts on your screen, she lets out a loud gasp. “It’s not just any boy! It’s the one and only Jake Sim himself.”

“Give that back!” you plead, hand reaching for your phone, but Yunjin is already walking away.

“And he’s coming to Edi this September, apparently. He says he’s sorry for not saying anything earlier, but he was waiting for an answer up until now.” She scoffs. “Leave it to our uni to tell someone they’re in less than two months before term starts. Oh, you’re the first person he’s told, Y/N! After his parents. How cute,” she coos, protesting when you snatch your phone back from her. “Hey! I was reading that.”

“Those are my texts, Yunjin. I’m the one who’s meant to read them.”

She shrugs. “You would’ve told us anyway.”

“What are you going to reply?” Chaewon asks. With the both of them hovering over your shoulders and watching as you type a response, a sort of stage fright comes over you, making you send what might be the most unoriginal reply known to man.

“Awesome? Seriously, Y/N?” Yunjin reads, disproportionately disgusted with you.

“That’s a lot of exclamation marks. It almost makes it look like you don’t mean it,” Chaewon says.

“I do mean it!”

“Well, he seems to like it. A smiling-with-teeth emoji is a good sign, right?” she asks in an attempt to make you feel better.

“He has automatic caps off. That man is run-through,” Yunjin says, shaking her head as she walks back to her sunbed.

“You were excited about him texting me just a second ago,” you reproach.

“Yeah, before I found out he was a whore.”

“Yunjin, you know we don't slut-shame here!” Chaewon exclaims. Before Yunjin can say anything even worse in response, your phone starts ringing, and Jake’s name appears on your screen. “He’s calling you?” Chaewon gasps, making Yunjin sit up with a start for the second time in less than five minutes.

“This man is insane,” she remarks with all the seriousness in the world.

You run away from your friends, finding refuge in the outside kitchen area out of earshot. They don’t need to hear your conversation with Jake. You love them, but they can be weirdly unsupportive in moments like these.

“Hey, Jake,” you greet, hoping he doesn’t notice the breathlessness in your voice. It was because you had just ran, of course - you didn’t want him to think you were so nervous about talking to him after such a long time, you could barely breathe. Because you weren’t. At all.

“Hey, Y/N!” he replies, and the excitement in his voice makes your heart melt. “I hope it’s not weird that I called, I just thought it’d be nicer than texting, is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, it’s nice to hear your voice,” you say before you can really think about it, and cringe at your own words. Years without talking and the world’s worst line is the first thing you say to Jake. Thankfully, before you start excruciating yourself, a chuckle pours out of Jake’s throat and blesses your ears.

“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. What are you up to?” 

“Oh, I’m on vacation with my friends. One of them has a rich aunt who owns a villa in southern Italy, so we’re just chilling by the pool right now.” 

“You always wanted to go to Italy! That sounds so nice,” he says. Your breath catches gently in your throat - he remembers, you note.

“Yeah, it really is. What about you, how are you spending the summer?”

Jake tells you about the local bookstore owned by a grandpa that’s always had a soft spot for him and that gave him a part-time job for the summer. “I’m trying to save up as much money as I can before I leave. If I treat you to a meal, will you show me around the city?” he asks, and you can hear the grin in his voice. It makes you realise how much you’ve actually missed him.

“You don’t need to treat me to a meal, I’ll show you around anyway.” 

Still, he insists, and you find yourself giving in quickly - because it’s Jake or because free food is on the table, you’re not sure. Probably both. 

You and Jake get to talking, but fitting years and years of catching up into one conversation is an impossible task, and before you know it, when you check your phone, you’ve been talking for over an hour. Yunjin is angrily waving at you, pointing at her stomach to indicate hunger like a caveman who’s just learned how to communicate. You apologise to Jake, telling him you have to go, and plan to meet during fresher’s week before you hang up.

A few hours later, you get a text from him saying it was nice talking to you and jokingly asking whether Yunjin was satisfied with lunch. It’s innocuous, but it opens a gate for more texting, which leads to long, rambling voice messages, which leads to late-night phone calls that remind you of when you were fifteen and still kept in touch. When August fades into September, you feel like you’ve got your best friend back. 

You remember why you were so in love with him at fourteen.

--

You see Jake before he sees you.  

Among the throngs of people, you manage to spot the dark, messy flop of hair on his head weighed down by a nice pair of wireless headphones. After a thirteen-hour flight from Seoul, a four-hour layover in Frankfurt and a final, two-hour flight to Edinburgh, he looks rightfully exhausted, using what looks like the last of his energy to spot the exit and the airport bus stop. Even wearing a simple denim jacket, white tee and grey sweatpants, he’s so gorgeous you forget what you came here for, until he almost walks right past you without seeing you. You put yourself in his path and hold your hand-written banner up, making yourself as obvious as you can as you call out his name. 

When he sees you, he stops dead in his tracks for a second, someone almost running into him before he remembers the crowd behind him. His tired features break out into a bright smile that has your heartbeat speeding up so much, you think it might run out of your chest. 

He had told you not to come, that it would be late for you and he didn’t want to bother you, but you had managed to get the information of his arrival before he forbade you from picking him up so you did it anyway, wanting to surprise him. After years of being apart, rather than waiting another day, you wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Jake briskly makes his way to you, dropping his bags next to him on the floor as he engulfs you in a hug, warm and tight as if he’s trying to make up for all those years. You hug him back as if someone would appear out of thin air and take him away from you again.

“This was the longest day of my life, I’m so happy to see you,” he says when he pulls away, and you’re so happy you can’t even say anything back, resorting to giggling and lightly swatting non-existent dust off of his shoulders. 

As you wait for the bus, he tells you about every trivial thing that happened to him on his trip, from how expensive a sandwich is at the airport to the German kid sitting in front of him that kept turning around to stare at him on his second flight.

“How did you know he was German?” you ask, amused.

Jake pauses. “Just vibes.”

Conversation on the bus is slightly disjointed as you jump from topic to topic with random pauses here and there before one of you finds something to talk about - but it’s okay, you hadn’t expected for the two of you to be as easy as before. It’s more awe at seeing each other after such a long time than awkwardness. Even though you’d caught up over summer, there was a world of difference between speaking on the phone and actually sitting next to him. You notice things like the shine of his hair, the creases that form on the sides of his lips when he smiles, or, unfortunately for you, the veins that run along his forearms and hands - things you hadn’t noticed previously thanks to the sometimes questionable quality of the front camera of his phone. Once in a while, your thigh brushes against his, and it reminds you that he’s really here. Even that he’s real, at all. 

In a tragic turn of events, Jake lives in the student accommodation you used to live in in first year, and coming back to it two years later is slightly traumatising. His three-person flat is in a different building as your old one, and you marvel at how it somehow still smells the same - like dusty, decade-old carpeting and the permanent stench of students’ dubitable cooking. He’s the first one to move in, which makes the place slightly eerie, but it means that you’re not bothering anyone by unpacking Jake’s stuff and cooking Shin Ramyun the previous tenants had left behind at 11pm. 

Your late dinner was meant for you to take a small break, watch a couple episodes of Friends which Jake had been shocked to learn you’d never watched, and you had been shocked to learn he was a die-hard fan of (since one year ago), then get back to unpacking. But the ramen sends an already exhausted Jake into a food coma so intense, he falls asleep on your shoulder five minutes into the second episode. 

You let him sleep as long as he needs, turning the volume down on his laptop and stifling your chuckles as much as you can. You feel like a cat has fallen asleep in your lap - you are now obliged by law to stay still until Jake wakes up. It’s not until an hour later that Jake’s uncomfortable sleeping position forces him awake, lifting his head off of your shoulder with a grunt. He looks around himself, at his room that’s not quite familiar to him yet, then at you, eyes still scrunched with sleepiness as a grin blooms onto his lips.

“Sorry,” clearing his throat of its grogginess. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost one a.m,” you reply, and his eyes go wide.

“You should’ve woken me up! Does your shoulder hurt?” he asks, much more alarmed than he should be, and it makes you laugh.

“It’s all good. But now that you’re awake, I should probably head home.” 

“I’ll get you an Uber,” he says, already pulling out his phone. 

“It’s fine, Jake, my place is a ten-minute walk from here. I live just up the road.”

Jake’s fingers on his phone pause as he looks up at you. “Then I’ll walk you home.” He lifts a finger in warning when he sees you start to protest. “And don’t fight me on this. You did so much today, it’s the least I can do.”

As much as you love the idea of spending more time with Jake, even if it’s just ten minutes, you still don’t want to bother him when you know how tired he is. “It’s really safe around here. I can just text you when I’m home, if you’re worried about me getting kidnapped or something,” you say, taking his jacket from his hands and placing it back on his desk chair.

He grabs it back, putting it on before you can take it from him again, and rummages through one of his suitcases for a black, woolly scarf. Neither of you speaks as he wraps it tight around your neck, even though the early September weather isn’t cold enough to warrant it. His hands stop briefly on the scarf and a small smile spreads on his lips. You hope he doesn’t hear your sharp intake of breath when your eyes meet. “It’s not about that,” he says simply, voice low and unlike you’ve ever heard it before. You don’t think his voice had quite finished cracking when he’d moved away back then. 

Suddenly, he steps away, grabs his keys, and heads for the door. “Let’s go!” he says, voice back to its usual cheery tone. You don’t find it in you to question him, so you just follow him out, welcoming the night breeze that cools down your burning cheeks with open arms. 

The walk to your place is mostly done in comfortable silence, but it still goes by too quickly for your liking. You keep your hands in your pockets to prevent yourself from doing something stupid, like reaching out for Jake’s hand that swishes back-and-forth as he walks. Instead, you bury your nose in his scarf and relish in the unfamiliar but comforting smell that his cologne has left behind on the fabric. You hug goodbye when you reach your flat, and you have to remind yourself to let go. He insists on you keeping the scarf. “My mum packed me, like, three, so you can have that one.” 

“Your mum still pack your things for you, does she?” you ask, tone playful.

“No-” he says, voice slightly whiny, before he realises you’re just teasing him. “Whatever,” he chuckles, ruffling your hair. You hope the streetlights aren’t bright enough for him to notice the flustered look on your face. The both of you stand there awkwardly for a second, before he lets out another chuckle. “Right. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you beam.

“Okay,” he says, but still doesn’t make a move to leave. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll be off then.” He gives you one last smile then turns around, burying his hands in his pockets, and you watch as he walks away.

“Get home safe,” you call out after a few seconds. 

He pivots on his heels, and, with a wave of his hand, says, “I will! Go inside.”

“Good night!”

“Night, Y/N!”

When you walk into your living room, Yunjin is sitting on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, gaze trained on the wall opposite her, one lamp lighting the otherwise completely dark room. She looks like a detective in one of those bad cop shows.

“Gosh, what’s all this for?”

“You’re back awfully late,” she says, neither looking at you nor answering your question.

“Yeah, I was with Jake,” you shrug, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. She abruptly gets up from her seat, following you into the other room and staying close behind you.

“And?” she demands, mouth way too close to your ear and making you start.

“And what?” you ask. 

“What do you mean and what?!” she says, clearly agitated. “I want to know everything!”

“There’s nothing to say, really. He seemed happy I picked him up from the airport, then I helped him unpack. He lives in Riego, by the way.”

“Ew.”

“I know, it was awful going back there.”

The two of you stare at each other as you drink your water. “Well?” she asks.

“What?”

“Is that it?”

You fill your glass again to take it into your bedroom. “I don’t know, we just ate and watched Friends.”

“You hate shows with laughing tracks,” she states like it’s an accusation.

“It wasn’t actually that bad,” you reply, shrugging.

She tuts. “Love will do ugly, ugly things to a person.”

“You’ve been in a loving relationship for the past two years.”

“This isn’t about me. Can we talk about how you’re still in love with the same loser from when you were ten?”

“I was fourteen, and don’t call Jake a loser when you haven’t even met him.” You ignore the roll of her eyes. “And I’m not. Not anymore. I’m just happy to have my friend back.” Yunjin gives you a look. “Okay, maybe I’m still a little bit in love with him. But it’s so little, it’s barely there.” Her expression is unchangingly unimpressed and you can’t help but throw in the towel. “Alright, fine. I still love him, what about it?”

“You’re pathetic.”

“I know that, no need to remind me.”

“Are you gonna do something about it?”

“My patheticness? I’ve tried, didn’t really work.”

“No, idiot, about Jake. You should go and get him! It’d be so sexy if you got together as 20-somethings after knowing each other since you were babies.”

“We were eight when we met. And I don’t know if sexy is the word I’d use here.”

“Anything is sexy if you try hard enough,” she says, and you have to laugh. “Anyways, you should confess your undying love and tell him you’ve felt that way since you met.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Guys might not show it, but they probably get all hot for stuff like that. Boosts their ego and shit.”

“Yunjin, I just got my friend back, I’m not gonna risk it. Plus, who knows, I might not actually be in love with him. It might just be my emotions acting up, like, seeing someone I used to like after a while. We’ve both changed so much, once I get to know him more now, I might not even feel the way I used to.”

“Notice how you’ve used the word might twice in ten seconds? You’re just trying to find excuses.”

You groan. “This is why I hate English Lit people.”

“You do English Lit.”

“I know, and I’m the only nice person that does it.” In your head, you add and Jake, but saying it out loud would only make this conversation worse for you.

“What’s that scarf, by the way? Did he give you that?”

You look down at the scarf like it’s a piece of incriminating evidence. “Can you stop grilling me, please? It’s late.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

You sighed deeply. “Fine. Yes, he gave me-”

“It’s not even that cold outside!” she exclaimed in an outrage. “Don’t tell me he also walked you home?”

You pause. “He did.”

She gasped. “He walked you home because he’s in love with you.”

“He walked me home because he’s a good friend that looks after me.”

“He walked you home because he realised how hot you’ve gotten and he wants some of that.”

All you can do is sigh. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

“If you weren’t such a coward, you wouldn’t be going to bed alone.”

“Whatever!” you say, shutting the door behind you, shaking that preposterous conversation out of your head. When you get into bed, it takes you at least half-an-hour before you can settle down, but you know your constant tossing and turning isn’t due to your inability to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in. Between your evening with Jake and Yunjin’s pestering, thoughts run wild and incoherent through your head. 

You want to tell her every little thing that happened with Jake tonight, but you’re afraid it might do you more harm than good. She is most definitely the type of friend who will take the smallest action a guy did for you or the most meaningless thing he might have said and turn it into a sign that he has the hots for you, which usually does wonders for your confidence, but right now, you don’t need that kind of delusion. Did seeing your childhood best friend you used to secretly harbour feelings for make you feel some type of way? Of course, but that doesn’t mean you still love him after all this time, after six years of being apart, the majority of those years spent with no contact. It wasn’t like you parted ways with resentment, or anything of that sort, far from it; rather, you drifted apart naturally, as two teenagers with over 7000 kilometres between them would. At first, you’d call frequently and even write each other letters - but as you became more preoccupied with school, friends, and extracurriculars, your phones gradually rang less and your mailboxes became gradually emptier. You don’t even remember who sent the last, unanswered letter. 

Tonight isn’t the first time you replay the moment Jake announced that he would go away, but it’s the first time it’s a bittersweet memory. It used to only be bitter - but now that you’ve reconnected, you can look back at it with fondness, wishing you could tell fourteen-year-old you the hurt would only last so long. 

It hadn’t started unusually.

“So, bad news first, right?”

In your six years of friendship with Jake, this had been the first time you’d really been wary of what he would say next. The look on his face told you that this bad news wouldn’t be as easy to shake off as usual. Your definition of bad news was things like I got grounded so I can’t hang out, I forgot we had a test tomorrow so I can’t hang out, my allergies are acting up again so I can’t hang out.

“I’m moving to Korea next month.”

I’m on another continent, so I can’t hang out.

You remember the words not quite making sense at the time. “Oh? How long are you staying there?” you said, taking a bite of your strawberry ice cream which Jake had insisted on paying for, even though you knew he didn’t get much allowance.

“Forever.”

You stopped chewing, and the ice cream melted uncomfortably in your mouth. You don’t know how long you stayed there, frozen as you stared at your best friend in disbelief. It wasn’t until he lightly shoved your shoulder, only meeting your eyes for a split second, that you remembered to swallow and to say something.

“Forever as in… You won’t live here anymore? At all?”

Jake shook his head. He kept his eyes trained on the vanilla-chocolate ice cream sandwich he’d left in its wrapper. In the blazing hot Brisbane summer, it had probably fully melted two minutes ago. “At all.”

“Oh,” was all you found yourself able to say. For some reason, you hoped that continuing to eat your ice cream would stop you from crying, but to no avail. Hot, salty tears quickly started raining down your cheeks, mixing with the sweetness of your ice cream when they reached your lips. 

“It’s my dad’s work. Same reason why I moved here when we were kids in the first place. They wanted him here then, they want him back there now. We just have to follow,” Jake explained, sounding just as upset as you felt.

“Right.”

“Are you mad at me?” Jake asked, worry clear in his voice, and finally turned to face you. At the sight of you crying, he let out a small oh, tears of his own pooling in his eyes.

You frowned. “Of course not. I’m never mad at you, you know that. I just… You’re my best friend, Jakey. It’s gonna be so lame around here without you.”

“It’ll be lame there without you, too.”

You attempted a smile. “Well, of course. But at least you’ll get to make new friends, see new places. You’ll be in a whole other country, I’m sure you’ll have fun there. I’m gonna be stuck in boring old Brisbane for the foreseeable future.”

“Do you know how offended our friends would be if they heard you speaking right now?” he asked, nudging your shoulder with his.

