Sim Jaeyun X Reader - Tumblr Posts

Poor thing ♡

Jake Sim x Fem!Reader

Summary: sleepy gf ♡ horny bf

♡ Warnings: Language, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Smut +18 (Minors DNI) dumbification dollification, Slight ddlg, Brief Daddy Kink, Somnophilia, which means dub/con, Breeding Kink, Domestic Kink, Corruption Kink, Unedited, Mentions of Bondage

This might be tmi but I got turned on writing this and that's probably because I didn't realise how much I love this man. It's so bad girl, pray for me

You'd spoken about kink since the peroration of your relationship. It had been something you'd both decided was very important.

Although Jake admits he only thought kink was a few whips and rope, you assured him it was indeed a whole other world.

“What about somno?,” you'd asked him, while you both sat lazily on the comfort of your living room floor, soaking in the idle 808 beats of some Metro Boomin track while you both had a notebook out in front of you.

Although Jake craved for nothing more than to close the large distance between the two of you while you jotted down your sexual boundaries, even if it was just a hand placed on your thigh, he stopped himself.

He knew that distance was necessary when discussing sexual do’s and don'ts.

There couldn't be any sort of touching involved while you both fleshed out and divulged what would and would not be allowed within the sexual confines of your relationship.

All this talk about sex, however, had regressed his adult brain back into adolescence and he nursed an annoying boner the more you spoke.

“What's that?” He asked with his head tilted unconsciously. All you could do was chuckle softly as you eyed your boyfriend sitting on the floor adjacent to you. Your legs were splayed out and running parallel to his but still evaded the possibility of touch. You did not only find it adorable to witness just how much your boyfriend was trying to behave for you, you also found it so incredibly attractive.

“C'mon,” you had said as you shyly spun your finger on the rim of your glass containing a mild coke zero (no intoxication when discussing boundaries. Another infuriating rule, Jake found). “I do not have to explain to you what somno is,”

Jake only shrugged as he eyed you from across the small room. His back leaning against the couch was tense as he said, “afraid you do, babe,”

It was the way he was looking at you, with his eyes carelessly conveying just how turned on he'd managed to get during this short time of abstinence.

Your eyes never leave him when you talk. Hoping to convey your own need as you said “You can google it, Jake.”

“I can,” he nodded almost immediately, “Course I can, but I don't want to.”

What he didn't say is that he much rather preferred it when you used your words to divulge your knowledge on every filthy little detail about a particular kink. It turned him on to know what slept inside your mind and it made him uncharacteristically unhinged with lust when such dirty words left an unusually dignified mouth.

Corruption Kink. You had given him that diagnosis sometime throughout the evening.

“Jake,” you shake your head again, feeling the heat seep into the worn fabric of Jake's old Tupac shirt. It was probably unwise to be dressed in nothing but his oversized graphic tee and you're only made aware of this dire mistake right now. “You know.”

“No, actually, I don't.” He breaches the rules. Fuck the rules. And he lets his hand reach to tentatively rub at your cute little toe before returning his hand to his notebook.

“Tell me what somno is-”

“Sleep play.” You eventually shoved the words out of your mouth like unwanted visitors.

The second they registered in Jake's head he was sitting just a little straighter.

“Jesus…” Is all he said as he downed the rest of the 100% orange juice which he had really wished was 60% straight fucking vodka.

“Y-Yeah, but we don't really have to go into this one. I could just write it down in the ‘not interested’ list and we can just move on-” at the sight of you bending your head to furiously scribble inside the notebook containing the safety guidelines of your sex life, Jake reached out once again until his hand was perfectly encapsulating your entire foot.

“Nah, hold on.” He said, with a hint of a smile and nothing but sheer intrigue swimming in his eyes, “don't get rid of it yet.” He said. “Let's talk about it.” The devil shrugged. “Give it a fair chance.”

And although the evening had ended with Jake ravishing you on the living room floor -you were folded in half as he ate you out with the fervour of a starved man- Jake Sim did not incorporate any of the kink you two had just spoken about into the act.

In fact, all of your sexual escapades have been fairly vanilla with added hints of praise and degradation here and there before this very night.

Let it be clear that Jake Sim did not expect sex on this particular Thursday evening.

He had been having a particularly cursed day with nothing at all going right for him except the prospect of seeing you after dance practice. The possibility of you cradling him against the plushness of your breasts while you sang to him with your fingers running through his hair kept him afloat until he let himself into your apartment by the end of the day.

“Yo? ‘anyone home?”

Instead of finding you tapping away at your laptop or consuming a starkly provocative HBO original, Jake found you asleep, in your room. Fairy lights on while the sound of crashing waves bled through your phone speaker.

Before he got horny, let the record reflect that Jake was perfectly content with climbing into bed with you and dozing off himself. But he couldn't help how his body responded to the softness of your curves pressing into his side the moment he lowered himself onto your bed and into your warm pink quilts. He should be closing his eyes, dozing off alongside you but the longer he stares at the miniscule details of your face, the more his stomach tightens and warms.

Perhaps, venturing into more sinister territory, Jake's eyes skate down to your slightly open mouth and then- down to your frame nestled under his armpit, where you lay in a foetal position with your stuffed animal held in an almost primal grip.

It is then that the first beginning of guilt seeps into his lower stomach, feeling that he doesn't really wish to dissect, especially given your very persuasive reassurances that “kink should never feel icky if it's consensual.”

And you gave him your consent.

Jake still remembers your slightly laboured breathing when you admitted to being turned on by the idea of somnophilia.

The smile on Jake's face as he bends down to nestle his face in your headwrap is placid, like calm still waters on a Sunday afternoon. Doing a very good job at hiding the tempest within.

You stir in your sleep and Jake swallows thickly. With his lips still pressed against your head, he stares into space with a vague look of worry and discontent. He knows, logically, that he should not feel bad for what he's about to do. It was only human, after all, to feel sexual desire for your partner. What did not feel normal, however, is how he managed to grow impossibly hard in his sweatpants, and all you've done was sleep, you poor thing.

This time when you shift again, it's to hike your leg up further along his torso, and unbeknownst to you, a broken moan seeps out of Jake's mouth because your leg is now brushing right up against his tense and hardened cock. Jake attempts to regulate his breathing through his nose (in and out, in and out) but his brain loses sight of how unethical this all is under the realisation of just how warm you are underneath him. The arm he had wrapped around your frame flexes as he brings his hand up to the curve of your voluptuous hips. It's then when he thinks about them… you having his kids, and suddenly, he's manoeuvring you even closer into his arms.

“Jakey? Baby, you home?”

Home.

It felt so domestic and it didn't help the heat seeping out of Jake's tense body.

Your groans perpetuate through the confines of the bedroom. You're slowly waking from one of those ghastly kinds of naps. The kind of nap that existed outside space and time and everything else in the known universe. The kind of nap that had you groggily opening your eyes crowded with crust as you try to make sense of your surroundings.

His voice is raspy as he whispers back, “I’m home, Bunny,” Everything in the universe begins to right itself when Jake presses a warm, slightly sloppy kiss to the top of your head and you can feel yourself coming to grips with your surroundings. A warm sigh leaves your mouth and you melt into the sensuality of Jake's second kiss which he displays across the side of your face, moving lower and lower and hiking up your leg still splayed over his lap.

Jake's eyes are closed, brows furrowed and his kiss is lingering. His lips never stray from your skin and you can feel your limp, half asleep body being pressed in further against his warmth. You're suddenly becoming all too aware of your core pressed against Jake's hips at this angle; you and your boyfriend's limbs are practically intertwined.

His warmth is all encompassing.

“Ja-What…” a sleepy little yawn squeaks out of your throat and you unconsciously bring a limp hand up to wipe away all the sleep.

Jake watches you with grave, grave admiration. The kind of feeling that squeezes at his heart and, perhaps more shamefully, his cock. “What time is it?”

“Not important, Bunny,” he kisses you again. Heaven's he was brimming with kisses for you. They felt like a lullaby, coaxing you back to bed. “Just go back to bed,”

Those particular words have you blinking up at your boyfriend who begins to come into focus under the hazy orange glow of the fairy lights. Your body stretches ever so slightly as you crane your head up to meet his half lidded eyes.

“What time is it-” you begin to answer again, but Jake stops you once again.

“You don't need to worry your pretty brain about stuff like that,” he nudges his chin towards you as if beckoning to play along with this scene he's orchestrated for the two of you. Despite feeling your heart strings tugging at the idea of playing along, you're still very much plagued by rationality.

“Jake- Baby, you have practice tomorrow. I don't think you can sleep over-”

“But pretty girls don't think,” he nestles his head into the crook of your shoulders and he squeezes. Once again, begging you to play along, “You never have to think when you have me.”

You could feel the better part of you being dragged into the safe, plush wonderland of your subspace, just from his words alone. When Jake doesn't get a response he pulls back to make eye contact with you once more, Sickeningly satisfied to see the fog beginning to fill your pupils.

“But, Jakey-” he has you. He knows he has you.

“You still sound so sleepy, Baby,” he whispers, and you're quite shocked to find yourself being lifted off the bed, “You want Jakey to help take the sleepiness away, don't you?”

Another kink you two had discussed ad nauseum but had failed to ever orchestrate in real time. It happened flawlessly between you both. A torrid yet natural dance. Ddlg, you called it.

Jake is still lying supine on the bed as he manoeuvres you to straddle his legs. Your hands anchor yourself by the rough skin of his torso through his pitch black shirt while his hands find home on your thigh, “I need you to help me out and then you won't be sleepy anymore, yeah?” The smile he gives you is enough to get any person to bend to his every will and so you find yourself nodding dumbly, with your eyes still half lidded, and a part of your brain experiencing a sleeplike calmness. “Jakey needs you to be good for him, okay?” You swallow thickly and yelp when Jake lifts his hips, subsequently lifting you as if you weighed nothing at all. His eyes are pained when he uncovers his hard, leaking dick from his sweatpants. You're not sure if it's the sleepiness still raining heavily on you but you're suddenly plagued by the need to enclose his cock in your hand.

So that's what you do

With your limbs operating on autopilot, your hand falls lazily over his cock while you tiredly rub your left eye with your other hand.

“F-Fuck, Bunny- What're you doing?” Jake looks up at you with wild, pained eyes and you peer down at him with a tilted head. Ever so clueless. Ever so beautiful, “I wanna help,” You whisper and his cock immediately twitches in your hand, “I wanna help,” You mumble as you lower your front against his, nuzzling into his neck while you sleepily begin to pump his cock.

Your chin hangs over his shoulder as your eyes flutter shut, all the while, Jake bites his bottom lip until he's on the verge of breaking skin.

“You're trying to off me, you know that?” Jake whispers into your ear as the warmth of your palm struggles to keep him thinking rationally. Unable to stop himself from lifting his hips slightly to grind against your hand, Jake hopes for more friction, more fucking pressure, but it never comes. Not when you've basically passed out on top of him.

“F-Fuck me,” Jake whispers as he lift his hands to lightlyoaw at your hips. “You're making me fucking insane, you know that?” Jake's voice is coated with singsong need as he shuffles you lower on his torso until your hips meet his. “You said this is okay, didn't you baby?” The only answer he gets in return is a few lightly snores as he lifts you up, having you hover djrectly over his aching cock, twitching to be inside you.

For a while Jake is perfectly content with humping lazily against your pyjama pants as you shuffle intermittently.

His hands rub over your back, feeling your chest pressed against his before drifting his hand down to the curve of your ass and the thin pyjama shorts hugging your hips.

He immediately decides he can't do it.

“Daddy needs to be inside you, Bunny.” Your breasts push against him as he reaches down to swipe your pyjama pants and your oantjes to the side, “Your hands and mouth…They just won't do, baby. I need to fuck you, d'you understand?” he asks with so much concern and so much consideration it would have your heart clenching in its cage if you were conscious.

Jake's breath is caught in his throat as the head of his cock prods at your tight opening. As he tries to guide his cock in, you shift a little over him, causing him to pat lovingly at your back, coaxing you to sleep as he forced his cock into your cunt. Instead of swallowing him like you usually did, your cunt is vehemently trying to push out the intrusion, which only succeeds in turning him on more.

Jake buries his head into the crook of your neck, sniffing in your scent as he pushes himself in despite the tight fit.

“You're gonna make me cum so quick, Princess,” he whispers into your hair.

You barely made it 10 pumps before your shuffling above him with your cunt was split into two.

He wanted to use you, he needed to make you his dumb, unresponsive toy and Jake shivers as a bead of precum streams down the side of his cock.

“You're doing so good for me,” his hips lift as his hand on your ass presses down, forcing you to meet his steadily growing thrusts“You don't wanna disappoint me, do you?” he asks your cute, sleeping form. As if in response to his words, your body subconsciously reacts and your cunt tightens around his cock, immediately sending Jake into a bitter delirium.

Soon, his head is thrown back into the pillows and both his hands are firmly on your ass as he begins to fuck up into you with less care. “F-Fuck Princess, I think I could cum like this,”

You're shuffling again. Threatening to wake up. It only has Jake fucking you harder, bringing him closer to the edge.

“F-Fuck-this fucking pussy-” You were being split in two. You on top of him somehow felt like he was going deeper than how he usually went. “Oh God, you're so warm, Bunny,” He exclaims, looking up at the ceiling with his own pained expression, completely and utterly trapped in his dom space as he begins to move you up and down on his cock.

Your limp body followed, unable to conjure up the strength of your own movements. He had all the control over all your movements, kinda like-

“Y-You're my toy, aren't you, Bunny?” Jake is so completely fargone as he watches your ass bounce with each of his rabid thrusts, completely uncaring over whether you're awake or not. “Fuck, you’re my fucking toy,” Jake's a blubbering mess and it only makes you wetter as you slowly blink open your eyes, in the very middle of one of your most prized fantasy’s. Your cunt squeezes around his cock. Your heart hammering in your chest. Your orgasm crests along with his.

You had never thought you'd ever know what a sleepy orgasm would feel like but somehow you knew it would ram through you with way too much intensity.

“You like me deep inside, yeah? You like being split open while you sleep, Bunny? Hm? You're so fucking perfect you know that? So fucking pretty- J need you to have my babies, yeah?” The more he talks, the more it's difficult to pretend to stay asleep. A groggy and tired moan slips out of your mouth while your arousal slips out of your leaking cunt. “You'd like that, wouldn't you? Us having babies.”

Jake's hips stutter against yours. His jaw is locked tight as you clench around him, “F-Fuck you would like that-” It is then that you're starkly aware of the hidden narcissism that this kink bred. Here he was, using you to get off with only himself as the audience. Jake was guiding himself to orgasm with his own dirty words as if he were God and somehow that thought succeeds in bringing you to orgasm.

“Oh God, Jake-”

“You need me to get you pregnant, don't you?” Your head nods almost unconsciously, without the permission of your rational brain and Jake speeds up his fucking into you, as orchestrating a new form of movement. He was always leading you, even when it came to his pleasure.

“Just like that, Bunny,” he always praised you without a second thought…

Jake is working himself to orgasm with short, shallow breaths. His hips lift to thrust into your dripping cunt and in his mind he's about to come to the fact that you really are his toy.

“Fuck, you're gonna make me cum,” he whispers into the side of your head, “Your leaky fucking pussy's going to make me cum, Bunny-”

His orgasm triggers another one of your own and both your legs spasm, locking around him as Jake releases his cum deep inside you. His hand clenched down on your hips, forcing you to take in every single drop until it's forcing itself out of your dripping cunt, trailing down your thigh. After riding the high of his orgasm, Jake looks bright eyed again, like he's gotten rid of something very dark and very oppressive until the sunny Jake Sim was back.

“So good,” he smiles down at you, “You always do so well for me”

✧ Matchy, matchy ; S.J

Pairing: Bf!Jake x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: To be loved is to be known. And you were. And he was, too. You knew him and he knew you, and neither of you would have it any other way.

Warnings: Tooth-rotting fluff, down bad jake, down bad reader, freak: matched (lovingly), abandoned food, kissing, suggestive, gift giving as a love language,

A/n: happy anniversary to my beloved, @karinasbaby . My love for her inspired this, so… comeback?? Possibly. Stay tuned.

In the dimly lit, slightly damp hallway, Jake carefully turned the key in the lock, pushing the door open with the gentlest of nudges to avoid any noise. He slipped inside his apartment, his footsteps silent against the hardwood floor. The soft glow of evening light filtered through the curtains, casting a warmth hue over the room.

He was about to head to your shared bedroom when an enticing aroma caught his attention, causing him to stop mid-step. His heart skipped a beat as he realized the source of the delightful smell was in fact, coming from his kitchen.

Tip-toeing closer, Jake poked his head into the kitchen to the sight of you standing at the stove, your back turned to him. You were humming a soft tune, completely absorbed in your cooking. The sight of you, dressed in one of his old t-shirts, hair loosely tied up, glasses resting on your head, made his heart swell until it almost burst out of his chest. 

Jake’s lips curved into a bright smile as he quietly moved towards you, setting the gift bag down by the wall. Careful not to make a sound, he reached your side and paused for a moment, taking in the scene. The table was set for two, candles ready to be lit, and the counters were adorned with fresh ingredients. Jake recognized the variety on the table and his smile widened. He knew what avocados and limes meant and his stomach rumbled.

Unable to resist any longer, he stepped forward and gently wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you close. You let out a small gasp of surprise, dropping the spoon you were holding as you turned your head to look at him, heart beating rapidly and eyes wide.

“Jake! Oh my gosh,” you exhaled, trying to catch your breath. “You scared me.” The smile that had twisted onto your lips and the sparkle in your shiny eyes told him that he had the same affect on you that you had on him. 

Jake kissed your cheek softly, nuzzling his face into your neck. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, angel.” He did, and she knew it, too. “I just couldn’t resist.” 

You laughed, a sound he was sure the tides pushed towards because you were a celestial being to him, bright and unearthly. If he could bottle your laugh and drink it, have it swim in his veins forever, he would. 

“Well, I missed you and I wanted to surprise you. How was the harbor?” You picked up the spoon once more and stirred the pot of beans and ground meat. Knowing this mood of his, you turned off the stove. 

You wouldn’t be eating anytime soon, anyways. 

“It was okay,” he murmured, tightening his embrace. “Riki fell into the water but it only reached his hips.” He grinned against your skin when you snickered. He could feel your body shake beneath his hands and he pressed himself against you tighter. “I missed you, baby.” 

You turned in his arms, facing him fully. Your eyes met his and you could feel every ounce of stress, every fleeting miscellaneous thought, fade away. His eyes, shiny and sparkling, held yours with nothing but heat and affection. 

Jake swallowed, afraid to blink. He was afraid that if he blinked, you may disappear. It didn’t matter how long he had you, he wanted you for longer. He wanted forever. Eternity, even, if he could ask for it. 

Your eyes glazed over his face, taking him in after not seeing him for a few hours. There was a small smudge of dirt under his right eye and you did the only thing you could do. Holding his chin in place, you licked your thumb and rubbed the dirt off his face. 

Jake stared at you feverishly, eyes on your face; taking in the way you slightly pouted your lips, sticking your tongue out a bit. It was a habit you had learned from him, one he cursed himself for all the time.

“There,” you mumbled to yourself. “All clean.” You dropped your hands to his chest and met his gaze. The warmth in it almost made your legs buckle but his grip held you upright. 

“I love you,” he said. Before you could say anything, he dipped his head towards yours. His lips hovered above your own as he whispered, “I got you something.” 

Your eyes fluttered shut and you tilted your head up, trying to meet his lips but he stayed slightly out of reach, forever teasing you. “Yeah? What’d you get me?”

Jake almost gave in, feeling your warm breath against his lips. He wanted to kiss you until you forgot your name, but he enjoyed this. He enjoyed making you wait, the push and pull.

“It’s a surprise,” he mumbled. “You have to sit on the couch.” His lips briefly, for the lightest of seconds, brushed against yours and you almost whined out his name. 

“Jake,” you exhaled, eyes squeezed shut. Jake loved you like this; all bothered and slightly desperate for him. Usually, he was the one like this, the one on the cusp of begging and asking. When he got you like this, oh, you looked stunning. “Come on,” you tried. “Tell me.” 

Jake simply shook his head, his lips brushing against yours tantalizing. “Gotta wait, angel.” His lips curled upwards at the small noise of frustration you made and he stepped back, hands dropping to his side. He watched with heated eyes as you blinked back into yourself. He loved being the only one to have you like this. 

Before he could take another step back, you grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards you, smashing your lips together. You swallow his slight gasp of surprise and smile against his lips as he melts into it, hands cupping the sides of your face as your lips move harshly against each other. 

Unable to help himself, Jake steps forward and pushes you backwards until your back is flush against the counter. The slight dig makes you gasp in pleasurable pain and he slips his tongue inside your mouth, laying claim to what already belongs to him. He grips the counter, caging you in.

You clutch his shirt, lips moving roughly against his. Jake slots his knee between your legs and the new pressure manages to pull a breathy moan out of you. Jake pulls away, eyes still shut as he tries to catch his breath. There’s a string of saliva that connects your bruised lips and he presses his lips against yours softly, licking your lips clean. 

“Fuck,” he exhales. He opens his eyes and almost groans at the sight of you; breathing deeply, lips red and plump, eyes slightly dazed. You looked almost fucked out and he hasn’t even touched you yet. “Fuck, you’re so perfect.” 

You laughed at his words and slid your hands up to the base of his neck. “So, this gift…” 

Grinning, Jake nipped at your lips before stepping back. “Go sit on the couch, pretty.” He simply shook his head when you frowned at him and he watched you reluctantly walk out of the kitchen and into the living room with eyes filled to the brim with adoration. 

He waited until he heard you fall back onto the couch. Even then, you called out and let him know you were sitting. He was sure his heart was going to burst out his ribs and break through his skin with the amount of love and affection he felt for you. 

Grabbing the small gift bag, Jake made his way to you. When you heard his footsteps, you straightened your back and turned to face him, giving him your utmost attention. Jake often gifted you small, minuscule things, and you loved and appreciated every single thing. It was how he loved, and so you always made sure to focus on him and what his gift was telling you. 

Kneeling down in front of you, he looked up at you as you shifted to the edge of the sofa. You spread your legs a bit and he shuffled between them. His lips twisted and you pinched his nose, immediately seeing the flicker of heat and desire that spread through his eyes. “Don’t even think about it,” you warned. 

“Jokes on you,” he smirked. “I’m always thinking about it.” 

You raised an eyebrow at him and traced the outline of his lips. “Freak.” 

“Matched,” he countered, licking your finger when you pressed it down on his bottom lip. 

You both grinned at each other before he cleared his throat and lifted the gift bag, moving it towards you. Gently, like it was made of gold, which to you, it practically was, you grabbed it and set it down on your thigh. 

Jake watched you curiously as you picked the gift wrapping sheets out of the bag. He stopped breathing momentarily when you reached into the bag and pulled out a small, coffee coloured teddy bear plushie. 

His eyes, which could never and would never stray from you, focused on your expression; the way your eyes widened in surprise and then fondness, the way your small smile twisted into a wide grin before your lips parted in content. He watched as your eyebrows raised in surprise, the way your eyes crinkled. 

You looked so happy, so adorable as you gently patted the bear's head. Lost in the gift, you barely noticed Jake’s warm gaze and the way he shuffled forward, resting his cheek against your other thigh. He was more than pleased with staring at you like this forever. 

“Jake,” you whispered, pulling him out of his staring. He blinked and lifted his head, shaking the hair out of his face. With one hand, you held the bear tightly. With the other, you brushed his hair out his face, smiling a little wobbly. “I love him. What’s the special occasion?” 

Jake shrugged, slightly overcome with emotion. He didn’t think he would be, but you had that effect on him. “It’s uh, well,” he licked his lips. “I saw him at the harbor and thought of you. I knew I had to win it for you.” 

You stared at him, eyes widening at his words before you bit your bottom lip. You glanced at the bear in your hands and let out a quiet chuckle. At the sound, Jake looked back at you, eyes sparkling. 

“Jake,” you sighed. You leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. His eyes shut automatically and he breathed out in content. “This is actually really funny,” you murmured against his skin. 

“Hm?”

Pulling away, you set the bear down beside you and tapped his head twice. He opened his eyes and frowned in confusion when you motioned for him to move. Looking like a kicked puppy, he shuffled backwards and gave you enough space to get up. 

From the carpet, he watched you as you walked to the breakfast table. You pulled a chair back and grabbed something he couldn’t see. Hiding the item from his sight, you turned to face him. There was a twinkle in your eye, one he loved to see but didn’t understand. 

“Sit up on the couch for me, baby.” You motioned him to get up with your head and like the obedient boyfriend he was, he pushed himself off the carpet and fell back onto the sofa. 

Satisfied, you walked towards him, hiding the item behind your back. Jake tried to glance around you but with one look, he sulked into the couch, crossing his arms. Tsking, you sank to your knees and he immediately spread his legs. 

Your eyes traveled from his thighs up to his eyes and his eyes crinkled in amusement, an arrogant smirk ghosting on his lips. “Thinking about it, aren’t you, angel?”

You licked your lips, trying to focus on the present in your hands. “Don’t be freaky right now, Jake. We’re trying to be sentimental.” 

“So you are thinking about it,” he mused, spreading his legs further. You blinked and tried to ignore his tactics. It wasn’t even your fault really, not when his feelings and excitement were practically staring right in the face. 

Clearing your throat, you pinched his thigh to get his mind out of the gutter. Once the lust in his eyes died down a bit, you smiled bashfully at him. 

“What’re you hiding, angel? What’s in your hand?” He tried to hide the curiosity in his voice but you caught it. Because, while he liked to give you things, you also liked to give him things. Despite his calm demeanor, you knew he was always excited. Just like you were. 

Gosh, the stars really did love you both. 

“Well,” you started. “It’s funny that you got me that bear because I…” When your explanation fell short, you brought the bear in your hand towards Jake, handing it to him. He stared at the chocolate covered teddy bear in pure astonishment, almost like it couldn’t be real. 

You shuffled forward, resting your hand on his thigh. Rubbing small circles on his skin, you tried to ground him. Despite getting small gifts from you all the time, he took them each to heart. You wondered when he would accept the love he deserved. 

With a gentleness that made your stomach tingle, he held the bear carefully in his hand. It was small in his hands, but the weight of it felt almost overwhelming. You watched as his eyes glistened with something adoring, the way his lips parted prettily, curving into a smile so bright and beautiful it could have blinded you. 

“Angel,” his voice was hoarse with emotion, “why did you… how?” With soft, featherlike fingers, he caressed the bear as if it was your skin. His eyes were filled with wonder and if you could have captured this moment in its exactness, you would have lived in it. 

“I saw it the other day while I was shopping. It reminded me of you so I bought it.” 

Your words snapped something in him and he set the bear down, eyes ablaze. You barely got enough time to look at him before he scooped you into his arms and set you in his lap. Blinking, you stared at him, dumbfounded. 

With your legs on either side of him, you shuffled a bit closer until you were comfortable. Then, you wrapped your arms around his neck and pressed yourself against his chest, his hands wrapping around your waist. 

“Hi,” you whispered. 

His lips wobbled and he brushed his nose against yours. “Hi, angel.” 

“So, do you like the bear I got you?” 

Pressing a kiss to your jaw, he nodded. “I love it so much. So, so, much. I can’t believe we got matching plushies accidentally.” 

You laughed and kissed the edge of his smile, wanting to bask in it forever. “We match each other's freaks so well. We’re practically soulmates at this point.” 

Pulling away, he gripped your chin between his thumb and forefinger. “The fuck you mean practically? We are soulmates. I’m marrying you. We’re going to die together and be buried together in one casket.” 

“Oh.” You grinned at him. “Okay, baby. Whatever you say.” 

He tiled your head upwards and pressed a soft kiss to your lips. Then, he grabbed both of the bears and handed you yours while he kept his close to his chest. “What are you naming him?” 

You hummed in thought and stared at the bear in your hand. Naming your plushies was important to you. Names were important, and they had to be meaningful. Jake shouldn’t have been so turned on while watching you think of a name for a plushie, but he was. He knew you could feel it, but, having your priorities straight, you ignored him. 

“I kind of like Buoy.” 

Jake blinked at you before he softly laughed, amazed at your naming ability. “Buoy?” 

“Yeah, Buoy. Named after that slightly orange buoy by the harbor. That, and you’re my anchor. Always keeping me afloat and all.” 

Jake wasn’t a crier, but the amount of times he had almost burst into years tonight had hit a new record. Trying to swallow the emotion that bubbled in his throat, he rested his head against your chest, hiding in your embrace. You laughed at his antics and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. 

“What about you? What are you naming her?” 

Jake lifted his head and the look in his eyes made you hold your breath. You could feel every single vein in your body vibrate and you knew you were in for a long night. 

“I’m naming her Quesadilla.” The seriousness in his voice threw you off and you weren’t sure if you should laugh or clap him on the back. Instead, you simply raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Why Quesadilla?” 

“I’m naming her that in honour of the quesadillas we won’t be eating tonight.” 

“What are you–” You were cut off by Jake tightening his grip on you and flipping you over. A surprised laugh escaped your lips as you found yourself lying beneath him on the couch, his body hovering over yours.

You weren’t sure where your bears had gone, but that was the least of your worries. Jake leaned down, his face inches from yours, eyes locked onto yours with an intensity that made your heart beat in your ears.  “I’m only hungry for you tonight, pretty girl.” His lips hovered above your own and your throat went dry. 

You reached up, your hand cupping his cheek as you smiled up at him. “Have me then, Jake.” 

Jake’s expression softened and he closed the distance between you, pressing a tender kiss to your lips. It was a simple tease, a highlight as to how the night was going to go, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

You would, after all, have your fun after he had his. 

this was so good! <3

₍ 📢 ₎ FROM , JAKE ! SHOUT OUT , EP1

SUMMARY. Jake remembers when he first had to leave South Korea: he was young, attached, and not ready to let go of everything he knew. But eventually, he did. And he was starting to make peace with it — until he had to move back. All of a sudden, the place he thought as his home feels unfamiliar. But you? The girl who reached a hand out to him when he needed one the most? You were… familiar. More than you could ever realise. You reminded him of home.

OR  ;  the one where transfer student!jake looks sad and lonely, so classmate!reader invites him to sit with you at lunch — only for him to end up following you around everywhere like a lost puppy. but, hey — he’s cute.

starring ‣ transfer student!jake x classmate!reader

warnings ‣ minor injury, mentions of parental neglect , divorce, bittersweet ending

word count ‣ ~16k (help this is so long 😭)

notes ‣ wheeeeee so here goes the first official chapter of shout out aka the one that some people have already kinda read before during the tfw series — and is somewhat similar, but also different? idk… but the way it took me so long 😭 sorry for the wait guys — the urge to delete only seconds before posting is unbelievable 😭 perfectionism sucks ☹️ ( divider below by cafekitsune )

• RECORDING STARTED •

“Hi, it’s Jake here…” Looking into the lense of the camera, Jake let out an awkward laugh. “Sorry, was that weird?”

As he was lying on his stomach, the camera positioned at the head of the bed, he repositioned himself so that he was being propped up by his elbows. Jake sighed.

“Anyway, this is kind of awkward because I don’t really know what to do. I don’t think I ever filmed myself talking before… You were always there when I needed someone to talk to…”

Jake bit his lip, his eyes distant for a moment. Seconds passed before he sighed and shook his head, running a hand through his hair.

“But since you can’t be here at the moment, I guess I’ll have to suck it up, huh?” Jake laughed. “If you didn’t know, we’re all filming a short video about all the important moments in our life, after meeting you… All the reasons why we care…”

A tired sigh passed Jake’s lips.

“But if I’m being honest, it’s not really as easy as it sounds. There’s too many things I want to say to you…”

Jake’s room was silent.

“But I guess I should start from the beginning though, right? Hey — do you remember when we first met? I guess it’s kinda different depending on where you start…”

He smiled, his eyes sparkling with mischief. Like he were hiding a secret that he couldn’t wait to share.

“But I guess we should go of our first official meeting, right? So let’s say it was summer…”

IT WAS SUMMER.

The air was humid and the scorching heat of the sun caused everyone to walk around in a constant state of perspiration and chronic cravings for cold ice water. In this heat, the last thing anyone wanted to be doing was running laps around the field — and yet, you found yourself doing exactly that.

Apparently, being late — even if by a mere five minutes — was unforgivable. And while it was only the first day back to school, not even you were spared from the harsh punishment of the teacher on ‘straggler duty’, who caught you trying to enter the school by climbing over the side gate. Not your brightest idea, since it just made your punishment worse. But at the time, it was ingenious.

Rather than kneeling by the gates with your arms up like the rest of the girls, you were given the special treatment: one lap around the field.

So now you were dragging yourself to walk the last stretch of your punishment, your forehead and uniform drenched in sweat, and your carefully styled hair being forced back into a shabby pony tail to keep it from sticking to your forehead. That time spent in the morning trying to make you look presentable, and it had all gone up in flames.

It wasn’t even eight-o’clock yet.

“Oh, sweet mercy!” You almost fell to your knees when you completed your lap, the sudden urge to kiss the earth washing over you like the heat waves emanating from the sun. “Finished!”

You stood there, panting, with your hands on your hips and your head tilted towards the sky. You groaned.

I want to go home… You shook your head. No— it’s only the first day! You checked the watch on your wrist. It hasn’t even been an hour yet!

You sighed in frustration before letting your arms gall to your side. This was it. You couldn’t take it anymore. You were going to collapse at any moment.

You looked towards your bag — which you left at the bleachers before commencing your lap — and immediately caught sight of your water bottle. Your wonderful water bottle, filled to the brim with cold water you took straight out of the refrigerator this morning. Without wasting any more time, you immediately made your way over.

To your surprise, there was someone else already there.

“Oh—“ you stopped on your steps and lifted a hand to shield your eyes, which squinted to get a better look at the figure in the distance. “What’s that?”

From what you observed it was a member of the male species — teenaged, considering he was wearing the boys’ uniform. He was sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, his fingers intertwined as he hung his head. His leg was bouncing as if ants were crawling up his pants. From the looks of it, he wasn’t aware that your bag was under the bench he was on. 

In fact, he didn’t seem aware of much other than his own nerves.

Is he okay? you thought worriedly.

Considering he wasn’t even being forced to do push-ups like the other boys who had been caught late, you didn’t really know why he looked so anxious. You had an unnerving urge to check on him. So you did.

“Excuse me…”

When you got to him, you hesitantly stood the tiniest bit closer to him, in hopes that you could gently break him out of his nervous stump. You didn’t expect you to be the one stunned.

As soon as he lifted his head, you found yourself at a loss for words. Dark brown hair, a pair of wide eyes and a plump pair of lips caught you off guard. As they looked up at you, you unconsciously swallowed — thought you weren’t sure if it was because of the heat. 

Damn, you thought. He’s cute!

You quickly averted your gaze slightly to hide the flusteredness in your actions. You cleared your throat.

“Can I sit here?”

For a moment, there was silence. You stared at him. He stared back. Neither of you said a word, until he suddenly cleared his throat into his fist, a tinge of red appearing beneath his hands that went unseen by you due to the way the sun bounced off his dewy skin.

“Y-yeah, sure,” he stuttered out.

He subtly shifted to leave room for you — even though the entire bench was free.

“Thanks.”

You gratefully took the promised seat. You bent down to grab your bag and pull it out from under your seat, taking your water bottle out from the side. The boy next to you noticed and made a small noise. You turned to him questioningly.

He smiled, the sight of it instantly sending warmth to your cheeks.

“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t realise your bag was there.”

You laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s not like it was in plain sight, anyway.” You took a sip of your water, savouring the coolness of it as it soothed your parched throat. You gulped the last bit you could swallow before turning to him. “By the way— why are you sitting here? The orientation started a while ago.”

It wasn’t unusual for students to skip out on those, considering it was practically useless formalities anyway. But there were way better places to do that than sitting under the blazing sun.

Also, the guy just didn’t strike you as the type to skip anything. In fact, you’d say he looked like the textbook definition of the ‘loser nerd’ archetype, with his immaculate uniform and neatly parted hair — though you’ve yet to meet anyone who fit in the stereotype so well, and yet manage to still look good in the process the same way he did.

The boy laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Ah, that…” He bit his lip as he lowered his gaze. “I got lost.”

You blinked. “Eh?”

The boy laughed at your confused expression. “I’m new,” he explained. “This is my first day here.”

“Ohhhhhhh…” 

You nodded at his explanation. It made sense. If anything, it would have been more surprising if you found out that he had been here this whole time and you’d never noticed him before — because someone like him would definitely catch attention.

At the same time, though, you felt your heart clench.

So he was sitting here alone all this time… You frowned at the thought of him drowning in his worries by himself. But upon seeing his eyes on you, you quickly fixed your expression. The last thing you wanted was to make him feel like you were pitying him. Guess there’s nothing to it, then.

You smiled.

“Well, in that case, why don’t I show you the way?” The boy blinked as you introduced yourself. “My name is [______].”

The boy’s eyes widened, his lips parting slightly in shock. For a second, you noticed his eyes flickered down to your blazer, where your name badge was sitting, proudly displaying your name: Yu [_____].

“Oh, right…”

To your surprise, the boy didn’t seem all that bothered by the awkwardness in your laugh. He simply smiled.

“I’m Jake,” he said.

You blinked, surprised by the foreign name. Your eyes subconsciously drifted to his name badge. And there it was. His name.

Jake Sim, huh?

A ray of sunlight fell over the two of you.

“What classes do you have?”

You sipped on more of your water as you and Jake walked side by side into the school. The boy opened his school-issued diary to reveal his timetable, before giving it to you to take a look. You let your eyez scan the paper, a feeling of wonder washing over you as you saw the classes he was in.

“Woah,” you said in amazement, “you have almost all the same classes as me!”

Jake’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

You nodded. “Yeah. The only class we don’t share is sports — but that’s because I do general P.E.” You smiled as you handed his timetable back. “So you’re into soccer, huh?”

Jake laughed as he put his timetable back into his back. “Yeah. Been playing it since I was little.”

“Really?” you asked. “You must be good at it, then.”

Jay smiled bashfully. He bit his lip, before shaking his head, as if he was thinking of saying something before ultimately deciding not to go ahead with it.

“How about you?” he asked. “Do you play any sport?”

The two of you fell into easy conversation as you walked down the hall to your first class of the day— homeroom. You found it funny how easily the two of you got along. Despite your first impression of him being someone shy, he had no problem engaging you in small talk. 

“So you moved to Australia a few years ago and now you’re back, huh?” you tilted your head. “How’s it going for you, so far? It must be tough moving away from the place you grew up.”

“It was,” Jake agreed. He nodded before turning to you with a smile. “But… I think it’s good so far.”

You blinked, raising your eyebrows in surprise. Laughing, you turned to face forward, not wanting to give away how flustered you were at that — probably too flustered than you should have been, if the giddy feeling in your chest was nothing to go off.

Damn you for being cute, you thought.

“Anyway!” you cleared your throat as you stopped outside a class. “Here’s our first class of the day.”

You smiled brightly as the two of you made it to the classroom you’d be spending home room in for the rest of the year together. With a small flourish, you presented the door.

“This is probably the most chill class you’ll get. And Mr Boo is a cool teacher.” You opened the door, allowing yourself to turn your back to Jake for the first time. “You’re really lucky, you know?”

Jake smiled.

“I guess I am.”

“I really was a lucky one, huh?” Jake chuckled fondly, smiling as he recalled the memory of your first meeting. A few seconds passed in silence before he let out a defeated sigh. “I wish I could give some of that luck back to you…”

He frowned. “I don’t think you know just how grateful I was to you that day. You were my first friend here in Korea… You don’t know just how happy I was to meet you.”

Jake laughed.

The boy bit his lip to hold back a smile, running a hand through his hair. “Is it weird that I was super happy when when we first had lunch together…”

“WANT TO HAVE LUNCH TOGETHER?”

Jake’s head snapped towards you in shock as you casually packed your things away from next to him. You two had the first two classes of the day together, and for convenience sake, the teacher had paired you up with Jake as deskmate buddies, seeing as you already knew each other.

You had originally planned to find your best friend (whom you had wanted to meet up with as soon as you could), but you felt for the transfer student who had no one.

“Really?” Jake’s eyes widened. 

You knew he hadn’t gotten the chance to familiarise himself with many of his other classmates yet, considering he had been stuck to your side, so it only seemed right that you — as his unofficial guide — hung around to keep him company for now. (You had no doubt that once he met his fellow members of the soccer team, he would have no problem fitting in.)

You hummed in affirmation. “Come on! We should get going — the line has probably calmed down by now. But once the sports teams make it from the field, it won’t be as calm.”

Nodding towards the door, you headed to join the rest of the crowd of students making their way to the cafeteria. Jake smiled as he eagerly followed behind you like a puppy after its favourite person. (You held back a giggle at your analogy — it was a perfect reflection of the boy’s personality from what you knew of him so far.)

On the way to the cafeteria, you couldn’t help but notice the effect he left in his trail – all the admiring looks and girlish giggles from any female student you walked past, and the way they would push and squeal at each other when Jake spared them his handsome smile. You chuckled quietly to yourself when this happened. You didn’t know whether he had subjected your peers to his charms on purpose, or if he was oblivious to his effect on them. But for now, you decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Once the two of you arrived at the cafeteria, you got your food and found a table for yourselves in the quiet corner. Just the two of you and your lunch, enjoying each other’s company as you made small conversation.

“You have a dog?” you asked with interest.

Jake nodded as she proudly showed off his lock screen, where the said dog was on display. He looked like a child showing off his favourite toy, and you couldn’t help but smile as he introduced you to his friend.

“Her name is Layla. Isn’t she cute?”

You nodded enthusiastically. “She’s cute.” Jake smiled even brighter at your response watching as you admired his pride and joy. At that moment, you had a sudden realisation. Tilting your head, you said, “Wait– her name is Layla?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied.

You smiled. “I used to have a dog plush named Layla… It was my favourite toy when I was little; I carried it everywhere with me.”

You sighed wistfully.

It had been a while since you held that toy in your hands: When you were little, you had given it away. Ever since then, you never saw it again. To this day, you still wondered what had happened to it, if the child you gave it to cherished it like you had; if it was stored away somewhere safe as a precious memory of their childhood, or if it had already served its purpose and was drowning in a mountain of trash at the landfill by now.

Oh well. Whatever happened to it, it was out of your hands now.

“Really? What a coincidence,” Jake said with a bright smile. For some reason, your little revelation seemed to please him. “Layla’s in Australia at the moment with my mum, but I want to bring her back with me after the next time I visit.”

You stored away the fact that Jake inadvertently revealed he wasn’t living with his mother, and decided not to bring it up out of respect for his privacy. So, instead, you simply said, “If you do, invite me over – I’d love to meet her.”

Of course, you didn’t really expect Jake to do such a thing. After all, the two of you had only just met – it wasn’t as if you would remain close friends just because you were the first to welcome him into the school. He had the makings of someone who would be very popular among your peers. He would have no shortage of people wanting to befriend him.

But to your surprise, Jake agreed. And he was nothing but sincere as he went along with your suggestion.

“Sure, thing!” he replied. “I have a feeling she’ll like you a lot. She’s a good judge of character.”

You let the subtle compliment that Jake gave you warm your insides before promptly brushing over it with a small clear of your throat. You looked down at your tray of food and dug into it with your spoon. However, as you took a bite of it, you found Jake’s eyes on you.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” you asked awkwardly. You never really knew what the proper response was to someone watching you eat...

Jake laughed before shaking his head. He looked down at his tray and followed your example, before letting out a hum of delight. “It’s good!”

You blinked before letting out a laugh. “I’m glad. Eat up.”

For his sake, you decided not to point out the fact that he had only eaten a spoonful of rice.

After eating lunch, it unfortunately came time for the two of you to separate. As you had already pointed out before, the two of you were in different classes for sport – which coincidentally happened to be what you had next. So, as the two of you returned your trays, you got ready to bid Jake good luck as he prepared to meet new people.

“WHAT?!” Your best friend Yunjin screamed as soon as you told her the news. “So you’re telling me that while I was stuck making posters in a hot ass classroom with broken air conditioning, you went and hit it off with some cute new guy AND had lunch with him?!”

You laughed as Yunjin flopped on the bleachers at the basketball court, where you were waiting for your PE teacher to show up for class. It had been almost ten minutes since you had all changed into your sports uniform, obediently sitting under a fan that did nothing but blow hot air into your faces, but no sign of him showed up. So, you made use of the time to tell Yunjin about your eventful morning without her.

“When can I get your luck with guys?” Yunjin whined. “The only guys who approach me today are ones from the student council who have a problem with my hair colour, and Beomgyu–” (You laughed at the disgust with which Yunjin spoke of the boy who she had been having a petty rivalry with since middle school.) “—who kept telling me I look like I have no eyebrows.”

“You know he’s just trying to annoy you, like always,” you reassured. “You look hot. Trust me.”

“Awwwwww.” Yunjin hugged your side and leaned her head on your shoulder. “Thanks, babe. You’re hotter, though.”

You laughed and leaned your head onto hers. The two of you remained like that for a while before Yunjin sighed and sat up straight.

Five minutes later, your PE teacher came rushing into the gymnasium with an apology for having been held up and began your lesson. The time passed by faster than you thought it would, and sooner than later you found yourself walking towards your final class of the day. There, a familiar face was ready to greet you with a wave.

You smiled as you walked up to Jake. “Hey! How was class?”

Jake immediately told you all the good news about his class, causing you to smile. By the time the teacher walked in to begin the next class, you were already too deep in conversation that you didn’t want to stop. Thankfully, class ended just as quickly as PE, and you found yourself walking away with Jake by your side, talking animatedly about all things until you had to part ways.

Unexpectedly, Jake seemed to like you more than you would have guessed. Because before you could say goodbye, he asked you for a way to keep in contact with you personally.

“You just seem really cool, and you’re my first friend here…” Jake shyly rubbed the back of his neck as he looked down at his feet. “Plus, we share the majority of the same classes, so I thought…”

Now, you weren’t usually the type to give away your contact details so easily. But for some reason, you had a strange feeling that you could trust Jake. Maybe it was the purity of his smile, or the way his eyes that were filled with mellowed warmth that could put hot cocoa on a winter day to shame – whatever it was, you were drawn to it.

So, you smiled.

“Okay!” you said.

The affirmation caused a rush of joy to reveal itself on Jake’s face; a child-like happiness, much like a young boy who had met his hero in flesh. And that day, you went to meet Yunjin with the most innocent heartthrob you’ve ever met just a tad bit closer than before.

Jake laughed fondly at the memory. “You really made me nervous. Did you know? My heart was racing so fast when I asked for your number — I was so happy you said yes.”

Jake smiled as he ran a hand through his hair. After a short moment of silence, he began to laugh again, resting his chin on his fist as his eyes became full of mirth.

“Some of my happiest moments were when I was talking to you. Whether it was in person, or on the phone, I always felt so much better. Did you know that?” Jake smiled. “You probably didn’t… You were kinda dense like that. I don’t even know if you knew how I felt about you even after all the hints I dropped.”

Jake started to chuckle quietly at himself at his own little inside joke. “What an idiot… You couldn’t even see that I wanted to be more than friends with you…”

As soon as that sentence left his mouth, Jake suddenly perked up, looking like a puppy that had just caught sight of a new stuffed toy.

