Hyunjin Fluff - Blog Posts

i read this a few months ago but i reread it again last night and i LOVE ITT

𝐚𝐜𝐞・h.h.

— volleyball superstar and your personal hell hwang hyunjin proposes a trade-off you can't refuse: his matchmaking services for a passing anthropology grade. the plan is foolproof in theory; in practice, it is something else entirely.

words・15.2k

pairing・volleyball player!hyunjin x tutor!reader (gn)

genres・college!au, sports!au, fake enemies to friends to lovers, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, slice of life, mutual pining, slow burn. hyunjin is a huge flirt. mc #DGAF. two polar opposites sharing one soul. a seungjin fic if u squint. loosely inspired by the manga/anime haikyuu!!

warnings・mentions of anxiety, fear of failure, heartbreak, loneliness, and self-image. course language and callous banter (as always) ft. suggestive flirting and one kms joke. some of the referenced players and coaches are real; this fic is not.

playlist・collision by stray kids・value by ado・waiting for us by stray kids・eternity by bang chan・dreaming by smallpools・fly high!! by burnout syndromes

a/n・writing this felt like returning to my roots tbh. i love volleyball and i love sports aus and i love, love hwang hyunjin. thank u to my sahar for bringing this fic to life with me, as always; i can no longer write for him without also writing for you. i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i adored writing it. happy late birthday, our jinnie, our hyunjin, our forever ace; you are so unbelievably loved ♡

“Not a word out of you,” you say, tossing your backpack onto the floor of the lecture hall with a heavy-handed flick. “I’m serious.”

Hyunjin glances up at you with a frown. “When did people stop saying good morning?”

Your lack of an immediate comeback tells him the situation is dire. He observes you for a moment, his mouth falling open, hanging still, then curving into a slow, serpentine smile.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Please, angel.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Hyunjin slumps back into his seat, thinking hard. The solution occurs to him with a poke of his tongue into his cheek. “Coffee on me for a week.”

At this, your hands stop rummaging in your bag. You cock your head, your interest piqued. Got you. 

When you finally humor him and turn around, you’re flinching like you’re in pain, eyes closed and breath held and all. He giggles and leans in for a closer look. Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes if he wasn’t so flummoxed by the state of your forehead.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Tried to cut my own bangs,” you sigh. “It didn’t go very well and now I look like Rock Lee.”

Hyunjin lets out a forceful laugh. “You’ve seen Naruto?”

You open your eyes. Only then does Hyunjin remember how little distance he left between your faces, when he’s staring straight into them and all the strange, starry speckles they hold.

The air between you curdles like sour milk.

Things are awkward between you often, he’s realized recently. What’s more, he didn’t think he was capable of being awkward with anyone anymore until he met you. It was your ill-fated seat that he chose to sit next to on the first day of ANTH 111, your ill-fated lap onto which he chose to spill his Americano, and the rest was history (or, in this case, anthropology). His tongue ends up in sailor’s knots with every smart-aleck comment and pitiful laugh you’ve given him since. Maybe there’s more to it, maybe there isn’t—Hyunjin doesn’t think about it much. He doesn’t like thinking in general.

You pull away from each other in unison. You clear your throat, glancing elsewhere. 

“Of course I’ve seen Naruto,” you quip, and everything is normal again. “Why do you seem surprised?”

“Because you’re so scholarly.”

“I am not scholarly.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You go to a park to play chess with old people on weekends.”

“I need to get my steps in somehow.”

“You didn’t know what Urban Dictionary was until I told you to look up—”

“God, I learned so much about you that day."

“Your favorite social media platform is Quizlet,” he bursts, exasperated. “Quizlet.”

“It is not.” An introspective pause. “Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjin throws his feet up on the chair below him, jabs in your direction with a bandaged finger. “There is no way you enjoy watching 2D men beat each other up in your free time. I don’t buy it.”

“Honestly, I thought you’d have more to say about my current appearance than my hobbies.”

