Jake Sim Imagines - Tumblr Posts

── ❝ ꒰ 𝐼’𝑀 𝐼𝑁 𝐿𝒪𝑉𝐸 𝑊𝐼𝑇𝐻 𝒜 𝒞𝑅𝐼𝑀𝐼𝑁𝒜𝐿 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸﹙ 박성훈 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

𝓢𝙐𝙈𝙈𝘼𝙍𝙔﹕in the glamorous world of italian high society, you, a detective, are on the trail of sunghoon—a charismatic art thief who targets the morally corrupt. as you close in on him, the line between duty and desire blurs, leading to a series of encounters filled with tension and unexpected twists. amidst a glittering art party and a shocking betrayal, you must confront your own emotions and decide between justice and an irresistible connection with sunghoon. with danger and passion entwined, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

୨୧ 𝓖𝙀𝙉𝙍𝙀﹕forbidden romance au, in love with a criminal trope!! strangers to lovers, romance, slight angst, fluff, oneshot.

୨୧ 𝓟𝘼𝙄𝙍𝙄𝙉𝙂﹕criminal!sunghoon x detective! reader, platonic best friend! jisung (nct jisung god i love him!!) LIBRARY . . .

୨୧ 𝓦𝙊𝙍𝘿 𝓒𝙊𝙐𝙉𝙏﹕5k+

୨୧ 𝓦𝘼𝙍𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙂𝙎﹕angst (happy ending dw!!), character death, blood, weapons, gun mentioned, slightly suggestive? (barely..), swearing, kissing, obviously robbery and illegal things!! + not proofread & y/n being a shit detective…

𝓟𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗟i𝗦𝗧 ﹕venice bitch, lana del rey! chemtrails over the country club, lana del rey! white mustang, lana del rey! lust for life, lana del rey! kiss it better, rihanna! heartbeat, childish gambino! marjorie, taylor swift! labyrinth, taylor swift! my tears ricochet, taylor swift! how to disappear, lana del rey!

﹙ ℒ ﹚── the playlist was mostly lana.. neways THIS IS MY THANK U FOR 1K FIC AAA, its almost been a week but i wanted to make the perfect post for u guysss<3 enhablr is full of some of the nicest most amazing cutest ppl i’ve ever met and a superrrrr big thank u to my moots ily guys sm :( thank u thank u thank u﹗ ❞ ⸝⸝

VENICE THRIVES IN THE IN-BETWEENS—IN THE SPACES BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARK, in between the past and present, in between beauty and decay.

it’s in these in-betweens that you find yourself as you walk the narrow streets, your footsteps echoing off the stone walls.

you're a detective, dedicated and relentless, known for your sharp instincts and unwavering determination to society— but for the past few months, one case has consumed you—one man who continually slips through your fingers.

park sunghoon.

his name alone is enough to make your blood boil.

sunghoon lives in the shadows of the city, a ghost who appears only to vanish again.

he’s a thief, a murderer, but also something more—a man who has captivated you in ways you’re reluctant to admit.

he’s a contradiction, an enigma, a man who does terrible things but for reasons that are almost noble— almost.

your thoughts are interrupted by the sound of water lapping against the side of a gondola.

you pause, looking out over the canal, your breath misting in the cool night air.

you have to find him. you have to stop him.

but there’s something else, something deeper, that drives you—and that’s what you fear will be the end of you.

the first time you encountered sunghoon, it was supposed to be a typical routine raid.

the intel had come in just hours before—an illegal auction was taking place at a high-end gallery hidden in the heart of venice.

rare paintings, priceless artifacts, things that should have been in museums, were being sold to the highest bidder.

and at the center of it all, the man you had been hunting: park sunghoon.

you arrived at the gallery with your team, your heart pounding with anticipation.

you had studied every detail of the building, memorized every possible escape route.

this time, you were going to catch him—you were sure of it.

but when you stepped inside, you realized that park sunghoon was always one step ahead.

the auction was over, the gallery nearly empty, except for a few lingering figures in the shadows.

and then you saw him—a tall, lean figure dressed in black, standing before a painting that had just been sold for an obscene amount of money.

for a moment, you were frozen in place— you had seen pictures of him, of course, but seeing him in person was different.

he was... striking, with sharp features and an air of confidence that bordered on arrogance.

but what caught you off guard the most were his eyes—dark, intense, and filled with something you couldn’t name.

“ah and you’re.. detective y/n, i presume?”sunghoon’s voice is smooth, almost playful, as he turns to face you.

“i’ve heard so much about you.”

you snap out of your daze, your hand quickly moving to the gun at your side.

“you’re under arrest, park sunghoon. don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

he chuckles softly, a sound that sends a shiver down your spine. “oh, but where’s the fun in that?”

before you can react, sunghoon moves, faster than ever, slipping through the shadows as if he were a ghost— never even there.

you curse under your breath as you chase after him, your heart pounding with adrenaline.

you can hear his footsteps echoing in the empty hallways, always just out of reach.

he leads you on a chase through the gallery, up staircases and through darkened corridors—until you reach the rooftop.

the moonlight had an eerie glow over the city as you finally cornered him, your gun trained on his chest.

“it’s over, sunghoon,” you say, breathless but determined.

but instead of surrendering, sunghoon just smiles—a small, almost amused smile.

“sorry pretty—not quite.”

with a swift movement, he disarms you, the gun falling to the ground with a clatter.

you barely have time to register what has happened before sunghoon is gone, disappearing into the night like he had never been there.

as you stand there, alone on the rooftop, you realize two things: sunghoon is unlike any criminal you’ve ever faced, and you’re in deep, deep trouble.

the second time you cross paths with sunghoon, it’s at a private villa along the canals.

the villa belongs to an infamous art collector, a man with a taste for the illicit.

word has gotten out that sunghoon is planning to steal a painting that has been missing for centuries, a masterpiece worth more than most people would see in a lifetime.

you’ve been waiting for him, hidden among the shadows as you watch the party unfold.

the guests are wealthy, powerful, the kind of people who think they’re untouchable.

but tonight, you’re not interested in them.

you’re interested in the man who is about to absolutely ruin their night.

you spot him just as he’s making his move—dressed in a black suit, he blends in perfectly with the other guests, but you knew better.

you can feel his presence, like a predator stalking its prey.

you wait until he’s just about to grab the painting before making your move.

“going somewhere?” you ask, stepping out of the shadows, your gun aimed at his back.

sunghoon doesn’t even flinch. he turns to face you, his expression calm, almost bored.

“you again? i must say, detective y/n, you’re persistent.”

“and you’re under arrest,” you reply, your voice steady.

“hands up. now.”

he raises his hands, but there’s a glint in his eyes that makes your stomach twist.

“you know, you’re much prettier in person,” he says, his tone teasing.

you grit your teeth. “this isn’t a game, sunghoon.”

“isn’t it?” he replies, taking a step closer.

“you chase me, i run. it’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?”

“fun?” you can hardly believe what you’re hearing.

“you’ve stolen millions of dollars, you’ve killed people, and you think this is fun?”

he’s right in front of you now, so close you can feel the warmth of his breath against your skin.

“only the ones who deserve it,” he whispers, his voice low and dangerous.

“and trust me, detective, they all deserved it— and i think you know that.”

your grip on your gun tightens, but before you can react, sunghoon moves, faster than you can follow.

in an instant, he has disarmed you, his hand closing around your wrist as he twists your arm behind your back.

you struggle, but he’s stronger, his grip like iron.

“you really need to work on your technique,” he murmurs in your ear, his voice sending a shiver down your spine.

“you’re good, but not good enough.”

with that, he releases you, stepping back with a smirk.

“until next time, detective y/n.”

and just like that, he’s gone, leaving you standing in the empty room, your heart pounding with a mix of frustration and something else you don’t want to name.

a few weeks later— you’re yet again attending another event.

by the time you find yourself at the gala, you’re more determined than ever to catch sunghoon.

you’ve been tracking him for months at this point, chasing him through the streets of venice, but he always manages to slip away, but this time, you’re ready.

this time, you won’t let him escape.

the gala is a grand affair, held in one of venice’s most luxurious palazzos.

the guests are the crème de la crème of society, dressed in their finest clothes, sipping champagne as they admire the beautiful pieces of art on display.

you’re there undercover, wearing an elegant red dress that clings to your curves, your hair styled in loose curls that cascade down your back.

you feel out of place among the wealthy elite, but you don’t let it show.

you’re focused, your eyes scanning the room for any sign of park sunghoon.

you know he’ll be there—he can’t resist a good heist, especially when there’s a painting as valuable as the one on display tonight.

it doesn’t take long for you to spot him—he’s standing by the bar, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, looking every bit the part of a wealthy art connoisseur.

but you know better. you know what he really is.

taking a deep breath, you make your way over to him, your heart pounding with anticipation.

this is it. this is your chance.

“care for a drink?” sunghoon asks as you approach, his voice smooth as silk.

you resist the urge to roll your eyes. “you know why i’m here, sunghoon.”

he raises an eyebrow, a small smile playing on his lips. “do i?”

“yes,” you reply, your voice firm.

“and i’m not letting you get away this time.”

sunghoon chuckles softly, shaking his head slightly.

“you’re always so serious, detective. i mean— seriously—you should relax more.”

his words are casual, but there’s something in his tone that makes your heart skip a beat.

he’s toying with you, like a cat with a mouse.

you try to ignore the way your pulse quickens, the way his proximity affects you.

“this ends tonight,” you say, your voice steady despite the inner turmoil inside you.

“i’m bringing you in.”

“is that so?” he murmurs, leaning closer until you can feel the heat of his breath against your cheek.

“and how exactly do you plan to do that?”

your breath catches in your throat, your resolve wavering for a split second.

but you can’t afford to let your guard down—not now— you felt it, you were so close.

you reach for the gun hidden beneath your dress, but once again— sunghoon is faster.

he grabs your wrist, pulling you against him, his grip firm but not painful.

“you really should know better by now,” he whispers, his lips brushing against your ear.

“you can’t catch me, angel.”

you struggle to pull away, but he holds you close, his eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that makes your heart race.

for a moment, you’re caught in his gaze, unable to look away.

there’s something there, something dark and dangerous, but also something that draws you in, makes you want to know more— makes you want to find out.

but you can’t afford to let yourself get distracted, not now. you wrench your arm free, taking a step back, your gun trained on him once more.

“don’t move,” you warn, your voice trembling slightly despite your best efforts to keep it steady.

but sunghoon just smiles, that infuriatingly smug smile that makes you want to wipe it off his face.

“you won’t shoot me,” he says confidently.

“and what makes you so sure of that?” you demand, narrowing your eyes at him.

“because you’re a good person,” he replies simply.

“and good people don’t shoot unarmed men.”

you hate that he’s right, hate that he knows you so well.

but more than that, you hate the way your heart flutters when he looks at you like that, as if he knows every thought running through your head.

before you can respond, sunghoon takes advantage of your hesitation, disarming you with a slick motion.

the gun clatters to the floor, and you find yourself pinned against the wall, his body pressed against yours.

“let me go,” you demand, but your voice lacks conviction.

his presence overwhelms you, his scent, his heat, everything about him consuming your senses.

he leans in closer, his lips just inches from yours. “you don’t really want that, do you?” he murmurs, his voice low and the most serious it had been the entire night.

your breath hitches, your resolve once again crumbling under his intense gaze.

you should resist, should push him away, but instead, you find yourself leaning in, your lips brushing against his in a moment of weakness.

it’s a kiss filled with all the pent-up frustration, the unspoken tension that has been building between you since the moment you first met.

it’s wrong, so wrong, but it feels so right, and for a moment, you let yourself get lost in it, forgetting everything else.

but then— reality comes crashing back, and you pull away, your heart pounding with a mix of fear and desire.

“this- this doesn’t change anything,” you whisper, your voice shaky.

sunghoon’s eyes darken, his expression unreadable.

“doesn’t it through?” he asks tilting his head, almost taunting you.

before you can respond, he steps back, releasing you from his grip gently.

“until next time, detective,” he says, his tone both teasing and sincere.

and then he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd before you can even process what just happened.

you stand there, breathless and confused, your mind racing with conflicting emotions.

you should be furious, should be focused on catching him, but all you can think about is the way his lips felt against yours.

the final confrontation comes on a misty night by sile river.

you’ve tracked sunghoon to this place, a place he visited quite often—secluded spot away from the prying eyes of the public.

the river flows quietly, the water reflecting the lights of the city in the distance.

it’s a beautiful, peaceful sight, but the tension in the air could be cut with a knife.

you spot him standing by the water’s edge, his back to you— for a moment, you hesitate, your heart pounding in your chest.

this is it. the moment you’ve been waiting for.

but as you approach, something in you shifts—you can’t deny the feelings that have been growing inside you, the connection you’ve felt with him despite everything, despite all your differences.

“sunghoon,” you call out, your voice carrying over the sound of the water.

he turns to face you, his expression unreadable.

“y/n,” he greets you, his tone surprisingly soft.

you take a deep breath, bracing yourself for what’s to come. “this.. has to end.”

sunghoon nods slowly, his gaze never leaving yours. “i know, y/n.”

you swallow hard, your emotions warring inside you— the way he whispered your name.

“i can’t keep doing this. i can’t keep chasing you, knowing that… knowing that i…”

“that you what?” he prompts gently, taking a step closer.

you close your eyes, the words catching in your throat.

“that i.. that i care about you,” you finally admit, your voice barely above a whisper.

sunghoon’s expression softens, and he closes the distance between you, his hand reaching out to cup your cheek.

“i don’t like it— trust me, but i care about you too,” he confesses, his voice full of sincerity.

your heart aches with the truth of it, with the impossible situation you found yourselves in.

