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dojunie · 1 year

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MISDIAL; LJN [CH3] LIKE A MORNING CALL

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

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lee jeno x fem!reader

college au

chaptered

slow burn

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

warnings for this chapter; alcohol mentions

chapter wc: 11.4k (i'm sorry ;-P)/ 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

unable to tag: @nohunlee @ooojisoo @luv4jeno @not-clemb @jydivrs @pinkysinnerbaby @jenojenoyes

[a/n]: i dont even have an explanation for why this took so long besides the fact that work is kicking my ass rn LOL, but i'm so excited about this fic that ive been glued to my laptop every hour that i'm free. enjoy, chapter three, my friends

THE APARTMENTS HOUSED INSIDE OF THE PALISADES TOWER ARE MYTHICAL FOR GOOD REASON, because the penthouse in which Jeon Somi lives is easily something out of a melodrama. Cleancut modern black and gray, polished gold metals, and endlessly high ceilings with windows so large that it was easy to forget there was even glass there at all (which, when you’re so high up, is a pretty freaky feeling).

If this wasn’t your hundredth time being here you’d probably be just as awed as the guys behind you are. Their eyes are wide as they shuffle out of their shoes in the entranceway, faces slack at the absolutely bonkers state of her home— but as it stands, you don’t even bat an eye. You just fling your sneakers in the front closet and slap the living room light switch on, the weight of this disastrous day settling on your shoulders all at once.

“I’m going to go and wash my face,” you announce, forcing a pleasant smile and turning to face the guys in the foyer. “If you have any questions—” Donghyuck nods, already opening his mouth to interrupt you, “— Somi dearest will answer them.”

He pouts. You can feel Jeno’s eyes on you, but you avoid looking in his direction like the plague.

What he must think of you after all this, huh? The second time he’s spoken to you in years and here you are yet again— embarrassed half to death and terribly out of your element, floundering in his presence like you did when you were fifteen and had no concept of confidence or coolness.

You were so sure that the night of the Nabi Bar incident was going to be a one time thing, and yet here you were again. Wasn’t last week supposed to be a once in a lifetime event? Something that you’d think of in a few months and laugh about— reminiscing over that time the guy you’d once been stupidly in love with came running out of the dark to save you, scooping you away from danger and patching your bruises up like some kind of romance novel prince? But now?

Now it was starting to look like nothing about this, nothing about him was shaping up to be temporary.

Things you hadn’t felt in years were starting to pick at your insides. You’d felt it that night when he’d dropped you off and you couldn’t sleep because your mind was racing so much. The cloying scent of his cologne was stuck in your nose and every brush against your bruised knuckles reminded you of how close you’d been in his bathroom, the sickeningly familiar feeling in your chest— Fluttering, fluttering, fluttering— And you’d felt it again in the car just now, an actual swoosh in your gut when you caught how he looked at you after Somi mentioned the Aegon competition.

His gaze was soft.

Knowing, almost, if you wanted to get completely delusional about it. As if he’s always understood something about you that everyone else didn’t.

(…Knowing, like the look he’s giving you right now as you take a step towards the other end of the penthouse and make the mistake of catching his eye. God. There’s no way he doesn’t know you’re just trying to get the hell out of here; It feels like he’s seeing right through you.)

“Right,” you say to no one in particular. “Then I’m off.”

Somi— who’d wound up in the kitchen somehow during all this— whines your name along with something about the jajangmyeon when she sees you leaving, but you don’t even stop in your stride out of the foyer. “Jaemin will help you, Som, he knows how to cook better than I do. You’ll help her won’t you, Na? You wouldn’t leave a tipsy, defenseless maiden alone in a space full of danger and sharp things and fire, right?”

You hear the distant click of the stovetop turning on as you’re walking away, quickly followed by a bunch of clattering, like someone throwing around a few metal pots. You hear no response or movement and flick a warning look over your shoulder.

“I’m not kidding. If you don’t want this place to catch on fire you’d better help her quickly.”

“What?” Jaemin finally splutters, “You’re serious? You’re really going to just leave us alone out here with— Hey, hey, wait! Somi, you don’t need a knife that big to cut up scallions!”

He darts out of your sight. Okay. One out of three, occupied.

You snatch up the television remote from the couch and turn it on, the giant flatscreen instantly lighting up the two remaining guys in the foyer as they stare after you. “You guys are into basketball, right? Knock yourselves out.”

“You’re… Cocomelon-ing us?” asks Donghyuck indignantly. “You think you can just put on ESPN and you’ll be absolved from helping cook? Do you think we’re five years old?!”

“Not five. Maybe like… eleven, or twelve? You strike me as more of a preteen.”

All that follows this is stunned silence. Great. That’s good enough of a reply for you. You toss the remote back onto the couch and continue farther into the rest of the house, face falling into a quiet grimace as you try to figure out just how you’re going to get through this night alone.

You feel it goes without saying that you do not only wash your face. You scrub everything above your neck, wash your hands, clean and cut your nails, pilfer through Somi’s extensive skincare shelf to rub some sort of moisture back into your now dry skin, comb your hair (and comb your eyebrows), worry at a speck of dirt on the shoulder of your top, take your socks off when you realize they’re a bit askew and then put slowly them back on, all in an attempt to drag out the time before you have to go back out there… only to look at your phone when you’re all done and realize only six minutes have passed since you’d first step foot in the bathroom.

With a shameful sigh, you stop pilfering.

What is your actual game plan to get through this night in one piece? Because the awkward way you’ve started this surely isn’t going to cut it, if this sad stint in the bathroom means anything. Could acting normal be your ticket? Everyone else is already pretending that the rest of the night didn’t happen, like this is really just some sleepover— the echo of Donghyuck’s laughter out in the living room proves that he’s at least having a swell time— so why can’t you pretend this is all normal too? You could just act your ass off. (What is it they say? Fake it ‘till you make it?)

Normal, normal, normal. You can do that.

So normal in fact, that when you wander back out into the house, eyes down and lazily picking at your nails (like a normal person would do), you don’t notice right away that you have no audience.

Jeno and Donghyuck aren’t on the couch where you’d left them. A laugh from the other side of the living room drags your eyes over until you’re staring into the kitchen where Donghyuck now is, apparently roped into helping by the looks of it, sleeves of his sweater pulled up his forearms and dutifully scrubbing at a handful of baby carrots in the sink. Slightly surprised, your gaze drifts over to the other movements happening behind him; a bedraggled-looking Jaemin following behind Somi as she wanders around her kitchen with a knife in each hand. His suggestions of safety seem to be going in one of her ears and out the other.

You spot movement on the balcony right as you think to wonder where the last boy has disappeared to.