He does, though. Matter of fact, he’s been curating a list since this conversation started: Vector from Despicable Me, Dora the Explorer’s hot older sibling, Spock. You face-planted into a lawnmower. You mistook a paper shredder for a hat. It goes on.

But then his head turns. Your eyes meet again. He’s reminded that it’s hard to sustain an inner monologue and look at you at the same time, Vector resemblance and all.

He reaches up, nudges a lock of your hair over a centimeter or so, and gives the patch of forehead a gentle flick.

“Watermelon,” he mumbles with a sickening smile.

You divert your attention to your lecture notes with a disappointed click of your tongue. “You’re getting soft.”

He spends the entire lecture daydreaming about tropical coastlines.

“I only get coffee from that one place on the east side of campus, by the way,” you say as you’re strolling out the building together, “and I get it a very specific way. Can you handle it?”

“Your faith gets me out of bed in the morning,” Hyunjin deadpans. “I’ll handle it, love. Text me your order.”

All of a sudden, you position your hands close to your stomach, the lapels of your jacket casting them in shadow. Your fingers begin to move in a sequence that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Body flicker jutsu,” you whisper, and then you’re scurrying off without another word—but you do glance back at him to gauge his response. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the main quad’s busy thrum.

Hyunjin gapes at your retreating figure for so long that phosphenes start prancing around his field of view. Then he heads to the gym. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Hyunjin stops lacing up his shoes to see Coach Bang standing on the court’s sideline with a grim air about him. He glances at his captain, confused.

“Don’t look at me,” Minho says mid-stretch. “Godspeed.”

“Thanks, cap.” Useless.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. It’s all fluorescent lights and spotless white walls, the only decorative fixture a picture of his siblings, parents, and dog in front of the Sydney Opera House, framed and facing him atop his desk. Hyunjin once snuck the thing into the bathroom, an innocent plot to satiate his curiosity, and promptly discovered the man’s propensity for violence. He’s packing beneath those dry-cleaned polos, by the way.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “You can read, right?”

“Yes, coach,” he sighs. Everyone’s expectations for him are subterranean.

From: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Not good See email from Hwang’s antopology professor below . He submitted the complete script of the Trolls movie instead of his mid term paper and now he’s failing the class . Not good . Sort out ASAP JP Sent from my iPad

Bang snatches up his mouse and scrolls, his ears turning scarlet. “Wrong email.”

“Yep.”

From: Kim Kyeyoung «[email protected]» To: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» Subject: Regarding Hwang Hyunjin To Director of Athletics Park, I am writing to inform you that, as of yesterday, Mr. Hwang Hyunjin has a D- (64.9%) in ANTH 111: Cultural Anthropology, due to his submission of the complete script of a kids’ movie instead of his midterm paper. It is disappointing to see Mr. Hwang trivialize and ridicule my class to such a degree. Please see to it that he reorganizes his priorities lest his Student-Athlete Participation Agreement do so for him. Regards, Kim Kyeyoung Professor of Anthropology

“That’s bullshit!”

“We’re in agreement there.” Bang folds his arms over his chest, throws his foot over his knee. “Do you know what your Student-Athlete Participation Agreement says?”

“Does anyone?” Hyunjin scoffs. Bang whips out a form and brings it to eye level, the thing covered from top to bottom in microscopic Times New Roman. “No way you just had that.”

“I had it delivered ten minutes ago,” Bang confesses, then clears his throat and begins to recite. “All student-athletes must complete the academic term with a C or higher in all courses, should they wish to continue their participation in athletics thereafter.”

Hyunjin stiffens. “What the fuck? I’ve never heard—”

“If any Department of Athletics personnel,” Bang continues, raising his voice, “have reason to believe that a student-athlete will not be able to satisfy this requirement, they are encouraged to utilize resources such as academic advising or peer tutoring in guiding said student-athlete back onto the correct path.”

He shoves the piece of paper across his desk. “Read that name aloud for me.”

Hyunjin stares at the signature at the bottom of the page, scrawled so carelessly that most of it deviates away from its designated line. There is a rare hollowness in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety. With it comes a glimpse of a life without volleyball, the question of what little of him would remain.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says under his breath.