You sniffled and let out a chuckle. “They’re all great, but… I don’t like them nearly as much as I like you,” you said, staring down at your hands, hoping he wouldn’t realise exactly what you meant by that statement.

A weight was lifted off of your shoulders when Jake answered. “I like you the most too, Y/N.” You tried not to think too much about whether he’d meant it platonically or romantically - none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around you, his warmth enveloping your whole body, his familiar scent that you already missed. 

You felt him take a deep breath against you before he pulled away. He sniffled and did his best to put on a smile. “Right, enough of that. I’m not leaving until next month, so don’t think you’re rid of me just yet,” he joked, and it helped alleviate the weight on your heart, even if just a little. “You said you had something to tell me? Good news after bad news, and all that.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”

You thought for a second. Today was the day you had planned to confess your feelings to Jake - you’d only told him you had good news to share. But what was the point now that he was leaving? If he felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if he didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

Jake tilted his head, waiting for you to speak. In a split second, you made yourself forget your disappointment over having built the courage to tell him how you felt only for it all to fall through, and resolved to make the most of Jake’s last month here. You wiped your tears and mirrored his small smile as best you could. “Um, it wasn’t anything much. My mum made those cowboy cookies you like.”

Jake’s head fell back as he groaned in anticipation. “If she wasn’t happily married with three kids, I’d marry your mum. Let’s go right now.”

You laughed. “There’d be a bit of an age gap there.”

“We’d make it work,” Jake joked, throwing his arm around your shoulders as you walked towards your house. He beamed down at you, his bright, boyish smile that you loved to bits, and you beamed up at him as you grabbed the hand that hung off your shoulder in your own.

You walked as happily as you could. “Do you even speak Korean?” you suddenly asked.

Jake halted abruptly in his steps, a gravely offended look on his face. When you looked back at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and started walking again, pulling you with him. “It’s literally my mother tongue, Y/N. I speak it every day at home.”

“Oh, right.”

At the time, you thought nothing could come between you and Jake. Not anyone, not anything, neither distance nor time. But they did. A week after he’d left, a boy from your class you’d talked to maybe once or twice asked you out on a date. You weren’t sure why, but you said yes. Then you said yes to being his girlfriend, even though you didn’t like him all that much, and you even said yes to reducing your texting with Jake because it made him jealous. When you’d broken up with him and wanted to catch up with Jake and apologise for your absence, you’d found that his new school in Seoul was a lot more demanding than yours in Brisbane, and he had to spend most of his evenings in academies if he wanted to get into a nice university. It’s when you learned that he’d be staying in South Korea for college that you decided to leave Australia too. Brisbane was a lot less fun without him there - why bother staying? You couldn’t go to him because of the language barrier and the cost of university there. If you were to essentially uproot your life, might as well go somewhere you could get a scholarship and understand the people around you. 

It seemed insane that someone you had thought would be by your side for the rest of your life, someone that was part of your most cherished memories, had been reduced to someone you casually texted once in a while. It seems even more insane that now that you’re finally done essentially grieving your friendship with Jake, he stands in front of you again, six inches taller but still donning those puppy-like eyes and smile of his.

For your sake, you just hoped you wouldn’t be as in love with him at twenty as you were at fourteen.

--

The next day, you show Jake around campus, which wouldn’t normally take more than ten minutes, but takes double that time because of the sheer amount of people there. Between the Societies Fair taking up most of the square, the tour guides leading freshers, walking slowly and taking in their new campus, and the pizza and drinks stands, freshers’ week always turns campus into what feels like the busiest place on Earth. You try not to let it hit a nerve for Jake’s sake, who’s clearly ecstatic at all the activity, but you like this place a lot more when it’s quieter. You walk through the Fair, laughing as Jake marvels at all the different clubs and societies at the Uni. 

“Gardening Society? Dungeons & Dragons Society? Wine society?” he exclaims, astonishment growing with every passing stand.

“And this is only the first day. They also have a Taylor Swift Society.” He grabs a flyer from about every society, even though you know he’ll join between two to zero of them. 

When you walk out, there’s a girl handing out samples of shampoo and conditioner, and you let her give you one, more out of politeness than anything. 

“These are so useless,” you start, and Jake chuckles, unaware of the incoming rant. “I had that job of distributing them last year, and we would get a tip if we gave them all out. So naturally I put a bunch in my bag, but then I had to use them for like two weeks.” You sigh. “First of all, my hair did not like it. And second, the ratio is so off. There’s way more conditioner than shampoo when it should be the other way around, so you have to condition your hair even though it’s not properly clean. So stupid.”

“Sounds terrible,” Jake says, laughing. “Is that why you’re not doing it this year?”

“Oh… Not really. I dated the guy that takes care of this promo stuff, so it would’ve been kinda awkward…” you trail, immediately wishing you could backtrack on conversation. Talking about your ex with Jake wasn’t on your to-do list for today. Or ever.

“You dated your boss?”

“The manager, yeah, I guess. He was only 24, though, don’t worry.”

“I’m more worried about the power imbalance than the age gap there.”

You shrug, looking down at your shoes. “It’s not like he was that high up.”

“So, what happened? Why did you break up?”

“Well, he acted like our four-year age difference meant he could treat me like a little kid. It was nice being taken care of at first but then I realised how condescending he was and dumped him.”

“How long were you together?”

You pause. “Two weeks,” you admit abashedly, making Jake chuckle. “At least he didn’t waste my time and showed his red flags early on.”

“Any boyfriends since?” he asks, and you wonder whether you’re making up the unsure tone of his voice. As if he’s curious, but doesn’t want to show it too much. You hope you’re not making it up.

“A few, but they never last very long with me,” you say, a meek smile on your lips. “Furthest I got was three months.”

“And why didn’t it work out with three-months-guy?”

“He started comparing me to his mum a bit too often.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I ran out of there without looking back.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve got high standards. I would hate to see you date just any loser.”

You want to say, High standards or issues?, but you don’t want to make it weird, so you play it cool instead. “I would never. I have a mental checklist with everything a guy needs to have for me to date him.”

“A checklist? I have to hear about this.”

You sigh, debating whether you should tell him about it. Would he notice it’s based on him? Would he notice the only person that could tick practically every box was none other than him? Jake gently elbows your side, goading you on. When you look at him, he’s got a shit-eating grin playing on his lips, and you give in. You look off into the distance as you start listing your requirements. “Well, there’s all your basics like funny, taller than me but not too much, ‘cause I don’t want neck cramps, smart, takes uni seriously, has plans for his future, easy to talk to, not emotionally stunted and can actually have a vulnerable conversation. It’s also a bonus if he has a nice face.”

“How much of a bonus?”

You think for a second. “It’s more a dealbreaker than a bonus, actually. Nice smile is a must, definitely.”

“Okay. Got any more specifics?”

“I do have some particular ones. It’s nice if he’s a reader, but it’s terrible if it makes him think he’s better than everyone or if he tries to sound smarter than me. I like it if he has experience, I don’t want to have to teach him everything. But obviously I don’t want him to still be in love with his ex. Guys and their first loves, I swear… I also don’t really like picky eaters.” You look over at Jake and take a double-take. He’s typing away on his phone, but because of his privacy screen protector, you can’t see anything. You huff. “I also don’t like it if he has those protective screens on his phone. What’s on there that’s so important that I can’t take a peek? What are you even doing?”

The sweet sound of Jake’s giggles erases any trace of annoyance that you felt seconds ago. He turns his screen towards you, showing the list of mostly ticked boxes that he’s written up. “See? I check most of these,” he says with a proud smile. “Guess your standards aren’t that high.” You don’t tell him that your standards are high, he’s just that amazing. 

You do your best to look only amused at this even though inside, you’re all but freaking out. “Which are you missing?”

“Well, I clearly own a privacy screen. And I don’t have much experience. Not nearly as much as you, by the sounds of it,” he admits, somewhat sheepish. “But other than that, I’m practically the perfect man for you.” He looks down at you with a smile so bright, it makes you wish you had brought sunglasses. It takes everything in you not to scream right then and there. Yes, Jake, you are the perfect man for me, but I wish you wouldn’t say it like it was a joke.

You let out a stiff chuckle, and, rather than saying something stupid and possibly damaging, shift the conversation to him. “What do you mean by not much experience? Have you not dated anyone?”

Jake sighs. “Nope, not anyone. I went on a few dates, you know, went through a few talking stages and all that, but it never went much further. There was always something…” He glances at you then. “Missing.”

“I know that feeling,” you say with a chuckle, and he laughs too, a breathy sound.

“I don’t have a checklist to pinpoint what it is, though.”

You smile. “You should try, it might help.”

“I just… I guess I’m like you in that I also have high standards. But it made me not even want to give anyone a chance, especially since I knew it wouldn’t end up anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me no one has ever managed to reach the great Jake Sim’s standards?” you ask, trying to keep your tone light.

Jake smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course someone has. She’s the whole reason I have standards in the first place. It’s not my standards I compare people to, it’s her.”

Jealousy has never made you feel as sad as it is right now. “And… it didn’t work out between you?”

Jake looks at you, eyes searching for something in yours but seemingly not finding it, and so he turns his gaze away. You don’t know why you feel so disappointed. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “She didn’t feel the same way.”

Whoever this girl is, you can’t believe how stupid she is for passing up the opportunity to have Jake Sim. “That’s… It sucks, I’m sorry,” you say. You don’t think spitting on this girl would make him feel any better, so you keep those thoughts to yourself.

“It’s okay,” he says with a small smile. “It was a while ago already.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re quite over it, though,” you say, and you’re surprised but glad to see his smile widen.

“That’s true.” His eyes meet yours again. “I don’t think I’ll be over her anytime soon, either.” You have to look away to shield the pain that flashes through your eyes from him.

Pretending you don’t have feelings for your best friend and that you’re okay with him being in love with someone else is like riding a bike: even after years of not doing it, it only takes a few minutes for you to be able to do it perfectly again. Muscle memory, if you will. So you sigh dramatically and throw your arm around Jake’s shoulder, slightly pulling him down to your level. “Don’t worry. We’re going to have so much fun this year, you’ll completely forget about her. Promise. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Yeah?” 

He smiles down at you. You want nothing more but that glint of melancholy in his eyes to be gone. “Yeah.”

--

Jake is only half-glad to see you haven’t changed much from your childhood and early teenage years. You’re still just as pretty, just as warm; it’s still as comfortable to be around you. You’re also still as dense.

Then and now, he did everything he could to make his feelings for you very, very obvious. Either you’re completely oblivious, or the idea of dating him is so horrifying to you, you understand but pretend you don’t. He really hopes it’s the former. 

He arrived in Edinburgh just a bit over a week ago, and you’ve seen each other almost every day. Out of those times, there isn’t a single one where he hasn’t tried to send something your way - something that says, hey, what if we stopped being friends and dated instead? Wouldn’t that be cool? Can’t you see how desperately I love you?, but you never latch on. The ball’s in your court, and he wants you to throw it back, but it’s been feeling more like a boomerang that always hits him right in the face when it circles back than a game of catch.

But he’s reminding himself not to be too greedy. Even if it’s just as friends, at least he has you back, so he’s satisfied with that. For now.

His first class of the year is on the following Tuesday morning, a ninety-minute seminar specifically made for exchange students called Discover Scotland. (He has Mondays free, resulting in a three-day weekend, which you and your 9am Monday tutorial are very envious of.) As interesting as the English Lit courses he’s taking seem, it’s this one he’s most looking forward to - except for the one class he shares with you, of course. Not even because of the seminars themselves, which will be about all sorts of topics on Scottish culture and history, but because of the coursework, as crazy as that sounds. It consists of a singular project, not due until the very last day of the semester, in which he has to travel to at least three different places in the country, research its background and provide a detailed account of his experience there. It can take any form: a written report, an in-class presentation, a podcast, anything. He could even film a TikTok if he wanted. Jake knew that being part of the Arts & Crafts club for two years in a row back in Seoul wasn’t for nothing - his scrapbooking skills would finally have their time to shine. 

That afternoon, he practically snatches you as you come out of your lecture, giving you little time to say bye to your friends, and makes you take him to the biggest stationary store you know in the city. If he wants to ace this project, he will need supplies. Many, many supplies. And it’s more fun shopping if you’re with him. You seem happy following him around the store, and when he asks you if you want to come on his trips with him, he can pretend it’s because you seem so excited about his project and not because he had thought of you accompanying him as soon as he heard about it.

As you stand in line at the till, you tell him that if he wants to start his project now, you could go to the beach together. You raise your eyebrows at him when he snaps your head towards you. “There’s a beach here?!”

“Did you not look at a map before coming here?” you ask, amused.

“I guess I didn’t…” he says, distraught at the new information. It only lasts a second, though. “Okay, let’s go now.”

“Now?” you echo, and he nods. “But-” you start, but are interrupted by your thoughts. “I guess there’s no reason not to. The weather’s nice and it’s not like I have any uni work yet. Let’s go,” you agree, looking up at him with a smile. You’re so pretty he almost forgets to look away, until the employee calls Next in a bored drawl. 

An hour later, you’re at the beach, barefoot on the sand and ice cream in hand. Strawberry for you and vanilla for him, he notes with a smile. Really not much has changed, he thinks. From the sand, to the water, to the promenade along the beach, Portobello is worlds away from the beaches back home in Australia, or those of Jeju Island. But it’s still nice, and because you’re with him, it’s even better. You’ve been walking around for an hour, splashing each other with water and mercilessly ruining sandcastles left behind before he realises you technically came here for his project. He writes down things he doesn’t want to forget on his phone and snaps a few pictures, sneaking a few of you when you’re not looking. He wants to tell you how beautiful you are with your hair blowing in the wind and the way the chill bites at your cheeks, but he keeps it a secret between him and his Notes app. 

Even though he lives two stops further down, he gets off from the bus with you, containing his excitement as best he can when you invite him up for a cup of tea. “Depends. What tea do you have?” he asks, trying and failing to play it cool. He’s just grateful he doesn’t have to come up with an excuse to spend more time with you.

You roll your eyes playfully as you unlock the front door to your building. “I can make you hot chocolate, Mister Tea-Is-For-Old-People.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I’ll have you know I started drinking tea at uni.” When you turn around to look at him, a surprised look on your face, he nods proudly. “Mh-hm. I got addicted to caffeine very quickly into first year so I started drinking black tea for the sake of my heart,” he explains.

“God,” you say breathily, sounding mildly horrified. “A caffeine addiction sounds intense.”

“It was, yeah,” he says, laughing as he follows you into your flat. 

Yunjin and Chaewon are sitting at the living room table, watching an episode of what he thinks is Gossip Girl, and they greet him as normally as these two can, but he wonders what the knowing look they exchange is all about. He’d met them the previous weekend when you had all gone for drinks together, along with Jay, Yunjin’s boyfriend, and they had all but grilled him on his relationship with you. He hadn’t thought much of it, chalking it up to your friends feeling protective of you, and truthfully, he was just happy to get to talk about you. But now, he was wondering if you had told them anything about him that made them so curious about him. If you did, he hoped it was something positive.

He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, chatting with you as you boil the water and get cups out, but he can feel their gazes burning the back of his head. Clearly, whatever conversation he’s having with you, he’s also having it with them. “How do you take your tea?” you ask.

“Um, three sugars and lots of milk, please,” he says, smiling innocently when you slowly turn to look at him, a mix of disapproval, disgust, and offence on your face. 

You sigh deeply. “I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m not sure that’s even tea anymore.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Caramel Frappuccino,” he says, recycling your bad joke from earlier.

“At least I don’t claim to be drinking coffee when I order a frap,” you argue. “And this is how you battled your coffee addiction? You’ll be getting another kind of heart problem, Jakey.” He doesn’t know if you even notice your use of his old nickname - the first time you’ve used it since he’s been here - but you don’t make a big deal of it, so he doesn’t either. Not outwardly, at least. Mentally, he’s running laps around your small kitchen.

Jake laughs it off. “I thought I came here for tea, not a health check-up,” he says, smile growing wider at the sight of yours. 

“Right, sorry,” you say, giggling. “I’ll make your tea just how you like it,” you add in a sweet voice. Jake knows you’re just doing it as a joke, but it still manages to make butterflies erupt in his stomach. 

His tea tastes even sweeter that day.

--

A few days after your impromptu trip to the beach, you’re waiting for Jake outside of his class. He heard of this donut shop he “absolutely needs to visit” and is dragging you along with him - well, “dragging” is a big word considering you’d follow him anywhere. You got here a few minutes early, not needing much of a reason to leave the library, so you scroll through your feed until Jake calls out your name. You’re only mildly surprised to see Jay leaving the classroom behind him.

“Y/N! Can you believe that Jay and I are in the same class?” he says excitedly as the two boys walk toward you. You feel like a dog owner being greeted by their over-enthusiastic dog after a long day (about three hours) of being apart.

“I can believe it, actually. You two do the same degree.”

You exchange quick greetings with Jay before the three of you start heading out. As you walk, Jake throws his arm around your shoulders so casually, it almost throws you off balance. Physical contact always came easy to him, but there’s something about him doing it next to someone else that catches you off guard. It reminds you of walking somewhere with Jay and Yunjin as they discretely held hands. It makes you feel like it’s not the three of you, but Jay with the two of you. Like you and Jake come as a pair rather than as two individuals. 

All of that from a simple arm around your shoulders.

Jake asking you in a very unsubtle whisper whether Jay can come with brings you out of your head and back into the conversation. “Yeah, of course,” you say, smiling. It’s not a bad idea to have Jay along: hanging out with someone else might snap you out of your delusion.