The glass door leading to the overlook is cracked open an inch. The shadow of one gray flannel is briefly illuminated by the flash of lightning a few miles away, and with it comes the cool scent of rain into the house that you only notice now. The balcony is more like a porch with the size of it, nearly a full wraparound, and the figure blends in so well that it’s no wonder you didn’t see him out there at first. He’s leaning lazily on the railing, safe and dry from the retractable awning Somi always leaves out.

Of course. Figures he’d be out admiring the weather during a thunderstorm advisory warning.

Your stomach swirls a little bit at the sight of him, and you briefly consider leaving him alone and going to, like… help wash carrots or something, but your body knows you better. You’re wandering across the room before you can even think about moving.

“Having fun?”

If Jeno flinches from your intrusion he covers it very well. When he turns halfway to greet you he’s nothing but an easy smile, face just barely illuminated in the warm yellow light from inside. He beckons you outside with a small head nod and you, a little surprised he actually wants company, push the door open a little wider.

“Having fun,” he confirms as you wander up beside him. “You’re back?”

“I suppose so. Why are you out here by yourself?”

“Wasn’t really my choice,” he says, laughing, albeit a little sheepish.

“It wasn’t your choice? To come out here?”

“I offered to help cook, but Jaemin said I’d just take up space since I apparently take fifteen minutes to rinse a single potato. He banned me from touching anything.”

Oh. Is he notoriously slow in the kitchen? The most you’ve ever seen him make is burgers on your parents grill, but that was just flipping them every minute because Jaemin and Mark had done all the preparation. “Does it take you fifteen minutes to rinse a potato?”

“I like to be thorough when I wash produce. They come from the dirt, you know.”

Oops. You hit a nerve. He sounds slightly miffed by the humor in your voice. Maybe your smile is still too obvious, because he squints when he catches the line of your mouth.

“Right,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Forgot you’re the type who eats grapes out of the bag in grocery stores.”

“What— Why did you say it like that? I wipe them off first!”

“Yeah, you wipe them off onto your clothes. Do you know how many different surfaces your shirt will rub up against in a day? At that point aren’t you just swapping germs?”

He’s not wrong, but you’re a little caught off guard by the fact he remembers that so clearly. It seemed like every grocery trip he used to tag along to when your family would go shopping, he would catch you slipping something into your mouth as you pushed the cart— a stray grape or cherry, otherwise small and easily sneakable fruit. He’d always just smile, looking away like he didn’t see anything at all, but you always had a feeling he’d known what you were doing; and this was just confirmation that not only had he seen you, but he’d also permanently catalogued it into his memory. Ugh.

You cross your arms over the railing, turning away with a small huff. “Didn’t know you’d become a cleanfreak while I was gone. Slowpoke.”

The rain continues to pour.

After the grape conversation the silence stretches on for so long that you think that’s going to be it, that you’ll both just stand out here and exist in the chilly air, the wind occasionally whipping a flurry of tiny droplets onto the sleeves of your clothes— but he hums right as you’re about to suggest going back inside.

"Even with the storm, the view up here is insane. I’ve never been this high up without glass in the way. That's Namsan over there, isn't it?"

"Namsan?" you echo, a little annoyed by how quickly your body turns to the sound of his voice, "Uh. Probably… not? Namsan Tower is completely east from here, almost a literal ninety degree angle from this side of the building. You might be seeing something else."

"You didn't even look,” he says. “How can you be so sure?"

"Because it should be impossible to see it from here. This is an inlay. Unless Palisades is skewed like, one degree south, there shouldn't be any way—"

"Okay, wise girl, what's that light I'm seeing over there then? Since you're so smart."

You scowl at him, clicking your tongue at the pleased squint of his eyes, and ignore how he laughs when you all but shove him out of the way to get a better look. You're squished into the very corner of the balcony railing in the attempt to see what damn light he's talking about— forgetting, like you did at his apartment last week, that you’re not close, and that you probably shouldn’t be so comfortable around with him like this— craning your neck almost painfully towards downtown.

"There’s nothing there. Do you not have your contacts in or something?"

"I got Lasik a few years back, so I'd bet money my vision is better than yours. How are you not seeing it?"

Lasik? This is news to you. If you weren't still trying to find this dot he's talking about you'd whip around, staring deep into his pupils like Lasik would have somehow left a mark that confirms what he's saying, a brand of some sort, but you keep your gaze sharp on the horizon of this fabled Namsan.

You do end up speaking out loud though, absentmindedly. "I guess that’s not super surprising.”

"What?"

"It’s not surprising that you got Lasik. You used to talk about it a lot in highschool."

"I did?"

"Yeah, you used to complain about those big goggles they'd make you use during your games. And that putting in contacts every morning was annoying and took forever, but how you hated using glasses too, cause the glass was so thick that they made your eyes look funny."

You’re not paying attention to how odd it might be that you just... remember all that stuff. Especially because he'd never really been talking to you when he said these things. You'd just overheard by chance, during the myriad of times you’d wind up in the same place as him somehow; whether it was the kitchen before school whenever he’d drop by a little too early and your mom forced him to eat breakfast with you and Mark, or when you’d hide on the stairs and eavesdrop on all of your brothers friends when they’d come over after basketball games.

"But I never really got it," you add, "’Cause to me you always looked pretty either way. Glasses and Goggles and whatnot. They were cute.”

You squint at a blinking red speck hovering right on the edge, near the corner of the building.

“Christ, is that seriously it, Lee? That tiny red thing all the way over there? How the hell did you even see that through all these clouds?”

He says nothing. Another few moments go by as you try to confirm if that's really what you're seeing, and you think it is Namsan Tower, there’s even a few more little white lights you hadn’t paid attention to at first because you’d thought they were just very persistent stars. Shit. His vision is better than yours.

What a normal person would do now is turn around and relent— because, you remember belatedly, you’re still attempting to be normal— and tell him you’d miraculously been wrong, maybe rib him a little for his bionic eyes cheating for him, something friendly and nice and casual, but you don’t get the chance.

Why? Because when you turn, there’s less than two feet of space between you both.

As if Jeno had also been trying to look for the tower, he is now crowding you against the corner of the balcony— arm still curled around the railing, but now limp as he stares down at you instead. Which means, since you've turned around, you're practically face to face.

And he looks... surprised.

"What?" you blurt quickly, “What happened?”

He blinks hard and then looks away altogether, back into the black night of rain. His mouth is pursed into a very thin line, like he’s trying not to either laugh or frown.

"You thought I was pretty?" he asks.

Oh? Oh. “What?”

You stare at him for a very long moment, completely not following, and his lip only twitches in response.

Is he… smiling?

And then it hits you like a sack of bricks. You thought I was pretty?

Oh, God. Instantly, your expression sours— you almost want to hit him when you finally realize what that dumb, pleased look on his face is for (although it’s definitely more out of embarrassment at your own slip up because shit, did you really say that? Outloud?)

