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golainey · 2 years ago

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stars, moons, & other celestial bodies | j.jh

pairing | jaehyun x female!reader

synopsis | With your fizzy drinks and vinyls in tow, you’re determined to make the most of your summer before the start of your first year at university. Everything’s seemingly perfect; humid afternoons with your closest friends, late-night mixers at your local alumnis' estates, and sleeping in to ungodly hours. What you didn’t predict, however, was your brother making the early trip home to surprise you with a certain someone — namely, his best friend since childhood — following closely behind. His unexpected appearance throws you off, and suddenly, your summer is filled to the brim with his presence. You’re finally able to taste the idea of mature love, but is it really all that it’s made out to be?

content | brother!taeyong, retro-themed au, angst, fluff, coming of age, language warning, suggestive, mentions and consumption of alcohol/drugs

wc | 26.7k

song | delicate — taylor swift

a/n | for @hyuckmov and @rrxnjun, who kept me sane while writing this monster :D

...

The first week of summer before your freshman year of university is defined by sticky ‘n sweet cherry cola, rides around the abandoned carousel with your friends, and “borrowing” quarters out of your brother’s Cadillac to insert into the jukebox of the local diner; break has been this way since as long as you could remember. It's a familiar itinerary, one that plays back routinely every school break.

You’ve grown up without even realizing, your teenage days spent juggling academic work and getting into stupid situations with Mark and Chaewon trickling down to a close. This conclusion really hit you during an epiphany on a sweltering night after high school graduation.

It occurred in the midst of humid sepia air, the three of you still in your graduation caps and gowns as your bodies lay splayed across the asphalt leading down to your street. With the absence of cars coming down the wide road, it was perfectly rational to lay side by side in the middle of the cul-de-sac. The ground was simply the best place to ponder your thoughts and get lost in swirling memories now that university lay too close on the horizon; the sheer size of the sky seemed to mock your trio as you watched the clouds roll on by in their mismatched shapes and harrowing wisps.

A cigar — one comically too big for his face — hung between Mark’s fingers as he pushed his body to flop over your arm, the thing no doubt “borrowed” from the bottom of his father’s office drawer.

“Thank the Lord I’ll never have to see you bitches again,” he had sighed in pretend relief, blowing a tunnel of smoke into the side of your face as you pushed his warm skin off of yours. Chaewon snorted from beside you.

“Please, as if you’ll last a day without us at uni,” she retorted, rolling over onto her stomach and pulling a face at Mark’s teasing words. “I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve saved your life over this past month alone.”

“Yeah?” Mark grinned, supporting his upper body with his forearms as he turned to look at her over your relaxed figure. “Enlighten me.” She subsequently raised her eyebrows at him.

“Might I remind you of the time you got stuck at the drive-through cinema at 2am because you had locked yourself out of your car? And guess whose asses had to haul yours back home two hours away,” Chaewon pointed an accusing finger at Mark, her tone joking as she glared at said boy. He opened his mouth to say something but she held up a finger to her mouth in a shushing motion, stopping him. “And. Let’s not forget last week,” Mark furrowed his eyebrows, as if trying to recall which out of all the dumb decisions he had made was about to be relived, “when Kang Yujin pushed up on you during that one house party, you got a hard on from just that, and we had to cover for you-”

Mark shot up abruptly, leaning over you to slap a hand over Chaewon’s mouth before rushing to defend himself.

“But she was so hot, Chae, you wouldn’t understand,” he whined at her, frowning at you to do something and sympathize with him. It was expected by now, the regular petty and half-assed arguments making your friendship that much stronger.

As they continued bickering back and forth, you couldn’t help but let your mind drift away back into the clouds, the setting sun soaking them with a blazing, burnt umber. You would be going to college soon, and that meant no Mark, no Chaewon, and no parents to keep you sane. It was strange to imagine not spending every waking moment with your two best friends, and even stranger to think that going to different schools would mean no more daily drama fill-ins and midnight convenience store runs.

But after all, you had done it once, and you hoped you could do it again.

When your older brother Taeyong left for university a few years ago, it had practically shattered you. Sure, you found him incredibly annoying at times (still do) and had a constant vendetta against the man, but when the moment came to hug him goodbye, you just couldn’t bring yourself to let go. He had shown you the ins and outs of adolescence and given you the attention you craved when your parents couldn’t. He taught you how to take care of yourself, how to look in the mirror and recognize your worth, how to know your own limits, and how to realize that high school boys weren’t shit. He was always the first to get to the hospital when you had gotten hurt at school, and most important of all, he was with you throughout the highs and lows growing up.

If Taeyong leaving home had taught you anything, it was that time moves too fast — and it’ll only move faster as you get older. You know that your life is about to enter Round 2, and this time without anyone to hold your hand as you enter an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people.

But it’s not over just yet.

Your best friends would never let that happen, and you recognize this now as your golden trio sits in your town’s local record shop, with ceiling fans whirring above you as the cool storefront protects you from the blazing summer heat.

It’s after-hours but the sun still burns bright into the late afternoon. You recline in the cashier chair as Chaewon flips the 'open' sign closed and makes her way back to you and Mark, the latter sitting against the wall with a variety of bottles surrounding him on the checkered floor.

He’s in an odd position, and you just know his mother would flip if she saw him with this much alcohol on a wednesday afternoon (at least it’s not a Sunday after mass, but she definitely doesn’t need to know that he’s been there, done that already). Mark tests out new concoctions every week, using the record store as his work space; the owner’s never in town and barely any customers come in to buy records these days, so there’s no one to stop him. Chaewon raises her eyebrows as she eyes the newest addition to his special menu.

“I’m not even gonna ask,” you say as he swirls the amber liquid around in a clean whisky bottle. Mark whistles at his creation, impressed, before holding it up to you and shaking it tauntingly. It smells slightly floral, the sharp flavors of absinthe and cognac making your nose scrunch.

“You’re just mad that your mixes don’t hit as hard as mine, baby.” With another swirl, he lifts the drink up to his mouth to taste. “And because you so nicely asked,” Mark smirks at you, “it’s Peychaud’s Bitters, cognac, syrup, and anise, and I give you my permission to borrow the recipe to impress your future uni friends. You’re welcome.” You shove Mark’s shoulder with your palm as he laughs at your baffled expression, body shaking with amusement while he sips away at his newest pride.

It’s only when Chaewon reaches over to steal the bottle away from him that your phone starts ringing, startling all three of you as the name of your older brother flashes across the screen. Mark looks at you inquisitively, but you just shrug in response and press the receive button.

“Tae?” you inquire, surprised at the sudden call. “Everything okay?”

He hums at the end of the line.

“More than okay. Guess whose plans just changed and is actually coming home today for break,” he reveals right away, and you know he’s smiling by the way his tone of voice is lilted in true Taeyong fashion.

“No fucking way,” you breathe out, eyes widening. Taeyong’s back? “Today, right now? For the entire summer? You’re actually lying- wait wait I’m coming home right now. Wait. Wait for me.”

“‘Wait wait wait,’ I’m not going anywhere sis,” he grins as he mocks you, noises of shuffling sounding out over your phone speaker. “Mom’s gonna pick me up from the airport in 30, I think. See you then?”

“Lee Taeyong! How could you not tell me,” you frown into the receiver, “I need at least three business days to prepare before seeing your face.”

“Oh, shut up would you. I have literal voicemail receipts of you crying about how much you miss me,” Taeyong retorts, topping your sarcasm.

You sigh, rubbing your temple when you realize that Taeyong’s never gonna let your sad-drunk voicemails go. “Fine, but you better spend every single day with me.”

Taeyong protests jokingly before giving in, promising you that he’ll make up for the time you’ve missed together. With a little, love you, and more of his usual unsolicited comments, the two of you say your quick goodbyes and you turn back to your waiting friends.

“Damn, Taeyong’s really back?” Mark looks at you in awe, his eyes shining with admiration. “He never stays for long, that’s crazy. You gotta let me come over at least once,” he pleads, hands grabbing yours. You know that your best friend looks up to your brother a ton, so you nod at him. “Sick, imma finally be able to talk music with him.”

“Wait, if Taeyong’s coming home for the entire summer,” Chaewon pauses, a knowing smile growing on her face as you groan, knowing exactly what she’s about to say next, “that means a certain Jeong Jaehyun will probably be following him back as well. And likely other kids in their year too from SNU… holy shit, the parties are gonna be literally insane this summer.” She throws her head back in elation as the realization strikes the three of you at once.

“You’re so right,” Mark covers his mouth to hide the smug grin taking over his face. He makes a heart with his hands as he observes you. “I can’t believe that I forgot Miss Y/N over here had the biggest crush on Jaehyun in high school.” You hit him on the chest in response as he absolutely loses it over your misfortune.

“Lovergirl,” he sing-songs, adding fuel to the fire while you shove your face into your palms. Your cheeks warm on their own when your mind flash-backs to your second year of high school, your insufferable crush on your brother’s best friend surfacing memories that you had buried after they both had graduated two years ago.

“I’m leaving,” you mumble into your hands, “all you two do is make me suffer.”

Chaewon grins at you before pulling your figure into a tight hug, tugging Mark in too by his shirt to join your little group.

“It’s out of love,” she giggles before kissing your cheek with an exaggerated muah. Turning slowly towards Mark, he lets out a, “nope nope nope,” before scrambling away from Chaewon’s outstretched arms.

Smiling at their antics, you collect your few belongings and tuck some new records under your arm before heading out of the shop. Saluting your friends goodbye and opening the front door, you cringe at the wave of heat that seeps into the cool space.

“Say hi to Taeyong for me, Y/N! We’ll lock up for today,” Chaewon calls out from behind the counter, sending you an air kiss when you step out into your town’s center square.

The streets buzz with life as you make the quick walk back to your house. With a brilliant sunset soaking the streets in tangerine tones and a line of quaint shops’ wind chimes fluttering beside you, you can’t bring yourself to care about the heat. The alleys you stroll down are comfy, lined with the latest pastel DeLoreans and colorful paper garlands tied along their telephone lines. It’s a complete memory lane, and your comfy suburb — filled with traditional gaewa roofs and terracotta neutrals, clay-red stained roads and gated hanoks — hold a familiarity that no other could replace. It’s the more cramped side of town, and you might envy Taeyong’s thrilling city life that you see through his social media, but nothing will ever beat home.

Your lace camisole sticks to your skin with fervor as you finally get to your own address, letting out a sigh of relief when cool shade encompasses you in the juniper-tinted light of the mudroom. Setting your brand-new records onto the kitchen floor, their faded titles peeking over thin paper sheaths, you make yourself comfortable on the floor as you hum to yourself. The house is quiet.

You put one of the new records into your player before your gaze drifts over to a stack of pictures on the tabletop, filtered evenly between stray letters and tacky postcards that your older brother has always had a knack for.

In addition to texting and calling home every month, Taeyong made it a habit a few years ago to send you the little magazine cut-outs and mini posters that he sees on his escapades, trinkets that remind him of you. Your little kitchen-counter-collection has thinned out in the past months as your brother got increasingly busier with school and his modeling jobs, barely coming home for a few days before rushing back for castings and elite functions. Nonetheless, a little orange package addressed to you would appear at your doorstep with each change of the seasons, tinged with your brother’s cologne and topped with his messy handwriting.

Just as you place the needle on a shiny black record with Missy Elliot’s face plastered across its front, you hear the front door creak open before noises of rolling luggage and playful shouting fill the house's interior.

“Mom, I’m not ten anymore,” you hear Taeyong whine in the higher-pitched voice he reserves solely for family, the telltale sign of his embarrassment, “I can carry my backpack myself. Promise.”

You can imagine the scene before you even see it: your brother looking away to the window as he tries to fight the smile creeping on his face, your mother on her tip-toes as she musses with her son’s hair even though he’s a head taller, and of course, your father leaning against the door with a content grin as his watches his wife’s face light up with happiness that the family is together again.

When you hear their footsteps near your seated figure on the kitchen floor, you feel your brother’s presence before you even see him.

Taeyong stops a few paces away from you, dropping his bag carelessly on the ground before standing with his arms outstretched and eyebrows raised. With his messy hair and airport clothes still hanging off his shoulders, your brother looks like a favorite uncle at holiday dinners when he hasn’t seen his favorite niece and nephew all year.

“Aren’t you gonna come say hi to your best friend before you abandon me for your vinyls again,” he teases before crossing the threshold in three steps and embracing you fully. “It’s been a while, hmm rockstar?”

You hum at the familiar term of endearment, sinking into his figure as your brother rocks you back and forth. You look up at him, his face looking more mature and sharp than when you saw him last.

“You gotta catch me up on that crazy life of yours, yeah? We have all summer.”

Nodding contently, you follow your brother and parents into the dining room for dinner before settling back into the feeling of having four people at home again. Just like the old days, before Taeyong left, where your worries were limited and you allowed yourself to be childish.

…

If anything makes you glad you’re alive, it’s being able to wake up at 2pm in the afternoon on a Thursday and feeling you just gained ten years. It’s truly a blessing, and if you were a bit more religious, you’d be thanking God right now for no school and black-out curtains.

Quickly getting ready, you give one last glance at yourself in the mirror before rushing downstairs to see if anyone’s home still. To your surprise, you catch Taeyong right as he’s opening the door to the basement.

“So she’s alive,” he calls out with an approving nod, surprised that you actually managed to wake up before the sun sets once again. You roll your eyes as you pull cereal in front of you on the kitchen table. The two of you are back to your old ways in a matter of hours, making fun of each other at every chance you get.

“It’s not my fault you don’t know how to enjoy life, Tae,” you shrug, grabbing leftovers from the fridge. He simply tsks at you before walking over to affectionately ruffle your hair, drawing a complaint from you about messing it up.

“Anyway, some of my old friends are coming over today to catch up. We’re probably gonna be downstairs for a while so just let them in the front when they come,” your brother relays, moving back towards the basement when you throw up an okay sign. He gives you a knowing look. “You’re always welcome to join, you know. They all love you.”

You crinkle your nose at the idea. Sure, you’re pretty familiar with most of Taeyong’s high school friends, but you really aren’t too keen on the idea of spending your afternoon with a bunch of older boys when you could be hanging out with Mark and Chaewon.

“I’m okay. You guys have fun, though.”

Resuming your attention on your food, you open the front door a couple times over the next hour for said boys. Their features chiseled, styles changed, and voices a bit deeper, they’re all caught by surprise when you open the door for them (Yuta’s inability to recognise you at all really takes the cake). You suppose that a lot can change in two years.

After the seventh ring of the doorbell, you sigh in exasperation before making your way to the front once again. You grumble under your breath before opening the door, the bitter expression wiping right off your face when you see the two figures in front of you.

“Johnny!”

“Y/N,” the familiar boy exclaims, his towering stature enveloping you in a warm hug before pulling back and examining your growth. “Look who’s all pretty and grown! You look so much like Taeyong now that it’s scary,” he beams at you while turning your face side to side with his hands, and you can’t help but return it. If anyone was as much of an older brother figure as your real one was, it would be Johnny.

“Hey,” a voice sounds out besides him after a few moments of Johnny’s compliments, startling you, and your eyes finally flick over to the subject of your teenage years’ daydreams. Your heart floods with a jittery feeling when he reaches out to give you a hug. “It’s nice to see you again, Y/N.”

Jeong Jaehyun hasn’t changed a bit since you last saw him at your brother’s graduation.

His hair is a bit longer now, dark brown curls shimmering gold in the sunlight and his ears now adorned with more silver studs and rings. But the sun-kissed freckles dusting his nose, the deep-set dimples, the starry eyes — they’re exactly the same as you remember.

He’s still breathtaking.

Johnny bursts your little moment as he grabs your arm to lead you back into your house, pulling both you and Jaehyun along with him to the basement entrance.

Even though you’re painfully aware of your fingers nervously playing with the bracelets on your wrist, it’s true that these boys practically watched you grow up. Even when you look at a certain brown-eyed boy, your whole world feels like it's stopping. Even when your stupid childhood crush on your brother’s best friend was supposed to be gone by now. You know them, and they know you.

After Johnny and Jaehyun disappear down the stairs with a small goodbye and the invitation to join them once again, you head back up to your own room, collapsing onto your bed and staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars plastered across your ceiling.

You remember your brother and Jaehyun setting them up for you many years ago, their young figures using your bed as leverage to stick them on when you were still too short to reach. You had handed each star carefully to the boys, making sure the adhesive side was up before telling them where to place each one. They waited patiently for you to give them every star until the whole box was empty, the three of you high fiving before you had thanked them enthusiastically. Taeyong had simply pinched your cheek and said, “anything for my baby sister,” before pulling Jaehyun away to play another video game in the living room.

Taeyong was a kind older brother, never complaining when your mother told him to bring you with him and his friends on their little adventures. Occasionally he found you annoying, but his friends never minded your presence, so he couldn’t find a reason to either. You were integrated into their daily outings, the boys taking turns talking and playing games with you as the days progressed.

You think your liking to Jaehyun started then: when your young mind easily confused admiration with puppy love. Your brother’s friends were the nicest boys you had met, certainly nicer than the boys in your class at school. Jaehyun specifically always made sure you were comfortable, making silly faces at you when your eyes met across the room and remembering to bring you snacks from across the street when he got some for his best friend. He was perfect in your eyes.

When you started hanging out more with your own friends as you got older, things never really changed regarding your feelings for the boy. Your secret crush was still as prominent as ever, eyes following his mess of hair whenever he passed you in the hallway at school; it didn’t help that his name was passed around no matter what year you were. Jaehyun this and Jaehyun that, you were definitely not the only girl whose heartbeat stopped whenever he looked their way. He was polite, confident, and undeniably charming, your school’s beloved basketball team captain and a favorite of teachers: the kind of boy everyone wanted to be out of envy, but couldn’t. He was truly untouchable. Your classmates would stare at you in awe when he waved at you through the classroom entrance, telling you how lucky you were that your brother and his group were so cool and how you had guys like Jaehyun over all the time.

But it wasn’t like it was any different at home, where he would smile at you just the same as you worked on your homework in the kitchen before retreating back into the basement with Taeyong.

Even though fifteen year-old you thought your feelings were pretty damn strong at that time, the age gap felt a bit too gaping where kids two years older felt worlds away. By seventeen, they were already off driving and taking weekend trips, your brother’s license making leeway for nights when he and his friends wouldn’t return until sunrise. It felt a little bit like you had been left behind, and yeah, it sucked, but you decided right then and there that you could have fun without them. Taeyong’s friends weren’t necessarily yours in the first place, and you came to the realization that it might have been strange for you to be so close with them at an older age anyway.

If you were sad about not seeing Jaehyun in particular too much anymore, you tried not to show it. Your best friends — Mark and Chaewon — had always known, teasing you relentlessly when the older boy was around, but the idea of him was only a lingering thought at the back of your mind when he graduated. Your ears still perked up hearing his name in passing, but you had your own problems to consume your thoughts and started getting into a new genre of trouble with your friends; the idea of Jaehyun was supposed to be dead and buried six feet under.

So then why was he plaguing your mind like this after years of successfully not thinking about him?

You groan and throw an arm over your face.

Shit.

…

“My little film-maker,” a voice pops up from above you, the grinning face of your brother accompanying it as he surprises you into oblivion. You make a face up at him and offer a reluctant little wave before returning back to your camcorder, zooming in on Chaewon beside you.

You’re on the asphalt outside your house again. The air’s cooler today, a gray sheet of clouds blocking any of the sun’s rays from reaching your golden trio. With your head on Mark’s legs, he strums his guitar gently as Chaewon hums along to the familiar tunes. Her hands are busy on their own, one arm out while her other uses markers to draw a garden into her skin with washed-out blues and oranges.

You turn the camera around to point at Taeyong, the said boy poking his tongue out before plopping down beside Mark.

“I feel like I always find you guys on the ground,” he mutters, observing the way Mark strums his instrument with care and experience. Your friend looks a little intimidated with the proximity of Taeyong leaning towards him, but he plays on nevertheless.

You shrug. “It’s more comfortable.”

“And we’re a little closer to Hell down here,” Chaewon adds on with a grin, pausing from her flesh-art to look up at Taeyong. “We’ll all be heading there soon anyway.”

“Smart girl,” he laughs out, throwing his head back to stare into the sky. He stays there for a good moment before jumping back up onto his feet and twirling a shiny set of car keys around his fingers. “Anyway, I’m afraid I’ll have to steal Y/N for a bit,” your brother fakes a trail of tears down his cheek with his fist. “Don’t miss her too much.”

“Never,” Mark smirks at you, reaching out to pat your arm affectionately when you let out an offended, Oscar worthy sob at his words.

“Don’t have more fun with him than you do with us, babe,” she calls out as Taeyong drags you off. You salute her back before she turns back to her painting.

Stumbling behind your brother to catch up with his long strides, your eyebrows raise when you catch sight of his infamous red Cadillac parked down the winding road. You grip on tighter to your camcorder before jogging up to the passenger side, ready to swing your legs over the side of the convertible.

“Not so fast,” Taeyong calls out, amused, as he strolls up casually to the driver's side. “We’re picking up some of the guys and Johnny already called shotgun yesterday. Take it up with him, rockstar.”

You splutter indignantly before crossing to the backseat with a huff, sinking into the car’s tan, leather seats and crossing your arms. “Not fair, Tae,” you complain at him before he starts the engine, starting off in the direction of an area you’ve never been before. “Where are we even going?”

He doesn’t answer.

Soon enough, three more bodies crowd into your brother’s car after dropping by Jungwoo’s condo, the boy squishing into the back with you as Jaehyun of all people slides into the seat on the other side of you. They offer smiles and quick greetings to you before the car takes off once again.

His proximity hits you far harder than Jungwoo’s, and you know exactly why. You keep your head tilted away from him as you try to focus on Johnny in the front seat, who’s passionately retelling an encounter he had at the supermarket this morning. It’s incredibly hard when Jaehyun moves and his thigh touches yours, fifteen year-old you coming back to life within you and screaming all sorts of insane things at your brain. You can physically feel his warmth radiating off his skin.

“—so we both reach out at the same time, and luckily, I snatch the crate right before her hands do. But,” Johnny pauses to look through the rearview mirror for dramatic effect, his shades glinting as the Cadillac speeds through dusty roads. “You won’t believe who those hands belonged to.”

He stills with the skill of an A-list actor, reaching up to pluck the sunnies off his face and stare right into Jaehyun’s eyes through the silver glass.

“Lim Saemi.”

Everybody has a different reaction to the name-drop, with Jungwoo and Taeyong’s gasp and your muffled noise ringing out as your eyes widen in the slightest. You try to glance at Jaehyun subtly, and his face doesn’t flicker a bit from its usual stoic expression, but you can feel him tense up next to you before relaxing a few seconds later. He appears seemingly unphased, and if you had not been watching carefully from out of the corner of your eye you would have fallen for it.

You know better, though.

“Oh? Is she back home for the summer too?” Jaehyun throws out casually, tucking his chin in his hand as he looks out through the wind.

“Wait Jae… you didn’t know? I thought if anyone would know first, it would be you,” Jungwoo leans back, surprised at this new development. “Even I knew, and everyone knows I don’t catch onto shit.”

“It’s whatever,” Jaehyun mumbles, deflecting the weird looks he receives. He ends the conversation with two words, and the car falls into silence with the only noises being those from tires against gravel. You glance at him before staring straight forward through the dash.

You know Lim Saemi.

Who doesn’t, in all honesty. Saemi is Saemi, and you’d be the weird one if you hadn’t heard her name at least once throughout your school years. She was like straight out of a Dior catalog. With as much impact as your older brother and his posse had left, she was everything all the girls in your year wanted to be: too pretty to be unnecessarily shallow, too smart to use her looks irrationally.

You remember Lim Saemi.

She’s two years older, like Taeyong and Jaehyun and Johnny. She was the girl who was occasionally over at your house during parties when your brother would force you upstairs, her bleached hair and delicate features drawing in everyone immediately. You remember watching from the top of the stairwell as her figure still captured attention in the darkness of winter’s pitch black nights. From your outside point of view, it was like she was the center of a spindling web that stretched throughout the bottom floor of your house; people just couldn’t help but be lured to her.

You wanted to be Lim Saemi.

Just for one day. You needed to know what it felt like to be the center of a certain boy’s affections, even though she attracted every other person’s along the way as well. She was a different type of suburban it-girl, one that everyone was sure would get snatched up into the celebrity world sooner or later with the way she carried herself.

You knew that Jaehyun and Saemi had always been “just friends” — or at least that was what they told everyone — but you could tell he had liked her throughout their high school years. How could you not, especially when you looked at him the same way he looked at her. Back then, it was more curiosity about their complicated relationship than hate fueled jealousy for you. You still couldn’t help but imagine him treating you with the affection he did with her; even as a teenager, you understood why. And ironically, as you sit in the backseat of your brother’s car with the very boy right beside you, the bubbling feeling of envy is uncomfortable in your gut.

Shaking your head out of your retrospective thoughts, you look around in confusion when the convertible starts to slow on a thinning road, towering evergreens blocking the sky from view.

Leading the car through another winding path, it emerges on the other side within acres of grassy fields and wildflower paths that circles a grandiose, central estate home. Marble blocks stretch across its stone ledges like ivy — an intimidating facade if you’ve ever seen one. Taeyong looks at you through the rearview mirror. His eyes crease in pride when he sees the wonder in yours, enraptured by the sight before you.

“Remember when Johnny said that he’d always wanted to go to a local car show?” your brother starts, grinning at his friend beside him. “Well, yours truly saw an ad at the record shop yesterday for one just outside of town. Someone compliment me, I feel like I just made all of our afternoons a thousand times better.”

“This is actually insane, Yong,” Jungwoo breathes out, eyes widening at the unfamiliar setting.

Retro cars of all brands and models are parked across an acre, their shiny coats glinting in the sun as masses of people linger near and talk amongst themselves. The white pillars of whoever’s home is hosting the car show serves as a gathering place for lovers to mingle, precariously held champagne flutes an ironic contrast to the grit and dirt of the event itself.

Johnny lets out a low whistle before resting his weight on the center console and lowering his sunglasses, observing the scene.

“This is exactly my type of place. Old, rich people and hot girls.”

“Oh my god, Johnny,” you laugh out, not at all surprised that those words came from his mouth.

You tear your gaze away from the outside view to look at Jaehyun after hearing his embarrassed groan at Johnny’s words. To your surprise, he’s already looking at you. With his piercing gaze on your face, you look away, flustered, playing it off with a small cough.

