taetebebe

[taetebebe]

Got told I can finally start using a pen/pencil again - had to test it out by drawing my man ofc

[taetebebe]

AFTER THE ENCORE

Pairing: idol!Sunoo x fan!reader

Synopsis: He had the whole world watching. Still, he looked for you.

Word Count: ~3.3k

Ask:

Author’s Note: BIRTHDAY SPECIAL FOR SUNSHINE SUNOO <333 Anonnie, hopefully this is what you were looking for :) My longest fic yet! - I feel bad for Y/N cuz if it were me staying in something unlabelled for even two days I would run away. This is fic delusional stuff so pls remember this is just fiction <3

Enhypen Bookshelf [[]

The café you always came to after class was barely marked from the outside. Just a faded green awning and an old wooden sign that said “Rest”. It was quiet, the kind of place no one went to unless they meant to stay awhile. You came for the warm tea and solitude, for the cracked windows that made the sunlight look softer, like a film still.

He always arrived after 6 p.m. Sharp. Always with the same Iced Americano with syrup order, always with a black hoodie pulled over his head and a mask over the bottom half of his face. He sat in the back corner, behind a low bookshelf of forgotten novels, where the light didn’t quite reach. He rarely took out his phone. Sometimes he brought a book. Mostly, he just… sat.

You knew who he was the first time you saw him. You’d recognise that kind of presence anywhere. Kim Sunoo. One-seventh of the group that had gotten you through some of your hardest nights. The boy with the soft voice and eyes that smiled before his mouth ever did.

But you said nothing.

Not on the first day. Not the second. Not the seventh.

You figured he came here for the same reason you did—because it felt like the only place in the city that didn’t expect anything of you. And you weren’t about to ruin that.

The first week passed that way.

The second week, he left a napkin behind. Not a mistake—you could tell by how it was folded. Neatly. With care.

You found it after he left. A line written in a looping hand:

“Some silences feel like company.”

You didn’t know what it meant exactly. But you started arriving earlier. Just to be there when he came in.

You were already a fan. You knew his name, his face, his laugh—the curated versions. You’d streamed every title track, watched fancams when you couldn’t sleep. But none of that felt relevant here. Because this wasn’t him on a stage. This was someone sitting in his own silence, drinking tea, looking out a window like he was waiting for the sky to say something worth hearing.

He never approached you. But one day, when your bag tipped over and your notes scattered across the floor, he got up. Quietly. Helped you gather them with both hands.

You looked up, said, “Thank you,” and saw that his mask had slipped below his chin.

And maybe he saw something in your expression—recognition, yes, but not desperation. Not the giddy kind of awe that made people chase him.

He just nodded.

The next time, he sat one seat closer.

You didn’t know when it changed. Maybe it was the day you accidentally dropped your pencil and it rolled all the way to his table. Maybe it was the day he nodded at you as he left, and you caught the faintest flicker of a real smile in return.

Maybe it was the notebook.

He forgot it one day, left under the edge of his chair. You found it hours later, when the barista was sweeping up and muttered something about throwing it out if no one claimed it.

You shouldn’t have opened it.

But you did.

The pages weren’t linear—some were blank, others filled with lyrics half-scribbled, margins filled with doodles. A page near the back had a sketch of a stage drawn in a single pen line. Empty. Curtains down. Underneath, in barely-there handwriting, it read:

“Would anyone know me if I stopped singing?”

You closed the book with shaking hands.

The next day, you brought it back.

He was already sitting in the corner, drink in hand. You walked over before you could second-guess yourself.

“This is yours,” you said, placing it down on the table. “I didn’t read much. Just enough to know it’s important.”

He looked at the notebook, then up at you.

Then he nodded. “Thank you.”

No mask today. No hoodie.

You expected your heart to race, but it didn’t. Not in the way it had when you watched fancams or comeback trailers. This felt different. Quieter. Realer.

He was the one who started talking.

“I always wanted to go to university,” he said, unprompted.

You blinked. “What would you have studied?”

“Literature. Maybe philosophy. Something useless but beautiful.”

You laughed, caught off guard. “I’m literally doing that right now.”

He smiled, and it was small but real.

“Then maybe I’m here for extra credit.”

You got to know each other sideways. Not through long conversations, but through exchanges left in books, scribbled on napkins, underlined pages from secondhand poetry collections.

He told you he missed autumns. “They go by too fast when your schedule is set six months in advance.”

You told him about your habit of walking slowly in autumn, dragging your feet just to pretend time was on your side.

He said he envied that. Not in a glamorous way, but like someone admitting they miss being a person more than being a presence.

You said, “You still are one. Even when you’re quiet.”

He looked at you.

It was slow.

Not romance. Just comfort. Just something solid and safe.

You learned little things first. That he liked sunshowers. That he loved to take selfies but hated having to post them too often. That he once spilled hot coffee on a very famous producer and didn’t speak for a whole day out of embarrassment.

He learned about you, too. That you liked folding laundry while watching nature documentaries. That you preferred used books to new ones. That you kept a lucky charm on your bag—a small, plastic token from a limited photocard set.

“Who is it?” he asked, half teasing.

You looked at the charm, then at him. “It’s you.”

He blinked.

“But not because it’s cute or anything,” you added quickly. “Well, it is. But I kept it because it was the only one where you looked… tired. Not like, bad tired. Just… real. I don’t know. It looked like someone had caught you in a moment before you put on the idol smile.”

