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thecaffeinatedfangirl · 1 year ago

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super love this series! Why did my heart suddenly wanted to root for Jaemin? Though I know I'm Team jeno anyway. :)

MISDIAL; LJN [CH4] PICK UP THE PHONE!

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

info;

lee jeno x fem!reader

college au

chaptered

very slow burn

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

warnings for this chapter; none

chapter wc: 9.5k / comment on this post for taglist!

taglist: @hibernatinghamster @jenoxygen @eaglesnotravens @donutswithjaminthemiddle @jvjsssnaa @huangrenhyucks @luvenshiti @shiningdery @jaeminsbebu @aliceinwhateverland @bebsky@gem-gem @jkjkseo @jenosbliss @pewpewpwe00 @ti--red @philanarose @softbbyg0rl @aaasteroidsky @carelessshootanonymous @en-boyz @jlsavyy @roseymerrie @bangchanisemo @skuezk @jaehyuns-adorable-dimples @ourbeautifulaffair@jeonnyread @jvjsssnaa @episkeyjeno @bockhyun @jenojammin @zarastrawberry @peachie-bear @itadaramaterasu @alymii @cuteejeno @episkeyjeno @nohunlee @ooojisoo @luv4jeno @not-clemb @jydivrs @maeyoung @axmdocs @nctzennikki09 @pinkysinnerbaby

unable to tag: @jenojenoyes

[a/n]: merry early christy mass

“SO. ARE WE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT?”

It’s 7:38AM, and Jeno has finally driven for long enough that the Palisades building is no longer looming in his rearview mirror. In a perfect world he’d be heading back to his apartment right now to sleep away the next twelve hours of his life— but Jeno’s life has not been perfect since you moved back to Seoul, and he knows even before Donghyuck finishes speaking that the following conversation is going to be unbearable.

The man in the backseat slurps obnoxiously from the thermos he’s got at his lips. “Frankly, I’m a little suspicious that we’re not already talking about it. Because there is like… no chance neither of you have anything to say about all of that.”

“All of what,” Jaemin asks, nonplussed. “Your sudden closeness with little Jeon?”

Donghyuck scoffs, taking another loud sip from the borrowed bedazzled cup. The contents held within is fresh brewed coffee courtesy of the small Starbucks Jeon Somi’s has on her kitchen counter, and he’s practically perched on top of the center console because he’s leaning so far forward. “No, prick. Don’t even start. All of that being last fucking night. You know,” he prods very pointedly, “At Wooyoung’s?”

For a split second, Jeno’s mind goes completely elsewhere. Wooyoung’s. The guy was more Jaemin’s friend than his but he’d been invited to the party anyway, initially with a polite promise to swing by for an hour or two before clearing out to avoid the storm rolling in. Then, a few hours later at Mark’s place, you. Wandering into the apartment none the wiser to his presence, squinting into the depths of your phone; and the only thing Jeno can remember from the seconds before you looked up and shut him out again was wondering how the hell he didn’t notice how much you’d changed.

If he was being honest, it's something that's been bothering him since that night at Nabi Bar. Because you’d always been cute. Ask anybody with eyes. In highschool you were cute enough that sometimes Jeno didn’t quite understand why no one else seemed to be thinking about it as much as he was. Everything you did made him want to pick you up and shake you like a dog with a new toy. But somewhere along the lines, this…shifted.

“What about Wooyoung’s?” Jaemin sighs. “We were there for like, four hours. You’re going to have to be more—”

“You and Y/N,” Donghyuck says unrepentantly, striking right to the heart of his curiosity. “Mark’s birthday up in the woods, the lake house, whatever the fuck happened there. Her truth or drink question. To be specific.”

Jeno isn’t the best at understanding his own feelings, and he’ll admit that easily. So if he’s being serious about when he first realized something had shifted, when he noticed that something was undeniably different about you— he’d, coincidentally, also have to point a finger towards the weekend they all spent at the lake house. It was the first time he’d properly seen you in nearly a year. He’d shown up at Mark’s parents house with the van full of guys and hung out downstairs in the same living room he used to spend every afternoon in before college came and whisked them all away, and waited for you and your brother to come down.

And he’s not proud of this, but. Well.

Well, when you did eventually reveal yourself, finding his eyes amongst the crowd of his friends perking up at your arrival… he’d been expecting a bigger reaction.

He’d been working out more, is all. And he’d grown his hair out for the first time since he was a little kid, and had finally grown accustomed to the pokey, itchy world of contacts. He looked different. He felt different. He’d just finished his first year of college and was definitely feeling a little too cool about it. And in high school you used to look at him like he had done something great for just simply existing— so he’d been ready for you to all but drop when you saw him now— but you’d run your gaze over Jeno for what felt like half a second before turning to Renjun, smiling widely at this new guy like you’d been waiting to meet him and only him.

And he remembers being… confused.

That had been the first clue that something about you (or, maybe, something about him) had changed.

“Na Jaemin. You are absolutely not going to sit here and not explain what the hell she was talking about.”

“It was over a year ago,” Jaemin says. The uneasy beat that followed Donghyuck’s question was nothing to be envied, but Jeno wholeheartedly preferred the silence over actually listening to this conversation. “And you heard her. There’s nothing to explain. She was getting over someone, I was getting over someone, and like most stupid teenagers do, we did the only thing that came to mind—”

“Okay but you understand that she’s not like most stupid teenagers, right? You hooked up with Mark’s little sister. On his birthday. At his birthday party. Did you have a death wish? Why are you both acting like this isn’t breaking goddamn news?”

“Because it isn’t news,” Jaemin replies sharply. “For a myriad of reasons. Can you not phrase it like I was trying to seduce the Virgin Mary?”

“I’m not phrasing it like anything! I just… I mean, you’re not seriously going to pretend like this isn’t absolutely insane, right? It’s hard to imagine—”

“What about two people hooking up is so insane to you?”

Donghyuck seems flabbergasted by this. “Jaemin. Everything. Everything about it is insane. Because it’s not just two people ‘hooking up’. Of all the people on earth you could have— and trust me, the number of options you have is high, I’ve heard some of the shit the girls on campus say about you— you chose her? The single person on this earth that Mark would flay you alive for even—”

Jaemin snaps his eyes to the rearview mirror, and Donghyuck’s words cut short. “Is Y/N a human being to you?”

A stunned second passes.

“Or is she just some attachment to Mark, some little doll with no will of her own? You realize that this is why she hates being around us so much, right? Why she’s never around in her own fucking apartment? Did you even notice that you’ve only ever said her name once in this whole conversation? Do you know what you’ve been calling her?”

Jaemin’s question hangs in the air like a physical weight. Mark’s little sister. It hits Jeno like a punch; his hand tightens around the steering wheel with immediate guilt. Guilt for not even noticing how interchangeably they’d all been using the words in the first place and, much deeper down, knowing that even if Jaemin wasn’t talking to him, Jeno was definitely the worst culprit in the vein of only seeing you as an extension of your brother.

That’s basically what you’d told him on the balcony before you left and took half of his spirit with you.

“That’s not what I meant,” Donghyuck says, sufficiently chided. All the gossip-seeking enthusiasm has drained from his voice. Now he just sounds sorry. “You know that’s not what I meant. That’s not how any of us see her.”

“I know that,” Jaemin says quietly, returning his gaze to the window. “She doesn’t.”

They ride in silence for almost a whole block before Jaemin sighs.

“She found me after I got off the phone with Jurin for the last time,” he supplies, unable to ignore Donghyuck’s scolded pouting. “Sometime while you guys were off getting wood for the campfire.”

Perking up a little in the backseat, Donghyuck tentatively asks, “At… At the lake house?”

And, having foolishly assumed the reprimand would've ended this conversation, Jeno almost wants to slam his head against the headrest when Jaemin nods and he realizes they're not done talking about you. He feels raw; sensitive and uncomfortable and combative. It's residual from what just happened with you, he knows that, and he also knows saying something will probably just draw attention he does not want, but he still can't help but blurt; “Do you really need to hear the details, man?”

He’s not sure who he surprises more by the edge in his voice: himself or the other two. Both turn to look at Jeno like he’s just magically appeared in the vehicle.

Donghyuck is so caught off guard by the distaste that he actually rocks back a little bit in his seat.

“I’m not asking for those kinds of details!” he exclaims, scandalized. “I just want to know how it went down beforehand, because as far as I remember, they were the perfect picture of normalcy on that trip! Jaemin was a little sulkier than normal because of the whole girlfriend-breaking-up-with-him thing, but he perked up after, like…”

Donghyuck trails off. Then after a very long second he gasps, sounding almost appalled, forgetting Jeno again immediately.

“When we came back from camping because it started raining, you were like a totally different person. It was then, wasn’t it? You and her stayed back. I remember being worried that you were going to bore her to death if she ever came out of her room. Holy shit, dude, don’t tell me you guys planned—”

Jaemin whirls around. “Do you think I’m completely crazy?”

“Well how am I supposed to know, when you won’t tell us anything?!”

“You really want to know so badly?” Jaemin says, fed up. No, Jeno thinks uselessly.

“Earlier in the afternoon Y/N heard me on the phone with Jurin and figured something was wrong. She came over to talk to me about it and I found out that she was having guy problems of her own, so we tried to make each other feel better— Verbally," Jaemin tells, pointedly adding the last word when Donghyuck's eyebrows jump in scandal. "The next time I saw her was when you guys left to go camping and we stayed back. I was watching a movie in the living room and she asked if she could join me because she couldn’t sleep, and— And after that you can put two and two together. That’s it.”

“Prude,” Donghyuck mutters. When Jaemin shoots him another look in the mirror though, he’s the perfect picture of innocence. “—Is what I would have said, if you were talking about any other girl, ha ha. Anyway! Did you guys kiss?”

Jeno's arms tense up so quickly that he almost swerves into oncoming traffic. Hyuck nearly topples out of his seat.

“Fucking hell—! Hey! You’ve got precious cargo back here, jackass!”

“Pothole,” Jeno bites.

He’s lying through his teeth. But it’s the only thing he could think of. There’s no such thing as a pothole out here— they’re in Gangnam, on a main goddamn road, but he can almost feel Jaemin’s eyes on the side of his face, so keeps his eyes sharply forward despite the fact that his ears are no doubt already starting to flush pink from discomfort.

“I’m not telling you that,” Jaemin replies after a second. “Voyeur.”

“What? What type of sense does that make? You two literally fucked on our communal couch, but asking about a kiss is too—”

Even if it feels like every nerve instantly lights ablaze under his skin from this comment, Jeno is much better about controlling his expression this time around. It probably wouldn’t have mattered because in the moment after the words left Donghyuck’s mouth Jaemin whirled around in his seat to pinch him, a sharp grab at his thigh that had the boy yowling in surprise— and then immediately thereafter, agony, because Jaemin’s strength is nothing to sneeze at.

“Listen to me very carefully,” Jaemin hisses. “Not a word of this is leaving this car. Do you understand me, Lee Donghyuck? If you tell anybody—”

“Okay, okay!” Donghyuck cries out. “Fuck, do you have razors under your nails?! I think I’m bleeding!”

“I’m serious,” Jaemin continues darkly. “You can laugh about it all you want, but we all know exactly how Mark is going to react if he finds out and I am not interested in playing the odds on whether he ends my life via strangulation or vicious beating. Keep your mouth shut.”

Donghyuck is still muttering to himself, rubbing bitterly at the spot where Jaemin sniped him.

He’s thinking of ways to reassure Jaemin, probably. Or maybe that’s just what Jeno hopes he’s doing, because a younger him could have used some reassurance that Mark possibly wouldn’t have tried to kill him where he stood if, back in highschool, he’d ignored your brother's wishes entirely and actually told you how he felt.

But Donghyuck simply says, “Remember when we all watched him punch that watermelon in half during spirit week? Back in our senior year, when they were still finding chunks of it a week later in, like, the ceiling rafters and shit? I think my money is on him beating you to death if he finds out you slept with his sister.”

And on that very positive note, Jeno flicks his turn signal on and coasts into the lane that’ll take him right back to SNU.

It’s four days later, Jeno hasn’t seen you once in that span of time, and he’s beginning to think it’s driving him a little insane, because he’s been staring pathetically at a photo of you on Mark’s fridge for the last five minutes. You’re mid-laugh and you’ve got one arm tight around Mark’s neck— you’re both on the beach, jeans rolled up to your knees, and your hair is a startling, bright red.

Back in highschool, when you were a junior and he was a senior, you’d had a short lived obsession with dying your hair. Mark had mentioned it to him in passing, recalling the half a dozen conversations he’d witnessed of you trying to convince your parents to let you bleach it, but he hadn’t really thought about it too seriously until he was over at Mark’s house to work on a project a few weeks later. Your brother, who’s brain stopped working properly when he was hungry, tapped out after about fifteen minutes to hit the convenience store a few blocks away for a pint of ice cream and a few energy drinks.

It was only after the front door slammed shut that Jeno even realized you were home; he was slouched in Mark’s desk chair scrolling listlessly through his phone when he heard the bedroom door creak open, and turned around expecting your brother. It was not your brother.

It was you. Standing in the doorway like a deer caught in headlights as your eyes met, dressed in a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top, hair slicked down to your head with cherry red dye— it was all over your hands, splattered down your neck, an artful blob on the tip of your nose.

The two of you stared at each other for what felt like minutes. He hadn’t seen you this close for a few weeks now, since this was around the time that you’d started hanging out with your friends more and were rarely ever home. That was what he blamed for the way his brain seemed to start buffering at the sight of you.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked.

You stood up straight and hid your hands behind your back like he hadn’t already seen them in all their bloody glory, and said, “I thought you… Left. Just now. With Mark.”

“I didn’t,” he replied. You stared at each other some more. Then, because he wasn’t quite sure what else to do and he’s never really been good at reading a room, he said,“You missed a bit, there. On the top.”

You stiffened, and then your whole body slumped like he’d cut your strings with those eight words alone. “I know. Mark has a little mirror in here somewhere that I was going to steal while he was gone, because I didn’t realize until it was too late that I couldn't see the back of my own head.”

And somehow this ended up with Jeno standing behind you in your bathroom, dutifully brushing red goo into your scalp as you fidgeted and twitched and tried to pretend you weren’t staring at him in the mirror, even though it was very obvious that you were. Jeno pretended, like he’d been doing for the last three years, that he didn’t notice— even if he was finding it a little harder than normal to not stare right back.

Back then, he chalked up his jitters to all of the physical things that were happening in that moment. He credited his desire to stand a little closer to you than necessary to the pleasant scent of cherry coming from the dye in your hair, and blamed the uneven straps on your tank top for the reason his eyes kept drifting to the curve of your shoulders. He was hyper-focusing on the tiny beauty mark below your ear not because he found it fascinating, but because it was easier to keep his eyes trained on that than to risk forgetting what he was doing and finding your eyes in the mirror.

When the dye ran out and your head was sufficiently gooped, he’d been gearing up to ask if you needed help washing it out too, when the sound of the garage door opening whispered through the house and you stiffened. In an instant you were plucking the empty dye bowl from his hands and then herding him out of your bathroom— startled, he turned around to mention his sweater, only to find it flying at his chest with enough force to knock him back against the hallway wall. Your eyes were huge as you stood in the bathroom doorway, hand already on the door as if already positioning to slam it shut.

“Don’t tell Mark you helped me,” you said quickly, before blinking very hard a few times, “And— Thank you? This probably would have turned out like shit if you didn’t offer to help me. Thanks.”

Downstairs, the front door opened. Jeno stood there with his balled up sweatshirt in his hands suddenly feeling very odd. Only later did he realize that feeling was hesitance. He didn’t want to go yet. “Why can’t I tell him?” he asked.