“Actually, now that I think about it— I’m curious: After meeting me, when did you first consider me a friend?”

IF ANYONE WERE TO ASK HOW YOU BECAME SUCH GOOD FRIENDS WITH JAKE SIM, your genuine reply would be, “I have no idea.” Because you really didn’t.

It had been a month or so since his first day at school, and just as you thought, he fit in very nicely with the population that it was almost hard to believe he was once a transfer student with no friends. And yet, even so, you were surprised to find that he didn’t lose contact with you. In fact, if anything, you only managed to get closer.

It had started out with a simple series of texts between the two of you after exchanging contact details. Surprisingly enough, he had been the one to reach out first. And after a month of casual texting, it had now become a routine where by the time you had gotten out of the shower, you would find a text notification with his name on it.

Today was one such day.

Jake: Hey, did you get home safely?

Subconsciously smiling to yourself, you found yourself typing back a quick reply. 

You: hey! You: how was training?

You knew that he had after-school soccer practice that afternoon. And judging by the time, it was likely he had just finished. Which was why it was even more surprising that he had texted you: Wouldn’t he have been too tired?

Jake: It was pretty good thanks Jake: Got in a few goals and got complimented by the coach

You giggled. You positioned yourself comfortable on your bed, lying on your stomach and using your pillow to prop you up as you typed back a response.

You: what a humble brag 😆 You: but good job

It didn’t even take a second for Jake to send back a reply.

Jake: Thanks 😁 Jake: How about you? How was practice?

One of the things Jake had gotten to know about you was that you were part of the school’s street dance club. Something which had him in absolute awe when you first told him. You’d never forget the look in his eyes that day, as if the stars themselves made a home in the dark — but clear — depths of his eyes.

You: it was pretty good You: got the choreo down pat and even got a few compliments from my crew members

Your school’s dance club was set to perform at the upcoming school art festival. So, you were all diligently practising your choreography to make sure you were as close to perfect as humanly possible. And you just happened to be very dedicated to your passions.

Jake: What a humble brag

You laughed at Jake’s use of your own words.

You: anyway did you get hurt at all during practice??

You had gotten into the habit of checking if he was okay whenever you got the chance. As a dancer who had to take care of their body, you often had the habit of doing it to others. Since Jake was an athlete (in a contact sport, nonetheless), his chances of injury were higher than the average person. So, you made sure to take special note of his health too, as a good friend would. 

Especially after what happened before.

It was on a seemingly uneventful day that didn’t quite go as planned. Exactly two weeks after Jake’s first day at Hybe High, your PE teacher suddenly had to leave halfway through the lesson. Your poor teacher had been feeling ill and wasn’t in the best condition to teach, leaving his class — including you — in dire circumstances.

Because unfortunately for you, the person left to take care of your class for the remaining half of the lesson was none other than the soccer team’s coach. None other than Coach Son, who was infamous for his high standards, harsh words, and short temper. And who — coincidentally enough — had been the one to punish you with the lap around the field on the first day of the semester.

“Shoot—!”

You ducked behind Yunjin as soon as Coach Son’s intimidating presence made itself known at the indoor basket courts, which suddenly seemed a lot smaller now that he was there.

Thankfully, though, he didn’t even seem to notice you as he started snapping at your classmates to pack your other things. He immediately turned his back as soon as everyone had their bags in hand and led you like a lost herd of sheep towards the soccer field. He didn’t look over his shoulder once. Nor did he say anything to your class other than a curt, “Hurry up!” when you were supposedly too slow for his liking.

“How is someone still walking so fast at his age?” You whispered quietly to Yunjin. (Since the two of you were at the back of the group per your request, you didn’t fear being heard.) “I swear he’s the same age as my great aunt — and she can’t go more than five metres without complaining about the pain in her knees.”

“I know, right?” Yunjin then tilted her head as she pondered something. “But don’t you get back pain sometimes?”

Your head whipped towards Yunjin in offence. “I’m a dancer — back pain is normal!”

Yunjin hummed non-committedly. “Sure thing, old lady.”

You playfully shoved Yunjin as the two of you erupted into boisterous laughter. But apparently, being happy was a crime, because not even a second later, Coach Son snapped, “The ones laughing at the back — keep it up and you’re running two laps around the field.”

You and Yunjin promptly shut up.

When your class arrived at the soccer field, all of you stopped for a moment to admire the players of the soccer team. It seemed that, in his absence, Coach Son had committed them to doing drills while they awaited his return. And while you weren’t sure if they were doing those drills for the entirety of the time Coach Son had been gone, you could say for sure that you were thoroughly impressed by the discipline and organisation in the team.

Some were dribbling a ball around cones set out on the field, some were juggling the ball with their foot, and others were shooting goals with fellow teammates as goalkeepers. None of them were idle — they only stopped a few moments to take breathers and get a drink of water, before getting right back into it.

“Take your stuff and find something to do,” Coach Son instructed, breaking your classmates out of their daze. “I don’t care what it is— just don’t waste time or get in the way of my boys’ training.”

With that, he set off to start yelling orders at his team. And honestly, you weren’t even offended at his lack of attention for you and your classmates— in fact, you welcomed it completely. So, without wasting another second, you and Yunjin made a run for the bleachers, securing the shadiest spots so you wouldn’t have to roast in the sun.

“Wait, isn’t that your best friend?” Yunjin asked, causing you to furrow your eyebrows in confusion.

“Who?”

Yunjin nodded towards the field. “There. Number 5. The one standing there looking hella fine.”

At that exact moment, your eyes landed on an all-too familiar figure. And just like Yunjin said, he was looking far too good to be allowed.

Jake stood there in the sun, the rays illuminating his face in a golden halo of warmth. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of his face, dampening his hair, which he had run a hand through to keep from sticking to his forehead. Your eyes subconsciously followed the movement of his hands as they brushed through the strands, only for your eyes to almost pop out of their sockets with his next move.

Before you could recover from your stupor, Jake lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead. And in the process, he had revealed his toned abdominal muscles, which could have only been produced through the shedding of blood, sweat and tears.

You would be lying if you said it wasn’t the most attractive thing you’d ever seen. Anyone with a pair of eyes would agree that Jake Sim was one fine specimen. In fact, you probably would have continued unashamedly staring like an idiot if it weren’t for the loud screams of the girls in your class, who happened to witness the same sight that you did.

Jake jumped in place, his head turning toward the group of girls to your right with wide eyes. He had been so immersed in his own world he hadn’t even noticed your class there — but when he did, he had a look of a startled animal, who had come across humans for the first time. You could briefly make out a, “That startled me!” from the movement of his lips, causing you to bubble with amusement.

You laughed at his reaction, filing it away for later. At that exact moment, when you were smiling at his surprise, his head suddenly turned towards you. You felt your heart skip a beat from the sudden eye contact, and you were unsure of what to do. But before you could even debate it, Jake’s face had broken out into a wide, eager smile, and had lifted one of his hands to greet you in an enthusiastic wave.

From the corner of your eye, you could see the envious stares of the girls beside you for having received his attention so easily. But you ignored them.

You shook your head, laughing. But even so, you waved back. Seeing your wave, Jake became brighter than before — if that was even possible. And anyone with an eye for skill could tell his performance increased triple fold since noticing your presence. You admired the easiness in which he dribbled the ball, and the smoothness at which he glided across the field while dodging obstacles in the way. Not to mention, the wind blowing his hair back from his face, and the way he casually shot a goal as if it were the easiest thing in the world. 

“What a show off…” You mumbled to yourself, watching as Jake looked at you after scoring a goal, before joining his teammates in a congratulatory cheer. But even so, you couldn’t help but smile. “He’s kinda cool, though.”

Yunjin gave you a knowing look. But you missed it.

The two of you eventually decided to do some productive work and got working on the homework you had for the next class. You should have started earlier — but procrastination had been a bane to all students’ existence since the establishment of homework as a concept.

When you had finally finished, you stood to go to the bathroom before the final fifteen minutes of the lesson, where everyone would be rushing in to get changed out of their sports uniform. But unfortunately for you, you needed to pass by the file to get to it — which wouldn’t be the problem if it weren’t for the fact that someone had kicked a stray ball at that exact moment. One that was heading straight towards you.

“Watch out!” Someone yelled out to you.

You couldn’t even register what was happening until it already happened. One second, a ball was flying right towards your face, causing you to bring your sled uo reflexively in defence; the next, you were being pushed out of the way, and then falling to the floor, only to land with an “oomph”.

Only, the “oomph” didn’t come from you. It came from Jake, who had somehow cushioned your fall. It seemed that Jake was the one to push you out of harm’s way to save you from the ball that almost hit you in the face — the one which now lay forgotten a few feet away — and had used himself as a safety mat to ensure you didn’t fall to the ground too harshly.

You didn’t even know what to make of it. You knew he was a nice guy. You witnessed him helping teachers carry boxes, explaining homework to your confused classmates, and even willfully sharing his snacks with whoever was in the vicinity). But not to this extent. Not to the point where he would willingly put himself in harm’s way to keep you safe.

You gasped as you noticed his wince, immediately lifting yourself off of him — only to be stopped by his hand on your wrist. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking up at you with concern written all over his face.

“Am I okay—?!” You couldn’t even form words at the absurdity of his question. “You’re the one who's on the floor— I should be asking you that!”

Jake shook his head as he slowly sat up. “I’m okay— Ah!”

Your eyes widened as Jake winced.

“Hey, are you okay?!” You asked. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?!”

By now, your voice was shaking with panic, your eyes almost tearing up. You wouldn’t have forgiven yourself if he had gotten an injury because of you. But somehow, Jake didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He only offered you a warm, reassuring smile.

“I’m okay as long as you’re okay.”

You frowned. How did that make any sense? You barely knew him. Why would he care so much about your safety?

Before you could find anything to say, Jake’s teammates and his coach rushed over to check on him. You watched as the coach gave Jake’s wrist an inspection and shook his head. “It’s okay, just a light sprain from when you landed on it. Go get some ice from the nurse— don’t worry about the rest of practice.”

If Jake had any complaints about missing out on practice, he didn’t voice them.

“You.” You jolted slightly when Coach Son turned his gaze to you. “Since he was trying to help you, the least you can do is take him to the nurse’s office.”

You didn’t even have the heart to argue. You nodded your head obediently. You got to your feet while slowly helping Jake up from the floor by holding onto his arm. You didn’t dare look at him as you led him towards the nurse’s office, overwhelmed by guilt and shame.

Why didn’t I look where I was going? you scolded yourself internally. Idiot…

“We’re here,” you said as you arrived at the door of the nurse’s office. “Excuse me!”

You slowly opened the door, before peeking through the gap, only to find it was completely empty. It seemed the nurse was out on break, leaving the two of you to your own accord. Fortunately, you were quite familiar with the layout of the infirmary considering your own visits to it in the past. So, you quickly ordered Jake to take a seat on one of the beds as you went to the fridge.

You grabbed one of the instant ice packs inside the freezer compartment and wrapped it in a clean towel lying nearby. After breaking it, you held your empty hand out to Jake.

“Here,” you said softly. “Pass me your wrist.”

Jake blinked up at you, his expression unreadable. But he followed your order and handed you his wrist. Your eyebrows furrowed as you observed the red and swollen state of it. Sighing, you gently placed the ice pack on top of it, hoping that the coolness of it would be effective in remedying it.

“I’m sorry.” Your eyes were still trained in Jake’s wrist. “I should have watched where I was going…”

It was one thing if you got hurt. But it was a completely different matter if someone else got hurt in your stead.

Jake shook his head. “Don’t be. I chose to jump in — you couldn’t have known I would do that. If anything, it was my fault for not breaking my fall properly.”

You huffed in indignant. “Seriously— why are you taking responsibility for that?” You asked incredulously. “If I got hurt, it would have been fine. A bleeding nose would heal way faster than your sprained wrist, anyway. Plus, the soccer team has a match next week: What will you do if you can’t play?”

You didn’t mean to scold the boy. After all, he had gotten hurt because of your mistake. But even so, Jake didn’t take any offence to it. In fact, he could only smile that same cheerful smile that had grown on you faster than you could ever have anticipated.

“So you’re saying I should have just done nothing?”

You glared weakly at Jake. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Jake chuckled. “You know— you remind me a lot of someone I knew.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Jake nodded with a fond smile on his face. “When I was little I hurt myself and this little girl I knew at the time told me off.” Jake laughed as he recalled the memory. “I think she called me an ‘idiot’, actually.”

“And she’s right,” you said. “You shouldn’t throw yourself into harm’s way like that. Idiot.”

Jake laughed at your jab.

“Sorry, but no can do. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I let you get hurt, would I?”

You were silent as you stared at Jake. He looked up at you with sparkling eyes. Despite yourself, you couldn’t help but smile. “What makes you think we’re friends?” you teased.

Jake pouted. “Hey! Even if you didn’t consider us friends before, surely we’re friends now, right?”

You hummed thoughtfully. “Are we? I don’t know…”

“Naurrrrrr,” Jake whined. “Don’t do that.”

You laughed brightly at the sudden English, along with Jake’s obvious Australian accent.

“‘Naurrrrrr,’” you imitated.

Jake burst out into joyous laughter. A small silence fell over the two of you as you stood in the infirmary, surrounded by empty beds and being cooled by the breeze coming from the air conditioning.

But your face had all of a sudden become hotter than when you were outside in the blazing sun, when Jake had suddenly said, with a genuine grin on his face, “That was cute.”

You froze in shock at the sudden compliment, causing Jake’s face to light up with joy.

“Here.” You suddenly shoved the ice packet towards Jake. “You’re fine enough to joke around, so you can ice your own wrist.”

Jake didn’t complain, only smiling at you, his eyes never leaving your figure as you busied yourself with looking around the infirmary to make yourself look busy. Not long after rummaging some draws, you pulled out a sheet of stickers.

Laughing, you walked over to Jake. “Pass me your hand.”

Jake did as you asked without question and held his hand out to you. As soon as he did, you carefully put the star sticker on the back of his hand, ensuring to avoid his injury. Jake laughed.

“Shouldn’t you be wrapping my wrist instead of giving me stickers?” he asked amused.

You shrugged. “I thought it might help.” Giggling, you nodded to his injured wrist. “So? Are you feeling any better?”

Jake hummed as he looked at you.

“Yeah,” he replied softly. “Much better.”

Through the windows, a sudden bright ray of sunshine shone upon the both of you. And all of a sudden, the room was a lot warmer than you remembered it being when you first walked in.

From that day forward (ignoring the part where Jake called you “cute”, because you weren’t ready to think about that), you always inquired about Jake’s health, just like now. There was a few seconds delay before Jake’s next text came through. But when it did, you almost felt like spitting out water that you didn’t even drink.

Jake: If I was hurt does that mean I can see you? Jake: I always feel better when I see your face

This little—!

You immediately sat up on your bed, sitting on your knees as you held your phone in front of your eyes. You blinked repeatedly at the screen, as if wondering if you had misread anything. But you didn’t. Jake’s message was clear as day. And for that, you didn’t know whether you were nervous, scared, or excited.

Judging by the swarm of butterflies that erupted in your stomach, it could very well be all three.

Clearing your throat, you positioned your fingers over the keyboard. You desperately racked your brain for something — anything — to say in response, so you didn’t cause an awkward emptiness in the conversation from your own flustered state. But to your astonishment, you couldn't think of a single thing. Jake had officially rendered you speechless.

You shook your head. Come on.

You: you can see me whenever you want anyway You: so don’t you dare get hurt

You could practically feel Jake’s grin in his reply.

Jake: Would you be sad?

You huffed.

You: very You: so take care of yourself

There was a few seconds delay. You could see the text bubbles on Jake’s end, but no words yet, and you briefly wondered just how long his response would be. But the message you received was far shorter than expected.

Jake: Yes ma’am 🫡

You scoffed. He took that long just to type that?

But to your surprise he didn’t stop there.

Jake: That goes for you too Jake: If you get hurt I’ll be really upset

You let out a small giggle, which had you slapping your mouth a second later. You shook your head to get rid of the giddiness.

You: don’t worry You: i don’t plan on getting hurt anytime soon

You smiled at Jake’s reply.

Jake: Well I owe you for icing my wrist Jake: So if you ever do get hurt I’ll be sure to look after you

“Right… I did say that, didn’t I?” Jake said with a smile as he flicked through texts together on his phone.

He had gone all the way to the beginning of your texts together to reflect on the progression of your friendship from your first meeting until before, but he didn’t expect to come across that particular conversation. That seemed so long ago now…

“I said I’d take care of you if you got hurt… Does that mean I’m keeping my promise?” He asked softly. “Am I looking after you properly?”

Jake then bit his lip, a faraway look in his eye. Only God knew how much time he spent by your bedside, making light conversation and checking on your parents to see if there was anything you needed — all to do what he could for you. And yet…

“But I feel like I’m not doing enough these days…”

There was a solemn silence in the room as Jake stared into the camera lens, eyes glazed over. Like his body was there, but his soul was somewhere far away — searching for yours, wherever it was. 

“All I can do is this… But I don’t even know if it will work, or if you’ll really come back to me… You always said I was the smartest person you knew, but I really don’t know what I’m doing right now…”

Jake let out a heavy sigh as he dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his face as if to wash away the thoughts that plagued him.  His shoulder started to tremble and his breathing was unstable as he tried to take a deep breath.

“I just—“ Jake let out a choked sob. “I miss you,” he said, his voice quivering. “I really miss you…”

YOU MISSED HIM. You were surprised to admit it, but it was true: You missed Jake Sim. You couldn’t even deny it. After so much time spent in each other’s presence — in the classroom, over the phone, and even outside of school hours — Jake’s absence was felt by you very deeply.

It was a hot Saturday afternoon, and you were stuck stacking ramyeon cups at the local convenience store where you worked part-time. But unlike the past few weeks, you didn’t have Jake’s amusing texts to keep you entertained during the tedious breaks you had between restocking shelves, sweeping the floor, and manning the counter while waiting for customers to pass by.

Jake had left for a soccer training camp at the beginning of the week, and returned early in the morning. Not wanting to disturb his much needed rest, you let him be. But even throughout the week, your texting was minimal, as he was often too tired from the day to stay up as late as the two of you usually did — and you would admit that it was getting to you, more than it should.

I wonder if he’s okay, you thought absently. You reflexively reached for your phone in the back pocket of your jeans, only to stop yourself. With a sigh and a shake of your head, you continued to take out instant ramyeon cups from the boxes.

You briefly registered the sound of someone entering the store and gave your standard greeting. “Welcome,” you called out.

You couldn’t see who was at the counter since you were hidden behind one of the shelves and still hunching over the box of ramyeon cups that you needed to stack onto the shelves. You quickly started to stack the cups in your arms so you could get back to the counter, ready to ring up the items for the customer when they were prepared to make their purchase.

You fumbled slightly as you tried to hold all the cups in your arms and one of them managed to slip from your grasp. You cursed as you watched it fall, unable to do anything but let it fall. Before it could hit the ground, however, a familiar-looking hand emerged to catch it.

You gasped as you looked up from the veiny arm to its owner, and was met with the smile you had come to miss so badly the past week.

“Jake!” You exclaimed, all joy and relief at seeing his (handsome) face again causing your voice to rise to a higher pitch than usual.

The said male chuckled. He raised his free hand and ruffled your hair, his eyes dripping with honey. “Miss me much?”

You couldn’t even argue with him. It was obvious to anyone how you greeted him with so much enthusiasm — but of course you couldn’t just admit it that easily. So, you quickly put away the cups of ramyeon that you had in your arms and took the one that Jake was holding.

“Are you hungry?” you asked. “It’s on me.”

You should have expected that Jake would put up some resistance, seeing as he settled for a cup of instant Shin ramyeon. But you, of course, couldn’t let that slide. So, while you claimed to be preparing the food for the two of you, you ordered him to sit at the seats by the window and sneakily added some extra dishes while he wasn’t looking, including spicy tteokbokki and extra cheese. For good measure, you even grabbed some sausage snacks on the side.

“Woah,” Jake said when he opened the lid of his cup. “What’s all this?”

You smiled at the awed look in his eyes. He really did get amazed at the smallest things. “It’s my special recipe,” you replied. “Give it a try and let me know what you think.”

Jake nodded and licked his lips as he prepared his chopsticks. You watching closely as he mixed the ingredients thoroughly, before lifting some of it to his mouth. Not even a second after he put it into his mouth, he hummed in delight at the flavour of the combination of foods, eyes lighting up like Seoul city at nighttime.

“It’s really good!” he praised. “Like really, really good.”

You laughed. “Glad you like it.”

The two of you fell into easy silence as you ate your fill. All of a sudden, you were reminded of the first time you had lunch together. That day, you never would have guessed that the two of you would be right here, right now. It was strange, how one fateful meeting on that first day of school changed everything for the two of you.

It made you wonder: What would have happened if you weren’t late that day? If Coach Son didn’t make you run that lap around the field? If Jake didn’t happen to sit right next to your bag?

Somehow, you couldn’t even imagine things happening any other way. Like something about your meeting was meant to be. It felt familiar; and most of all, it felt right. You didn’t know if you believed in destiny… But now, you were starting to think that perhaps some things did happen for a reason. 

Because otherwise you wouldn’t have met him.

“By the way, why did you come here all of a sudden?” You asked as you took a bite of your sausage snack. “You’re supposed to be resting today — and you don’t even live in this neighbourhood.”

Jake smiled. “Well… I guess I got too impatient. I really wanted to see you.”

You froze. You would have choked if not for the fact that you thankfully swallowed your food before Jake spoke — otherwise you couldn’t guarantee your own dignity. Something about Jake was that he always managed to say things like this without batting an eye, or even so much as a slightest bit of concern for how his words might come off to other people.

The funny thing was, you wouldn’t trade this Jake for the world. And so, even if he always managed to take you off guard and give your heart a jumpstart, you cherished him. Goodness… Who would have known just how badly you came to value his presence in your life without even knowing it? And all so quickly at that.

“What even?”

You gave Jake a nudge on the shoulder, causing him to chuckle as he pretended to fall off his stool. The two of you burst into laughter at his theatrics, easing the atmosphere into something carefree.

“But you know, it’s good to have you back,” you replied honestly. “It felt weird without you here.”

Jake smiled. “I could say the same thing about you.”

You raised your eyebrows and looked Jake in the eyes. The two of you continued to stare at each other, before you both broke out into uncontrollable giggles, as if both of you were under the influence of laughing gas. But as the two of you settled down, Jake’s smile became somewhat sadder than before.

“You know,” he said, “I used to hate instant ramyeon.”

Your eyes widened. “Really?”

Jake nodded. “Yeah.“

You frowned as you looked down at your bowl. Now that you were hearing about Jake’s dislike for instant ramyeon, you didn’t have it in you to enjoy your own food without feeling guilty. “Why didn’t you say so? Otherwise we could have eaten something else, instead…”

“Hey!” Jake laughed as he threw an arm over your shoulder and rested his hand on your head, keeping your eyes on him. “Don’t do that. I said I ‘used to’ hate it. I obviously don’t hate it anymore. In fact, I think it’s one of my favourite foods now.”

You blinked up at him curiously. “Why?”

Jake smiled, eyes dancing across your features like the sunlight streaming in from the windows where you sat. “Maybe because now I have you here to eat it with.”

You noticed that Jake didn’t say ‘a friend like you’ or ‘company’ to share the meal with. He specifically said, ‘you’. As if you alone were the reason the food he once hated so much became bearable. That it could have been anyone else; that you were the only option.

If you could make him even the slightest bit happier, you would be forever grateful. And if there was anything that troubled him, that made him feel sad, you wished you could always be there to make him feel better.

“If you ever have something that’s bothering you, you can tell me,” you said. “I might not be able to give advice, but it always feels better to get it off your chest.”

Jake hummed before gently rubbing the top of your head. You hadn’t even realised his hand was still there — and that only made you feel even more so that it was right. 

One of the things you had come to know about Jake was that he was an affectionate person by nature. That physical contact was a way of him showing his affection to those he cared about, and that you were fortunate to be one of those few people.

“I know,” he said. “Thank you.”

With one last lingering smile, Jake then returned to finishing his food.

You shook your head and continued to eat your ramyeon. But you immediately stopped when you remembered something. Quickly swallowing your remainder of food, you turned to Jake.

“By the way— I know you just came back from the training camp, but I forgot to ask: are you going to the art festival tomorrow?”

The Hybe Art Festival was an annual festival that your school held to celebrate the arts community within the school and their works. Anyone was welcome to join, and as you were performing on that specific day, you were planning to enjoy the stalls and activities after you performed. But you would rather have company to do it with.

Unfortunately, Yunjin had to bail last minute due to her family flying over from America as a surprise. You were upset about it originally, but knew it couldn’t really be helped. However, if Jake was free and eager, then you didn’t see the harm in taking him instead.

Jake hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t know…” You nodded slowly, hiding your disappointment, causing him to eye you with curiosity. “Why? Are you going?”

“Well I have to if I’m gonna perform,” you replied.

Jake’s eyes widened, causing you to realise that you never mentioned that you would be performing. Every time you mentioned dance practice, you didn’t elaborate on what it was for. Assuming Jake knew already, you unintentionally kept him in the dark.

“Why didn’t you mention it before?” he asked incredulously.

You laughed awkwardly as he fiddled with your hands in your lap. “I… kinda forgot?” You sighed. “And I was going to go with Yunjin, but something came up. I wanted to spend the festival with someone, but if you’re not going…” You tilted your head in thought. “Should I ask Sunghoon?”

As soon as that name left your mouth, Jake’s head snapped towards you. “Who?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

Your eyes widened in surprise. You hadn’t seen Jake with such a serious expression except when he was playing soccer or in class — it rarely came up at a moment like this.

“Park Sunghoon,” you elaborated. “You know — in the form class next door to us? The good-looking figure skater.”

“No— I mean, I know him.” Jake frowned. “I’m just wondering when the two of you became close?”

“We’re not really close or anything,” you said, “I just took a few ice skating lessons from him the past few Fridays. Ice skating is kinda similar to dance, too, so I thought it made sense to ask him next.”

Jake hummed absent-mindedly. “Oh, really?”

Jake started to chew on his bottom lip, a habit of his that you’ve picked up on during your time together. It was clear that he was deep in thought about something. You just didn’t know what. Even though you assured him he could speak about whatever was bothering him, it seemed this particular problem was one he didn’t feel like sharing — and you would respect that.

Jake shook his head, as if to clear his head of the thoughts that plagued him. “Okay,” he suddenly said.

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “‘Okay’, what?”

Jake smiled at you. “I’ll go with you.”

You let out an ecstatic giggle and grabbed onto his sleeve, shaking it back and forth in excitement. “Yay!” you exclaimed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Jake chuckled at your eagerness.

“On one condition, though,” he said. You nodded, urging him to continue. Unexpectedly, he simply said, “You owe me a favour.”

Despite your continuous pestering, Jake didn’t answer any questions you had to the so-called ‘favour’. And so, you had no idea about what it could be. Still, you trusted Jake, and knew he wouldn’t do anything nefarious, so you agreed to his terms without a doubt in mind. (Though, of course, there was plenty of curiosity.)

When the two of you finished eating, you were ready to bid Jake goodbye. However, to your surprise, he didn’t budge after throwing away his instant ramyeon cup.

“Here,” he said, as he held out a small packet of candies from his pocket. It was brand new, yet for some reason looked familiar. As if you’d seen it before. “I actually really came here to bring this for you.”

“What is it?” You asked. Your eyes widened as you read the packet candy name. “Oh— this…” An amazed smile crossed your face as you inspected the packaging. Recognition sparked at the name of the candy: Blockbusters. “I used to love this candy when I was little. But then they stopped selling here in the city… Where did you get it from?”

Jake chuckled as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “The place where we had our training camp was pretty remote. They have an old convenience store that sold these — when I saw it, I thought you might like it.”

You let out a sound of amazement. “How did you know?”

Jake shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

“Well, thank you, anyway,” you said, smiling down at the packet in your hand. “I didn’t think I’d ever have one of these again until now.”

“No problem,” Jake replied. “Anyway — what do you usually do when you’re waiting for customers to show up?”

“Well, I either clean up a bit or…” You gestured to the boxes that you left when Jake entered the store. “I restock the shelves. I also have to check the fridge to make sure the refridgerated products are all thrown away.”

Jake nodded. “Okay, then what do you want me to do?”

You blinked. “Huh?”

Jake laughed at your confused expression. “Well you’re busy and I have too much time on my hands. We can work together and then walk home together.”

You couldn’t help the smile that crossed your face. It was so like him to offer to help you for something you were getting paid for just so he had the chance to walk you home. (Which, might you add, was in the opposite direction of his.)

You couldn’t even argue with him over it because you knew he wouldn’t budge. It was one of the few things he never compromised, actually — and you didn’t know whether to be grateful or scared: Grateful, because it meant you had an extra pair of hands. Or scared, because you were getting so used to it.

“Well, if you’re offering… There’s a broom in the storage room over there—”

“On it!”

Before you could finish your sentence, Jake was already making his way to the storage room. You laughed as Jake tripped over the box of ramyeon on the way. “That startled me!” he yelled, before bursting out into laughter.

You followed his example, unable to keep yourself from giggling at his clumsiness. Yeah, you thought fondly to yourself. I really missed him.

You wished, more than anything, that he could always be this way. This carefree and excitable Jake that you came to know and adore — you hoped he could always be this happy. And just as you wished for him to keep his smiles, you wished that you would always be there to witness them.

A sudden noise from the door caused Jake to look up, his eyes still bloodshot and his nose running as he continued to sniffle. He swallowed the lump in his throat and wiped away the dried tears on his cheeks, before a wide smile broke out on his face.

“Hey,” he said to the camera, his voice slightly hoarse. “Look who decided to show up.”

Just as Jake said this, a loud bark came from beside him. Jake clapped his hands as he looked at something out of the camera frame. Not even a second later, a large body of fur suddenly jumped up onto him, covering his face in affectionate licks.

Jake chuckled. “Layla, down!”

Immediately after his order, the said canine immediately sat down in front of Jake, lying down on her paws. Jake rewarded his companion with a stroke of her fur, before turning to the camera with a grin.

“Do you remember the day we first had lunch together? I said I would bring you over to meet Layla, didn’t I?” Jake said. “We never got to go through with that promise… So why not go through with it today?”

Jake leaned down to look at Layla’s eyes. “Layla, say hi to [_____].”

As if understanding Jake’s order, Layla turned to the camera and barked, as if giving a greeting to the receiver of the video. To you. Jake chuckled warmly before looking back at the camera.

“[_____], if you can really hear me… Just know that we both miss you a lot.” Jake smiled softly. “And we miss Layla Senior, too. How is she? I’m curious…”

Jake let out a laugh.

“I still remember that look on your face when I gave her back to you…”

THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT SEEING A FAMILIAR FACE IN A CROWD OF STRANGERS. The first time you understood what those movies were talking about — the ones where everything in the background faded as two people made eye contact, the way the world seemed to play in slow motion — was something you didn’t quite fully understand until today. Until you made eye contact with Jake as you made your way to the stage.

As you finished your performance, which you dedicated so much time and effort into, his face was the first one you sought out. And upon meeting your eyes, he lit up like a firefly at night. With a bright smile, he caught your attention and held it. So the only thing you could think about was getting off the stage and running your way towards him.

The Hybe School Art Festival was in full swing, and your club’s performance was one of the first to go on stage, meaning that you could enjoy the rest of the day. So you could have all the fun you wanted with Jake and not have to worry about leaving him behind to get ready for the stage. 

“You did good!” Jake immediately said as he greeted you with a customary head pat. “I’m proud of you.”

You couldn’t help the smile that broke out across your face, so wide that it even made your cheeks hurt from the force of it. “Thanks! Sorry to keep you waiting, though.”

Jake shook his head. “It’s okay. It was worth it.”

Your face started to feel warm, indicating the dangers of a visible blush. You playfully nudged Jake’s shoulder with your own. He pretended to clutch his arm in pain and stagger to the side — and almost right into a couple who was walking past.

“Oh, sorry,” Jake apologised as the pair gave him the stink eye.

“Hey!” You scolded with a laugh. You quickly pulled him towards you by the sleeve, before slapping his shoulder. “Watch where you’re going! That was so embarrassing...”

“Why are you blaming me?” Jake asked with wide eyes. “You’re the one who pushed me.” He rolled his shoulder. “Hey — I think you broke something.”

The two of you burst out into laughter. Shaking your head, you grabbed the edge of Jake’s sleeve and used it to lead him forward. “The poor soccer team,” you said as you weaved through the crowded pathway. “Stuck with such a weak striker.”

Jake’s head whipped towards you at the speed of striking lightning. His eyes were wide and his eyebrows raised in offence to your statement. Despite being a textbook ‘nice guy’, you knew after a while of befriending him that he had his own pride. And when it came to soccer, it showed more than ever.

“‘Weak’?” he asked, his voice slightly strained. “Did you just call me ‘weak’?”

You tilted your head innocently and pointed to yourself. “Me? When? You’re the one who got hurt with a tiny push.”

Jake scoffed. He stared straight forward before running his tongue along the inside of his cheek in annoyance. You subconsciously followed the movement with your eyes, and unwittingly became transfixed on the plumpness of his lips. You stared and stared — and might have stared some more if a slight nudge on your shoulder from another girl passing by caused you to snap out of it.

What the hell? you thought. Stay focused. Come on.

You have a determined nod before forcing your head to turn away. It wouldn’t be the first time that you forced yourself not to notice Jake’s apparent attractiveness — but it seemed to only get harder for you each time. You discretely fanned yourself with your hand to cool your burning face and pretended to look at the stalls to the right, so that Jake wouldn’t be able to see your red face.

From the moment you saw him, you were surprised to see him: He had dressed up in a white tee — that did nothing to hide the outline of his athletic build — and a pair of jeans. There was a gold chain around his neck and his hair was slicked back stylishly, uncovering the forehead that was usually hidden by his fluffy bangs. It wasn’t the first time you’ve seen him in casual clothing. But it was definitely the first time you’d seen him pull off a look that wasn’t so ‘big next door’ as much as it was ‘lady-killer’. 

Seriously, why is it so hot? you asked yourself. Why is he so hot? 

You jumped in place when you suddenly felt Jake’s hand suddenly grab your own, pulling you out of your reverie. Before you could even question him about it, he started tugging you alongside him and started walking with an increased speed of pace.

“Where are you going?” you asked in shock.

“Proving myself,” was Jake’s simple reply, which only caused you to be even more confused. Still, you followed him anyway, letting you lead the two of you through the pathways filled with people, cutting through the crowd as easily as fish swimming in a river. You only knew what he was up to when he suddenly brought you to one of the games that were set up at the end of the pathway.

“What’s this?” you asked curiously.

The game was set up with a large white canvas about four metres wide and tall, with a bunch of balloons hanging along the top of it, all in varying sizes. You noticed that some of the balloons had burst already, and underneath them were splatters of paint in different colours of the rainbow. A few feet in front of the canvas, there was a line of small bean bags. A few feet to the side, there was a wall of various prizes, including hats with the ears that moved when you pressed the pump devices in the paws; stuffed toys, and cute headbands and accessories along the top; followed by stationary and other cool gadgets moving down the board.

One of the girls spotted you and Jake and greeted you with a smile before explaining the rules of the game.

“You have to use the bean bags to pop one of the balloons along the top of the canvas. The smaller the balloon, the more choices of the prize you get,” the girl explained. “You get three chances to hit a balloon.”

“Ooooh.” You nodded in interest and turned to look at Jake. “Are you going to give it a try?”

“Of course,” Jake said confidently. He opened his wallet and gave the fee to the girl who explained the game before picking up one of the bean bags. He smiled as he walked back to the throwing line. “I’m going to go for the small one there.”

Jake pointed at one of the smaller balloons to the right. It would be difficult to aim when the surface area was smaller, so you would have personally gone for one of the larger balloons. But it seemed Jake was intent on “proving himself” as he said before.

You filled quietly as you cheered him on from the side. “You got this!”

You barely had time to react when a loud bang resonated through the air, following the sound of splattering paint, and an explosion of pink dye splattered across the once pure white column of canvas below the balloon that Jake had pointed out to you. You stood there with your mouth agape when you finally realised what had happened. 

“Congratulations!” the stall girl cheered. “You got it on one try!”

Jake, however, was looking straight at you. He raised an eyebrow and licked his lip, flashing his perfect teeth in a cocky grin that had your knees fighting to keep you upright. You let out a laugh of disbelief before shaking your head. With reluctance, you brought your hands together in slow applause.

“How was that?” Jake asked cheekily. “Pretty good for a ‘weak striker’, huh?”

You smiled back. “I guess you’re not that bad.”

Jake chuckled before throwing an arm around your shoulder and leading you toward the prize section. “Come here.” You looked at Jake over your shoulder as he led you, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Seeing your silent question, he simply said, “You lost the bet so now it’s payment time.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Since when was it a bet?”

“Since you said something wrong and I decided to prove it,” Jake replied quickly.

You scoffed. “Naur way…”

Jake laughed and ruffled the top of your head. The girl at the prize wall congratulated Jake before offering him a choice of prize. You watched as he chose a My Melody hat with moving ears. He smiled before looking at you. You eyed him curiously, only to jump away when he suddenly came closer.

“What are you doing?” you asked.

Jake simply smirked and placed the hat right on your head. “There.”

“What even?” You reached up to the ears, immediately trying to take it off. However Jake didn’t let you, and held your hands in your own. “I don’t suit things like this!” you whined. “At least get me the Kuromi one.”

“No,” Jake said firmly, “I think this one suits you just fine.”

He looked you straight in the eyes, his own sparkling with amusement and something akin to the look one would wear when looking at a puppy — full of tenderness.

“You look cute.”

Your face burned brighter than the pink paint that splattered from the balloon Jake had popped. What made it worse was the coping of the girl at the prize stall, who commented on how adorable the two of you were.

“You’re such a cute couple,” she said, “the cutest one so far.”

Your eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “We’re not—“

What took you back even more than the girl’s claim was the fact that instead of refuting it, Jake suddenly laughed and squeezed your hands, which he was still holding in his own. “Thanks.”

You couldn’t take any more embarrassment at that moment. Ripping your hand away from Jake’s, you turned away from him, intent on walking as far away as possible from the delusion girl and the wall of prizes. The last thing you heard was the familiar sound of Jake’s laugh, before he called out to you to wait for him.

You ignored him and continued to speed walk, the ears on your Melody hat flapping erratically as you repeatedly pressed the paws. By the time Jake caught up to you, no amount of silent treatment could get him to stop smiling. And seeing the fierce blush on your face only made it even more difficult.

As the art festival went on, you gave into the bribe of boba that Jake offered to win your favour, and continued as if nothing had happened. The two of yoy went through a plethora of stalls, trying all sorts of games and foods that were offered, until eventually the sky became dark and the day was coming to an end. People were starting to pack away their equipment, and people started making their way down to the sports field where the fireworks show would be held soon.

You and Jake decided to watch it from afar, to avoid getting caught in the foot traffic when the event officially ended and everyone was trying to go home at once. So, the two of you were walking side by side out of the gates of the high school, enjoying the quiet song of night critters and each other’s company. 

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask for a while,” Jake suddenly said.

You turned to him, momentarily stopping yourself from playing with the ears on your hat. “What is it?”

Jake smiled as he looked up at the sky. “That day when we first met, why did you help me out?”

You blinked in confusion. 

It had been a while since that day. Sometimes, you still looked back and pondered on it — the fatefulness of it — but not once did you ever consider the possibility of not helping Jake that day. In your mind, it was nothing extraordinary. You had simply helped someone you had the capacity to help: you were no saint, nor did you claim to be. You simply did what you could. 

It never occurred to you that you might need a reason for acting the way you did.

You shrugged your shoulders. “Why not?”

Jake laughed. He lowered his head, a smile on his face as he kept his eyes trained on his shoes. The two of you were walking in perfect sync, neither of you in front or behind of the other, just perfectly in line with one another. The sight of it seemed to amuse him.

“What is it?” you asked.

Jake shook his head. “It’s just… You really haven’t changed.”

You stopped in your tracks at Jake’s words, confused. Furrowing your eyebrows, you tilted your head in thought. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jake looked down at you, a fond look on his face. “Remember when I said you owe me a favour for coming with you here to the festival?” You nodded. “Well I want to cash it in right now. For my favour… Just wait here for a second.”

You looked around your surroundings. You were still within reach of the school grounds, and there was a convenience store right across the two of you with several people inside. So it wasn’t as if it was unsafe. But you were a little confused as to why Jake was suddenly asking you to stand here.

“I won’t be long,” Jake said. “Promise.”

You opened your mouth and then closed it again. Then after a while of thinking, you nodded. “Okay.”

Jake gave you one last smile before turning around. And without another word, he was jogging off into the distance. You pouted as you stood there awkwardly, flapping the ears of your hat continuously as you watched Jake’s figure disappear into the distance. 

What was he doing? You really had no idea what was running through his mind. And what did he mean by, ‘you really haven’t changed? If it were anyone else, you would be a bit alarmed by his cryptic words. And yet, because of Jake, and this weird sense of safety next to him, you felt nothing but longing to know the truth.

After a few minutes of standing there, Jake’s figure reappeared. You subconsciously went to walk to him, only to stop in your tracks. He was holding a gift bag in his right hand as he jogged back towards you, and you had no idea what it was for.

Was it someone’s birthday? It definitely wasn’t yours. Was it something for you? But then you didn’t really do anything to deserve a gift… So what was it for?

Your mental guessing game came to an end when Jake stopped a few feet away from you, slightly out of breath, and with a few droplets of sweat on his forehead, but not looking any less happy than he was when he left. In fact, you’d say he was even more excited than before.

“Here,” he said, holding the bag out to you. “It’s for you — and before you say anything, no, I won’t take any give backs.”

You promptly shut your mouth. You had no idea what it was inside that bag, but you were curious, and a little touched. “Thank you,” you said while laughing. “Even though I don’t know what it’s for.”

Jake simply grinned, watching eagerly as you opened the top of the bag. You peered inside, unable to see anything due to the darkness outside. But as soon as you realised what it was, you couldn’t help the gasp that left your lips. Your eyes widened as you slowly took the item out of the bag, inspecting every inch of it with your eyes. 

It was a stuffed dog plush — but not just any. You flipped the the dog over and looked at the front right paw. There, you found your initials written in black ink, in what was obviously a child’s handwriting… And underneath it was a plus sign, followed by the three letters: S. J. Y.

“Layla?” you whispered, your voice almost nonexistent in your shocked state.

You looked up at Jake with wide eyes. And all of a sudden, every moment you shared together went flashing through your mind, before you picked out opened that you completely missed before now.

“This is my dog Layla…”

“Wait— her name is Layla? … I used to have a dog plush named Layla… It was my favourite toy when I was little; I carried it everywhere with me.”

“What a coincidence.”

“You know— you remind me a lot of someone I knew.”

“Really?”

“Yeah… When I was little I hurt myself and this little girl I knew at the time told me off.”

“I used to love this candy when I was little. But then they stopped selling here in the city… Where did you get it from?”

“...They have an old convenience store that sold these — when I saw it, I thought you might like it.”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

“You really haven’t changed.”

The pieces slowly started to come together, and all of a sudden everything become so much clearer. Jake smiled upon seeing the realisation in your eyes. But you, for your part, couldn’t even believe it.

“Yunie?”

“You were seriously surprised,” Jake said, laughing.

By now, Layla (the dog) had left the room, leaving him alone once again. But unlike before, he hadn’t been consumed by his own grief; rather, he had embraced the happiness of the memories he had with you, letting it dry away the tears that he shed for you.

 “But I won’t lie… I was kind of nervous,” Jake admitted. “There was still a chance that you would have forgotten all about me. And I was scared that you wouldn’t recognise who I was even after I gave you Layla back. So I stalled as long as I could. Just to wait for the ‘right’ moment.”

Jake sighed as he leaned his chin on his fist. “You know what changed my mind?” Jake almost burst out laughing at his next confession. “Park Sunghoon. That guy… Even as a guy, I think he’s handsome. And you even admitted he was good-looking, too. I guess I got threatened. Maybe even jealous.”

Jake suddenly pointed at the screen.

“Sunghoon, if you’re watching this, forget everything I just said: I’m not scared anymore. Remember — I beat you in that arm wrestling match.”

Jake burst out laughing at his own antics. Once he finally settled down, he shook his head and bit his lip.

“I forgot to mention: do you remember that park we went to when we were little? I went there yesterday to visit it… And I couldn’t stop smiling, I’m telling you.” Jake chuckled. “I must have looked so weird laughing all alone like that… But you know what? Even though you weren’t there personally… I felt like I could still feel you right next to me.”

Jake let out a wistful sigh.

“It’s been so long since that day…”

NINE-YEAR-OLD SIM JAEYUN WAS STILL YOUNG. And as someone still young, he never understood the way of adults, or how their minds worked.

Jaeyun didn’t understand why his parents were married, and supposedly loved each other, only to spend all their time arguing. He didn’t understand why he — their only child, who was supposed to be loved unconditionally — was often forgotten in the midst of their dispute.

It was all too complicated, the world of adults. And he didn’t know if he ever wanted to grow up. Eventually, he got tired of it all. And without hesitation, he ran away from it all.

That was why he sat here now, lost and alone, eyes downcast as he sat at a playground bench — ignored and forgotten, just as always.

Until she came along.

“Hey.”

Jaeyun lifted his head to see a girl around his age standing in front of him. She was looking down at him with a pout while holding a dog plushie in her hands. Jaeyun blinked at her as she pointed at the spot next to him.

“Can I sit here? Me and Layla are tired.”

Jaeyun furrowed his eyebrows. Momentarily, he forgot all about what brought him here to this beach in the first place, now focused on the girl in front of him, who appeared out of nowhere.

“Who’s Layla?” he asked.

The girl held up the dog plush in her hands. “This is Layla. She’s my dog.”

“But it’s just a toy,” Jaeyun said factually.

The girl gave him a blank look and sighed. Shaking her head, she took the seat she originally asked permission for, slipping her backpack off and placing it in between the two of them.

Jaeyun looked at her. “I didn’t say you could sit down, though…”

The girl huffed. “I got tired from standing too long.”

Jaeyun went quiet. The two of them sat there in silence, with the girl petting her dog plush as if it were a real puppy. After a while, the girl with the dog plush looked at Jaeyun with curiosity.

“Why are you sitting here alone?” she asked curiously. “Where are you parents?”

Jaeyun hung his head in shame. “They don’t know I’m here,” he confessed quietly. “I ran away…”

The girl tilted her head curiously. “Why did you run away?”

Jaeyun sighed, sounding far too burdened than any nine-year-old should. “They keep shouting at each other, and I don’t like it. So I left.”

The girl hummed. “That doesn’t sound very good.”

Jaeyun didn’t say anything to that. Seeing Jaeyun’s expression, the girl started to rummage through her bag until she found a packet of candy. The girl carefully opened it before holding it out to Jaeyun with her arms.