“but you’re a criminal,” you say, your voice trembling in hurt.

“i’m supposed to catch you, to stop you.”

he nods, his thumb gently brushing over your skin. “i know. and you will. but not tonight, okay?”

you shake your head, tears stinging your eyes.

“i don’t want to hurt you.”

“you won’t,” he assures you, his voice steady.

“but i can’t stop what i’m doing—i can’t let the people i care about— the city suffer at the hands of monsters.”

“i know,” you whisper, your heart breaking for him, for both of you.

“but i can’t keep pretending that this is just a game, that it doesn’t matter.”

“it matters,” he says softly, his eyes filled with emotion.

“it matters more than anything.”

before you can say anything else, he pulls you into his arms, his lips finding yours in a kiss that is both desperate and soft.

you kiss him back, pouring all your conflicted feelings into the embrace, knowing that this may possibly be the last time.

when you finally pull away, you rest your forehead against his, your breath mixing with his.

“what happens now?”

sunghoon sighs, his hand still cradling your face.

“i don’t know. but i do know that i can’t stay away from you. not anymore.”

you close your eyes, letting the weight of his words sink in.

you know that this is far from over, that the road ahead will be difficult and uncertain.

but in this moment with him, with him holding you close, you can’t bring yourself to care about what is eventually coming to take place.

it had been weeks since that night by the sile river, the night when sunghoon had held you close, confessed the unspoken feelings, and kissed you with a desperation that left you breathless.

since then, you’ve been wrestling with the conflicting emotions inside of you, caught between your duty as a detective and the growing affection you feel for sunghoon.

you’re in a dimly lit warehouse, pacing back and forth—the shadows dance around you, lit by the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

your thoughts are consumed by sunghoon, the way he looked at you, the way he made you feel.

it’s a constant tug-of-war between your professional responsibilities and your personal feelings.

jisung, your best friend and partner, is hunched over a stack of files on a table.

“you alright, y/n?” he asks, his voice breaking through your pacing thoughts.

you nod, forcing a smile. “yeah, just thinking. we’re close to getting sunghoon this time. i can feel it.”

jisung raises an eyebrow, a hint of concern in his eyes.

“you sure you’re up for this? you’ve seemed... distracted lately— no one would blame you.”

you bite your lip, unsure how to explain the conflict rising inside you.

“i’m fine ji... just focused.”

but you know the truth, every encounter with sunghoon, every conversation with him, has only deepened your feelings— and it’s making your job increasingly difficult.

the art party is in full swing. it’s an extravagant affair, filled with the elite of italy’s society.

elegant gowns and tuxedos move gracefully through the luxurious venue, their laughter mingling with the clinking of champagne filled glasses.

the centerpiece of the evening is a rare painting, the very piece sunghoon has been eyeing for years.

you and jisung are undercover, dressed to blend in with the crowd.

you’re wearing a stunning white dress that feels both empowering and confining.

it’s hard to focus on anything other than sunghoon and the swirling emotions inside you.

you spot sunghoon across the room, and your heart stops— his dark suit and confident demeanor making him stand out even among the wealthy guests.

he’s conversing with a group of influential individuals, but you can’t shake the feeling that he’s aware of your presence.

his gaze occasionally flickers toward you, sending shivers down your spine.

jisung nudges you, breaking your concentration. “keep it together, y/n. remember the plan.”

you nod, trying to refocus. “right.. we wait for him to make a move.”

but sunghoon isn’t making it easy—he’s playful, almost taunting you with his confident demeanor.

his eyes lock onto yours from across the room, a smirk playing at his lips.

the way he looks at you makes your heart race and your resolve waver, he knows he’s getting to you.

you glance at jisung, who’s preoccupied with monitoring the guests.

the party goes on, the noise and glamour creating a number of distractions.

you can feel the tension building, the stakes high— you know that tonight is crucial.

the night carries on as planned— and just as you think you’ve cornered him, all exits blocked and all streets surrounding the venue closed, a sudden commotion erupts.

you hear gunshots—your heart leaps into your chest.

panic flows all around you, and you see jisung— your best friend fall to the ground, a look of shock and pain on his face.

your breath catches as you rush to jisung’s side, desperately trying to stop the bleeding— the blood staining your dress a bright red, a sight out of a horror movie for most people.

“jisung! ji.. stay with me!” you shout, tears clouding your view but his eyes undeniably are already growing dim.

a criminal, someone you don’t recognize but who clearly knows the world you’re dealing with, slips through the chaos— running towards the exit.

you’re too late to catch him, your focus is entirely on jisung, but as you look around, you see the grim reality—your team is more concerned with capturing sunghoon than with jisung’s life.

with jisung’s final breath, he manages a faint, painful smile as his fingers laced with yours grow faint.

“i’m- i’m sorry, y/n. i’m sorry...”

tears blur your vision as you hold him in your arms, your heart breaking into pieces.

you scream for help, but the response from your team is cold and detached.

they tell you they can’t redirect resources to find the man who did this because they need to focus on capturing sunghoon.

“you can’t be serious,” you say, your voice breaking with disbelief.

“jisung is dead, and you don’t care?”

“detective y/n!— remember the main priority at point!”

the team’s response is a dismissive shrug, their focus entirely on the bigger picture.

anger and sorrow floods through you— you storm out, leaving behind the cold, indifferent faces of those you once considered allies.

you arrive at the sile river, why? you really don’t know— maybe you were there because you were in need of comfort, of sunghoon.

all you could do was hope he would come find you.

your white— now red dress was an eerie contrast against the dark night.

the river’s surface reflects the dim city lights, but it offers little comfort.

you collapse onto the grass, sobbing uncontrollably.

the weight of jisung’s death and the betrayal of your team bear down on you, crushing your spirit— crushing everything you’ve ever believed.

as you weep, a figure approaches— you look up, your tear-streaked face illuminated by the faint light.

it’s sunghoon, his eyes are filled with a mix of sadness and something deeper—something that mirrors your own turmoil.

“you’re here,” you say, your voice trembling.

you pull out your gun, but your hands are shaking too much to hold it steady.

sunghoon watches you with a sad, resigned smile.

“if you really want to do it, i’m not stopping you,” he says softly.

you felt your heart break at his words—your resolve shatters. the gun falls from your hands, landing with a soft thud on the grass.

you collapse into a heap, your sobs shaking your entire body.

sunghoon sits beside you, his presence both comforting and agonizing.

he wraps his arms around you, holding you close. “it’s okay,” he murmurs.

“i’m here y/n, i’m not leaving.”

as you let yourself be comforted by him, the feelings you’ve been fighting against surge forward.

you realize that despite everything, you’ve never felt more connected to anyone.

his touch was soothing, his warmth comforting presence to your broken heart.

after a while, you pull away slightly, meeting his gaze.

“i.. sunghoon- i don’t know what to do anymore. i know what we have is wrong, but it feels so right.”

sunghoon’s expression softens, his eyes filled with understanding.

“i know. but it doesn’t have to be wrong. it doesn’t have to end like this.”

you lean in, and he meets you halfway—the kiss is both tender and desperate, a mix of all the feelings you’ve been trying to suppress.

it’s a kiss filled with promise and hope, even in the face of overwhelming uncertainty.

as you pull away, you rest your forehead against his, your breath mixing with his.

“what now?” you ask, your voice a whisper.

sunghoon sighs, his hand still cradling your face. “we’ll figure it out. together.”

in that moment, you feel a glimmer of peace amidst the chaos.

the future is uncertain, and the road ahead is filled with challenges.

but for now, with sunghoon by your side, you feel a sense of belonging that you haven’t felt in a long time.

the journey is far from over, but as you stand together, you try to convince yourself that with whatever happens next, you’ll face it side by side.

weeks have passed since that night by the river.

you’ve struggled to find balance between your duty and your emotions.

sunghoon remains there in your mind, but your heart is no longer in the chase.

the trauma of jisung’s death and the betrayal you felt have left you reeling.

you’ve made a decision that changes everything— you arrange a meeting with sunghoon in a secluded location, away from prying eyes.

when he arrives, there’s a mix of surprise and hope in his eyes.

“i’m done,” you say, your voice steady despite the turmoil inside you.

“i can’t keep doing this anymore..”

sunghoon’s eyes search yours, his expression unreadable.

“what are you saying?”

you take a deep breath, your heart pounding.

“i’m saying that i’m done chasing you. i’m done pretending that i don’t care. i want to be with you, sunghoon. but i can’t do that and be a detective at the same time.”

sunghoon’s gaze softens, a glimmer of relief in his eyes.

“i understand, took you long enough..” he whispered with a childish pout which you let out a small grin at.

you step closer, taking his hand. “i don’t know what the future holds, but i just want to be with you. no more fighting my feelings, no more running. just us.. and i think jisung would’ve wanted me to be happy too..”

sunghoon looks at your intertwined hands, his expression filled with affection.

“are you sure about this, y/n?”

“yes,” you say, your voice filled with honestly.

“i’m sure, park sunghoon.”

he pulls you into his arms, holding you close.

“then we’ll figure it out. together.”

as you stand there, wrapped in his embrace, you feel a sense of resolution.

the future is uncertain, but with sunghoon by your side, everything feels okay once again.

for now, all that matters is that you’re together. and that’s enough.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @niawonn

── ❝ ꒰ 𝑀𝒪𝑅𝑁𝐼𝑁𝒢𝑆 𝑊𝐼𝑇𝐻 𝒥𝒜𝐾𝐸 𝒜𝑆 𝒴𝑂𝑈𝑅 𝐵𝑂𝑌𝐹𝑅𝐼𝐸𝑁𝐷 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸ ﹙ 심재윤 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ pure fluff ៸ oneshot ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆how waking up with with your boyfriend jake usually goes .ᐟㅤ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕1518 ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not edited ៸ kissing ៸ skinship ៸ so cheesy ngl T-T ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 — classes start tomorrow pls help me im sobbing!! ݁𖥔 ݁˖

THE MORNING SUNLIGHT SLIPPED ITS’ WAY THROUGH THE CURTAINS, gleaming down rays of a beautiful a golden glow over the room.

you stirred slightly, still wrapped in the warmth of the blankets, half-aware of the world slowly coming its way back to life outside.

the quiet chirps of the morning birds drifted in from outside, a comforting background to the peacefulness of the early hour.

you’re on the verge of drifting back to sleep when you feel it—a warm arm slipping around your waist, pulling you closer.

“mm, don’t move,” jake’s sleepy voice murmurs from behind you, his words soft and slightly muffled as he nuzzled his face into the back of your neck.

his hold on you tightens just a little, as if he’s afraid you might disappear if he lets go.

the warmth of his body against yours is comforting, grounding you in the moment and making you smile even before you’ve fully woken up. ──── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 .ᐟㅤ

you try to shift a little to get more comfortable, but jake lets out a soft sound of protest, his grip on you tightening even more if possible.

“no, stay here,” he whispers, his voice still heavy with sleep.

there’s a clinginess to his tone, a childish insistence that makes your heart flutter with affection.

jake has always had a soft spot for mornings like this, when the world is quiet and it’s just the two of you wrapped up in each other.

“jake,” you murmur, your voice thick with sleep as you try to turn around to face him— but he’s having none of it, keeping you firmly in place, his chest pressed against your back.

his face is buried in your hair, and you can feel his breath, warm and steady, against your neck.

it sends a shiver down your spine, and you can’t help but smile at how adorably clingy he’s being.

“don’t wanna get up,” he mumbles, his voice barely above a whisper.

he sounds so content, so utterly at peace in this moment, that you can’t bring yourself to move either.

there’s something so comforting about the way he holds you, like you’re the most important thing in the world to him, and he’s not ready to let go just yet.

you let yourself relax into his embrace, letting out a content sigh as you feel his fingers begin to trace lazy patterns on your arm.

the touch is light, almost absentminded, but it sends a warmth spreading through you that makes you want to stay in bed forever.

you can feel the steady rise and fall of jake’s chest against your back, the rhythm of his breathing lulling you into a state of drowsiness.

“jake, it’s morning,” you murmur, though there’s no real conviction in your voice.

the idea of getting up and starting the day feels like a distant thought, something that can wait a little longer.

right now, all you want is to stay here, wrapped up in jake’s arms, soaking in the warmth and comfort of his embrace.

“exactly,” he replies, his voice a soft rumble that vibrates through you.

“it’s morning, which means we can stay in bed a little longer.” there’s a teasing lilt to his voice, but it’s undercut by the genuine affection that’s always present when he speaks to you.

he’s always been like this in the mornings—soft, warm, and so full of love that it makes your heart ache in the best way.

you chuckle softly, the sound barely audible in the quiet room.

“you’re so clingy in the mornings,” you tease, though there’s no bite to your words.

if anything, you find it endearing, the way jake always wants to be close to you, especially when the world is still waking up.

“can you blame me?” he asks, his voice playful as he presses a soft kiss to the back of your neck.

the touch is featherlight, but it sends a jolt of warmth through you that makes your breath catch.

“you’re so warm and cozy. why would i ever want to leave?”

you can’t help the smile that spreads across your face at his words.

jake has always had a way of making you feel special, like you’re the only person in the world who matters to him.

it’s in the way he looks at you, the way he holds you, the way he always finds a reason to be close to you, even when there’s no real need.

it’s in these quiet moments, when it’s just the two of you, that you feel the depth of his love the most.

you turn your head slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye.

his face is half-hidden in your hair, but you can see the soft smile playing on his lips, the way his eyes are still half-closed in contentment.

there’s something so incredibly peaceful about the way he looks right now, like he’s completely at ease, completely happy just being here with you.