Taeyong parks his timeless Cadillac besides others of the same nature before leaving to roam around with Johnny and Jungwoo, buzzing with excitement. It’s no surprise that they make their way over to the group of girls huddled around a vintage truck model first, their giggles ringing out across the field as they throw sly glances to the boys headed their way. You catch sight of your brother leaning towards one in particular before deciding you’ve seen enough and turning to explore by yourself.

Thrilled to be left to your own devices, you follow your own little path off to the side towards a pastel-colored Corvette that had caught your eye earlier. Circling it for a few minutes and capturing it slowly through the lens of your camcorder, you smile happily to yourself while replaying the footage in the shade of a lonely willow tree. The cool breeze brings tangs of clementines and vanilla — from where, you don’t know — as well as the unmistakable scent of petrol and cigarettes as it picks up pieces of your hair before rustling the leaves of the willow.

“Can I see?” a familiar voice startles you. You look up to see Jaehyun’s lean figure making his way over to your crouched one, gesturing to your open camera with his head tilted. “If you’re comfortable, of course,” he adds, the corners of his lips quirking up. Mouth agape slightly for a few seconds, you shake yourself out of your momentary funk and nod, thrilled at his interest.

“The colors show up really well with this lighting, especially ‘cuz I just changed my saturation settings,” you mumble, stopping yourself when you realize he probably doesn’t care that much. Tucking your knees to your chest, you wait nervously as you hand the device to him.

You think your heartbeat just about stops when he replies with a “that’s so cool” under his breath.

Jaehyun holds the camera carefully to his chest before sitting down beside you, leaning against the tree trunk before flipping through your gallery. He takes his time watching every little video clip and picture, giving you a little noise of approval every few clicks.

You’re caught off guard when he sighs and puts the camcorder back in your lap, turning to you with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen grace his features.

“Y/N, you seriously might be better at this shit than the literal mixed media majors at my uni,” he deadpans. Taken aback, you can’t stop the rosy warmth that creeps up your cheeks. “I’m being so for real right now. Don’t ever stop.”

You pause.

“Do you know how reassuring that is to hear, especially from you?” you say with sincerity, holding eye contact with him.

“Hmm? Really, me?”

“Yeah. It feels like I’m doing something right, like I’m not wasting my time on a fruitless hobby.” Confessing one of your biggest fears to someone who’s familiar to you but not, close to you but not — now that’s probably one of the craziest things you’ve done this week, and you do a whole lot of crazy things in a week.

Jaehyun’s expression changes with your words. He doesn’t reply for a while, just seeming to take in the world around him with only his eyes. Looking from the drooping branches of the willow to its dirt-ingrained roots, his face is cast downwards with a faint, melancholic smile.

Now the mood is ruined, you think to yourself, bitter. Why do I always do this?

Before you can change the subject and move on from your awkward burt-out, he clears his throat.

“You know, I admire you a lot Y/N. You and Taeyong,” he starts, the slim chain around his neck glittering in the afternoon sun when he turns back to you. “Both of you have always been unafraid to pursue the arts, even though I know how your strict parents are about future careers and all that. I wish I had the courage to just… do what I like instead of being a pushover with my dad. Maybe I would be doing music with your brother instead of barely living day by day in pre-med.”

His usual confident eyes are tinged with regret and a little vulnerability as he ruffles his hair in the wind. You tilt your head at him, trying to come up with comforting words when you aren’t so sure if you’re qualified to give him advice in the first place.

“Well… I admire you a lot, Jaehyun. You’ve always been that one person who consistently looks like they have their life in check, someone who’s able to put their all in everything that they do. It’s really a quality to be proud of,” you say to him honestly. “I think you’ll do well wherever you end up. So don’t worry too much, okay?”

The boy stares at you like no one’s ever said that to him, and no one has; even if this might be a passing comment for you, it’s something that he feels relief to finally hear.

“Thanks.” He says it so quietly that you almost miss it, but you can hear the gratefulness in his voice nevertheless. You both look away for a few seconds when a brilliant yellow bird flutters past the two of you, settling on the ground in front to peck at a white speck in the soil. “Pretty,” he mumbles under his breath, blinking at the animal.

And with that, Jaehyun shakes his head a bit before resuming back to his relaxed demeanor. He lets out a breath of air and runs his tongue over his teeth.

“Sorry for getting so deep all of a sudden,” he apologies, sheepishly rubbing his neck as you let out a little laugh.

“No, it’s nice to hear that the Valentine Boy has troubles too,” you tease lightly, recalling the God-like aura he used to carry 24/7 when you were younger and the nick-name that followed him around as a result. Jaehyun visibly cringes at your words, no doubt getting high school flashbacks.

“Not that,” he replies, embarrassed. “Anyway, I feel like I haven’t gotten the chance yet to ask you how you’ve been these past few years.” You glance up at him in surprise. He sounds strangely sincere for someone you weren’t that close with out of your brother’s friends, and the confusion must show on your face because he finds it in himself to clarify. “Oh come on, Y/N. I feel like we’ve known each other since forever but I’ve missed a crucial part of your growing up. You’re like a whole different person now.”

“I’d hope so,” you lament, fiddling with your camcorder. “I’ve gone through too much shit to be the same as sixteen-year old me.” Jaehyun laughs out loud at your answer, knowing exactly how you feel as someone who was once a fresh, high school graduate.

“Yeah? Well it seems like just yesterday when you were complaining about being bored after school from not having enough homework—” he stumbles over his words when you push his body with a light shove, the boy barely able to get breaths in with how much he’s laughing at your past cluelessness of how hard high school would really be.

“None of you guys warned me about the horror of calculus, so that is not my fault Jaehyun,” you pout, shaking your head at him.

“So it’s my fault?” he smiles, questioning your statement.

“Yes.” A lie.

“And I’m the reason why you almost failed second semester math?”

“Yes.” Another lie. Wait. “What— how do you even know about that?” You demand, incredulous. Jaehyun just raises his eyebrows and hides his growing grin behind his hand. “Fucking Lee Taeyong.”

He looks overjoyed at your seething, playfully poking out his bottom lip in a mock-frown before getting up and dusting off his pants. Offering a hand to you, Jaehyun uses his strength to pull you to your feet; you’re hyper-aware of the warmth of his palm as your hands linger for a millisecond before he pulls away.

I’m so screwed, you think to yourself, blinking at the sky with fervor. Shaking your head, you tuck your hand to your side and try not to think of his skin on yours.

“They’re finally done flirting,” he notes with a hum, making an acute observation as you both spy the three other boys heading back to the car, their reluctant forms obvious when you see one girl hold up her hands in a ‘call me’ sign.

Smirking, you skip ahead of Jaehyun before turning back and waving your wallet at him.

“25000 won that we’ll see one of those girls walk out of Tae’s room tomorrow morning,” you chant as Jaehyun jogs to catch up with you. Chuckling, he pushes your wallet away.

“Nah, that man doesn’t give a fuck about the time of day. 25000 that she’s gonna be at your house in twenty,” he counters, snorting when you gag at the thought.

You can’t help but light up at his content face; this feels like this is the first time you’ve ever had a real, honest to goodness, conversation with him as a young adult.

And you’re in trouble, because you think you like it more than you should.

…

“I did it,” Chaewon confesses over the phone, the sound of a knife against a chopping board from her end revealing her current position.

“What,” you inquire, “you finally passed your license test?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Never.” You flash a wicked grin at the sheet music in your hands, shuffling through the never-ending leaflets.

When Taeyong had said he’d pay you to organize his papers, you clearly weren’t thinking straight enough to be saying yes to this hell. He’s been out for an hour already and not even a third of the pile is sorted through. You slump forward on the couch and shake out your tired hands, groaning when your knuckle hits the coffee table with a painful thump.

“For your information, I don’t need to drive. Hot girls take public transportation,” she retorts with a humph.

“Can’t argue with you there, passenger princess.”

“Oh please, I can literally feel the sarcasm dripping from your voice.”

You laugh, a “you know me, Chae” accompanying the sound ringing out through your empty house. Gathering Taeyong’s work into your arms and dumping the rest on the table, you slide onto the carpeted ground with a sigh. Your bones are overly sore from sitting for too long and the couches seams have made painful, little white imprints on your thighs. With a click of your tongue, you inwardly curse your brother for offering such good deals to a minimum wage paid, about-to-be uni kid, or else you wouldn't be spending a perfectly good Saturday afternoon on whatever this is.

“So,” you prompt, “what did you do this time.”

“Ha,” Chaewon starts.

“I’m scared.”

“Ran into Jaehyun today.”

“Aaand that’s my cue to hang up now,” you sing, slipping the phone between your shoulder and ear, the warm device tucked neatly in the crevice of your neck before you hear the sound of your doorbell ringing out.

“Wait—”

“Hold on for a sec, Chae. Someone’s at the door.”

You will yourself to get up from the carpet before making your way over to the front of the house, preparing yourself for a blast of hot summer air to hit you. The silver knob twists under your hand as you swing the door open slowly, expecting the mailman or a delivery on your front porch. Certainly not—

“—Hey.”

Your eyes flick up in surprise.

“Oh shit,” Chaewon whispers over the phone. “That’s not who I think it is, right?”

It’s been a week since you last saw Jaehyun face to face, and your conflicted inner thoughts have been battling in your conscience for the entirety of it. Well, this isn’t great.

“Hi Jaehyun,” you manage to sound out, mentally chastising yourself for sounding so nervous.

“And that’s my cue to hang up now,” the voice at the other end of your call snickers, the long beep of it ending blaring into your ear.

Your arm drops to your side, phone in hand, as you stare pointedly at Chaewon’s contact info lighting up the screen, her eyes mocking you through her profile picture. Jaehyun lifts an eyebrow as he looks between your phone and your face, seemingly questioning if you’re currently busy through his eyes alone.

“Umm…” your gaze flits around in flusteration, looking just about anywhere but him. “Taeyong’s not home right now, if that’s why you’re here.”

“Oh? Do you know when he’ll be back?” he asks, relaxed as he leans his body against the doorframe.

“He’s picking up stuff from Johnny’s across town, so like,” you glance up at the clock, “an hour? I could uh… call you when he gets back if you want.”

Jaehyun simply pokes his tongue into his cheek in contemplation before tucking his hands into his pockets.

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll just stay.” With a small smile, he adds on, “if you're okay with that, of course.”

You peer past him to see his shiny black Mustang sitting in front of your house, before returning to your original position and shrugging at the foyer. Losing your shyness momentarily as you let out a puff of air, you follow Jaehyun in before deciding to answer.

“My company is a blessing in itself, isn’t it,” you think out loud, displaying a cheeky smile when Jaehyun turns around to playfully scoff at you.

“Now that’s a sure thing, Y/N.”

The boy seats himself on one of the kitchen barstools and places his chin in his hand, leaning over the counter to stare at you as you busy yourself with the fridge.

In all honesty, you weren’t prepared to see him again. He’s already been occupying your mind a little too much for your liking during this past week, the idea of his return to your life teetering you on the edge of insanity. You didn’t know high school crushes hit that hard two years later, and it certainly doesn’t help that his golden skin and constellation of tawny freckles have made an almost daily appearance in the Lee household — just like the old times.

“I think we still have that special glass-bottled lemonade from the farmer’s market last weekend, unless,” you pause, sifting through the multitude of items in the ice box. “Yup. Nevermind. Taeyong finished all of them.”

Jaehyun snorts, already familiar with his best friend’s midnight tendencies of clearing out the fridge whenever, wherever.

“We also have water? And um… milk. And Vodka.”

“This sounds like Yuta’s fridge, and that thought alone is like, genuinely terrifying,” Jaehyun observes from behind you. You shake your head, recalling the first time you saw the said boy’s freezer stash of condiments and liquor at a house party a few years ago. Only condiments and liquor.

“Oh! And cold noodles,” you hold up the container with a little shake. “I remember you liking my mom’s version of them,” you mumble quietly, willing yourself to turn around when the cold air from the fridge starts to sting your eyes.

Jaehyun observes you curiously, a question at the tip of his tongue. You remember?

He stops himself from blurting it out when you seat yourself across from him and push the container towards his direction.

“You practically live here anyway. Help yourself,” you say a bit louder, embarrassed about the fact that you remember such a miniscule detail about him.

You squint at the countertop — which you honestly wish would swallow you whole — as Jaehyun moves around you to pour himself a glass of water. His muscles strain against his loose t-shirt as he moves around your kitchen with familiarity, and you turn away with wide eyes when you realize you’ve spaced out while staring at his back.

It’s a situation that younger you would have never imagined; you had simply never been left in a room with him alone. Your brother and his other friends were always there, a subtle reminder of the distance between you two and the fact that he was probably still worlds away.

But you’re an adult now, and it’d be a lie if you said that you don’t want Jaehyun to notice you in that way.

Feelings are too complicated to think about sober. You grimace to yourself, pressing two fingers against your temple as you lean your cheek against the cool, hard marble of the countertop.

“Y/N?” you lift your head up at your name, flinching back in surprise when Jaehyun’s face appears at the edge of your vision, his figure buzzing with excitement as he gapes at you. “This is yours, right?”

Your eyes drift to the black canisters in his palm. My film.

“Oh yeah— wait. I forgot to develop those ones,” you make your way over and take the undeveloped film rolls into your hands, the boy observing you with wide eyes.

“That’s sick. Do you develop them yourself?”

“Hm? Nah, I bring them to the camera store downtown. Left them in the fridge to preserve for a while so they should be good to go now.”

It’s only when you look up from the canisters that you spy his expression, the pure giddiness painted on his features catching you off guard. Jaehyun’s body language tells you that he is unnervingly thrilled about his new discovery.

“You were never into this kind of stuff when Taeyong and I were still here in high school,” he brings up slowly, letting the words sit on his tongue before following you when you head towards the stairs. “If I had known…” he trails off, pursing his lips to the side so that his notorious dimples show.

You peer at him over your nose bridge curiously. If he had known, he would've what?

Jaehyun pokes his tongue into his cheek and furrows his brows, thinking about the times when he was over at your house after school and you would be nowhere to be seen. Is the dark room where you were, or were you out taking pictures at the rink and shooting short films with your friends? Maybe at the park with your old camcorder and skateboard? The fact that he never knew about so many of your hobbies is almost troubling considering how long he’s known you, and it makes him shift in place. He supposes he never really took the time to know his best friend’s little sister, but looking at you as you stare back, you’re so much more than that.

Had you always shared so much in common?

“Well, imma go upstairs and watch a movie,” you resume your climb before pointing upward. “You can come up until Tae comes home, if you want?”

The boy glances at the door momentarily, contemplating how Taeyong would react if he found him in his sister’s room. Would he kill me? Maybe.

He shrugs. Fuck it, I could totally beat him in a fight, Jaehyun reasons, smiling to himself. He doesn’t know how he reached that conclusion, but he thinks he’s joking. Mostly.

“The real question is, what’re we watching? If it’s some romcom shit I’m leaving,” Jaehyun raises a challenging brow with his smirk as he follows you nonetheless, hand following yours dangerously close on the wooden handrail.

“Not my problem you’ve got no taste.”

“Oh please,” he rolls his eyes, pushing his body into view as you push open your bedroom door, “I might actually die if I see DiCaprio’s face one more time, and you can’t tell me it’s not you that has all of his movies in the living room cabinet, ‘cause they’re definitely not your brother’s.”

“That seems a bit of a personal issue between you and him, Jaehyun,” you let out a laugh with your words. Turning around to flick on the light switch, you’re met with his face closer than it was before. “What.”

“What?” he repeats, almost mockingly. “Oh, sweetheart. You think this face isn’t DiCaprio level?”

Your face heats up without your consent, flustered at the sudden proximity and the fact that you most definitely think Jaehyun’s better than all of your favorite actors combined. You would never admit that to him for the life of you, though.

You swallow before pushing him lightly, making your way into the center of your bedroom.

“Admit it,” he sings, not giving up as he relentlessly parks himself in front of you with his legs set further apart so that he can look at you at eye level. “I bet even Ji Chang-wook’s got nothing on me.”

“Woah woah woah,” you gasp in offense, throwing a hand up to your chest. “Now that’s crossing the line, buddy. Ji Chang-wook’s got something on everybody.”

“I bet,” Jaehyun drawls out sarcastically, eyes flipping to the ceiling ludicrously slow. He seems to glitch for a few seconds, mouth open but no words coming out. “Especially with the way his face is plastered… on… your ceiling? You fall asleep to that?”

Your eyes widen when you have the sudden realization that Jeong Jaehyun is in your room, in your personal space, looking at your things. And that most certainly includes the poster of Ji Chang-wook next to the plastic stars above your bed, glassy, plastic-y eyes staring down at your ruffley bed sheets and everything. In your defense, it was the result of a lost dare — but he doesn’t know that. Wow, you think to yourself, regretting all of your life decisions, I’m just so good at first impressions.

“Yes,” you give up somewhat dejectedly, offering him a (hopefully) confident smile before pulling a projector from under your bed and setting it up on your bedside table.

Jaehyun just shrugs and seats himself on your bed, muttering a little “cute” that you miss before observing as you give the machine a few good slaps so it’ll turn on. Settling against the wall, he lets his eyes flutter over your decor and multitude of things plastered across every inch of your space. If anything, the way your room’s changed since the last time he was in it gives him an outlook into your life that he wouldn't have known otherwise.

From the blockbuster movie ads on your door to the unfiltered sunlight reflecting off your mirror, the shoelaces tied around your closet door to the origami threaded around your ceiling fan, he feels like he’s falling. Maybe, just maybe, he even finds a bit of himself in the painted shoe boxes shoved under your desk and your circular record shelf. Even the stars he and Taeyong stuck on years ago are still there too. He recognizes bits and pieces here and there, but thrown together in one place, a cohesive picture forms in front of him. It’s suffocating — in a good way — as if he’s been thrown into the unknown and is hit with a new side of you at full force; everything, everywhere, all at once.

“Ha!” you exclaim, holding out a fist for Jaehyun to bump when your projector flickers on. With a bright grin, you flop onto the bed beside him and wait for the whirring of the projector to start with a hollow click.

The beginning few seconds of the film you’ve chosen roll onto your makeshift movie screen, a white sheet hanging by its threads from your vanity, as the bright images light up your figures with a burning white.

Jaehyun figures out what you’ve done just as a familiar face blurs into view, the moving calligraphy of The Great Gatsby scrawled across your bedroom wall while you poke out your tongue at him, high off of the mere fact that you’ve gotten your way. You hear him let out a defeated sigh from beside you, his knee hitting yours as he settles into your comforter nevertheless.

“Sharp as hell, aren’t you. I should’ve known DiCaprio would show up in my sight sooner or later.”

…

Summer tastes like melted sugar crystals in cherry garcia — or rather, summer tastes like Mark Lee’s Strawberry-Rouge Extravaganza, the latest, state-of-the-art item on his Record Shop menu. When you ask why the random French is thrown in there, he defends himself adamantly, claiming that his three years of secondary French language classes have practically made him a local.

“It’s like a metaphor for saying, ‘I love you,’” Mark claims with sass, even though you don’t make the connection (“That’s not what a metaphor is…?” you mumble quizzically under your breath). He ignores the weird look you throw at him and goes back to his mixing on the counter of the cashier station. “And it feels like a warm hug, because what better to express that than sparkly, drunk goodness.”

“Wow,” Chaewon deadpans, not even looking up from her nails that she’s painting right next to him. The mix of nail polish and liquor makes you scrunch your nose as you organize the main display, a rotating shelf that headlines Blondie. “You should be a poet. You have such a way with words.”

“I don’t need your negativity in my life, girly.” You almost choke on air when you hear a sharp snap of Chae’s gum in retaliation, her icy glare making Mark wilt under her gaze.

Their intense, non-verbal argument is saved by the dinging of a customer opening the door to the shop. You whip around to greet them only for your words to die right in your throat. Two silhouettes step in, their tall stature and familiar features blocking the sun from shining through the entranceway.

“…Jaehyun, Jungwoo! How are you guys?” Mark offers when he sees you fall silent.

The two greet happily right back, sliding past you to pat him on the back and exchange handshakes. Jaehyun lingers by your side for a little, holding his fist out for you to tap like you did just the other day in your room.

“We knew we’d find you guys in here,” Jungwoo laments, looking around the shelves before his eyes land on Mark’s… setup. You have to admit, this one looks a bit more pleasant than his past drink recipes, and you can tell that Jungwoo agrees wholeheartedly. His hand lingers on a bottle of sparkling vanilla wine as Mark slices red fruit ardently with a plastic, cafeteria knife. A paper cup holds the rest of his special ingredients: rock candy on wooden sticks, shattered candy hearts, and star-shaped ice cubes. You’d be lying if you didn’t admit that it looked delicious, like something you would order at a beach-side bar.

Jungwoo seems to find the situation amusing, a trio of barely-adults passing slow, withering days in their own little makeshift paradise. Leaning against the countertop like he’s on the cover of Parisian Vogue, he nicks his baseball cap up a bit higher to look into the three of yours’ eyes better.

“Johnny’s throwing a party.”

That’s all anyone needs to say before Chaewon’s attention is snagged, her eyes gaining an undeniable gleam.

“We’re going,” she speaks for everyone in the room, especially looking you square in the eyes as if saying, you’re not escaping this time, young lady.

“Mhm,” Jaehyun confirms, a hand rubbing at his pulse as he swings an arm over Jungwoo’s shoulders. “A fancy mixer, kinda, the day after tomorrow. We’ll have all the booze, so the only thing you need to bring is yourself.”

“And,” the latter chimes in, “it’s at Johnny’s countryside estate, so y’all can do whatever illegal shit you kids get yourself into without worrying about anything.”

Chaewon lets out a small scoff at his words, mumbling a “we still do here it anyway” under her breath and throwing a knowing look at the alcohol in front of Mark that’s very blatantly in every passerby’s sight.

As Jungwoo relays more information about the plans to them at the front of the shop, Jaehyun turns to follow your path as you diligently place records back in their places in the depths of the store.

“Do you wear silver or gold?”

You jump at his appearance out of nowhere, glancing at him with a certain hesitation at his question. Your confusion as to how this topic appeared so suddenly is painted blatantly across your face as you close the last turntable with a click.

“Why?” You pause. “But both. Depends on my mood.”

“Because this is yours now.”

He reaches into his jeans’ front pocket, pulling out something in his fist before reaching for your hand and dropping a small, plastic ring in the middle of it.

It’s neon orange and ugly as hell, like something you would find stuck to gum on the underbelly of a school desk. But hey, who are you to complain when Jaehyun looks so pleased at himself as he looks between your face and the ring, trying to gauge your reaction to his surprise gift. And, you’re definitely not complaining when it’s a gift from Jaehyun himself.

“Thank you…? Also,” you squint, picking up the ring to slide onto your pointer finger, “this isn’t silver or gold.” He shrugs half heartedly.

“Sucks to suck.”

You kick the tip of his Converse as he laughs with his whole body, the boy’s deep voice filling the small space.

“It’s from the coin toy machine outside,” he explains. With a broad grin, he pulls his other hand from out of his pocket and waves it in your face. The whole rainbow has found its home on his fingers, all silly swirls and squiggles of nylon with glued on googly-eyes half falling off.

It’s the pure childish elation you share which makes you unknowingly sink deeper and deeper into the ocean that is Jeong Jaehyun, and you would have felt the metaphorical gasps of air your lungs so desperately need if not for the momentary distractions he provides.

You suppose all of this is your own doing anyway.

…

It feels as though Autumn has made a reverse pit-stop in the middle of summer.

If not obvious by the way the seasonal trees are drooping with a sudden dewy chill, it’s the sudden absence of people in general that serves as a telltale sign. There’s almost no cars on the road, fewer students out and about, and less frequent public transportation.

The last one in particular really speaks to Jaehyun.

Scrunching his nose at the crisp air, he exits the hole-in-the-wall café he usually frequents when he’s bored, the biting coldness of a mid-August day unfamiliar to him. The boy spent almost the entire day inside; switching between staring at the weather app on his computer and deleting emails from his overflowing inbox for two hours wasn’t the way he thought he’d spend the afternoon, but alas, waiting that long at the crumbling bus stop wasn’t ideal either. He much prefers being warm, caffeinated, and pretending to read a scientific journal than freezing his ass off on a metal bench.

Anyone would think the same, Jaehyun shrugs to himself… at least until he starts nearing said bench.

Jaehyun stops mid-step when he spots something strange, side-eyeing the undeniably familiar blob crouching at the bus stop approaching on the right.

Why? Well, it's swathed in an oversized hoodie, has a keychain-ful backpack hanging low on its shoulders, and is suspiciously Y/N-shaped.

And if that doesn’t tell him anything, well, the way your eyes go comically wide when you turn to the right and coincidentally meet gazes with Jeong Jaehyun of all people definitely does. It’s the way he’s standing there like a runway model with his hood over his head, dimples on full show as he raises his eyebrows at you and his expensive-looking leather bag hanging off of one shoulder that almost causes you to fall over. Luckily, you pull yourself together before something embarrassing happens, like losing your balance and crashing into the road (not that it’s happened before, of course…). You’re well aware that you tend to get distracted easily, and you’re definitely in trouble because that man is one hell of a distraction.

Getting up quickly and dusting the invisible dust off your legs, you offer him an embarrassed wave as he approaches you.

“How long have you been sitting there? It’s fucking cold outside,” Jaehyun calls out, concerned, glancing down at your skirt and the way you hide your hands in your hoodie sleeves. Sidling up next to you, he bounces on the balls of his feet a little before stuffing his own hands in his pockets.

“It’s okay,” you smile down at the way your shoes match next to his on the sidewalk, “I’m used to the bipolar weather. Plus, it’s not that cold when you’ve got these!” Tucking your lip between your teeth, you rustle around in your sweater-paws before popping out your hands proudly in front of you. Nestled in your palms are old hand warmers, their heat fading but worth their purpose nonetheless.

“Only you would have hand warmers in stock during the middle of summer, Y/N,” he shakes his head in disbelief, but the smile threatening to take over his face makes his eyes crinkle up in amusement.

“Mhm,” you say, distracted as you see the bus pull up to the sidewalk from down the road, “I’ve got a whole box in my backpack. Who knows, maybe an ice storm will hit one day and I’ll be the only one with hands while everyone else’s freeze off.”