“Give me your hand.” Jaeyun held out his hand, watching as the girl poured out some of the candy onto his hand. “When I get sad, my mama always buys me this to make me feel better. They’re called Blockbusters. They’re supposed to make you feel happy. So don’t be sad anymore, okay?”

Jaeyun blinked. Then, after a while, he finally smiled. “Thanks!”

The girl smiled back before pouring out some more candy for herself. The two ate their candy in content silence. When they were done, Jaeyun looked at the girl beside him curiously. She was somewhat strange, in his eyes. They didn’t even know each other, but she was giving him company and even sharing candy with him.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asked.

The girl looked back at him and shrugged. “Why not?”

Jaeyun didn’t know what to say to that, but in his mind, it sounded really cool. So, using the lessons he learnt from his parents, he introduced himself.

“My name is Sim Jaeyun,” he said. “What’s yours?”

The girl smiled back. “I’m Yu [____].”

Indeed, that girl was you.

Jaeyun broke out into a wide grin. “Do you want to go on the swings together?”

That day, when Jaeyun’s parents finally found them, they were incredibly angry. But at the same time, they were also very sad. Jaeyun watched as they cried and checked over him to see if he was alright — and for the first time in a long time, his parents shared something in common with each other. Their love for their only son.

But all Jaeyun could think about was how he had so much fun. And so, that night, as Jaeyun lay in bed, he wished that he could meet you and Layla again.

And he did.

Day after day, he went to the same park all over again, and played games with you and your favourite plush, Layla.

“Catch me if you can!” you yelled tauntingly, as you sprinted around the playground, with Jaeyun chasing after you. 

Your laughter rang through the park like a chime of bells, filling the air with the song of joy. It continued that way until Jaeyun suddenly cried out in pain, and you turned around to see him on the ground, clutching his knee in pain.

“Yunie, are you okay?!” you asked worriedly.

You immediately got down beside Jaeyun, who was bawling his eyes out. You immediately noticed the graze on his knee and got to work. Pouting, you got out a bandaid inside your backpack and carefully put it on him.

“Be careful next time, idiot,” you said as you patched him up. “That’s why you need to make sure your shoelaces are tied!”

Jaeyun sniffled and nodded. Seeing his dejected  expression, you got out your sheet of stickers from your bag. After some debate, you chose the golden star sticker and peeled it off the sheet.

“Here,” you said, as you placed the sticker on the bandaid. “Have a gold star to make you feel better.”

Jaeyun smiled up at you. “Thanks!”

“You’re welcome, Yunie.” You held out a hand to help him up. “Come on. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

And just like that, the two of you began to play again. Like you did every day before that, and every day after. The two of you became like two peas in a a pod, always seeking each other’s company, and finding refuge in it. And even if it was just for an hour a day, Jaeyun felt like he could escape the confusing world his parents lived in. Because he had a friend who was with him through everything.

But that all changed when one day, Jaeyun brought bad news.

“I have to leave,” Jaeyun said sadly.

“What do you mean, Yunie?” you asked, your head tilted curiously.

“Me and my mum are going to Australia,” Jake said. “So we can’t play together anymore. This is the last time.”

You frowned, your eyes watering. “But I don’t want you to go…” 

The two of you stood dejected in the middle of the park, heads bowed as a cloud of gloom hovered over your heads. Then, the waterworks came, and the two of you couldn’t stop the tears as you let them flow from your eyes. Who knew how long it was before you could speak again without wailing. 

Biting your bottom lip, you looked down at the plush in your hands. And after debate, you finally gathered courage. Taking out a black marker from your bag, you took one of the paws and started to write on it.

“What are you doing?” Jaeyun asked, sniffling. 

“I’m writing something.” You capped the black marker and held the plush out to Jaeyun. “Here. You have this.”

Jaeyun’s eyes widened. “But this is your favourite toy!”

You nodded. “I know. But mama said we give things to other people, it’s like we give a part of ourselves. So you can have it. Then it’s like we both go to Australia together!”

Jaeyun’s eyes widened as he looked down at the plush. Then, he furrowed his eyebrows in determination. “I promise to give it back when I come back,” he said resolutely.

You smiled in return. “Okay. Then I promise to wait for you to come back.”

And all through the plane ride to Australia, Jaeyun couldn’t stop looking at the paw of his plush, where the initials of tei names were written together, signifying the shared ownership of the toy, and the bind that the two owners of the initials shared.

The bond of you and him.

Neither of you knew how long it would take. Jaeyun himself didn’t think it would take ten years for him to finally fulfil the promise he made that day, and he found himself hopeless as he returned to South Korea, the place he once called his home.

Everything had changed. Nothing remained of what he remembered. Sim Jaeyun was now Jake Sim; the home that once house him and his family was now only holding him and his father; and the uniform he wore as a child to school was now long outgrown — even his own mother language was foreign on his tongue. He was a stranger in his own home country.

Jaeyun — or rather, Jake — started to think that maybe he didn’t belong here in the first place. Not with the memories he shared being so far gone in the past. He even started to wonder if, like all the things in his past (all the things that were familiar, that reminded him of home) were all gone.

But that all changed one summer day, when fate brought the two of you together again. And as if history repeated itself, it started with a boy sitting alone on a bench, a girl who walked up to him, and one simple sentence:

“Can I sit here?”

“SO YOU REMEMBER?” 

Jake chuckled at the expression on your face, full of conflicting emotions. 

“How could I forget?” you asked simply.

For so long, you wondered about that kid — Sim Jaeyun — who you befriended one fateful day at the park. The friend you shared your favourite candy with, and shared complaints about adults with. The one that took off with your favourite toy, with no signs of keeping that promise you made.

Every day since he left you sat at that same bench, hoping the boy you once shared candy with would show up once again. And yet, as days turned into months, and months into years, you had finally accepted that perhaps he had forgotten about you after all. That you were holding on to a loose rope. 

You couldn’t have been more wrong.

Jake looked down at his shoes, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t really know what to say… I’m really sorry I took so long. I don’t have an excuse. I just—”

Jake didn’t get to finish his sentence before he was tackled in a desperate hug. Jake staggered at the sudden collision between the two of you. And yet, it was painless. He let his arms come around you without hesitation, holding you to him tightly, yet gently. And as he stood there, he thought that he had never felt better.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” You asked, your voice weak. “Seriously… You idiot…”

Jake laughed, gently rubbing your back up and down. You weren’t crying, nor were you smiling like him — you were simply treasuring the moment, letting it engulf you like Jake’s arms. 

You didn’t think it was possible to be affected by something that happened so long ago. That the bond you shared as two children could have carried on for so long. But you supposed that was the strange thing about string of fate: once it tied two people together, it wasn’t so easy to undo.

“I’m sorry,” Jake apologised once again. This time, his hand found its way to the back of your head, stroking it softly. “I took a long time, didn’t I?”

You closed your eyes, breathing in his scent for what felt like the first time. “Yeah… Way too long.” You buried your nose into his chest, clutching Layla the plush behind his back. “If I knew before… I would have hugged you way sooner…”

Jake smiled, his fingers dipping into your hair. By now, the Melody hat he had given you fell around you shoulders, giving giving him access to your soft locks. He weaved his hands through them, massaging your scalp comfortingly.

With a small smile he brought his lips to the crown of your head. 

“I missed you,” he whispered. 

You didn’t move as you felt the soft flesh of his lips find their way to your forehead, placing a tender kiss there. Your cheeks grew warm, your fingers clenching his jacket from behind, as if scared to let go.

“I missed you too…”

Above the two of you, the dark sky erupted into an explosion of bright colours; the crackling fireworks lighting up the night with cause for celebration.

“I’ll be honest: I regret a lot of things. But liking you was never one of them.”

“I WON’T BE LONG.”

In the park where you first met — and first separated — you and Jake found yourself standing side by side in front of the bench where your story first began.

You did your best to keep a smile on your face. But it was hard. You didn’t know why — only that, for some reason, saying goodbye to Jake Sim wasn’t as easy as you hoped it would be. It seemed like it was too soon to part ways again. That you barely had time to spend together… But now that holidays came around, it was about time Jake paid his mother in Australia a visit.

“I’m sorry,” Jake apologised. “I wanted to spend a little more time before I had to go back.”

You shook your head. “No. It’s okay. You can’t keep your family waiting…”

Jake nodded, biting his lip nervously as you continued to avoid eye contact. You sighed, before looking up at him, your eyes holding unspoken emotions.

You smiled, hesitantly but sweetly. “Just make sure not to take another ten years to come back.”

Jake laughed. “Okay, okay…”

You twisted your fingers in your hands. In the distance, you could see Jake’s taxi parked on the side of the road. “You shouldn’t make your taxi driver wait any longer…”

Jake bit his lip and nodded. “You’re right.”

Despite his words, he didn’t move an inch from his place. The two of you continued to stand there, neither of you wanting to make the first move. As if — in some strange way — you had a feeling you needed to make the moment last as long as possible.

The feeling that this goodbye could possibly be the last.

“And if I’m grateful for anything, it would be that I had one last chance to tell you what I wanted to all this time.”

“The last time I had to leave, you gave me something,” Jake suddenly said. “Can I give you something, too?”

You looked into Jake’s eyes, not even knowing what you were searching for. But something was there. Something that you had ignored for so long. Something you knew you couldn’t pretend not to see.

Under the light of the setting sun, his face was a rosy hue, reflecting the oink that was dusted across the evening sky. The light in his eyes was no flickering flame, but one of a thousand burning stars.

Your throat closed up at the heat in his stare that threatened to consume you where you stood, as if his burning gaze had left nothing but smoke in its wake, suffocating your chest.

“What is it?” you somehow managed to whisper.

Jake smiled softly and took a step toward you. Your heart raced inside your chest with the force of a galloping racehorse, threatening to break straight out of your ribcage and right towards the boy in front of you.

Jake’s hand found its way to your chin, tilting it towards him, so that your faces were perfectly aligned. Your lips parted, a slight gasp escaping your lips as his thumb lingered across your lips. His eyes flickered down to your lips, before slowly making their way back up again, as if committing your features to memory — like a camera capturing an image.

Seconds felt like hours, and each one that passed as you remained stuck in time felt like slow torture. Until finally, he leaned down and captured your lips with his own. It was almost as if it hadn’t happened, with how gently he pressed his lips against yours — like the flap of a butterfly’s wings against your skin. But the heat of his mouth spread across your body like a flame, overcoming you with its warmth.

“But if I had to change just one thing…”

And all too soon, it was over. As if someone had to physically pulling him back from you by the collar, Jake reluctantly let you go from his kiss. Your noses brushed, just as your eyelashes did. And when he looked at you, you couldn’t do anything but sigh.

“It’s up to you whether you give that back or not…” The corners of Jake’s lips lifted into that same smile of his. “But if you do… I’ll be back to collect it.”

You couldn’t believe what had happened, only nodding in your dizzied state. Jake smiled and placed one last pat one your head, before he got ready to leave.

“Well then,” he said. “See you when I get back.”

And with that, he walked away, leaving you to watch his figure as it got further and further away.

“I would have stayed.”

If Jake had known what would happen — the kiss he shared with you that day could have been the last —  he knew for a fact that he wouldn’t have left that day. But by the time he learnt what happened to you that day, it was already too late.

Only two weeks into his trip in Australia, he hadn’t received a single message or call from you. A part of him considered that maybe it was your way of rejecting you — and honestly, he would have preferred that. He would have rather known you were safe and hated his guts, than to know what he did that day.

“What did you say?” Jake asked, as he held his phone to his ear with a shaking hand. “What happened to her?”

The voice of your mother over the phone was the epitome of heartache and grief. That day, Jake had learnt what it meant to talk after having one’s heart ripped out of their chest.

“There’s been an accident…”

Jake dropped his phone at the same time as rain started to fall from the sky

Once again, he was late.

“But I can’t change the past. I can only promise you this,” Jake said. “So [____], if you can really hear this, then listen carefully.”

Jake took in a deep breath, steadying himself emotionally.

“I’m sorry I didn’t hold you longer that day. I’m sorry I didn’t hug you more, or tell you sooner how much I missed you. I’m sorry for all of those things — but most of all, I’m sorry that I didn’t stay.”

Jake swallowed the lump in his throat.

“But wherever it is that you are right now, I just want you to know that there’s no rush,” he said. “I don’t care how long it takes. You waited ten years until I came back… Just make sure you come back to me, okay?”

“You waited ten years before — I’ll wait ten more if that’s what it takes…” Jake chuckled and added, “I’m still waiting for that kiss back, after all.”

Jake sighed, trying to lighten the mood with his next statement.

“I have to go, otherwise the others will complain that I’m using too much memory. But don’t worry — I won’t stop visiting you.”

Jake leaned into the camera and gave one lasting smile.

“Love you.”

• RECORDING ENDED •

TAGLIST ► ( open ! ) @luvistqrzzz @shoyotime @yohanabanana @beomsbeanie @enhacatalog @cha3w0n-hearts @mochamvgz @woncine @in-somnias-world @renchai @fakeuwus @enhalovie @jayfrvr @parksunghoonsgf @ashrocker123 @haechansbbg @enmayz @hanienie @xiaotheworld @jiawji @eunii11 @sseastar-main @asteria-wood @frukkoneeeeg @kpopslover

kinda feel like deleting idk writing is hard sometimes🥴

This is so so good !! The plot, the slow burn / e2l , the cute,funny,angst stuff omg everything was amazing and such fun to read love itt!! 💗💗

AFTER HOURS; JAKE SIM [complete]

enhypen masterlist

SYNOPSIS; jake sim, bassist of AFTERHOURS and all round terrible guy, so deep in his self absorbed world where everything went his way and everyone fell at his feet. he hardly noticed you moving in next door until he caught a glimpse of you in the hallway. completely uninterested in your neighbour, you did you best to ignore his advances. that was until you found yourself humming along to the songs he practiced every night.

PAIRING; rockstar!jake x reader

GENRE; social media au, angsty we have a lot of cute and funny moments before but I'm so sorry in advance, fluff too though, mature themes throughout, slow burn as fuck!!!

CHARACTERS; enhypen members, riize members, le sserafim members

WARNINGS; lots of swearing, inappropriate jokes, mature themes and sexual content, kys/dark humour jokes (not super extreme though!), mentions of toxic family, toxic relationships, cheating (not jake dw), mentions of anxiety and mental health, assault

START; 04.01.24

END; 24.03.24

PROFILES; 🌟🤍🌙🎧

TRACK 1; I have a costco membership btw

TRACK 2; man in love taerae

TRACK3; 7 monthly listeners

TRACK 4; what she said!

TRACK 5; love and light [1.3k]

TRACK 6; being penpals in 2024 is crazy

TRACK 7; useless [2.6k]

TRACK 8; go big or go home

TRACK 9; glory hole

TRACK 10; ladies love pathetic men

TRACK 11; humble yourself sunoo

TRACK 12; average at best

TRACK 13; dirty league player

TRACK 14; 3rd grade spelling bee [1.3k]

TRACK 15; which left?

TRACK 16; passenger princess

TRACK 17; he's never offered up his cock before

TRACK 18; send me 10,000 robux

TRACK 19; moots?

TRACK 20; me if you even care

TRACK 21; get the crystals out

TRACK 22; you'll be my first tape

TRACK 23; you've not changed

TRACK 24; I've got you [2.4k]

TRACK 25; code pink

TRACK 26; nurse she's out again

TRACK 27; tongue tied

TRACK 28; I need a fucking death note

TRACK 29; my cock isn't worthy of a popbase article

TRACK 30; you're the first person I think of [2.3k]

TRACK 31; lover boy (jake)

TRACK 32; someone cooked here

TRACK 33; ugly ass outfits

TRACK 34; that . is so scary

TRACK 35; my girl is mad at me hope I die

TRACK 36; calm down mingi

TRACK 37; you're it for me [1.9k]

TRACK 38; yay ❤️

TRACK 39; if I could turn back time I would change it all [1.6k]

TRACK 40; discord kitten behaviour

TRACK 41; going full cowboy

TRACK 42; touchy subject

TRACK 43; commit to the grind

TRACK 44; better without him

TRACK 45; you're the only one [3.1k]

TRACK 46; you're just a girl

MASTERLIST; part 2! (chap 47 onwards is here!)

absolutely adorable 😭💗💗

pinky ring / sim jaeyun

synopsis: jake made you a promise to marry you when you two were toddlers. he would fake propose until he really did get down on one knee.

pairing: childhood besties jake x reader

wc: 1.1k

To your parents, it was all good fun. Seeing their child being proposed to by their childhood best friend at their favorite beach. Documentation was highly important to them, filming little you and little jake holding a candy ring pop in his hand, asking your hand in marriage. To them, it was adorable.

For young child you, you were petrified. At the time, your dad just gave a small talk on how to stay away from boys and you're definitely too young to get into a relationship. This happened when you called the actor on scene handsome when you were having a family movie night.

"We are too young Jake" pouting your lips, feeling bad for rejecting his proposal. Jake shrugs and hands you the ring pop anyway. "Fine, I'll just wait and get you a real ring".

That didn't last long because fast forward to the next year, he does it again. He has done it so much that for the next few following years, it had become an inside joke to everyone in your immediate family.

"You have rejected me for 4 years now" crossing his arms in a fit, Jake looks at you disappointed. "Maybe because we are only 12 years old?"

At this point, you aren't sure if he's doing this because he really wants to marry you or just to tease you and lead any guy interested in you far far away. Remembering all the instances where a boy would approach you during lunch and sit next to you and confess and say that they think you' re cute. There then comes Jake, wearing a smug smirk and says something along the lines of "I'm actually her future husband, please go away".

It makes you think about how you could never get away from Jake and his antics.

Even when you guys reached your teenage years, almost reaching adulthood, Jake never dropped the fake proposal joke. Like on your 19th birthday, at the restaurant he took you both to, he claims how he's your boyfriend and he's planning to propose soon, the waiter thought he was weird for saying that he wanted to propose soon with you sitting right there but nonetheless, he gave you both free desserts.

You thought at by the age of 14, he'd stop since you both are going through puberty, his feelings would change and he'd drop it due to his own pride and embarrassment, but no.

Now you both were 20, if you had to count how many fake proposals Jake has done over the years, it would reach 100.

"You can't say that we are too young, we're both legal adults and we basically known each other our whole lives." You turn over to him and flick his forehead, causing him wince in pain and shoo you away from him. "You're mean"

"You're the one that wants to marry me, so get used to it"

"Oh, so you're playing along now" He removes his hand from his head and pokes your side. "After years, you're finally warming up to the idea"

"Keep that up, I won't be anymore" Once you said that you realize how you didn't even deny it. Looking back at Jake who went back to playing video games, you take in his appearance and guide your eyes to follow the lines that make his side profile.

Jake was good looking, you knew that. He's always been the apple of your eye since you two were kids, then as you got to know him, his humor, personality, and behavior kind of sealed the deal for you.

"If you keep staring at me, I might disintegrate."

"Then, who is going to marry me?"

"We're still on that? I thought you didn't want to?"

"Make me your girlfriend and I'll rethink it" Now it was your turn to cause a ruckus in Jake's mind. He pauses the game and looks over to you, reading your expression wondering if you were serious or not.

That night, Jake stayed over. Unlike the other past sleepovers that you two had, this one was different because the way you cuddle into him now, it felt different. He was always yours and until now, just a different kind. He was now your boyfriend, not boy-friend.

With your dynamic and bond with Jake, it felt like sunshine and rainbows most of the times, being around each other all the time and knowing each other too well, you always found ways to fix things or any miscommunication that would come along.

Transitioning to relationship from friendship was surprisingly easy from the outside perspective but the thing with you and Jake was he was always a gentleman and treated you right and how you deserved to be treated, and of course vice versa.

When you told your mom the news, she did not show any surprised reaction, simply telling you how she saw it coming and was just waiting for this moment to happen, you dad shared a similar reaction, happy that it was Jake to be the one you were dating.

Fast forward to a whole year of dating Jake. People would say that you two were like a fairytale love, match made in heaven, meant for each other, all that. "Hey yn, maybe you should do that trend where you call Jake your husband"

"I'm pretty sure he's already seen that on tiktok, no?"

Still, even if he did, you were going to do it just to see his reaction. That same day, you two meet up after your last class ended. Waiting for you somewhere in the university's campus, you run up to him and give him a hug. "Someone missed me?"

In the car ride home, you guys both agreed to stop by your favorite restaurant and get some take out. Which was a perfect time to put your little prank in action. Just like everyone else, after placing your order, you ask Jake what he wants and tell the waiter. "Then my husband would like ___"

Once the waiter leaves, you finally take notice of Jake who is wide eyed, staring at you in awe. "There's no way you just called me that" To say he was a lovesick puppy after that was an understatement.

But now since you called him that, you have to keep calling him that. Because if you call him or introduce him as your boyfriend, he'll act surprised and startled. "Are you asking for a divorce?" "Do you not love me anymore?" "I thought I was your husband?" to name a few.

"I'm gonna have to propose now, for real this time"

I can literally picture schoolbf Jake doing all of this! Lovee it 💗

☆❔ ━━━ school boyfriend , sjy !

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who first became your tutor because he wanted to get to know you better, knowing you loathed physics. this was the perfect opportunity to get you behind closed doors.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who invited you over to his house for a study session, only to open his door to you shirtless and in low sweatpants—knowing exactly what he was doing with the smirk on his lips.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who just couldn’t resist you and kissed you so hard he left a bruise on your lip. he apologized with yet another kiss, and another one after that claiming he was a remedy.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who confessed in the most cliche way.

“what’s (i∂+m)Φ=0?” jake grins, as he slides the paper over. “jake, i have no idea.” you really didn’t. “it’s the formula of love, exactly what we have.”

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who let’s you keep one of his necklaces around your neck, letting everyone know that you’re his.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who spends his entire class period staring at you. drawing you in all of his notebooks and even takes pictures of you when you’re not paying attention.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who drives you to and from school, claiming the passenger seat as yours and will sit in the parking lot until one of his friends move to the backseat.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who sneaks you into the janitor’s closet to spend the five minutes he has between classes. he’ll whine about how much he misses you and how he can’t wait until the day is over. jake will then spend the last three minutes making out with you.

“come on, it’ll be quick.” jake corners you against the wall as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. he catches a glimpse of his necklace under your shirt and he completely loses it, diving into a kiss.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who will fight off anyone he needs to. it doesn’t matter how big or strong they are, he’ll protect his girl.

“it’s not that big of a deal baby.” jake smiles, his lip busted and his jaw ached. but his knuckles were clear as to who the winner was.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who points at you every basket he makes at his games, blowing you a kiss that has everyone screaming over.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who convinces your teacher to switch seats with your desk mate, just so he can hold your hand under the table.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who likes to give you his blazer because it fits oversized on you and everyone see’s his name tag attached to it.

SCHOOL BOYFRIEND JAKE who knew that from the start you were going to be his forever.

© 2024 dilrmma

ahahsdhs this is so so adorable, funny , hot and just perfect!! Jake and yn are silly beans but soo cute and I’m glad they finally realise they love each other hahah . I loved reading this it’s really well written!! 💗💗🥰

bad news first - sjy (m)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I do mean it!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

You see Jake before he sees you.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jake pauses. “Just vibes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” you beam.

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

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

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

“Good night!”

“Night, Y/N!”

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

“Gosh, what’s all this for?”

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

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

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

“And what?” you ask. 

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

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

“Ew.”

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

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

“What?”

“Is that it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re pathetic.”

“I know that, no need to remind me.”

“Are you gonna do something about it?”

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

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

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

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

“I wasn’t-”

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

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

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

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

“You do English Lit.”

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

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

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

“You’re not answering my question.”

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

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

You pause. “He did.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It hadn’t started unusually.

“So, bad news first, right?”

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

“I’m moving to Korea next month.”

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

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

“Forever.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Right.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, right.”

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You dated your boss?”

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

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

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

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

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

“How long were you together?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Ouch.”

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

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

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

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

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

“How much of a bonus?”

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

“Okay. Got any more specifics?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His tea tastes even sweeter that day.

--

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

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

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

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

All of that from a simple arm around your shoulders.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Y/N?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I could fix him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“About what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mm?”

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Snax? What’s that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Simp,” Sunghoon snickers.

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

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

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

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

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

“But… I’m scared,” Jake says. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Like what?”

“Like kissing her, or some-”

“Kissing her?!” Jake echoes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First, he has a trip to plan.

--

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

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

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

“Oh, we’re not-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, ma’am.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“People are used to the cold here.”

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re such an idiot.”

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

“Mm?”

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

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

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

“Uh-oh.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Baby?”

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

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

And this is only the beginning.

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you so much, Jakey.”

He smiles. “It’s no worries.”

“Did you do it all this afternoon?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” you whisper against his skin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am. It’s just a lot.”

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

“So good, Jakey,” you reply shakily.

“Good.”

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

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

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

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

“No, just… I want you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That would’ve been hot.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You sigh. “I guess.” 

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

“I love you more.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Let’s sleep, baby,” you say.

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’ll be even more in love at twenty than at fourteen.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

this was so fun and got me giggling and stuff ahdkask 💗!!

BATTER UP, ⋆｡°✩ 𓈒𓈒 home run, baby

𖥔 PRECIS. a series of headcanons for my university star athletes au PAIRING. star baseball player!jake x supportive gf!reader GENRE. fluff, suggestive WARNINGS. skinship, kissing, petnames

authors note ୨୧ this is pt. 1/4 of this hyung line star athlete au I’ve conjured up in my head. yuh.

─────────

Star baseball player Jake, who always spots you in the stands, gives you a little wink before stepping up to the plate, making your heart race as if he knows exactly how to fluster you.

Star baseball player Jake, who teases you about how obsessed you are with watching him play, but secretly waits for your cheers the most, knowing it gives him the confidence to perform even better.

Star baseball player Jake, who surprises you after every game with a playful hug from behind, his face buried in your neck as he asks, “Did I impress you today?”

Star baseball player Jake, who casually slips his baseball cap onto your head during games, flashing that easygoing grin as he says, “Looks better on you.”

Star baseball player Jake, who shamelessly pulls you in close for a messy, rough kiss after a tough game, the sweat dripping down his face, his breathing heavy, as he mutters, “…This was all I needed…”

Star baseball player Jake, who throws mock glares at his teammates during team events when they try to flirt with you, not-so-subtly marking his territory by draping an arm around your shoulder.

Star baseball player Jake, who stays up late to help you study, even when he has early morning practice, insisting that “my grades are good enough—I’m more worried about you.”

Star baseball player Jake, who gets caught staring at you instead of focusing during practice, only for his coach to yell out, “Jake! Eyes on the game, not your girl!”

Star baseball player Jake, who gives you his jersey after a big win, knowing you love how it smells like him, and later sends a cheeky text, “Better not let anyone else see you in it.”

Star baseball player Jake, who can’t wait to get you alone in his dorm after an especially good practice or game, letting you pull his jersey over his mess of hair as he peppers your body in warm, rushed kisses.. “Is this my reward?”

Star baseball player Jake, who sulks after losing a really intense game and refuses to talk to anyone but you, only to break down when he’s alone with you, admitting, “I just hate letting everyone down, especially you...”

Star baseball player Jake, who sneaks you into the locker room after hours, sitting on the bench beside you with a mischievous grin as he says, before capturing your lips in a warm, sensual kiss. “We’re not supposed to be here, but I couldn’t wait to see you.”

Star baseball player Jake, who makes sure you’re wearing his team’s colors at every game, calling you his “lucky charm,” and firmly believing that you bring him good luck. He especially likes when you write his jersey number on your cheek!

Star baseball player Jake, who challenges you to a playful game of catch after practice, laughing at how uncoordinated you are but always rushing over to help you fix your stance, his hands lingering a little too long on your waist. “What…? It’s your form that’s all weird..”

Star baseball player Jake, who secretly loves when you call him out for spending too much time at practice, just so he can dramatically pout and whine, “But I’m doing it all for you!”

Star baseball player Jake, who posts cute pictures of the two of you on his social media after a game, with captions like, “My #1 fan ❤️” or “Couldn’t do it without her support 😘.”

Star baseball player Jake, who runs his fingers through his hair and sighs dramatically every time you mention one of his teammates, playfully asking, “You like them more than me now, huh?”

Star baseball player Jake, who puts his cap on backwards and shoots you a playful smirk, jaw flexing as he chews his usual bubble gum, every time you try to focus on your work, just because he knows how much you’re into that look.

Star baseball player Jake, who gets flustered when you wear his oversized varsity jacket, trying to play it cool but eventually blurting out, “You’re gonna make me lose my focus if you keep looking that good in my clothes.”

𝓼im𝓳ake 𝓭𝓪𝓲𝓵𝔂 𝓽𝓮𝔁𝓽𝓼

where sim jaeyun and akabori yn are in a long term relationship.

Sikko’s Masterlist. 💌

pic credits! 💌

🏷️ Perm taglist: @i03jae

Blurred Lines. ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

where : yizhuo yn and park sunghoon were not only a couple, but the bestest of friends, an inseparable pair; both deeply in love with each other. a love as intense as their personalities. despite their deep connection, they were young and ambitious, and the pressures of life pulled them apart. the couple mutually decided to break up, hoping to carve out their futures separately. ¿what happens when they inevitably end up in the same friend group again? ¿will they fight for the once strong bond or will they continue their lives separately?

Masterlist Next

Profiles:

22, Yizhuo Yn, a Chinese exchange student. strong and challenging personality, what the young people consider as a black cat. Yizhuo is also known for her grumpy, no-nonsense attitude. She's often seen as aloof and reserved, preferring to keep her emotions to herself. despite her seemingly cold exterior, she has a fiercely loyal and protective nature when it comes to those she cares about. she has a sharp tongue and is quick to respond with a witty remark or a sarcastic comment. Her sense of humor is dry, and she often uses it as a defense mechanism to keep people at arm's lengths.

22, jimin, karina is deeply caring and protective of her loved ones. very overprotective when it comes to yn

21, minjeong aka winter is considered the bubbly person, not A bubbly person, but THE bubbly person.

22, giselle. yn’s bestfriend and the only person who knows the reasoning behind yn’s decision and most of sunghoon’s.

21, Sim Jake a Physics major who just happens to have a tiny crush on giselle.

21, Park Jonseong, yn’s favorite person aside from aeri.

23, Heeseung used to have a crush on yn, but now he just sees her as a little sister. yn’s no. 1 protector

21, Sunghoon and the leading role of the smau. used to be a figure skater along with jay. has been keeping a secret the reason why he decided on going along with the breakup.

𝓛ee 𝓗eeseung 𝓓𝓪𝓲𝓵𝔂 𝓣𝓮𝔁𝓽𝓼

where: heeseung and yn talk throughout the days; about anything and everything.

Sikko’s Masterlist. 💌

Pic credits. 💌

🏷️ perm taglist: @i03jae

SAFETY NET ⸺ SIM JAEYUN

genres! fluff, established relationship

word count! 371

playlist! safety net by Ariana Grande

Jake Sim was truly something, the man felt like a dream. You couldn’t quite put your finger on what had you falling so hard and so fast, though there were a myriad of reasons to fall in love with him.

He was the epitome of beauty and kindness, you were almost certain the heavens were created in his honor, he was everything good and pure in this world, an earth angel many would say.

His cherubic eyes sparkled with every smile and every laugh, the fluff of his chocolate brown hair, voice that dripped like honey from his beauteous lips only speaking the kindest of words, his lean body like an ancient sculpture of a Greek god, the protruding veins in his forearms that traveled through his backhands towards his lengthy slim fingers, but his charm went beyond the physical.

Jake was beautiful in the mind, his gray matter being one of his most admirable qualities, always remaining humble despite his immense success as an artist, his tenderhearted nature and virtuous spirit, his air of benignity and sense of social consciousness, his good-willed attitude, and his ability to be pristine in who he was as a person; perennial in staying true to himself.

He was your guardian angel, he had a way of providing you with exactly the kind of safety and security you needed, assuring you of your significance in his life without you ever needing to ask, his strong arms would wrap around you conciliating any trace of discontent.

Truth be told when you first met Jake you initially hadn’t been looking for love, content with your current path in life but one flash of his winsome smile now had you off track and you don’t know if you should fight or flight although after some time you found you didn’t mind, not when it was him at least.

You were falling hard and you were falling fast for Jake Sim with nothing to soften the descent, your love for him inexhaustible and it scared you, how out of control you were spiraling because of this man but unbeknownst to you Jake’s arms would always be your safety net, ready to catch you no matter when, where or how.

© 2023 hoonven, all rights reserved. i do not give permission to alter, repost, translate, or plagiarize my works on any platform.

AAAAUUGGG I LOVE THIS SM, THIS IS SO GOOD

𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥'𝐬 𝐤𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬' 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐲 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟕.𝟐

SYNOPSIS:After the heated yet emotional confrontation that involuntarily led to you revealing glimpses of your raw vulnerability, you knew that it was for the greater good that you had officially driven them away. But little did you know that the four ex-leaders refuse to give up on you, doing whatever it takes to get you back, even if it leads to them repressing their pride and grovelling for your forgiveness on their knees. 

PAIRING: non!idols enha hyung line x fem!reader

GENRE: 18+ (mdni), adulthood, reverse harem

WORD COUNT: 48.8k+

WARNINGS: profanities, explicit themes, angst, mention of violence, alcohol consumption, manipulation, mild toxicity, smuts, unprotected sex (no!), dom!enha, mild switch!jake, mild switch!reader, name calling, mild degradation, manhandling, bondage, blowjob, fingering, pussy eating, edging, squirting, creampies, breeding kink, overstimulation, multiple orgasms.

DISCLAIMER: this fic is inspired by devil's night series written by penelope douglas!

PLAYLIST: Say It Right - Nelly Furtado, Yes or No - JungKook, So Sick - Ne-Yo, Love You Like a Love Song - Selena Gomez, Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding, Kiss It Better - Rihanna, Night Changes - One Direction, Clarity - Zedd. ft Foxes, For You - Liam Payne & Rita Ora, Right Now - Akon, Die For You - The Weeknd, Wonderland - Taylor Swift, We Found Love - Rihanna, How Deep Is Your Love - Calvin Harris & Disciples, Cinnamon Girl - Lana Del Rey, Delicate - Taylor Swift.

PREV (PART 7.1) | NEXT (PART 7.3) ✘ SERIES MASTERLIST ✘

In the solitude of his room, Jake remains stagnant on the edge of the bed, only adorned in his pants as he had come out of the shower moments prior before this. His hands clutch his head that is throbbing with a raging tempest of emotions he seeks to quell, but it only intensifies at the agonising thought of you and the stark clarity in your resolve despite how defeated you sounded at the end.

A muscle pulses in his jaw while his eyes harden as he represses those emotions from being potent that could manifest themselves in the tangible form of his rage. He knows better, because the last time he unleashed that rage, his best friends had to subdue him with all of their might amid the rampageous chaos.

Despite the inclination towards brutality that stemmed from his depravity, Jake was never the type to exhibit such violence unless it was in a suitable situation, and he had never been vigorously hot-tempered until your departure happened. 

It was as if he and Jay had swapped temperament, as he is now the most volatile out of them. No longer was he the most amiable and laid-back one in the group, as he had become someone whose unbridled rage courses through his veins. Even his best friends could never fully conquer it, and Jake knew this.

The only person who can tame his rage is you, and only you alone, as it was your departure that changed him for the worse. He knew that he could never blame you for the change in him, only having himself to blame for his lack of self-control over his emotions. He recalls the times he had taken you for granted, most especially in the beginning. Oh, he truly and so desperately wants to atone for his past sins towards you.

But then, your words struck him deeply, as did the way you looked at him with an unfamiliar coldness that made his skin crawl four days ago ─ four long fucking days that only exacerbated his misery, to which he feels the incessant impatience that vehemently impels him to get you back in his arms, even if it means that your hatred for him grows.

Jake gets sidetracked from his rumination when he hears the animated bustle from the outside ─ most probably his best friends will be taking their leave to go to work, just as he should be as well, but in this condition, he doesn’t have the mental capacity to do anything except to run back into your inviting arms he dreamed of every night.

Jake is more than aware that he should not be neglecting his responsibilities to further dwell in this misery of his yearning for you, especially when his best friend can easily terminate his employment for his lack of competency in his role as a professional cybersecurity, owing to his cyber prowess that also enables him to manipulate and hack devices and data for his pernicious pursuits.

Back in Seoul, Jake landed the same profession as he does in the present, with the exception that he worked for his father’s company despite his resentment and hatred for his father, but he merely did it for the sake of distracting himself from the pain and retaining whatever remnant of sanity he had left.

Even when his days were painted blue and grey in Seoul, Jake genuinely enjoyed his profession, seeking miniscule contentment in the days he worked tirelessly with the intention to tire his mind that was always thinking about you, but at the end of the day, you managed to weave through the labyrinth of his mind.

Your face, your eyes, your scent, your smile, your laughter ─ everything about you occupies his mind unabatingly. Sure, it could be just pure obsession, but he knows that it is beyond obsession, and not even the love he has for his profession can outweigh the love his heart harbours for you.

Throughout the blues and greys of his days after learning of your departure, Jake shut out everyone for almost an entire month, and his parents were no exception. He became foreignly callous, painfully detached from everything. He was preoccupied battling with the onslaught of devastation that racked through his body.

Although he became volatile with his uncurbed emotions, he was also the most emotional. Out of the four of them, Jake was the only one who couldn’t care less about staining his tough guy image and has shed tears the most even in front of them, especially on most of his sleepless nights. Sometimes his best friends would take initiatives to check on him and found him in rivulets of tears as he called for your name weakly in his sleep while hugging his bolster tight as though it were you he was hugging instead.

Having already suffered with abandonment issues, your departure wounded him so deeply that not even his old therapist could help in pulling him out of the dark abyss he chose to spiral into. At times, he wished to rip his heart out of his chest as he couldn’t handle the palpable yearning that felt intensifying as days passed.

Jake wanted you. He wanted to be consumed by your everything. He wanted to drown in the thought of you and the memories he had with you. You were the only person who could make him become good, and what he thought was impossible happened when he found himself praying to God that you would return to him one day. You made him become religious when he should be worshipping at your altar instead, because you were and still are his salvation.

You are his Goddess. His to worship, his to provide for, and his to love until the end of time. Love was a sacred sentiment he thought was illogical until you happened. You, who have made him embrace love, which he never wants to let go of, most especially you.

Just like that, fear strikes him at the thought of you, prompting him to abandon his bed to head for his closet, browsing through the ironed blouses he had meticulously arranged and hung in the wardrobe before grabbing the black blouse. He deftly buttons up the blouse and rolls up his sleeves, busily grooming himself to look at least presentable before he hastily grabs his necessities and exits his room in a hurry.

Jake has some fears, but the thought of losing you again where you would be beyond his reach once more completely terrifies him that he can feel it twisting in his guts. Fuck it that you might hate him once he shows up. He would rather die trying to earn your forgiveness and for you to love him than to never try at all.

“Where are you going?” Heeseung’s query draws his attention briefly as he wears his shoes in a haphazard manner. It looks like Heeseung is working from home, judging by the meticulous setup of his laptop and other working necessities on the table in the living room, whereas Sunghoon and Jay are decked out in formal attire, preparing to head to work.

Jake presses his lips thinly together. It astounds yet infuriates him how they seem indifferent and have yet to talk about what happened after you pleaded for them to leave. Now he feels relieved that he will be initiating the first step instead of them.

“To Y/N.” Jake answers rather brusquely, his steely eyes observing the emotions manifesting in their facade. “It’s about time someone did something to earn her forgiveness and bring her back.”

“Jake, it’s only been four days. She probably doesn’t want to see your face.” Sunghoon states dreadfully, his tone sounding terse as though he is restraining something in him. “Give it a week, and then we’ll try again.”

“Also, shouldn’t you be working today?” Jay points out with an eyebrow raised at him. “Just because you’re my best friend, it doesn’t mean that you’ll get a pass.”

“Y/N is more important, as she should be to the rest of you.” Jake retorts while there is a certain bite in his voice, his eyes blazing with fury as he glares at them. “If you want to grovel a week later, then be my guest, but don’t you dare try and stop me from going to her now. I’ve waited long enough, and we delayed what we must do far too long.”

Jake doesn’t wait for any of them to reply as he proceeds to storm his way out of their temporary residence; his mind and heart are in consonance that resonate with the resolution involving you.

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Jake has been following you in the most discreet way possible since the moment you stepped foot outside of your apartment building, his car following behind your Uber rides. From one place to another, he never would have thought that you would turn out to be a busy woman today. Of course, he knows what you do for a living here, among other things. After all, stalking and obtaining data are two of his many expertises. He was also the one responsible for the first intrusion into your apartment after obtaining information regarding your address.

Presently, Jake remains steadfast in his pursuit, his back leaning against his red Lamborghini that is parked by the curb of the pavement walk with his arms crossed over his chest, causing his taut muscles to stretch against the material. His striking handsomeness attracts attention from the passersby in the street, as evident in the way their eyes are ogling at him, but the centre of his attention is solely focused on you and you alone, staring at you with dark intended eyes.

As you are seated adjacently to the large window in a bustling chic cafe, the midday light streaming through creates a gentle halo of warmth on your face, rendering him moonstruck by your heavenly beauty. 

Unlike when you looked at him four nights ago, your eyes look animated while you are occupied in conversing with two refined ladies, possibly your clients, in the way your demeanour looks professional as well as the setup of your laptop. Even if he is observing you from afar, he can discern the air of confidence and dominance you exude as you sell your product to them, causing his chest to feel a tingling warmth of pride.

After learning of your past achievements that happened within a year since you became a freelance writer, Jake truly admires how resilient and remarkable you are at your job, especially when it is not an easy career to pursue, so he has no doubt that you will succeed in whatever product you sell to your clients as he has complete faith in you. It is only a pity that he wasn’t there to witness and celebrate your past success with you.

As his eyes remain lingering on your radiant countenance, he feels a stab of jealousy in his chest at the way you are smiling to your clients, never mind the fact that they are women. He wishes to light up a smile on your face like he once did and for you to smile at him the way you do to your clients now.

Jake forces himself to practise patience as he awaits the next few minutes or so for you to conclude the meeting with your clients. In the meantime, he decides to think and surf through the internet for places to bring you to, aside from a gift he bought for you earlier, for which he made a quick detour to the mall before stalking you from your place. To be fair, this is an impromptu plan, but he can’t afford to delay any longer, fearing that by the time he has decided to win over your heart, the walls you built to protect your heart would be infrangible and that you would not accept him for good.

As Jake lifts his head up from his phone, he spots your clients preparing to leave. He tucks his phone in his pocket and wipes his clammy palms down his pants, feeling the unfamiliar jitters all over him despite maintaining a collected facade. It feels as though he is about to ask you out on a date for the first time. Right, he has never asked you out on a proper date before. Guilt begins to gnaw at him. 

Jake waits until your clients exit from the establishment before he finally sets in motion, his steps showing his avidity in hoping that you are still taking your time to leave while he deftly avoids bumping into the passerby along the street.

Entering the bustling cafe, his gaze immediately settles on your figure facing away from him. He unclenches his fist as he advances forward, and yet the closer he is to you, the more he feels like his rapid heart is going to combust.

Fuck, it’s like meeting his crush, which is not entirely incorrect but with the addition that you are the love of his life instead. He has never felt such jittery towards someone that renders him pathetic and weak in the knees except you.

Seeing as you are still busy packing your stuff into your shoulder bag, Jake decides to wait as his figure looms over yours next to the table. His shadow seems to have caught your attention as he sees you freezing in your seat with your shoulders tensed up.

His eyes remain on you as you slowly turn around to finally face him, and the light in your beautiful eyes dims with a concoction of emotions he cannot seem to fathom, but the once astonishment on your countenance is replaced by vexation, entirely displeased to see him.

His heart aches tremendously in the way you look at him without any ounce of affection and tenderness you once did ─ just a complete utter void of sentiment that pulls at his heartstrings painfully.

Jake begins to wonder if this is how you felt as a certain recollection surfaces in his mind of when he decided to become an arsehole to hurt you with his words and made you jealous with an irrelevant bimbo whose name he can’t remember.

“How did you know I was here?” Your voice devoids of affection, only stark coldness that feels foreign in his ears. You grip the strap of your shoulder bag, awaiting his response while your eyes harden with such resolve. “Never mind, don’t bother answering. I don’t want to waste any more of my time on you.”

It is as if Jake has been deprived of the ability to articulate his feelings into words since the moment your icily glaring eyes latch on his face. Not waiting for his response, you scoff as you roll your eyes before leaving the table and brushing past him coldly.

Jake clenches his fist, hating how meek he becomes and how unusual it is that his confidence seems to evaporate into thin air once he presents himself in front of you, unlike how he was a few nights ago.

Hearing the doorbell chime, Jake snaps out of his dwelling thoughts and wastes no time in chasing after you. Thankfully, you are not that far off the establishment, granting him prompt ease to catch up to you. 

“Sweetheart, wait,” Jake latches his hand on your wrist, enough to force your attention on him as you turn around to face him, your steely eyes conveying such animosity that unnerves him to the point where he feels a surge of emotions that threaten to be released in rivulets.

“Don’t touch me, and don’t call me sweetheart,” You yank your hand from his defeated grasp as if he is your bane. Being too engrossed in the torrent of emotions within you, you fail to realise the hurt glistening in his eyes so fleetingly amidst the yearning. “Have I not made it clear to you that I wanted for you to leave me alone for good?”

“You did, but you know I can’t do that,” Jake speaks so gently, his voice sounding deeper as he continues to tread his words with mellowing emphasises that you can’t help but to hear him out while he takes a slow step forward. “I couldn’t go on any longer without making things right with you.”

Jake can see your steely resolve teetering, and for a split second, he manages to catch a glimpse of sentiment that belies your stringent demeanour. “Just what does it take for you to understand that I don’t wish to reconcile with any of you,” Your flinty tone almost sounds defeated. “I already told you four nights ago that I forgave you. I gave you what you wanted.”

“I don’t believe that you forgave us so easily, which is why I’m here,” Jake stands in front of you as you are finally within an arm’s reach. The way his warm brown eyes soften as he gazes at you stirs something so dangerous yet so familiar within you. “So, please, sweetheart. Don’t push me away this time. Allow me to fix the parts I broke.”

You can feel it, your resolve melting by the clarity in his sincerity and appeal, as does the way his eyes are swimming with emotions you once harboured for him or still do. You swallow down a spit to moisten your oddly parched throat, trying your utmost not to falter under his tender gaze.

“What if the broken parts are irreparable? What will you do? What can you do?” Your questions shoot out like bullets, your eyes hardening again. “Just give it up, Jake. Words don’t sway me, even if they come from you.” 

“I gave up once when you disappeared without leaving a trace, and I refuse to give up now when the opportunity for me to mend your broken heart is already here.” Jake steps closer to you, his cologne infiltrating your senses while you grapple with your teetering resolve. “I’m willing to do anything, whatever it takes, and no matter the price, if it means that you’ll return to my arms at the end of the day. I’m willing to try over and over again, because that’s how much you mean to me.”

“I hardly believe that I mean anything to you.” Your ego refuses to yield despite his sincerity that resonates with you. Fragments of bittersweet memories you had with him coalesce into one as it surfaces in your mind. “Yes, we kissed, fucked, and did things that friends wouldn’t do, but we were nothing more than friends, Jake. I was your prey for you to fuck me all over.”