"You’ve got to be kidding,” you groan. “That’s what you’re looking all shellshocked for? Like that's something you need to hear from me, when you hear it all the time!”

You’d have thought you called him ugly with how Jeno’s smile suddenly vanishes. "All the time?"

Your mouth opens quickly to respond, already indignant, but when you catch the look on his face no sound comes out. His expression has turned into something much more curious than teasing now, eyebrows furrowed as you say nothing— He speaks again before you can figure out how to answer, yet another question, soft enough that it’s nearly lost in the thundering of the rain over the awning.

"And what makes you think that’s something I wouldn’t want to hear from you?"

You hear it loud and clear, yes, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth you’re still positive you’ve misheard him.

Is he insinuating that he would’ve wanted to know you thought he was pretty? No. There’s no way that’s what he said. Are you still drunk? (Or has Lee Jeno’s presence in your life just been so brain-breaking lately that your mind is starting to pull illusions on you? Because why… Why would Lee Jeno ever give a shit what you thought about him?)

"I mean, it's— It’s not like it's a secret that you look like this," you eventually force out, both audibly and visibly flustered, which you hate yourself for. “I thought it was a given, that you know…. You’re obviously…”

“That I’m what?”

Hot, your traitorous brain supplies quickly. Cute? Pretty, attractive, stunning, chiseled from marble and yet soft and warm like watercolor, annoyingly beautiful—

You glance away from him. "You know what.”

You’re embarrassed. Your voice has hardened a little with it, almost petulant, which is immediately annoying for multiple reasons, the biggest being that he’s even able to affect you like this at all after one stupid question. All those guys flirting with you at Wooyoung’s party a few hours ago and you’d brushed it off with ease, but Lee Jeno only looks at you and you can’t even meet his eyes? When did you become so uncool?

After a few awkwardly intense seconds you see him shift like he’s finally going to say something, and it’s merely a gift from the heavens that Jaemin’s voice rings out just then. It careens right through the crack in the balcony door, a sing-songy “Jeeeeno!” that shatters the atmosphere like tempered glass— quickly followed by, "And you too, Rockstar! Food is ready, come and get it before we eat it all! You’ll both catch a cold out there!”, and with the sudden reminder that, oh, yeah, you’re actually not alone in this house, you regain some of your lost composure.

You blast Jeno with a smile wide enough to signal airplanes and take one large step away from him. “Right. Food. Food! You’re hungry, right?”

Needless to say you do not wait for an answer. With haste you maneuver back into the house, quickly finding your way to the coffee table that Jaemin is in the middle of setting with plates and dishes, plastering a (hopefully) convincing look of wonder on your face. Your cheeks are already aching from the pull. How much faking have you had to do today?

“Smells great!” you say saccharinely, “Which one is mine?”

“The one with the extra sauce and chives,” Jaemin replies as you sit down, but peeks over his shoulder in his walk back to the kitchen to fix you with a warning glare. (He remembered that you like extra greens. Nice.) “But don’t you dare start eating before I get back with the sides, I know how you get. Sit and wait.”

“Wait? What do you mean wait? I thought you said it was done—”

“Sit and wait!”

Frowning, you abide by his scolding, still too scattered to argue.

Donghyuck stirs when you plop down beside him. “I helped too,” he says to you proudly. Somi is on his other side, splayed out on the ground swiping away at her phone, one foot crossed lazily over his legs. He doesn’t seem to care (or realize) that they’re there. Huh. You’re pleased that they seem to be getting along well, but they’re both pretty much the most outgoing people you know so it’s not earth-shattering that in the few hours they’ve become acquaintances they’ve also somehow already evolved to getting touchy. Jeno is sitting at the metaphorical head of the coffee table on your left, and Jaemin’s steaming bowl is directly across from yours.

“All I saw you do was wash a baby carrot.”

“All of the baby carrots. And the chives, which was way more difficult to do after Somi already cut them up into microscopic pieces. I boiled the eggs and fried the onions, too. You love eggs, so when you eat them and your face falls off with how good they taste, I’m definitely taking credit for that.”

You and Donghyuck used to argue a lot when you were younger. He was the loudest of your brother's friends and loved to rile you up just as much as you loved to prove him wrong, especially during those rare afternoons spent in his presence when you’d been in too good of a mood to pretend Mark’s commune were the bane of your existence. A handful of times, you spared an hour or two to watch TV with them or steal some of their food. (They always happily offered you some, but it made you feel better about avoiding them when you assumed they were feeding you begrudgingly.)

“I used to love eggs,” you tell Donghyuck snootily, that old squabbling-habit kicking in full force. “Who says I still do?”

“It’s not hard to tell, though,” Jeno pipes up. The last person you’re expecting to speak right now is him and it shows pretty obviously in how your head whips around. “Mark has been buying eggs like crazy because you eat through them so fast, which makes it obvious because Mark hates eggs. Every time I come over there’s a whole new box in the fridge. You’re like Dwane The Rock Johnson. That guy eats a carton of raw eggs a day.”

Silence.

Your mouth opens, then closes. Dwayne the rock…?

“Busted! Looks like you’re not as opaque as you think, Rockstar—”

Perfect. An outlet. You whirl back around and sock Donghyuck in the shoulder the second the last word leaves his lips, and his dumb grin is immediately replaced with a grimace as he squeals and jolts. “Stop calling me that.”

“Right! Right, got it, fuck,” he groans. “Christ, I swear your punches didn’t hurt this bad before! Have you taken up Muay Thai or something recently…?!”

Muay Thai? You look down at your first for some reason like the answer will just be laying there across your skin, but all that happens is you see the faded remnants of the scratches on your knuckles from your unfortunate meeting behind Nabi Bar.

Oh.

…Nabi Bar. Nabi bar. Right. The night of Nabi Bar. Jeno’s quick how-to-punch lesson. Apparently, it’s had some effect.

“I didn’t do anything special. I was just like, sixteen the last time I hit you. A lot can change in four years.”

“Liar!” Somi suddenly blurts from the ground, startling both of you. If she wasn’t so hidden behind Donghyuck you’d instantly reach over to pinch her mouth closed. “She works out now. Got a hell of a kick, too, you should see her on those little sandbag things at the gym. Piss her off a little more an’ she’ll show you, I bet, ‘cause— Oh my god, there was this guy once a few weeks ago who got it good when he—”

“Food first,” a voice exclaims.

Jaemin appears from behind you like a ghost holding a tray of little bowls and plates, and oh, you could kiss him for cutting that conversation short. “You will be free to display whatever sadistic desires you please after we eat, okay? Now. Who wants dumplings?”

Somi senses the food and sits up straight, forgetting momentarily about reminiscing, thank god, and you, already famished and now reeling to change the subject, waste no time picking up your utensils to shovel noodles into your mouth.