Most of the walk to the shop is done in laughter as Jake and Jay realise how much random stuff they have in common, from their peanut allergies to the embarrassing Harry Potter phase they had as fifteen-year-olds. Grassmarket is really busy on Friday afternoons, and there’s a bit of a queue of other donut-enjoyers in front of the boutique, but you don’t mind. The sun is shining down gently on the square and it gives you time to choose your donut out of the ten or so flavours available. In the end, you go for white chocolate and raspberry, while Jake chooses Biscoff and Jay, tiramisu. 

“My friend Sunghoon would love this,” he says after taking a hearty bite. “He goes crazy over tiramisu. Like a cat with catnip.”

Jake chuckles, mouth full of Biscoff. “That’s funny, I also have a friend named Sunghoon who loves tiramisu back in Seoul.”

Jay punches Jake’s shoulder, eyes wide in amusement and shock. “Bro, that’s crazy. You have to be lying at this point,” he says, but Jake shakes his head fervently. 

“I promise I’m not. I’ve even saved his number with the tiramisu emoji.”

“There’s a tiramisu emoji?” Jay asks, already over questioning the existence of Jake’s Sunghoon.

The conversation circles back to the courses you’re all taking this semester, and Jake tells Jay about Discover Scotland and the trips he’s planned so far. “Well, if you really want to discover Scotland as a student, you need to go on a night out in Glasgow,” Jay says. Going by the look on Jake’s face, Jay’s idea seems to have struck a chord in him.

“Y/N?”

You nod, finishing your mouthful of donut before speaking. “Yeah, Glasgow’s really fun. We should go,” you say, laughing when the two boys high-five in victory. Between the train, the drinks and the club entry, going out isn’t a cheap ordeal, and getting to and fro also takes a while - even so, the smile on Jake’s face makes it worth it. 

He wipes some raspberry jam from the corner of your mouth, shooting you a wink, and you want to disintegrate right then and there, become one with the bench you’re sitting on and never have to face him again. The conversation resumes as Jay tells Jake about all the best places to go out in Glasgow, but you don’t hear a word - the feeling of Jake’s thumb so close to your lips takes away your ability for coherent thought.

“It’s decided, then. We’re going out tomorrow night,” Jay loudly announces. “Let me gather the troops.”

That’s how you find yourself in line for the club the next day, already tipsy from pre-drinking on the train and at the pub. It’s still warm enough for you and the girls to wear as little clothing as you want, but Jake insisted on giving you his flannel jacket anyway. If not for the warmth it brings, you’re glad to have his scent enveloping you.

The five of you work exceptionally well together. You, Chaewon and Yunjin have been a given since you met in first year, and Jay and Yunjin went so well together that he was but a natural addition to your little group. Jake’s only been here for over a week, but it’s like he’s always been around, and you couldn’t be happier about it. Him and Jay hit it off immediately, and although the girls needed some time to warm up to him (it’s not everyday that you meet your friend’s ex-best-friend she’s practically always been in love with; you understand why they might’ve been wary at first), they now tease him just as relentlessly as they do Jay. He takes it like a champ.

For a little while, you watch your friends speaking over each other, bickering over nothing, a smile on your face. Two pints of cider and some of Jay’s fancy vodka have made you more grateful than ever for them - if you drink too much in the club, you’ll be hugging them and crying about how much you love them. You’re not sure what that might look like around Jake, so you decide to keep yourself in check for the night. 

It takes about thirty minutes before you manage to get into the club. It’s not coat check season yet, so you head straight to the bar. “Sunghoon said he’d meet us here,” Jay says, lifting his head to spot his friend in the sea of drunk students. “Oh yeah, there he is! Hoon, hey!” 

You hear a loud “Jongseong!” being shouted from somewhere in the crowd, but you’re not sure who Jay is waving at until a boy whose face is mostly eyebrows is standing - well, standing as best as he can, with the copious amount of alcohol he’s obviously already consumed - in front of you. He gives Jay a hug and the three of you a nod of his head, a lopsided smile on his face. When he turns to Jake, his eyebrows lift first, then his face breaks into a wide grin.

“Jake, my man!” he shouts, taking a stunned Jake’s hand and bringing him into a hug. 

“Sunghoon? What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, chuckling and frowning in confusion. 

“I’m just partying, man! Same as you!”

“No, I mean here in Scotland, you dumbass!”

“You two know each other?” Jay asks, looking back and forth between his two friends.

“Jake’s my man!” Sunghoon exclaims, unhelpful and stumbling as he throws an arm around his man’s shoulders. Jake shoots you a distressed look but you just laugh at him.

“This is Tiramisu Sunghoon I told you about,” Jake says, helping Sunghoon stand up straight.

“God, what I would do for a tiramisu right now,” Sunghoon says, looking at Yunjin like she might relate. She chuckles awkwardly.

“I have no idea what he’s doing in Scotland, though. Hoon, I thought you were going to NYU for your exchange?”

Sunghoon pauses to think for a second, looking like he’s never heard of NYU in his life. “Oh, that! Yeah, I did an online orientation thing and… it did not go well. Let’s just say there’s someone in New York City who wants me dead,” he says conspiratorially. You all stare at him but he gives no further explanation. On your right, you hear Yunjin whisper what the fuck under her breath. “So I transferred here instead!”

“I didn’t know you were an exchange student,” Jay says, still looking just as confused.

“Yeah, man! But anyways, let’s not talk about uni right now. I’m on a bender, day three, baby! Do not talk to me tomorrow,” he says, chuckling until the smile suddenly drops from his face. “I mean that.” You look around yourself, glad to find everyone is just as baffled as you. “Let’s party!” Sunghoon cheers, intoxicated grin back on his lips. Jake and Jay follow, but you and the girls stay back for a second, taking in everything that has just happened.

“That. Is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” Chaewon blurts, staring blankly at the spot Sunghoon stood in a second ago.

“Yeah, he also seems to be a raging alcoholic. And he’s what, twenty-one?” Yunjin says, a scowl on her face. 

“I could fix him.”

“Okay, let’s go,” you say, grabbing your friends by their wrists before either of them can say something worse.

Feeling generous, Sunghoon buys shots for all six of you, and you quickly down them before heading to the dancefloor. On your way there, a group of sober-looking girls hand Chaewon a giant, still almost full jug of red liquid, something that costs at least twelve pounds here. They say they’re leaving and don’t need it anymore, smiling as you profusely and astonishedly thank them. You look at your friends, mentally weighing the risk and drugging possibility this might present, but shrug and pass the jug around after taking hearty sips anyway. It tastes so much like fizzy cherries that you wonder if it even contains any alcohol, but sure enough, twenty minutes later, the three of you are spinning around on the dancefloor, screaming the lyrics to your favourite pop songs at the top of your lungs. Jake at a club is a completely foreign sight to you, and you can’t stop laughing at all the silly moves he pulls. 

You’re shaking your whole body to a Nicki song from the early 2010s when you suddenly feel a hand on your hip. Before you can turn around and slap whoever this random man is that thinks he can touch you, a familiar voice whispers it’s just me in your ear, and you simultaneously relax and tense up knowing that Jake is standing right behind you. “There’s a creep staring at you,” he explains, lips and breath gently tickling your ear as he speaks. You look around the room and quickly notice a man standing in a corner, drink in one hand and the other in his pocket, unmoving as he eyes you with a smirk so slimy it makes your stomach turn. To avoid his gaze, you turn around, but you’re not sure the sight you’re met with is much better for you.

Jake peers down at you, eyes slightly glossed over and cheeks flushed from the alcohol, jaw locked in annoyance. He glances at the guy in the corner, who you assume is still staring when you feel Jake’s hands brush along your sides until they reach your waist. His gaze returns to your face as he brings you a step closer to him. Reflexively, you wrap your arms around his neck. 

“Is this okay?” he mouths. All you can do is meekly nod. You watch as his eyes deliberately scan your face, going down and down. Time stills when they reach your lips and stay there. It’s like someone has put the booming music of the club on mute, and the only thing you can hear is your heart loudly beating in your ears. You suddenly feel very sober.

You swear Jake’s face is slowly inching its way towards yours when you’re abruptly taken away. Yunjin has grabbed you by the forearm, leading you and Chaewon to the bathroom as she chants “Bathroom break! Bathroom break!”, clearly unaware of the moment she’s just interrupted.

Because of the queue for the girls’ bathroom and Chaewon’s decision to console this random girl who was in the middle of a breakdown, it’s not until half-an-hour later that you emerge back into the crowd. You spot the boys at a table, two empty shots each in front of them and all three with a beer in hand. They will not be happy checking their bank accounts tomorrow morning. 

“Y/N! You’re back!” Jake calls out happily when he spots you, and you can tell right away that he’s much drunker than when you left him. His whole face is flush, his eyes don’t open quite all the way, and a lopsided smile won’t leave his lips - even like this, he’s so pretty that you want to grab his hand and take him somewhere it’s just the two of you. 

Chaewon gets drinks for the three of you and then you’re dancing again. It’s already one am at this point, and the remaining two hours until the club closes, fueled with alcohol and good music, go by in a flash. Before you know it, the DJ is playing All of Me by John Legend and the lights have been turned on, clear signs that you’re overstaying your welcome. The few people that have made it to closing time stumble out of the club and into the street, heading for either the nearest subway stop or the next party of the night. Since there are no trains at this time, your group walks to the close-by bus station, listening to Jake and Sunghoon grumble about how the clubs in Seoul don’t close until at least five or six and how trains run all night there. 

The bus is already at the station when you get there, and the driver doesn’t seem too pleased about having six mildly drunk kids get on his bus, but he’s probably used to questionable people taking public transport at this time of the day anyway. Physically, Sunghoon is sitting across from you, but mentally, he’s off somewhere far, far from this bus. With his head against the window and mouth wide open, saliva pooling at the corner of his lips, he looks like he’s any second away from obnoxiously snoring. Jay and Yunjin are sitting somewhere you can’t see them, probably eating each other’s faces; she once told you they had their “most mind-blowing sex” when both a little drunk, and much to your dismay, you haven’t been able to get that piece of information out of your head since. Chaewon is on the phone to her long-distance bestie Sakura, for whom it’s a nice eleven in the morning right now. 

This means that you and Jake are left alone, both of you still tipsy and not tired enough to fall asleep. You drop your head on Jake’s shoulder, and not only does he let you, he also takes your hand in his, interlacing your fingers and placing them atop his thigh. Clumsily, because he now has to use his left hand, Jake slips his phone out of his back pocket and shows you the photos he took all evening. As the night progresses, they get blurrier and blurrier, so much so that towards the end, you can’t tell what he was even trying to capture, and you laugh at how inappropriate some of these would be to submit in a university project. 

When he softly says your name, you don’t raise your head, simply humming to let him know you’re listening. You close your eyes, cherishing the way your name sounds on his lips. It’s his tone, tentative and vulnerable as he tells you there’s something he’s been wanting to ask you, that makes you look up at him. He, however, won’t meet your eyes, and settles his gaze on the window, even though it’s so dark outside you can’t make out a thing.

“How come you never replied to my letter? I know it’s been ages, but… I still find myself wondering about it.” The question is softly asked and you know he by no means wants to hurt you, but it still feels like a punch to the throat. You hadn’t remembered who it was that had sent the last letter, while he’d been wondering all these years why his words had been left unanswered. 

He seems set on not looking at you, so you rest your head back on his shoulder. Your hand is still in his. “I’m not sure, Jakey. I’m sorry,” you say, aware it’s not a satisfying answer. You’ve thought about why you and Jake had stopped talking for hours on end; you’ve discussed it with your friends and your mum, looked at it from all sorts of angles, tried to come up with real reasons other than time pulling you apart. But now that Jake himself is asking you about it, the words don’t come easy. You’ve theorised that you were afraid putting effort into sustaining your friendship would only hurt you in the end, because it was just that - a friendship. You could fool yourself into thinking you were okay only being friends with him when he was with you, that putting your feelings aside was worth it since you could at least spend time with him. But now that he was away, you didn’t have that anymore - it just hurt. So what was the point? And how could you phrase all this without betraying your feelings for him?

“Our letters were so sparse anyway back then, even our texts and calls were getting less and less frequent… And whenever I had a new boyfriend, I’d get into the same argument about being too close to you over and over again, even though you were literally on another continent.” 

“You know, I always felt sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“Those boyfriends of yours. I felt like you waited for me to leave before you started dating-”

“It wasn’t like that!” you exclaim, lifting your head again. Finally, he meets your eyes, gaze softening upon seeing your affronted expression. “It wasn’t like that,” you repeat, relaxing your tone. “If anything, they were the ones that waited for you to be gone. I'm sorry I let their jealousy get to me.”

Jake smiles, the tenderness in his gaze making your whole body turn to jelly. He squeezes your hands. “It’s okay. I just… I felt like I was always in the way of your relationships, even after I left.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry about that. They should’ve had more trust in me.”

He pauses, gaze dropping down to your intertwined hands. “I would’ve been jealous.” When his eyes find yours again, there’s something in them that you quite can’t place. It creates a ball of nerves that pull at your stomach. “If I were dating you, and you had a guy friend you were as close with as we were back then, I’d be jealous. You know, I’d assume he had feelings for you. And that you might have feelings for him, too.”

Because I did, you think. I did, and I still do. You try to communicate that thought to Jake, but telepathy works especially bad when one has as much alcohol coursing through their veins as you do right now. So instead, you say the opposite of what you’re thinking, turning away from Jake to avoid his gaze. You watch the dribble of saliva trickle from Sunghoon’s lips. “That’s not a great view of male-female friendship.” 

Jake’s retort comes immediately. “But we were different, right?”

His words echo through your head until they make even less sense than they did initially. Different from what? From who? You’re not sure - but you like the idea of you and Jake being different, special. You especially like the idea of Jake thinking so. So you look at him and smile. “Right.” 

Slowly, his grin fades and turns into a worried expression. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“We’re still different now, aren’t we?”

You want to wrap him in your arms so tightly neither of you can breathe. You settle for running a hand through his hair and pinching his cheek. “Course we are.” Your whole being relaxes when his face breaks into a smile again. 

--

The next morning, you wake up to Yunjin plopping down on your bed unceremoniously, shaking you awake, and asking you if you want anything from Snax Café. On one hand, you’re grateful that she thought of you and that in thirty minutes’ time, you’ll have the greasiest sausage wrap and hash browns known to man in your hand; on the other, you’d like to think that she knows you well enough to know to order your regular from there without asking. But that’s probably the hangover talking.

You stumble out of bed, thanking last night’s you for having remembered to take headache medicine before crashing. Even if your stomach is very upset with the copious amount of alcohol it needs to rid your body of, and your throat is begging for water, at least your head doesn’t feel like it’s been split into two. As Yunjin barges into Chaewon’s room just as she had done yours, you head for the kitchen to get yourself a tall glass of revitalising tap water. You’re only mildly surprised to find Sunghoon passed out on your living room couch - it takes you a few seconds to remember that the three of you took pity on him when you learned he lived over an hour’s walk from the station, so you let him spend the night on your uncomfortable, cold leather sofa. While you down your glass in three gulps, you hear Yunjin shaking Sunghoon awake and asking him loudly if he wanted something from Snax.

“Fuck, I’d kill for a Snax right now,” he groggily says before he’s even opened his eyes. When he does, they dart around the room until they land on Yunjin, who's crouching in front of him. He looks like he thought her question was asked in a dream and not in real life. He also looks like he's not quite sure where he is, or who Yunjin is. It isn’t until Jay comes wobbling out of Yunjin’s bed to the couch opposite Sunghoon that the memories seem to piece back together in his head. The three of you watch him like he’s an unstable mental patient and you’re his doctors. 

“No need for that, I’m ordering it on Deliveroo.” He nods his head and goes back to sleep for the time being. 

Just as you’re about to text Jake, your phone rings with a call from him. His raspy morning voice as he asks you whether you slept well makes you want to put your head in an oven heated at 200 degrees Celsius. However, you resist the urge, and answer him with a smile, then ask him the same question.

“I slept pretty well too. I’d have slept in longer but one of my flatmates decided to have a Sunday fucking brunch and his friends are so loud. Can I come over?”

You’re very aware of the other people in the room, especially of Chaewon who has just walked in and is eyeing you suspiciously as if to say, Why are you smiling so hard at ten in the morning? You know the girls would jump at any opportunity to tease you about Jake, and with the added presence of Sunghoon in the room, you can’t have that. So you stifle the giggles bubbling in your throat and answer as nonchalantly as you can. It also gives you the chance to reflect on why Jake Sim asking you whether he can come over makes you want to giggle like a giddy schoolgirl so much.

(Maybe it’s because when it comes to him, you’re still the giddy schoolgirl you used to be.)

“Yeah, of course. I was going to ask you if you wanted anything from Snax, actually.”

“Snax? What’s that?”

“Oh my God, Jake, am I about to introduce you to Snax right now?”

Twenty minutes later, the six of you are sitting around your small living room table, all varying amounts of tired, dehydrated and famished as you dig into your breakfast. Given your current levels of energy, it’s fairly quiet; plus, the food hits such a spot that it’s hard to talk and eat at the same time. Jake eats like he’s never had a breakfast wrap and hash brown in his life. It’s an endearing sight if you’ve ever seen one. 

You spend the afternoon together, watching movies curled up in your bed, and you try desperately not to think about the implications of that - except that’s hard to do when Jake is right next to you, legs and arms ever-so-slightly brushing against yours, his warmth so close yet so out of reach. You purposefully let him pick movies you’ve already seen so that you don’t have to focus on anything but your own thoughts and the faint but dizzying scent of his body wash. The both of you had an innumerable amount of sleepovers as kids, so this shouldn’t feel weird, but it decidedly does, probably because you’re much more aware of him now in a way you weren’t before.  