He stared at you for a long time.

“That’s my least favorite one,” he said.

“I figured.”

A pause.

“Mine,” he added quietly.

But you weren’t just there for him. He learned things about you too. Not just what you studied, but how your voice dropped when you talked about your silence, or how you always ordered chamomile but almost always left it untouched—“I just like how it smells more than how it tastes.”

You told him you had this fear—not of being alone, but of being half-understood. That people only ever liked the parts of you that didn’t ask too much.

And he didn’t rush to comfort you. He just said:

“I get that. I’ve lived entire years only being loved for the loudest parts of me.”

Then he added, quieter, “But I think I like your quiet parts best.”

There were rules—ones you never said aloud, but both understood. You never took photos. You never posted vague stories with his sleeve barely visible in the corner. You didn’t go to fansigns or message him online. He didn’t ask for your number. You didn’t ask for his schedule. The café was the only place you existed together. 

But the world didn’t always let you stay inside your boundaries.

It wasn’t love.

It was something more dangerous: recognition.

A mutual understanding that felt too rare to name. A conversation that continued without words.

You started to feel it more in what wasn’t said.

When he touched your wrist just to pass you a sugar packet and left his hand there half a second too long. When you wrote a line in your notebook and caught him trying to read it upside down. When he didn’t show up for a week, and you still came every day, just in case. When he finally returned and said, “I had a rough week,” and you said, “Do you want to sit in silence or in story?”And he said, “With you is fine.”

After that, something shifted. Just slightly.

He started walking you to the bus stop after the café closed. Started sending little sketches to you via folded notes left behind in the bookshelves. One day, he left you a list titled:

Things I Never Got To Do (But Might Want To Someday) 1. Enroll in a literature class. 2. Study on a college lawn. 3. Write a poem without worrying about its rhythm. 4. Hold someone’s hand without looking over my shoulder. 5. Be called by my name, not my stage one.

You added your own underneath.

Things You Still Can: 1. Ask me what we’re reading in class this week. 2. Sit with me on the grass outside the uni library. 3. Write a bad poem and read it only to me. 4. Hold my hand. Here. Now. 5. Sunwoo. That’s your name.

When he saw your reply, he folded the paper gently, like it was made of glass.

Then he reached out.

His hand, warm and hesitant, found yours across the table.

No cameras. No noise. Just two people and a connection that neither of you had planned for.

He told you once that he couldn’t write when he was happy.

You tilted your head. “That’s sad.”

“It’s not. It’s just… when I’m happy, I’m living it. I don’t need to document it to prove it existed.”

You reached for your cup, then said, “So what would you write about this?”

“This?”

You nodded.

He looked down at the steam rising between you.

Then he said, “This feels like the part of the story no one sees. The chapter before the climax, when everything is still soft and possible.”

You didn’t know what to say to that.

So you said nothing.

But he reached for your hand under the table. And you let him.

The first time he cried in front of you, it wasn’t because of work.

It was because you read him something you’d written.

Just a short paragraph. A memory of your mother braiding your hair in silence the day you left home. The way you knew she loved you but didn’t know how to say it without her hands.

Sunoo blinked and asked, “Do you ever write about now?”

“Sometimes,” you admitted. “But I usually wait until the feeling’s over. It’s too hard to put something into words while it’s still happening.”

He nodded.

Then looked at you with a softness that felt like apology.

“Then maybe I’ll be the one to remember it. In case you forget.”

You never told anyone.

You didn’t need to.

He still went back to his world. To stages and studios, to photoshoots and rehearsals. But now, there was a place in his life that existed without flashbulbs.

And every time he walked into the café, past the cracked window and the worn couches, he found you—book open, tea cooling, eyes meeting his like you’d been waiting all along.

You knew what this was. What it wasn’t.

There were no labels. No promises. No declarations. He didn’t call you after shows. You didn’t ask for updates. You were just two people orbiting the same quiet place.

And yet.

When he pressed his forehead against yours one cold evening, on the walk home from the café, and whispered, “I think I know who I am when I’m with you,” you felt your heart ache in a way that didn’t need to be spoken.

You whispered back, “Then stay. Just a little longer.”

And he did.

He always did.

It wasn’t love the way people wrote it in songs. It was quieter. Like a window you didn’t know was open until the breeze changed the room.

That winter, you stopped trying to explain him to yourself. Stopped trying to define what it meant when he leaned his head on your shoulder. Or when he said things like:

“Some days, I want to be ordinary. And the only person I want to tell that to is you.”

It wasn’t fantasy anymore. It was two people folding their sadness into the same space and calling it comfort.

Sometimes you wondered what this would look like to someone else.

If they knew who he was. If they knew who you weren’t.

You were not famous. Not dazzling. Not part of his story in any official way.

You were just there. At 6:05 p.m. In the café with the crooked window and the soft chair.

And still—he always looked for you first.

He started bringing a camera.

Not for vlogs. Not for social media.

Just a small film camera. Cheap. Disposable. It was barely working. You teased him about it.

“You’re literally sponsored by tech brands. Why this?”

He shrugged. “This doesn’t try to correct things. If the light is off, it stays off. If it’s blurry, it stays blurry. No filters. No smoothing. Just memory.”

“Are you making memories now?”

He smiled faintly. “I think I’m learning how.”