“jake,” you whisper, your voice barely audible, but he hears it—he always does.

he hums softly in response, the sound a low, comforting vibration that you feel more than hear.

you can’t help but reach up to tangle your fingers in his hair, the soft strands slipping through your fingers like silk.

it’s a small, intimate gesture, but it speaks volumes about the affection you share.

“mm, that feels nice,” he murmurs, his voice full of contentment.

he leans into your touch, his eyes fluttering shut as he lets out a soft sigh.

there’s something so incredibly sweet about the way he responds to your touch, like he can’t get enough of you, like he needs your warmth and affection to start his day off right.

you smile, your heart swelling with affection for the boy lying beside you.

“you’re so cute, it’s unfair.” you whisper, unable to keep the words from slipping out.

it’s the truth, after all. jake is the cutest when he’s like this—half-asleep, clingy, and completely wrapped up in you.

he chuckles softly, the sound low and full of warmth.

“i could say the same about you,” he replies, his voice laced with affection.

he shifts slightly, just enough to press a soft kiss to your temple, his lips warm and gentle against your skin.

“you’re the cutest thing in the world to me.”

his words make your heart skip a beat, a warm blush spreading across your cheeks.

jake has always been good with words, always knows just what to say to make you feel like the most special person in the world.

but it’s not just the words—it’s the way he says them, the way he looks at you, the way he holds you like you’re the most precious thing in his life.

you turn in his arms, finally managing to face him fully.

his eyes are still half-lidded with sleep, but they’re full of warmth and love as they meet yours.

there’s a softness in his expression, a tender affection that makes your heart swell with love for him.

“hi,” you whisper, your voice soft and radiating affection for the boy.

“hi,” he replies, a sleepy smile tugging at his lips.

he shifts slightly, his arms still wrapped securely around you as he pulls you even closer.

“did i mention how much i love mornings like this?” he asks, his voice playful but sincere.

you chuckle, the sound full of affection as you reach up to cup his cheek.

“only about a hundred-million times,” you tease, though you can’t keep the smile off your face.

there’s something so incredibly sweet about the way jake treasures these moments with you, the way he always finds a way to make even the simplest mornings feel special.

“then i’ll say it a hundred-million times more,” he replies, his voice full of warmth.

he leans in to press a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead, his lips warm and gentle against your skin.

“because i really do love mornings like this— i honestly feel like i could die right now.”

you smile, your heart swelling with love for the boy in your arms.

“i love them too,” you whisper, your voice full of sincerity. “i love you, jake.”

he beams at your words, his eyes shining with happiness.

“i love you too,” he replies, his voice full of affection.

he leans in to press another soft kiss to your lips, the touch gentle and full of love.

“more than anything.”

you kiss him back, your heart overflowing with love for him. in this moment, everything feels perfect—like the world outside doesn’t exist, and it’s just the two of you, wrapped up in each other’s love.

and as you hold him close, you know that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be than here, in jake’s arms, sharing this perfect, quiet morning with the person you love more than anything.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @niawonn

── ❝ ꒰ 𝒲𝐻𝐸𝑁 𝒴𝑂𝑈 𝐻𝑈𝑅𝑇 𝒯𝐻𝐸𝑀 𝐷𝑈𝑅𝐼𝑁𝐺 𝐴𝑁 𝒜𝑅𝐺𝑈𝑀𝐸𝑁𝑇 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸﹙ 엔하이픈 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ angst ៸ hyung line ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆in which the aftermath of a harsh argument takes place .ᐟㅤ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕0.5k-1k per member ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not edited ៸ arguing ៸ skinship ៸ a bit repetitive:c ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 — srry for inactivity:( imy guys<3 𖥔 ݁˖

୨୧ ‎이희승 ── 𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆

after the argument, heeseung locks himself in his room, a common behavior you’ve come to expect when things get tense between you.

usually, he just needs a moment to cool down, but this time, it feels different—like there’s a deeper wound you’ve left behind.

you stand outside his door, taking a breath before knocking gently. "heeseung, can we talk?"

for a second, there’s only silence— then, you hear the soft creak of the bed, but no answer.

you hesitate before turning the knob, stepping into the dim-lit room.

he’s sitting at the edge of his bed, staring at the floor, his hands clasped tightly between his knees.

you felt your heart break at the sight— he looked lost, his usual playful warmth replaced with a heavy sadness.

you quietly sit next to him, the air between you feeling fragile.

“heeseung,” you whisper, your voice soft, “i’m really sorry. i never meant to hurt you.” ─── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 !

he doesn’t say anything at first, his lips pressed into a thin line as he exhales slowly.

when he finally speaks, his voice is low and filled with vulnerability.

“you say that, but… it feels like you don’t think before you speak. like… you don’t care how it makes me feel.”

his words hit you hard, and tears prick at your eyes. “i do care, hee. i care so much. i just—”

you take a deep breath, feeling the guilt swell in your chest.

“i was upset, and i let my emotions get the best of me. i don’t want you to feel like i don’t care. you mean everything to me.”

heeseung finally looks at you, his eyes softer but still guarded.

“i don’t like fighting with you,” he whispers, his voice barely audible.

“it makes me feel like i’m losing you.”

the vulnerability in his voice shatters the distance between you, and without thinking, you reach for his hand, holding it tightly.

“you’re not losing me, heeseung,” you murmur, tears threatening to spill.

“i’m not going anywhere. i love you, and i’ll do better, i promise.”

for the first time, a small, hesitant smile tugs at the corners of his lips.

he squeezes your hand back, his grip warm and reassuring.

“i love you too,” he whispers, leaning in to rest his forehead against yours.

“let’s not do this again, okay?”

you nod, closing your eyes as you lean into him, the weight of the argument fading as his arms wrap around you. “okay. i promise.”

୨୧ ‎박종성 ── 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆

jay stands in the kitchen, his back to you as he rinses a dish in the sink.

his movements are slow and deliberate, and the tension in the air is thick.

he hasn’t said much since your argument, and it’s killing you inside.

jay is rarely ever angry, but when he is, it’s a quiet kind of anger that makes the silence feel unbearable.

you approach him cautiously, feeling the weight of your words hanging between you.

“jay…” you begin softly, reaching out to gently touch his arm.

he stiffens for a moment but doesn’t pull away.

“i’m sorry,” you whisper, your voice trembling slightly. “i didn’t mean to hurt you.”

jay turns off the faucet, placing the dish down with a soft clink before turning around to face you.

his expression is calm, but his eyes are clouded with hurt.

“it’s not just about the argument,” he says quietly. “it’s the way you said things… like you didn’t even think about how it would make me feel.”

his words make your heart sink, and you immediately regret everything you said in the heat of the moment.

“i was upset,” you murmur, tears gathering in your eyes.

“but that’s not an excuse. i’m so sorry, jay. you didn’t deserve that.”

jay’s gaze softens as he sees the tears welling up in your eyes, and he takes a step closer, reaching out to brush a strand of hair behind your ear.

“i know you didn’t mean it,” he says quietly, his voice more gentle now. “but it still hurt.”

your heart aches at the sadness in his voice, and you reach up, gently cupping his face in your hands.

“i’ll do better, jay,” you whisper, your thumb brushing over his cheek.

“i love you, and i never want to make you feel like this again.”

jay lets out a small sigh, his shoulders finally relaxing as he leans into your touch.

“i just… i don’t want to fight with you,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “i hate it.”

you shake your head, stepping closer until your forehead is pressed against his chest.

“me neither,” you whisper, your voice thick with emotion. “i love you too much to fight like this.”

jay wraps his arms around you, pulling you into a tight embrace.

“we’re okay,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head.

“we’ll always be okay.”

୨୧ ‎심재윤 ── 𝐉𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐌

jake sits on the couch, his arms crossed as he stares blankly at the tv.

the usually vibrant energy between you two has been replaced by a heavy, painful silence.

you hate it when things are like this—when jake shuts down and distances himself after an argument.

you sit beside him quietly, your heart racing with guilt and regret.

“jake…” you begin softly, your voice barely above a whisper. “i’m really sorry.”

he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, his jaw clenched as he looks away from you.

his silence makes your heart ache, and you feel the weight of your words sinking deeper into your chest.

“i didn’t mean what i said,” you continue, your voice trembling with emotion.

“i was upset, and i said things i shouldn’t have. but i didn’t mean any of it.”

jake finally turns his head slightly, his expression softening as he hears the sincerity in your voice.

“you always say you didn’t mean it,” he mutters, his voice quiet but filled with hurt.

“but it still hurts me, you know?”

tears prick at your eyes as you reach for his hand, grasping it tightly.

“i know it does,” you whisper, your voice breaking.

“and i’m so sorry, jake. i never want to hurt you. i love you so much, and i hate when we’re like this.”

jake’s expression softens even more as he hears the crack in your voice.

he finally turns to face you fully, his gaze filled with a mixture of frustration and affection.

“i just… i don’t like it when we fight,” he admits quietly, his voice barely audible.

“it makes me feel like you don’t trust me.”

your heart breaks at the vulnerability in his voice, and you immediately wrap your arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace.

“i do trust you, jake,” you whisper, tears falling down your cheeks.

“i trust you with everything. i’m so sorry for making you feel like i don’t.”

jake lets out a small, shaky breath as he leans into your embrace, his arms wrapping around you in return.

“i just want us to be okay,” he murmurs against your shoulder, his voice soft and shaky.

“we are,” you whisper, holding him even tighter.

“we’re always going to be okay— no matter what, jake. i love you.”

jake pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes filled with warmth despite the lingering sadness.

“i love you too,” he whispers, leaning in to press a soft kiss to your forehead.

“let’s not fight again, okay?”

you nod, resting your head against his chest as you both sit in comfortable silence, the warmth of his embrace melting away the tension.

୨୧ ‎박성훈 ── 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍

sunghoon sits by the window, his arms wrapped around himself as he stares out at the lively city below.

his usual calm, collected demeanor has cracked, and you can see the hurt in his eyes even from across the room.

he’s quiet, too quiet, and it makes your heart ache.

you take a deep breath and approach him slowly, unsure of how to break the heavy silence.

“sunghoon?” you whisper, your voice soft and hesitant.

he doesn’t even turn to look at you, his gaze fixed on the window.

“what?” he mutters, his voice colder than usual, but you can hear the hurt underneath it.

“i’m really sorry,” you say quietly, sitting down beside him.

“i didn’t want to hurt you.”

sunghoon lets out a small, bitter laugh, shaking his head slightly.

“you say that,” he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. “but it doesn’t stop it from hurting.”

your heart tightens at the vulnerability in his voice, and you reach out to gently take his hand.

“i know,” you whisper, squeezing his hand lightly.

“and i’ll do better. i don’t want to make you feel like this, sunghoon. you mean everything to me.”

he stays quiet for a moment, his fingers twitching slightly in your grasp. when he finally speaks, his voice is softer, more vulnerable.

“it just… it feels like you don’t think before you say things. like you don’t care how it makes me feel.”

tears prick at your eyes as you realize how much your words have hurt him.

you gently cup his face with your free hand, turning him to look at you.

“i do care, sunghoon,” you whisper, your voice trembling. “i care so much. i love you, and i’m so sorry. please don’t shut me out.”

sunghoon’s eyes finally meet yours, and the walls he’s put up seem to crumble.

he lets out a small, shaky breath and leans into your touch, his forehead resting gently against yours.

“i just don’t want to lose you,” he whispers, his voice barely audible.

“you won’t,” you murmur, your glistening tears rolling down your cheeks.

“i’m not going anywhere, sunghoon. i promise.”

he closes his eyes, letting the tension drain from his body as he wraps his arms around you, pulling you close.

“i love you, even though you can be a bit much..” he whispers, his voice soft and teasing.

“i love you too,” you whisper back with a grin, holding him tightly as the hurt between you fades away, replaced with warmth and understanding.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @niawonn

── ❝ ꒰ 𝒥𝐸𝐴𝐿𝑂𝑈𝑆𝑌 ៸ 𝒥𝐸𝐴𝐿𝑂𝑈𝑆𝑌 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸﹙ 박성훈 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ academic rivals ៸ oneshot ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆in which you spotting your academic rival with another girl makes you feel things you had never once experienced before .ᐟㅤ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕1551 ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not proofread ៸ flirty hoon ៸ pet names ៸ cursing ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 — i miss enha and riize school is depriving me. ( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;) ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖

YOU’VE NEVER LIKED PARK SUNGHOON.

from the very first moment you both met, he was always a step ahead of you—academically, athletically, socially.

even when he wasn’t trying, it seemed like he was out to get you in every way.

whether it was the way he’d breeze through math equations that left you staring at the chalkboard for minutes on end— or how he managed to charm every teacher with his charming wittiness and smooth-talking nature, he just seemed… infuriatingly perfect.

but what made it worse was that he knew it.

“better luck next time, y/n,” sunghoon would say after every test you lost to him.

“don’t worry princess, you’ll get there eventually.” he’d say with a smirk.

and every single time, you would grind your teeth, roll your eyes, and ignore the smug grin on his face.

he was constantly teasing you, acting like your rivalry was all just a game.

he didn’t even take it seriously!— meanwhile, you were constantly working your hardest, pushing yourself to beat him.

but no matter how hard you tried, he was always there, effortlessly flawless. ─── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 !

the teasing got worse during group projects, where you were often paired together due to your similar grades.

while you were focused on getting things done, sunghoon was focused on teasing you at every opportunity.

“come on, you don’t need to work so hard,” he’d say one afternoon when you were hunched over your notes in the library.

“you’re gonna get wrinkles from all that frowning. besides, you’re cute when you smile.”

you scoffed. “you’re delusional, sunghoon. maybe if you focused more on the project and less on making stupid comments, we wouldn’t be here all afternoon.”

he leaned back in his chair, flashing you that infuriating smirk.