The office goes silent. Bang tucks the form back into his drawer. It closes with a gentle click.

Then comes the yelling.

“The Trolls movie? Trolls?! Are you fucking with me, Hwang?”

“It was a cultural reset! The pinnacle of modern media! How’s that for anthropology?”

“BAD!” Bang explodes, gesturing to the email emphatically. “VERY, VERY BAD!”

Hyunjin slumps over, dejected.

“You’ve never had trouble with school before.” He leans over his desk imposingly. “What the hell happened this semester? What changed?”

Nothing is the first answer that comes to mind, but Hyunjin’s pulse spikes like a lie detector. Upon the inside of his eyes replays a scene of a certain someone with watermelon bangs doing teleportation jutsu at him from a few yards away, wearing a smile made of some kind of space dust that astronomists haven’t discovered yet.

He grits his teeth, annoyed. This is what happens when he thinks.

“Beats me,” he fibs. “Typical junior year stress, maybe.”

“Does any of it have to do with Piazza?” 

Hyunjin shudders.

It just might, actually.

Modesty has no place in the career he’s had: high school national champion turned ace hitter in both the South Korean U21 roster and regular rotation for Seoul National University, the best collegiate volleyball team in the country. His name has lived at the top of ranking lists and the center of gold medals since he turned old enough to qualify for them; the press believes him the instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution. It’s a mouthful, he knows.

It was never a question that he would go professional; the question was who he should talk to and where he would go.

At the start of the school year, Bang, acting in place of the agent he was advised to find and never bothered to, gave him a list of people to reach out to. On the very top was none other than Roberto Piazza, the chairman and head coach of Allianz Milano, one of the most eminent club teams in the world—and current home to Hyunjin’s personal idol, outside hitter Ishikawa Yuki.

Hyunjin thought his poor coach had finally succumbed to his old age. The thought of stepping onto the same court as Ishikawa felt sacrilegious, let alone donning the red, white, and navy blue of Allianz Milano with him. But Bang slapped him on the back of the neck and reminded him that going professional was equal parts preparation and opportunity; he was never going to know the answers to questions he didn’t ask. Hyunjin was coerced to fire off an introductory email despite his reservations.

Piazza replied within the week.

For the last five months, Hyunjin has been fighting with tooth and nail to manage his expectations. He scrolls past the team’s social media posts like they burn his eyes. He replies to Piazza’s emails right before working out with Changbin under the assumption that whatever the shredded libero does to him will eviscerate his brain. If his world is made of dreams, this is the one at its very core, imbued with destructive potential the second it became attainable.

But that’s the last five months. The last five weeks have been you kicking him in the shin because he’s laughing (or trying to make you laugh) and the professor is staring; you listening to him rant and rave about volleyball when he knows you couldn’t care less about the sport; you relaying the contents of your class readings like hot gossip, your eyes wild and hands flying around because you can’t contain your excitement. You, you, you.

He cards a hand through his air, regaining focus. “You know how I feel about Piazza.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Bang’s chair skids backwards as he stands up. “I think it’s a good approach.”

Suddenly, he is directly in front of Hyunjin, low enough to meet his eyes. His hands rest upon his shoulders firmly.

“But hope is hungry, and it will consume you if you let it,” he says. “Do not let it, Hyunjin. I’m not asking.”

Even while being squeezed to a pulp and regarded with the cold intensity of a statue, Hyunjin can’t help but feel anchored, somehow, to the floor of this miserable office. Protected.

Bang lets go of him. “I’m not asking you to find a tutor by the end of the week, either.”

Hyunjin groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

A set of bandaged fingers appear in your periphery to place a paper cup onto your laptop. Accompanying the smell of fresh coffee is that of smoky rose, as decidedly douchey as ever.

“I thought you said your order was complicated.”

You look up from your phone to see Hyunjin plop into the adjacent seat. His long, caramel-colored hair is damp and unstyled in the aftermath of a morning shower, droplets of water pearling on the lapels of a navy blue windbreaker, layered over a white long sleeve. You recognize the outfit by now as game gear.