“Jaeyun.” Jake corrects you, his husky voice conveying a silent plea that you are able to discern. Your heart begins to pick up the beat of familiar cadence as he takes another step closer while his wet brown eyes seem to lock you in place. “Call me Jaeyun, like you always did, please.”

Instead of backing away, you remain cemented to the ground despite the dangerous close proximity between your bodies. You can feel your voice losing its flinty volume as you swallow down a painful lump in your throat. “Why does it matter to you? Jake, Jaeyun, they’re both your names.”

“I told you before, didn’t I?” A wistful smile forms on his lips that doesn’t reach his eyes while his tone is filled with bitterness. “Everyone else calls me Jake, but Jaeyun is only reserved for you.”

You force a scoff out of you in an attempt to mask the emotions that are threatening to slip beneath your facade. “Why? Do you feel special or something? It’s just a name.”

“Of course I do, because it’s coming from you.” Jake says softly, causing your heart to clench some more. “You are and will always be the only woman who has the ability to make me feel special.”

His warm brown eyes seem to be pulling in, but just before you get utterly lost in his eyes, the sound of passersby in the background milling about in the street renders you self-conscious by the fact that you two are in your own world.

You take a step back from him, ignoring the dejection glistening in his eyes. “Flattering me with words isn’t going to work.” Liar. Your heart was pumping loudly in your chest. “If you’re just holding me back to flatter me, then I’m going to leave. I have better things to do.” You really don’t, well, except to take a power nap.

“Don’t go, please.” Jake pleads, letting his inhibition go as he grabs your hand and holds it tenderly. You open your mouth to retort, but he cuts you off firmly yet there is a tinge of desperation he seems to restrain. “Give me a chance to prove that I’m worthy of having a place in your life.”

You heave a sigh. “Jaeyun─”

“Please, sweetheart. I’m begging you.” Jake implores, holding your hand rather firmly as he holds it close to his chest while the mere gesture makes your heart skip a beat involuntarily. “Give me one last chance to prove that I’m worthy of your love and to be your man. Give me another shot at forgiveness.”

Just like that, the resolve you valiantly retain liquefy and the exasperation is replaced by something so gut-wrenching in the way his eyes express emotions that you know reflects the depths of his feelings. This time, you don't protest as you allow him to hold your hand a little longer.

Deep down, you know that you would eventually cave into Jake as you come to embrace the fact that he has earned an abiding soft spot in your mended heart, even when you feign ignorance to it.

As you recall the memories you had with Jake, the back of your eyes begin to sting. Sure, there were times, especially in bedroom, where he was rough and can be quite a menace, but the Jake you remember was always sweet and knew what to say in order to allay whatever worries you had. At some moments, you even felt that you had also found a friend in Jake despite your salacious escapades, which was why you often confided in him as he understood you the most out of the four.

Yes, you have witnessed and understood that Jake is detrimental and unpredictable, and no doubt he falls under the category of psychopathic just like his best friends, which should have given you the reason to terminate whatever adoring feelings you had for him, but a part of you knows that no matter how grievously you try to efface everything about him on your mind and heart, he will always prevail in your affection that runs deep.

After all, he was your sweet Jaeyun, the Jaeyun you had missed dearly. Right now, you are seeing the Jaeyun you knew and loved in front of you despite how his divinely chiselled features look more mature than you remember. 

Your fingers are itching to caress his face affectionately like you once did, but you refrain yourself. As you finalise your decision based on both rationality and sensibility, you release a soft sigh, returning your gaze to meet his anticipating one.

“Alright, but don’t make me regret this, Jaeyun.” You warn.

You can see the way light beams in his eyes that you find so endearing. “I promise you won’t, sweetheart,” His firm tone holds promises which you can’t help but to anticipate. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” You ask, your face contorting into confusion as he guides you to his red Lamborghini, to which you scrutinise his car before recognition flickers in your gaze. So he was the one who had waited and followed you all the way to your apartment on that one night when you were drinking out to your heart’s content.

“I hope you don’t mind clearing your schedule for the rest of the day, because from this moment forth, we’re on date,” Jake opens the passenger door for you, giving you a small smile that is enough to shoot a cupid arrow to your heart. You raise an eyebrow at him, noticing how his smile turns sheepish. “Besides, I haven’t really asked you out on a proper date before, so consider this our first.”

Your countenance betrays none of the feelings that are fluttering annoyingly in the expanse of your chest, but as your eyes roam around his, they soften as you recognise that he is trying his best despite how evidently nervous he is, causing your heart to clench at how genuine he is to prove his worth.

Maybe it won’t hurt you to lower down your guards around him. In return, you cast him a small smile that softens your features, unknowingly shooting the same cupid arrows to his heart that is beating in a familiar cadence for you.

“Okay, Jaeyun,” Your mellow tone catches him off guard as does your softened eyes, reminding him of the times when you gazed at him with heartfelt affection. 

“Okay?” It isn’t a question to you, but more like as if he is trying to wrap his head around the fact that you don’t seem to be entirely hostile towards him as much as the other night. 

You hold back a chuckle as you notice how similar he looks to a puppy that is waiting for its reward for being good while the smile on his lips slowly broadens just by your one word affirmation, granting a faint dimple on his cheek to appear.

“Yes, okay, Jaeyun.” You reaffirm softly, allowing your guards to lower around him.

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The silence enfolding in his car offers you a peculiar solace that is accompanied by the euphonious tune from the dashboard radio. His car is infused with a certain air freshener that smells pleasant, allaying any tension in your bodies. 

Yet, neither of you has yet to initiate a conversation. Jake remains a jittery mess on the inside despite his concentration on the busy road, his lips tucking in between his teeth and his eyebrows furrowing in fret as he hopes that he doesn’t fuck things up today, whereas you are preoccupied with your keen observation at his navigating skills as you gaze out to the window.

From your peripheral vision, you notice the visible pale on his knuckles in the way he grips the leathered steering wheel before your eyes find their way to his chiselled jaw, which seems taut with tension. You don’t know why, or maybe you do, but you feel compelled to dispel whatever worries he has on his mind.

“You seem to know your way around here,” You strike up a conversation on instinct as you utilise what you have been observing. He casts a brief glance at you, but you manage to take notice of the fleeting surprise in his eyes. “I have to use GPS to get my way around here sometimes.” You confess, embarrassingly enough.

It seems like whatever spell you covertly cast on him works as you see his jaw going unclench. “I actually don’t,” His sincere admission throws you off guard, and you are in disbelief when his lips stretch into a lax smile. “We might get lost, so prepare yourself for extended hours of a car ride for me to bring you back to your apartment.”

“Jaeyun,” Your flat tone denotes zero amusement as you shoot him a glare.

The sound of his soft chuckles alone is melodious, awakening the flutters surrounding your heart, and it intensifies when he turns to look at you with a boyish grin on his handsome features. “I’m kidding, sweetheart. Of course, I know my way around here,” In a way, his confidence feels more like an assurance to you. “It took me a while to memorise these routes by heart and not depending on GPS.”

Realising that you are still staring at him with a certain awe, you snap out of the trance, clearing your throat as you resort to another topic. “So…” The unintentional drag in your tone sounds painfully awkward, causing you to grimace inwardly. “How long have you guys been here? Since before Milan fashion week?”

“Three months ago, so yeah, before Milan fashion week.” He answers, his eyes returning to the road as he turns the steering wheel with one hand while the other relaxes on his thigh.

“Oh,” You can’t help but to overthink, bringing a frown to your lips. If they had been here for three months, then why did they decide to see you until recently? Why the long wait?

Jake is more than aware of your resounding silence, prompting him to glance at you. “Don’t misunderstand, love. We didn’t get to you sooner because we were too busy settling down our business here,” His words hit you like whiplash, as though he has the ability to read your overthinking mind. “As much as we wanted to find you first after we landed here, we couldn’t neglect our responsibilities, especially involving our careers. Stability is important in this economy after all.”

Your interest piques at the mention of careers, which morphs into curiosity in the way you tilt your body to get a better look at him. “So what do you do? Hacking?” Your tone remains cynic. “Considering you are very much professional at it.”

Jake raises an eyebrow at your tone, his eyes remaining on the road. “Is that sarcasm I sense?”

A scoff leaves your lips as you fold your arms below your chest. "Asked the guy who hacked the smart lock on my door and intruded into my apartment.” Naturally, you expect a retort or a witty remark from him.

“I’m sorry,” His stark sincerity in his apology proves you wrong, causing you to blink your eyes at him, but he doesn’t meet your gaze. His lips pressing thinly together, his countenance unreadable, but his tone speaks volume. “There are a lot of things I’m sorry for, sweetheart.”

This time, you don’t reply, uncertain of what to reciprocate in your enunciation. Jake casts another glance at you, wanting to alleviate any discomfort he brought upon you. “If you want to know, I’m working as the head of the cybersecurity team under Jay’s company.” 

“Jay’s company?” You blurt out your astonishment, your eyes widening in the slightest fraction at the revelation. “Jay has his own company?” The thought of Jay and his attractiveness being a CEO arouses something so dangerous within you. You quickly quell it, silently berating yourself. 

“Well, more like his father’s, but I think you should ask him yourself for a clearer explanation,” Jake’s vague elaboration elicits a dissatisfied huff from you, to which he feels amused, before continuing. “Back in Seoul, I worked in the same line under my father’s company. As much as I hated to work for him, I couldn’t refuse since it was an obligation for me.”

You furrow your eyebrows in both perplexity and curiosity. “But you’re here now, so I’m guessing he was fine with you leaving Seoul.”

“He actually opposed it, but what do I care?” His tone carries an undercurrent of bitter resentment for the elder, despite the indifference he wears on his face with a lazy smirk touching his lips. “If he hadn’t neglected his son for years, then maybe he would’ve known that his son would defy all odds, no matter the consequences, and go through such lengths to get what he wants.”

“And what do you want most, Jaeyun?” You ask tentatively, your voice sounding mellower than the previous while your eyes remain fixated on his divine side profile.

The air around you shifts, forming a palpable tension you recognise, and yet it is a dangerous one in the way it feels raw with a delicate intimacy, causing your heart to beat in a familiar cadence at the moment he meets your eyes. 

Jake feels it too, a certain unfathomable connection that electrifies just by locking eyes with you. “I think you already know the answer, love.” His voice barely above a whisper while his plump lips unfurl a soft smile while 

You are pulled out of the electrifying trance when his car comes to an abrupt stop, to which you haven’t realised that you have reached your destination as he finally pulls over to an empty spot by the curb. “We’re here.” He announces, switching off the ignition.

You decide to leave your bag, only bringing your phone and wallet with you before you exit from his vehicle at the same time as him. The crisp noon air hits your skin once more while you busily direct your attention on a familiar building.

Your eyes glimmer with recognition before you turn to face him in utter disbelief and amazement. “Wait, isn’t this─?” 

Jake gives you a broad smile as he stands next to you, feeling pleased by your reaction. “Welcome to Teatro alla Scala.” You nearly swoon over his accent in his perfect pronunciation. 

“I’ve always wanted to watch one of their shows but haven’t had the opportunity to since I was often occupied with work.” You tell him, feeling the natural yet familiar flow of confiding in him like you always did back then.

His eyes soften. “Fortunately, I was able to buy tickets for us earlier today, and we got the best seats in the house.”

“Earlier today?” You raise an inquisitive eyebrow at him, narrowing your eyes in a subtle, playful accusation. “So does this mean that this is an impromptu date?”

Jake rubs his nape sheepishly. “It was a last-minute plan, yes, but I couldn’t wait for another day to pursue you,” He confesses, and his warm brown eyes molten with promises that send you a faint shiver. “I mean it when I say that I intend to show you how serious I am about you.”

You lose the ability to speak, only affording to blink your eyes in acknowledgement as you look at him, as if you are awestruck by him. 

Jake chuckles softly, a melody you wish to hear over and over. He offers his arm to you in a gentlemanly stance. “Let’s head inside, sweetheart.” This time, you don’t hesitate to hook your arm around his before you finally venture further inside.

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Time passes by quicker than he likes, and it feels like he hasn’t been spending enough time with you. Jake feels more than relieved to know that you did enjoy the remarkable performance in the way your reaction gave away your feelings, but honestly, all he could think about at that moment in time was the close proximity of being seated next to you and the genuine smile on your kissable lips. You enchant him in the joy you find in every moment, and he wishes to cherish that joy with you.

Right after the theatre, Jake brought you to one of the famous art museums, which was only a 10-minute drive from where you were. Frankly, Jake never understood the purpose of people staring at different intricate arts with the same questionable being exhibited when they were not very pleasing in his eyes.

But when Jake saw the way your eyes sparkled with such fascination as you appreciated the exhibited arts, he felt as though he finally understood why, or at least he thought so. It was because the art itself was you. You are beyond the arts, a masterpiece that no one could ever replicate.

Jake has high hopes that by the end of today, things will remain in a smooth transition and his efforts will not be in vain. Presently, the two of you are on a boat ride with the helmsman overseeing and touring you along the famous canal of Naviglio Grande. Usually, you would be riding along with other people, but Jake specifically rented the entire boat solely for the two of you, to which you feel as though you are being cocooned with intimacy.

As the silence persists, Jake takes this moment to steal a glance at you, only to be rendered moonstruck by the natural glow on your cinematic beauty against the beaming dawn of twilight, painting the firmament a gorgeous blend of orange, pink, and purple while you are engrossed by the remarkable view.

Jake can hear his pulse drumming in his ear, matching with the cadence of his heart that feels as though it will jump out of his chest any sooner if he doesn’t look away from you. A delightful flutter brushes against his beating heart as he watches you tucking strands of your hair behind your ear.

“You look beautiful, sweetheart,” Jake allows his thoughts to slip past his lips, but he doesn’t regret it when he sees the look on your face.

Your cheeks feel warm under the intensity of his gaze, unable to maintain steady eye contact with him. “Thank you.”

Realisation hits him as he remembers, prompting him to slip his hand into the pocket of his jacket. “Give me your wrist.” He says, to which you feel confused, but nevertheless, you comply, only to be surprised when you notice a beautiful rose gold bracelet that looks like it costs hundreds in his grasp.

You watch as Jake assists in clasping the bracelet around your wrist ever so reverently. “It’s beautiful, Jaeyun,” You remark, bringing your wrist closer for you to admire the bracelet, but you falter with a frown as you return your gaze to him. “But why? You didn’t have to. I don’t want you to spend your money on me.”

Jake gives you a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Back then, I've never really spoiled you with anything like this, so consider this a gift from me to you.”

You can’t seem to find words to carry on the conversation, and so you resort to silence on your way back to the port while you take the opportunity to ruminate. Truthfully, after seeing and recognising his efforts throughout the whole day of your date, your heart is more than ready to accept him back, but a part of you keeps holding you back by taunting you with possibilities of him hurting you or that things would not work out well for you in the future.

It isn’t long until you finally reach the port with Jake assisting you out of the boat before the two of you proceed to leave the port, walking side by side with your hand itching to entwine with him.

Too deep in your thoughts, you lack attentiveness to your surroundings, causing you to bump someone’s shoulder roughly that nearly sends you staggering backward. You are about to apologise to the stranger, but Jake stops you as he recognises that you are not in the wrong.

“Hey man, you should apologise to my girl.” Jake has never sounded as hostile as he is now, his voice pitching lower, and when you lift your head, your eyes widen at how pissed off he really looks with his glaring eyes at the stranger who exudes such arrogance.

“From what I see, your girl bumped into me, so she’s the one who should be apologising to me, or better yet, kiss my foot,” The stranger counters, his face forming a sneer before he directs his callous eyes at you. The cynical smirk on his lips brings you an unpleasant shiver. “What do you say, sweetheart? Gonna be a good bitch and apologise on your knees?”

You already develop a strong distaste for this vile stranger whose eyes are looking at you with a predatory gleam. From your peripheral vision, you notice a change in Jake’s body language, rendering you hyper-aware of the patent wrath he emanates. “Jaeyun.” You utter his name warily.

But your calling falls deaf to his ear as he is seething and seeing red in his vision. “The only apology you deserve is my fucking fist.” Jake snarls coldly, and before you know it, things escalate into a situation you dread most.

“Jaeyun, don’t!” Your plea goes unheard while your attempt to prevent the dread is futile as Jake lunges forward to land a punch squarely in the stranger’s jaw in retaliation. 

Helpful passersby step in to de-escalate the situation amidst the uproar and violence. You even try to tug Jake at the hem of his blouse, but your attempt is futile as he is in a raging stupor that even four people have had to hold him back. Although Jake doesn’t bear any bruises, unlike the stranger, whose nose is bleeding, you spot his taut yet reddened knuckles.

Thankfully, a group of them proceed to drag the stranger away from the commotion while Jake wrenches out of their secure grip, but when his ablaze eyes meet your disappointing ones, it feels like cold water has splashed onto his face, mollifying his wrath.

A scoff leaves your lips before you turn your back on him and storm off, wanting to be away from him, but you underestimate his determination as he vehemently chases after you.

“Sweetheart, wait!” Jake’s plea reaches your ear, snapping you out of your storming thoughts and making you gain awareness of your location at the bridge with the canal just below you as he stops you with his hand latched on your wrist.

But you yank your wrist from his touch that sends a tingling sensation on your skin. “What’s the deal back there?!” You snap at him, any traces of the prior amiability dissipate.

Jake shoots you with a bewildered look, almost as if he is in sheer disbelief as well. “What’s the deal─ he intentionally bumped into you! I wasn’t about to let him get away with it! Not after he insulted you!”

“You should’ve just let him be! But no, you just had to get yourself into a fight!” You express your disapproval in a fit of anger, your eyes glaring into his nearly-faltered ones, though a part of you feels deeply moved by the fact that he defended you fiercely in your honour.

His eyes hardened obstinately, undeterred by your disapproval, even if the way you are glaring at him causes a twinge in his chest. “I’m not going to apologise for my actions. He deserved it.”

You heave a sigh, frustrated by his pertinacious resolve. “You need to understand that not all locals here are friendly, Jaeyun. The next time you get into a fight with them, who knows what would’ve escalated to?” 

Having had enough, you proceed to storm away from him, but he remains adamantly persistent. “Where are you going?” Jake asks, his frustration and disbelief unconcealed in his tone.

“Away from you,” You shoot your remark at him pointedly without turning around to look at him.

“Sweetheart, please,” Jake’s desperate plea pulls the strings in your heart agonisingly, and when his skin comes in contact with yours, you immediately yank your hand from his defeated touch.

“I didn’t recognise you back there, Jaeyun,” You confess, your voice sounding both exasperated and defeated. The look in your eyes punches him deeply in the gut. “I’ve never seen you in anger like that before, and you scared me.”

“No, no, no, you don’t have to be afraid of me,” Jake rushes, taking you by surprise when he cradles your face while his fingers tremble beneath your skin. “I would never ever hurt you. I’ll be damned if I do.”

“But I still don’t trust you, Jaeyun,” You utter in a splintered voice, slowly pulling away from him. “Words are meaningless if you don’t prove it with your actions. What if you betray your promises and lose control of your anger like you did back there? What if you hurt me─”

“Then I’ll kill myself,” Jake cuts you off sharply, his tone holding such dark promises that send you shivers. His dark eyes penetrate into yours, stealing your breath away by his conviction. “Or better yet, let you rip my heart out of my chest. But know this, I’ll kill myself before I could even lay a hand on you.”

“You’re crazy,” You blurt out in disbelief before you can stop yourself. Not even crazy, because in those eyes of his, there is only stark madness amidst the concoction of emotions.

“Yes, I’m crazy. I’ve been going insane ever since you left me,” Jake takes a step forward, but you take a step back, rendering him almost defeated it if weren’t for the boundless love his heart harbours for you.

“Don’t blame me for your insanity,” You retort defensively as you grit your teeth. “I did what I had to for my own good.”

“But were you happy without us? Without me?” Jake presses on incessantly, but you can discern a palpable hurt in the tenacity he seems to grapple with. “Because I sure as hell wasn’t. I was fucking miserable without you, and I knew that I deserved it for the times I took you for granted.”

You try your utmost not to be affected by his words, your resolve nearly melting. “We were nothing, Jaeyun, so why did you feel so miserable─” You are rendered speechless by the abruptness of his action as his towering figure slowly shrinks. “What are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done a year ago,” There is a palpable tremor in his voice that seems to unnerve you while you watch him getting down on the ground with both knees. “On my knees for you.”

You shake your head at him, not wanting him to shove away his pride no matter how much he infuriates you. “Jaeyun, stand up.”

Jake remains undeterred, his eyes locking yours in place so that you feel compelled to hear him out. “You asked me why I felt so miserable. It’s because when you left, I felt half of my heart left with you. I became worse than I already was, and I was always so angry," He tries his utmost for his firm resolve to come out strong in his enunciation despite the tumult of emotions within him threatening to implode. “I felt hollow and empty during my days that were painted blue. My days used to be filled with warm colours with you by my side. You brought colours to my life, but when you left, everything felt cold and dull.”

“Jaeyun,” Your voice trembles while your hands tremble as his declaration sends a wave of emotions to you.

“You need to hear this. You deserve to hear this after so long,” Jake says shakily, emotions displaying bare in his glistening eyes, and as you read him deeper, you can see how he is barely holding on. “I loathe myself when I think of those times I took you for granted, including how I was an arsehole towards you and ghosted you after I took away your innocence. You didn’t deserve that, and for that, I’m truly sorry.”

Alas, the emotions he fought valiantly to restrain burst into a torrent with an onslaught of devastation racking through his body. You remain cemented to the ground, watching in complete shock as tears unrelentingly cascade down his beautiful countenance. You have never once seen him in tears, and right now, it feels like your heart is shattering into pieces.

“I’m sorry for a lot of things, Y/N, and breaking your heart is one of them, but my biggest regret is not telling you how much you meant to me before you left,” His voice trembles with palpable heartbreak, nearly whimpering, causing tears to spring in your eyes.

“Jaeyun, just please stand up.” You implore, bending down as you attempt to reach for his arm. “You don’t have to kneel─”

“I love you, Y/N,” Jake cuts you off with a sharp sob, his pretty tear-filled eyes and his voice conveying raw yearning with a concoction of love and pain. “I’m so fucking in love with you that I might actually die if you leave me again. You occupy my every thought and my heart, and I miss you every day even if you’re in front of me.”

Before you know it, a sob leaves your lips as you weep with him, feeling profoundly moved by his confession that you had yearned to hear in a long time.

“I didn’t believe in love after I found out about my father’s infidelity. I didn’t even want to fall in love because I didn’t believe that someone could be loyal to their partner until you happened. I didn’t know how to distinguish between love and obsession, but fuck, I wanted you so bad that it hurt, just as it hurts now, because I still want you.” 

As Jake continues to pour out his heartfelt confession, his heart only seems to throb incessantly with pain. “You’re the only woman whom I want to marry and spend a lifetime with. I can’t imagine my future with anyone else except you,” He manages to smile through the tears. “You’re the only love of my life. The light to my darkness. The only good thing that has ever happened in my life.”

“Jaeyun,” You want to say something, but you lack the right energy to articulate your true feelings for him, only his name can you afford to utter, just like how you’ve always wanted to call for his name until he comes back home to you.

“I’m so sorry for everything, sweetheart. If I could turn back time, I would make things right and cherish you more,” The smile on his lips is wiped off as he breaks down in an onslaught of devastation voluntarily, pleading in between sobs and whimpers. “I can’t afford for you to abandon me again. I’m so sorry for fucking things up. Please don’t leave me again. I’ll do anything, including ripping my heart out if you ask me to─”

Jake feels his heart lurching in his chest when your palms cup his cheeks to tilt his head up as you bend down, only to be silenced by your lips on his as you kiss him softly that send sparks flying around him. He closes his eyes as he latches his hand on your wrist, kissing you back with fervent desperation, and he swears he can taste colours. 

Tears continue their descent from your faces even as you slowly pull away from his lips. “You’re an idiot, Jaeyun. How am I supposed to live, laugh, and love life without you by my side?” You cry softly, your palms remaining cupping his cheeks as you lean your forehead against his, your eyes fluttering close with his momentarily. “You said you’d do anything if you ask me to, so please stand.”

Jake complies with your request, rising from the ground with ease before you take him by surprise when you lunge towards him for a hug while his arms instinctively snake their way around your trembling body.

“I forgive you, Jaeyun,” You reaffirm with utmost sincerity in between sobs. “I’ve already forgiven you even before I left Seoul, and I loved you even before all of the cruelty happened. I was in love with you, Jaeyun. I thought that you wouldn’t feel the same way and that I was merely there for you to use me however you pleased.”

“I’m so sorry. I should’ve given you the clarity you deserved,” Jake tightens his arms around you, his hand ascending to cradle the back of your head with reverence as you slowly pull away to look at him with glistening eyes. “You’ve changed me, love. After you left, I prayed to God that I would meet you again one day. You made me become religious and prayed every day when I should’ve been worshipping at your altar, because you’re my religion.”

Your heart soars, and you swear you feel as though you are on cloud nine. “Jaeyun─”

“God, you’re so beautiful, even in tears,” Jake whispers affectionately, completely enamoured by you in the way he gazes at you with his pupils dilated with profound love. “I was in complete moonstruck when I first saw you after so long─” 

“Jaeyun,” You cup his cheeks, your eyes reflecting the same love in his eyes as you gaze at him. “Kiss me, please.”

And he does, dipping his head down and pressing his lips squarely on yours. He kisses you as if you might disappear at any moment in time. He kisses you like he’s afraid that this is all just a dream, but when the warmth of your palms touches his nape, he knows that this is real, and so he deepens the kiss.

Sparks dance behind your closed-vision while butterflies swarm in your tummy as he pulls you closer to his body, hugging you ever so intimately. As if knowing that you need air, he slowly pulls away from your lips.

“Can I be your man?” He seeks permission tenderly, his eyes meeting yours.

Instead of answering him, you lean in to place a chaste kiss on his lips. “Does that answer your question?” Your tone matches his, your lips adorning a smile.

“More than it does, sweetheart,” Jake chuckles breathily, leaning his forehead against yours as he mirrors your smile. “Let’s head back to my car.”

“Jaeyun, do you want to spend the night at my apartment?” You ask tentatively, and yet, something so suggestively sensual swirls in your eye, giving him a sense of what to anticipate next.

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As far as Jake can recall, he has never been dominated by anyone in bed. If anything, he loves asserting dominance and revelling in the power he wields over the other, but right now, in this very heated moment between you two, he finally acknowledges that maybe he has yearned for someone to control him, and not just anyone. You.

“You’re going to kill me, love,” Jake groans, throwing his head back against the pillow with his eyes rolling to the back at the delirious sensation of your tongue dragging along the ridge and veins of his raw erection. It feels like it has been forever since you decided to edge him.

Your hum from the back of your throat sends vibration through his cock as you continue to bob your head, taking him deeply into your throat. The sound of his moans and whines spurs you further into giving him the mind-blowing pleasure in the way you fuck him with your throat.

“Sweetheart, please,” Jake pleads softly, his fingers fisting the bedding as he struggles to control himself before caving into the temptation as his hand descends to grab your hair, but the instant he does so, you easily swat his hand away.

As you flutter eyelashes to look at him, his breath hitches in his throat upon seeing the familiar swirls of sultry dominance in your mesmerising eyes. Just before he can reach his climax, you release his cock with a resounding ‘pop’ and tut disapprovingly at him.

“I told you not to touch me unless I said so, did I not?” Your condescending tone only turns him on further, eliciting a needy whine from him as you continue to edge him with your thumb pressing and stroking his wet slit. “Now I’m starting to think that you don’t deserve to cum at all.”

“No. I deserve it. I’ve been good to you,” Jake whimpers, bucking his hips up to your tantalising touch. “Please make me cum. It hurts. I need you, sweetheart.” You could spend all night to edge him just to hear him whine and display his desperation in tears.

“Since baby asked politely,” You place a wet kiss on the bulbous tip, your tongue purposefully licking the pre-cum on his slit while your ministrations elicit a soft moan from him. His heart pumps loudly in his chest as he watches you seductively crawl your way to settle above him while the sensation of your palm on his abdomen muscles sends him the shivers. “Look at you. Being so good to me. Wish you were good to me sooner.”

“I’ll be good to you, always,” Jake gasps as you curl your fingers around his neck, applying enough pressure to punctuate your dominance over him. He subtly bucks his hips up, feeling your wet folds on his shaft. You hum, ghosting your lips on his teasingly. “I promise I’ll be good to you, just as I love you, always and forever.” He whispers before you silence him, pressing your lips on his into a bruising kiss.

Breaking the lip lock, you direct your focus on grabbing his shaft and guiding it to your entrance before you slowly sink down on him, eliciting moans from him that mingle with yours as your warmth envelopes him so perfectly.

“You feel so good in me, my love,” You purr appreciatively, your fingers remaining around his neck for leverage as you proceed to move back and forth with a sensual motion in your hips while your eyes greedily drink in the pure ecstasy on his handsome face. “Do you want more?”

“Please,” He says shakily, his fingers fisting on the bedding as he refrains himself from touching you. Upon his plea, you begin to ride him like a pro, each thrust and movement sends pleasurable shockwaves through your bodies.

“Touch me,” You demand in between bated breaths, and at an instant, his large hands find home on your sensual hips before he squeezes the flesh as he adds some guidance to your movements, needing to feel you deeply, but this position is not satisfactory for him.

“I’m sorry for this, sweetheart,” Jake murmurs, taking you by surprise when he manoeuvres you before you find yourself being pressed against the mattress with his figure hovering on top of you. “Fuck, yes!” He proceeds to fuck you with reckless abandon, his hips snapping into yours bruisingly as he thrusts his cock into you vigorously 

“Jaeyun, I didn’t say you could do that─” You gasp, your eyes turning white as you feel him hitting that spot, causing your walls to clench around him before he uses force to draw back his cock, only to ram into your cunt deliciously. “Fuck, Jaeyun!”

“I can’t help it. You feel so fucking good,” He whimpers, dipping his head down to your shoulder before he sinks his teeth into your skin as he continues to deliver vigorous thrusts. You circle your legs around his hips while your arms hook around his neck, meeting his thrusts that feel deeper than the previous.

In the throes of your pleasures, you can feel your climax reaching its peak, your walls clenching around him like a telltale sign. “I’m gonna cum, Jaeyun,” You moan in his ear. “Are you close too?”

“Yes. Wanna cum so bad,” He moans against your sheeny skin, “Please let me cum.”

“Go on. Fill me up like the good boy you are,” You whisper sultry in his ear, your fingers raking through his tousled locks. Jake never knew that getting called ‘good boy’ by you could make him turn on more than it should, and he desires to please you in every way you ask him to. As waves of ecstasy wash over you and him, you cream around his cock while he delivers one last thrust before going still as his warm cum spurts into your charted womb.

With ragged breaths, Jake leans on your body as you welcome him with your embrace, his head tucking in the nook of your neck while his fingers make their ascent to pinch and tweak your perky nipple, eliciting a breathy moan from you.

“Thank you,” Jake whispers, placing a kiss on your neck before trailing his kisses down at the expense of your chest, his lips encasing your nipple and giving attention to both tits.

You release a pleasurable sigh, your cunt clenching around his cock at his ministrations. You continue to rake your fingers through his locks while you gaze at him lazily with a smirk on your lips. “My handsome boy, I’m not done with you yet.”

With your other hand, you stretch it out to the side and grab a familiar device. “Lay back on the bed, baby,” You order sternly, to which he whimpers before reluctantly heeding obedience. “Remember, hands to yourself, or I’ll have to tie them.”

“What are you doing─” Jake is silenced by a groan of his own as soon as he feels shockwaves of pleasure rippling through him from the vibrator you are pressing on the raging tip of his cock while grabbing the base. “Fuck, fuck! Y/N!”

“Be a good boy and take what I give you,” Your lips stretch into a cruel smirk as you revel in the way he is at your mercy. You pout at him, feigning such innocence that eventually fails to conceal your devilry. “You don’t want to disappoint me now, do you, baby?”

“No,” His Adam's apple is bobbing deeply to the erratic rhythm of his gasps as he throws his head back on the pillow. The sensation is mind-numbing while he is teetering at the edge of his impending climax. When he looks down to meet your stern gaze, he holds back a whimper, knowing that he is in for another session of being cruelly edged by you.

Jake’s absence in their penthouse likely bespeaks that he must have succeeded in his part in grovelling for your forgiveness and earned himself back into your good grace, but it is absurd to them how he has been gone for two days, and he didn’t even respond to any of their calls or texts, which led them into suggestively thinking that he has earned more than just your forgiveness.

Unfortunately, the three of them have been preoccupied with respective responsibilities for the past two days to discuss and collectively decide who will be making their next moves first. And so one of them, specifically the most inherently competitive one out of the four, decided to make his first moves without any consultation. Things were going smoothly until he received an earful through a call from a certain someone.

“But we haven’t even discussed this with Heeseung yet!” Jay exclaims, his disbelief punctuating, but Sunghoon remains undeterred in his pursuit while his eyes are examining the flowers that are meticulously displayed to captivate customers’ interest.

Presently, Sunghoon is at a florist boutique, which is situated in the same street where he temporarily resides, and truthfully, he has been struggling for the past fifteen minutes, worrying incessantly if he chooses the flowers that are not to your liking. He even has no idea what types of flowers these are, rendering him frustrated, but he doesn’t wish to head over to your place empty-handed.

What is more astounding is the fact that he is doing this, to which he has never done or bothered to be semi-romantic with the girls he had been before, simply because he was an anti-romantic, which explains his struggle at the moment, but for you, he is willing to struggle for more.

“Yeahhh, sorry buddy. I already lost to Jake. I can’t lose to you and Heeseung too,” His tone is anything but apologetic, being completely nonchalant, which irks Jay on the line. Sunghoon allows his eyes to skim through the flowers for another time before reaching for a small bouquet of garden roses and inspecting them. “Besides, I’m already on my way to her place, so don’t even think of trying to ruin my plan.”

“Heeseung is not going to like it when he hears about you,” Jay admonishes, and of course, Sunghoon disregards his warning as relevant while he makes his way to the cashier with the small bouquet of garden roses in his hand.

“For Y/N, it’ll be worth it. She is always worth the risk,” Sunghoon says firmly before putting his best friend on hold to make payment. Sunghoon gives the cashier a small smile of gratitude, who evidently swoons over him before he proceeds to exit the boutique and resumes the call with Jay. “You can have your turn once I’m done, and that is, well, probably a long time.”

“Park Sunghoon─” Sunghoon immediately ends the call before Jay can prolong his admonishment. Shoving his phone in his pocket, he glances down at the flowers in his grasp, and something so foreign spreads in his chest, which amplifies his heartbeat. 

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With one hand controlling the steering wheel, he rubs his throbbing temple with the other while his hardened eyes focus on the road. Throughout the ride to your place, Sunghoon has been grappling with an unabating turmoil, rendering him to worry incessantly once more with his mind conjuring up possibilities of the outcome of his pursuit. 

But Sunghoon is audacious enough, even if it means that you might shut him out. He has waited far too long, and he has yearned for you to return to him. Above all, he yearns to return in your arms, in which he has found home. You are his home, a home his heart called to longingly, his heart that has bled for you.

Just like the others, Sunghoon was not himself after learning of your departure, but he rarely verbally expressed his emotions, even to his best friends. Instead, he became aloof and colder, always distancing from the others to deal with the tumult of emotions and feelings he could not articulate. Hence, he sought solace in expressing those feelings by delivering his punches to the impenetrable punching bag in their private gym.

But it wasn’t enough, and so he busied himself with work. He worked for Jay’s father as an architectural drafter since it was in value to his degree. It was more or less a generous offer from Jay’s father since, coincidentally, Sunghoon had no idea what career to pursue as he was too distraught by your departure, so he was grateful to Jay’s father, even if he detested the elder.

As for Sunghoon’s father, Sunghoon could never forgive him for the attempted murder by hiring a hitman, resulting in him departing from his so-called family for good. From then onwards, he regarded himself as someone who had no family, not that he was devastated over in the first place, because nothing was ever more devastating than you leaving him for the second time.

Sunghoon recalls spending his grey days in regret and utter devastation beneath his deceptive, callous facade. He doesn’t recall shedding tears, or maybe he did in his sleep whenever he dreamed of you and called out to you, but he knows for sure that his bleeding heart weeped every day for the loss of his princess.

Everything about you, even the little details he could vividly remember, haunted him in his mind every day and night ─ a poignant reminder of what he took for granted. At times, he could physically feel the pain in his heart whenever you struck on his mind.

Initially, Sunghoon thought that finding you in a short period of time would be impossible since you could be anywhere across the globe, but then he remembered about Milan, which you mentioned to him once. He hated himself for being too late, and by the time he found you when he first saw you at Milan Fashion Week, he knew that getting you back was not going to be easy.

Sunghoon regrets many things that centred around you. He regrets hating you in the very beginning, for reasons he deems farcical. He regrets the times he has treated you degradingly. He regrets not cherishing the moments he had with you so deeply. Above all, he regrets not letting you know how much you meant to him that no one could even come close to how he held you in his tainted heart.

Sunghoon was not a believer of love or any of those mushy-gushy sentiments, but you made him become one when he finally acknowledged that he was indeed in love with you in what he thought was impossible to develop such feeling, just as you made him want to become a better man for you.

As Sunghoon finally pulls over by the curb of the pavement in your street building, he is firm in his resolve that this time he won’t lose you. There is no room for debate. He must have you back, or he might actually cave into his depravity in capturing you and keeping you locked in his possession until forever, no matter if the consequence leads to you hating him with vehemence.

It isn’t long until Sunghoon reaches to the right floor as he heads for your unit with the bouquet in his hand. His inner turmoil remains unabating the closer he gets to your door. He clenches his jaw, hating how he feels the incessant jitter when he has dealt worse. As Sunghoon stops directly in front of your unit with the bouquet hidden behind him, he forces himself to press on the doorbell before he can even allow the second thoughts to influence him in changing course.

Right after he presses, the door swings open, nearly sending his heart into a cardiac arrest, especially when you are standing in front of him, all dolled up in a cute baby blue blouse that complements with your skirt. When his eyes finally meet yours, he sees how taken aback you are before a blend of confusion and annoyance swirls in your eyes. He senses a hostility emanating from you that adds to the brewing tension.

“What are you doing here?” You break the ice, your tone sounding displeased and your eyes showing no traces of cordiality. 

Sunghoon refuses to deflate from the clarity in your apparent animosity towards him. “Where are you going?” He asks cooly, wearing a mask of casual bravado.

You narrow your eyes at him as you fold your arms below your chest. “You didn’t answer my question.” 

“And you didn’t answer my question,” Sunghoon counters arrogantly while the smirk playing on his lips causes your cheeks to flare in either exasperation or the fact that you actually find him insufferably handsome with his raven bangs falling over his dark brows and his black leather jacket complementing his overall fit. “I can do this all day, princess.” The husk in his voice stirs something so dangerous in you.

You scoff in disbelief, trying to quell that unprovoked arousal. “I have work involving meeting my client. Now, answer mine.” You demand haughtily.

“Your work starts in the afternoon?” Sunghoon merely ignores your demand as genuine curiosity strikes him, but realisation immediately hits him, prompting his eyes to wander behind you where he is able to glimpse the entryway to your living room apartment. “Right. Is Jake still here? I’m sure he’s here. He didn’t go back to our place for two days.”

“That’s two extra questions, Park Sunghoon.” You deadpan, shooting him a scowl as he continues to taunt you with his smirk that you wish to wipe off from his handsome face.

“You’re going to answer them anyway,” He shrugs his shoulders, sliding his hand into his pocket. Curiosity sparks within you as you notice his other hand hiding behind him, but you choose to disregard it.

You heave a sigh, recognising that Sunghoon remains wilful as ever. “I’m a freelance writer, so my work can start anytime in the day, and secondly, Jaeyun’s asleep,” You state in exasperation, your tone changing into a warning and your eyes glaring accusatory at him. “Don’t you dare barge inside and wake him up. I want him to rest for more.”

Sunghoon looks at you as if you had offended him. “I didn’t even say anything.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “I know that look. I know you.”

The smirk on his lips falters as soon as an air of melancholy is present amidst the tension, his features softening. “I’m glad that you still know me, even though I don’t know the new you.”

Silence drapes over you as you remain cemented to the floor, unable to tear your gaze away from his softened eyes. His words that were uttered in a soft tone carried an undercurrent of poignancy, parallel to the emotions swirling in his dark eyes. 

You can feel a palpable connection that seems to deepen as you are drawn into the cryptic wonders of his eyes before you force yourself to look away from him and clear your throat. “Can you move aside?" Sunghoon does the opposite, and this time, he decides to unravel the mini surprise to you, prompting you to look down at the beautiful authentic garden roses bundled in a small bouquet. You don’t bother to conceal your awe, and something stirs in your heart that is beginning to pick up a familiar cadence as it beats for the man in front of you.

“What is this?” You blurt out, unable to articulate your jumbled feelings, but nevertheless, you accept the bouquet, your heart remains beating, which is going borderline rapid by his mere gesture that has a profound impact on you. You thought that this mere gesture only existed in rom-com books or movies, but you never would have thought that Park Sunghoon would be the one to pull this move. 

Sunghoon observes the way your eyes gleam delightfully as you examine the garden roses in admiration. “I read somewhere online that in order to get your girl to fall for you on your first date, you should give her flowers at her doorstep.” He says, masking his diffidence with a simper smile.

A scoff leaves your lips as you try your utmost to avoid giving away that you are entirely amused by him. “I’ve never heard of such tips.”

“You’re right. I made it up,” His genuine smile that displays his fang-like teeth awakens the butterflies in your tummy. “Now let’s go for our date.”

You raise a challenging eyebrow at him. “What makes you think I would want to go anywhere with you?” 

“One, because I know you skipped breakfast. Two, you can never say no to this face.” He points his finger to his smug face while you ignore the fact that he still remembers a habit of yours.

You release a petty huff before deciding to step out of the threshold as you close the door behind you. “You’re so incorrigible and insufferable.” You tell him in a brusque manner, brushing past him as you make your way to the elevator while still holding the small bouquet.

Sunghoon easily catches up to you with his long legs, now walking alongside you. “Pick one, princess.” His chuckles sound annoyingly melodious to your ears. 

You know that you should not entertain him any longer for the sake of your sanity, but all it takes for you is a single glance at his face to cave into him. “Insufferable it is.”

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“Isn’t this a bit fancy just for a lunch date?” You break the painful silence as soon as you finish the last bits of your food before reaching out for your glass of cider. “You didn’t even tell me to change into something nice.” 

“What are you talking about? You do look nice,” Sunghoon insists, his eyes raking all over you, feeling invasive, prompting you to look down at your empty plate while your cheeks feel warm. He snaps out of the trance before clearing his throat. “You look gorgeous as always.”

“You’re just saying that to flatter me.” You mutter dryly, appearing unaffected by his compliment even though you feel a flutter in your heart.

“You know that I don't flattery,” Sunghoon retorts firmly, and when his eyes meet yours, a smirk plays on his lips. “But for you, I’ll make an exception.”

This time, you decide to voice out what has been bothering you since the moment he appeared at your doorstep. You heave a sigh, feeling defeated. “What are you doing, Sunghoon?”

Sunghoon raises his eyebrow at you as he places down his empty glass on the table. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, this.” You gesture between you and him with your hands. The frown on your lips deepens. “A lunch date won’t erase what happened, and you can’t pretend like nothing happened.”

“That night, you told us that we should’ve tried harder if we wanted you that bad,” Sunghoon recalls as much as the recollection pains him. His eyes display steely resolve, and you know he won’t concede defeat, even if you reject him countless times. “That’s what I’m doing right now, Princess. From today onwards, I’m going to pursue you and show you how serious I am with you.”

Bitter chuckles leave your lips. “A year ago, I thought I could escape you. Everything was working out well for me,” You divulge a part of your vulnerability you retain. “I finally didn’t need to rely on someone to find happiness. I finally learnt how to love myself and embrace my flaws.”

“Tell me more,” To your surprise, Sunghoon encourages, his eyes showing keen interest that makes you feel touched in the heart. “I want to know more about what I’ve missed out on in your life.”

You bite down your lip harshly as you avoid his gaze. “You wouldn’t want to hear. It’s boring.”

“On the contrary, I do. I want to get more involved in your life,” Sunghoon prods further, and when you look at him tentatively, you can feel the impenetrable walls you built to protect yourself from him crumbling in the way his eyes soften while a small smile touches his lips. “And it’s never boring when it’s from you. I’d listen to my princess all day.”

Against your better judgement, you cave into the temptation as you begin tell-taling some parts of your journey in Milan, leaving out some details that you still feel uncertain to divulge to him, but nevertheless, he seems to be listening to you attentively without interrupting you, and you even find yourself lifting a small smile in the midst of it.

“So, what about you?” You decide to put the attention on him, partially because you are genuinely curious. “Jaeyun didn’t exactly tell me about you and the others when you were still in Seoul.”

He hums, his face unreadable. “Did he tell you how much he cried over you?” His question sounds rhetorical, and upon seeing your puzzled expression, he begins to divulge. “He cried over you on most nights, especially in his sleep, and he would call out to your name. We often checked in on him in any case he decided to do stupid shit,” He sighs. “I’ve never seen him cry like that in all my life I’ve known him. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him being so heartbroken over someone.”

The revelation renders you stunned as you remain silent, your mind drifting off to Jake. Maybe it should not have come off too surprising to you after witnessing his vulnerability descend on him just two nights ago, but to hear this from Sunghoon makes your heart ache. 

Sunghoon observes the expression you wear on your face, noticing your crestfallen eyes. “I’m sure you know how attached he was to you, just as I was,” His voice barely above a whisper near the end as you slowly lift your head to look at him just in time for him to wear a different mask, no longer is there vanity. “But we coped differently, like distracting ourselves with work or even hitting off to the gym.”

The mention of work easily replaces the melancholia with a spark of genuine curiosity. “So what were you working as while you were in Seoul?"

“I was working my way to become a professional architectural drafter,” He answers, leaning back on the cushion comfortably with his arms crossed over his chest. “Back then, I took up the offer Jay’s dad gave me and worked for him even though Jay was more than pissed about it, but I knew I couldn’t squander the offer. I was trained and given the opportunity to acquire hands-on skills that moulded me into someone reliable and competent.”

“So now you’re….?” You pause tentatively, raising your eyebrow at his continuation of your sentence in order to reaffirm. 

“Now I’m not only an architectural drafter but also the head of the architecture team.” His lips curl into a smirk while his eyes display emotions that reflect his pride. “I’m working under Jay’s company while concomitantly establishing my business in Milan.”

“That’s actually impressive,” Your genuine compliment not only elevates his pride, but it also renders him bashful as he feels warmth weaving across his cheeks.

“Thank you,” His sincerity shines through his soft utterance of gratitude, and his eyes darken with promises as he gazes intensely into your eyes. “I’ve been working hard ever since, especially when I’m working for the sake of my future with you. I’m doing it all for you.”

Your heart flutters against your will, and you can’t seem to look away from his enchanting gaze. “You shouldn’t do it for me. You should do it for yourself.” You subtly stammer your words.