Midnight Dinner goes relatively peacefully after this. Jaemin and Hyuck argue about some basketball thing you don’t care to tune into, and later Somi cheerily informs the group that half the people at Wooyoung's party got stuck at the airBnB overnight when the weather advisory warning went out and that it’s chaos over there— people allegedly sleeping on the dancefloor and holing up in pantry closets. Thankfully (because your group chat probably would have been awash with death threats from Ryujin if not), Lia managed to get all of your girlfriends the hell out of there in time, and they were now safe and sound at Lia’s place a few blocks away from the party.

However. When the food is eventually finished and Somi’s mouth is no longer occupied, life becomes difficult once again.

Foolishly, you thought you were in the clear. In your head the night’s end would have come like this: you’d peacefully tidy up the table, using your last bit of hospitality to do the dishes while Somi showed the guests their rooms like the good host she is— and while they were off doing that, you’d sneak into the room you always slept in when you were staying over, jump into the shower for just long enough for everyone else to forget about you and go to bed, proceed to go to bed yourself, and finish this seemingly endless fucking day underneath a fluffy, ten-thousand-count threaded duvet, never (or at least for a few hours before they inevitably showed up at Mark’s apartment tomorrow) to see Donghyuck, Jaemin and Jeno, ever again. It was the perfect plan. Infallible. Who could stop you, right?

Netflix could.

Right as you were about to put your plan into action and suggest cleaning up, Hyuck gasped so loudly at your side that you startled and choked on your own spit.

“Did you guys know that all of the Paranormal Activity movies dropped on Netflix tonight at midnight?” he exclaimed, “Like, all of them?”

And that had been the single nail in your perfect plan’s coffin. Whether he already knew that Somi happened to be a horror movie freak or if his outburst was pure coincidence, it didn’t matter. All it took for your friend to catch her second wind of energy was the mention of this fabled ‘Paranormal Activity’, and you watched your plan drift away into Valhalla as Somi insisted that after everyone clean up, you all finish the sleepover with a movie.

It wasn’t the type of insistence that one could simply deny. Somi brought out the puppy-dog eyes. She used her trump card, and it worked. Donghyuck agreed immediately, the adrenaline junkie he is, and none of the rest of you objected either— even though you could even see it in Jaemin’s face that he wasn’t super enthusiastic about a horror movie right before bed, but what was he going to do? Say no to Somi? Who could charm the rosary off of a priest?

So it was with a heavy heart that you trudged through cleaning up, and trudged into your room to shower, and trudged into your duffel to put the pajamas on that you’d brought along (which, thank god, you’d decided to go with a pair of basketball shorts and an old highschool hoodie this time instead of only the big t-shirts you usually just brought to her house), and finally trudged back outside to throw yourself down onto the couch, exhausted and feeling very unlucky.

But at least you get to close your eyes for a little bit before everyone else comes out, right? Right. You bask in the beautiful, dark, ambient living room for… seven entire seconds before a voice rings out above your head.

“Is her brother a bodybuilder?”

God damn it. You crack your eyes open.

Jeno is standing over you with a small frown on his face as he looks at his hands— or where his hands would be, if the sleeves of Somi’s brother's crewneck weren't completely covering them. He’s upside down when you look at him this way, but you can’t be bothered to roll over, so you just tilt your head up (or down?) until you can see him a little better.

“Her brother is a gym rat, yes. But he’s actually not that big. He’s not that much taller than you, actually.”

“He’s not that much taller than me? How is that possible? I look like a kid in this.”

A kid? This causes you to perk up a little bit. You turn slightly, just enough to get a right-side-up idea of what Jeno is talking about— and immediately have to press your lips into a line to keep from laughing. Or coo-ing. Whichever sound would escape first.

He wasn’t wrong about looking like a kid; the black crewneck almost reaches his thighs it’s so long, hanging loosely over his body like he got tangled in a windsail, the sleeves of which folding easily over his hands in what may be the most effective sweater-paws of all time. The sweatpants he’s got on aren’t helping either since they’re dragging on the floor under his socked feet, Jeno’s legs absolutely undistinguishable from cloth as he stands there and… scowls at you?

“What?” you blurt. But as the word comes out, you know exactly why he’s frowning. You’re smiling. He knows you’re trying not to crack up. Oops.

“I knew you were going to laugh,” he mutters, but he doesn’t sound as salty about it as you’d have thought from his glare. “I look stupid. Somi didn’t have anything else, you know. I asked.”

“Why are you explaining yourself to me?” you snicker, “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking it.”

Jeno sounded so petulant that you almost felt a little bad for him, but then he folded his arms, adorably haughty, the movement of which making the little sweater-paws comically flop over each other, and the pity is instantaneously obliterated by the intense urge to squish him into a ball and put him in your pocket. Holy shit. Could he get cuter than this? Thankfully, your restraint doesn’t have to last long (you’re pretty sure a vein is about to pop out of your forehead from the sheer force of not trying to cackle) because a sudden booming thud from the guest bedroom hallway snaps both of your attention to the other side of the house.

“No fucking way,” Donghyuck howls. And then all of a sudden he’s here. That’s the thumping— he’s… running? “No way!”

No time to take full note of what he’s wearing (another gigantic hoodie and sweatpants combo) because he’s looking so frantic that his fashion takes the backburner.

“You’re… overreacting,” you hear Jaemin say, following not soon after him, but for some reason not even he sounds sure about his own words. What the hell?

“Why didn’t you tell me— Why— Traitor! Traitor in my own home!”

It’s only when his wide eyes find yours that you realize he’s yelling at you.

“I— I’ve never been to your house,” you attempt quickly, stunned. Unsure, you glance at Jeno, but he seems just as alarmed as you do.

Jaemin grimaces. His steps make no sound because the fabric of his borrowed flannel pajama pants are so long that you actually can't see his feet at all. “Ignore him,” he says. “He… Somi just…”

“I told him who’s clothes he’s wearing,” Somi interrupts casually, coming from the same hallway they’d just come from, most likely her own bathroom. She’s the only one with clothes that fit, obviously; the usual pajama set you’re used to seeing her in, fuzzy and pink, blonde hair tied up into a bun on the very top of her head. It takes you a second to put her words together, the meaning of ‘who’s clothes’, before all of this hubbub makes sense.

“Oh,” you murmur. “Oh. Yeah. Big Jeon. Jeongguk.”

“Jeon Jeongguk!?” Donghyuck wails in exasperation. “Does that make sense?! Grammy award winning soloist Jeon Jeongguk!? Are you crazy! That man is my profile picture on SoundCloud and you didn’t think to tell me that your best friend is his little sister?!”

“I didn’t know you liked him that much,” you hazard lightly, rising to your knees on the couch.

