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baobaojng · 4 years

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when icarus falls (jung jaehyun) - act one

when icarus falls - act one, half time interval, act two

jung yoonoh (jaehyun) x reader - college athlete!au , crush!au

themes: angst, fluff

warnings: idk how to write timelines.

note: i accidentally deleted the first published version of this when I edited the text, but here’s the slightly different edited version i guess

summary: some tragic story of you sharing one class with your long time college crush jaehyun who never notices you until he accidentally reads your work and he gets curious— oh, and he uses lame excuses to get to talk to you.

wordcount: 13,342

If you were being very honest, Jung Jaehyun was all that. No exaggerations or extra praise; it was something that everybody knew.

Jaehyun was the poster-child for what every student athlete in college should be like: he had a full paid basketball scholarship that was offered to him in high school, myths say he was scouted as early as middle school but declined the offers more than twice (which meant that he was just that good.) To no surprise at all he was chosen as team captain during his sophomore year, and ever since, there was no basketball game ever lost. Now, it was fairly easy to assume that sports-heads like him flunked out of all their units and failed classes, but he didn’t. He took up an (extremely difficult) economics major and always kept his GPA high enough to be consistent on the Dean’s List. On occasion, the Dance club on campus would ask him to join some of their routines— and rarely, all the musical clubs would successfully get him to sing for formals. And the cherry on top of all that? He looked like he was personally sculpted by each of the gods, and don’t get fooled by that statement because he did get modeled by the art club once before.

So how was it that you took the same advanced Literature class? You didn’t know either, but you did share some of the same classes over the years. It’s just that you didn’t understand why he even took this class in particular; taking it up implied that your course probably really needed it, and by the looks of it he did not need this one at all.

It wasn’t like you were complaining at all though, Jung Jaehyun was - unsurprisingly - your (now) long time crush. He was a year older school-wise, but because you were a merit scholar that took up higher level units you tended to run in the same places and college just happened to work like that anyway. Except you just weren’t really the kind to try and be as boisterously popular as he was. Around college, you played safe: having a particularly small circle of friends and keeping to focusing on your academics; it was hard enough to get here and you thought that you had to work much harder to stay. It wasn’t like you hated mankind, you were willing to talk to people to say the least, but you wouldn’t go out your way to try so hard and aim to become popular. Life wasn’t particularly kind to you over all the years so you decided to stick to a routine and stay there until college was over. That seemed much much better in order for you to keep yourself in check and make sure you landed in good graces after you graduated. Stability was the goal, after all.

The only real form of indulgence in a much simpler, much emotional side of your life was the little crush you developed on Jaehyun. Despite having boyfriends when you were in your teen years and having dates and flings here and there during college, you found that having this constant admiration for him was a way of getting out of the systematic funk you imprisoned yourself in. For the most part, it was an advantage that he was very popular and very much out of your league - it kept you away from biting at the forbidden fruit.

Besides, even if you did want to try and indulge in your feelings, you knew that you were always destined for normalcy, unlike he was. It was ironic how your feelings for him made you feel awfully different, but you didn’t dare want to act upon them.

Sad and disappointing, but it was the music you had to face.

That perfectly explains why you are seated a little bit at the back of the lecture room, somehow closely aligned with where Jaehyun and his friends sat (near the front), your knees weak at the sight of him smiling— even from a distance— while he was having a casual conversation with Johnny Seo (who was taking up law, choosing to take this class as a prerequisite for something else) and Chittaphon (whom you knew very well because he was just a friendly guy, and you had some mutual friends.)

You were carefully dotting out bullet points down on your notebook when the professor to your class arrived, a little more lively and a little kinder than all the other professors you’ve encountered for such an advanced class. Miss Kim assigned another reading assignment essay but now about the story of Atlas since greek mythology was the bulk of this semester. The formatting was different though, it was to make reverse (sometimes, when you were fed up with having to do the paperwork, you called them ‘perversions’) of already popular analyses of the literary texts she selected.

“Y/N, Jaehyun, and Chittaphon..” A little pause was added by your professor in order to be able to look at the three names she called out for, “please stay behind after class.” And when the lecture was over, you sat still in your seat. Just your feet impatiently tapping at the wooden platform that made up the large seating of the lecture hall. There was an unnerving gap from you to the three other humans in the room, and it didn’t surprise you when your professor asked you to sit next to Jaehyun where Johnny vacated his seat.

With wobbly feeling legs, you decided not to protest— not like Jung Jaehyun would notice if you had any apprehensions, he was probably too popular and got all kinds of reactions all the time— but you were convinced that any sign of the stupid teenage crush you had on him was a sign too much and it could really give you away.

It was an internal agreement to yourself that you would not engage in any form of embarrassing yourself, and the only honest way that could happen is if you risked anything by letting anyone else know of your schoolgirl feelings. The thought crossed you multiple times: the idea of Jaehyun somehow finding out that his junior liked him, and you cringed at the possibility.

For as long as you can remember, Jaehyun had a stream of admirers at his feet. You’d have thought that being in college would put a little bit of restrain toward all the girls and boys that flocked at games only to cheer him on - and the multiple times that one or two of them would run up to him and confess after he won a championship. You heard that all these stories ended up in the same way, just Jaehyun being kind enough to give them his number and having conversations with them until he broke the news that he simply wasn’t interested— fucker was kind enough to gracefully let them down. His admirers would visibly show their sadness around campus, going far enough to even praise Jaehyun for being the charitable guy he was by allowing them any opportunity at all.

Meanwhile, you always opted to sit somewhere a little farther away for a better view when you watched his games, actually interested in the sport, but also just so you could be as far away as you could so no one would really notice how your brows furrowed and creased just a little deeper when the ball was passed to him - and each time he scored. You tucked yourself behind desks like you would nervously tuck the hair behind your ear when you were nervous being in the same environment as him. It was early on when you decided that you were just heavily drawn to him despite only hearing things of him and passing him by, and you agreed to be your own grinch and restrict yourself from getting hurt. That only meant you’d be kept off track of the routine you established. It was early on when you decided you didn’t want to be like everyone else who liked him, and it was mostly because you did not possess half the balls they did when they presented their feelings to him head on, but also because he was probably the only real physical metric you could use for basing the metric on ‘what was out of your own comfort zone.’ Being reduced to a kindness he would reject honestly scared you, and for four years it always seemed to leave a sizzling trace of constant doubt in yourself. You were never, in any way, meant to swim in the same seas he floated.

Taking the seat beside him, you angled your body away from him steering clear from his gaze, it kind of looked like you were creating some perpendicular angle but then you shifted to stop when you noticed that Chittaphon was about to laugh at how uncomfortable you looked; he knew you always had a difficulty blending in with people you were unfamiliar with since he tried multiple times to set you up with guys. He also had some slight idea that you thought Jaehyun was rather attractive, but he always assumed you acted the way you did because you were close to what he called “a college recluse.” Sitting up a little straighter, you decided to try and fake any form of confidence and pretend like he just didn’t exist. It was not possible for you to have any interaction anyway, despite the fact that he was maybe less than a foot away from you. His arm was loosely scrambled along the table, like it was meant to adorn it and make it look more attractive. Hairs were standing from behind your neck. God, was this uncomfortable but in some way making you bubble up inside with the fluffiest idea that he was so close.

