#sorry hyunjae but u were too fun to write

[jeongjaebae]

You look hideous on me

❥ Bad boy Sunwoo x reader, 15.6k | AO3 ❥ Soulmates AU, college AU, fluff, some humour ❥ Warnings: mentions of bruises, swearing, references to mature subjects, a... pretty suggestive scene towards the end

❥ Is he a bad boy because he's bad at everything...? You had simply rolled your eyes when he'd zoomed by on his skateboard, trying to show off. You'd found it hilarious when he ended up falling face first into a fruit stand. But it's not so funny anymore when the bruises start to show up on your body right after.

"Hey, Juyeon, do you think it could be this guy?" You nudge your friend, turning your laptop screen so he could see from where he sat on the floor beside your bed. "That guy right there—Sangyeon. Do you see that bruise on his upper arm?"

When you roll up your sleeve to show him, there's a similar splash of blue on your arm that gives you a pang of hope that you'd finally found the one. You almost prayed to the OTP gods to please let this Sangyeon guy be your soulmate because he was good looking and broad and—if he were actually your soulmate, one look at his handsome face might just erase all the hate you'd been harbouring all these years.

Hatred towards your soulmate.

"It does look similar," Juyeon says slowly before leaning towards the laptop screen until his face is almost touching it. "It looks like he also has one on his collar though; do you have that one as well?"

You heave a sigh. "No."

It's another day that yields no results on the soulmate front, which shouldn't be surprising at this point, but it's a growing frustration that the continuous stream of bruises on your body left no clue as to where your soulmate could be.

Boxing has never been an interest of yours but ever since the bruises started appearing, Juyeon had suggested that your soulmate might be a boxer. It had been a joke at first but seeing as the bruises never stopped as you waited year after year to find this soulmate, your last resort was to try and look for them anywhere you could. It led you to watch boxing matches quite regularly, but the boxers' bruising patterns never quite matched yours, and the timing of your bruises didn't quite match theirs.

Soulmate—the one person in the world that shared your bruises, whose body displayed all the blues and purples of your pain like watercolour on a canvas. The concept sounded beautiful, and sometimes you could indeed see the beauty in Juyeon and Hyunjae's shared glances as congruent spots bloomed across their skin simultaneously. You saw it in the way every mark told a story, how each one was a reminder that there is someone to share your pain and that they are never too far away.

But as nice as the idea of a soulmate sounded in theory, you didn't know how to feel about the fact that your soulmate was out there getting their body battered. Were they playing a sport that involved frequent injuries? Were they actually a boxer or maybe even a stunt actor? Were they super clumsy? Or were they just—you definitely did not want to imagine the other scenarios that could possibly lead to such frequent bruising, especially when certain locations of the bruises shared a little too much about this annoying soulmate's actions.

The point was, you didn't understand how someone who was constantly getting their body bruised like that would possibly be compatible with you, an innocent student just trying to graduate from college and get a job. Though at this rate you might as well become a professional makeup artist with the amount of makeup you were wearing on a daily basis just to cover all the bruises. All that just made you more determined to find this hell of a soulmate and maybe give them a punch of your own.

"Hang in there," Juyeon says gently, pulling you out of your thoughts. "You'll find them soon."

"What did I miss?" Hyunjae comes into you room with his face entirely blocked by the bags of snacks he was carrying in his arms. He settles in between you and Juyeon, perched comfortably on the edge of your bed as he starts munching on chips. "No progress again today?"

"I thought that it might be this Sangyeon guy." You point at the screen where the boxer is walking by after a match that he won. It really would've been a good day to have him as a soulmate. "But now I'm even angrier at my soulmate for not being him."

"Oh, he's hot," Hyunjae nods. "But why, did you fantasize about having him as your soulmate or something?"

"Shut up. Not all of us are lucky enough to have hot soulmates, you know."

"Yes, please don't remind us that you once liked my hot soulmate." Hyunjae puts an arm around Juyeon possessively and you have to resist the urge to smack him.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

"But wait. Is that a new bruise?" He manages to poke your cheek before you swat his hand away and give him a glare.

It's your right cheek today instead of the usual left, but the timing isn't unusual for the bruises to start showing up. You sigh again, grabbing your phone to check in the camera, and just as he pointed out, the hints of blue-green hues are starting to make their way across your skin.

"It's okay," he says nonchalantly, "look on the bright side, at least it's not at a weird location."

"Um." You did not want to discuss weird locations. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You know. Like your neck or stomach. Or thighs." Hyunjae pauses for a second as a teasing expression slowly spreads across his face. "Though I guess if they were on your thighs you wouldn't exactly be telling us about them or showing us."

"Hyunjae!" Juyeon elbows him for you. At least one of the soulmate duo has some sense.

You don't say anything in response as you grab another chip, pretending as if your privacy—or was it your soulmate's?—hadn't just been violated by your supposed best friend. You did not want to be picturing your soulmate doing questionable things with other people.

"Wait... don't tell me you've actually gotten them there before. Y/N!"

You push him off the bed.

The morning flies by in a rush of insistent knocks on your door by the soulmate duo, running around your room to pack your bag for class, and then completely forgetting about putting on your safety net of a cake face to potentially cover up the evidence of your soulmate's injuries. Maybe that should've been your warning sign to skip class entirely today, but the soulmate duo reassures you that everything would be just fine. Hyunjae states that the chance of your soulmate getting beat up at this early morning hour was low, and on the other hand, Juyeon says you look perfectly gorgeous without makeup.

While you appreciate their efforts, you know they don't quite understand your reasoning for covering up the marks you get. You've seen the way they wear their bruises proudly, as a sign that their soulmate exists and as a statement of that bond just like a promise ring. That's naturally what happens when they've known each other since elementary school, where a fall on the playground resulted in a matching bruise on a classmate.

One day, if you ever find your soulmate, you wished to be able to boldly show off each and every mark too. But for now, you hated even the thought of possibly wearing your soulmate's ugly black eye like it's a fashion statement.

Campus is calm and quiet so early in the morning, a nice change from the bustle of crowds you usually see on the way to your afternoon classes. Clubs are just beginning to set up their tents for the club fair, including the pop-up farmer's market that comes to your school every month. In the distance, you could already see the bushels of various fresh fruits and vegetables set up on the stands, and there's a small bakery section at the very end filled with what looked like pastries and coffee shop drinks.

"Are we too late to even stop for coffee?" you groan, already imagining the suffering you'd be doing in lecture when the professor's monotone voice lulls you to sleep.

"Unfortunately." Juyeon gives a wry smile.

Hyunjae shakes his head at you. "You should've slept earlier."

"I had so much work to do for tutoring," you whine. "Anyways, coffee run after class please. Hyunjae, you owe me."

But just before you could hear his snarky retort, there's a roar of wheels against the sidewalk followed by a loud gust of wind.

Only a few inches away from you, so close that you could smell his cologne as he winks at you with a smirk on his face. A skateboarder, his dark hoodie and beanie blurring together as he zooms by. It nearly makes you fall despite how he didn't actually bump into you.

"What the—"

"You okay?" Juyeon grasps you just in time.

"Yeah, thanks." You quickly get back on your feet and subconsciously brush the shoulder that the skateboarder nearly touched. "But wow, how rude. You're not the only one who's late, asshole."

"Look at the way he's showing off now," Hyunjae snorts and when you follow his gaze, you could see the skateboarder continuing to weave his way through the students on the sidewalk, occasionally doing those jump tricks off the curb. The rumble of wheels on concrete fades as he gets farther away, but you don't miss the way he makes a few other students nearly fall as they scrambled to move out of his way.

"Must think he's so cool—" you start. And then stop. Because right then, karma literally manifests and catches up to said skateboarder faster than the blink of an eye. Maybe there was a rock on the sidewalk or some sort of ledge in between the cracks because the next thing you know, the guy is sent flying off the skateboard. It makes him tumble quite a distance, and what's absolutely hilarious is the way he lands. Right in the fruit stand that the farmer's market had set up.

Face first, straight into a bushel of apples.

"Ouch, that's got to hurt," Hyunjae says. It only takes one glance at him for the two of you to burst out laughing.

"Is he a bad boy because... he's bad at everything?" you say amidst the giggles.

"But did you see the look on his face?" Hyunjae holds onto your shoulder as he doubles over in laughter, only coming up when there are tears at the corners of his eyes. "Oh wait, only the apples could've seen that!"

The skateboarder slowly gets up as the people at the farmer's market gather to watch, their expressions equally divided between sympathy and amusement. You don't feel bad about laughing at all. Besides, this was totally karma for giving you and everyone else such a scare on the skateboard earlier. Especially that wink at you; who does he think he is?

Juyeon shakes his head. "Well, it's a terrible day to be his soulmate. Imagine waking up to that giant bruise on your face."

"It's probably a terrible day to be his soulmate every day," Hyunjae cackles again.

The fall of the skater boy causes the three of you to be late, though it was worth it. By the time you finally make it to class, the professor was already droning on about something on the next assignment, so you sneak in quietly and sit at the back while he's not looking.

"Maybe going to morning classes isn't such a bad idea when you can see stuff like this happen," Hyunjae whispers as he settles into his seat. The grin is still there, with teeth and all which was a rare occurrence.

"Are you suddenly awake now?" you whisper back.

He pulls out a notebook and writes the date, giving you a thumbs up enthusiastically. "Awake and ready to take on the day." It's not the correct date but you don't bother telling him.

When he turns to you again, he freezes. There's a look of confusion on his face that tells you he might've realized that the date he wrote was wrong or that he might've forgotten something important. But it soon turns into realization and then horror in under a second as he simply stares at you.

"What is it?"

Hyunjae's expression changes again and this time his lips curl into a mischievous smirk that could only mean he's up to no good.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. It's just that," he leans over to whisper in your ear, "you happen to be developing a nasty bruise right on your face."

Maybe you die a little inside.

Suddenly the idea of falling face first into a bushel of apples doesn't sound so funny anymore.

Hyunjae teases you about your supposed soulmate for the rest of the day. It's not surprising, really—he still teases you about your former crush on his soulmate after all, even though it's been years since freshman year of high school. And although you assure him that there's no way the skater boy is your soulmate, that it had to be a coincidence, you could still see the curl of his lip whenever he looks your way.

You're sure he would've dragged you over to wherever this rude skater boy was, determined to put an end to this mystery while getting a new reason to tease you. But he didn't have to. Because when you go back to the farmer's market tent after class for some fresh coffee and baked goods, the rude skater boy is there.

Only this time, he's not on a skateboard, nor is he falling into the fruit stands. This time, he's working there.

A blue vest covers his black hoodie with an obnoxious looking name tag that says "Sunwoo" when you get close enough to read it. There's a collection of colourful stickers on his cheek that conceal an area matching the one you'd smeared with emergency makeup on your own face, and his beanie is pulled low as if trying to cover as much of his face as possible.

A coincidence, you tell yourself. Besides, your actual soulmate had also given you bruises on the upper arm and lower shin yesterday, and you're sure this skater boy wouldn't have those.

"Y/N, where are you going?" Hyunjae singsongs like he's enjoying your misery. "Weren't we going to get coffee?"

"Um, let's go visit Younghoon instead?"

But he comes up to your group before you could effectively escape.

"Hey. Welcome to," the skater boy pauses, glancing back at the sign, "the farmer's market. Can I help you with anything?"

"Holy shit, he's actually working here," Hyunjae whispers to you so loudly that you're sure this Sunwoo guy could hear what he said. "How did that happen?"

The rude skateboarder scowls at the three of you, looking very disinterested. "They wanted someone hot to be the new face of their organization. Obviously."

"Couldn't have been a very nice face with that giant bruise on it," you whisper back to Hyunjae, just as loudly.

Although that's what you say, you can't help but notice that it was actually quite a nice face—plump lips, big eyes, and a sharp jawline that could cut someone. He was good-looking and he definitely knew it, perhaps a little too well because who brags about that to complete strangers? Why were all the good-looking ones like this?

"Ah, that's where I remember you guys from." The skater boy nods in Hyunjae's direction, "Definitely couldn't forget the pretty boy."

"Juyeon, are you hearing this?" You sigh, crossing your arms. "Can we g—"

"Oh, he's matched?" The Sunwoo guy raises a brow and then glances at Juyeon. Looks him up and down. "To quite the looker too, wow. Guess it's true what they say about hot people having hot soulmates."

"Bet your soulmate can't look too nice with all the bruises they get," you retort.

The skater boy sighs. "You really got to witness that moment, huh." He picks up a few of the fruits on the counter and sorts them in the baskets on the shelf. "Damn, really should've taken the motorcycle instead. But you see, I'm actually not that terrible at skateboarding. It only happened because I got so distracted by your beauty," he nods your way. "I guess you could say... I fell for you." And then there's the wink that you definitely saw coming—it's already his second wink at you and you've only been in his presence for a total of a minute.

"Are you kidding me? You nearly ran me over on your skateboard and you have the audacity to say stuff like this?"

You raise your hand jokingly as if to punch him, but then Juyeon's holding you back and shaking his head. "Hitting him won't do you any good, Y/N. Just in case he's... you know."

"Nah, we don't have to worry about that because there's no way he's my soulmate."

"Soulmate?" Sunwoo asks, eyes bouncing between you and the two others.

Hyunjae nudges you lightly, lips curling in amusement. "We're only stopping you from inflicting visible damage, but there are always other options. For example, bruises on legs are much easier to hide."

"Hmm, you're right. A kick should do it—"

Of course you weren't actually going to kick him. But even before you could finish your sentence, the rude skater boy is already turning his body away, dodging you while holding his hands out to protect himself.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I was just kidding," he pleads, running back behind the pop-up tent for protection. "But please don't; I just got a bruise there."

Juyeon tilts his head, brows furrowing. "Hey, Y/N. Maybe you're right that he's not your soulmate after all, since he has bruises that you don't have."

Yeah, thank goodness, you wanted to say. But you could only stare back at your friend in silence. Time seems to slow down.

Because when you lift your pantleg the slightest, it reveals the new bruise that you had noticed this morning. The same splash of aqua on your lower shin that has now deepened in colour and covers a little more area than before.

"Oh."

You feel like you're going to throw up.

In front of you, Sunwoo looks like he's about to faint.

Most people may not be lucky enough to have a nice meet-cute with their soulmate, but it felt like yours was more of a meet-ugly... literally.

No one talks about it this time, which you're very thankful for. But instead of the jokes and teasing that you expected to hear, there's a very obvious silence about anything to do with soulmates, as if Hyunjae and Juyeon were walking on eggshells when it came to the topic. It makes the whole situation feel too real when you were just trying to avoid thinking about it, and so, maybe the awkwardness wasn't better than their teasing after all.

Heading to the tutoring center after a study session with the soulmate duo has you walking by an area you don't normally pass by, and even from afar you could see just who hung out here. Their table stood out against the grassy fields and students scattered around, a monochromatic speck of dark hoodies and leather jackets amongst a sea of colour. You don't look too closely at the faces around the table, but it fit Sunwoo's image so well that it would've been a little surprising if he wasn't there.

And sure enough, he is there. You notice the girl sitting beside him first, so obviously flirting with the way she bends over as she laughs at something he says, her long hair falling over his shoulder. The way she clings to his arm and presses her whole body against him, and the way she hits him cutely. It's almost funny how she manages to get him right on the bruise on his arm, one that only you knew about. And only you could see the way he holds back a wince. But in the next moment, he looks up and suddenly his eyes are meeting yours.

Sunwoo blinks a couple of times before a knowing smirk appears on his lips. For a moment, he smiles back at the girl beside him; there's a twinkle in his eyes as if he's purposely turning up the charm, an abrupt change from the indifference that you'd seen just seconds earlier. She beams, nodding enthusiastically at everything he says. But to your surprise, she soon leaves their table looking the slightest bit disappointed.

And then he leaves the table to catch up to you.

"Hey, soulmate," he says. The smile on his face looks the same as when he smiled at her with the artificial sparkle in his eyes and all, and you want to hurl at how fake it is. Then there's how gross the word 'soulmate' sounds coming out of his mouth like it's just a joke to him, like he's rubbing this terrible situation in your face and laughing about it.

Typical fuckboy behaviour.

You speed up your steps a bit to shake him off. "Bye."

"Hey, wait up!"

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" you ask, still refusing to look at him or slow down your steps. "Like, with one of your girlfriends?"

"Aw, are you jealous? Don't worry, I'd rather be hanging out with you, soulmate."

You don't react to that, letting the silence fill the air between the two of you as he matches your quick stride without missing a beat. It feels strange to be walking beside him, like there are more eyes trained on you today as they pass by, more turning of heads.

"So how've you been? I haven't seen you around in a while."

"I was doing well until now," you say dully.

"Aren't you happy to see me?" he teases.

"In your dreams."

"I do hope you'd visit me in my dreams tonight, soulmate."

"So are you just going to keep following me?" you finally turn to ask when you're halfway across campus and he's showing no signs of leaving.

Sunwoo shakes his head. "Nah, I'm going that way too."

"If you say so."

The conversation, if you could even call it that, continues the same way the whole time he's by your side and it reminds you why it was so difficult to talk to him in the first place. The brief curiosity you had after your last meeting with him quickly fade, replacing itself with the original anger and annoyance you had towards him instead.

He tells you about some party happening this weekend (you tell him to take one of his girlfriends), then he invites you to go for a spin on his motorcycle (you tell him you don't trust him, especially not after that skateboard fall), and finally he asks for your number (you say it's the number of the local animal shelter because they take strays, not you).

The most you give him is your name, so that he might stop calling you by the S-word that you've come to hate so much. Though now you're not so sure if the S-word is soulmate, Sunwoo, or skater boy.

And then you finally arrive at your destination.

"Waitwaitwait." Sunwoo's eyes widen with realization once your steps finally stop, nearly walking right into the door of the tutoring center. Unfortunately, he stops in time. He looks at the sign on the door and blinks multiple times. "This is where you're going?"

It takes all your effort to hold back your laugh. "Yeah. Didn't you say you were going this way too?"

"Um. Right, yeah. Let's go."

To your surprise, he actually enters the room first.

"Hey," Jacob—the head tutor and administrator—greets as the two of you enter. He turns to Sunwoo, "Are you here to get tutored?"

"Um, I guess?"

"Alright." Jacob goes to grab the clipboard with the list of the tutors. "I'll see who's available today."

Sunwoo's eyes widen a considerable amount. "Wait, can't I be paired with Y/N?"

"Y/N is already paired with—"

"Hey, Y/N." As if on cue, Younghoon shows up. He takes a seat in his usual spot as if Sunwoo hadn't been standing right there, then sets a coffee cup on your desk. "I made you your favourite today."

"Aw, thanks Younghoon." You pop the lid off to take a look, and just as you expected, the usual heart design is floating at the top. "Wow, as pretty as always."

Sunwoo scoffs. "Younghoon? Why the fuck are you here?"

"Well look who it is." Younghoon glances at him up and down. Smiles a bit. "I told you about this long ago, but you just said it was for losers."

"When did I say that?" Sunwoo mutters under his breath, the frown on his face growing. "But how do you even know Y/N?"

"We were paired for a project in bio last term," you answer, finally sitting down beside Younghoon.

"Oh, was it the project?" There's a teasing smile on Younghoon's lips when he looks at you. "Didn't we meet at the coffee shop when you spilled your drink all over me?"

"I—wait that was you?" you ask, the embarrassment threatening to show on your cheeks at any moment. While you do recall having spilled a drink on a cute barista the first time at that new cafe on campus, you never made the connection that that cute barista had been him. "And you still remember that?"

Younghoon chuckles. "How could I forget? It's not every day when a customer spills a drink on the barista."

"Ugh, don't remind me; that was so embarrassing."

Sunwoo visibly stiffens. The frown on his face deepens with every second that goes by, turning into a permanent scowl as you continue to chat away with Younghoon while ignoring him. It makes for such an unbearably funny sight that you have to bite down on your lip several times to stop from bursting into laughs, and Younghoon wasn't doing much better.

"Yeah... so anyway, I'll be your tutor today," Jacob says brightly, pulling Sunwoo away from where he'd planted himself at your desk. Part of you felt guilty because Jacob probably has no idea what he was getting himself into, but one look at the betrayed expression on Sunwoo's face says it's all worth it.

The session goes well but the highlight was definitely seeing the skater boy's fuming expression every time you look at him.

"You should've called me!" Hyunjae pouts, waving around his phone in your face. "I would've walked right out of that group meeting and run across campus just to see the look on his face."

"You can come with me today," you joke. "Maybe he'll show up."

Getting the soulmate duo caught up on the latest skater boy story had Hyunjae laughing so hard within your first few sentences that the three of you get kicked out of the library—not that it was the first time something like that has happened. So you'd relocated to the courtyard and then told them about the way Sunwoo fumed at Younghoon and then scowled at you for a whole hour after getting ambushed by that tutoring session.

Talking about him makes you realize that maybe you didn't hate him. He'd become somewhat akin to the popular boys back in high school; someone who always annoyed the girls and never did their work. Someone you'd never fall for, of course, but someone who made life a little more interesting. Besides, he was just playing around, and you never saw him as a soulmate anyway.

Juyeon wiggles his eyebrows. "Was he jealous of Younghoon or something?"

"Nah, he's just mad he didn't get a chance to make me fall for him like everyone else does," you mutter. "He's just playing."

"Wait, look here." Hyunjae suddenly reaches over to gently cups your chin, turning your face towards him and then proceeds to observe closely at various angles. "Y/N... I think your boy has gotten himself into another altercation."

It's nothing new, but there's still a sinking feeling in your heart. You had been beginning to think that maybe you had some kind of positive influence on Sunwoo since no significant bruises had appeared after meeting him. That maybe simply knowing who and where his soulmate is would make him back off from the reckless behaviour a bit, for your sake.

But as the beginnings of purples appear on your face and knuckles with no signs of stopping, it seemed like all that had just been wishful thinking. Why did you have so much faith in him in the first place? Why did you think that meeting your soulmate would be so impactful on both of your lives?

In the end, he's still the same person that he's always been. Maybe you'd just have to consider it as his payback for being roped into a tutoring session.

You heave a sigh. "Okay, I guess I'll get going now since I need to look presentable and all. Jacob would freak out if I showed up like this."

"If skater boy goes today, try not to kill him, okay?" Juyeon gives you a sad smile and ruffles your hair.

"I see no reason not to," you groan. Then point at your own face, "How can people like him when he goes around looking like this?"

"Hey Y/N, we're only trying to save your own image here." Hyunjae glances at you up and down, pressing his lips together as he shakes his head. "Bruises or not, I don't think you can afford to be any uglier."