This is a lie. You knew how much Donghyuck idolized Somi’s brother. It was kind of hard not to know when Hyuck had the man’s entire discography memorized. But being that you weren’t really in the business of exposing celebrities (and the fact that never in a million years would you have thought you’d end up in a situation like this) you’d never had the incentive to, you know, tell him.

Which may have been a mistake, because now Donghyuck looks crazed.

He makes a staggered lurch to the couch and you tense, holding your hands out like he might try to tackle you or something, but the fight seems to leave him all at once. He completely bypasses your outstretched arms to flop into the space you’d just occupied on the cushion. The ripple causes you to stumble back into sitting, and you stare down at him. “I’m wearing Jeon Jeongguk’s clothes…”

“Your shoes are in his entryway,” you tell him, just to rub it in. “And you ate his food, and sat on his furniture. You showered with Jeon Jeongguk’s soap. Does that normalize it for you?”

Donghyuck makes a weak sound, like he’s drifting away, all the air being pressed out of a blow-up mattress, and you snicker a little bit. For some reason, you pat his head— it’s instinctual, a soothing gesture you’d express to any friend— but he’s not your friend. And you realize this almost immediately after your hand makes contact with his (surprisingly soft) hair.

So why are you continuing to pat his head?

“Right,” Jaemin says with a sigh, pinching fruitlessly at his nose bridge. “Bomb defused. Or… Bomb exploded, technically. Let’s get this slumber party tied up nicely, yeah?”

You look up, nodding in agreement, and immediately make eye contact with Jeno. It feels like he’d already been looking at you, but he then proceeds to act like he wasn’t when you catch his gaze.

…Okay. Weird. You stop petting Donghyuck’s head. Somi bounds towards the couch, reinvigorated with the mention of the movie, and you try not to side-eye Jeno too much when he plops down onto the couch next to you— at a considerable distance, might you add, like he hadn’t just been on top of you on the balcony an hour ago, but you instantly feel stupid for making that connection and whip your eyes away, once again agitated for some indiscernible reason.

The movie starts normally enough. With an entire couch-full of people and Donghyuck’s warmth at your side, since he’d never really moved from his dent next to you— if anything, sidling up closer once the oh-so-spooky-door-slammings started to happen in the film, because even if he likes to play coy, he’s really a big baby— it was pretty easy to stay grounded and not get too scared by the jumps and bumps on the screen.

Too easy, maybe. Because at one point you swear you were just going to rest your eyes for a little, just take a tiny little break during a slow point in the plot…

And the next time you opened them, everything was dark.

It’s quiet. The TV is off. And you’re… alone? You’re alone.

Groggily, you try to sit up from where you’ve apparently laid down, and your neck aches like you’ve been stuck in this position for hours, but no way it’s been hours, right? You didn’t seriously fall asleep?

However. The more you look around, the more signs point to the fact that, yeah, you totally blitzed it. You fell asleep. During a horror movie, no less. And it seems like everyone else made it through the film, as there’s not a single other person still out here on the couch. (So they couldn’t wake you up when they went to bed? Bastards.)

Once your eyes focus you glare across the house into the kitchen, and spy the time on the oven clock. 5:35AM.

Too early for you to have risen by yourself. You usually won’t wake up even if someone is banging pots and pans together outside of your bedroom door, so what… and why is it so cold in here? Your toes are freezing. The rest of you, not quite as much, because there’s a blanket draped over you that you don’t remember being there when you fell asleep. You sit up all the way, rubbing the crusties from your eyes and looking around again once your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and find the answer to all of your questions in one look over to the source of the chill.

The balcony door is open again, and somebody is out there. Somebody in a big dark sweater, dwarfing their shape behind the fabric, but you’d recognize that pretty profile pretty much anywhere.

Lee Jeno. Again.

“Why are you awake,” you mutter nasally, throat still not completely woken up. This time he does jump at your intrusion— the big eyes and jolt would be funny if it weren’t so chilly out here. The blanket you wrapped around your head and body is doing well to deter the cold, but your feet and face aren’t happy.

“Did I wake you up?” Jeno asks, turning around fully. The black of his hair is just barely distinguishable from the dark blue of early morning.

You stand stiffly in the doorway again, not as confident to join him by the railing as you’d been last night.

“I don’t know. How long have you been out here?”

“Give or take fifteen minutes.”

You shrug. “Then probably not. Fifteen minutes, though? Out here? You must be trying to get sick for real.”

You’re squinting for no good reason other than the fact that you can’t quite open your eyes all the way yet. “And old people don’t fare well with colds, you know.”

He cracks a smile at this, bigger than you’re expecting for that weak of a joke. Before he can respond though, you surprise yourself by speaking first.

“Do you want to share my blanket?”

A beat of silence. It takes a second for your words to catch up with your obviously quite lagging brain, but when they do, you’re hit with a jolt of surprise that almost wakes you up fully. Shit! Again, saying things before you think— this is what got you in hot water last night!

“Actually— Sorry, you probably want to be alone right? Right, I’ll—”

“I wouldn’t mind sharing,” Jeno interrupts with a small smile, and you freeze. “It’s colder out here than I thought it would be. You might as well watch the sunrise with me, right? You’re already up.”

“Sunrise?”

“Yep. Should pop over the horizon any minute now.”

Oh. Your spine de-rigifies.

That is… actually, a very Jeno thing to do. Waking up at the crack of dawn just to see the sunrise.

Now you feel a little dumb for that not being one of the first things you assumed when you first saw him out here. Another second passes before you build the courage to step out again, right back into the spot you’d been last night— but this time, you shrug the edge of the (thankfully) rather large blanket open, and fling it wantonly over Jeno’s head, unsure how this has become your life. Highschool You would be crying tears of blood. (From envy or pride, you’re not sure.)

“Do it so no air gets in,” you instruct, and he obeys easily.

Soon enough you’re two peas in a blanket pod, only your faces poking out, but you’re… closer than you’d anticipated. Even with the size of the blanket. You can feel the fabric of his sweatpants brushing against your leg. If you look up too fast, you might headbutt him.

“This was a good idea,” Jeno murmurs suddenly, and you actually almost do heatbutt him when you jump at how close his voice is. “I forgot you burn like a furnace. I feel like there’s a space heater in here with me.”

You only nod. Anything more than that feels obscene with how quiet it is.

For a few minutes neither of you say anything, silent while the sky slowly blues, purples, and then turns the slightest shade of pink around the edges, a tiny little ray of sunlight peeking through the streets but not quite reaching through the skyscrapers yet. And this is… fine. Just two people watching the sunrise, alone. Acquaintances. Sharing a blanket to detract from the chill morning wind of September, just like regular people do.

“Do you remember Mark’s twentieth birthday?” Jeno asks, out of nowhere.