“but tell me, where exactly is the fun in that?”

you hated how his teasing always got under your skin.

and even more than that, you hated how sometimes, when he wasn’t being his cocky self, you caught glimpses of something else.

a small, genuine smile when he thought you weren’t looking—the way his eyes seemed to soften, just for a split second, whenever you were caught up in your work.

but you told yourself it didn’t matter. he was your rival, nothing more.

until one day, everything changed.

it started on a regular afternoon—you were heading to the library to study, the dread of another upcoming test hanging over your shoulders.

you were determined this time to beat sunghoon, no matter what it took.

you had stayed up late the past few nights, reviewing your notes and going over practice problems.

there was absolutely no freaking way in hell you were going to let him win again.

as you approached the library, you spotted sunghoon sitting at a table near the back.

at first, you were ready to ignore him and focus on your work, but then you noticed he wasn’t alone.

a girl sat beside him, leaning close as they whispered and giggled together.

your footsteps faltered, something sharp making its way in your chest.

you didn’t know why, but the sight of sunghoon laughing with someone else—someone who wasn’t you—stung in a way that left you breathless.

you had never seen him like this before— his face was relaxed, open, and there was something intimate about the way they were sitting together, their heads close, completely absorbed in their conversation.

sunghoon’s usually cool and detached demeanor had melted away, replaced by something softer, something you didn’t understand.

and it hurt.

before you could stop yourself, you turned on your heel and walked away.

your chest was tight, and the rational part of your mind tried to convince you that it didn’t matter.

sunghoon was free to talk to whoever he wanted—you sure weren’t his girlfriend, and you certainly didn’t care about what he did outside of your academic rivalry.

but that didn’t stop the flood of emotions crashing through you.

the anger—jealousy—confusion, and somewhere, buried deep beneath it all, was the tiniest flicker of something else—something you refused to acknowledge.

for the next few days, you did everything you could to avoid him.

you stopped going to the library at your usual times, sat farther away from him in class, and when he tried to talk to you, you’d brush him off with a cold remark lacking your usual bicker or pretending you were too busy to listen.

if he noticed, he didn’t say anything, but you caught him glancing your way more often than usual, a frown tugging at his lips.

to distract yourself, you started hanging out with your friend wonbin more.

he was easygoing, fun to be around, and most importantly, he didn’t make your emotions spiral out of control the way sunghoon did.

you’d spend lunch together, study in the library in a different corner from where you and sunghoon would, and soon enough, he became your go-to when you wanted to take your mind off things.

but of course, sunghoon noticed.

it started with the glances—you’d be sitting with wonbin, laughing at one of his jokes, and you’d catch sunghoon watching from across the room.

his usual confidence was replaced with something darker—his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed.

it unsettled you, but you told yourself it wasn’t your problem, he had no right to be upset when he had been laughing with that girl just days ago.

then came the confrontation.

you were walking to your next class, distracted by a conversation with wonbin, when you felt a firm hand grab your wrist.

startled, you spun around to find sunghoon standing there, his expression hard.

his grip wasn’t tight, but there was something urgent in the way he held onto you, as if he couldn’t let you leave without hearing him out.

“can i talk to you?” his voice was low, but you could hear the tension brewing beneath it.

“not now, sunghoon,” you replied, trying to pull your arm free, but he didn’t let go.

“no, we need to talk. now.. please?”

wonbin gave you a concerned look, but you forced a smile and told him you’d catch up later.

as he walked away, sunghoon tugged you into a quiet, empty hallway where no one could overhear you.

“what the hell is your problem?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper but filled with frustration.

your heart pounded in your chest.

“seriously—my problem? you’re the one acting like an ass.”

“i’m acting like an ass? you’re the one ignoring me for no reason and hanging out with him all the time.” his eyes flicked toward the direction wonbin had walked off in, his jealousy evident.

“oh, so i’m not allowed to have friends now?” you shot back, your voice rising in frustration.

“why do you even care?”

sunghoon’s jaw tightened. “because it’s driving me crazy, okay? seeing you with him—it drives me insane. i don’t know what’s going on, but—” he ran a hand through his hair, his frustration clear.

“why are you avoiding me, y/n? did i do something wrong?”

the vulnerability in his voice caught you off guard. you weren’t used to seeing him like this—raw, open, and confused.

it made your heart ache in a way you weren’t prepared for.

“i saw you,” you finally admitted, crossing your arms in an attempt to keep your voice steady.

“in the library. with that girl. you were laughing with her, and i just—”

you swallowed, unable to finish the sentence. “nevermind—it doesn’t matter.”

sunghoon blinked, his confusion deepening further.

“wait, what girl?”

you glared at him. “don’t play dumb, sunghoon. the girl you were whispering with the other day.”

realization dawned on his face, and for the first time in the conversation, he looked genuinely taken aback.

“you mean… my cousin?”

your stomach dropped. “what?”

“the girl in the library. that was my cousin, y/n. she was visiting for the weekend, and i was just showing her around.” he paused, his lips twitching as if he was holding back laughter.

“wait—no way… are you jealous?”

heat rushed to your face, and you immediately looked away, mortified.

“no! of course not—are you crazy?”

but your weak protest only made him laugh softly, his earlier frustration replaced by amusement— he stepped closer, his tone gentle now.

“you are— don’t lie to me, you’re totally jealous.”

“i’m not,” you mumbled, refusing to meet his eyes.

your cheeks burned with embarrassment. how could you have been so stupid?

sunghoon chuckled, his voice lowering as he reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“you’re really cute when you’re flustered, you know that?”

before you could respond, he leaned in, his lips brushing against your cheek in the softest of kisses.

the warmth of his plush and soft lips on your skin sent shivers down your spine, and for a moment, you forgot how to breathe.

when he pulled back, his own cheeks were dusted with pink, and he suddenly looked just as flustered as you felt.

“uh… i’ll, um, see you later,” he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly before quickly turning on his heel and walking away, leaving you standing there, heart racing, utterly speechless.

what the hell are you going to do with park sunghoon?

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @rikibwn @niawonn

៸៸ ❝ PLEASE REBLoG AND LiKE .ᐟㅤ 💌

── ❝ ꒰ 𝐼𝑇’𝒮 𝑆𝑂 𝒮𝑊𝐸𝐸𝑇 ៸ 𝐾𝑁𝒪𝑊𝐼𝑁𝒢 𝑇𝐻𝒜𝑇 𝒴𝒪𝒰 𝐿𝑂𝑉𝐸 𝑀𝐸 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸﹙ 박성훈 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ established relationship ៸ oneshot ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆in which your cold boyfriend suddenly acts clingy and affectionate in the morning .ᐟㅤ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕1083 ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not proofread ៸ cutie hoon ៸ pet names ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 — it’s been a while!! i missed being on here sm im cryinggg schools been so tough ૮(˶╥︿╥)ა ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖

YOU WOKE UP TO A WARMTH YOU’RE NOT USED TO FEELING SO EARLY IN THE MORNING.

it’s comforting but so unfamiliar—as your eyes slowly flutter open, you realize that someone’s arms are wrapped securely around you, holding you close and coddling you as if you were a giant plushie.

the room is still dimly lit, the curtains drawn, but the soft sunrise of the early morning light seeps through, just enough for you to see the messy hair and familiar features of your boyfriend—park sunghoon.

sunghoon isn’t usually like this—he’s not the type to show his affection so openly.

he’s reserved, sometimes distant, always keeping his emotions carefully guarded behind his cold and icy demeanor.

so waking up like this, feeling his body pressed so intimately against yours, his face nuzzled into the crook of your neck, sends a rush of warmth and butterflies through you.

it’s as if he’s silently begging you not to move, as if he’s afraid you might slip away.

you tried shifting just a little, testing to see if you can turn over and look at him properly, but his grip only tightened in response, almost instinctively. ─── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 .ᐟㅤ

his arms are firm around you, his breath steady and soft against your skin, and you can’t help but smile, even though you’re still a little—very confused.

“hoon?” you whisper, voice soft and gentle, not wanting to break the warmth of the moment.

you tilted your head with a pout to try and get a glimpse of his face, and you can see his eyes are still closed, his brows no longer furrowed in that typical stern way of his.

instead, he looks peaceful, maybe even vulnerable.

he doesn’t say anything at first, he just lets out a small sigh as his eyes blink open, the usual sharpness softened by exhaustion.

he looks at you for a moment, his gaze lingering on your delicate features, and it almost takes your breath away how different he seems—how unguarded.

“is everything okay, hoon?” you ask, your voice barely above a whisper, your eyes searching his, it’s unlike him to be this close, to be this... needy.

he doesn’t answer immediately, and for a second, you think he might just close his eyes again, retreat back into the comfort of silence and sleep.

but instead, he shifts a little, burying his face deeper into your neck, his lips brushing against your skin as he speaks, his voice shy and quiet.

“i just... i don’t say it enough,” he murmurs, his words barely audible to your ears.

“i don’t say it at all, actually. but i love you.”

his confession is soft, almost hesitant, like he’s afraid of how you’ll react. it catches you off guard, and for a moment, you forget how to breathe.

sunghoon, who rarely lets his emotions show, is telling you he loves you—it’s as if all those guarded looks and hesitant touches have finally found their voice, their body.

you feel his arms tighten slightly, his heart beating steadily against your back, and it makes your own heart explode with warmth.

letting out a soft a breath, your lips transforming into a gentle smile.

you turn your body just enough to face him, bringing your hand up to cup his cheek.

his eyes are half-lidded, watching you, nervousness radiating off of him.

you can tell that it took a lot for him to say those words—he’s always shown his love through actions rather than declarations.

“sunghoon...” you whisper, your thumb brushing gently along his cheekbone.

“you don’t have to say it for me to know, you know that?”

his gaze drops onto the covers for a second, as if he was unsure, but you lift his chin slightly, making him meet your eyes.

“you’ve always shown me you love me,” you continue, your voice filled with warmth.

“the way you remember the smallest things about me—like how you always make sure my favorite snack is stocked or how you know just when i need some space and when i need you close, or when i’ve had a horrible day and you rent my favourite movies on overpriced subscriptions.”

you see his expression soften, his eyes holding a glimmer of something more tender, and it makes your heart swell even more—if possible.

you lean in, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. “i love you too, hoon,” you whisper against his skin.

“i always have and will. your actions have always told me everything i needed to know.”

he stays silent for a moment, and you feel him relax against you, his forehead resting against yours.

there’s a hint of a grin tugging at his lips, his eyes closing as if he’s savoring your words, your presence.

his arms pull you even closer, if that’s even possible, and you feel his breath against your skin, warm and steady.

“you’re too good to me, pretty..” he mumbles, his voice muffled slightly by your proximity.

“i know i’m not the best at showing it... but i’ll keep trying. for you.”

your heart flutters at his words, and you shake your head slightly, smiling.

“you’re perfect just the way you are,” you say softly, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“i don’t need grand gestures. just you, like this, is always going to be enough.”

he looks at you, his eyes holding a softness that’s usually hidden behind his icy expression.

his lips stretch into a small, shy smile, and he leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips.

it’s sweet and soft, filled with all the words he hasn’t said, and it makes your heart flutter in your chest.

when he pulls back, he rests his forehead against yours again, his eyes closing as he lets out a content sigh.

“i love you,” he repeats, the words sounding more confident this time, as if he’s finally allowing himself to believe in them.

“i love you too,” you reply, your fingers threading through his hair, holding him close.

you both fall into a comfortable silence, the morning sun slowly brightening the room, but neither of you wanted to make any move to let go.

for once, sunghoon isn’t afraid to show how much he cares, and you can feel it in every gentle touch, every soft breath.

it’s a side of him you’ve always known was there, hidden beneath his coldness, and now, wrapped up in his arms, you feel like the luckiest person in the world to witness it.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @rikibwn @niawonn

៸៸ ❝ PLEASE REBLoG AND LiKE .ᐟㅤ 💌

── ❝ ꒰ 𝑆𝐸𝐶𝑅𝐸𝑇 𝐸𝘟𝑃𝘖𝑆𝘌𝐷 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸﹙ 박성훈 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ established relationship ៸ streamer au ៸ oneshot ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆in which you and sunghoon accidentally expose your relationship on stream .ᐟㅤ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕1467 ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not proofread ៸ kissing ៸ pet names ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 —sigh i love him guys ૮(˶╥︿╥)ა ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖

THE SOUND OF SUNGHOON’S LAUGHTER FILLED YOUR EARS AS YOU STOOD JUST OUTSIDE HIS ROOM.

it was late in the afternoon, and sunghoon was in the middle of his usual stream, his loud voice echoing through the slightly opened door.

you peeked in and saw him sitting comfortably in his gaming chair, headphones snug over his ears, his eyes focused intently on the screen.

he was mid-game, his brows furrowed in concentration, the corner of his mouth lifted in that slightly mischievous grin he often wore when he was feeling competitive.

you couldn’t help but smile, warmth blooming in your chest—there was something so endearing about the way he interacted with his audience. ─── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 .ᐟㅤ

his voice switching from playful banter to serious commentary, his expressions fluctuating with each moment of the game.

it was evident that sunghoon genuinely enjoyed his time streaming, sharing parts of his world and joy with the people who supported him.

you leaned against the doorframe, watching for a few moments.

you weren’t sure if he’d noticed you—after all, he was in the middle of an intense match.

but just then, his eyes flicked to the side, catching sight of you.

his entire face lit up, his eyes softening immediately—his lips curved into a smile meant just for you, and you knew you were the only person in his world at that moment.

he subtly gestured for you to come in, his fingers making a small “v” shape that usually indicated he’d muted his mic and turned off his camera.

hesitantly, you pushed the door open and stepped inside, trying to keep quiet so as not to interrupt his stream.

when you reached his chair, he leaned back slightly, his gaze never leaving yours as he moved one arm away from his keyboard to gently rest it around your waist.