“Because Mark’s going to freak out when he sees me, and I don’t want him to get mad at you too for, like, being an accessory to my crime.”

“An accessory to your what?”

“Oh,” you said belatedly. Then you raised your eyebrows at him, lip quirking into an innocent smile that felt like anything but, and his stomach twisted. “Might’ve said too much.”

Your brother's voice rang up the stairs and Jeno made the mistake of turning towards the landing. By the time he turned back to you, mouth opening to speak— even though he wasn’t even sure what he was planning to say— he only caught the last glimpse of your red stained hand through the shutting the door.

Mark returned a few moments later to find Jeno sitting back in the desk chair, back to peering into his phone, but what he probably didn’t notice was that Jeno was really staring at the little, cherry colored splotch on his palm.

Back then he hadn’t known yet, just what he was feeling. He didn’t put two and two together to realize why whenever he’d see the color red in the corner of his eye at school after that, he’d turn around in the middle of a conversation to see if you were passing by; why, when the school strong-armed you into dying it back to its natural color a few days later, the missing cherry red had bothered him more than he could justify. It took him another few months to really get it.

“No-Jam! Dude, did you get lost in there or something? The cola is in the little—The bin thing! In the back!”

Mark’s voice pitches over the rest of his friends' muffled bickering and right through the memory he’s sunk into, and he tears his eyes away from the fridge to remember who he is and what he’s supposed to be doing right now.

It’s movie night. He’s been put in charge of drinks now that the take-out has arrived, and yet he’s malingering in the kitchen like some kind of sad voyeur. Right.

He snatches the cans and shuts the door a little harder than necessary, if only to get away from that photo of you faster. The conversation he returns to isn’t much different than the one he’d left; initially it was Chucky versus Annabelle, now when he sits the rack of soda on the coffee table and sinks back down between Jaemin and Jisung, it’s Jason versus Michael. Hyuck is ripping his hair out trying to explain that Michael is a borderline mutant and therefore obviously the winner in this bracket, and per usual, Chenle is completely unbothered and arguing the opposite solely to raise their friend’s blood pressure.

This would usually be Jeno’s pre-movie entertainment, chiming in with the occasional fact check to keep the sides even, but tonight he can’t focus on their debate. Instead, his eyes drift towards the clock on Mark’s TV stand.

7:06. He frowns.

“Where is Little Lee, by the way? Out getting into trouble?”

It’s embarrassing how quickly Jeno snaps back to attention at the sound of your nickname.

Mark shrugs in response, completely unbothered, even though Jeno is almost boring holes into the side of Mark’s head waiting for an answer to Renjun's question. “She’s at dance practice. Been at it all week for her showcase, and it goes real late. She should be back in about an hour if you’re looking for her.”

“Not looking,” Renjun says, “Only noticed she hasn’t been around. What showcase?”

“Goodness,” Jaemin coos. “My hard worker. Saw her this morning on my way to chem, looked a little like death, eyes all dark and broody. I guess that's why?”

“She leaves in the morning before I do, too. Probably dead tired.”

Mark tries to return to scrolling through Netflix’s catalog but Renjun, not satiated, flaps his hand in front of his face. “Wait, but what showcase, though? I didn’t even know anything was coming up. The school is hosting something?”

“Not the school,” Jisung offers instead. He sounds oddly eager to talk about it, and for a second Jeno is rattled by the idea of Jisung paying enough attention to you to know the intricacies of your schedule, until he realizes it’s the topic he’s excited about. “It’s this thing called the Aegon Showcase, a big competition for unknown hip-hop dancers. It’s a nationwide thing so it’s broken up into different showcases in every province, and there technically aren’t supposed to be favorites, because talent is like, everywhere, but pretty much everyone knows that the Seoul competition is the most popular. It’s pretty difficult to get chosen for Seoul, and yet Y/N’s team got in. They even air it on TV.”

Chenle whistles. “I knew about the competition, but I didn’t know all that. That sounds like a big deal.”

He remembers how sheepish you’d been when Somi told them in his car; the awfully shy look he’d caught on your face when your eye met in the mirror.

“It is a big deal!” Jisung declares, sounding proud. “Yonsei hasn’t been on the roster since 2016, so the guys in my hip-hop class are pretty excited about it. There’s posters up in all the hallways of the performance building and noona’s name is all over them. Jeongsob nearly knocked my head off when he found out I had a ticket to see it live, and I didn’t even tell him it was center house because I thought he’d really hit me.”

“A ticket?” Renjun’s spine straightens indignantly. “From where? When was this an option? I want to go!”

Jisung’s shrug is interrupted by the loud smack of Donghyuck’s mouth as he swallows a swig of his soda. “This is how I know you don’t read my messages.”

“What?”

“I sent you the ticket, loser. I sent everyone the ticket like, a week ago.”

“Where the hell did you get them?”

A beat of silence as Donghyuck stares at him, before he realizes Renjun is serious and begins to whine. “So you don’t read my messages or listen to me. Somi. Jeon Somi! Rockstar’s little blonde bestie pulled some strings and gave us all tickets. Gave the rest of us tickets, should I specify, since Y/N-ie doesn’t love us and only got one for Mark.”

The Mark in question only hums proudly.

“Right up in front,” Donghyuck continues. “All she’d tell me is that they’re opening with DNA.”

“By BTS?”

Chenle scoffs. “By Kendrick Lamar. My God. Listen to something other than Seoul Top 50.”

“Their tracklist must be stacked if they’re opening with Lamar,” Jisung adds, awed.

Jeno has never really seen you dance before. It’s something he’s always known about you, sure, but only through word of mouth; He knew you started dancing because of Mark, since your brother has been telling the story to anyone who would listen for half a decade. How you were dragged along to his lesson one day, bitter about missing out on an afternoon of Guitar Hero for some ‘lousy physical activity’, when the dance teacher happened to notice how quickly you’d been picking up on the moves. She convinced you to come to another, and then another, until you ended up attending those classes more often than Mark did.

Those lessons had been before you and Mark transferred to their school though. Mark dropped dance to pick up basketball, which meant Jeno didn’t hear much about it from him, and while you kept up with it, it wasn’t like the two of you were close enough to talk about things like that.

So it simply stayed a fun-fact. A topic only brought up in passing, like Mark randomly mentioning a competition you had one weekend, or apologizing for being late because he had to pick you up from a lesson across town.

A topic only brought up in passing until the next words that fall out of your brother's mouth.

“That’s the type of music she dances to all the time though,” Mark says belatedly. “Kendrick Lamar I mean. She has like, four or five videos on Youtube from that album alone. It was her favorite for a while.”

“She has videos on youtube?” Jeno blurts.

The world pauses. Or it feels that way to him, since he hadn’t even registered the ending of Mark’s sentence before his own mouth was opening without his permission. It’s the first words he’s spoken in nearly half an hour and it shows in how they all glance at him, varying from brief confusion to clear interest in his sudden curiosity— and he instantly wants to kick himself considering that the latter comes from Jaemin, who’s already suspicious that he’s hiding something.

Mark furrows his eyebrows, staring back at Jeno like your presence on youtube is just supposed to be common knowledge.

“I never told you guys? Freshman year of highschool, she had this channel she’d upload all her dance class videos to. Mostly just for progress, to see how she improved, but I guess they must’ve hit some weird algorithm or something because the videos actually ended up doing super well.”

“Rockstar is famous?” Jaemin asks.

Mark scratches his chin. “Subjectively, I guess so. I meant doing well as in like, a dozen of the videos have broken a hundred thousand views, but subscriber wise she’s not—”

Donghyuck chokes so violently on his cola that it sounds like he’s being waterboarded. Instinctually Jisung starts to pat his back, but even he looks surprised; not that Jeno is confused by why. A hundred thousand?

The second that Donghyuck is able to form words again he all but demands Mark pull up her channel on the TV, which is when he finally seems to realize the predicament he’s put you in. All of your older brothers' friends. Watching your old highschool videos. Without your knowledge. Any little sister’s waking nightmare.

Mark tries to backtrack; ‘Ah, well, the whole reason she stopped uploading was because she got embarrassed about all the attention. She’d seriously kill me if she knew I showed you guys.’ But Hyuck only grins. ‘You damned yourself to that the second you mentioned it at all, tiger. You know I’ll just find it on my own if you don't, right? I’ve got resources!’

Doubtful. Donghyuck can’t even find files on his own computer, much less sift through the entire internet for a few six year old videos from a person that’s no longer uploading. Even though Mark doesn’t look fully convinced, glancing warily between his phone and the clock like he’s worried you’ll walk through the door the second he picks up the remote, Jeno knows he’ll fold. He always does.

We shouldn’t, he could say to help. Y/N wouldn’t like it. You know she wouldn’t.

He would’ve a month ago. Maybe even a week ago.

But right now he’s mortifyingly desperate to see you again, even if it’s only through the glass of a screen. So he does nothing but swallow his shame when Mark sighs, “One video. One! And if she finds out, dude, I’m telling her it was you!” and snatches the remote from the coffee table. He does nothing when Mark scrolls through the seemingly endless list of people he’s subscribed to, and he continues to do nothing when you blip to life on the television, Xx_SGirl2002_xX’s youtube channel.

Mark presses play on the first video there is, the last thing ever uploaded to your account— a three-minute clip titled ‘Kiss Kiss - Chris Brown, (J’HO’s ADV class)’ with ninety-eight thousand views.

Jeno knows it’s 2016 from the date in the description but for some reason he’s still startled by how young you are here. This is how you looked when he met you, and its a whiplash he isn't prepared for. Fourteen years old with a glare that could cut down grown men. You have on a baseball cap that Jeno recognizes because it actually belongs to Mark, and an oversized t-shirt over a pair of green sweatpants (that Jeno also recognizes, because you wore them around your house all the time in high school)— but there’s no time to get into the intricacies of your outfit because soon enough the beat kicks in and Donghyuck is squealing like this is his favorite song.

You’re dancing with four others who look just as confident as you, bouncing on their feet before the choreo starts, but it immediately becomes clear why you’re in the front. Your movement is so natural that Jeno would’ve thought you were freestyling if it wasn’t for the others you’re on beat with, easily capturing the center of attention with your style— though he knows you’re not intending to.

That’s how you’ve always been. The brightest person in the room, without even realizing it.

It’s not as surprising as he expects it to be. Despite never having seen you attempt to dance in front of him in your life, he’d somehow always known you were going to be this good. It’s familiarity probably that keeps his eyes on you, even when the videos go on and on and on and new dancers filter in and out of the choreographies. He’s only made aware of how blatantly he’s ignoring everyone else in your videos when Jisung excitedly points out that he recognizes one guy you’re dancing with, some famous popper in the hip-hop circuit, and Jeno has to drag his eyes away from you to even realize you’re dancing with a man in the first place.

Too engrossed in showing you off now to remember why he’d been so hesitant in the first place, Mark, obviously, fails to stick to his word. They’re on video four or five when there’s the very, very sudden sound of the front door handle rattling.

It’s mere dumb luck that Mark manages to scramble for the remote fast enough to mute the TV before you get the door open. It’s even luckier that you wander into the apartment with both your headphones in and your eyes squinted at something on your phone. It’s just enough time for them to all assume the picture of perfect innocence when you do finally look up— appearing almost startled by the sight of them all staring at you with wide eyes, silent and still like a bunch of weeping angels.

Jeno for an entirely different reason than the rest of them, however.

“Hello… all?” you greet, clearly suspicious, but you can’t seem to put your finger on the reason they’re all looking at you, and this makes the whole room seem to relax.

“You’re late, Rockstar,” Jaemin says, playfully scolding, “Take-out’s gone cold.”

“I ate before practice. What are you guys doing?”

“Is it not obvious? Movie night, of course!”

There’s a beat as you glance at the TV behind their heads, all their eyes on you, before you nod slowly.

“Movie night. Right. Uh. I’m going to head in early since I have to be out of here early tomorrow, so try not to have too much… fun out here. I’ll leave you guys to it then?”

You readjust your duffel on your shoulder and pull an apple from the bowl on the island as you pass, not sparing a glance behind as you head for your room.

“Too much fun?” Jaemin echoes quietly beside him, the both of them still staring off after where you’d just been, when Donghyuck curses and brings their attention back to the front.

“Are you fucking— Has this been on the screen the whole time?”

It’s only belatedly Jeno realizes that, in his haste to just get your youtube channel off the screen, Mark must’ve just pressed any recommended video from the suggestions. Even if it didn’t make the most sense for them to be so diligently watching. Because, still muted, a video of an aerobics class plays on the TV dozens of women in a giant studio, dressed in very tight, very small clothes, all bending over and lunging and casually contorting their bodies into positions that would probably make nuns across the country blush.

Quite the movie you walked in on them watching. Together. Without speaking. On mute. Mark gasps when he realizes this and snatches the remote again, frantically clicking on something else like the damage hasn’t already been done, and Chenle laughs until he cries when he, also, finally understands what a sight that must’ve been. Jeno probably would’ve found it hilarious too, if he’d been paying attention to it at all.

Instead, all he could really think about was the fact that while he couldn’t take his eyes off of you— you hadn’t thought to look in his direction once.

Movie night comes to a close with two casualties— Renjun and Jisung, snoring and completely unconscious on the couch and floor respectively— Mark shooing the rest of them out at one in the morning with a loud yawn and a promise to continue Scream VI after everyone's classes tomorrow night.

Per usual, Jeno gets sacked with taking Jaemin home. And per usual, like a Gremlin straight from the films, Jaemin turns into a pit of insatiable hunger after midnight and demands they stop at a drive through so he can get something to eat.

But if Jeno is being honest— he really just wants to go home.

He’s tired. It’s been a long day. Four classes, basketball practice, having to take his car to get looked at because the air coming out of the aircon kept smelling like burnt lemons. The final nail in the coffin had been you not even batting an eye at him when you’d gotten home, when he’s been physically unable to think of anything else besides you for the last four days.

He is entirely ready to call it a night… but he knows that he’ll never, ever hear the end of it if he doesn’t take Jaemin somewhere before he drops him off, and it’s only fate that he spies McDonalds golden arches at the next turn signal.

He whips into the drive through and is preparing to turn right back out of the lot when the food is safely in the vehicle a few minutes later, but Jaemin asks him for something he’s never asked for before.

He asks him to park.

Jeno glances at him, incredulous, but Jaemin doesn’t seem to be joking at all. “You can’t wait until you’re home?”

“I’m hungry, I said. And I want to eat in peace.”

“You had two whole servings of that Lo Mein and still snuck some off of my plate.”

“Don’t fat shame me,” Jaemin replies mildly, eyeing the steaming contents of the paper bag. “My digestion is only a quarter of the reason. Jaehyun will snatch this from me if he sees me come into the house with it. Just park it, will you?”

And because Jeno has never really been one to argue, despite being annoyed by the detour, he does just that.

He should’ve known better though. Jaemin knows a dozen ways to sneak food into that apartment without setting off the nose of his brother; the two have been living together for a year and a half. He’s never asked him to park before because he’s never needed Jeno to park— but he doesn’t start realizing any possible ulterior motives until a few minutes in, when (after he’s polished off half of his nuggets in complete silence) Jaemin asks how he’s doing.

Jeno’s eyebrows dart up to his hairline. “What?”

“I’m asking if you’re okay,” Jaemin says. “Doesn’t take a psychiatrist to see that you’ve been off these last few days. What’s on your mind?”

“What’s on my mind?”

And only then does he put two and two together.

“Is this... is this an intervention?”

“What? Of course not! I can’t just wonder how my friend is doing?”

“You made me drive you into an empty parking lot at one in the morning because you were just wondering? Are you even hungry?”