He pauses in place, speechless at your comment. You simply shrug at him, as if saying that’s the way life goes, before nodding to the bus driver and climbing up the vehicle’s steps. “Don’t worry, I’d share mine with you.”

Jaehyun lets out a breath in disbelief.

Your attitude is truly refreshing, and he can’t even begin to describe what a breath of clean air it is to talk to you everyday; he’s used to girls coming up to him with hidden intent, their eyes tinged with lust as they disguise their interest with false pretenses and flowery words. Flattery is what it began with, but after years of receiving nothing from their end while he found himself aimlessly hoping for someone genuine and it was disappointing that he couldn’t find even one. He’d wish they would just treat him normally and act like themselves, a person not afraid to be genuine with him and let their inner child show.

It’s as he observes the way you hum as you climb up and give a playful salute to the driver that he realizes you’re the perfect balance of both, the maturity in you shining admirably at the times when it is needed while never acting like something you’re not.

Jaehyun blinks at your figure before tugging on your arm to move around you, swiping his bus pass twice before you can even register what’s happened. He lets a smug grin take over his face before pulling you to the back of the bus and plopping down beside you.

“Thank you for paying for me,” you tilt your head at him, tucking your card back into your pocket. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to, though.”

You give him a grateful smile before remembering something that you had meant to show him, pulling out the walkman you found in your grandmother’s cellar yesterday from your backpack, a dusty old thing that still works perfectly fine. Looping its built-in headphones around your neck, you tilt the player towards him before offering him the small device. Turning it around in his hands, he gapes in undeniable awe as he taps the plastic cover with intrigue.

You knew he’d like it.

“I haven’t seen one of these in so long. Whose grave did you raid to get this, the hell?”

“Found it yesterday in my grandparent's cellar, and before Taeyong got his hands on it. I thought that you’d find it interesting so I was planning on showing you later this week, but hey, look who I happened to run into today.”

He simply shakes his head before bringing the machine up to his eyes and popping open its cover, a finger coming up to trace the dust out of the inside of it.

“Do you have a cassette to put in it or…?” he begins, looking up at you. You shake your head. “We can go to the vintage shop downtown later to get you some, if you want.”

“Really? You’ll go with me?”

“Yeah, Y/N. You’ve always got the coolest things to play around with, and we can go shove this in Yong’s face too. He’s gonna be so jealous.”

“You just wanna annoy my brother,” you snort, nudging his arm.

“You’ve got me there.” He holds up his hands in mock surrender before poking his tongue inside his cheek, eyebrows furrowing in thought. “Or… I could make you a personalized mixtape?” Your jaw drops comically, no words coming out of your mouth as you just stare at him.

“Are you being serious right now?”

“So, so serious.”

“If you did, I would actually lose my mind,” you finally close your mouth in amazement. “You’d probably be my favorite person ever.”

“Well, then that would be well worth it. I’ll work on it when I’m back in the studio at uni,” Jaehyun smiles genuinely, handing you your walkman back before swinging his leather bag back onto his shoulder as the bus pulls to a halt. With a parting pat on your shoulder, he mouths a goodbye before descending the aisle.

“This is my stop. See you at the party, Y/N.”

…

When you had received the call on a quiet Saturday afternoon from Mark that he and Chaewon would be leaving earlier to help set up for Johnny’s weekend party — the one that Jungwoo and Jaehyun had only told you about just a few days prior — the possibility of not having a ride to bring you hadn’t even struck yet. You were too busy thanking your friends that they had granted you two more hours for an afternoon nap, and an extra 60 minutes to get ready; a truly ideal day in your opinion.

It’s only when you’ve given yourself a final look in the mirror, admiring the new dress that you’ve donned at the last minute, do you hear the undeniable honk of a car outside. Brushing aside the curtains and trying to get your eyes to focus in the dark, you make a noise of panic when you spy Jaehyun’s car outside your house.

What’s he doing here?

You'd spent far more time with Jaehyun in the past few days than you have in your entire lifetime, running small errands with him when Taeyong's not there and browsing through retro stores in nearby towns for old cassettes. With every hour more spent together, it felt like you were getting closer to knowing his feelings, and that in itself excited you to no end. He'd end every drive together with a knowing look and some sort of physical touch, and each goodbye left you in anticipation for the next time you'd see him.

Sprinting down the stairs and grabbing your shoes as fast as you can, you rush out into the street where the Mustang’s tinted windows prevent any passerby from making out any faces from the outside.

As you approach the driver’s side, the window rolls down to reveal the owner of the car.

“Hey,” Jaehyun grins at you, his pupils dilated and the faint smell of smoke lingering on his breath.

It feels like forever since you’ve seen him, even if it’s only been a few hours since you last saw each other. You can feel your head fog up when you fully take in his appearance; with his hair slicked back and his button-up undone to reveal sharp collarbones and a dangling, silver cross, he looks godly as the moonlight basks him in a paper-white glow.

“Chaewon and Mark had to stay later to help set up more and Taeyong’s been pregaming since six, so he sent me to pick you up. You can get in the back.”

You hum in understanding before climbing into the backseat, tucking your hands under your thighs before looking up at the front of the car.

Your heart drops.

“Hi,” the girl in the shotgun seat lilts, her bleached hair falling into wavy ringlets against Jaehyun’s leather seats. “Y/N, right? I remember you! You’re Yongie’s baby sis.”

You itch to fill the silence that follows, even though you assume she would have no trouble clearing it with her well-known, extroverted dynamic. There’s an unnamed tension in the car between the two people in the front seat, and it’s so intense that you could cut it with a knife.

You take shallow breaths, not sure what to make of your position. I’m sitting in a car with my crush and his former situationship— holy. How did we get to this point? She’s literally—

“—Lim Sae-mi,” you attempt to give her a genuine smile, flashing your teeth in what you pray isn’t an awkward expression.

Saemi simply twinkles in the rear view mirror, her delicately painted lips stretching up before she twists around to observe you.

“You do remember me! Look at how pretty you are too,” she exclaims, reaching back to pat down a strand of your hair, her voice laced with sticky sweetness. “You could be a model, just like Yongie. And your hair is so healthy, I’m jealous. Isn’t her hair so so nice, Jae?”

Jaehyun snaps to attention at the mention of his name, seeming to be in some sort of haze with the way he looks like he’s holding his breath for as long as humanly possible.

“Yeah.” You find yourself wilting in the slightest at his monotone voice. Looking out the window as he starts driving towards the outskirts of town, you try not to let yourself be too disappointed at the way he loses such distinctive qualities when around the girl sitting next to him.

Jaehyun freezes up when Saemi turns to him all doe-eyed, flashbacks flitting through his mind of the days when he’d anticipate the moments he’d see her again when they were younger. Strangely enough, the effect that she used to have on him — palpitating heart, nervous ticks, rosy cheeks, uncanny attraction — seems to have dissipated. Now, highschool-Jaehyun seems so far away, and their memories even further.

What’s changed?

“Um,” you start as you watch suburban lights zoom by less and less frequently, your brain working just as fast to eliminate some of the weird, awkward tension happening in the car. You don’t really know enough to make conclusions, but something must have happened in the past for them to react to each other like this. “How’s SNU? Do you guys run into each other often on campus?”

Jaehyun chuckles lowly, a tinge of uncertainty lining his tone as he waits for Saemi to answer your question.

“Right, you’re going to uni next year right? Hmm… we don’t really see each other on campus at all, now that I think about it,” she simpers, frowning at the road in front of her before brightening up in less than a second. “But that's because Jae’s so busy, preparing to be a future doctor and all. He was always the smartest one out of all of us.”

You watch as he falls silent, knuckles tightening on the steering wheel as his jaw clenches ever so slightly.

“Hey, we should catch up sometime Jae,” she adds on with a tone like she doesn’t really mean it before turning her gaze to him, tacking on a noise of agreement with herself as if she's already decided that they will.

She knows they won’t.

You watch their eyes meet briefly before Jaehyun breaks it to turn the steering wheel left onto a never-ending stretch of a lone, empty road.

Saemi’s a hard person to figure out. You know that she’s charming when she wants to be and firm when she needs to be, but you also know from Taeyong that she has a personality she can flip on and off like a switch; it’s almost as if mind games with the people around her are amusing, and it’s up to the other person to figure out what her true intentions are. It’s understandable why so many people find her alluring.

Glancing up at the back of her head once more, you observe as she leans back with a faint frown before swallowing something in her hand that looks like a bottled shot. She looks uncomfortable as she shifts in her seat every few minutes, and you’re not sure if she’s more put off by the alcohol or by Jaehyun. Your guess would be the latter, even if her voice makes it seem like she’s the most confident person in the world.

You don’t even attempt to start another conversation, instead opting to roll down the window so that you can watch empty land flash by, an occasional plant breaking the smooth ground. The car picks up speed on its own with no other vehicle in sight, the only light coming from the rising crescent moon and a solo gas station situated further down the road.

The three of you perk up as you approach the oil refill and the only other car at the station, a big pick-up with dressed-up figures leaning out of its windows and sitting around the back cargo bed. You assume they’re heading to the same place you are with the way they all shout at each other as they pass a dark bottle back and forth. A boy gets out of the driver’s seat to walk over to Jaehyun’s car and lean through Saemi’s side of the window, shades pushed up into his hair and beads and cuban links dangling out of his shirt. You don’t recognize him, but you’re not surprised when Johnny knows just about every young person in the world.

“Jaehyun, man! And Saemi, damn, I haven’t seen you guys in a while. Headed to Johnny’s?” he exclaims with a loud voice and wide smile, reaching in to pat a long-lost friend on the shoulder. Just like that, the extroverted Jaehyun and Saemi are back, conversing with him as if their awkward energy and off demeanors didn’t just dictate the ride over.

The guy notices you in the back when your eyes meet accidentally, both of you taken aback.

“And who might this be?” He smirks at you, gaze never leaving yours as he directs the question to the other two in the car. You smile back just to be friendly, but with the way he’s staring at you, you’re not sure if that’s the right way to go about things.

“Lee Taeyong’s sister,” Jaehyun speaks up, glimpsing back at you with an unreadable look. A look of recognition flashes over the stranger’s face as his mouth opens in surprise.

“So this is the sister. Shit, is that why I’ve never seen her around?”

“Yeah.” There’s a bitter undertone to his voice, expression faltering before he raises his eyebrows with a smile. “And that’s why she’s off limits, man. I know that look all too well.”

You look at your brother’s friend in question, leaning forward, but Jaehyun doesn’t even glance at you. Both of you know that Taeyong isn’t really the overly protective type, so why would he say that? Maybe he knows that this guy is bad news, so he’s warning me. You nod to yourself, satisfied with your quick thinking. That sounds about right.

You’re about to offer a comment yourself, but you’re stopped by a—

“Lim Saemi! No fucking way, is that really you?” another shrill voice calls from across the expanse of the gas station, a former classmate stalking across the black cement in teetering heels as she waves dramatically at the girl in front of you. “It is you! I can’t believe we ran into you like this, you gotta join the party truck now!”

Saemi seems to recognize her, waving dramatically out the window to her friend. In a matter of seconds, the girl has pulled her out of Jaehyun’s car as she laughs at her friend’s antics of tugging on her wrist to string her along, drunk. Saemi throws you and Jaehyun a look that seems to say everything and nothing at the same time; if you were to interpret it in your own language, it would spell out: So sorry I’m ditching you guys! I love both of you to pieces but I’d honestly rather drink bleach than get back in that car. Hope you understand. Muah.

And with that, you watch Saemi switch cars in a matter of moments. The boy follows them back to their chaotic ride to Johnny’s after waving goodbye at Jaehyun, who’s watching them without any emotion bleeding through his stoic face. You can’t even begin to guess what's going through his mind as his eyes flick back to his dashboard, spaced out.

You pause.

“...and then there were two.”

Biting your bottom lip when you realize you mumbled that out loud, and you’ve genuinely never wanted to be six feet under more because the man hasn’t even said a word since she left you two.

Jaehyun freezes at your voice, almost as if he forgot you were in the car. Letting out an airy laugh after a moment, your shoulders relax when you sense that his weird, Saemi-caused demeanor has faded with her sudden absence.

“Wanna move to the front? It’s lonely up here.” You perk up at his belated response, excitedly getting out of the back to slide into the shotgun seat at his invitation. The man next to you seems to visibly relax, stomach releasing and shoulders drooping with less tension as he starts the car and turns back onto the stretch of empty road.

The silence doesn’t bother you this time when Saemi’s absent; it’s pleasant and full, as if both of you needed this momentary break from nonstop life to collect yourself. Staring at the dust picking up along the wheels while the needle on the speedometer rises up and up, you find the scene before you therapeutic in unexplainable ways.

Jaehyun feels the same, his eyes spacey as one hand rests languidly on the steering wheel with ingrained muscle memory. The vehicle coasts past blank acres and rolling hills, the burning moon engaging in hide-and-seek as it appears and disappears behind their peaks. He doesn’t even feel the need to turn up the stereo as he usually does when your audible, light breaths are sufficient enough. It’s comforting in ways he didn’t know he needed.

You recognize how close you are to Johnny’s estate when you see the road before you thin into dirt and pebbles, a grandiose silver gate barely visible in the far distance. Behind the gate is the unmistakable gleam of polished stone, no doubt the road that leads up to the party and an onslaught of cars. If you concentrate hard enough, your mind can even conjure up the deep bass of the music that the host prefers at his mixers, their heavy resonance flowing through the thick soil to the bottom of Jaehyun’s car and all the way up to the soles of your feet.

You’re just about to point your strange observance out when Jaehyun makes a sudden swerve, pulling off to an edge of mangled weeds and tree roots, the car rolling to a shuttering stop just before a barren field of dead plants. Your body lurches forward a bit with the movement, the boy apologizing profusely when he sees you adjust your seatbelt with confusion written all over your expression.

“Fuck, sorry sorry sorry,” he mumbles, moving his hand in front of you as if you could fall out of your seat at any minute. “I just… the stars are stunning right now, we gotta stop for a sec. You don’t mind if we…”

He trails off, distracted, as he pulls the car door open hastily, rushing out to take in the night sky in its full glory. It’s as if he doesn’t move fast enough, the stars will pull a disappearing stunt on him.

It’s endearing to see Jaehyun like this, a smile subconsciously finding its way onto your face when you spot him bouncing on the balls of his feet lightly. His eyes are completely enamored with the sight above him, neck craned up at an odd angle to see everything; from the way his fingers dig into his palms in excitement to the cold flush on his cheeks from the biting evening chill, it’s like he doesn’t know what to do with himself when encountering such a beautiful product of mother nature.

The thought of Johnny’s party evaporates from both of your minds as you find yourself mirroring Jaehyun’s position.

After a few minutes of stillness, he looks at you with the very stars from the sky in his eyes.

“Can we stay here for a bit?”

He beams at your “of course” before hoisting himself onto the cool hood of his Mustang and offering a hand out for you to grab. Pulling you up onto the spot beside him with a huff, he pulls your wrist to shift your body closer to his before smiling contently to himself.

You try not to let your mind spiral at his warm touch, instead focusing your attention on the blanket of constellations that greet you from the inky stretch of night sky. The cold metal of the hood cools your burning skin as your legs stretch out in front of you, skin ghastly as your arms support your weight from behind you.

When he hears your faint intake of breath, Jaehyun allows his eyes to leave the pretty view above him to the pretty view beside him for a few seconds, letting them linger on your side profile as you stare up in awe. They fall from the slope of your nose to the open curve of your lips, circling around your neck and raking over the ornate gems decorating your skin. You’re breathtaking in 1001 ways, and it’s such a pressing realization that he blinks away in shock when your gaze suddenly meets his.

“Do you do this often?”

“When I need to get away for a bit. All of my best ideas come to me at night, I think. There’s just something about darkness and non-artificial light which is curiously inspiring.”

You nod, leaning back on the windshield and resting your head against its glass. Nighttime lets you think in the abstract, where the shadows don’t take shape and remind you to think in a direct and methodical way.

“I get that,” you empathize. “After Taeyong left, I used to climb onto my roof after dark and just sit there alone for hours. I wouldn’t know how much time had passed until I got back into my room, and to be honest, that was my favorite time of the day. It took my mind off things, even if it was only for a few hours.”

“You know, Yong and I used to do that when we were younger. You were too little to remember I think, but we’d go up after your parents fell asleep and throw basketballs down the side of your house to see how far they would bounce up… we probably hit your window too a few times. Only a few.”

“That was you?” you jut, incredulous.

“Oh, so she does remember,” Jaehyun laughs under his breath, playfully avoiding eye contact when you scoff at your brother and his' antics. “Anyway, I wanna go up there again someday.”

“Our roof? I’ll bring you.”

Jaehyun turns to face you.

“Promise? I’m counting on it, Lee.”

You don’t hide your bashful smile this time, looking away when the boy flashes his dimples at you. Your insides flood with warmth as you secretly bring the back of your hand up to feel your cheek, scared of its betrayal of your feelings.

Jaehyun sighs, content, after a few moments, his neck lolling at the joint to stargaze once again. He feels entirely relaxed at this moment; there’s nothing that Mother Nature can’t fix.

“History revolved around looking at the stars and just talking, you know? I wish I could stay here forever and never grow up.”

You tilt your head curiously.

“Why, you don’t like being an adult?”

“Not that,” he shakes his head. “It’s more of, I pretend to be collected and mature and all-knowing, but the feeling of having no control over life magnifies as I get older. My head and heart haven’t grown up fast enough to catch up.”

“Jaehyun.”

“Hm?”

“You don’t ever have to pretend. It’s… it’s okay to not know what you’re doing or what the future looks like, and it’s okay to let yourself go at times too. Being an adult doesn’t mean always knowing the right things to do or figuring out every little detail right now,” your words stumble a bit as they spill out, but he seems to catch onto every word perfectly. “I’m scared too, so it’s kinda ironic that I’m giving you this advice when I can’t follow it myself.”

“We can trade words of wisdom,” Jaehyun offers more lightheartedly. “It’s so much easier to give advice to other people than to yourself.” You can’t think of a better way to phrase it than that.

“And I think simply moving forward with what you can muster is the best we can do,” you add on. Jaehyun just stares at you as you talk, chin in his palm as he takes in your advice with sincerity. “Things will just come and go naturally as we go on.”

“You’re right. Time tells, Y/N. And frankly, you’re so much more mature than me.”

“Me?” You frown, surprised at the fact that he thinks you are. “That’s so strange to hear, because I feel like I’ll never be independent in the way that you and Tae are. Even though we’re not that far apart in age, I’ve always thought you guys were from a different galaxy, like fear wasn’t a word in your dictionary and maturity has always just come naturally.”

“It’s all in the way we carry ourselves, but maturity itself doesn’t come from this,” Jaehyun waves his hand around to outline your body in an imaginary circle, “but from this.” You watch as he taps a purposeful finger against your temple. “And you have more of it than anyone my age. You have a mind that people would die for, and I think that’s something to be very proud of.”

The wind whistles soundly as the two of you take in the world with new perspectives, sitting up a little straighter and legs just barely touching as he moves closer without even noticing. You don’t say anything for a while, and you don’t need to. He recognizes how you need a few minutes to let his words soak in, and that’s what makes you so you. Jaehyun knows you won��t just take his words on a whim and forget them ten minutes later; you’re the kind of person that internalizes everything he says with genuine feeling and gratefulness, and that quality is what makes you, in his opinion, celestial.

“You always know just what to say,” you finally whisper, and he almost doesn’t catch it.

You receive no reply except for the most adoring look in his eyes as he smiles fondly at you. The breeze blows wisps of your hair around your face, and Jaehyun can’t help it when he reaches out to tuck a stray strand behind your ear. His fingers linger — longingly, if you dare say — before he makes himself pull away.

You’re scared to let yourself believe that you might have a chance this time; everything floods back and hits your heart at full power, and you think that your newfound connection you’ve found with the boy over this summer has trumped all of your past memories. Your feelings are fragile, and the way he looks at you is terrifying. He makes your heart race violently; your feelings from when you were fifteen don’t even compare.

“It’s too chilly for a summer month,” he speaks up suddenly, rubbing his arms and trying to lighten the mood. You shake your mind out of its storm of complicated emotions before offering a small smile back.

“Always speaking the truth, aren’t you?” You tease, playing with the hem of your short dress. Jaehyun makes a noise of agreement before a boyish grin stretches across his face.

“Yeah, which is why Leonardo DiCaprio is not—”

“—UH,” You stop him mid sentence, shushing him. “Let’s not finish that sentence.”

“—peak acting which is why—”

“La la la lala,” you sing, covering your ears with your hands childishly and squinting so that you don’t have to see Jaehyun raising an eyebrow at you, amused. “I can’t hear youu.”

“I take back the part about you being more mature than me.” Only one boy is capable of making your moods flip like this, and he’s sitting right next to you as your laughs ring out in tandem through the night.

Eventually, after a few more back-and-forths under the dark sky, Jaehyun takes it upon himself to teach you some astronomical terms. You doubt you’ll remember them, but he promises he’ll make it easy for you to hold in your mental library.

“You need to be prepared,” he stresses, “if you’re gonna come with me next time.”

“Next time… stargazing?”

“Yup,” he answers matter-of-factly. “Let’s see… there’s a triangle of importance in my opinion. The true triune, holy grail of astronomy.”

You watch him sink into his element, musing upon the milky way above.

“Stars,” he air-traces the Orion constellation slowly. “Moons,” he continues, moving his arm in front of you to point at the claw of the silver crescent moon. Jaehyun lets his hand fall, the tip of his finger grazing your skin in the slightest as it hovers in front of your heart. “And celestial bodies.”

…

You mentally prepare yourself to get an earful from Chaewon as the drive up to Johnny’s resumes…

…two hours late.

In your defense, it wasn’t completely your fault. Jaehyun says you can blame it on him when she throws her fit at you being late — and boy, do you know she will — but you also know that when you recount what happened to cause your tardiness, she’ll excuse it. Partially. Maybe even throw in a sushi dinner and smoke sesh, then all of your sins would be forgiven in her book.

You try to distract yourself from Jaehyun’s sweet actions just a few minutes earlier by thinking about where you might find Chaewon and Mark when you get there; maybe the drink-stocked kitchen, where Mark will surely be… or outside, where people like Chaewon usually go with their ziploc bags and scratched-up lighters.

Where would Jaehyun go?

You groan inwardly when you catch your brain drifting to the idea of the man next to you once again, said man driving with a dopey expression on his face as Johnny’s estate comes into full view. You can’t tell if it’s because of a well-needed down-time with the stars (and time with you, if you dare to think optimistically) or because it looks like there’s strobe lights flashing out of every window of the ground floor—

“—holy shit, they really went all out,” Jaehyun gapes, hands slacking on the steering wheel as you both take in the scene before you. “Johnny’s fucking insane. Maybe even like, should-be-checked-into-a-facility insane.”

Your eyes widen as the building unfurls itself before you, a mansion so grand that it’s comparable to Gatsby’s in every way. It’s got a certain vintage charm to it, something you assume Johnny’s parents built in homage to their roots with veiny, marbled stairs and towering Roman columns. The chaos that’s happening in and around the home itself, however, is a different story. You can see the drunk bodies already as they move around to invisible music, and waves of people climb spiral staircases up to the upper levels as they fumble drinks around. Silhouettes of the party-goers are littered across the vast, arched windows, stone trims decorating their sills with impeccable detail; the estate is truly a needle that shines brilliantly in a haystack of country homes, the nearest house being a whole 20 minute drive away. You’d been to his countryside home only once with Taeyong when you were younger, but seeing it in all its glory during the nighttime is a whole different experience.

“Nah,” you grin when he puts the car into park behind a train of assorted automobiles that cover the driveway. “He's that special kind of chaebol-insane. I propose not eating the rich, because what would the world be without Johnny Suh.”

Jaehyun simply chuckles lightly before getting out of the car and walking around to your side, opening the door before helping you out. You’d be lying if you said that the butterflies in your stomach didn’t just seize at his actions.

But nothing good lasts forever.

Just as soon as the butterflies come, they die off when you notice the immediate, uncanny switch in Jaehyun’s disposition.

You’re not sure if it’s the deafening bass-boosted music flooding into the air or the multitude of bodies in front of the house alone as the two of you approach the open door, but he seems to be pushed into a different element the closer you get. You recognize it as the one that you’d only heard of in high school, the one who frequented house parties on school nights with your brother, the one who shone in a room full of people, the infamous heartbreaker Jaehyun.

You can see the shift in his eyes, the way his pupils dilate slowly as they gain that undeniable gleam. You can feel his muscles lose a tension you didn’t even know was there, especially when he swings his arm around your shoulders casually, letting his hand rest against your collarbone. You can hear the calls of his wicked name already from both females and males alike, their shouts pulling him away from you as multiple people are drawn to him right away.

You recognize a few of them, hometown names that make their presence known as they clap Jaehyun on the back and reach out for intoxicated hugs. It’s also now that you realize the sheer amount that the boy you practically grew up with — the very one who spent his school day afternoons playing in your living room — changes when with other people. His popularity was never a mystery to you, but seeing it in person like this… he acts like he’s finally at home. A true socialite who flourishes when surrounded by people.

And you would never hold that against anyone, except until—

“Hey, Y/N, I’ll catch up with you later, okay? Promise.”

Ah.

His voice rings out flippant and unfamiliar, arm slipping from your shoulders like deadweight, and his fingers don’t linger on your skin longingly this time. Without looking back, he’s swept away by a myriad of high school friends as they drag him off to only God knows where. They hand him drinks and jostle around with each other between heated bodies, his silver rings glinting under the lights as he throws his head back for a bitter shot.

You watch as their forms retreat into the depths of the party until the shadows swallow him up and your eyes can’t follow him anymore.

Left to hover awkwardly by yourself at the door of Johnny’s house with no drink in hand and a bewildered twist in your expression, suddenly, all the moments that have led up to now feel like a fever dream. Everything just happened so fast. One minute he’s next to you, and you’re sure you’ve fallen again. Hard. And the next moment he’s gone with the wind, like a figment of a dream flickering in and out of consciousness. Sure, you hadn’t expected to spend the whole night with him, but you thought that after your many little talks he would want to stay with you a little longer than three seconds.

At least he promised to find you later, but you’re still left feeling unsure about where you stand with him in contrast to the bubbling feeling of affection you had felt earlier in the night. The way he acts is giving you emotional whiplash.