“hey,” he mouthed, his voice so low that only you could hear it.

his eyes were warm, a tender, lovesick smile tugging at his lips.

without hesitating, sunghoon gave your waist a light tug, pulling you onto his lap.

you tried not to laugh as you comfortably settled onto his thighs, your hands automatically going to rest on his shoulders.

he was so affectionate whenever you were close like this, and you loved the way his presence seemed to wrap around you.

“did you finish your errands?” he asked, his lips brushing against your ear as he leaned closer, his breath sending shivers down your spine.

his voice was gentle, just for you—completely different from the hyper tone he used with his viewers.

“yeah, i got everything done,” you whispered back, running a hand through his soft, dark hair.

he gave a contented sigh at the sensation, his eyes closing briefly, as if savoring the moment.

you couldn’t help but smile at how he relaxed under your touch, his body leaning slightly into yours.

“i missed you..” he said with a smile as you melted more into his embrace at the warm words.

for a moment, you simply looked at each other, and you could feel the intensity of his gaze.

his eyes were full of adoration, the kind of gaze that made your heart swell with love.

he leaned in, closing the distance between you, his lips finding yours in a soft, slow kiss.

you melted into him, your fingers brushing through his hair as you deepened the kiss just slightly.

his arms wrapped around you, one hand resting on your back, holding you securely in place.

you pulled away slowly, brushing your nose against his, your forehead resting gently against his.

he looked at you with nothing but tenderness, and you gave him a shy smile, feeling your cheeks warm under his gaze.

suddenly, you heard a burst of noises—the familiar ping of alerts, notifications going wild on his computer screen.

you turned your head, your brows furrowing slightly.

it was odd, given that sunghoon was usually pretty focused during these moments, but something was definitely different.

the chat was going crazy—lines and lines of comments flying by in a blur, filled with emojis and excited messages.

you squinted, leaning closer to the monitor as you tried to make out what they were saying.

“omg is that his gf???”

“sunghoon forgot to mute lmaooo.”

“they’re kissing on camera?? i’m screaming.”

“i knew it!!! i knew it!!!”

your eyes widened, and you turned to look at sunghoon nervously.

he was staring at the chat with a mix of shock and horror, his eyes practically bulging out of his head.

“oh no…” he muttered under his breath, panic evident in his voice.

his face turned bright red, and his gaze darted between you and the monitor screen as if trying to process what had just happened.

“i—i thought i muted the mic and turned off the camera…” he stammered, his fingers fumbling over the keyboard and mouse.

he quickly clicked through the settings, ending the stream with a rushed, “okay, uh, bye guys, see you next time!” his voice wavered, and his cheeks were flushed red in embarrassment.

finally, the screen went black, and silence filled the room—you blinked at him, trying to keep a straight face, but a giggle escaped your lips, and before you knew it, you were laughing.

you covered your mouth with your hand, but it was no use—you were laughing too hard.

sunghoon groaned, burying his face in your shoulder to hide his flushed cheeks.

“stop laughing,” he mumbled, his voice muffled against your shirt.

you could feel the warmth radiating off his skin, his embarrassment making you laugh even harder.

“i—i’m sorry!” you managed between giggles, your hand moving to his hair, fingers threading through the soft strands.

“it’s just… the way you panicked… it was so cute and adorable, hoon.”

he lifted his head just enough to glare at you, though his expression softened almost immediately, his lips twitching in a reluctant smile.

“i can’t believe they actually saw that,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“hey, it’s okay,” you said softly, cupping his face with both hands, your thumbs brushing over his flushed cheeks.

“really, i don’t mind. i think it’s kind of sweet.”

his eyes searched yours, a hint of uncertainty in them. “you really don’t mind?” he asked quietly, his voice almost vulnerable.

you shook your head, smiling at him as you cupped his face in your hands.

“not at all, hoon. i think it’s nice that they got to see how much i love you,” you said, your voice sincere.

his expression softened even more, his eyes filled with love as he gazed at you.

“you’re amazing, you know that?” he whispered, leaning in to press a soft kiss to your forehead.

he lingered there for a moment, his lips warm against your skin, and you closed your eyes, letting the moment sink in.

eventually, he pulled away, resting his forehead against yours.

he was still blushing, but the embarrassment had faded, replaced by something softer, something tender.

“so,” you began, a playful and teasing smile tugging at your lips.

“are we going to make this official next time?”

he blinked, his eyes widening in surprise. “you mean… like do a stream together?” he asked, his voice laced with excitement and a hint of nervousness.

you nodded, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to his lips.

“yeah. i think it could be fun. besides, it’s not like we can hide it anymore, right?” you teased, your smile growing.

sunghoon laughed, the sound soft and full of warmth—he wrapped his arms around you, holding you close as he looked at you with so much love that it made your heart swell.

“yeah, i guess you’re right,” he said, his voice affectionate. “i’d love to do a stream with you. but just know, they’re probably going to tease me the entire time.”

you grinned, brushing your nose against his. “that’s okay. i’ll just have to protect you from the teasing.”

he chuckled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “i’m holding you to that,” he said, his tone playful.

you leaned in, pressing your lips to his once more, this time slow and sweet.

he kissed you back, his hands moving to rest on your hips, his thumbs brushing over your sides gently.

when you pulled away, you gave him a soft smile, your heart never felt more full.

“i love you, sunghoon,” you whispered, your voice filled with sincerity.

he looked at you, his gaze tender, and he smiled, his eyes twinkling. “i love you too. so much.”

and in that moment, with sunghoon’s arms wrapped around you, his eyes filled with nothing but love, you knew that whatever would happen—whether it was facing the teasing from fans, or doing a stream together—you’d do it together.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @rikibwn @niawonn

៸៸ ❝ PLEASE REBLoG AND LiKE .ᐟㅤ 💌

── ❝ ꒰ 𝑂𝑁𝐿𝑌 𝐵𝑂𝑈𝐺𝐻𝑇 𝑇𝐻𝐼𝑆 𝐷𝑅𝐸𝑆𝑆 𝑆𝑂 𝑌𝑂𝑈 𝐶𝑂𝑈𝐿𝐷 𝑇𝐴𝐾𝐸 𝐼𝑇 𝑂𝐹𝐹 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸ ﹙ 심재윤 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ suggestive ៸ b2l ៸ oneshot ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆in which you and jake can’t ignore your feelings for each other anymore.ᐟㅤ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕1559 ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not proofread ៸ very suggestive!! ៸ skinship ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 —ngl this was so freaky of me im sorry!!(✿ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ݁𖥔 ݁˖

YOU NEVER THOUGHT THINGS WITH JAKE SIM COULD BE ANYTHING MORE THAN A FRIENDSHIP.

well, maybe you did—maybe you've thought about it more than you’d care to admit.

but for so long, you've kept those feelings locked away, buried under the bond of being "best friends."

you've known jake for years, seen him at his best and his worst.

you've laughed until you cried at his terrible jokes, stayed up late watching movies, even fallen asleep on his shoulder more times than you can count.

for the longest time, you convinced yourself that what you felt for jake was the kind of love you reserved for a friend—a really good friend, but nothing more.

lately, though, it's been different.

it's not just the little glances he gives you when he thinks you aren't paying attention, or the way his hand seems to linger on your lower back when he hugs you goodbye. ── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 .ᐟㅤ

no, it's the way your heart speeds up when he's near, the way your pulse races when his voice drops low, just for you.

the way your breath catches when his eyes flicker to your lips during a conversation, even if he doesn't kiss you.

the lines have blurred—lines you swore to yourself wouldn't cross, and tonight, they feel like they're disappearing altogether.

you're at one of jake's usual parties, something casual with a few friends, but you can hardly focus on the conversations going on around you.

the music blasts softly in the background, and you're very aware of the dress you chose for the evening.

it's unlike anything you'd normally wear in front of him-delicate, fitted in all the right places, with the perfect amount of skin that makes you feel bold.

it's a quiet statement, one you're hoping he'll notice.

and oh, he's noticed.

from the moment you walked through the door, his eyes had been on you—an intensity behind them that you haven't seen before.

every time you catch him looking, your heart flutters, and you wonder if tonight will finally be the night when everything changes.

when the night winds down, and everyone else says their goodbyes, it's just you and jake left.

the silence in his apartment feels heavy, filled with the weight of unspoken words.

you sit on the couch, trying to play it cool, but you can't help the way your mind is racing, wondering if he's feeling what you're feeling right now.

jake stands in the doorway of the kitchen, watching you, and for a moment, neither of you says anything.

the tension is thick, you could probably cut it with a knife.

"you're quiet tonight," jake finally says, his voice softer than usual, his eyes still on you in a way that makes your skin tingle.

you shrug, trying to act casual even though you're anything but. "just... thinking."

"about what?" he asks, walking over to the couch and sitting down beside you.

not just beside you—closer than usual, his knee brushes against yours, and the contact sends a jolt of electricity through you.

you swallow, trying to keep your composure.

but the air feels too thick, too charged. "you..me, us."

jake's brow furrows slightly, his eyes searching your face for answers. "what about us?"

you take a deep breath, knowing you're standing on the edge of something that could either change everything or break it.

"do you ever think about... crossing that line? the one we've been avoiding for a while?"

his gaze sharpens at your words, and for a moment, he says nothing, his silence speaking volumes.

his hand comes up to rest on the back of the couch behind you, fingers lightly grazing your shoulder.

it's such a simple gesture, but the touch feels loaded, like he's testing the waters, seeing how far he can go.

"every day," jake admits quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "i think about it all the time.”

your heart skips a beat at his confession, and suddenly, it's like the doors have finally opened.

the tension that's been simmering between you for months rushes to the surface, impossible to ignore anymore.

"i don't want to keep pretending," he continues, his eyes locked on yours now, filled with an intensity that makes your stomach twist in anticipation.

"i don't want you like a best friend."

his words hit you like a wave, and you can't breathe, can't think.

it's what you've been wanting to hear, but now that it's out in the open, it feels all too big to grasp all at once.

"i... i don't either," you manage to whisper, your voice shaky and nervous. "i haven't for a long time."

the confession hangs in the air between you, heavy and real.

jake's fingers move to your chin, gently lifting your face so you're forced to meet his gaze.

there's something vulnerable in his eyes, like he's laying all his cards on the table, waiting for you to do the same.

"you drive me crazy, you know that?" his thumb brushes softly over your cheek, the touch sending sparks down your spine.

"every time i'm with you, i have to stop myself from... from doing this."

before you can ask what he means, jake leans in, his lips hovering inches from yours.

the anticipation makes your head spin, your heart pounding in your chest as you wait for him to close the distance.

and when he does, it feels like the world stops.

his lips are soft, hesitant at first, as if he's giving you the chance to pull away.

but you don't—instead, you lean into him, your hands finding their way to his chest, clutching the fabric of his shirt as if to steady yourself.

the kiss deepens, slow and consuming, like both of you are finally letting go of everything you’ve been holding back.

jake's hand moves to your waist, pulling you closer until you're practically sitting in his lap.

his fingers trace patterns on your skin, burning through the fabric of your dress, and all you can think about is how much you've wanted this-how long you've been waiting for him.

when you finally pull apart, breathless and flushed, jake rests his forehead against yours, his breathing ragged.

there's a look in his eyes that you've never seen before, something raw and filled with want.

"you're all i think about," he murmurs, his voice raspy. "every time i'm with you, it's like i forget how to pretend."

your heart races as you take in his words, and you know there's no going back now.

the truth is out there, hanging between you, and you're both too far gone to stop.

"i bought this dress for you, you know," you say softly, your voice trembling with anticipation as you run your hands down his chest. "i didn't buy it for no reason."

jake's brow furrows slightly in confusion, but the way his eyes darken with understanding makes your breath hitch.

"what do you mean?" he asks, though you can tell he's starting to piece it together.

your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt as you pull him closer, your lips brushing against his ear as you whisper,

"i only bought this dress so you could take it off."

jake's breath hitches, and for a moment, everything feels suspended in the tension between you.

his hand tightens on your waist, and when he pulls back to look at you, there's a fire in his eyes that makes your skin tingle with excitement.

"you're killing me," he mutters, but there's a teasing grin on his face as his fingers trail down your arm, grazing the edge of the dress.

you smile, leaning in to press a kiss to his jaw, your lips lingering on his skin as you whisper, "then do something about it."

jake doesn't need to be told twice.

in one swift motion, he lifts you onto his lap, his hands gripping your waist as his lips crash into yours again.

the kiss is different this time-deeper, more desperate, like he's making up for all the time you've both spent pretending.

his hands move to the zipper of your dress, fingers fumbling slightly as he pulls it down, the sound loud in the quiet of the room.

your heart pounds in your chest as his hands roam your body, every touch igniting a fire in your veins.

the dress slips off your shoulders, and jake pulls back for a moment to look at you, his eyes dark with desire.