“I would never lie about food,” Jaemin says with great offense, seemingly forgetting himself for a moment before he sees the jarred look on Jeno’s face. “Well. Okay. Fine. I just… I heard what happened on the balcony with you and Rockstar a few days ago.”

It’s like being suckerpunched.

“You’ve been all weird since,” he continues, “And watching you do nothing about it is starting to stress me out.”

Jeno expects to feel angry once the shock wears off; to get mad at Jaemin for eavesdropping, or butting in, or for trying to offer advice Jeno didn’t ask for. But nothing actually comes to him besides an eye twitch, courtesy of Jaemin’s straw squeaking as he stabs it through the soda cup lid.

He releases the tension from his spine. No need to play coy, then. “Weird is an understatement.”

“Of course it is. You’ve been moping around like you’re about to be executed.”

“Because I screwed up, man.”

“What?” Jaemin says flippantly. “Hardly. There were a few rough edges, like how you probably could’ve gone without calling the poor girl’s eternal undying love for you… cute, but as far as I know nothing you told her was a lie. I don’t actually see where you went wrong in telling her that her brother was the reason you didn’t acknowledge her feelings when she asked.”

Jaemin says nothing for a moment as he leans forward, shaking and then rifling through the brown bag for the few fries that had somehow escaped his previous sweep. Jeno knows better than to take that speech as final verdict, however. A silence this heavy over ever means that there’s a but. There’s always a—

“If you’re not interested in her anymore, that is. Because what you did up there was pretty straightforward, for someone who was actually trying to let a girl down easy.”

And there it is. Jeno screws his eyes shut and exhales for much, much too long, if only to focus on the feeling of his lungs caving in instead of where he is and what he’s talking about.

“And if I wasn’t trying to let her down easy?” Jeno asks.

Jaemin doesn’t even look at him. Just keeps his eyes trained lazily on the traffic going by, humming as he inserts another whole nugget into his mouth. “Then you’re fucked.”

Okay. Here the anger comes, just a little belated. The wave of irritation that hits him at Jaemin’s stupid reply catches him off guard. Then you’re fucked. If Jeno didn’t already know that would he have asked? Did Jaemin bring him out here to rub it in? Just to hear the details?

Without thinking he jams his middle finger into the push to start, roaring the car’s engine to life— if his only goal was to remind Jeno of his colossal mistake then he could finish his damn nuggests elsewhere.

“Woah, woah!” Jaemin bursts as the car jerks into first gear, big eyes wide in alarm, “Damn, man, I was just— Can I finish before you tear out of here like fucking Batman?”

“Why can’t you just eat while I drive?”

“What? No, I meant finish what I was saying! There’s still hope for you, dipshit!”

And he sounds so sure of himself that Jeno can’t help but hesitate. With a huff that even he knows is petulant, Jeno knocks the shift back into park and drags a heavy, tired hand down his face. “What hope.”

“Have you maybe considered telling her how you feel?”

“Did you pull that from an episode of Dr.Phil?” he mocks childishly, but before he can finish Jaemin socks him in the arm hard enough to make him yelp, patience waning, and wary of being hit again Jeno says the first thing that comes to mind.

“No! No, I’ve never considered it, because I don’t… I don’t know.”

Jaemin says nothing, so he just keeps going. “I don’t know how I feel. Whenever I felt myself caring too much about what she was doing I’d just chalk it up to Mark’s overprotectiveness rubbing off on me or something, and I’ve been like that for so long that it’s just become my go-to answer. I’ve never let myself think about it long enough to come to any other conclusion. I couldn’t.”

“Because you were scared of what you’d realize if you did?” Jaemin finishes, unsurprised. “You’re so stupid.”

“Fuck off,” Jeno bites, but Jaemin shakes his head.

“No. You’re actually dumb. You already know how you feel about her. You’ve known. You’ve just never let yourself say it out loud because saying it out loud means confirming it, and confirming it means you have to choose, but not looking at the writing on the wall doesn’t mean it isn’t there. What you still don’t seem to realize is that not choosing is still a choice.”

“A choice that keeps everyone happy,” he replies through a taut jaw. “Y/N got over me, and Mark doesn’t hate my guts. Easy.”

Jaemin looks like he has a lot to say about that statement, but swallows it down to ask the one he finds will get him the closest to his goal. “Why are you even friends with Mark if you think he’ll hate you over something like this?”

“What?”

“Don’t get mad at me, Jeno, actually think. He’s your best friend. You’re closer to brothers than two people who only met in high school. But you swear he’d drop you without a second thought if ever found out that you ever happened to look at Y/N in a way that wasn’t entirely innocent. Why? Are you some sort of threat Mark should be wary of? Do you have nefarious intentions with his baby sister?”

Jeno balks. Jaemin is clearly just trying to rile him up, his questions nothing but rhetorical, but regardless of knowing this Jeno still feels something angry and dark churning in his gut. His voice is a touch sharper than me means for it to be when he says, warningly, “What the hell are you trying to say, Jaemin?“

“I’m not trying to say anything! I’m asking you, because I’m seriously starting to think that you’ve never asked yourself! What reason do you actually have for thinking Mark wouldn’t even hear you out?”

“I know you’ve heard him, man. When he told us she was hanging out with Yeonjun again, you don’t remember that? How pissed he’d get— the tangents he’d go on, how he’d insist no guy was good enough for her, how guys ‘our age’ have nothing good in mind when it comes to chasing after girls? You think just because we’re his friends that rule doesn’t apply to us?”

“I don’t think that, actually,” Jaemin snorts and pulls yet another nugget from the bag. “Especially because Yeonjun was a super senior that was nearing twenty when he graduated, and had a reputation you could see from around corners for using girls like fast food napkins. That’s your big hang up? That Mark didn’t want some sleaze like that hanging around his sister?”

He has a point. But in Jeno’s mind this isn’t nearly enough to undo years and years of Mark’s theoretical judgment hanging over his neck like a guillotine.

“Yeonjun is a strong example, but it still seemed pretty clear to me that he meant that about every guy. Not just the real shitheads.”

“Then you read him wrong.”

Jeno surprises even himself when he laughs. “What makes you so sure, Na?”

“‘Cause he—” And Jaemin hesitates. All that informative bravado wavers, a visible wave of uncertainty crossing his face. “Because a few years ago he pretty much gave me permission. To go after her, I mean.”

Jeno thought for sure that after Wooyoung’s party he’d really experienced it all. The confusion, at first, as the explanation fell so casually from your mouth; Hooked up with one of your siblings friends, Somi said. But you only had one sibling, and Jeno also was pretty fucking sure he knew all of Mark’s friends since. Some itchy part of him wished you were lying— merely putting a finger down to look cool amongst the party goers and not because you’d actually lost the round, but he knew you and was therefore acutely aware of the fact that you weren’t one to play pretend for strangers.

Then, before he even had time to come to terms with why he felt so bothered by this knowledge, Somi accidentally outed this mysterious Mosquito Boy and Jeno felt like he’d just been doused in ice.

In the span of a few seconds he ran though the five stages of grief like a racecar zipping around a closed track. Denial, quick and easy, he thought Somi must’ve just been mistaken. That Jaemin probably just looked like whoever it was that you hooked up with, and in her stupor tried to connect dots that weren’t there. But not only did that stop making sense once he really thought about it— since you explicitly mentioned the lake house and Mark’s birthday, two landmarks that would be very hard to miscalculate— he’d seen the look on your face when Somi said it.

You weren’t annoyed that she got it wrong. You were terrified because she’d gotten it right.

Then came anger. Sharp and barely contained, Jeno’s eyes drifted from your face to Jaemin’s, and a wash of deep, burning… something, took him over. Jeno might not have been able to name the crime Jaemin committed, because you were both consenting adults who were fully allowed to do what they pleased and it wasn’t like Jaemin was bound by blood to tell them everything he did in his freetime, but Jeno as he watched Jaemin smile at you, none the wiser to what secret of his had just been spilled to half their class, he still felt like he was staring at someone who should be on the top of a wanted list.

There simply was no final stage of acceptance, because for the last week he’s been stuck squarely in depression. Replaying that moment on the balcony over and over again like a kid picking at a scab, moping around campus like some sort of ghost as the days went by.

He thought he’d felt it all, in the last four days. He thought that there were no more bombshells to be dropped.

This presumption is blown out of the water when, after the near fifteen seconds it takes for him to compute what Jaemin has just said, Jeno finally feels something new.

And whatever it is, the appearance of it on his face seems to worry Jaemin greatly.

“He gave you… permission?”

“Which I did nothing with,” Jaemin says with careful haste, “I didn’t. He’d just… picked up on something. He took the fact that I dote on her so much as— As a sign, or something, that I liked her, and pulled me aside one day before you and Hyuck got to their house.”

He swallows. “When?”

“Some time when we were juniors. I know it was close to summer because I just turned eighteen.” He laughs, awkwardly and a little too loud, like this is the first time he’s telling this story and is just now realizing how ridiculous it is. Jeno doesn’t laugh with him. “I asked if Rockstar was coming home ‘cause I had something for her, and he said dropped her off at her friend’s house already. Then he got this look on his face and said, super seriously, that he wouldn’t mind if she liked a guy like me. I said what, he said what, and then elaborated that he noticed how much I fuss over her and stuff, and that if I liked her more than I let on that he’d be cool with it. Said I’d— He knew I’d treat her well.”

“Cool with it,” Jeno echoes distantly. “Cool with… you. Dating Y/N.”

“I turned him down,” Jaemin tells him for some reason. “Just laughed it off, because I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Why?”

He blinks like this is the last question he was expecting Jeno to ask. “Why?”

“Obviously, you—” The words almost don’t want to come out. “You’re clearly attracted to her. I don’t see why you wouldn’t take that as a greenlight to really pursue it.”

“You’re asking me why I didn’t ask her out?”

“Yes?”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t do anything about it because of you. So you could then kill me in my sleep?”

“I wouldn’t have felt anyhow about it,” Jeno lies. “If Mark gave you his blessing then that— That has nothing to do with—”

“Yes it does, man! I only brought it up because it’s proof that Mark doesn’t just shoot blindly when it comes to who his little sister likes, and if you don’t have to worry about that, you can stop lying to yourself about what you really want. You have a chance.”

“I had a chance,” Jeno blurts before he can swallow it, truth sharp and instantly sobering. “Before the lake house. Maybe even before what I said on Saturday. But—” He remembers the look on your face on the balcony. The clear, deep hurt. Then he remembers how you looked at him an hour ago. Or how you didn’t look at him, more realistically— Casual, unbothered, composed.

Unlike him, you’ve already reached some semblance of acceptance.

“But this time I think I really messed up.”

The lights of the restaurant are too bright in his periphery. The silence is too quiet, and the air in the car is too suffocating. Again he’s grabbed by the urge to go home, and before Jaemin can say another word Jeno glances at the finally empty fast food box in his lap.

This time when the engine revs and Jeno wordlessly kicks the car into drive, Jaemin says nothing.

You owe it to her to tell her the truth, you know.

Jaemin lives in an apartment with his older brother, a few short blocks from Jeno’s own place. The ride had been mostly silent, neither of them really feeling the need to speak in lieu of the rather tense exchange they’d left behind— the first thing Jaemin said since they left the parking lot was when he was pulling in front of the building, and it was for Jeno to cut down on the moping if he didn’t want to have wrinkles by twenty-five.

Before Jeno could roll his eyes and tell him to get out, Jaemin opened the door and stepped out himself; but not without doing what he does best. Lecturing.

She’s miserable. You’re miserable. I know you know that much.

Jeno only sighed.

All because of one big miscommunication. I know you, and I like to think that after half a decade of being in her house I’d know Y/N pretty well too, and you’re both never going to be able to look at each other again without this hanging over your heads if you don’t sort it out. If you’re so sure that this is the end, then you have nothing to lose by telling her the truth about everything. Everything. How you feel now, and how you felt then. And if there’s any part of you that believes this can be saved, then you need to try as hard as you can to make sure it happens. And it starts with you manning up and telling her feelings weren’t nearly as unrequited as she thinks.

And Jeno wasn’t quite in the mood to tell him he was right, so he didn’t. Instead he squinted at Jaemin, and asked the question that’s been prickling in his mind since they pulled out of the fast food place.

“What Mark said about giving you his blessing,” he started, “You said you turned it down for me.”

Jaemin raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Because regardless of how obtuse you are, I know what I saw. You liked her. A lot. I wasn’t getting in the way of that.”

A beat.

“And If I wasn’t there to get in the way?”

It’s a clear inquiry to Jeno, cut and dry, but Jaemin laughs like he’s just been asked a trick question. With his eyes narrowed and a cavalier smile in his expression, Jaemin stared at him as if he was thinking ‘Do you actually want to know the answer to that?’ and in that moment without a single word spoken, Jeno saw it all. There was a world quite similar to this one where they weren’t having this conversation, or talking so casually about you, or sharing advice. A world where Jaemin was a more opportunistic person who didn’t care that Jeno had liked you first; A world where they weren’t friends, but rivals.

If you weren’t in the way then she would be mine.

“I don’t think asking things like that is going to help you get the girl.”

“I would still appreciate the clarification,” Jeno said, just as vague.

“Mmm. I bet. Well, Lee Jeno,” Jaemin tapped the roof of the car twice, the whole car echoing with the force of it despite how casually he spoke, “My answer to that question is going to make you do everything but appreciate me, so how about we call a draw here, huh? Before we open that can of worms and everyone gets all… thinky.”

And they both knew that by not answering Jaemin had actually replied loud and clear. But once he heeded his words— really sat there and thought about it, what good it would do for anyone if Jeno knew how Jaemin really felt about you, he found himself agreeing.

Maybe ignorance is bliss.

“You smell like french fries,” Jeno called offhandedly, as Jaemin retreated closer and closer to the revolving doors of his building. He turns right as Jeno steps out of the driver's seat, just in time to catch the tiny cologne he keeps in the console for emergencies. “No chance Jaehyun won’t clock you.”

Jaemin cooed. “So thoughtful you are, No-Jam! If you weren’t so buff and scary, Y/N-ie might’ve had competition.”

And for the first time all night, maybe even all week, Jeno felt a genuine laugh.

[♥︎]: and there it is, folks! please leave a like if you enjoyed! it REALLY gives me the motivation to work on this faster! plus, yay, new chapter after a literal entire year, LOL

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thecaffeinatedfangirl · 2 years ago

Text

smells like teen spirit (M)

PAIRING: Jeno (NCT) + reader (female)

SUMMARY: Jeno keeps getting on your last nerve, but you still end up in his arms with your tongue down his throat.

WARNINGS: strong language; some drug use; explicit sexual content

NOTES: 8.6k words; this is part two of a rose and her thorns, but can be read as a standalone one-shot

Chicago, 1991

A tale as old as time. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

That was our life that summer. Some of us in different doses than the others.

You sat on the bed with your legs bent, resting the notebook against your thighs as you scribbled out another page of the band’s escapades.

Though there was a connection with Mark, we agreed to keep things simple for the rest of the summer. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with the band. God forbid we earned a reputation like Fleetwood Mac’s.

Unfortunately, this agreement caused some awkwardness and I handled that the way I always did - with distance. If Mark couldn’t help but complicate things, then I would do him a favor and give both of us the space we needed.

It felt like shit, but I was used to being the villain.

Turning the page, you kept writing in the eerie quiet of the van. Haechan was bouncing his leg up-and-down at a mile a minute, thoroughly annoyed by Jeno’s delay. Mark was dozing in his seat, trying not to fantasize about you and the fucking heaven between your thighs, but he couldn’t help but watch you jotting down your feelings, your grievances, your hopes and your dreams.

He prayed that he was part of the latter.

