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dojunie · 7 months ago

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MISDIAL; LJN [CH6] DND

[★]; [MISDIAL MASTERLIST] [PREVIOUS PART] [NEXT PART]

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lee jeno x fem!reader

college au

chaptered

very slow burn

genre; not-quite-friends to lovers, older brother mark lee, brothers best friend lee jeno, light angst, yn is a menace to society, story/character driven

warnings for this chapter; none

chapter wc: 11k

a/n: i don't even have an excuse. when i tell you i was struggling with this... anyway, to not dwell on the bad, lets talk about the good; i rewrote the ending and finally feel excited about it, so hopefully i dont face another deeply evil and unforgiving block again. thank you for sticking around :)

current tl: @hibernatinghamster / @jenoxygen / @eaglesnotravens / @donutswithjaminthemiddle / @jvjsssnaa / @huangrenhyucks / @luvenshiti / @shiningdery / @jaeminsbebu / @aliceinwhateverland / @bebsky / @gem-gem / @jkjkseo / @jenosbliss / @pewpewpwe00 / @ti–red / @philanarose / @softbbyg0rl / @aaasteroidsky / @carelessshootanonymous / @en-boyz / @jlsavyy / @roseymerrie / @bangchanisemo / @skuezk / @jaehyuns-adorable-dimples / @ourbeautifulaffair / @jeonnyread / @jvjsssnaa / @episkeyjeno / @bockhyun / @jenojammin / @zarastrawberry / @peachie-bear / @itadaramaterasu / @alymii / @cuteejeno / @episkeyjeno / @nohunlee / @ooojisoo / @luv4jeno / @jydivrs / @pinkysinnerbaby / @jenojenoyes / @maeyoung / @axmdocs / @nctzennikki09 / @tynlvr / @saucyjaeyun /

OF ALL THE THINGS A GUY COULD CATCH YOU FAKING, BEING ASLEEP USUALLY ISN’T THE MOST MORTIFYING.

Usually, you take care to point out.

Because nine times out of ten, getting called out for pretending to be asleep is something to be mulled over with a laugh. Like when you pretend to doze off in the middle of a boring story to make your friends roll their eyes and get to the point, or when you’re young enough for it to still be feasible, in an attempt to get your parents to carry you to bed after a long car ride home. You know. That type of cute, charming thing.

But when there’s nothing cute or charming about the night you’ve just had, Jeno telling you point blank that he knows you’re awake (and has known you were awake the entire time) feels less like a joke that you’re both in on, and more like you’ve just been dropped naked into the middle of Times Square.

“Pizza doesn’t stay hot forever you know.”

Mortification rips through your body like a live current and you jerk around as if someone’s just cocked a shotgun behind your back.

You freeze afterwards, your head only turned enough just enough to peek over your shoulder, like there’s still some speck of a chance that Jeno isn’t actually talking to you— but that speck is swiftly sucked into the vacuum of reality when your eyes meet.

He’s smiling right at you. Eye-crescents and all. Arms folded over his chest, leaning back into the couch cushions like he’s just asked for you to change the channel instead of rouse from a fake nap.

“I was starting to think I’d have to roll you over.”

God forbid.

“How—” Your voice is several octaves too high for the feigned nonchalance you’re trying to push. You swallow. It doesn’t help. “How did you... know?”

“When I used to sleep over at your parents house I’d hear you snoring through the walls when I passed your room. Even through a foot of wood and plaster it still sounded like you were choking to death right out there in the hallway with me; after the pizza guy left I realized it was way, way too quiet in here. Put two and two together.”

On a different day this answer would’ve made your face burn for the next half an hour but considering the other bomb he’s just dropped, it doesn’t even register on the radar.

After the pizza guy left?

“You knew I was awake the entire time you were talking?”

“Of course.”

For five too-many beats, you’re staring at him like he’s just started speaking Simlish.

Your first instinct is to grimace, hard. Because how fucking stupid you must've looked curled up on the couch like that when he’d known from the very beginning that you were awake, stone still and pretending you couldn’t be seen like a toddler hiding behind the window curtains, Jesus— but before the embarrassment of that can really take shape and cringe you into a coma, the actual problem with his confession comes to light.

He… knew. He said all of that knowing that you were listening. High school, the graduation, the day you both met, everything.

He said he liked you back.

“What?” you finally manage. “But— Why? Why would you tell me all of that? Now?”

“Because after what happened on Saturday, I felt like I was being…” For the first time all night, maybe all week, Lee Jeno breaks eye-contact first. “I’m still having trouble figuring out the specifics but ‘unfair', might be the best fit. You told me how you felt and I only stood there and listened even though I knew I could’ve told you that it wasn’t nearly as unrequited as you thought, but I got nervous and then said something dumb and everything fell apart. Even if you still never talked to me again afterwards I needed to explain. To make sure you understood that it wasn’t just you who felt how you did.”

He laughs a little, sheepish, like he’s embarrassed. “I guess I overdid it with the trip through history, though. Just wanted you to know I was looking at you, too.”

You’re staring at him and he’s staring at the ground, neither of you seemingly knowing what to say to fill the following silence, when you see another thought shadow over his face and his gaze find you again.

“And I didn’t want you to think it was because of Mark.”

The mention of your brother snaps you out of your stunned reverie in an instant. "What?"

“I was scared of changing things between both me and you and me and him, back then. He didn’t tell me anything about you. I— That’s something I needed to say no matter what. I didn’t want you to think he’d do something like that.”

Without really meaning to, your eyes narrow.

Because. Well. Despite the words that have literally just left his lips about why you weren’t supposed to blame Mark for Lee Jeno never telling you how he felt while he still felt it, Mark Lee is already not your favorite person right now, and tar-like agitation bubbles to the surface anyway.

“So he might not have said anything to you. Okay. Sure. But because of the way he acted, you were under the impression that you’d lose him as a friend if you did like me. Right? You told me that yourself. You refused to even acknowledge the idea that you might’ve ‘liked me like that’ because it was clear how Mark felt about anyone who showed even the slightest interest in me. You said you ‘knew better.’”

You try to scoff. It comes out a little more like a sad, tired huff instead. “So yeah, actually, I think I will continue to think that Mark is the reason you didn’t say anything, because that’s the truth. He spent years and years and years finding something wrong with every guy who looked in my direction and because you felt like he’d throw you away too, you knew how I felt and did nothing when you felt the same way. No matter how you slice it, that’s what happened. That’s why I’m— That’s why I was so upset on the balcony. You understand that, right? Because if he hadn’t, Jeno, then things might’ve—”

Worked out for us, is what you’d been about to say, before you caught yourself.

Chills blossom up your spine. Wow. If those words aren’t a shrapnel-loaded bomb of obvious longing and regret, a flashing neon-sign clear with your inability to get the hell over the past, then you don’t know what is.