"And this is why I hate you." Getting up, you quickly sling your bag over your shoulder. Juyeon gets a soft pat on the head while you make sure to give Hyunjae the hardest flick you can muster. "Bye loser."

"Shut up; you love me."

What surprises you first when you get to the tutoring center is the worried look on Jacob's face. His eyes flicker to you the moment you step into the room, and then every few seconds as he organizes the files on his desk.

"What?" you finally ask. "Is there something on my face?"

An ironic question because yes, there are bruises are your face today. Though you made sure they were covered nicely with the emergency makeup you always carry with you.

"No." He hesitates only for a moment before walking over to you. "Y/N, that guy from last time..."

"Sunwoo?"

"Yeah him," Jacob nods slowly. "Um, if he's bothering you or anything like that. Just let me know? We can get him kicked out or banned from here."

You nearly choke on your own spit. "Is that what it looked like?"

"Well, he spent the entire session looking like he wanted to murder you—or maybe it was directed at Younghoon; I'm not sure—so um, yeah."

"Nah, Jake. He's—" my soulmate, you were about to say. But something about acknowledging it makes your stomach twist. "He's just someone I know. Who probably needs better grades." You shoot him a quick smile. "Thank you for worrying about me though."

You half expected Sunwoo to not show up since he got baited into the last session after all, but for some reason, you find yourself constantly glancing over at the door. And for some reason, he does show up.

There's a relaxed smirk on his face this time—a complete change from the startled then bitter looks of the last time. Though not much of his face is visible underneath a baseball cap and the hood of yet another black hoodie over it.

And then you realize why.

There are splotches of colour around his eye and trailing down his cheek until his jaw; the same ones that you worked so hard to cover up just minutes earlier. There are a few small bandages around his fingers, and his knuckles are red with fresh wounds.

"Hey soulmate." Sunwoo casually sets his bag down on your desk and grabs a nearby chair, setting it down right beside yours. "How've you been? Where's my hug?"

"Not in this nation," you say dryly. You open your notes slowly, refusing to look at him despite the way he peers at you.

"Oh? Then which?"

"Your imagination."

Sunwoo laughs loudly as if you'd just said the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "You're funny, soulmate. If you keep this up, I'll be falling for you in no time."

"No thanks."

"Y/N, is Younghoon coming today?" Jacob holds up the clipboard, checking off the list of students in the room.

"Um, I'm not sure—"

"He's not coming," Sunwoo answers for you. Then adds quietly, "You're stuck with me, soulmate."

You ignore the last part. "Did Younghoon tell you that?" Their interaction had been quite strange last time but you're sure they knew each other somehow. The way they talked made them sound like friends, though rivals could also be a fitting description.

An easy shrug. "He didn't have to."

"What does that mean?"

"Younghoon won't be coming anymore."

"Did you say something to Younghoon to make him stop coming here?"

The corner of his lip twitches the slightest.

"What, did you threaten him or something?"

"What makes you think I had something to do with him not showing up?" Sunwoo says innocently. He leans back in his seat and there's a faint smirk on his face that makes him look satisfied, contradicting his words. "The last I checked, he seemed to have gotten good enough grades to not need to study with you anymore."

There's something about the lack of a text from Younghoon paired with Sunwoo's relaxed demeanour that doesn't sit right with you. As much as you wanted to believe him, the fresh bruises on his face and hands told of a more complicated story.

You sigh, finally turning to the rude skater boy. "Alright, fine. Why are you here?"

"To see you, soulmate," he drawls lazily. You really hope that Jacob doesn't hear any of this conversation because you would be quite mortified.

"So do you think your grades don't need the help?"

Sunwoo smiles a little. "Okay, I know I'm hot and all but that doesn't mean I'm stupid."

"You think you're hot with all those bruises?" Standing up so suddenly earns you a concerned glance from Jacob. "You know what? Come with me." You take Sunwoo's hand and pull him out of the classroom with you, not once looking back at him.

It's empty in the stairwell when you finally stop and turn to him. Dropping his hand immediately.

"You're cute when you're angry, you know?"

"Just stop."

"I'm only telling the truth," he shrugs.

"Then tell me, how did you get all these?" Your fingers ghost over the patches of deep blues on his face and he flinches. Looks away. "Did you... get into another fight? Perhaps with Younghoon?"

His gaze snaps to your face.

"Why?"

Sunwoo groans, leaning back against the wall behind him. "That fucker is totally into you."

"So?"

"You're my soulmate," he says bluntly, frowning back at you.

"So? What, are you jealous or something?"

"What if I am? What then?"

"I don't buy that," you scoff, crossing your arms. "You've clearly never cared about me at all."

His eyes flash. "What do you mean?"

"Have you even once thought that your actions might affect your soulmate as well? I've always had to wear layers of clothing and makeup to cover up these hideous patches just to look like a normal person. Seriously, how can you think that a fight would solve anything?"

Sunwoo is silent now, gaze back to the ground where he kicks around some dust.

You sigh, turning to leave. "But if you do care, then maybe try getting your life together first. You aren't going to be anyone's soulmate at the rate of which you've been getting those bruises all your life."

More than a week has passed since that incident with Sunwoo, and you hadn't seen him around at all—not in person nor in the form of bruises. It was as if the words you'd spoken to him had completely vanished him from your life, just as you had wanted. But even though he'd been out of sight, he hasn't been off your mind for a moment because of your growing sense of guilt. You'd spent so much time building up these angry feelings towards your soulmate that it became hard to see from other perspectives, and maybe things were not as straightforward as you thought. Maybe he didn't deserve the harsh words you'd thrown at him, and he didn't deserve to have such negative energy coming from someone who barely even knows him.

Because before being soulmates, you guys were merely strangers.

You spot him the moment he walks in the lecture hall. Face half covered by his hood and bag casually slung over one shoulder, he walks in nonchalantly a minute before the lecture is supposed to start. It isn't until he's at the front of the lecture hall that the chatter in the room dies down, getting noticeably quieter. The way his eyes scan the crowd slowly makes you shrink into your seat a little, and you keep your head low just in case. But it's no use.

The hush in the room turns into whispers echoing off the walls when he slowly walks up the steps, but he doesn't seem to pay them any attention when his gaze is fixed on you. A casual stare, without intensity. Somehow, it still makes your stomach twist.

And just as you'd been dreading but expecting, he stops right in front of you and sits in the seat beside you.

"What are you doing?" you hiss at him in a low a voice as you could muster.

He gives you a confused frown. "I'm coming to class?"

In the background, your name was already being thrown around amidst the whispers just like that day he walked beside you across campus. You could only imagine what the rumours about you would look like—would you be known as Sunwoo's new fling? Someone that others would be jealous of? A new tally on his body count?

You sigh and rephrase the question. "Why are you sitting here?"

"It was an empty seat."

"Are you even enrolled in this class? I've never seen you here before."

He raises an eyebrow. "Oh, so were you looking for me?"

You roll your eyes, ignoring the urge to facepalm. The feelings of guilt you'd had earlier completely disappear with his reminder of why you'd snapped at him in the first place. What was the point of talking to him when every response was either a joke or straight up flirty? "Yeah, you wish you were that important."

"I figured it'd be easier for you to see me here instead of looking for me at the tutoring center."

"I—hey! I was not looking for you."

Sunwoo doesn't reply but a small smile appears on his face, the first genuine smile that you've seen from him in the couple of weeks since you've known about his existence. There's none of the fake charm and rough persona that he tried to project before; all of a sudden the harsh lines and black and whites of his image blur and soften, melting into an image of a soulmate that almost makes you forget to breathe for a second.

Maybe he was too distracting for his next words are so soft that they have you second guessing if you heard correctly.

"Y/N, I'm just kidding. I've actually decided to stop skipping class from now on. I'm going to get my shit together and do better."

"What?"

There's a playful twinkle in his eye. "I'm going to be so perfect after this that you will have no choice but to fall for me."

Soon class starts and Sunwoo doesn't say anything to you for the rest of the lecture, diligently taking notes in his messy scrawl across pages. Sometimes you can feel his eyes on you, glancing over briefly from beneath the edge of his hood and turning away just before you could ever catch him staring.

You're not sure if he would've said something to you after lecture ends, but you don't give him the chance to as you quickly leave to meet your friends at the library.

Though when you get to the library, Hyunjae and Juyeon are among those people who turn and gawk at you as you enter.

"Are the rumors true? Did he actually show up to class and even sit beside you?" Hyunjae whispers with the excitement in his voice and eyes filling to the brim. "Did he say anything?"

Oh. So that's what it was about.

Juyeon's eyes gleam with just as much anticipation, leaning forward to hear everything you'd say. "Is he even in your major? I've never heard you mention him before."

You sigh. "Yeah."

"To all of the above?" Hyunjae's jaw drops. "Details, Y/N. Give us the details."

Turns out it was Eric, a loud guy in your class, who told his friend Changmin, who then told Hyunjae about it. With pictures too! Not that they were good quality photos, but even from the pixelated images you could tell that sitting beside Sunwoo slouching in his hoodie with the hood up makes you look much uglier in comparison. Great, not only is he making you look hideous with the bruises, but now he's also making you look ugly just by being beside you.

At this rate, Eric and Changmin have probably told everyone about today's events, but it didn't really matter to you since sooner or later they'll all find out about you guys being matched anyway.

"So." Hyunjae furrows his brows, a puzzled look ghosting across his face after hearing about all the events that had happened between you and the rude skater boy. Which wasn't much, really, despite how the shifting of his face through all these different micro-expressions may have suggested. "He's really trying for this, huh?"

"What do you mean?" you counter. "That's exactly what fuckboys do. Duh?"

But your sarcastic remark is not met with one of Hyunjae's usual joking responses. In fact, he doesn't say anything at all and there's a brief pause as the soulmate duo exchange a look, making you very aware that you're the third wheel. For once, you can't tell what they're thinking. What was the big deal about the story you told? Surely, they couldn't be thinking that the skater boy was genuinely interested in you, because that's simply ridiculous.

Hyunjae waves dismissively and then his usual, easy smile is back on his lips. "You're right. Never mind. So," he leans in super close until you could count the number of eyelashes he has—which are very long and make you all the more envious—and then peers into your eyes, "are his tactics working?"

"Are you kidding me?" You push his face away and finally open the textbook sitting on the table. The one that you were supposed to be studying from this past hour. "I refuse to be swayed by a fuckboy. Even if he is my soulmate."

"Sometimes even fuckboys catch feelings," Juyeon says, shrugging before turning to his notes.

If you'd thought Sunwoo's tactics would've just ended with him actually attending class and sitting beside you in it, you were entirely wrong. Somehow your days quickly become filled with his teasing 'hey soulmate' at every turn from where he waits outside your dorm to walk to you to class, to when he monopolizes your time at the tutoring center. It's a mystery how he even figured out which dorm you lived in—Juyeon had shrugged innocently while Hyunjae had simply laughed and said that Sunwoo follows you around like how you followed Juyeon around all those years ago.

You're definitely glad the soulmate duo stay away whenever he's around though; picturing Hyunjae pretending to vomit was all too easy when he wrinkles his nose and pulls Juyeon away every time he spots you with Sunwoo.

"I got you your favourite today," Sunwoo announces as soon as he walks into the tutoring center. There's an air of confidence today despite the way he looks the same as usual in his black hoodie with the hood up. His loud footsteps make Jacob look up alarmingly, though you suspected that the head tutor has gotten used to your annoying student by now. "Just for you, soulmate."

Then he sets down the coffee cup on your desk. A familiar gesture, though just not from him.

"What?" Sunwoo says when notices how you're just staring at the cup in front of you. "It's your favourite latte or whatever." And when you still don't answer, he continues, "You're looking at it as if I poisoned it or something."

You look up. "Did you?"

"Oh please. The worst I could've done is spit in it."

You could only stare at him.

"Hey, spit isn't even that bad—it would just be the same as kissing me, you know." He settles down in his seat beside you and leans back, crossing his arms. "Which you'll be doing eventually anyways."

"How are you so sure about that?" you ask dryly.

"Because you're going to fall for me," he says with certainty, a pleased look on his face. "Very soon."

When you turn your attention back to the cup, the first thing you do is pop off the lid. A habit now, from when you used to check what Younghoon had drawn each time he brought you a drink he made. Though the unexpected leaf floating at the top today makes you realize that he'd mostly been drawing hearts for the past while.

Sunwoo snorts at the frown on your face. "Well obviously I'm not going to let him send you hearts in your drinks anymore. You'd think that with all the hearts you've gotten, you might've noticed his big fat crush on you by now."

"I thought he drew those in everyone's drinks," you mutter, quickly putting the lid back on the cup and filing that information away for another time. "But is that why you decided to get me this?"

"Hey, can't a guy do something nice for you?" He switches to perching on the desk beside you, swinging his legs back and forth. "But I mean. This way you won't need to see him ever again."

You shoot him a glare and he just cackles.

Similar small gestures continue throughout the term. It's as if he took an entire crash course on how to be a gentleman, or the closest he'd ever come to being one anyways. But while his actions say one thing, his lips say another as he constantly throws around the 'have you fallen for me yet,' even upgrading the 'where's my hug?' to 'where's my kiss?'

And the worst part is, you find yourself letting him do all this. You let him take your hand, let him swing your arms as you walk across campus like a typical campus couple. You let him pull you in for the briefest of hugs in front of your residence building before parting ways. You let him send you the good morning and good night texts, even if you don't reply most of the time.

You let him because you knew there should be no risk of falling for him.

"Are you cold?" Sunwoo asks when walks you back to your dorm after class one night.

It's already dark outside and for once you're grateful to have a walking buddy even if he wasn't your first or second choice. Though your first and second options have been ditching you more frequently—even the study sessions in the library with them became few and sparse when Sunwoo happened to be in your major while they were not.

"Nope," you respond, more out of habit than anything. It's a lie; the cool breeze seems to blow right through your clothes with every step, and for once you can't make fun of Sunwoo's fashion since that beanie would at least be keeping him warm.

He laughs. You shoot him a glare.

But in the next moment, he's taking your ice-cold hand between his warm ones. Warming your hand with his breath a little before he laces your fingers with his, and then placing them both in his pocket.

"If you wanted me to hold your hand, you could've just said so," he breaks into a grin, the usual teasing sparkle in his eyes as he gives your hand a squeeze, "soulmate."

"Hey—I did not!"

It might be because your view is obstructed by the wind induced tears, but for a second there seems to be something in his eyes that's a little softer than usual; a slip of brightness between the cracks of the walls he's always had up. If it were from anyone else, you might've said it was a look of fondness.

"Anyway," you quickly change the subject a few moments later, glad to have already arrived at steps of your residence building. "This is me."

Sunwoo nods and pulls your hands out of his pocket but doesn't let go. He shifts slightly so that he's on the step below the one you're standing on, spinning you around so that you're face to face.

It's then when you notice that he's quite tall. Maybe you never realized since you've always been hanging out with the soulmate duo, but now that he's in front of you, the step puts you that much closer to his face. Close enough for you to see his round eyes, his plump lips, and his beautiful sun-kissed skin, no longer hidden under the prominent colours of bruises and swelling.

It's supposed to be annoying—wasn't this was practically the same as Hyunjae always being up in your face, trying to annoy you? You're supposed to push him away, roll your eyes, laugh it off.

But for some reason, you can't. His gaze seems to pin you to the spot, making you unable to do anything except stare at the way his fluffy hair lands near his eyes. It makes you forget everything except for the way he swallows, the way he wets his lips before pressing them together. None of this makes it feel like he's the popular boy at school annoying you anymore.

"You're beautiful," Sunwoo says quietly, breaking the silence. "Can I... have a kiss?"

It's something he always says but this time, it doesn't come out sounding like a joke.

The kiss—it was really meant for his cheek. Something compels you to close the mere centimeters between you, an act that is done all too easily when his face is right there. But as your eyelids flutter shut just as the warmth of his skin was all but against your lips, he moves. Shifts ever so slightly so that the heat of his cheek is actually the heat of his lips. On yours.

You quickly jump back, not giving yourself a chance to find out if they're as supple as they look.

"H-hey!" is all you manage to get out.

The playful smile is back when he gives your hand a squeeze before finally letting go. "Just a little teaser of what we could be doing."

Without another word, he gives you a bit of a wave and leaps down the stairs. Leaving you standing there, wondering if your shivers are because of the wind and if the slight flush on his cheeks was from the cold.

Sk8ter boi: u up?

You: if this is some kind of booty call then no

You: call one of ur other girls lol

Sk8ter boi: you're the only one for me

Sk8ter boi: soulmateeee <3

Sk8ter boi: come out for a while?

You leave him on read, even putting your phone away and turning off the light. Closing your eyes. But it soon becomes apparent that there's no hope for sleep to come with there's a small nagging in your stomach. It compels you to throw on a jacket and get out of your dorm, the same kind feeling that compelled you to actually kiss him the other day on these very steps.

Though you don't count it as a kiss. It was definitely more like a brush of lips—hardly even touching for longer than a millisecond. Besides, he'd totally tricked you.

He's waiting on the steps in his usual getup, kicking around a rock aimlessly, and it takes you a second to recognize his backside without the hood on.

"Sunwoo, it's so late. What are you doing here?"

He meets your eyes with an easy smile. "Just wanted to see you."

"At this hour?"

"Every hour is missing Y/N hours," he teases, and you come very close to pretending to barf. "How are you? Are you cold?"

"I am not falling for that again." You glance him up and down warily.

"I wanted to show you something." Sunwoo shrugs, taking a few steps down and then beckoning you over. You don't even reach the bottom of the stairs before you realize your hand is back in his.

The 'something' that the skater boy wanted to show you turns out to be an old building on campus, one you've never had class in but one that you've walked through many times during your time here.

"Um, what's so special about this?"

Sunwoo's smile seems to grow at your question, and he simply points up instead of answering. Following his finger leads you to a ladder at the side of the building, going up to the roof. He gently tugs you, and soon enough the two of you are standing at the base of the ladder.

"The roof? You want to go up there?"

He probably catches your wide-eyed stare. "Aw, is Y/N a bit of a scaredy cat?"

"No!"

"Then go ahead," he says, gesturing towards the ladder.

"I just don't know why this is what you called me out for." You give him a glare and finally put a hand on the cool metal. "But if I fall and die, I hope the marks make you so ugly that no one else will like you ever again."

Sunwoo barks a laugh at that. "Don't worry. I'll catch you if you fall." He pauses briefly then adds in a quieter voice, "And I don't need anyone else to like me."

The climb up isn't too bad since the building isn't particularly high, and you don't get a chance to look down. Though your hands still grip each rung of the ladder as tightly as possible.

You had expected a nice view once you reached the top just based on how Sunwoo wanted to come here, but it really wasn't impressive. All you could see were the fields and trees on campus, though there's a gentle breeze in the air that makes it seem a little more thrilling.

"Come sit." He settles down on sort of platform, gazing at you with a sparkle in his eyes.

You can hear the quiet hum of electricity so surely this roof was supposed to be for building maintenance or something? And surely, being here is already breaking some sort of rule on campus? But tonight, maybe you decide to trust him.

"It's not so bad up here, right?" The wind ruffles his hair, and you suddenly realize that you've barely ever seen him without some sort of hat or hood on. He's never shown the world more than just a sliver of his face and you don't understand why because his hair is beautiful. His curls look so soft under the moonlight, and it makes you wonder how they would feel between your fingers. If they're as soft as they look.

"How did you even find out about this place?"

"There was a ladder, so I climbed it," he laughs. "Then I started coming up here whenever I needed to think. It's quite peaceful."

"Can't say there's much of a view though."

Sunwoo gasps dramatically, looking at you with wide eyes. "What? No, the view is amazing. Come here, I'll show you." He waves you over and then leans back until he's lying down, staring up at the sky.

You follow suit and make sure to leave a small distance between the two of you. But instead of your head meeting the rough surface of the platform like you expected, it lands on the softness that's Sunwoo's arm instead. He moves, pulling you in until you're settled in the crook of his shoulder.

"Look, it's the big dipper." With his free hand, he points to the sky just towards your left. "And there's Aries," he points to a patch of sky just above you, "and there's Capricorn."

Looking at the sky where he points reveals nothing except for the dots of light from airplanes in the distance and wisps of cloud. The moon seemed to be the only celestial body in the sky that you could see.

"Um. I'm not sure if you need your eyes checked, but there's actually nothing there," you say, giving up on the lack of a view and turning to him instead.

"Wow, couldn't you have just agreed?" He whines, lips forming a pout. "This is fake star gazing; I point at something that's not there, and you say you see it too. And then we marvel at its beauty."

"Why would you marvel at something that you can't see?"

"Hmm. Maybe you're right." Sunwoo suddenly turns to face you. "Why look at the sky when I could be staring at you?"

"Okay, stop."

"You want to play a game?"

"Yeah? And where is this going?" You definitely did not trust him with this.

"Let's do twenty questions. We'll take turns asking and if you can't answer something, then hmm," he pauses. Hums as he thinks. "Then you owe me a kiss."

"Sure. That's easy."

His eyes widen, "You want to kiss me that bad?"

"No! I meant the questions," you say dully. "And what if you can't answer something?"

"Then I'll give you a kiss, of course," he singsongs. "Hmm, have you ever had liked anyone? Other than me, obviously."

"Who says I like you? But yes, I have," you say bluntly, sputtering with disbelief at why he would start with this. "Why, have you not?"

"Well, yeah. But nothing too serious because I knew it wouldn't work out. Everyone's only interested in finding their soulmates in this world." The last part comes out sounding bitter.

"Yeah, I get it. I had a crush on Juyeon when I first met him, but it was—quite obvious that that wasn't going to work out."

"Juyeon? The pretty boy's soulmate?" he asks with sudden interest.

"Um. Please don't go beat him up?"

Sunwoo simply cackles at your words.

"Seriously, please don't. Hyunjae would kill you, you know."

"You don't think I could take on both of them?"

"Sunwoo!"

"I'm just joking with you," he laughs. "Don't worry. I'm not going to get into any more fights, Y/N. You are going to live bruise-free for the rest of your life."

"I didn't mean—"

"Well, unless you want me to mark you up sometime."

"S-Sunwoo!"

"Alright, next question. Have you ever looked for me?"

"Yeah," you admit. "It was not a fun time."

His eyes are unreadable for the most part when you tell him about the boxing matches, the interest in stunt acting. The days the patches of colour on your skin acted like little puzzle pieces, hints to where your soulmate could be.

It's only after you tell him that you start to think maybe you shouldn't have. Maybe he thinks the whole soulmates thing is stupid. Maybe he thinks you're stupid for believing in it.

"You thought I could've been a boxer?" he chuckles. "That's cute."