As hard as you try to figure out what exactly he meant by “different,” you draw a blank. The only way you’ll understand is if you ask him, and you’re far too scared to do that. You don’t want to seem so hung upon a singular word he used when he was tipsy. It might be slightly dramatic, but you felt like some sort of balance had been restored since Jake was back in your life - the problem was it made you scared to do anything that might threaten this newfound equilibrium. It at least seems like different means a good thing to him, and that’s enough for you. 

You look over to him when the second movie comes to an end. He’s sleeping peacefully, lashes caressing the skin under his eyes and cheeks looking rounder than usual. It’d be so easy to reach a finger out and trace the line descending from the top of his forehead to his chin, gliding along the bump of his nose and feeling the plumpness of his rosy lips, but you settle for drawing that line with your eyes instead.  

You don’t think you’ll be able to fall asleep with him next to you and your heart beating so loudly in your ears, but you find yourself waking up a few hours later, the sun already starting to set. Jake is already awake, scrolling on his phone, one arm casually behind his head as if being in your bed is as comfortable to him as being in his own. When he sees you’ve woken up, his honey-coated smile washes warmly over you, and he makes a joke about how he keeps on falling asleep when he’s with you. “I feel that at ease, I guess,” he says, and you hope you’re not making up the small blush that spreads over his cheeks. 

--

Semesters are always a short and intense affair, but this one passes by even quicker with Jake by your side. Before you know it, it’s midterms already, and you and Jake have travelled enough for him to complete his project and make another one just for the hell of it. He had scoured the internet for the cheapest train tickets and most noteworthy sites, planning trips that lasted anywhere between three hours and a day for the two of you. All you needed to do was follow and trust him, which was the easiest thing anyone could’ve asked of you. 

You’ve gone back to Glasgow, during the day, this time, as well as St. Andrews and Aberdeen. You’ve practically visited every loch and castle in a one-hour train ride radius of Edinburgh, and Jake has more lined up for the second part of the semester. He’s even said that your trips should continue being a thing next term, and you couldn’t have agreed faster. With every new destination, every train ride spent looking out a window or laughing about everything and anything, any odd Scottish food you try for the first time, you somehow fall for him a bit deeper. You didn’t know your love for him could bloom any more than it already had - but Jake is the gift that keeps on giving, and, unwillingly or not, he always finds new ways to make your heart speed that much faster.

Attentionate, affectionate, sweet Jake who always makes sure you’re comfortable wherever you go, always gives you his jacket or tucks your hair behind your ear to prevent it from falling in your face. Who, as time passed, grew more touchy, would hold your hand, ruffle your hair, pinch your cheek, which was simultaneously devastating and elating. Who, you could tell, started to linger more, both in his touch and in his gaze. Questions of does he love me back or am I seeing what I want to see? nearly drove you mad. 

--

“I feel like at this point the only way she’ll understand that I like her is if I kill myself and write in my suicide note that it’s her fault for not loving me back.”

Jake has been pacing back and forth in Jay’s living room for approximately twenty minutes, with no end in sight. At least he’ll have gotten most of his ten thousand steps of the day in.

Jay sighs heavily. “Okay, I really don’t think you need to go that far.”

“Sounds romantic to me,” Sunghoon says, mouth full of salted caramel popcorn.

“I hope you never get a girlfriend,” Jay retorts, looking at his deranged friend with a scowl. He turns back to his (slightly more) normal friend and gives him a sympathetic smile. 

“I mean, I told her we were different. Different. That we weren’t like regular friends. I tell her she’s pretty every chance I get. I give her my jacket all the time, even though this country is fucking cold. I’ve even given her a t-shirt of mine, sprayed with my perfume and everything. And don’t get me wrong, I do it ‘cause I love doing that for her-”

“Simp,” Sunghoon snickers.

“But what the hell else can I do? Like, she has to be ignoring it on purpose at this point.” 

“You could always, you know… tell her?”

Jake scoffs, fixing his friend with a derisive look. “Wow. What a great idea, Jay, I never thought of that one before!”

A popcorn lands right on Jay’s cheek. “You’re so clueless, man,” Sunghoon says, a shit-eating smirk on his lips. As if he knows any better.

Jay looks back-and-forth between his friends, an expression on his face like he’s been disparaged. “Sorry, I didn’t know being straightforward and honest was such a bad thing. It would just make things a lot clearer for the both of you.”

“But… I’m scared,” Jake says. 

“Man up!” Sunghoon suddenly yells, punching the sofa next to him, making his friends jump. “How can she ever figure it out if you don’t tell her?”

“You were on my side just a second ago, man, what are you doing?” Jake asks, confusion written all over his face. Sunghoon’s eyes dart back and forth between the two boys, retreating into silence as he stuffs his mouth with another handful of popcorn.

“Just ignore him,” Jay says. “But for once, he did say something that makes a modicum of sense. You think you’re being really obvious, but you might not actually be. Which could be a good sign, you know. I heard girls were super aware of a guy liking them if they weren’t into him, but being totally oblivious if they did like him.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jake asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“...Instagram Reels,” Jay reluctantly admits, frowning at Sunghoon who bursts into laughter. 

Jake holds the bridge of his nose between two fingers like his head aches. “You’re both so useless, I’m never coming to you with my problems ever again.”

“I’ll pretend I’m not offended by that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, anyway,” Sunghoon says. He’s smiling but Jake genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“But seriously, if you think you’ve done everything, then just do one last thing that’s so obvious she can’t misinterpret it,” Jay says.

“Like what?”

“Like kissing her, or some-”

“Kissing her?!” Jake echoes.

“That’s wild, man,” Sunghoon uselessly butts in.

“It’s just an example, calm yourselves,” Jay says. “Or, again, just straight up tell her how you feel. It’s what I did with Yunjin, and it worked.”

“You and Yunjin are dating?” Sunghoon asks, bewildered.

Jay shakes his head at him. “Where the hell have you been, bro? We were literally cuddling on the couch the other day.”

“I just thought you were really good friends, or something.”

Jake groans, holding his head in his hands. Sunghoon was of no help whatsoever, and Jay was so on point that it annoyed him. Confessing was the only solution - but Jake was so afraid of being rejected and losing your friendship that he had barely entertained the thought. But he had found the courage to do it once, and even though his planned confession had fallen through back then, he could get himself together and do it again. 

It was the day he had told you he was moving to Korea, which he himself had learned that morning. Originally, he’d texted you because he had news to share - good news. Or at least, he hoped they were good. He hoped the soft, lingering looks you gave him weren’t a figment of his imagination but rather the confirmation he needed that you liked him back. He hoped that like him, you cared too much about your friendship to make the first move into something else; that by confessing first, you’d be relieved of that responsibility; that his wish to hold your hand and kiss your forehead wasn’t one-sided. 

He decided not to prepare anything - just a couple sentences that he’d rehearsed over and over in his head. Declarations of love, bouquets of flowers, chocolate and couple keychains, all that could wait until after you’d said yes to being his girlfriend. He didn’t want to win you over just once, he wanted to show you every day how much he loved you. Fourteen-year-old Jake was absolutely head over heels for you; so imagine his disappointment when, as he was getting ready to meet with you, his parents called him downstairs, a tone to their voice Jake wasn’t familiar with, but that couldn’t mean anything good. 

“Your dad’s job is sending us back to Seoul next month,” his mom announced, not beating around the bush. He felt everything quite literally crumbling down around him. His friends in Brisbane, his school, his hobbies, but above all, you. He’d lose it all. And what was the point now in telling you how he felt? If you felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if you didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

What he had planned to be good news turned into the most awful ones. The thought of it happening all over again makes twenty-year-old Jake shudder. But he wouldn’t let himself be trapped by time again - sure, in seven months, the academic year would be over, and he would go back to Korea. But that didn’t mean that those seven months should be spent in agony, or the following ones either, for that matter. You would make it work. What was long-distance to someone who loved someone else as much as Jake loved you?

But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He has to start by really resolving to do this, and in the off-chance that it actually goes in his favour, he’d start worrying about long distance then.

First, he has a trip to plan.

--

You should’ve known that a trip to the Scottish Highlands in the middle of November was a risky choice in terms of weather. The day started off nicely enough - no sign of rain when you woke up or as you watched the sunrise through the train window. Clouds turned the sky a bright white at first, then increasingly greyer and greyer. You feel the first drops of rain after lunch as you walk around a small village. By four pm, it’s pitch black and storming like you’ve rarely seen before. You head into a pub to grab a drink as you wait for the rain to subside, but subside it does not. You end up ordering fish and chips, one each, although one serving is enough to feed three. Even after taking your time eating, the bad weather does not let up. The last train, which is meant to be at eight pm, has been cancelled. Luckily, there’s an inn right across the road from the pub; you have no choice but to spend the night. 

The inn receptionist is sitting so low on her chair, you can barely see her over the desk until you’re standing right over it. Her face is hidden by a book and it’s only when you say hiya that she seems to realise you’re there. You had never heard of the book or of its author, but you recognized the cover design as that of those romance novels with repetitive plots and weirdly misogynistic love interests your mum and every other middle-aged woman was obsessed with.

Her smile widens as she looks between you and Jake. “Hi there. One room for the lovely couple?”

“Oh, we’re not-”

“Yes, please,” Jake interrupts, smiling down at her, then at you. “It’ll be cheaper if we share a room.”

“Our only room with two single beds is already taken, I’m afraid. One double bed okay for you two?”

You feel like you’re about to faint, so you’re glad Jake is there to answer. “Yeah, of course.” How the idea of sharing one bed with you is so okay to him, you’re not sure - granted, you’ve done it before, but this feels different. For all intents and purposes, this is a hotel room you’re staying in. And you’re staying in it with Jake. 

You try to calm your breathing as the receptionist guides you to your room, chatting casually with Jake on the way there. As she unlocks the door for you, she informs you that check-out must be done before eleven in the morning tomorrow, then bids you good night and leaves you to it, still wearing that smile you swear has mischievousness to it. The door clicks shut behind you, and it’s just Jake and you again, together in this small room until tomorrow morning. Your chances of survival are very, very low. 

Your room is a humble one, consisting of a desk, a cupboard, two armchairs, a small, separate bathroom and the infamous bed. Every surface seems to be covered with wood, from the ceiling, to the walls, to the old-fashioned furniture. Only the floor is a soft, beige carpet. Especially with the darkness outside, it makes for a gloomy room until you turn on the lamp by the entrance; it casts a warm, golden light in the room, one that would make you feel at ease if it wasn’t for Jake’s presence next to you. The implications of being essentially trapped in a barely-lit room with him are heavy on your mind, especially when he looks this gorgeous with his hair still damp from the rain and the soft lights playing on his face. 

His voice brings you out of your thoughts. “Right. Do you, um, do you wanna shower first?” he asks, setting his bag on one of the armchairs.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” There has never been such an awkward tension between the two of you, but you know you’re not doing anything to ease it. You hope a shower will help you get out of your head and make you relax.

You feel the tension leave your muscles under the hot water, but your stomach is still in knots. You’ve never been this nervous around Jake before; back when you were fourteen and again in these past few months, you’d gotten so used to dealing with your unspoken feelings for him that you could almost forget about them when you were with him. They’d come back to you when you were alone and dwelling on the moments you’d spent together, on his words and actions you desperately tried not to read too much into but always ended up doing anyway. But right now, they’ve floated to the surface, becoming as obvious to you as a stain on your skin you can’t rub away. You’re scared Jake will notice it, and, in the worst case scenario you often thought about, would run away and never speak to you again. 

At least the raging storm outside would make that a bit harder.

When you step out of the shower, you curse yourself for not having worn more comfortable clothes on this trip. You definitely can’t wear these jeans and button-up sweater to lounge around. Thankfully, the inn provides two long bathrobes that you could wear over underwear and your tank top, but you wonder where on the scale of inappropriate this would be to wear with Jake in the room. He’s seen you in short pyjama shorts before, but this, like everything else that would usually be normal between the two of you, feels weird today. 

You wrap the bathrobe around yourself, tying it in place around your waist, and decide that it’d only be weird if you made it weird. And if Jake found the sight of your bare legs weird, then he was the weird one.

The scene you’re met with as you walk into the room makes you want to retreat into the bathroom immediately. Jake is lying on the bed with his upper half against the headboard, one leg extended and the other one bent, resting his head against one palm, using his free hand to scroll through his phone. His t-shirt has ridden up slightly, putting the waistband of his Calvin Kleins into view. Worst of all, when he sees you, his face breaks into a grin. 

Your stomach twists when he gives you a once-over, letting his gaze linger on your legs. “Did you bring a bathrobe with you or was it included?” he asks with an annoyingly handsome smirk.

You roll your eyes. “Yes, I bring a bathrobe with me wherever I go,” you say sarcastically. “Now shut up and go shower, you stink.” Reverting to insults is always the solution when you’re internally freaking out.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

He takes so long in the shower that by the time he comes out, you’ve dozed off in bed. As if you were a child, he wakes you up with a boop to the nose, crouching next to the bed and smiling at you. His wet hair falls on his head like that of a movie star in a shower scene, which you find extremely unfair, and his cheeks are red from the warmth of the water. 

“It’s still early. Do you wanna go grab another drink?”

“In our bathrobes?” you say, laughing. “Nah, I don’t really feel like drinking anyway.” Read: I’m not sure what I’ll do with alcohol in me.

“Okay, no worries. Um, I think I saw they had board games in the lobby?”

Your ears perk up at this. “Ooh, what kind of board games?”

Putting jeans on underneath his bathrobe, Jake slips away for a minute and comes back with Monopoly, Uno, and a deck of cards. “They didn’t have much for two players,” he says, dumping everything on the bed. 

You already knew that anything would become fun if you did it with Jake, but you definitely didn’t expect to spend almost five hours just playing Monopoly and card games with him. Neither of you stays put for very long, always switching from sitting criss-cross to laying on your stomach, making fun of the other’s bathrobe even though you’re wearing the exact same thing. You make each other laugh as you make up your own nonsense rules and disregard the laws of your games, attacking the other ruthlessly for a couple extra points or coins. Jake even makes you go get snacks from a corner store that’s miraculously still open because you lose the first round of Uno. 

After some time, Jake lets out a loud yawn, which in turn makes you yawn too. He checks his phone to find that it’s close to midnight already. “Time for bed?” he asks, and your nervousness that had finally dissipated as you played came rushing back. 

You nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

The two of you clean up before brushing your teeth. Even that, with Jake by your side, becomes a silly affair as he pulls faces in the mirror and nudges your hip with his. You stay behind to use the toilet, and when you come back out, Jake’s already in bed, bathrobe tossed on one of the armchairs. This means that Jake is just casually in a t-shirt and boxers, waiting for you to join him in bed. Luckily, his back is turned to you, so you quickly take off your own bathrobe and slide under the sheets, careful to keep your distance from him. The sheets are cold underneath you, and you know it’ll take a while before your body heat warms them up - although you feel very hot and bothered because of the man lying next to you. 

“Gosh, I’m really sleepy all of a sudden,” he says, words distorted by a yawn. You only hum in response, and he reaches for the lamp to turn it off. Just like that, you’re in complete darkness, and Jake’s body is mere inches from your own. 

It’s eerily quiet for a while, and when you’ve managed to slow your heartbeat and regularise your breathing, you start trying to fall asleep. You toss and turn, unable to find a comfortable position until Jake’s low, sleepy voice breaks the silence. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, and you freeze.

You sigh. “No. I’m sorry for keeping you up,” you say guiltily.

“It’s okay. I can’t really sleep either. It’s a bit cold in here.”

You pause. “Right. Yeah, it is,” you say, even though you feel like you’re sweating buckets. 

The room plunges into silence again, long enough for you to think Jake has fallen asleep. You feel something cold against your foot, only realising as it slides up your calf that it’s his foot. “Jake!” you whisper-yell, withdrawing your leg as he bursts into giggles that warm your heart. “Your feet are so cold,” you say in-between chuckles.

“I’m cold all over,” he whines. “Have they not turned the heating on yet? It’s already mid-November.”

“People are used to the cold here.”

“Well I’m not. Can we cuddle?” he suddenly asks, and he must somehow feel the way you freeze in place because he stammers out a justification straight away. “For, I mean, just for warmth, you know. I don’t think I’ll sleep otherwise.”

His foot finds yours again and you can’t help but laugh. “Sure, fine,” you say with a sigh as if you were doing only half-heartedly for his sake. As if this was some big sacrifice you were making, and not something you’d daydreamed about one too many times before. 

Your heart is beating a thousand miles a second when you scooch closer to Jake, his hands finding your waist as easily as if they’d been there a hundred times before. He pulls you in much closer than you had expected, holding you tightly against his chest, one arm for you to use as a pillow and one hand resting on your lower back. You try to calm your respiration so that he can’t hear how short of breath you are, but based on his own breathing, he seems to be out in five minutes. It takes you longer to fall asleep, every shift of his body sending shivers down your spine, but you manage to relax after some time, letting his warmth envelop you as you drift off to sleep.

--

The feeling of waking up with you in his arms is so unreal, Jake thinks he might still be dreaming.

He looks down at your peaceful sleeping face and can’t stop the smile that spreads on his lips. Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but this is a sight he particularly wants to commit to memory. He watches fondly as the bright sun rays of the early morning hit your face, making you scrunch your eyebrows and bury your face deeper against him. You grunt softly, and when he feels you shifting and stretching your legs, he pretends to fall asleep so you don’t catch him staring. It seems like you’ve raised your head, chin tilted towards him - if he’s lucky, you’re watching him “sleep” just like he did seconds ago.

He contains a smile at the joke that forms itself in his brain before shooting his eyes open, catching you off guard during what you thought was a private, secret moment. 