I have to find Chaewon and Mark, you think to yourself suddenly, trying to shake your head of Jaehyun-related thoughts. The way he’s plagued your thoughts far too many times these past few months terrifies you, and it feels like you’ve lost your mind for real this time. You’re charged with a new determination to not think about the boy until he comes back to you himself. It’s not worth ruining your night over maybe’s.

Weaving through sweaty figures and waving instinctually at the people who happen to recognize you, you find yourself in a sort of trance as you strain to catch a glimpse of one of your friends. The bass-boosted music fills your ears with a heavy buzz as you make your way through what feels like hundreds of people.

A cold hand abruptly reaches out to grasp your wrist when you approach the closed off kitchen, causing you to cautiously glance back at its owner with your other arm ready to push them off.

“Babe, what are you doing here all alone?”

You jump slightly before giving him a childish slap on his arm as a grinning Mark reaches out to embrace you, and the strong smell of twisted tea pungent on his breath. His hand comes up to tuck your head into his neck familiarly, an old habit from when you were young that tends to come out in his drunk endeavors.

“You scared me,” you mumble into his shirt, voice muffled by the fabric. “I was trying to find you, but there’s literally thirty million people in this damn house.”

Feigning hurt, Mark pulls away to put a hand to his heart. “You can’t recognize me from a house away?” His sarcasm makes you squint at him, your hand reaching out to tug him along with you.

“No, Mark. I actually can’t recognize you from a house away,” you bite back, mumbling an extra, “surprisingly too, because I could probably hear your loud-ass laugh from another country if I really wanted to.”

“Literally shut up.”

“Never. Come find Chaewon with me?”

“I-” Mark sighs, giving in to your pleading eyes. What can he say, he has a self-destructive soft spot for his best friend. “Fine. But only if you get her to play one of the drinking games with me, ‘cause you never want to,” he tsks. You offer him an innocent smile before turning towards the back balcony. Gripping Mark’s arm tightly as the two of you make your way through clusters of people, you glance back every so often to make sure he’s still with you. You don’t want to be left alone again.

Again. Like Jaehyun just did when he said he wanted to spend time with me…

He seems to sense your uneasiness when you pause for a moment to look down, the fluorescent lights that lead to the back glass doors making your eyes sting as your fingers tighten their grip on his wrist.

“Hey hey hey,” the boy pauses to move in front of you with worry creasing his brows. “You good?”

You blink away from him, mumbling an unsure “yeah,” before clearing your throat. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just got dizzy for a sec.”

Mark puts his hands on your shoulders carefully, eyes scanning the way your face looks more apprehensive than usual and your head isn’t held just as high as the Y/N he knows would. He’s had almost his entire life to study your moods and the rises and falls of your expressions, and he knows that something heavy is bothering you to the point where you’re letting him see it bleed through your normal, carefree facade. It’s something serious, and he also knows you’re not gonna tell him until you’re ready.

So for now, he simply smooths down any invisible tensions in your arms and straightens your posture for you like he would in your younger school days, gentle and nimble fingers adjusting the straps of your dress like a parent figure would.

“I like this number on you. You should wear it more often.”

“Thank you,” you smile gratefully at him, forcing your feet to move forward once again. It's not unusual for Mark to compliment you, but it feels particularly comforting tonight after so much of your confidence in yourself has been built up and torn down in a matter of hours.

You don’t let your gaze take in anyone except a potential Chaewon as the two of you finally make it outside, scared of potentially seeing someone you don’t want to see. Out of the corner of your eye, Mark gestures animatedly to the lit up garden, far fewer people mingling in its flowering, winding paths than inside.

“Oh! Chaewon’s right there,” he pushes you lightly in her direction, a poised figure leaning, relaxed, on one of the ivy-slinked marble balconies. “I’m not gonna go far, but I’ll get some drinks from the kitchen for us and be right back, okay? I won’t leave you guys for long.” You’re silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry, Y/N? You’ve done nothing wrong, but whoever or whatever’s bothering you should feel ashamed for making you apologize for nothing,” he chastises immediately, indignant towards the fact he has an inkling of who’s made you feel this way. It pains him to see his best friend hurt silently.

You nod before he gives you one last pat and nudges you in the direction of Chaewon. She turns on her heel just as Mark leaves, face lighting up when she spots your form heading in her direction.

“Took you long enough!” She calls out over with a hand reaching out for you, her other occupied by a flute of some mysterious fizzy liquid. “I’ve been waiting so that we can try the colorful shots in Johnny’s fridge together. I know you secretly like those.”

You snap yourself out of your thoughts before managing a grateful smile as she pulls you into a side hug. “Sorry, the uh… drive took longer than anticipated,” you mumble, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

“Who’d you come with again? I feel so bad that we couldn’t pick you up, but the setup literally took the living energy out of me.”

You bite your lip nervously, eyes flicking to the night sky in reassurance.

“I came with— I came with Jaehyun,” you spit out quietly, already predicting her reaction in your head.

“Damn, for real? I told your brother to call one of your other friends, but this is so much better. Did you guys get time to talk or what?” Chaewon lifts her drink to her lips as she waits with wide eyes, anticipating an answer that you know you can’t give her. If anyone has always rooted for the possibility of him liking you back, it’s her.

“I don’t know,” you finally whisper, giving up as you tug your fingers through your hair. “It’s just… he’s a confusing person. Like yeah, we talked, but I can’t figure him out at all. He goes back and forth from being the closest I’ve ever felt to a boy to an almost distant stranger in a matter of seconds.”

Your friend’s face falls at your words, clearly noting how much you’re beginning to get stressed out over him. It kills her to see anything but a smile on your face, and the fact that it’s because of someone who you’ve pined over for so long is detrimental to watch.

“Y/N…”

“It’s fine. I’m making a big deal out of nothing, probably.” Your voice cracks slightly in the middle of the sentence, but you mask it with a quiet laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a real chance with him to begin with, so try not to expect much.” Chaewon’s bitter smile reflects her inner confliction as she reaches out to take your hand in hers.

“Stop, don’t think like that,” she mutters.

“But don’t worry, there’s still,” you whisper, putting your pointer finger and thumb up to approximate the size of the tiny moon in the sky above you, “a little hope. There’s always been.”

You nod to yourself, almost like a subtle reassurance. You’ve always had faith and confidence in your own feelings, and a little hope has never killed you. If anything, it’s brought you closer to Jaehyun than you’ve ever been, and getting to know him in ways that you were never able to has been a silver lining in itself. Just maybe… deep down, not in the way you know you wish you had.

“I love how you’re always been so sure of what you want,” Chaewon confesses. It’s both a blessing and a curse. “But tonight’s about having fun, okay? No use wasting time on a boy that can’t get his own shit straight.”

With a giggle, she pulls you towards the house once again. “I want to see you get wasted. His name is not allowed as far as I’m concerned.”

“Jaehyun’s name…?”

“Who?”

You shake your head with a smile as she feigns confusion with an innocent expression. I don’t deserve my friends, you think to yourself, heart warming at how much they try to make you feel better.

“Come on, Y/N. Look around at all the people,” she laughs out in the tone of a true socialite as she tugs you towards where most of the partygoers are congregated, littered across every corner with their short dresses and sweaty skin. Noticing that your mouth is still tinged with a hint of apprehensiveness, she stops in her tracks and turns to you. “You’re telling me that you’re gonna let him do this to you? This night is for us, not waiting for a stupid boy that’s had the chance of a decade to love on you, pretty girl.”

She fiddles with your dress and smoothing down its invisible wrinkles as you nod along with her, mind willing itself to focus on yourself and your friends instead of—

Right. He doesn’t exist right now.

“And you look so good right now that anyone would be stupid not to feel lucky for having your attention,” she affirms, shiny hair tumbling under fluorescent lights as she beams at you. You can’t help but wrap your arms around her, the comfort of her mere presence and consoling words making your heart burn.

“Love you, Chae. I think we should just date instead,” you mumble into her shoulder, her signature, bright laughter ringing out at your words.

Her eyes brighten even more when she spots Mark appearing back behind you with entire bottles of liquor in his hands.

“Where the hell did you get those, my god,” she ooh and aah’s at him as your face lights up at the appearance of the boy.

“Johnny’s hidden stash in one of the guest bedrooms. He thinks he’s slick,” he snorts, putting a finger up in a shushing motion when Chaewon gasps dramatically. When you giggle at your best friend’s antics, he turns to look at you with a hint of worry on his face.

You seem to have cheered up a bit since he left you to get drinks, but he also knows how good at hiding your true feelings you are. From poker faces to fake laughs, you’ve got it all under your belt. He just wishes you would just let go sometimes, but it’s understandable when he thinks about you as a person. It’s simply in your nature to be selfless, and ever since the two of you were young, you’ve never been one to bother anyone with your own worries. No wonder he’s worried as you crinkle your eyes in elation at him, a complete 180 from five minutes ago.

Glancing at Chaewon, she nods at him discreetly, seemingly having a conversation with just their eyes. You’re okay now.

Letting out a short breath of relief, Mark loops his arm with yours before pulling you into the lion’s den of a party haven.

“Let’s get fucked up, hmm?”

…

You don’t know how much time has passed as you trudge through the garden with your heels in one hand, Chaewon’s fingers laced with yours in the other.

You’re sure it’s been at least three hours since you arrived. No, two. Maybe four?

To be honest, time isn’t even a concept in your book as you swing your arm with your friend’s, a drunken-dopey smile on your face as you relish the feeling of the dirt and grass against your bare skin.

Maybe you would’ve known when Mark had handed you the first shot, eyes flicking absentmindedly to the mounted clock in Johnny’s spacious living room — but you hadn’t cared enough then to figure out the numbers and read the time properly. In fact, you don’t think you were even thinking about anything except getting a bit of alcohol in your system. Forgetting was the first thing on your mind.

And boy, did everything spiral from there.

You recall vague bits here and there, from getting too close with familiar faces to being handed funky glasses with sparkly liquids. It was all a blur of overdue laughter and shots after shots, and you have to admit, completely letting loose for the first time in a while felt numbing in the most beautiful way.

You remember Mark drunkenly laying his head down in your lap at one point, tapping the hard liquor in your solo cup and mumbling a happy, “water fountain?” up at you. You weren’t seeing double just yet, but you certainly weren’t thinking straight enough either to comprehend his words fully. So, with absolutely no hesitation and a tipsy giggle, you poured the rest of the contents in your cup into his open mouth as carefully as you could (read: not careful at all). He had sat up with a cheeky smile, wiping the surprisingly dark, bloodred liquid from his bottom lip before it dribbled down and stained his skin.

Everything after that moment felt muggy, like a heavy blanket was wrapped around your head and knotted twice around your neck. You suppose that the alcohol added up at some point, pushing you past the point of clarity.

And suddenly now, you’re here. In the grass with Chaewon, doing only God knows what in a freezing night chill with your short dress and absence of a cozy summer jacket. You don’t even know how you got outside in the first place.

The cold air is good for you, however, as you can feel the blurriness start to fade away bit by bit. You’re not stumbling around as much anymore, but your grip on your friend’s hand is as tight as ever as you make your way through pretty flower bushes and onto a stone path.

“Oh no, someone dropped their phone,” Chaewon laments with exaggerated sadness — no doubt the alcohol talking — before leaning down to pick up the shiny device. Dusting it off with her fingers, she traces a frowny face into its glass, causing it to suddenly turn on.

“Jesus,” you squint into its blinding screen, mentally cursing the person who had the brightness turned all the way up and causing tiny white dots to appear in your vision. “What time is it?”

“You have eyes, look yourself,” Chaewon turns her head towards you dramatically, words slightly slurred as she throws you an unimpressed look. “But it’s 2:43 am. I can’t believe we’re still conscious.”

You groan, rubbing lightly at your eye before she’s talking again, swaying slightly as she speaks. Letting your gaze wander, you let yourself linger on the few people either passed out on messy lawn chairs or calling their friends for late night rides. Some are standing around like you and Chae, heads hanging down and clearly not in their best condition. There’s people with their arms thrown over the shoulders of their friends too, providing obvious support for their less coherent counterparts.

A couple half hidden behind the edge of the balcony catches your eye, your muggy mind inwardly gushing at how cute they are. You want a relationship like that. Their figures are hidden by the shadows of the house, but you can still see how the boy holds her forearm with care as he leans against the stones with her, head tilted impossibly close to the girl’s to display his full attention on whatever she’s telling him through her hushed whispers.

“—it’s okay ‘cause we’re sleeping over at Johnny’s tonight anyway. And, he has like a thousand guest bedrooms so we can choose any one of them—”

The couple lean into the wall more, the light repositioning as they shift their bodies closer, obviously very comfortable with each other. The girl moves further into the light, shiny hair catching onto the glow as she turns in place. He chases her movements, following her into the beam of the balcony lights as their faces are lit up under the sudden absence of shade.

You breathe out.

No way.

“—and I’ve always wanted to stay at Johnny’s and experience that rich kid life, you know? I wonder what it’s like to—”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

You think that your heartbeat physically stops as you take in the scene before you. Like a thin arrow slicing right through the flesh and tissue of your heart, and it’s violently humbling. Bruising, even.

Stop.

There’s Saemi. And there’s Jeong Jaehyun too in all his glory, looking at her with the stars glittering in his eyes as she tilts her head up towards him.

Your mind goes blank.

“Hey, Y/N, I’ll catch up with you later, okay? Promise.”

That was what, four hours ago?

Ha.

You sober up immediately, like your head has just just been ruthlessly plunged into a bucket of ice cold water. Like God himself is telling you to face the fucking music and come back down to reality. And if you concentrate hard enough, you can even hear your soul shattering, its pieces clattering down and settling at the bottom of your stomach because you actually feel like you might throw up.

I should’ve known, is the phrase that repeats like a mantra in your head, manically getting louder and louder as you blink in pain. Your eyes refuse to leave them for some reason, watching the way his hand comes up to rest on the junction between her neck and shoulder with a delicate touch.

A bitter taste floods your mouth. You feel like you’re playing a one-sided game of push and pull, and it’s worn you out; it’s not disappointment, or even jealousy that fills your body, but fatigue. It’s tiring to let yourself hope, and then get let down time after time and you feel stupid. Disgusted at yourself, even, for attempting to appeal to a boy who had never given you the time of day in the past even though everyone was aware of how blatantly obvious your crush on him was.

You’ve always prided yourself on how true to your own character you are, but in this moment, you feel like a child watching real adults in the real world. Two years' age difference isn’t much in retrospect, but at this moment, Lim Saemi seems like a whole generation above you. Her maturity shines through every part of her — from her gait to the way she dresses to the way she leans into Jaehyun — and you can’t help but let your worst insecurity get to you as they get impossibly closer.

It hurts, because he’s not even mine.

“Y/N, are you listening?”

You don’t answer.

And when the soft plush of his lips come down to place a gentle kiss against her forehead, you decide that you’ve seen enough.

…

Your mouth feels like paper, your head feels like it’s about to split open, and you feel like shit.

Blearily blinking one eye open and then immediately shutting it after getting a glimpse of an unfamiliar ceiling, you groan out loud before stuffing your face into your arm.

Somehow, the little bit of willpower left in you forces your body to get off of the bed you’re on, stumble through the darkness (you think you accidentally trip over a stray body on the ground too), and feel your way to the hallway. Your brain has completely shut off, but you’re also fucking parched and nothing will get in the way of you and water right now.

Your feet miraculously lead you to the empty expanse of Johnny’s kitchen, little sunlight reaching its pristine tiles at such an early hour. Glancing at the red clock numbers on the oven, you blanch when it displays a mocking 6:04am. You’re lucky that your hangovers don’t hit too hard. Pouring yourself a glass of water, you can finally swallow and lean back against the counter in relief as you take a deep breath.

And that’s when it hits you. That’s when everything hits you.

You almost choke on your water as your mind pulls last night from the depths of its sleepiness, from the drinking to the unwanted feelings to the sensation of blacking out. You remember it all.

Taeyong taking a body shot in front of you (scarred). Johnny making out with one of your close school friends in front of you (scarred x2). Mark handing you drink after drink. Chaewon leading you into the garden for fresh air. And… and seeing the boy you like with a girl you thought he had nothing to do with anymore.

Like a floodgate of torturous memories, your mind automatically replays every little interaction without warning as you throw your head back against a cabinet in regret. It’s as if you have no control over what you get reminded of and what you don’t, because of course, the first thing that flashes before you is the feeling you felt when you saw Jeong Jaehyun in the courtyard.

His arm wrapped around the shoulder of Saemi’s as your best friend desperately vied for your attention, the girl finally following your line of sight to eventually see the scene you were watching in chilling silence. And Chaewon had noticed it all, from the way he smiled down at her to the very moment he looked up in your direction.

“Y/N…” she had whispered, the pity clear in her tone. You’d turned your head away quickly, not wanting her to see the tears gathering on your lash-line, but she couldn’t help but notice the way you reached up to wipe them away. Your body had gone into autodrive, quickly moving to the side to get away from the two as fast as you could. Chaewon reached out for you before turning back to glare at Jaehyun, surprised to see him already staring right at you.

He seemed unfairly distraught and guilty in her eyes, his gaze conflicted as his hands fell from Saemi’s face in a flash and hovered in the air in shock. A few seconds later and he snapped out of it, leaving her standing alone and rushing over in your direction, seemingly trying to reach you before you got lost in the mass of people inside the mansion.

As he passed Chaewon’s lingering form, her hand flew out to latch onto his shoulder.

Shaking her head at him — as if saying, you lost your chance ages ago — it was then that she truly felt awful about the inner turmoil her best friend was constantly subjected to when liking a boy like that.

Wincing, you press a cheek to the cold marble countertop of the kitchen as all of your thoughts flitter through your consciousness at once. You wish the dull throbbing in your head would stop, and even thinking about it makes you shift uncomfortably in place, itching to just get outside and clear your mind with fresh air.

Fuck it, you decide, no one’s awake anyway. I need to get away, even if it's only for a few moments.

Pushing your hair out of your face, you finish your water before heading out. There’s an unusual smell of artificial roses as you move through the hallways and descend the grand staircase; it’s eerie to walk in a silent house, all of the hallways dark and stoic. Johnny’s mansion looks like a mini natural disaster with the way decorations and bottles are strewn across its marble floors, almost like savages making use of a castle. It’s like a presentation of physical evidence of what took place last night.

Finally making it outside into the crisp morning air, you relish in the chirping of the songbirds and empty expanse of a dew-tipped garden. Taking a deep breath, you shiver slightly before heading down a small hill behind the garden. You recall there being a lake behind the property that Taeyong and Johnny used to bring you to when you were younger, one with a small dock that retreated far enough into the water that you could be alone without having the urge to constantly look towards the house again.

You don’t expect anyone to be awake — or even outside — this early, but it comes as a surprise when you almost trip over a figure sitting on the bottom-most stone step. Putting a hand to your heart, your eyes widen as they turn to look up at you.

“Oh… hi. I didn’t expect anyone would be awake this early.”

“Yeah, I just needed some fresh air,” you say, nervously playing with the hem of your shirt. “So I’m going down to the dock…”

“Ah. I see… um. You- you wouldn’t mind if I joined you, right?”

…

Life is funny sometimes.

As you swing your legs gently above the light waves, you can’t help but think about the irony of the situation you’re in. You bite your lip before turning to the person next to you, their knees pulled up to their chest as they stare out into the water.

“Saemi…”

The girl turns to you, a hesitant smile on her face as she reaches out for your hand.

Lim Saemi takes your fingers between hers before letting out a deep sigh, the talkative persona she normally holds, gone, as she looks between each of your eyes. The hesitance between the two of you is awkward in a way. You’ve never had a full conversation with her and you’ve always assumed things about her based off of others’ recountings, but she couldn’t be more different now.

The little imaginary devil on your shoulder shakes her pitchfork at you, as if saying, “you should be hating her, remember?”

You look down to hide your slight frown.

“I think we have a lot to talk about,” she starts, voice tentative and slow as she purses her lips in contemplation. You still. Nodding your head, you let her move closer to you on the wooden planks of the dock before she makes eye contact with you again.

“You know, sometimes it scares me how alike you and Taeyong look. It’s like staring into a mirror image, and I feel like I see memories in you that I associate with your brother.”

You cock your head at her words. “...we’re pretty similar people too, I think,” you whisper back, an automatic smile reaching your face as your mind finds its own way to him.

“I think so too,” she grins. “Actually, Taeyong and I have been friends for a long time, and he’s always speaked of you so fondly that I couldn’t help but anticipate meeting you. I would see glimpses of you here and there, and he would constantly mention his baby sister and how much he worried about her. He was the best older brother, and anyone could see it.” She pauses, taking in a deep breath. “Yet he treats his friends the very same way, with the same adoration and care. It doesn’t matter how much Taeyong will grow in the future with his escalating popularity and growing talent in music, he’ll always have the kindest soul in my eyes. I’m genuinely so thankful for him, Y/N.”

To hear someone speak about your brother like that triggers an emotion in you that you didn’t even know you had, gaze curious as you wait for her to continue.

“I don’t really know how to start this conversation to be honest, but- I bet you know how hard high school is.” You nod, grimacing at all of the particular more negative memories you have. “You’re balancing on that fine line between feeling too adult to be in school and feeling too childish to live your own life yet, and I, for one, most definitely didn’t know how to deal with such a sudden change in my social and academic surroundings. I think I changed physically a lot then, too. My face, my body, everything. I started morphing into someone that I couldn’t recognize in the mirror, and I came to the realization that boys liked me first for my appearance, not my personality. And… and you know what I regret the most? I learned how to use my body as a weapon.”

“I learned how to change the way I talk, how to talk to boys so that I could get them to do what I want, and suddenly, everything changed even faster. People flocked to me, which is what I had always secretly wanted, but the person that they wanted wasn’t me. I had flown a bit too close to the sun and now I was stuck with this facade that I couldn’t get rid of. It was never just ‘Saemi,’ I was always simply the object of their desires, something to be acquired. And I had brought it upon myself.”

Recalling the Saemi you knew and recognized in high school, you have a bit more of an understanding of her now. She held up a front in order to protect herself, and as a result, she lost touch with her own self. Your heart hurts for her as you hesitate to reach out and offer comfort.

“Your brother was the first one who understood me right away. We met in detention during our second to last year, and he saw right through me in the first ten minutes. Sat me down in the teacher’s empty chair and told me that I was a bitch for breaking one of his friend’s hearts.” She closes her eyes as she recalls that very afternoon. “Taeyong gave it to me plain and straight that day: I shouldn’t have promised false love to so many boys if I wasn’t planning to give it in the first place. Your brother may have been a player too, but the boundaries he always set with his girls made him a thousand times better than I was.”

You place your hand on hers, Saemi giving you a grateful smile in return.

“I thought hard about myself and my decisions after that, and I decided that if I wanted to enjoy the last years of my secondary schooling, I needed to take back control of my own actions. After I apologized to his friend, he offered me genuine friendship in the weeks following, one without the jealousy and lust that I was always caught up in before. I had always been surrounded with so much toxicity, and he was able to pull me out of it so easily that I finally felt seen for the first time.”

She pauses, glancing at you briefly before staring up at the sky.

“That was also… the first time I met Jaehyun.”

You shift, staring down at your shoe laces as they sway lightly with the wind.

Ah, you smile sadly to yourself. We’ve gotten to this part of the story.

“Your brother brought me along with him one day to one of his parties, and I had truly never been enamored with a boy that quickly before.”

You can tell that Saemi’s choosing her words carefully with you, and they hit a lot harder when you relate to what she’s saying. You’re certainly no stranger to his charm.

“We started talking that night and Jaehyun had somehow broken down all of the walls I had carefully built up within the first month of knowing each other. It was new for me. My personal mantra had always followed the lines of, ‘if they like what they see and feel, I might as well use it to my advantage.’ But it was different with him. I didn’t want us to be a one time thing, and I certainly did not want him to think of me as something who couldn’t do that kind of serious relationship shit. I wanted him to like me so badly without thinking about if I had genuine feelings towards him in the first place.”

She takes another deep breath, as if she’s collecting her thoughts, before leaning forward with an airy laugh and sadness clear in her eyes.

“Have you ever mistaken love for dependency, Y/N?”

Have you?

You think back to all the people you’ve liked throughout your teenage years, ranging from hallway crushes to… well- Jaehyun. Your pupils dart to the water as you think about the idea of depending on a person. Do I depend on the people I like, or do I know when to distance myself?

You shake your head.

“Jaehyun and I… we jumped into everything too quickly. It wasn’t even a right person, wrong time situation; we simply weren’t ready. We tried putting our all into this lone spark that we felt without stepping back and really looking at our relationship.” She stops to observe the rising sun above the lake, its golden reflection casting a healthy glow on her skin. Saemi’s beautiful like this, her feelings bare and raw before you as she lays out her emotions so vulnerably.

“I guess I never really loved Jaehyun in the way he loved me. He was looking for something tender and real, and younger me was not in the capacity to give that to him. I tried to convince myself every single fucking day that I liked him in that way, but even I knew deep down that my I would never convince myself. I still had this lingering, detrimental mentality of seeing boys as something I could win over, and my fascination with him intertwined with that in ugly ways.”

Saemi’s face falls a little before she takes both of your hands in hers, eyes sincere as she peers at you.

“The reason I’m telling you all this is because… I saw you,” she whispers carefully, watching your reaction. “Last night. When Jaehyun and I were together in the garden… I saw you watching before you walked away.”

Your heart drops as you look down at her hands holding yours so carefully, her pretty fingers encompassing your wrist as you unwillingly recall the worst emotions you had felt in a while.

She saw.

You only manage to get out a small, “oh,” before she squeezes your hand reassuringly.

“Hey hey hey, look at me,” she leans down slightly to put herself at eye level with you. The edges of her lips quirk up in the slightest, her hair falling elegantly against her face as the wind picks it up and puts it back down again. “I don’t want you to misunderstand. Why? Because all those years ago, Jaehyun misunderstood, and I misunderstood, and it was all of these assumptions and forced feelings that drove our relationship to its grave. We were shit at communicating with each other properly, and that eventually hurt both of us too deeply to heal the right way.”

You nod at her hesitantly, taking in what she’s saying with a newfound understanding. Saemi sighs before smiling again at you.