The silence broke when the van door opened loudly, followed by a disheveled Jeno stumbling inside. “Goddamn, I am getting so much pussy on this trip,” he huffed, running a hand through his overgrown and severely damaged blond hair.

“Jeno, I swear to god,” you barked, scratching out the compliment you had given him at the top of the page. “If you give me an STD this summer, I will set your drums on fire.”

“You would destroy my child?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

Jeno grumbled something under his breath about how you always rained on his parade of pussy and shut the doors. “Let’s get on the road,” he said irritably, shooing Haechan out of the driver’s seat and jerking the van in gear.

“We’ve been waiting for you, dumbass,” Haechan sniped. He’d been getting so annoyed and impatient he threatened to leave the bastard drummer behind and never look back. That bitch can walk, he’d declared moments before.

Mark stayed quiet in the passenger seat, sluggish with sleep. He looked to you again, watching you write in your journal and wondering what you were saying about him.

About all of them.

Jeno drove fast, but not a soul complained. The gig in Chicago was the most highly-anticipated of the trip.

The van hurtled down the highway, not stopping for several hours until you begged for a bathroom. After a quick gas station run, you put some fresh snacks into the cabinet and wrangled your hair into a bun on your head.

Jeno came in with a bag in hand and said, “I bought more condoms.”

“Good for you,” you deadpanned, wrinkling your nose.

“Although I heard Mark didn’t have to wear one,” Jeno added, tsking his tongue. “One of the few perks of being innocent and pure, I guess.”

Your voice was razor sharp. “Careful, Jeno.”

Both pleased and annoyed by your tone, Jeno asked roughly, “Did you at least remember to get your birth control?”

You wanted to shoot daggers into his face with your eyes, but refusing to afford him any looks was better. “Yeah. I got my Depo shot two days before we left.”

“How long does it last?”

“Three months.”

Jeno smiled wryly. “Well, isn’t that convenient.”

“That’s the whole point,” you mumbled. He was trying to get a reaction out of you, prodding at your buttons, but you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

There was a pause. “I’m ready when you are,” Jeno flirted, wiggling his brows at you.

“Who said I even wanna screw you?”

“You did. Many, many times.”

True, but no longer relevant. All things considered. You returned to your notebook and said, “That was before you became a penis petri dish of death and disease.”

“Ouch.”

My relationship with Jeno could best be described as rivalry. He never gave an inch and neither did I. It was my job to keep him humble.

And damn, what a full-time thankless job that was.

Jeno had been going out of his way to rile you up after your night with Mark. He couldn’t stand seeing you sulky. Mark’s pouting was beyond remedy, but yours could be managed with well-placed jabs.

He had you down to a science. Lighting a fire under your ass was all Jeno knew how to do. The more he prodded at you, the more flames escaped. And when you were angry, you couldn’t be sad.

Because there was nothing Jeno hated more than seeing you cry.

“Can you try to stay on beat this time?” Jeno chided, spinning a drumstick nimbly between his fingers.

Having been testing the microphone, you whipped around and snapped, “Fuck you, Jeno.”

An argument swiftly ensued, petty and heated. No surprises there. Mark and Haechan stood with their guitars and watched the back and forth with no end in sight, even as people poured into the club.

“Those two are going to kill each other,” Mark said under his breath.

Haechan scoffed. “Or make a ton of babies.”

Mark almost choked on the lump that shot into his throat.

You stomped over to Haechan, pointed at Jeno and said, “I can’t deal with this douche canoe anymore!”

To which Jeno shot back, “Just shut up and sing, ice crotch!”

Your eyes went wide with rage and you spun in Jeno’s direction, ready and willing to claw out his eyes. Haechan grabbed you by the arm and steered you back over to the microphone, officially sapped of all patience.

“In ten seconds, me and Mark are going to start playing,” he said hurriedly. “And both of you are going to look like losers if you’re not ready.”

You huffed a swear or two under your breath and gripped the microphone as Mark and Haechan got into position. Then you heard the tapping of drumsticks behind you followed by the roar of Mark’s electric guitar.

By the time the show was over, you were utterly exhausted. Between Haechan and Mark, your arms draped across their shoulders, the three of you sang tiredly along to one of your songs as the boys essentially dragged you down the hall toward the back door for some well-earned sleep.

Turning the corner, you saw Jeno with two beautiful blondes. You bristled with annoyance. They were giggling at every little thing he said like they were getting dick after, which you quickly realized was the case.

Not on my watch.

“Let it go,” Haechan said, but he knew it would make no difference.

Jeno did not deserve pussy after how badly he stressed you out. You wriggled out of Haechan and Mark’s arms and made a beeline for the drummer.

“Oh my god,” you said in a loud, obnoxious voice, greeting the girls as you cuddled up to Jeno and patted his chest. “You guys look so cute! But unfortunately, Jeno is only halfway through his chlamydia treatment.”

Wide-eyed, the girls looked at you in horror before sending vengeful expressions at Jeno, who set his jaw and bristled with anger.

You held your hand beside your mouth, pretending to whisper a secret, “Very contagious through bodily fluids.”

The pair of blondes scurried off. One of them gave Jeno the finger.

“I hate and despise you,” Jeno hissed, trudging down the corridor.

You were hot on his heels, ready to resume the argument from earlier. A moniker like Ice Crotch was not going to be forgotten. “Haven’t you had enough threesomes?”

“There’s no such thing as too many threesomes,” Jeno replied, heated. “And I’ve only had four.”

Haechan asked curiously, “You keep track?”

Jeno snorted. “Don’t you?”

“One is easy to remember. I wasn’t into it.”

Mark fell in line beside them and said, more so to himself, “I have questions.”

“I don’t,” you spoke up, backhanding Jeno’s burly arm to get his attention. “Jeno, you’ve got pussy brain and you fucked up the tempo.”

Jeno went quiet, which was the last thing you expected.

Everyone was tired and raw. We were a well-oiled machine, steaming ahead like a freight train, but with time, gears start to grind. When gears grind, they tear through flesh and bone.

I know my boys. It sounds cliche, and I agree, but I know them. We’ve been friends for so long and crossed hundreds of lines of intimacy reserved for soulmates. They can’t hide anything from me.

Especially the things they intentionally try to hide from me.

You knew you had struck a nerve, but you weren’t sure which one. You dug your heels in regardless, but you were miffed when Jeno said nothing and made for the door.

“Did he just storm off?” Mark questioned, equally bemused.

“He never does that,” Haechan said softly, turning to you.

You didn’t hesitate to stomp after him, and Mark and Haechan didn’t follow this time. When fire fought with fire, it was best to keep a distance to avoid getting burned.

The cold of Chicago’s night was bitter on your cheeks when you stepped outside and you pulled your jacket tightly round you. Jeno hadn’t jumped into the van yet. He was lingering in the lot, scraping his shoes across the asphalt as he puffed on a cigarette.

Closing the distance, you called, “The hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing,” he replied, avoiding your eyes and blowing out smoke.

“You’re out of sync and you’re acting weird.”

Jeno narrowed his eyes at you. “We were all out of sync tonight. Why am I the only one getting called out on it?”

As usual, no matter how angry he made you, your first instinct when things were too tense was to smooth his feathers. His surface was rough, but at his core, Jeno was tender. You brushed your hand down his arm and said sweetly, “Because you’re the rock…”

"We’re all built on," was going to be the end of that sentence. Unfortunately, I never got to say it.

Jeno cut you off. “I don’t want to be your rock,” he lashed out, hissing your name. “Don’t you feel pathetic leaning on me all the time?”

You recoiled like you’d been slapped and that was when you noticed his eyes. They didn’t belong to the Jeno you knew, but to the monster that stole his mind and would eventually give him back by morning.

Wrapping your arms around yourself in comfort, suddenly much colder than before, your breath pillared into the night like the smoke from his mouth when you whispered, “I didn’t. Until you said that.”

Jeno blinked, realizing too late that he’d hurt you.

That was the thing about me and Jeno. We both thought the other to be fearless and unbreakable, but also knew who we were at each other’s cores. I was his mirror image and he was mine. The broken kids; the kids that just wanted to be loved. The pair everyone knew to be demons, but never stopped to think how we became them.

The fallen angels.

Anger faded from his face in an instant. “I didn’t mean it,” Jeno started, flicking away the cigarette and reaching for you.

You stepped back, not wanting to be touched. “You’re at your most honest when you’re high, baby,” you said sternly, fixing him with a look that rooted Jeno in place. “Don’t lie to me now.”

Jeno swallowed the lump in his throat. How could you always see right through him?

You wiped the tear that spilled down your cheek and escaped into the van, your safe place, your little haven. Jeno ran a hand down his face and cursed, “Fuck,” for hitting you where it hurt.

The rest of the night was tense and awkward, only slacking when sleep took hold. Everyone was painfully exhausted. Chicago had exceeded expectations and pushed all limits. The show was insane. The energy was incredible. I would remember that performance for the rest of my life.

Me and the boys may have been a little out of sync, but each of us gave it our all. We left nothing on the floor and held nothing back.

Haechan curled around you in the bed, keeping you warm. You claimed the bed together more often than not. Mark slept like a vampire, on his back on the floor with his arms at his sides. It was the weirdest thing you’d ever seen, but it worked for him somehow. He slept like a baby, the whistle of his snores filling the van.

Jeno sat in the driver’s seat, looking up at the stars, exhaling the smoke from a joint. He was wide awake, couldn’t sleep. An unfortunate side-effect of the shit he took to get high. The marijuana wasn’t simmering him down as hoped. He’d probably stay up all night and sleep the day away.

Glancing over his shoulder, seeing your pretty face made him smile. You looked even cuter when you slept, but it was frustrating as hell.

No one else noticed he was high but you. Did you really know him that well?

Of course she does, Jeno thought. You were his better half. That’s how it worked. He could never escape you. There was a point of no return when it came to intimacy. Not so long ago, you and Jeno soared past that point. Two reckless teenagers, young and wild, that found all their highs and lows with each other.

Jeno propped his legs up on the dash and closed his eyes, watching the memories like a movie in his head. Mark shredded the electric as if his life was on the line; probably to vent his sexual frustration. Haechan was a whirlwind of energy despite playing that boring ass bass. And you, beautiful you… Mark wasn’t kidding when he said you were a god on stage.

Chicago delivered on the show, but not the after-party. Instead of drinking and fucking the night away, Jeno was in the stuffy van watching the stars go by when he wasn’t stealing glances of you. He wanted to be in your arms, needed you to kiss him and tell him everything would be okay.

You were the fix he craved most of all.

In the time it took him to blink, dawn broke. The sun shone across Jeno’s face. He lifted a hand, shielding his eyes. He grumbled a little and turned in the seat to get comfortable, cursing at the awkward angle his back was in.

Your hand touched his shoulder gently and Jeno lurched in surprise, peering up at you. He’d never looked so weary and drained, but you could see the animal was gone from his eyes. “You’ve been up all night?” Your voice rang with compassion, and Jeno felt utterly undeserving.

He nodded, his eyes fluttering closed, unable to keep them open any longer.

You tugged at him, getting Jeno to his feet and ushering him to the bed, where he basically collapsed onto the mattress. Mark and Haechan were up, crawling around in search of coffee like a pair of zombies. Meanwhile, you let Jeno situate and draped the blanket over him, tucking him in, and brushed some of his hair back from his face.

Jeno took your hand and laced his fingers through yours. “Tell me you love me,” he said in barely a whisper.

“I love you,” you replied without hesitation, bringing his hand to your lips and kissing his knuckles. You stayed propped over him, wanting to be close so you could be sure he finally drifted off. You left a chaste kiss on his brow and coaxed, “Go to sleep, baby.”

Mark turned away. It wasn’t jealousy he felt, just longing. Seeing you so gentle with someone you were viciously fighting with the night before made him want you more. No matter what was said and done, there was too much love in this cramped little van.

When Jeno’s breathing leveled out and his hand went slack in yours, you finally relaxed. You’d be damned if he went days without sleep. There wasn’t much you could do, but the boys had their limits and you did your best to make sure they weren’t crossed.

Without another word, you clambered into the driver’s seat and turned the key, driving out of the club parking lot and onto the main road. You found a shopping center where Mark and Haechan could run errands while Jeno was out, and you pulled in.

Jeno slept well into the afternoon, stirring when the smell of hot food filled the van. Haechan used some of the gig money to splurge on delicious Chinese takeout.

You pulled out a foldable table from behind the cabinet and stood it up on the floor. The four of you sat around it and ate in silence, stuffing your faces until your bellies were full. You and Haechan gabbed a little, but not much. Mark and Jeno didn’t mutter a single word, both of them stuck in their feelings.

A far cry from how they would be that night.

One last show in Chicago. You were back on the same stage as before. It was the first time the band would perform an additional night at a club.

Jeno and Mark were squabbling, which was a rare enough sight to see. The two generally didn’t like to fuck with each other. It always resulted in fists flying and both were surprisingly really good at scrapping.

You looked to Haechan and rolled your eyes. Your best friend was smiling, on the verge of a laugh.

“We’re doing the third set,” Jeno said firmly.

“She can’t,” Mark replied, anger rising. “Her voice is fried from last night. The third set could knock it out for weeks and we’ll have no singer.”

Jeno shrugged. “She can take it.”

You were thoroughly annoyed. “She’s standing right here,” you spoke up, folding your arms. The audacity they had. It made you bristle, because you knew it had nothing to do with your voice and had everything to do with your body.

“What do you want to do?” Mark asked, softening his voice for you.

Jeno cut in, “Don’t ask her. You have to push her.”

You shot him a nasty scowl. “Stop pushing me.”

“Or what?” He smirked.

You shivered with irritation crossing dangerously toward rage.

“I don’t think you can do the third set,” Jeno said, challenging you, his smirk deepening. “Prove me wrong.”

“I’m not falling for that reverse psychology bullshit.”

“Coward.”

A smug look washed over your face as you hissed, “Don’t you feel pathetic leaning on me?”

The smile fell off Jeno’s lips. “I said I was sorry.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t care,” you snapped, but you definitely cared. The wound was still fresh and stung.

Haechan tilted his head when you looked at him. He was always your anchor in the rough seas of Mark and the violent winds of Jeno. “I’m with you, whatever you choose,” he said.

If I ever walked off that stage, my boys would follow. No questions asked. They would follow me into hell and back. Though the four of us would probably just live there indefinitely.

You straightened your shoulders and your tone left no room for argument. “We’re doing the third set.”

Jeno beamed victoriously. Haechan nodded. Mark gave a look mixed between concern and awestruck.

You sang until you were spent; brutally, wholly, and everything in between. Your legs felt like jelly when you walked off stage and your chest ached, lungs taut. The adrenaline, like a performance-enhancing drug, had run its course and you were officially on empty.

It wasn’t unlike you to push yourself to the absolute limit. You loved the stage. You worshiped the power that surged from your voice when you sang into the mic. Pipes for days, Haechan always said.

The dressing room was a sight for sore eyes. You dropped heavily onto one of the sofas and let your head fall back, closing your eyes. Your throat felt like you’d swallowed razors.

“Try not to talk,” Haechan said, holding up his hand when you shot him an irritated look. “I’m not telling you to be quiet. I’m suggesting you let your voice rest.”

You nodded and sunk back into the sofa again.

Mark was vibrating, the energy of the show still pulsing through him. Brimming with energy (the excess turning into courage), he walked over to you and bent down, pressing a lingering kiss to your brow.

You smiled, knowing it was Mark without opening your eyes.

Jeno finally deigned to grace the rest of you with his presence, bursting into the dressing room and exclaiming, “Holy shit, you killed it!”

“And this is where you take all the credit,” you rasped, wincing at the sound of your own voice.