You roll your eyes at him. "Well, who thought you'd be some kid getting into fights all the time for no reason."

"So were you disappointed when you met me?"

You open your mouth with a sarcastic reply ready at the tip of your tongue but for some reason it doesn't seem appropriate to say anymore. His voice was still light and casual, but there's a dreading feeling in your heart with the fear that the conversation is really going to go down the slippery slope that you both have been dancing around. One that you both may never come back from.

"Don't worry," he says when the silence stretches a little too long, "you can tell me the truth, you know."

"I guess you already know the answer to that based on what I said to you that time in the stairwell." You focus on the curve of his lips instead of meeting his gaze. "I was disappointed that you turned out to be a popular fuckboy on the verge of failing out of school."

"Hey—give me some credit. I haven't hooked up with anyone since meeting you," he says hotly. "And I'm not on the verge of failing out of school. The popular part is correct though."

"Wow, congrats. You get a gold star for that." The sarcasm drips out of your voice, but he doesn't show any signs of acknowledging it as he laughs. "But Sunwoo, I'm not disappointed. I was surprised and in denial at first, and let's be real, the first few times we met went quite terribly. I don't know, I guess I was too harsh to judge you like that right away."

This time it's his turn to stay silent.

"Wait, that wasn't even supposed to be my turn!" You give him a push.

"Oh, oops." There's a bit of a smile on his face but his wall of indifference was still up. "Okay, you can ask me anything."

You take a deep breath. "Do you even believe in soulmates?"

"Oh," he says slowly, frowning. "No one's ever asked me this before. But to be honest, not really. Or at least I didn't before." Sunwoo pauses and you think that's it for his answer, but to your surprise, he continues. "I guess it's because my parents aren't soulmates, so I thought it was whatever at first, that it didn't matter. But when things started getting bad between them, I kind of just gave up on the idea of love completely."

"Oh."

It wasn't unheard of to spend a lifetime without meeting your soulmate, and marriage between non-soulmate pairs wasn't exactly rare either. It just wasn't something that you'd really thought about, seeing as the people in your life had all found their perfect matches.

He tells you about the happiness of his childhood, the way the concept of soulmates wasn't even introduced to him until he started school. How his parents got strange looks when people noticed their marks didn't match, how he became determined to forget about the whole soulmates thing. He tells you about lashing out at the world, watching love fall apart and then grow together in different ways, hating how the world made the whole soulmates thing seem inevitable. Hating the fact that he had one, and then refusing to believe he did.

"I still think that this whole soulmate thing is bullshit though, in general. People should be allowed to love whoever they want to, and besides, love can bloom anywhere. It shouldn't be just limited to soulmates," he states, brows furrowing. "But the bruises sure are annoying as fuck; I'm sorry I never realized that you'd be suffering through the consequences of my actions."

There's a stillness that lingers in the air as you quickly turn to blink away the tears that were threatening to spill out. This reveal of a more vulnerable side of him has you stunned, not knowing what to say or how to react when he's never let you see this side of him before. It makes the seed of guilt grow: the guilt that you blindly judged him and hated him for a lifetime, that you probably still would if you hadn't had the chance to meet him and get to know him like this.

But now that the first step has been taken down this path, there was no going back. There was something that you had to ask.

You turn back to him. "Does finding your soulmate change anything?"

He seems to hold his breath as he thinks. Face impassive. "I don't know, Y/N. Does it? Do you want it to?"

Thoughts fly at a thousand miles per hour through your mind, each possible answer threatening to throw you off the edge of the cliff you were cautiously teetering on. You'd known that this was going to be a conversation that your undefined relationship would never recover from, but you were not ready for it to hit you like this.

So you grab him and then your lips are meeting his.

He makes a sputtering sound from the back of his throat, definitely not expecting your bold move. But he quickly goes to kiss you back a moment later. You pull away.

"Have you fallen for me yet?" Sunwoo whispers after catching his breath. The casual line he keeps throwing around no longer seems so casual now. As he searches your eyes for an answer, you could see how full blown his pupils are and how dark his gaze has become as it gradually trails down to your lips. Dark with a sparkle from the reflection of the moon, just like the starless sky.

"And what if I have?" you repeat his words from the time in the stairwell. It no longer sounds like a taunt. "What then?"

He doesn't answer but then his mouth slowly curves into a smile.

And then he's kissing you.

His mouth is hot and his lips are everything you imagined with how soft and supple they are, fitting so well against yours. He pulls you closer until there's no space between you, until you can feel his breath hitch, until you find out that his hair really is as soft as it looked. Beneath the smell of his cologne is a faint sweetness that's so distinctly him that it's like you're breathing in Sunwoo Sunwoo Sunwoo. And—you didn't know that it could feel like this. You didn't know that kissing someone could be so overwhelming that it makes the world spin and makes your heart feel like it would jump out of your chest. You didn't know his every touch would feel like electricity running through your veins, that the muffled moans he makes would be so addicting.

It was exhilarating. It was scary. Maybe this is what it's like to be with a soulmate. Maybe this is what it's like to be in love.

In love.

Wait—

You break the kiss and pull away from him. Gasping to catch your breath as everything rushes to you all at once.

Sunwoo gives you a bit of a questioning look before the wall of indifference is sliding back into place. There's a gentle smile, not the kind he showed the world but not the ones he'd secretly shown you either. It doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"We should probably get going," he murmurs, sitting up and reaching for your hand. "It's late and you have morning class."

It's only when you're back in your dorm that you realize neither of you answered each other's last questions.

Sunwoo doesn't text you.

He doesn't read your texts either, for that matter; the couple of short messages you sent remain unread and unopened for the next few days. For once, your phone is awfully silent, and it makes you wonder if this is what it felt like to be ghosted by him. If this is what it felt like to be anyone other than his soulmate.

It's like he disappeared from your life as quickly as he'd entered it.

Maybe he finally decided that he's had enough, that he's lost interest in you. And maybe it was a good thing because you didn't know how things could possibly proceed after last night. How could you possibly pretend like there was nothing between you after everything that's happened? How could you possibly endure seeing his flirty facade when you now know he's so much more than that?

There's only silence in replace of the comforting presence to walk to you class, and an empty seat next to you in your shared lecture. The stares and whispers are back this time, and even Eric sends you a questioning glance to which you respond with a shrug.

Jacob gives you worried looks throughout your time at the tutoring center when Sunwoo doesn't show up, though he never outright asks. Which you're grateful for, because you're not quite sure how it would feel to acknowledge the problem that's been eating away at you.

Because when you think about it, you hadn't even realized just how much of your life Sunwoo had taken up—all of your waking moments had consisted of him trying to worm his way into your heart. How he was constantly being up in your face, throwing around cheesy lines and the ever so casual 'soulmate'. There were the small gestures like getting you coffee, walking you up to your door, heck, even the fake stargazing. Holding your hand, warming it up. Lips fitting so well against yours. The genuine smiles he'd shown you, different from the fake ones he'd plaster on for the rest of the world. And then there was the seemingly daily check-in of have you fallen for me yet?

And—oh.

You'd fallen for him.

He did it. He won. He got you to fall for him just as he wanted, just like he'd joked about every day.

And your heart sinks at the realization.

"Okay, spill." Juyeon sits you down at cafeteria after class with a platter of fries in front of you. Comfort food, he'd said, shooing away Hyunjae's hand when he tried to steal one. "What's been bothering you?"

You heave a sigh and then begin with the last time you saw Sunwoo on the rooftop. A night that had started with breaking the rules and mediocre views, ending with deep talks and kissing. You had to admit that it'd been romantic at some point, but had it been a date? Had anything between you two been... anything?

"So you guys kissed?" Hyunjae's eyes fill to the brim with excitement as he leans towards you. "Like, with tongue and all?"

"Okay, ew. Just because you're comfortable sharing things about your sex life does not mean I am." You push his face away just as Juyeon turns into a mess of coughs.

"Sex life?" Hyunjae repeats, entirely ignoring the way his soulmate is now sporting a furious blush. "Who said anything about sex life? Are you saying you had s—"

"Shut up," you quickly cover his mouth for your own sake. And Sunwoo's. And Juyeon's. "That is so not the point of this conversation."

Juyeon clears his throat. "So he hasn't contacted you at all since that night?"

"He has not," you sigh, reluctantly letting go of Hyunjae. "Guess he ghosted like the typical fuckboy? I shouldn't have expected anything from him."

"But it doesn't sound like he's afraid of commitment though," Juyeon says slowly, deep in thought. "He's made the effort to start going to classes and to get to know you."

"Doesn't he do that with everyone he flirts with?" you mutter under your breath.

"But he hasn't," Hyunjae crosses his arms, "flirted with anyone else since meeting you."

"That's a lie; I totally saw him—"

"He's afraid of being rejected by you," Juyeon finally says.

"Wait, what?"

Juyeon nods and even Hyunjae is staring at him with confusion.

"Okay, what do you know that I don't?" Hyunjae blinks at his soulmate, peering at him intensely.

"It was just something Eric said," Juyeon shrugs. "He was mostly making fun of Sunwoo for how much he's changed since meeting you," he nods your way, "but he also said that Sunwoo thought he wouldn't be good enough. Like he was afraid you'd never see him as a soulmate."

"Since when did you become so wise?" Hyunjae says, patting Juyeon on the head. Then his jaw drops when the words sink in. "Wait, you're only telling Y/N this now?"

"Only because Y/N still doesn't believe that lover boy's feelings are genuine," Juyeon huffs, crossing his arms. "The universe was supposed to straighten itself without my interference."

"So much for being confident that I would fall for him."

"But," Hyunjae says deliberately, "didn't you?"

"No—" you start, and then stop.

As if he could see exactly what you had been ruminating about for the past few days, Hyunjae's jaw drops even lower than the previous time. "Oh my god."

"Okay, fine!" you confess only because he already saw right through you. "But it's not a good thing."

"You had no qualms with falling for someone who's not your soulmate but now you're worried about falling for your actual soulmate?" Hyunjae raises an eyebrow and then cocks his head over at Juyeon.

"Ugh, you're never going to let me live, are you?" You stifle a groan from where your face is buried in your hands. It's not usually embarrassing whenever Hyunjae teases you about your former crush on Juyeon, but this comparison makes your cheeks immediately heat up. Maybe because there is some truth to it. "I'm sorry that Juyeon is too hot for you?"

Juyeon laughs while Hyunjae glares at you.

"Not the point," Hyunjae gives a dismissing wave. "It should be easy, Y/N. It should be like falling into place with someone, not falling off a cliff like how you're making it sound."

"It's scary though. With someone who's not your soulmate, you might not care as much because maybe it won't work out anyway. But with your soulmate, this is like the one chance of your lifetime."

"You're right, but you have one who genuinely cares for you. What's the danger in that?" Juyeon asks.

"The danger is that he doesn't even believe in soulmates." You finally take a fry, already cold by now but comforting, nonetheless. And then you think back to that night on the rooftop. What he'd said about soulmates, then what he'd asked you.

I don't know, Y/N. Does it? Do you want it to?

A question you hadn't answered.

"Just make it clear to him how you feel," Juyeon continues when you don't say anything else.

"Easier said than done," you whine. "It's like he completely disappeared. No one knows where he is and he's not answering my texts either."

"Oh that's easy." Hyunjae's lip quirks up, holding your gaze as if distracting you from when he goes to steal a fry. "All you have to do is go talk to Younghoon, and then Sunwoo will suddenly appear to beat him up again."

You don't know whether to laugh or cry at that comment. "Um. I was going to tell you to shut up, but you know what, that's actually hilarious. I'll accept it."

"Why, thank you." Hyunjae smiles. Stuffs the fry in his mouth. "But anyways, don't worry too much about it. Lover boy will be back in no time. Especially when every hour is missing Y/N hours."

"Remind me to never tell you anything ever again," you say, reaching to stuff a handful of fries in his mouth to shut him up. "But I don't even know if that's a good thing though. Him... coming back."

"Why not? Be in love with your soulmate freely, Y/N," Hyunjae gestures dramatically as he chews. "You didn't go through all those years of ugliness for nothing."

"I think I'll go talk to Younghoon and see if he knows anything." You put the platter of fries in front of Juyeon, "Thank you for your help, bestie." Then turn to Hyunjae and knock him on the head, "And just so you know, I still hate you."

"It's okay to admit it, you know. That you loveme."

"Keep us updated, okay?" Juyeon pokes you gently. "Let us know if we can help with anything."

"Yeah, let us know if you need us to beat him up for you. Well, if you don't mind having some extra bruises for a while," Hyunjae says, waving his fists arounds.

"Thanks, but it won't be necessary."

Heading to the cafe has you shivering at the cold wind against your skin; the sun had disappeared with the clouds quickly moving in, darkening the sky with the incoming storm. If Juyeon were right that Sunwoo wasn't ghosting you, then there would have to be another reason for disappearing so suddenly. An unsettling feeling that makes your stomach clench.

Luckily for you, the cafe seems emptier than usual when you head over. Younghoon's there chatting with a co-worker—Kevin, if you could read his nametag properly—and he turns to the door at the sound of the bell.

"Oh, hey Y/N!"

"Hey, Younghoon."

Kevin whispers something to him and then gives you a quick smile before going into the backroom, leaving the two of you alone.

"I'm glad you stopped by, actually. I wanted to apologize for um..." he trails off, running a hand through his hair awkwardly. "Causing you all that trouble. Not knowing about you and Sunwoo."

"Don't worry about it; you already texted me about this." You wave a hand at him dismissingly. "And besides, the important thing is that you're okay. I would've beat up Sunwoo myself if you weren't."

That makes him laugh, though the usual twinkle in his eye isn't there. "We can still be friends, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course." Then you pause, not knowing how to approach the subject. "Actually, that's kind of what I wanted to ask you. Do you know where Sunwoo is?"

Younghoon hesitates. "There were some... people looking for him a while ago. He said he was going out of town to deal with them, but that's about all he told me."

"Some people?"

"He didn't want them to find him here." Younghoon bites his lip. You could tell that he clearly knows more but you're suddenly unsure of whether you wanted to find out at this point. "Y/N, it's probably best if you don't know."

"Oh."

But who would be looking for Sunwoo? Just what kind of people were he involved with? The way Younghoon spoke about it sounded like there would be danger involved; that Sunwoo was being chased by a gang or thugs. That there would be fights, weapons, and maybe even car chases, just like in the movies.

It just confirmed the sad fact that you knew nothing about him. You were completely clueless when it came to what kind of person he was, what his hobbies were, who his friends were. And yet, he knew all those things about you. He knew your schedule, your favourite coffee order, how you met your best friends. In the couple of months that you've known him, he already knew you inside and out.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Younghoon asks, gaze instantly softening at what must be quite a sad looking frown on your face. You barely manage to shrug in response. "Sunwoo might act like an asshole sometimes, but he's not a bad guy. I don't know what he's said to you, but he really does care about you."

"Thanks, Younghoon."

"I'll keep you updated if I hear from him."

When the silence of your room greets you, this time you're scrubbing off the makeup to look for clues. The marks that you once dreaded now became your hope because at least then you'd have some sort of sign. A tiny splash of blue as proof of his existence, a patch of purple to know that he's somewhere close by, that maybe the connection you had with him wasn't a fabrication of your imagination but rather something tangible.

Because maybe you did miss his presence. Because maybe you didn't hate it as much as you once thought you did, and maybe you actually never hated it at all. Maybe you've gotten used to it and maybe the way your heart soars and the way it sinks is the very definition of what it means to be soulmates.

There were no marks. A good sign, you supposed, if this meant he hadn't been getting into fights while he was gone. But something about seeing the clean slate of your skin makes you miss the familiar sight of marks, as if they were a piece of his presence you carried around.

It's already hard to believe you'd once hated them so much.

When your phone finally vibrates, you almost think you're imagining it. That it has to be some figment of your mind that you were projecting too hard.

Sk8ter boi: open the door soulmateeee <3

But when you open the door, he's there. It doesn't even matter how he knew which unit you lived in or how he made it past the front door of the building or why he decided to come. It doesn't matter that he's dripping water onto your floor from his soaked clothes, or that he drops his helmet and jacket by the door.

"Sunwoo?"

"Sorry for taking so long," he says softly as he closes the door behind him. There's a glimpse of a smile but it doesn't match the turmoil in his eyes. "You can see my handsome face all you want now."

"Are you okay? Where did you go?"

"Let's just say there was some unfinished business with some people I knew."

"Did you..." you trail off, not knowing how to ask what was on your mind or whether if you should be prying at all.

He shakes his head and some water droplet fall from his soaked hair. "I'm not going back to that kind of life, Y/N. Had to cut off ties with some people, that's all. Everything's done now. I'm all yours."

You let out a breath of relief that you didn't even realize you'd been holding.

Strands of his hair curl at the ends, and water droplets fall. Then you notice that the white tee he has on is see-through with how soaked it is, and the way it clings onto his body leaves little to imagination.

You slowly force your gaze away. "Oh."

"Were you looking for me?"

"I—yeah," you admit. The sight of him in front of you, alive and well, was enough to wipe away all of the snarky responses you once had in mind and make you finally decide to be real with him. To finally confront your feelings. "Yeah, I was worried about you. I was afraid you'd gotten into an accident or some sort of fight and—"

He shakes his head again, showing you both sides of his arms. Turning his head and pointing at his cheeks. "Not a scratch. See? I know how to resolve things peacefully. I promised you that there would be no more marks, Y/N."

"But Sunwoo, do you mean that? I was afraid you'd left because of what happened that night. That you decided you were done with—this," you gesture vaguely. "Sunwoo... are you just playing with me?"

"What? No." His eyes fill with confusion, and he finally crosses the room. "Y/N, is that what you thought? Is that what it seemed like?" Then he's right in front of you, gently brushing away a tear that you hadn't even realized was on your cheek. "Hey, I'm sorry for taking off like this. I wasn't trying to ghost you, I was just... afraid. Afraid of what you'd say if you answered that last question because I wasn't ready to be rejected by my own soulmate." He takes your hands in his and gives you a sad smile. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt, but now, I've come to terms with it. And it's okay because I promised you that I'd get my shit together and I'm going to make it happen."

Then you're burying your face in his chest, arms pulling him closer despite the wet clothing, despite how you thought you hated him all your life. Because somehow, hating him first makes you like him even more now. And somehow, wanting to get rid of him at first makes you want to cling to him tighter now, to hold him closer and let this moment erase your guilt of ever pushing away someone who now seems to fit so well against you.

"You know, you were right to be mad at me for never thinking about you or about how my actions would affect you and the people around me. I hadn't really cared about anything in the world and didn't think about possibly meeting my soulmate in this lifetime. And even after we met, I didn't think anything would change. You were right that I was only interested in fooling around with you—only at first though." He pulls back just slightly, and you could see the honesty in his eyes, steady, unwavering. "But things did change. I usually don't give a shit about people's feelings or opinions, but for some reason, I care about yours. And I find myself wanting to get to know you, to be good enough for you. To not screw up one of the biggest chances in my life."

He caresses your cheek so delicately as if afraid this moment could shatter with a touch too strong.

"Wanting to love you and be loved by you."

If you'd been treading carefully around him before, now you find yourself drowning. Drowning in the warmth of his body against the coolness of his clothes, drowning in the sincerity in his words, in the hope that had begun to bloom in your heart so fast that it aches and yearns.

"Sunwoo, I should've told you that night."

There's a brief flash of fear in his eyes that's quickly replaced with a glimmer of hope that mirrors yours.

"Because I would've told you that I do want this to change everything. I want you to believe that soulmates can exist, and love can be real, and that the possibilities are endless if you're willing to experience it all. And that I do want you, as a soulmate."

He lets out the shaky breath he was holding. "Have you fallen for me?"

And this time when he asks, you're not afraid to answer.

"Yeah, Sunwoo. I have."

Then waves crash and surround you as his lips meet yours, dragging you into the depths and you're sinking, sinking, deeper and deeper. His mouth is hot as he kisses you hungrily, pulling you infinitesimally closer as hands get tangled in your hair and in his tee. Sunwoo's breath hitches when you press your palms against the bare skin under his shirt and there's heat sparking from everywhere you touch like a live wire. His every touch feels like air, a lifeline always keeping you alive and wanting, craving for more as you drown in his body.

He comes up for air first, pulling back the slightest, breathing hard.

"Sunwoo, you're freezing," you whisper.

"Then warm me up."

This time his lips veer from yours, creating a blaze of fire on your skin as they trail to your jaw, your ear, and down your neck that makes your breaths quicken. His shirt comes off with some effort and the bit that was left to your imagination turns into reality when your fingers trace his sun-kissed skin, following each line of his abs, each dip and curve until he's stifling a moan against your neck.

When there's a pause, his pupils are full blown, cheeks flushed as he searches your eyes. Searching for an answer for not only what would happen next, but for an answer about what would happen to the two of you. What you were and what you would become.

And then Sunwoo's kissing you again. Clothes are flung, teeth clack, and then he's pulling you with him until there are silky sheets and the heat of his body against you. Soft moans that you'd gotten a taste of that night now fill your ears as lips and hands are everywhere. His mouth trails down every inch of your body as if learning your every memory, your every bruise that had left you wondering over the years. Erasing then rewriting the stories through splashes of pink hues that darken into the blues and purples of watercolour on a blank canvas.

When the sun peaking through the curtains wakes you up in the morning, there's a disorientation in your head as if a fever dream that only lingers at the edges of your memory. The first glance at your body makes your heart sink as you realize you're covered in marks yet again, but then the memories flood back so fast that it takes a moment to catch your breath.

Sunwoo.

It's hard not to stare when he's right there. His long eyelashes, his high cheekbones, the way his lips curve into a small smirk as if knowing you're staring.

"Oh."

"Oh?" he mumbles, giving you a teasing look. He reaches over and pulls you even closer, until all you can see are those beautiful eyes. "Are you surprised I'm here?"

"No, but I was just afraid you... left."

He softens instantly into the brilliant smile that you'd seen only a few times so far. "Hey, I would never do that to you, soulmate. I was serious about what I said last night."

You nod, not trusting your own voice just yet. There's a tenderness in his eyes and fondness in his hands as his caresses your cheek, a softness that feels like warm sunlight trickling between the cracks. And when he kisses you this time, it feels like a first kiss. Whereas the night before was rough edges and stormy seas, this time it's filled with the innocence of a first love, the sweetness of a summer's day. His lips are gentle but what you notice most is the small smile that lingers on them like he can't contain his happiness.

This time the bruises that you see on your body aren't a sight that annoys you. They're not a sign that your soulmate is out there being reckless or fooling around; these are marks that your soulmate made directly on your skin. This time they're a reminder of what happened last night, not only a sign that he exists, but also a sign of how much he wants this too.