“Shit!” you yelp, practically jumping off of him and rolling onto the other side of the bed. He bursts into laughter, proud that his little prank was effective. Before you can scold him, he makes his way to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing your back against his chest. He thinks he feels your body tense; but then you bring your hand over his, swiping your thumb back and forth against his skin, and you relax in his hold. “You’re so annoying,” you complain, but your voice is tender, almost weak.

He buries his face in your hair, trying not to be too loud when he inhales there. “Sorry,” he says, the smile evident in his voice. “The opportunity was right there. Caught you staring, huh?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Jake is more than happy to enjoy this moment in silence, but there’s something burning the tip of his tongue. It’s been there for a while now, but he thinks he’s finally found the right moment. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“There’s something I couldn’t tell you last night, but I feel oddly okay saying it right now. Are you listening?” 

“I am, yeah,” you say gently, voice so soft it caresses his skin and draws goosebumps from it.

His chest expands and falls with a deep, shaky breath. With your back right against it, he’s scared you’ll hear that his heart is beating faster than it should. “Bad news first?” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Uh-oh.”

“There’s no roundabout way to say this, so here goes, I guess.” He takes another breath. “I’m in love with you, Y/N.” You tense in his embrace, and he waits for you to say something, anything before he continues.

“Oh,” is all you say. He hopes it’s a good oh - even if it isn’t, he doesn’t let it deter him.

“Yeah. I really debated telling you this… I know you might not feel the same way. But I also know that if I don’t say anything and make the same mistake twice, I’ll beat myself up over it for the rest of my life.”

“The same mistake?” you ask, looking at him over your shoulder.

He gazes down at you tenderly, pushing hair away from your face with a gentle hand. “I already felt that way back when we lived in Australia. I was about to tell you but when I learned that I was moving, I didn’t wanna risk ruining the little time we had left together.”

The look on your face both breaks his heart and patches it up again. “Jakey…” you say, voice just a whisper. You turn around to face him and bury your face in the crook of his neck. The fact that you’re not saying much is making his stomach twist in agonising stress, but he takes it as a good sign that you’re still holding him tight and not running away.

“I think I’d be the luckiest guy on Earth if you felt the same way,” he says, hopefulness clear in his voice. 

And then he finally hears the words he’s been dying to hear all these years. “Of course, I feel the same way, Jake,” you say, eyes meeting his. “This isn’t bad news at all, it’s like, the best possible news ever.”

It takes him a few seconds, but when your words sink in, a bright smile graces his features. He feels tears coming up - tears of relief that you feel the same way, of sadness that it took the both of you so long to get here, of happiness that something new might start - he’s not sure. Perhaps everything at once.

“Of course?” he echoes, smiling wildly. “It wasn’t obvious to me.”

“Oh, gosh,” you murmur, burying yourself into him once more. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

He tightened his hold around you, bringing you to him as close as physically possible. “Me neither.”

The feeling of you tangling your bare legs with his and bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt in your fist awakens something in him - he had been in his head, thanking the heavens that you loved him back, reeling from his belated confession, but he was now very aware of his body. And of yours. He was reminded of Jay telling him to kiss you - although he hadn’t needed to go there to reveal his feelings to you, it was still a possibility. It was even more so now that he knew you felt the same way. 

He tries to be subtle as he brushes a hand up your back to the nape of your neck, gently grazing his fingernails against the skin there. He has to suppress a self-satisfied smirk when he feels you squirm under his touch, lifting your head to fix him with a scolding look. Your stern expression fades as soon as his eyes fall on your lips, however, and you quickly mirror his gaze. His lips part, and he feels his whole body shake as he takes a deep breath in. Who knew that you’d share your first kiss on a random Sunday morning in the fuckass middle of nowhere in Scotland?

Maybe you take pity on him, or you recognise the effort put into being the one to make the first move, or, as he’d like to think, you just really want to kiss him - either way, you’re the one who closes the gap and presses your lips to his.

Your lips. So soft, so delicate against his, absolutely perfect. It’s a simple, tentative touch, but he’s craved it for so long that it makes his head spin. He frowns, despite himself instantly needing more than this feather-like feeling of your lips brushing against each other. His mind tells him to calm down and take it slow, but his body takes over, urging him to grab the nape of your neck a little harder, to hold you a little closer to him, to kiss you a little stronger. Thankfully, you let him do all of this and more, hands finding purchase in his hair and returning his intensity tenfold. 

He doesn’t know what’s better - the fact that you’re kissing him or the kiss itself. The way your lips move against his is intoxicating; it wraps itself around its mind and leaves no room for thoughts that aren’t of you. You seem to want him as desperately as he wants you, to have waited for him as long as he did for you, and this is what drives him crazy. You press your body against his and he sees stars; you let out a moan against his lips and he kisses you deeper, ready to do anything to hear that melody again. 

Unfortunately, the only melody he gets to hear is that of his phone alarm, informing you that it’s quarter to eleven and that you have fifteen minutes to leave. Check-out at eleven am had sounded nice yesterday; now, he would stay in this dingy inn his whole life if it meant he got to keep kissing you. 

The both of you reluctantly break apart, bursting into giddy laughter when your eyes meet. As said before, Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but with your pupils blown and your lips plump from kissing, this might just be the prettiest he’s ever seen you. 

“You know, I like you a lot, but I’d like you even more if you could stop time,” you say.

He looks down at you with a smile, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen on your face. “Sure, I’ll learn how to control time for you.”

“Thanks, Jakey.” You peck his lips, lingering, and he closes his eyes to savour your sweetness. 

“Anything for you, baby.” His eyes widen at the nickname slip, but you erupt into giggles.

“Baby?”

“Would you look at the time, we really got to go,” he says, detangling his limbs from yours. He pauses for a second. “Baby,” he repeats, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead before bouncing from the bed.

You get ready together, and the mundane tasks of stripping sheets from a bed and packing bags become the funnest things he’s ever done. You’re all over each other, attacking the other with kisses and hugs; Jake doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite this happy. 

And this is only the beginning.

--

There’s a glint in the receptionist’s eyes when you check out of your room, as if she knew something you and Jake had been oblivious to all along. It’s the only one in town, so you go back to the little pub for a full breakfast with eggs, hash browns, haggis, and sausages. You get coffee so strong you think you might not sleep for the next four days, while Jake drinks tea that is equal parts sugar, milk, and actual tea.

From the moment you leave the pub to the moment you arrive at your doorstep, Jake’s hands barely leave yours. When they have to, like when you’re searching for the perfect seat on the train or when the controller checks your tickets, they’re back together within a minute, like two magnets that can’t stay apart for too long. The rain has long subsided, leaving place to a bright blue sky and wet blades of grass that shine in the sun. 

Now that your mutual feelings don’t need to be kept secret, you tell each other about everything you had to go through, like you pretending your good news was your mum having baked the cookies Jake liked and him seeing your new boyfriends every two months on your close friends story. He tells you about all the hints he’s dropped, causing you to facepalm over and over again. It feels like two friends catching each other to speed on all the latest gossip, except the topic of that gossip is you.

The juxtaposition of your familiarity with Jake with the novelty of behaving like a couple, of not having to hold back with your touches or gazes or words, is nothing if not jarring. But you have a feeling you’ll get used to it in no time. 

As you unlock the front door to your building, you don’t ask him if he’s coming up - to you, it’s a given that you’ll be spending the rest of today and every day after that together. So when he doesn’t follow you, staying still on the threshold, you turn around with a questioning look on your face. 

“There’s something I need to do this afternoon,” he says, taking both of your hands in his.

“Can’t I come with?” you say. Jake wavers for a second, but sadly, he stays firm in his decision.

“Sorry, baby, it’s a surprise. I’ll be back at seven with takeout?”

You can’t possibly be mad at him when he calls you baby and offers food in the same breath. “Only if you bring takeout.”

“You only love me because I feed you, don’t you?” he asks, a smile on his face.

“Yup,” you reply. You’re standing on a step, so you bend down to kiss him - you intend for it to be a peck, but when your lips touch, you’re unable to pull away. You let yourself get lost in the feeling of his lips on yours, in the warmth that takes over your body and makes your brain all fuzzy. 

A loud, affronted gasp from behind you makes you jump from Jake, and when you turn around, Chaewon and Yunjin are standing in the stairwell, staring at you with wide eyes and gaping mouths. 

“So this was a sexcapade?” is, much to your horror, the first thing Yunjin says.

Thanks to Chaewon, neither you nor Jake have the time to dwell on this sentence as she comes running down the stairs and pounces on you. You don’t know how a woman so small can have such force, but her hug is so tight you can barely breathe, let alone hug her back properly. “I knew you could do it!” she exclaims. When she pulls away, she seems so moved, it looks like she’s about to cry. “You finally popped your Jake cherry,” she whispers, but it’s loud enough for Jake to hear. A bark of laughter escapes his throat.

“Okay, thanks, guys,” you say, escaping this awkward situation and going up the stairs. “I’ll see you later, Jake!” you yell over your shoulder. The girls seem to be on their way out, and you’re more than happy leaving him to deal with them on his own. God knows you’ll get the worst of it when they come back. 

As soon as you get to your flat, you make a beeline for your bedroom, plopping on the bed. You’re the same person, and this is the same room. But something within you feels entirely different, like a scar that you had been carrying around had, without you even noticing, healed so well you could barely see it anymore. You lifted your hands in the air, looked at the back of them, then at your palms. They were the same old hands that had been with you your whole life, and you were almost shocked that there wasn’t something utterly different about them after having held Jake’s hand for so long. Just to be sure, you sniffed your right hand, but it didn’t smell any different, either. But you still felt Jake’s hand on yours, like headphones you’d been wearing for hours and still felt on your ears after taking them off.

Yunjin and Chaewon are back from their shopping half-an-hour later; they got you a chocolate fudge cake from Tesco to congratulate you. “You guys are acting like this is my birthday…” you say, eyeing the cake greedily as Chaewon cuts it into three equal parts (even though it says serves eight on the packaging). 

“This is more important than your birthday, Y/N,” Yunjin states as she pours oat milk into three cups of Earl Grey tea. “This is, like, the moment of a lifetime.”

“Are you saying a girl’s importance depends on her having a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Y/N, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Especially when said boyfriend is the guy she’s been pining after for all of her teenage and adult life.”

You sigh. “Well, he hasn’t exactly popped the boyfriend and girlfriend question yet.” They both turn to look at you, an annoyed look on their faces. You stand up straight, uncomfortable under their gazes. “What?”

“Usually, I’m all for clarity on this issue,” Chaewon starts. “But isn’t it pretty obvious here?”

“You’re still gonna have to tell us everything in minute detail, but Jake’s already told us what happened. He had no qualms referring to you as his girlfriend, so I really don’t think this is something you need to worry about. What you should worry about is when and where you’re going to hop on that dick.”

Chaewon bursts into laughter, and you can’t help but follow suit. “Gosh, Yunjin, you really do have a way with words.”

“I know. This is what having a Jane Austen hyperfixation at fifteen will do to you.”

Following Yunjin’s orders, you tell them about the events of the previous day and this morning over tea and cake. They ooh and ah and gasp in all the right places, ask you very specific questions and even make you draw a picture of the room you stayed in. You’ve talked to them about Jake so many times that there’s only so much to say now - but still, you talk for hours on end, deviating off-topic so often you end up talking about something else entirely. 

You’re in bed reading for your Middle English Literature class when the doorbell rings. It’s seven on the dot, so it can be no one else other than Jake. It’s been mere hours, but you’ve missed him enough to last you for weeks. 

He brought takeaway from the Indian place you’d raved about a hundred times but hadn’t brought him to yet. Somehow, your heart grows even fonder as you watch his reaction to the food, the raise of his eyebrows, the widening of his eyes, the excited shimmy of his shoulders. When you ask him about his afternoon, a wide smile breaks out onto his face, like a lightbulb illuminating a room. Without a word, he scurries to your room, bringing back some sort of book with him. He hands it to you  with a shy smile and curious eyes, eagerly anticipating your reaction. The cover reads Y/N and Jake in his clumsy but endearing handwriting, with the date of his arrival in Edinburgh and an em-dash scribbled underneath. “I haven’t booked my flight home yet, so I’ll add the second date later,” he explains. 

When you flick through it, you’re met with photographs of you and Jake on all of the trips you’ve done so far, as well as the various adventures you got up to in the city. There’s even one of you sleeping in the library at two am during midterms when you had forgotten about one of your essays, due at midday. Jake had come with coffee and words of encouragement, and now he could brag that the high mark you got was thanks to him. It’s not only photos - it’s also ticket stubs, receipts, stickers, and even a dried flower you had found pretty on your trip to St. Andrews. He’s also written quite a lot, from diary-like entries about what you got up to that day or songs that reminded him of you. 

“You misspelt right here,” you say, pointing to a sentence that reads This is the café write next to the hotel where the last Harry Potter book is said to have been written!!! under a photo of you drinking a massive cup of hot chocolate. The more you look at the typo, the more it makes you laugh, until you have tears brimming in your eyes.

Thanks to Yunjin’s messiness, pens and pencils are strewn over your coffee table. Jake, flushed red in embarrassment at the small mistake, snatches a pencil and aggressively erases write, spelling it correctly the second time around. “This is the level of today’s English Lit undergrads,” he murmurs under his breath. His frown disappears when he looks at you and he laughs along.

You continue looking through the album until you land on a page titled Why I love Y/N. From top to bottom, left to right, it’s filled with Jake’s tiny handwriting. You can tell he put effort into making it neat. There’s a singular photograph of you, one that dates from the first days after Jake’s arrival when you were walking around in the Meadows, the park right next to campus. The sun shone down on you and you smiled brightly at Jake behind the camera.  

You’re not a quarter through reading when tears swell in your eyes, rendering your vision blurry. You wipe them away before they can fall and stain the page. Jake has detailed every last thing he loves about you. It can hardly get cornier than this, but the fact that he wrote this about you makes your heart so full, you’re afraid it might explode in your chest. It ranges from basic things like the way she makes me laugh or her pretty face when she falls asleep in the train (or anywhere, for that matter) to more you-specific things like the strict pastel colour-coding she uses for her notes and her perseverance when eating spicy food even though she can’t take it. He mentions things about you that you didn’t even know, and that feeling of being known in-and-out, of being really seen by someone else only brings more tears to your eyes. Your favourite line comes at the end - the way she makes any place feel like home. A proper sob pushes past your lips at this, and Jake, who had been watching you with an anxious smile, rests a palm on your knee and inches closer to you.

“Why are you crying, is- Did I write something bad?”

You shake your head fervently. “No, no, Jakey, this is… It’s perfect. I’m just…” you trail, letting out a half-sob, half-chuckle. You look at him with a smile before pulling him into a tight hug. “I love it so much. I love you so much.”

You can feel Jake relax against you. “I love you too, baby. I’m glad you like it.”

You pull away after a small while, and turn the next page over. It’s a picture of you over breakfast this morning, with words WE’RE DATING!!!! written underneath it, and those simple words make you so happy, your cheeks ache from smiling. But every page after that is empty. Jake scratches the back of his neck. “I, um, I thought we could fill the rest out together. I debated just doing it myself and giving it to you at the end of the year, but I thought it’d be more fun doing it together.”

“It would. This is such an amazing idea,” you say, flicking back through the pages.

“I thought of it because of that project I had. When I started working on it, all the photos I wanted to include were of you, but I wasn’t sure how much my professor would appreciate that… So I decided to make one more personal. One for us,” he says shyly, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

“Thank you so much, Jakey.”

He smiles. “It’s no worries.”

“Did you do it all this afternoon?”

“I had started it before, but I added it most of today, yeah. Which, by the way, awful timing. I wanted nothing more than to spend today with you.”

Your heart leaps. You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to hearing such words from Jake’s mouth.

Sometime later, you’re laying in bed with Jake between your legs, watching the most recent animated Spiderman movie. With the tips of your fingers, you draw random patterns on his forearm, and if it wasn’t for his occasional chuckles, you’d think he had fallen asleep. You chat for a bit after the movie, but you find that after such an emotionally-packed day, you’re ready to call it a night fairly early. But when the lights are off and it’s just you lying against Jake’s chest, his fingernails grazing your scalp and his familiar, comforting scent clouding your judgement, all thoughts of an early night are thrown out of the window.

You shouldn’t feel so nervous - you had fallen asleep in his arms last night, and it had gone well. Really well. 

“This is different from yesterday, isn’t it?” Jake suddenly says, breaking the heavy silence with a low voice. It’s like he read your mind.

“Yeah,” you whisper against his skin.

No other words are needed. You brush the tip of your nose along his neck until you reach his jawline, pressing soft kisses there and delighting in the increasing shakiness of his breath. The feeling of your lips meeting is so intense, so all-encompassing, that you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle anything more.

This is still new territory, but you’re both so eager to discover it that it makes for a messy kiss, lips moving against each other ravenously, tongues beckoning moans from the other. It’s a kiss that somehow leaves you breathless and breathes oxygen back into your lungs at once. 

In a matter of seconds, Jake has flipped you on your back and is hovering over you, one hand holding him up and one hand free to roam your body. He slips it underneath your t-shirt, brushes it along the side of your waist, his touch leaving behind a trail of fire blazing on your skin. It’s so distracting, you can’t even kiss him back properly anymore. Jake doesn’t seem to mind. At first, when he starts pressing hot kisses to your jawline and your neck, you think he’s giving you a respite - but when he gently sinks his teeth into the skin there, leaving marks that will later remind you tonight wasn’t a dream, chuckling as you squirm and whine under him, you understand that this is anything but a respite. 

You curse your earlier decision of not wearing a bra, because it gives you no preparation whatsoever to the sensation of Jake brushing his thumb against one of your nipples. With a loud gasp, your back arches off of the bed, which only aids Jake in raising your t-shirt up over your breasts. 