Later, he gave you one of the developed photos. It was a picture of your hand on a book. A smudge of sunlight on your wrist. Nothing obvious. Nothing staged.

He had written on the back:

Not performing. Still perfect.

You kept it tucked inside your journal, folded soft between pages about all the things you never thought you’d be brave enough to feel.

One day, as spring began, he walked you to the university campus.

He wore a hat, glasses, kept his head low. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t smart. But he insisted.

“I want to know what it’s like,” he said. “To sit in the grass and not have anyone waiting on me.”

You bought two iced teas. You sat under a jacaranda tree. He took off his hat.

There were people around. But no one looked. And even if they did, he didn’t seem to care.

He looked at you instead.

The wind lifted a piece of your hair. He tucked it behind your ear without asking.

Then he said:

“If I met you before I debuted, I think I’d have fallen in love with you in a classroom.”

“And now?”

His gaze softened. “Now I’m just falling in love with you wherever I can.”

The words weren’t heavy. They didn’t need to be. Because by then, you already knew.

Not from what he said. But how he started memorizing your favorite poems. How he asked about your essays and remembered which ones made you cry. How he once missed a party with famous people just to sit next to you while you pressed flowers into a book and didn’t say a word for an hour.

That’s what it became: not loud love. Not scripted affection.

But showing up.

Again and again and again.

With a paper flower he made during a variety shoot. With a candy from Japan he saved in his pocket. With a napkin with a scribbled quote from a poem he read on a plane.

Two years later, things changed.

You graduated. He went on tour. Again.

The café closed down for much needed renovations.

You didn’t see each other for 47 days.

He texted. Sometimes late, sometimes rushed. You never asked for more than what he could give.

—he came back.

Not to the café. Not to the city.

To you.

He waited outside your new apartment, hood up, holding chamomile tea with one hand and a book in the other.

You opened the door, stunned.

He didn’t say hello.

He just handed you the book.

Inside: Letters to a Young Poet. The same one he had given you the year before.

Except this time, he’d underlined passages. Dog-eared pages. Written in the margins.

“There’s a note inside,” he added, then cleared his throat. “If you want to read it later.”

You found it on the title page. His handwriting, neat and hesitant.

I know I can’t give you normal. But I hope I can still give you something real.  If I’d gone to university, I think I’d want to sit beside you. I think I’d want to ask you what you were scribbling in your margins. I think I still do. —S.

Another corner was bookmarked.

You flipped to it. The qoute read.

“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

He had written beneath it:

You know. You always did.

You looked up. He looked nervous.

“I have to leave again next week,” he said quietly. “But… I wanted you to know that I still come back here. To this. To us. Even when I’m far.”

You swallowed hard.

“You don’t have to explain.”

“I want to,” he said. “Because I think this is the truest thing I have.”

As you went to put the book away something slipped out.

A ticket.

Your name written neatly on the back.

Your seat was far from the stage—nosebleed section, middle row. But it was his concert. His first solo stage on the tour.

“I won’t ask you to come,” he had said softly. “I don’t want to bring that part of me into this if you’re not ready.”

“I want to come,” you said before he could finish.

You watched him sing to a crowd of thousands that night, all of them screaming his name.

But when the final ballad played, soft and aching, and the camera zoomed in on his face, you knew.

He was looking past the lights, past the sea of phones, to where you sat.

His voice cracked just slightly during the second verse.

You felt it in your chest like something tender being unwrapped.

After the concert, you didn’t wait for him outside.

You didn’t send a message. You just walked to the café site, like always, and stood outside.

He arrived an hour later—hair still slightly damp from the stage, hands buried in his coat pockets. He looked exhausted. He looked alive.

“I cried,” you said simply, as he stopped beside you.

He laughed, voice hoarse. “Me too.”

Then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled, sweat-damp paper.

It was the setlist.

At the bottom, one song was circled: "After The Encore" Next to it: “For her.”

Your breath caught.

“That’s not its real title,” he admitted. “I renamed it. Just for tonight.”

You leaned your head against his shoulder.

And he let it stay there.

The café opened again a month later.

New chairs, new paint, new name. But the same window. The same light.

You found your seat again. Back corner. One cracked tile left untouched beneath the table, like a secret the renovations had kindly decided not to erase.

He arrived a few minutes late. No mask, no hoodie. Just him.

He placed a small box on the table between you.

Inside: A key. A photo. And a folded piece of paper.

You opened the photo first.

It was the two of you—not posed, not planned. Just a reflection caught in the café window. Your head on his shoulder. His eyes on you.

You smiled.

Then unfolded the paper.

You once said you wait until feelings are over before you write about them. I guess I’m writing this because I don’t want this to ever be over. Come home with me. Or let me come home to you. Whatever we call this— let’s keep writing it. No ending. Just more.

You looked up.

And for the first time, he didn’t look like someone who belonged to the world.

He looked like someone who had chosen a single place to stay.

You didn’t say yes.

You just took his hand.

And stayed.

© taetebebe 2025

[taetebebe]

LINE OF SIGHT

Pairing: Jungwon x afab!reader - established relationship

Synopsis:  There’s something sinful in the way he holds eye contact—and even more in the way he doesn’t. Warning: Kissing

Word count: ~1.7k

Author’s Note: I HAD to write for these photos (see banner above) that live wrecked me proper - Yet another Jungwon fic, I have so many wips and works finished for the other members, they're gonna start hating me.