This time just before you head out, you're about to reach for your makeup bag before ultimately deciding against it. Because this time, you don't need to question who your soulmate was, where they were, or where the marks were coming from. It definitely feels different when you look over at Sunwoo and see the matching pale pink mark peeking out from the edge of his collar.

Maybe now, you can finally wear the bruises proudly.

The matching marks are the first thing that the soulmate duo stare at when you and Sunwoo walk into the cafe. You could see the way their eyes bounce back and forth between the two of you; Hyunjae giving you a very mischievous grin while Juyeon beams as if he were the matchmaker himself. Maybe he was, in a way; maybe the universe would've straightened itself out without his interference like he'd said, but he certainly helped.

There's a fifth seat saved for Younghoon, but it remains empty as you heard that he's been busy with the soulmate that he had found only recently. It's ironic that that fight with Sunwoo had been the solution for finding his soulmate all along—the bruises on his face had also showed up on a classmate of his. You were just happy that he's met someone he could finally channel all his love towards.

"Oh hey, pretty boy," Sunwoo nods towards Hyunjae when the two of you join them at the table, then turns to Juyeon, "and Y/N's ex-crush."

You elbow him lightly. "Please. Not you too."

The three of them laugh and for a second it feels so natural. You're glad to have brought them together even if their source of entertainment was from teasing you.

When Hyunjae looks at Juyeon, there's a particular look they exchange. A glance that said neither of them has ever doubted that your relationship with Sunwoo would work out, that they know all too well what the soulmate bond feels like and perhaps how its pull is inevitable.

You see it in the way Younghoon glows when he walks in with his soulmate later—Minji, he said her name was. The affection in his gaze when he looks at her, the way her eyes twinkle when smiles back at him. There's no denying their bond when it's all so different from how he looked at you before.

And you see it in all of Sunwoo's soft smiles and the crinkle of his nose and the way his eyes curve. The smiles you once thought were rare are now all you can see when no longer hidden beneath a facade. Maybe he's right that soulmates don't actually exist, and that love can bloom anywhere at any time. Maybe it's the choice to believe in it that makes the love for that person stronger than anything else. But on the way home when you see him subtly look at the marks on his skin with such fondness in his eyes, you knew that it didn't matter.

#sunwoo fic #deobiwritersnet #the boyz fic #sunwoo fluff #tbz fic #tbz x reader #sunwoo x you #tbz x you #the boyz imagines #the boyz scenarios #sunwoo imagines #sunwoo scenarios #the boyz fluff #my fic #ok...i channeled my inner f0ckb0i for this fic #sorry hyunjae but u were too fun to write #we are going down on the ship that is kyungwoo/minji 😤 #also catch that reference to if the lipstick matches hehe #if no one reads this i'm gatekeeping badboy sunwoo to myself #anyways i'm done with this fic OTL no more rewrites thanxx

[yolkyeomie]

The Art of Hearts | Lee Juyeon

summary — trembling hands? flushed face? nervous stuttering? this wasn’t like you, you’ve never reacted like this to anyone before. so why is it that when you were with him you acted this way?

word count — 17.2k words

pairing — juyeon x female!reader (w/ mentions of chanhee, sunwoo, younghoon, and hyunjae)

genre — princess!reader, knight!juyeon, fluff with a hint of angst if you really squint, slowburn-ish, strangers to lovers-ish

disclaimer — mentions of minor violence and sword fighting !! I spent three days writing this through a hyper fixation and I REFUSE to get this beta read, so if u see any errors pretend like you didn’t see it at all 👁 this is also really self indulgent and I’ve never even written for tbz I’m so so sorry if this is extremely inaccurate

I.

You were a little upset with yourself, you weren’t going to lie. For the past few months you had found yourself curiously leaning over your balcony railing, trying your best to catch a quick glance of all the knights in training that were just a few feet below. Eagerly you watched as they honed their skills, determination fueling their bones as they swung, slashed, and clanged their dull and worn out swords against each other in a mock battle.

They fought with all their might to become the next knights of your kingdom’s army or the next royal guards that would patrol the palace with the king and his family. Though, you knew that your mere presence made them strive for their goal even harder than before. Who wouldn’t want to demonstrate their rising abilities in front of the princess of their nation?

Your prying eyes made them itch with anticipation and wonder. Will they get a chance to greet you if they flaunted hard enough? To take your dainty hands in theirs, rough with hard work and tenacity, and place a gentle kiss atop your skin?

You weren’t interested in them, per se. In fact you had never been very interested in the upcoming knights that trained in the barracks below you. Since you were a child, the tiara and gown lifestyle wasn’t really for you, longing to hold the hilt of a long sword within your hands and slash your opponent in one clean swing. You wanted to fight, you wanted to run, you wanted to get rough and dirty with the knights that were sworn to protect your kingdom. It had been your biggest dream and fascination to even sit in on one singular match between the generals and their young and hopeful squires.

However, the amount of times you’ve been scolded for your unattainable dreams was too many to count on one finger. How unprecedented of you to even think such a thought! Young ladies are to never step foot on the battlefield, dirtier their long gowns or scraping their soft skins, that’s what you’ve been told. The swords are for the young men who fight for their country and the women who stay home and wait for them. A sword was to never be picked up by a lady, especially the princess.

But it was so boring! Why must you have to sit and smile like a porcelain doll too expensive to be rough housed with? You could never understand how your mother, how past queens and princesses, could handle such a repetitive job. Smile for the allies, smile for your king, smile for your people, and most importantly, produce an heir that will make the kingdom thrive. That was nothing you wanted to do!

Yet you were the only child of your nation’s queen and king, so that’s what was expected of you. You had no brother to hide behind and force to take the throne. You had no sister you could hide behind and force to smile and wave. You had to do it without any questions and without any backlash.

You’d think they’d at least let you learn to defend yourself since you were the only heir to the throne? Sure you will have royal guards protecting you for a majority of your life but it wasn’t bad to be a little precautious just in case a happy incident occurred.

Just thinking about the mistreatment made you frown, slumping over the balcony railing with a huff and using your hand to prop up your head in annoyance. Not even watching the knights-to-be scramble to display their tiny growing muscles or aimlessly swinging their blades around could make you feel any better.

And then you heard it, a deep and loud horn echoing across from the barracks all the way to the balcony you stood on. It caught your attention almost immediately, standing up straight and leaning over the railing to see what was going on. Unfortunately you hear what they must be saying from the height you were at, but the slow opening of the barrack gates was enough to clue you in on what was happening next.

“Oh, I’m just in time!” A voice chirped behind you, your skin jumping off its bones at their sudden appearance. You turn your head innocently to catch the sight of a fellow member of royalty slinking you to your side, his tiny physique making his footsteps light and silent as he stepped across the marble flooring of the balcony.

“Why, if it isn’t his Royal Highness, Prince Choi Chanhee of Fantasia!” You teased, watching as he rolled his eyes at his formal title. Only recently had the boy been pronounced the next king of his nation and he still wasn't used to the new form of address he had been given. You took this as an opportunity to poke fun at him, knowing all of the times he’s done the exact same to you. “What do I owe the pleasure of seeing his Royal Highness today?”

“You are so annoying,” Chanhee snided, earning a knowing smile from you as he leaned over the balcony railing just as you did before. “My father has come to discuss some important matters with your family, something involving the trading between the two kingdoms. I was forced to tag along being the next heir and I came to give you a bit of company, but it seems as though you’re already a little preoccupied.”

You couldn’t help but scoff at his last words, knowing he was trying to jab right back at you for watching the squires of your kingdom. “Very funny, Chanhee, but I’m not here to watch the scrawny pretty boy’s fight for a simple smile from me.”

“You find enjoyment in their pinning though, I know you do,” He noted, not taking his eyes off the barrack gates. They were completely open now, leading out into the field that was right front of the balcony the two of you were standing on. “You would never give a singular one of these men a chance because the little she-devil inside of you likes toying with their hearts.”

“You describe me so coldly, it hurts,” you laugh, watching a smile etch on the prince’s face at your words. You enjoyed your little banter like this, fighting back and forth like a pair of siblings rather than potential suitors. And let it be known that everyone in the palace wanted Chanhee to be the one who would finally court you, but he didn’t seem too interested in the idea either.

Once again a horn was blown to catch the attention of the people, it’s deep sound resonated across the field and the two of you turned your gazes towards the barracks once more. This is what Chanhee was looking forward to, the weekly evaluation that the knights-to-be of your kingdom endured four days every month. To be honest, you looked forward to it as well, as it usually was used as a way to not only assess the squires but show off the power of the kingdom’s next knights and royal guards.

After a few moments two horses shot out of the barrack gates, galloping across the open field at such intense speeds that if you blinked you would have missed them.

“This week is archery!” Chanhee exclaimed, clapping his hands together in glee as he pointed out the worn red targets that were placed about the field.

You narrowed your eyes as you finally settled your eyes upon one individual, Chanhee’s gaze following the other rider as they rode in the wind. The boy you were watching was riding upon a black stead, the steeds jet black coat nearly matching his slate colored hair. The only reason you could see the boy upon the black horse was because of his contrasting blue tunic and the evergreen colored grass underneath them.

As the two approached the first target, the boy began to rise off of the saddle straightening his back as lifting up a bow and arrow held in his hands. He focused in on the target in front of him, quickly snatching an arrow out of the quiver strapped around his back and nocking his bow. Both you and Chanhee watched in silence as the boys drawed back on their bowstrings, aiming carefully for the bullseye with unheard precision.

Thwish! Chanhee’s boy was the first to release his arrow, the object flying through the air and sinking deep into the plywood of the target. The boy let out a cheer as his chestnut steed began to pick up the page, charging straight for the other two targets that were left to clear. Only a few seconds after the first the boy you were watching released his arrow, stabbing into the target just as, if not harder, into the target than the first.

There was no cheering coming from him, no gesture of victory, not even a hint of an eager smile. He only grabbed onto the reins of his horse and commanded it to continue forth.

After the first moment of hesitation, he was no longer the one waiting for his fellow knight-to-be to make the first move. He surpassed the other boy in a matter of seconds, shooting his arrows deep into the plywood targets in a heartbeat.

“That’s incredible,” Chanhee couldn’t help but comment, reaching out for your arm as he stared down at the field in pure amusement. “Did you catch that Y/N? Each one of those shots, straight into the bullseye? And on the back of horse running at full speed? He’s inhuman, there’s no other way.”

“What can I say?” You bragged, a smile donning in your face as the boy’s horse began to slow into a casual trot. Only then did the remnants of a grin don his face, basking in his easily gained victory. “My kingdom’s soldiers are the best in the region? There is a reason everyone wants to be our allies and not our enemies? The boys from the village could crush yours in a fell swoop.”

The current squires weren’t everything to brag about now, but once they finished training? Ascending to the ranks of knights and royal guards? They were unstoppable, worthy of not only your praise, but the kingdom’s as well.

“That’s so unfair,” Chanhee pouted, stepping away from the balcony to throw a small fit. It was nothing too serious, just blowing off some steam from being the lesser royal member in the room. “You should really send some of your knights to Fantasia once you become queen. We could really use the unstoppable knights of your kingdom to better protect our own.”

You snort at his words, glancing down towards the open field where the targets laid. “Not a chance, your Royal Highness,” you tell him, your eyes glued to the slate colored hair of the squire below you. In a heartbeat he turned his head to the balcony, turning to the side like a dog as his gaze met yours. “Not a chance.”

II.

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn,” you say, your brain barely keeping up with the words that were spilling out of your mouth. “But what? You’re doing what?”

Your father couldn’t help but smile at your confusion, leading you down the busy hallway of the barracks. Any knight or general that would walk the same path as the two of you would gasp and bow before you, letting the king and his daughter pass them before even daring to continue on their way. Squires young and old would all gawk and stare from the windows and doorways of their rooms, their gazes never leaving their sovereign’s side until they were out of view.

You were in the barracks. For the first time in your life you were walking the corridors of the knight’s barracks, their training grounds, side by side with your father’s permission. Sure, you were still dressed in the long feet covering dress and shiny silver crown you had inherited so it meant you were not going to do any sort of fighting while you were here, but they didn’t matter to you. This was a big step for you to be taking in first place! Just walking within the barracks was a simple dream come true.

“Progress has been made,” your father’s royal adviser spoke first, explaining the situation to you as simply as he could. “The general in charge of training the newest squires from around the nation had reported that he believed that some of them were ready to ascend the ranks. So your father is here to judge and give the final verdict personally.”

“You saw the evaluation a week ago, didn’t you?” Your father suddenly asked you.

Your brain was doing marathons around the room as they spoke to you, trying your best to keep up with the conversation. Though the mentioning of the weekly evaluation snapped you back into reality, remembering the talented boy that rode across the field on the black stallion and easily demolished his competition. “Of course,” you responded, a little too fast for your liking. Quickly you added on, “who doesn’t remember the evaluation? Prince Chanhee was so impressed by the skills of our knights-to-be that he begged me to send some to his kingdom.”

“I know,” your father sneering, reminiscing over a memory you hadn’t witnessed. “These boys, the ones I’m going to evaluate, are around your age. I thought it was useful for you to see them personally, as there is a very strong potential that you’ll be growing as the next queen alongside them.”

“So…,” you mumble, stopping with your father in front of the door archway led to the courtyard where most of the knights-to-be were being held. “No training with the knights?”

Your father shot you a glance before laughing to himself, allowing his royal advisor to pass by him and walk out first into the courtyard. “No training with the knights.”

“May I present to you, his Majesty the King and Her Royal Highness, Princess Y/N!”

Both you and your father stepped out into the courtyard, everyone in the vicinity of the two of you bowing in respect. Your father spoke a few words to the general in charge, an exchange of words you didn’t quite catch. You were too distracted by your surroundings to focus on what was being spoken to you.

The ground around the archways was paved in cement, creating a small pathway to be walked on around the courtyard. Yet in the middle courtyard was completely dirt, grass only making an appearance in spotty areas from being traversed on so many times. The dirt stained the hem of your dress with a brown tint, having it been raining a few nights before and the ground hadn’t completely soaked up all of the water that had been doused upon it.

But you didn’t mind, why would you care about your dress when you were finally in the barracks! Your eyes were glued to the more important things, like the targets that were hung up against the walls with arrows puncturing the wood or the many dull swords and swords that were littered across the ground forgotten with the king and your arrival.

You must look like an idiot as you looked around the barracks like it was the most exquisite place of the century. To them squires, it was just another building that barely had anything to give. But to you? This was heaven on Earth, the garden of Eden in a cold and unforgiving world.

“General, please, no need to flatter,” your father’s voice spoke, finally snapping you out of your daydream-like state. When you looked up towards him, he was laughing and smiling with the man over all of the knights-to-be, turning towards the younger boys with an expectant glint in his eyes. “I am here to see the potential we’ve gathered within our ranks.”

“Of course, your Majesty!” He replied in an instant, turning towards the young men as urging a few of them to stand in front of him. It was only three of the boys close to your age that stood before you and king. “These are our finest boys to date, great fighters they’ve proven themselves to be, and hopefully even greater knights as well. Kim Sunwoo, Kim Younghoon, and our prized apprentice,”

It was him, the boy who has easily shot three arrows into a target’s bullseye on horseback. “Lee Juyeon.” You had never seen the boy up close before, you had never seen any of the knights-to-be up close before yet somehow, he made you falter. Your breath stopped upon finally laying eyes on him, unknowingly eying him as you tried to regain control of your brain. You weren’t used to this, being the person who was struggling to compose themselves, it was usually the other way around.

Most knights and knights-to-be were all talk and no bite, carefully trying to court you with sweet words and no skills to back up their courageous attitudes. Not even a single bat of an eyelash could make you want to give them the time of day. Yet Juyeon simply stood there, his head held high with well earned confidence and naturally captivating looks. He knew he was better off than most of the boys that had been spent off to become knights for the king, he must know!

Why else would he drop his gaze from his father to you, unspoken words passing between the two of you before he turned back towards your father. He knew you, he recognized you, and he was simply going to continue about his day. It killed you to know that you had been caught lacking, bewitched by his skills and appearance after being known as the princess who plays with knights for so long.

Was anyone watching you? Of course they were watching you, you were the princess and were standing right next to the king! Everyone must have seen you gawking at the boy before you and who could tell what was racing through their minds now?

“You're the boy from the weekly evaluation last week, aren’t you?” Your father questioned, addressing Juyeon first. You glanced between the two men for a moment, racking your brain around so you could follow along with the conversation. “Mounted archery, black horse?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” he responded politely, his voice making your hands twitch with a sudden spark. Immediately you put your hands behind your back, fumbling and fidgeting with your fingers nervously. How did he do that? The boy said three words and now your body was beginning to lose control!

You pinched the inside of your palm, cursing at yourself for allowing yourself to act in such a way. What was wrong with this? This wasn’t supposed to happen, you weren’t supposed to be reacting this way to a person you had just met!

Your father gasped in response to Juyeon’s answer, not even noticing your change in demeanor. “They don’t call you the finest for no reason then. Truly, your one of the most talented people I’ve seen come into our barracks in years. How long have you been with us, Juyeon? It must have been a year or so, hasn’t it?”

“You flatter me, your Majesty,” he smiled, his ears burning at the compliments given by the sovereign. “It’s only been two months.”

“Two months?” Both you and father exclaimed, sharing nearly identical expressions of shock. You cover your mouth with your hands, not meaning to speak out of turn. Your father cleared his throat not long after, trying to shake off the minor embarrassment from reacting in such a way.

Juyeon didn’t seem to mind though, his smile growing from ear to ear as he glanced over towards you once again. Your eyes followed his as he leaned down just slightly before speaking to you. “Are you okay, your highness?” He questioned, his own hands twitching from their place at his sides.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” you quickly reply to him, cutting the conversation short between the two of you almost immediately. Was your face red? You hoped it wasn’t red, that would have been embarrassing.

The entire courtyard’s breath stopped as they started at the two of you. Juyeon, the finest upcoming knight, and you, the princess of the kingdom, spoke to each other. Out of turn and slightly more casual than expected, none of the knights and squires had ever gotten close enough to even get a decent response from you. Yet Juyeon had not only gotten a reaction out of you, but a flustered response as well!

“Juyeon,” your father called, snapping the boy’s attention from you to the king. Thank the heavens he stopped looking at you, you didn’t know how much longer it was going to be until you melted on the spot. You hated it, the sudden and newfound emotions the squire was putting you through. Your head was going to explode if you shared one more conversation with him, and that was barely a conversation to begin with. “How good are you with a sword?”

“Excellent, your Majesty,” the general cut in, giving the boy a stern pat on the back. Juyeon didn’t move from the position he was standing in, but it definitely looked as though he felt the brunt of the general’s hit. “He probably rivals those of the recruits from last year, already on their level or higher.”

“Perfect,” the king smiled, glancing around the courtyard for a moment. Before turning back towards the general and Juyeon. “Then shall we have a mock battle? If you don’t mind, I’d like to see your skills in action.”

“Of course,” Juyeon responded, “I can do anything for you, your Majesty.”

III.

“What the hell was that?!” Sunwoo yelled, punching Juyeon in the shoulder as hard as he possibly could. The boy winced as a result, numb from the mock battle he had participated in just a few minutes earlier. Though he didn’t retaliate like he should have, slumping into the bed that was provided for all the knights within the barracks. He was exhausted, having to exert a lot more energy than he was used to in order to impress the king as best as he could.

Had he known the king and the princess were visiting the barracks today, he wouldn’t have stayed up the night before.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Juyeon responded, his voice muffled against the worm pillow he laid his head on.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” the boy insisted, twirling the dull longsword in his hands by the hilt. He stopped as he pointed the tip at Juyeon’s back, threateningly hovering the blade over him. “You? And the princess? Flirting not only in front of our faces, but the king’s face? Are you crazy or what!”

“I wasn’t flirting with the princess,” he answered, turning to snatch the sword out of Sunwoo’s hands. He wasn’t even supposed to be bringing weapons within the sleeping quarters, all of those were supposed to stay within the barracks army for safety reasons. “I have no reason to flirt with the princess.”

“You were kinda flirting with the princess man,” Younghoon spoke from the other side of the room, glancing at the two boys with a curious glint in his eyes. Juyeon had totally forgotten he was even with them, quietly slinking around the room to eavesdrop on Sunwoo and his conversation. Usually he could tell when the boy was trying to sneak around them, but it seemed as though he was too tired and preoccupied to notice this time. “I mean, what else could that whole situation with you and princess have been?”

“I said like five words!” Juyeon insisted, holding the right amount of fingers up. “Five! How could I have flirted with her when all I asked was if she was okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, leave out the important details like the way you were smiling at her when you spoke to her,” Sunwoo pointed out. “Or the way you specifically were fighting much harder than normal to catch her attention during the mock battle? Huh? How do you explain that?”

“The king!” The boy argued, “the king was right there! Did you want me to slack off right in front of the sovereign of our kingdom and embarrass myself? You saw the way the general and king kept showering me with compliments, I had no choice.”

Younghoon shook his head in disappointment before dropping it up with his arms and speaking. “The princess couldn’t keep her eyes off you man, you suddenly became eye candy for her. And it definitely wasn’t just because your skills were really good, the princess doesn’t know enough about swordsmanship in order to be watching you for your skills.”

“You don’t…,” Juyeon stuttered, trying to find a way to defend himself. “You don’t know that…”

“Yes, I do,” Younghoon confirmed. “Everyone knows the princess barely knows a lick of swordsmanship. She was watching you, Juyeon.”

He knew that, everyone knew that the princess didn’t know anything about fighting in general. It’s the first thing that a person learns upon reaching the barracks from their hometowns, the princess does not know how to fight. She’s tried for years to run towards the barracks to even just watch the knights train their apprentices but every time she’s been denied access to the barracks.

Truth be told, he also knew that the princess was watching him during the mock battle too. How could he not, for every glance he threw the king’s way he would nearly make direct eye contact with the king’s daughter. Juyeon would quickly look away, ducking below blades that were swung above his head or dodging a jab that was aimed directly at his chest.

Everyone wanted to impress the king and the princess now, knowing that it was up to the king to decide whether or not they’d ascend the ranks and become fully fledged knights. The only thing in their way was Juyeon, the two month old apprentice from the more rural area of the kingdom. If they could take down him in a mock battle, or even get a small nick on his body, they’d get a sure fire way into the ranks of knights and royal guards.

The mere fact that the princess was accompanying her father for the first time ever wasn’t really in their favor either. Juyeon knew how much everyone adored the princess of their kingdom, scrambling and begging for just a peek of her from the balcony above the barracks. Now she had been right in front of their faces, breathing the same air as them and watching them carefully for the first time in her life. There could be no mess ups here, for who knew when they’d next see the princess within the walls of the barracks once again.