He takes a minute to admire the sight of you panting and half-naked underneath him. It makes you feel shy, and you want to do something so that he stops looking and starts doing, but his gaze holds you in place. His pupils are blown with lust, eyes raking over your body and taking everything in. You have a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that it’s you he’s looking at with those eyes. 

His soft lips attach themselves to your nipple while his fingers continue their work on the other one. You’ve never felt this sensitive, never felt this on edge, like you might fall apart at any second even with so little simulation. Your core throbs, impatiently waiting to be tended to, but you’re already trembling so hard from Jake’s attention to your breasts that you don’t know what will happen to you once he actually touches you down there.

“You doing okay, baby?” he asks, the rasp in his voice making you want him impossibly more. You grip his hair and he looks up at you, a tender smile on his lips. You nod your head yes and he laughs. “Yeah? You want more?” You pause at his question. You do want more, but is it worth your sanity?

It takes you a second to decide that it’s worth that and more. You nod again. 

Jake seems to have sensed your hesitation. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am. It’s just a lot.”

His expression of worry softens into a smile. “I’ll take it slow for you, love. It’s a lot for me, too.” He leans in to press soft kisses to your cheek, and some of the tension in your body diffuses. Whatever happens, Jake will be there to take care of you. “But it feels good, right?” he asks, lips moving against your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“So good, Jakey,” you reply shakily.

“Good.”

You can tell that Jake really does want to take it slow - his movements are more deliberate, gentler. But eagerness, both yours and his, soon takes over, and a minute later, he’s trailing kisses down your body until he reaches your lower stomach. Your breath quickens as he hooks fingers underneath your leggings and underwear, sliding both garments down your legs and leaving you bare to him. You think the feeling of his lips on the fleshy parts of your inner thighs is what might actually do you in, make you lose your sense of reality forever - but then his tongue darts out against your clit, a barely-there touch, and your whole body flatlines. 

Your reaction eggs Jake on, who, more confident now, takes the sensitive bud in his lips and alternates between sucking and licking motions. A knot ties itself embarrassingly quickly in your stomach, a knot that tightens and tightens as Jake flattens his tongue against you, licking up your juices from your entrance to your clit; a knot that threatens to come loose when he slides a long finger inside of you. You can’t take more than thirty seconds of this.

“Jakey,” you say, voice practically a moan. Your brain is fuzzy and it takes a distressing amount of time to form a simple sentence. “Can you come here?”

“Is something wrong, baby?” he asks breathily, sliding his finger out of you and coming back up so that his face is right above yours. 

“No, just… I want you.”

Any trace of worry on Jake’s features dissipates as he cocks an eyebrow, one corner of his lips tugging up into a smirk. “Is that so?”

This kind of boldness would usually have you rolling your eyes, but here, it only makes your core throb more violently. It’s almost humiliating how much you want this man. It’s definitely humiliating, how easy it is to swallow your pride and play into his game. “Yes, please,” you say, eyes pleading with him.

He smiles almost giddily before burying his face against the side of yours. “My baby’s so polite,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Take this off, then,” you say, grabbing the bottom hem of his t-shirt. 

“So she says please and gives orders,” he jokes, quickly obliging anyway. 

Not once in your time apart had Jake posted any sort of beach trip or pool photos, so this was the first time you saw his bare chest. God, was it one for the history books. You trace the defined lines of his muscles with a finger and wonder how he had managed to get even more perfect. He lets you marvel at him for it, clearly proud that you’re gawking so shamelessly, but your mind drifts back to more urgent matters when he presses himself into you, his clothed cock, hard and hot, brushing against your folds. “Fuck,” you sigh, bucking your hips into his to feel him over and over again.

It’s so much, but it’s not enough; Jake instantly gets your message when you hook your fingers under the waistband of his boxers, pulling him to you and kissing him feverishly. Your lips don’t part as he slides his boxers off, and you drink up the nectar that are his moans as you take him in your hand, pumping him a few times.

“Condom?” he asks, but you shake your head.

“I’m on the pill. And even so… I usually always use a condom, but I don’t want to now. Not with you.”

Jake closes his eyes as he takes a deep, stabilising breath. “I feel totally normal about that. Not crazy at all.”

You giggle, and he opens his eyes, a wide smile gracing his lips before he bends down to kiss you. “You ready for the night of your life?” he asks against your lips. “It’s gonna last five minutes, tops,” he says, making you laugh again. “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t do anything about it. I think I could’ve cum just from eating you out.”

“That would’ve been hot.”

“Really? We’ll make it a challenge for next time, then.”

When Jake plunges into you, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. He fills you up, slow inch by slow inch, until he’s buried to the hilt inside you. You both need some time getting used to the feeling - Jake drops his head in the crook of your neck and lets out a sound between a grunt and a moan, something you’ve never heard from him before. You grab onto his shoulders, fingernails digging into his skin as you try to tether yourself to him. You hold him so tight that he has no choice but to let his body rest on top of yours, his arms coming to circle your waist and bring you even closer. 

His movements start out halting, the pleasure so overwhelming that it makes it hard for him to move steadily. In time, he falls into a torturously slow rhythm, but it’s the perfect kind of torture, the kind that has tears brimming in your eyes. It’s so hard to take, and yet you want more. You’re brought closer to the edge with every thrust of his dick into you, especially as he picks up the pace and lifts your hips to meet his. The new angle has his tip brushing against that spot deep inside you that makes it hard to breathe. 

You can tell he’s just as close as you when he loses that steady rhythm he had found, his motions growing more desperate, harsher, quicker. Conscious of your roommates, you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans as your orgasm washes over you, your whole body on fire, so sensitive that the few more seconds Jake needs to come undone himself drive both your body and your mind into overstimulation. Even the feeling of him pulling out, drops of hot liquid dripping out of your entrance, is too much and makes you let out a small, tired whine. 

Jake peppers your face with kisses as he holds your waist tightly, brushing his thumb back-and-forth on your warm skin, sticky with sweat. “You did so well, baby. So good for me.” You think you might be ready for a second round if he keeps talking to you like that. “I love you so much.”

You sigh deeply, as if you were just told disconcerting news. “Okay.”

“Okay?!” he echoes, looking up at you with an outraged expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, I love you too, I just- I’m not used to this yet! You can’t just tell me you love and expect me to be normal. You have to warn me first.”

“Can I just warn you now that I’m going to tell you I love you every time I get the chance?”

You sigh. “I guess.” 

“Can I tell you now?” he asks, and you hum. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Jake tuts. “I highly doubt it, but whatever makes you happy.”

You hold Jake close to you, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand playing with his hair as you come down from your high. You think he might’ve fallen asleep, and you’re close to drifting off yourself when he speaks. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. Not just the sex, although that has been on my mind for a while now,” he says, making you laugh, “but all of this. Being together, getting to be in your arms like this, kissing you whenever I want. Calling you my girlfriend.”

“Me too, Jakey. I waited so long I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

Jake chuckles. “How stupid were we not to have noticed we felt the same way?”

“Very stupid. I think we felt so sorry for ourselves that we were stuck in one-sided love, that we didn’t even realise the other was going through the exact same thing. But at least we’re now.”

“At least we’re here now.” You and Jake yawn at the exact same time, making you burst into giggles, giddy with sleep and love.

“Let’s sleep, baby,” you say.

Jake hums, burying himself deeper against your body. “Sleep well, my love. I’ll be here.”

--

After years of pining after each other, you and Jake find it a bit hard to keep your relationship to yourselves, or your hands off of each other.

At the beginning, all of your friends had been happy for you, but that quickly went away when your and Jake’s honeymoon phase never died down and the PDA just kept on going. If the glue you were stuck with previously was metaphorical, this one was pretty close to being real. Superglue kept you together, your moments together rarely spent without some sort of physical touch. Yunjin fake-gagged so often, you were afraid she might actually vomit one of these days. It took Sunghoon two weeks longer than everyone else to clock you and Jake had started dating.

This meant that in private, there was truly no holding back. Jake back-hugged you any chance he got, to the point you started to think he was more koala than human - although that’d imply he saw you as a tree. Make-out sessions were a particular favourite of yours - how could they not be when your boyfriend’s lips seemed to have been carved by God himself, soft and plump to the heavens, like they were made to be kissed. Really, you were just honouring God’s will when you kissed Jake.  

The goodbye that comes at the end of the year is not an easy one, and the month spent at home before you fly to Korea seems to never end. But you get there eventually, and as nice as it is to catch up with Jake’s parents after so long, you feign sleepiness after lunch as an excuse to get some time alone with your boyfriend. Ironically, this “time alone” is spent so intensely that you do end up falling asleep afterwards. 

You have to admit, you really did a number on your boyfriend this time - what can a girl do when she missed her boyfriend this much? Jake is still passed out when you wake up from your nap, so you slip out as discreetly as you can from his embrace and get out of bed. You head for the closet first and swipe the comfiest looking sweater of his that you find there so you can stay warm as you look around his room. A pang of melancholia hits your chest - most of the pictures and objects on his walls and shelves are parts of his life you weren’t around to witness. Friends you don’t recognize, places you’ve never heard of, phases you’d never known he’d gone through. But then you see the frame on his desk, a faded photo of the two of you at ten years of age, eating ice cream on the bench outside of your house. Milo is sitting at your feet. Jake’s family hadn’t adopted Layla yet. You realise that even if there’s whole parts of your life you didn’t get to share with each other, nothing could touch your memories, or your future.

You want to go back in time and tell fourteen-year-old you that no matter how painful it might seem at the moment, it will all be worth it for the sight of Jake Sim slowly drifting into wakefulness, patting the bed next to him, and noticing you’re missing with furrowed eyebrows. When he opens his eyes and they settle on you, a sleepy smile will grace his dazzling features, and he’ll say, “Come back to bed.”

You’ll be even more in love at twenty than at fourteen.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

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## buy one, take me. — l. heeseung

synposis: with his best friend asking him for help because said best friend was scared he wasn't "boyfriend material" enough, heeseung looks for flower shops for his best friend's girlfriend. thankfully, jake knows someone from the university who has an aunt that owns a flower shop, you. now, heeseung messages you and shyly, but shamelessly asks if he can get any promos or discounts to which you shamelessly answered him, "buy one, take me". heeseung doesn't pass on this, of course. after all, you are pretty damn cute.

pairing: heeseung x fem!reader

content/genre: college au, slowburn, fluff, angst and crack, smau.

warning(s): swearing, of course. and as always, i'll put it in every chap if there's something you need to look out for.

note: yes, blod-talicized for slowburn because this is already planned out three years ago (but for another idol) anyway !! i'm excited to share this, my ass had been wanting to post this,,,,,, i already have the ending i just really need to do from part eleven up to,,,, that. so here you go. T_T okay, if i suddenly ghost again FLOOD ME MESSAGES/ASKS/IDC WHAT TO FINISH IT. TAGLIST CLOSE.

tags: r.asks: botm, botm updates, botm thoughts

sample texts. / playlist.

profiles. / profiles two. / profiles three.

ep 1. — the pilot.

ep 2. — the bf problem.

ep 3. — the help from jake.

ep 4. — the promo.

ep 5. — the benefit of jeongin.

ep 6. — the availing of the promo.

ep 7. — the two introverts.

ep 8. — the era of reporter sunoo.

ep 8.2. — the dog cafe.

ep 9. — the look. what look?

ep 10. — the panicking of heeseung.

ep. 11 — the time heeseung decides to trust y/n.

ep 12. — the real heey/n friendship era.

ep 13. — the star stamp.

ep 14. — the late night in the flower shop.

ep 15. — the biggest cliché.

ep 16. — the text-snapping of y/n.

ep 17. — the weekend of heeseung without y/n.

ep 18. — the two am ride.

ep 19. — the stupidity.

ep 20. — the time y/n blocked heeseung.

ep 21. — the whipped y/n.

ep 22. — the painful sight (according to riki).

ep 23. — the library.

ep 24. — the dog café pt 2.

ep 25. — the frustration of jungwon and sunoo.

ep 26. — the flowers and bambi sticker.

ep 27. — the pretty dense boy texting y/n.

ep 28. — the message from jay.

ep 29. — the look heey/n give.

ep 30. — the pet name.

ep 31. — the switch up.

ep 32. — the no more denial.

ep 33. — the time seungmin called y/n 'sweetie'.

ep 34. — the way y/n sensed it again.

ep 35. — the talk.

ep 36. — the halfway there.

ep 37. — the another lame line.

ep 38. — the time heeseung accidentally kissed y/n.

ep 39. — the drive-in.

ep 40. — the flour and eggs.

ep 41. — the favorite view.

ep 42. — the one time they used their main accs.

ep 43. — the origami flower bouquet.

ep 44. — the stressed gf.

ep 45. — the plane plan.

ep 46. — the time y/n isn't teasing with heeseung.

ep 47. — the time when everything is "fine".

ep 48. — the time heeseung forgot.

ep 49. — the fight.

ep 50. — the graduation.

ep 51. — the flower arrangement on the cashier.

ep 52. — the favorite flower of heeseung.

ep 53. — the fact that heeseung is still jealous.

ep 54. — the supposed three year anniversary of heey/n.

ep 55. — the bubble chat turned blue.

ep 56. — the dumb flowers.

ep 57. — the time y/n finally replied.

ep 58. — the rehearsal dinner.

ep 59. — the flowers weren't dumb after all.

ep 60. — the lifetime promo.

bonus. — the matching icons.

bonus 2. — the pettiness of flower and seungie.

bonus 3. — the one where heeseung thought y/n's leaving.

bonus 4. — the one with heeseung's doe eyes.

alternative ending. — the one when y/n almost stayed.

marriage discount; p. sunghoon [ fem!reader ]. — after endless of weddings that sunghoon attends to, he's been spending non-stop. so, upon hearing about a discount for married people even if it's just in the dry cleaners, sunghoon tells the employee that the girl, who happens to be you, walked in in the shop is his wife. even if he doesn't know you.

heeracha, 2022.

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fuck christmas!

PAIRING ▸ park sunghoon x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ social media au (smau), fluff, crack

WARNINGS ▸ profanity, sexual jokes but no sexual content, major hater activities, mentions of alcohol consumption, ignore timestamps !!

SUMMARY ▸ in which sunghoon hates christmas, so you consult wikihow to get him in the holiday spirit.

UPDATES ▸ every day starting the 25th

TAG LIST ▸ none u will just have to use ur sixth sense for updates hahah

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ it’s that time of the year where i look back at old smaus and cringe and remake them </3 anyways i hope everyone enjoys christmas this year ♡ 

Keep reading

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angel in the marble

after you fail to pickpocket him, the famous yet arrogant artist Jeon Jungkook takes you off the streets to make you his servant, and the more you know him, the more you realise he's not as detestable as everyone claims he is.

♔ PAIRING: michelangelo!jungkook x servant!reader

♔ GENRE: high renaissance au, angst, smut, humour

♔ WORD COUNT: 8k

♔ WARNINGS: homelessness, stealing, mild swearing/violence/drinking, 90% of this is bickering lmao, mentions of minor characters' death, jealousy and kinda possessiveness?, referenced unconsensual groping (not by jk), a bit of blasphemy, making out, groping, fingering, rough angry sexxx, choking, slapping

♔ AUTHOR'S NOTE: fun fact this is mostly historically accurate! jk's characterisation, the grocery list doodles, the sack of rome, the beef with his brother, the encounter with his rival (raphael)... are all taken from michelangelo's actual life, even some stuff is quoted from his letters lol. man was fanfic material.

1529, Rome

“How much for that one?”

“No, that one’s sold already.”

It was a lively morning. After days of heavy rainfall, those of high social class were eager to get out and meet under the gentle sun of spring, whose glare reflected on the precious stones of their jewellery; while those of low, out of necessity, couldn’t wait to reopen their businesses or set up their stalls and get back to work. You liked to eye them all as you strolled the streets of Rome.

“To whom?”

“Your friend Taehyung.”

“Agh… How much is that prick paying you?”

The point of the matter was that it was bustling, some colliding if they looked away from where they were going for more than a breath. It worked in your favour for it was then easier to make yourself scarce right after stealing bags of coins, such as those of the three men seemingly bargaining by a workshop’s entrance out of which a large block of marble was being dragged. Perfect.

“Three ducats.”

“Three?! He’s robbing you of two ducats. I’ll pay you the five it’s worth.”

You kept your head low as you approached the pair that seemed wealthier and with those stealthy hands of yours unfastened the bags tied to their belts. After all, pickpocketing was a skill you’d had under your own for some years now, so this was bound to go smoothly.

Because you didn’t realise there was a guardian with them, perhaps you’d grown arrogant.

“I’m sorry, maestro. It’s reserved.”

“But it’ll become a waste in his possession!”

As you slipped away into the crowd, mouth watering at the fresh-baked bread you were going to devour as soon as bought, this brown dog leaped up at you out of nowhere, ignoring your desperate efforts to shake him off. If anything, they caused him to bark.

No, no, no…

The three men turned to the scene playing out not so far, and thinking his dog was bothering you one of them shouted, “Bam, come here, boy!” but as he obediently ran to his owner, you were too slow to hide the bags in your hands. It only took the pair a second to make them out, check whether theirs still hung on their belts, find them not, work out you’d stolen them, look back up, and find you not either.

Of course, you’d made your escape by then, dived into the sea of people and swum through them as quickly as possible, only stopping when you reached an empty vaulted alley to catch your breath.

That was ridiculously close. If you weren’t more careful next–

Your train of thought was interrupted by someone grabbing you by the arm from behind and pushing you against the nearest wall. A grunt accompanied the thud, and a gasp followed at the sight of the two men from before—dog included. Pinned in place, it’d be a bad idea to fight back or attempt to run away again. Fuck’s sake.