“The three of you were the only ones to sign up for the year end trip to Thessaloniki for the advanced studies program. I’m sure you know this means that your grades have to be exceptional for these last few papers I’m letting you turn in for class.” Oh? Jaehyun also signed up for the trip to Greece? This prompted you into an internal scramble. He already did enough as it was and now he was also annoyingly interested in the extracurriculars you were interested in? This was brutal; there wasn’t getting away from this guy was there? Guess who was going to die in Greece? Yep, you.

You carefully nodded in your seat but you had to ask, “wait, I’m confused? Does this mean there’s some sort of screening process? You didn’t specify the amount of slots in the sign up sheet.” Chittaphon and Jaehyun were looking at you, but you got through and just avoided their gaze altogether. The sweat between your thighs made themselves unbearably known already, couldn’t he look away?

“No, no screening process. This is performance based, since you’re getting paid to go there and you are getting extra credit on the job.” You nodded, exhaling through your half opened mouth. It seemed fair enough, and you weren’t intimidated at all at the challenge. “You can pass your entries on Medusa on my desk while I fix up, you’re dismissed.” She instructed, and you were the first one to act upon this; wanting to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Your hands unstably flinging inside your bag to search for the paper in the portfolio you always kept neat. Unluckily for you, you didn’t notice this morning you placed the thing upside down, and your write-up on Medusa fell out. The only real skillful reflex you did have was realizing that your two all-nighters worth of discussion was going to flop somewhere unsanitary on the floor, and with that you never reached for something so quickly in your life.

It came to mind that you must have looked like a clown. As you tried your best to manage out of not completely looking like a fool in front of Jaehyun, you softly slammed the paper on the desk and sprinted out the lecture hall.

Jung Jaehyun, who was calmly standing behind you was sort of worried at the large stockpile of paperwork he saw you whip out from your bag. He never imagined any girl carrying that much stuff in what looked like a purse. It was an adorable quip, how he noticed you were always around just keeping your head plopped down in some book or the latest reading assignment, and a few moments ago you were making a mess out of skimming through a portfolio trying to look for your paper amongst the multitude of them. That was how he got his hands on a paper you decided not to pass in your social sciences class about the things you wanted to do before the semester ended, he wanted to give it back but you were too fast for him to catch up on.

Kim Doyoung had been pestering you all period just because you briefly mentioned that you finished the short essay for this social sciences class but decided to scrap it altogether and start fresh to write an entirely different one. He would have let it slide, but when you said you had (accidentally) printed it, he definitely wanted to read the initial one. The two of you were kind of close; the History major sharing relatively the same schedule (except for your Literature class and Creative Writing class.) Some unspoken rule between the two of you was to be seat mates for all the same subjects, but outside the lecture halls you two only passed each other in greeting. Coincidentally, he was on the basketball team as Jaehyun, which was more why you were too shy to really converse with Doyoung around campus: their little group stuck together like glue.

So it was a little odd, that he accompanied you walking out of class, adamant at reading this paper. The two of you settling on a shaded bench by the quad when you exited the languages building. “Okay, okay. Fine. But only this one time Doyoung, you aren’t allowed to read anything else of mine from now on.” You said in defeat, slinging your bag up front to be able to take out the painfully faithful portfolio you had.

“That’s a lie,” he rolled his eyes in such ‘Doyoung’ fashion unimpressed, he was trying to make it look like you were in the losing end but he actually enjoyed your work, “you actually enjoy my constructive criticism.”

You slapped him very quickly by the arm, “but that’s when we actually have to pass the papers I let you read!”

He rubbed at the spot, “ouch?”

Scrambling through the different colored sticky notes you used to organize each subject you took, it made your heart jump a little bit; you couldn’t find the fucking paper.

For some reason the first reason you could muster up in your head that this was some terrible joke that Doyoung had planned, trying to get you to look for this mysterious paper when actually he had it the entire time. It was because it couldn’t have been lost in your portfolio; the damn thing was always organized to a t, it wasn’t possible. “Doyoung, I swear if you had the paper this entire time and this is some joke—“

Someone towered over the sort of peace that you and Doyoung established, clearing their throat to make an entrance. Upon seeing who it was, your throat ran dry. You were a little bit used to being graced by Jung Jaehyun’s presence up close, but now that he most likely heard you throw a bitch fit to his friend, you were extremely flustered. Could it be possible to desiccate into nothing?

Knowing that he had probably approached you to steal away Doyoung, you found yourself running away from Jaehyun once again. Awkwardly offering a little bow, you went to any opposite direction that your body threw itself at.

Today was really your lucky day wasn’t it?

Two days later on a late Friday afternoon, you found yourself in the middle of a sea of people, only your friend Lisa accompanying you. There was a friendly game of basketball between your university and the neighboring one that was three blocks over, but a friendly game never meant that anyone would miss a chance at viewing probably one of the most attractive and (arguably) most skilled college basketball team ever— which meant that eighty percent of the population that was also watching were in it because Jaehyun’s team was hot, and the other twenty were here because they were interested because they knew it was going to be a good fight.

“Did you hear?” Lisa was basically shouting at you through all the mixed voices in the bleachers, “apparently the big leagues got word about our basketball team, the guys have been training harder than ever because they could just get a surprise visit from scouts of the big leagues.” She gossiped, and you were sure that this information probably came from Chittaphon because they were in the performing arts sector together - they both danced, and they were both Thai. Their friendship was cut out for them. Chittaphon did not play basketball, but he was part of -that- friend group.

“Good for them.” You tried to act like you cared about the information, but even if you did you knew they had it in the bag; they won every single championship every single year. (That you watched, of course.) The possibility of them landing far better spots as players in the future was undoubtable. Besides, you couldn’t show the teensy bit amount of concern you had for it— you never told Lisa about your little crush on Jung Jaehyun because after years and years of trying to get you to commit into serious feelings she ultimately failed. And this time around you couldn’t come into terms with telling her; you feared you wanted to just keep her believing that you were incapable of being interested with someone long term. Knowing her, she’d try to pull strings to put your feelings into action and that just made you uncomfortable.

The gap between the score of Jaehyun’s team and the neighboring university was impossible for the other team to catch up on. You noticed that there was really no match here, the boys from your university being kind enough to pretend and slip up to give grace points to the other team - you remember Doyoung telling some story about Jaehyun saying this to them during prep. If they knew the team had no match against them, they’d still allow them points in games, it was a form of respect to the game.

With the last few seconds in for the fourth quarter, Jaehyun was able to score another two-pointer. It was like theatre for him, and you noticed he did this all the time during games. In some sense, there was a flare of drama about having the crowd go wild for the final time until Jaehyun would we swept off the floor by his teammates. Johnny and Mark struggling to keep their team captain balanced because their heights didn’t correlate, Taeyong and Doyoung ending up just laughing.

That was what called it though, when everybody around you stood up to cheer Jung Jaehyun on and the buzzer went off. Then all the boys carried him up to put him down on the ground again. People seated on the bleachers made their way to walk to the court and give their congratulations, and some exiting the hot and sweaty court. Lisa knew that you’d prefer to wait it out a little bit because you disliked being lodged between so many bodies all at once. Of course, your eyes drifting toward your crush, a typical scene unfolding before your eyes.