But it seemed as though Juyeon continuously kept snatching up every little opportunity there was to catch her attention. It wasn’t even on purpose, but his charms and skills stood up more than anyone else who had fought against him.

It’s impossible to catch any woman’s attention when Juyeon stood in the way.

The worst part about it was that he didn’t even mind all the attention he was receiving. Usually he’d humble himself, placing his fellow peers on a pedestal to try and uplift them and provide a source of support and strength for them. Yet the electrifying feeling he got from watching the princess’s face shift from bewilderment to flustered was addictive in the worst way possible, Juyeon almost cracked a smile just thinking about it. His power was truly unrivaled in a way he didn’t even mean for it to be.

Juyeon covered face with his hand, trying his best to conceal the ever growing flush on his face. This feeling… it shouldn’t have been this addictive.

“Either way,” Sunwoo began, cutting straight through Juyeon's thoughts like a sword to the chest. “You can’t be flirting with the princess.”

“Why not?” He asked, responding a little faster than he anticipated. Both Younghoon and Sunwoo gave him a knowing look, as if the boy had confirmed their suspicions of courting the king’s daughter. “I’m not saying I was, god! I’m just asking… why I can’t if I ever wanted to try…”

“Number one!” Sunwoo called out.

“There are dozens of knights trying to court her at this very second,” Younghoon pointed out. “Becoming one of those people will not only give you an unfair advantage but also make you gain a lot more enemies than you think. I’m almost one hundred percent sure you don’t want to mess with the already established and trusted knights within the king’s circle.”

“Number two!”

“She’s a princess, daughter of the king of the entire nation,” Younghoon stated, pointing an accusing finger towards Juyeon. “What are you compared to that?”

Juyeon rolled his eyes at their words, leaning up against the bed once again before answering. “I’m a knight’s apprentice, son of a barely known blacksmith in the rural areas of the kingdom.”

“You’ve got nothing to offer. She’s got a whole kingdom, you’ve got nothing but a sword and your face,” Sunwoo told him, shaking his head in disappointment. “If you’re going to try and court a princess of all people, I think you’d need a decent background to even try. Most of the people who try and flirt with her are people with lots of money, connections, or are just close to the king and his circle.”

“Alright then…,” He mumbled, glancing between the two of them. “What’s number three?”

The two boys looked at each other for a moment, a smile growing on her faces as they turned back towards Juyeon. “We kill you for leaving us behind!”

IV.

“I hate this stupid game,” you mumbled, keeping your head propped up with one hand as you stared down at the chess pieces in front of you. Chanhee had come to visit again, companying his father on legal matters that neither of you could care for. With nothing to do for the day he had offered to play a game with you, a game he was learning to play back in his own kingdom.

You agreed believing that both of you wouldn’t be very good and manipulate the rules in order to play, but that wasn’t the case at all. Chanhee was beating you badly, snatching a majority of your black chess pieces off of the board and assaulting your side with his white pieces. He said he wasn’t good but it seemed as though he was natural at this game. “It’s not a stupid game,” he corrected you, placing his white pawn near your black queen. “This game is all about trickery and strategy, if you can’t do that how will you win a war?”

“There is no war to be fought,” you explain to him, grinning to yourself as you moved your black knight piece and took his white pawn. “Even if there was, I have generals, allies, and a council of people to help win said war. That’s kind of their job after all, planning battle strategies and executing them flawlessly.”

Chanhee snorted at your answer, innocently looking down at the board and carefully plotting his next move. “Thinking like that will make you a weak queen, Y/N. I hope you know that. It’ll make you easy to manipulate if you can’t think for yourself… checkmate.” He stated finally, using his white bishop to move diagonally towards your black king. You curse to yourself quietly as you realized the predicament you were in.

Without knowing, Chanhee had nearly completely surrounded your king. His white chess pieces were all clustered up around your king, his bishop, both his knights, two pawns, and his queen closer to him for backup. “This game is so stupid!” You call out in frustration, moving another the last black pawn on your side to take his knight. Without hesitation the prince moved his bishop and quickly took your king within his hands, replacing your most crucial piece with his mocking white bishop. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

“You don’t want to play because you’re bad at this game,” the prince teased, placing the chess pieces back into their original order as you pushed your chair away from the table like a child. “It’s not my fault you can’t use your brain to its full capacity, my Royal Highness, Princess Y/N.”

“You’re so lucky you’re my friend,” you threatened, mentally wiping that catlike smile off of his delicate features. “Had you been any other person I would have hurt you by now.”

“Oh no!” He gasped, sarcasm dripping off his tongue as he mockingly waved his hands around in fear. “The princess with no fighting experience is going to hurt me! I’m so scared, what will I ever do?”

“Chanhee!” You yelled, jumping out of your chair in a heartbeat. The prince laughed at you as he leaped out of his seat, sprinting out of the room and closing the door behind him as fast he could knowing he was going to be faster than you. While you’ve been wearing fancy dresses and expensive, custom made heels your entire life, that didn’t make it any easier to run in. “Chanhee, you annoying little prince! Come back here and take back those words!”

You grumble to yourself as you kick off your shoes, desperate to catch the boy and give him a piece of your mind. You may have little to know fighting skills, but you didn’t need to know how to defend yourself to choke someone out. In a rush you hurry towards the door, swinging it open with an intense speed you didn’t think was possible only to open it to the face of your father’s royal advisor. “Good day, your Royal Highness.”

“Oh,” you say, trying to compose yourself as best as possible before properly responding to him. “Good day, sir. Is there anything I can help you with today? I’m kind of in a rush right now… his highness, Prince Chanhee—”

“—Can wait,” the royal advisor finished, urging you to open the door wider so that he could step in. Awkwardly push it open a little more, stepping to the side and inviting him inside. He gratefully entered, not hesitating for even a moment to begin explaining things to you. “As you know your father, the king, had decided a month ago to allow a few of the knights in training to ascend to the ranks of true nights and royal guards.”

“Of course I know,” you respond, grabbing the heels you had discarded in your attempt to chase after the Fantasia prince and throwing them off to the side where the royal advisor couldn’t find them. “He told me and my mother about it, he was thinking about adding new royal guards to the ranks since a few of them had notified my father of their retirement from the ranks.”

“Excellent, I’m glad you’ve been caught up that far,” he explained, making you raise a skeptical brow. Caught up that far? What else were you missing? You were the princess, it was rather important that you were updated on things that involved you and your family’s safety and security.

“Unbeknownst to you, the king and queen had sworn in a total of five knights earlier in the day while the king of Fantasia and his family were discussing their own matters of importance.”

“Without me?” You questioned.

“Without you.” The advisor confirmed. “Prince Chanhee of Fantasia had you occupied, and no one wanted to bother you while you were having one of your very few days off within the palace.”

You didn’t know whether you should be grateful for the privacy with Chanhee or upset with the fact that your father and mother did not think to invite you to the swearing in of the new royal guards. “Do not be distraught, your highness,” the royal advisor told you, a small smile playing on his lips as he began to speak. “It was simply a matter of keeping your best interest within sight, you will meet the newest royal guards whenever you feel the need.”

You nod your head in understanding, there was no need to be upset now. The damage was already done and it wasn’t too hard to move from. “Can I at least know who has joined us in the palace?”

The royal advisor nodded his head in response, standing up straight in response as he began to recall the names of all the knights that had joined them. “The most notable names I can recall at the moment are all from the barracks here within the palace walls. Knights Kim Younghoon, Kim Sunwoo, and Lee Juyeon, your personal guard.”

You froze upon hearing the royal advisor’s words, slowing processing everything in your brain as the gears began to turn inside of your brain. “I’m sorry but,” You laughed softly, trying your best to hear correctly. “Can you repeat that one more time? Who is the new royal guard?”

“Of course, your highness,” He agreed, “the new royal guards are Younghoon—“

“The last part! I just need the last part.”

“Lee Juyeon, your new personal guard. He was the barracks finest apprentice, being the most talented and skilled boy we have received in a few years.” Your father’s royal advisor explained, highly praising the boy as he spoke, “your father decided to place him as your personal guard, to protect you from any dangers while your father is away. It’s simply a safety precaution— Princess Y/N!”

It was too late. By the time the royal advisor called your name, you had already thrown on whatever pair of shoes you could find and scrambled out of the door to find your supposed personal guard. Out of all the people the king could have picked to be your specific guard, he chose Juyeon? The one that had made you flustered and fidget? The one that made your face and ears burn with a pinkish hue at just the mere sight of his smile? The talented mounted archer from just a month or two ago? That Lee Juyeon?

You stepped out into the corridor with a disheveled look on your face, your eyes darting around anxiously for the boy. Why him? Why was he popping up into your life again, right after you had gotten over the way you had completely embarrassed yourself at the barracks?

“Princess Y/N?” You sucked your breath as you turned around, coming face to face to the boy you hoped to never see again. He was still just as breathtaking as before, his eyes shining even brighter than when you first saw him full of confidence as his face glowing like the sun rays filtered through the windows was just a simple accessory for him.

Nothing much had changed about him since the day you first saw him, the only difference was now he had a genuine sword held within the scabbard that was hanging from his belt and that he was wearing your kingdom’s crest on the fabric of his tunic. Juyeon smiled at you as he pushed himself off of the wall, taking a few steps in front of you before speaking once again. “It’s been awhile since we’ve last seen each other, hasn’t it?”

You finally exhaled, the emotions tied into your sigh unknown as you worked up the courage to reply back to him. “I believe it has been… Sir Juyeon, I guess I should start calling you? With the whole… rank change and all.”

He shook his head at your suggestion, unable to shake the happy grin off his face as he spoke to you. “No, you don’t have to. I don’t like being too formal, plus we’re around the same age, aren’t we? You can just call me Juyeon.”

“But… you’re a knight now, a royal guard even,” you insisted. “You’ve worked hard to earn this rank, to earn this title even, I should address you the correct way at least.”

Though Juyeon was persistent whether you liked it or not. “Seriously, I don’t really care about titles and things like that. You can just call me Juyeon, it’s fine I promise.”

You nod in understanding, feeling your hands begin to twitch in anticipation once again. How were you going to handle being Juyeon being your personal guard when you could barely keep yourself from nervously fidgeting around? The boy was stuck with you until your father appointed a new guard or took away his knight status completely and you could barely compose yourself just standing in front of him.

You hated this feeling he gave you. It was like he casted a spell on you, where you could no longer think correctly or control yourself upon being in the same room as him. But you didn’t know how you could get rid of it, you don’t know if you could even get rid of it at all.

“I see you two are already acquainted with each other,” your royal advisor noted, smiling at both you and Juyeon. “Perfect this will be a smooth ride from here on out.”

V.

It had been about three months since Juyeon had been assigned to you as your personal guard and you genuinely hadn’t believed things would ever shift between the two of you. Your original dynamic had been stiff and tricky, you were withholding yourself from trying to become close to the knight and he was very determined to get to know you better.

Every time he would flash you one of those dashing smiles of his while the two of you would walk down the hallway you’d have to force yourself to not twitch, hands down at your sides and face turned forward to avoid making eye contact. Though the boy seemed to enjoy your very clear struggle to compose yourself, carefully prying into your thoughts when no one was around and teasing you about how you could never truly look him in the eyes.

For a good four weeks or so, that’s how the two of you functioned. Juyeon would smile, you’d become flustered, and he’d tease you for your reaction.

That’s as far as he’d ever go though, never reaching over boundaries or talking out of turn when he was with you. Because of the clear line of comfort the two of you had placed in between each other, you never thought that you’d become any closer. You put him at arm's length for two months because you were afraid of shaking and fidgeting under his gaze.

But then somehow, he had been able to crack your nervous shell. Juyeon had pointed out one of the swords you had hooked up against the wall, shining in the dim light of your room and covered in rare and bright gemstones. Somehow he had finally found the on switch for you, pressing the button and watching you suddenly ramble on and on about your interest in swordsmanship like no one had even tried to ask you beforehand. It was a little embarrassing to explain your long term obsession with fighting, but Juyeon never seemed to mind.

After that the two of you clicked. No longer was your relationship just ‘Juyeon your personal royal guard and Y/N the princess of the nation’, but Juyeon and Y/N. Two people of the same age that got along like birds of a feather. The palace itself seemed to notice this change the two of you went through, their eyes lingering on the two of you as you passed to try and decode your muffled giggles and his beaming smile.

Though the person who was most astonished by the change was none other than Prince Chanhee of Fantasia.

He hadn’t visited the palace at the same time you had first gotten Juyeon as your guard so he had not first hand experienced your growing friendship with the knight so it was understandable how he was a little confused. “Y/N…” Chanhee began, fumbling with his fingers as he glanced between the two of you. You looked back as well to find Juyeon walking behind the two of you, distracting himself with the walls of the palace to give you and the Fantasia prince some privacy. “Of all the people you could have picked… it had to be the archer from that day?”

“It wasn’t my decision,” you insisted, turning away from Juyeon to walk forward once more. “It was a situational circumstance and it was bound to happen now that we were going to walk the same path as each other, literally walk the same path as each other.”

“I know, you’ve told me this a million times.” He nodded, yet still unsatisfied with the answer you had provided him. Chanhee quickly picked his pace to match yours, not wanting to be any closer to Juyeon than he already had to be. “But I can’t help but… odd about this.”

You raised a brow at his words, letting it sink and marinate within your mind. “You feel… odd about me getting close to Juyeon?”

“Not in a weird jealous way,” Chanhee clarified, “I would never care about you that much. I mean I’ve been noticing your body language when you’re around him. You’re very much relaxed and it’s very clear that you enjoy his company but you have… nervous quirks. When you talk to him your hands shake like a woman with hand tremors and not to mention the way your ears will burn like a night’s lantern at the same time!”

“They still do that?” You whispered, holding your hands close to your chest. You could have sworn that once you and Juyeon had become friends all of your nervous habits stopped. You were anxious around the boy because you barely knew him and the way he made you felt in a crowd of people made you embarrassed, but that should have all ended once the two of you had gotten close! “God, do you think he’s noticed at all? I tried to get over the whole hands shaking thing after our first encounter at the barracks and I didn’t feel my hands shaking at all after I started treating him like a friend.”

The prince had to conceal a very heavy sigh that wanted to escape his mouth, glancing around the hallway for a moment to find a place where the two of you could receive some privacy. Without warning Chanhee grabbed your hand and dragged you towards the study on the right side of the hall. “Juyeon!” You called, allowing the boy to pull you along with little to no effort. “Give us like… five minutes? Stand guard, we’ll be out soon!”

You didn’t get a chance to see or hear the boy’s reaction as you were yanked inside of the study, the door closing behind you as Chanhee finally let go. “What was all that about?” You demanded from him, standing in the middle of the sunlight study with a scowl donning your face.

“I can’t believe it took you this long to realize… it took you three months to realize!” Chanhee exclaimed, shaking his head in pure disbelief as he paced back and forth. “Honestly at this point you’re either completely clueless or stupid, though I could bet it was both at the same time.”

“That was rude,” you bite, slapping his shoulder in retaliation for his harsh words. A smile broke out on the prince’s face for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe you had the utter audacity to hit him. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Chanhee. Explain yourself.”

“Y/N! Her Royal Highness, Princess Y/N of her nation!” The boy exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air before bringing them down onto your shoulders. “The princess has finally fallen!”

“Fallen?”

“Fallen in love!” Chanhee dodged out of the way of your fist this time, skipping around the room with a spring in his step. You couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. You? The princess known to make knights and squires squirm for just a small glimpse of you? Fallen in love?

“No, Chanhee, I haven’t—“ you tried to explain, distracted by the boy’s overwhelming excitement. “—I’m not in love. That’s crazy, Chanhee. Get a grip on yourself, this is absurd!”

The boy turned to you with his catlike grin, refusing to take no for an answer as he began to take light steps toward you. “How is this absurd, your Royal Highness? I mean, does the pieces not make a clear picture for you? You’ve fallen in love with your personal guard, that’s what all these nervous habits you have are suddenly about! Plus the fact that you turn as red as rose when you address him sometimes, there’s no other way to describe it!”

You wanted to fight back the Fantasia prince’s words, debating him on what your true feelings were and that you simply saw Juyeon as a new close friend of yours. But when you looked back on all your memories of him, the ones with the two of you together and the ones where you were alone, your words didn’t match up with your actions. All the tiny stolen glances you’d give Juyeon when he wasn’t aware, the way your heart would accelerate every time you saw him in the morning, the way your hands twitched in anticipation when speaking to the personal guard.

“No…,” You mumble to yourself, standing there in disbelief, before trying to find a chair to sit in. “There’s no way…!”

“Yes way!” Chanhee insisted, almost as if he was reading straight into your thoughts as he walked towards you. “Y/N, it’s time you come to terms with the facts that've been placed in front of you. Your own body is telling you that you enjoy your personal guard’s company a little more than the average person! Face it, Y/N, you like him.”

“This has got to be some sort of mistake, I don’t like Juyeon. Yes, I think he’s attractive, one of the most stunning knights my kingdom has ever seen, but they doesn’t mean—“

The prince let out a frustrated groan, covering his face with his hands as he fell on to a chair not far from yours. “Do you even hear yourself at this point? Y/N, you’re telling me to get a grip, you need to get a grip! How are you going to deny all of the evidence that is right in front of you? What else do you need to confirm my suspicions?”

“I don’t know!” You snapped, a burst of confusion and frustration exploding out of your mouth in the form of your tone. “I don’t want to believe that I’ve fallen in love with Juyeon, do you know how awkward that’ll be for me? I’m with him at every waking moment of day, I’ll never get a moment's rest if I really do like him. And there’s no way I could like him, I’m the one who makes knights and squires swoon, it’s not supposed to be the other way around.”

Both you and the prince sat in silence for a moment, struggling with each other to come to terms with the arguments you presented. The worst part about it is that if you have in fact fallen for your personal guard, you wouldn’t be too bothered by the thought.

Chanhee suddenly spring up out of his seat, a smile growing across his face as his brain began to twist and turn at the new thought that had popped into his head. “That’s it!” He exclaimed, turning towards you with a mischievous look on his face. “I know a way you can figure out if your feelings for the boy are true or not, and you actually like the idea I’ve come up with. It keeps your best interest in mind.”

VI.

“Prince Chanhee of Fantasia…” Juyeon began, peering into the sleeping quarters cautiously to make sure no other knight was inside of the room. The only people inside were Sunwoo and Younghoon, both who had shot up out of their beds at the sound of the boy’s voice. “Who exactly… is he to the princess?”

“You see us for the first time today and all you have to talk about is the princess?” Sunwoo snorted, falling right back into his bed with a huff. That was a fair reaction, seeing as Juyeon spent nearly twenty four hours with the princess on a daily basis. He could at least have something new and different to talk about when he was with his friends. But he couldn’t help it this time, not when he was curious about the prince who had visited for the day.

Both the prince and his father were gone now, sleeping in their giant and extravagant beds of their own kingdom instead of spending the night here. But Juyeon couldn’t help but feel some sort of way about the Fantasia prince, his eyes had been locked into his head since he had first approached the princess when he arrived. Though whether he was watching him out of intrigue or jealousy was unknown to him.

“He’s the princess’s close friend,” Younghoon shrugged, answering for the stubborn boy who refused to give him any sort of help. “I heard they’ve been friends since they were children and many people including those outside of the palace walls thought they were going to be betrothed to each other at one point. It made sense, both of them were of royal descent and have known each other well enough for it to happen. The kings of their respective nations were close to each other.”

“Oh,” Juyeon responded, falling into his assigned bed a little harder than he had originally planned. “That’s good to know.”

“Prince Chanhee has not tried to court the princess though,” Sunwoo explained, staring at the ceiling with his arms crossed. Despite handing over the information he knew, he still seemed upset with Juyeon but the boy was simply stubborn like that. “They’ve been friends since forever and not once in my life have I heard he’s ever tried to make a move on her. As much as the kingdom wants the two to get together, they’re probably just friends.”

A quiet sigh of relief left Juyeon’s mouth as he nodded, covering his face with his hands as he responded in a slightly chirper tone. “Oh, that’s good to know.”

“Hey!” Sunwoo scolded, sitting up at the speed of light as he caught the boy’s tone of voice. “What did we say about the princess?”

He groaned in response to Sunwoo’s words, sitting up out of his bed as he recited, “dozens of knights are trying to court her, she’s a princess and I have nothing to offer, and you’ll kill me if I leave you behind.”

“Exactly,” Younghoon smiled. “I’ll drive a sword right through your stomach and Sunwoo will shoot your heart with an arrow if you even think about abandoning us for the princess.”

“I can’t shoot an arrow through his heart,” Sunwoo argued, shooting a mischievous smile towards Juyeon as he called out. “Not when the princess already shot one in the bullseye!”

“Leave me alone!” Juyeon hissed, ignoring the boys devilish giggles behind him. He couldn’t help himself from being so enamored by the princess’s mere presence, especially when he was around her for the majority of the day.

When he first came to the barracks, he couldn’t have cared less about the royal family’s daughter. He simply there to train as a knight for his kingdom and provide some sort of stability for his family back home. Juyeon was usually the one innocently teasing the other knights and squires for their one siding crush on a person they could not have, but the tides had completely turned on him. Now he was the one secretly pining after royalty.

His attention was caught when he heard soft knocking on glass, turning his head towards the window as confusion crossed his face. Sunwoo and Younghoon didn’t seem to notice the noise as they were too caught up in their teasing of the boys unfortunate feelings so the boy didn’t even bother to alert them at the sudden intrusion.

As swiftly and quietly as he could he slipped out of the bed and peered through the window’s glass, trying his best to see what had caused the sound. So one could only imagine his disbelief when he caught sight of your face in the window, standing in your tiptoes to look inside of the barracks. When your eyes caught each other's, you immediately smiled back at him and confirmed to him that you were truly standing outside of the sleeping quarters. “Y/N?” He exclaimed, a little louder than he originally had meant to happen.

Juyeon turned around and saw both Younghoon and Sunwoo staring at him, unable to comprehend the fact that he had called you by your name instead of addressing you by your full title. “You’re…,” Sunwoo began, struggling to get the words out of his mouth, “you’re on a first name basis with the princess?”

“I’ll be right back, okay?” He assured them, knocking the glass to signal that he was coming to meet you. Immediately both Younghoon and Sunwoo jumped up, scrambling towards the boy with a million questions on their mind. Juyeon just narrowly dodged their onslaught, dashing to the door and closing it on their faces. “Just give me ten minutes! I promise I’ll explain everything when I get back!”