“Was it not?” You ask.

“It was an Americano, love. I walked up to the cashier and placed an order for an Americano.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you could handle that much.” He flips you off as you squint at the cup. “Someone wrote their number on the lid, by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“No.”

He shoves you hard enough for your upper body to drape over the opposite armrest; you’re still cackling by the time you’ve straightened up again.

“Why did you get this, anyway?” Hyunjin grumbles. “I thought you had a sweet tooth.”

“I do, but you don’t.”

Only then does the fool understand that you had no intention of charging him in coffee just for a haircut reveal. He takes back the coffee hesitantly.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “Nice of you.”

“I know, right? Hated it,” you respond, and he almost chokes on his first sip.

You almost choke on nothing when Kim Seungmin materializes in the aisle adjacent. He holds out a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “Yo.”

Hyunjin dabs it up mid-sip. “I fully forgot you were in this class.”

“Well, I’m due for my weekly appearance.” Seungmin slips into the seat directly below you, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you say, somehow managing to stumble over the single syllable the word has. You thank your lucky stars that you fixed your hair yesterday.

You like Kim Seungmin. Not just in the cutesy, crushy way, but in the “I would relinquish all of my rights for you” way where you spend every waking moment cursing out whatever stroke of misfortune placed Hyunjin in the seat next to you instead of him. He’s funny, gorgeous, and talented—a vocal performance major with a student-athlete contract—and you think your infatuation is more than justified. Hyunjin thinks it’s hilarious.

You side-eye your blonde adversary, prepared to see one of three things: a suppressed laugh, a dramatic eye-roll, or a mature kissy face that usually results in the first option. You’re met with something far more worrisome.

He’s thinking.

That can’t be good.

Suddenly, his phone screen lights up with a text that temporarily wipes the conspiratorial gleam from his eye. Hyunjin scans it over and groans. “Can this guy do his fucking job?”

“He wouldn’t have to if you didn’t quit,” Seungmin answers. “I’ll never forget you, Manager Hwang.”

“Shut up.” You peer at Hyunjin, silently requesting an explanation. “Our captain is forcing us to help him look for a new team manager. We need one for playoffs because of some stupid U-League rule—Seung, why do you look morose?”

“I’m mourning.” Seungmin does look morose indeed. “Hyunjin committed larceny last year and our coach punished him by making him our team manager for the rest of the year. It was so funny.”

Hyunjin slides down his seat. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

Neither man seems inclined to elaborate on the larceny thing. You choose to digress. “Can I ask why?”

“He had to be responsible,” Seungmin whispers. “For other people.”

The top of Hyunjin’s head stops right next to your armrest. You reach over and pat his hair in faux sympathy. “Poor thing.”

“Hardass refused to do it again this year, so now we’re recruiting.” Seungmin props an elbow upon the back of his chair, looks at you contemplatively. “I don’t suppose you have four hours to spare every day.”

Hyunjin scoffs from below you. Loudly. “This one? Team manager?”

“I can see it.”

“I can see killing myself, maybe.”

The next time you reach for him is to smack his forehead. A crisp smack resounds around the barren lecture hall, and Hyunjin cusses into his seat cushion.

“Seems like a great candidate to me,” Seungmin muses, and the warm smile he gives you mirrors onto your face before you can think better of it. God, it’s pretty. You wonder how it would feel pressed against your own.

Hyunjin is now completely out of sight and halfway onto the floor. “I miss when you didn’t come to class, Seungmin.”

Eighty minutes later, you’ve just emerged from the classroom when Seungmin calls out to you. You come to such a sudden halt that Hyunjin almost trips over you, but you barely notice him stumble, utterly enraptured by the hand Seungmin brings to the strands of hair by your ear, the fingers that dust your cheek as they pluck a small piece of lint from out of the tresses.

“Sorry.” He flicks it away with a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t unsee it.”

You manage to thank him just before your whole body ceases to function. Hyunjin sidesteps the two of you, yawning.