Brianna Chang and her, very popular, group of sorority girls went up to Jaehyun. Brianna holding up a gigantic banner with his name on it; she was about to confess, like one of the many who have attempted to. You could visibly see Mark and Johnny hollering at the back— and this was mostly because Brianna was a very gorgeous girl and she got a lot of good credit. She was talking to Jaehyun, and when he gave her his dimply smile you simply snapped out of narrowing your gaze to get out of here. Why did you even care, right?

Throughout the years you’ve heard boys’ talk about who liked who and who liked what. Curiosity got the best of a lot of you, inevitably hurting yourself over the idea of Jaehyun’s apparent ideal type, and you were very true to yourself in knowing that you were extremely far from it. You weren’t the sporty type, of course you watched and were interested but never the type to actively play. You weren’t one of those model types either, always being a little more unnoticed and always sticking to your own style. It really was not the case that you minded not being as beautiful as everyone else was. Sure, your self-esteem deflated whenever you compared yourself (or in some cases got compared) to most of the prettier girls in campus, but it’s just that you did not at all feel the need to be competitive anyway. You tried blanketing your insecurities with unstable apathy where you thought that maybe ignoring it meant that you never really had to deal with it, and for some part it was true.

Cold air hit both you and Lisa as you exited, some burst of temperature making you feel a little melancholy inside. Being in the court bleachers in the humid atmosphere with your heart beat getting quicker and quicker with the sight of Jaehyun then going out to the sudden cold felt like a parallel at how you felt about him. You liked him, it wasn’t complicated. If it were a comparison at with how you felt for boys before, it was a difficult one to make. Liking Jaehyun from a distance meant that you just liked him, no perfect explanation, it was just that he made you feel warm inside - and it seemed that every single time you got close enough, your stomach churned and cried a time out. Either way, it was easily identifiable to say it was difficult to like somebody and not really understand why, you could give a million reasons why he was outwardly perfect, but you didn’t know enough about why he made you feel so deep. Especially since the person you liked was Jung Jaehyun.

“Let’s to grab a drink.” Lisa gave you puppy eyes as she grabbed at your forearm with both her hands, she knew you wouldn’t easily budge.

Pretending that you were actually thinking about it, she stomped at the ground. You actually had nothing coming up for you for the weekend, and it was a Friday night after all. Perhaps you would allow her this one time. After all, you seldom went out. And right now you wanted to erase the pit burying itself into you, seeing Jaehyun being confessed to by such a great girl - you wanted to drown yourself in liquid sorries to try and remind yourself that you had no right at all to feel this way. “Okay.” Your friend emitted a high pitched squeal, the rare occurrence surprising her.

It was decided that you’d go to one of the quieter bars on campus that served artisan beer; as there was only the two of you, there wasn’t a need to really party. This bar was a ‘safe zone’ as you’d label it; having gone here a couple times and never seeing the guy you admired, you knew you didn’t have to be nervous at the possibility of him busting through those doors. For the past two days, you noticed that he always seemed to call for Doyoung; Jaehyun entering the lecture hall for your social sciences class to which your response was to go away as quickly and discretely as you could. Failing at the ‘discrete’ part, always.

Picking at the fries you ordered, Lisa began to shoot some questions at you, “so how are things?”

You shrugged, mental capacity a little wary at the moment. “The usual, worrying about the extra credit things I signed up for. I’m not so intimidated about the Greece trip, but I want to be exceptional.”

Your relaxed state of sitting lazily on the barstools with your jackets hanging from them was disturbed when Chittaphon practically appeared from nowhere, wrapping him arms between both of you and Lisa - trying to occupy the very little space there was between the stools.

“Still fretting about academics, Y/N? Isn’t it like a Friday night? Aren’t you supposed to be drinking?” He teased, obviously overhearing what you had said.

“Am I not allowed to be passionate?” You retorted.

“That, yes. But overworked? No, I don’t think you should be.” You gave him a sour face, and he laughed. “I’m just kidding, booky.”

“What are you doing here anyway?” Lisa asked him.

“Just out, I was hoping to run into people I knew.” There was a hint of sarcasm somewhere there, but as far as you could see he was alone. “You guys should join me, sitting on the bar counter isn’t fun! It’s all cramped up.” He offered, and you weren’t in the slightest inclined to say no to Chittaphon. After all, you had a lot of fun moments with him and Lisa was here too.

So the three of you transferred to a table that gave some sort of night view, and you could see the appeal that he was trying to get at. A stable conversation about their next performance came up, Chittaphon trying to explain to you how delicate interpretative dance was— and how one of his juniors, Sicheng, was very skilled at the traditional Chinese dance.

Hollering noise distracted you for a split second, your eyes drifting to the bar entrance because you were honestly a little bit annoyed at being interrupted; you enjoyed listening to Chittaphon’s stories because you didn’t really get the opportunity to go out and talk.

Your lucky streak was apparently still alive, because you knew what it meant that Johnny Seo was loudly leading a pack of sweaty boys into the establishment— that Jung Jaehyun was really most likely there with them.

You knew you loved being creative, but you swore it was cinematic the way Jaehyun entered beside Nakamoto Yuta, the tips of his hair just a teensy bit damp and his hands finding themselves running through them to shake the strands off.

Guess who was royally fucked when Chittaphon waved at his group of his friends to come over?

So much for ‘hoping to run into people he knew.’

The possibility of comfortability was really thrown out the window when Doyoung forced you to switch seats with Taeyong so that he could sit next to you, but Taeyong wanted to be in a ‘talking vicinity’ with Doyoung, leaving the other seat next to you vacant. Some of the other boys went straight to the bar to see what expensive liquor bottle was available, Yukhei shouting “victory party” ten times over.

Good for you, that you were left with your two original companions with the addition of Doyoung and Taeyong. Even better, you were probably six or seven shots of whiskey in enough to have your nerves loosen up a bit.

“Can I sit here?” Never did you imagine he’d ever speak more than an ‘excuse me’ to you, and you were pretty sure it was you he was talking to. Doyoung and Taeyong were engaged in a conversation, and Jung Jaehyun was looking directly at you.

Were you drunk enough to hallucinate? It was time to find out.

You swallowed at nothing; nervous to the point where your mouth ran dry, but you nodded anyway. “Sure.” Overthinking as to why he decided to sit next to you when there were practically ten more chairs that were vacant. He sat down, his hands intertwined at the fingers as he lay them down cooly on the surface of the table. Jaehyun was glancing at you, his adam’s apple bobbing once but really obviously.

“Thank you.” He murmured, and you hoped he would admit that he found this awkward too. His lips were settled on a thin line, and his eyes were just a little bit more wide than you thought fit normal. It was way easier if he decided to sit somewhere else and for you to not sit through potential awkward small talk. It felts as if this was as awkward for him as it was for you.

“Congratulations on the win by the way.” You and your bloody mouth, “but it wasn’t like it weren’t an obvious one.” Your habit of babbling your way out of not actually not wanting him to leave the seat and vacate.

He chuckled a bit, and those dimples and the wrinkles that followed. God, your heart was crippling in your chest, he just looked so surreal. “You don’t have to flatter me, you know.”

It was your turn to give a little laugh. “I think I’m considerate enough not to lie, especially when I’m actually trying to compliment you.” Okay, maybe you had enough to drink to not be threatened by the idea that this was the first real conversation you’ve ever had with Jaehyun.

“Well then, congratulations on being you then, Y/N.”

Your heart thumped hard at that, and you didn’t even know what that meant. So your brows curled into some sort of confusion as you took a quick shot of the alcohol Lisa asked to be presented to you.