Enhypen Bookshelf [[]

The room was dimly lit, the kind of lighting that was more mood than utility. A low hum of music played from the corner speaker, its rhythm soft enough to blend into the stillness. Jungwon leaned against the far side of the couch, one leg bent and his elbow resting casually on the armrest. His glasses sat perched on the bridge of his nose, the black frames drawing your attention to his eyes — sharp and expressive, even as they flicked across the room.

You couldn’t look away.

“You’re staring,” he said, voice laced with amusement, without even glancing your way.

“Am I?” You tilted your head, a feigned innocence in your tone. The flicker of his lips suggested he wasn’t buying it.

Jungwon finally turned to you, removing his glasses with one swift, practiced motion. It was almost deliberate, the way his fingers folded the temples neatly before setting them down on the low table between you. His gaze, now unfiltered by lenses, was disarmingly direct.

“You were,” he confirmed. “Do I have something on my face?”

He had plenty on his face — a quiet confidence, high cheekbones, the kind of jawline that didn’t need any special angles. His skin glowed in the faint light, a warmth that made your pulse quicken. But it was his neck that truly undid you.

Long, lean, and maddeningly exposed. The gentle column of his throat flexed subtly when he tilted his head. You watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall when he swallowed — the movement simple, but suddenly hypnotic. How could something so basic as skin and tendon hold so much gravity?

“No,” you replied, voice steadier than you felt. “I was just thinking.”

“About?” He leaned forward slightly, his posture relaxed but his presence anything but. Jungwon had a way of filling a room, even in silence.

You hesitated, trying to decide if you were brave enough to say it. “About how glasses make you look smarter.”

A low chuckle rumbled from his chest. “Smarter?”

“Smarter,” you repeated, as if affirming it for yourself. “But not in a bad way.”

He tilted his head, intrigued. “So there’s a bad way to look smart?”

“There’s a smug way,” you teased, “which, coincidentally, you’re doing right now.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, and you could tell he was fighting the urge to smile. “Maybe that’s just my face.”

“Maybe,” you allowed, leaning back against the cushions. But your gaze didn’t stray from his. “It’s a good face.”

This time, his smile won.

The evening stretched on in a series of half-conversations and shared silences, the air between you charged but unspoken. Jungwon wasn’t a man who needed to fill space with words; his actions spoke louder. The way he adjusted the hem of his black t-shirt when it rode up, revealing just a hint of his waist. The way his fingers drummed lightly on his knee in time with the music. The way he occasionally glanced at you, as if catching you in a private thought.

And the way his t-shirt clung to him, snug across the shoulders, sleeves just tight enough to hint at the quiet strength of his arms. You couldn’t help it — your eyes drifted down to the subtle swell of his biceps, the soft curve of muscle beneath cotton. Every time he reached for his drink or propped an arm behind his head, the sleeves would ride up just enough to tease more.

Even worse — or better — were his forearms.

Toned, defined, and infuriatingly exposed, with veins that rose when he flexed or stretched. There was a quiet strength there, one that wasn't flaunted but existed in every casual movement. You watched the way his fingers wrapped around his glass, how the tendons shifted, the muscle flexed and moved as he spoke or laughed.

And then there was his neck.

You didn’t mean to stare, not at first. But the way his throat moved when he swallowed, the subtle rise and fall as he tilted his head back to laugh, the sharp angle of his jaw giving way to the line of his neck — it was criminal.

His Adam’s apple bobbed when he spoke low, when his voice dropped and you leaned in to hear him better. You found yourself distracted every time he turned his head, every time he tilted it in thought, stretching the muscles just enough to pull your gaze.

He caught you more than once.

When he stood to grab something from across the room, the movement was unhurried, his broad shoulders shifting beneath the fabric of his shirt. You followed the lines of him — the way his back tapered to his waist, the effortless grace in his stride. You noted the subtle way his biceps flexed as he stretched, the hint of veins just beneath the surface of smooth skin.

He caught your gaze again when he turned, holding it for a beat longer than necessary.

“Need something?” he asked, the question deceptively casual.

“I’m fine.” Your voice betrayed you, just slightly breathless.

He returned to his spot on the couch, this time closer than before. His glasses remained on the table, but it didn’t matter; his eyes were sharper than ever, dissecting you with a precision that felt unfair.

“You’re not very subtle,” he murmured, leaning in just enough to shorten the distance.

“And you’re not very shy,” you shot back, the words spilling out before you could stop them.

“Should I be?”

The room felt smaller now, the charged air almost tangible. His knee brushed against yours, and he didn’t move away. Instead, his hand rested on the back of the couch, fingers curling just slightly around the edge, as if to anchor himself.

“I think,” he began, voice low and deliberate, “you like looking at me.”

“Maybe,” you admitted, refusing to back down.

He tilted his head, as though considering your answer. “Should I take that as a compliment?”

“It depends.” You met his gaze, unflinching. “Do you want it to be?”

Jungwon laughed softly, the sound sending shivers down your spine. “You’re something else.”

“So are you,” you replied, and this time, the words came out softer.

The music in the background swelled slightly, the rhythm syncing with the pounding of your heart. Jungwon didn’t break eye contact, his hand now brushing against your shoulder as he leaned closer. The weight of his presence was intoxicating, a pull you couldn’t resist.

And then, just as your breath hitched, he leaned back.