“I’ve hurt a lot of people in the past,” she says, forlorn, her eyes crinkled as she sniffs in the cold of the morning. “And I never got the chance to apologize to them properly. But last night, I finally worked up the confidence to revisit our high school days with Jaehyun.” She stops, leaning back onto the dock with her hands behind her. Her eyes close as she soaks in the morning sun, and you can’t help but mirror the position as your heart warms for her. “We finally got our much needed closure last night, and I was feeling a bit down afterwards so he was simply comforting me. And I won’t weigh you down with all the nitty gritty details, but we were able to see our ending all the way through without letting our emotions get in the way.”

You can’t help but reach out and hug the girl, your arms wrapping comfortably around her shoulders to express your awe and gratitude. With a little noise of surprise, Saemi pauses for a few seconds before embracing you back. Everything makes more sense now, and you can’t help but feel a little ashamed for jumping to conclusions so easily.

“I’m so grateful that you shared all that with me,” you mumble into her shirt, her chuckle ringing out into the lake as she rubs your back like an older sister would.

“Of course. If anyone deserved to hear all of this, it would be you.”

“Why?”

Saemi snorts, pulling back from your hug before lifting an eyebrow at you.

“Oh please, Y/N, you should see Jaehyun from everyone else’s eyes. We can all see the way he looks at you.” Your mouth drops open slightly, tilting your head in confusion.

“He looks at me a certain way?”

“God, I have never met two more stupid people in my lifetime,” she groans, bringing her fingers up to her temple. “And I say this lovingly, of course.”

With a fond look on her face, she nudges your shoulder. “But I’m really glad Jaehyun has someone like you.”

You bashfully look down at the water, a rosy blush creeping up your cheeks at her words. You were never 100% sure of where you stood with him, but that familiar feeling of hope has started to creep up once again. Could I go through that again, though? That same push and pull?

Seeming to sense your sudden aversion, Saemi loops her arm through yours in one smooth motion and sets your hand in her lap.

“Hey. Promise me you’ll go talk to him?”

You hesitate to reply, mouth dry as you think about everything she’s poured out to you. You think about your own feelings, and you think about the possibility of having something more with Jaehyun. You think about his history with Saemi, and how this issue of communication has ruined your confidence so many times. But what is it all worth if you don’t try?

With a slow nod, you offer her a reassuring smile before dusting off your clothes and standing up. “Promise.”

Saemi grins at you.

“That’s my girl.”

“Jaehyun?” she asks, putting a hand out on his arm as he looks behind her, distressed. She’s never seen him like this, a nervous jitter in his hands as his eyes dart around at the scene behind them.

Turning around, she just manages to catch a glimpse of a girl rushing towards the back of the house, her head downturned but not masking the obvious face of discomfort in her features. Her friend turns around to glare at them before following close after.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, chewing on his lip as he hesitates to run after your escaping form. “I fucked up so bad, Saemi.” Running a hand through his hair in frustration, he lets out a noise of exasperation as he watches you get farther and farther away.

“What?”

“She’s leaving, Saemi. What do I do, what do I do,” he mumbles under his breath. “I just know she’s gonna think I hurt her on purpose. I always fuck it up somehow.”

“Woah, let’s breathe first,” she holds him steady at the shoulders, grip strong as she turns his body to face hers. “Breathe slowly.”

After a few panicked breaths, he looks back at her and attempts to inhale at a slower pace. A few seconds pass and he’s calmed down already, but a worried crease still flits across his features nonetheless.

“Listen to me, Jaehyun. Don’t leave her in the dark.”

His body loses tension bit by bit as he nods back a little, a heavy look in his eyes.

“We both know how that feels, better than anyone.”

…

Twenty-three missed calls.

That’s how many you’ve accumulated over one day.

You do the math on your bedroom ceiling as you lay splayed out on the mattress like a starfish. Each glow-in-the-dark, plastic star represents a missed call, and they swim across your vision as you point up at them with your hand to count them.

There’s seven from Mark, another seven from Chaewon, four from Taeyong, one from Johnny, and the remaining four? Mentally moving the glowing stars across the solar system of the ceiling, you pick four of the brightest glowing stars before keeping them hidden in a little group at the corner of your eye.

4 missed calls from Jeong Jaehyun, your phone reads from beside you on the mattress, the screen habitually lighting up throughout the day.

Your hand itches to grab it and just call him like you so desperately want to, but you exercise self-restraint as you roll over and stuff your face into your pillow. It’s unfairly hot tonight — the sticky, humid type — and being surrounded by all of your fluffy blankets and pillows does nothing to help your condition, but you don’t want to move out of your room. Letting out a muffled scream into the fabric, you groan to yourself when you realize that all of the problems floating around in your head won’t just magically disappear.

A normal Sunday would have gone like this: waking up mid afternoon with an abnormally large appetite, eating the entire contents of your kitchen to your heart’s content, and then going back to bed. Unfortunately, today was a bit different.

For the entire day, you’ve been busy. Busy thinking.

You had quickly left Johnny’s estate after your talk with Saemi early in the morning, borrowing one of Johnny’s cars from his garage and leaving him a little note that you’d return it soon (to be honest, you doubt that he’ll even notice). You’ve been in your room ever since.

With your eyes trained out the window, your record player ran through entire sets of albums as you lay on your bed in contemplation for the entirety of the afternoon. The fan in your room barely kept you cool as it picked up the fabric of your sundress every few minutes, marking another block of time that had gone by without you getting up and doing something about your position.

You let out a humph before throwing an arm over your eyes and retreating back into deep thought.

I’ve been distancing myself from him the entire day, and that’s the opposite of what I want to do, right? I’m turning into exactly what Saemi warned me not to.

Biting your lip, you turn your body over to stare at your motionless phone. But what should I do?

In a single impulsive movement, you reach out to grab the device before you can change your mind. Your fingers lead you to your contacts before your brain can catch up.

You can’t even fully register what you’ve just done, but Jaehyun’s name flashing across your screen certainly makes it all very much real, your phone waiting for him to pick up on the other side of the line. Your face gets hotter and hotter as the seconds tick on, the beeping of a no-caller reply heightening your nerves.

Finally, with a little click from your hand, he picks up. Your eyes widen. You really didn’t really think this through; now you had to actually talk to him.

“Hey,” Jaehyun sounds out, his voice breathless. “I- are you okay?”

“Yeah.” At least I think I am, you add on to yourself, grimacing. “Um… are you free today?”

“Am- am I free today? Yes! I mean yes, yes I’m free today.”

You can’t help but smile at the way he trips over his words a bit, his nervousness bleeding over your speaker.

“Well then, rooftop at mine at 10?”

“For real?” Jaehyun exclaims, checking the time on his alarm clock. That’s in twenty minutes. “Wait, I’ll be there. I promise.”

And with that, the two of you hang up with a million unspoken words and unfinished sentences. You let out the breath you were holding in, because you genuinely thought you would pass out when you heard Jaehyun’s voice again after finding out all that you did. Throwing yourself against your bed, you let yourself indulge in your feeling of hope again.

“He’ll be here,” you sigh in happiness to yourself. You relax into your pillows before springing up immediately, a look of horror taking over your face. “Oh my god, he’ll be here.”

Rushing around your room with a newfound energy, you make sure you don’t look like you just rolled out of bed (although you technically did just roll out of bed, but he doesn’t have to know that) before unlatching the window of your bedroom and carefully climbing out onto your roof.

It’s well past dusk now, and the sky is abnormally clear with not a single cloud in sight. The moon shines brilliantly in its place as it casts an eerie glow on the panels you’re sitting on, their bumpy texture making it seem like the material is constantly shifting.

You let yourself go for a moment, resting your head in the palms of your heads before staring out at the roofs of your city. They create a complex, urban terrain: a mix of timely balconies and rooftop gardens, orange lanterns and fairy lights alike.

The beeping of a car horn brings you out of your daze. Peering down into the street below you, a familiar, classy black car is visible through all of the telephone lines.

Okay Y/N, deep breaths.

Jaehyun gets out of the front seat, immediately looking up in hopes of catching a glimpse of you before you notice he’s there. However, when his eyes follow the length of your house up, he finds that you’re already staring at him with an unreadable expression.

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this nervous in his life. With cold hands, he lifts himself onto the electrical box beside your house before climbing up onto the slope of the roof, climbing over to you with an uneasy smile on his face.

“Hey.”

You tuck your chin into your arms, leaning forward to look at him curiously. “You could’ve taken the window, you know, but that works too.”

“What’s life without any risks, hm?”

As he settles himself, you can’t help but think that there’s a double lining to his words. “That’s the most Jaehyun-esque thing I’ve ever heard.”

His laugh warms your heart in a way you didn't know it could.

The first few moments are quiet, just two pairs of eyes looking up at the stars before Jaehyun breaks the silence with a small cough.

“We got lucky, there’s no clouds tonight. Pure stars.” You look over in his general direction, his gaze not even directed towards the sky anymore.

He pauses, so you turn and happen to meet eyes at the same time. Both of you open your mouths to talk, prompted by the invisible tension between you.

“Let me just say that—“

“I just wanted to tell you—“ he starts at the same time you do, eyes widening when you both go quiet once again. “You go first.” Giving him a grateful smile, you think a bit about how to express yourself before twisting your body completely so that you’re facing him.

“I just wanted to apologize first,” you start, holding up a hand when Jaehyun starts to protest. “Wait. I really want to tell you this before I get too nervous to.”

“I know everyone was worried when I went kinda off the grid this morning, but I needed some time alone with my thoughts. I shouldn't have ignored you like that, especially when things seemed so off between us. This is really hard to say to your face but,” you glance away from him as he waits patiently for you, “I always feel this rush of different emotions whenever I’m around you. And sometimes it’s confusing, but other times—“ stopping to exhale, you notice Jaehyun’s grin from the corner of your eye.

“Hey, why are you laughing? I’m trying to be serious right now,” you whine. He simply puts his hand up to his mouth to hide the elated expression on his face.

“You’re just too cute, that’s all,” he replies adoringly, his eyes creasing behind his hand.

“I can’t take this,” you mutter in embarrassment, stuffing your face into your arm to hide the blush of your cheeks. “See! Stuff like that. You make me experience, like, thirty different emotions at once.”

He simply giggles at you, throwing out a little “my bad,” but he doesn’t sound very sorry at all. You nudge him in the arm.

“Sorry sorry, Y/N. Wait, I’ll be serious now.”

Both of you taking deep breaths, you put your hand up to your heart to calm its erratic beating as Jaehyun composes his expression back to normal.

“I really wanted to apologize too.”

You glance at him in surprise as the words leave his mouth, sincere and heavy.

“I’ve been pretty shitty to you, and I recognize how confusing it must have been for you to watch me constantly go back and forth between different personas. Honestly, being back home forced me to face the people here, and suddenly I was thrown into this internal conflict between my high school life and my present self. That’s still no excuse for how many mixed signals I gave you these past few months, but I want you to know that it was never my intention to hurt you.”

Reaching out to brush a small leaf off your shoulder, his hand trails down your arm until he’s taken your hand in his. You can tell how much he means it by the way he’s looking at you — like you hold the entire galaxy in your eyes. You think that you finally see a replication of how you look at him yourself; after all, it’s being reflected back to you right now.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“I hope you can tell, but I really like you,” he whispers, bringing your hand up to his chest. He wants you to feel how much his nerves are racing just as fast as yours.

You think that your heart just about stops. You’ve dreamt of this moment since you were younger, and now that it’s finally coming to life, it’s unreal to think that he feels the same.

“I think you know how I feel,” you reply back quietly, looking down at your hands entwined with his.

“Say it?” he asks with a pleading face, the corners of his lips quirking up when you roll your eyes.

“Jeong Jaehyun, do you really think I believe that you didn’t know that I’ve liked you ever since we were kids?” Shaking his head innocently at your suspicion, he pouts in a manner that’s very unlike him.

“Fine,” you give up, unable to hide the smile creeping up on your face. “I like you Jaehyun, I like you so much that you don’t even know how happy I am right now.”

“Oh, I know. Come here,” he scoots over before tapping the side of his shoulder with his finger. Not getting the memo, you tilt your head inquisitively before he reaches over himself and puts your head on his shoulder himself. If your heart was skipping beats before, it’s probably failing to beat at all now.

“I want you to trust me,” he murmurs under his breath, his grip tightening on your hand. “I know I don’t have the best track record right now, but I’ll prove to you how much I like you.”

You furrow your brows in confusion. “You don’t have to prove anything…“ You wholeheartedly believe and trust in his feelings, but with the way he’s looking at you right now, you decide to humor him and raise an eyebrow prompting him to go on.

“Wait, you’ll do anything?” You ask, looking up at the stars to hide your telling grin.

“Anything. Even suffer through another one of those awful DiCaprio movies.”

“Suffer?” you exclaim, your head lifting off of his shoulder with his words.

“Shit- no no not suffer. Who said suffer? You must’ve misheard me, I most definitely said enjoy.”

“You’re on thin ice, Jeong.”

He snorts at your threatening expression, an arm snaking behind you to wrap around your waist protectively.

Turning his head to look down at you, you’re met with his nose almost touching yours. You can see every eyelash, every freckle adorning his skin as neither of you make the motion to move away.

Jaehyun loses his breath at the sight of you so close. He keeps his teasing eyes on yours before taking that extra step forward to bump your noses together. Glancing down at your lips, he steadies himself so that his voice can sound as confident as he envisions it in his head.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Please, Jaehyun.”

With your consent, he pulls you forward by the waist before slotting your lips together carefully. You’re not sure if it’s the pressure at which he’s holding you, or the fact that you’ve waited for this moment for almost your entire youth, but kissing Jaehyun is glorious.

He moves a hand up to cup the back of your neck before pushing forward impossibly closer, tucking your hair behind your ear in one smooth motion as his mouth moves in tandem with yours.

You make a noise of surprise when he takes your bottom lip between his teeth, giving you a little nip before licking over the skin carefully. The passion and lust that seeps through his tongue is made clear as the minutes pass, and your reactions only spur him on.

Th mix of his skin on yours burning its way across your body and the delicacy at which he touches you makes your heart alight for a completely different reason. Threading your fingers through his hair, you're delighted to find that that particular motion makes him shudder under your hands, and kiss you more like his life depends on it.

After a while of marking each other's skin and exchanging sweet nothings between his kisses, you tap his chest to pull apart for air, your breathless mien making him grin smugly.

“I’m that good, huh?”

“Shut up, Jaehyun.”

…

The rings on your fingers clink with his as you hand him a metal camping cup, its silver surface hot to the touch even at night. Glancing up at Jaehyun, you laugh when you catch his skeptical expression.

“The hell is this…” he asks in borderline horror as the liquid in his cup sloshes around.

“Mark’s gonna love hearing that,” you remark, putting your own cup to your lips as you bring your knees to your chest.

It’s the most comfortable when you’re with Jaehyun like this, sitting on the hood of his car in the dead of the night to stargaze into the early hours of the morning.

It’s been a few weeks since that night on the rooftop, and you’ve never felt more alive. From long drives with Taeyong to mini adventures with Mark, and from jukebox diners with Chaewon and constellation hunting with Jaehyun, you finally feel at home in a place you’re about to leave. University is close on the horizon, but that doesn’t mean you can’t spend your last free evenings with the people you love the most.

“Is this your recipe?” Jaehyun asks, pulling up your legs so that they rest over his lap. You shake your head with a cheeky smile.

“Stole it,” you whisper, scrunching your nose at the distinct smell.

“And what did Mark’s creative ass come up with this time,” he laments back, taking your cup to compare it with his in confusion.

“Our cups hold the same exact thing, Jaehyun. I didn’t secretly poison your drink if that’s what you’re thinking, and I know you are.” You take back your cup before taking another sip and taking a little piece of paper out of your pocket to read from. “But anyway, it's ‘orange liquor, orange juice, lime juice, maple syrup, sliced jalapeño, and agave blanco sugar in the rim.’ You can steal the recipe too, but don't tell him that I gave it to you. He’d murder me.”

“Mm,” he muses, nuzzling into your neck. “I wouldn’t want my girlfriend dead.”

You freeze in mid-air, mind turning the title over and over again in your head. “Girlfriend?”

Jaehyun sits up immediately, looking at you with the most mortified expression on his face. “Fuck, I never asked you to be my girlfriend, did I?”

With a small giggle at his antics, you simply lean against him and pat his arm in consolation. “It’s okay, I don’t need a label to know how you feel about me.” Jaehyun hums contently before suddenly wrapping his arms around you, your delighted shriek ringing out as he pulls you down with him and falls back against the metal roof of the car.

“Can we just stay like this forever?”

You sigh in satisfaction as your body follows the rises and falls of his chest. The stars above seem to blink happily at the two of you as they make their way across the sky, the little, twinkling lights of overpassing planes highlighting their presence.

Intertwining your fingers with his, he gently kisses the side of your face before closing his eyes.

Even if the two of you hadn’t realized it yet, it had always been like this: two childish souls crafting the idea of mature love. Two blooming young adults, with fizzing feelings and cherry picked lips, daring to love one another like the grownups in black and white colored movies.

Your summers are defined by sticky ‘n sweet cherry cola, rides around the abandoned carousel with your friends, and “borrowing” quarters out of your brother’s Cadillac to insert into the jukebox of the local diner. They’re tinged with the taste of Mark’s special drinks and Chaewon’s sweet words, with Taeyong’s cheery voice ringing out throughout your house and your parents’ weekly sitcom reruns. And most of all, summers are made of Jaehyun’s lavender cologne and the way he holds you close when you need it the most.

“Don’t be surprised if the moon calls you by name, Y/N, because I tell her about you all the time.”

…

<3 you can find their character profiles HERE.

[ for Y/N, mark, chaewon, jaehyun, taeyong, and saemi ]

…

xoxo

2K notes · View notes

golainey · 2 years ago

Text

try again | j.jh

summary. jaehyun remembers the night he met you, and even after that one night he often thought of you and wished things would have been different, but by a weird twist of fate he gets to see you again, except this time... you're not alone.

or alternatively:

jaehyun gets to try again, for real this time.

pairing. idol!jaehyun x teacher!yn

words. 19.8k-ish

genre. somewhat of a second chance romance? lots of cute things going on, and it wouldn't be a gimmehyuck fic if i didn't have something angsty

warnings. there's not much to warn about tbh? jaehyun not believing in love at first sight but then essentially does, there's a one night stand (nothing explicit), and also a child (gasp i know), alcohol is mentioned as well as pineapple on pizza, a wild blue haired haechan makes an appearance, johnmark being the best, jaehyun is generally unhappy with being an idol at this stage of his life, idk but y'all can thank my friend ruby for this getting finished, she was on my ass about it... happy late birthday jaehyun lmao

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

this was completely and utterly unlike himself, jaehyun thought over and over as he laid in your bed listening to you breathe. he wasn’t a one-night stand kind of man, he was too busy to let himself fall into these kind of temptations. he was a man, he told himself, and yeah, he liked sex, but the middle of tour? he shook his head at himself as he stared at the ceiling.

his mouth spoke on his own when he saw you, your beauty catching him entirely off guard. dinner at 6 with johnny was only supposed to be a quick get-out-of-the-hotel-for-a-bit thing, forty-five minutes tops. but the second you walked up and asked if you could start them off with any waters, or if they preferred beer, he was enamored. forty-five minutes turned into double that and johnny could only smile at himself at the very obvious flirtatious exchanges and when you wrote your number on the receipt you had placed on the table with a scribbled note that said ‘i get off at 11, call me if you want :)’, johnny was more than supportive.

“man, just live a little.” johnny had told him in the taxi to the hotel, and jaehyun was still on the fence about it but when it was 10:53 and he still couldn’t get your smiling face out of his head, his fingers moved entirely on their own. you responded to him at 11 exactly, and even though he had just ate and wasn’t hungry, he agreed when you asked if he’d be up to get something to eat with you. twenty minutes later he found himself in your presence again, baseball hat tugged as far down as it would go and a mask tugged slightly down to rest on his chin and he couldn’t help but listen to things about yourself and he realized he wanted to know more and more with each laugh you let out.

he wasn’t a love at first sight kind of man, but he could understand that thought behind it because, damn, you were funny and kind and absolutely beautiful.

“sorry, i’ve been going on too much about myself, haven’t i?” you asked, face turning a little sheepish when you realized he hadn’t said much of a word the last fifteen minutes but you noticed his smile never fell from his face. he shook his head in answer and picked up a fry from the shared pile on the table, “no, i’m enjoying hearing all about you.”

“well, let’s change it up some, tell me about yourself. you from around here?” you asked, copying his movements and munching on a fry yourself.

“mmm,” he thought for a moment. he didn’t want to be secretive, but he wasn’t comfortable turning the conversation into a long winded one about his group and his fame and although he was thankful for all of that, he noticed it had slowly started to wear him down. no, he genuinely was enjoying just being himself with you, not having to be anyone else. “i’m from seoul, and i work… in entertainment.” he finally decided on.

not a lie, not exactly.

“oh, that sounds really exciting! do you get to meet a lot of famous people doing that?” you asked tilting your head slightly as you did so, genuine curiosity on your face.

his smile grew, oh if only you knew. “i have here and there, they’re just people even if they’re famous.”

you nodded in response to that and your lips twisted slightly in a frown, “i always feel a little bad for celebrities in that sense. i can’t imagine worrying about how my next sentence will be dissected and twisted into something else.”

the more you spoke, the more you surprised him. no one really thought about them in that way, usually jumping directly to the misconstruing of his words or actions as something else entirely.

“yeah, i imagine that’s pretty difficult.” he agreed with you knowingly, then asked, “so do you enjoy being a waitress?”

your smile faltered a little, and you sighed, “i mean, yeah. i like meeting new people but i’m only doing it for another semester and then i’ve got my degree. it took me longer than i’d like to admit, since i’m almost twenty-four now but i had to work enough to make the money to pay for my tuition and well, yeah. so i’ll have my bachelors in a few months’ time and then i’ll be done with the restaurant.”

“oh?” jaehyun asked, reaching again for more fries. “what are you getting your degree in?”

“teaching!” you said with a brilliant smile on your face. “i want to teach, but lately i’ve been leaning towards teaching english overseas and i think you were my sign to do just that. i’ve been debating between korea and japan.”

jaehyun laughed a little at that, “well not to be biased but i can vouch for korea. it’s a really beautiful place.”

and the conversation continued like that, asking questions back and forth. you answering him honestly and jaehyun answering you as honestly as he could without turning the conversation into the direction he didn’t want it to go. the food was gone and the conversation was still going but you had invited him to your place which wasn’t that far away and jaehyun thought he’d hesitate to say yes but his answer was so immediate it startled him a bit. the constant back and forth went on even still at your apartment and he felt like he had known you for a long time, much longer than just a few hours at least, he felt at ease and comfortable and it was a feeling he didn’t realize he was missing. when you suddenly kissed him midsentence he froze, his entire face blank as his brain processed what had just happened, unsure how to exactly to proceed next and you blushed brightly at him, your confidence unwavering.

“sorry,” you giggled a little nervously at the way his face was in shock, “i don’t have any expectations of tonight, but i wanted to kiss you at least once. you’re so cute, especially your dimples. i’m sorry if i made you uncomf – mmph!” his lips effectively silencing you in the same manner yours had him.

except he didn’t pull away, and you wrapped your arms around him and the night carried on, each kiss leading into a touch, and then a gasp. you led him into your room and kicked the door shut with your foot, hands frantically removing clothing in a trail to the bed. small giggles were shared between gasping breaths within the breaks of kissing and the gasps slowly transformed into sounds of pleasure and while you fell asleep against him after, jaehyun couldn’t turn his racing mind off.

he didn’t regret anything, he didn’t regret his actions. he didn’t regret you.

he regretted that he couldn’t stay.

and so when he knew you were fully asleep, when your breathing was the deepest, he got up from your bed and slowly replaced his clothes one by one, dragging out the moments he had in your presence. his hat was the last thing he found on the floor and he tugged it on, sighing softly to himself, pulling out his phone to read that it was 5:20 am, and with one last glance over his shoulder he left you there in the bed sound asleep. a deep guilt he couldn’t shake making a home for itself in his chest.

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

aug 9

9:33 am you: hey! everything ok?

9:35 am you: wanna go get breakfast? :)

12:42 pm dimples: i’m sorry, i just saw this. i had work things to take care of. how did you sleep?

3:30 pm you: that’s ok! i slept alright :)

3:31 pm you: are you busy tonight? wanna get food?

4:45 pm dimples: if i get off in time, sure. i’ll let you know.

7:02 pm you: you alright?

7:28 pm dimples: i’m sorry, again. work is kicking my ass, how did your day go?

7:32 pm you: it was fine! started working on an essay i had due, you know. the fun stuff, how about you? busy?

7:45 pm dimples: you have no idea haha

7:49 pm you: you can tell me about it if you want? believe it or not, i’m a great listener

read 10:45 pm

aug 13

2:43 pm you: sent attachment

2:43 pm you: saw this and remembered how you

2:43 pm you: sorry, thumb hit send lol. you mentioned you liked this band, and i thought of you

2:44 pm you: hope you’re ok

read 12:01 am

aug 19

11:01 pm you: y’know, i’m not mad at you or anything i did say i had no expectations lol. just kinda hoped this would have been different, you know? it kinda felt different to me…

11:02 pm you: but that’s alright lol i hope you’re ok

delivered

aug 31

7:49 am you: jaehyun

7:50 am you: look, i need you to respond

7:50 am you: please

7:51 am you: i’m freaking out

7:51 am you: idk what to do, and i’m scared

not delivered

7:53 am you: what the fuck??

not delivered

7:55 am you: fuck. you. jaehyun.

not delivered

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

five years later.

although the years had passed for jaehyun, it was all so quick that the night with you still felt fresh to him. he often thought of you and how you were, often thought of if you graduated and were teaching. if you got to do everything you had confessed to him that night in the extended lengths of the conversations had.

he often thought if you were here in korea with him like you had planned and he just had no clue.

if you were, you hated him, he was sure.

his manager had caught him checking his phone that night with an unsaved number on it, had sneakily read your messages over his shoulder and absolutely lost it on him. he went on and on about his idol image, his career, his future and repeated ‘what if this got out? what if dispatch found it?’ and jaehyun couldn’t say anything back but ‘okay’. the feeling he had when talking to you, the small feeling of being himself again, smothered in an instant.

when you had sent him a picture of a vinyl record of one of his favorite bands, he wanted so badly to respond to you. he had even typed out a response when he finally was able to read it, but he knew it wouldn’t help anything at all if he did. he really did think it was better to let it lie, and so he turned off his read receipts.

the last message he saw from you, made him gnaw on his bottom lip, and the next day he left the country going back to korea and his number was changed.

he wanted to be different for you, he had barely met you but he knew you, it wasn’t a coincidence to him. but what kind of life would a long-distance relationship be with someone who would be so busy some days or even weeks that he couldn’t respond? he knew you’d always be worried, or hurt when communication was so small. he thought of it a lot. and he was thinking of all those things, when he was sure, he had ultimately decided, that you probably didn’t actually want to be with him.

he would have just… liked it if you had.

maybe if he weren’t famous he would have dated you.

maybe it would have been like one of the cheesy romance movies taeyong liked to watch, maybe he even would have fallen in love.

and maybe… maybe he would have even married you if his daydream let him get that far, if his life would have followed the cliché movie plot, but that was all a what if to him now. something he liked to sit and think about if only just to make sure the guilt never left him.