“I honestly don’t know what that means Jung Jaehyun, but I’ll accept it like you should mine.” Your cheeks felt warmer, as blood rushed to the skin on your face you hoped he thought it was because of the whiskey. You were definitely turning into a tomato head.

He opened his mouth to speak, a clicking sound being made by his tongue on contact to the roof of his mouth. “I find it weird how I never talked to you like this.” He coughed. “You know, since we have so many mutual friends.” He used his index finger to point at the array of rowdy boys who finally decided to settle down and take seats.

Oh god, he was the one to point that out.

“Well, I mean, these guys only talk to me when it’s class-related.” You joked and Doyoung sort of overheard his forehead crumpling in a fit of disagreement, but then he did not intervene.

Jaehyun found this entertaining and smiled, close to some degree of laughter. “We’ve taken the same classes for years though.”

You pouted, trying to come up with a very good reason in your head. “That’s beside the point, it is quite difficult to try and be casual with just because we have shared the same subjects.” Trying to take a proper look at him, he simply stared back at you. Any shy, logical human being with a proper conscience and responsibility of dignity would stop there. Carry on, and try to convince the other boys to join your conversation. Except that right now in the state you were in, you were not at all a shy logical human being. “Wait are you, perhaps, guilt tripping me?”

“Yes, maybe a little.” He beamed, a smile appearing on his face as he sipped on a beer concoction that looked monstrous. You’ve caught him.

“What do you want me to talk to you about then?” You almost whispered.

He took his hands and laid his elbows down so he could balance his head on his hands, the angle tilted. You never really understood what it meant to have your heart clogged up at the base of your throat, but with this proximity and the kindness of the closeness of Jung Jaehyun— maybe it was what it meant. How was it easy to believe that we were all created in fair and in equal likeness when the warm lights hit the angles of his face perfectly. No awkward shadowed crevice, he was just glowing. “You write, right? Talk to me about writing, Creative Writing major.”

“Why would I need to talk to you about that, aren’t you in my 502 for Literature?” You took your hands and flattened them on top of the table, feeling what was left of the cold where all the iced up glasses were placed.

“How else can I be friends with you?” With squished cheeks, Jaehyun sounded like he was mumbling.

Raising your eyebrows to show your confusion, you wondered. “Why would you want to be my friend?”

It never registered to you, this possibility. Ever. You knew for the longest time that this was a hopeless admiration that probably wouldn’t get anywhere aside from the encounters in class and the distant viewing at games, no more than normal words that strangers would say when they would pass each other. But maybe because you always denied yourself hope because you looked at Jaehyun in Literature and thought that he was so much different: he wasn’t as loud as Yukhei that you could mess around and jab jokes at, wasn’t as easy going as Johnny who complimented the outfits you wore (to which you complimented him back), wasn’t as flamboyant as Chittaphon who was obviously close to you, wasn’t as shameless as Doyoung who constantly bugged you in your major class, and definitely wasn’t as ‘bro’ as Mark— whatever he meant by that. Jaehyun was always just there, perfect, and at times one could say godly. He was too good to touch, too good to have any courage for you to pick up on and even start anything.

Perplexing, how you were even in this fiasco in the first place when moments ago you were practically steaming at Brianna Chang.

“Does it sound unfair if I told you it’s kind of because I feel left out?” He sat up straight to cup at the nape of his neck.

How were you to respond if his words were dripping honesty and your cheeks were burning at every small shift in his actions?

You were a little drunk, a lot bit, maybe drunk - maybe it meant that you could be casual, or you were now overthinking. You were going to vomit words. “Dummy, you aren’t left out at all?” His version of a reaction was to raise both his eyebrows, willing to listen to the rest of what you had to say. “Anyway, you’re popular, Jaehyun. There are probably hundreds of people who’d want to be your friend just off the bat, you’re remotely everywhere. I think I should be the one to feel left out in this table.” The coordination between your speech and your head slowed down a bit, the words slurring between pauses. Jaehyun would correctly assume that you were intoxicated, but you wouldn’t forget how intent he looked at you and how he seemed to carefully process the things you had said.

“It doesn’t mean that I want to be friends with any of them. Most of them only like me for being Jaehyun, the team captain of a basketball team of a game they don’t really pay attention to. Some of them even have the nerve to talk shit about me and how I do in court but say all the nicest things when I’m in front of them. I’m like a clout bag everybody’s trying to break bank with, and I hate to sound this narcissistic, but I’d rather not be friends with any of them.”

Back stiffening at his response you nod, “I think I get it, I wouldn’t either.” But then you decided to make an entire spin at what you were saying. “Really though, me? I don’t think there’s anything striking about me. To say you want to be friends with somebody implies that, and there is nothing to imply.”

He hummed as he tried to think of something. “I mean, you’re different.” His face was messed up in a contortion of sourness, and he was very good at masking it up as confusion to answer. Jaehyun tried to open his mouth to say more but you shushed him. You thought you could never be more embarrassed, but the fact that he had nothing else to give you but a sour face and a vague answer made you want to disappear from here like you have from him for the past two days.

“You really don’t have to say anything else.”

Jaehyun completely switches the awkward part. “Back to what you were saying earlier, I’ll make you feel less left out then if you agree that we’re a little bit closer at being friends?”

“I can’t stop you if you really want to.” With this, he beamed and it physically hurt you to see him smile as brightly as he did.

To save you from yourself, but eventually not really, Wong Yukhei pulled you away to test your strength as beer pong. He asked the bar to pull out their game table and you already knew you were going to die tonight.

There was no recollection of ever getting to bed last night, or rather, ever getting home. The car sounds outside kind of beat you to it though, and the smell of the familiar dust that streamed through the windows. You got home last night, and it confused you enough to scramble up and look for any trace of clues that would explain why you were safe the very next morning. The last sure memory you had was puking on some random sidewalk outside the bar, and that was pretty much it.

A notification bell sound from your phone came in perfect timing, you received a text from a contact name you don’t ever remember saving.

Friend: Are you awake? (7:32am)

Friend: Oh, nevermind you must be asleep you were practically destroyed last night (7:33am)

Friend: I’ll stop texting now in case that woke you up, go back to sleep (7:35am)

Doyoung, Lisa, and Chittaphon definitely had their numbers saved on your phone, so this could be someone you were with last night. Yukhei probably? No, the two of you were as far away from touching phones last night since you crushed the guy in beer pong - but it definitely saved him the chance of being a little more sober than you were. It couldn’t be Mark or Johnny because they definitely were puzzled in their own dumb arguments about the creation of the Nintendo for the entire night. On the off chance that this was Jaehyun, why was he texting you?

Landing your palm to your forehead, you just remembered. ‘Friend,’ he thought he could be sly and have that as his name on your phone.

You: friend? really? are you? (7:41am)

Friend: Caught up on that huh? 😏 (7:42am)

You: it’s the only non formal name on my phone 😒 besides we aren’t friends yet (7:45am)

Were you actually teasing Jung Jaehyun?