You must still be drunk. Or exhausted.

“He’s your best friend. We’re never going to see it the same way.”

The next words feel so heavy on your tongue, but you manage a smile anyway. “But you can forget about it now, if that’s what’s been keeping you up all week. Everything’s out now, right?”

Everything is clearly not out, if his split-second-too-long beat of silence means anything. But for your own sanity you pretend you don’t notice it. You pretend you can’t feel the tension underneath his perfectly blank expression, you pretend that your own secrets aren’t heating up in your mouth like hot coals, you pretend— like you’ve been doing a lot in his presence lately— that you’re completely fine with everything and anything and all of this especially. You’re fine.

You will be fine.

“Right,” Jeno says. “All out. So we’re… okay?”

“We’re okay.”

“No more avoiding?”

“Avoid—?”

Avoiding. Yeah. The past few hours have been such a clusterfuck that you nearly forgot the last six days of pointedly being anywhere other than where he was, pawning off the ‘coincidence’ on preparing for the showcase.

“I wasn’t… avoiding you. Not totally. Not explicitly. I was busy.”

“Could’ve fooled me. You haven’t looked in my direction once since last weekend. I was starting to think you’d seriously never talk to me again.”

You scowl. “Are you going to sit here and tell me you’re confused about why I might not have wanted to see you so soon after what happened on the balcony? Embarrassment was eating me alive. You should be lucky I stuck to being busy, instead of going with the Plan B of faking my own kidnapping.”

He laughs. Your eyes flicker back to him. The sound is soft and muted but it’s real; his eyes disappearing with it, the first time in what feels like days that the smile has really reached the rest of his face. It’s more reassuring than it has any right to be. When he says his next words, standing up to head for the kitchen, you can even manage a genuine smile in return.

“You didn’t sleep away your appetite, right?”

And of course you didn’t.

Actually, once you’re reminded of the pizza sitting on the coffee table (this time without anxiety subduing the hunger in your stomach) you realize that you’re properly ravenous; the last things you’d consumed today were a chocolate muffin and four cherry-flavored jello shots. And the hunger is clear, probably, in how you’re already halfway through a slice when Jeno returns with a pair of plates and two popped soda cans.

The game show (apparently European in production and definitely weirder than previously assumed) somehow becomes the main entertainment while you both eat; X-Men First Class isn’t brought up again despite it still clearly spinning around in the DVD player.

Things stay quiet.

Not the loaded kind of quiet, or any sort of painfully awkward silence. Just… quiet. Oddly relaxing. Much too comfortable. Once you’re done stuffing yourself, your fingers wiped of tomato sauce remnants and soda long ago finished, the couch pulls you further and further into its pillow-like cushions with every passing minute.

The first thing that either of you say after half an hour is when Jeno asks you for a translation for an English thing a contestant says that the subtitles don't catch, and your response comes after a badly stifled yawn. He, unfortunately, notices this.

“Why are you torturing yourself by staying up to watch this? If you’re tired, go to sleep.”

“M’ not that tired,” is your automatic reply. “And I want to know who wins. Cassandra needs that Prius.”

He sniffs under his breath, quietly, like you’re already asleep and he’s trying not to rouse you. You probably look half gone— you’re staring at the TV through slits, your posture on his couch closer to horizontal than vertical— but you don’t want to admit that you’re running on empty. Maybe it’s residual little-sister-ism, refusal to agree simply because someone else suggested it first, but admitting that you’re spent feels like defeat when he still looks completely conscious.

“This is a rerun.” Jeno clicks something on the remote. “Of a show from 2012. You could just look up what happened to Cassandra.”

“Not the same. I need to see her win live, so she can rub it into Helen’s face. She’s so snooty.”

A beat, and then Jeno hums. “She is snooty, yeah, but the show has another ten minutes left. She’s going to be snooty for another five of those before the finale. Why don’t you brush your teeth in the meantime? Since you’re not tired?”

The lilt of his voice makes you glance at him. It’s familiar. Mark trying to convince you not to eat an entire bag of candy at once, Mark trying to bribe you with a popsicle to get you to do your homework, Mark trying to trick you into accidentally getting ready for bed by challenging you to a race.

Distantly you wonder if this tone, too, is another thing Jeno has subconsciously picked up over the years from watching how your brother interacts with you.

“You don’t need to baby me, you know.”

“Of course I know. Only babies make up reasons to stay up when they’re clearly exhausted. You’re not a baby. Right?”

You can’t even glare. It would give away that he’s completely onto you. And yet, he smiles like he’s already got you in the bag.

“Exactly,” you mutter, “No babies here.”

“So you understand that Cassandra will still be around when you’re done washing up?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Come on.”

And he’s up off the couch before he can even catch your rolled eye. Annoying.

Even more annoying is the fact that he’s right. He didn’t say as much when he’d suggested you brush your teeth sooner rather than later, but you knew it was because he thought you didn’t have much longer in you, that you were going to be too far gone in fifteen minutes to have any energy left to get to your feet and wash up— once you get through opening the new toothbrush he gives you, speeding through scrubbing each of your molars with his absurdly fancy toothpaste (because of course he has Premium Ultra Mega Super White Charcoal Anti-Cavity in Spearmint and Sunshine sitting on his counter instead of a regular man’s Colgate, considering all of the perfect teeth sitting in his mouth)— and as soon as you flop back down onto the couch just in time to watch snooty Helen get her comeuppance, a physical weariness settles into your bones and all but cements you to the couch.

It’s so serious that you don’t even realize your eyes have closed until they fly open again at a shifting of the cushion beside you; Jeno, dropping a giant gray duvet on the couch after returning from the bathroom himself. A duvet. A blanket. Sweet, sweet, sleepy salvation.

“Thanks. This looks perfect.”

“Only one of those is for you.”

“One? There’s more than one here?”

“Yeah.”

You blink up at him. “Why?”

“Because I’m sleeping out here too?”

Holy crap. What? This almost makes you sit all the way up. “What sense does that make, in your own house? Why the hell would you sleep out here when you have a perfectly good bed twenty feet away?”

“Because it’s—” Only now does he seem to realize how odd this looks, “It’s sleepover etiquette.”

“Sleepover etiquette?”

“I don’t know,” he says quickly. “I didn’t make the rules, I’m just used to it happening like this. The only time I sleep in my own bed when someone is over is when Jaemin is here, because he’ll sleep in it even if I don’t, but anyone else, we just divvy it up on the couch. Sleepover etiquette. No one gets the bed, or everyone gets the bed.”

As crazy as it sounds right now, it rings true. At your own sleepovers, anything under five friends and you’d all be piling into the bed of whoever hosted the event: squishing together like giggly sardines, waking up and not knowing where one of you ended and the other one began. But Jeno equating this— your definite last-minute intrusion in his house— to a sleepover? Like this is some every weekend thing?