“jaehyun?” his name being called pulled him out of his memories and his head jerked up to look at who had called him. his manager was staring at him with drawn eyebrows, and at jaehyun’s confused expression he breathed deeply out of his nose.

“what do you think?” this time it was the PR manager asking, the person who had asked him, johnny, and mark to come to the conference room to go over their schedules for the next couple of days.

“about what? sorry, i was…” jaehyun trailed off.

“he thinks it’s a great idea.” mark answered for him, giving jaehyun a concerned look. “he loves kids.”

“okay, then it’s set. the kids are unaware they’re meeting you all, and they probably won’t really realize you’re famous but it will be filmed for content with permission from the schools principal already. It’ll be good for the groups image, everyone loved the last time you guys sat with kids.” and with that the meeting was done, it wasn’t really to ask them if they wanted to participate but to tell them what they would be doing. jaehyun didn’t mind this that much because it was true. he did love kids.

once the managers had left the room, johnny turned in his chair to give jaehyun a scrupulous look.

“dude, why were you spacing out so bad?” mark asked, slouching in his chair as his chin saw in his palm and his elbow rested on the table. to this date, johnny was the only other person who knew about you and his night he had spent with you. johnny nodded at the quick eye contact, understanding immediately.

“dunno, i think i’m just tired. i didn’t sleep much last night.” jaehyun brushed off mark’s question with a shrug and mark sighed at that.

“well, you better get some rest tonight. those kids aren’t going to chill out just because you’re tired.” mark said as he stood, his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweats, shooting one last look at jaehyun before leaving the room.

“you know, it’s been a few years but maybe she’s thinking of you too. why not try reaching out?” johnny whispered to him, and jaehyun gave johnny a not-quite-there smile that was really just a grimace.

“nah, it’s fine. she’s probably changed her number since then, and besides, even if she didn’t she definitely hates me now. i know i would.” johnny frowned then as his friend got up and left the room, the big glass door swinging closed softly behind him.

something had changed in jaehyun that night when he came back, it wasn’t a huge, drastic change but johnny noticed it nonetheless. he wasn’t always distracted by his guilty thoughts of you, but on several occasions jaehyun had gotten drunk with him and started talking about you and everything about you that he knew.

by this point johnny felt he knew you just as well as jaehyun had.

and about sixty percent of those occasions, johnny had to console him and reassure him that you probably didn’t hate him but would probably just be upset at him, and that he was sure you’d forgive jaehyun if he explained the situation.

johnny was never confident in that though. five years is a long time to go on thinking about someone you spent one night with.

and, johnny often thought, five years was a long time to dwell on all the anger left from waking up alone from someone you spent one night with.

and although if it was only supposed to be just one night… even johnny knew it was more than that.

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mark was bouncing on the balls of his feet, his hands contained in his pockets but jaehyun couldn’t help the smile that grew at the younger mans energy. there was always something about children that brought out the kid side of the younger members and that was always contagious and within minutes, jaehyun was smiling just as brightly as mark had been.

they were told to wait until given the signal to come out, as all the kids were now sitting in different circles in the room. the four-year-old class wasn’t very large, and they had come to the SM building to take a tour.

in recent years SM had opened its doors to field trips for younger kids, usually it was elementary ages but after some strings were pulled, they allowed the class going in to kindergarten to be included if they would allow them to be part of the youtube series SM had going on of ‘idols with kids’.

this wasn’t the group’s first event with kids, the group was large at this time and they had rotated out and didn’t have to do it often, but it was their turn and it was a nice break, jaehyun thought.

certainly better than another photoshoot.

johnny tapped jaehyun on the shoulder, the signal had been given and the three men entered the room full of energetic children. there were only about twelve of them total, and jaehyun noticed the teachers stood off to the side, two women leaning against the wall with their masks up and covering their face.

jaehyun paid them very little attention as he went to his assigned table to sit down with the kids. he took his place at the circle table and folded his legs underneath him, sitting as the kids were.

the kids grew quiet at the presence of the adult man at their table, and he noticed his table had two girls and two boys. the little girl that sat closest to him had big bright eyes and her little hands brushed her bangs away from her eyes.

he noticed her little pigtails had little fuzzy clips in them that matched her dress and his heart melted at how adorable she was. she seemed to be the boldest of the group as she was the only one to look him in the eyes.

“hi everyone, my name is jaehyun.” he said kindly, trying to make the kids feel at ease.

“hello, mister.” the cute girl with pigtails said and when she spoke, small dimples formed at the corners of her mouth and he was intrigued at how much they looked like his.

“hello, miss.” jaehyun nodded and replied easily and the little girls smile grew as did her dimples. and then a thought visibly appeared across her face and she turned to her other friends at the table.

“it’s rude to not say hi,” her lips were in a pouty frown as she looked at them. she was a bossy little thing, he noticed but her friends immediately chimed in with quiet hello’s. that seemed to make her happy and she nodded dramatically. jaehyun knew the only thing they had to do while they were here was color with them, and talk to them for the camera’s sake, and so he did just that.

the little girl next to him asked him which page he wanted to color first, and he reached forward to slide a piece of paper with the outline of a bunny holding a carrot and then she asked her friends which ones they wanted. he noticed she chose last and his heart melted even more at how utterly sweet the little exchange was.

“what are your names?” he asked the table as a whole, putting on his gentlest smile, which wasn’t hard for him to find. the little boy to his left spoke up this time, starting to get comfortable with jaehyun’s presence.

“my name in jiwon, and he’s seojun… she’s heeyoung, and,” he said pointing out each person one by one dramatically as he finally landed on the little girl who sat beside him. “her name is yeoruem.”

“oh you all have pretty names,” jaehyun commented and the boys seemed to swell with a sense of pride by being told they had nice names from a stranger. he noticed the kids start talking a little bit, but they mostly focused on their coloring. yeoreum sat beside him, a crayon gripped tightly in her hand and her tongue stuck between her lips and she concentrated on her page, she had chosen a big teddy bear and she was coloring it purple.

she was getting a little frustrated he could tell with how she kept huffing and puffing and finally she put her crayon down and put her cheek in her tiny hand dramatically, and the cute pout made jaehyun chuckle softly.

“what’s the matter, yeoreum?” he cooed at her gently.

“i like to stay in the lines and i messed up.”

“well let’s see if we can fix it, hmm?” and he picked up her crayon and offered it to her. she took it in her hand again and he proceeded to point at a small spot, his arms wrapping around her and helping her hand move just right and she took his direction with a grin. when she finally got it she pushed his hand away.

“thank you mister jaehyun, i want to try and do it now myself.” and jaehyun held up his hands in surrender.

“you’re a very independent little girl, yeoreum.” jaehyun commented to her as he went back to coloring on his bunny, picking up an orange crayon to fill in the carrot.

“thank you!” she beamed, not taking her eyes off of her teddy bear. “my mommy says the same thing.”

“your mommy is a very smart lady,” jaehyun replied and she looked up then. her face twisting in an scowl that was too cute to be remotely threatening considering she was four.

“no,” she argued, greatly offended. “my mommy is the smartest lady. and she’s one of my teachers too, she’s right over there.”

and it was in that moment that several things happened simultaneously.

yeoreum pointed at the wall to one of the women jaehyun had barely taken notice of when he walked in. his eyes looked up in the direction that her tiny hand pointed in and as he looked up, the woman turned her face away from him to say something to the other teacher so he couldn’t see her face but at the same time one of the kids from johnny’s table screamed dramatically.

“miss y/n!” the little boy wailed, and jaehyun felt his heart leap to his throat, and his stomach plummeted as if he were on a rollercoaster while he watched as the same lady who had turned away rush forward to see what the little boy needed, but jaehyun couldn’t even focus on that. he felt his world around him slow to a grinding halt, his eyes solely focused on you. on the small parts of your face he could visibly see due to the mask you wore.

but he was unsure how he had missed you when he walked in. yours was the face that he dreamt of, and he was sure his jaw was dropped. his eyes drifted slightly from your face to johnny whose expression probably matched his own, his eyes flickering between you and jaehyun.

jaehyun felt his mouth go dry in the next second as another realization hit him. he whipped his head to look down at the little girl next to him and she was intently focused on where her mom stood at the other table. jaehyun tried three times to swallow before he was successful.

“yeoreum?” he asked, voice shaking slightly.

she tore her eyes from you and looked up to make eye contact with jaehyun. “yes, mister jaehyun?”

“miss y/n is your mother?” he asked, face searching this little girls who, the more he looked, the more he found himself staring back.

“no, she’s my mommy.” she answered smartly.

“ah, yes. she’s your mommy…” he trailed off, eyes flickering back up to see you standing back with the other woman and you were pointedly avoiding eye contact with him, instead staring at yeoreum who was still looking at him.

“and yeoreum, how – when is your birthday?”

“may first,” she chirped and he dragged his eyes away from you to look down at the little girl and his face drained of all color entirely.

“um… mister jaehyun? you look like you don’t feel so good.” she said worriedly, and he gulped again, trying to calm his nerves. his mental math couldn’t be that wrong, could it? there’s no way, was there? no, those dimples were undeniable evidence.

someone somewhere had pity on him, because right when he felt that he may pass out or throw up or do a combination of both, their manager came out and called the session with the idols to an end, the cameras folding up then and were put away and the other teacher called everyone to come stand with you and her.

yeoreum stood up and patted her dress, and she reached down and pulled on jaehyun’s hand to have him stand up with her.

“c’mon mister jaehyun, i want you to meet my mommy so you can see that she’s the smartest lady in the whole world,” and as jaehyun slowly stood to his feet, yeoreum waved her hand to have him bend down to her level so she could whisper conspiratorially in his ear. “but don’t tell miss jisoo, she may get upset.”

jaehyun could only nod as she pulled him over to the other kids and you, and he braced himself for disaster.

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you had fought tooth and nail with the principal of your center about going to SM. you knew the chances of jaehyun being one of the idols to work with would be slim but you didn’t want to take that chance. however when she had asked you the reason why you were so adamant against going to the entertainment company’s headquarters, you couldn’t very well give her the reason that your child’s clueless father works there. it would open up more questions and you had done well the past five years keeping it under wraps that no one knew who yeoreum’s father was, not even your mother.

you had realized after he had blocked your number of who he was when you did a google search of ‘jaehyun korea entertainment’ to see page after page of his face, and you realized he was a common name in korea. it made a little more sense then as to why he suddenly started ignoring you.

you thought he may have been different based on the hours of conversations you both shared, but since he was a celebrity, you assumed you were just another person on his list of hookups throughout his tour stops.

and so when you saw him walk in with two of his other members, you felt your heart jump. and then when you saw he sat at your daughter’s table your heart immediately sank and you felt your body get hot, the same feeling you felt when you found out you were pregnant.

you stood at the back with your co-teacher, hiding in plain sight. you were thankful that you had made it to the end, the interaction between them going well even if he didn’t know.

he seemed to almost have an instant attachment to her and you couldn’t help the way your heart swooped when he bent around her to help her with her coloring. it was a few moments after that that she noticed yeoreum point her tiny finger in your direction and you almost cursed aloud.

you quickly turned your head to look at jisoo, trying to find any random question to ask her to start a conversation to avoid his eye contact but when you heard one of your students, a little boy named yunho, screaming for you across the room you only allowed yourself three seconds to panic before you crossed the room to see what was the matter.

you briefly made eye contact with the man, you had learned his name was johnny after researching jaehyun’s group, and he looked like a deer caught in the headlights. you ignored him after that, understanding that he must have known about you and that somehow both angered and embarrassed you.

“what’s wrong, yunho?” you asked as you crouched next to the crying boy.

“min-minhee,” he hiccupped, big alligator tears falling down his face. “minhee took my crayon and i was still using it!” and you patted the young boy’s head affectionately.

“minhee…” you started, voice slightly scolding and the other boy mentioned was purposefully looking away from you. “is that true?”

minhee turned his head further away from you and you couldn’t help but laugh slightly, “minhee, you know that isn’t nice.” after a few seconds, and another glance up at johnny who was now looking at the table behind you, eyes wide.

minhee finally turned around and gave yunho back his crayon and apologized after you prompted him to do so. crisis averted, you took a deep breath and stood up, purposefully avoiding the table your daughter sat at but when you reached the wall, you felt his eyes on you but instead you noticed how your daughter stared up at him, eyes already full of adoration.

the cameras were put away and jisoo called everyone’s attention. you were focused on the other children gathering up, doing headcounts one by one until you heard a soft, “mommy?” from behind you.

“what is it, baby?” you asked turning around, expecting to see your daughter but instead came face to face with jaehyun who your daughter had in tow.

“this is mister jaehyun, and i wanted him to meet you so i could show him how sma – show him my teacher.” she fumbled over her sentence and you furrowed your brows at her choice of words.

“hello miss y/n,” jaehyun choked out, and you noticed his face was very pale. you wanted to laugh and tell him that it served him right, but you wanted to pretend that you didn’t know him, even though you clearly did.

“hello,” you greeted, overly formal as if to create distance between you two.

“yeoreum… yeoreum tells me her birthday is in may. is that true?” were the first words to tumble out of his mouth. you noticed jisoo had rounded up the kids and started to lead them out of the room.

“yeoreum, sweetheart, go stand with miss jisoo, okay? i’ll be right there.” you said as you looked down, cupping your little girls cheek sweetly and she smiled up at you.

“okay mommy!” she said, running off to walk with the class who was leaving the room.

you felt the presence of two more people walking up and you glanced to see johnny and another man, mark you thought his name was, walk up to stand awkwardly a few feet away. johnny definitely seemed to know, but mark looked clueless as to why they were there.

“is that true?” jaehyun pressed again, and you turned your full attention to him now, ignoring the other two men in your vicinity.

“yes, her birthday is may first.” you replied, voice a little sharp and you saw jaehyun visibly wince at the tone.

jaehyun didn’t even care that mark was here now, listening in. his mind was racing with so many questions and he just wanted to know the answers to them regardless of who was around.

“that’s nine months…” he trailed off then.

“yes, it is.” the same tone didn’t falter.

“i… i… is she mine?” he finally asked then, heart bracing for the answer but then you laughed and it was a cold laugh, much different from the happy ones he recalled in his dreams, and he recoiled slightly.

“you’re not on the birth certificate,” your lips were flat, turning pale from the pressure of keeping your anger at bay.

“that’s not – no, please, y/n. is she mine?” he pressed, his hands ready to beg you for an answer.

“is she your daughter? yes.” you answered him in an angry whisper. “but she’s not yours, she’s mine.” and jaehyun flinched again at how harsh your words were.

jaehyun was silent for a long moment and you scoffed, turning away from him then to go meet up with your class.

“have you told anyone?” he asked, and he wasn’t sure why he even asked that question because he knew if you had, it would have made headlines. you froze then, and he could have sworn you were visibly shaking. you turned and glared at him, such an angry look he didn’t know it was possible to feel so small from just a single expression.

“no, jaehyun, i haven’t.” you spat, your anger making your skin flush in how hard you tried to control your voice and your temper. “so don’t worry, you can go back to living your golden life without any responsibilities. i won’t be asking you for money, i won’t be coming back here, and i won’t be going to the press. but not for your sake, oh no, i couldn’t give a fuck. only for hers.” you turned and walked away, your hand stilling on the doorknob when you heard him call to you.

“no, wait! y/n that’s – that’s not what i meant, please. can – can i meet her? spend time with her?” you didn’t turn around, your hand on the knob tightening its grip for a moment, you lifted your head to stare at the ceiling and you sighed, the anger draining from you and just leaving you exhausted.

“you just did, and i think that was enough, don’t you? i don’t want you to decide the next morning that she’s not worth your time.”

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the door closed behind you as you left and all three men were stunned into silence at what had transpired. jaehyun had known you’d hate him if you saw him again, he knew that, he really did. he would have never pushed you to spend time with him after the way everything went down but now it was different.

he was a father now, or well, he had been a father the past four years and had no clue but now he was aware and he couldn’t just not try and be one. this had changed his world, how could he go about pretending that this hadn’t happened?

“dude… i am so confused right now. what the actual hell just happened?” mark finally spoke up, eyes darting between the two men standing with him. johnny didn’t look away from jaehyun to answer his question, nothing but extreme concern for his friend who looked like he had his whole world shaken up.

well, johnny thought almost comically, he did.

“i, um…” jaehyun started, eyes still not drifting away from the door you had just left from. “when we were on tours four years ago, um… johnny and i went to dinner, i don’t know if you remember? we had asked you if you wanted to go too, but you were already going with haechan and taeil.” jaehyun finally broke his trance he had on the door and turned to make eye contact with mark, who still sported the look of someone utterly bewildered. mark answered with a nod, not daring to open his mouth so he could listen to the rest of what jaehyun had to say.

“well, we went. just us two. and she was our waitress and she was, she is, so beautiful and she was flirting with me and so when she put her number on our receipt, johnny told me to go for it and… and i did. we talked for hours, and – and one thing led to another, and fuck.” jaehyun breathed out and then let out a humorless laugh at his word choice. he ran his hand through his hair roughly, the newly dyed blonde locks, tugging on them as he did so. “i left. i mean, i couldn’t have actually stayed with her, we had a show in another city and we had to leave and so i left. i tried to keep talking to her but… i stopped.”

mark blew out a hard breath at jaehyun’s explanation. “well, did you let her know? that you had to leave and that’s why?”

jaehyun shook his head, and johnny spoke up for him then. “our manager saw and lost it, he couldn’t reply to her because he was scared since it had been so long and then we left and our manager had his number changed when we got back.”

“did you still have her number though?” mark questioned, eyebrows coming together. jaehyun nodded hesitantly.

“dude, that’s so fucked. you should have explained to her then, she would have understood.” jaehyun hung his head, he was used to johnny consoling him in the assumption that he’d never have to see you again. he wasn’t used to his mistakes being so openly berated.

“poor y/n,” mark said then, turning to look at the door you had left out of. “having to raise a baby on her own like that, i don’t blame her for being as angry as she was. and then for you to ask –.”

“god, mark, yes. i know. i know i fucked up. but i have a kid… i have a daughter. i don’t want to be one of those dads, i don’t…” he trailed off, the way he felt sick dissipating, slowly being replaced with the dread of having his daughter grow up and have to tell people her dad was just absent when he knew about her now.

“then don’t.” johnny’s reply was simple. both jaehyun and mark turned to look at him. johnny shrugged as if it were easy.

“but she doesn’t –.” jaehyun went to say but johnny shook his head, the look he gave him shutting him up instantly.

“then don’t, jaehyun. you’re an adult. you made a mistake but it’s not eighteen years too late to try and fix it, just five. if chen can do this and end up just fine, you have just the same amount of chance that he does. you don’t wanna be a deadbeat dad? then don’t. easy as that. y/n isn’t going to like it at first but, she’ll come around if. you. make. an. effort.” mark was smiling at johnny’s answer, nodding along as he spoke and jaehyun stared open mouthed at him.

“you think it’ll work?”

“it doesn’t hurt to try,” mark chimed in. “plus, i saw the way she was watching you earlier, i kinda thought for a second she was going to be one of those weird stalkers but this makes so much more sense now.”

“how can i do this though? i don’t have her number or anything,” jaehyun asked, and he wanted so badly to get to know yeoreum, and to get to know you again. he wanted to see if things were that different, or if it was the years of anger building up. he couldn’t blame you at all for the things you said and for the way you reacted. he can imagine he’d do the same.

“am i gonna have to do everything myself?” johnny joked and jaehyun gave him a confused look.

“she works at the school that was just here. we have the principals contact information. therefore, we have her information. and if nothing else, we know where she works. you show up, you make a genuine effort, and you keep making an effort until she knows you’re serious. and you keep trying because that’s your daughter. you literally can’t deny her, she looks exactly like you.” jaehyun nodded, absorbing all the information that johnny had readily available in his brain. he hoped it was because he was an outsider looking in in this situation and not that jaehyun was just that dumb. maybe it was a bit of both.

“guys? come on, we have another schedule to meet in forty-five minutes,” their manager called, his head momentarily visible from the doorway. the three men made their way to exit, jaehyun’s mind reeling with what he was going to do and how he was going to do.

he had a daughter.

he was a father.

that thought alone was enough to make a grin slowly grow on his face.

“also,” mark spoke up suddenly, turning around to look at his friends. “do i need to have a talk with everyone about the importance of condoms?”

johnny snorted out a laugh, and jaehyun groaned loudly.

“yeah… i think i’m gonna at least text the dreamies. maybe ‘wrap it before you tap it’ or something like that. god, can you imagine jisung with a child?” mark’s face looked horrified, but his joke effectively broke the tense feeling jaehyun had held for the past twenty minutes and johnny laughed, clapping mark on the shoulder as he and jaehyun exited the door.

“jisung is an adult, mark. he’s a grown ass man. they don’t need ‘the talk’.”

“yes they do, they can be forty and they’re still going to be children to me!” mark yelled as he followed them out.

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jaehyun couldn’t remember the last time he had butterflies this bad since maybe his debut. his heart hadn’t stopped racing since johnny handed him a slip of paper discreetly at practice later that night, and when jaehyun unfolded the paper he saw an address and a phone number scrawled in small letters.

“maybe go to her work, instead of calling first.” johnny had whispered to him rather conspicuously in the far corner of the room.

“wouldn’t it be better to give her a heads up though? i don’t want to ruin this before i even really get the chance to get to know yeoreum.” jaehyun said, the desperation for this to work out evident on his face. he wasn’t sure when he had ever wanted something so badly, but his thoughts had been consumed by this little girl that he had no idea existed until twelve hours ago.

“sure, it might seem a little creepy but this way she can physically see you’re serious and won’t block you immediately out of spite,” johnny shrugged at his friend. “i know i'd block you.”

jaehyun gave him a deadpan look, “that’s very comforting, thanks.”

a sudden pair of arms throwing themselves around jaehyun’s shoulders made his eyes grow wide but seeing johnny unconcerned made him relax a little.

“so who is blocking jaehyun hyung immediately?” haechan asked from over jaehyun’s shoulder.

jaehyun fished for a response, trying to think of an answer and johnny beat him to it with the most basic of answers.

“your mom.” johnny said, a wide grin growing on his face at the offended look on haechan’s face that jaehyun couldn’t see.

“you better not be texting my mom!” haechan argued, voice rising an octave directly in jaehyun’s ear making the man wince sharply. “she’s married and i don’t want a step-dad this late in my life.”

johnny pushed away from the wall and jaehyun was thankful for johnny’s distraction, because as he walked away haechan moved to follow him, arguing with the taller man even if it started out as a joke.

this gave jaehyun the time to stare down at the folded piece of paper that had been crumpled in his hand, he memorized the number on it like the paper would disintegrate if he didn’t and as he moved on to the address he attempted to formulate a plan.

the plan may have been half-assed in hindsight, jaehyun realized as he stood out in front of the pre-school you worked at, staying out of sight of any passerby who may recognize him. he was sure he wouldn’t be noticed that easily as his hood was up, mask secured over his nose but he was so nervous of someone saying something to ruin his one shot at getting you to listen to him.

he distracted himself with scrolling through his phone, flipping between different social medias while he waited, and his heart skipped a beat when he heard your voice calling a goodbye to your coworkers as you exited the building.

“mommy, can we go get some ice cream? i got a green smiley on my report today from miss jisoo, you know i was good today!” he heard yeoreum ask cutely, and you turned the corner to walk in his direction and he watched as you looked down at her. you held her hand and your smile was so gentle he couldn’t help but get lost in it for a moment.

you were going to respond but you noticed his presence at that moment, looking up and staring harshly at him, he could see you bristle. you didn’t immediately recognize him, jaehyun noticed with the way you tugged yeoreum to stand behind you and jaehyun raised his hands in surrender, tugging his mask down so you could see his face and you released a breath, relaxing instantly.

“mister jaehyun!” yeoreum cheered from behind you, bouncing forward with her hands holding on to the straps of her little yellow backpack. jaehyun crouched to be level with her, his elbows resting on his knees and his dimpled smile was an exact replica of hers.

“hi yeoreum, i heard you say you were good today in school. if your mommy is okay with it, do you think i get you that ice cream you wanted?” jaehyun asked the little girl, but his eyes were looking up at you and your mouth was pressed in a firm line. yeoreum whirled on the spot to look up at you.

“oh please, mommy? mister jaehyun will pay for it so it’s free!” yeoreum pleaded, adding information that wasn’t exactly given yet and jaehyun couldn’t help but laugh at that detail. you clearly debated on it for a moment, but the hopeful look on your daughters face was already giving you an answer.

“sure, sweetie.” you said softly, eyes cutting up to glance at jaehyun, trying to figure out what he was getting at. yeoreum pulled you by the hand, and then she boldly grabbed jaehyun’s hand as well, leading the way to the convenience store you often made stops to on the way home from school.

you didn’t say a word as you walked, jaehyun keeping a conversation going with yeoreum, asking her about the things in school she liked and it went on like that for a few minutes until you entered the store and you greeted the elderly woman who ran it politely. yeoreum darted to the ice cream section and you finally had a moment without her present.

“what are you trying to do here, jaehyun?” you asked coldly, and his smile never wavered, his mood too high to allow it to come down.

“i’m trying to get to know my daughter that i didn’t know existed until yesterday.” he answered you, his voice hushed as to keep the store owner from eavesdropping, but you didn’t detect any obvious lies in his statement.

“i told you –.” you started, and he cut you off.

“i know what you said, believe me. i heard you loud and clear, but please y/n,” and your eyes widened at the sincerity in his voice, he was seconds away from begging dramatically. “please just give me one chance. i want to be in her life, i want to be there for her.”

yeoreum skipped over, holding three ice cream bars in her arms.