His eyes hardened with intense resolve. “But I do. I’m doing it for our future.” 

You heave a sigh. “I don’t understand. How could you guarantee the possibility of finding me when you told me that you’ve been working hard for our future ever since I left? How were you so certain that I would ever accept you back in my life?”

“I had faith. You made me believe in faith, princess,” The corner of his lips curls into a small smile, his features softening as he reminisces wistfully. “I guess I can also say that I’m the reason for the likelihood of your accurate location. You told me before that you’ve always dreamed of travelling to Milan.”

You can’t help but falter, your eyes softening while your heart pounds harder against your chest at such trivial detail that he regarded it with high value. “You remembered.”

“Of course I do. I still remember your every detail,” His eyes roam around your features meaningfully, and his heart aches as he feels so close yet so far from you. “Just like how your face, your scent, and everything about you had been embedded in my mind.”

Silence envelopes around your table as you allow his words to sink deeply into your mind. You look away from his eyes and clear your throat in hopes of dispelling the tension. “We should go, or else I’ll be late to meet my client.”

Surprisingly, Sunghoon agrees and decides to cease whatever happened. Not moments later, the two of you are at the counter as you are ready to split the bills, but Sunghoon insists on keeping your card.

“I can pay for mine,” You retort vehemently, but your insistence is rendered futile as you watch in defeat when he proceeds to give his black card to the cashier. “Sunghoon.” You sigh, surrendering to his persistence.

Sunghoon merely throws you an annoying yet charming smirk. “What kind of man am I if I allow my woman to pay for anything?”

You silently curse your heart for fluttering once more while you shoot him a scowl. “I’m not your woman.”

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It is nice to know that his obstinacy remains unchanged even a year later, but it highly affects you in your professional element while you are engaged in a discussion that entails the next procedure with your clients. Thankfully, the commotion in the background is minimal with fewer customers in the cafe, but what seems to distract you most is his presence as he sits closely next to you, leaving no gap in between.

Initially, you ordered him to wait in the car, but he stubbornly insisted on accompanying you and declared that he wished to give you moral support with his presence, which you considered unnecessary. Not only does his presence seem to mount the tension only you feel, but you feel the awkwardness as well. What baffles you most is the fact that your two clients do not seem the slightest bothered by the fact that this can be considered unprofessional.

After what feels like a torturous eternity, the meeting has concluded as your satisfied clients proceed to take a generous amount of sips from their frappe drinks, but their eyes keep wandering to Sunghoon, whose eyes are attentively on you.

“Thank you so much for your excellent work for today, Miss Kang. It has been such a pleasure doing business with you.” One of them commends you with a broad, genuine smile as she shakes your hand before her fellow colleague offers the same courtesy to you.

You smile rather gingerly, feeling satisfied that today’s transaction went perfectly smoothly, which tempts you to do your little victory dance, but of course, you maintain decorum. Feigning ignorance to a certain someone seated closely next to you, you fail to notice the way his eyes gleam with amusement as he examines you, looking oddly buoyant.

Your clients exchange words between each other before one of them looks over to Sunghoon briefly and returns her gaze to you with a knowing yet pleasant smile despite the glinting curiosity in her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, Miss Kang. You have always shown excellent consistency in your work, but today is truly exceptional, and we guessed that your boyfriend was the source to offer you support. For that, we thank you both.”

The smile on your lips has never faded as quickly as it is now. “Oh, no. You got it wro─”

“As her boyfriend, it is important for me to accompany her and provide her the moral support in any case she needs.” Sunghoon cuts you off, rendering you flabbergasted at the sensation of his arm snaking around your waist to flush you against him.

Your clients smile pleasantly, oblivious to the tension as you shoot him a glare discreetly while casting him a sweet smile that laces with lethality. “Miss Kang, you are incredibly lucky to have him as your boyfriend.”

“Actually, I’m the lucky one to have such an amazing, hard-working girlfriend who I’m always so proud of.” Sunghoon plants a kiss on your crown, and his gesture of affection causes your clients to gush over while you are rendered speechless with your cheeks warming by his deliberate, infuriating actions that flutter your heart.

It is not long until your clients have finally made their departure. You wrench your way out of Sunghoon’s possessive embrace around your waist before attempting to put a safe distance between you and him, only for you to hit the glass window behind.

“Ow!” You moan out in pain as you clutch the back of your head that is throbbing painfully from the impact due to your hurried movements. You fail to heed the lack of space, and thus, you are closely stuck in between Sunghoon and the glass window.

“So clumsy,” Sunghoon makes a ‘tsk’ sound, prompting you to throw daggers at him with your eyes before you falter just slightly when his hand reaches out to you and cradles the back of your head tenderly before massaging the spot. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had stayed still.”

You scoff in disbelief at his audacity, ignoring the fact that he gives you the butterflies moments prior before this. “So you’re blaming me for being startled by the fact that you put your arm around me after telling lies to my client that you’re my boyfriend?” You fume, giving him no opportunity to retort as you jerk away from his touch, but you are taken aback at his unyielding strength as you cradle the back of your head protectively in a nick of time just when you almost hit the glass window again.

“You should really be careful, princess.” Sunghoon softly chides you, his dark, thick brows furrowing in genuine concern and his eyes penetrating deeply into yours. Your breath hitches in your throat at the close proximity between your faces while you feel your surroundings fade into a blur. “I don’t want my princess getting hurt. What if I’m not there to protect you from your own clumsiness?”

Honestly, his words fall deaf to your ears as you involuntarily focus on his dreamy yet handsome face up close. This must be the effect of getting your head hit. “Boyfriend,” You mutter absentmindedly, earning an eyebrow raised from him. “You’re my boyfriend???”

Sunghoon observes your softened eyes gazing dreamily at him, but nevertheless, he decides to string you along for his entertainment until you snap out of your reverie. A smirk touches his lips, leaning down to your face while his arm slithers around your waist to pull you closer to him. “Yeah, I’m your boyfriend, and you’re my girlfriend, princess.” He hums, his nose tantalisingly grazing against yours.

Oh, it is truly illegal for a man to be this unfairly gorgeous, and a bonus point when he smells good that entices you to snuggle into him with your face buried in his chest. You know that you are so touch-deprived by him that the sensation of his strong arm around your waist renders you weak in the knees as you completely melt against him.

“Sunghoon, you─” You pause as you are slowly being pulled out of your reverie, prompting you to blink your eyes.

“Yeah, my beautiful princess?” His voice is a low husk that sends shivers down your body.

You maintain a collected facade as you curl your fingers into fists before placing them on his solid chest. “Let me go, or I swear I won’t talk to you anymore.” You demand calmly while your eye contact with him never wavers despite the annoying flutters in your chest.

Sunghoon’s smirk deepens, having you flushed against him as he enjoys how agitated you are. “Nahh, I’m quite enjoying this. Being hugged by me is a privilege, so consider yourself the luckiest one since I don’t just hug anyone that isn’t my princess.”

“Sunghoon, I’m not joking around right now.” You say annoyedly, and yet you never attempt to push him away as your body is enjoying being intimately held by him. You release an annoyed huff and look away from him. “I’m mad at you.”

He chuckles softly, finding everything about you rather endearing. “What did I do, princess?”

You gasp in disbelief as you shoot him a glare. "Umm, the act? The whole self-proclaimed boyfriend thing in front of my clients?!” You whisper hotly, trying to keep your tone down a notch as you feel self-conscious due to the bustling patrons in the cafe. “You’re not even my actual boyfriend!”

“Who says I was acting?” His voice sounds deeper, while his face shows no hint of mischief. “I’m your boyfriend, princess. The whole of me is reserved only for you.”

“Park Sunghoon─”

“Do you not want me to be your boyfriend?” He cuts you off, his eyes displaying a rare vulnerability that has you completely faltering. “I’m being honest when I say that I’ve never been into a relationship, but you can trust me to treat you like a princess.”

You don’t respond, and instead, your glazed eyes flicker at his pink lips, needing him to press his lips on yours. You had no plan in falling for him again this soon, let alone to open your heart to him, but his every gesture seems to shatter your resolve piece by piece. You heave a soft sigh as you lower your head. “Let me go, Sunghoon, please.”

Sunghoon decides to relent, even if his heart mourns at the loss of your warmth and how perfectly you fit in his arms. Seeing how crestfallen you are, Sunghoon adorns a soft smile and reaches out to gently pat your head in a commendation, prompting you to slowly lift your head to look at him with questioning eyes.

“Great job for today, and I mean it.” He praises you with firmness while you remain wonderstruck at the stark sincerity on his dreamy face. You feel your heart clenching as he continues to smile at you. “I’m so proud of you, princess.”

Maybe it’s your hormones acting up since your period is coming in a week's time, but to hear someone telling you that they are proud of you touches you deeply in the heart since it has been so long, and to hear it from Sunghoon himself evokes a profound emotional level that springs tears in your eyes.

Sunghoon soothingly rubs your head in a stroking motion, a gesture that has your heart fluttering and clenching while he examines how teary-eyed you become.

“Do you really mean that?” You ask in a whisper, your blurry vision deprives you of seeing the clarity of his countenance. Your heart weeps at the loss of his soothing touch on your head, only to feel surprised when he cups your cheek before he leans down to press a kiss on your forehead.

“I always mean what I say, princess.” He murmurs against your forehead before slowly pulling away to look at your face. His lips curving into a small smile as he sees tears cascading down your cheeks. “Just as I’m always proud of you, and I’ll gladly tell you this every day.”

You let your inhibitions go as you quietly weep. “Thank you, Sunghoon.” You utter sincerely, forgetting any qualms you had for him as you tug at the hem of his jacket. “Can you hug me?” 

Sunghoon is more than glad to grant your request, his arms enveloping your body in a loving embrace while you don’t hesitate to bask in his warmth that you used to seek solace in. You flutter your eyes close, feeling safe and comforted in the familiarity of his dependent arms as Sunghoon plants a lingering kiss on your crown.

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The skies are painted in the stunning hues of pink and orange while your evening is draped in a soft glow, and your sudden petulance bearing earlier after you exit the establishment that ensued in him receiving a long agonising silent treatment from you throughout the car ride eventually mollified after you drifted off to a deep slumber that seems to invigorate you.

Sunghoon thinks that you are one enigmatic woman. You’re hot for one moment, and the next, you’re colder than the weather at Antarctica. He is even staggered when you finally utter a few words to him. as soon as you woke up. He has had to hold back his chuckles, finding you endearing in spite of your petulance that is rather adorable in his eyes. It turns out that you actually needed to take a power nap.

As soon as you reach the destination, your eyes widen as you remain cemented to the ground, the sight beholding you renders you wonderstruck. Sunghoon waits for you patiently to recover while also enjoying your reaction a little too much as he feels pleased.

Nonetheless, Sunghoon is confident, as he knows that he made the right choice when his plan involved bringing you to one of the biggest libraries that falls under the category of hidden gems in Milan.

“I’ve always wanted to go to this library,” You finally find your voice as you move forward, your eyes flickering to him before contorting your face into confusion. “But I thought it’d be closed at this time.”

“I rented the entire library only for us and until whenever we wish to leave,” Sunghoon tells you in a dismissive manner, almost as if it is not a big deal to him, whereas you are gobsmacked by this. He merely casts you a lazy smirk before tilting his head in a beckoning gesture, inviting you to explore the wonders of this hidden gem. “Let’s go, princess.”

“Wait, you rented? That must’ve cost a lot of money!” You exclaim exasperatedly, distracting yourself from the way your heart is beating in a familiar yet fluttering cadence, knowing that you are so dangerously tempted to cave into your yearning in the depths of your heart. “You shouldn’t have.” You say, your lips pulling down into a frown.

“Money has never been an issue for me; you should already know this.” Sunghoon provides you reassurance upon understanding the worries in your dim eyes, and unbeknownst to him, his genuine smile that causes his dimples to appear in his cheeks sends more fluttery to you. “Don’t feel bad, princess. I wanted to do this. Besides, you said it yourself that you’ve always wanted to go here.”

After being convinced by his assurances, you let your inhibitions go, venturing further into the enchanting wonders of the quaint library that looks magnificent with its opulence and details embellished sublimely on every part that gives off antiquated vibes. You have had to crane your neck to look up and examine the length of the bookshelves that reach to the high ceiling.

All the while you are preoccupied in your own little exploration, Sunghoon follows you from behind at a leisurely pace, watching you with a small smile on his lips. It does not matter that being in a library bores the fuck out of him, but seeing you in your element while your countenance displays such radiance of happiness is worth it.

“Everything here is absolutely divine,” You mutter to yourself, blissfully unaware of his presence in your vicinity. Your fingertips trailing across the spine of the books arrayed on the shelf that is at your eye level, hypnotising him with how delicate you are moving. “This is a different type of heaven for me.”

“I could bring you to another heaven, maybe even a better one,” You nearly jolt in surprise upon hearing his voice from behind you, prompting you to turn around, only to be startled by the close proximity. He smirks down at you as he lazily leans sideways against the shelf with his arms crossed over his chest. “You know, one that involves you rolling your eyes to the back out of pleasure─”

“Okay, enough,” You cut him off abrasively, your cheeks flaring at his salacious remarks. Your glare doesn’t deter him in the slightest. “It isn’t funny.”

“Seeing you flustered is,” The sound of his chuckles brings you more warmth than intended. He watches you in complete amusement as you pivot on your heels to trudge forward, clearly wanting to be away from him, but he follows you, as if something so magnetic lures him to you.

You try your utmost to ignore his patent presence from behind you as you grab one of the books to feign immersion in the reading while you flip through the pages rather aggressively, but upon feeling his body warmth, you release a huff before forcing yourself to look at him with exasperation. “Are you not bored of having to follow me around and watch me read through these books?”

“I could watch you read all day, princess,” Sunghoon adorns a boyish grin on his face, but as you look closely, it almost seems like he is lovesick in the way he gazes at you so fondly. “It’s nice to know that your love for books and libraries is unchanged.”

“What about you? Do you still hate them?” You inquire curtly as you return the book to its original shelf, hating how he is making you feel, be it intentionally or unintentionally.

“So fucking much. I don’t understand why you love reading.”

You turn around with your arms crossed below your chest, your eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Then why bother renting the entire library if you hate it?”

“I did it for you, because I know you loved libraries, like the one back in our old palace,” He states, his voice softening with nostalgia that seems to make your heart pounds louder and louder in your ears. “You loved books and the smell of books. You loved to skim through the pages and the summary of the book before deciding whether or not it piques your interest with the expression on your face. You loved spending hours in the library, because you’d rather waste your time on reading than on the wrong people,” A wistful smile touches his lips. “It’s nice to know that these little habits of yours haven’t changed.”

You blink your eyes at him before looking away from him, refusing to allow him a glimpse of an emotion you nearly show by the glisten in your eyes. “Let’s not get too carried away and ruin the mood.”

“You have no idea, do you?” His voice barely above a whisper, but what suspends your avoidance from him is the blues of despondency in his eyes. “The real reason for this date.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” You say curtly, and you can feel your once-steely resolve melting as you fight hard to deny the reality that has been bared in front of you since the moment he arrived at your doorstep. “Or maybe I don’t want to be confronted by the truth just yet. I don’t want to ruin this date no matter what ulterior motives you had planned.”

“You’re not ruining anything, you’ve never had,” There is a palpable tremor in his voice, despite his collected facade. He steps closer to you, his eyes never straying from yours. “I was the one who ruined things.”

Your eyebrows softly knit together in perplexity. “Sunghoon─”

“No, you need to listen, princess. I can’t let you go on without hearing my side of the story,” He cuts you off as gently as he can while there is an undercurrent of urgency in his tone. “It was all my fault.”

“What do you mean?” You ask, your face contorting into confusion.

“The whole incident a year ago, it was my fault,” He begins to unravel what he kept to himself for so long. His eyes turn crestfallen as he slowly lowers his gaze. “The night at that yacht party, I intended to delete those pictures and videos, but I was a fool for not being cautious enough when I left my phone on the vanity table. Some fucker, and I think you know who, took my phone and probably airdropped them on his phone.”

A muscle pulses in his jaw as the recollection haunts him in his mind once more. “I should’ve locked the door. I should’ve been more careful. I hated myself for what happened. Maybe if I hadn’t left my phone there, then you wouldn’t have suffered.” 

You remain silent, uncertain what to say, while your silence seems to render him defeated as he daringly lifts his head up to meet your unreadable gaze. “If you must direct your hatred and anger, it should be me, not my best friends.”

“It happened anyway, Sunghoon,” You say bitterly, blinking your eyes as you feel them glistening with dangerous emotions that might be released in rivulets. Honestly, you have no idea what to feel, because truthfully, you have moved on from that horrible part of your past, but to hear his side of the story seems to move you to see a different perspective.

“And I regret it every single day,” The way he accentuates his regret in a patent sincerity offers you more clarity than you sought, as does the way he looks at you with utter devastation. “But I regret letting you go the most without telling you the truth of my feelings for you. No, I wouldn’t have let you go if I had known that you intended to leave us.”

A scoff leaves your lips. “Regret? No, you didn’t. You hated me, Hoon. Remember? You told me yourself once,” Your wavering tone denotes such hurt as you recall the very beginning of your encounter with him. “You hated me and my guts in the beginning. You held grudges against me, even when I didn’t do anything wrong towards you. You fucked me like you hated me, and it was worst when I actually loved the pain of it all,” Your lips tremble in sadness while your eyes glisten with tears, unable to read the expression on his face through the blurry vision. “I threw away my dignity and morals for you and your best friends, all because I actually caught feelings for you and wanted to be close to you.”

“I know, and I was a fucking asshole. I shouldn’t have held grudges against you for the wrong, petty reasons,” He curls his fingers to form a fist, refraining himself from touching you because he knows he doesn’t deserve to touch you in a way he yearned for. “You were an angel. You were good. Too good for this fucked-up world. You did nothing wrong towards me. It was all on me.”

You swallow a painful lump in your throat, your voice thickening with a cocktail of emotions. “You were mean to me, Hoon.” You remind him again, wanting him to feel just as hurtful as you were by recalling those memories.

“I know,” His eyes glisten with such hurt despite no tears, and his voice is laden with penitence while there is a discernible crack. “God, I wish I didn’t hurt you and be the reason you left. I was so fucking miserable after we discovered from Jungwon and the others that you left. We all were. None of us were in our right mind.”

Your ego overshadows your sensibility as you look away from him. “I find that hard to believe. You turned out just fine.” 

“Then you’ve been deceived, princess. When you left, it felt like someone tore my heart out of my chest. I’ve never felt pain like that before, but I know I deserved that." A movement from him is enough to capture your attention, and your eyes widen at the sight beholding you while you are rendered thunderstruck. Park Sunghoon, the guy you once knew with one of the biggest egos and prided himself too much, is on his knees with his head hanging low.

You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out as you are unable to articulate your feelings that are in a tumult within you. You can see it in his body language, despite the defeat, this hurts his pride too much, but you don’t understand why he chooses to do so.

“Falling for you was my mistake. If I had known what I got myself into the moment I began to develop feelings beyond platonic for you, then I wouldn’t have fallen into deep,” You manage to find your voice, and this time, you utter it through soft weeping as you allow tears to escape your eyes. “I hate that you were my beautiful mistake, Sunghoon.”

His heart feels like something is stomping all over by the clarity in your declaration. “I’m willing to do anything if it means getting you to fall in love with me again,” He says shakily, slowly lifting his head up to allow you to see his sincerity and determination. “Just say the word, princess. You want me on my knees and crawl towards you? You want me to kiss your feet? I’ll do it. I’ll do them all, but please don’t tell me to stop grovelling for your forgiveness, because I won’t.”

“Sunghoon,” You choke back a sob, feeling a torrent of emotions crashing down on you while tears are unrelentingly cascading down your cheeks.

“I’m willing to wait for your forgiveness, no matter how long it takes, just like how I’m willing to wait for you to love me again,” His voice sounds thick with emotions that are threatening to implode while tears prickle in his eyes. “I’ll wait for your love, princess. I’ll always wait.”

“Tell me that you love me,” You plead in a soft cry, throwing away your inhibition while your once-steely resolve is liquified. “Tell me that you’re in love with me. Tell me what I want to hear.”

“I love you, Y/N Kang,” His declaration of his love for you is punctuated by stark sincerity and affection in his tone that overwhelms you. “I’m so fucking in love with you that it drives me crazy. I’ve always been in love with you, even when I was a denial asshole. No one can ever make my heart beat the way it beats for you. Nobody compares to you, princess,” A teardrop slides down his cheek. “I don’t care that you hate me, but I’m begging you, please allow me to love you.”

“I do hate you for making me fall in love with you over and over.” You admit through soft sobs, taking slow, tentative steps towards him. “I hate you for being the reason why my heart refused to look for anyone else that wasn’t you. I hate that I still love you after all this time when I should’ve moved on.”

“Please don’t ever move on. I promise I’ll be a better man for you,” He pauses, swallowing a lump in his throat as he looks up at you with glassy eyes. “Princess, can I hug you?” He asks weakly, nearly whimpering.

As soon as you nod your head, he slowly wraps his arm around your waist and buries his head just below your chest level, hugging you tightly while there is a raw intimacy enveloping you. You cradle the back of his head with a touch of affection before reciprocating the hug as you embrace him with your warmth.

“I love you so fucking much, Y/N,” Filled with such desperation, he clings onto you as though you are his only salvation. “No one has ever made me feel weak until you.”

“I love you too, Park Sunghoon,” You whisper thickly, refraining yourself from weeping again. You dip your head to plant a kiss on his head while you caress his trembling back in loving strokes. “I forgive you, so please stand.”

With a shaky breath, Sunghoon complies, lifting himself at ease as he finally towers over your figure. He musters courage to meet your eyes despite feeling puffiness around his eyes, and his heart only pounds harder as he mentally prepares himself for what is next.

“I don’t want my actions to make you doubt my love for you ever again, and I never want you to question how much I truly love you,” Nervousness is evident in the way he speaks, despite the veil of confidence he adorns on his countenance.

Confusion swirls in your eyes amidst the speckles of curiosity as you watch him removing his leather jacket and allowing it to drop on the floor, all the while his eyes never leaving yours, causing your cheeks to flare under the palpable intensity of his gaze. Your eyes trail down to his fingers that are clutching the hems of his black shirt.

“Sunghoon, what are you─” You are rendered speechless, flabbergasted even, as he pulls up his shirt and removes it in one swift motion, leaving his fine glory on display for your eyes to feast appreciatively upon while your cheeks feel gradually warmer.

His toned muscles are a testament to his diligent work that has evidently paid off, and honestly, he looks more ripped than you last recall, as if he had indeed spent most of his hours at the gym. The rose tattoo on his hip sends you a wave of familiarity, recalling the times when you would admire his tattoo as you traced your fingers on his skin. The veins protruding on his arms and the imposing sight of his v-line on the lower region nearly has you foaming in the mouth, but you immediately retain your decorum, though your arousal remains in its wake within you.

If you are being frank, you genuinely desire to pounce on him and claim every inch of him as yours. You dismiss your depravity that remains lusting over him as you return your gaze to his face, noticing that he has been observing you with a faint smirk on his pink lips.

Without a word, Sunghoon slowly turns around, allowing you a full view of his toned back, but what renders you thunderstruck with your eyes widening is the sight of a new tattoo across on his shoulder blades being proudly displayed in a fancy font that is readable.

At this rate, your pulse feels like a sledgehammer, matching the way your heart thunders as you read the wordings in a breathy utterance. “Property of Y/N,” You marvel at his devotion for you, which he willingly inked on his own precious skin. “When did you get it?”

“A few weeks after you left,” He says succinctly, sounding breathless while his body goes taut by the sensation of your fingertips on his skin, tracing along the tattoo design. “I already knew that I held you close to my heart, but I wanted your mark to be permanently inked on my skin, just like how you left a permanent mark in my heart.”

“But why ‘Property of Y/N’?” You ask, your voice trembling with emotions that threaten to sweep you away while tears prickle your eyes as you watch him turning around to face you.

His eyes seem to be searching for something in yours in spite of the accumulating tears in your waterline. “Because you own the whole of me, you’ve always had." His voice sounds gradually deeper with each step he takes towards you, amplifying the palpable tension between you and him.

You remain rooted to the ground despite your heart pounding harder as he closes the gap, and it nearly lurches in your chest when he dips his head down to lean his forehead against yours. “I’m yours, princess,” He whispers, his fingers gently wiping away a fallen teardrop sliding down your cheek while his dark eyes never stray from your glistening ones. “I’m yours forever. Even if someday you don’t love me anymore, I’ll still love you, always and forever.”

Like a broken dam, the torrent of emotions breaks free from your resistance, bringing forth more tears to cascade down your cheeks as you weep softly, but you don’t look away from his dark eyes that threaten to consume you whole, swirling with a cocktail of emotions and desires.

“I want to kiss you so bad,” The unmistakable yearning in his voice resonates in the depths of your beating heart, and his touch on your skin as he cradles your face feels scorching, igniting a spark of fervent desire for him.

With a single head nod from you, Sunghoon captures your lips with his, kissing you softly with reverence, but gradually, there is a sense of urgency, one that reflects the hunger from his innermost ravenous desire for you. With one hand cradling your face, the other slithers around your waist, pulling you closer to his body heat possessively.

Without breaking the fervent lip-lock, he backs you up until you hit the shelf behind you, as he has you locked in place. Your hands go winding in his hair as you tilt your head to the perfect angle for him to deepen the kiss. His tongue caresses your lips, a silent permission he seeks to explore every inch of you, to which you part your lips for him to thrust his tongue into your hot cavern.

You sigh pleasurably into his mouth, your breath mingling with his while he continues to ravage you with his tongue. You moan deeply as his tongue dances with yours in familiar yet intimate tango, while the sound from you travels deep to his cock beneath the confines.

He pulls away just slightly to sink his fang-like teeth into the plush of your bottom lip, tugging it gently and savouring the taste of your lip. The corner of his lips curves faintly into a smirk as you whine softly before he relents, only for you to be taken aback by his lips sealing you into a bruising kiss, as though he has released the remnants of his inhibitions.

“I’ve missed you so much, princess,” He rasps against your parted lips, his warm breath fanning your upper lip as he allows you a moment of respite from the feverish kiss. He watches as you slowly flutter your eyelids open, your eyes misting with lust and longing that mirror his, but there is a certain darkness that evinces a familiar depravity as he desires to consume you. His lips ghost yours. “I want you so fucking bad, you have no idea.”

“Then take me,” You utter softly, your voice laden with equal desire as his. Your hands fall to his nape, relishing his warmth beneath your touch. You tilt your head up to purposefully bump your nose against his with your lips dangerously close to his. “What are you waiting for? Take me, hoon. Touch me, love me like you do.”

As soon as those words leave your lips, Sunghoon reclaims your lips, kissing you with an unbridled yearning that has all thoughts and worries faded into insignificance from your mind. Just him and him alone matter at this moment.

His hands slide down to your thighs, gripping the flesh with his fingers, a silent command you comply to as you instinctively jump with his assistance, prompting you to encircle your legs around his waist before he manoeuvres you over to the table without breaking the heated kiss.

The force of his ravenous kiss nearly sends you falling back, but you plant your palm on the surface of the mahogany table for stability. Pulling away from your swollen lips, he ignites a scorching path on your skin as he maps his kisses and licks down your neck.

The heat pooling in your core dangerously renders you impatient as you become unbearably needy for him to claim you deeply. “Hoonie, I need you,” You utter breathlessly, nearly whimpering, while your hands haphazardly roam around the waistband of his Calvin Klein briefs.

“I know. I got you, princess,” He whispers, pressing a sensual kiss on the sensitive spot of your neck before pulling away to unzip his pants, all the while without breaking the heated eye contact with you. As his pants finally fall to the ground, your eyes trail down to his fine glory until they stop at the prominent bulge that looks borderline erected against his briefs. The carnal lust in your ravenous gaze sends shivers through him as he pulls down his brief, freeing his painfully erect cock. “Your turn, princess.”

His deep, husky voice goes straight into your heated core before you obediently comply with his command, standing on your feet to strip yourself, starting from the bottom. Your skirt falls to the floor, followed by your lace underwear that has a small wet patch from your arousal.

Just before you can unbutton your blouse, Sunghoon intercepts with his lips crashing onto yours while you gasp from the impact that causes you to hit the edge of the table behind you. He is practically ravenous, kissing you as if it is his last, as he multitasks with his hands to manoeuvre you on top of the table.

“Are you wet enough?” He murmurs against your lips, his fingers descending to your lower region until they reach the destination that awaits him feverishly. As his fingers accidentally strum on your aching clit, a soft moan leaves your lips that goes straight into his cock. His two fingers begin to inspect your folds that are slick with your arousal before thrusting them into your cunt for good measures. “You’re so wet, princess.”

You nod your head mindlessly, only focusing on the sensation of his fingers thrusting into you with steady momentum. Your eyes flicker to his enamoured ones, and your cheeks go warm under the intensity of his gaze. “Hoonie, please fuck me,” You whine, moving your hips to meet his thrusts, which eventually cease.

“No, princess. I’m not just gonna fuck you,” He looks down and grabs his shaft to aim the bulbous head directly at your clit before pressing onto it, causing your body to jolt at the sensation. Your needy whines bring a small smile to his lips as he continues to slide his cock in between your folds before aligning his cock to your sopping entrance. “I’m gonna love you hard, just like you said so. To love you like I do.”

With that, Sunghoon pushes forward, his cock breaching your entry with little resistance owing to your slicks of arousal that serve as a lubricant. You gasp as your hand immediately latches onto his bicep, feeling the expansion of your walls as they accommodate his girth.

“Fuck, princess. Your tightness never ceases to amaze me,” His husky voice is laden with lust that is borderline carnal, sending shivers down your spine. Still pushing himself deeper into your quivering cunt, he looks up at you, his eyes softening just slightly before he leans forward to place a chaste kiss on your lips. “You never cease to amaze me.”

Sunghoon groans deeply, feeling his cock reaching its destination as it finally nestles deep inside of you. Gripping your hips to seize control, he begins to thrust into you, setting a pace that makes you feel like you’re on cloud nine. Each thrust sends shockwaves of pleasure through you while the sound of your moans mingle with the slaps of skin-on-skin that echoes in this part of the library.

You slowly wrap your legs around his waistline, desiring to feel his cock deeply while his bicep muscle beneath your touch flexes as he asserts dominance over your body. His dark ravenous eyes drink in the sight of you throwing your head to the back as you drown yourself in the pure ecstasy, your moans attesting to it.

“Right there, Hoon,” You moan in satisfaction as he hits the spot deliciously with how deliberately precise each thrust he delivers, and yet he seems to be savouring with how slow yet impactful enough to leave you breathless each time as you arch your back like a cat.

“Yeah? Right here? That’s your spot, princess?” He rasps, his voice sounding strained, almost as if he is holding himself back while there is an unmistakable affection in his tone. He repeats his action, withdrawing himself until the head remains in between your folds before ramming his cock into your cunt, causing the table beneath you to creak and groan under the force of your shared fervour.

You slide your arms underneath his armpits to hook them around his shoulders, wanting him closer to you before you chase for his lips and kiss him hard. He growls into the kiss as your pulsating cunt clenches around him, sending shivers through your body that is pulsating with ceaseless pleasure before he proceeds to carry you elsewhere.

You whine softly into the kiss as he halts his thrust, only for him to resume as soon as he pins you against the shelf without allowing you to stand on your own, still supporting you from below with his strength. With how hard he is fucking into you, you swear you can feel the shelf behind quakes.

“I wanna be buried inside you forever, princess,” He murmurs against your lips before pulling away and focusing on bringing you to another heaven that awaits you. His biceps muscles flex as he lifts you a little higher while your arms go hooking around his neck to stabilise yourself. “Wanna make love to you every day like this, reminding you that you own every inch of me.” He grunts, driving himself deeper, which has you seeing stars.

You can only moan in response, any coherency dissipates at this perfect moment with you wrapped around him. The air is thick with a heady mix of sweat, lust, and love that is palpable amidst the fiery passion. The sensual symphony is accompanied by your moans and his bated breaths that reverberate throughout the library.

You throw your head to the back, allowing your bare neck to be enticingly present in his eyes. Unable to resist the temptation, he leans in and presses his lips on your neck without relenting his thrusts that gradually turn vigorous, causing your whole body to jiggle. More moans tumble past your lips as you roll your eyes to the back in pure bliss, feeling the pleasurable sensation of his teeth sinking into your skin that will evidently leave a mark.

Without pulling away from your neck, his thrusts become erratic, fucking into you that sends you into another state of euphoria, and you know he has reached his climax as he moans deeply into your neck. “I’m─ fuck─ I’m gonna cum, princess,” Sunghoon nearly growls out, his nails sinking into the flesh of your bums while you can feel his cock hitting the spot deliciously without missing a beat.

“Hoon,” You manage to utter between broken moans, tears pricking in your eyes as he pounds into you with the fervent intention to drive you both to the brink of ecstasy while you can feel your impending climax reaching its peak. “Please kiss me.”

Sunghoon complies, crashing his lips onto yours in a feverish kiss while sparks fly around you. “I love you,” He murmurs in between the kisses, and your heart swells at the declaration of love so raw in the yearning of his voice. “I love you so, so much, Y/N Kang.”

“I─” Your words clog in your throat as you reach the crescendo of your impending release that matches his, causing your cunt to spasm around him as you tumble over the edge. You scream his name as your orgasm crashes through you like tidal waves while he delivers one last thrust with a growl before burying himself deeply as he fills you to the brim.

As the last of ecstasy echoes in the air, he remains buried in you while the union of your fluids slowly leaks from your sexes as they eventually stain the wooden floor. Your ragged breaths mingle with his as you bask in the blissful afterglow while he continues to hold you up in the air. When your eyes slowly flicker to his, your heart flutters at the intensity of his gaze with a fiery desire palpable.

You cup his cheeks and lean your forehead against his, smiling softly amidst catching your breath. “I love you too, Park Sunghoon,” You utter breathlessly before attempting to kiss him, but he startles you when he proceeds to carry you elsewhere. “Sunghoon─?”

Sunghoon carefully settles you down on the couch that is thankfully spacious enough. Your breath hitches in your throat upon seeing how his eyes darken with carnal lust as he hovers on top of you. The sensation of his cock dragging along your slick walls elicits a soft moan from you before you whimper at the sensitivity as it strikes you.

“I’m gonna keep loving you, princess. Fill you up and put a baby in you,” He says in between bated breaths, his biceps muscles flexing as he plants both hands next to your head. His dark eyes penetrating into yours hold dark promises despite the love and lust. “Never gonna let you leave again, not when you’re carrying my baby.”

The thought of having his babies heightens your desire, prompting you to buck your hips up to meet his thrusts. “Please,” You whimper, needing him to obliterate your cunt like he used to. “Love me harder.”

Sunghoon does, proving his love and devotion to you by bringing you to a new state of ecstasy that feels exhilarating over and over, leaving no spot in the library untouched that has been stained by your passionate love-making.

The gloomy weather brings forth a bleak atmosphere throughout his imposing, minimalist office, enveloping him with a familiar comfort he often seeks solace in after a long monotonous and hectic day as someone who bears responsibilities that are heavier than they seem. The rhythmic sound of rain pelting against the floor-to-ceiling windows across the vast expanse of his office fills his ears as he remains motionless, resting on the couch that is situated in the centre with one arm draping over his eyes.

Jay ignores his phone that has been buzzing incessantly on the main desk, completely unbothered since it is past office hours and most of his employees in the building have already clocked out of their shifts. He needs some time alone to put his mind at ease after all the work that took mental exertion on him.

Being a managing director was never on his bucket list, but being the only son and heir, Jay knew that he could never escape the inevitable, which he deemed a heavy burden. Truth be told, he had no idea what he wanted to pursue after graduation, but he desired to travel around the world and enjoy what life had to offer without any restriction. He should have known better that it was merely a pipe dream to someone like him, whose whole life had been dictated by his parents, and most especially his father.

As Jay recalls a certain memory not too long ago, a scoff leaves his lips. Initially, when Jay divulged to his parents about moving abroad without disclosing his real intent, his mother vehemently opposed, but his ever-callous father surprisingly allowed, only if Jay fulfilled his duty as the heir, and with the perfect timing, his duty call was coincidentally at the very city he intended to go.

Thankfully, Jay was more than ready to oversee his father’s established business in Milan, as shown by his remarkable performance throughout the period of him working and honing his skills, which moulded him into the notable director he is now, whom every one of his employees looks up to out of both fear and reverence, despite being conferred the position three months ago.

Jay also recalls how there were moments when he would get along with his father in regards to business, but he knew that it was merely out of necessity since his father was required to be part of his guidance, not that Jay was saddened or anything. He more than recognises that they could never have the normal father-son relationship he used to yearn for.

But then again, that yearning his younger self once possessed is unparalleled to the yearning instilled in his heart that perennially bleeds and beats for you, even when he thought all hopes in finding you were lost.

Just like his best friends, Jay was not himself, but remarkably, he managed to hide it well, most especially from his father since he knew he could not afford to lose his focal point on business matters, not when at that point in time, all he had was working and building his way up the corporate ladder.

Jay grieved for you every night, even on nights where he chose to spend them in his temporary office at the main corporate building, because sleeping in his own bed at the palace only seemed to hurt him deeply as he could smell your faint scent on the bedding while his mind would drift off to how he used to spooned you as you slept soundly in his arms.

Instead of unleashing the tempest of wrath that was once ingrained in him, Jay felt entirely numb with agonising pain and chose to cope with the loss of your presence in his life by drinking and smoking excessively that even Heeseung grew concerned for his health. It was not as if Jay intended to, not when he had no desire to become like his alcoholic father, but those methods were more efficient for him to drown out his thoughts and feelings he harboured for you.

What a fool he was, because no matter how many bottles he drank or sticks he smoked, he could not erase the permanent mark you left in his tainted heart. He could never forget you. How could he ever forget the woman who managed to make him feel deeply? How could he ever forget his first love?

Before meeting you, Jay has never had a crush on anyone, even when the girls surrounding him were equally stunning, simply because he could not be bothered to be involved in such useless pursuit that wastes his valuable time. He also found the possibility of him developing feelings that evolve into love simply absurd, as he did not believe that he was a man incapable of love until you.

Yes, it started out as an infatuation, especially when he chose to torment you for a short period of time for pure entertainment, but as the times he spent with you, he grew fond of you and knew that his obsession stemmed from the love he had for you despite not knowing what love truly was.

The only and most regrettable thing was him acknowledging to you about the fact that he had fallen deep and that he desired to spend a lifetime with you. There was not a single day where he did not dwell in regret for his past sins towards you. He loathed his actions, including how he treated you horribly in the beginning. Even worse when he allowed you to slip away from his grasp in just a blink of an eye.

A muscle pulses in his jaw as he recalls your words the last time he saw you. The way you looked at him and in the tone you spoke to them haunted him in his sleep. He knows that he has to grovel to earn your forgiveness and win your affection back, but right now, he has no idea when is the appropriate time for him to embark on his pursuit, especially when two of his best friends seem to have kept you occupied.

As if on cue, the door of his office swings open, revealing the very two people who had just intruded his thoughts as they come barging into his office. Jay remains unmoving, even as their approaching footsteps get louder in his ears.

“We were wondering what kept you in the office too long. We thought you decided to work overtime again,” Sunghoon voices out his thoughts as he stands near the couch alongside Jake, towering over Jay’s unperturbed figure.

“Are you sleeping?” Jake asks, staring down at his best friend with a bewildered expression.

“No. I’m meditating, and you guys are disrupting my peace,” Jay states flatly, his voice devoid of amusement. Sighing, he lifts his arm away from his eyes as he pries them open to look at them. “Barging into my office without knocking on the door. Tsk. It looks like spending more time away from work than you should makes you lack etiquette.”

Sunghoon and Jake exchange knowing looks with faint smirks playing on their lips, earning a suspicion glare from Jay as he slowly lifts his upper body from the couch. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that we’re sensing something in your tone,” Sunghoon rubs his chin thoughtfully, but even Jay recognises that his best friend is mocking him. “Maybe it’s jealousy?”

“Why would I sound jealous?” Jay snaps, his patience wearing thin while he can feel the jealousy growing within him, but his ego refuses to admit it to them.

“Oh, you know, because we got to spend time with Y/N ever since she accepted us back,” Jake seems to taunt him as the smirk on his lips stretches wider almost so cunningly. “You should try it sometimes. Grovelling, I mean.”

“You guys are insufferable. If you’re here to taunt me by rubbing your success in my face, then get the fuck out of my office,” Jay shoots him a scowl, resisting the temptation to punch the smirks on their faces.

“We were just helping you by pushing you to get to work,” Sunghoon says defensively as Jay coldly brushes past them to get to the main desk. “We gave you time and opportunity for you to make things right with Y/N yesterday, but no, you had to delay.”

“And need I remind you who was the biggest arsehole between us? Most especially towards Y/N in the beginning.” Jake asks rhetorically in a sardonic tone.

“First of all, I was busy with numerous meetings because we’re running tight on the deadline of our big project, and don’t forget that you’re involved in the said project,” Jay retorts at Sunghoon before directing his glare at Jake. “Secondly, I wasn’t the one who made Y/N cry first, unlike you, who decided to become the first arsehole by making her jealous, remember?”

Instead of retaliating like Jay expected, Jake simply shrugs his shoulders, completely undeterred. “All is well and forgiven now, but I don’t know about you, though. I wonder if Y/N will forgive you by the time you decide to grovel a little too late.”

“It would work in our favour if she doesn’t,” Sunghoon smirks cruelly as he playfully bumps his shoulder against Jake’s, adding to the fire that is simmering within Jay from their provocation. “The less competition there is, the better.”

“It isn’t a fucking competition,” Jay clenches his jaw, his steely eyes burning straight into them, and it is so infuriating that they are not in the slightest deterred by the obvious path of his wrath they are at. “We agreed, a year ago, that it was only fair if we shared her.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Jake raises his eyebrow at him with an expectant glint in his eye. “You may have all the time in the world, but Y/N might not wait on you anymore─”

“She’s waiting on me?” Jay cuts him off, his once-seething wrath towards them wanes while his steely eyes soften at the thought of you.

“She didn’t exactly let us know, but we know that she is. There is no doubt that she is still waiting on both you and Heeseung,” Sunghoon tells him, observing his wintry facade that slowly melts. “Yes, being late is better than never, but don’t you think that she has waited long enough to hear our apologies?”

Jay’s silence is prevailing as they examine the emotions that leak through the cracks of his wintry facade. Jake sighs softly, tucking his hand into his pocket. “Y/N deserves better, Jay, you know that. So prove to her that you deserve to have her.”

Jay finally snaps out of his rumination as he lifts his head up to look at them with a faint smirk on his lips. “Look at you two. I never knew you could be this wise. Y/N must’ve been the reason for your wisdom.”

“You’re right,” Sunghoon admits, lifting a small smile at the thought of you. His eyes harden with encouragement as they penetrate into Jay’s. “So you better get your ass moving soon or Jake and I will be the only privileged ones to have Y/N as our girlfriend.”

Instead of responding, Jay grabs his phone from the table and his coat that was draped over his swivel leather chair before striding towards the door, leaving behind curious yet puzzled Jake and Sunghoon. “Where are you going?” Jake asks as soon as Jay swings the door open.

“Somewhere,” Jay answers vaguely, his tone sounding uncertain, but deep inside, he knows that he needs to see you, even if a part of him feels ambivalent about showing his face to you after recalling your words that struck him deeply.

On his way to the elevator, his eyes flicker to his secretary, surprised to see her still at her station, and an idea pops in his mind before Jay decides to call for her. “Cancel any of my plans for the next two days. I won’t be coming to the office.”

All the while, Jake and Sunghoon observe him from afar, feeling pleased as they fist bump each other without tearing their gaze off of their best friend.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

A pleasant fragrance from a distinct scented candle pervades his senses as it rouses him from his slumber, but his head begins to pound unpleasantly, forming a headache while his face contorts into a grimace. His throat feels parched, as though he has been dehydrated for over a day.

Jay pries his heavy eyelids open, only to be greeted at the oddly familiar ceiling that looks different than the ceiling in their penthouse. He feels a weight on top of his body before looking down at the white duvet that had tucked him throughout the night nicely and noticing that he had fallen asleep on the couch.

Jay allows his head to fall back onto the comfortable pillow that nearly tempts him to resume his dreamless slumber while his mind is in a tumult of confusion amidst the incessant headache, wondering how the hell did he end up here out of all the places.

Jay rubs his tired face, hoping that he did not do anything foolish or embarrassing as the recollection of whatever happened yesterday is still in fragments. His heart nearly lurches in his chest when he hears you clearing your throat, prompting him to raise his upper body to sit. He briefly looks down and sees that he is still in his work attire.

“You’re up early, for someone who went completely wasted,” You state tersely, avoiding his gaze as you put down a glass of water on the coffee table in front of him. “Here. You probably need it.”

Instead of hydrating himself, Jay continues to look at you as though you are unreal. “How did I end up here? What happened last night?” His husky voice sounds grating and sends you oddly pleasurable chills through your body.

You muster courage to look at him without giving away the fact that you are actually melting on the inside at how sinfully good he looks with his white top being unbuttoned, allowing his toned chest to be visible in your eyes.

“You don’t remember?” You ask in disbelief, your frown deepening at the genuine confusion plastered on his face, eliciting a sigh from you. “You showed up, drunk, at my doorstep last night, and then you nearly passed out on me, so I had no choice but to bring you into my apartment. Now, does that jog your memory?”

“I don’t know. I can’t even think straight because my head hurts,” Jay mutters, furrowing his eyebrows in discomfort, but even then his eyes continue to roam around you as he notices how dressed up you look, being adorned in a short pleated milkmaid dress with ditsy floral print all over.

“You shouldn’t have drunk too much.” You reprimand him, feeling your cheeks warm at his invasive yet hungry eyes raking all over you. 

Jay swallows down a glob of spit to moisturise his extremely parched throat as he slowly returns to meet your gaze. “Where are you going?”

“To the airport. Karina and Wonyoung will be flying back to Seoul today, so can you please hurry and freshen yourself up? I’m going to be running late,” You tell him, your tone denoting your impatience. “You can take a shower in my bathroom. I’ve already placed a set of new clothes for you on my bed if you feel uncomfortable wearing back your work attire.”

“You have clothes that fit me?” He asks, curiosity laces with amusement in his tone.

“They’re Jaeyun’s. Don’t take too long, or I’ll have to actually lock you in my apartment,” You ramble with your words as you avoid his gaze, uncertain of what expression he wears before you decide to head to the kitchen, whereas Jay promptly heads to your bedroom.

It is not long until Jay finally steps inside your bathroom. As he turns to look in the mirror, he notices the puffiness around his eyes, and that is when those fragments of last night’s recollection coalesce into one, eliciting a groan from him as it replays in his head.

--------

Instead of heading back to their penthouse, Jay drove to your street right after buying a bottle of whiskey. He was indecisive ever since he left the corporate building. A part of him desired to see you, but another part held him back, fearing that it would be too soon despite his best friends’ encouragement and support earlier.