“You’re in a lot of trouble when you get back!” The younger knight whispered, but there was just enough diction in his voice to know that he was threatening him. Juyeon only smiled to himself as he took a few steps away from the door, searching for the nearest archway to lead him into the courtyard. How had you even gotten this close to the barracks? If he remembered correctly, most guards within the palace would have stopped you before you could even get close. Did you really only need to walk inside the barracks once to sneak in for good?

“Want to explain how you got here without getting caught?” He asked you as he rounded the corner, leaning up against the wall with a knowing smirk on his face.

You stood up from where you were sitting on the ground, the white nightgown you were supposed to be wearing to sleep practically glowing in the moon’s light. You hesitated to respond to him as you played with the sleeve of your nightgown unconsciously, though sharing that same smile you had given him earlier in his sleeping quarters as you asked, “did you call me by my first name in there?”

“I did not.”

“You did!” You gasped, pointing an accusing finger towards him as you walked toward him. “I know you did, you said my name without any titles attached to it. You can’t play dumb with me, I knew as soon as you noticed I was there and said something from behind the glass.”

“You’re avoiding my question,” Juyeon pointed out, putting a hand out in front of him to keep a small distance in between the two of you. “How did you get here without being caught?”

“You’re avoiding my question!” You argued. “Did you call me by my first name when you were with your friends? It’s totally fine if you did, you realize this right? I don’t mind if you don’t use titles with me, but I just want you to admit what you said.”

The two stood stared at each other in silence, refusing to let up first and wanting the other to reveal the information they had. Juyeon would have thought you would go on for longer, being the fiercer out of the duo about what you wanted. Though after a few seconds you nervously cleared your throat, stepping back and away from Juyeon to stay out of his personal space. “You know what, forget it, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Yeah, you were just about to tell how you got into the barracks without anyone catching you,” he insisted, watching as you rolled your eyes in annoyance. Despite losing the ‘staring contest’ you weren't about to give away any of your little secrets to him. “That’s a big achievement for you, isn't it? Knowing that you haven’t stepped foot into the barracks since the day you arrived with your father makes it even—“

“I want you to train me, teach me the whole swordsmanship thing,” you blurted, cutting off Juyeon in the middle of his sentence.

Slowly his smile began to drop into a look of disbelief, unsure of whether or not he had heard you right. In a rush, you quickly rambled on, “it doesn’t have to be as intense as your training from when you were a squire! And I don’t need to know everything you know, I just want to be able to fight. You know, slicing and dicing my enemies up in order to protect myself if need be— I know I have you and the entire royal guard on my side but this is just something I’ve always wanted so… please?”

“Why… why me though?”

You froze upon being asked his question, struggling to form coherent sentences to continue the conversation. “Because…,” you stuttered, your ears turning a rosy red hue as you tried to make an excuse. Juyeon attempted to not notice, keeping his eyes focused solely on you and waiting patiently waiting for your answer, but he couldn’t help himself. Whatever you were going to say to him next wasn’t going to be good enough erase the undertones of your silence.

There was a very likely possibility that you harbored the same feelings for him as he did for you, if he was reading the nature of the room right. Of course, there was the offset chance that you were simply embarrassed to give him your real reason, so he couldn’t just put all his money on one option only to be disappointed in the end.

“You’re my friend,” you finally explained. “Not only are you my friend, but you’re my personal guard and the ‘supposed’ finest knight within the kingdom’s men at the moment. So wouldn’t it make sense to learn from someone who is an acquaintance and is skilled in the area I’m trying to learn in? I don’t know, it sounds like logic to me.”

“Right,” he nodded, thought speaking more for himself than for you. Juyeon couldn’t get his hopes up, not when the person he had fallen for was a member of royalty. High hopes would only get him utterly disappointed when everything came back around. “That’s logical thinking, you’re right.”

VII.

Two nights out of every week you snuck out of your room and met up with Juyeon at the barracks. He’d cautiously sneak you inside of one of the very many training rooms that the barracks had to offer with the help of his friends and there he would teach you all he knew about sword fighting. Well… kinda.

It was a very difficult process to endure as you were something less than a beginner and Juyeon was something more than a master. Your varying levels of proficiency made it hard to work together since the personal guard wanted to skip the basics immediately and you had never even touched the basics beforehand. All your experience of sword fighting had only ever come from watching others from afar, so you truly didn’t know anything.

The perfect stance, how to hide your weak points, you didn’t even realize how heavy a genuine sword was! The mere thought that you were supposed to be the one controlling the swords slicing and slashing and not the other way around was astounding to you.

It was embarrassing to know that Juyeon had watched you nearly topple over yourself when you grabbed a sword for the first time, your arms not used to the amount of weight that you were carrying. You could barely pick it up, let alone sling it over your shoulder as the boy did ever so flawlessly. He’d giggle and tease you for floundering all over the ground with the sword in hand, slightly mocking you as he twirled his blade with ease. You’d sit there mumbling under your breath small threats and empty promises as your face would burn in shame.

If anyone had caught you two in the act of training, they would think you were a lost cause at first.

“A quick jab and turn isn’t going to do anything, Y/N,” Juyeon innocently told you, his sun rivaling grin growing across his face as he pointed the tip of his blade towards you. You were on the complete other side of the room, keeping your distance away from the personal guard instead of attacking him head on. “This isn’t fencing, these weapons are made to cut, not poke.”

“I know,” you angrily reply, growing tired with his ongoing cat and mouse game you two played. “You’re just really obnoxious.” You tried to attack him, rushing in with no genuine plan in your head. The dull swords clashed together with an angry metal screech when you swiped your blade at him, your attack quickly being blocked by Juyeon as he lifted up his own sword to block against your attack. Frustrated, you began to press the majority of your weight onto the sword, forcing it to move towards the boy’s torso at a slow pace as he fought against it.

Wordlessly he stepped forward, pushing back against your attack and forcing you to move back with a heavy foot. You yelped when you suddenly lost your footing, the weight you had pressed into the blade betraying you as you hit the ground with an unfortunately loud thud. You stayed down on the ground for a little longer than you wanted, catching your breath and making sure you didn’t potentially crack your head open on the stone floors. The two of you couldn’t train in the courtyard in fear that someone would catch you in the barracks, but now you were willing to risk the chance.

“I’m not obnoxious,” the boy defended as you secretly rolled your eyes at his words. “You’re just bad at fighting and… wildy easy to predict.”

“That’s because someone didn’t teach me the basics like they were supposed to!” You complained, lifting yourself off the ground and pointing an accusing finger at him. Juyeon sheepishly smiled as you continued to call out, “you just threw a sword at me the first day and said hit me! I nearly fell when I grabbed that thing and you wanted me to fight first thing? I thought I already established to you that I knew nothing at all?”

“I know the basics are so boring after you’ve completed it all. If you want someone else to teach you just say so, I’m sure that Sunwoo and Younghoon would kill to be in your presence and teach you how to fight,” Juyeon argued, leaning up against the pommel of his sword and curiously looking down at you. When you didn’t respond to his suggestion, he shrugged his shoulders and joined you in the ground for a moment. “That’s what I thought.”

The entire ‘Juyeon teaches you sword fighting’ idea was all Chanhee’s plan, conjuring up the brilliant idea in a matter of seconds. The Fantasia prince had suggested it as a way for you not only to learn swordsmanship but figure out if you truly held feelings for the personal guard as you would be engaged in a lot more close combat and would be alone with each other for a few more hours within the day. Honestly you think that was the first time you had ever called the boy a genius, mainly for the reason that you would finally dabble in your long term interests.

However instead of falling completely and uncontrollably in love with Juyeon, you just wanted to slice his head off. He was nothing like he usually was when it came to fighting, his condescending smirks and over the top mocking getting the best of him whenever he had fought against you. Though his continuous and annoying teasing only fueled your drive to master sword fighting even stronger than before, so you guessed that was one thing that was working out for you.

Though, if you had to be honest, you did have your moments where you faltered not because of your own lack of skill but because of Juyeon in general. Let it be known that whether you had feelings for the personal guard or not, he was conventionally attractive. Running his fingers through his hair, his beaming smile of knowingness, even the arrogant looks of victory was enough to distract you from your adrenaline fueled drive to stab Juyeon in the chest. Did he even know he had that effect on you?

Maybe it’s best he didn’t know, you didn’t need another weakness to add to your ever growing skill set of cans and can’ts.

“Why didn’t you actually teach me the basics though?” You asked him, catching his attention almost immediately. “I mean… I learned the basics by myself with no help by mock battling you for several nights straight. I’m not the best fighter but I’d at least like to stand a chance against you instead of humiliating myself over and over again.”

Juyeon thought to himself for a moment, staring at the ceiling and anxiously running his hands through his hair. “Is ‘because it’s fun to mess with you’ a valid answer to your question?”

You gave the boy a strained smile and you hissed, “No. Absolutely not.”

“Then i don’t know,” he admitted, lifting himself off of the ground and fumbling around with his hands. Juyeon wasn’t looking directly at you as he spoke, staring off into the void with an unknown emotion swirling around in his eyes. “I’m not that good of a teacher for close friends if I’m gonna be honest. I get competitive, more focused on the fulfillment of my joy and worth than actually… teaching someone how to do a task or skill.”

You nodded in understanding, all of the frustration and annoyance from earlier gone within a flash of his words. What he said was fair, some people just don’t have the ability to teach others and he just happened to be one of them. “So then why’d you agree that night?” You asked him, now trying to wrap your head around that fact. “I mean if you knew you’d have a hard time teaching me how to sword fight, you didn’t have to say yes… you do know that right?”

“I know,” he responded, before turning to you with his signature smile. Your hands began to shake once again at the sight of it, the same exact smile he had the audacity to give you in front of all the knights and squires when he was among their ranks. The one that would go from ear to ear in pure amusement and endearment from your words and reactions. That one, the one that started this mess in the first place. “I know I could have declined if I wanted to but… something in me wanted to help you anyways.”

“And that something was…?” You questioned, your words trailing off just a little as you urged him to explain. You don’t know exactly what you’re expecting for him to say. That he agreed out of obligation? The kindness of his heart? That he simply wanted to spend time with you? Did you even know what you wanted his answer to be? Or how disappointed you’d be if it wasn’t anything that would give you the false hope you were unconsciously reaching for?

He sighed to himself for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know, really. Like… I know but at the same time I don’t? It’s complicated and I don’t really want to bug you with it.” Juyeon explained, glancing down to your nervously trembling hands with a teasing smile growing on his face. “What’s with the shaking hands? When you were holding that sword you were as tough as a rock, feeling a little vulnerable without it?”

“Shut up,” you snapped at him, immediately putting your hands behind your back, squeezing them together as you tried to keep a straight face. Of course he was going to notice that nervous tick of yours one day, it was inevitable especially after the Fantasia prince had caught onto it. Chanhee wasn’t even at the palace every day to even pick up on it, he just knew you well. So why would you ever believe that Juyeon, your personal guard for heaven's sake, wouldn’t have noticed it? “It’s just cold,” you lied, “we aren’t doing anything right now and the night’s cold just gets to me something.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Juyeon questioned, earning himself a skeptical look from you. In a heartbeat he reached behind you and scooped up your hand and his, holding it tightly in his grasp with a grin.

You snatched your hand in retaliation, your ears burning the unfortunate rosy red as you shout, “woah! Hold on, what are you doing?”

“Relax, Y/N,” the boy laughed, gently taking your hand back and holding it up for the both of you to see. “I’m holding your hand because you said you were cold, and exchanging body heat might warm you.” His hands were so much bigger than yours, rough and firm from the work he put in as he trained with the other knights of your kingdom. It was a very stark difference from your dainty and softer hands, the only work you had ever done was smile and wave to the people and royals of other nations. Yet somehow, despite these differences, his hands fit perfectly into the gaps of yours.

You wondered how many knights and squires would have ridiculed Juyeon if they could see you two now. The princess of their nation, who was notorious for playing knights like lyres and rejecting their advances, was willingly holding hands with the finest and most favored knight within the palace walls. “Well don’t tell anyone I let you do this,” you warned, relaxing after a moment of silence. “Not even your other knights friends can know I let you do this! I have a reputation to keep up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the boy nodded, no longer paying attention to you specifically and simply observing the way his hands fit in yours. “I promise I won’t. Your secret is safe with me. I like the way your hand fits in mind anyways.”

VIII.

When your parents asked you if you had found a potential suitor to be your future king, you told them no almost immediately. Your quickness made your father raise a skeptical brow at your answer and your mother nearly fainted in shock, gasping hysterically.

Their daughter, the princess, the future queen of their nation, had not yet found a boy to be her king? Unacceptable, impossible! They couldn’t allow this behavior of yours to continue, knowing how you had played with the hearts of countless knights within the palace walls. So they had decided to take matters into their own hands, they needed to place down a platter of men around your age that you could pick and choose whatever your little heart desires.

A ball, they had told you, they were planning a ball and were inviting all their noble and royal allies to attend. They were going to bring their sons ,have them attempt to court you, and then you would pick one of the boys to be your king. Genuinely, when they first informed you of their plans you thought they were joking. They wouldn’t actually do all of that because you said you didn’t have anyone in mind yet right?

And they did.

Here you were, standing on the ballroom floor with Chanhee by your side with the most bewildered expression your face could muster. You were adorned in a large wine red ballgown, matching your family who wore nearly identical, with jewels scattered across your arms and ears for an extra shimmer to your already extravagant look. Not to forget the most important piece of the whole attire, the signature silver rhinestone crown that identified you as the princess of the nation.

The tiara and grown lifestyle, the lifestyle you haven't been fond of even as a child. You were unwillingly living it.

“Careful,” Chanhee whispered, placing a comforting hand on your bare shoulder. “I don’t need you exploding in front of everyone right now, who knows what kind of scene that’ll create.”

“I might as well!” You snap, catching the unwanted attention of the nobles around you. Both of you turned to them and smiled, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible about your true feelings of the event. When they bowed in greeting before finally turning away from you and Fantasia prince, you were back to being the ticking time bomb you had entered the ballroom being. “You think I wanted to have this event planned? You think I wanted to have this event at all?”

“Of course you didn’t, I know you. You like to horseplay and run around like a little village girl.” Chanhee explained, rolling his eyes at your prevalent attitude. “But you can’t really do that right now can you? One small misstep and you’ll embarrass your parents right before their eyes, you need to keep it together.”

“How?” You asked him, maneuvering through the crowd of nobles so that you and Chanhee could have a little more privacy. Who knew what random noble or king’s son would walk up to you in the middle of your conversation and beg you to have a dance with him? “I don’t feel comfortable in what I’m wearing, I don’t want to be here in the first lance, I’m getting on my last nerves, and who knows when some random boy I don’t know tries woo me into liking him? I might actually lose it here!”

Chanhee struggled to keep up with your demands, trying to think of another quick solution to your problems like he always did. He must have something in that brain of his doesn’t? Or was it all just full of strategies to absolutely destroy you at chess? “I got it! Just talk to me.”

“What?” Chanhee’s suggestion stopped you dead in your tracks, giving him the most bizzare expression you could make at that moment. “Your very Royal Highness I’m sorry to inform you, but people won’t care if I’m talking to you, you understand that right? They know you wouldn’t even attempt to try and take my hand in marriage so they’ll just barge in anyways.”

“I don’t mean like that,” he hissed, softly hitting your shoulder in retaliation. “Talk to me about the personal guard and I’ll lead you away from the party. We just need to super busy in order to pull off the act that we’re walking around and definitely not trying to leave the ball.”

You nodded in understanding, though feeling your face begin heat up and turn into that all telling rosy red color. “Why— why him specifically? Can’t I talk about something else?”

“Where is he now?” The Fantasia prince questioned, holding out his arm for you to take so he could drag you out of the ballroom. “He's your personal guard isn’t it, your Royal Highness? Why isn’t he flanking your every step and protecting you like a dog to its owner?”

The boy snickered at his words until you elbowed his side, stopping both of you in your tracks to watch him crumble to his knees for a moment. Did he really think he could get away with insulting Juyeon like that? To your face no less? “He’s on duty with the rest of the royal guards,” you explained, nonchalantly glancing at your nails as you waited for Chanhee to recover. The boy was all sticks and bones, easy to hinder thanks to his small body. “They’re patrolling around the palace and the ballroom to make sure no incidents occur.”

“Incidents?” Chanhee questioned.

“Like putting the king and queen pieces into checkmate type incidents,” you told you, referencing the game of chess they had played months ago. “Either way, Juyeon couldn’t come with me and enjoy this god forsaken ball with me, but maybe that’s for the best.”

“Is that in terms of you two had a sudden falling,” The Fantasia prince tried to clarify, “or as in you think you’ve finally gotten your feelings figured out?” You grimaced at the thought, unsure of how to exactly answer Chanhee’s question. Did you have your feelings figured out?

Juyeon (with the exception his friends) was the only knight whose heart you hadn’t ever attempted to toy with. You let him get away with countless things: saying your name without a title, holding your hand when it trembled, willingly allowing him to make you flustered and not suffer any sort of retribution for it. On top of all of that, you even enjoyed his company! Juyeon didn’t make you feel like a prize that needed to be one, just made you feel like… you. And you liked it.

At first, you loathed the thought of being in the knight’s vicinity because he made do and feel things you weren’t used to. You thought that maybe, just maybe, he was going to use you in the way that you lead the squires and knights of the palace along. But he didn’t, the only thing he had done to you was send you flying deep into this well of the unknown without even realizing it.

“Oh I hate you,” You mumble under your breath, shooting Chanhee a knowing look. “I hate you so much.”

He blinked a few times at your hurtful words before it finally clicked in his brain, covering his mouth with his hands as he squealed. “You’ve figured it out? You realized that you like him? Y/N I’m so—“

“Princess Y/N!” The two of you turn your heads in alarm at your name being called, the worst case scenario of someone actually having the audacity to stop you coming true. You tense up upon seeing your mother wave her hand towards you, bringing attention to both of the royals from all the bystanders around you. With her was an older man, perhaps around your fathers age, staring up straight and tall with a curious glint in his eyes. His attire for the ball was littered in gold and silver medallions, purposely flaunting all of the achievements you wouldn’t bother to learn.

Though beside the older man was a boy, around your age this time, nervously glancing between the queen and the man who seemed to be his father. He tugged on the man’s sleeve desperately, trying to get him to take action but was ultimately getting ignored due to the adults taking the lead in the conversation. The queen pointed to both the boy and man with an expectant look on her face as she spoke, “please, Y/N, come join us! I’d like you to meet someone.”

“Potential suitor,” you whispered to Chanhee.

“On the count of three, run in the total opposite direction and get out of the ballroom,” He replied back.

One. “This is General Lee from a neighboring kingdom near Fantasia,” your mother explained, quickly introducing the two of you and unaware of the chaos you and the Fantasia prince were about to create.

Two. “This is his son, Prince Hyunjae. The general is the brother of the kingdom’s current king and his son will be taking the throne as the king and queen of that nation cannot produce an heir on their own.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Hyunjae began, awkwardly bowing in front of you now that all eyes were on him. “Truly it is, I’ve heard so much about you Princess—“

“Three!” You and Chanhee split from each other as quickly as possible, darting through the crowd of people in a desperate get away. You could hear the general and the queen call for you, struggling to keep up with your speed fueled by adrenaline but you paid no mind to it. They needed your presence so that you could sit and have an unfulfilling conversation with Prince Hyunjae and you weren’t going to give it to them. No offense to the prince or anything, you just don’t think you could handle that situation knowing your heart had settled on someone entirely different,

It only took you a matter of two minutes to reach the ballroom doors, muttering soft yet empty apologies to everyone you ran into and slipped through the crack in the door.

IX.

“Stupid princess,” Juyeon muttered, charging down the palace halls as fast as his legs would take him. “Stupid Y/N!” One could only imagine his panicked expression when he was suddenly approached by Sunwoo with a nervous glint in his eyes. He was so used to seeing the younger knight’s bright smile that it took Juyeon completely off guard when the boy grabbed him by the shoulders and steadied his footing.

“The princess,” Sunwoo told him, glancing between him and the corridor leading to the ballroom. “Princess Y/N, she ran from the ballroom and no one knows where she went.”

Juyeon thought he was joking at first, brushing off his words with a small laugh and teasing smile. Yet when Sunwoo’s expression didn’t change and the weight of the situation had finally processed in his mind, he shot off like an arrow towards all the spots the princess could have been hiding.

He knew you didn’t enjoy the big fancy balls and extravagant dresses of the royal life, but he thought you were going to be able to stick it out. Every time you had mentioned the king and queen’s wild idea to throw a gathering to find you a suitor, a king of your own, you were relaxed. You weren’t bothered by the thought of all and even joked about it with him every so often, so Juyeon had trusted you to be fine.

He didn’t like the idea of the ball for completely different reasons from you. He liked you, and the thought of your parents sending you off to some noble child or prince he’s never heard of made his blood boil. Because why have a ball to father suitors when he was right there? But the constant reminder from Sunwoo and Younghoon that he had nothing to offer to you and he wasn’t even in the status to even try to become betrothed to you, made him unwillingly back down from voicing his opinion to you and opposing it.

Now he was regretting, because you were missing somewhere in the palace and he didn’t know why.

He wasn’t in the ballroom when it all had happened, instructed to stand guard and patrol around the perimeter of the gathering to protect all the guests and the royal family. Juyeon didn’t understand why he was tasked to do such a thing in the first place, when he ascended the ranks into becoming a knight he was specifically told he was your personal guard. He was supposed to watch over you and protect you, so why did they have him stationed away from you?

It wasn’t until he realized that a majority of the palace, specifically the knights among his rank, had recognized his growing fondness for the princess. If they couldn’t have the princess to themselves, then neither could he.

“Y/N!” Juyeon called, completely throwing out the titles and addressing you by your first name. It’s not like anyone was around shooting him dirty looks for having the sheer audacity to call the princess by your name only. Even if they did, he wouldn’t mind. There were more important things to worry about than what he can and can’t call you. “Y/N, where’d you go? Come on, we can’t play this game of cat and mouse forever.”

He stopped at a door at the end of the corridor he was running down, grabbing a hold of the handle and shoving it open with unnecessary ferocity. Could you blame him for being a little too aggressive? With every growing second you weren’t in his sights the more anxious he was becoming. What if you were hurt? What if you were crying? What if you were—

“Juyeon, right?” Prince Chanhee asked, sitting in a chair with his feet kicked up on top of the desk. Juyeon has opened the door to one of the very many studies within the palace and out of sheer coincidence he opened the doors to the one the princess’s friend was using. Well at least… he thought it was a coincidence. I hoped it was a coincidence.