“I’ll wait till you go to bed and then I’ll take all the credit.”

You lifted your head and narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t you have some ass to chase?”

Jeno licked his lips. “Nah. I only got eyes for you right now.”

“Pluck them out for all I care.”

“You wanna fuck me so bad you look stupid.”

You waved him away, settling down and closing your eyes again, and wheezed, “Have fun with your hand.”

Haechan sat beside you, picking up your legs and draping them over his lap. “I’ve never seen you so mad at him.”

“He just doesn’t stop,” you huffed. “You know when to leave me alone. Mark never pushes my buttons. Jeno just keeps fucking digging.”

Haechan chuckled. “That’s all he knows how to do.”

“Whatever.” You shrugged, feigning indifference.

Mark suddenly asked, “Do you love him?”

You sighed. “I love all three of you. He’s definitely my least favorite though.”

Mark gleamed proudly at Jeno, who scowled back.

“So, if we were drowning, who would you save first?” Haechan asked mischievously.

“Mark. Obviously.”

Mark’s grin widened, while Haechan gasped and put a hand over his heart like it was the ultimate betrayal.

“You can swim,” you said, patting Haechan’s arm over your legs. You opened your eyes and gave Jeno a vicious sneer. “Jeno’s the only one drowning.”

Jeno’s lips squared into a frown.

“What’s that mean?” Mark asked curiously, but Haechan stayed silent. He knew.

“Leave it,” Jeno warned, darker than ever.

The three of you did. Unlike Jeno, you knew when to quit.

Some people did drugs. Others did rock music. A few did both.

The boys dispersed momentarily. You were relieved when the dressing room was empty, leaving you to your thoughts and the searing pain in your vocal chords. Rubbing at your eyes, smearing your makeup, you didn’t hear someone come back in as you muttered to yourself, “God, my throat fucking hurts.”

“It’s probably raw as shit,” Jeno said, making you jolt. And roll your eyes. He cleared his throat and switched his tone to add, “Speaking of raw…”

“No.”

“You let Mark in raw,” he whined loudly.

You cut him a glare. “I wouldn’t let you raw me if you were the last man on earth.”

Jeno pouted. “Ow.”

With a scoff, you decided to turn the tables on him. “Why are you so hard for me the past few days? I can’t even brush my teeth without you humping the air around me.”

There was no shame to be found in Jeno. “I haven’t had you in weeks,” he groaned.

Your lips parted in surprise. “You’ve had every other girl in the country.”

“It’s not the same.”

You stood and crept close to him, close enough to ghost your lips over his mouth. Jeno went boneless, every inch of him fixated to you and what you would do next. He wanted you so bad he couldn’t see straight. So, you decided to yank the metaphorical rug out from under him, sniping, “You’re pathetic.”

“Are you really going to hold that against me forever?” Jeno asked, tensing.

No. It was just easier to be mad at him. That was the only way I could have some defense against the power he had over me.

“I’ll make you a deal,” you said, sliding your hands over his shoulders and winding your fingers into his hair. “Answer one question for me and I’ll forgive you.”

Jeno was one more breath away from kissing you. He knew it was a trap. You were luring him in and he was happy to swallow the bait. “Fine,” he replied in a husky voice, eyes on your lips. “Ask your damn question.”

“What are you taking?”

“What do you mean?”

You hardened your gaze on him and tugged on his hair. “Don’t play that with me. I know better.”

Jeno studied you a moment. You would keep yanking this thread until it unraveled. He pushed, you pulled. The two of you could play tug-of-war with each other’s heartstrings forever. Jeno decided it was better to rip the bandage off and get it over with it.

He reached to the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a bag, and handed it out to you.

You took a split-second look at the bag and your jaw dropped, your arms falling as you snatched it quickly. “Cocaine? Are you fucking kidding me, Jeno?”

Jeno stole the bag back in the time it took you to blink, returning it to the safety of his pocket. “We’re supposed to do drugs,” he defended, rather unconvincingly. “We’re rockstars.”

“We’re teenagers that just graduated high school with barely enough cash for fuel and chips!”

“How I spend my cut of the money is my business,” Jeno shot back.

“This isn’t about the money.” You folded your arms, scolding him like a mother would a child; oscillating between angry and worried. “You know how dangerous that shit is.”

Jeno shifted his approach too, ever your mirror. “It’s the only way I can perform, babe. If I don’t have it, I can’t focus and I get too nervous.”

You softened even more, like Jeno knew you would. “We can get you something else,” you said gently. “Something better. Safer.”

He scoffed. “With our gas and chips money?”

You sighed, accepting a temporary defeat, but you pressed, “You’re doing it to get high. Not to concentrate.”

Jeno went slack, equally defeated, and reached for your waist. “I’m just trying to have a good time. We know this won’t last. We’re going nowhere.”

You lowered your head. “I know.”

The summer was half over and we hadn’t been scouted. Hope was replaced with disappointment and eventually, disappointment would flip to resentment. We never put it into words, but it was like a cloud following us, day and night.

Jeno took your face in his hands and tipped your chin up until you met his eyes. “Let me have this summer,” he whispered sadly. “Mark got you. I got this.”

Something inside you broke a little.

Yes, when the summer was over, you were Mark’s.

But the summer wasn’t over.

Jeno smiled in surprise when he felt the warmth of your lips on his, but he didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you and deepen the kiss. Feeling the heat of your body against his was what he’d been craving, wanting you to burn him alive.

My first instinct always was to comfort him. I would chip away at myself and give him every piece if it meant he could use them to stitch his wounds.

Believe it or not, Jeno was my first love, but a first love at fifteen means nothing in the grand scheme of things. He was my first everything, but we just didn’t work. No matter how hard we tried. There was a mad and intense connection between us, inseverable, but in the confines of a relationship, we were wild animals forced together in a cage.

I know few will understand us. Hell, even I don’t understand how I could have so much passion and fire for someone that stretched me thin and forever kept me at the brink of insanity.

But I was beyond questioning it.

Jeno slipped his tongue in your mouth and you grabbed his hips, pulling him flush against you. His kisses were surpassing hungry and landing somewhere near ravenous. The intensity must have scared him, because Jeno suddenly parted from you and took a step back.

You rubbed your lips bashfully, not realizing you were panting until it was the only sound in the quiet dressing room. And Jeno was breathing just as heavily.

“What’s wrong?”

Jeno shook his head. “I want you so bad.”

You snickered. Here you were on a silver platter and he was the one that put distance between you.

Though you opened your mouth to say something snarky, Jeno spoke up, “But you’re going to leave me.”

Your heart sank. It dawned on you; this summer was the end to a lot of things. Youth was ending. The band was ending and with it, all of your dreams.

And the tie between me and Jeno would have to finally be severed so my life with Mark could start.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured. You didn’t want to think about Jeno and his broken heart. Or that the drugs you scolded him over were what he used to fill the void you left behind.

Jeno respected the hell out of you for having the strength to leave him. He never could walk away from you even though he knew it was for the best. You would spend your whole life trying to fix him while he would always use you as a crutch.

It wasn’t fair to either you or him.

“Mark is good for you,” Jeno said in barely a whisper, his eyes glistening.

You shook your head. “I don’t want to talk about Mark.”

Jeno swallowed the lump in his throat. Seeing his pain reflected back at him on your face was too much. “Get high with me.”

Your eyes went wide. “Why?”

“You’re my person,” he said, vulnerable. “The only one I’ve ever wanted to do it with.”

This was what you struggled to put into words - the hold this boy had on you. He was bottomless ocean depths.

“It’s always you and me. We do everything together,” Jeno continued, reaching for your hand and leaving a kiss on your knuckles.

You let him pull you back into his arms and asked, “What if I die?”

“I’ll bring you back,” he whispered, pressing a tender kiss to your brow that completely melted you.

“What if you die?”

“Let me go.”

Your eyes suddenly shone with the threat of tears. “Never.”

Jeno leaned into you, stealing a kiss from your lips. “Just this once, babe.”

You paused, thinking it over. Everything inside you screamed, “Yes!” Jeno never failed to bring this side out of you - the reckless, starved one that didn’t give a damn about consequences. You always feared if that was the real you, the true you. “Just this once,” you said quietly, closing your eyes as Jeno sealed his lips to yours again.

The idea of getting high reached out to you with gentle, caressing fingertips, promising to banish the pain and numb the hurt.

Tearing himself away from you once more, Jeno walked over to the door and locked it.

Yet another first time with Jeno to add to my list.

You were caught off-guard at how fast the high kicked in and never before had you noticed how tense your body was until it wasn’t anymore. Your mind was even lighter. There was no more torment. You could feel that it was there, but it didn’t ache any longer.

The sensation was indescribable. You were whole, perfect, immortal and invincible all at once.

And that was how you found yourself on the couch with Jeno, pawing at each other like animals in heat.

“Jeno?”

“I know.”

You sucked in a breath as he nipped at your neck and asked weakly, “Am I going crazy?”

“Babe,” he said, meeting your eyes with a smirk. “You been crazy.”

You laughed and the sound was music to Jeno’s ears, making his smile widen.

Time blurred together. It could have been the next day or the next year for all you cared. All you knew was this moment with Jeno and how it lasted a lifetime.

You sank deeper into the sofa beneath Jeno’s weight. Your thighs were hooked on his hips, hands roaming his taut, muscly back. Both your shirt and his tee were somewhere on the floor, along with your bra.

Jeno kept grinding into you, each movement rougher than the last. “Fuck,” he swore, lips brushing your ear. “I just know you’re getting so fucking wet right now.”

He wasn’t wrong.

A wanton noise of pleasure escaped you and Jeno ate it up. You were burning by a thousand degrees, it was almost painful. You had never craved someone’s body on such a primal level before.

With Mark, it was love, but this? This was lust running wild with abandon.

The doorknob wiggled. You didn’t hear it over the loud thumping in your ears and neither did Jeno, who was far too busy bruising your neck whilst he kneaded your breasts, pinching your nipples to make you squirm. Haechan didn’t need to try the knob again to know what was going on. He turned to Mark, who was coming down the hall, and led him away.

“They’re working out their issues. Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said hurriedly. Mark hesitated, but didn’t argue. He was none the wiser. With the way you and Jeno had been at each other’s throats, it never crossed his mind that you would fuck him.

Meanwhile, you were discovering new uncharted levels of arousal, undulating beneath Jeno, trying to match his movements, which were getting faster and harder. The drugs in your system made everything feel more intense, all-consuming. There was no tension, no insecurity, just instinct and pleasure.

Jeno was definitely waiting for you to give him the green light, and you were enjoying keeping it from him, but the throbbing between your legs was unbearable.

You planted your hands on his thick chest and pushed, making Jeno prop over you and look into your face. “Wanna fuck now?” you asked sheepishly.

His pupils dilated. “I thought you’d never ask.”

You whined when Jeno clambered off of you, standing next to the sofa and unfastening his pants. Before he drew them down his thighs, he pulled condoms from his pocket and dropped them on your lap.

“Two?” You snorted. “My lucky day.”

“One for each girl. You know, the ones you chased away from me.”

Licking your lips as his hard cock sprang into view, you grabbed him by the hips and purred, “I called first dibs on that dick years ago.”

Jeno chuckled, but his expression changed on a dime when you leaned in. He watched you drag your lips over his abs, kissing and nibbling along his happy trail. His breaths stuttered as he said, “Whenever you want it, it’s all yours.”

You peeked up at him hotly. “I want it now.”

While Jeno fitted himself with a condom, you shimmied out of your pants and underwear, and the moment they were on the floor, you turned onto your knees, braced yourself on the arm of the sofa, and arched your back, sticking your ass in the air.

He wouldn’t be able to resist it for a second.

“Fuck you,” Jeno hissed, getting into position behind you and raking his cock between your folds, gathering your slick from tip to base.

You wiggled your hips. Your brain was clouded with lust and drugs, and something purely hungry for Jeno. Like he was your favorite meal. “Gimme it,” you huffed, glancing over your shoulder. “What the fuck is taking so long?”

Jeno gave your ass a smack, making you squeak. “You need to calm down,” he chided with a grin, still sliding his length between your slit. He was so riled up his hips jerked against you involuntarily.

You reached between your legs, getting a hand around his dick and steering it into your aching pussy. Jeno let you, biting his lip and smirking at how goddamn horny you were for him.

The head of his cock pressed into your entrance and you grasped the arm of the sofa with both hands as Jeno began thrusting forward, working himself inside until he impaled you on every last inch of his girthy cock. You buried your face in the couch, biting down on the stressed leather.

Jeno gripped your waist tight and drew you to him until he was balls deep in your tight heat, feeling your walls stretch and flutter around his length. The drugs amplified everything about you; your warmth, your scent, your sounds. He barely noticed the condom at all.

When he drew back and shoved his cock back into your cunt, you lifted your head and cried, “Fuck!”

“You’re so wet,” Jeno growled, sinking in and out to hear your slick pussy welcoming him back.

You whimpered. “Fuck you and that big dick,” you mumbled, but you didn’t mean a word of it. You weren’t sure how much you could blame the drugs anymore. You wanted him to plow the living shit out of you until there was nothing left.

Jeno took that personally. As a challenge more than anything. He squeezed your waist in his hands and smacked his hips into your ass, driving his cock into your core and giving you something to really whine about.

It was all you could do not to scream as he took you for all you were worth. You fisted the couch in your hands until your knuckles ached and you threw yourself back to meet his strokes, a noise escaping on your hoarse throat with every rushed breath. Sex was a drug all its own. It just felt too damn good.

Jeno kept his hard pace, making sure he landed flush against your heat every time, and brushed his hands up your body to wrap them around your throat and tip your head back. “Yeah, that’s my good slut,” he taunted, the smack of his body colliding with yours getting louder. “She’s taking all that dick, huh?”

The sounds you made were humiliating, but they only made Jeno harder. His grip on your neck had you slack-jawed, your eyes winched closed. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him!

It wasn’t fair that he had that kind of power over my body. With him, I felt desired and powerful, and between that - untainted. Unbroken. Jeno never saw me for the damaged goods that I was. To him, I was always perfect. He completed me. No matter how unhealthy it was, I wanted it.

I didn’t need drugs. Jeno’s love was my high.

“Don’t stop,” you choked out, his hands heavy on your strained vocal chords. “Don’t ever stop...”

Loving me. Though the words wouldn’t come, Jeno knew them.

“Never, baby,” Jeno said, releasing your throat in favor of your waist, draping himself over you and burying his face in your neck. His hands wandered your breasts as he plunged in as far as he could go and stopped, leaving a few scattered, reassuring kisses across your shoulders.

Your body trembled when he bottomed out, aching with need and overstimulation. You swallowed to wet your throat, panting for air, and asked, “Why are you…?”

“You’re so fucking high, baby,” Jeno crooned, touching you gently and affectionately. “Just trust me.”

He was right. You were high on drugs and his body. You were a nerve laid bare, every brush of his hands enough to make you shiver. Your body pulsated, like you were being dangled over the edge, the pressure becoming too much to bear.

You held yourself up on hands and knees, tortured by the fact he was no longer moving inside you, but his hands playing with your breasts and his lips on your neck had your attention. The stimulation was sending more shudders across your skin, making you lean into his touch as your core throbbed for him.

“Part of you will always be mine,” Jeno whispered into your neck. “I know you’ll pick him over me, but part of you will always miss me.”

You tensed with unshed tears and cried, “I know.”

“I need you to know it’s okay,” Jeno said, turning your head and kissing you with so much pain and pleasure it knocked the wind out of you.

You kissed him back, reaching up to thread your fingers into his hair. It was a cruel curse - to love someone so deeply that was bad for you.