“As noble of a sacrifice as that is, I can’t ask you to sleep out here. You realize that I’m an interloper, right? That you’re doing me a favor by letting me crash here? Hardly the circumstances of a normal sleepover.”

A long second passes as he appears to genuinely think about this, and for a moment you think he’s going to take your advice and try to get a good night's rest after everything else you’ve demanded of him today, but—

“It’s normal to me. You’re sleeping here tonight. That makes it a sleepover. Which one of these do you want?”

Non-negotiable, he's saying. We’re both sleeping out here, take it or take it, punctuated by him flopping down onto the couch beside the pile of blankets. You want to sigh but you should’ve known. It’s chivalry until the end with Lee Jeno.

So you ignore your brain screaming about how weird this is, you and him out here bunking like buddies, and just take the blanket he hands you. You settle in underneath it, cozier than you’re willing to admit, and refocus your attention on the next thing that’s started on TV after the game show; something just as foreign and bizarre but entertaining enough to keep your attention until the near silence weighs down your eyelids instead.

Mark’s apartment is never this serene. Whether it’s the jet-like humming of the fridge out in the kitchen, or the noisy college students below you and their random but guaranteed twice-a-week smash tournaments, or the rattle of the air conditioner above your bed that you’ve been meaning to look at for nearly a month now.

The quiet is… nice. Weird, but nice. You can hear your own breathing. You can hear Jeno’s breathing too; shallow, slow, and even.

It’s how you know he’s still awake twenty minutes later.

He commented on your snoring but little does he know, he snores too— just not as violently. For the premier of Spider-Man Homecoming coming out on DVD, Mark had a celebratory sleepover in the basement of your parents house that you were cordially invited to (along with two of your own friends,) back in your sophomore year. You all huddled up amongst the couches and recliners with millions of blankets and billions of pillows, everyone just falling asleep wherever they laid; and though you could’ve sworn he’d been halfway across the room when you closed your eyes that night, you’d woken up the next morning with Jeno’s forehead pressed into your shoulder and nearly screamed.

You didn’t, though. You sucked it back down just in time.

Instead, you sat there and ogled him in the still-blue sunlight, reveling in how it was even possible for a human with such sharp bone structure to look so squishy when he slept.

It was also how you noticed that, when he’s asleep, his nose makes this tiny but unmistakable whistling sound— like a tiny person is up there blowing through a kazoo whenever he exhales.

There’s no whistle sound now.

“When did you stop liking me?” you ask.

And to his credit, even though you’re listening very hard for any sort of change, Jeno’s breathing doesn’t miss a measure. There’s just a second of silence before a quiet shift of fabric, maybe like he’s rolling over to face you, but you’re not sure because you’re staring at the ceiling like you might explode if your eyes meet. Which you might.

“I don’t know,” he says, just as plainly as you’d asked. “I don’t remember there being a day where I decided I should.”

“Okay.”

“What about you?” he’s surprisingly quick to add. “When did you stop liking me?”

“...Would it be a cop out if I just said the same?”

“Without a doubt.”

You manage to crack a smile, but a yawn cuts it off. “Sometime after your graduation, I think. I don’t have a concrete day for it or anything. I only remember realizing that while you were gone, I was thinking about you less and less. After a while the idea of you stopped…” Hurting, as much. “Hovering.”

“Right,” he says. “Yeah. That makes sense." He clears his throat. "That you’d forget me a little, I mean. Once you started going out more.”

Another yawn on your end. This time your eyes aren’t as eager to reopen, and the exhale saps the very last ounce of energy you’ve got. What time is it? One? One-thirty?

Majorly past your bedtime.

“I didn’ forget you,” you reply belatedly, but it comes out more like a murmur, a little lost in the noise of you shifting around to get more comfortable. “There’s no forgetting someone like you.”

If he said something in response it was either too quiet to be heard through your cocoon of blankets or simply came after you fell too deep into the first REM cycle. Distantly you thought you heard something, a breath of an answer, but by the time you placed it as a possibly whispered, “You either,” you were already much, much too far gone.

Pancakes.

You wake up to the smell of pancakes.

Jeno’s apartment looks so different in the sunlight that for a second, even though the memories of last night trickle back faster than expected once you open your eyes, you almost don’t recognize the place when you sit up.

Snapshots pop into your brain like fireworks as the seconds tick on; the showcase, the party, punching Jeon Soyeon in the face. Your brother’s best friend driving you to his house as you cried in the aftermath, confessing his feelings two years past the expiry date, the both of you falling asleep out here like you’re a couple of old pals who do this sort of song and dance all the time.

In the span of 24 hours, you’ve faced more highs and lows than you have all year.

And before you can even wipe the crusties from your eyes, the worry sets in.

Soyeon wasn’t popular for no reason— would her minions be coming after you, now? Had they already started? Bombarding your social media, spreading rumors, flocking protectively around their Queen Bee after you dared to lose your temper on her last night? What fresh hell would you be walking into when you finally checked your phone?

And what about Somi? You’d probably left her with quite the mess after causing such a scene; did the party continue alright? Did you ruin the cheerful atmosphere? You didn’t even get to say goodnight.

And… And Mark, too.

But you weren’t even sure where to start when it came to him.

God. Maybe for the sake of your currently-not-awful mood, you should just not start. About him, or last night, or any of the things that are surely going to be a pain in the ass to deal with in the following days. Those headaches will still be there in a few hours— sorting out the most immediate issue of the person who’s house you’re hiding in, will not.

It’s a sunny, cloudless morning in Seoul.

You turn to the smell of the pancakes and find Jeno standing in his kitchen with one earbud in, back to you. He’s bobbing his head and murmuring under his breath as he flips the batter in the pan, head to toe in what looks to be work-out gear; black leggings under charcoal basketball shorts, one of those skin tight athletic tanks stretched taut across what you can see of his shoulder blades from your dent in his couch.

You’re in the middle of being annoyed at how broad he is when, despite being careful to not to ruffle the blankets or anything, Jeno glances behind him. You’re caught off guard by it— because what the hell? Does he have a secret eyeball hiding amongst those locks of inky black hair?— but then you belatedly understand that it’s the lack of noise that’s tipped him off. With how violently you snore, a sudden silence is basically your jingling cat-bell of attention. Annoying.

“I was just about to wake you up,” he says. “Do you mind flipping the last few of these so I can take a shower really quick? Breakfast is just about done.”

“You went to the gym?”

It’s less a question, more of an observation, but Jeno hums in agreement. “The one in the building, I didn’t leave you for too long. I would’ve waited until tonight if I didn’t already know that you never wake up before 11.”

There’s a momentary blip of something odd in your brain at the concept of him just knowing something like that about you, but it’s gone— by force— as fast as it appears.

“Okay. Just have to flip?”

“Just have to flip.”