“His… twentieth?” you echo. “You mean the one you and him had to spend in the ER, because of that longboard Donghyuck got him?”

“That one was also pretty funny,” Jeno smiles, and you roll your eyes. Boys. Of course he’d think getting a matching broken arm cast with Mark Lee would be funny. “But no, that was eighteen. I’m talking about when you and I accidentally locked ourselves out of your house trying to sneak his cake inside. When we had to wait in your old treehouse for an hour for him to come home, in the dark, in the middle of a monsoon?”

Once he mentions the treehouse, the memory hits you like a punch to the gut.

That birthday. Jeez… yeah, how could you forget that? Jeno might as well have just said, ‘Remember the day you realized you had more than just a crush on me?’

With the caliber of feelings you’d had for him at that point, being stuck in that small space had been the highlight of your whole month, forget the fact that you’d torn a hole in your favorite shirt from clamoring up the wooden ladder and your toes had gotten so wet and pruney in your shoes that they bled. If you’d asked highschool you though, if you’d relive all of that bullshit— sprinting across the backyard while a torrential downpour hailed from the sky, laughing at how his glasses fogged completely over by the time you collapsed into the only marginally more sheltered treehouse, the hour you spent in there pressed against his side while you waited for your brother to get home— Yeah, you’d have done it again.

Splinters in your palms, cobwebs and leaves in your hair, the ruined pair of sneakers, all of it. A hundred times over. Just because you were with him, and that was all that ever mattered back then.

Your stomach twists at the recollection, an unfamiliar feeling stirring somewhere under your skin. God. How lame, huh? You’d really been head over heels.

“That was the first time I realized you doubled as a human fireplace,” Jeno says finally, snapping you out of it, and only then do you understand where this is coming from. “I was soaked to the bone, and yet I felt like I was sweating because I was sitting so close to you.”

“You caught the cold so badly the next day that we all genuinely thought you were going to die,” you remind with a short, weak laugh. “If I was supposed to be keeping you warm, I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.”

He hums softly. “You’re doing a pretty good job right now.”

It’s here where you make the first of many mistakes.

Without thinking, you look up at him. The sun has crested over the horizon now, orange rays of sunlight fully peeking through the buildings, and the glow of it is lighting Jeno up a blurred golden, filtering through his black hair and turning it bronze as he smiles off into the distance. It’s such a pretty picture that your thoughts, admittedly, falter quite hard at the sight— and it doesn’t help that when he senses your eyes on him, he glances down.

And again. You’re huddled up under the same blanket. You are very close. Close enough to feel his arm brushing up against yours, and to see the pools of honey brown in the eyes that had looked like such an intense, endless black last night.

(Maybe you’d reminisced too hard. Maybe the memory of that night in the treehouse pulled some feelings up from the long forgotten pit in your chest, the same place that used to flutter when you’d hear Lee Jeno’s name and pound like crazy in the rare times he’d call yours, the place that you’d thought died when he graduated and was never going to bother you again. The place you thought died. Because after what you say next? The only explanation for it is that your pit of love-struck stupidity is still thriving and fucking well.)

“We had an emergency key taped under the porch swing,” you blurt thoughtlessly.

Jeno blinks a few times in quick succession, like those had been the last words he was expecting you to mutter after staring at him so fiercely. “You… What?”

“A key to the front door. I remembered that it was there about fifteen minutes after we climbed into the treehouse.”

Self-preservation finally shows up to the word-vomit party, belatedly locking the key to your mouth so no other stupid confessions can escape— But it’s too late. Despite the intense confusion on his face, it’s clear that he heard you perfectly. You don’t have to be looking at him to feel how hard he’s thinking either; putting the pieces together, trying to understand what exactly you’re telling him— and after what feels like half an hour, Jeno finally speaks.

“So we could have gone inside before Mark got home?”

You cringe a little bit. “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t tell me on purpose?”

“...Yes.”

“Well. Okay,” Jeno eventually says, sounding thankfully only slightly bewildered, and not mad like he’d be well within his rights to be. “Can I ask why you’re telling me this now? Guilty conscience?”

“I don’t… know,” you tell him honestly. “Maybe. You reminded me of it when you brought it up and I guess my brain realized I’d never told you about that. I wasn’t really thinking when I mentioned it. It’s— It’s still very early, I’m not functioning all the way yet. Sorry.”

“Sorry for your brain trying to get you in trouble, or sorry for trapping us in the rain for an hour and a half because you were too embarrassed to tell me that you forgot about the spare key?”

This gets you to look up. What?

“Embarrassed?”

“I mean, after we’d already been soaked through, I don’t think I’d want to bring up the spare either. Why else wouldn’t you say anything?”

Jeno is simply smiling at you again, eyes shaped into those little knowing crescents you used to daydream about, but you can’t stop to admire them right now. That’s why he thought you didn’t tell him?

When you analyze the emotions swirling in your chest you realize that you’re oddly… disappointed. Because you were embarrassed? It wasn’t like you didn’t know Jeno was humble (or just dense, as Donghuck would say), but come on. Is that really the first thing his mind would come to for why a girl would willingly stay up in some wet, old, gross treehouse with a guy when she obviously had the means to go back into her own home? Is it so impossible to guess that it was him you were there for?

Why you’re so disgruntled by his response is unclear, and it seems Jeno has caught on to your displeasure.

“Why are you frowning at me like that?”

“Like what?” you reply hastily. “I’m not frowning at you.”

He squints, and you glance away from his suddenly very analytical stare. “...You are, though. You’re frowning at me right now. You said you weren’t frowning at me while you were frowning. Did I miss something?”

Yeah. You missed everything apparently. The last six years, even.

“No.”

“That’s a lie,” he says immediately. You’re so surprised by the certainty in his voice that you almost forget that you’re trying not to look at him. “You’re doing that thing. With your forehead.”

“Excuse me? I’m not doing anything with my—”

Jeno raises one finger to press right between your eyebrows, relaying the tension you’d unknowingly been holding there, and your words pretty much die in your throat alongside the memory of why you’re even pissy in the first place. “This thing,” he says. “When you lie, your eyebrows get all raised and angry looking. You have a pretty bad poker-face, Rockstar.”

“Stop calling me that,” you mutter automatically, but it has no real heat behind it. God damn it. Could you be more lame? Losing your fight and ire just because he put his finger on your forehead? “And stop stabbing me.”

He takes his finger back. “Are you going to tell me why you didn’t say anything about the key?”

“You answered your own question. I was embarrassed.”

“Liar. Your forehead—” You slap a hand over your eyebrows, and Jeno actually laughs. “... actually isn’t doing anything this time, but now because you did that I know you’re lying anyway. Got you.”

Fuck! Ripping your hand away from your skin, you scowl at him, embarrassed that he figured you out so easily. “Why do you even give a shit, Jeno?”