Jeno broke the kiss and rocked gently into you, staying in deep and lilting his cock inside your walls, the head of him kissing your cervix. Normally, you would have pushed at his hips for some mercy, but the high made you impervious to pain.

Suddenly, he thrust in hard but slow, arching his hips. You staggered out a moan and reached out to steady yourself, almost knocked off balance by his strength.

He did it again and again.

Tears pricked at your eyes. Jeno was hitting you with those drawn-out, domineering strokes, making you feel every inch of him slam against your sweet spot. He may have agreed to never hold you choosing Mark over him against you, but he was going to give you one final reminder of how absolute his control of your body was.

“I’m coming,” you warned, his name a mantra on your tongue as you took all he had to give. You were grateful for the roar of music coming from the other side of the wall, drowning out your cries and Jeno’s moans.

Jeno fisted a hand in your hair while the other still tugged and rolled your nipples. He kept his pace, hips slapping into your ass at a perfect rhythm, knowing you were on the edge of orgasm with the way your walls clamped down on his cock.

“Fuck!” Another brutal thrust sent you into ecstasy. You shook and swore, trying to crawl away from him, but Jeno was on you, shoving you into the couch and riding out your high.

“Good girl,” Jeno hissed, watching you writhe beneath him. He went still and tipped his head back, letting out a tiny moan.

You blinked to clear your eyes. You could feel the bruises forming in your skin as Jeno pinned you to the couch. It only turned you on more. When you realized he was still hard, that he hadn’t come, you mumbled under your breath. He was supposed to finish with you.

Jeno’s eyes flickered. Another moan escaped him as you rolled your hips, desperate for friction. He drifted his hands to your hair, gathering it all in his fists.

You sat up and went to work, fucking him as best you could in your position. Despite the condom, your pussy wanted to milk every drop of cum out of his dick. Post-nut clarity hadn’t set in. Either the drugs or the orgasm made you even more feral for this dumb boy.

“Oh, fuck,” Jeno groaned, watching you throw it back, bouncing your ass on him, taking him like a fucking champ. His abs tightened as he tried not to pound the fuck out of you. Instead, he reeled his hand back and slapped your ass, goading you.

“Come for me, baby,” you said darkly, the room echoing with the loud, wet clap of your bodies meeting.

Jeno growled a low curse in this throat. Suddenly he was on the edge, driven by your command and that tight fucking cunt.

You shrieked in surprise when he flipped you over roughly, the sound devolving into a moan when he steered his cock back into your pussy, grabbed your waist, and drilled into you like he would never get the chance again.

He didn’t last long at that pace. Jeno threw his head back and came, one moan after another tumbling from his pretty mouth, each one more ragged than the last as he emptied himself into the condom.

You brushed your hands over his thighs and hips, whispering little nothings as he came, feeling him shake like a leaf as he buried himself inside you. Once Jeno settled down, you touched his chest and asked, “Holy shit. Are you okay?”

“I’m good,” he wheezed, voice cracking, all the air knocked out of him.

Biting your lip to fight a laugh, you failed to hide the smug grin taking over your face.

“Don’t,” Jeno said weakly, rubbing at his eyes.

“You just came so hard you cried,” you teased, pinching his nipple for good measure.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

Feeling him about to pull out, you reached for his waist and held him there, joking, “I will remember this, forever and ever, and I will bring it up every time you get on my nerves.”

“You’re the worst.” He sobered, leaning in close. “And you’re the best I've ever had.”

You smiled as he kissed you, sealing his words on your lips. Then you giggled as his mouth traveled over your chest, sucking on a nipple. Your buds were still stiff and Jeno couldn’t resist.

“I see how easy it is to get addicted,” you said when Jeno got up to discard the condom. “That shit is intense.”

“Told you.”

Sitting up, you ran your hands through your messy hair. You could only imagine how you looked; makeup smeared, glistening with sweat. “You know you have to stop,” you told him, making your voice gentle.

Jeno afforded you no looks. “Eventually.”

You were too tired to argue, sore and spent in the best ways. When Jeno returned to the couch, you welcomed him with open arms, pulling him close and steering him to lay his head on your naked chest. You stroked your fingers through his hair and over his broad shoulders, and whispered, “I’ll never let you die, Jeno.”

He stayed quiet.

“You’re not allowed to leave me.”

“Stalker.”

You snorted back a laugh. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Jeno lifted his head and nuzzled your cheek, teasing, “I just think it’s cute how obsessed you are with me.”

You kept touching him. His skin was just so hot beneath your fingertips, like caressing an open flame. “Are you really okay with dying?” you asked after a moment.

Jeno shrugged. “It’s unavoidable. I don’t see the point in sweating over it.” As he spoke, Jeno kissed at your neck slowly, curious if he could get you riled up again.

Your lashes fluttered and you shifted underneath him. Though he left you more than satisfied, the longer he kissed over your pulse and palmed your breasts, the quicker the ache in your core came back, ready to be filled up again.

Jeno reached down to cup your sex, running his finger over your swollen clit and swearing under his breath when he felt your soaked entrance, thinking how easily he could slide right back in and make you feel good. Both of you.

“If you died,” you stammered, struggling to form words as he touched you. “I don’t think I would ever smile again.”

Jeno was caught off-guard. He stopped pawing at you to look in your eyes, wondering if you realized just how heavy a thing that was to say. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” he told you innocently, kissing the corner of your mouth with affection.

It was the first time you’d seen him so serious. Not hiding behind his usual humor.

Jeno was surprised when you pushed him away and reached for your pants on the floor. He watched curiously as you rifled through your pocket and withdrew a balled-up piece of paper and handed it to him.

“For the memoir?”

You nodded, watching him unfurl the page, your heart thumping harshly in your chest. “Yeah, I’m constantly jotting stuff down.”

Jeno’s eyes drifted over your words.

I can’t stand him. He infuriates me. He makes me crazy. But Jeno is the one person that knows me - the good and the bad, and accepts them both.

I love my boys, but he’s the one I don’t think I could ever live without.

Jeno peered at you with glassy eyes, shining with tears. “Damn it,” he groaned, crashing his lips on yours.

As expected, you made use of that second condom.

Jeno hooked your legs in the crooks of his arms and thrust languidly, staring down at you. Your eyes never parted as he gave you release once more, knowing when the summer was over, he would never get to touch you again.

When all was said and done, the two of you slumped into opposite sides of the sofa, soaked with sweat. Once you caught your breath and Jeno returned from tossing the condom, it was your turn to clamber on top of him, using his chest as your pillow. You rested your head on his shoulder and traced senseless patterns over his collarbone with your fingertips.

Jeno said your name. “I want you to be happy. That’s all I want, but I know I can’t give it to you. I tried.”

You closed your eyes. It would keep the tears at bay. “I know.”

“I feel sorry for you, loving all three of us. It can’t be easy.”

“It’s what I was made for,” you said softly, tightening your arms around him, lest he fly away from you and never return.

Jeno changed subjects before it broke him. “I’ve never felt so self-aware of how it feels to be young. And how it doesn’t last long.”

You nodded slightly. “This time is precious.”

“I wouldn’t say precious. Definitely fun though.”

You snickered, relieved to hear his humor coming back, but a somber feeling rushed over you. “Do you think we’ll ever get tired of it?”

“Of what?”

“The performing, the fucking, and… the drugs.”

Jeno paused. “You mean each other.”

You sighed tersely. There was no hiding it from him.

My biggest fear was that my boys would hate me. That I would be a bitter reminder of what could have been, how close we were to our dreams before crash landing back on earth, broken and bruised forever from the fall.

Jeno brushed his fingers up and down your back, and kissed the top of your head. “I don’t think we’ll resent each other if this fails, babe,” he said in a low voice. Some things just aren’t meant to be, he thought sadly. Like you and me.

“If that happened, I think I would die,” you whimpered, burrowing your face in his chest.

“Don’t talk like that,” Jeno said, running his hand mischievously over your thigh. “But stop being so afraid of death. You’ll waste your life running from something that is going to catch you no matter what.”

You tipped your head back to kiss him. “I just know the devil dreads meeting us. We’ll steal his throne.”

Jeno kissed you back hotly. “Hell yeah. I can’t wait to fuck you on it.”

You laughed.

Hard to steal something that already belongs to you, Jeno.

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thecaffeinatedfangirl · 2 years ago

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blocking empty blogs.

hey, there! this is to inform everyone that i will be blocking empty accounts (no pfp/no posts/no reblogs) from my followers list from december 11 onwards. i’m making an announcement ahead of time because if you’re a real person and not a bot behind those empty accounts, please do what you’re generally expected to do here on tumblr— start reblogging.

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thecaffeinatedfangirl · 2 years ago

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This series is so, so, so good! Can't wait for the next part. That metaphor of the chess game was so subtly and brilliantly done! And the characters have so many layers that I can't wait to see unraveled. ❤️ @lucyandthepen

a lesson on style - vi . [ ljn | njm ]

pt. i, pt. ii, pt. iii, pt. iv., pt. v, pt. vi

you’ve always been content with being associated with one word and one word only: average. average in looks, academics and social skills, you’re just looking to graduate high school without causing disasters you’ll have to live with until you kick the bucket. when you’re paired with school king lee jeno for the semester-long physics thesis, you can’t help but think the entire situation has pretty much set itself up for failure. that is, until you strike a deal with your partner.

alternatively: an au tale involving lessons in popularity, eleven consecutive B minuses, a secretly sensitive, chess-loving jock, and an amateur sex tape.

pairing: jeno x fem!reader, jaemin x fem!reader verse: high school au { jocks!nomin ft. a super cute whiny ap physics genius renjun } rating: M chapter warnings: none word count: 8.1k

author’s note: this was actually supposed to go on for a lot longer but... it might've reached a solid 13-15k and i just thought it would be better to split it into half-ish, so nothing major happens, although i definitely enjoyed yet another mc/jaemin real talk session that i also hope you enjoy! :^)

tagging: @justalildumpling, @spiderrenjunfics (no longer available, please give me your new url if you're still interested!)

You think now is as good a time as any for you to say something that’ll easily impact the trajectory of your life forever; after all, Jeno’s essentially given you the floor after such a strange and honestly shocking turn of events. You’re aware of the fact that his thumb is still traveling across your cheek, more idle as an action than anything else, but you seem to be experiencing the feeling as something closer to an out-of-body experience than an actual first-hand one; the tingles they send to your heart are weird and blurry, like your body can’t process his touch well enough to understand it fully. You suppose it’s because of your confusion at what he’s saying, which leads to your second option: asking him what he means.

There’s little to interpret at face value, but what his words do is essentially unlock a torrent of other weird questions in your head. For instance: how long had he known that you liked him? Had he known this entire time? Did something you did make it painfully obvious? If he wants you to like him — and, as he says, only him — does that mean he’s essentially accepting your feelings? Does this mean… he likes you back?

You assume this is one of those moments where, because your mind is going a million miles a minute, a lot of time feels like it’s passed even though it’s just been a small handful of seconds. This assumption is quickly broken by Jeno’s expression of concern.

“_______________? Say… something.”

“Um,” you start before you can even figure out what you want to say. The easiest answer comes to mind: It’s always only been you. But that’s weird, and this isn’t a 90’s Western movie, and if it were, you certainly wouldn’t be the eloquent main romance interest, even if Jeno’s gaze could easily fool you into thinking that. You think about making a joke, but you’re befuddled and also fresh from tears that — if Jeno’s abrupt story is actually true — were totally useless and unfounded in nature.

Also, you’re really not that funny to begin with.

“I just…” you try again, and his eyebrows raise slightly in anticipation for your next words. Nothing else comes out after a few seconds, though, and he realizes this is just another false start, his hand falling onto your shoulder (maybe he’s tired of trying to coax it out of you with the thumb-on-cheek method, which admittedly had you clamping up more than anything else).

“You can just tell me how you really f—”

“I think I have to go.”

No. No. Why would you say that? The surprise on his face quickly morphs into something that looks almost crestfallen, an expression you’d never imagine seeing on bright, confident Lee Jeno, let alone ever be the cause of. His hand slips from your shoulder quickly, like he’s now worried touching you will electrocute him.

“Oh. I’m sorry — I didn’t… mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m… I’m not.” You’re not, are you? “Maybe a little, but it isn’t really you —”

“Something I said, then—?”

“No, I…” Your fingernail digs into the pad of your thumb, with you trying to use the sting of the pain to jolt you out of this nervous, inarticulate state. “I just don’t think… I have anything of value to say right now.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because…” Grappling for words is like trying to break through the surface of water; you’re almost there, but somehow you’re still floundering, and that only seems to be making it much worse. “Because I never really thought about what I’d do… if you really found out I liked you.”

When you say it, it suddenly makes sense. For some reason, you’d always lived your life shuttling between point A (liking Jeno quietly in the comfort of your own mind palace) and point Z (fantasizing about your life with him where you live in a quaint townhouse with a cute mailbox and three kids), but you’d never really given much thought to all the points in between, especially not one that contains a scenario in which he’d find out and seemingly be okay with it, which, based on the current conversation, somehow seems like a reasonable thing to assume about him.

You’ve always wanted it — him knowing, him accepting it, maybe even him liking you back — but it kind of felt like, deep down, you hadn’t really believed it would ever happen.

And you were kind of content with that, because you wouldn’t ever really have to deal with the complications of it. Right now, you’re feeling unprepared and a little exposed, weirdly vulnerable to his gaze. It once again, for the hundredth time tonight, it seems, triggers some kind of flight instinct in you that has you looking anywhere but at him all of a sudden.

“You can think about it… now,” he suggests carefully. Being put on the spot doesn’t really ever bring out the best in you — a fact that might be known to people who were actually paying attention to your failed impromptu speech about whale hunting in your sixth grade English class — so you just pretend that the silhouette of Jaemin’s front yard tree is supremely interesting to you all of a sudden, never mind the fact that it’s about a few inches from Jeno’s ear from your vantage point. You don’t really want to see his expression right now, especially if that means it’ll only fluster you back into speechlessness.

“I don’t really know if I can,” you admit. From your peripheral vision, you see what seems like a flash of discomfort pass across Jeno’s face; you’re sure you just imagined it, considering you’ve never imagined cool, aloof, king of your heart Lee Jeno as exuding anything other than utmost confidence. Still, his next words do make you question that notion twice over.

“Did I… misunderstand something? Is it that you don’t have feelings for me?”

“No, I… you know. I… yeah, I do, but I just —”

“You’re seeing someone else?”

“No,” you say more fiercely, and for a brief moment, you’re so appalled at the thought that your eyes flicker to his, which ends up being a terrible mistake because the confusion in his gaze is so profound that the guilt in you swells tenfold.

“Because I thought… maybe the reason Renjun and you —”

“He’s — honest to God — he’s just my friend.”

“And Jaemin is…?”

“My… next door neighbor?” You blink rapidly at the lights still coming from his house, wondering now what Jaemin has to do with all of this in the first place. For someone who seems like he would be extremely uninvolved in this general progress of events, he seems to crop up time and again, weirdly always around when you need someone. Maybe it’s a neighbor thing, or maybe he’s a little nosier than you thought. But thinking about another element in this situation is starting to give you a headache, and you’re way past the time you’re usually already in bed avoiding homework and watching shitty dating reality shows instead. “I don’t really understand what he has to do with this either. I just don’t think I’m prepared to have this conversation at all.”

“But you like me, don’t you?”

It’s weird, actually, now that you think about it — why does he have to confirm the fact time and time again? It’s almost like he’s worried, although you can’t imagine why he would be. More than anything, you’d kind of assumed that he would find that information pretty repellent, but with the way he’s asking in earnest, it almost seems like he wants to keep the knowledge of that like a talisman.