“look mommy, i got your favorite. and mister jaehyun, i got you my favorite. you’ll like it because it’s the best!” she said with such confidence that jaehyun chuckled at her as she walked right up to the counter.

“well you’re in luck because that just so happens to be my favorite, too.” jaehyun offered and the girl beamed at him.

“mommy likes this flavor,” she pointed to the only one that was different as the elderly woman scanned the three items. she motioned for him to come to her level, and when he bent down she cupped her hands cutely to whisper in jaehyun’s ear. “and don’t tell her but it’s really yucky.”

the more time jaehyun spent around this little girl the more he felt himself getting wrapped around her finger. he brought a finger to his lips conspiratorially and he turned to make eye contact with you and your eyebrows raised.

“hey, what’s with the secrets?” you frowned in confusion, head tilting slightly and at the motion jaehyun felt his heart skip a beat. he recalled the same exact motion five years ago, and he had to swallow hard to pull himself out of the memory.

“oh, nothing. yeoreum just told me a funny joke.” he answered, giving yeoreum a wink and she giggled at the secret that they now had, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she laughed.

“hmmm,” you responded, accepting the ice cream bars and thanking the woman as you exited. the park was only a short distance away and that’s where you headed, sitting down on a bench as you opened yeoreum’s ice cream and she dove in immediately.

you allowed them to talk easily, and you felt your resolve slowly chipping away with every smile they shared with each other. you recalled one of the many conversations you had had with friends, one most recently being your coworker and friend jisoo. she had suggested for the umpteenth time that you should reach out to the father and give him the option to be in yeoreum’s life.

“i don’t want him to get tired of her, it would be devastating for her, and me too.” you had argued then and jisoo’s look was unamused.

“you haven’t even given him the chance, you have no clue if he’d even do that. you can’t make that assumption, time changes people.”

you were realizing she was right as you watched her giggle over him dripping ice cream on his shoes, yeoreum commenting how it’s not that hard to not be messy and jaehyun laughed at her disappointed sigh.

you had made up your mind by then, the ice cream finished and you noticed the time was getting a little late, knowing you’d have to get her ready for bed.

“come on, ‘reum. we gotta get ready for bed soon.” you said softly, interrupting their conversation and yeoreum nodded, hopping off of the bench she sat on with jaehyun. she walked over to stand beside you but she turned to jaehyun.

“mister jaehyun, will i see you again?” she asked and her voice was so hopeful that jaehyun looked to you for an answer.

“one chance,” you mouthed to him seriously, holding up one finger to emphasize your point over yeoreum’s head and jaehyun’s eyes shone with relief as he made eye contact with yeoreum.

“i’d love to, i’ll come see you anytime.” jaehyun nodded and yeoreum clapped excitedly, turning to look at you as she did so and you couldn’t help the answering smile that crossed your face. you took her small hand in yours and you began to walk in the direction of your home and she paused, turning around and waving enthusiastically goodbye to jaehyun who was still seated on the wooden park bench.

“see you soon, mister jaehyun!” she called and then she was pulling you away; jaehyun watching you both leave and he felt at peace knowing this plan went so much better than he could have ever hoped it would.

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

you had just put yeoruem to sleep in her little princess bed, she had talked nonstop the entire way home, all through dinner, and then during her bath until you finally got her to sleep, about mister jaehyun.

the idea of her getting to know him brought on two strong emotions and they teetered back and forth in your mind, an eerily well-balanced scale.

on one hand, you were excited for her to get to know her father, she deserved to have both parents who loved her.

on the other hand, you were terrified of how this would play out fully. would he leave once people found out? would he pretend she didn’t exist?

your thoughts ran in circles over and over, and you didn’t get anywhere productive. the only thing you had settled on was that until you knew for sure where this would go, you would make sure jaehyun wouldn’t mention a word of being her dad.

you didn’t want to have to pick up the pieces of her small heart if he shattered it.

your phone dinged and it pulled you out of your thoughts, you paused the show you had barely been paying attention to so you could focus.

9:31 pm unknown: hello… do you have plans tomorrow?

9:32 pm you: depends on who’s asking...?

9:33 pm unknown: oh, yeah my bad. this is jaehyun, johnny got me your number from your boss

9:34 pm you: ok… that’s not weird at all… but no. no plans besides work and yeoruem. why?

9:35 pm he who must not be named 💀: how do you feel about coming over? i can cook for you both, or maybe order pizza. whatever yeoreum wants to eat haha

9:37 pm you: she’s not picky, but i guess i won’t mind. will your members mind?

9:38 pm he who must not be named 💀: ah, right. well, see i’m telling them tomorrow so they won’t really have a choice.

9:40 pm you: … don’t make this weird for us, jaehyun.

9:42 pm he who must not be named 💀: i’m not! i won’t, i’ll send someone for you tomorrow at 6?

9:47 pm you: we can get there, just give me the address and i’ll see you then

9:48 pm he who must not be named 💀: [current location]

you audibly sighed, staring at the phone showing the address, you clicked it to see that he didn’t live too far from you and you just shook your head, you were going to leave it at that, but your thought from earlier hit you again and you typed a response.

9:55 pm you: i have a request for you

10:01 pm he who must not be named 💀: ask

10:02 pm you: i’m not going to keep you from getting to know her, because it makes her happy and she deserves that. but i don’t want you to mention anything to her about you being her dad

10:05 pm he who must not be named 💀: and that’s because…?

10:06 pm you: i just wanna be sure. i’d rather you be some cool man she spent time with if you decide differently

10:07 pm he who must not be named 💀: okay and when you see that i’m not gonna ghost my own daughter, is there a statute of limitations on this or what?

10:08 pm you: i’ll let you know

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

jaehyun paced back and forth in the living room, he hadn’t heard from you since you assured him you’d be coming by at 6 like agreed. he had went a little overboard on the pizza, considering there were now five different boxes on the counter and he may have went on a shopping spree at a small children’s toy store.

now all eight of his members sat in different spots in the too large living room as he walked back and forth, stopping to check on his phone and then once he saw there wasn’t a notification from you, he went back to his path he had made.

“you’re gonna wear a hole through the floor,” johnny deadpanned and jaehyun ignored him.

“hyung?” it was haechan this time trying to get jaehyun to stop moving and jaehyun did, looking up to see what the youngest wanted.

“this isn’t your first time meeting her, right?” haechan seemed genuinely confused.

“no, this is the second, technically third time now.” he answered, forgetting about his phone in his pocket for a moment.

“okay, then why are you freaking out?” haechan asked, resting his chin in his palm.

“well…” jaehyun was at a brief loss for words. “y/n is unsure about me being around her already, so i guess i’m worried she’s going to… stop.”

“stop what?” taeyong asked from the other side of the room and jaehyun turned on the spot to face him.

“stop letting me see her, stop responding to me, just, stop altogether.” jaehyun looked crestfallen as he waved his hands around but a snort from his left made him glare at yuta.

“what? like you did to her?” yuta smirked at the stressed man, and jaehyun threw his arms up, throwing his head back as he stared at the ceiling for a long moment.

he hadn’t expected this kind of reaction at all when he called a group meeting in the living room hours earlier; he had told mark and johnny he planned to tell everyone because he had wanted you and yeoreum to come to the house and they had only nodded and helped him gather everyone. mark and johnny purposely sat on the couch in the corner of the room so they could watch it all unfold.

jaehyun had started the whole thing by clearing his throat three times before he even opened his mouth.

“i-,” he began but yuta narrowed his eyes at him and twisted his lips for a second.

“you got some girl pregnant, didn’t you?” his question was so blunt it took everyone off guard, mark almost falling out of his seat on the couch entirely. haechan, who sat on the arm of yuta’s chair, shoved his shoulder roughly. jaehyun, however, was stunned into silence, mouth agape and yuta laughed at his reaction.

“jaehyun, he’s joking. now why did you call us all here?” taeyong said, shooting a stern look at yuta before turning his full attention to the man who stood in the center of the room. keeping the peace like he always did, but jaehyun was so much more nervous now after yuta’s comment, regardless of how correct it was.

“okay, so,” jaehyun began and went through the entire story again. something he had kept to himself all these years, and he was finally letting everyone in on his tiny, but impactful, moment of freedom he had with you.

“and so when we filmed our content for the youtube segment, the one with kids, you know?” and when everyone nodded, all but three mouths were hanging in stunned silence. “this little girl was at my table, and she was adorable and smart and highly independent but like, some kids are like that. until she pointed out her mother to me, and –.”

jungwoo gasped dramatically, leaning so far forward in his chair as he listened to jaehyun that he was practically on the floor. “no fucking way!”

“yes, way.” mark answered for him, and jaehyun continued.

“y/n, yeah. y/n was her mother, and yeoreum was born exactly nine months after, and yeah. i… i have a daughter that i had no clue existed but i want to be her dad, i haven’t wanted something this bad since we debuted, and… yeah.”

“okay… okay…” taeyong repeated, seemingly in shock as he processed everything that was just said.

“okay?” jaehyun asked, wanting someone to say something.

“okay.” taeyong replied, making eye contact with him. “well, we’re not going to let you be a shitty father.”

“anymore.” haechan said under his breath and yuta snickered with him.

“i had no clue!” jaehyun argued in defense of himself.

“how do you even know she’s actually yours?” taeil asked, his posture was relaxed in his chair, recovering from the shock of the news more quickly than the others had.

“she -.” he started but doyoung butted in then.

“how do you know she’s not using you as a way to get money? she could have slept with someone else.” doyoung seemed even less convinced than taeil was.

“oh no, wait til you see her,” mark said from his spot in the room. “he can’t deny her even if he tried.”

“what? i won’t believe it until i see the test results.” doyoung said, and taeil nodded.

“she hasn’t asked me for anything,” jaehyun argued, feeling a little defensive over you then.

“yet.” taeil murmured, and johnny chose then to speak up.

“you weren’t there in the room, neither of you. she didn’t want anything to do with jaehyun, and she very, very clearly stated that she didn’t even want him around her.”

“and she asked me to refrain from even mentioning that i was her dad.” jaehyun tacked on, and taeil didn’t seem convinced nor did doyoung. silence stretched on for a moment.

“so when do we get to meet yeoreum?” haechan asked then, and jaehyun checked his watch.

“in about three hours,” he replied and everyone jumped as if they had been startled.

“what?!” came at him from all directions of the room.

“nothing in here is childproof!” taeyong exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

“she’s five, not two, she’s not going to go stick her finger in light sockets,” mark chuckled and taeyong relaxed slightly.

“she’s four, but yeah, same thing applies,” johnny corrected him and then silence fell over the room again.

“i will say, i can’t blame y/n,” yuta spoke up then, his eyes trained on the floor for a long moment. “if i were her, i wouldn’t have even given you the option. she’s a lot more forgiving than i would be if you knocked me up, ghosted me and then suddenly by a coincidence showed up again.”

“well that’s because you’re a scorpio,” jungwoo said. “and it feels kinda like fate to me.”

“that’s exactly what i said!” mark laughed, pointing at jungwoo animatedly.

and the conversation carried on like that up until he started pacing, jaehyun had been grateful that they all, well almost all, took it in stride and were supportive. but the jabs from yuta were making him even more anxious, and no matter how many times taeyong glared at yuta and told him to shut up, he couldn’t relax.

and then his phone buzzed in his hand.

6:15 pm pizza hut: um, sorry we’re a bit late, the train was delayed but uh… security guy won’t let us in

“shit,” jaehyun whispered, and he was halfway towards the door when your next text came through.

6:16 pm pizza hut: and it’s raining, so we can go home it’s not a big deal

his panic he felt while pacing came back full force and taeyong called to him.

“what’s going on?”

“security guard won’t let her in,” jaehyun rambled quickly.

“that’s all?” he replied, and taeyong pulled out his phone, pressed a few buttons on the screen and had his phone to his ear in seconds.

“hi, mr. choi? yes, can you please escort our guests to the elevators. yes, we were expecting her. no, don’t leave them out in the rain any longer. yes… thank you. have a goodnight.”

taeyong hung up the phone, and gestured to the door, “she’s in the elevator on their way up.”

jaehyun exhaled deeply, for the first time since he woke up that morning. and while he could breathe easily, the entire room held their breath at the sound of a gentle knock against the door.

jaehyun all but lunged at the door and opened it wide. the other eight men in the living room didn’t move a muscle.

“mister jaehyun!” yeoreum squealed excitedly when she saw him filling the entrance and their smiles were exact replicas of each other and jaehyun gestured you both inside.

“yeoreum, shoes baby.” you said softly, and the members had yet to see any faces, but smiles broke out on their faces as they heard a quick, “right! sorry mommy!”

jaehyun led you both out of the foyer and into the living room and you froze when you saw eight men staring at you both when you entered the room. you had prepared for this, expecting it to be awkward but being this… intense wasn’t exactly how you pictured it.

yeoreum stepped in between you and jaehyun and you looked down to see her bow to the room.

“hello, my name is yeoreum and i’m four years old.” and you peeked up to see the intense stares break out into wide grins.

yeoreum stood up straight and then tugged on your pants.

“mommy, you said it’s rude to not introduce yourself to people who you don’t know.” she said it so seriously, but you and several others in the room chuckled at her respect for manners. at least she paid attention to you when you spoke.

you didn’t bow as yeoreum had, simply dipping your head as you introduced yourself.

“happy?” you said to yeoreum, poking her in the nose and she giggled in response. you heard faint gasps from deeper in the room but you ignored it as your daughter stared into the room and the men must have realized that her comment applied to them as well.

the first one to cross the room was a face you faintly recognized. he knelt down to be on her level and his smile was gentle.

“hi yeoreum, i’m mister jaehyun’s friend. my name is taeil.” and yeoreum nodded, and she smiled at every one who introduced themselves to her and you. she recognized johnny and even gave mark a high five. the last one was haechan, and he was the most energetic of all to meet her.

“hi!” he chirped to her, and she parroted back to him the same exact way, and he continued, his voice filled with a joking kind of pride. “my name is haechan, and i’m the coolest one here.”

“is that why your hair is blue?” yeoreum asked, tilting her head to the side cutely.

“yep, only the coolest have blue hair.” he replied, shaking his head playfully and yeoreum’s laugh filled the room again.

“also, do you wanna see all the cool stuff mister jaehyun got you?” haechan asked, and finally gestured to the couch that held different plushies and toys that the older lady at the shop had suggested for kids her age. yeoreum stared at all the toys then turned around to stare up at jaehyun.

“all of that is mine?” and even you were in shock and the sheer amount of toys piled on the couch.

“yep, all yours.” jaehyun replied, crouching down to be on the same level as yeoreum and haechan.

“but that’s… so much.” she whispered loudly, peeking again at all the toys.

“if you don’t like them all that’s okay, i just wanted to get you something,” his smile was gentle and reassuring. she looked at you for permission and when you nodded at her, she went to the couch and looked at all the plushies. she looked at them, and then at everyone in the room, then back at the toys staring intently.

and one by one, she pulled a different stuffed animal from the pile and handed it to each man in the room. she started by giving haechan a blue teddy bear, and continued on until every grown man was holding a small soft plushie, and she beamed with happiness.

you knew they couldn’t say no and jaehyun could see their wariness melting with each toy she gave. and even though he knew he probably had no right to feel it, he felt a sense of pride in her generosity and he knew she could have only learned that from you. he was the last one to receive a toy and it was a fluffy orange cat.

“thank you, yeoreum. that’s very sweet of you.” he told her sincerely and she blinked at him as if it weren’t something out of the ordinary.

“there’s a lot to share,” she replied and then she remembered something and it lit up her entire face, her voice raising in her excitement. “mommy said you got pizza!”

“yep,” he answered her question that wasn’t a question. “i didn’t know which kind you liked so you have a lot of choices.”

yeoreum picked the same pizza to eat that jaehyun had, which didn’t go unnoticed by everyone in the room as he was the only one to actually like pineapple on pizza. she had made herself at home easily, not missing a beat to pull half of the men into the living room to play with her and the toys jaehyun had gotten for her.

you had been there for a total of thirty minutes before you had been made to feel somewhat welcome. you enjoyed watching the members spend time with yeoreum, as she didn’t have many men in her life to really associate with, and the boys in her class didn’t really count.

you had to bite back a smile at the conversation you had overhead moments before.

“yeoreum is a pretty name, it’s unique too.” mark said, sitting cross-legged where she had instructed him to sit.

“thank you, mommy said she did it so it would be easy because my english name is summer.” yeoreum replied somewhat distractedly in english, causing all eyes to blink slowly at the sudden change in language.

“but she was born in may?” jaehyun looked at you, and you shrugged.

“i was on drugs and in pain, i at least had the right idea.” which caused a few laughs to echo around the room.

after that, you seemed to be fairly content with just observing. you leaned against the kitchen counter, chewing slowly on a piece of pizza as you watched her try to win a tickle fight with mark and succeeding with the way his laughter didn’t come out as forced.

you didn’t speak much with the other members, mostly enjoying being a presence in the room, that is until you felt a body move close to your side and you turned to face the new person, remembering his name was doyoung. when he didn’t say anything to you, you turned away and went back to watching how the tickle fight was absolutely being lost by mark then.

“i have reservations about this,” doyoung said to you then, his voice hardly above a whisper.

you turned again to face him but he looked forward, eyes trained on the guys sitting around enjoying the little girls antics. realizing he wasn’t going to face you for this conversation you went back to your previous position, this time bringing the pizza to your mouth again.

“and?” you asked him, voice matching his tone and doyoung shifted forward to rest his forearms against the counter. he waited until your mouth was full of pizza before he spoke again.

“and jaehyun’s so excited about this, he went on and on about it and he doesn’t even know if she’s actually his.” doyoung’s blunt words made you defensive, even though you had expected something like this, it still made you react, but doyoung continued before you could swallow.

“i think he needs to get a dna test before he gets too attached.” doyoung said, finally turning to face you and you narrowed your eyes at him as he did so.

“what? you think i’m lying?” you said through gritted teeth, but doyoung’s stance didn’t change.

“i’m not going to judge you, i don’t know anything about you. i’m just trying to protect one of my best friends. especially if you decide to rip this whole ‘being a father’ thing out from under him.”

“exactly, you don’t know anything about me.” you said shortly, your temper’s fuse quickly reaching its end. you pushed yourself away from the counter then before you continued. “and there’s nothing to protect him from, i don’t want anything from him. he tracked me down after i told him to leave me alone. he asked to see her, not me. we will be just as we were before he made his grand appearance, should he decide the father life isn’t for him.”

doyoung searched your face while you spoke, but you abruptly changed the conversation when you asked him where the bathroom was. doyoung gestured down the hall and watched as you left, when the shadows in the hall swallowed you he turned his attention back to watch the scene unfold.

haechan and mark were getting to be children again as they played some sort of mock game of house with yeoreum, using the plushies she had gifted them.

jaehyun was sitting next to her, his back against the couch as she made him in charge of holding the rest of the plushies, doyoung heard her mention that he was the house and so he had to be really, really still.

“where’s your dad?” haechan asked, his voice exaggeratingly deep for his character his bear was playing.

“i don’t have one,” yeoreum said, and she moved her plushie away from haechan’s but every man in the room froze. doyoung’s eyes darted to jaehyun’s face to judge his face, but he couldn’t quite read it.

“wh-what do you mean, yeo?” mark asked using his little lion to carry on the game for her.

“mommy said daddy is a really busy man,” she said matter-of-factly, she didn’t notice how all the eyes in the room were trained on her, and how the air seemed to still in preparation for her answer. “she said he’s a busy business man who flies all over the world and she said that a lot of daddies and mommies do that and that it’s okay!”

she was still happy as she spoke, still involved in her game of house she had roped them into playing with her.

“it really is okay,” mark said softly, forgetting his role for a moment.

“yep! it’s super okay because my mommy is really strong and she got so strong so she could take care of me all by herself.” yeoreum’s tiny body puffed up in all the pride a four year old could muster.

“but don’t you miss your dad?” haechan’s bear asked yeoreum’s little white fluffy bear.

“well yeah, all the other kids dads come and pick them up from school but mommy says that just because my daddy has a lot of stuff he has to do first, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me.” and then, for the first time, yeoreum’s voice became a bit quieter. “i don’t know my daddy, but i hope mommy’s right.”

doyoung’s eyes had danced back and forth between her and jaehyun, noticing the more she spoke, the more jaehyun’s face seemed to fall and it wasn’t long before doyoung though he saw the man tearing up.

“of course your mommy’s right, ‘reum,” jaehyun said softly behind her. she twisted around in her spot on the floor, looking up at him and she tilted her head at him when she saw his tears spill over, confused on why he was so sad. she shuffled forward to get closer to him and she frowned, bringing her arms to wrap around his neck tightly and jaehyun felt the tears hit him harder and he didn’t even care that everyone else in the room was witnessing this. his arms wrapped tightly around her little body, and he used his palm to try and wipe away some of the tears from his cheek.

“mommy said it’s okay to cry, and that hugs are a good bandaid,” yeoreum said, voice taking a knowing tone.

jaehyun nodded against her head, his eyes drifting to the hallway where he could see you standing there. your expression was unreadable to him, but your lips were pursed tightly.

“your mommy is right,” he repeated again, pulling her small hands away from his face then. “about the hugs and that your daddy was really busy but he definitely loves you.”

“do you know him?” she asked, pulling away from his neck to look at him earnestly, and jaehyun’s eyes crinkled at the edges, pulling away from your form in the hallway to look at his daughter again.

“i do, yeah,” jaheyun answered, “and he missed you so much.”

“can you tell him i miss him too? can you tell him that he can come pick me up from school?” she said excitedly and you chose that moment to interrupt. you couldn’t be sure where the rest of the conversation was going, you didn’t know if jaehyun would keep his word about not saying he was her dad and you could see her getting her hopes up too high, and you knew you had to be the bad guy.

“yeoruem, baby. it’s time we go home now, we have school in the morning.” you called softly, walking over to your little girl and she pouted up at you, but she didn’t argue, she just slowly got to her feet, hugging her teddy bear tightly to her chest.

“say thank you, they were very nice to play with you,” you nudged her softly and she did as she was told, genuinely happy to have been able to play with her new friends. you both started walking to the door and she turned suddenly, running to hug jaehyun once more before she left.

you saw she had whispered something to him as she pulled away and you saw jaehyun break out into a smile again.

“i will,” he said to her and with a happy nod yeoreum was back with you again.

with yeoreum’s shoes finally on, you both exited the door and were halfway to the elevator when you heard a door close and footsteps thumping towards you. you were both surprised and… not at all surprised to see jaehyun behind you, a new gleam in his eye as he tugged on his hood and put a mask into place over his nose.

“i would feel more comfortable if i took you home since it’s late.” he said nonchalantly. “i can drive us, if you want.”

“i don’t have a car seat for yeoreum,” you replied and jaehyun shrugged easily. “walking you home it is then.”

you were going to protest but yeoreum had already put her stuffed animal in your hand before grabbing your other one and one of jaehyun’s, tugging you both towards the elevator.

she had started chatting away about something you couldn’t even pay attention to, too entirely focused on the way jaehyun’s hand enveloped hers, your eyes trailing from his hand to his face and you weren’t sure what it was about it. maybe it was all the moments pulled together, primarily the past hour alone, but you felt an unmistakable skip of your heartbeat at the way he smiled down at your excited little girl.

you were too busy gazing up at jaehyun to even noticed the eight heads poking out of the doorway almost comically as they watched you three enter the elevator, being led by a headstrong four year old.

“they make a cute little family,” jungwoo mentioned, only pulling his head inside once he heard the elevator doors close; the members immediately talking animatedly about the new niece they seemed to automatically claim as their own.

no one noticed doyoung walking to his room, the tiny cup that yeoreum had used in his hand.

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it took all of three minutes into the walk home for yeoreum to yawn loudly and rub her eyes sleepily.

“did you get tired from playing with everyone?” you asked her and she nodded, all the cheerful excitement ebbing away from her slowly. you went to pick her up to carry her the rest of the way but jaehyun stopped you, eyes asking permission before he made a move and after a brief hesitation, you nodded to him with a smile.

“i got you, ‘reum, come here,” he said soothingly, picking her up and holding her close. she instantly laid her head down on his shoulder and you snorted at how quickly she closed her eyes. you cooed at how sweet she was, and jaehyun visibly glowed at how she seemed to relax with him instantly.

“you know you don’t have to do all of this,” you said to him after a few moments of yeoreum’s slow breathing. and jaehyun sighed deeply.

“look i know you think i’m this really shitty person who just ditched you, and i know that that’s how you must have felt but it wasn’t my intention. my manager saw our messages, you know. and even though I was still an adult then, we didn’t have nearly as much freedom as we do now. he yelled at me for an hour about being reckless with my career and all that. even though it doesn’t change anything, i didn’t do any of it on purpose or maliciously. and i’m sorry you had to do this alone.” he said, looking down at you the entire time he had been talking, wanting to see your face through his shortened explanation.

“it was really hard, at first, and i’ve been angry for awhile.” you said, voice soft and vulnerable after you thought a moment before deciding to give him honesty. “i had no clue what to tell any of my friends, and when i googled you i almost threw up, but i think that was from the pregnancy and not the news of you being famous. it made sense then to me what all had happened, but i couldn’t tell my parents the truth and so i had to say i didn’t know who the dad was. mortifying, really. my parents still haven’t spoken to me since then. and i love yeoreum more than anything, but i really… i think i hated you this whole time.” you don’t make eye contact as you confess to him a snippet of what had happened, a glimpse into how you felt.

jaehyun was stunned at all he had learned about you, he knew you probably had hated him, and he was right on that. he was horrified to learn that you really, truly had been alone through all of this. he didn’t know why but he had assumed, since he had learned of this at least, you would have had your parents to help support you, and it made his stomach turn knowing it was the opposite.

“but i don’t hate you now,” you admitted softly, looking ahead at the crosswalk sign, waiting for it to give you the okay to cross.

“oh? one day was all it took?” jaehyun asked a bit hopefully with a playful smile, his heart leaping in his chest at the statement, and he couldn’t quite place his finger on why it made him so excited to hear those words. you didn’t respond right away only rolling your eyes, and pulling a set of keys from your pocket and jaehyun realized you must be close to your place.