Hence, Jay found himself loitering outside of your apartment building with the bottle of whisky in his grasp. Feeling his body gradually getting warmer, which stemmed from his frustration, he unbuttoned the top of his white blouse before taking a swig of the whisky as it burned his throat. His plan might seem witless, but he wanted to see if the effect of alcohol would spur him into finally taking action as well as elevating his self-confidence.

It turned out to be a mistake because he did not foresee himself getting wholly inebriated just by one bottle of whisky when he used to have a high tolerance for alcohol, but perhaps the alcohol in his system interflowed with the web of emotions he had always struggled to subdue was far too strong for him to think and act rationally.

Thus, in spite of his lack of confidence, Jay was spurred by the heavy influence of alcohol and soon found himself right at your doorstep, pressing on the doorbell with zero hesitation. As he waited for you, his head hung low while his palm was planted on the wall next to the door to support his body as he felt his consciousness teetering at the edge.

Jay did not expect you to open the door since the time struck midnight, but when you did, he felt like he could die happily to see your beautiful face up close again. Despite his pounding head being foggy, he could vividly see your face contorting into genuine shock, followed by confusion with a hint of vexation.

His heart broke upon seeing your eyes harden as you stared at him like he was a mere stranger. “It’s midnight, Jay. What are you even doing here─”

“You’re hurting my feelings, baby,” He rasps, his voice sounding strained, almost like he was going through mental anguish. “But I guess I deserved the treatment from you.”

All the while, you scrutinised him and recognised that he was clearly inebriated in the way his eyelids looked slightly droopy, while there was also a hint of slur in his voice. You looked down at the empty bottle of whisky in his grasp, to which your frown deepened.

“You’re drunk, Jay,” You began to reprimand him, eyeing him disapprovingly. “And you thought it was a brilliant idea to show up here? Don’t tell me that you drove your way here while the alcohol was in your system. Do you know how dangerous that is? You could’ve gotten into an accident!” You truly wanted to act indifferent, but you could not resist against your instinct that was overprotective at the thought of him being in harm’s way.

“Y/N care me,” Jay murmured in an almost childlike voice, eliciting a disbelieving look from you, but you could not deny the fact that he looked rather adorable, resembling a puppy, even though his appearance was the complete opposite ─ his raven locks were slightly tousled, his suit denoted that he had been working, the top of his unbuttoned blouse allowed you a generous view of his toned chest, and truthfully, he looked like he had gone through a period of heartbreak.

You heaved a defeated sigh as you rubbed your temple. “Just, why are you here, Jay? You showed up at my doorstep, drunk, and acted as if nothing happened─”

“I needed to see you. I missed you so fucking much, and I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I missed everything about you,” Jay cut you off in a jabber, and yet every word he spoke was coherent for you to grasp. Upon noticing his unsteady stability, your hands instinctively reached out to catch him in any case he fell, but you quickly forced your arms to remain by your sides. “I’m drunk because, without the alcohol, I couldn’t face you like this. That’s how much of a coward I am, Y/N.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but your heart nearly lurched in your chest when he stepped past the threshold, looming over your stunned figure. When you looked at him, your eyes widened at the sight of his eyes that were glistening with tears.

“I didn’t want to become an alcoholic like my father. I didn’t want to become like my father, but here I am. I turned out exactly like my father,” His voice shakes with emotions that felt like a painful lump being stuck in his throat. “If I became like my father, you would’ve hated me more than you already have, and that hurt me more than any pain I’ve experienced.”

You had no intention to bear any sympathy or even shed a tear, but when you noticed a teardrop escaping the corner of his eye, you felt as though someone was crushing your heart. “Jay─”

You became alarmed as his body swayed before falling forward, but you caught him in a nick of time, allowing him to lean dependently on your body while his head hung low over your shoulder. You snatched the bottle out of his hand, fearing that he might drop it, while your other arm encircled his body to support him.

Though his consciousness was slowly slipping away from his grasp, your scent managed to pervade his senses. “You smell nice,” He murmured languidly, adjusting the position of his head and burying his nose in the nook of your neck while you were flabbergasted with the temperature of your face rising abruptly by his action.

“Jay?” You patted his back, only receiving silence while his body felt heavier on yours, and so you begrudgingly proceeded to bring him further inside of your apartment before settling him on the couch.

You placed the empty bottle on the coffee table, but just as you intended to call Jake or Sunghoon, you felt his hand tugging at yours with full force, resulting in you losing balance and falling on top of him. It could be the effect of the alcohol, seeing how his face flushed pink and his body temperature felt warm beneath yours, but his teary eyes caused yours to widen.

“I can’t believe I let my precious angel baby go that day. I’m so, so sorry for letting you go without telling you how much I needed you, how much I loved you,” He whispered brokenly, sounding as if he held back a sob. Your body felt paralysed as you remained in his possession. Your heart fluttered when he brushed the strands of hair behind your ear before dragging his fingers down your cheeks and stroking them gently. “Are you even real right now?”

“I am.” You found yourself indulging him, your voice softening, but you knew that the reason was because it was easier to deal with him when he was under the influence of alcohol.

“I don’t know why I’m crying when I shouldn’t,” He mumbled, his eyes looking dazed with the tears rolling down his cheeks while he continued to caress yours. “I’m a man. A man doesn’t cry. Even my father said so. Crying is for the weak.”

“Your father is a jerk,” You retorted, your soft tone serving as a reassurance to him that alleviated his frayed nerves. You reached up to cradle his face, smiling softly at him. “Crying doesn’t mean you’re weak. Sometimes, crying is good for you to help make you feel better afterwards. You’re a human, Jay. You’re allowed to cry whenever you want.”

Jay remained silent, and for a moment, you thought he was sleeping with his eyes open, but the way he gazed at you looked like he was moonstruck by you as he cradled your face. “You’re so beautiful, Y/N. God, I wish you were real.”

“I am real, Jay,” You reiterated, but he didn’t seem too convinced. You were not mad at him since the alcohol was affecting his perception. You sighed softly, your hand slowly leaving his cheek. “I’ll let you stay here overnight. Just let me go grab a pillow and─”

“Don’t go. Don’t leave me again, please,” Jay pleaded as he wrapped his arms around your waist, preventing you from moving with how tight they are. “I need you close to me. Let’s just stay like this for a while.”

You should be rejecting him and pushing him away, but instead, you felt weakened, and so you remained on top of him with your head resting on his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat while his strong cologne enveloped you, tempting you to bury your face into his chest, and you did.

Moments had passed, and your eyelids felt heavier, but upon feeling his arms around your waist loosen, you carefully removed yourself from his grasp while your eyes trained on the beautiful serenity of his face as he was finally sound asleep.

Your hand tentatively reached out to wipe away the tears on his cheek as you faintly smiled. “What am I going to do with you, Jay?” Despite being asleep, he swore he could hear you whisper those words and your warmth on his cheek before darkness wholly embraced him.

--------

After much contemplation during the shower, Jay chooses the safest route, and that is to feign not remembering what happened last night when the recollection is vivid in his head, not wanting to potentially aggravate the situation since you already seemed hostile enough towards him earlier. The last thing he needs is for you to drift further away from him.

With the towel wrapped loosely around his hips, Jay steps outside of the bathroom at the same time you barge into your room, but he is completely unfazed by the fact that half of his nudity is starkly displayed in front of you. If anything, he feels more amused and smug to see you looking evidently flabbergasted as you remain cemented to the floor.

Having fallen into the temptation, you indulge your desire for him that burns in your heart as you soak in the luscious sight of him into your brain, your eyes shamelessly roaming around him and your mouth nearly salivating. You can vividly see the droplets from the prior shower tantalisingly dripping down on his abdominal muscles, and due to how prominent his muscles are, you presume that he, alongside Jake and Sunghoon, often hit off to the gym together.

As you return your gaze to his face, your cheeks flare with embarrassment at the knowing glint in his eyes as well as the smirk on his lips. Everything about him is infuriatingly irresistible ─ his damp hair with the bangs hovering over his forehead, his full-arm tattoo, his toned physique, his strong gaze that knocks the breath out of you, and his dark allure that serenades you.

“I was just looking for my purse,” You nearly stutter with your words before feigning nonchalance, wanting to cover up the fact that you blatantly checked him out for five solid minutes.

“Sure,” The smirk on his lips persists, making you feel flustered before you force yourself to tear your gaze away from him and proceed to resume what you intended to as you turn your back on him. “By the way, can I have my jacket back?”

You look back at him with your face twisting in confusion. “Your jacket? I don’t recall you giving me your jacket─” Realisation hits you like a truck, recalling the familiarity of his strong cologne last night, but then another matter comes forth, bringing a frown to your lips. “So you were actually stalking me at the bar that night, but I don’t understand. I saw Jake’s car before I got into my Uber ride. Were you with him too?”

“I wasn’t stalking you. Jake and I happened to be at the bar even before you arrived, but we did wait for you until we were certain that you’ve arrived at your apartment building safely,” Jay explains shortly, but enough for you to understand. “Plus, you were shivering when you were asleep at the bar, so I gave you my jacket.”

“How thoughtful of you. If only you didn’t follow me all the way like a creepy stalker,” You remark with sarcasm before trudging forward to head to your closet and rummaging through to find his jacket. Just as you finally grab it, you feel his presence looming behind you while his body heat causes you to straighten your posture. “What do you think you’re doing?” You ask tersely without turning around, gripping the jacket tight.

You can practically feel his warm breath fanning lightly on your earlobe. “You said you were going to run late to reach the airport, right?” He asks softly, carrying a sensual tone that has your heart go pounding crazily against your chest. “Let me send you to the airport instead. I drive fast.”

“No, thank you. I can book myself an Uber,” You clip, daring yourself to turn around, only to be taken aback by the close proximity, and you defy against your ravenous desire to pounce on him.

“I wasn’t asking, baby,” He says lowly, his intimidating gaze that burns through yours amplifies your desire for him. You forget that his obstinacy is on par with the rest of his best friends, so even if you vehemently refused again, he would not budge. “I’m driving you to the airport. Besides, I have plans for us afterwards.”

“What if I refuse?” You tilt your chin in defiance, and he seems to relish in the way your fiery gaze reflects your stubbornness, but it is one of the qualities about you he loves.

“You can’t refuse me, baby,” He smirks, grabbing his jacket from your hands before he turns around to exit your closet. “You’re welcome to stay and watch me get changed, by the way.”

Of course, you ignore him as you immediately trudge your way out of the room, no matter how enticing the offer is.

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An hour or two ago, you were at the airport, bidding your best friends a heartfelt farewell alongside Jennifer, and they were equally stunned to see Jay accompanying you. There was no doubt that there were questions weighing heavily on the tip of their tongue, but thankfully, they did not bombard you with their questions. It was awkward, especially when you knew that they detested each other, but Jay seemed neutral with an impassive countenance.

As promised, Jay kept his words and began the motion of his plan right after the farewell at the airport by bringing you to a rather fancy restaurant for brunch first. It was a delightful brunch despite your aloof demeanour towards him. You were surprised to see that Jay had such patience throughout the whole time, and not even once did he seem irritated by your cold detachment.

Presently, you are nestled in the passenger seat of his black Ford Mustang, resting comfortably with your eyelids threatening to close as your tummy feels full after appeasing your hunger, and a nap is a necessity at this moment, but when your eyes flicker to him, you feel miraculously wide awake.

The black top, which belongs to Jake, fits him perfectly with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, displaying his veins for your eyes to feast upon while the mere sight of the titanium Rolex watch on your wrist does something to you that you can feel in your tummy. His raven bangs hover over his forehead, adding a soft touch to his countenance. His strong gaze is unmistakable, even just by the side profile, as he focuses on the road. You continue to marvel at how undeniably gorgeous he is discreetly.

Or maybe not so discreetly, because the moment he turns his head to look at you so briefly, his lips twitch into a knowing smirk, causing cheeks to flare. It is not your fault that his handsomeness bewitched you.

“So, Sunghoon and Jake told me that you’re overseeing your father’s company here,” You strike up a conversation, much to your own surprise since you had intended to remain aloof, but you want to dispel the awkwardness. “So you’re like a CEO, then? Is it permanent?”

“Unfortunately,” Jay’s answer earns a confused look from you, and his eyes soften before he decides to explain. “I never wanted to become a managing director, let alone to be involved in any of my father’s business, but since I’m his only son and heir, I had to fulfil my obligation. It’s also a perfect coincidence that the location of my obligation is here.”

You nod your head in understanding, but before you can speak, he continues, his tone carrying a bitterness. “If I had refused my father back then, he wouldn’t have allowed me to move abroad, and I wouldn’t be able to meet you.”

“So the reason you’re here in the first place was because of work?” You can’t help but to sound disappointed, even if your ego is the reason you are refraining yourself from caving into him after seeing his efforts since earlier and how gentle and soft-spoken he had been towards you, entirely different from the Jay you first met.

“No, baby. The real reason I’m here right now is because of you. It has always been my real intention, but my father didn’t grant me the freedom I wanted unless I comply with his order, or else I wouldn’t be bothered to become the managing director,” Jay casts you another glance, his lips forming a rueful smile. “But everything I’ve gone through was worth it, because it gives me the opportunity to build the future I envisioned with you in it.”

You look down at your hands, feeling your heartbeat going rapidly by his last statement. “How were you so sure that I’d even be in your future?” You force your voice to come out strong, almost flintily, but you remain a jittery mess on the inside. “If you hadn’t found out where I really was, then all you’ve worked hard for and built would’ve gone to vain.”

“I told you before, didn’t I?” A discernible knowingness laces in his voice. “At the yacht party, a year ago.”

Your breath hits in your throat while nostalgia pulls at your heartstrings. “You still remember that yacht party?”

“Of course. I remember every memory I had with you,” He smiles wistfully, and when he meets your eyes again, you can see a longing regret for a fleeting moment. “Do you remember what I told you if you leave me again?”

“No,” You deny, refusing to admit that you, too, remember every memory you had so vividly that it feels fresh in your mind as they resurface, especially this particular one. “Even if you leave again, I’ll find you, and I’ll chase you till the end.”

“I may be the biggest arsehole in the world, but I’m a man of my words,” His stern voice holds an unequivocal promise, one that sends you the familiar chills. “I told you before that I would always find you and that I’d chase you till the end.”

You remain silent as you curl your fingers into fists on your lap. You want to say something, anything, but it feels as though his words have coiled around your throat, suffocating you with the promise infused like a coaxing substance. When you finally focus on your surroundings, a frown pulls at your lips, your head filling with pure confusion at your current location, wondering why he has brought you to a car dealership. “Why are we here?”

Like an expert, Jay manipulates the steering wheel in a way that has you gawking at his hands while he is preoccupied in parking his car. “We’re here to buy a car,” He answers, albeit vaguely. You are taken by surprise when he leans towards you, causing you to hold your breath in the close proximity while he doesn’t look away from your eyes, only for him to unbuckle your seatbelt. A faint smirk appears on his lips as he examines the flushness of your face. “Let’s go.”

You ignore the rising temperature on your cheeks. “For who? You already have one.”

His face remains impassive as he switches off the ignition. “For you, of course. It’ll be for your convenience to get around here,” He says calmly, merely dismissing the genuine surprise on your face before he exits his car, with you following suit.

“But I don’t even have my driving license yet!” You exclaim in protest as soon as you catch up to him. “Seriously, if this is your method to earn me back with money or with a freaking car─”

“Trust me, I know, and I don’t expect anything from you,” Jay cuts you off sternly, halting his steps as he scans your countenance before his eyes go soft with adoration. “Just let me do this for you. I’m being sincere about it.”

As much as you would like to refuse, it feels like an insurmountable obstacle, especially in maintaining your aloofness towards him, and so with a resigned sigh, you nod your head before grumbling under your breath, “I should’ve gotten that damn driving license with Jen.”

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Spending approximately about an hour and a half at the car dealership simply exhausts you, and it is equivalent to when you accompanied Jennifer to shop at the famous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Not only did you have to make an arduous decision in choosing vehicles of your liking ─ yes, vehicles. Jay insisted you choose a motorbike of your own as well, an Aprilia RSV4  ─ but the paperwork was just as gruelling.

Finally egressing the outlet, your eyes search for a certain someone who excused himself right after he did his part in the paperwork across the expansive parking lot before they land on his stature with his handsome back facing you which sends you an annoying flutter.

As you approach him, the stifling smell of a cigarette causes your nose to scrunch up in complete distaste while your eyes follow the movement of grey smoke wafting in the air before they flicker at the burning white stick rolled between his fingers.

You press your lips thinly, watching him from behind as he raises the stick to his lips while he remains blissfully unaware of your presence. You know you should be minding your own business, especially when his health does not concern you, but you feel strongly inclined to do the exact opposite.

Tucking your lower lip between your teeth, you begin to fiddle with your fingers before gravitating towards him until you are in his line of sight. Your heart flutters at the intensity of his handsome gaze on your face while the burning stick is caged between his teeth.

Instead of being rattled by the intoxicating smell, you find yourself cemented to the ground, as though his whole being alone spellbinds you. You blink your eyes, clearing your throat as you feign annoyance. “You should really stop smoking. It’s bad for your health in the long run.”

The corner of his lips curves up into a smirk as he withdraws the stick from his mouth to blow out the smoke while he never breaks eye contact with you. “You’re worried about me, baby?” 

“No. I just don’t like people smoking in general.” You nearly stutter with your words, clearly taken aback by his remark.

Jay does not seem convinced, and for a fleeting moment, bitterness hardens his eyes while a muscle pulses in his jaw. “Did you tell Sunghoon to stop smoking as well? Or are you playing favourites now?” He keeps his tone neutral, careful enough not to aggravate your distance from him. “Or maybe you’re denying that you’re worried about me?”

“I’m not playing favourites,” You deny rather vehemently, to which you are baffled at yourself for being defensive. Your remark earns you an unamused expression from him. “Fine, I’m worried about you! Are you happy?” You snap at him, easily caving into those dark, attractive eyes of his.

Oddly, his smirk falls flat on his lips while his eyes seem to soften, but they are captivating enough to retain your full attention on him. “Alright. I’ll stop smoking,” His sincerity causes you to double take his words as you stare at him dumbfounded. “At least I’ll try to.”

“Just because I said so?” You force yourself to scoff out as your heart flutters annoyingly once more, watching as he throws the burning stick to the ground only to snuff the burning tip with the sole of his shoe.

Jay unfurls a soft smile on his lips, and yet wistfulness glimmers in his eyes as he returns to your gaze. “Everything I do has always been for you.”

You look away from his eyes that seem to be pulling you in dangerously, clearing your throat as you attempt to walk past him to get to his car. “We should go.”

Jay clenches his fist, fighting against his longing urges, but he caves in as he quickly catches up to you, his hand latching on your wrist. “Baby, wait.” 

“Jay─” Before you can even protest, you are rendered speechless when he pulls you into his warm embrace, his arms encasing your frigid form. Your heart aches yearningly as he tightens his arms around you with his cheek pressing into the side of your head.

“I missed being able to hold you like this,” Jay mumbles, savouring this moment for as long as he can before releasing you, feeling defeated at your avoidance of reciprocity. A rueful smile touches his lips. “I remember what happened while I was drunk last night.”

Your breath hitches in your throat at his confession, and a pang of hurt strikes you in the chest. “You said you didn’t. You lied to me, again.”

“I was afraid that you’d push me away like you did last week,” Jay confesses earnestly, oblivious to the fact that you are grappling with your emotions that beseech you to cave into him, especially as he is looking at you with an intense longing. “I’ve never felt afraid of anything until you, so I’m sorry. I know I have a lot of things to apologise for.” He says with a final sigh, only receiving your silence when he takes the cue to walk past you.

But you surprise yourself as you stop him, tugging at his hand almost meekly while the skin contact sends a spark to him. “Jay,” His name is uttered with your wavering voice, prompting him to meet your eyes, only to be taken aback by the glistening tears in them. “I─” Your voice shakes, and your throat hurts from restraining every bit of your emotions since waking up to his presence in your humble abode.

Truth be told, you still remember every word he said last night, and his words struck you deeply in the heart. After all, humans tend to be veracious with their words when they fall into inebriation. 

Jay unfurls a sad smile, a passing understanding flickers in his eyes. “You don’t have to say anything,” He reassures you softly as he squeezes your hand. “Let me just take you back─”

“I want you to hold me again.” You cut him off, pulling him closer as you tug his hand, and this time, you can feel every bit of your inhibition leaving you. You blink your tears away. “I want you to want me so bad─”

“I don’t think I deserve to want you, baby. Not yet,” Jay whispers almost painfully while the longing in his eyes only seems to wound you in the heart. He musters a bitter smile. “Let’s go. I’ll bring you back to my place so I can properly apologise to you.”

“But─”

“Please, Y/N,” Jay pleads, maintaining his composure that baffles you because his eyes hold a beautiful galaxy of emotions for you despite his firm demeanour. “You don’t deserve the bare minimum, which is why I want to prove to you how much I deserve you.” Upon receiving your acknowledging head nod, he proceeds to guide you back to his car while your heart races in anticipation.

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The gradual evening is draped in a soft glow, the sun setting with the heavenly hues of orange and pink, a breathtaking view that you can conveniently appreciate whenever you desire to step out to the rooftop just a door away that is adjacent to the living room. One of the many perks of residing at a penthouse, at least for them, which you genuinely feel envious of.

Earlier, when Jay intended to bring you back to their palace, you definitely did not expect to walk past the threshold of their exquisite penthouse. You were in awe throughout the whole time Jay introduced you to every part of the penthouse except their bedrooms. The floor-to-ceiling windows offer the panoramic view of the sophisticated city, a view that you wish to wake up to better, as it is much better than the view from your apartment’s point of view.

Presently, you are seated by the kitchen island, watching Jay in silence as he has been occupied cooking for the past thirty minutes or so since he insisted on you occupying yourself by doing whatever you desired, but you eventually grew bored. Besides, nothing is more heart-fluttering than to watch a handsome man in a domestic element.

Your lips unfurl a soft smile while you can feel the pupils in your eyes dilated with adoration as they follow his every movement, despite your heartstrings pulling painfully at the longing of missing this view of him. When Jay turns around, his eyes meet yours, causing your heart to pound harder against your chest.

Jay gives you a small smile before refocusing as he intends to set up your dinner on the main table at the rooftop, albeit an impromptu one to which you do not mind, as soon as he does the final touch on the Italian cuisine, which smells delectable and has your stomach grumbling faintly in a neglected hunger. Since you refuse to remain discourteous, you provide your assistance to Jay, merely disregarding his insistence on sitting at the dining table prettily as you continue to assist in whatever is there.

It is not long until you have settled across from Jay, light-hearted conversation flowing smoothly between you and him in the midst of dining, with the dinner arrangement meticulously and pleasingly established by him. All the while, you feel an air of intimacy that feels different, almost raw, and the ambience evokes a rather romantic dinner that has your satisfied tummy and heart going all fuzzy.

But something else feels unsatisfactory since Jay hugged you at the car dealership, and you lack the patience to ignore it any longer. You acknowledge that Jay has been noticeably considerate by establishing his distance from you, as though he feared that invading your personal space would lead to you bearing second thoughts about this, but honestly, the distance is killing you, and you want nothing more than for him to be close to you.

“Thank you for everything, for today, I mean,” You give him your earnest gratitude as soon as you nestle comfortably on the linen sofa that is situated adjacently by the pool, which also allows you to view the cityscape without having to adjust your position. Your fingers remain latched around the stem of your glass of red wine as you watch him take sips of his wine, seated across from you. You fist the hem of your dress, struggling to maintain patience at his distance once again. “You didn’t have to do all of that. You could’ve just given up on me on the day I pushed all of you away.”

His eyes soften as he gazes at the serenity in your beautiful countenance, feeling greatly relieved that you are no longer hostile towards him. “But I couldn’t. How could I when my heart refused to let you go, just like it refused to a year ago?” 

“So you’ve never been with any other girls ever since then?” The question leaves your mouth in haste, albeit there is a certain edge of jealousy in your tone as you imagine the unpalatable possibility. 

Jay shakes his head in response, but it is the sincerity in those gentle eyes of his that reassures you and allays your simmering jealousy. “I didn’t bother because my heart, my soul, and every inch of me refused to find and be with anyone that wasn’t you,” His tongue tastes bitter while his eyes harden as he recalls that agonising year without you. “When you left, it felt like my life had lost its meaning.”

The benign ambience shifts into something fragile in spite of the tension that gradually thickens, and as you examine him, your heart aches at the vulnerability seeping between the cracks of his once-tenacious demeanour. You press your lips thinly. “But you were doing fine. You told me that you were focusing on building your career─”

“I had no choice but to keep going, to pretend that I was fine when all I wanted was to go on a rampage spree and kill that fucker who started it all,” Jay cuts you off sharply, his eyes blazing with ire at the mere mention of him, but the tremor in his voice is palpable as he grapples with his emotions, and above all, he sounds sorrowful. “I was a body without a soul, Y/N, because you were my soul.”

You remain silent, looking away from him briefly as you feel tears prickle in the corner of your eyes, but Jay misunderstands your gesture as rejection, causing him to feel defeated. He puts down his half-empty glass of wine on the coffee table and adjusts himself slightly forward with his hands clasped together, his head hanging low. “Every single day, I was haunted by the memories I had with you that replayed on my mind constantly, including the memories of you in tears because of me and how badly I treated you in the beginning,” He clenches his jaw, self-loathing as he reflects on his actions.  “I wanted nothing more than to get rid of my heart that was beating undeservedly after what I’ve done to you.”

You draw in a sharp breath as those memories begin to sting, but honestly, the hidden resentment towards his past actions has long since dispelled by the love you harbour for him. “It’s okay. The past in the past. Besides, you’ve changed, remember?” You muster a small smile of reassurance, but Jay only stares at you as if you had offended him. “I’ve forgiven you all, a year ago when I boarded the plane.”

“It’s not okay, baby. How could you even forgive us so easily?” His exasperation laces with desperation, and his eyes glisten beautifully with a myriad of emotions you are able to decipher ─ anger, self-hatred, despair, regret. “You were tormented by the aftermath of what happened, and neither of us wasn’t there for you during your lowest. I wasn’t there for you when I should’ve protected and comforted you, but I was too blindsided by my revenge to hurt the one responsible for everything. We all were.”

A fallen teardrop escapes the corner of your eye as the last layers you built to protect your once-wounded heart decorticate. “Yeah, you should’ve. You should’ve been the ones to tell me the truth instead of Jungwon and the others,” You remind him again, your tone conveying the hurt that stems from the old wound. The tears begin to accumulate in your eyes despite blinking them away. “That day when I confronted you in the rain, you should’ve stopped me from lashing out at you when you already knew that you weren’t responsible for what happened, and above all, you shouldn't have lied to me that you had deleted them.”

“I know, fuck, I know,” Jay nearly curses at himself, but stops as soon as he recognises how delicate you look, and the glimmer of hurt in your eyes at the painful reminder prompts him to embrace you even when he feels that he is undeserving to hold you, but fuck it. The next thing he knows, he feels a gravitational pull as he ambles towards you. “I regret everything, and I lived in regret every single day. I knew that I didn’t deserve you, but I wanted you, and I still do. I should’ve done this sooner.”

The sound of his footsteps prompts your attention to him, causing your heart to beat in a familiar cadence that amplifies your longing for him. His gaze moltens with such intensity amidst the penitence and yearning, and as he stands in front of you, his stature descends while you watch him getting down on his knees, rendering you flabbergasted.

“You told us before that you were willing to do anything even if it meant to stay by our side, and so I’m doing it now,” Not once did he break eye contact, nor did he waver, exhibiting his tenacious resolve that you feel wholeheartedly, and it springs more tears to your eyes. “Right now, I don’t care about my pride. You deserve to have a man on his knees and worship the ground you walk on. You deserve so fucking much, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know if this is enough for me to prove that I deserve you.”

“Jay,” You whisper his name while tears begin to cascade down your cheeks, and even in tears, you look gracefully beautiful, bringing a faint smile to his lips despite his vision gradually getting blurry with tears of his own.

“Marriage isn’t something I wanted, especially after witnessing the loveless marriage of my parents. I didn’t believe that love would make me happy. I wasn’t even looking for love until I found you, until you captured my heart without you even realising it,” His heartfelt confession hits you like relentless cupid arrows to your heart that are beating for him, and the desperation he exhibits only amplifies the torrent of emotions you release. “I knew that I was in love with you when I first took you to that dinner date. You were wearing a lovely white dress I bought for you, and I was completely moonstruck when you were walking towards me,” Jay reminisces as he adorns a fond smile at the memory, his hand ascending to cup your wet cheek while you instinctively lean into his touch. “You were truly a darling, just as you are now.”

“You bad guy,” You sob softly as you place your hand on top of his, pressing his palm into your cheek with more affection that has his heart swelling with adoration for you. “You made me wait for so long. I chose to live in denial for a year, all because I didn’t have the guts to accept the fact that deep down, I knew that I still loved you. I just wish─” A shaky breath leaves your lips as the words clog in your throat painfully, but his strong yet gentle gaze is a reassurance for you to continue. Choking back a sob, you flutter your eyelids close as you nuzzle your cheek into his palm. “I wish you weren’t a piece of me that I needed after all this time.”

“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry that I made you wait for so long,” Jay cradles your face, and with his height that levels with you, he leans in to give a soft kiss on your forehead while your heart warms at his gesture. When he pulls you away, you look at him only to be surprised by the tears silently cascading down his cheeks. “I’m even more sorry for myself because I’ve waited a lifetime for you. I love you, Y/N Kang. I always have.”

You open your mouth with the intention to reciprocate, but you are rendered speechless when he unravels a surprise in his hand that is holding a red velvet box, oblivious to the way his hand trembles slightly with nervousness.

“This isn’t a marriage proposal, but I do intend on marrying you some day. I can’t think of anyone else worthy to be my wife and the mother of my child,” He says, his voice shaking with emotions that threaten to overwhelm him as he opens the box to retrieve the platinum diamond ring. “Consider this ring a promise from me to you. A promise that I’ll marry you and that I love you till the day I die.”

Holding your hand, he slides the ring into your forefinger as it fits perfectly, his touch a familiar reverence. He looks up at you again with fierce determination in his glistening eyes. “No, not even death can separate us,” He declares, his tone unconcealing with promises as he brings your hand to place a gentle kiss on your knuckle, a gesture that never fails to make your heart flutter. “You are my heart and soul, Y/N. When you left, I felt myself breaking on the inside. I─” His voice cracks mid sentence, and it hurts you to see how devastatingly hopeless he looks, as though you will push him away again. “I didn’t know what to do, and I was so lost without my angel.”

“Your angel is here, Jay,” You utter softly as you cradle his face, mustering a smile on your tear-stained face despite your heart aches at pain glimmering in his eyes. You lean your face towards him until your nose brushes against his, whispering, “Your angel is here to stay by your side for good.”

The love emanating from you and him is palpable, encapsulating a symphony that you can hear in your ear, your pulse drumming louder and louder while the distance between your lips and his decreases, your eyelids going hooded as you await the kiss, but the moment shatters abruptly by the sonorous cracking, causing you to pull away from him to divert your attention to the night sky that is now illuminated by resplendent fireworks. 

Instead of focusing on the spectacular view, Jay’s eyes never leave the fascination on your face as you slowly rise from the sofa to amble forward. “I didn’t know there would be fireworks here,” You voice out your thoughts in awe, momentarily shifting your gaze to him as he walks towards you. The look on his face tells you everything you need to know, and your heart begins to pound harder. “You did this. How?”

“I have my ways and resources,” Jay briefly answers, and it is no wonder why he was busy on his phone nearly thirty minutes earlier. Your eyes soften as you notice how evidently nervous he is. “I know it’s not much─”

You let your inhibition go as you cradle his face, dispelling his doubts by the abrupt contact of your lips on his, a kiss that unfolds a gradual fervour that has him nearly weak in the knees. With urgency, his arms encase your waist as he pulls you closer to his body, deepening the kiss while the ongoing fireworks in the background fade like everything else because nothing relevant exists at the moment other than you in his arms.

“I love you,” You murmur against his lips, forcing yourself to pull away from the kiss. Tears of joy spring to your eyes despite the love and desire in your eyes that reflect his. “I'm still so in love with you, Park Jongseong.”

Jay takes you by surprise when he captures your lips into a passionate kiss while the impact nearly sends your head pushing to the back, but he cradles the back of your head reverently, holding you in place. Your hearts beat in a symphony as the kiss deepens the connection between you, kissing him with equal fervour that rouses his desire for you. Goosebumps arise on your skin at the warmth of his palms sliding down your thighs as he breaks the kiss, only to ghost his lips on yours. “Jump,” He commands, and you easily comply with your arms instinctively hooking around his neck.

With his hands supporting you from your underthighs, Jay proceeds to carry you into the penthouse, bringing you over to the living room and settling you on the sectional couch. When your back hits the cushion, he wastes no time in slamming his lips on yours, sealing you into a kiss that intensifies the rousing heat in your cores.

“Jay,” You pant lightly as soon as he pulls away from your lips with the strings of your saliva still connected. You utter his name again breathlessly as he begins to trail wet kisses down your neck, your chest heaving up and down at the heady tension as he litters his kisses on the expanse of your nearly exposed chest before hovering his face over yours to seal you into a searing kiss that your hips are bucking up in need of him.

“I’ve been breaking for a lifetime for you, baby. You have no idea,” Jay rasps against your parted lips, desperation clinging onto the raw vulnerability in the tremor of his voice. “You, for whom I’ve waited for a lifetime since the day you left, and even before I met you. You, who is the only woman to ever bring me down to my knees, and I’d gladly do so again.”

Despite the lust swimming in the depths of your eyes, your features soften while your heart remains a fluttering mess at his words all over. “You’ve got me now, Jay. I’ll be yours for a thousand lives,” You whisper, brushing your lips against his as you stroke his cheekbone with your thumb. “I’m yours forever.”

“Mine,” His voice is a low rumble against your lips that sends a vibration, causing you to shudder by the undercurrent of primal desire. He places a chaste kiss on your lips before discarding every layer of his clothes, with you following suit.

Your mouth goes salivating at the luscious sight of his prominent muscles on display, and your fingers make their ascent to trace down the lines of his abdominal, sending him the shivers, but before your fingers can tease him with how conspicuous his bulge looks against the material of his briefs, he seizes them, only to kiss your fingertips with his dark sensual gaze penetrating you. “Lie down, baby. I’m gonna make you feel good.”

You comply, your heart racing in anticipation as he pulls down your underwear before spreading your legs, bringing heat to your cheeks at the embarrassment of how noticeably wet you are as he has you spread lewdly before him while his dark ravenous eyes zero in on your pussy, no doubt ready to devour you.

Jay dips his head down to trail kisses on your inner thigh, moving tantalisingly slowly to your wet mound that has you whimpering out your impatience. He smiles into your skin before playfully nipping at it, eliciting a soft gasp from you. “Patience, baby. I want to take my time on you,” He mumbles, placing one last kiss on your inner thigh before slotting his lips over your clit.

You shudder lightly as he takes a slow, deliberate lick on your sensitive nub before his tongue journeys along your slick folds, lathering them with his saliva. He hooks his arms from underneath your thighs, pulling you closer to him that causes the tip of his nose to press against your throbbing clit while he doesn’t let up with his tongue lapping and delving into the depths of your sweltering core.

“Oh, Jay,” You moan, arching your back off the sofa while the position allows you to feel his tongue deeply as he devours you with fervour, getting utterly drunk in the heat of your essence. He feels like he could die happily at this moment, basking in your warmth with your fingers now tangled in his locks. “Please don’t stop,” You buck your hips up, causing your clit to rub against his nose while he complies with your needy request.

The sound as he relentlessly fucks you with his tongue is wetly obscene, accompanied by your incoherent utterance of pleasure that amplifies the heady atmosphere in the living room. Your head is dizzying with pleasure, borderline delirious at how expertly his tongue fucks you, causing your body to writhe underneath him while your thighs go quivering, feeling the tension coil tighter in your tummy.

“Jay!” You gasp at the pricking of his teeth biting your clit, though not enough to hurt you but enough to send another wave of pleasure through your body before wrapping his lips around the nub and flickering it with his tongue. “Fuck, I can’t─ ” You whimper as his muscle movements grow urgently, hurtling you to the brink of ecstasy.

Without letting up, his fingers ascend to your chest, stimulating your heightened senses more as he fondles with your tit, occasionally pinching and flicking your nipple tenderly that amplifies your coiling pleasure as you deepen your arch. He buries himself deeply into your sopping cunt, feeling your walls quivering on his tongue, and he knows that you are closer to falling into the abyss of ecstasy.

“I’m gonna─” Your words clog in your throat as he captures your throbbing nub, and with a final flick, your body convulses with your orgasm crashing down on you like tidal waves as you come undone, but his tongue remains lapping on your clit, intensifying the sensitivity that has you whimpering out. “Jay, no more.”

Jay merely ignores you, holding your convulsing body down firmly as he laps up your nectar greedily with his sheeny nose, lips, and chin smeared with your cum before he finally halts, hovering on top of you with a predatory craze in his dark eyes, causing your breath to hitch at how hypnotising he looks. He dips his head down and kisses you, making you taste yourself on his lips.

Your fingers go winding in his hair, tugging at it gently as his lips move against yours passionately. “Missed your taste. Missed everything about you,” He nearly growls out into the heated kiss, his tongue skimming along the seams of your lips before you welcome him into your hot cavern. 

You moan wetly into his mouth as you exchange saliva with him, your tongue dancing in an intimate tango with his, rousing a familiar arousal in your core as you grind your slick folds directly against his hard bulge. You pull away from his lips just slightly, panting needily. “I need you so bad.”

“I need you more, baby,” He whispers, placing a chaste kiss above your cupid bow before he leans away from you to discard his briefs. He watches the way your eyes are laden with desire at the sight of his veiny cock and how the pink tip is already smeared with his precum, having been aroused by eating you out.

Jay wastes no time, hovering above you with his arm at the side of your head supporting his weight while the other is occupied in adjusting and aligning his cock with your sopping entrance. A soft moan leaves your lips at the jolting sensation of the bulbous tip pressing into your throbbing clit before he slides his cock down to your entrance and finally pushes forward.

“You’re squeezing me tight, baby girl,” His husky voice sounds rough with lust, burying himself deeper to the hilt with your velvety clinging onto his cock like a desperate lover. He looks up to study your face that is contorting into pure ecstasy as he begins to deliver thrust after thrust with unbridled passion that has you rolling your eyes to the back.

His thrusts are deliberate with such precision, while the tantalising slow drags of his cock in between your velvet walls send you spiralling in the abyss of euphoria, as though he is savouring every inch of you with how he seems to be taking his sweet time. Your heart flutters at how gentle and tender he is being, and you feel as though he is making love to you instead.

You latch your hand onto his bicep while the muscle flexes beneath your touch as you arch your back, feeling him hitting that spot continually with your neck bared in his eyes to feast upon before he dips his head down to trail kisses and licks on your neck with his hot breath on your skin. 

You moan out his name as soon as he rubs your clit expertly, amplifying the intensity of your pleasure without losing tandem in the way he thrusts into you with an undercurrent vigour while the volume of your skins slapping and your wet arousal sounds prominent in your ear.

“Feels good, baby?” He asks in between bated breaths, his hand searching for yours before intertwining your fingers together next to your head, an affectionate gesture that rouses butterflies in your tummy.

“So good,” You roll your eyes to the back at the sensual drag of his cock, causing your hips to stutter midway in meeting his thrusts. Your eyes glaze with lust as they search for his eyes that penetrate into yours with such intense love. “Jay, kiss me.”

Jay leans down and presses his lips on yours, bringing tears to your eyes as you feel the torrent of love he pours into the kiss. “I love you,” He pulls away from the kiss to lean his forehead against yours with his eyes fluttering closed, preventing tears of his to escape. “I love you so much,” His voice barely above a whisper, but you discern the rawness that reflects the depths of his feelings for you.

Fallen teardrops roll down your cheeks as you grip his hand tighter. “I love you too, Jay,” Your voice trembles at the moment your body does as the pleasure reaches a crescendo, your orgasm teetering at the precipice. “I’m close.”

“Me too,” He breathes out raggedly, never letting up his thrusts, while the pleasure from having his back being raked frantically by your fingernails causes goosebumps to arise on his skin.

“In me, please. Need you to cum in me,” You plead in between gasps as each thrust hits the spongey spot relentlessly that has your walls clamping around him. The thought of getting impregnated by him fuels your desperation, prompting you to lock your legs around his waist. 

“Fuck, yeah, okay,” He rasps against your skin, placing a kiss above your brow. “You’d look so good with a pregnant belly,” With a guttural moan, his orgasm crashes down on him in a torrent of ecstasy as he snaps his hips against yours, pressing you down on the couch and filling you to the brim at the same time you violently come undone with a breathy moan.

Jay presses a deep kiss on your cheek before soothing you from your high with lulling whispers of how good you are to him. The connection that transcends the physical remains palpable as he gazes deeply into your eyes.

“You are so perfect,” Jay whispers affectionately as he brushes away the strands of your hair from sticking to your face. Despite the love swimming in his eyes, a darkness resides, one that symbolises his darkest obsession for you. “Mine. All mine.” 

“Yours,” You breathe out, getting aroused as he lowers his head to litter kisses on your chest before capturing your hardened nipple his lips, eliciting a needy whine from you. “Jay, please,” You buck your hips up, only to moan at the sensation of his cock twitching deeply in you.

Before you know it, Jay proceeds to carry you in the direction of his room with his hands supporting you from below. As your patience runs thinly, you whine next to his ear, attempting to bounce on his cock midair with your legs locked firmly around him.

“Patience, baby,” He groans lowly as you prod further with your lips trailing kisses and nips on his neck, akin to how a kitten acts with its owner, vying for attention. His fingers dig into your flesh, lacking the self-control to fuck you with reckless abandon right here and now as he stands midway at the doorway. Y/N.”

Your walls clamp around him at his authoritative tone, eliciting another groan from him as you pull away to look at him in the eyes. “Need you to make love to me again,” You tell him needily, your lips jutting into a pout that entices him to seal you into a bruising kiss.

“I will,” He promises as he carefully places you down on the bed without breaking the connection. He grabs your hand to give a kiss on your ring finger while he maintains eye contact with you, his lips curving into a smirk. “I’ll make love to you all night.”

This is not the first time Heeseung has waited for you to return and watched you head inside your apartment building safely. In fact, he has been doing this for months ever since he grasped the navigation skills around the city. Although he had other things to prioritise, you were his primary priority, including your safety, despite the fact that you were doing just fine even before he arrived. He would furtively watch you from afar in the dark most nights and wait until the lights in your apartment switched on that denoted your safe arrival before he proceeded to speed off. 

Remaining stationary at his usual post with his booted feet planted on the asphalt ground to stabilise his sleek black motorbike, his dark gaze pierces through the visor of his AGV helmet as he watches you dismount from his best friend’s motorbike. Jay adjusts your slightly unkempt hair while you remain pouting, only to break into a bashful smile when he leans in to kiss you with his arm encasing your waist.

Heeseung feels his jaw go taut while his eyes never stray from you. He should be unfazed at the intimate sight of you and his best friend when he has seen it more than once over the course of last week with Sunghoon and Jake as well when they sent you back to your apartment, but this time, particularly tonight, his jealousy is uncurbed, and all he wants is to have you all over him like you once did.

Instead of feeling happy for his best friends who have successfully reconciled with you, resentment and envy fuse in the heat of his veins, but the hurt constricting his chest is more palpable than anything at the cold reality that you look perfectly fine without him. You don’t even look like you’re missing him, as though you have everything you need, which includes his best friends.

It takes every strength in him to refrain himself from chasing after you as he watches you heading inside the building, fearing that his abrupt presence would exacerbate your hatred and resentment towards him as he recalls the way you looked at him glaringly and the words you spoke that pierced into his bleeding heart, but he knows that he has no right to feel hurt when you were the one who had suffered a shitty ordeal, which led to the eventual of your unforeseen absence in his life for a year.

A year without you feels like an agonising eternity, where he spent his days and nights aimlessly, as though the purpose of his existence was deemed meaningless without you by his side. But Heeseung unwaveringly graced with equanimity, deceiving the others and even his best friends by seemingly coping with your absence well when, in actuality, hell was close to breaking loose at any moment whenever the thought of you surfaced on his mind.

Heeseung once considered himself as someone who had absolute zero regret in his past actions, be it good or bad, and someone whose resolute was unshakeable, but when the incident happened, he was stricken with guilt, followed by the immense regret as he knew that he should not have lied to you about your vulnerability being deleted. Not only was that his only regret in his life, but he also regrets the times he took you for granted and the fact that he was too late to tell you what you truly meant to him. Above all, he regrets not staying by your side and comforting you when you needed him most.

Heeseung knows that whatever reasons he had to justify his absence in the tribulation period you went through are unacceptable because if he wanted to, he would have, no matter what, even though he needed to ensure that his foe would never be able to harm you ever again. He should have gone to you first to explain the whole truth and prove his innocence, but instead, he allowed cowardice to influence him, rendering him hopelessly defeated, especially when you had every reason to believe that he intended to hurt you.

That rainy night, when your appearance came like a bolt of lightning to confront them, he was grappling with his emotions, each threatening to shatter his tenacity in his composure. He wanted to hold you and comfort you, but the sheer hurt on your face quailed him so much that he even felt deeply in his heart, and how hurtful it was to see you heartbroken over them with your injured hand wrapped with a bandage.

Heeseung wishes that he could turn back at that moment of time to tell you the eight letters that weighed heavily on his tongue; he wishes to make things right by turning back the time when he first saw you with the pink cardigan flailing on your figure as you rushed to find an empty seat in the auditorium; and he wishes to tell you that he has loved you since you were eighteen, even if his eighteen-year-old self had no notion of what love was.

His heart and soul desperately yearn for you, for you to return to his arms that were made for holding you. He misses how you used to look at him with enamoured eyes, how you would smile bashfully whenever he became flirtatious, and in everything you do that was endearing in his eyes. Heeseung misses you; he always has.

You are the only woman who possessed the ability to fill the void in his mundane life and the only goodness who shone brightly amid the darkness that enshrouded his universe. You are not only his love, but you are also the loss of his life.

Heeseung tightens his grip on the hand clutches, his once-laid back posture taut with tension while his eyes are steely with self-loathing. If he had divulged the truth instead of coaxing you with a lie with the intention to ease your worries, would things turn out different? If he and the others had gotten to you sooner and revealed the truth, would you have forgiven them and stayed by their side?

Well, it is useless to cogitate about the past when fate has already decided its course. Be it if there were indeed alternate paths for him to pursue, he was bound to lose you either way. No, this time, he won’t lose you again.

Pulling himself out of the reflection, Heeseung shifts his dark gaze to where you were seen, only to see his best friend alone as he proceeds to wear his helmet, your disappearance denoting that you have entered your apartment building safely. Although Heeseung is envious of Jay for successfully earning himself back into your good grace, he trusts the latter completely in regards to your safety.

Heeseung proceeds to accelerate forward, his motorbike humming with its engine that soon reaches the ears of his best friend, prompting the latter to look over his shoulder just as he is about to pull his visor down. Jay’s dark gaze remains fixated on Heeseung until the latter’s vehicle comes to a halt just two arms length next to where he is.