And so you just flip. Jeno passes you with a smile as he leaves the kitchen, looking the perfect picture of casual, as if this is an everyday experience. It’s so casual that it makes you wonder how this might look to an outsider, someone with no context for what last night was like— and then it makes you acutely aware of how loudly the 15 year-old version of you would be hollering right now if she could see five years into the future and witness this scene herself. You, in Jeno’s clothes, flipping pancakes in his kitchen on a beautiful Saturday morning, as he showers in the bathroom you’d shared last night, washing the toil and sweat of physical exertion off of his body.

Yeah. Without context? 15 year-old you probably would’ve screamed until her head exploded.

Jeno thankfully isn’t gone for long, and by the time you hear the faucet turn off, you’ve finished with the very last pancake. You pile it on top of the half a dozen others, a beautiful stack of fluffy dough and sugar. (And, okay, sure, you’d gotten a liberal with the chocolate chips on the last few after realizing you’d misjudged the cooking time on some of the earlier ones and left them chocochipless, overcompensating by pouring all of the remaining dollops into the last two or three for the sake of not wasting them— but whatever. Even with the gooey, more-chocolate-than-bread pancakes sitting on top, your work could surely still make the cover of a Martha Stuart cookbook.)

You don’t see him come out because you’re moving the plate of food to his dining table, but you know he’s close because he laughs when he spots the brown pancakes. You know he’s laughing at the brown pancakes, because:

“You’re really pushing the limit of what can be considered breakfast with that last one there, don’t you think?”

“You’re not going to care what meal of the day this is once you actually taste it.”

“Why? Because it’s hard to tell the time when you’re in a sugar-induced coma?”

You sniff. “If you’re so worried about your health you could always let me have it. I made a few that don’t have any chips. You can have those sad ones then.”

A moment passes and you turn to look at him. Bad choice. Hip bones and pale skin everywhere— it’s like a flash-bang of narrow waist, courtesy of Jeno raising his arms (and therefore the hem of his t-shirt) to dry the last drops of water from his hair with the towel he’s brought out with him. You rip your eyes back to setting the table before he notices, feeling like your eyeballs have just been physically zapped.

“I never said I was worried about my health,” he replies, wandering a little further into the kitchen. “Split it with me?”

There’s no need for that. There’s like, three of them. We can each have one. But for some reason you instead say, “Only if I get the half that has more chips.”

“I thought that was already obvious,” he smiles in return.

Fifteen minutes later, with two-thirds of your stack messily decimated and his entire plate basically as clean as it was when it came out of the cupboard, Jeno must decide that your morning of peace has gone on for long enough.

“Mark called me last night,” he announces.

(Technically he says it very normally, at a perfectly acceptable volume for general conversation, but because you’d both lapsed into silence after a few sentences of small talk at the table— a compliment from him about your showcase, about how cool you’d looked up there, how impressive your choreography was; a mumbled thanks from you, that there was another one happening after winter break— it comes out like an announcement anyway. An announcement you’re none too happy to hear.)

You’re hoping he doesn’t notice how your face goes a little stiff. “Did he?”

“Mm. He said he got worried because you weren’t answering your phone.”

You probably would’ve been dodging his calls regardless but the truth is that your phone is still somewhere in Gawon’s car and has probably been since before the party even started. You’d realized that last night, after changing your clothes in his bathroom and not finding it in any of your jacket’s nooks and crannies; seeing in your mind the exact door pocket you’d left it in, then thinking you’d definitely remember to grab it before you got out. You didn’t.

You could only imagine the carnage of notifications you’ve amassed since last night.

“And?”

“And, once I told him you were alright here, he said he’d leave a voice message that he wanted me to pass on to you. I told him I’d let you hear it in the morning once you had the energy, after you slept off whatever was in your system.”

Hesitantly, you meet his eyes.

“Are you ready for that?” he asks carefully. “I haven’t listened to it, if you want to be alone when it plays.”

“What’s the point in that? It’s not like he isn’t going to relay my scolding to you later anyway. Press it.”

“He’s not going to scold you—”

You flick your gaze at him, silently asking if he really wants to get into this again, and apparently he thinks better of whatever gushingly optimistic sentence he’d been about to follow up that observation with. “Please just press it.”

He presses it.

“Hey— Hey, tiger.”

And then Mark is here. Vocally. In the flesh. Through the uncomfortably clear speakers in his best friend’s phone.

“I hope you’re doing better than you were when I last saw you.”

The cadence of his voice twists up your lungs for a reason you can’t immediately place, and then you realize it’s because he’s speaking in English, which he only resorts to when he has too many things to say and not enough ways to say them. This makes your insides sink even further.

“Listen, before I get sidetracked, I want you to know that I know what I did was… stupid. The last thing I should’ve done was help her up after what she said, but I— I was so angry that I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t know about any of… that stuff, you and her hanging out or whatever, until she said it, and that probably would’ve ticked me off anyway because of some other things I had going on with her, but then she mentioned whatever happened there— that she apparently left you at some night club, alone, with some fucking guy—?”

A sigh and a ruffle this time, like he’s passing his hand over his face in agitation. It takes so much for him to curse in front of you and yet he’d just dropped the most serious one of them all like it was nothing. But while this would usually send your blood running cold, it doesn’t. Because it… it kind of doesn’t sound like he’s actually mad at you. What?

“I asked her if it was true because I was so... Honestly I didn’t realize how it looked until after you left, you know? Like I was siding with her or something? I asked her if it was true because I couldn’t believe that she’d do something like that to you. Not because I would’ve ever trusted her word over yours or something, she’s already proven… God, okay, this message is already at like, two minutes…”

Another sigh. This one is much more miserable than the previous.

For some stupid, distant reason, as the shock wears on from the realization that he isn’t mad at you, you find yourself wondering if Jeno is having a hard time following along. The only class he’d ever come close to failing in high school was English.

“Can you just call me? Please? Or better yet, can you just let Jeno drive you home? I’ll explain everything so much better once you’re in front of me. M’ sorry, again that I… You’ve got a great right hook by the way. You shouldn’t have punched her, violence is never ever the answer. But she was leaking like a faucet for long after you left, Tiger— might’ve snapped something in there. Really laid her out.” A short, weak laugh, and then,“Yeah. Please call. Or come home? Please.”

The message ends with a cheerful beep.

And you sit there in silence for a good, long moment.

Because that wasn’t anything like the drawing-and-quartering you were expecting.

If anything, Mark actually sounded angry on your behalf. He’d helped Soyeon up, probably without thinking, because he was asking her if she’d really done something that awful to you. Not because he actually…

“You’re gonna let me do what he wants right?”

Jeno’s expression had, at some point during your staring off into space, contorted the closest you think you’ve ever seen it get to an outright, I told you so. And you guess he did. You didn’t get scolded.

“I— I was going to stop at my friend's house to get my phone,” you say, still a little shocked. “Left it in her car last night before I got to the party.”