Jaehyun ‘Friend’: Okay then, I’ll have to work for that title ☹️ (7:47am)

Jaehyun ‘Friend’: How’s your hangover? (7:47am)

You: terrible (7:48am)

You: i meant to ask,, how’d we exchange numbers? and how did i get home (7:50am)

You: assuming you weren’t as drunk (7:50am)

Jaehyun ‘Friend’: You said you were scared of Night Crawlers chasing us so you asked me to bring you to your apartment, and I told you to give me your phone to put my number in and get yours (7:53am)

It felt embarrassing now, but you were relieved that you didn’t profess your love for Jaehyun on the way home and that you didn’t make a gigantic mess of yourself. It was nice of him to bring you back home even if you were practically just acquaintances.

You: oh. thanks n sorry (7:54am)

Jaehyun ‘Friend’: That’s the goal (7:55am)

Admittedly, it stung a little bit to only be ‘friends’ with Jaehyun. For what it was worth, it did matter that you were at least able to have this kind of interaction with him now anyway. What was there to complain about when the impossible was happening.

When Monday rolled around two days later, you were sure that there wasn’t any trace of alcohol left in your system but somehow you still felt and looked like shit. Thanks to the prolonged suffering you experienced, you promised yourself never to drink that much again. And never allow Yukhei to challenge you in a drinking sport; you were just far too competitive to prove him wrong. But you still had electrolyte water placed on the desk of your table in your Literature class, thankful that your choice of wearing sunglasses indoors was not super distracting because you sat at the back. You were typing away for another class requirement through sweater paws of your large sweater, waiting for your professor to come around to try to be efficient with the time.

“You still look like a mess.” You didn’t expect Jaehyun to walk up to your seat, but there he was anyway. The insides of your cheeks would really raw out if he didn’t stop approaching you like this, because you kept on chewing them when you had no idea what to say. After he texted you, you two briefly talked about your recovery to sobriety and all the papers you were worried about. Now, it was hard to act like you did not mind everybody else in class who noticed that he made it out his way to go to where he didn’t normally go to.

“So many doses of Tylenol later.” You huffed, looking at the cursor of your laptop and not coming up with anything. You kept your eyes glued on the screen, the mere presence of Jaehyun bothered you. “I think this is alcohol poisoning.”

“Well, that’s what you get for not eating much over the weekend.” He remembered the details of your texts, always seeming to answer no when he asked you if you had a real proper meal.

You reeled your lips in to make a thin line, “you should know by now that attending to basic needs in this college environment is a sin, Jaehyun. I really would rather not fail.”

He looked unimpressed at the analysis. “Don’t you have one of the highest grades for your course level already?”

“You could say, but I want to push myself more.”

A ‘tsk’ left his mouth, “what’s it worth when you won’t take care of yourself?”

“Starving.” You shot back.

“Tell you what,” he didn’t challenge your tone, but kept it quieter and gentler, “there’s this good chinese restaurant I go to when I want to get rid of terrible hangovers. Let’s grab dinner later. After this class maybe?” You wanted to spit out all the electrolyte water onto his perfectly baby blue shirt. It was one thing to go out and coincidentally catch up on a conversation with Jaehyun, and another when he was practically asking you out to be alone over dinner.

You had to breathe; his goal was to be just friends. “I have Social Sciences after this class,” was a way to try and shoot his offer down as kindly as you could, you were sure you would fuck up if you gave him a definite yes. You didn’t want to sound too desperate.

“I can wait by the quad until you’re done. I have your number.” As if he already knew you were going to say something else to get out of having dinner with him, he ran down the steps to sit back up front where he usually would. Your professor had arrived now.

After your last class Doyoung walked out with you again, complaining about the workload you had just received after passing a ten page essay analysis on a random country’s culture.

“It’s just honestly so annoying!” He complained, lips turning to an upset curve.

From a distance you could see Jaehyun standing by one of the big trees, his hands halfway through each of his pockets. He was looking at you, and you had to slow down when you were nearing him.

“Hello.” You whispered to Jaehyun, taking a step closer to him.

Doyoung, a little alarmed, stepped back. “Am I interrupting something?” He asked, and you laughed.

“Just dinner,” you tried to explain, “Jaehyun and I are having dinner.” The phrase felt odd when it left your tongue.

“Just dinner, huh?” Doyoung was on to something, and it was pretty obvious what he was trying to assume. You could only wish that his assumption was the case.

“Just dinner.” Jaehyun said, nodding. He looked at you and looped his arm around your own, “and then we’re getting married.” That made your brain do an entire backflip, Doyoung didn’t laugh either - he found this weird. But Jaehyun wanted to make his joke obvious. “Doyoung, you psycho.”

“Have fun on your date then.” Doyoung skipped away.

A tiny cough left Jaehyun’s throat, the sudden realization that the two of you were now alone made it awfully warm all over your face. Your arms were still looped, and neither one of you bothered to awkwardly untangle limbs.

“Shall we?” Using his free hand, he pointed toward the other exit and you nodded.

Much like what happened when Jaehyun approached you, everybody was staring. Of course, some people could care less in a situation like this - but it felt as if everyone was intent on knowing why you were arm in arm with Jung Jaehyun, intent on dissecting you with their eyes and picking at how you were in the wrong for a simple action. The boy you were tangled in with of course, did not seem to care at all. Even in the most awkward fashion of walking, he seemed to glow with the way the sunset colored him a warm tone. He was used to all the eyes eating him alive, and you couldn’t understand how he did so.

The last time Jung Jaehyun had a girlfriend was when you were in your third year of college, which was a year ago. To say that you didn’t care at the time, was a lie. You basically drowned yourself in 1800’s classical symphonies to the tune of your unreasonable sobbing, ice cream staining the dog ears of your review materials for a few weeks. Advantageous in some sense, the few of your friends thought you were a wreck because of midterms. You promised to yourself that you would get the highest marks and get over the pent up three years you kept in your breast pocket, just a little above your heart. Until you realized, your crush couldn’t go away even if you couldn’t compete with girlfriend - somehow your heart couldn’t surrender. Kristen Sy was the student body president, in her fifth year she managed to finally be the girlfriend of the team captain of the school’s basketball team. For years, and every single school occasion that required the gathering of the student body, people always paired the two together. Intramural awards, department representatives— even when people were going on nonstop confessing to Jung Jaehyun— it was the most perfect idea to put the most perfect guy and the most ideal girl into a couple. On the last semester of the year, you clearly remember during an assembly, Jaehyun making it official by unusually standing by her side during announcements. When asked kindly by some of the hopeful girls in the campus paper, they both confirmed they were really seeing each other. Did it really surprise you? No; perfect people were meant for other perfect people.

Even when they broke up, everyone started to speculate the worst or the mildest reason why they did. But Jaehyun looked like he was doing well, and in every single situation he was in he seemed to be.

The restaurant was cozy, a little bit spacious, enough to make it feel intimate. You were pouring yourself black tea when you realized it was far too quiet between the two of you.

“Progress report for Thessaloniki?” Jaehyun asked you.

“Oh yeah, you signed up for that too.” It came in late realization. Your fingertips played a game of fake piano as the ceramic acted as the only barrier between you poking through the warmth of the drink. “Why did you sign up for it?”

“There’s a little back story to it. I actually just took the class for extra credit purposes, it would look good on paper to have finished Literature. You kind of have to study culture and understand it in Economics, and this is surprisingly an easy way to understand it. I liked the idea of going somewhere to get to learn it better.”

“Why not stick to the more technical social sciences then, I mean, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

He shook his head. “I won’t fall in love with it that way,” some time to gain some thought, “I can connect to it better through passages like the ones we do in class.”