“Careful,” he said, the word carrying both warning and promise. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“So are you,” you countered, not missing a beat.

He smiled then, slow and deliberate, his eyes dark with something you couldn’t quite name. “Maybe I like it that way.”

The hours passed, and the space between you grew smaller with each passing moment. His glasses remained untouched on the table, but every so often, your eyes would flick to them, a reminder of the way they framed his face, the way they added an extra layer to his already magnetic presence.

Jungwon noticed, of course. He noticed everything.

“Do you want me to put them back on?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“What?”

“My glasses,” he clarified, a teasing glint in his eyes. “You keep looking at them.”

You felt your cheeks warm but refused to give him the satisfaction of flustering you. “Maybe.”

With a shrug, he reached for them, sliding them back into place. The effect was instant — a shift in the atmosphere, like a puzzle piece clicking into place. He looked at you over the rim, his expression unreadable but his gaze searing.

“Better?” he asked, the word carrying layers of meaning.

You didn’t trust yourself to answer. Instead, you nodded, your throat suddenly dry.

Jungwon leaned in again, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’re quiet all of a sudden.”

“Am I?”

“You are.” His hand brushed against yours, a fleeting touch that left you reeling. “Should I be worried?”

“No,” you managed, though the word felt like a lie. “You’re just… a lot to take in.”

His lips quirked into a smirk, the kind that made your knees weak. “Good.”

And then, as if to prove his point, he removed the glasses once more, setting them down with a finality that left you breathless.

“You don’t need them,” you murmured, the words slipping out before you could stop them.

His brow arched while putting them back on. “No?”

“No,” you repeated, your voice steady despite the rapid beat of your heart. “You’re already impossible to ignore.”

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The tension between you crackled like static, the air thick with possibilities. Jungwon’s gaze dropped to your lips, lingering for just a second too long.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he muttered, almost to himself.

“Maybe I do,” you replied, emboldened by the heat in his eyes.

And then he closed the distance, his hand cupping your jaw with a tenderness that belied the intensity of his gaze. His thumb brushed against your cheek, his touch searing, and you felt yourself leaning into him, drawn by an invisible force.

The kiss, when it came, was slow and deliberate, each movement precise yet unrestrained. His lips were soft but insistent, his hands steady as they anchored you in place. You felt the heat of him, the press of his body against yours, and it was everything you had imagined and more.

When he pulled back, his breathing was uneven, his glasses slightly askew where they had slipped in the moment. He didn’t seem to care.

“You’re dangerous,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“So are you,” you whispered, your lips still tingling from his kiss.

Jungwon smiled then, a real one, the kind that made your chest ache. “Guess we’ll just have to be careful together.”

But the way his hand lingered on yours, the way your gaze dropped again to the taut lines of his neck, the rise of his chest as he breathed, the strength in his arms — and the glasses beside you, almost forgotten — you knew neither of you had any intention of being careful.

You didn’t mind.

© taetebebe 2025

[taetebebe]

[taetebebe]

I just finished watching Kpop Demon Hunters....I expected pretty faces not emotional damage

[taetebebe]

AFTER THE ENCORE

Pairing: idol!Sunoo x fan!reader

Synopsis: He had the whole world watching. Still, he looked for you.

Word Count: ~3.3k

Ask:

Author’s Note: BIRTHDAY SPECIAL FOR SUNSHINE SUNOO <333 Anonnie, hopefully this is what you were looking for :) My longest fic yet! - I feel bad for Y/N cuz if it were me staying in something unlabelled for even two days I would run away. This is fic delusional stuff so pls remember this is just fiction <3

Enhypen Bookshelf [[]

The café you always came to after class was barely marked from the outside. Just a faded green awning and an old wooden sign that said “Rest”. It was quiet, the kind of place no one went to unless they meant to stay awhile. You came for the warm tea and solitude, for the cracked windows that made the sunlight look softer, like a film still.

He always arrived after 6 p.m. Sharp. Always with the same Iced Americano with syrup order, always with a black hoodie pulled over his head and a mask over the bottom half of his face. He sat in the back corner, behind a low bookshelf of forgotten novels, where the light didn’t quite reach. He rarely took out his phone. Sometimes he brought a book. Mostly, he just… sat.

You knew who he was the first time you saw him. You’d recognise that kind of presence anywhere. Kim Sunoo. One-seventh of the group that had gotten you through some of your hardest nights. The boy with the soft voice and eyes that smiled before his mouth ever did.

But you said nothing.

Not on the first day. Not the second. Not the seventh.

You figured he came here for the same reason you did—because it felt like the only place in the city that didn’t expect anything of you. And you weren’t about to ruin that.

The first week passed that way.

The second week, he left a napkin behind. Not a mistake—you could tell by how it was folded. Neatly. With care.

You found it after he left. A line written in a looping hand:

“Some silences feel like company.”

You didn’t know what it meant exactly. But you started arriving earlier. Just to be there when he came in.

You were already a fan. You knew his name, his face, his laugh—the curated versions. You’d streamed every title track, watched fancams when you couldn’t sleep. But none of that felt relevant here. Because this wasn’t him on a stage. This was someone sitting in his own silence, drinking tea, looking out a window like he was waiting for the sky to say something worth hearing.

He never approached you. But one day, when your bag tipped over and your notes scattered across the floor, he got up. Quietly. Helped you gather them with both hands.