“Where does she live?”

“Gamyeon.”

Jeno only shrugs. “We'll pitstop then.”

“You— You’re going to drive me all the way to Gamyeon?”

“Isn’t it only twenty minutes out of the way?” He blinks. “How were you going to get it before I was going to take you home?”

“I… I was pretty gungho about sneaking out of here at the crack of dawn via Uber, last night?” It comes out like a guilty question. “I had a bit of a plan of action. But that was before I woke up to the smell of pancakes, of course…”

“The pancakes you didn’t know I was making until half an hour ago? At 11AM?” he asks innocently. “If what you really mean is that getting up at the crack of dawn turned out to be a little ambitious for you, you can just—”

Jeno laughs as your hand shoots out to swat him. He smartly decides to change the subject, and this new topic ends up being about the dishes; specifically about him loading them into the dishwasher while you go and gather your belongings into the little drawstring book bag he’d left by the bathroom for you. When you ask him why you don’t just change back into what you had on last night so he doesn’t have to go without his hoodie and sweatpants for however long it takes you to do laundry, he shrugs it off. “You look more comfortable in this than the dress. And I’m at your place more often than I’m in my own, it’s not like I’ll miss it for too long. Keep it for now.”

(And you can’t argue with that. Especially not when he’s right. These sweatpants are way nicer than the tightly ribbed-nylon of Gawon’s mini dress.)

While brushing your teeth, you wonder what to do with the toothbrush.

Leaving it feels… odd. In a stupid way it almost feels like you’d be leaving it to return to. Like there’s any chance that after today you’ll ever be spending another unannounced night in this apartment, which there isn’t if you’ll have anything to do about it. But taking the toothbrush with you, or throwing it away, feels weird too.

In the end you decide to just toss it in your bag and take it back to Mark’s. Jeno won’t say anything about it, you know he won't, but if he miraculously does seem to care, you can just say that you’ve been meaning to get a new toothbrush and that it’s not like he has any use for this one anymore anyway. Maybe you’ll even offer to give him five bucks to make up for the thievery. (God, why are you thinking so hard about this? Like he's going to waste his time chasing you down for a fucking toothbrush?)

And after all that brainpower he doesn’t even say anything. Once he comes out after using the bathroom himself, if he’s even noticed it missing he doesn’t let it show. He just asks if you’re ready to go, and when you nod, that’s the end of it. He leads you out, follows you down the corridor, and then pushes the button for the elevator to come and pick you both up. Easy as pie.

It’s only when you’re in the descending cabin that it hits you, that this is the last time you’ll be here.

You try not to think too hard about why your lips inherently want to frown at that idea.

Twenty minutes to Gamyeon feels more like five, with how much catastrophizing you’re doing in the passenger's seat. Soyeon and her crew will have surely started the city-wide search for you by now, right? Should you be telling Jeno to take back roads? To roll his windows up on this beautiful late August afternoon, so no one from SNU recognizes either of you from the party and tries to run you both off the road? God.

“Can I borrow your phone?” you blurt.

And even though you’d literally asked him for it, you’re a little astounded when he just hands the thing over without question. You shouldn’t be though. He’d done the same thing with the music change request three weeks ago.

(Still no password, either, when you swipe at the screen. What is this guy's problem?)

“Do you need to call someone?”

“No,” you murmur, already scanning through the pages to find Twitter, “I want to see if Soyeon put a hit out for me yet.”

“What? Why would she do that?”

You blink over, a little dubious that even someone as sweet as him can’t fathom why Soyeon could have it out for you after what you did, but he doesn’t look like he’s joking.

“Uh, I don’t know, Jeno. There’s a possibility that she might be a little upset since I punched her in the face a few hours ago.”

“You didn’t even hit her that hard.”

You balk at him. “Did you not hear the part where Mark said I might’ve broken her nose?”

“I did.”

“And it’s confusing to you that she might be really, really mad at me for that?”

“No,” Jeno mutters. “It’s confusing to me that you think she wouldn’t have come to her senses by now, considering how close she came to getting her ass kicked last night. As far as she knows the only reason you didn’t get to finish her off was because I got in your way. If Soyeon isn’t stupid, she’ll understand that it’s in her best interest to stay off your radar from now on.”

He sounds so unsympathetic that your jaw nearly drops. And he’s not even done. Like your worry has uncorked his own agitation, now.

“I wouldn't have pulled you off of her if I’d known that she was the one who sent that freak out after you behind the bar, by the way. I didn’t hear anything either of you said before you hit her. if I knew why, I would’ve let you get a few more swings in, at least. Sorry.”

“Sorry! You’re apologizing for not letting me beat someone else up?”

“Yes,” he says unflinchingly. “This once. Don’t go around getting in fights for the hell of it though, I won’t be there to haul you to the cool-down corner every time.”

He’s joking now, lightness returning to his smile as he turns into Gawon’s neighborhood, but you’re still a little stuck on how serious he’d gotten just now. Never in your life would you have expected Jeno to be in your corner when it came to your less than stellar impulse control; and not only condone it, but applaud it, just because Soyeon had done something that could’ve gotten you hurt.

...Jeez. Something like appreciation (but more ravenous and embarrassing) worms its way into your heart. You allowed it to simmer there for a one warm, full second before stamping it out with the heel of self-preservation.

You don’t even get to check Twitter. Gawon’s apartment building is more squat than most, only four cozy stories all encapsulated within an open-air stairwell, which means you can keep an eye on Jeno’s car all the way up to your friend’s front door. Coming unannounced, you’ve already prepared yourself for the possibility of her not being home (and therefore having to deal with her scary roommate instead) but thank God, it’s her round sleepy face that opens the door after your quick three knocks against the wood.

She doesn’t remain sleepy looking for long though.

"Holy shit!” And without greeting, Gawon yanks you into her house. “You— Well, first things first, you’re here for your phone, right? Let me go and get it, I brought it inside, but bitch, you have some explaining to do!”

Considering how loud she’s being, the scary roommate must not be home this weekend. You wince. You’ll be getting the full degree, then.

“People are texting me that I haven’t talked to in months just because they know I’m friends with you! Does that make sense?”

“It’s that bad?” you ask warily, as she disappears into her bedroom.

“Bad? Is what bad?”

“Soyeon’s warpath.”

“Soyeon?” Gawon returns to her living room with your phone in hand, eyes wider than you’re expecting. “Uh. No. After last night—” She frowns. “You haven’t talked to your brother yet?”

“No? I haven’t been home since before the showcase. And your car ate my phone so I haven’t really talked to anyone else since last night either.”

But her eyes get even bigger, if that’s possible.

“So you have no idea what happened after Lee Jeno plucked you out of there, then?”

“No.” Your grimace is nearly audible as you sit down, sensing trouble. “You guys didn’t just laugh, turn the music up, and party even harder? You know, like I was hoping you’d all do after that mess I caused?”