“I get it.” There wasn’t more to say than that, it was a pretty obvious difference you could grasp with his comparison. “For the trip to Greece, I think I’ve been passing really mediocre papers so my performance isn’t quite well as what I want.”

“Mediocre,” he pulled at the word, prolonging his syllables, “that’s how you described the paper you wrote on Anna Karenina. The same one that got called out in class for rejecting the suggested format, but still got an almost perfect mark.”

“It was mediocre though, anyone could have thought of what I wrote of.” You tried to say it as if it were the most obvious flaw.

“On the contrary, when I read it, I thought it was very good. You completely changed the way I looked at the entire plot.” He pondered upon it deeply. “I never looked at love that way.”

“How did you get your hands on that thing anyway?” You were trying to make the conversation a little less tense.

“Well you gave Chittaphon a copy of it after he had asked you to, and a printed copy was laying around in his dance studio when he asked me to practice with him after class. I couldn’t help but want to know what the fuss was about with the winning paper.”

“You talk about it like it’s a contest entry for the state fair.” You laughed.

He only smiled back though, “I want to talk about it like it’s a critically acclaimed piece.”

Through dying laughter you exhaled deeper breaths. “Well if you enjoy it that much then thank you.”

“You’re something else, really.” He said and your heart swole.

After dinner, the two of you were just walking through the semi-busy streets, no one declaring the want to go home. It was significantly colder than you would like; the year just started and the January breeze was gliding by, the days of snow were gone. Dressed not quite appropriately not expecting to have dinner tonight, you were quite cold.

“It’s so cold.” You commented just when he called for a time out to walk to the park.

Leaves on the trees were dancing in their place among the branches, and you could barely hear the bustle of the cars now. Only dark blue light contrasting itself through where you were, they were probably going to turn the park lights on soon. The night felt magical through the shivers of your legs, it was cold but the company of Jaehyun was enough to make you patient.

Placing one of his jackets on your shoulders, you could feel it droop down from the weight. “Here.” He said gently. It was warm warm warm, with hints of lavender and vanilla. Scents you could never imagine being together were even harmonious when he wore it. A petty argument would be brought up if you opposed his kind offer at lending his jacket, and you knew the most normal instinct of a ‘friend’ would be to tell him that you were fine and you didn’t need it, but Jaehyun always claimed that he cared about your welfare to the most minuscule problem he seemed to notice you fretted about. So you wrap it closer around your body and whisper a silent thank you to him.

The only way you were falling was deeper, and deeper.

“Aren’t the trees fascinating?” You ask him, and he looks a little confused as he looks at the strange arrangement of the branches - twisting turning, straight rigid, everywhere all at once. He listens, enough to know when to wait to utter words - this you’ve learned so far. It hurts you somewhere, how he can be so drawn to your words and how he can grant you the gift of lending his ears. “They go through cycles, and they grow and they grow and they grow, all that and they only have life to give.”

To that he still doesn’t respond, you could see the formation of clouds from his mouth - all from the contrast of the heart of his breath to the cold of the night.

“I wrote a piece about trees when I was five, all the lines were in different stupid colors. ‘The trees will grow the trees will die, the trees go bald but they never cry.’” Jaehyun laughs at your sampling.

“Why won’t you come up with things like that again? Challenge the open mic for the poetry club?” He humorously suggests.

“And risk my head at the mercy of Taeil’s wrath?” The poetry club president. “I wouldn’t dare. Plus, I haven’t stopped writing like that anyway.”

He raised a brow. “Oh really?” You dig your hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, squeezing through.

“Yeah, only now I have the means to make it sound more— how do I put this?”

“Real? Feeling?” He guesses, and you nod.

“Bingo.” You give him finger guns, and he gives one back. You really couldn’t be any less of an idiotic fuck of a nerd when he was around, but you were relieved he just went with it.

“I want to read more of what you write.” He expresses out of nowhere when the park lights became brighter, illuminating one of the main exit points.

“Odd choice of what to read, but okay.” You don’t want to question it. “I have a lot of my stuff compiled in my apartment, I could hand some over to you if you’d like.”

He smiles, beams almost, like he’s a child you’ve gotten the largest gift for the holidays. “Really?” It’s unbelievable how he looks like he doesn’t believe you at all. “Won’t that be too much of a hassle to take out of all your files?” He was doing that thing of refusal you forced yourself not to do when he gave you his jacket.

Realizing you wanted to pay back the same amount of kindness, you hatch up the most stupid idea you have probably ever come up with for a long time. “You could come over when you want to.”

“Now then? What about going there now?” He acted like a puppy, you knew you had a somewhat good sense of control but it seemed that in the presence of Jaehyun you just couldn’t say no.

“Only if you promise not to tell me how dirty my place is.” You pleaded.

It was Thursday night when you heard knocking on your door. Coffee was spilt all over your kitchen counter, you were in the middle of cleaning it up from accidentally knocking your cup over earlier. “Just a minute!” Huffing over the coffee staining your notes, you gave up and decided the surface was probably dry enough for you to continue studying anyway.

You were surprised when Jung Jaehyun was standing in your doorway when you opened the door. He held up two boxes of takeout and gave his dimply smile, “good evening.”

A little bit puzzled, you asked. “I thought I told you I’d be studying tonight.”

“And you did say you couldn’t go out to have dinner. So I thought that you wouldn’t be having dinner too anyway.” He explained as he let himself in and you were left to wonder.

Yes, you still very much like Jung Jaehyun, but the level of comfortability he’s built up over the past two weeks after he asked you to have Chinese food with him has gone too quickly for you to even process. Even now when he was setting his shoes just by your ‘welcome’ mat and placing his things in the usual places. The first time he entered your small living space of an apartment, he didn’t say much. Only noticing how many pieces of paper were stacked up in piles, haphazard wastelands of literary texts and worn out books were neatly but messily put down in any surface you could utilize. He could only say so little when you gave him early pieces you wrote down with angry pens in high school, some works you used to perform at local poetry events, and some works you had just been finished with. It meant something when his forehead creased in concentration, his eyes following every line as his hands gripped on the gritty pieces of paper - you took a mental note when he told you that this meant he was focusing on something and he was probably trying his hardest to understand whatever he was focused on. However, you only noticed that it was the same kind of face he wore in the critical moments of his own games: when the timer would be a few minutes into closing a quarter, or when the other team would catch up on points. The same face he used when he came up with a plan.

For the past two weeks that took Jung Jaehyun to officially become your friend, he persistently asked you to go out for dinner— and in instances that you declined, he ended up in your small apartment after practice and would insist on getting food delivered - wanting to watch one of the vintage tapes you kept of old films. Some of your friends couldn’t fathom the idea of just how casual your friendship with Jaehyun became; one day you two didn’t even bat an eyelash at each other around them and the other they just couldn’t relate in conversation when you and Jaehyun spoke. Doyoung had jabbed at the idea that there was something romantic going on between the two of you, to which you had immediately denied out of the sheer possibility that you were going to expose the little crush you had on Jaehyun.

“I’m convinced you’re going to lose a ton of money buying me dinner all the time.” You sighed at him as he set up the boxes of food he bought for the two of you, bundling up the free chopsticks in the drawer you had for utensils— now it was an overflowing collection, reminding you how often he came by just to buy you takeout.