“Prince Chanhee of Fantasia,” he began, looking the boy up and down for a moment. It didn’t seem like you were with him, not a trace of your existence left in the study. It was possible that you didn’t even come in this room at all. “Where is she?”

“God, you skipped right to the point a little fast for me,” Chanhee grimaced, taking his feet off of the desk and sitting up straight. “Do you have to know where she is like right now? Because I had this whole speech I was going to give you set up and I really wanted to—”

“Prince Choi Chanhee,” Juyeon demanded, putting emphasis on each word that came out of his mouth. He didn’t have time to play around with others right now, as much as he would have loved to encourage him any other day. You were somewhere in the palace, alone, and he had to know where you were and what happened. He needed to know if you were hurt so that he could find the culprit and drive his sword straight into the chest of the wretch.

The boy raised his hands up in defeat, shooting Juyeon an annoyed glare before clearing his throat. “Y/N is at the balcony above the barracks, where the field for the mounted archery evaluations was held months ago.” The memory of the weekly evaluation was immediately triggered in his head, seeing him back months prior to his falling for the princess. The day he had proved to all of the knights and squires around him that he was the best of the best, the day he had first laid eyes on you.

“I know where that is,” he breathed, turning in his heel and getting ready to rush out the door once again. Though Chanhee scrambled out of the chair to catch up to Juyeon, stopping him from moving any further towards the balcony to reach you. “What?”

“Before you go,” the prince began, letting go of Juyeon with the hope that he wouldn’t run off at the sight of freedom. “Please don’t do anything stupid, Y/N is my friend. And as much as I tease her and bully her, I won’t let anyone hurt her. Even if that’s her wildly skillful and kinda scary personal guard.”

Juyeon couldn’t help but laugh at Chanhee’s words, reminiscing on the fact that only a few months ago he couldn’t tell whether he was intrigued by the prince’s closeness with you or jealous of it. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare.”

X.

You leaned up against the railing of the balcony taking night time air with a deep breath. It was hard trying to avoid all the royal guards and knights within the castle, knowing that after the scene you caused they’d be searching for you. It felt like a scene from a fairy tale really, clutching the fabric of your wine red dress so you wouldn’t trip and hastily running up the stairs. Behind you you could hear the calls of all the knights and royal guards of the places looking for you, their boots heavy against the marble floors and their armor clanging against each other.

They were like walking bells, unaware of the fact that their prized armor was alerting you of their position. If the guards were coming up the corridor, you turn around and run the opposite way. If they were going down the corridor, you’d spin on your heels and make a complete u-turn. Sometimes you’d sneak into a room on whatever hallway you were on and wait for them to pass, sometimes you’d just keep running and hope your legs didn’t give out on you knowing you were wearing heels.

It was a little funny in your eyes, but that’s because you were you. You’re almost one hundred percent sure no one else thought this game of cat and mouse you were playing was fun.

“Wait, I should have gone and found Juyeon first,” you realize, shooting up off of the ground. You were so busy with attempting to successfully make your get away that you had forgotten that Juyeon was also one of the knights in duty. He was probably worried about you, searching for you around the palace like all of the other knights within the palace. With no explanation of exactly what went down in the ballroom, he’d have no clue on what was actually going on.

“I should go find him, leaving him with no context will probably drive him insane,” you nod to yourself, marching towards the balcony doors to run back into the palace. Though you stopped once you reached the door, your hands hovering over the door handles hesitantly. You should tell him what happened, it was the right thing to do after all. But were you really ready to face him again?

In the middle of that ballroom, just seconds before you had been involuntarily introduced to Prince Hyunjae, you had a revelation. You liked him. You liked your charming person guard that had caught you weak kneed from the first time you laid eyes on him. No one had ever made you feel the way you felt about Juyeon and he had done it nearly completely by accident. He was trying to court you and you simply fell for him anyways.

His skills, his face, his smiles, his personality, just him a person entirely. You adored it all, you liked him.

Well liked was an understatement now, you had truly fallen deeply in love with him and you just had to realize your genuine feelings in the middle of a party meant to find you a king. Horrible timing on your part but you just weren't sure until then.

So maybe you should wait, wait until you can gather your thoughts and feelings together without fidgeting and shaking in front of him. The nervous habit probably would have increased tenfold now that you realized why exactly you trembled when he smiled at you, and you weren’t ready to watch that whole fiasco go down. How embarrassing would that be? To get completely weak kneed in front of Juyeon without a coherent thought in the brain? Surely you’d like an idiot, wouldn’t you?

“I’ll wait,” you convinced, stepping away from the door with cautious steps. “I’m not even going to be able to look him in the eye if I see him again, I should just wait until tomorrow… but I’ll probably get scolded by my parents for running away during the ball when they had done all that planning just for me. But it’s not like I asked them to throw that ball in the first place, just because I didn’t suggest any suitors I liked!”

You yelped in alarm when the door to the balcony swung with great speed, making you jump out of skin at the sudden intrusion. “Heavens, do you know how to knock?” You asked in retaliation, your heartbeat running marathons as you tried to calm yourself down from the shock. Though when you turned to look back toward the door again, you were greeted by the rather familiar sight of your personal guard, “Juyeon?”

The boy’s eyes widened at the sight of you, as if he couldn’t believe that you were standing in front of him right now. “Y/N,” he said in between gasps, trying hard to catch his breath as he reached his hands out for you. “Y/N, you're okay.”

“Of course I’m okay,” you tell him, unsure of the thoughts that were running through his mind. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Juyeon didn’t respond to your questions, letting go of the door handle before running towards you and scooping you up in his arms. Instinctively you wrapped your arms around him for support, not wanting to fall out of his grasp despite knowing he wouldn’t dare drop you even if he commanded to. “I thought something bad happened,” he confessed, “when Sunwoo came to me and told me you had left the ballroom, I thought someone had hurt you.”

“No, nothing like that happened,” you assured him, urging him to let you go. Just looking at his relieved face made your heart begin to race again, though this time marathons weren't the only thing that it was running. “My mother was trying to set me up with his prince from another kingdom and instead of doing as she said me and Chanhee ran for it out the room.”

“Why would you do that?” Juyeon questioned, stepping away from you in disbelief. “The queen, she’ll be furious when she sees you again. The king— your father, what will father say about you running away?”

“Juyeon I don’t care about what they think, haven’t you noticed by now?” you argued, your hands beginning to tremble at the rising tension between the two of you, “they can’t just force me to pick a boy from that gathering when I didn’t even bother to learn their names. When none of them are you.”

Juyeon thought to himself for a moment, letting your words sink and replay inside his brain. “When none of them were… me?”

“I wish I had realized before they even had a chance to plan the ball but I just have the worst timing possible,” You admitted, thinking back to all the very clear signs of your growing feelings for Juyeon that you had avoided. “I think I fell in love with you, Juyeon. Not think, actually, I know I have.”

“You’re serious?” Juyeon questioned, unsure if he had even heard you right. When you nodded your head to give him confirmation, he pulled you closer to him with warning, his eyes growing wide like the full moon that was hanging above the two of you. “You’re not joking at all, no tricks, no teasing, you’re being one hundred percent serious with me right now?”

“Of course!” You exclaim, grabbing him by the shoulders with a beaming smile etching across your face. “I’ve never been so sure about something in my entire life. Why do you think I asked you to train me in the first place a few months back, because I was just trying to use your skill set to my advantage? I know I have the reputation of being desperate for sword fighting, but Juyeon I was in love with you! I was just using the training as a way to figure my feelings or not.”

“I didn’t want to get my hopes up,” he confessed to you. “I wanted you to like me back, but Sunwoo and Younghoon didn’t want me to get my hopes over a fruitless crush. They told me that pursuing you wouldn’t work, because I didn’t have a decent enough background for me to even compare to anyone else. I mean, you’re a princess! I’m just barely a knight, I’m a blacksmith’s son, Y/N, not some high ranking noble from across the land. I have no connections, no power, no money, nothing to give you in return for your affection.”

“Juyeon,” you respond, confusion crossing your face at his words. Did he really think you wouldn’t like him just because his status was up to the standards of the king and queen? He thought you cared about things like that?

“I have nothing to offer you,” Juyeon whispered, holding your hands in his as gently as possible. It was if he thought he’d let go of you now he’d wake up from this dream like scenario you two were in, where you were no longer in his arms and in a place he could not reach. “There’s nothing I could even dream of giving to you.”

You can’t help but smile at his words, removing your hands from his and cupping his face instead. He didn’t even flinch at your touch, only turning a crimson red at your next few words. “Why do you think that matters? None of that matters to me, it never has. You could be a poor boy from a family of farmers and I’d still fall in love with you.”

“But your parents—“ he tried to argue with you.

“They mean nothing to me,” you assure him, pulling his face towards yours as you whisper, “they may be able to control this kingdom to their will, but they can’t control who exactly I fall in love with. They couldn’t even control my urge to learn sword fighting and that’s an interest I’ve had since I was a child.”

“I hate you so much,” Juyeon laughed, the words he spoke not carrying the same weight thanks to his jittery and hopeful tone. He was happy, happy to know that you felt the same way about him and that you didn’t care for anything of the things that should have been hindering your feelings for him.

“Clearly you do,” you tease in response, “you haven’t even attempted to kiss me yet.”

You didn’t need to tell Juyeon twice. He gave you one small kiss on the forehead, pulling away as fast as he registered what he had done in that moment. It felt illegal to be kissing a princess after being told countless times that trying to pursue you was a horrible idea. Though you didn’t give him any time to try and open his mouth as you threw your arms around his neck and kissed him back, grabbing onto his shirt collar and pulling him close.

His eyes fluttered closed immediately, smiling against your lips as he brushed his thumb against your cheek. “Does this mean I get to become king if I end up marrying you,” Juyeon questioned, his tone lightheartedly as he stopped for a moment.

You didn’t even open your eyes as you pulled him back towards you again, a sly grin prevalent on your face as you whispered to him. “Only if you finish the sword fighting lessons we started,” you teased, “maybe then I’ll consider making you my king.”

#kpop imagines #kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop fluff #kpop au #the boyz #tbz juyeon #the boyz fluff #the boyz imagines #tbz imagines #the boyz juyeon #juyeon imagines #lee juyeon #juyeon x reader #royalty au #knight!juyeon #princess!reader #the boyz x reader #I’m a simp #genuinely I’m such a simp #Also I cannot write kiss scenes #that was so fucking hard?

[wovenstarlight]

YWBK update: chapter 25 + liner notes

yesterday will be kinder has updated! you can read chapter 25 here, or start from the beginning here

okay, on to notes and commentary! first time i’m doing these, let’s hope this works out. commentary under the cut to save people’s dashes

Hamin laughs. “Given how bad you are at not being suspicious, that’s understandable.” “Oh, come on, I’m not that bad.” Hamin screws up his whole face in a squint. “Okay, so maybe I’m a little bad.”

this part was really funny to me when i wrote it because i was like “hmm reasons for DHM to understand why HHJ wouldn’t work in the guild” and then i was like Wait. Their Whole First Meeting, Dude. DHM was lowkey convinced for the longest time that HHJ was like, on the run from the KR version of the mafia, and got plastic surgery to look like his little brothers, and is possibly in some sort of witness protection program??? or something??? how else does he not have cops on his ass this man is so suspicious all the time

“I don’t think… They said the dungeons were, like, different worlds? Did they find people there?”

mafia theory second place. dungeon theory first place

“Like, humans? Um. No, no humans.” “So then you can’t be from there. Okay.”

dungeon theory shot down. mafia theory back in the running

“Hey,” he says cautiously. “I’m— I’m gonna go get us some water, okay? Why don’t you… take a minute.” “Okay.” “The bathroom is over there, if you need it.” “Okay. Thank you.”

after four years working alongside a guy you start to notice when he’s feeling a little out of it and needs a bit of a break... but as JHW mentions later you also learn to be a little subtle about giving him one

jung heewon What’s with your typing? It reads like Jihye’s [HYJ]’s fine. Very energetic Too energetic? He’s going to burn out. How do I make him calm down

Epic Burnout Man makes a reappearance! when translating sclass one of the things that makes me want to shake HYJ most is his habit of constantly adding things to his to-do list while he already has 1 billion things on his plate. and all the time he’s whining about “UGH there’s SO MUCH WORK to do” No One Asked You To Do It

Anyway. the point is. HYJ isn’t about to be beat by HHJ at Developing Issues 😔

jung heewon I haven’t spoken to him directly about this because if he’s anything like you he’ll take it as an insult You wtf whts tht supposed 2 mean quit typing jung heewon Better not say shit, mr “No, I can’t take days off and cater to my interests or go out with friends or on a date, I’m too busy taking care of the kids and making sure their needs are met, no I don’t care that there are thousands of people out there balancing personal enjoyment and romance and work AND kids at the same time, are you suggesting I be a BAD GUARDIAN to MY KIDS?”

see above re: not being too direct with pointing out when HHJ’s having Issues because he doesn’t react well

You wht but our eyes r fine jung heewon Even if having glasses doesn’t run in the family, you should still get him checked, just in case

top 10 funny time travel moments: referring to you and your past self as “us” (our = my eyes are fine), but other people think you mean “our family” (our eyes are fine = no family history of long/shortsightedness)

Also. Sooyoung-ie says hi [Attachment: 20XX1213_144516.jpg] 

ok no lie this was one of the parts that pissed me off the most, even though it’s Literally One Line, because. i love chat exchanges. i really do. when done right they’re a lot of fun to read. But Do You Know How Long It Took Me To Figure Out A Calendar For The Events In This Fic. now everything’s TIMED i have to count HOW MANY DAYS IT’S BEEN since XY event so i can CORRECTLY NUMBER the FILE ATTACHMENTS!!! this sucks!!! it took me fucking forever to pin down a timeline just so i could write this chapter plus the few before and after it!!!!

anyway i gave up when i reached year. i just put 20XX. fuck it. we are running on fairy tail time now. (actually i think that’s XXnumber number? XX76? or was it X796. something like that. Who cares i stopped watching fairy tail forever ago)

Fuck it! Hamin will understand!! “If you Awaken you should come work with me,” Han Hyunjae says all in a rush. 

“HAMIN WILL UNDERSTAND” => he literally was cool with me giving zero context for half a dozen absolute balls to the wall nonsense bullshit things i’ve done before. he’ll be fine with this too. dog_in_burning_house_this_is_fine.png

“You already know about the guilds, those are going to be for dungeon Hunters, but I was thinking of forming something like an independent group of contractors. Awakened people with skills that aren’t useful for combat, but that might… that will be generally useful. It’d be you and me, and maybe one other guy I met recently. Probably more in the future.”

given that HHJ has no idea currently that peace exists (i’m so sorry baby i’ll find a way to shoehorn you in soon i miss you so much) he’s got no intentions to start a kiseungsu business yet! he mostly wants to live quietly while just acting as a manager for other Awakening-related services, like YMW’s forge and DHM’s tracking service, along with the information exchange/lowkey spy ring that he’s planning on setting up with JHW and the bar. since HYH is fine associating with him in this timeline, HHJ’s thinking he can get a foot in the door that way, then eventually spread out into dealings with most major guild leaders

RIP to this plan. you were well-made but you will not last long.

“Please, I can’t tell you how I know that, I really can’t, it’d put me and my brothers in danger if it got out. But—” “No need.” Hamin looks slightly alarmed, and Han Hyunjae feels himself settle at the obvious concern in his eyes.

MAFIA THEORY RAPIDLY RISING TO PROMINENCE??? THIS IS NOT HOW DO HAMIN WANTED HIS GUESS CONFIRMED

“I spoke to the Task Force Head and she said that there’s been discussion about hosting a meeting for the nearby high-rankers, where they’ll announce the guild proposal and see who else is interested in trying it out.”

“they’ll announce” i’m sorry king 💔 you deserved a nap

(OH ALSO FUN FACT choi eunyoung is a canon character, not an OC of mine! she appears in uhhh i think late 140s? 150s? something like that)

“I think there’s… probably only one other S-rank who’s Awakened right now?”

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehhehe

Hamin beams. “No, they’re doing great! Spookie’s taken really well to the new housing situation, but I think Spots might miss the store…”

shoutout to @daemonic-dawn​ for letting me borrow a pet name, love u king. i had a much longer ramble about pet names here but i finished typing and realized it was all entirely off topic so i removed it for convenience

Hyunjae makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t— I mean.” He huffs, visibly taking a deep breath, and Yoojin frowns reflexively. [...] “Is everything alright?” Yoojin kind of wants to be annoyed at his tone on principle, but he forces his shoulders to relax, matching Hyunjae’s posture. Though he can’t stop himself from being a little short when he answers.

things the brothers have learned in four years living together: getting confrontational often leads to arguments that just fizzle out anyway, so it’s way fucking easier to consciously tone down their combativeness in advance when talking to each other about things they have problems with, instead of screaming their heads off and then having to calm yoohyun down afterwards to boot

“I guess. Whatever.” Yoojin slumps. “Can I…” “Hm?” Hyunjae blinks at Yoojin as he gestures to the spot on the bed beside him, then jolts. “Oh! Yeah, sure, c’mere.” He opens his arms, and Yoojin goes over and flumps on the bed, head in Hyunjae’s lap. Almost immediately, Hyunjae starts stroking fingers through his hair, and Yoojin relaxes into the touch, listening as Hyunjae continues speaking.

cuddles 🥺🥺🥺 sorry i don’t have any other commentary here just. cuddles. extremely and overwhelmingly comforting for a man who spent the better part of 8 years(?) with no major positive relationships, and a kid who spent 12 years of early life basically abandoned by his parents. you had best bet they gave up on not hugging each other 1 year into this whole mess

Yoojin hums in acknowledgement. It’s not like he’d ever let himself get hurt; he has too many responsibilities to his family and friends. If he wants to be good enough to keep up, he can’t afford to fuck up like that. But… hyung will worry if he keeps working so hard. He can slow down a little for him. 

Problems disorder man when will you stop. the way he sees “getting hurt” as an inconvenience and an obstacle to his duties rather than a danger to himself. the way he doesn’t really care if he himself gets hurt, but if it’ll worry his family, then it’s a no-no. it’s just. wow. i know i wrote this but i hate him

“Not really. I talk to Myeongwoo about it sometimes.” “Ah, right, Myeongwoo.”

haha gays

“Don’t be weird about him,” Yoojin warns[...]. “I won’t, promise.”

if the “i won’t” line had a dialogue tag it’d be “Han Hyunjae lied”

“Is Eunwoo still in his relationship?” “Mhm, happy as ever. Apparently they’re trying long-distance, now that Eunwoo’s gone off to university abroad.”

three guesses for who eunwoo’s dating and you won’t need the first two

Hyunjae raises his hands like he’s going to deny the accusations levelled against him, so Yoojin seizes him by the collar and shakes him until he cries for mercy

oh my o/rv ass struggled so bad with not writing “shakes him like a man betrayed” here. it killed me not to. but in the end i prevailed (against, uh, myself. don’t think about it too hard.)

“Jeez, okay, he’s an F-rank!” “Eh?! Then why—” “He’s also got an SS-rank potential skill,” Hyunjae admits[...].

play-by-play of this scene because god if i draw any scene in this fic it would be this one just for the sheer hysterical nature of HYJ’s reaction:

YOOJIN: I HATE YOU WHAT THE FUCK WHY. TELL ME HIS RANK

HYUNJAE: HE’S AN F

YOOJIN: WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK?

HYUNJAE: he’s also got an SS-rank skill,

YOOJIN:

#star.txt #work: yesterday will be kinder #writing commentary #my writing #making impulse decisions today. very tired. godonight i hope you enjoy but also you'll have to enjoy without me

[gracefulweather]

hello ! it's been quite a long time since i last sent an ask 😅 sorry fam !

once i pull an eric pc it'll b over for me :") but i got my friend a maverick album and she pulled the sunric pc lmao ! i also got a nice collection of sunwoo photos from a friend and i ordered a sunric photo strip 😳😳😳

hyunjae 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅 stay away !!! jk i love him

UR SUNWOO FIC !!! IS SO GOOD !!!! IM OBSESSED WITH IT FR 😭😭😭 the way u write is so beautiful and how everything connects, it's so effortless and detailed ! i love it sm, seriously 🥺 the plot and the characterization is so amazing !! u did so well, truly one of the best fics i've ever read

hahahaha lovesick ..... . its a journey tbh, it always takes me a while to decide...so we'll see ! i've changed the plot so many times too lol but hopefully it'll stay interesting and i'll actually find the inspo to write it haha !

YES YES YES i was hoping for atz to release the kingdom ver. of the songs i'm so glad they did ! i wish all the groups would make official releases and hopefully tbz will give us that spicy monster cover 👀 AND THE ROCK VER. OF THE STEALER WE NEED IT !

i started watching 'our beloved summer' ! rn its like enemies to lovers to enemies and i like it !! PLS i thought we were promised goedam in like august :"( wait hyunjae's drama was cancelled??? i watched the first episode i thought it was fun :")

THE WAY THEY ALL GANGED UP ON ERIC LMAO IT WAS SO FUNNY

oohh i see ! i find that i am v uncreative in letting my mind wander :( and i rewrite and recycle the same plotlines a lot lol but it def helps for me to go out and like.. do stuff to get inspo ahaha 👀 omg the hj etl !!! i am excited

DRINK IT THE AUDIENCE WANTS DRINK IT ICE TEA ENTERTAINMENT ARE U LISTENING

yesss i feel like hoon's hair color has changed a lot recently ! but its so cute !! HYUNJAE >:( why does he looks so good all the time

what if !! we get hypnotized at the GDAs ?

WORLD. TOUR [!(#*#)! O H MAN .... i cannot do that, hopefully they come to somewhere near me 😭

hyunjae is literally unhinged lmao his sense of humor is amazing i love it

also we finally got the milsun live 🤩🤩🤩 the fucking part when sunwoo said he likes hotdogs at the movie theater and hyunjae was like those r for kids and sunwoo made those fucking faces PLEEEASE a comedic duo 😭😭😭 and also sunwoo going tf off abt loud chewers in movie theaters hahHa

today i saw sunwoo promising to do some sort of ab reveal and then i closed twitter i can feel my eye twitching as i type this rip my sanity

my exams ended and i surprisingly didn't fuck em up too much ☺☺☺ all i've been doing is working so far and dealing w my uh 😅 kinda rude boss lol anyway !

HOW IS 2022 SO CLOSE LIKE WHAT WHERE DID THE YEAR GO????

i hope u are thriving and doing well and resting !! what else have u been up to???