"you're beautiful," he murmurs, his voice low and filled with awe.

you feel a blush rise to your cheeks, but you don't have time to be self-conscious.

jake's lips are back on yours, his hands sliding up your bare back as he pulls you closer, your bodies pressed together in a way that makes you forget everything else.

it's been building to this for so long-the stolen glances, the lingering touches, the unspoken words.

now, it's all out in the open, and neither of you are holding back anymore.

as you fall back against the couch, jake hovering over you, his eyes filled with nothing but want and love, you realize that this was always where you were meant to end up—with him.

and tonight, everything that's been unsaid will finally be spoken.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @rikibwn @niawonn

៸៸ ❝ PLEASE REBLoG AND LiKE .ᐟㅤ 💌

── ❝ ꒰ 𝐹𝐸𝐸𝐿𝑆 𝐿𝐼𝐾𝐸 𝒯𝐻𝐸 𝑆𝑇𝐴𝑅𝑇 𝑂𝐹 𝐴 𝑀𝑂𝑉𝐼𝐸 𝐼’𝑉𝐸 𝑆𝐸𝐸𝑁 𝐵𝐸𝐹𝑂𝑅𝐸 .ᐟㅤ ៸៸﹙ 박성훈 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ forbidden relationship ៸ oneshot ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆in which two lovers go on a late-night drive .ᐟㅤ insp by ceilings by lizzy mcalpine ៸៸ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕1390 ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not proofread ៸ kissing ៸ pet names ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 —active era incoming!! ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖

THE CAR MOVED QUIETLY ALONG THE DARKENED ROAD,

the headlights reflecting long, dim beams across the empty street—the world outside the window is silent, asleep in the quiet of the late night, and the only sounds in the car are the soft buzzing of the engine and the faint, slow song playing from the radio.

the air is heavy with the weight of something unspoken, something that lingers between the two of you, and you don’t know if it’s the night, or the realization that these moments are always slipping through your fingers too quickly.

sunghoon’s hand rests on the gearshift, his knuckles brushing against yours, and you feel the familiar warmth spread through you—the same warmth you’ve felt every time you’ve been this close to him.

the streetlights flicker as you pass, and in those small glimpses of light, you see his profile—the sharp line of his jaw, the soft, messy strands of his hair falling into his eyes, the way his lips press together in concentration as he drives.

he looks beautiful, in the quiet, under the gentle glow of the passing lights.

it’s like something out of a dream—something too perfect, too fragile to be real. ─── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 .ᐟㅤ

his eyes glance over at you, and for a moment, they soften, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, as if just seeing you there beside him makes all of this worth it.

it’s a smile that holds the weight of all the secrets you share, of all the stolen moments between you.

you look down at your intertwined hands, your fingers grazing the edges of his, and you can feel that familiar pang of longing.

the kind of longing that comes from knowing that you can’t stay in this car forever, that eventually, this drive will end, and you’ll have to go back to reality—the place where being with him isn’t as simple as just being in love.

you’ll go back to the house that’s waiting for you, the one with your parents, who will never approve of someone like sunghoon.

it’s a world that’s filled with expectations and rules and boundaries that you’re never allowed to cross.

but in this car, it’s different.

it’s just you and him, no rules, no eyes watching, no consequences—just two people who found something in each other that made it impossible to stay away.

“are you okay?” sunghoon’s voice is soft, cutting through the quiet.

his eyes flicker to you again, and you can see the concern in them, the gentle way he’s always cared about you, even in the smallest of ways.

you nod, swallowing the lump that’s forming in your throat. “yeah, i’m okay,” you whisper, even though you know it’s not entirely true.

you’re okay now, here, but you know it won’t last.

it never does. but that’s why you hold onto these moments, because they’re all you have, and they’re everything to you.

he gives you a small smile, the kind that reaches his eyes, making them crinkle just a bit at the corners, and it makes your heart ache.

you reach out, your fingers brushing against his cheek, and he leans into your touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a brief second.

it’s such a small thing, but it feels like everything—like in that tiny movement, you can feel all the love you have for each other.

“sometimes i wish i could just keep driving,” he admits, his voice so low it almost gets lost in the roar of the engine.

“just keep going, until we’re so far away that none of it matters anymore.”

his words hang in the air between you, and you feel the tears prick at the corners of your eyes, that familiar sense of longing growing inside you.

you want that too. more than anything. you want to be with him without having to look over your shoulder, without feeling like every kiss, every touch, every whispered word is something that could be taken away at any moment.

you want him without all the obstacles that come with it, without the expectations that keep pulling you apart.

“i know,” you whisper, your voice trembling. “i wish that too.”

his fingers tighten around yours, and he looks at you, his eyes filled with something raw, something that you’ve seen so many times but never get used to.

it’s love, pure and simple, and it’s so strong that it scares you—because it’s the kind of love that makes everything else fade away, the kind that makes you want to risk it all, even when you know how much it could hurt.

he pulls the car to a stop, the gravel crunching beneath the tires as he parks on the side of the road.

you look up, seeing your house in the distance—the lights still on, even at this hour, because they’re waiting for you.

you can already feel the weight of the world creeping back in, the walls going up, the distance that’s going to grow between you as soon as you step out of this car.

sunghoon turns to you, his eyes searching yours, and for a moment, neither of you say anything.

there’s no need for words, not when everything you’re feeling is written so clearly across your faces.

you lean in, your forehead resting against his, your eyes closing as you take in the moment, the warmth of his skin, the scent of him—everything about him that you want to remember when he’s not with you.

“i love you,” he whispers, his voice cracking just a little, and you feel the tears slip down your cheeks, your heart aching at how much you wish you could hold onto this forever.

“i love you too,” you whisper back, your voice breaking.

he kisses you then, his lips soft and warm against yours, and it’s filled with everything you can’t say, everything that’s too big for words.

it’s a promise, a vow that even if you can’t be together in the way you want, even if the world is determined to pull you apart, this love is real, and it’s yours, and no one can take that away.

you pull away, and he looks at you, his eyes glassy, his expression filled with a sadness that mirrors your own.

you reach for the door handle, your fingers trembling as you open it, the cold night air rushing in, pulling you back to reality.

you step out of the car, your feet touching the pavement, and you turn back to him, giving him one last smile.

“goodnight, sunghoon,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, and it feels like goodbye, even though you know it’s not.

“goodnight, y/n,” he says, his voice breaking just a little, and you can see the way his hands grip the steering wheel, like he’s trying to hold onto something that’s slipping away.

you turn away, your heart heavy as you walk up the driveway, the distance between you growing with every step.

you can feel his eyes on you, watching until you reach the door, and you pause, looking back just once.

he’s still there, his silhouette framed by the dim glow of the car’s headlights, and it makes your chest tighten, knowing that this is where it ends—at least for tonight.

you give him one last wave, and he raises his hand, a soft smile on his lips, and then you turn, opening the door and stepping inside.

the warmth of the house surrounds you, yet you still feel so cold—the weight of the expectations fall back onto your shoulders, and you close the door, shutting out the night, shutting out sunghoon.

you lean against the door, your eyes closing, the tears slipping down your cheeks, and you wish, more than anything, that you could have stayed.

that you could have kept driving, kept holding his hand, kept feeling that sense of freedom that only comes with him.

but for now, you’ll hold onto the memory of tonight—the warmth of his hand, the softness of his lips, the love that you felt, even if just for a moment.

and maybe, someday, you’ll find a way to make it more than just a fleeting moment.

maybe, someday, you’ll find a way to keep driving, together.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @rikibwn @niawonn

៸៸ ❝ PLEASE REBLoG AND LiKE .ᐟㅤ 💌

── ❝ ꒰ 𝒰𝑆 𝒜𝐺𝐴𝐼𝑁𝑆𝑇 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑊𝑂𝑅𝐿𝐷.ᐟㅤ ៸៸﹙ 박성훈 ﹚ ᶻ𐰁

GENRE ៸៸ forbidden relationship ៸ oneshot ﹔ SYPNOSIS┆in which your forbidden boyfriend sneaks into your room .ᐟㅤ ꒰ WORD COUNT﹕1089 ꒱── 𝓦ARNING(S) not proofread ៸ kissing ៸ pet names ៸ . ݁ ✦ ݁ . ⊱ LIBRARY . . . ﹕LUNA 💭 —seunghan’s back!!!!!!! we wonnnn ( ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖

THE NIGHT WAS SUFFOCATINGLY QUIET, JUST LIKE IT HAD BEEN THE PAST FEW WEEKS.

the kind of quiet that pressed heavily against your windows, making the outside world feel impossibly far away.

you sat at your desk, staring at the pages of your textbook, though none of the words are registering.

your mind is far from the lines of text in front of you—it’s with sunghoon.

you sigh, closing your eyes, the aching in your chest growing unbearable.

you missed him—you missed him more than you could put into words, and it hurt.

it had been weeks since you last spoke, weeks since your parents found out about your relationship and threatened to ruin everything if you didn’t end it.

they were furious, telling you that someone like sunghoon—a boy with a reputation, from a family not up to their “standards”—was not worthy of their daughter. ─── 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘊𝘜𝘛 .ᐟㅤ

it felt like they’d ripped a piece of your heart out when they forced you to cut off all contact.

they took your phone, made sure you couldn’t see him at school, warning that if you even spoke to him again, they’d get his parents fired from their jobs.

and you had no choice but to listen—for his sake, you pulled away, doing what they wanted, even if it shattered you in the process.

suddenly, a soft clink breaks through the silence of your room, startling you.

you blink, lifting your head, your brow furrowed.

the sound comes again, this time louder—a sharp tap against the glass of your window.

you stand, slowly crossing the room, your heart beginning to race—you pull the curtains back, and what you see makes your heart stop.

sunghoon.

he’s standing below your window, his dark eyes locked onto yours, his hair messy from the wind.

he’s breathing heavily, and you can see the exhaustion in his posture, but there’s a familiar determination in his eyes that makes your heart swell.

you push open the window, your voice catching in your throat. “sunghoon?” you whisper, your eyes wide.

“hey, princess,” he says, a small smile tugging at his lips. “can i come up?”

you nod, stepping back, your heart pounding so hard it feels like it might break through your ribcage.

you watch as he pulls himself up, his arms straining as he climbs through the window, stumbling slightly as he falls onto your bed, panting softly.

you stand there, frozen, your eyes filling with tears as you take in the sight of him—his familiar face, his tired smile, the way his eyes soften when they meet yours.

he looks at you, opening his arms, and his voice is gentle, filled with love. “come here.”

it’s all it takes for you to break—you let out a choked sob, launching yourself towards him, your arms wrapping around his neck, your face burying in his chest.

he holds you tightly, his arms wrapping around you as if he’s afraid you might disappear if he lets go.

you feel the tears spill down your cheeks, soaking into his shirt, and he doesn’t say anything—just holds you, his hand rubbing slow, soothing circles on your back.

“i missed you so much,” you sob, your voice muffled against his chest. “i—i didn’t want to, but they—”

“shh, i know, baby,” he whispers, his lips brushing against the top of your head. “it’s okay. i know.”

you pull back slightly, looking up at him, your eyes red and puffy, tears still streaming down your face.

“they said they’d get your parents fired,” you say, your voice breaking. “i didn’t want to lose you, but i couldn’t let them do that to you. i’m so sorry, sunghoon.”

his eyes soften, and he reaches up, cupping your cheek, his thumb brushing away the tears.

“hey, don’t apologize,” he says, his voice gentle. “i get it. i know you did it for me.”

you nod, a shaky breath escaping you, and he pulls you closer, his forehead resting against yours.

“i hate them,” you whisper, your voice trembling. “i hate that they’re trying to keep us apart. if they knew you were here, they’d kill us.”

a small smile tugs at his lips, his eyes filled with a warmth that makes your heart ache.

“at least i’d die with you,” he says, his voice soft, and you let out a breathy laugh, the sound caught between a sob and a giggle.

“you’re an idiot,” you whisper, your fingers tangling in the fabric of his shirt.

“yeah, but i’m your idiot,” he says, his lips brushing against your forehead, and you close your eyes, a sense of peace washing over you.

in his arms, everything else fades away—the fear, the worry, the pain of being apart, none of it matters, not when he’s here, holding you like this.

you pull back slightly, looking up at him, your eyes meeting his.

there’s so much love in his gaze, so much emotion that it takes your breath away.

he leans in, his lips brushing softly against yours, and it’s gentle, almost hesitant, as if he’s trying to memorize the feel of you.

you kiss him back, your hands cupping his face, and it feels like coming home—like you’re finally where you’re meant to be.

when you pull away, he smiles at you, his forehead resting against yours.

“i love you,” he whispers, his voice barely audible, as if it’s a secret meant just for you.

“i love you too,” you whisper back, your heart swelling with so much emotion it feels like it might burst.

he pulls you back into his arms, holding you tightly, and you close your eyes, breathing him in, the scent of him filling your senses.

you know this moment won’t last forever—that eventually, he’ll have to leave, and you’ll be back to pretending, back to hiding.

but for now, you have this. you have him, and that’s enough.

and as you lay there, wrapped in his arms, you know that no matter what your parents say, no matter how hard they try to keep you apart, they can’t take this away from you.

they can’t take the love you have for each other, the way he makes you feel alive in a way you never thought possible.

and maybe, someday, you’ll find a way to be together, without all the secrets and the fear.

but until then, you’ll hold onto this—onto him—and you’ll fight for the love you have, no matter what it takes.

© won4kiss 2024

𝒯aglist open ‹𝟹 @mioons @nshmuras @suneng @pnghoon @shawnyle @laylasbunbunny @privareum @briefsaladfun @greentulip @cyjzzl @sol3chu @txtlyn @d-dilemma @deezbin @pockyyasii @iluvnikism @wonsprincess @rikibwn @niawonn @nineooooo

៸៸ ❝ PLEASE REBLoG AND LiKE .ᐟㅤ 💌

Jakey 🥺

Text with enhypen after an argument pretty please thnk u

on it!!!!!!! ty for requesting enha ilysm💓

Boyfie texts w/ Enhypen after an argument

warnings: angst

MASTERLIST

--------------------------------------------------------------

JUNGWON-

HEESEUNG-

JAY-

JAKE-

SUNGHOON-

SUNOO-

RIKI-

1:08 pm. jake sim x reader

a/n: repost from my old blog @lipbeom !