“I get dinner allowances from my scholarship, it’s really no big deal.” He reasoned out, getting himself a glass of water. “Besides, I enjoy buying you dinner.” You blushed but not enough for him to notice, hopefully.

Chinese food was a tradition now, you’ve slowly accepted the idea that this was now your form of comfort food. More like, it was your new form of comfort food because the company was comforting. Even when silence swallowed you when there was nothing to say, there was this wringing feeling you felt whenever he was around to laugh with half a mouthful of food.

You shrugged, an immediate bodily response. “Well, if you insist.” Sitting down on your chair to get back to reading your notes, Jaehyun gently slid your box over to you.

This goes on for a while, he sits across you from where you sit by the kitchen counter. He asks you how your day was even if you did see each other in class earlier, and then he proceeds to ask you about what you were going on a storm about. Your words are always quiet, perfectly pronounced around the teething sounds— it’s some way to act upon the strange feeling of nervousness that climbs upon you whenever you’re around him; afraid to say something wrong or uninteresting. Sometimes, you think Jaehyun is too kind for his own good. There’s always been some sort of suspicion to how interested he seems when he listens, sometimes you think he is too charitable. Anyone who smiled like Jaehyun, and made people feel they way they did when Jaehyun smiled would probably think the same.

When you finish your dinner in defeat, stomach full and patting at your tummy Jaehyun’s expression deflates.

“Are you busy tomorrow after your classes?” It is not like this is a new question, when it comes out of his mouth to ask you of your availability.

Tomorrow would be a Friday? “If this is an alcohol related question, then I’ll have to pass.” It was a recurring joke. The two of you agreed you could take on an extensive amount of alcohol, but when you did you couldn’t handle the hang overs. Jaehyun joked that you drank like an alcoholic teen but suffered like a middle-aged man, and you couldn’t stop laughing when he made the comparison.

He chuckled to this response too, “no, I’m not asking you to drink.” He said as he folded the paper food box. “Well, at least not for a long time... I meant to ask you if you wanted to watch our practice tomorrow?” He scratched at the back of his neck, and you were sure that he was unsure of what he was asking.

“You mean basketball practice, right?” You were confused, but more on the idea that he was asking you to go and watch him and his team practice - no real thing to actually do there but sit on the benches. Did this mean anything though? It felt that the friendship you agreed on was a little bit more domestic if it made sense that way. Dinner, conversations, and now this was thrown into the table.

“You can ask Lisa to come, I’m sure Ten will tag along if you ask nicely too.” Oh, so maybe there it was. When Jaehyun sounded much clearer it probably meant that he just wanted you to tag your friends along. It made sense though, maybe Lisa was his type, or maybe he felt more comfortable with you when you were with your friends.

You still couldn’t understand, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to act shy and not tackle your assumptions head on. “Do you want me to ask them to come with you? Is this like a group thing?” The pitch in your voice going up as you finished asking.

“Oh. I didn’t mean it like that.” He said hurriedly.

You could only reply with your eyebrows knitting together. For someone who over analyzed plot and text and author intentions, with Jaehyun you could never put two and two together.

“Only if you feel like you’re going to be uncomfortable with being alone, that’s what I meant.” He eased his way to speech.

“I’ll be fine even without company,” you said with a tiny hint of a smile, “but that’s only if you make sure you impress me.”

Things worked out according to Jaehyun’s favor.

That is, when you walked in the school gym, the same one you had gone to to watch most of Jaehyun’s games, you were alone. The other boys did not seem too shocked to see you there, they were probably informed you were coming.

“Hey Y/N.” Yukhei greeted as you ran into him on the way inside, he was wearing the hood of his jacket up and he had his hands in his pockets. He didn’t look as mangy and as wild as he would if you saw him anywhere else aside from the court. You received the same greeting more or less from the rest of the boys, Doyoung going the extra mile and rubbing on the hair of your head with his knuckles. Jaehyun wasn’t here yet, apparently. The person who invited you was late to their own practice game. Just when you thought that he’d be late for longer, you could hear the squeaking sounds of running across the gym floor - the friction creating the shrill sound of Jaehyun’s arrival.

He runs to you, placing both his gym bag and his school bag by your feet. “Sorry I’m late.” Jaehyun mutters.

“It’s not me you’ve kept waiting.” You pointed at the rest of the boys who were doing warm up shoots by the ring. On the contrary, if you meant what you said in a deeper context, you were lying. Sometimes when he skipped over you before Literature class would start or when he’d text you to ask if you were free in the evening (you still didn’t understand why he’d repeatedly ask you, he knew that you weren’t the busy type and you always said that it was okay for him to come over or for you to catch up on dinner— except yesterday when you said you needed to study) - you felt time consume at all the possible opportunities. If you were being very honest, you’ve waited for him for about four years now. Even when you two were friends, it’s like you were waiting for him to figure you out like the way he’d figure out those fucking annoying equations he solved for his finance class. You wondered why he was terrible at the rhetoric of deciphering emotion when you knew on your own that you were terribly obvious.

He only smiles, his eyes a little wider, he was hopeful you’d come and you did. Running to the court, you only watched feeling your heart sink. Another thing about Jaehyun was that he kept his promises. You already knew for sure that Jaehyun was a really good athlete, but when you had challenged him to impress you there he was: continuously making dunks at the ring as if it was nothing, while the rest of the boys were already tired. It’s been about an hour and a half of you quietly observing in the background, tempted to snag a book from your bag and read a couple of chapters, but Jaehyun was taking glances once in a while so you had to really play the part of paying attention to every little detail of their warm up game.

Johnny Seo was bending his back down his palms on his knees as he breathed heavily, “time out dude.”

Mark who was jogging across to grab a water bottle might as well look the same as Johnny. “Yeah, I’m like, about to collapse.”

A smile was still sitting on Jung Jaehyun’s face, sweat collecting at his forehead. Then you realized you’ve never seen him not smile, he’s always been an epiphany of happiness. And it radiated, all the damn time. Except, something about witnessing him now made it look like he was just a little extra happier than normal. Jaehyun made a final three pointer, then he came running to you. He took a hoodie out of his gym bag to wear, the hood covering his head just for a few seconds.

“Could you pass me my bottle?” He pointed at the poor, fallen down thing by your feet. To which you picked it up and handed over to him, hands only brushing for a brief second. Skin-ship was never really established between you and Jaehyun, always just brief glances of eyes, whispered distances of awkwardness— two feet spaces your kitchen counter provided, a table apart in restaurants. You were lying if you’d say that you never wanted to actually do something about the palpitating distance you always laid out, it was an obnoxious obstacle that reminded you that you could only do so little. In your head it felt right if you were the cool and laidback female friend that would only casually talk to Jaehyun, a tinge of iciness to sequester yourself as that.

“You should work a little bit more on your wrist, it kinda loses aim when you swing.” He could see you through the weird angle as he took gulps of his water.

Surprised when his chin retracted back down he asks. “Oh? You noticed? Thing has been bothering me since the last game.” He swung his arm around.

You teased. “Yeah it was a little obvious during the second quarter, maybe you should try using a wrist curler.”

“Since when did you get into sports?” He plopped down next to you, you could practically feel how the heat radiated off of him.

Doyoung intervened, placing a foot by one of the benches. “She’s actually really into sports, but she can’t play for shit.” Taking ballpoint pen from your pocket, you threw it at your friend. “Ow!” Jaehyun was laughing beside you, clutching at his stomach against the loose grey hoodie he wore over his jersey.