“Do you know what happens to thieves?” the one cornering you asked so close that when the cold breeze rustled his hair, some strands grazed your face. You looked away to avoid the tickling rather than out of fear, or so you wanted to believe. “They have a hand cut off. Seems fair, doesn’t it, Jimin?”

By contrast, that Jimin didn’t look intimidating, otherwise still catching his breath from the chase, but he did snatch the coin bags from your hands. “It doesn’t have to be so, maestro. We got our money back. She’s… just a girl.”

“And that exempts her of crime?”

“Please, don’t report me,” you begged, humiliating as though it was.

“Why shouldn’t we?” the maestro scoffed. Maestro… You were being threatened by a damned craftsman, the other one probably his assistant.

“Because I don’t want to lose a hand?”

“Oh, but we wanted to lose money, did we?” You rolled your eyes, and he released his grip only to step away. “Take us to your father, brat. He’ll answer for you.”

It took you a moment to respond, “I don’t have a father, or anyone... Only I can answer for my actions.”

“You’re a beggar?” Jimin asked, taking pity as he studied your appearance for the first time. Dishevelled hair, tattered dress, unpleasant smell… Yes, they should’ve guessed.

“She doesn’t beg, though, does she? She steals.”

“Only from cunts.”

His head snapped to meet your glare, and Jimin laughed, “You seem to not know whom you speak to.” He could be Jesus for all you cared. Uninterested, you petted the dog, Bam, seeing as he’d leapt up at you again. “This is Jeon Jungkook.”

You froze. The Jeon Jungkook? The famous artist who painted and sculpted for the Pope? Whom faraway kings and even emperors commissioned? The one whose genius was said to be changing the world?

At the lack of attention, Bam returned to his master, and that snapped you out of your shock to ask, “Then why do you whine?” The two men frowned, having clearly expected an apology paired with the usual bootlicking. “As if you need that bag more than I!”

“What nerve,” he scoffed again, making you wince by grabbing your arm tighter than before and starting to drag you into the next street. “You’re going straight to the authorities!”

“Wait,” Jimin intervened, thank God. “Weren’t you in need of a servant, maestro?”

“So?”

Jimin pointed at you with his gaze as though it was obvious. “You’re in need of a servant, she’s in need of a roof.”

“I would rather have a hand cut off.”

“I would rather have her hand cut off too.”

Jungkook tried to resume dragging you, but Jimin blocked his way with a soft smile. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N…”

“Do you know how to take care of a household?” Slowly, you nodded, melancholy engulfing you at the memory of cooking or sweeping the floor with your mother once upon a time. Somehow, she always found a way to make chores fun... “Then you qualify for the job. You’ll have three meals a day and a bed to sleep on. And you, maestro, a servant who’ll work her hardest, lest you fire her and she ends up in the streets again.”

Both you and Jungkook reluctantly glanced at each other. Truth be told, you didn’t prefer losing a hand to living with him, you just didn’t like him. Despite being a celebrity, he was a stranger. It just wouldn’t work.

But then, why were you holding your breath, hoping he’d accept?

“We shouldn’t have left Namjoon’s workshop. The marble is about to be delivered,” he said walking away. The air left your lungs in disappointment. It seemed you were to remain a stray cat. Jimin pressed his plump lips apologetically as he gave you enough coins to buy that bread, and you nodded, grateful all the same for his trying. You watched him rush to Jungkook’s side but when this one saw him, he turned around. “Hurry up, brat. If Taehyung gets that block of marble, I’ll not take you in.”

Since the first day, you could attest to Jeon Jungkook’s nature being as rough and uncouth as the rumours claimed, and after living alone with him for two months still believed gossip such as that he’d got the scar on his left cheek in a tavern fight—in which, if you’d chanced to be present, you would’ve rooted for the other individual.

It appeared it wasn’t just others Jungkook was harsh to. However rich his talent had turned him, he behaved like a poor man, consuming food and drink sparingly and out of necessity instead of pleasure, spending only the money required to live decently, sleeping little in order to work on commissions from dawn to midnight…

Why he chose to take little care of himself was a mystery to someone who previously had not been allowed a choice, even if putting work before all was in order to thwart Kim Taehyung’s plans of ruining his career, as he claimed. You doubted his rival was obsessed with him so, but had learned to agree with whatever Jungkook grumbled to avoid disputes. Most times.

Deep down, you had a feeling your boldness amused him. Who else dared get on his nerves?

“I think all you artists fluttering around the Pope are no more than slaves to money,” you let drop once while making his bed. Bam was sleeping peacefully under the window, while Jungkook leaning against the door’s frame behind you, offended to the core. He could help, you thought, or at least loosen my corset a little…

“I, a slave? I’ll be damned… There is an angel inside every block of marble, and I’ll have you know I carve to set it free.”

“Is it the angel that charges the Pope, then, master?” You could feel him barely restraining the urge to throw you out the window, smiled as you finished smoothing out the blankets.

“You missed a wrinkle there.”

Hands on your hips and frown on your brows, you examined the neatly arranged coverings of his bed. “Where?”

“On your face,” he muttered before making his leave.

Not his finest jibe, but the metaphor did stay with you. An angel inside the marble… It perhaps applied to Jungkook himself, though you’d never tell him.

One instance it came to mind was recently, when his assistants and apprentices were invited over for dinner.

Usually, he’d tell you which meals he liked and you’d ask at the marketplace which ingredients to buy, but now that about ten meals were to be cooked a list was needed. So there he sat on his desk in his study, inking said list as you waited in front of him, fiddling with the undershirt that peeked out of your dress’ sleeves. Given that your eyes were fixed on it, you only learned Jungkook was done when the sound of his quill scratching the paper ceased.

“Be back no later than dusk,” he ordered, “I bet there are still Germans and Spaniards lurking about.”

A year had passed since the Sack of Rome, but the mention of it sent a shiver of fear down your spine. Whatever the political reasons for it, you hated everyone involved, for Hell itself would’ve been a more beautiful sight to behold those nine months when the Tiber’s waters remained painted red…

You were lucky to make it through. Your family wasn’t.

“Yes, master.”

“Here,” he said handing you the paper, then picked another letter from a pile of correspondence he’d been going through before your arrival. Jungkook was about to snap its wax seal when he looked up to realise you hadn’t moved an inch. “Why are you here? Away with you!” He saw the reason in the way you avoided eye contact. “You can’t read, can you?” Met with a silence charged with embarrassment, he leaned back in his chair and sighed, “Give me the list.”

Getting hold of the quill again, Jungkook began… doodling?

You tilted your head but couldn’t see well what he was drawing until he finished and returned the list to you. Then, your lips parted. Each item on the list was illustrated next to its name: ten loaves of bread, a jug of wine, tortellini, four anchovies, two fennel soups…

“I’ll teach you to read when I have time. This will do for now.”

“You’d do that?” For me?

Jungkook ignored you, before he went back to reading his letters complimenting the good gesture with an irritated, “Hurry up.”

That night his co-workers arrived one by one, Jimin the first. The sight of him when you opened the door brightened up your mood.

Unlike a certain someone he was always sweet to you, genuinely interested to know how you fared even if you were just a servant. He claimed that mattered not to him, that you were both commoners and thus equals.

“Look at this place, it’s spotless! And you know I’m furtive, so I won’t get in your way,” you told Jimin as you escorted him through a hallway, bright from the torches hung on the walls that you’d lit up earlier.

He laughed, “I cannot make you my servant, Y/N, you’re maestro’s.”

“But he’s going to drive me mad… To tell you one of many examples, he often falls asleep in his clothes, and who but I is to take his boots off so they don’t get the sheets dirty? If the chalk on his fingers or the dust from the chiseling on his hair won’t already. Bam is far cleaner…”

Jungkook had a workshop he barely set foot in, preferred his team made use of it instead to not be bothered by their idiocy. His words. So it was in a chamber on the ground floor of this house he gave way to artistic insanity. In your book, that meant constant cleaning.

Jimin looked at you fondly. “Sounds nightmarish.”

“It truly is!”

As soon as the two of you entered the dining hall, Bam ran from Jungkook’s side by the fireplace to Jimin, who was as excited to see him.

“Good night, maes–”

“Do you think I’m deaf, ungrateful brat?” Jungkook interrupted him to bark at you. “Rome is full of people begging to get a piece of me, so if you don’t like it here, I’ll just get someone else!”

“You say that and yet keep me like a prisoner!”

“As if you don’t have it better here than anywhere you’ve burdened with your presence before!”

“There, there…” Jimin interjected to de-escalate, kneeling to better stroke Bam. “Maestro, I’ve seen your latest sketch of the Virgin and Child. She resembles Y/N.”

Both you and Jungkook failed to fight off the embarrassment, gazes unable to find a place to settle. Sitting down on the large table, he explained, “It was just one time… I had used Yoongi as a model, but the Madonna looked too masculine... and rather than going through the trouble of finding some girl and hiring her, I had Y/N pose for me… So what! Why bring it up out of nowhere…”

“Because maybe you just need a bit of distance from time to time. With permission, I too would have Y/N pose for m–”

“Absolutely not.”

“Now, why the hell not?” you groaned stamping your foot, startling poor Bam. Hope had been born inside you in a second and cruelly crushed in the next.

“Because I say so. And watch your tone with me.” As usual, the mutual glaring would trick anyone into thinking the next step would be murder. Jimin, who knelt there awkwardly, certainly thought so, at least until the bell rang. “Now go answer the door!”

What happened later, though, rendered the fury Jungkook had evoked in your heart nonexistent and instead seized the thing in a clasp of distress.

In the morning, he walked in when you were sweeping the kitchen. At once you forced the sobs to stop and turned around so he wouldn’t see you wipe your tears.

“It’s past nine, where’s breakfast?” he asked in shock that you hadn’t even started making it, the table there empty.

You swore under your breath before leaving the broomstick leaning against the nearest wall, flushed face kept out of Jungkook’s sight, then in a haste fetched a plate, a knife, and a leftover bread loaf. “Apologies, master, I forgot. I’ll be upstairs in a minute.”

Sniffling betrayed you, at which Jungkook frowned. “Are you crying?”

Great, the question just about especially designed to make one well up. Not trusting your voice anymore, you shook your head. Jungkook approached, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look away from the task at hand, now cutting a few slices of the bread.

“Have you broken something?” You shook your head again, the suppressed sobs making your chin tremble. Jungkook took a deep breath before asking with a surprisingly soothing tone, “Then what’s wrong?”

“You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

Within an hour, he’d summoned a meeting consisting of all who’d attended dinner the previous night.

A seemingly calm Jungkook was sat at the head of the table, elbows sunk on it and fingers interlocked. You stood behind him, head still low out of shame. A tense silence had fallen in the chamber some time ago, and sick of it, Jimin shattered it.

“Have you anything to tell us, maestro?”

“I was waiting for Biagio to do so.”

The man was one of Jungkook’s favourite assistants who had worked with him for years, even longer than Jimin. And if it was possible for your position to be trickier, he belonged to some noble family.

“Me? But I’ve nothing to say, maestro.”

Jungkook leaned back in his chair. “My servant will, then. Y/N?”

Bastard. If you are going to fire me, why make me go through this?

“Last night, w-when I left this hall to go refill the wine jug… Messer Biagio followed me into the kitchen, and… h-he trapped me from behind, and started t-to touch me…” Your vision soon blurred, hence why you couldn’t see clearly how concerned Jimin was for you, or how Biagio jumped up in outrage. “I managed to push him away, and ran upst–”

“How dare you slander me, wench? Maestro, you do not believe this!”

“Do I not?”

“She’s lying! I caught her stealing sketches from your study, likely to sell them, so she’s trying to get rid of me!”

You almost scoffed. Only an idiot would choose the one occasion guests had come over and her absence would be noticed to carry out a theft.

Jungkook tilted his head. “I thought you had nothing to say. Why would you keep such a thing just now?”

Biagio gulped. “I deemed it best to mention it later, in private... You won’t believe a pickpocket before an old friend, will you?”

Silence returned, your breath still as you saw all the assistants and apprentices visibly take pity on him. The only one who didn’t was Jimin, but even on his face there was a hint of hesitation. Jungkook’s, you couldn’t see from behind, but after an eternity he stood up and walked over only to put a hand on the shoulder of Biagio, who smiled in relief.

A quiet sob broke through your lips, heart sinking. You’d needed Jungkook to believe you in this. Not because of the consequences his protection as your master could save you from, but because, like it or not… he was the closest thing to family you had.

It turned out he did believe you, judging by the punch landed on Biagio’s jaw out of nowhere. And the next one on his cheekbone, and on his nose. Before everyone around the table had barely stood up to stop Jungkook, he’d already thrown Biagio down and straddled him, pulling his doublet’s collar in a close, tight grip as he continued beating him up. Blood was drawn, but for once, you didn’t mind having to scrub it later.

Jungkook’s influence trumped a whole noble house’s, you learned in the course of the months Biagio tried his mightiest and failed most miserably to have him arrested. Perhaps because of the Pope sitting on his shoulder.

That he’d taken your side was still hard to believe, all he’d grumbled with a shrug when you thanked him while tending to his wounds from the fight being, “I’d been waiting for the chance. I always thought Biagio was a weasel.”

With the matter resolved, life returned to normal—well, whatever that meant in Jeon Jungkook’s household. Because calling for you at the top of his lungs like a madman was not normal. The first time he’d done it you’d raced downstairs, afraid something horrible had happened, only for him to have you close a window as it was getting chilly. Devil rot him. You rushed no longer after that, much to his complaints.

Today, he didn’t notice right away when you appeared under the cased opening, and good thing he didn’t, for he was polishing a bust with sandpaper… shirtless.

Product of hours carving stone into his desired shape or occasionally beating someone up, he could brag of having muscles, which the current task had covered in a layer of sweat and dust. The way they flexed with each movement had you compelled, wanting to reach out, feel if his skin was as hot as the blood pumping through your veins faster and faster. Then your gaze moved to the bust and whatever spell you were under broke.

Hardly an angel was that widowed noblewoman, whom you wished had stayed trapped inside a block of marble. Her name was Madonna Maddalena, and she’d come some weeks past to make a commission covered in pearls, gold, and boldness.

“My friends refused to accompany me today. You’re said to be… disagreeable, which I’m sure is untrue. However, all of them do want to know if you’re as fine-looking as is also rumoured, maestro” she told Jungkook within minutes of meeting him, still by the entrance!

Now you can tell them he’s not, you bit your tongue before it remarked, as this wasn’t Jimin but a patron not to be scared away by your bickering. It wouldn’t be true anyway. All your master lacked in manners, he made up for with looks… Which you’d never say out loud. You’d never say either that he looked even better when irked.

“I’ve heard many rumours about myself, most of them nonsense. My appearance was involved in none.”

She smiled seductively. “I suppose I’ll have to be the one to spread them.”

“The weather is pleasant today,” Jungkook changed the subject, flustered beneath the formal demeanour. “Shall we have wine in the garden?” You left to prepare it not before catching Maddalena raise her brow at you in disapproval. She must’ve been able to tell you thought she was a pompous cunt.

The beautiful flowers you cared for tried their best outside, but the air didn’t get any better.

Sat around a small table, Maddalena explained she wanted a bust of herself by his talented hand to decorate the main hall of her palazzo. You served them wine, not really listening until Jungkook started playing hard to get. The hundred times you’d told him it wasn’t a good tactic to make his labour out to be too prestigious had apparently fallen on deaf ears.

“Any other artist could carry this out, Madonna. I am working for the Pope these days…” he subtly scolded her, a mere mortal, for wasting his precious time. And he wondered why he had a reputation for being arrogant.

Maddalena put his thoughts into plain words, “So why should you stoop to taking commissions from an insignificant widow?”

“Correct,” you said under your breath, luckily heard by none from the background, where you stood holding a wine jug until the madonna raised her cup and you approached to refill it.

“It is then fortunate I’m to marry a nephew of the Pope’s.”

Swayed by her future influence, Jungkook smiled back. “So it is.”

“But not for another week. ‘Till then, I belong to no man.” The suggestion in her tone almost drove you to spill wine all over her. No, better yet: order Bam to sic on her. He’d do it.

Just, who did this woman think she was? And why did Jungkook not kick her out right afterwards? It made you wonder whether he’d enjoyed the flirtation. Whether he would’ve been the one to take things further had his inconvenient servant not been present. It was common for men to have affairs and lovers, but it didn’t sit well with you that Jungkook might. Not that you ever imagined him doing any of that, for goodness’ sake–

“What took you so long?”

Jungkook’s voice brought you back to the present, under the cased opening.

“I was lazing about, as always,” you quoted his favourite false reprimand, making him roll his eyes, your own dropping to the floor when he walked closer.

“In that case, prepare a bath for me.”

“Yes, master.”

You sighed at all the work ahead. That being a servant was worlds better than living in the streets didn’t mean you looked forward to collecting gallons of water from a well, carrying them back, heating them, transferring them to a tub, then washing Jungkook—because you did wash him.

Biagio had hurt his left shoulder bad and ever since, he’d needed assistance in certain activities. Curious how he could otherwise chisel a goddamned bust without problem.

Jungkook’s full nudity only made you blush if you stopped scrubbing, so knelt with tucked up sleeves before the wooden tub he was reclined on, scrubbing away the dirt on his skin with lavender-scented soap you were. Maybe all the stupid feelings you’d been suffering lately stemmed from there…

Head resting on the edge, he was exhausted from the long day of work, taking your rubbing as a relaxing massage. You, however, couldn’t ignore the stinging guilt, what with the scar on his shoulder right in front of your face. He probably felt your breathing on it.