“That one looks like a kiss,” Jake stated pointing to a cloud. The two of you were laying side by side backs pressed against the grass, eyes turned towards the sky.

“A kiss?” You repeated. You tilted your head to get a better look as if by doing so you would understand what he meant. “Like the candy?”

“No silly,” he responded, “a kiss.” He was smiling at you, the slightly goofy type of smile, and part of you knew that he was probably messing with you. Still, maybe it did look like a kiss, maybe you were just confused.

“like a kiss kiss?”

He laughed, “yeah, like a kiss kiss.”

You sat up eyes focused on the cloud in question. “How does that even work?” You titled your head yet again though you were starting to realize no matter what angle you looked at it it still wouldn’t make sense. “What does a kiss even look like?”

Jake smiled, “Want me to show you?”

“I guess that might help,” you turned to face him “are you going to draw it in the air or something—” you started to ask.

But, there were no air diagrams. Instead, you felt two hands cup your face and in a moments notice Jake’s lips were pressed against yours, gentle and sweet, gone before you even realized they were there.

You froze, trying to compose yourself, but the way Jake was looking at you only made you feel more flustered. “I know” you stumbled with your words, “I know what a kiss is.” You pointed to the cloud “but please explain to me how that in any way resembles it.”

Jake only chuckled in response. “Do you need me to show you again?”

“No,” you scoffed plucking at the grass beneath you. You really did believed that somehow the cloud looked like a kiss and you were just missing it; now you couldn’t help but feel a little silly. Still, you supposed it wasn’t all bad. Your voice came as a soft but audible mumble as if you were debating whether you wanted to be heard or not, “...Maybe”

is that what you want?

pairing: nonidol!jake x gn!reader ( very slight fem lean )

summary: you have been feeling as if you weren’t faking out of love with jake and decided to end things with him instead of leading him on.

warnings: angst, crying, unrequited love. pretty much everything that happens in a break up.

 you finally gained enough confidence to look up at him instead of your hands which now found their way to the hem of your shirt. nodding you squeaked out a small “ yes “ before your eyes started to water as well. feeling the pressure from where jake had been sitting raise, your eyes followed his figure. “ okay. take your food.” jake mumbled, not meaning to sound so rude about it. he gently placed the bag of all your favourite snacks on the night stand. the second jake looked at you to try and meet view, you lowered your head again. the guilt was too much for you

one tear rolled down your cheek. followed by another. and another until you let out a soft sob. seeing you like this make jakes heart shatter. but it shouldn't anymore... right? i mean you're not together anymore so why should he care. that's what he tod himself anyways. “ stop crying y/n, you're the one who wanted this. “ he said, almost sounding emotionless. with a final glance down at you, he turned around and headed towards your bedroom door, a single tear dropping from his eye and onto his sweater. the sweater you once wore and refused to take off. the sweater he comforted you in.

one tear rolled down your cheek. followed by another. and another until you let out a soft sob. seeing you like this make jakes heart shatter. but it shouldn't anymore... right? i mean you're not together anymore so why should he care. that's what he tod himself anyways. “ stop crying y/n, you're the one who wanted this. “ he said, almost sounding emotionless. with a final glance down at you, he turned around and headed towards your bedroom door, a single tear dropping from his eye and onto his sweater. the sweater you once wore and refused to take off. the sweater he comforted you in.

it was all over now. you wanted this, so why are you sad?

a/n` im sorry if this was trashyyyy, i haven't written proper angst before so i hope it wasn't too bad. 

•2:40pm•

jake rubbed his eyes and yawned before letting his head fall down onto the table with a small groan. turning to look at him, you tilted your head to the side with a small sigh, rubbing your hand up and down his back.

it had been a long day for the both of you. shopping for the whole day wasn’t mean to be relaxing.. the last thing jake needed at the end of the day was a large social event with a bunch of loud teenagers.

“ jake? should we go?” you asked him, considering that he hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night due to a work overload. he lifted his head from the table and nodded. you slipped your hand off his back softly and into his hand.

you gave jake a reassuring smile before standing up from the table you had found in a more quiet room. “ come on baby, you must be so tired..” you cooed, ruffling your free hand through his hair before dragging him out of the house.

jake turned to look at you, stars in his eyes. oh how he loved you. he couldn’t ask for anything more.

you were his everything.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

~11:05pm~

(fem!reader x jake fluff)

jake laughed, turning to look at you who had an equally bright smile on your face. this moment couldn’t be better, even though you were both drenched in rain and holding onto each other as if gravity was pulling you opposite ways.

your laughter quietly faded out and left you both in a comfortable silence, disregarding the loud rain. jake stared at you as if he had never seen anything like you. he didn’t know how to explain. he just loved you for you. nothing more, nothing less.

you were the one he could tell anything to. do anything with. you were his dream girl.

hi ! If it's okay, can you do a Enhypen reaction to them getting teased by the other members while spending time with their s/o at the dorms? thank youu

hii, of course i can :) here you gooo, i hope it’s good!

pairing- idol!enha x fem!reader

warnings- teasing, kisses

wc- approx 5k words

a/n- ty for requesting! i hope you enjoy :) lowercase intentional!!!

———————————————————————————

jungwon-

such a shy babie. he might even be more embarrassed than you.

all it was, was an innocent movie night. jungwon had invited you over to the dorms, claiming the boys went out to grab some food while he stayed home. his excuse what that he was super tired and would probably go to sleep soon. when you came over, the dorm was empty and almost silent, quiet humming was coming from the bedroom.

you let out a soft snicker, picking up a single pillow and walking over to the couch with a wide smile. “y/n-ahhh~ come help me!” he whined, dropping the pillows and blankets onto the floor when he already saw you getting ready on the couch. he sighed, rolling his eyes jokingly before grabbing the blankets and throwing them ontop of you.

you let out a soft snicker, picking up a single pillow and walking over to the couch with a wide smile. “y/n-ahhh~ come help me!” he whined, dropping the pillows and blankets onto the floor when he already saw you getting ready on the couch. he sighed, rolling his eyes jokingly before grabbing the blankets and throwing them ontop of you.

you let out a soft snicker, picking up a single pillow and walking over to the couch with a wide smile. “y/n-ahhh~ come help me!” he whined, dropping the pillows and blankets onto the floor when he already saw you getting ready on the couch. he sighed, rolling his eyes jokingly before grabbing the blankets and throwing them ontop of you.

he smiled, admiring how pretty you looked for a moment, walking over to lean over you and place a small kiss on the tip of your nose. you whined, puckering your lips to silently tell him that you wanted another one. in the proper place. jungwon smiled cheekily, leaning down to place a kiss on the corner of your lips.

“ ew hyung.” niki muttered, standing in the front doorway while watching the two of you. heeseung, jake and sunoo stood behind him with equally disgusted looks on their faces. jungwon huffed, looking down at you with an apologetic look, pecking your lips before standing up.

“ aww, did you prepare all of this for us?” sunghoon asked, pushing through the small group that formed in the corridor to talk into the living room. “ that’s so sweet. movie night everybody!!” sunghoon announced.

there goes your private time with jungwon. could you really complain though?

heeseung-

heeseung had called you, clearing out of breath over the phone, asking you to come to the practice room. being the great girlfriend you were, you obviously picking up your car keys and made your way over almost instantly.

you made a stop at the grocery store, picking up a few snacks for heeseung and some for the other guys aswell. it would be rude not to.

when you arrived, you knocked quietly on the glass door of the practice room which earned you a few small exclaims coming from all the boys around the room. you giggled as heeseung as head popped out at the sound of your name, watching as he walked over to the door and opened it for you.

“ hey baby.” he said, trying to act all cool before leaning down to lay a soft kiss on your lips. you easily have it back with a small smile, humming against his lips before heeseung was quite literally ripped off of you.

“ there are kids heeseung” sunghoon voice muttered, gesturing over to niki, who’s eyes were covered by jake. jake has a disappointed look on his face which the both of you could clearly tell it was a joke. sunghoon, looked over at you, looking down until his eyes stopped on the bag you were holding in your hand.

he gasped, his eyes widening as if he just had a huge sugar rush. “ y/n bought snacks for us!!” he yelled, taking the bag out of your hand and running back into the practice room.

“ sorry about them, they’ve been like this all day.” heeseung explained, rubbing his eyes. you shook your head with a small giggle while waving your hand as if to tell him you didn’t mind. “ it’s fine, really. but you might want to go get some snacks before they’re all gone..” you said with a small giggle, peering over his shoulder to look at the boys who were crowded around the white plastic bag on the floor.

jay-

jay decided it would be a good idea to book a karaoke room for the both of you, finally giving you some private time that jays schedule never gave the two of you. what he didn’t say was that all the other members were tagging along.

you tapped your feet against the floor of the karaoke room, patiently waiting for your boyfriend to arrive. the room outside of the one you were in had suddenly gotten louder, meaning that a large group of boys probably arrived. you thought you recognised sunoos voice but shook it off. jay only booked for the two of you so sunoo couldn’t be here..

just as you let go of that thought, the door to the karaoke room swung over, revealing the bright faces of all of the enjoyed members, jay behind them with a sorry look. “yooo!! y/n is here!” niki exclaimed, rushing over to you with his arms out, engulfing you in a huge, tight hug. you let out a small laugh, wrapping your arms around him.

jay walked over to the two of you, waiting for niki to get interested by something else and walk away before doing the same thing, hugging you. “ i’m sorry. i don’t know how they found out but they wouldn’t let me leave unless they came.” jay whispered into your ear, trying to make it as subtle as he could.

sure, you were a tiny bit disappointed but the members were fun to be around so you really couldn’t complain. you just shook your head, glancing around the room to see if anybody was watching before kissing him. “ i’ve missed you jay” you said softly after breaking the kiss, leaning back in for another one. unbeknownst to you, the whole room had gone quiet as everybody stared at the two of you.

you pulled away, looking around at all of them before they all erupted in vomiting and gagging noises, all of them hunched and turned around. jay smiled, cupping your face to block your view of them before leaning in for another kiss. “ i missed you too”

jake-

jake had invited you over to the dorm for dinner when he found out you were home alone with no idea how to cook. he told you the boys were ordering takeout and he had told them to wait until you got there so you could get something aswell.

you rushed over, throwing on one of jakes hoodies you had taken white some casual beige sweatpants. you had met the members and hung out with them many times before so them seeing you like this wouldn’t be a surprise.

when you arrived, you lifted your hand to knock on the door but it opened before you could even touch the wood of the door. your eyes widened as jake opened the door, instantly engulfing you in a huge hug, lifting your feet off the floor as you spun them around. “ oh! hi jake ~” you cooed, giggling as you wrapped your legs around him. it always stunned you how easily he could pick you up.

“ i missed you y/n!!” he said, holding you in his arms with a small smile. his cheeks were flushed a bright pink when you leaned in, hugging him. jake walked back inside with you in his arms, one hand underneath you to support your weight while the other gently ran through your hair. he kicked the door shut as you stared to kick off your shoes, still hugging him. he walked you two into the living room where everybody sat.

the room filled with “ oooh~~~”s and fake gagging noises when they saw you as you giggled against jakes shoulder. you kicked your legs, waiting for him to put you down before greeting everybody. “ is that’s jakes hoodie? i got that for him for his birthday!” jay exclaimed, walking over to you and jake with a small scowl. “ jake! you said you lost it!”

“ how could i resist her? she said she liked it so i had to give it to her!!”

sunghoon -

sunghoon had told you he had a reservation for a go karting place. you were absolutely ecstatic, it being your first time ever doing something like that. when he told you what time to be there, you instantly got dressed in appropriate clothing, heading out.

right before you got there, sunghoon sent you another message.

-incoming

you tipped your head at the text, opening the door to your now parked car before stepping out. you let out a loud yelp when you felt arms wrap around you. “ shh, don’t be such a baby.” sunoo said, tightening his arms around you before letting you go, only for somebody else to come and hug you from the other side.

heeseung smiled down at you, waving. sunghoon followed behind the group of boys, reaching his hand to silently tell you to hold onto his hand and come with him. you took hold of his hand with no hesitation, letting him guide you through the boys.

“ i didn’t know they were coming. i thought i was about to get kidnapped!” you exclaimed with a small huff as he lifted your chin, kissing your cheek. “ i know i know, im sorry. niki insisted and then everybody else wanted to come.”

you sighed but nodded, giving him a reassuring smile as he started to walk towards the go karting circuit, everybody following behind the two of you like your 6 kids.

“ i knew you’d understand” sunghoon said with a grateful smile, leaning over to kiss your cheek again. you could hear jungwon coo, followed by sunoo whining about how much he wanted a girlfriend and that it was unfair that sunghoon got one before him.

sunoo-

all he wanted was a date night alone at the dorm. that’s all he asked for. before you arrived, he told everybody to stay in their rooms, not wanting them to ruin it. they all agreed, some more willing to listen than others. when you arrived, you knock on the door, waiting for a few seconds before sunoo cracked open the door. he made sure it was you before opening the door fully, tugging you inside, closing the door with his foot since his hands were too busy keeping you within a 0.5 metre radius.

he whispered a small greeting, kissing the top of your head before intertwining your hands with his. “ hi sunnie” you said, mimicking the quiet tone he had given you. why was he being so quiet? the dork was dimly lit, not too dark but definitely not blindingly bright that it usually was. the sun was setting outside, leaving a beautiful view from the dining room where he seemed to be leading you.

your lips lifted upwards when you saw the small dinner he had set up for the two of you. you cooed, turning around to look at him while pinching his cheeks. “ aigoo~ i have such a good boyfriend~” you praised him, lifting up on your tippy toes to peck his lips, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck with a bright smile.

sunoo would’ve slapped anybody else away if they tried pinching his cheeks but it was okay if it was you. “ this is the minimum i can do for his patient you’ve been with me” he said, leaning down to kiss your lips again.