“I do,” you admit, mostly because it’s out in the open, but also partially because you’ve made the mistake of looking at him again, and you start wondering how he could even wonder when everyone seems to like him (you, perhaps, to a somewhat unhealthy degree).

“More than them?”

“I—” Your brow furrows, another wave of confusion washing over you. But his eyes are much too honest in their questioning, and you speak before anything else can come to mind. “More than anyone, Jeno.”

What looks oddly like relief settles on his face, and you notice only then that his shoulders have been tensed up because he seems to relax them all of a sudden. “Oh. Good. Great. So listen, now that we’re on the same page, I—”

Jeno’s interrupted by one of the guys in a university sweater calling out to him from across the two lawns, voice booming to a degree that sets off a few annoyed dogs in your area. Jeno raises a hand to signal him to wait, his mouth still open on whatever words he wanted to complete his sentence with, but the sounds he was trying to make quickly die into silence anyway, drowned out by a huge crash inside Jaemin’s house.

You’re not entirely certain of what he wants to say — on the bright side, he could have been ramping up to a point that could easily make all your dreams from middle school to now a perfect reality, but he also could have been setting you up for some kind of grand, embarrassing failure — not by his design or by malice but just by the pointing out of the fact that you two lead different lives and things would likely never work out, anyway, but it’d be cool that you liked him in your own time, and he’d allow it as long as you didn’t get drool all over his notebook in class.

Either way, you don’t think now, with a bunch of inebriated college people shouting profanities on Jaemin’s lawn and a gaggle of high school kids panicking about what sounds to be a broken table and a whole bunch of pizza on the floor, is the best time to be processing those things.

“I actually,” Jeno turns his gaze to you again, strangely alert, like you’d just whistled for a dog’s attention. You’ve never seen him like this, and it’s weird to think that, at this awkward moment, you can still find him painfully endearing. You have to shake yourself out of the grip of the already beckoning force that tells you to sigh dreamily about how adorable he is. “Think I should really be heading inside. Looks like they also need you for some kind of damage control, anyway.”

The same college kid calls for Jeno again, dragging out the vowels of his name kind of annoyingly. Jeno sighs, nodding slowly enough for you to know he’s caught on — this probably isn’t the right time to have such a weirdly heavy conversation.

“Yeah. I probably need to help clean up, anyway. No one’s going to want to do it, and Jaemin’s already chewed me out for bailing on mop duty a few times.”

“Why’d you bail?”

“Just… got busy, personally.” He looks sheepish, and it doesn’t take a bunch of lightbulbs going off for you to cotton on as well. Now, you’re just wishing you hadn’t asked, so you didn’t ever have to imagine it. Still, what’s done is done. You have to focus on keeping the discomfort out of your face this time. “Um… that’s not important, though. Anyway —I’ll talk to you soon, okay, ________________? Like… maybe we can catch up at school? You know, talk about our thing — the project, I mean — and like… et cetera?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Your smile’s weak, and so is your joke, but you should at least try to hold up casual pretenses as much as he does, even though he’s obviously much better at it. “I’ll tell on you to Hwang if you don’t, you know.”

His laugh is soft, but it at least sounds genuine; his smile still reaches his eyes, which already makes your heart feel a little lighter. But instead of trekking off immediately, he lingers, strangely, until his grin winnows down into just the ghost of a smile on his lips. Even weirder are his hands, slightly outstretched towards your waist, like he’s trying to cross the gap between you (even if it’s admittedly very minimal) but suddenly decides not to. The result is him looking strangely stiff and uncharacteristically hesitant, but you chalk it up to him simply not knowing how to end such a weirdly situated conversation. You know you’d have an even worse time doing it if it were up to you, so you can’t really blame him.

In the end, he closes the dialogue with ‘see you around, ________________,’ and a quick pat on the shoulder, which, if you think about it, seems a little disappointingly different from when he’d had his hand against your cheek a few minutes ago. Then again, you’re not sure you could handle something like that again, anyway.

You watch him walk off back towards Jaemin’s house, and some pitiful, pathetic part of you is expecting him to look back, say one last goodbye to you, or something, but the university guy that had belted his name out so vigilantly just swings an arm around Jeno’s neck and drags him to a corner where a bunch of other similarly dressed people, to whom Jeno starts talking to almost immediately.

Cutting this conversation short was probably for the best, anyway; you have no idea what he would have said, but you’re very sure you wouldn’t have been prepared for it either way. You trudge into your house and up into your room, already mentally prepared to spend the rest of the night obsessively mulling over what it all meant and what he had really been planning to say at the end. The process starts some time in the shower, while you’re shampooing your hair and you embarrassingly remember the feeling of Jeno’s hand tangled in it. The moony expression that the thought of it leaves on your face is present up until you see how stupid it looks in the fogged up bathroom mirror.

Renjun still hasn’t texted you, which is honestly starting to be a source of mild anxiety because you can’t be sure if he’s dead in a ditch somewhere or just ignoring you for some unknown reason. Whatever it is, you leave like three messages wondering where he’s at and asking him to call you. You’re on your fourth message, which is asking to confirm about tomorrow’s movie (something you’d almost forgotten about save for the fact that you’d remembered this would be a point of argument for you both once again if you spaced on it) when a notification pops up that once again gives you a heart attack.

Lee Jeno: u looked pretty tonight, btw :)

You: oh!! thank you…!

You: you looked great tonight too…! :)

Lee Jeno: haha… cute :)

Lee Jeno: goodnight, ____________ :)

This is the most emojis you’ve ever seen used in a single brief conversation, and you can’t help but feel like it might be a little juvenile, but it doesn’t even matter because Lee freaking Jeno called you pretty and cute in the span of five minutes. Your thumbs are shaking as you type back a typo-laden goodnight that takes you a full other minute just to edit before waiting a little more, but nothing else comes. Maybe he’s driving home, or something. You toss your phone onto your bed, away from easy reach, before you can start overthinking what this silence means again.

Your reflection in your window mirrors the same scene you’d encountered in the bathroom: you, hair bundled up in a wet towel, bare-faced with a stupid grin across it. You’re so caught up in the act of reeling from Jeno’s three texts that you belatedly notice a square of light beyond your bedroom window. You almost duck out of sight when you see a shadow there, thinking about crying bloody murder, until you realize it’s Jaemin, who’s watching the ridiculous expression on your face with a curious gaze from a distance. He’s still in the same clothes he’d worn to the party, but you can see, even from this far away, that there’s this dark patch on it that looks suspiciously close to the way your shirt had on the day his coke had emptied itself out on your back. That must’ve been from the crash earlier, you deduce.

You think he’s just zoning out facing in your direction, and you find there’s no need to meet his gaze, but there’s still something a little unsettling about having someone spacing out in your general direction, so you reach up to pull your blinds down. Your hand almost reaches the string, but Jaemin’s hand suddenly starts going up too, like it’s trying to follow you, and you freeze in your movements. His keeps going, though, up until it’s close to his face, and suddenly, he’s moving it side to side, in some weird regular pattern.

He’s waving, your tired, overworked brain tells you belatedly. The string of your blinds tickles the tip of your fingers.

Unsure and a little self-conscious, you wave back, hoping he doesn’t notice that you were about two strong pulls away from drawing yourself out of sight. This is clearly the right response, because even from this distance, you can see the brilliant white of his teeth as he smiles, fully and unabashedly, at you.

The first thing you do when you wake up the following morning is check your phone. You’re not even really sure what you’re looking for — maybe a text from Jeno, who, if you think about it now, probably has nothing to say in response to your boring ‘goodnight’ anyway (but you can still dream), or maybe a missed call or two from Renjun, who should at least be offering you some explanation as to why he was completely out of sight after parting ways with you and Mark Lee last night.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing on your screen, apart from the stupid 번장 notification that tells you the pocket punch board you’ve been wanting for no good reason has been discounted by the seller to a price you still can’t reasonably afford anyway.

You certainly can’t do anything about Jeno’s lack of contact, and to be completely honest with yourself, you’re not even really that sure if you want to. Something about yesterday’s conversation, while not exactly a train wreck, makes you very nervous to have a full conversation with him, and you’d much rather it stick to very basic, kindergarten-level things, like ‘you look cute’ and ‘haha’ and ‘:)’, but since that isn’t completely in your control, you decide you simply don’t want to do anything about it.

Renjun, however, is a completely different matter. You don’t understand why he’s ignoring you if he is, considering you had spent the better part of the night (at least, the parts during which you weren’t crying on your lawn) looking for him, so this silence, if deliberate, doesn’t seem fair or even reasonable. You decide that it’s much too early to be getting an earful from you in the end, so you just send a very emphatic ‘WRU?????????????????’ through both text message, KakaoTalk, and Facebook Messenger to him, hoping the repetition of both sentiment and punctuation mark through multiple platforms is enough to faux-yell to him what you’d otherwise be real-yelling to him over the line. You can’t tell if it gives you any sense of comfort to see he hasn’t been online and active for the last 15 hours.

All the tossing and turning of last night, courtesy of the endless loop replay of “I want you to like me — just me” Lee Jeno edition, had consequently left you worse for wear; you’d gotten up at the rising of the sun (something you’d sworn never to do during the weekend) and had opted to just stay in bed for another hour, trying so hard to get over the feeling of his fingers against your skin that you end up committing it to long-term memory. The sunlight peeking through your blinds is what gets you to throw off your covers and admit defeat to the fact that sleep would never come back at this rate, and you decide to just head down, rubbing the lethargy out of your eyes before you make a poor man’s breakfast. You’re halfway through the jelly slice of your sandwich when your sister comes through the doorway, yawning loud to announce her presence.

“G’morning, bedhead baby,” she greets, and you use the non-knife-holding hand you have free to rake through your hair. “Big rager last night, huh?”

“Yeah — wait, how’d you know?”

“We live a door down from Jaemin oppa’s house? Na Jaemin? Our next door neighbor and his whole family? We can see out the window into his lawn? Sometimes we get our sidewalk trash cans mixed up with theirs? Hello?” Sooyeon smirks, albeit a little sluggishly, as you wave her grating words away. “I saw you out there with him, you know.”

“With who? Where? Who?” You demand, your jelly-laden knife freezing in mid-air, the grape blobs slipping dangerously off the edge onto the middle of your bread.

“You. And Jaemin oppa,” she says each syllable slowly. “In front of our house.”

“Oh.”

“So usually how these conversations go is: I bring up a juicy piece of information pertaining to you, and because you experienced it first hand, you have to then expound on the piece of information, thereby making it juicier. ‘Oh’ doesn’t cut it. Not by a long shot.”

“There’s not much to tell.” You wonder, briefly, if you’re now obligated to bring up the Jeno aspect of the night — which, for all intents and purposes, honestly felt like more of a big deal than anything else — but you quickly decide against it, chickening out when she approaches you at the counter and starts unscrewing the lid of the peanut butter jar. That might be giving too much away, considering she didn’t even seem to notice that you’d been bawling when you’d crossed the property line. “He just walked me back here.”

“Oh, yeah, because that’s what people who live next to each other in a not-so-close-knit community do: walk each other two steps home, to keep the baddies away.”

“He’s just a naturally nice person, I think. Most people are, aren’t they?”

“I thought you guys were close. Didn’t he give you his varsity jacket? That sounds like a closeness thing.” She knots her index and middle finger together, and you slap it away.

“We’re close only in the same way as you are.” When she gives you a quizzical look, you sigh. “Proximity-wise.”

“Still doesn’t explain why he was out there, caressing your hair lovingly.”

You freeze, as opposed to Sooyeon’s comically relaxed posture as she scrapes the peanut butter across your other slice of bread. “He… was not. Caressing me. My hair. Lovingly.”

“I have eyes for the sake of seeing.”

“There was just something in it. In my hair. A leaf.”

You’re not sure why you lie; the largest part of the reason is that you don’t want to have to go into the horrifyingly awkward details of your emotional state last night, but there’s something oddly nagging at you that you can’t quite place. It takes a minute of staring at your sister spreading the peanut butter evenly across the bread and humming to herself while closing the sandwich up that you realize that you don’t want her getting the wrong impression about anything.

Which is weird, because there’s nothing to misunderstand.

Jaemin, albeit the fact that he’s been chattier to you as of late, more so than any other time in your life, is still just your neighbor. Maybe he’s graduated from being your sort-of acquaintance to something that vaguely resembles an arm-distance-ish friend, but the notion that you’re anything closer than that makes you feel a bit strange — almost like it… scares you, which is extra weird to think about, because there’s actually nothing inherently harmful about being casual buddies with some guy who lives close enough to wave at you from his window.

Maybe it’s because it’s Jaemin, and that’s what might be tripping you up the most. He’s not just Jeno’s friend; he’s practically some kind of counterpart to him, and it feels weirdly like a line you can’t cross. Or maybe it’s because… Jeno had asked you about him last night, which had made you feel even stranger. Like he’d been worried about something — like Jaemin was a no-go zone for him, specifically.

As you dully watch your sister take a bite off of your breakfast, it dawns on you: maybe you just don’t want people to think you like anyone other than Jeno.

“Okay, well, you know better than I do,” she singsongs in a tone that tells you that you actually don’t. Sooyeon doesn’t press, but she also doesn’t make you feel like the conversation is over — even if she trills I’m going back up; thanks for the sandwich in that same voice before leaving you alone in the kitchen with half of it on the plate.

Because the truth is that you don’t really know; you don’t know what’s so unsettling about being associated with Jaemin. Your sister’s not aware of the intricate ins and outs of your (delusional) relationship with Jeno, apart from your (apparently evident to everyone) crush on him, but you also know she’s not really deeply invested in where your heart lies; all she does is make conversation, as is her personality, as a form of bonding you’ve never really quite been able to navigate well.

You just don’t get why the mention of Jaemin, now, makes you feel… something. What that is, you’d rather not dwell on. So you just won’t.

You’re walking out of the kitchen, cheeks filled with peanut butter and jelly, when you see block letters on cloth, spelling out a familiar last name: Na.

You still haven’t given back Jaemin’s stupid jacket.

Today is the day, you decide. This seems to have started the whole conversation to begin with: the jacket that somehow brought Jaemin two steps closer into your life, the article of clothing that had opened the door to what shouldn’t even be a talking point between you and anyone else.

This should be the proverbial swan song for this whole topic; you snatch up his jacket (and immediately regret doing so in such a brutish manner, noticing you’ve got a few specks of breadcrumbs on the lettering) and head out of your house, your bedroom slippers absorbing morning dew as you march yourself over to your neighbor’s. You should’ve done this earlier, really; there was no reason for you to hold on to it.

Honestly, you’d just forgotten, given that you were more preoccupied with things that started with L and ended with ee Jeno, but you’d rather not extend any more misunderstandings.

And even if Jeno isn’t here to see this grand closing gesture, maybe, just maybe, this will help you stop feeling so cagey about everything he’d asked last night.

I want you to like me — just me.

Because why would he even think you liked Jaemin at all? Or make it sound like he thought you did? Ridiculous. Unfounded. Kind of alarming.

There’s noise in the air the closer you get to the Na household porch; it sounds a bit muffled, like it’s fighting the breeze, but you realize thereafter that it’s music coming from a tiny speaker sitting on the hand railing. It’s playing Dongbangshinki’s Here I Am, and something about that song stirs your stomach into swooping ten miles down as you approach.

Your initial plan was to ring the doorbell and pray that Jaemin was still knocked out cold on a Saturday morning so you could pass the jacket off to one of his parents and be done with it, but you’ve no such luck; it seems like he’s an early riser, considering how he’s seated right there, on a wicker chair by his door, hunched over a half-played chess board. There’s no one across him to block his view of you coming up the steps, and he looks up the moment he hears the creaks of the wood under your feet.