You looked up, said, “Thank you,” and saw that his mask had slipped below his chin.

And maybe he saw something in your expression—recognition, yes, but not desperation. Not the giddy kind of awe that made people chase him.

He just nodded.

The next time, he sat one seat closer.

You didn’t know when it changed. Maybe it was the day you accidentally dropped your pencil and it rolled all the way to his table. Maybe it was the day he nodded at you as he left, and you caught the faintest flicker of a real smile in return.

Maybe it was the notebook.

He forgot it one day, left under the edge of his chair. You found it hours later, when the barista was sweeping up and muttered something about throwing it out if no one claimed it.

You shouldn’t have opened it.

But you did.

The pages weren’t linear—some were blank, others filled with lyrics half-scribbled, margins filled with doodles. A page near the back had a sketch of a stage drawn in a single pen line. Empty. Curtains down. Underneath, in barely-there handwriting, it read:

“Would anyone know me if I stopped singing?”

You closed the book with shaking hands.

The next day, you brought it back.

He was already sitting in the corner, drink in hand. You walked over before you could second-guess yourself.

“This is yours,” you said, placing it down on the table. “I didn’t read much. Just enough to know it’s important.”

He looked at the notebook, then up at you.

Then he nodded. “Thank you.”

No mask today. No hoodie.

You expected your heart to race, but it didn’t. Not in the way it had when you watched fancams or comeback trailers. This felt different. Quieter. Realer.

He was the one who started talking.

“I always wanted to go to university,” he said, unprompted.

You blinked. “What would you have studied?”

“Literature. Maybe philosophy. Something useless but beautiful.”

You laughed, caught off guard. “I’m literally doing that right now.”

He smiled, and it was small but real.

“Then maybe I’m here for extra credit.”

You got to know each other sideways. Not through long conversations, but through exchanges left in books, scribbled on napkins, underlined pages from secondhand poetry collections.

He told you he missed autumns. “They go by too fast when your schedule is set six months in advance.”

You told him about your habit of walking slowly in autumn, dragging your feet just to pretend time was on your side.

He said he envied that. Not in a glamorous way, but like someone admitting they miss being a person more than being a presence.

You said, “You still are one. Even when you’re quiet.”

He looked at you.

It was slow.

Not romance. Just comfort. Just something solid and safe.

You learned little things first. That he liked sunshowers. That he loved to take selfies but hated having to post them too often. That he once spilled hot coffee on a very famous producer and didn’t speak for a whole day out of embarrassment.

He learned about you, too. That you liked folding laundry while watching nature documentaries. That you preferred used books to new ones. That you kept a lucky charm on your bag—a small, plastic token from a limited photocard set.

“Who is it?” he asked, half teasing.

You looked at the charm, then at him. “It’s you.”

He blinked.

“But not because it’s cute or anything,” you added quickly. “Well, it is. But I kept it because it was the only one where you looked… tired. Not like, bad tired. Just… real. I don’t know. It looked like someone had caught you in a moment before you put on the idol smile.”

He stared at you for a long time.

“That’s my least favorite one,” he said.

“I figured.”

A pause.

“Mine,” he added quietly.

But you weren’t just there for him. He learned things about you too. Not just what you studied, but how your voice dropped when you talked about your silence, or how you always ordered chamomile but almost always left it untouched—“I just like how it smells more than how it tastes.”

You told him you had this fear—not of being alone, but of being half-understood. That people only ever liked the parts of you that didn’t ask too much.

And he didn’t rush to comfort you. He just said:

“I get that. I’ve lived entire years only being loved for the loudest parts of me.”

Then he added, quieter, “But I think I like your quiet parts best.”

There were rules—ones you never said aloud, but both understood. You never took photos. You never posted vague stories with his sleeve barely visible in the corner. You didn’t go to fansigns or message him online. He didn’t ask for your number. You didn’t ask for his schedule. The café was the only place you existed together. 

But the world didn’t always let you stay inside your boundaries.

It wasn’t love.

It was something more dangerous: recognition.

A mutual understanding that felt too rare to name. A conversation that continued without words.

You started to feel it more in what wasn’t said.

When he touched your wrist just to pass you a sugar packet and left his hand there half a second too long. When you wrote a line in your notebook and caught him trying to read it upside down. When he didn’t show up for a week, and you still came every day, just in case. When he finally returned and said, “I had a rough week,” and you said, “Do you want to sit in silence or in story?”And he said, “With you is fine.”

After that, something shifted. Just slightly.

He started walking you to the bus stop after the café closed. Started sending little sketches to you via folded notes left behind in the bookshelves. One day, he left you a list titled:

Things I Never Got To Do (But Might Want To Someday) 1. Enroll in a literature class. 2. Study on a college lawn. 3. Write a poem without worrying about its rhythm. 4. Hold someone’s hand without looking over my shoulder. 5. Be called by my name, not my stage one.

You added your own underneath.

Things You Still Can: 1. Ask me what we’re reading in class this week. 2. Sit with me on the grass outside the uni library. 3. Write a bad poem and read it only to me. 4. Hold my hand. Here. Now. 5. Sunwoo. That’s your name.

When he saw your reply, he folded the paper gently, like it was made of glass.

Then he reached out.

His hand, warm and hesitant, found yours across the table.

No cameras. No noise. Just two people and a connection that neither of you had planned for.

He told you once that he couldn’t write when he was happy.