HII BESTIE HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 🎉🍾🎆✨ did you do anything fun? any resolutions? anything you're looking forward to this year?

oooh rooting for an eric pc for ur next pull hehe but that sounds like a nice collection of sunwoo!!! do you have like a shelf in ur room that's just for ur kpop stuff? HAHA i did the pc in clear phone case thing for a bit but then got a new phone case so put sangyeon back on my shelf :')

adklfjk ty for ur comments really 🥺🥺🥺 i spent most of the writing process hating it so i was pleasantly surprised to have it turn out well in the end!! wrote way too many versions of it too LMAO but ahHHH thank u for ur support 🥺💖

ohhh how much of ur smaus do you plan before you start posting? i've tried writing series a few times in the past but i always need to like.... get the whole thing done before posting otherwise it'd never get done 🤡 i hope u find ur inspo soooon ahh i'm excited for whatever u decide to do with lovesick!!

omg yes the tbz monster cover and now ROCK VERSION OF MAVERICK TOO!!! are they rlly never gonna release them tho 😭 but omg did you hear about how the person who arranged their upcoming ost is the one who arranged the reveal/checkmate mama 2020 stage and stealer rock ver??? is this who we go talk to... (ง'̀-'́)ง

ohhh is that the drama where exes have to film a documentary or something? i've seen it around and it looks like fic inspo 👀 is it good? but omg enemies to lovers to enemies LOL. ikr what happened to goedam :(( and i guess hyunjae's webdrama didn't do well enough to be continued? although.... it's supposedly.... the most popular thing on that youtube channel LMAOOO

i am also very uncreative omg sometimes i read other people's fics esp if it's a fantasy or magical realism kind of world or has a cool concept and i'm like.... how do you come up with this??? nothing wrong with cliches tho!! but yeahh going out and doing stuff deffs helps with inspo haha

oooh do you like hoon's long hair? kinda miss his black hair now LOL. hyunjae..... we don't speak of him 😶 WAIT GDA that's this weekend..... they're performing?? i've lost track of all the award shows already but hypnotized would be amazing (drink it... would be too... BIG SIGH 😔). i'm gonna rely on jacob and kevin to pull some strings and get them to canada for the world tour hehe

SUNWOO'S FACE AT THAT PART WAS SO FUNNY AKDFJKFL i laughed every time i saw it on my tl!! and yeah i also read about that ab reveal thing 😶 sangyeon once made that promise but never kept it... so maybeeeee you'll be safe 👀

oooh that's so good go get that 4.0!! i believe in u!! but ur rude boss :(( props to u for handling school and work and everything tho!! and ikr the year went by so fast... i saw a post that said '2021 is proof that time flies whether you had fun or not' HAHA think it's accurate 🤡 the holidays felt way too short tbh, i was stressing over this fic exchange and gifts the entire time so not much rest but that's ok!! LOL

#em <3 #ask

[blossom-hwa]

Okay I'm super sorry if I'm requesting too many things but I was listening to holiday music while driving home from work yesterday and was suddenly struck by the need for some chaotic holiday/winter shenanigans with the boyz, if that's okay? Reader involvement isn't necessary! Pretty please and thank you sooo much ❤❤❤ -🌻

You’re not requesting too many things don’t worry Sunny!!! I literally owe you everything for half the fics I’ve written in the past year so there’s no way I could refuse, also this is what the drabble game is for!! I hope you enjoy this half-baked bullshit LMAO

3-year anniversary drabble game: send me an NCT/WAYV/Stray Kids/The Boyz member + a prompt (check out the post for ideas) and I’ll write a drabble for you!

(don’t think I've mentioned it but all of these text aus are in the same universe lol)

(also this ended up not being as holiday-ish as you probably wanted.... SORRY)

~

Title: Holiday Shenanigans

Pairing: no pairings, just the boyz being dumb

Triggers: a lot of cursing

~

quick clarification:

papi: sangyeon

angel: jacob

moon scribblez: kevin

new kid: chanhee

starbucks tissues: changmin

sundae: sunwoo

bread: younghoon

the better hyun: hyunjae

the better jae: eric

professional rollerblader: juyeon

foodie: haknyeon

~

new kid: I'm going to commit murder

sundae: who’s he making empty threats about this time

new kid: IT’S NOT AN EMPTY THREAT

moon scribblez: who wants to hear about the cockroach that fucking crawled out of my mop today!!

papi: pls don’t tlalk about it I was scarred for life

moon scribblez: IT’S YOUR TUTORING CENTER IT’S Y O U R FAULT WE HAVE A COCKROACH INFESTATION

papi: it’s not an infestation Kevin

new kid: is no one going to pay attention to my murder

angel: I will! but I won’t be an accessory

moon scribblez: I BEG TO FUCKING DIFFER

moon scribblez: THAT THING WAS HUGE IT WAS MORE LIKE A SPIDER JFC

new kid: I love you jacob

moon scribblez: IF I SHAKE THE FUCKING MOP TODAY AND COCKROACHES CRAWL OUT I’M QUITTING MY FUCKING JOB

angel: love you too <3

sundae: /barfs/

papi: #1 sunwoo just bc you’re allergic to emotion doesn’t mean the rest of us are

papi: some of us are capable of love

new kid: JI CHANGMIN ISN’T

papi: #2 I don’t own the center I'm just the center director therefore I do not take responsibility for any possible infestations we may have

starbucks tissues: I heard my name :D

new kid: sTOP FUCKING TERRIFYING ME WHEN I’M JUST TRYING TO WORK

new kid: IT’S ALMOST C H R I S T M A S HALLOWEEN IS G O N E

papi: therefore take it up with the owners @ moon scribblez

starbucks tissues: but it’s always halloween :(

moon scribblez: I TOOK THE MOP TO THE SINK

moon scribblez: PUT IT THERE AND TURNED ON THE FAUCET

moon scribblez: A FUCKING BROWN SPIDER-LOOKING COCKROACH BITCH ASS C R A WL E D OUT

moon scribblez: AND YOU WON’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY??????????

papi: I just deal with the parents and the kids not bugs

new kid: it is NOT ALWAYS FUCKING HALLOWEEN

new kid: IF YOU WANT TO CELEBRATE

new kid: CELBRATE C RH SI T MA S 

moon scribblez: time to pin it on ella

starbucks tissues: :(

sundae: now look what you’ve done chanhee

sundae: you’ve made him sad

new kid: I GOT TERRIFIED BY A NUN MASK AND YOU CARE ABOUT IF H E’ S SAD????????????????

starbucks tissues: :(

angel: I think I'm going to head out

angel: I don’t think even I can heal this rift

moon scribblez: well if jacob’s out I'm out

moon scribblez: I have a solution to my problems 

papi: just don’t get me involved

moon scribblez: no promises !

starbucks tissues: I can scare ella if you want kevin :)

moon scribblez: YES FUCKING PLEASE

papi: I'm going to get fired

moon scribblez: maybe so :D

new kid: no one cares about my problems I see

new kid: everyone hates me

sundae: ya it’s bc you’re the new kid

new kid: I exist only for pain 

~

bread: so hyunjin told me to tell changmin to stop using various horror movie masks to terrify him at work

starbucks tissues: so out of work is fair game?

bread: idk he didn’t specify

bread: probably

starbucks tissues: :D

the better hyun: oh what the fuck this shit isn’t normal

the better hyun: it’s impossible for someone to be so cute but so terrifying

starbucks tissues: I'll take that as a compliment :D

the better hyun: it isn’t but whatever makes you happy ig

the better jae: changmin

the better jae: I only ask that you leave the nun mask and chucky doll at home when we have our christmas party

starbucks tissues: well that’s no fun :(

bread: changmin I'm sorry but your idea of fun is very different from ours

bread: Jacob back me up

angel: I'm sorry changmin but he’s right :(

starbucks tissues: :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

the better hyun: by the way for the party

the better hyun: who’s doing what???????

the better jae: I'm bringing the xbox!!

foodie: I'm bringing cookies !

papi: I'm cooking with Kevin and juyeon

professional rollerblader: yes it’s going to be fun

professional rollerblader: Kevin says he’s going to make a cheesecake

the better jae: can I save a piece for jisung??

moon scribblez: if we don’t eat all of it

new kid: why

new kid: why did I just hear screaming from the tutoring center

moon scribblez: oH MY GOD SANGYEON

professional rollerblader: TAHT WAS GLORIOUS

sundae: what happened

foodie: why do you only show up for chaos

sundae: I only exist for chaos nothing else is worth my time

the better jae: fair enough

angel: what happened? I thought I saw someone fall ??

angel: but I'm across the walkway so idk :(

angel: is everyone all right?

papi: I think I have a concussion

moon scribblez: oh please you just fell off a tiny stepladder

professional rollerblader: can’t believe sangyeon just fell off a stepladder trying to put up a fucking Christmas stocking 

papi: I hate christmas

papi: I hate everything

moon scribblez: the kids are laughing

moon scribblez: I think I'm going to bust a lung

papi: my dignity has been stripped and I no longer want to live

the better hyun: wait juyeon why are you even there 

the better hyun: you don’t even tutor

foodie: ‘does she even go here’

the better jae: ‘does she even go here’

foodie: ERIC

the better jae: HAK

sundae: oh wow amazing their brain cells conjoined into one single coherent thought and of course it had to be a mean girls reference

starbucks: how did this start out with younghoon telling me to stop scaring hyunjin at work

bread: honestly I don’t know

~

moon scribblez: winter break is upon us

moon scribblez: and I can now bask in the fact that I don’t have to teach spoiled rich assholes basic math for two whole weeks !

papi: speak for yourself

moon scribblez: your fault for being center director

angel: I hate to agree with Kevin and be mean but you really did bring that upon yourself sangyeon

papi: want death

professional rollerblader: no don’t die! we need your food for the party tomorrow

papi: can’t believe all you care about is my food not even me

sundae: did you expect anything different

papi: on a regular basis no

papi: but it’s the holiday season

new kid: holidays are a social construct made to force us into the world of capitalism and giving our money to fat fucking corporations like amazon

starbucks tissues: if I could give Jeff Bezos a heart attack with my nun mask I would

new kid: that’s the only use of that mask that I approve of

starbucks tissues: turn around

the better jae: was that

the better jae: was that new

bread: I don't think I've ever heard chanhee scream that loud

foodie: I’m at the food court and I heard that what the fuck

foodie: the build a bear is like all the way down the mall what the fuck

starbucks tissues: :)

bread: I think that scream rivaled changmin’s dolphin levels

sundae: brb still dying of laughter

sundae: I'm so happy I caught that on video

new kid: Kim sunwoo

new kid: don’t you fucking dare

sunwoo: [ 1 video attached ]

new kid: someone’s dying tonight

professional rollerblader: I can’t believe I missed this I'm so mad

foodie: I think the fake Santa Claus looking over in abject horror just adds to it

starbucks tissues: ^^^

new kid: someone’s dying tonight

angel: there there

angel: no one’s dying tonight

new kid: someone IS

new kid: AND NOT EVEN JACOB CAN STOP ME

the better jae: bet changmin’s mask can

new kid: I'm ripping that fucking mask to shreds

starbucks tissues: :(

bread: now he’s hugging the fucking mask like it’s his baby 

bread: [ 1 image attached ]

the better hyun: as I have said before

the better hyun: it is not normal for someone to look that cute while holding a fucking horror movie mask

papi: I've come to accept that none of you are normal

papi: I think it’s best for your sanity to accept that too

moon scribblez: I'm so late but I'm also rolling on the floor with laughter

papi: can confirm he’s actually on the floor

papi: Kevin you give our center a bad name

moon scribblez: I deadass do not care

moon scribblez: you gave me ashley today so I'm giving you chaos

moon scribblez: suck it <3

angel: she can’t be that bad?????????

moon scribblez: Jacob I know you’re an angel

moon scribblez: but you don’t understand

angel: I guess I don’t :/

~

foodie: I'm going into a food coma!

foodie: don’t attempt to contact me for the next twenty four hours peace <3

sundae: we wouldn’t have in the first place

foodie: :(

angel: sunwoo don’t be mean :(

sundae: fine

sundae: sorry hak

foodie: :)

new kid: the power of one Jacob bae

starbucks tissues: he prevents wars with just his smile

bread: all hail the angel

the better jae: *bows*

angel: guys pls

moon scribblez: no they’re right

moon scribblez: he took me home last night when I was drunk off my ass

moon scribblez: a true angel

angel: guys pls I'm blushing :(

papi: can confirm ! I'm sitting next to him

papi: also he made me hangover soup so can confirm the angel bit too

professional rollerblader: honestly if Jacob wasn’t here we wouldn’t have survived last night

professional rollerblader: he de-escalated Mario kart

professional rollerblader: stayed sober

professional rollerblader: took people home

foodie: all hail Jacob bae

the better jae: I thought you were in a food coma?????

foodie: came back to pay my respects to our lord and savior Jacob bae

the better jae: ok valid

angel: g u y s

the better hyun: has this conversation just become an all hail Jacob bae conversation

moon scribblez: do you want to fucking argue about it

the better hyun: no on the contrary

the better hyun: I'm joining

the better hyun: alL HAIL JACOB BAE

papi: amen

moon scribblez: aMen

professional rollerblader: a fucking men

angel: I'm going to start crying guys pls

new kid: NO DON’T CRY

starbucks tissues: Jacob don’t cry :(((((((((

angel: you guys are so sweet I can’t not cry

papi: I'm hugging him now no more crying

the better jae: two bros, chillin in a hot tub

the better jae: no feet apart bc they’re secure in their masculinity and love each other very much <3

moon scribblez: FIVE FEET APART BC THEY’RE NOT GAY

moon scribblez: fuck

the better jae: YOU RUINED IT

the better jae: yOU BITCH

professional rollerblader: didn’t Jacob call us sweet like one minute ago?

new kid: well he’s an angel he sees the best in us

sundae: there’s no best in you bitch

new kid: oh fuck you

bread: great way to end the holiday season ig

#starryktown #the boyz #tbz #the boyz scenarios #tbz scenarios #the boyz oneshots #the boyz imagines #the boyz fake texts #the boyz incorrect #sangyeon #jacob #younghoon #hyunjae #juyeon #kevin #chanhee #changmin #haknyeon #sunwoo #eric #fluff #drabble #texting!au #university!au #holiday shenanigans #3 year anniversary drabble game #lina answers #scriptura-delirus

[chanyoungies]

ohhhh yeah, i get it. i only rewatch like,,,, two/three perfs from kingdom with one being on repeat just bc there's no studio version and i like the song but !!! the rest is kinda,,,, alright but not something i rlly need to watch :// but what are your favourite performances from both show btw !!! i didn't even ask :o also,,,, a strawberry, i love it <3

im sorry for always replying so late skdjjkjbkdsnjs BUT hm faves... (this ended up being ridiculously long for some reason so im putting it under a read more)

for rtk: heroine, reveal (catching fire), be mine, it's raining, the we must love, quasi una fantasia, photo!!!!! also tbz and i think? onf's intro perfs!!! maybe golchas too? it was either onf or golcha or both honestly i can't remember but i remember there being smth i rlly liked in there!! i really liked come back home & basquiat & new world but more as songs than . the perfs (or ok i liked the perfs in the mvs more than on the show). lit perf gets bonus points for having rapper seoho. i literally listen to this version more than the original song because of that verse. it makes me go a bit insane. it's ranked like 2 or 3 songs higher than the original version in my oneus song ranking i think. yeah.

heroine makes me cry to this day i really genuinely love it so much it's insane. like. everything about it. like if u wanted my commentary i would just pause literally every 2 seconds to point out smth i like or just to cry about it all? ALSO CHANGMIN'S SMILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sighs ok moving on, reveal is iconic it doesn't need an explanation i think. i think we all get it. i was rewatching it recently nd i noticed that literally every time i see the moment when hyunjae runs up to the . things they lift whatever. if i'm watching the show cut w the others' reactions i literally have this a bit insane hehehhehehehe laugh like. am i ok. like hehehehe ure not ready for this (and neither am i). also i literally can't listen to the original version of reveal since this came out and i wish i was kidding but i'm really not like i literally just listen to this one. be mine is just beautiful to look at also romeo youngjo that's all thank u. also seoho during the last chorus (i think? im literally doing this from memory im sorrykdsfk) ..... yeah ... idk it's really nice and i think choosing romeo & juliet as the concept for this song was a great idea (nd i literally don't know how u come up with that. but it's so great). i like the storytelling in this one i rlly do <3 it's raining is the queen of performances no one does it like them!!!!!!!! like i genuinely thought i wouldn't be that attached to this perf when i first saw it? like funnily enough i was just like yea it's nice but whatever. but then it would randomly play in my head and i just couldn't stop it? and then i became obsessed. it's so fun...it's a little festival...also they literally made it's raining their song it's so. god it's so good. i'm going to lose my mind if i keep going. as for we must love well 1) [at the time it was] my fave onf title track? and the concept they chose for the performance just was like .... they literally did it for me it's so insanely just .. exactly what i would have wanted it's everything i love ?? ... it's so . i still kinda can't believe that performance exists like . i forgot to mention it at first because i keep forgetting about it because like . it can't be real???

for kingdom: love poem, i'll be your man, back door, move. i also remember being rlly excited for o sole mio (the red wedding) but i genuinely can't remember if i ended up liking it or not?

love poem is absolutely legendary i'm not gonna write a whole essay abt that, i'll be your man gave me everything i wanted (fave btob song, skz beloveds, those outfits were rlly pretty, blue hair jisung again!!!!!!!!!! nd neck tattoo..), and btob are so powerful that they made me appreciate back door how did they do that. i dont like back door. how did they do that. what did they do. how. and finally sf9 doing move was . . . everything i think we all get it i dont think anyone would dare to disagree

#tbh all the tbz perfs from rtk were <3 #for kingdom spark would have been up there but i feel too bad for inseong when the voice crack happens so i cant . listen to it #i didnt like most of the skz performances but ill be your man was for me <3 #also there were some perfs i rewatched a lot but im not quite sure why i was so obsessed #(ok that was very specifically abt ikon in the intro perfs. why could i not stop watching that rhythm ta perf i couldnt tell u) #(actually no i can im just obsessed w jinhwan) #nd like. i liked the rap collabs? but i dont listen to them often i dont watch them often they were fun to watch the first time around tho #angie 🍓 #millie's rep #for rtk i think its easier to list perfs i actively disliked bc there was more of a clear line between what i enjoyed nd what i didnt with #very few perfs in between that were just kinda underwhelming or boring to me personally #meanwhile kingdom as a whole just felt . like that line in between with a few exceptions of perfs i loved yknow #(for the perfs i disliked. mansae & everybody) #THIS IS SO LONG IM SO SORRY ANGIE SKDJFJKDSB #what are yours <3

[whydowelove]

hiya, could i have a ship with the boyz and enhypen both?

i’m infj, male, 177cm, 18yo, English Literature student at college and gemini. i’m reserved, running from loud noises and a bit of physical contact and i always have a serious face on (it’s not intentional!). i’m not usually comfortable with expressing or exposing myself, i’ll always be there for the ones i care about more than being there for me and i’m a person-in-need-of-help seeker, people would really see me as a go-to soul to talk about their worries. i LOVE music and awkwardness and dark stuff and poetry/writing (as well as dancing a tiny bit) and i analyze things and behaviours like it’s my job, so call me self-conscious and a deep thinker to the brim. i’m never mad, i’m playful and humorous all the time, laid-back and joyous, but only in specific moments am i sensitive. most things i hold back & don’t show, like self-worth issues. having someone who’s smart and serious that could help me in terms of learning anything at all and make me grow is something i’ll go for. extroverted people were always my choice though, even more if they could have my back so i’d have a sense of protection. i always act to the person i’m with according of how i would like for them to see me, so maybe someone who i’m not hesitant to be myself with here? i’m eager to know who you’ll choose! thank you nonetheless, i hope you’re doing well and have fun with this 🤗

Elloooo, ofc u can !!! This was really fun to do ! And I am well I hope u are as well !! :) hope this is ok 😭 I feel like this is really bad, I’m sorry

From Enhypen I ship you with Jungwon !!!

Ik this is technically illegal since he just turned 17 but it’s based off personality and it’s only a year.. (doesn’t make it right but you get where I’m coming from)

But anyways

I seriously think you guys would just get along so well and bring out the best in one another

While reading this the whole time I though “Jungwon Jungwon Jungwon” 😭

As an introvert, him being an extrovert would really enlighten the relationship and being you guys closer together

You guys will kinda sit next do each other and just peek at each other and burst out laughing

That’s the kind of awkward you guys deal with

I feel like Jungwon would take really good care of u and he lowkey likes it when you take care of him as he is a leader and is always over working himself

Laughs at ur jokes all the time bc they’re genuinely funny to him !!!

And when ur sad he’s really good at just being a shoulder for you to cry on and he wants you to know you can trust him :(

You guys are like that really humorous, cute couple that you see on YouTube, yk what in talking about ?

You guys probably will prank each other a lot and act like children and play children games but it’s a way y’all bond together

Jungwon will 100% help you grow

He’s very hardworking and likes to push you and himself to become better and make a stronger relationship

He’s very mature when he needs to be but he knows how to have fun and make you smile :)

Probably finds you very charming especially when you’re doing what you love !! (Writing)

He defiantly asks you for help when it comes to English and other writing assignments 😭

You guys will go on cute dates to exotic restaurants and eat really yummy food !!!!

Ok, so this as much as I could think for you guys but in conclusion yall are very VERY close and are good at bringing up the mood :D

From The Boyz I ship you with Juyeon !!

IkIk hear me out !!!

I was thinking Sangyeon or Hyunjae but I thought Hyunjae was a little too playful and then for Sangyeon... I just thought Juyeon fits better

Ok so he is also another extra very which is perfect !!!

He is so funny and kinda awkward so I thought this would be perfect

Juyeon is also a sweetheart and will always be there for you

He’s deffinaltly a little cheesy and sets up the most cliche dates but he does it out of love 😭

I feel like you guys would have a similar humor??

Like u could make a dark or bad joke but he would find it so funny and it goes both ways

He can also be quite mature and he’s a good listener and so I think it would be easy for you to open up to him !!!

Ok but the humor.. he’s so freaking funny and always has you on the ground dying of laughter istg 😭

Introduces you to the members and you all become besties bc ur basically their little brother- they just luv you

Would make you a handmade bracelet so you could wear it and a part of him would always be apart of you

He’s so confident

And it wears off on you, he helps you grow on the inside

Like with your insecurities, he helps you grow more confident about yourself and helps you love yourself more

Deff likes to hug you and cuddle you when y’all sleeping or smth

Very cute and random couple 😂

(Photo credits to rightful owners)

#the boyz #enhypen #the boyz ships #enhypen ships #the boyz juyeon #enhypen jungwon #kpop ships