“I mean, I didn’t until your forehead started telling me differently.”

“My forehead is not— I don't—”

Jeno snickers at your indignance, smiling deviously like he’s enjoying teasing you more than he’s letting on, and your stress worsens.

“You’re the one who brought it up, you know—”

“I know,” you bark, “It’s just—”

“Did you think I’d be mad?”

“No! I— God, is it so hard to believe that I did it because I liked you?”

The words are out before you even realize what you’re saying. Or what you’re doing, should you say which is completely destroying six years of secrecy in one fell, sleep deficient, Forehead-Poking-Fueled haze.

You stare at him, breathing a little hard at both the outburst and in shock, and Jeno stares right back, no longer looking quite as amused. There’s such a long beat of silence at first that you, in your stupor, have the gall to wonder if he didn’t hear you— like that would be possible when you’d basically shouted your half-baked confession in his face— but then Jeno shifts, blinking hard, and all of a sudden the silence did not last long enough.

“You liked me?”

God, it sounds even more delusional out loud. Damage control, Gremlin Brain spits, Damage control! Backtrack, now! Your only saving grace, the only reason you’re not currently trying to find a way to throw yourself off of this balcony, is because he doesn’t sound completely disgusted with you. You force the most indifferent mask you can muster onto your face, attempting to blink the panic out of your expression.

“Liked you? So, maybe— Maybe it was a little, small thing. A kiddie crush, really, nothing to be… talked about…”

“Back then?” Jeno clarifies, sounding… Well, you’re not sure how he sounds and that’s so much worse. “You felt that way in the treehouse? When you were a junior?”

“Yes? Yeah, I mean. Yes. It was a little thing. A tiny thing. Listen—”

“But I thought you stopped liking me after Sungchan asked you out?”

Those twelve words are the equivalent of getting splashed in the face with a cup of ice water.

(Jeno frowns, lips thinning as he thinks. “Or was his name Seunghan?”)

For the first time in probably your entire life, you actually ignore what Lee Jeno is saying to you. As he mumbles to himself about the prospective name of this alleged ‘date’, his previous words echo in your head over and over again like someone replaying the same three-second stretch on a vinyl record— And with each iteration, your skin warms another degree. By the time you finally collect yourself enough to speak, paralyzed with shock, your face is burning so warm with something— disbelief, surprise, straight up fear, you’re not sure yet— that you’re positive that steam is curling out of your pores.

But I thought you stopped liking me after Sungchan asked you out?

(“I swear it was something with an S...”)

Jeno is looking elsewhere as he thinks— Until the incredulity in your voice brings his attention back to the present.

“You… knew?”

“Knew?” His lips twitch with a small smile. Seemingly still not grasping the severity of the shitstorm occuring in your mind, Jeno laughs softly, bashful. “About how you felt? Well. Yeah? You've never really been that subtle about… anything, you know.”

You can’t move. It’s actually beginning to get a little unbearable under this blanket with the sun starting to beam down on you and the added heat from your own ebbing horror, but you can’t move.

You’re being hit with every glaringly obvious cue you've probably ever given him, a rolling tape of embarrassing memories. It’s an attempt happening completely in vain, as trying to find the one that tipped him off is impossible; sifting through years worth of moony-eyes you thought were hidden by your undetectable stealth, the times you’d ‘randomly’ maneuver yourself sitting near him when the chance arose, all the times he’s probably caught you just staring and known exactly why while you thought he was none the wiser.

Holy shit. So the last six years of your life, the two years you’d stopped being obsessed with him included, have been a complete and utter show? A clown show, with you as the main act? Horror overtakes you. Fuck, what you’d give to go back a few minutes and stop yourself from even coming out here in the first place, to keep living in ignorance— he’d known. He’d known! Jeno knew about the giant, stupid crush you had on him, which probably meant that every single time you got flustered or clammed up or been weird around him recently he knew why, and…

Wait. You freeze, current freak-out taken over by another thought that bursts into your mind.

I thought you stopped liking me after Sungchan asked you out?

Sungchan? You rack your brain. Sungchan, the classmate you’d become fast friends with during the first semester of junior year, your sky-scraper tall, smartass of a deskmate for the few months before he grew the courage to ask you out. You’d both tried it out for a few days before realizing that maybe the dating life wasn’t the best avenue for your relationship and amicably returned to being friends, still close even when he ended up transferring to another highschool a few cities away over the summer. Even now you still kept in touch, sending the occasional ‘this deer looks like u’ and ‘omg i just found this polaroid in my old notebook, look at how babie u were’ texts to one another, but that had really been it.

You dated Sungchan for about four and a half days in the grand scheme of things. Not nearly long enough to even dent the ocean of unresolved feelings you’d had about Lee Jeno. Those feelings would continue to haunt you until the ripe old age of eighteen, up until when he and your brother graduated— But if Jeno thought that you completely stopped liking him after Sungchan that meant he didn’t have a clue about the years you still idolized him after that, didn’t it?

For a second you almost feel ill.

(Of course, however. Of course, right as your failing mask of indifference hits its weakest point, that’s when your luck would have Jeno belatedly notice that you are not having nearly as good a time reminiscing about this as he is.)

He finally reads the look on your face, the tightness of your lips and the unmistakable mortification, and his eyes widen so quickly with understanding that you would have laughed if you could release your mouth from its grimace.

“There wasn’t anything wrong with that though,” he blurts, backpedaling, “I mean— It was nice to be thought of so highly by someone like you. It was cute.”

Your smile tightens further.

You know he’s trying. Very hard. To rectify what he must see as him unknowingly upsetting you or something. But his words do exactly the opposite, and the second after he calls it that— the nearly five years you’d spent falling over yourself over someone, who you are now being told, has always just thought your feelings were ‘cute’— something splinters a little bitterly in your chest.

Jeno, to his credit, realizes immediately that he’s misspoken.

You can practically see it in his expression, the wince when you take a step back. It causes the blanket to fall away from you completely, now left hanging lopsidedly on Jeno’s shoulders— the movement of which seems to concern him more than you’re expecting.

“Wait,” he says quickly. “That didn’t come out properly. Y/N—”

Nope. No. You take another step back.

Time to go. What a perfect moment this could be to go back inside. Yep! A convincing yawn here, a shiver, a thanks for the sunset-watching-invitation, and then you can abscond back into the house to the comforting loneliness of your bedroom to immediately and until further notice pretend you never came out here and that none of this ever—

“I would’ve taken you seriously,” Jeno finishes in one short breath, like the words are escaping his mouth without the permission of his brain, “If I could’ve. You know that, right?”

Record scratch.

His mouth opens and closes when you freeze, visibly struggling to find the words to explain what he’s just said (or dropped on you, it feels more like), and you just stare at him, uncomprehending.