“Oh, yeah, we did that,” Gawon says with an unconvincingly casual shrug, before finding your eye and trying (and failing) to hide her widening grin. “After your brother tore Soyeon apart in front of everyone for fucking you over!”

“He— What?”

“Dude, it was crazy, Mark— I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him raise his voice even once but the second the door shut after Jeno took you away, whatever it was she said that made you punch her finally seemed to compute in his head, you know? And he just went, ‘You left her alone with someone she told you was creeping her out?’ like, so loudly that you’d swear it was just the two of them in that whole house!”

For the second time in ten minutes, your jaw has hit the floor.

“And I thought Soyeon would start yelling back at him or something, but she’s just standing there staring at him like she’s stunned, probably that it’s him of all people laying into her, saying that he almost can't believe how selfish and pitiful she is, but oh yeah, yes he can, because only someone that doesn’t have respect for themselves would do she did to him last year; that he would’ve helped her if she just asked. And you should’ve seen her face when he said that. It looked like she’d seen a ghost.And he didn’t even air out whatever it was that she did, which I’m salty about, because… What did she do, you know? I’m so curious! But whatever, that’s not even the best part.”

Not the best part? How? This is pretty fucking insane to you already.

“Mark backed up after dropping that bomb like he was about to leave, to go after you maybe, but then he turned and got right back in Soyeon’s face, and said, ‘I don’t want to see you in front of her again, Soyeon. Take this advice as my parting gift, yeah? Because she’s not going to let you get away with only a graze next time, and you better believe that I’m not going to get in her way either.’” Gawon squeals. “All badass like that, I almost fucking screamed! He and all his friends left after that but I swear everyone was talking about it for the rest of the party. Your brother probably has quite a few new admirers…”

You’re staring at her in an awed silence. Mark stood up for you, too. After hearing everything Soyeon said, he still stood up for you. It really wasn’t like how you thought it went at all.

A few hours ago you’d thought your brother was done with you for real, and that Soyeon would be coming for you with pitchforks for embarrassing her in front of all those people at Somi’s party. And now you’re learning that, without your input at all, those two problems have sort of canceled each other out. Your brother threatened Soyeon into leaving you alone on your behalf.

(And if you weren’t so weirdly flattered, you might’ve been incredibly offended. What is it with him and Jeno and talking like you’re some sort of rabid dog that goes around fucking people up for fun? You’re not that violent!)

“That’s… kind of awesome,” you admit, trying not to smile as you stand up from her couch. “And very, very reassuring. Thanks for the rundown. Maybe I’ll actually be able to show my face on campus on Monday without worrying that I’m about to be struck by a G-Wagon.”

Gawon laughs as she follows you back to the entryway. The two of you chat about a few smaller things before you tell her you have to go, mostly about the plans for dance class on Monday now that the showcase is over and how worried Somi was about you after you left in such a tizzy last night, when she stops you right after cracking open her front door.

“But you know,” she begins, “None of that was what I was referring to when I said you had some explaining to do, missy.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No! Well, people were talking about it, sure, but not nearly as much as the other thing you did in front of everyone last night.”

“Which was?”

“Elope.”

You blink at her.

“I’m talking about the denim-wearing superhero that swooped in to save you from yourself. Hello? Lee Jeno?”

Oh. Your expression flips from confusion to alarm in the blink of an eye.

“People were talking about that? What is there to talk about? He’s my brother's friend!”

“Duh. That’s why people were talking about it. You know how much they love to make up stories about who-was-seen-doing-what-with-who. And honestly even as your friend I have to say that it was pretty fucking crazy last night watching this guy practically teleport across the room to get to you. And yes, you argue that he’s your brother's friend, blah blah, it’s obvious that he’d help, blah, but you fail to notice that Lee Jeno was standing around in a group of all your brother's other friends too. Why didn’t any of the others do something, then? Why specifically Lee Jeno— especially when that guy is the most quiet and subdued of the lot of them? Everyone was tittering about that.”

Her face slips into something a little more suspicious when you only swallow unsurely. Unsure, because you actually don’t know either. You, obviously, had been a little preoccupied before Jeno appeared behind you; you had no clue what he or the others had been doing in the moments before he hauled you outside. Learning that he’d been the only one out of all of them to jump into action makes you feel off-center.

“But as the awesome friend that I am, I told all the people who came up to me looking for details to get lost, because I’d obviously be one of the first to know if you had something going on with Basketball Hottie, and I don’t. And I was telling the truth, right? I would know if something was going on there. Right?”

“Of course!” you reassure quickly. “Which is why you don’t know. Because nothing is going on there. Nothing will be going on. Ever.”

She squints.

“I’m serious! Jeno’s just a really good guy. Super chivalrous, down to the bones. He takes his duty as Mark’s best friend very personally, so he gets involved in stuff with me that the others might not figure out as fast. It’s nothing crazy.”

Another beat passes before she unfurls her arms. “…Okay. I mean, I assumed as much. It makes sense. Especially since Somi said you’ve all known each other for something like, a hundred years— no wonder that he’d basically see you as a sister too after so long, I guess.”

You’re not at all expecting that statement to sting, but it does, in a surprisingly raw way.

At least Gawon doesn’t notice your smile falter, because she’s too busy asking her final question as you step out past her front door. “How’d you get here this early, anyway? Cab?”

“Ah, no. Jeno—”

It comes out without thought, a millisecond before you realize the mistake you’re about to make. Both you and Gawon freeze, staring at each other in the silence that follows, before she goes, “Jeno brought you here? But you said you didn’t go home last night.”

Then, as your head swung back and forth in refusal but no explanation came out with it, she tilted her own head in disbelief. “Where… Where did you sleep, then?”

And the final killing blow comes as her eyes drift down almost absentmindedly to the chest of your gray sweatshirt. Jeno’s sweatshirt. Seoul National University Basketball, it says, splashed boldly across the front. Direct. Recognizable. Unmistakable.

You turn around and start to run right as Gawon gasps in pure, wanton betrayal. There’s no explaining this. Not now. Not today. Even if you had an hour to spare right now to sit down and relay every second that passed last night in a way that made her understand this absolutely isn’t what it looks like— which is that you’re totally lying about nothing going on between you and Lee Jeno— Gawon only believes what her eyes physically see in front of her, and even you aren’t naive enough to think that this won’t be the most glaringly suspicious thing she has ever seen.

You’re halfway down the stairs when her voice catches up with you.

“It’s nothing crazy, huh? It’s nothing crazy, you liar! Just wait until I catch you on Monday, girl! We’ll see exactly what’s not crazy between you and Mr.Chivalrous!”

Approximately two minutes after closing the front door behind yourself after walking into your brother’s apartment, you’re crying again. Mark is too. He’s the one that started it. It’s just a lot of tears all around.