Without removing his foot from the peg, Heeseung places the other firmly on the ground to stabilise himself and pushes up his visor to gain a clearer vision to read his best friend’s expression, only to be taken aback by Jay’s lack of surprise to see him, almost as if the latter has been more than aware of his presence from afar.

“How long?” Though Jay’s question sounds less elaborative, his tone is all Heeseung needs to know that his best friend meant how long he had been doing this behind their backs. He awaits Heeseung's response as he busily fastens his black fingerless gloves on his hands, his dark gaze never straying from Heeseung’s that levels with his intensity.

“Three months, approximately,” Heeseung answers, completely unfazed by Jay’s annoyance in his sharp gaze. Seeing as Jay is unrelenting, tension brews between them while a challenging glint is present in Heeseung’s dark, hardened eyes. “I’m not going to apologise. All I’ve been doing is keeping her safe from any possible danger and drunkard bastards loitering around this street.”

Jay examines his best friend with calculated eyes before the tension dissipates when a smirk forms on his lips, looking entirely pleased, much to Heeseung’s curiosity. “Don’t get all defensive now, Heeseung. If anything, I’m glad that you still love her enough to keep her safe, even though you’ve been practically stalking her for a long period. So I’m just going to ignore the fact that you didn’t confide in us about this nightly routine of yours.”

“Of course, I still love her. Her safety is my main priority. Besides, I loved her first before any of you even did.” Heeseung’s proclamation is laced with bitterness, to which Jay lets it pass as he doesn’t regard it as a provocation.

“Then why are you still here?” Jay inquires, no longer is there amusement in the way he speaks. Amidst the sternness in his steely eyes, Heeseung recognises the encouragement that should have impelled him to do the right thing. “Shouldn’t you be heading upstairs to her unit and confess your undying love and beg for her forgiveness?”

Heeseung swallows down the cold, bitter truth that keeps crawling its way back to his throat that feels tight. “You’re right. I should, but would she even want to see me now? She looked perfectly fine earlier. I don’t want to ruin her night,” He says ruefully as he cranes his neck to get a better view of your apartment with the lights switched on. “I don’t think she even needs me now that she has the three of you.”

“Heeseung, what the fuck happened to you, man?” Jay scoffs out in disbelief, pulling Heeseung’s attention promptly that has the latter glaring at him, only for him to falter slightly at the disappointment in Jay’s eyes. “I need my best friend back, and right now, you are not him.”

Heeseung’s turn to scoff, his ire coursing through his veins dangerously. “What the fuck do you mean─”

“My best friend would never have given up, especially not on the woman he claimed to love first, and he would never let the woman he loves to wait on him any longer. She deserves better, you know that,” Jay’s fierce conviction resonates with Heeseung to the core, dispelling his despondency. “You said that she looked perfectly fine, but what if she isn’t? What if she actually needs you?”

Silence is all Jay receives from Heeseung, but he is not having any of it, knowing that he needs a little push to get him on the right track. “She needs you too, Heeseung,” Jay’s tone sounds less aggravating, calmer, but firm enough to retain Heeseung’s undivided attention. “As much as I used to loathe the idea of us sharing her, I could never deny the fact that she has always needed the four of us. We could never understand the special connection you have with her, just as you could never understand our individual connection with her, which is why you need to get your shit together and grovel at her feet, quite literally.”

Heeseung stares at Jay differently, as though he is in awe of him. The corner of his lips curves into a faint smirk. “I never knew that Park Jongseong could offer words of wisdom. Y/N’s impact, I believe.”

Jay doesn’t seem to deny it, and instead, a soft smile touches his lips while his eyes hold such fondness at the mention of you before chuckling lightly at the irony since he said something similar to Sunghoon and Jake too. “Being in love can make you a changed man.” The smile on his lips falters as he looks over to Heeseung, his eyes hardened with resolve. “Don’t fuck things up with her again, Heeseung. So man up and chase after the girl you love before she closes her heart to you.”

“I’ll make things right with her, but not tonight.” Heeseung affirms, his tone conveying promises that seem to appease Jay. He cranes his neck to look at your apartment, only for his heart to skip a beat at the sight of you standing by the balcony, gazing out. He returns his gaze to Jay. “You’re up for a night ride?”

Jay adorns a smirk on his lips, his eyes glinting with a familiar challenge before he pulls his visor down and leans forward with both hands latching firmly on the clutches. “Always. Try and keep up with me.” He says with mischief cockiness, earning a soft derisive chuckle from Heeseung.

“You should take your own advice.” Heeseung retorts as he pulls his visor down. He can’t shake the feeling of being watched, and so when he looks up for another time, his heart nearly stops beating when your eyes are fixated on him, your expression unreadable.

Heeseung quickly redirects his focus on the road, his hands on the clutch tightening before he begins rev forward with Jay following suit and eventually, on par with him. The cold vindictive wind hits them as they pick up velocity, and just like that, any prior doubts and worries dissipate from Heeseung’s mind while his self-confidence elevates at the thought of getting his beloved back.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

His surroundings fade into a blur as he rides through the avenue of the intended destination at a meteoric velocity, while the revving of his motorbike that he unintentionally flaunts draws attention from the onlookers roving out and about in the broad daylight. Though his firm eyes are vigilantly focused on the road, his mind momentarily drifts to you, who occupies his every thought day and night.

Initially, Heeseung intended to head over to your apartment just earlier, albeit he did not exactly formulate any plans involving places to go to for an impromptu date, mainly because he was actually jittered at the thought of meeting you up close, but then came a call in regards to a restaurant reservation for lunch from a certain esteemed CEO who oversees all business operations across multiple diversions in the fashion industry in Milan and whose daughter is best friends with you.

Working for the organisation of your best friend’s father is not a coincidence. In fact, Heeseung has done his research involving you and the people you are close with, including Jennifer’s father, whom he knows that you regard the elderly as your father figure. And so he decided to send in his resume to HR. After gruelling rounds of interviews and assessments, his expertise and professionalism managed to secure himself employment under the organisation.

Heeseung rarely brags, but his performances throughout the period he has been working were so outstanding that eventually the CEO himself wanted to informally meet him, and thus, it led to Heeseung being one of his favourite employees. Although this is merely a stepping stone towards his goal, he can’t deny the fact that he feels strongly inclined to earn your father figure’s approval when the time comes for him to pursue you.

Finally reaching his destination, Heeseung parks his motorbike by the pavement kerb, where other vehicles are arrayed as well. Removing his helmet, he smooths his tousled pink hair that looks rather orangey and adjusts the black bomber jacket hugging his body before he wastes no time in hurrying over to the upscale establishment, wanting to get this lunch appointment over with.

As soon as Heeseung walks through the glass door, his sharp eyes scour for a certain businessman in his usual lavish suit, but the elder is quick to spot him first. “Heeseung!”

Heeseung turns his head sideways and locks eyes with him, who is seated at a table with a space that offers more privacy compared to the other tables that look rather congested, and seated next to him is the person who is not entirely in favour of him. Nevertheless, Heeseung makes his way to them.

Just as Heeseung reaches, he intends to greet the elderly with a courtesy bow, but he is taken aback when he is being pulled into a hug briefly. “I’m glad you could make it, son,” Mr. Huh offers him a broad, fatherly smile, patting his shoulder firmly.

Heeseung reciprocates with a small smile, albeit a tight one, as he feels rather annoyed by the fact that your best friend is throwing daggers at him with her eyes. “Of course. I could not miss having lunch with you, Sir,” He says with the utmost sincerity, or at least he tries to.

“Let me introduce you to my daughter!” Mr. Huh looks oddly thrilled as he gestures to his daughter, and in Heeseung’s judgement, he has an inkling that the CEO has ulterior motives that involve match-making them. “This is my daughter, Jennifer. Sweetheart, this is─”

“I know who he is, Dad,” Jennifer interposes sharply, Her unveiling abhorrence for Heeseung is clear in her wintery gaze while she maintains neutrality in her tone, essentially deceiving her father as she offers the taller male an uptight smile. “We went to the same college in Seoul.” 

“It’s true, sir,” Heeseung corroborates as soon as he spots a flicker of confusion and surprise in the elder’s eyes. Meeting Jennifer’s wintery eyes again, Heeseung decides to play along with the charade as he reciprocates with a guileful grin. “It’s good to see you again, Jennifer.”

Truthfully, this is not the first time Heeseung has met Jennifer formally at close range, excluding the night of confrontation when she excused herself to head into the guest room in your apartment. The first time he met her was when she stumbled upon him in the headquarters’s lobby while he was waiting for the elevator to arrive during the second week of his employment journey. Since there were other employees, Jennifer did not make any confrontation, but her eyes were glaring at him all the way until he stepped out of the elevator. It was likely that she enquired to her father instead regarding his unexpected arrival here, because from then onwards, Heeseung never saw her again until recently.

Heeseung expected that Jennifer would inform you of his arrival in Milan, most especially being an employee under her father’s organisation, but the genuine horrifying shock on your face told him that she never divulged anything to you, which is rather peculiar. Nevertheless, Heeseung is not curious enough to be entirely bothered by it.

“That’s good, then!” Mr. Huh is more than delighted with a broad smile on his lips, as though he won the lottery, eliciting a mutual confusion from both of them before Jennifer quickly grasps the underlying of his odd enthusiasm. Jennifer stares at his father in sheer disbelief as he directs his attention on Heeseung, patting his shoulder. “You see, my daughter here is so committed to her career that she neglects to find a partner. I had chosen potential suitors for her, but none met her expectations─”

“Dad, don’t start,” Jennifer cuts him off abrasively, casting him a disapproving scowl. “I know what you’re trying to do, and for the ninth time, I have no desire in dating a man,” Her tone indicates no room for debate while she remains unwaveringly poised. Her eyes flicker over to Heeseung briefly as the latter captures a knowing glint in them. “Besides, Heeseung and I could never work out. He already has someone in his heart.”

“And who might that be?” Mr. Huh clasps his hands together, his eyes gleaming with interest and a hint of mischief in the way the corner of his lips curl upward, a stark contrast to his dignified appearance. 

His question dissipates at the instant the sound of hurried footsteps approaches their table, diverting their attention to you. “I’m sorry for arriving late. There was a traffic jam in my area.” Annoyance laces your tone before releasing a huff while you remain oblivious to his presence.

Heeseung feels as though he is deprived of oxygen as soon as his eyes land on you. You are adorned in a white spaghetti strap dress that reaches above your knees, while the v-neck design at your chest area accentuates your smooth cleavage. You applied a minimal make-up on your face, which enhances your seraphic beauty. His throat feels oddly parched while his heart beats in familiar cadence. You look beautiful as you always have, but there is an undeniable glow in your refined demeanour that is impossible for him to look away from.

Heeseung definitely did not expect that you would be joining them, but then again, he should feel entirely surprised since you are practically like family to the father-daughter duo. 

Jennifer holds back a smirk, noticing how blatantly moonstruck Heeseung looks before pressing her lips thinly into a frown as she returns her gaze to you—well, more like her focus is directed to the black helmet in your grasp. “You rode a motorbike on your way here? Since when did you get your driving license?”

“It’s a long story, but we’ll save that for another time.” You say adamantly, your avoidance at her question is more than apparent, which deepens the frown on Jennifer’s lips, whereas Heeseung has a strong inkling that Jay had chauffeured you here.

Heeseung’s eyes never leave the glow in your demeanour as you offer Mr. Huh a buoyant smile. “Hi, uncle! How was your business trip to Venice?”

“It was lovely, thank you for asking, sweetie,” Mr. Huh wears a gentle smile, gazing fondly at you the way he does to his daughter. As if a lightbulb switches on in his head, he briefly looks over to Heeseung. “I’d like to introduce you to this fine gentleman here. Heeseung, this is Y/N. She’s been best friends with my daughter since childhood.”

Heeseung knows that much, considering you were the one who told him your whole life story before. His dark eyes watch you in a predatory gleam as you slowly turn to him, your body language exhibiting reluctance, almost as if you are daunted by the mention of his name alone.

When you finally lock eyes with him, the radiancy in your demeanour dims while your heart goes into palpitation. You feel a chaotic of emotions at once within you at the sight of the guy you did not expect in the slightest to be mysteriously acquainted with your father figure.

You have no idea what to feel at this moment. Happy? Angry? Sad? Or maybe even turned on? Because he sure as hell looks good decked out in an all-black outfit with his top stretching against his taut muscles and silver-rimmed glasses resting on his nose bridge, which is obviously a mere decoration, but it enhances his compelling charm with his dark predatory eyes locking you in place. 

“Dad, Y/N went to the same college as us.” Jennifer’s voice shatters the hypnotic trance you are in, looking away from his gaze, but even then you can feel his invasive eyes burning onto your face.

You nod your head, mustering the fakest smile on your matted lips at your father figure. “Yes. We all know each other. It’s a small world, really.”

“It’s been quite some time, Y/N,” Heeseung’s voice has a seductive drawl only you recognise—a haunting yet velvety caress to your ear. You look at him again and narrow your eyes at his simper smile, almost as if he is enjoying the subtle reaction he elicits from you just by his tantalising allure. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again.”

“Heeseung,” You decide to reciprocate his courtesy, your lips curving into a small, uptight smile, before taking a seat next to him since it is the only available seat, and you hope not to be affected by the dangerous proximity between you and him.

“Shall we order, then?” Mr. Huh, oblivious to the tension brewing, looks at each of you with a broad smile before calling for the waiter and informing him of your orders.

While waiting for the food to be served, Mr. Huh initiates a conversation that includes the three of you. Throughout the flow, you avoid looking at Heeseung, but the heat radiating from his body is something you can’t ignore. His presence alone is enough to make you feel jittered, which is annoying because, as much as your heart yearns for him, you should be nonchalant about him. When the food has finally been served, you decide to focus on your food, albeit being self-conscious of eating in his presence.

“Ah, how could I forget?” Mr. Huh dabs the white handkerchief on his lips, perfectly poised with dining etiquette like a true businessman. “Heeseung has been part of the organisation as our data research analyst for two months, but he has made a significant contribution to the team with his exceptional skills.” 

Though the information is ineffectual to Jennifer, as evident in her facial expression, you nod your head meaningfully at the revelation, your lips pressing thinly together. “I see.” Your tone carries an undercurrent of bitterness. It makes you wonder if Heeseung’s employment under Mr. Huh’s organisation is a mere coincidence or not, because you know Heeseung. There is no such thing as coincidence when it comes to him.

Mr. Huh darts his eyes between you and Heeseung with a flicker of knowingness, now having noticed how unusually awkward and tense you are in his presence. “So, Heeseung,” He clears his throat, his eyes turning serious as he looks at Heeseung. “What do you think of Y/N?”

“Oh my god, Dad.” Jennifer groans, having a dread sense of what her father is up to. She shoots him a withering glare. “First, it was me, now Y/N? You run a major corporation, not a match-making service.”

Mr. Huh simply dismisses her glare with a wave of his hand. “I’m merely asking a harmless question, sweetheart.”

Heeseung contemplates answering his question, but when his eyes linger on your perfect side profile, he feels compelled by your beauty once more and notices that you seem to await his answer expectantly, albeit your countenance appears indifferent, a mask he recognises that has his lips unfurling a smirk.

“I think she's very beautiful, both inside and outside,” Heeseung answers with the utmost sincerity, his velvety voice sounding slightly deeper. His eyes never stray from your face, even as you turn to look at him with your cheeks flaring diffidently. “Just the kind of woman I intend to spend a lifetime with.”

Your heart rate goes rapid while butterflies swarm in every part of you, and the connection between you and him feels palpable as it deepens just by eye contact. You desperately search for any lies in his eyes behind the transparent lenses, but all you see is how undeniably enamoured he is.

Getting lost in those orbs, your reaction delays at the sensation of his fingers nearly succeeding in intertwining with yours, and when you finally gain full alertness at the heat of his touch, you flinch visibly and yank your fingers from his, but your abrupt movement causes your elbow to hit your glass of Shirley Temple, resulting the liquid to drench the lower region of your dress. “Shit!” You hiss, mentally berating yourself for your clumsiness.

Jennifer quickly passes the tissues to you, while Heeseung doesn’t hesitate to help out in wiping the spilled content on the table. “Are you okay?” He asks, genuine concern lacing his tone despite his eyes glinting with amusement at the cuteness of your reaction.

“Yup, just taken aback by your remark. Consider me flattered,” You tell him tersely, forcing out a chuckle while you continue to wipe your wet dress rather aggressively before deciding to get away from him, even if it’s only for a short while. You rise from your seat, giving the father-daughter duo an uptight smile. “I’ll be heading to the washroom. Please excuse me.”

You immediately abandon the table in haste, heading straight for the washroom that is further away. You grimace at the unpleasant stickiness on your dress making contact with your skin whenever you walk. Once you reach inside the washroom, you proceed to wash the lower region of your dress, hoping that it wouldn’t leave a stain while you regret wearing a white dress out of all the days.

Unfortunately, it leaves a stain even after you wash it thoroughly. You begin to grumble under your breath while attempting to dry it with the tissue. You can’t believe that his words impacted you greatly more than they should. Heaving a defeated sigh, you proceed to depart from the washroom, embracing the fact that you might have to tolerate the charade a little longer.

As soon as you step outside, your heart jumps in surprise as you stagger back at the sight of Heeseung standing outside of the washroom with his back leaning against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest. “Heeseung, you scared me,” You mutter, faltering as his eyes roam around your body.

“Your dress,” Heeseung points out as the frown on his lips deepens upon seeing the noticeable stain on the material.

“It’s fine. It’ll go away once I wash it with detergent,” You say assuringly, though you have no idea why you do so as you look down at your dress, grimacing. “I hope.”

Receiving no response from him, you look up, only to be flabbergasted at the close proximity as he towers over your figure, his impassive face unreadable. “W-What are you doing?” You stutter, temperature rising in your cheeks as you watch him remove his black bomber jacket.

You don’t have the opportunity to marvel at his biceps muscles as he is adorned in a black sleeveless top when he leans down closer to you, causing you to hold your breath, expecting what you are thinking, only to feel a tinge of disappointment when his intent is to wrap his jacket around your waist. Still, your heart remains a fluttery mess at the close proximity with his strong woody cologne hitting your nostril. 

Heeseung catches your eyes fleetingly as soon as he finishes tying a knot securely before leaning away from you, smirking faintly as he notices your tensed body relaxes. “There. You won’t have to worry about others seeing the stain on your dress anymore.”

You clear your throat awkwardly, looking everywhere but his eyes. “What you said earlier,” You murmur, a frown pulling down on your lips. “Did you mean them?”

“I meant every single word,” Heeseung takes you by surprise when he grabs your wrist and positions your palm to rest on his chest, allowing you to feel his heart beating rapidly like yours while his tone conveys a solemnity. “Can you feel it? The way my heart beats for you now is just the same as it was.”

Even as he is holding you, his grip feels familiarly reverent, causing your heart to ache, and his chest feels solid beneath your touch. You curl your fingers into a fist as every bit of your resolve is close to crumbling. “We should go─”

“Spend the day with me,” Heeseung cuts you off in a silent plea, compelling you to look at him and recognising the determination behind those lenses. “I want to bring you to places, if you allow me.”

“Just because I accepted your best friends, it doesn’t mean that I’ve accepted you,” Though your resolve remains tenacious, your tone wavers at the dejection dimming in his eyes. You release a soft sigh, not realising that you have grown accustomed to his touch on your skin. “Give me time, Hee. You owe me that. And if I’m being honest, a part of me still feels overwhelmed by all of this.”

“I know I owe you much, but I can’t give you time. Every second, every minute without you is insanity,” Heeseung refuses to back down, one of the qualities you have always admired about him. He tucks a fallen lock behind your ear tenderly while his firm eyes never leave yours. “You can hate me all you want, but don’t think for a second that I would ever let you go this time.”

Seeing as he is just as determined as his best friends, a layer of what you built to protect your resolve peeled against your will. “Okay, I’ll spend the day with you.” You eventually concede, but the wariness on your face remains. “Just don’t make me regret my decision.”

In an instant, Heeseung pulls you along with him, heading back to the table with his fingers intertwined with yours that you surprisingly allow. But then realisation hits you as you look at the back of his head, your eyes bewildered. “Wait, now? Hee, we can’t just ditch them. It’ll be rude─” You immediately smack your lips shut as soon as you arrive at the table.

“Girl,” Jennifer doesn’t bother to conceal her surprise as she gasps audibly, her eyes zero in on your intertwined fingers. You can only offer her an indecisive smile before looking over to Mr. Huh, who looks surprised but then comes his delight that gleams in his eyes.

Heeseung’s composure is unwavering as he meets the elder’s eyes. “I apologise for my discourtesy when I say this, Sir, but may I─”

“You may,” Mr. Huh’s swift permission comes off as a surprise to you as he gives Heeseung a firm head nod before he cracks a knowing smile. “I may be an old man, but even a blind person could see how infatuated you were, son. I could tell that you two had history, so go ahead. You already have my blessings.”

“Thank you, Sir. I’ll take good care of Y/N,” Heeseung says with conviction, his grip on your hand a silent promise. He meets your eyes briefly and receives a nod of confirmation from you before he grabs his backpack and hangs it around his shoulder, whereas you grab your sling purse and your black helmet that was gifted by Jay.

You bid your goodbyes to the father-daughter duo with a sheepish smile before Heeseung finally pulls you with him as he guides you the way to the glass door without releasing your hand. You can’t suppress the giddiness that bubbles in your chest as you observe how endearingly eager Heeseung is in the way he haste in his steps, finally reaching to his sleek black Ducati Panigale V2.

You can feel his reluctance as he slowly releases your hand. “Can you be my backpack girl, beloved?” The endearment rolls down his tongue naturally, forgetting that he might make you feel uncomfortable by pushing things fast.

But you don’t seem the slightest bothered by it while your face betrays none of the delightful flutters in your chest. You simply nod your head before initiating your offer as you extend your hand to him, which he proceeds to pass you his backpack.

You notice his eyes keep darting at the helmet in your grasp. “Jay bought it for me as an advance gift for when I passed my driving license,” You say, as if you can read the question lingering on his mind. 

Heeseung raises his eyebrow, intrigued and surprised. He holds your stare for a few minutes before breaking into soft chuckles that sound annoyingly melodious in your ears. A frown touches your lips despite your heart being a fluttery mess at the sight of his pearly white teeth on display as he continues to chuckle. “What is so funny?”

Heeseung immediately calms down, but a smirk plays on his lips. “Nothing. It’s just that you used to be afraid of riding a motorbike, but now look at you,” His eyes soften wistfully, allaying your niggling annoyance. “I’m going to miss you being my backpack girl.”

“I’ll still be your backpack girl, even after I earn my driving license,” You blurt out without the intention to reassure him once again. You decide to feign obliviousness to the words that left your lips as you clear your throat. “Let’s just get going.”

But Heeseung is not about to let it go. “So does that mean you’ll allow me to bring you out often with my motorbike from now onwards?”

The corner of your lips curls into a faint smile as you look down at your helmet. “Maybe. Unless you have another backpack girl….” You drawl, attempting at nonchalance, but the bitterness colouring your tone gives way to the hinted jealousy.

Heeseung grabs your hand as well as your attention. “You’re my only backpack girl, like you always have been, beloved,” He declares, smiling softly at you before giving you a tender kiss on your knuckle, which sends you the electrifying spark to your skin.

You retract your hand to keep yourself busy wearing your helmet. “Earlier, you said places, so, where will you be taking me first?”

“Since it’s a date, how do you feel about watching a movie?” He asks, receiving a small smile of approval from you in return. Just like that, your cooperation kindles hope in him.

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The luminescence of the animated screen illuminates the cinema that has surprisingly many vacancies, with only another couple and a small group of friends occupying the seats far from where you and Heeseung are. The ongoing movie of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ that has you hooked eventually attenuates your interest, prompting you to direct your attention elsewhere until your eyes land on him.

You should be looking away from him before you fall deeper into his allure that constantly serenades you, but it is impossible to do so when he has a divine side profile with his perfect sculpted nose and smooth jawline, pink lips that are absent of his wonted silver ring, and his dreamy eyes glueing to the screen attentively. Swarming butterflies remain in their wake in your tummy once more. You hate how undeniably handsome he is, and yet a part of you wishes to wake up to his face every day and night.

It seems that Heeseung feels your burning stare on his face as he turns his head with an eyebrow arched. You look away, feigning interest in the movie as you shove the last of your popcorn into your mouth aggressively while your cheeks flush in embarrassment. Thankfully, he doesn’t tease you or make any remark, though you can see his lips unfurling an amused grin from your peripheral vision.

Long minutes have passed, and your boredom has reached its peak as you slowly slump in your seat. His jacket that was once wrapped around your waist is now served to provide you some warmth against the frigidity that permeates the entirety of the cinema, and while it is big on your figure, you have sought comfort and discreetly basked in his scent that clings to his jacket, but little did you know that he has noticed how occasionally you would snuggle in his jacket like a kitten, which he found endearing.

Heeseung has long noticed that you are feeling restless, to which he feels unsatisfactory that this movie date is not going smoothly as he imagined. With his eyes flickering to your pouty lips, he leans forward until he stops next to your ear. “Do you want to get out of here?” He asks in a murmur, startling you at how deep his voice is.

A frown pulls at your lips while every fibre of your being vehemently agrees that you should. “But the movie isn’t over. Besides, you already paid for this, so we can’t just let your money go to waste.”

“And you’re clearly not enjoying this,” Heeseung points out, his tone dripping with dissatisfaction that is not directed at you but rather at himself. He releases a breath, his fingers running through his hair. “I should’ve picked other movies that were more to your liking.”

“It’s okay. I’m not a big fan of movies anyway,” Your reassurance does nothing to relieve him. Your eyes briefly flicker down at his long, slender fingers that are adorned with rings, resisting the strong urge to hold them. “Seriously, Heeseung, it’s fine. You love watching Marvels, so as long as you enjoy watching the movie, then it’s not an issue for me.”

Heeseung shakes his head, his stern eyes holding yours in place. “Today is all about you, sweetheart,” He insists softly, his gentle tone feeling like a velvet stroke in your ear. “So please be selfish; be selfish with me. Let me know which places you want me to drive you to, or even the things that capture your eyes. I’ll pay for them,” He doesn’t hesitate to hold your hand tenderly before raising it up to kiss your fingertips while he holds your stare. “I’ll even pluck the stars, the sun, or even the moon; just say the word, love.”

You can’t help but to break into giggles, forgetting your resolve in resisting Heeseung and his charms for as long as you can. “You can’t do that. It’s impossible unless you want something catastrophic to happen on earth.”

“Then we’ll have to migrate to Mars, or maybe Venus. Any planet of your choice, love,” Heeseung muses, enjoying your delightful reaction as you continue to giggle before you immediately compose yourself, though the smile on your lips remains. “But I’m serious when I say I’ll grant you whatever you desire. Just say the word.”

You chew on your bottom lip as you contemplate that it doesn't even last for a few minutes before you lower your gaze and tug at his finger diffidently. “I want to get out of here, Hee.”

“As you wish, my beloved,” Heeseung tugs at your hand gently, a signal you recognise that prompts you to rise from your seats before he proceeds to pull you with him to head for the exit. Not once did he release your hand, even as you finally passed by the cinema box office.

Navigating your way to where he parked his motorbike as you walk on the pavement, Heeseung comes to an abrupt stop when a florist booth piques his interest. Your face contorts into confusion as he drags you into the booth where there are a variety of different flowers being sold at a decent price. Your heart skips a beat as you watch him decisively choose a rose.

“A rose for my lady,” Heeseung says, his lips gracing a smile as he passes the amount of cash to the salesperson while your cheeks feel warmer at his words.

“You two look lovely together,” The salesperson, whose age looks around your mother’s, remarks with a fond smile. “May your relationship continue to blossom beautifully.”

“Thank you,” Heeseung expresses his gratitude with a smile before shifting his attention with the rose in his hand extending to you. “For you, beloved.”

You have always known that Heeseung was the epitome of romance, and right now in this moment, everything feels authentically romantic. “You didn’t have to,” You mutter as you meekly accept the rose, feeling deeply touched by the gentlemanly gesture that is honestly a bare minimum, but enough to send your heart into palpitation. God, you are down bad for this man.

“So, any places you have in mind that you want to go to?” Heeseung asks gently as he intertwines your fingers, making your way to his motorbike. You nod your head in response before informing him of the very place you have on your wish-list.

The journey to your desired destination takes about forty-five minutes, and time flies fast because soon you find yourself entering the renowned Milan’s Castello Sforzesco, a Renaissance fortress that was built in the middle of the 15th century. Not only is it monumental, but it showcases cultural and artistic heritage within a stunning and historic architectural setting. Of course, as expected, your favourite is the water fountain that is situated outside near the entrance.

All the while you have been preoccupied appreciating real structural arts, Heeseung is not far behind you as he follows you quietly and patiently, admiring the sincerity of your wonderment in the world of arts and history. In between, you blabber to him about facts and whatnot, albeit you seem mindless, rendering him impressed by your discovery and history that you acquired while he listens attentively at every word you speak.

You spend nearly an hour and a half before you decide to let him choose the next destination, and you eventually find yourself seated behind him on his motorbike with your arms around his waist, holding onto your valuable life as he speeds on the highway, occasionally revving since he knows that you actually love when he does it. You let your inhibition go, leaning your head on his broad dependant back as you appreciate this moment, hoping that it’ll last.

Soon enough, your riding escapade comes to an end, but the adrenaline rush from the prior speed is present in the course of your veins. He has brought you to the famous Navigli Pavese Canal, which the place reminds you of when Jake rented a whole boat as you watched the gorgeous sunset with him.

With your elbows leaning on the railing, the wind gently blows in your hair, casting a cinematic beauty that has his eyes compelled to you while you continue to gaze out at the heavenly view of the blue and golden firmament. But the semblance of tranquilly shatters as the question resurfaces on your mind, and just like that, you are harshly being pulled out of your reverie.

You look over to him as he stands closely next to you, his back leaning against the railing while his arms fold across his chest, a faraway look in his eyes. You don’t want to possibly ruin this whole date, but you can’t hold back any longer. “How did you know I’d be meeting Jen and her dad?”

Your voice is quiet, but your tone is enough for him to discern that things are about to get gravely serious. “I didn’t,” He says calmly.

When he catches your accusatory gaze, he feels his heart sinking. “But you didn’t look surprised to see me,” You point out, recalling the way he looked at you.

“Trust me, I was just as surprised as you were,” He states emphatically, panic twinging in his chest as he notices the eventual distance you put between the two of you. “If I had known you’d be coming, I would’ve planned a proper date for you in advance.”

“That’s the thing, Heeseung. I never needed a date, and bringing me out on a date doesn’t erase what happened.” Frustration begins to simmer within you in the way you speak. Just like that, the past dominates the vulnerable corners in your mind, resulting in you overlooking his efforts, his humour, and his romantic gestures that dissipate from your mind.

“Did you tell this to my best friends as well? Or are you playing favourites?” His shoulders and jaw are taut with tension while a bitter resentment adulterates his once-mellow voice. A frown pulls at the corners of your lips, but before you can defend yourself, he cuts you off sharply, and yet there is an undercurrent of agony. “I’ve always known that you favour them most over me, and you know what’s unfair? It’s the fact that I noticed you first before they even did. I loved you first, Y/N.”

Getting overwhelmed by a myriad of emotions going erratic within you, his mere declaration of love incenses you. “You’re lying. You're a liar, Hee,” You say with vehemence, refusing to believe a word from him as you shake your head. “You didn’t even know me, and yet, you loved me first? That wasn’t love.”

It is as though Heeseung unveils the darkness that has always etched on his soul, making him look like an entirely different person, borderline degenerate while the air around you shifts with palpable intensity. “You were mine, Y/N. You’ve always been mine since the moment you stepped foot into the auditorium during freshman year.” 

“Stop,” You grit your teeth as he predatorily backs you up, sending a wave of familiar intoxication to you, and yet a part of you desires to be consumed by the darkness he wields. 

Heeseung is unrelenting in his resolve, pinning you with the smouldering intensity of his gaze. “I claimed you first, Y/N. I needed to wait for the right time to officially make you mine, and I waited for so long,” A glinting obsession is present in his penetrating eyes, while a profound yearning is punctuated in each syllable. “I was consumed by everything about you. Every single thing. I wanted you, and I needed you so desperately, but you were nearly unattainable.”

“That wasn’t love, Hee! It's an obsession!” You exclaim, releasing your aggravating emotions like a torrent. Your glazed eyes flicker with hurt as you shake your head. “You were obsessed with me, you know that.”

“Does it really matter whether or not I was obsessed with you?” A humourless chuckle leaves his lips. “It doesn’t change the fact that I loved you, and I’m still fucking in love with you.”

“It’s a hopeless love, Hee!” You say exasperatedly, suppressing the rivulets from shattering your composure, though your body is trembling with lament. “For a year I wasn’t there by your side; you clinged hopelessly onto that love when you should’ve let go! You should’ve let me go!”

“I couldn’t. I could never afford to,” His voice is saturated with devastation, but vehement enough for you to grasp the gravity of the onslaught of his declaration. He clenches his fist, hating how far you are despite the closing proximity. “I’d rather die than to let you go.”

“What if you hadn’t found me? Would you still cling onto that love?” The back of your eyes begins to burn while the tremor in your voice denotes your tenacity at your resolve is teetering. Your jaw clenches as you look away from him. “No. You would’ve already found someone else.”

“You’re wrong. I would never find somebody else because no one is worthy of my love and heart except you. No one can ever be compared to you, Y/N.” His voice mellows with poignancy and adoration, and the sensation of his fingers caressing your cheek tenderly pulls your attention back to him while a wistful smile touches his lips. “That night at the bar where I followed you a year ago, do you still remember what I told you when you tried to push me away again?”

Of course, you remember. You remember every memory you had with him, with all of them, and those memories are etched deeply in your mind. Somehow, you have an inkling that he wants to hear that specific dialogue he spoke to you with passion. “You said that we’re never over.” Your voice barely above a whisper as you become enthralled by his beautiful dark eyes.

He cradles your face, his thumb stroking your smooth cheek gently. “And?”

“And you’ve given me your heart since you first saw me.” You recite mechanically as the memory plays on your mind. You swallow a painful lump in your throat before continuing, “You said that I own you, your body, your heart, and your soul.”

A faint, bitter smile briefly appears on his lips. “Imagine the torment I went through after I found out that you left me.” Your heart aches at the loss of his warmth on your skin, only to be taken aback when his stature shrinks as you watch him with your heart pounding harder against your chest as he finally gets down on his knee, sheer devotion on his countenance. “You were my everything, Y/N. I dedicated my life to you and only you. Without you, I’m nothing, love.”

“Hee,” Your lips tremble as you utter his name, and your eyes glisten with tears as he grabs your hand to place a gentle kiss on your knuckle before holding it reverently in his.

“I was never a man of apology, and I couldn’t give a damn about giving the bare minimum to anyone but you,” He confesses, his tone carrying a genuine sincerity that weakens the remnants of your resolve. “There was never a day that went by without the memory of you crying and screaming at us on that rainy night resurfacing in my mind, and the look on your face broke me all over,” His voice shakes with the emotions he grappled with, and his eyes glaze with an immense regret. He plants a deep, affectionate kiss on your palm before repositioning your hand to cradle his cheek, while the rawness of his love in the way he looks at you springs tears well in your eyes. “I’m so, so sorry, my love. I should’ve done so much to protect your heart, but instead, I hurt you. I should've been clearer with my intention and love towards you.”

“I thought you didn’t love me. I thought you were just keeping me around for your own pleasure, so that’s why you were always showering me with so much affection,” You divulge to him one of your innermost doubts as you hold back a sob while the hurt and devastation on your delicate features seem to break his heart all over. “I thought your main goal was to break me when I thought you did. I spent days and nights crying in my bedroom and wondering what I did to deserve it when I thought you were responsible.”

“I never wanted to break you, Y/N,” His honest confession penetrates into your essence deeply. “The preying was just a pathetic excuse for me to get closer to you, to break down the walls you built to protect yourself from the depravity, from us.” His eyes display a glistening vulnerability while his voice sounds raw with saturating emotions that has your heart twisting in agony before a fallen teardrop slides down your cheek. “All I ever wanted was to be yours, beloved.”

“I wanted to be yours too, Hee, even when I knew that you were bad for me,” You confess earnestly as you softly weep, and alas, your resolve dissipates like it never existed. He leans into your touch that oozes with your affection for him. “It was killing me how there were no labels when you treated me like you really loved me.”

“I did love you, and I still love you, Y/N Kang. I’m sorry for being too late,” He smiles sadly as he places his hand on top of yours before pinning your nearly faltering attention with the steel of determination and devotion in his eyes. “I’ll spend a lifetime to make up for the things I did that hurt your feelings, and I’ll spend forever to prove to you how irrevocably in love I am with you and always will be.”

Though your once-wounded heart has opened up to him, unsought doubt appears in the back of your mind. “Am I even worth your time for you to spend on forever?” 

“You are worth every second, my beloved,” His reassurance feels like a safety blanket cocooning you, and his gesture of affection touches your heart deeply as he kisses your knuckle again before looking back at you with hopeful anticipation. “Let’s go. There is one last place I must show you.”

“And what place is that?” You ask in a whisper while your heart races in keen anticipation.

His pink lips unfurl a genuine, gentle smile. “A place where we’ll spend our future together.” 

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By the time Heeseung navigates through the familiar district that will soon be theirs to dominate, the sun makes its descent to welcome the dusk, casting pink and purple hues in the breathtaking firmament that has you admire appreciatively until the boulevard of towering trees diverts your attention to the road before noticing not a single sight of a diversely structured mansion unlike earlier, which you felt as though you had entered the domain of where billionaires reside.

A frown gently pulls at your lips, confusion and curiosity swirling in your head before an unsought qualm arises, polluting your every good thought of the man who you are holding onto for security as he speeds through this uncharted territory, which you know that he would never bestow malevolence on you, but your body remains tensing.

Heeseung, who feels the tension taut in your arms as you have them wrapped around his waist, unlatches his grip on the clutch for his hand to reach behind and instinctively rub the side of your thigh in a soothing motion while the other remains in controlled stability of the velocity of his vehicle.

His thoughtful gesture that sends you a fluttery sensation instantly dispelled your qualm as well as the tension in your fibre ebbs. Your arms loosen slightly around him, denoting your silent trust and comfort in him that has his heart swell with honour.

As you feel the velocity waning, you know that you are nearly reaching your destination, and your presumption is proven correct when you peek over his broad shoulder to see what awaits you, only to be rendered astonished as your lips part open at the grand building that looks divinely like a palace to be called a mansion before a wave of deja vu hits you, reminding you of the palace in Seoul that held memories.

You are pulled out of the trance as soon as the vehicle comes to a stop on the concrete cobblestones, where you are facing not only the stupendous mansion but also the grandeur of water fountains situated in the vast front yard. With Heeseung’s assistance, he offers his arm for you to hold onto as you carefully dismount his motorbike before he follows suit.

Even as you are flimsily unfastening your helmet to hurriedly remove it from your head, excitement bubbles within you as you maintain a neutral facade, but your eyes tell him all he needs to know as he has been anticipating your reaction ever since he decided to introduce you to where your future with them awaits.

Your eyes sparkle in amazement amidst the glinting curiosity as you soak in the visual modernisation beauty that encompassed this unknown estate into your memory that has you feeling rather envious of whoever is the owner.

All the while, Heeseung silently watches you with an attentive gaze, and yet he is in awe of your beauty under these lights with your scintillating eyes still appraising the area, particularly the water fountains, before you look over to Heeseung with a puzzled expression. “Whose place is this?” 

“It’s ours, my love,” You want to doubt his words, because there is not in any way his words implied or included you, but the mellow sincerity in his tone as well as the smile on his lips conquer your doubts. “Ours, and that includes you.”

Heeseung continues, his eyes looking over to the mansion. “The construction was completed last week, but the guys and I will be taking our time to move in since our lease over the penthouse will be ending in three months time,” He explains methodically before shifting his attention to you, only for his eyes to soften at how delicate you look with a glass of vulnerability in your eyes. “We wanted to be where you were, and since you’re living in Milan for good, we collectively agreed to build our future here with you.”

 “The fountains,” You utter softly, trying not to waver in the way you speak, albeit your throat hurts from repressing a bundle of emotions that threatens to implode while your attention remains fixated on the running water fountains with waves of nostalgia hitting you, each wave impacting you harder than the previous. “They look like the ones at the palace in Seoul.”

“I knew how much you loved the palace fountains in Seoul, so I had Sunghoon and his expertise as an architect cooperate with our contractors,” He says, his voice mellowing with a careful gentleness as he observes you while he slowly advances towards you. His lips unfurl a crooked yet charming smile. “I wanted you to feel like you’re back at home, even if you already felt like it before all of this.”

You are sincerely at a loss for words, unable to articulate your feelings into coherent sentences. Heeseung seems to be waiting patiently for you, and for that you are thankful to him, thankful that he even bothered to remember what you loved, even if it had been a long year, causing the dam to finally break. Tears immediately spring to your waterline as you choke back a sob, your glistening eyes meeting him with tears cascading down your cheeks.

Heeseung doesn’t hesitate to close the distance before cupping your wet cheeks. “My beloved, why are you crying?” He asks gently, his lips pulling down into a frown and his eyes turning crestfallen. “I hate seeing you cry because of me again.”

“Because you remembered,” You manage to utter through soft sobs, hating how you feel extremely emotional over his remembrance of your fondness towards the water fountains in Seoul, but it deeply touches your heart.

“Of course, I remembered,” He mutters as he affectionately wipes the relentless tears away from your cheeks while a wistful smile touches his lips faintly. “How could I have forgotten when I always watched you playing at the fountains and how you ended up dragging me along with you to splash water at me?” A broken chuckle manages to escape you as your sobs eventually quieten. “How could I have forgotten the things my beloved loved so much?”

The loss of his warmth on your cheeks makes your heart ache as you yearn for his warmth to embrace you, but you remain silent, observing him as he looks down prompts you to follow his gaze before spotting a black-inked tattoo on his skin under his forearm.

“You got a new tattoo,” You point out in awe, though you actually had noticed it earlier, but you didn’t think of it too much since you thought wrongly that he always had that tattoo. You feel rather guilty for not remembering his details just this soon.

“It’s not just any tattoo, beloved,” He adorns a soft, sweet smile on his face, looking at you with adoring affection as you touch his tattoo gently. “It’s your birth date.

“But why?” Your voice trembles with emotions that you know about to make you a sobbing mess again, but you grapple with them. Though your heart is fluttering at his declaration, you still eye him with exasperation. “You know that it won’t come off if there is ever a moment you might find yourself regretting my birth date tattooed on your skin.”

But Heeseung doesn’t look in the slightest rue, as though this resolve has long since been established in the back of his mind. “Because it serves as a reminder to me that the birth of your existence was when my whole universe was created.” He says shakily, allowing his feelings to seep through the cracks of his once-unwavering facade. “You are my life, Y/N, and I wouldn’t regret a single thing when it comes to you.”

“Even if I make you angry or sad?” You prod to seek clarity for your own assurance despite the fact that you are close to weeping with unrelenting tears that remain welling in your waterline.

“Yes, my beloved,” He places a deep, tender kiss on your palm for a little longer with his eyes fluttering closed, as though to savour your scent and warmth, before positioning your palm to cradle his cheek as he gazes into your eyes affectionately.

“You could hurt me, break my heart into pieces over and over, and I wouldn’t regret anything. I would never regret you.”

A fallen teardrop rolls down your cheek as you deepen your cradle on his cheek for him to lean into your touch, his tender gaze holding yours with unwavering devotion. “I don’t want you to hurt me again, and I don’t want you to abandon me like you did when I needed you those nights.” You tell him in such desperation.

“Tell me more, love,” He murmurs, grabbing your wrist gently to pull it down and holding your hand close to his chest reverently while his eyes hold resolve of determination. “Tell me what you want. I’ll make them come true.”

“I want you to hold me close like you did. I want you to reassure me when I’m in distress," A hiccup leaves your lips, earning a fond smile from him. “I want you to need me like I need you.”

“My beautiful love, I’ve always needed you,” He confesses earnestly, his heart pounding with a palpable yearning as it senses the remnant shards of coldness dissipate in yours. He caresses your cheek tenderly, his touch contradicting his urgency to consume you once more. “Permission to kiss you?”

You nod your head, unable to utter a word, as you feel an overwhelming need for him to claim you like he did before. His eyes glint with dissatisfaction at your nonverbal response before he firmly grips your chin and tilts your head up, causing your breath to hitch at how his eyes gradually darken with inexplicable emotions. “I need words, pretty girl.”

You ignore the way his deep voice ignites a certain arousal within you. You tug at the hem of his sleeveless top, your fingers curling as they clutch the material while your eyes gleam with the same yearning that parallels his. “Please kiss me,” You plead in a soft utterance.

Without further ado, Heeseung leans in as he closes the gap between your faces while your eyes flutter close before his lips meet yours in a shared tenderness as he kisses you softly. Sparks fly behind your closed vision, and you can even feel them everywhere around you while butterflies in your tummy become tenfold at how he seems to be taking his own sweet time kissing you, but soon, the eventual passion comes as he pulls you closer with his arms snaking around your waist.

The passion turns fierce, one that is addictive as you hook your arms around his neck before you deepen the kiss that you have yearned for. The pressure of his touch is unabating, a constant reminder of his desire and love for you, and yet you can discern a layer of possessiveness as he gradually tightens his arms around you.

Feeling breathless, you attempt to pull away from the much-needed kiss, but he chases for your lips vehemently, successfully capturing them before his teeth sink into your bottom lip, prompting you to willingly part open your mouth for him to dominate your hot cavern with his wet muscle that has you moaning airily into his mouth.

He groans at your taste and your sensual sound while his bulge hardens against the confine, making it more noticeable. He presses his bulge into you, to which you feel him below your tummy, eliciting a soft gasp from you. “Hee,” You pant lightly as soon as he breaks the lip lock. 

Heeseung catches your eyes swirling with palpable desire and need that mirrors his, with the only exception of his eyes darkening dangerously as the air around you remains laden with intensity. “You’re right. Not here,” His voice sounds huskier, going straight into your core.

But just before Heeseung can bring you somewhere to continue where you left off, you tug at his hand diffidently, feeling oddly demure as your eyes waver at the eye contact with him. “Can we play at the fountain and dance silly there like old times?”

His heart soars at how undeniably adorable yet beautiful you are, so how could he ever resist you? And so, with his jacket and your bags being abandoned on the ground, the only sound of sheer delight emanates from you, enlivening the ambience under the night that has dawned as he is finally reunited with you.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

You and Heeseung spent nearly an hour at the water fountains, too immersed in your own world after releasing your inhibitions, whereas he entertained you with a sense of commitment, especially seeing the joy beamed on your face. He would do anything to keep you smiling and laughing infectiously like earlier.

Presently, you are at one of the fancy gazebos, and yes, you are still having a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that there are four gazebos situated in the massive backyard. Just before this, Heeseung decided to give you a tour around the backyard since he didn’t bring his keys to the mansion.