“ aaaaand cut! i got that all on camera!” jungwon voice called out, his head peeking out from one of the bedroom which then erupted with small giggles and cheers.

niki-

niki invited you over for a game night in the dorm. last time he claimed it would be a game night, it turned into one of the most aggressive friendly fights you’ve ever been in. resulting in niki almost burning the whole dorm down with a bet the two of your placed.

maybe that’s what you lived about his date nights so much. the fact they were always unpredictable. so of course, when he offered, you were over at the dorm in a blink.

not bothering to know, you grabbed the handle to their front door, turning it. to your surprise, it was open. that definitely meant somebody was about to get scolded. you let yourself into the dorm, slipping off your shoes before turning around to close the door, locking it like it should’ve been in the first place. you shook your head with a sigh, walking towards the living room.

the boys were already seated upon the couch, staring intensely an the tv screen, a loud yell coming out from sunghoon, followed by him picking up a pillow and picking it up to throw it across the room at heeseung. “ i told you to go easy on me! it’s my first game in a year!” sunghoon whined, looking at the mario kart scoreboard, heeseung snake at the top followed by sunghoons at the bottom.

you held back a snicker, jungwon noticing you were here first. “niki!! y/n is here!” he called out, all the boys muttering greetings when you walked in. niki ran around the corner, skidding through the living room towards you, tackling you onto the mattress they had layed out on the floor. you fell onto it with a small “ oomf-“ when niki fell ontop of you, attacking you with kisses

you laughed when his fingers tickled at the sides of your stomach, squirming underneath him while desperately trying to get out of his grasp. some of the guys whined (sunoo) about wanting a girlfriend once again while everybody else groaned at the topic sunoo had brought up once again for the millionth time that day.

———————————————————————————

hii! i hoped you enjoyed this! it was a super cute concept to write and i really enjoyed writing about it! feedback will be greatly appreciated!

5:04am with jake, a short drabble.

non!idol!jake x leaningfem!reader

bringing your hands up to curl into your hair in frustration, you shut your eyes tightly. the past week, the work overload for school has been overwhelming. the cut off date for more than a few of them were in the next upcoming week and most of them haven’t even been started yet. you let out another huff of anger, giving your hair a small tug before dropping your head to the table on-top of your work, letting your hands fall down beside you.

unbeknownst to you, jake was busying himself at a nearby grocery store, scanning his curious eyes across the colorful shelves. “ah.” he exclaimed to himself when his eyes laid upon a specific type of snack you had always loved. i mean, it was the least he could do as a boyfriend to support you. he knew it would be stressful and he wanted to help. he just didn’t know how.

(more below)

you didn’t know how much time had passed just sitting there with your head buried in your work when you heard your front door creak open. was it finally the grim reaper deciding it was your time? your heart panted at the thought, causing you to shoot up straight from your recently slouched position in the chair. you shuffled around uncomfortably, peeking towards the door with a scrunched up face. light footsteps padded up the stairs. you could recognise those footsteps anywhere.

letting out a large huff of relieve, you stood up straight, ignore the pain in your lower body due to not having moved for so long before waddling your way towards your bedroom door. you opened the door with a sigh, throwing yourself into the arms of whoever had been unlucky enough to be standing there.

“woah there. hey my love..” his voice rasped out. just as you had thought. your one and only boyfriend jake. you lifted your head from his chest, looking up at his adorable puppy eyes that were already looking at you. just looking at jake made you notice how long it had been since you had seen him.

so stressed from the work overload, you had cancelled all your plans with him, giving him unreasonable excuses as to why you couldn’t see him. it had him really worried when you cancelled on him earlier today so he decided to come over and see what the problem really was.

“i really missed you. what’s going on?” he asked you, peering into your eyes, a gentle expression caressing his face. you sighed, dropping your head back into his chest wordlessly. he seemed to know what it had meant though. the light sound of plastic rustle could be heard through the quiet stomp sphere when jake moved his hand up, stepping back from you to allow him some space. “here. i brought there for you on my way here.” he said, holding up the nearly full plastic bag in front of him to you, giving it a small take to further encourage you to take it.

you tipped your head to the side sympathetically, pouting. “jake.. you didn’t have to.” you said, not denying that you were in fact grateful for your boyfriends attentiveness and kindness. you took the bag into your hands, leaning up to peck your boyfriends lips because intertwining your other hand with his.

jake took the lead, guiding you both into your bedroom, the dim light from your study table lighting the room. just from that, he knew what he was going to walk into your room being like.

messy bedsheets, clothes all over the floor, papers all over your desk. jakes face only frowned as he looked around your room, taking in the very unusual state. “baby… why wouldn’t you tell me.” you said softly, pulling his eyes away from your room to lay on your smaller figure. “i didn’t want to bother you. i’ve just been so busy i-… i just forgot okay? it’s nothing.” you said, avoiding his eye contact. just the tone in his voice made you feel guilty enough.

he sighed, moving his hands to gently caress the sides of your face while lifting it so you could meet eye contact with him. “ honey.. i’m here for you, you know that. why wouldn’t you just tell me?” he sighed again, placing a kiss on your forehead before stepping away and dropping his arms, looking around the room again. “doesn’t matter now, let’s just get this room cleaned up. i read that a clean room improves mind health. and plants help oxygenate the room. let’s go buy some plants later!” and on and on goes jake, rambling about cute little things that he was going to make sure would help.

5:04am with jake, a short drabble.

non!idol!jake x leaningfem!reader

bringing your hands up to curl into your hair in frustration, you shut your eyes tightly. the past week, the work overload for school has been overwhelming. the cut off date for more than a few of them were in the next upcoming week and most of them haven’t even been started yet. you let out another huff of anger, giving your hair a small tug before dropping your head to the table on-top of your work, letting your hands fall down beside you.

unbeknownst to you, jake was busying himself at a nearby grocery store, scanning his curious eyes across the colorful shelves. “ah.” he exclaimed to himself when his eyes laid upon a specific type of snack you had always loved. i mean, it was the least he could do as a boyfriend to support you. he knew it would be stressful and he wanted to help. he just didn’t know how.

(more below)

you didn’t know how much time had passed just sitting there with your head buried in your work when you heard your front door creak open. was it finally the grim reaper deciding it was your time? your heart panted at the thought, causing you to shoot up straight from your recently slouched position in the chair. you shuffled around uncomfortably, peeking towards the door with a scrunched up face. light footsteps padded up the stairs. you could recognise those footsteps anywhere.

letting out a large huff of relieve, you stood up straight, ignore the pain in your lower body due to not having moved for so long before waddling your way towards your bedroom door. you opened the door with a sigh, throwing yourself into the arms of whoever had been unlucky enough to be standing there.

“woah there. hey my love..” his voice rasped out. just as you had thought. your one and only boyfriend jake. you lifted your head from his chest, looking up at his adorable puppy eyes that were already looking at you. just looking at jake made you notice how long it had been since you had seen him.

so stressed from the work overload, you had cancelled all your plans with him, giving him unreasonable excuses as to why you couldn’t see him. it had him really worried when you cancelled on him earlier today so he decided to come over and see what the problem really was.

“i really missed you. what’s going on?” he asked you, peering into your eyes, a gentle expression caressing his face. you sighed, dropping your head back into his chest wordlessly. he seemed to know what it had meant though. the light sound of plastic rustle could be heard through the quiet stomp sphere when jake moved his hand up, stepping back from you to allow him some space. “here. i brought there for you on my way here.” he said, holding up the nearly full plastic bag in front of him to you, giving it a small take to further encourage you to take it.

you tipped your head to the side sympathetically, pouting. “jake.. you didn’t have to.” you said, not denying that you were in fact grateful for your boyfriends attentiveness and kindness. you took the bag into your hands, leaning up to peck your boyfriends lips because intertwining your other hand with his.

jake took the lead, guiding you both into your bedroom, the dim light from your study table lighting the room. just from that, he knew what he was going to walk into your room being like.

messy bedsheets, clothes all over the floor, papers all over your desk. jakes face only frowned as he looked around your room, taking in the very unusual state. “baby… why wouldn’t you tell me.” you said softly, pulling his eyes away from your room to lay on your smaller figure. “i didn’t want to bother you. i’ve just been so busy i-… i just forgot okay? it’s nothing.” you said, avoiding his eye contact. just the tone in his voice made you feel guilty enough.

he sighed, moving his hands to gently caress the sides of your face while lifting it so you could meet eye contact with him. “ honey.. i’m here for you, you know that. why wouldn’t you just tell me?” he sighed again, placing a kiss on your forehead before stepping away and dropping his arms, looking around the room again. “doesn’t matter now, let’s just get this room cleaned up. i read that a clean room improves mind health. and plants help oxygenate the room. let’s go buy some plants later!” and on and on goes jake, rambling about cute little things that he was going to make sure would help.

BAD CHEM

The studio was a hub of activity, with flashes from the camera and the hum of conversation filling the air. You were in the middle of a high-profile photoshoot for a campaign, and though the day had been long, there was a noticeable buzz of excitement around you.

Jake, dressed in a crisp white jacket, was leaning casually against a wall, quietly observing you. He wasn’t part of the shoot—he was just there to support you, and his presence was a comforting anchor amidst the whirlwind of the day.

During a brief break, you took a moment to address the camera for the behind-the-scenes footage. You flashed a playful smile as you spoke, knowing that Jake was watching from the sidelines.

“So, I made Jake wear this white jacket today because I wanted to see all the edits of him in Bad Chem,” you said with a chuckle. “I know the fans are going to go wild.”

Jake’s eyes sparkled with amusement as he watched you speak. He couldn’t help but giggle softly at your enthusiasm. When the camera panned over to him, he gave a small wave, his smile growing wider.

“You think they’ll actually make edits?” he asked, walking over to where you were standing by the monitor. His tone was light and teasing, but there was a genuine curiosity in his eyes.

“Absolutely,” you replied, scrolling through the photos on the monitor. “They love seeing you, especially when you’re just casually supporting me.”

Jake leaned closer, his arm brushing lightly against yours as he glanced at the screen. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re using me for your own fan service.”

You laughed softly, shaking your head. “Oh, please. I’m just taking advantage of having a cute boyfriend who looks great in a white jacket.”

He raised an eyebrow playfully. “Cute, huh?”

“Definitely,” you said, meeting his gaze with a soft smile. “But seriously, thank you for being here. It means a lot.”

Jake’s expression softened, and he took a step closer, resting his hand gently on your back. “I wouldn’t miss it. I like seeing you do what you love.”

The background music in the studio shifted to a familiar rhythm adding a fun touch to the moment. Jake’s fingers lightly traced the edge of your jacket, and he leaned in closer, his breath warm against your ear.

“I didn’t expect this song to play,” he said softly. “But it’s kind of perfect.”

You nodded, feeling the song’s beat align with the rhythm of your heartbeat. “Yeah, it really is. Especially with you here.”

Jake’s smile grew, and he gently placed a kiss on the top of your head. “You’re doing amazing, baby.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, savoring the comfort of his touch and the sincerity of his words. When you opened them again, you looked up at him, a soft smile on your lips.

“Thanks, Jake. I really needed that,” you said, your voice filled with appreciation.

He gave you a warm smile, his hand still resting on your back. “Anytime. And I’m looking forward to seeing those fan edits. Maybe they’ll make me look as good as you do.”

You laughed softly, feeling a renewed burst of energy. “Alright, let’s finish up this shoot. I’ll need you to stick around for the final shots.”

Jake nodded, giving you an encouraging squeeze on the waist. “I’m right here, cheering you on.”

With Jake by your side and the rhythm of the song in the background, you felt ready to tackle the rest of the day’s work. His presence was a reminder that even in the busiest moments, you weren’t alone.

WAAAAH I loved this so much 🥹 Super cute and funny:3

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.

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[ 11:53 pm ] (extra)

you glance at the brown haired boy sitting beside you as his eyes were glued to the bright tv screen

finding urself admiring him for a few minutes, you slightly smile

“what are u staring at pretty?” jake says breaking you out of your trance

“mm nothing” shifting your eyes back to the tv screen

he chuckles and pulls you into his lap with your back facing his front

hooking his arms around your frame “you know i love you right?” your boyfriend questions

“mhm” you pause for a few seconds, “i love you too”

jake smiles, “so, you wanna tell me what your thinking about?”

“m’just gonna miss you that’s all” you frown

you hear the boy sigh as he places a small kiss to the crown of your head

“i promise i’ll come back when i can” he softly says

“you promise?” you peer up at him holding onto his arms. he hugs you tighter, “i promise”

. . .

there’s a saying “you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep”, however you trusted jake to fulfill his promise

he loved you right?

so now why do you find yourself sitting in bed 6 months later staring at your phone still hoping for a reply?

you haven’t heard from him since he left, maybe he’s just busy you would try to convince yourself

but being busy doesn’t mean going out and finding another person to fall in love with

being busy doesn’t mean you go post about your affair with someone else for your lover to see

a broken promise is what’s all left of him, sadly smiling you send him one last text

“love really does lie” - 11:53 pm

a/n: the ending is kinda shit but oh well, i’m having writers block for the smau atm so i decided to write a drabble. this originally wasn’t supposed to be based off of love lies but now is kind of how they broke up :3 for now this will be the short form of their breakup, i will write the longer version soon <3

love lies

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