Everything kind of comes out at once. It begins as spewed apologies on both ends for last night specifically— him for ever letting things get bad enough that you’d genuinely think he’d ever choose someone else over you, and you for being such a brat for the last few weeks (the last few months) when you’d always known deep down that he only ever did the things that annoyed you out of desire to keep you safe— and then it unfurls into apologies for everything, eon-old grudges that were held for no other reason than something to lord over the others head, grievances that turned out to just be the miscommunications, the type of things that immediately stop mattering in the long run when people remember that they can lose each other easier than they think.

After about a half an hour of this (what Mark used to call ‘coming home’ when you were younger, the inevitable rekindling after a period of heightened fighting between you both) you both come away with a few things to think about.

For him? It’s official. You’re not a kid anymore, and he shouldn’t still be treating you like one. No more attempting to put curfews on you, or telling you where you can and can’t go, or telling his friends to censor themselves when they’re over because of your precious and innocent ears, amongst his other million older-brother-isms. You’re both adults now. He can suggest things. He can speak to you like he would his friends about the things you do that worry him. No more lectures. (Unless you do something really, unarguably stupid, he caveats.)

For you? A serious, genuine attempt towards better decision making.

You’ve been bestowed a new motto to ponder every time an opportunity arises for mischief in your life. What Would Mark Lee Do? A question meant to make you really think about whether the thing you’re thinking about doing is going to make your brother crazy. And if it is? Then you have to tell him about it in advance, so he can at least bail you out if it goes belly up.

And that’s honestly perfectly fine with you.

The last rule he slips in revolves around your tendency to disappear without warning. Absolutely no more sneaking around, he says. If you exit this apartment when he’s not home, he gets to know about when and where. Not because I don't trust you, he’d been quick to add, but because the world itself can be a scary place sometimes. Which you don’t exactly… disagree with. Especially after this most recent incident at Nabi Bar.

You’d pushed back a little bit on this one though, preemptively annoyed by the thought of having to text him every single time you leave— your friends liked spontaneity, early morning brunches or midnight-sets at EDM pop-ups— and you were a chronic charger-forgetter, often running out of this place with only thirty-percent or less to your name. You didn’t like the idea of his trust teetering on nothing but your (admittedly sub-par) ability to remember to do certain things before you left the house.

Mark only pulled his own phone out in response.

You watched him tap a few things, swipe, and then turn the screen around to show you the order he’d just placed for two succinct little items: a brand new Apple AirTag and a cute, neon-green pom-pom keychain to stick it into.

“To match the color of your phone case,” he said cheerily. “Put it on your keys, and you’ll never have to worry about forgetting! Perfect, right?”

Yep, you smiled sarcastically. Perfect. Like one might an excitable dog, or a toddler with a tendency to run, you’ve been given your very own tracker.

(He knows you’re kidding. It’s built into the Little Sister Gene to complain, but in the grand scheme of things, you’re actually rather pleased by the compromise. Less secrets means less stress, and it’s not like he’s doing it so he can watch you like a hawk or anything— it’s for those times he can’t reach you and just wants to know where you are. You’ll wear that pretty little piece of technology on your wrist like the hottest new Cartier bangle if it means going where you want, when you want, without worrying about worrying your brother.)

It’s half past one when the conversation loosens up to other things, like you demanding the play-by-play of what he’d said to Soyeon and him flushing up to his ears as obliged, embarrassed in hindsight by how angry he’d gotten (but not regretting it, he’d sheepishly admitted), and then to the concept of lunch, Mark offering to fry something up while you get a head-start on the mountain of homework you’ve been neglecting for studio time ahead of the showcase.

It’s a quiet afternoon, which you’re thankful for. Whether it’s because Mark simply hadn’t planned for the others to come over or because he expressly told them not to, it ends up just being you two, a family-sized bag of Doritos, and a few episodes of Running Man.

(You hadn’t realized just how much you missed it until then. How much you missed him. How long it’s been since you’ve done something like this without waiting for the other shoe to drop— for him to get mad at you for something you did or didn’t do, for you to get mad at him for getting mad at you. And it’s kind of embarrassing tearing up while people fall and slip and slide through an obstacle course covered in dish soap, so you tell Mark that it’s because you got a fleck of cool ranch dust in your eye when he turns to look at you after your sniffle comes out a bit wet.

It’s obvious that he doesn’t believe you, and a week ago you can’t help but think that this would’ve led to an interrogation. Is something wrong? What happened? Did something happen? Are you in trouble again? What did you do?

But today he lets it go. He stares at you for a second, hands you a napkin, pinches your cheek, and then lets it go.

And that almost makes you cry again for real.)

The evening sun creeps down in the sky like a thief, a cloudless day melting into a brilliant dusk; all of the windows in Mark’s apartment are drawn and the living room is lit up like the inside of a tangerine lamp. You’re lazing around on the couch while your brother showers, deeply entrenched in a Cup Pong battle Somi (which had only come about after she facetimed you, demanding that you spill all detail about what the hell happened while she was down in the car park last night, to which you’d somewhat begrudgingly relayed the story yet again: Mark, Soyeon, The Punch, Jeno, Jeno’s apartment, etc., and she’d cursed at you for being apologetic for causing a scene in her house because ‘that bitch totally deserved it,’ she insisted) when an unexpected name pops down from the top of your screen.

An unexpected name boasting an even more unexpected message.

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] Found your earring in my bathroom

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] Guess it fell out sometime last night

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] You want me to come drop it off tonight?

[You, 7:12PM] ???

[You, 7:12PM] what sense does that make

[You, 7:12PM] you would come over here just to drop off a singular earring??

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] Juyeon is throwing a house warming party three blocks from you guys, I'm already in the area

[You, 7:12PM] oh. well. it’s not like you don’t come over every other day anyway

[You, 7:12PM] just bring it with you next time

[You, 7:12PM]…thank you for finding it though

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] No problem

That’s more definitive of a metaphorical hanging-up of the phone than anything, isn’t it? You thought so for about thirty solid seconds, scrolling back over to your thread with Somi and distractedly taking another shot at Cup Pong, before you were proven wrong.

[Lee Jeno,7:13PM] Okay I was also asking because I wanted to see if you were alright

[Lee Jeno,7:13PM] You and Mark, I mean

[Lee Jeno,7:13PM] After I dropped you off this morning I already felt a little bit like I’d thrown you into a pressure cooker with nothing but a thumbs up

[Lee Jeno,7:13PM] Then he texted the group chat an hour later to tell all of us to get lost, that his place was off limits for the rest of the day even though he’d already had a movie night planned. I figured that meant your chat with him either went really, really poorly, or that you two were just catching up and didn’t want to be interrupted

[Lee Jeno, 7:13PM] I thought if I saw you with my own eyes I’d know the difference, but with just the text alone, I’m having a hard time…

Oh. Wow. He’s never texted you this many words or this many times before. And just to check in, too?