To say you were surprised at the amenities in the backyard would be an understatement. Not only are there gazebos, but also a barbeque patio that is adjacent to the swimming pool, a whole garage building solely made to store their vehicles with a private gym on the second level, water fountains that are smaller than the ones in the front yard, four gazebos at different corners, and because the terrain is hilly, one of the gazebos provides an exquisite view of the central urban area, which is especially beautiful at night.

Keeping yourself warm, you wrap your arms around your shivering figure as you lean your lower back against the balustrade, watching as Heeseung heads over to you with a familiar black jacket in his grasp. Since the water in the fountain was extremely cold, you can feel it chilling deep into your bones. Plus, your dress is wholly drenched, amplifying the coldness as the material sticks to your skin.

You immediately drop your arms to your side, feigning unaffected by the cold while your figure remains shivering despite your efforts to be subtle, not wanting him to worry and fuss over you. You cast him a small smile as soon as he reaches you.

“Are you sure you’re not cold?” Heeseung asks for another time as he scrutinises you with a glinting knowingness in his eye. He is not oblivious to the goosebumps arising on your skin, and you seem to constantly shiver.

“Positive,” You insist again, but it is futile as he drapes his dry jacket over your shoulders instead of him wearing it. “Hee, I’m fine,” Nevertheless, you feel thankful for his thoughtful gesture, as the jacket is sufficient enough to provide a barrier from preventing the nightly breeze.

“I don’t want my beloved to fall sick,” He tells you sternly with a frown on his face, but you know that he is just worried about you. Your heart flutters as he caresses your cold cheek. “We shouldn’t have played at the fountain.”

You have no regrets anyway. It was all worth it for old time’s sake. “If I fall sick, you’ll take care of me, right?” You ask, adorning a cheeky grin on your lips while he only gazes at you fondly.

“I’ll always take care of you,” His tone carries a firm promise, and his eyes convey solemnity that reassures you before they dart down at your untied shoelaces. “You’re my responsibility now, sweetheart.”

“Heeseung?” You blurt out in confusion as he kneels in front of you, watching as he proceeds to tie your shoelaces while the temperature on your cheeks rises. “This is the second time you’re kneeling.”

“For you, I will get down on my knees for as long as you want me to. It’s what you deserve after what happened,” He says after tying your shoelaces in firm knots before looking up at you, his eyes softening with adoration and a dark glinting lust. He grabs your hand to place a sensual kiss on your fingertip. “You’re beautiful, Y/N. You’re meant to be worshipped by me. My only goddess in the universe.”

You nearly fall weak at his cheesy yet fluttering words that impact your heart greatly. Your eyes remain on him as he slowly rises from the ground, curiosity swirling in your eyes when he slides his hand into his pocket before revealing a silver ring that is connected to the necklace, similar to the one hooked around his neck with your purity ring resting on his chest.

Heeseung stares at the ring on his palm with a rueful smile touching his lips. “A year ago, I bought this ring during the dark period of your life in the hopes of reconciling with you, and I waited so cowardly until after Jungwon told me that they told you the entire truth,” He divulges to you as the rawness of regret and pain in his eyes springs tears in your waterline. “But I was too late by then because you left, and I’ve never hated myself more from then onwards.”

“And you didn’t throw it away, even when you thought you wouldn’t find me,” You utter softly as you look down at the ring with glassy eyes. It is the little things that make your heart ache tremendously, and yet it is a good ache that coupled with the flutters. You return your gaze to him, causing his heart to beat in a familiar cadence at the transparency of love in your beautiful eyes.

“I could never throw away anything that reminds me of you,” He tells you honestly, wearing a soft smile that melts you on the inside all over. “Turn around, my love.” 

You comply and remove the jacket from your body before turning around as you grab your hair in a makeshift ponytail to provide him assistance. Your heart pounds harder against your chest at the heat radiating his body from behind you as he stands closely before he proceeds to clasp the necklace around your neck with the cold platinum ring resting on your chest.

Shivers run down your spine as he places a tender kiss on your bare shoulder with his hands on your waist. “Do you like it?” He asks softly, his voice sounding slightly huskier and deeper with a discernible sensuality that intensifies the butterflies in your tummy.

“I love it,” You emphasise in appreciation as you hold the ring with your fingers to examine the details of the ring, only to feel your heart soaring as you spot letters engraved on the ring. My only love - H “I truly love it. I love everything, including you. Thank you, Hee,” Your voice barely above a whisper, but he catches the earnest gratitude in your tone.

With his hands on your hips, he turns you around and examines every nuance in your delicate countenance with the deepest affection. “No, beloved. I should be the one thanking you. Thank you for existing in the same lifetime as me,” He says with solemnity as he grabs your chin gently before leaning forward to plant a kiss on your forehead. “I can’t imagine my life without my beautiful love.” 

You can’t resist yourself from latching your arms around him, your body trembling from both the cold and the onslaught of emotions as you bury your face into his chest despite his top still drenched. He releases breathy yet endearing chuckles as he reciprocates your hug wholeheartedly. His embrace feels warm and provides you with a protective layer against the cold breeze.

Comfortable silence cocoons you as you seek solace in each other’s embrace, savouring for a little longer while you listen to his heart beating rapidly that consonance with yours, creating a silent yet discernible symphony of your feelings towards one another.

You slowly pull away from the hug, but your arms remain locked around him as you tilt your head up to meet his tender eyes. “Kiss me, Hee,” You plead in a soft command, earning you a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips.

Without a word, Heeseung dips his head down and kisses you squarely on the lips while his arms loosen around your waist for his hands to journey to your hips. His touch feels sensual and possessive, in complete par with the way he kisses you that has your arousal stirring in the heat of your core.

The tension is palpable, while closeness feels electrifying, with your hands feeling up his body from his lower abdomen to his toned chest, appreciating that his drenched top allows you to feel his muscles distinctly beneath your touch. The pace of the kiss eventually turns into a fusion of fervent passion and need as he seeks you hungrily, borderline ravenous, electrifying the heated tension that clings hotly onto your bodies.

Without breaking the passionate lip lock, Heeseung slowly backs you up with his hands on your hips, confidently guiding you until you feel the pillar come into contact with your back. Sensing that you need to gasp for air, his tongue licks at the seams of your lips, prodding into your entrance gently yet firm with urgency and prompting you to welcome him as you part open your lips.

The warmth of his tongue meets yours in a practised, sensual tango he initiates, intensifying the heat that courses through every fibre of your being while his grip on your hips tightens, getting drunk on your taste and warmth that he had missed. His tongue glides across the inner of your bottom lip before sinking his teeth gently into the plumpness and tugging at it.

A needy whimper emerges from the back of your throat as he pulls at it tantalisingly while the corner of his lips curve into a smirk before releasing it, only to capture your lips into a searing kiss. “I’ve missed you so fucking much, you have no idea,” Heeseung growls against your lips, sending you shivers to your heated body. 

Just when you think he decides to show leniency as he pulls away from the kiss, he dips his head down and kisses your bare shoulder wetly before trailing a scorching path all the way to your neck, eliciting a gasp from you at the pleasurable sensation of his lips alone on your skin. “I’ve missed you too, Hee.” You utter breathlessly as you fiddle with the back of your hair, tilting your neck to a perfect angle for him to decorate your skin with his mark.

Getting lost in the depths of this heated tension, you are too focused on his lips and teeth working in tandem to leave his mark on your skin to feel his fingers moving underneath your dress to hook them around your underwear. He places a wet kiss on your skin that now bears a fresh hickey before deftly pulling down your underwear as it falls to your ankle.

You gasp softly, finally gaining awareness of what is to happen. You feel the padding of his fingers strumming on your clit, sending you a faint, jolting pleasure through your body, but the risk of anyone witnessing your tryst out in the open latches to your rationality. “W-Wait─”

“Relax, love. No one's gonna stumble upon us, I promise you,” He assures you, his voice a little rough from the primal lust infusing in the heat of his veins, and his dark eyes watch every nuance of your countenance as he begins to rub your clit, drawing indecisive circles and strokes, yet it is effectual to set the bundle of nerves aflame. His eyes darken dangerously as he sees the way you bite down your swollen lip, repressing the sweet noises he desires to hear. “Don’t do that, sweetheart. Let me hear you.”

His gentle command is uttered in such mellowness, but you heed the undercurrent of familiar vice that reminds you of the Heeseung in Seoul, who used to frighten you greatly, even though the present him looks more intimidating while his eyes darken with a voracious intensity that has you clenching your cunt at nothingness in anticipation.

At once, you release your inhibitions, moaning softly as he rubs your clit with skilful precision, and you feel your arousal clinging onto your walls as they leak down. “Hee, choke me,” You request earnestly, and he searches for your eyes only to see unadulterated feverish lust before he complies, his fingers curling around your neck with enough pressure to allow you to gasp for air. 

Feeling the loss of his fingers on your clit, you whine needily, only to be taken aback when he slides two fingers into your sopping cunt with the folds slick with your arousal. He feels the warmth of your slick wall lathering his fingers, aiding to the smoothness of him fucking you with his fingers at a steady pace.

“Seungie,” You gasp as soon as he applies more pressure with his firm grip on your neck, amplifying your pleasure while your hips begin to move in tandem with his pumping fingers.

“Feels good, pretty?” He asks huskily, his voice thickening with lust as he watches your face contorting into pleasure with your hooded-lust eyes in complete daze while sweet moans and gasps leave your swollen lips. A smirk touches his lips at how verbally unresponsive you are, completely fucked out just by his fingers. He leans in and nips at your bottom lip before ghosting his lips over yours and whispering huskily. “Yeah? Too fucked out to let Seungie know how good he is making you feel with his fingers?” 

Admittedly, you are, and he fucks you with his magical fingers just as sensational as when he fucks you with his cock. “Seungie,” You moan, struggling to maintain stability in your voice as his fingers delve rhythmically into your wet cunt with stringent purpose, coaxing something greater than pleasure out of you while your every sense heightens. “S-So good! N-Need you─”

Heeseung cuts you off as he seals you into a fiery kiss with his ravenous lips without relenting his vigorous fingers from pumping into your cunt that sounds obscenely wet in your ears. “I know you need me, pretty girl,” He mutters in between the exchange of your kisses, smirking when your velvety walls clench around him like crazy as he hits the particular thrust against your g-spot before repeating it relentlessly while circling your sensitive clit with his thumb. “I want you to let it go for me anytime,” He lulls, dragging his nose against your skin before pressing an affectionate kiss on your cheek, contradicting the way he pumps his fingers into you as he determinedly pushes you to the edge of ecstasy.

You can feel it as your legs tremble with an overwhelming sensation while the knot coiling in your tummy threatens to snap. Your hand latches on his bicep, feeling the muscles beneath your touch taut. “Seungie, I’m─” With a broken moan, the knot in your tummy snaps as you explode with a crescendo of pleasure, your release gushes out in an uncontrollable fluid.

Heeseung kisses you hard on the lips as he continues to finger you, prolonging your orgasm despite your body convulsing in his hold. “That’s my good girl,” He whispers against your lips, causing your heart to swell with pride at his praise. He finally shows leniency as he withdraws his fingers that are coated with your slick release. 

You take the moment to recover as he proceeds to unbuckle his leather belt, your eyes fluttering close with your head leaning against the wall behind you.The sensation of his fingers caressing your cheek affectionately prompts you to flutter your eyes open and meet his dark ones. “We’re not done yet, pretty,” He mutters, closing the gap between your bodies before slamming his lips on yours in a fiery kiss. 

You eagerly reciprocate, your hands haphazardly finding their way to the hold onto him for stability before circling your arms around his neck as he deepens the kiss. His hands travel down to your ass, giving the flesh a good squeeze before moving underneath your thighs and carrying you with your legs automatically wrapped around his waist, only for you to feel his cock pressing directly into your core as he pins you against the wall.

“You’re still shivering, my love,” He whispers against your lips as he feels your body quivering beneath his touch. His eyes meet yours, allowing you to catch a glimpse of familiar devilry coupling with his carnal lust for you while his lips twitch into a smirk. “Let me warm you up, yeah?”

Your breath hitches in anticipation as you watch him grab the base of his shaft to aim at your drenched entrance while his other hand remains supporting your uplifted body. With your slick arousal providing as a lubricant, he enters you with smooth ease, albeit your walls bear resistance despite being prepped by his fingers.

Heeseung is unrelenting, plunging into you until his whole girth occupies every space with your velvety walls clinging onto him like a desperate lover. With a ragged breath, he begins to move, slowly yet deliberately thrusting into you while you arch your back at the sheer fullness, and you swear you can feel your tummy bulging with each thrust he hits deeper.

Seeing your lips part open with soft sounds of your moan and whine leaving you, he captures them in an intoxicating kiss that sends you spiralling, messy, and fervent while his movements are deep and methodical, ensuring that his cock leaves none of your territory uncharted. Your arms drape loosely over his broad shoulder, feeling languid as he takes charge over your docile figure.

“Fuck, you feel so good, so perfect,” He purrs, completely enamoured by you as his darkened eyes drink in the sight of your angelic face contorting into ecstasy with your head tilted to the back, presenting your dainty neck that is tainted with his mark to him.

“S-Seungie,” You stutter as he latches his lips on your neck, kissing and biting on your skin to leave another mark of his to leave a testament of his claim over you. His once-slow, methodical thrusts transition into hard, vigorous thrusts that underscore his fervid passion, hitting your g-spot relentlessly as you roll your eyes to the back, lacking coherence with only the sound of your moans filling the air.

The fiery of your intertwined passion creates a sinful symphony of your skins slapping against each other as well as the squelching sound of your precums that reverberates throughout the gazebo and even beyond its vicinity. Finally satisfied with leaving another hickey next to the other, he pulls away from your neck to press a deep, languid kiss on your cheek, his unforgiving thrusts never faltering.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, so mine,” He growls out against your skin, sending you shivers down your body that entangle with the pleasure he gives you. He kisses you hard again, muttering harshly in between the fierce kiss, “Wanna love you every day and every night like this. Wanna fill you to the brim with my cum and make you pregnant.” 

Your walls clench around him the instant those words leave his mouth, eliciting a breathy chuckle from him that mingles with your breathy moan. “Yeah? You like the idea?” He rasps against your lips, his hips nearly stuttering as he feels the imminent release, his orgasm teetering at the precipice. “I’m gonna fill you up, pretty.”

Your legs lock around him tight, wanting to feel his cock deeply while the sensation amplifies the overwhelming pleasure that courses through your body, driving you to the new heights of ecstasy. “Seungie, I’m close,” You moan out, your walls quivering as you feel the inevitable imminent release of your orgasm before the final knot in your tummy erupts as you bathe him with your essence.

Heeseung unrelenting thrusts into you despite your uncontrollable fluids soaking him as you make a mess all over the now-spilled ground. Sinking his teeth into your bare shoulder, he delivers one profound thrust before the knot in his tummy unravels as the warmth of his semen fills you to the brim with his hips pressed into yours going stilled, ensuring none of his semen spill from your quivering pussy.

Your chest heaves up and down while your body feels spent from the exertion, despite him being the one in complete control. He buries his head in the nook of your neck, seeking a respite of comfort in your scent, prompting your fingers gently to rake through his hair while the other caresses his taut back muscles with your arms around him in an embrace, soothing him from the intensity moments before this. 

“I love you, Y/N,” He says softly, his voice sounding a little rough from the prior passionate love-making. He presses a chaste kiss on your skin before pulling away to look at you deeply in the eyes. “I love you so much. I never want you to leave me again,” His tone conveys a silent plea, and yet there is an undercurrent of danger that has implicit consequences if you ever do leave.

“I’m not leaving you again, I promise,” You reassure him softly, cradling the undersides of his jaw with your thumbs stroking his cheek. Your eyes roam around his chiselled features meaningfully, etching them into your memory again. You lean in to press a delicate kiss on his lips, eventually deepening the kiss that has his cock twitching in you. “I love you too, Lee Heeseung. I really do,” You whisper against his lips while tears spring to your closed-lidded eyes.

Heeseung feels as though he is at his peak of happiness now that you have finally returned to him for good, albeit you can never really escape from him or any of them even if you have second thoughts, owing to their depravity and intense possessiveness over you.

Not having enough of you, he manoeuvres you over to the couch, settling you on top of him with the intention of fucking you in a cowgirl position. In an instant, you begin to move your hips in a back-and-forth motion, moaning into the kiss at the delicious sensation of each ridge and vein on her cock dragging along your velvety walls.

A heady mix of lust, love, and sex is present in the air, intoxicating you as you desire for him to take you over and over again. “That’s it, pretty girl, ride me good just like that,” He rasps, his voice thickening with palpable lust as he offers assistance to thrust up into you, eliciting a moan from you at the instant hit of his cock to your g-spot. “Let’s love some more, yeah, beautiful?”

You kiss him feverishly in response, moaning as his thumb finds your clit to rub it with skilful precision that intensifies your building pleasure within you. Even when an hour has gone by while your body convulses beneath him with your sexes in a passionate union, you never want him to stop fucking you, taking you at every untouched part of the gazebo, wanting him to love you intensely just as your depravity desires him to intoxicate you like he once did.

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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.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz (ask to be removed/added!)

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𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐦 𝐣𝐚𝐞𝐲𝐮𝐧 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐢𝐞 😍😍😍

he helps you with your math homework but sometimes he messes it up which makes you come home with a bad grade, F or something (“10 + 12=21”- big brain, math lover, jake sim )

now a quick break from making fun of boyfie jake being dumb, he is also really romantic tho

he likes to go out on dates with you a lot

his favorite one will probably be just late evening chilling with you and layla, no matter where, if his two loved ones are with him, he don’t care where the “date” is

if you text him that you feel bad or lonely or just bored or horny he will be on his way to your place

when he is at your’s he likes “netflix and chill” but i mean literally, he likes watching netflix and just chilling with you while cuddling but he wouldn’t complain if you actually “netflix and chill” ;)

he LOVES when you’re wearing his clothes, he thinks you look cute in them

❗️CONTROVERSIAL OPINION❗️i think that jake is kinda pervy 🤷‍♀️

i don’t mean the creepy or gross perv that everyone is scared and disgusted of, i mean more like this one dirty minded friend

i feel like he gets really jealous really easily, but he never makes you actually feel his jealousy and you guys NEVER EVER argued about this before

snaps you randomly in the middle of the night

his annoying ass won’t let you sleep in peace 🙄

DON’T YOU DARE DOING THE SAME THING TO HIM aka pulling a uno reverse card

he will make you regret your decision right away

your mine lovely boy jake leaves you something in your locker sometimes, just to surprise you

a buquet of flowers 💐

a sweet box of your favorite chocolates 🍫

a dead origami birth he made in his art class while thinking about you 🥰

a big prankster

when jake is in his goofie, quirky mood 🤪 he loves to pull some not really funny pranks on you

I BET he started doing tik tok videos with you!!!!

he even made a whole series named “annoying my s/o till they cry or something ❤️”

but after all you love his dumb, annoying and loving ass (like everyone else, don’t think you’re different from others girly cause you’re not 😚)

Dandelions \\ Jake Sim

pairing: boyfriend!Jake x reader

genre: the fluffiest fluff, songfic

warnings: none really, mentions of cooking and food

word count: 685

Now playing: Dandelions by Ruth B.

You giggle to yourself as you watch your boyfriend dance along to the song that was playing while chopping vegetables. Jake had insisted on making dinner for you tonight but after some negotiating you finally got him to let you help.

Now here you were stirring a pot on the stove while all of your shared favorite songs filled the kitchen. The next song began to play and it was one you didn’t recognize.

“Jakey, what’s this song?”

He places his hand over his heart and looks truly hurt. “I sent you this a couple days ago because it made me think of you! Are you telling me you never listened to it?” He gave you those puppy dog eyes and you immediately felt bad.

“I meant to!” You tried to defend yourself. “I just was busy at work when you sent it and then I sort of forgot about it after that.” You look back at the sauce you’re stirring to avoid his eyes.

“Well y/n, I guess you’ll just have to listen to it now…” he walks over to his phone to restart the song. “…. And dance with me.” he holds out his hand towards you.

“But the sauce! It’s gonna burn”

He turns the stove off and moves the pot off of the hot burner. “Problem solved. Now just give me 3 minutes and 53 seconds of your time. You won’t regret it I promise” he winks at you and you can’t help but give in.

Suddenly you’re dancing around the kitchen in the arms of the boy of your dreams while jake sings quietly along with the song.

I’ve heard of a love that comes once in a lifetime, and I’m pretty sure that you are that love of mine.

Cause I’m in a field of dandelions, wishing on every one that you’ll be mine.

And I see forever in your eyes, I feel okay when I see you smile.

He looks you straight in the eyes as he sings these words, making your heart skip a beat just like the first time you ever saw him.

He rests his forehead against yours as the rest of the song plays and it feels like you are the only two people in the entire universe.

As the song ends, he places a kiss on your forehead and goes back to the cutting board as a new song starts playing from the speaker.

“That should be our song” he states as he eyes your form that hasn’t moved from the center of the kitchen yet. “Then we can dance to it at our wedding and tell our kids how mommy realized she loved daddy after hearing it at 6 pm on a random tuesday.”

You snap back to reality at the sound of his crazy plans. “That’s a lot of theoreticals”

You ignore his gaze as you return your pot to the burner. “Who says that’s what happened?”

When you don’t hear a cheeky response, you turn to look for him only to feel a pair of arms snake around your waist from behind as his chin comes to rest on your shoulder.

“Well that’s what happened to me, except that it was about 2 pm on a random Thursday to be exact when I realized how in love I am with you”

You instantly turn around in his arms to be met with a smile on his face and zero uncertainty in his eyes. As you thought about everything you felt for jake you realized you felt comfortable, you felt safe, you felt loved, you felt at home in his arms. He is your home.

“We might have to tell the kids mommy told daddy she loved him at 6:15 pm on a random tuesday” you smiled as his eyes glanced at the clock behind you and widened in realization.

You stood on your tiptoes to kiss the smile forming on his lips.

“I love you jake sim. You are my once in a lifetime love, and I will love you for the rest of this lifetime and every one after”

bf! jake who...

pairings: boyfriend jake x female reader

warnings: none (i think) just a bit of skinship

genre: fluff

wc: 304

a/n: my first post! please dont forget to like and reblog.

bf! jake who intentionally leaves his stuff at your place just so he has a reason to see you

bf! jake who never uses your name at all, once he gets comfortable enough with you he'll always be calling you "princess, angel, my girl, my love, ect..."

bf! jake who loves being so close to you, he finds comfort in touching you in any kind of way and he loves it more when you do the same thing

bf! jake who never has to start an argument or fight with you cuz he always says "if a bad bitch tells me to do something I just do as she says"

bf! jake who would be all smiles and giggles when he sees you and layla together and he calls you both "my two favourite girls"

bf! jake who always texts you about every single thing he does when he is on tour because he wants to feel like you're there with him

bf! jake who makes playlists of songs that reminds him of you

bf! jake who can never stop talking about you that his members almost know everything going on in your life

bf! jake who brings back cute little gifts for you everytime he's on tour because "they reminded me of you!"

bf! jake who will call you before you sleep and after you wake up when he's on tour just so he can start/end his day with you

bf! jake who will always make a fuss every morning because he doesn't want to wake up to go to work (he just wants to stay in your arms all day why is that so hard..)

bf! jake who will ask you to watch a movie with him but he'll fall asleep in your arms as soon as the movie starts

jaeyunwon 2024 © all rights reserved

bet.

pairing: jake x female reader

warnings: angst, no fluff, crying

genre: angst

wc: 591

a/n: idk what's wrong with me but I felt like crying so y'all cry with me hehe :3

part 2

you don't know where it went wrong. or maybe you did but you wanted to stay in denial that what's between you and Jake isn't really over, you stared at your phone screen rereading the text your best friend, Yunjin sent you.

“hey, y/n. I wanted to tell you this before, well not me, more like Jake should've told you but apparently he just wants to keep playing with you. I've overheard him and his friends talking last week about you being just a bet, I didn't want to be the one to tell you this but Jake was too scared to tell you so I did. I love you so much and I don't want to see them play around with you like some kind of object I'm coming over, you're not alone I'll be there with you.”

as you finished reading it you received another call from “jakey 💌'' and you broke down again into tears ignoring his call for the 18th time this morning, you pack your stuff from his apartment, remove the promise ring he gave you as a gift from your hand leaving it on the coffee table in the living room and putting on your shoes getting ready to leave with your eyes full of tears, you hear your phone ring again completely ignoring it, looking around the apartment that you and jake had many cute moments in only for them to turn out a lie just for some bet he had going on with his friends. you take a deep breath and step out of the apartment going out of the building and into your car, closing the chapter that you and Jake once had hoping to never see him again.

Jake never meant for it to turn out like this, he won't lie it did start out as a bet but he didn't expect himself to fall in love with you, he was gonna tell you soon but he knew it won't turn out good so he wanted to relish the time he has with you being in his arms but it all went down when he received a call from yunjin telling him that you know now. he didn't even wait a second before he bolted out of his friends house running to his apartment while trying to call you, he felt his heart break everytime you ignored his calls and messages, he knows he fucked up, he knows it'll take alot for him to get you back but right now all he wants is to know that you're still there for him.

once he gets to his apartment and opens the door just too see his old plain looking apartment with none of your stuff there, oh he really fucked up. he tried calling you again just for it to be in vain, so he called your best friend only to hear her say “never come near y/n again or it won't be pretty for you, you've hurt her enough just leave her alone.” he didn't get to say anything before yunjin hung up, Jake felt his world breaking down he can't do this alone, you were everything he ever wanted, needed. And he just can't let you go, but it seems like life really hates him as he sits down on the floor and just cries his eyes out for the rest of the night.

Maybe in another life you both won't have to suffer like this and just live a normal life together. just like how Jake always wanted.

jaeyunwon 2024 © all rights reserved

bet. (part 2)

pairing: jake x female reader

warning: angst, hurt/comfort, eventually fluff, one kiss, use of 'y/n'

genre: angst, fluff

wc: 1.1K

a/n: this is a bit rushed im sorry. I wanted to make it a sad ending but I can't bear to see them suffer more than this </3

part 1

It's been 2 weeks, and Jake felt like smashing his head into the nearest wall, and his phone too. With the amount of times he has heard the same robotic voice coming from his phone over and over again he feels like he's going crazy.

The number you dialled cannot be reached at the moment, please try aga—

Jake threw his phone to the bed as he watched it bounce before settling on his pillow, he totally was going crazy. he knows he fucked up and he wanted nothing more than to apologise to you, he knows you didn't deserve what he did to you but he can't let you know that he is really sorry when he can't even get to talk to you because you probably blocked him on all of your social media since he couldn't reach any of them, and with your overprotective best friend he couldn't even get to see you at all, and that was driving Jake mad.

He took out the bottle of alcohol he had hidden in his bedroom, and didn't even get a glass before he had already drunk half of the bottle. He had nothing on his mind other than you, Jake did a lot of stupid things like the bet that involved you which he totally regrets, and right now his thoughts of showing up to your house is the stupidest thought he's ever thought of, and in his drunken state of course he's going to do just that.

you were laying on the couch trying to find an interesting movie to watch to get your mind off Jake. It's been 2 weeks but you couldn't stop thinking about him, maybe the fact that you've been just a stupid bet all this time have been hurting you so much but there's also the fact that the time you've spent with Jake has been the happiest you've ever been, you don't regret dating him.

your thoughts got cut off when the doorbell rang and a sudden loud banging on the door made you flinch and get up from the couch, wiping your tears while making your way to the door. You weren't expecting anyone, your parents are on a vacation and Yunjin is spending the night at her boyfriend's house, your mind was racing at the thought of who can be behind the door.

as you opened the door slowly, your heart dropped at the person behind the door, you felt your tears coming back, you wanted to scream, shout, yell. But you held it all back when you looked at the familiar tired eyes staring right back at you “Y/N…” as soon as you heard him talk you felt yourself come back to reality, your brows furrowed and tried slamming the door in his face but Jake was much faster and slipped inside before it can close. “What are you doing here!! get out before I start screaming.”

“woah! we don't have to go that far, just listen to me please give me a chance to explain myself..” you can see the tears forming in his eyes threatening to fall, you knew if you didn't look away now you'll cave in to his pleads and you were going to until you smelled the alcohol reeking of him, “Jake.. are you drunk?” you said, your full body is on guard now having your ex boyfriend forcing himself into your house drunk wanting to explain himself isn't an everyday thing.

“no? I mean yes but please I just want to apologise. I can't do this anymore. I can't keep going on with my day like this.” Jake stated as he went forward all he wanted to do right now was hug you and cry in your arms, he wanted everything to go back to normal he can get on his knees right now and beg for your forgiveness, he'll do anything if it means you'll forgive him. he wanted to kiss you and tell you how sorry he is over and over again, but the hurt look in your eyes, keeps reminding him of how badly he fucked up and he wasn't leaving today until he made everything right.

“apologise about what? about the fact you've hurt me? lied to me? faked your love for some stupid bet? you've already done enough Jake what more do you want from me.”

“I know this is so messed up, I won't lie to you. I know it was all just a bet but I fell in love with you. I was gonna tell you sooner but I couldn't bring myself to do it and it's such a low move from me but I was scared of this happening. scared of you leaving me. please I'll make it up to you, I promise I'll do anything. Anything, just don't ignore me anymore. I'll apologise a hundred times if it means you give me one more chance to show you how much I love you and how much I'm really sorry.”

By now Jake was crying. “I'm sorry.” He mumbled again, but as you looked down to process everything he just said, Jake could no longer fight the temptation to pull you into his chest. When you didn't pull back, which surprised him, he pulled you in tighter and started combing his fingers in your hair. He immediately stopped when he heard you sniffing and looked at you just to see you crying.

He pulled you in again resting your head on his chest while his head is resting on your head trying to calm each other down. “I promise you I'll make it up to you even if it takes you years to forgive me, I'll never give up on you, on us.” you finally looked up at him chuckling at his words “you're an idiot Jake sim, I shouldn't forgive you this quickly but you're too cute not to.” Jake felt like he could die at any moment right now, hearing you say you forgive him made him feel like he's done the impossible.

“Wait you're for real? omg please tell me you're not joking, do you really forgive me?” you laughed at his shocked face, holding his face in your hands “I do. But don't think it'll be this easy, you'll have to work to gain my love again.”

“I'll do anything.”

you hug him again as none of you talk relishing the silence in eachothers arms. “I know you want to ask something, what is it?” you stated the obvious as you felt him flinch, he hesitated a but before he asked “can I kiss you?” you grinned at his question and you pulled his head closer to yours “you don't have to ask silly.” As soon as these words left your mouth his lips smashed against yours, you smiled through the kiss yearning for more of him. But right now you couldn't ask for more, and you can't help but think that maybe meeting Jake wasn't so bad after all.

"You taste like soju, how much did you drink?"

"shut up" he mumbled as you laughed.

jaeyunwon 2024 © all rights reserved

don't forget to like and reblog!^^

synopsis :: secretly dating your boyfriend Jake for 4 months, no one knows other than your long time best friend. It made you feel wary of her when rumors started spreading around about her and jake dating, she promised you she has nothing to do with Jake, and your boyfriend claims he doesn't even like your best friend... Who will you believe tho? will the truth come to light? How did these rumors even begin?

pairing :: jake sim x female reader

warnings :: highschool au, angsttttt, fluff, comfort, happy ending, cheating, cursing, reader's best friend is a bitch :/, jake and reader are both so inlove, like they're down bad for eachother, reader overthinks alot.

a/n :: I got this idea while rewatching 'marry my husband' so- I'm kinda proud of this one idkkk. please don't forget to like and reblog :)

taglist :: @luvvsnae @lovelymelon

It's already been 4 months since you and Jake started dating, it isn't a lot but Jake never made you regret dating him, he shows his love for you in so many unique ways which only made you love him for it. You both have been taking it slow and not rushing anything, as you discussed with him how you wanted to keep the relationship a secret, he didn't mind it at all as long as everyone knew you were taken somehow.

As you were making your way to the last class for today you saw Jake running your way which made you stop in your tracks, he came up to you and pulled you in the nearest storage room looking around the hallway making sure no one saw you both before closing the door, you saw him trying to speak but kept getting interrupted trying to catch his breath. “Jake, are you okay? what happened?” as he caught his breath he looked at you with his shining beautiful brown eyes “ do you think you can come watch me practice after class? you know, with the tournaments coming up. and after I'm done with practice I'll even take you out”

He said with a wink ending his sentence, you chuckled before answering “of course I'll come I love watching you play even though I get bored waiting all alone..” you paused before you thought of something “maybe I'll bring nayeon to keep me busy while waiting for you.” When you ended your sentence Jake's smile slowly faltered which made you hurriedly say “only if it's okay with you, I still see how quiet you get around her. you know? if you're uncomfortable with me bringing her around I can stop.”

“oh no it's okay.. I don't really mind, don't worry about it”

“okay! I'll see you at practice then, I'm gonna be late to class”

he pulled you in a brief kiss, “bye babe.” he said as he watched you leave the storage room with a smile on his face

When school finished and you were going out of class after you finished packing up, you saw Nayeon waiting for you, you were going to run up to her when you heard two girls talk about Jake, but that wasn't what caught your attention but rather hearing your boyfriend and best friend names together. “omg! In math class I heard somin say that Jake and nayeon are dating"

"huh? really?”

“yes, I won't be surprised if they actually are they would make such a cute couple”

“mhm, they're both so pretty but i didn't hear anything about them dating, how did somin get to know this”

“apparently someone caught them both together alone at sunghoon's party”

when you heard the last sentence you felt speechless, this must be some joke… Jake won't do this to me.. not even nayeon…. would she? your thoughts stopped as soon as you saw nayeon running up to you, you dried your unshed tears in a hurry and heard nayeon ask “are you okay? why are you crying?”

“crying? I'm not, something just came in my eyes but don't worry about it, Jake said he wanted me to wait for him at practice because he's taking me out after, come wait with me?”

you heard nayeon scoff and say jokingly “I wanted to stay over at yours today, why does Jake always have to come in between my plans” you laughed “maybe another time.”

When you made your way there, you can already hear the sound of the ball hitting the ground miles away. You got in and found a seat to wait at while searching for Jake. When you locked eyes with him you smiled at how enthusiastic and pretty he looked while playing, though your thoughts got cut off when you heard nayeon say “I'm still here you know!” you felt your cheeks heat up and you quickly apologize “right- I'm sorry I just can't help it” you saw her roll her eyes and that's when you remembered what those girls were gossiping about and thought “nayeon loves me I don't think she would do that to me, maybe it's just a stupid rumor someone made up” you looked up at nayeon and smiled widely and started talking about the school work.

When Jake was done with practice he went into the locker room to freshen up, but stopped as soon as he saw who was standing there. “What are you doing here Nayeon?” he declaimed “I came to see you, you looked so cool out there I couldn't just stay back” Nayeon said with a pout on her face as Jake's face scrunched up in disgust at her words.

Jake loves you. He loves you so much he never thought of cheating on you and he never will, but he also doesn't want to see you sad he knows you and nayeon have been best friends since you were in middle school so if he tells you how Nayeon is a liar, a fake friend, and how she keeps flirting with him, you'll probably be heart broken. And he has no problem comforting you if word ever comes out but he would rather die than be the reason for your and nayeon's friendship's downfall. He told Nayeon off many times but she only seems to get bolder everytime.

he stared at her for a while before he sighed “what do you not understand of ‘i'm not interested in cheating on y/n’? I do not like you and I never will, what makes you think I won't tell y/n about your acts” he heard her laugh “I'm her best friend did you forget? I can just tell her you're lying. Who do you think she'll believe? Her long time best friend that she knew since forever or some random guy she started dating not long ago? I think we both know the answer to that so unless you want to lose y/n forever you better think twice before saying anything.” And that was the second reason why Jake was hesitant in telling you about nayeon's deceiving actions, he trusts you of course but it hasn't been long since you both started dating, you're still building each others trust so he won't blame you if you believe Nayeon over him but he would rather not lose you.

He felt frustrated with everything, especially with himself, he knows he's not the one in the wrong but he still blames himself for this continuing, if he just had the courage to tell you about it he wouldn't have to deal with this situation almost every day. With his anger and frustration building up he was seconds away from taking it all out on Nayeon but he held himself back and tried calming himself down “get out.” he heard her snicker before she started walking out.

Once he was left all alone he finally let out the breath he didn't know he was holding, and suddenly remembered his promised date with you, he freshened up in a hurry and ran to the school entrance. When he arrived he saw you there with your back turned towards him with no sign of nayeon “hey babe!” Jake said with a kiss on your cheek “hii! you looked so cool I couldn't wait for you to finish” even tho it's been 4 months since Jake made you his you never failed to make him feel flustered and feel butterflies in his stomach just like when he used to and still have a crush on you but it's not like he's complaining about it, he chuckled before he replied “so are you ready for our date?” he pulled you to his car feeling excited to finally spend some time with you alone “yes! Where are you taking me?”

“It's a secret” he laughed.

- 2 weeks later -

Your school's basketball team has just won the year's tournament which means the basketball captain, Heeseung, will be throwing a big party to celebrate their win, which also means nayeon trying to force you to go. It's not like you hate parties. You went to a lot of parties when you and Jake started dating in your first month but they're not really your vibes. “please, please, please just this once go with me” you heard nayeon whine and beg over and over “you know it's not really my type of thing, and I don't even have a dress ready and the party is tonight” you saw nayeon's eyes light up already dreading what she's about to say knowing you don't have any more excuses “I have the perfect dress for you to wear!” You sighed and huffed “okay fine.” nayeon hugged you and started rambling about how you're the best.

as you and nayeon arrived to the party, you tried searching for jake since he's apart of the basketball team of course he'll be here and that's when you both made eye contact and saw him make his way to you but before you can say anything to him nayeon cut you off “hi Jake! congrats on your win” she hugged him and you felt a bit off about her action.

this is normal right? they're friends… and friends hug it's totally normal.. right?

maybe if these rumors that have been going on for quite some time about your boyfriend and best friend you wouldn't have these thoughts, and you felt bad to think they'll do this to you they're your closest people they wouldn't hurt you… right?

your thoughts went into a halt as you saw Jake was talking to you, you smiled and congratulated him about his win and gave him a peck on the lips before Jake smiled and said “I'll go get us drinks okay?” you nodded before your best friend said she'll need to use the bathroom, so here you are now alone in the middle of the party waiting for them to come back before one of your friends, Yunjin, comes up to you and greets you.

as you were both talking you felt your boyfriend and best friend take a lot of time to come back even though you wanted to trust them that they won't ever hurt you in any kind of way, you couldn't help but go check up on them, with the thought of them being alone in a room. Just like how you heard the rumor, you told Yunjin to wait a bit before you left her to go to the drink aisle to try and find your boyfriend.

as you got there you saw a group of people gathering around something, even tho you wanted to keep searching curiosity got the best of you and you decided to make your way through the crowd while pushing around the crowd you kept hearing stuff like “I told you they were together” or “omg you saw them kiss right? So the rumors are true after all” when you finally made it your eyes widened at the scene In front of you.

your best friend, nayeon, on the ground and your boyfriend, Jake, standing right at her feet looking like he's about to hit her. You made eye contact with nayeon and you saw her smirk before she got up and got a hold of Jake's collar and smashed his lips against hers, you felt your heart slowly break, it's like you could hear it break into tiny, tiny pieces. What hurts is that they're the two people you trust the most but what hurts more is the fact you saw the sign but stayed in denial because you didn't think your favorite people would betray you just like that.

When Jake pushed away from nayeon he was about to walk away from her but he stopped in his tracks when he saw you standing in front of him, though the crowds voice is very loud Jake felt like he couldn't hear anything right now, he wanted to do a lot of things all in the span of one minute. He wanted to make nayeon pay for this, he wanted to pull you into him, he wanted to apologise for this big BIG misunderstanding, he wanted to yell at himself for not seeing this coming, but he couldn't do any of this when he couldn't feel his legs anymore.

you felt your eyes tear up, pools of water felt like they're about to burst out of your eyes any second now the longer you stared at Jake, you quickly turned around ready to bolt out of here, to get back into the comfort of your apartment and just let go of this overwhelming feeling, but it all stopped when Jake grabbed your wrist and turned you around.

“y/n it isn't what it looks like, please—” you cut him off not ready to listen to anything right now, your brain feeling like it could shut down from everything “i saw it with my own eyes, don't you dare lie to me” you yelled “no, it's a misunderstanding, just let me take you home and explain please.” you couldn't hold back your tears anymore and just let everything out you wanted to scream, shout, yell, cry, and cry, and just cry till you couldn't anymore you kept hoping that this is all just a big nightmare and none of it is true.

you were about to respond to Jake when suddenly you heard the last voice you wanted to hear right now “jakey! baby why did you leave so suddenly, come on let's go home, you said you'll sleep over tonight.” nayeon said while looking at you smirking.

nayeon didn't want to do this to you. But you made her do it, she loved Jake first, she was supposed to be the one in your place, everytime you and Jake hung out with her she felt like she could tear you to pieces, you stole Jake from her. So she's gonna steal him back, while making you feel just like how she felt even if it meant losing you, at least she'll get back what was supposed to be hers from the start.

“Would you fuck off nayeon, you've already did enough can you stop with your fucking lies.” Jake yelled but you couldn't even listen to them when all you wanted was to leave, so when they were both arguing you took the chance to get out of the party before you felt like collapsing from the lack of oxygen, you took an uber and went straight to your apartment not able to deal with anything right now.

As you made your way home, you felt your legs giving up on you once you got in, now that you're in your home with all the lights turned off, your makeup ruined from all the crying you did from heeseung's house to your apartment, and the tears still spilling you started thinking of everything. How you should've listened to the rumors, you should've seen it all coming…but why though.

Were you not enough for Jake, did you do something to upset nayeon, maybe the only reason Jake dated you was because he wanted to get closer to nayeon and now that they're alone at the party they were probably laughing at your stupidity. “fuck.. why am I such an idiot.” was the last thing you said before you stopped overthinking, you didn't have the energy to get to your bed so you found yourself making your way to the couch and closed your eyes.

It's been one week since you've gone to school, you went back to your parents house to take a small break from everything that happened and since you knew you don't have the heart to confront Jake or nayeon so you took your time and thought of everything at your parents house.

Jake couldn't take this anymore, he needed to fix this, asap. He tried so many things, he tried going to your apartment knocking on your door day and night hoping you'll open up and listen to him but you didn't even open the door or showed any signs that you're at home, he tried texting you, calling you, emailing you, but all of it was in vain, he even waited In front of your classes but all he heard from your classmates is that you didn't come today.

As he was making his way to the school entrance Jake just wanted to get back home, he wanted the day to end even though it just already started. He knows if he shared his thoughts with anyone right now they would call him dramatic and that he should just move on, but how can he move on when you have his heart, his soul, and his mind, he can't go on with his day without thinking about you.

When he was about to walk in front of your locker he stopped immediately when he saw you standing right there, he thought his eyes were deceiving him, and maybe it's all just a dream, or maybe he finally went crazy and he's hallucinating, but when he tried hitting himself you were still standing there taking out your books looking very beautiful while doing so— he stopped abruptly when he just realized you're finally In front of him he can finally talk to you and get everything back to normal.

He didn't waste any second as he bolted to your locker scared that if he wasted any more time you'll vanish, “y/n? It's really you, you look beautiful as ever.” He blushed when he noticed he said that out loud not being able to focus on anything right now other than you.

You wanted to laugh, Jake has always been like this. he would always say the most random things and you loved that about him but you held yourself back when you remembered what you went through last week and it was all because of him and nayeon, you wanted to ignore him that was your plan from the start to tell him to leave you alone and never see his face again.

But your mind felt blank, forgetting everything you wanted to say when you looked at him. The effect Jake has on you will never be explainable; he can just make you weak in the knees by doing nothing. But you tried focusing again, not letting him take over your brain “Jake.. we need to talk.” You managed to say without stuttering over your words, “yes, right we need to talk” he was about to hold your hand to take you to the storage room nearby but you were much faster than him as you walked away.

He followed behind you getting ready for things to get back to normal, to get you back in his arms, where you belong. You were about to speak but he cut you off “look… what ever you saw at the party it was all a misunderstanding I promise, please I was going to tell you about nayeon but I didn't have it in me to ruin your friendship, I know she means alot to you so I let her do what she wanted I thought she'll stop when she realizes i don't like her in that way, I didn't think she'll do something like that, I'm really sorry I felt nervous and scared that if I told you, you'll think I'm trying to ruin your friendship with nayeon and you'll believe her over me, I didn't want to lose you, I'm really sorry.”

By now Jake was full on crying, his movements were slow as he was breathing fitfully, you couldn't process the new information that was given to you “ruin our friendship? Jake, you know I'm not like that if you just talked to me about it we could figure something out together… I didn't know you were going through all of that alone.” You felt confused, sad, frustrated, but especially mad. You were mad at yourself, if you took actions before maybe this wouldn't have turned out this way.

Jake felt better, he finally got out everything he wanted to say since the start of your relationship, he took your fingers in his hands, hesitant, trying to comfort you even tho he looks like he needs more comforting than you do right now, you laughed at his antics and walked closer to him holding his hand fully, you looked up at him looking at his puppy eyes “if you really are saying the truth… maybe, we can start again. I tried moving on from you but it seems much harder than I thought when my mind is occupied with you 24/7” he giggled at your confession feeling giddy “I guess we both have something in common.”

he hooked his arms around your waist, pulling you even closer you felt goosebumps all over your body with every touch you glanced at his lips, you leaned closer until you felt his soft, tender lips against yours. It felt familiar and gentle, you missed this.. you missed him your body felt like it could give up on you any second now, you felt Jake's hand ride up in your shirt as he kept pulling you closer, you gently tug at his collar to pull away for air when you suddenly heard him say “do you want me to stop?” you quickly shook your head and said “not really.. maybe the opposite, please.” he smiled at your response before pulling you back into the kiss.

it was almost the end of the school day when you pumped into nayeon, the minute she saw you she just kept laughing at you calling you pathetic which made the feeling of wanting to hit her more and more appealing, you glanced at her seeing her smirk reminding you of the day of the party

“why..?” She scoffed at your question and laughed “why? Are you for real? What don't you understand? Jake is mine, he should've been mine but you stole him from me so I'm taking back what you stole.” Oh, so that's what this is about “yours? If Jake was yours he would've chosen you, but he didn't. Kinda sad don't you think” you chuckled, nayeon was raging by now “you little bitch— I don't care, shut up” nayeon looked at you in disbelief.

“I should have seen it coming, but I didn't think we would argue over a boy.. at least tell me our friendship was real.” Nayeon laughed again, gritting her teeth “you’re so pathetic, if you want the truth no. None of it was real. I just befriended you because you looked lonely, I felt bad for you.” you felt a lump in your throat and your eyes tearing up but you held it all back not wanting to show a sign of weakness right now, you're done with this conversation “hah you're finally showing your true colors and they're an uglier shade than I wanted to believe, don't talk to me again, ever.”

You turned around and started walking away you heard nayeon scream your name but you just ignored her and went on, you're done with this chapter of life and you'll start a new chapter with Jake with nothing to come in your way, even if any obstacle comes in your and Jake's way you know you'll both figure out a way to get through it.

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