“but don’t get too excited, the statute has only been bumped up, not removed entirely,” you teased, and you unlocked the door that sat in the wall surrounding your house, entering the front yard that came with your house. it was small, but jaehyun noticed it was just enough for the two of you to live in and it seemed cozy.

you closed the door behind you, it automatically locking and you led the way to the front door of the house, unlocking it and kicking off your shoes. jaehyun shuffled nervously a bit, not knowing what he needed to do but toed off his shoes anyway just to be courteous.

“would you like to tuck her in?” you asked him after switching on a light in the room, and jaehyun blinked as his eyes adjusted. “if you don’t want to, that’s okay, i can.” and you reached for yeoreum but jaehyun tightened his hold on the sleeping girl.

“i can do it,” he stressed and you grinned, holding up your hands in surrender.

“okay then, ‘mister jaehyun’,” you joked, motioning for him to follow you down the hall into the room he could only assume was yeoreum’s if the little moon nightlight glowing and the soft peach paint on the wall were anything to go by.

he noticed she didn’t have an overabundance of toys, maybe a handful of plushies on her bed but he realized it was because she had a little table in the corner stacked with coloring books, crayons and markers. he could see her wanting to be an artist when she grew up, she had told him that already. as he was taking in the room, you had already folded back her blankets and you were waiting for him expectantly.

he very gently tucked yeoreum in after taking off her shoes and gave her the plushie he had gifted her and she cuddled into it immediately. it caused his heart to ache looking at her, realizing he had missed so many things. jaehyun followed you out of her room and you closed her door until it was just a crack.

“um…” jaehyun went to ask, not knowing how to really phrase the question he wanted.

“are you thirsty?” you asked him instead as you headed into your kitchen and he hovered in the entrance.

“not really, thank you, but i was wondering, if you’d be okay with it…” he trailed off, and your eyes darted to see him looking somewhat nervous.

“with what?”

“do you… maybe have pictures you could show me? or videos? i just know i’ve missed a lot and if you were okay with it, i’d like to see the moments i wasn’t there for.” your heart softened, as did your smile.

“yeah, i think i can do that for you.”

so jaehyun stayed with you until late that night, sitting at the kitchen table as you showed him pictures and videos of yeoreum. moments like her first steps, and her first words, which you were pouting when you told him wasn’t “mama”, but instead was “no”. he got to experience your laughter as yeoreum had brought a frog inside the house, and her subsequent scream as it jumped out of her hand then chased her. he got to see pictures of her and he felt like he could have been there.

should have been there.

and as he flipped through picture after picture, he noticed that his heart picked up in speed each time he came across a picture of you in it. he watched as you spoke about each picture, the excitement in the nostalgia as you flipped through each one and you explained to him what was going on.

he felt like he was back in your apartment five years ago, he felt at peace with you here.

he missed all of this, and he was going to make sure he wouldn’t miss anything else.

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New Tweet notifications for NCT 127

NCT 127 @NCTsmtown_127 [idols with kids] episode 11 with JOHNNY, JAEHYUN, and MARK

🖍️😺🍑🦁🖍️

#NCT127 #NCT127_IDOLSWITHKIDS #IDOLSWITHKIDS

@lovej43 replied to NCTsmtown_127

i can’t with jaehyun smiling at that little girl like that :(

@127valentines replied to lovej43

right??? she looks a lot like him too, so cute

@markinmiami replied to NCTsmtown_127

mark accidentally breaking his crayon ㅠㅠ the kid gave him a mean look

@bananasoutforjohn replied to NCTsmtown_127

dude looked FLABBERGASTED when the kid started crying

@myloveforjae replied to @127valentines

no ur right tho, she resembles him a lot more than just the dimples 🤨

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you knew that sm would post the video to their youtube channel, but you didn’t realize how anxious reading the comments would make you.

you weren’t aware that the video had posted until jisoo showed you that yeoreum was trending on twitter because of her interactions with jaehyun, and then you went to youtube to read the comments there and every time you read one that mentioned their resemblance it made your stomach flip uncomfortably.

you had a little under a month to prepare for that moment and yet, it still surprised you. you were just pleased that the overall theme for reactions was how cute your daughter was and that made your heart rest just a bit easier.

while reading the comments on your phone, your eyes instantly darted to the text notification that popped up.

3:43 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: did you see they posted the video? everyone is commenting about how cute ‘reum is

3:44 pm you: yeah, and they’re also saying how much you look alike…

3:46 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: well, she’s my daughter so i’d hope so

3:47 pm you: i don’t think you get what i mean

3:48 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: you mean that she also gets her looks from you? i agree

your eyebrows rose at that comment, he had been mildly flirtatious for the past week but now it was becoming blatantly obvious.

3:50 pm you: i mean yes, but that wasn’t what i meant

3:51 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: if it’s not that, then enlighten me

3:52 pm you: aren’t you concerned people will figure it out?

3:54 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: i don’t think they’ll be able to figure it out from just a twenty minute video on youtube

3:55 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: besides, they’d probably doubt it considering how beautiful you are

you simultaneously blushed at his very obvious flirting and sighed at his nonchalance. you were growing accustomed to jaehyun’s presence in your life, and you were finding yourself looking forward to seeing him and spending time with him. it made you feel as if you three were a family but the overwhelming dark cloud of the public finding out loomed over you and shadowed the fluttery feeling you felt in your chest when you talked to him.

you didn’t want to let this get to you but it was turning into somewhat of a fear for you, and it wasn’t really that people would find out.

it was the aftermath; the most negative version being the source of your fear.

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jaehyun stared at his phone waiting for a response from you a bit longer than he should have, but when he felt a shadow hovering to his left he quickly locked his phone. his shoulders instantly relaxed when he saw it was doyoung, but the look on doyoung’s face made jaehyun instantly concerned.

doyoung refused eye contact with him, shifting uncomfortably as he leaned against the mirrored wall of the practice room. everyone else was sat in various spots on around the room and although jaehyun didn’t mind doyoung deciding to spend his break with him, his awkward behavior made jaehyun tense.

“i’ve been putting off talking to you for a week now.” doyoung said to the ground, his arms crossing over his chest.

“what about?”

“i…” doyoung started then stopped, he waited a few seconds then began again. “look, just remember i did it to protect you, you know, just in case.”

he was purposefully being vague and jaehyun pushed off the wall, turning his body to really face doyoung. “what did you do?”

“it’s – i – when y/n came over the first time, even though you were convinced, i wasn’t. so… i had a dna test done.” doyoung’s response made jaehyun’s skin grow hot, he wasn’t why sure anger was the first emotion that bubbled up first but it came on strong enough to surprise even him.

“why would you do that?” he said from between gritted teeth. the idea that yeoreum might not be his never crossed his mind, he had been so sure from the moment he saw you near her.

he just knew.

“you didn’t know, you were just going off of y/n’s word alone. i wanted to give you proof.”

“no, you wanted to rub it in my face that she had lied. you wanted to be right.” jaehyun couldn’t hear how his voice was raising, he could only hear the blood rushing in his ears.

“you would have went your whole life possibly raising someone else’s kid if i hadn’t had the test done!” doyoung was defensive now, and he couldn’t understand why jaehyun would have just blindly believed you like he did.

“i wouldn’t have cared either way!” jaehyun hadn’t realized he had gotten closer to doyoung until a hand came to push against his chest, pulling him back and away from him.

“keep it down unless you want the whole building to know your business,” johnny said lowly to jaehyun, eyes darting to the choreographer across the room, who seemed to be mostly unaware of the situation since he had headphones on.

“he went behind my back and had a dna test done, without asking me first!” jaehyun argued back, angry eyes not leaving the apologetic ones of doyoung.

“if it makes you feel better, she’s yours.” doyoung said, guilt apparent in his face even if he was trying to maintain his stance that he had done nothing wrong.

“i knew that already!” jaehyun actually yelled that time, and he went to take a step forward – to do what he wasn’t sure but johnny’s palm held him firmly in place.

his phone choosing that moment to vibrate, pulling him away from the moment; he had an incoming call from you. he took a moment to shoot doyoung a seething glare, then took a calming breath before turning away to answer.

“hi,” he breathed, his anger slowly dissipating.

“hello,” you replied, but your voice was a bit strained and he picked up on it right away.

“everything okay?” he questioned instantly.

“yeah,” you said and he heard you pull away to speak to someone else before coming back to the phone. “my friend and coworker, jisoo? she was there that day with me, she got injured at work and i’m the only one able to take her to the hospital. will you…” another quick word to someone else. “i need you to be there to pick up yeoreum from school, please.”

jaehyun’s mind was racing thinking of his schedule for the day, he had practice for another few hours, and he told you as such.

“i know you’re busy, but this is something that comes with being a parent. you make adjustments.” you said, and your voice was panicked as you heard someone call for you, and he heard you address the doctor.

“please jae, she has a key on her backpack. you get to pick her up from school and be her dad. this is what you asked for… and what she has always wanted.”

“i’ll be there.” he answered, his mind made up before you even had started to speak. “what time does she get out for school?”

“5, thank you so much, jae. i really appreciate it.” and when someone called your name again you sounded rushed once more. “coming! bye jae, i’ll see you later.”

you hung up the phone, and even though jaehyun was still feeling angry towards doyoung, he couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face at the opportunity you gave him.

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jaehyun was thankful that the lady at the front counter seemed to be too old to stay in tune with media as she didn’t even bat an eyelash when he gave his name to her and told her that he was there to pick up yeoreum. he refrained from saying the term ‘my daughter’ aloud but your rules couldn’t stop him from thinking it.

when the lady called over the system to tell the teacher that it was time for yeoreum to go home, jaehyun leaned casually against the wall while he waited.

he wasn’t thinking about how he had lied to get out of the last few hours of practice. he wasn’t thinking about the argument yet to be resolved with doyoung.

he wasn’t thinking about the other parents coming in and seeing him, recognizing him.

all he could think about how long the minutes seemed too stretch on for yeoreum to be released from her class… and he wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t also thinking about you. specifically, the last time he saw you, which was three days before.

you had invited him over on sunday night, stating that yeoreum had asked about him and if she could one day make cookies for mister jaehyun. you had told him it was so out of the blue for her to ask that and when you had questioned her on it, her simple response was ‘if cookies makes santa come, maybe it will work for mister jaehyun too’.

you didn’t have the heart to tell her no, which led to the phone call. jaehyun was there in twenty minutes, knocking on the door to which you answered with flour splattered across your face, with a giggling four-year-old right behind you sporting flour in her hair. jaehyun’s grin was painful for his cheeks as he took in the scene, and he couldn’t help but laugh with you both before even saying hello.

“are you supposed to be wearing the ingredients?” jaehyun asked as he stepped inside your house, following you both as you made your way into the kitchen.

“mommy started it!” and you feigned a gasp, a floured hand on your chest.

“i did not!” and she giggled once more, waving her tiny hands for jaehyun to bend down so she could whisper in his ear. jaehyun’s dimples were deep as he listened to her and your thoughts straying to how handsome he was running through your mind before you even registered. jaehyun turned his head to nod excitedly with yeoreum and you narrowed your eyes at them both.

“you better have told him how you threw first,” you warned playfully.

“oh she did,” jaehyun agreed, moving slightly to the left and it didn’t click that he was suspiciously close to the bag of flour. “she also said we should be on a team.”

“wha – oh don’t you dare!” but it was too late, as jaehyun had already pinched some flour and flicked it at you, and as you stood there with a shocked look on your face and flour now decorating your hair, jaehyun and yeoreum shared a giggly high five. you crossed your arms childishly and stomped your foot, turning away from them both dramatically, taking a page directly out of your daughter’s book.

“oh no, ‘reum… we’ve made your mommy upset.” jaehyun theatrically whispered and you had to bite back a laugh.

“i know what will cheer her up!” yeoreum whispered back, and they were both suspiciously silent and then you heard feet shuffling behind you; yeoreum popping up in front of you suddenly, and then there were not one, but two sets of arms wrapping around you in a tight squeeze, yeoreum’s head resting on your stomach and you froze at the feeling of jaehyun’s cheek resting on top of your head.

you felt the heat rise up your neck and the butterflies were back; you couldn’t tell if this was part of the joke or if he meant the hug the way it felt to you but you quickly pushed that train of thought to the side, giving yourself two more seconds in the embrace of them both before you broke the moment by clearing your throat.

“so, did we still want to make mister jaehyun cookies?” yeoreum blinked up at you cutely and nodded her head, you ran your hand through her hair gently, still very aware of jaehyun at your back and you tried to ignore it but failed.

jaehyun noticed it took only five minutes of trying to cook for yeoreum to get bored and ask if she can go color instead, so it left only you and him in the kitchen, and the first few minutes were spent trying to fill the awkward silence with comments and small laughter.

you had just started to mix up the ingredients when you heard him move, his feet shuffling just a bit.

jaehyun leaned a little closer into your space, feeling his body heat on your back; his hand braced against the counter to the left of your hip and you weren’t sure if your heart raced or slowed, but all you knew was that you were hyper aware of his presence as you were minutes before when he had hugged you.

“do you need help with that?” he asked lowly, his voice near your ear and you could almost feel his breath on your cheek. you turned your head and he was as close to you as you had thought he was, and it made you take a slight step away. you knew he could see the rising blush on your cheeks and a smirk made its way to his lips.

“no, i got it,” you said, but then realized that his close proximity allowed you to get a little revenge. “i am capable, thank you very much.” it was your turn to flick flour at his face, and he only blinked at you in shock, his expression comical and you wished you could take a picture of it.

a small gasp at the entrance of the kitchen made you jump away from each other as if you had been caught doing something wrong, and you both had quickly fumbled with an excuse, neither of which had made any sense but you had seemingly gotten away with it.

the memory brought a smile to his face and that look was the first thing yeoreum saw as she walked through the door to see him waiting for her.

“mister jaehyun!” she exclaimed, running up to him and hugging him around his legs and god, he loved this little girl. when she let go, he bent down and went in for a proper hug, picking her up in the process and they left the building.

yeoreum spoke to him animatedly, telling him about her favorite part of her day and then she asked him about his favorite part, his answer being an immediate, “getting to see you, of course.” which only made her beam at him in a childlike sense of pride.

“what about mommy?” she asked innocently, and he blinked.

“well, of course you and her both are my favorite part.” yeoreum’s loud giggle made him smile but she shook her head.

“no, i mean where’s mommy?” and it dawned on him that he had told on himself to a very observant child.

“oh, she had to take her friend to the doctor. she isn’t your teacher, too?” jaehyun asked, playing it off in a way he thought was smooth enough. the question sparking another conversation about how she gets to change classrooms like she’s in real school but not a whole lot just sometimes and it’s definitely really fun, and jaehyun could only nod as she chattered away, finally arriving at the front gate to your home and yeoreum wiggled her way out of his arms so she could get her key.

“i wanna do it, mommy lets me!” and jaehyun nodded as he let her lead the way, really just letting himself enjoy being a parent solo, and after hours of dinner, bath, and then bed, he realized it was fairly exhausting and he told himself to remind you when you got home how impressive he thought you were.

jaehyun sat on the edge of her bed, she had requested him to tuck her in and he had but then she had started crying and he was on the verge of panicking.

“’reum, what’s the matter baby?” he said, taking a tip he got from you and running his hand through her hair to try and soothe her, she wasn’t hysterical but she clutched the plushie that he had gotten her tightly, big tears rolling down her cheeks as her bottom lip quivered.

“mommy always sings me a song and kisses me goodnight every night… when is she coming home?” she sniffed, and jaehyun’s eyebrows furrowed in concern. the last text update he had gotten was an hour ago when you had said that jisoo was going back for x-rays and that it shouldn’t be too much longer.

“she’ll be here soon but i can do that, too.” he offered her gently and her eyes looked a little less sad at his offer. “what song does she sing?”

“i don’t know the name,” her lip wobbled again and fresh tears sprung in her eyes.

“that’s okay,” he assured her soothingly, “can you hum it for me?”

yeoreum sniffed twice before humming the tune of a song jaehyun knew well, and it made a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth. as she hummed, he did the same right along with her until he started to sing softly to her, his hand continuing the motions from before, gently moving through her hair.

“so whenever you ask me again, how i feel… please remember…” and yeoreum wasn’t humming anymore, her small voice drifting away as she watched jaehyun, completely entranced by his voice, her young mind in awe at how he knew the song her mommy would sing to her.

“my answer if you,” jaehyun continued to sing, his finger tapping on her nose gently which finally earned him a small laugh. a sound he missed, and while he was glad to be present for even the times she was upset, he preferred her happy and smiling.

yeoreum didn’t say anything for a long second, and then in a small and unsure voice asked, “mister jaehyun?”

“yes, miss yeoreum?”

“if… if my daddy doesn’t ever come back from his business trips, if he’s still too busy for me…” jaehyun’s heart broke at the mention of that, his smile slowly disappearing from his face. “do you think you could be my daddy instead?”

“oh yeoreum…” he started and he saw a bit of panic welling up in her eyes, and she scrambled to sit up.

“i’m really good, i promise! mommy says so and santa does too, i get presents every year.” she pleaded, her eyebrows so furrowed they were nearly touching, and jaehyun’s eyes softened.

“yeoreum, sweetheart. i am y-.”

“”’reum, i’m home.” jaehyun nearly jumped at the sound of your voice, his head whipping around to find you staring at him in the doorway. he couldn’t quite place the emotion there; it wasn’t necessarily anger but you didn’t seem happy in the slightest.

“mommy!” yeoreum called, her tears forgotten at the sight of you in her room. you walked over to kneel at the edge of her bed, motioning for her to lay down again and pulling the blankets up to her chin.

“did you have fun with mister jaehyun?” you asked her, brushing her hair back away from her face. you heard everything said, and the feeling that you were letting her down sat heavy on your chest.

“i did, we had lots of fun,” she replied, finally letting out a long overdue yawn – the worry of you not being home the main thing that kept her awake.

“tell him goodnight, okay?”

“goodnight, mister jaehyun.” she murmured sleepily and you stood up then, motioning for jaehyun to follow you as you closed her door behind you. you moved away from the door, heading into the kitchen and jaehyun couldn’t help the feeling that he was in trouble somehow.

“i thought we had a deal,” you finally said, turning to face him as you leaned against the kitchen counter.

“what?” jaehyun was a little confused, he was trying to figure out where this conversation was going before it even started.

“the statute of limitations weren’t up yet, i still don’t want you to tell her you’re her father.” your voice was stiff, and you didn’t make eye contact with him as you spoke.

“i wasn’t going to…”

“i heard everything, jae. she already loves you so much, and if you decide to walk out it’s going to wreck her and i’ll be left to try and fix what you broke.”

jaehyun wasn’t sure why, but he felt the telltale sign of his anger rising. he felt it on the back of his neck, and the way his teeth ground together.

“i thought i made myself clear that i wasn’t going anywhere.” his voice wasn’t curt, but you still heard the tone.

“you did, but that’s when things are relatively easy. who’s to say-?” and he cut you off.

“say about what? what could anyone possibly say to make me leave?”

“me, when i say i think it’s best you kept your distance for a little while. you’ve made things complicated for me.” and to say jaehyun was shocked speechless would be an understatement.

“how?” was his only response, he was biting on the inside of his cheek to keep from getting really upset.

“we were fine,” you started, crossing your arms in front of your chest. “we were fine on our own, and then you waltzed in our lives and shook everything up and now i don’t know which way is up and which way is down. i think you’re confusing yeoreum… and me and… and i don’t know how to feel about any of this.”

“this was fate and you know it.” and your answering scoff only spurned him on. “i don’t believe in coincidences and neither did you last i checked. you moved here so she could learn about her heritage, and of the millions of people in korea you still manage to run into me, she still found me.”

“yes… well we had our life just fine on our own – just me and yeoreum. what right-.”

“i’m her father!” his voice raised just enough to make you finally look at him, to see the hurt in his eyes as he spoke. “that’s what right. you’ve given me this… this incredible gift, something i didn’t even know i needed until a month ago and i refuse to let you take it away from me. i thought you and i were getting closer, but if you want to continue to hate me that’s fine, but i want to be in my daughter’s life and you can’t keep me from doing that.”

his eyes were glassy, as if he was keeping himself from crying over the situation as a whole and his breathing was heavy. you broke the eye contact you held with him, instead focusing on the rise and fall of his chest.

his response was answer enough for you.

answer for this entire thing you had been fighting off for the past month while you got to know each other again, while you got to spend time together as a family. you saw yeoreum smiling and laughing, jaehyun usually the cause of it. their dimples coming out in the exact same manner, and it was like within the month you felt your heart warm up in a way it hadn’t in years at the idea of it, the idea of him.

you realized you were happier around him too, and although you really were trying to protect yeoreum, you realized in that moment that you were also trying to protect yourself.

and that wasn’t fair to yeoreum, jaehyun… or you.

“i don’t.” you said softly, finally giving him a response he found cryptic.

“what?”

“i don’t hate you.” you clarified for him and he inhaled deeply.

“then why are you acting as if i’m an asshole when i’ve done nothing but try and prove to you that i’m not… that i care about you both.” his hands were thrown out at his sides in exasperation, finally realizing that it wasn’t anger he was feeling but fear.

“because it won’t just be her heart you’ll break if you decide to leave.” you gnawed at your lip, unsure of how he was going to respond to this.

“what do you…” he asked and his voice was softer now, taking a small step towards you.

“you’ll be breaking mine, too.” you said, and you finally made eye contact with him again and he could see it there.

the fear.

of rejection, of being hurt, of being left alone after becoming so quickly used to having another person be there with you. he understood then.

he closed the gap in a few steps, and he stood in front of you, his hands hesitating before he allowed them to rest on your arms.

“i know… i know this hasn’t been easy for you. that you’ve had terrible things said to you because i wasn’t there, and i can’t guarantee that when people find out, more things won’t be said. but the difference is that i’m here now. i’m here and i’m not going anywhere, and…” he trailed off for a moment, eyes searching yours before he finally continued. “i know there were no expectations five years ago, but i have them now. i know you feel this too, i know you do. and if i have to convince you every day that i’m not going anywhere, then i will.”

you didn’t realize you had started to cry until your tears started to burn your eyes and you wiped them away with a watery laugh.

“oh come on, i can’t have both my girls crying in one night.” and jaehyun swore his heart stopped when you looked up at him like that.

“then don’t say sweet things to make me cry.” you said, tone a little pouty.

“well if that’s what it takes,” jaehyun shrugged easily.

“yeah but,” your sentence was then interrupted by jaehyun’s phone vibrating incessantly in his pocket. he dug it out, ready to ignore the phone call but the name that popped up made him hit accept instead. you didn’t hear any of the other side of the conversation, only jaehyun’s.

“oh, really?” followed by a, “yes, that’s true.” and then, “not to be disrespectful, but i don’t care.” his eyes then jumping back to yours when he said, “then we’ll figure it out, this is more important to me.” before saying, “okay, i’ll see you tomorrow.” and finally hung up.

“what was that about?” you asked tilting your head to the side, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“that… was everyone finding out.” he said easily and your eyebrows shot up over widened eyes, “and as you heard me say – i don’t care. we’ll figure it out one way or another, all i know is that you, yeoreum… this family is far more impor – mmph!” and you didn’t give him the chance to finish his sentence because you threw your arms around his neck and kissed him.

the action familiar to you, recalling the way jaehyun had done the same all those years ago. jaehyun wasn’t one to miss an opportunity and so he kissed you back, his arms wrapping around you tightly and pulling you closer to him. the moment was one he had been wanting for weeks now, ever since he sat with you at the table and you showed him all the pictures.

and he didn’t waste a second, kissing you until you were both breathless and you finally pulled away.

“i’m sorry, i just…” you trailed off, finally seeing that happiness in his eyes again.

“don’t be, because i’m about to do it again.” he said with a smirk before closing the distance once more, this kiss much sweeter than the first. his palm flat against the small of your back, his other hand resting on your hip and everything about that moment with him felt right.

his lips, his warmth, his smile that you felt against your lips that fully interrupted the kiss.

“what is it?” you huffed playfully, and his smile turned into a small laugh.

“i just remembered something.” he said, his dimples appearing then.

“and that is…?”

“try again, huh?” he joked before planting a quick kiss to your lips, muffling your groan.

“it was the only thing that would stop her from crying as a baby.” you defended weakly.

“that’s my girl.” he said, nothing but pride in his voice, and you smacked him gently on the chest.

“our girl.” you corrected him easily, and the smile that lit up his face was breathtaking.

“our girl.”

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

[b side: epilogue]

a year or so later…

a family outing is what jaehyun had called it when he woke up one morning asking if you wanted to go to the gardens that had a christmas lights display and you didn’t even get the chance to decide because yeoreum overheard as she stood at your doorway and was immediately excited.

“that settles that then,” you teased.

“as if you ever had a choice,” he said to you with a wink, calling a good morning to the sleepy girl who jumped into bed and cuddled with you both.

your little family had a lazy day in bed before you all finally rolled out of it to get ready for the lights, making sure that yeoreum – who was adamant that she didn’t need help picking out clothes anymore – bundled herself up in her puffy jacket, you pocketing her gloves that she had forgotten. jaehyun purposefully matched jackets with her, and you sighed knowing you had to do the same.

“we look like a little marshmallow family,” you commented as you walked through the gardens, the lights reflecting off of your face.

“yes but a cute one,” jaehyun retorted, teasing being his way of flirting and something you noticed never slacked off even after you had officially started dating him.

you hadn’t realized you had walked ahead of them and then you noticed neither of them were right behind you, you turned around to see jaehyun smiling brightly as he kneeled to whisper suspiciously to yeoreum, something that had been their thing ever since the beginning.

“really?!” yeoreum gasped aloud, eyes pleading with him to not be joking. you narrowed your eyes at them, desperately hoping jaehyun wasn’t telling her they would get the hamster she had been begging for. when jaehyun nodded in answer to her question, her entire body radiated with excitement and then his eyes pointedly looked from her to you a few times and yeoreum giggled.

she turned on her heel and skipped over to you, motioning for you to bend down so she could whisper in your ear – letting you in on the secret. as she whispered, your eyes widened slightly, and they softened as they easily found his.

you could feel yours slowly starting to tear up and you held them at bay for as long as you could. instead of saying anything aloud, you kept with the spirit of their game, their thing they shared, you whispered to yeoreum. you figured she’d skip back over to jaehyun to give him your response but instead she jumped up and down, turning to face jaehyun.

“she said yes!” she exclaimed loudly with her hands cupping around her mouth, squealing with enthusiasm. looking at jaehyun’s soft smile, eyes full of love for you and for the little girl you shared, the answer was obvious.

as if you could have possibly said no.

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