[You, 7:14PM] no need to worry !! we made up in a pretty big way actually

[You, 7:14PM] after you left we had the big sit-down and figured a lot of things out

[You, 7:14PM] he probably told you not to come over because he has like eight million Tiktoks he’s been wanting to show me that he couldn’t because we were fighting, and now that we’re okay again he plans on holding me hostage until I laugh at every single one

[You, 7:14PM] these last few hours have been a bit of a nightmare in that sense but otherwise it’s

[You, 7:14PM] good?

[You, 7:14PM] we’re good

[You, 7:14PM] thanks to you

[Lee Jeno, 7:14PM] I’m just happy to be the chauffeur. Nothing to thank me for

Well… Not quite. Usually you can let the bone-deep chivalry slide, it’s his ‘thing’ after all, but this time the consequences of what could’ve happened are too big to ignore.

[You, 7:14PM] there really is, though

[You, 7:15PM] i don't think Mark and I would’ve gotten out of this as intact as we are without you this weekend

[You, 7:15PM] i really, really do need to thank you

[You, 7:15PM] for this morning

[You, 7:15PM] and for last night

More memories flutter by, different iterations of Lee Jeno unarguably saving your ass from some sort of peril, and you grimace further.

[You, 7:15PM] and two weeks ago, for Nabi Bar.

[You, 7:15PM] and last week, for Wooyoung’s party

[You, 7:15PM] thanks for… everything, really.

[You, 7:15PM] i’m happy you’re Mark’s friend

His bubble comes up for a long, long time after your last message. You watch it disappear and reappear at least twice before his next message comes in… and even then it’s woefully short for how long he’d taken to type it.

[Lee Jeno, 7:16PM] What do you mean?

[You, 7:16PM] i mean that I’m happy Mark… has you

[You, 7:16PM] there aren’t many people that would be nearly as cool as you’ve been about babysitting their best friends sibling so many times, is what I’m saying

[Lee Jeno, 7:16PM] But I wasn’t babysitting you.

Oh. Is that what this air of confusion is about? Semantics? Jeno, the thoughtful guy that he is, not wanting you to see what happened this weekend as babysitting because he doesn’t want to hurt your big-girl feelings?

[You, 7:17PM] ah

[You, 7:17PM] okay

[You, 7:17PM] we won’t call it that, then!!

[You, 7:17PM] Mark is still lucky to have you though

[Lee Jeno, 7:17PM] I didn’t do anything that I did last night because I was thinking about your brother

Again, you can only blink. A reply from Somi pops down for half a second before you swipe it away to reread Jeno’s last text, sitting up in confusion.

[You, 7:12PM] then why did you do it?

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] Because it was you

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] Nabi Bar, Wooyoung’s, last night, all of it. Everything. The only thing I was thinking about was you.

[Lee Jeno, 7:12PM] Mark didn’t have anything to do with it. He stopped having anything to do with it the second you came back to Seoul.

In the minutes you’ve been focused on the screen, the sunset has bled away most of its brilliant orange. Now the sky is more purple than anything, pale lilac peeking through the buildings across the street. Along with the lack of sunlight, the temperature seems to have dropped in the apartment; the air conditioner’s breeze threatening to raise goosebumps along your cheeks and thighs and knees now that the sun isn’t here to combat it.

But you’re not feeling cold. Quite the opposite, actually.

In a matter of seconds you’ve actually begun to emanate enough heat to rival your elderly Toshiba laptop from 2012.

Your brain kind of feels like that Toshiba too. Like you’ve just clicked the left mouse one too many times and now 100 tabs have all opened up at the exact same instant, all playing the same snippet of audio at maximum volume— You. You. Thinking about you. About you. Worried about you. Just about you— all of them desperately trying to frame those words in a way that doesn’t set off the crush of childhood’s past laying dormant in your head.

But even the delusional part of your brain is pulling a blank on this one.

Because while you may be unhinged about Jeno most of the time, you are not unhinged about Jeno all of the time, and there are moments when even you can’t rationalize your way out of what’s staring you right in the face. Sometimes, however rarely, you see things for what they really are. Or what they are not.

And the string of texts that Jeno has just sent to your phone is not, in any conceivable way, a conversation that makes sense, when not even 24 hours ago you and Jeno essentially shook on the fact that everything would be going back to normal after last night. So we’re okay, he asked. We’re okay, you’d said. And you took that to mean things were on track to return to status quo. You’d go back to greeting each other when he came over, the occasional small talk and string of jokes, nodding at each other on campus, that sort of thing. You’d go back to just being the peripheral little sister. He’d go back to just being your brothers friend. The way life was before that night at Nabi Bar.

But in what world does, ‘He stopped having anything to do with it the second you came back to Seoul,’ fit into that equation at all? In fact— doesn’t that break the equation entirely?

Because what… what would you be to him then, without Mark?

Your lungs stutter a little wantonly. You don’t think you’ve ever asked yourself that question. And now that you have, your mind is prodding at doors it’s never acknowledged the existence of before. When you imagine yourself in his eyes, it’s only ever been through the relationship you have with his best friend; and that, in turn, has colored the way that you react to every single thing he does or says.

If he’s saying now that’s not how he sees you and that’s not how he’s been seeing you, then that re-contextualizes… quite a few things, doesn’t it?

The last three weeks of him going out of his way to help you, for one?

Your phone buzzes again in your palm.

[Lee Jeno, 7:14PM] Things are getting kind of crazy over here, Juyeon just brought out a t-shirt gun so I think I have to go

[Lee Jeno, 7:14PM] Mark moved movie night to Tuesday. I’ll bring your earring over then, so make sure you’re home. Maybe you can also explain why your toothbrush is missing from my bathroom.

Sure. Perfect. Any way to avoid replying to the previous batch of texts, you’ll accept in a heartbeat. You fire off some half-baked response, a few ‘ha-ha, yeah, totally’s, to disguise just how hard the gears in your head are spinning, though nothing feels very ha-ha yeah once you fling the phone away. You slump back against the couch cushions, even more mentally exhausted than you’d been a few hours ago with Mark.

The only thing I was thinking about was you.

What an insane thing to say, you miff, belatedly embarrassed. You can almost see his mouth forming the words, his voice as deep and annoyingly honest as always. What the hell are you doing, Lee Jeno?

Shit. Are you just reading way too far into this? Or are things really not nearly as okay between you both as he wants you to think they are?

[★]; [MISDIAL MASTERLIST] [PREVIOUS PART] [NEXT PART]

a/n: please let me know what you think, this chapter beat my ass left right and sideways... ontwards ch7 my friends...

a/n ii: this chapter is dedicated to @jnnul btw their mention of misdial on their tumblr wrapped cheered me up enough to force myself to sit down and figure this fucking story out LOL

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