“Actually, I think that basketball is very interesting.” You commented. “That’s the only real reason why I ever attend your games.” Lie, it was also because you wanted to see him.

“Oh, you do? I don’t think any of us have actually ever noticed you attend though?” Johnny swept in to be part of the conversation as well, a quizzical look on his face as he dried his hair off with a little face towel.

“I notice her,” Jaehyun answered, and you wanted to choke on air if it were remotely possible at all, “she waits for the crowd to subside before she leaves. Always sits at the back.” So he really does notice you.

Johnny shoots a funny look at you, “always the back sitter, Y/N.”

“At least I don’t block the entire row, you ten foot monster.” Johnny deflates but everyone else laughs at your come back.

After everybody decided that it was getting late and that they were tired, you found walking out into the cold with Jaehyun when the other boys split ways.

“Let’s get dinner.” It was thrown around as a reminder that you weren’t left alone during your evenings anymore because he was always with you. Though, it was a little late into the evening now and you were sure the regular places you went to were closed at this time.

“Where?” You wondered aloud.

Jaehyun hummed, “we’ll find a place.”

This time around, you were actually in his car’s passenger seat. Normally you would have walked somewhere, but apparently when they had basketball practices he would bring his car to school because he’d be too tired to think about walking or commuting back home. Surprisingly, his car smelt like generic air freshener - it wasn’t how you would picture it like. You imagined an array of extra clothing be piled in the backseat, or maybe stray CD cases on the floor. Instead it was neat, like he just bought the thing. He was a good driver too, so far getting out of campus wasn’t a problem. But now you were in a significantly cramped up space inside a vehicle with your crush, the silent atmosphere was a whole lot awkward than usual. Even with his eyes on the road he managed to fish is aux cord out to play music through his phone.

The guy had a Friday night Spotify playlist, how much more could you like him?

Lauv was playing in the background, you passed by streets where there were only neon signs and streetlights - stores already closed down. The perfect setting for you to drown in all the thoughts in your head.

Usually, two short weeks would have passed you by in your mind’s fragments of seconds. Somehow, Jaehyun made your two weeks feel like whole years: some uncharacteristic closeness kept these short moments interesting. You could be comfortable in the silence with Jaehyun, and he made it very easy for you to be comfortable to tell him all you could. It was different with him at times, when you reminded yourself you had to keep all of your heart locked up in order to preserve the mess you’ve made of attachment.

He stops at a food place that opens 24/7, but orders you to stay inside the car. So you do, like any other time that he tells you he is up to something - or he has plans he wants to spend with you. You wonder what it is like to be in Jaehyun’s life forever, where you are the one he loves, and you can spend time over eating Kung Pao Chicken with him and he’d look at you like he had seen a star for the first time in his life. But you remember that you can only go as far as trying to make up moments you would never have spent with him anyway; your mind was a dangerous thing when it came to trying to put puzzle pieces together.

A few minutes later, Jaehyun comes back with takeout food. “Can we eat these somewhere else? I want to drive somewhere.” You only nod, you can only nod. And it barely takes a forth of his playlist, but soon enough you find yourselves by the faux concrete bay built by the edges of the river - Jaehyun haphazardly parking enough to see the view of the city lights.

One of the most confused expressions came across your face when Jung Jaehyun told you he’d just get the blankets from his trunk compartment and that he wanted you to lay on the hood of his car.

“I swear Jaehyun, if I take any part in breaking this car the blame is all on you for ever letting me lay here.” You said in fear as Jaehyun was the one climbing up the empty spot to your left, food in his hands and then you see that he just got a box of pizza and what it seemed like beers.

He only laughs, as you then open the canned beers. Taking a slice and eventually a bite of his pizza, he speaks with his mouth a little full. “I heard news before I came into practice a while ago.” He shrinks with the words, he only whispered them.

“News?” You take a sip at the drink in your hands.

“I got word from coach that the SM League has a lawyer to sign us up for their league after we graduate this semester.” He beams.

You almost just tip your beer over, but quickly get a good grip on it as you try and wrap one arm around Jaehyun in surprise. “Oh my god! Jaehyun, that’s amazing!” It isn’t something you expect when he hugs you back, and gets rid of the half full can of beer in your hands and throws it away for him to get a good grip on you and for you to get a good grip on him.

Touching Jaehyun like this, you think, burns pain into you like you never ever understood before.

“I just can’t believe it.” He mumbles into your shoulder and you shiver. It takes more than a lot of self control to stop yourself from wanting to hold his hair or to pull him in tighter, but Jaehyun is already crumpling you up by the seams and he seems to have no reservations in finding comfort in you like this.

For a while, you cannot breathe. Not when Jaehyun is holding you the way he does. You feel that you cannot breathe for the next month. When Jaehyun is almost always by your side now: taking a seat next to you in Literature class and always annoyingly asks you for correctional tape because he uses pens for his drafts when you’ve told him for the millionth time that he can borrow one of your (many) mechanical pens. When Jaehyun still always asks you out to eat dinner with him after school, and more when he wipes sweet and sour sauce off your chin with a napkin. When Jaehyun explicitly asks you to wear the outfit he’d buy for you (even if you’d constantly ask him not to spend any money on you) when he’d warn you for a ‘messy’ night out. When Jaehyun asks you to read him seventeenth century as he lay on your lap after hours and hours of coming over to study in your apartment, and eventually asking you to go to the theme park to take a ride on the gigantic rollercoasters you hated going on. You swear he’s gone familiar with you each time he catches you off guard with his arms around your shoulders and his hands grazing your arms, even when there are people around who are obviously questioning the whole ordeal. When Jaehyun begs you to watch practice even if it meant that you wouldn’t really watch practice, but instead do your paperwork on the side and look whenever he would score a hoop. More importantly, when Jaehyun is only a few inches scraped away from the surface of your body when you drive to nowhere to look at the stars on the hood of his car— and he tells you he is more than excited for all the opportunities the world has for him.

You learn that your lungs get squeezed in all its awkward positions when he admits to you all his fears, the odd things he wants. How he brings you along in malls to shop for the most useless things he thinks he needs, but you don’t bother telling him ‘no’ because you can never say that to him. When he cries when he’s just a little bit more than drunk, and he tells you he regretted ever getting a bowl cut as a child. When he brings you around his friends all the time because he tells you that you need to go out more. When he tells you that he wants you to write words of him, and only for him. When he feels the difficulty of responsibility - that he carries the burden of taking one for the team. When he tells you he honestly doesn’t care about what other people think. When Jaehyun tells you he’s so good at economics and makes a joke about taking advantage of the capitalist system when he becomes a star. You learn your windpipe is busted when you look at Jung Jaehyun and you think, in the minuscule voice in your head that tries its best not to tell him that you love him so, that he already is a star— and that he’s the brightest you have ever seen.

To no surprise, you also learn that you have fallen deeper and that you are scared. It seems, you will never admit your feelings to him. Not when he tells you that you are one of the most important friends he’s ever made, and it breaks your heart that he’s even closer to graduating. This could be a good thing, right? You could either clear all the awkward air out and tell him that you’ve always liked him, get inevitably rejected, and quickly move on as you won’t see him when he’d be off to play professional basketball. Or, you could preserve the bond you developed with him and remain friends.

Only friends.

next: half time interval

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