“No, I… I don’t know? If you could have? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You— You’re my best friend's baby sister,” he grinds out quietly, like it’s somehow supposed to explain everything, but you’re only left more confused. Confused and, suddenly, at the random mention of Mark at a time like this, on edge. “Not to mention you were like, sixteen—”

“I’m only one year under you though,” you interrupt.

“You skipped a grade in elementary school, I’m aware, but that doesn't make you any older. Two years is a big difference.”

“It really isn’t? Especially not when both people involved are adults, and did you forget about Yooa? The girl who confessed to you when you were a senior, that you dated, who was definitely only a few months older than me?”

Jeno’s eyebrows furrow like you’d just asked him if he remembered the eye color of somebody he met when he was five. He frowns like he’s trying to recall exactly who you’re talking about, this girl who’s entire name, history, and zodiac sign you’d had emblazoned into your mind because when she first started dating Jeno you’d cried for an hour straight and then proceeded to cyber-investigate the girl’s twitter to torture yourself a little more.

“So unless four or five months really makes all the difference to you, I’m calling bullshit on the age thing, which now begs the question— what the hell does ‘taking me seriously’ have to do with my brother?”

“It has everything to do with your brother,” Jeno replies eventually, voice taut. “And you and I both know you and Mark don’t always see eye to eye, so I really think it would be best if we just dropped—

“Did he say something to you?” you mutter, accusatory. “About me?”

“He—It’s not that easy, Y/N. Mark wasn’t—”

You scoff, boiling over. “Mark didn’t this, Mark doesn’t that, does being ‘best friends’ also mean that you’re obligated to be his lapdog? What is it with you guys and deferring to his every whim?”

Jeno’s words cut short. You’re pushing it, even for someone as controlled and notoriously difficult-to-rile as Jeno, and the burgeoning tick in his jaw is telling you as much, but you’ve never really been one to heed warnings. And now you��re pissed, so the tense pull between his eyebrows is peas to you. “Or are you going to be a big boy and tell me what he—”

“Mark didn’t tell me anything,” Jeno finally relents, sharper than you’re used to, but you hold your ground when he takes a step forward. “I acted like I didn’t know how you felt on my own, because what else was I supposed to do when Mark only ever spoke about you like you put the stars in the sky? Once I met you he started telling me about your grades. He’d get so excited to tell me how you were doing in dance, or what new music you were blasting in your room, or whatever new achievement you got and thought he didn’t notice, and after a while I found myself thinking about you when I wasn't even with him and that scared the shit out of me. Why? Because he's my best friend. Do you think I didn’t already know exactly how he felt about anyone that even so much as looked at you?”

And so the dam breaks. These are the most words you think he’s ever spoken in one setting and stunned by the intensity in his voice, you can only listen.

“Not to mention that by the time I figured out whatever I was feeling, there were only a few weeks left before I moved to Seoul for university. So I left it alone.”

He blinks, hard. “And eventually you got over me. So it’s—"

“If you say it’s alright, Lee Jeno, I’ll deck you.”

You don’t know where the fury comes from. Maybe it’s not anger at all. Maybe it’s the wave of disappointment, regret, resignation, and sadness from what could have been, all rolled into one. But it comes out as rage, the flare in your eyes and the resentful edge to your words.

“Have you ever wondered why Mark and I don’t see ‘eye to eye’, Jeno?”

His lips part, but no sound comes out. Whether it’s because he knows better than to answer right now or because he genuinely doesn’t know, you’re not aware.

“Because of this,” you mutter, “Because of this. Did you know that there was a point in my childhood where the feeling was mutual? A point where Mark was my favorite person in the entire world? I couldn’t imagine a single day where I’d want to be anywhere but with him. He was my brother, my friend— but then, as most people do, I got older. And when I got older and ceased to be the little thing that followed his every suggestion, when I stopped wanting to do everything the same safe way he did it, he stopped seeing me as that friend and started treating me like something he needed to protect. Instead of being brave, I became reckless. Everything I wanted to do became dangerous. Everyone I hung out with was a bad influence, every place I went was unsafe. He stopped trusting me.”

The laugh between your words is humorless.

“And for years, I thought it was my fault. That I did something to make him lose so much faith in me. Do you know what that feels like?”

The crack in your voice makes Jeno look away sharply. It’s quick, as though the sound had physically grabbed him, and the movement is what snaps you back to the painful present.

You take a step back, hastily blinking the very unwelcome burn from your eyes— It’s 7AM on a Saturday morning and you’re yelling at Lee Jeno on your best friend's balcony. When did your life get to this point?

“For the better part of four years, all I looked for was you. But because I’m your best friend's little sister, even though you knew, you did nothing, right? Because Mark said so?”

Jeno bristles again. “Mark didn’t say—”

“He didn’t have to say it!” you shout. “Mark doesn’t trust me to make my own decisions and somehow that ended up making the only boy I’ve ever loved keep his mouth shut when he could’ve liked me back. Does that make sense?”

Jeno’s eyes fly back to your face. If you thought he’d been surprised when you told him you liked him, then the look on his face right now would be one to snap a picture of. Oops. Guess you weren’t supposed to let that word slip— only four letters and yet such a big, big difference. But it probably doesn’t matter since you’ve already gone and fucked it all up by accidentally confessing.

You gather what little boldness you have left and look him right in the eyes.

"I’m only going to ask you this now,” your voice is wavering, but you ignore it, “Because a younger me used to lose sleep wondering what your answer would be.”

He must know what’s coming. You watch his eyes flash a million things, none of them decipherable.

“Am I only ever going to be Mark's little sister to you? No matter what?"

One beat.

Two beats.

His lips part as though to speak,

Three.

But nothing comes out.

A car honks down on the street below. A strong breeze sends goosebumps rising across your skin. A song goes off somewhere inside the house, a sudden singing twinkle; Jaemin’s alarm. You’re able to recognize it from the dozens of times he’s slept over at Mark’s place. He’d said something last night about having to leave super early, swim team practice or the like; he must’ve left his phone out in the living room somewhere, but the guy has ears like a hawk and has no doubt heard the tune from whatever blanket he’s under. He’ll come out to turn it off any second now, and you don’t want to be out here when he does.

“At least you’re honest,” you tell a very troubled-looking Jeno with a small, plastic smile.

You don’t wait for an answer, and you don’t turn back for the entirety of the walk back inside— and then, once you’re out of eyesight, the glazed over stumble— to your guest room. You slowly take out the extra duvet from the closet, wrap it around yourself like the world's saddest burrito, collapse onto the bed, and try your damndest not to cry.

(Safe to say that after about ten seconds, you lose that fight terribly.)

[♥︎]: and there it is, folks! please leave a like if you enjoyed! it REALLY gives me the motivation to work on this faster! [chapter edited & updated on 12/20/23!]

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