You tilted your head. “That’s sad.”

“It’s not. It’s just… when I’m happy, I’m living it. I don’t need to document it to prove it existed.”

You reached for your cup, then said, “So what would you write about this?”

“This?”

You nodded.

He looked down at the steam rising between you.

Then he said, “This feels like the part of the story no one sees. The chapter before the climax, when everything is still soft and possible.”

You didn’t know what to say to that.

So you said nothing.

But he reached for your hand under the table. And you let him.

The first time he cried in front of you, it wasn’t because of work.

It was because you read him something you’d written.

Just a short paragraph. A memory of your mother braiding your hair in silence the day you left home. The way you knew she loved you but didn’t know how to say it without her hands.

Sunoo blinked and asked, “Do you ever write about now?”

“Sometimes,” you admitted. “But I usually wait until the feeling’s over. It’s too hard to put something into words while it’s still happening.”

He nodded.

Then looked at you with a softness that felt like apology.

“Then maybe I’ll be the one to remember it. In case you forget.”

You never told anyone.

You didn’t need to.

He still went back to his world. To stages and studios, to photoshoots and rehearsals. But now, there was a place in his life that existed without flashbulbs.

And every time he walked into the café, past the cracked window and the worn couches, he found you—book open, tea cooling, eyes meeting his like you’d been waiting all along.

You knew what this was. What it wasn’t.

There were no labels. No promises. No declarations. He didn’t call you after shows. You didn’t ask for updates. You were just two people orbiting the same quiet place.

And yet.

When he pressed his forehead against yours one cold evening, on the walk home from the café, and whispered, “I think I know who I am when I’m with you,” you felt your heart ache in a way that didn’t need to be spoken.

You whispered back, “Then stay. Just a little longer.”

And he did.

He always did.

It wasn’t love the way people wrote it in songs. It was quieter. Like a window you didn’t know was open until the breeze changed the room.

That winter, you stopped trying to explain him to yourself. Stopped trying to define what it meant when he leaned his head on your shoulder. Or when he said things like:

“Some days, I want to be ordinary. And the only person I want to tell that to is you.”

It wasn’t fantasy anymore. It was two people folding their sadness into the same space and calling it comfort.

Sometimes you wondered what this would look like to someone else.

If they knew who he was. If they knew who you weren’t.

You were not famous. Not dazzling. Not part of his story in any official way.

You were just there. At 6:05 p.m. In the café with the crooked window and the soft chair.

And still—he always looked for you first.

He started bringing a camera.

Not for vlogs. Not for social media.

Just a small film camera. Cheap. Disposable. It was barely working. You teased him about it.

“You’re literally sponsored by tech brands. Why this?”

He shrugged. “This doesn’t try to correct things. If the light is off, it stays off. If it’s blurry, it stays blurry. No filters. No smoothing. Just memory.”

“Are you making memories now?”

He smiled faintly. “I think I’m learning how.”

Later, he gave you one of the developed photos. It was a picture of your hand on a book. A smudge of sunlight on your wrist. Nothing obvious. Nothing staged.

He had written on the back:

Not performing. Still perfect.

You kept it tucked inside your journal, folded soft between pages about all the things you never thought you’d be brave enough to feel.

One day, as spring began, he walked you to the university campus.

He wore a hat, glasses, kept his head low. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t smart. But he insisted.

“I want to know what it’s like,” he said. “To sit in the grass and not have anyone waiting on me.”

You bought two iced teas. You sat under a jacaranda tree. He took off his hat.

There were people around. But no one looked. And even if they did, he didn’t seem to care.

He looked at you instead.

The wind lifted a piece of your hair. He tucked it behind your ear without asking.

Then he said:

“If I met you before I debuted, I think I’d have fallen in love with you in a classroom.”

“And now?”

His gaze softened. “Now I’m just falling in love with you wherever I can.”

The words weren’t heavy. They didn’t need to be. Because by then, you already knew.

Not from what he said. But how he started memorizing your favorite poems. How he asked about your essays and remembered which ones made you cry. How he once missed a party with famous people just to sit next to you while you pressed flowers into a book and didn’t say a word for an hour.

That’s what it became: not loud love. Not scripted affection.

But showing up.

Again and again and again.

With a paper flower he made during a variety shoot. With a candy from Japan he saved in his pocket. With a napkin with a scribbled quote from a poem he read on a plane.

Two years later, things changed.

You graduated. He went on tour. Again.

The café closed down for much needed renovations.

You didn’t see each other for 47 days.

He texted. Sometimes late, sometimes rushed. You never asked for more than what he could give.

—he came back.

Not to the café. Not to the city.

To you.

He waited outside your new apartment, hood up, holding chamomile tea with one hand and a book in the other.

You opened the door, stunned.

He didn’t say hello.

He just handed you the book.

Inside: Letters to a Young Poet. The same one he had given you the year before.

Except this time, he’d underlined passages. Dog-eared pages. Written in the margins.

“There’s a note inside,” he added, then cleared his throat. “If you want to read it later.”

You found it on the title page. His handwriting, neat and hesitant.

I know I can’t give you normal. But I hope I can still give you something real.  If I’d gone to university, I think I’d want to sit beside you. I think I’d want to ask you what you were scribbling in your margins. I think I still do. —S.

Another corner was bookmarked.

You flipped to it. The qoute read.

“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

He had written beneath it:

You know. You always did.