“Hey, ______________,” he doesn’t look surprised; in fact, he looks a bit relieved, for some inexplicable reason. “Didn’t think you’d be up so early.”

“Could say the same for you.” You have no idea what causes heat to flush across your cheeks; has Na Jaemin’s gaze always been this intense? “Um. Good morning?”

“Morning.” His laugh is an easy one; it always has been, and it kind of suits him, you note, before you realize how weird it is to think that. “What’ve you got there? Gift for me?”

“Wha — oh, yeah, I mean — no, but it is for you.” You hold up his jacket, hooked on your forefinger, to reveal it to him. “Sorry it took so long to give it back.”

This time, he actually looks a bit taken aback. “Did you stop needing it?”

“Um… I haven’t really used it, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh. Well, there wasn’t any rush. You could’ve kept it for as long as you needed. No pressure, or anything. I’ve got others.”

“You don’t need it at practice, or anything like that?”

“No; most guys don’t even keep theirs. They give them away, for… you know. So it’s no big deal.”

You fall silent; for some reason, his tone makes it seem like he wants you to keep it, which is just preposterous. You instead hang the jacket onto the back of the wicker chair opposite him and step back, like you’ve just set up a land mine you’re afraid of detonating.

“Well, thank you all the same. I really… appreciate your help. That day. You know.” You’re not sure why you can’t form any sentences long enough to signify you do actually belong in the same year level as him, but he at least doesn’t comment on your ineloquence.

Instead, he just stares for a bit, at the jacket and your retreating hand, before piping up over his music.

“You wanna play a round?”

“What? Oh, I’m…” You wave your hands aimlessly. “I’m not good at chess. Actually, I barely know the rules. Plus, you seem kind of busy playing against… your imaginary friend?”

He chuckles again. “Just playing myself.”

“Trying to outfox the old fox?”

“Sometimes it helps to know how you’d get out of a sticky situation you made by your own doing. Helps you see what your opponent sees when it all boils down to it.” He gestures again at the chair across him. “Humor me a little. It’s not as fun just talking to yourself.”

You hesitate for a second; you came here to return the jacket, and that much was done easily, albeit a little more awkwardly than you ever wanted to. Jaemin’s aura is laid back and friendly, but you’re not sure why you’re teetering on the edge of panic again. Jeno’s words seem to be echoing in your head.

And Jaemin is…?

Jaemin is your next-door neighbor, it’s true, but you can’t say that’s really your only point of connection; if it were, he wouldn’t be expectantly waiting for you to take the seat across from him. And when you look at his hand now, idle against the chessboard, you can’t say you aren’t thinking of the way it patted your hair soothingly the night before. All that does is make you wonder the exact same thing Jeno asked you.

What is Jaemin to you? A friend, perhaps, and definitely a nice person — nice enough to help you out, keep you company during a few low points. He’s a person willing to listen to you, funny enough to lift your spirits, and genial enough to not break your fingers for returning his things way too late (a low bar, but a good one nonetheless). Na Jaemin is a good individual, with pretty good music taste (based on the fact that his playlist, trudging on next to him, is now playing H.O.T.’s Happiness), and a good disposition about him that seems to make no small amount of people gravitate towards him.

But you don’t really want to dwell on what Jaemin is to you; more than that, you can only really be reminded of what he isn’t.

He isn’t Jeno.

And Jeno knows you like him; he’s not only noticed it but confirmed it multiple times in a single conversation. Surely, then, nothing else should matter to him — or, for that matter, to you.

You swallow down the refusal and nod, trying not to read into the fact that Jaemin’s face lights up when you pull the chair back and settle down on it.

“So let me get this straight; you don’t know how to play chess?”

“I know a couple of pieces go in weird directions,” you admit. “That’s about it.”

“Perfect.” His long fingers drum against the wood of the table. “I’m going to whip you into competitive chess-playing shape, my young pupil.”

What starts off as a casual, humor-filled lesson on the roles of each chess piece suddenly becomes an actual lecture; you’re not sure if Jaemin is getting a kick out of instructing a rookie like you on the different plays — which are infinite, a fact he’s drilled into you several times — or if he’s really just enthusiastic about the game (no, sorry, sport, since he’s chastised you about three times on this terminology already), but whatever the reason is, you have chess pounded into your brain for the better part of an hour. By the time he asks you to actually start playing against him, the sun’s fully up in the air and you’ve had to tie your hair up to keep it from sticking to your neck.

“I’m glad you got home safe last night,” he hums, pushing his black pawn to meet yours in the middle of the board. The Italian Game, he called it — not to be confused with serenading someone over pasta, a different kind of Italian game. That had gotten a long laugh out of you. Your hands flit over the white pieces, unsure of your memory. You only respond when you’ve moved your bishop to the same row.

“Well, it was a very long and tumultuous journey, but I managed, with some help.”

His knight comes out next, smoothly and quickly; you pause, rubbing the back of your neck. Surely, there was something else he’d taught you?

“What a chivalrous, ah, knight, that person must’ve been.” He raps a knuckle onto the table, starting you out of the act of racking your brain. “Perfect joke. Well-timed. Excellent chess pun. I think I deserve an award.”

“Does whooping my ass two moves into the game count as a prize?”

“I don’t want to rob you of the feeling of hope this early in the match. Take your time,” he chuckles, leaning back against the throw cushion behind him. He fiddles with the speaker, and the songs skip one by one, until he lands on a song you don’t know — some Japanese track that sounds suspiciously like an animation opening. It’s lively and admittedly a bit loud, and Jaemin hums to the guitar riffs with surprising accuracy. “Anything interesting happen when I left?”

You freeze for a moment, your fingers still hovering over your own knight in hesitation. You know what he’s asking, and for some reason, you’re tempted to tell him — then you remember that it actually isn’t really his business, and you don’t want to embarrass yourself.

“Not really.” You feign casual disinterest as you move your knight above your pawn line; from here on out, you have no clue what to do. Jaemin, on the other hand, is so sure-footed about his own skills (which are infinitely more advanced than yours) that he doesn’t even take his eyes off you to look at the board as he moves his next piece. You’re stuck thinking about what to do again — in the game, that is. Not about his gaze, which you try to avoid. “Just, you know. Talked with Jeno for a bit. Nothing major.”

Nothing major to him, you remind yourself. To you, your entire world had just been flipped over onto its belly.

Jaemin hums again, this time in understanding, but you notice (from your very surreptitious glances of him) that this time, it seems like he’s choosing what to do. You think it’s for the game, but when he counteracts your own (poorly planned) move with a swift response from his own pieces, you get the odd feeling he’s trying to choose his words carefully.

“Was it a conversation where you all got along?”

You hadn’t argued, but you’d never really thought about the whole stint long enough to classify it as good or bad. You supposed it wasn’t anything horrible in the end, although the fact that it had robbed you of precious hours of sleep wasn’t exactly the best outcome. But Jaemin’s not watching your expression now; he’s intently looking at the board, even if he’s not the one about to make the next move.

You get the feeling he’s suddenly avoiding eye contact too, which is weird, because he’s never been one to shy away from looking you straight in the eye. For some reason, that makes you feel like he doesn’t want to hear an answer.

“It was fine. Nothing… bad happened.” You know that’s true, but somehow you feel like it’s still not truth. “He explained… stuff. Who she was. Why it happened. Totally understandable stuff, I think.”

You choose not to mention anything apart from that — that he’d asked you to like him, nor that he’d asked you about your relationship with Jaemin. More than deciding it wasn’t going to be anything contributive to the conversation at hand, you also just didn’t want to.

Jaemin stays silent for a while; he moves his piece, then taps his queen — for some reason, he’s letting you know something about his next move. What it is, you haven’t puzzled out; it’s not like you know which direction he’d be taking, and even if you did, you’d surely not know how to respond to it, anyway. You guess he’s just throwing you a bone, but why he would, you also just don’t see the reason for.

You’re pushing your pawn hesitantly diagonal to capture one of his when he speaks up again.

“Did he tell you how it ended? With the two of them, I mean.”

He says it so calmly, capturing your bishop with his queen in the process, that you feel like you’re just talking about the weather and who won yesterday’s league basketball match. You shift uncomfortably in your seat, clearing your throat, but you only actually manage to shake your head.

“She cheated on him. Some college guy that she met during her orientation; you know she’s older than him, right? He’s never dated seriously since then. I think he was really hung up on her for a while — until recently, that is. I think. He hasn’t been that close to many girls.”

“That’s… that’s awful.” You’re not sure why Jaemin’s telling you this; it honestly feels illegal to know. “I didn’t think… anyone would. Cheat on him, I mean.”

“Even good-looking bastards like him can have rotten luck.” Jaemin’s smile borders on wry. “I don’t know why she showed up, honestly. Word probably got around… but she probably just wanted to know what would happen if she stirred something up with him one last time. He likely didn’t see it coming.”

You stare at the board, unsure of what to say. It makes sense, but something doesn’t really sit right with you either — why Jeno would let her come close to him at all, let alone allow her to completely eliminate the distance between his mouth and hers for longer than a second. Even thinking about it makes you want to throw up all over again.

“But deep down, I don’t know if Jeno completely got over her.” Jaemin continues, snapping you out of your short trance. “For a while after, they kept in touch. I think they even tried to work it out, but… obviously, it wasn’t easy. Until now… I’m not really sure.”

“Why,” you swallow hard. “Why… are you… why should I…”

“It’s not easy to be a player when you don’t know much about the game, is it?” He’s still staring at the board, but you get the sense that he isn’t just talking about chess. “Like I said, Jeno’s a pretty complicated guy. It’s not really my place to say anything, but…” Jaemin’s eyes flit upward for a second, and he offers you a small, almost pitying smile. “I think you need to know anyway.”

“But it has nothing to do with me. His life… I mean, his ex, and stuff.”

“I’m not too sure about that. If you like him that much… doesn’t that just mean you want to be part of his life?” He topples a pawn of yours, but you barely register the clattering noise or the fact that he drags it unceremoniously off the board. “I think you should at least know what you’re getting into. Jeno hasn’t liked someone seriously for a while, but you seem… to be the opposite. How much do you actually know about what he’s like?”

You don’t know why that kind of hurts your feelings; maybe it’s just because you have to face some kind of truth about how you don’t know much about Jeno’s private life, as badly as you want to. You even have to hear about it from someone else — someone easily kicking your ass in a dumb chess match.

“I think everyone has baggage,” you say slowly, pushing your rook forward. You realize it’s trapped behind two different pawns, so you’ve essentially backed the piece into its own corner. Jaemin doesn’t seem to care; he’s too busy executing what clearly is a ten-stage strategic win on the other side of the board. You don’t really care.

“That’s true,” he concedes, toppling your knight. “But some more than others, I think.”

“If he wanted me to know, he would’ve told me, right? Yesterday, I mean.”

“That’s may also be true, although I can’t say that with absolute certainty.” He looks thoughtful, and the pause gives you a bit of reprieve — enough to make a bad move that you instantly regret the moment you put your one remaining bishop on a square. Something like amusement flickers across Jaemin’s face, but he doesn’t make a move immediately. “Do you know what makes chess such a great game? In my opinion, anyway.”

“No?” The uncertainty in your voice is from a lack of understanding at the sudden shift in topic.

“Whenever you play someone, you get to see what they’re like — what their priorities are, you know?” His finger lands on a rook, inching it back and forth with idle intent. “You see how their mind works, what they’re like when they’re winning or losing, and what they think of you. Check, by the way.”

You’re silent as his rook captures your bishop, and he picks your fallen piece up and sets it aside with his growing pile of white.

“I’ve actually asked Jeno to play with me a few times, just for the fun of it. Sore loser,” he laughs lightly, one hand reaching out to lower the volume of his music. You notice the opening bars of Winner’s Really Really come through moments before it’s toned down. “Doesn’t really know or care about the rules, but he really likes to win. That’s kind of what makes him the star player on the team, actually. He really hates being backed into a corner, but all that focus on winning kind of tunnels his vision sometimes. Leaves him open to some attacks from another angle. He really hates that — which is probably why we barely play chess together in the first place. Apart from the fact that he thinks it’s boring.”

You’re staring at your pieces, now very pitifully winnowed down in number, and you feel stuck. You’re not sure what to do, but you’re pretty sure any move is going to make you look dumb in front of Jaemin, who’s clearly a pro — so much so that he seems to know what you’re going to do before you even decide yourself.

“You know what I like about your playing style, though?” He interrupts your train of thought again. You look up from the board, bemused; you’ve just been struggling to humor him since your first move, and it obviously isn’t working, since he seems more invested in the conversation than in the game. “You’re just trying your best, even if you’re new at this — even if you think you’re going to lose.”

“I just don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten everything you just said,” you respond, smiling weakly.

“You can’t always predict what’s going to happen in a game, even if you know the pattern anyway. Isn’t that just natural about anything in life?”

“You seem to know, though,” you grumble, tugging on your ponytail. You throw in the only option you have left: pushing your queen in front of your king as a last line of defense. “You’re barely paying attention to the board.”

“It’s just constant practice — a lot of hard work on my part. I don’t mind the grind of it, if it gets me somewhere good in the end.”

“So is that the kind of player you are? Just… a hard worker?”

“Maybe. I like to look at things from every possible angle. I guess that’s why I like chess when most people find it a headache.” He picks up his queen, rolling it in his palm. “Although, I guess Jeno and I have one thing in common — as players, that is.”

“What’s that?”

“I also really hate to lose.”

His queen knocks over your own with a pitiful clatter, taking its place on the board. When he picks up your piece, instead of adding it to his knockout count, he offers it to you. You take it gingerly, opting to focus more on it than on the soft smile that’s now playing on Jaemin’s lips.

“Checkmate,” he announces lightly. “Good game, _____________. You’ve got the makings of a star player.”

“You’re patronizing me, aren’t you?” You sigh as the two of you start resetting the board; you have to watch Jaemin’s pieces get rearranged to position your own.

“Only a little bit. I see a lot of quiet drive in you.”

You place the last of your pawns in a neat row; the board looks like it hadn’t even been touched. “Jaemin, how did you and Jeno become this close? You seem… I don’t know.”

“Yeah, we’ve definitely got our unique quirks,” he chuckles softly. “But Jeno and I… we just go way back, I think. When you’re friends with someone from a young age, you tend to grow with them. He’s a good dude, really, even if our personalities are different, and it’s always a fun event so long as he’s around. Well — mostly. I’d say a good ninety-nine percent of the time.”

You pointedly ignore the sheepish smile he throws your way.

“You said before that you’re not the type to… you know, share your feelings, and all that. Then how do you… like what do you guys even talk about?”

“What do you and Renjun usually talk about?” Jaemin grins. “Anything and everything, really. Movies, games, why the jerk from Yongsan International gets on our nerves when he chews his gum. We just… have a tendency to be interested in the same things, no matter if our perspectives are different.”

While talking to Jaemin is fun, you can’t help but feel like he has a tendency to speak in riddles. You still don’t really see any strong similarities in their approaches to their interests, similar as they may be, but what do you know, anyway? It isn’t like you and Renjun are exactly peas in a pod on paper.

His eyes lose focus for a second, hitting somewhere behind your ear before they quickly turn back to you. You have no idea why this makes you feel a little put on the spot.

“Hey, you want to have brunch here? My mom makes a mean soybean paste stew.”

“Oh,” you press your hand against your stomach, wondering if the swooping feeling in it is from hunger or something unrelated. “No, I actually just ha—”

“_____________?”

You swivel around in the chair, and your heart stops; you're not the least bit prepared to see Lee Jeno standing at the foot of Jaemin’s porch steps, a quizzical look very clearly etched on his sharp features.

#Lucyandthepen

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