“I’m sorry you got hurt…”

Jungkook fought heavy lids only to see you avoid him. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable in front of him was embarrassing, as when he’d caught you crying, but he didn’t take advantage of the fact to humiliate you. Jungkook may be an ogre, but he wasn’t cruel.

“I’ve received worse for less,” he assured you in a calm, low voice. It sounded soothing to your ears.

“That, I don’t doubt,” you scoffed, glancing at his other scar on the cheek. “Did you also get that one in defence of some lady?”

“You’re nowhere close to a lady.” It could be done, you mused. Drowning him. “This was courtesy of my brother.”

“You have a brother?” It dawned on you how little you knew of him. Surely, most had heard it all about the divine Jeon Jungkook, but you’d never cared enough to learn past the shell of gossip, even after months of living with him. In fairness, he’d never asked about you either. You preferred it that way.

“Brothers,” he corrected you. “The one who did this to me was a wayward fool. Had to teach him a lesson.”

“Looks like he taught one to you.”

“I left with a scratch, he with a limp.” The conception of two brothers hurting each other so harshly widened your eyes for a second, and Jungkook noticed, for he added, “He was whoring around, wasting the money I worked hard to send, bullying our other brothers as well.”

Much made sense about Jungkook all of a sudden. Not his personality, that was incomprehensible. But why he killed himself to earn money and yet barely spent it… He had a family to provide for. Once again, you were reminded of his metaphor. Could an angel be in there?

Carrying on washing Jungkook, you dragged the sponge over to his neck. Then his collarbones, his chest, his abs just peaking above the water... They did look like a sculpture’s, especially wet and soaped, reminiscent of polished marble when the light of the torches reflected on them. Swallowing hard, the back of your fingers gingerly graced Jungkook’s muscles, both soft and firm. Slippery. Whatever possessed you to keep feeling them, you lacked the will to expel from your body, and so without realising your grip on the sponge loosened until it fell to float away, fingertips now free to roam over his abs.

You were slowly trailing downwards, past the water’s surface, when your wrist was seized and held in the air in a warning manner, the startle almost making you scream.

Sat upright, Jungkook was glaring at you so fiercely you feared for your life. But he didn’t say anything and instead just breathed hard, jaw clenched… almost as if he was holding back. Your rising heartbeat was deafening in the silence waiting for something to happen, anything, but what did wasn’t what a side of you anticipated with excitement.

Jungkook just let go of your wrist and returned to his previous position, and you got hold of the sponge and finished washing him, albeit holding your breath the entire time.

Days later, you came dangerously close to being fired.

The Pope had summoned Jungkook—something about a portrait commission—and you were to carry his bag filled with sketches for him due to his shoulder injury. As you navigated the ever-busy streets of Rome with him, the cold autumn breeze made you regret not putting on an overgown. The cioppa you’d bought with your own salary and not stolen. It brought a smile to your lips that faded at the realisation your mother would’ve reminded you to put it on before going out.

The sorrow pestering you turned to confusion when Jungkook stopped walking and tsked, telling you loud enough to be heard by all, “Look at him, the chief of police, with such an assemblage.”

A well-dressed man and what appeared to be his entourage walked in your direction, halting near enough. You didn’t have to ask to know this was his rival, the renowned painter Kim Taehyung.

“Whereas you, like an executioner, walk alone,” he mocked Jungkook, then noticed you standing behind him like a timid child. “Not completely, my mistake. Maestro, where in your barren soil did you plant such a flower?” He walked over to you, intentionally bumping Jungkook’s wounded shoulder as he passed, causing him to grunt lowly. From up close one was bound to marvel at how handsome Taehyung was, but you didn’t need proximity to tell he was a prick. Miles away, you would’ve known. “Why don’t you come work for me, flower? I’ll make you my muse.”

Jungkook scoffed again, “What, for your horseshit paintings? She’d be a fool to.”

Taehyung turned around to face him, feigning confusion with a smile. “But, maestro, how could they be so if you were once heard saying that all I have in art, I got from you?”

"You naturally have to resort to plagiarising my master’s genius if all you do is horseshit,” you countered, earning surprised looks from every man present, some laughs too, you were proud to say. Jungkook was certainly smirking. Taehyung opened his mouth, but you walked past him uninterested before a response came out of it.

“Good girl,” Jungkook laughed while leaving the crime scene, and for some reason your cheeks burned hot.

The incident happened once inside the Vatican.

Its grandiose corridors alone made you feel small, too unimportant to walk them, whereas Jungkook did so with determination, knowing he belonged at the top of the world. What with your tempestuous relationship, it was easy to forget he was famous throughout Europe. His feet would still never be kissed by you. Someone had to humble the man, right?

At some point the two of you arrived at a door flanked by guards, and averse, you grabbed the sleeve of Jungkook’s doublet.

“Do I have to go in?”

“Too good for the Pope, are you?” He shook you off. “Come on.”

“Damn you…” you muttered.

“What did you just say to me?”

“After you, master.”

Telling himself he’d be late if he scolded you, Jungkook turned and nodded at the guards, who opened the door of a chamber whose walls were frescoed with angels and saints, likely by Taehyung, giving off the impression one was in Heaven. When you saw him sat on a golden chair, old and grey, enjoying the tune of a lute player, you felt as though you’d just entered Hell.

The audience lasted for ever. While you stood by the door, Jungkook showed the Pope some sketches of the portrait for him to choose his favourite and then they talked and talked of politics. All you could do was fix your gaze somewhere on the floor and sigh.

“Yes, Your Holiness, this is the servant I mentioned…” A frown proceeded your looking up to see Jungkook somewhat embarrassed, scratching his nose as if to hide his face. He talked of you to others? Doubtless to complain…

With a sweet voice as if he was talking to a little girl, the Pope asked you, “What is your name?”

“None of your business, Your Holiness.”

The musician’s tune ceased abruptly, allowing Jungkook’s faint gasp to be heard. Then fell a short silence spent by the Pope blinking, taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

Jungkook was quick to fake a laugh, though sweat formed at his temples. “A jest! She meant no offence, Your Holiness, but to make you laugh.”

You held the Pope’s glare in defiance, indifferent to the fact he was the most powerful man in the whole of Christendom.

By some miracle, he let it go, and you left that chamber minutes later with your head as yet attached to your body. Your arm wouldn’t be for much longer, though, given Jungkook was forcibly dragging you all the way out to the streets, pushing you into the first alley he saw.

“Are you out of your mind?!” he shouted, towering over you menacingly. Unlike the day you’d met, you weren’t scared, rather furious as him as you stood your ground. “That was the Pope, you fool!”

“So?”

Jungkook was in utter disbelief. “He could’ve ordered your execution– mine too!”

“Well, nothing happened!”

“Nothing?! I’m sure to fall out of favour!” He paced around, anxiety quickening his breath. “Years of pouring my soul into my craft, of grovelling before the right people, all thrown away! Good God, your attitude may cost me everything…”

“And what about me?! Everything lost to me does not matter?!”

Jungkook stopped to frown. “What the hell are you talking about?”

It was now you who walked up to him. “I didn’t have a job, or a reputation, or admirers. I had only a family, and I never wished for anything else! That monster you work for took them from me. When the foreigners’ armies came and everyone rushed to Castel Sant’Angelo, he gave the order to close the gates as soon as he was safe behind them! You must have been there with him, weren’t you? Well, we weren’t. We were left outside to be slaughtered. And I wish I had been, like my parents, so I didn’t have to suffer the likes of you any longer!”

Tears were streaming down your face by the end, Jungkook just staring back at you. It didn’t surprise him that your parents were dead or that they’d been killed during the Sack, but that it was so deep a wound left festering in your heart that you didn’t mind being put out of misery. He surmised your disrespectful behaviour towards him was also fruit of your pain, especially if you deemed him an ally of the one who caused it.

“The few things I own… They’re wasted on me. Throw them away or give them to your next servant,” you sobbed, taking for granted you were fired. Anyone with half a brain would indeed have you dismissed, and part of you knew it was bound to happen, that you would go back to breaking in fucking churches to spend the night.

So you turned around into the main street, set on wandering until your legs became too sore not to collapse. With any luck, a carriage would run over you. But warmth then surrounded your hand, and you looked down to see Jungkook’s holding it tight enough to force you to halt. Though still mad, a hint of compassion sparkled in his eyes.

“Let’s… Let us just go home.”

Home. His house had felt so for a while now, truth be told. Himself too.

After that, you non-verbally agreed on a ceasefire—avoiding quarrels, that is, which was quite the task for both.

Such as now that Jungkook had you inking down a letter in his name. First of all, did you look like a scribe? If you’d known in advance the lazy arse would teach you to read and write for this, you’d have chosen to remain illiterate. And second, this was your short break before making dinner, intended to be spent playing with Bam. The poor thing was also in the study, at least being stroked by his owner, who was sat beside you on the desk.

“… I send you my regards, may God keep you from all harm. Jeon Jungkook in Rome,” he finally finished dictating, and you recording. “Give it to me, I’ll seal it.”

He was melting the wax with which to do so when the bell rang, to his surprise. Sighing, you stood up and went to open the door to whom turned out to be Jimin. The sight of him brightened you up, and yours stretched his lips into a smile.

“Evening, Y/N.”

“Good evening! I didn’t know the master was expecting you.”

“He isn’t…” You welcomed him in, brows joining at how he continuously chewed on his aforementioned lip and breathed deep through his nose as he followed you. Had something happened…? A decision to eavesdrop was made en route to the study.

Though Jimin requested for you to stay once there, and nothing could have prepared you for the reason why.

“This actually concerns Y/N…” You and Jungkook exchanged confused looks, him leaning against the desk and crossing arms as though he didn’t like the sound of that. Jimin fixed his already perfect clothes before addressing him, “I’ve come to ask for her hand in marriage.” Your jaw dropped. “I know it’s sudden at the lack of previous courtship, but I thought I should ask for your permission before engaging in it, maestro. She’s a lovely girl… and I think she’d be happy as my wife. Worry not, I won’t ask for a dowry or for her to stop working… Although on second thought, fewer hours of service would be ideal.”

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be happening.

Jungkook must be thinking the same, for he squinted to ask, “Are you drunk?”

“N-No, of course not.”

“Are you sure? You want to marry a servant with little to her name.” He had a point, so you weren’t offended. If politics weren’t the reason for a union, did this mean… Jimin had feelings for you?

“Maestro, you say it as if I were a lord,” he chuckled. “I don’t care about Y/N’s possessions, I’ll provide for her anyway. I’ve… always been fond of her. And I dare say she shares the sentiment.”

Betrayal hid safely behind a look that asked if there was any truth to that. Obviously not! There was no romance in your own fondness for Jimin. If anything, you had thought he saw you as a younger sister to look after, therefore as a protective older brother you saw him. But so shocked were you still that no words managed to come out, and Jungkook’s gaze shifted back to Jimin.

“I’ll think about it. You may go.”

A curt tone was the norm for Jungkook, it was not being granted his blessing that disappointed Jimin. He knew for a fact he was an honourable man, so why wouldn't he entrust you to him?

“Quite well… I’ll show myself out.” he uttered, before making his leave failing to hide his low spirit by giving you one last shy smile you hadn’t the heart to return.

An awkward silence filled the air that even Bam daren’t break. Only once the front door was heard shutting did you walk closer to Jungkook.

“You won’t agree to this, will you?”

“Why shouldn’t I? I have to get rid of you at some point.”

“Rid of me? Like I’m a burden?” you asked, voice rising. How a servant could be so was unknown to you until, like wooden ship toys did when you’d submerge them in a bucket of water as a child, certain guesses surfaced in your thoughts. Trying to pickpocket him, the constant clashing, Biagio, that bath, the Pope… Yes, you may perhaps be described as a burden. But you didn’t want to leave. With a calmer tone, you pleaded, “I’ll behave from now on. I won’t cause any more trouble, I swear.”

Jungkook didn’t deign to look your way as he left, followed by Bam. “You have to marry at some point, Y/N. Otherwise people will gossip.”

Since when did he care about what people said of him? And why should you?

Winter having dropped its anchor, nightfall arrived early. Not early enough, you brooded as you cooked dinner, longing for the day to end once and for all. With any hope, all of this was a nightmare and upon waking up in the morning life would go back to normal. You didn’t even know why you wanted to stay with Jungkook, as the occasions in which you’d begged Jimin to employ you to leave this house were countless. The only certain thing was that you were upset.

Later, after washing all plates and cups, you began to put off all torches lighting the house, finding out in the hall that Jungkook hadn’t moved from the seat he’d dined in. You considered carrying on with your job and leaving him in the dark, but he wouldn’t find it as funny. Instead, you stood before him.

“Will that be all, master?”

The coldness in your expression made him sigh, “Y/N–”

“I shall retire, then.” You turned to leave but were made to stop in your tracks.

“It’s an advantageous proposal for you,” he lectured to whom he must believe an idiot. “Jimin works for me, he’s wealthy. A better match than you could ever aspire to. And he asks for no dowry because he doesn’t want money, he wants you…” His words were tainted with resentment. “He’ll take good care of you.”

Skirt of your dress swirling along, you faked a smile. “If you think so, master, then it must be so.”

He shook his head as he leaned back in defeat. “Suit yourself, but I won’t be the one to reject Jimin. You crush his heart.”

A laugh escaped you. “If you genuinely cared about him, you wouldn’t let him marry a woman in love with–” Oh no. It only hit you as you were saying it.

Jungkook had appeared annoyed, but now he was mad. “Who?” He stood up abruptly—chair’s feet scratching against the floor making you wince—and walked so close you were backed against the wall, face forced to turn to a side. In a low, deep voice, he repeated, less as a question and more as an order this time, “Who.”

There was no way in the nine circles of Hell you’d say it, when you didn’t want to believe it in the first place. For fuck’s sake, why? Jungkook only ever made you want to get away from him. That was the case right now, but then… why were your feet frozen?

Some unreasonable part of you seemed to have prevailed upon the others, casting away all resistance from your body and allowing yourself to indulge in Jungkook’s proximity. You met his eyes without fear, held his dark gaze. It didn’t take him long to work it out, yet he kept close, so close your unsteady breaths mingled, the effect akin to intoxication. He was visibly trying to hold back, telling himself it’d be a bad idea, but you prayed he wouldn’t care.

By God or the Devil, your prayers were heard.

Jungkook finally smashed his lips into yours, devouring them with a hunger you shared and felt growing as he gripped your waist to press you against him. A minute ago, you wouldn’t have imagined his tongue belonged inside your mouth, swirling around your own, and now you wanted it all over your body. As if reading your mind, Jungkook broke the ardent kiss to move down to your neck, which he licked painfully slowly before sucking hard, making you hiss with pleasure. He knew that would leave a mark, the bastard. You wondered if it was meant for Jimin, so he’d see you were Jungkook’s, and in such case you didn’t mind, let your eyelids close to enjoy it.

Steered by the lust possessing you, one hand grabbed his soft hair in a fistful, keeping his head in place where he was sweetly abusing your neck, while the other travelled southwards until it reached his crotch and held it over the trousers, feeling his cock stiffen. Jungkook groaned—a vibration to your skin—in retaliation lifting your skirt. You’d thought he'd take his time, tease you, but after ensuring you were wet enough by gliding his middle finger along your core, he slid it inside and began making beckoning motions.

“Master…” you moaned, legs shaking. Jungkook forsook your neck to pull back, watch how you struggled to keep it together as he added another finger, curling and uncurling them both, hitting all the right places, and unwilling to give him that satisfaction without consequences you groped his erection with the same vigour. Although he was in good control of his expression, his breath quivered against your lips, so he kissed them again, biting hard into your lower one.

He exhaled, “You’re driving me to sin…”

Indeed, the same fingers that held the brushes when he painted religious artwork were buried deep inside your cunt, bringing you the most sinful ecstasy. It made you chuckle. Jungkook took that as the mockery it was and, crossed, pulled his fingers out of you to drag you by the arm to the edge of the table, where he had you sit. Without delay he lifted your skirt again, only this time he also pulled down his trousers to reveal his cock, thick and throbbing, which he pumped as he watched you spread your legs eagerly, ready to take all of him.

With his free hand Jungkook cupped your cheek, thumb caressing your lower lip, coated with saliva and reddened still from when he’d bit it. He could sense your desire, that you craved him inside, had for a while. Desperately. And however much tempted he was to make you beg for it, his own arousal led his cock to your entrance and eased it inside already, another groan hitting the back of his bared teeth. You didn’t have time to gasp, his thrusts so quick they earned only moans, so wonderful did it feel.

Jungkook’s hand on your cheek then wrapped around your neck. “Do you know how often I’ve fantasised strangling you?”

You chuckled again as you slapped him across the face. Jungkook halted his movements in shock, glared at you. “And I slapping you?”

It took him a moment, but he scoffed and pushed you back so that you were lying down, climbing next atop you, confident that the wooden table was sturdy enough to hold both. So legs hooked around his torso and arms around his neck, you welcomed his thrusts, rough enough to make your eyes water. But it felt heavenly, how he ravished you... The mutual irritation and tension building up for over half a year translated into indescribable pleasure.

He kissed you again, flicking his tongue against yours as he pounded into you without mercy. Overwhelmed by the sensation, all you could do to express you were nearing your limit was sink your nails into Jungkook’s biceps at each side of you, moan inside his mouth. He took the hint and fucked you as fast as his body would allow, within mere seconds your walls clenching tight around him. The sight of you collapsing under him, overcome with bliss, made him reach his own highest shortly, spurting his warm seed inside you.

As his movements gradually ceased, so did your panting. Before a complete silence fell, you asked, “Am I still to marry Jimin?”

Jungkook grabbed your face and growled against your pouted lips, “You’re not going anywhere.”

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