You looked up. He looked nervous.

“I have to leave again next week,” he said quietly. “But… I wanted you to know that I still come back here. To this. To us. Even when I’m far.”

You swallowed hard.

“You don’t have to explain.”

“I want to,” he said. “Because I think this is the truest thing I have.”

As you went to put the book away something slipped out.

A ticket.

Your name written neatly on the back.

Your seat was far from the stage—nosebleed section, middle row. But it was his concert. His first solo stage on the tour.

“I won’t ask you to come,” he had said softly. “I don’t want to bring that part of me into this if you’re not ready.”

“I want to come,” you said before he could finish.

You watched him sing to a crowd of thousands that night, all of them screaming his name.

But when the final ballad played, soft and aching, and the camera zoomed in on his face, you knew.

He was looking past the lights, past the sea of phones, to where you sat.

His voice cracked just slightly during the second verse.

You felt it in your chest like something tender being unwrapped.

After the concert, you didn’t wait for him outside.

You didn’t send a message. You just walked to the café site, like always, and stood outside.

He arrived an hour later—hair still slightly damp from the stage, hands buried in his coat pockets. He looked exhausted. He looked alive.

“I cried,” you said simply, as he stopped beside you.

He laughed, voice hoarse. “Me too.”

Then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled, sweat-damp paper.

It was the setlist.

At the bottom, one song was circled: "After The Encore" Next to it: “For her.”

Your breath caught.

“That’s not its real title,” he admitted. “I renamed it. Just for tonight.”

You leaned your head against his shoulder.

And he let it stay there.

The café opened again a month later.

New chairs, new paint, new name. But the same window. The same light.

You found your seat again. Back corner. One cracked tile left untouched beneath the table, like a secret the renovations had kindly decided not to erase.

He arrived a few minutes late. No mask, no hoodie. Just him.

He placed a small box on the table between you.

Inside: A key. A photo. And a folded piece of paper.

You opened the photo first.

It was the two of you—not posed, not planned. Just a reflection caught in the café window. Your head on his shoulder. His eyes on you.

You smiled.

Then unfolded the paper.

You once said you wait until feelings are over before you write about them. I guess I’m writing this because I don’t want this to ever be over. Come home with me. Or let me come home to you. Whatever we call this— let’s keep writing it. No ending. Just more.

You looked up.

And for the first time, he didn’t look like someone who belonged to the world.

He looked like someone who had chosen a single place to stay.

You didn’t say yes.

You just took his hand.

And stayed.

© taetebebe 2025

[taetebebe]

he is so pretty oh my heart

[taetebebe]

So much too tweak about but for now I’ll just say - officially my fav MV yet

[taetebebe]

Everytime i save an ask as a draft I loose it - why is tumblr hating on me????!?!?!

[taetebebe]

outline story → ignore outline → write emotional mess → try to fix it → make new outline → ignore it again

[taetebebe]

Boyfriend IG Stories <3 (feat. Jay)

Pairing: Bf!Jay x gn!reader

fluff, just cute and maybe funny too

Author's note: I had an anon ask for this but it's gone now (tumblr hating on me) Anonnie I hope you see this - ik it's very late, I'm sorry it took me so long. You gave me more ideas which I'll keep for the future :)

Enhypen Bookshelf [[]

© taetebebe 2025

[taetebebe]

WIPS

CRISSCROSS APPLESAUCE

Pairing: non-idol!Jake x kindergarten teacher!reader Synopsis: Who needs a teaching degree when you’ve got juice boxes and a smile? Word count: 1.5k+

FAKE IT TIL' WE DIE

Pairing: Rich!Jay x Reader Synopsis: First came lies. Then came rings. Now comes emotional damage. Word Count: 5.6k

NOM-DE-PLUME

Pairing: student!Sunghoon x student!reader Synopsis: Not all stories are written in ink. Some are whispered between glances and folded notes. Word Count: ~

INFERNO VEIN INC.

Pairing: Jungwon x afab!reader feat. ENHYPEN (Sci-fi/Mystery) Synopsis: You were never just the key. You were the memory it refused to forget. Word Count: ~

DRIVER'S EDGE

Pairing: Neighbour!Riki x afab!reader Synopsis: He said he’d teach you how to drive—not how to crash headfirst into feelings. Word Count: ~

THE SHIVERS

Pairing: Jungwon x afab!reader Synopsis: A quiet connection written in the language of shivers Word Count: ~

Same Time Tomorrow

Pairing: Jake x afab!reader Synopsis: Time resets. His love doesn’t. Word Count: ~

UPDATED: 25.06.2025 © taetebebe 2025

[taetebebe]

Gentle Reminder:

Please don't spam like (liking more than 5 posts within a short span of time) as it can get me shadow banned :(

Reblogs are always welcome (spam away pls) <3

[taetebebe]

Should I make a WIPs post? There's so many...

[taetebebe]

I was literally like “SUNOO WHY YOU SHOOTING MY MANN?!?!”

What's up with enhypen? How do they expect us to survive? The visuals? The set? The choreography? The action? Sunoo with gun? Shooting Jungwon? Sigh! Outside mv teaser is crazy!!!!

[taetebebe]

IM SORRY I ORRGOT THAT WAS A THING LPS KILL ME NOW 😭🙏

Oh please don’t worry too much!! I still love you, sweetheart

[taetebebe]