Seungmin excuses himself not too long after you reach the main quad. You also turn to leave, sparing Hyunjin a curt farewell in the process. He hooks his pointer finger around the handle at the top of your backpack and lugs you backwards with infuriating ease.

“I didn’t like that at all,” you say.

“I don’t care. I have something to tell you.”

“You have a kid, don’t you?”

“Wha—huh? Who do you think I am?”

“The one-night-stand’s poster child. The champion of the contraception industry.”

“Yeah, contraception industry. It’s right there in the name.”

You can’t argue with that.

“What do you have to tell me?”

A shadow of hesitation flits across Hyunjin’s face. Your smile falters. Is it possible that you’re about to have a serious conversation with him for the first time? Maybe you should’ve saved the secret son bit for another time.

“I’m failing anthro.”

So much for a serious conversation. 

“Come again?”

He repeats the mystifying statement.

“You’re joking.”

The look on his face says otherwise, though, and your eyebrows disappear into your hair.

“You’re failing anthro?”

“I just said that, yes.”

“You’re failing anthropology?”

“Mhm.”

“Just so we’re clear—you’re failing Introduction to Cultural Anthropology?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

This is the best day of your life. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah, well, our professor has no media literacy,” he mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Hyunjin clears his throat. “Anyways, I was thinking—”

“Wow! Congratulations. That’s a big—oomf—”

Hyunjin puts his entire hand over your face. Your mangled noises of protest go unacknowledged.

“I was thinking,” he continues, pushing your head around like a stick shift, “you and I can work out some kind of deal.”

You shove his wrist off you with a revolted groan. “I think I just ate some athletic tape.”

“Happens. You wanna hear the deal or not?”

“Does it involve ingesting more sports equipment?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just tell me the deal, boy.”

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “If you help me pass this class—I’ll set you up with Seungmin.”

Your head performs a triple-axel on your neck. You are unable to respond for what feels like multiple hours. Finally: “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“On which part?”

“All of them. Everything.”

Hyunjin sighs, then scans the courtyard. His gaze settles on the student union a little ways off. “Are you hungry?”

You pick up a sandwich and a smoothie in a state of nervous stupor. One would think it’s the prime minister you’re about to have lunch with and not an imbecilic left-side hitter eating from three different entrees at the same time.

He’s chosen a table a few yards away from a planter of flowering cherry blossom trees. You feel jealous eyes on the side of your face as you take a seat across from Hyunjin, but they don’t know that his telephone pole legs still bump against yours even with them drawn as close to your body as anatomically possible. Or that he’s drawing up a literal Ponzi scheme on your sandwich wrapper. You wager you’ve had better company.

“You like anthropology. I like listening to you talk about anthropology.” He traces over the wrapper’s left corner. “And I kinda want you to boss me around. That weird?”

“Yes, definitely,” you mumble around a mouthful of bread. “Please continue.”

“Conclusion one: you should be my tutor.” He taps in place as if applying a finishing touch, then swaps to the opposite side. “You also like my teammate, but he’s neck-deep in volleyball and music this semester, which makes him hard to get a hold of—for most people.”

“Let me guess. Not for you.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw.” His British accent is nightmarish. “Seung and I live in the same building. We get dinner when we go back from practice together. Conclusion two: you should come with us.”

“To dinner or to practice?”

“To both. Which brings us to my third and final conclusion—”

He slams a fist onto the center of the wrapper.

“—you should manage our team.”

“I knew it!” You slam the table as well, your smoothie wobbling upon impact. “You’re trying to swindle me! You can’t pay for my labor with more labor. What do you take me for?”

“It’s not labor, dumbass! Ask our last manager! He didn’t do shit!”

“Yeah? Who was your last manager?”

“Me!”

Oh, right. “But you hated it!”

“I hate everything that isn’t playing volleyball. Try again.”

You fold your arms over your chest. “You said you’d kill yourself if I managed you.”

Hyunjin starts balling up your sandwich wrapper. “It’s true. I thought about you and my coach getting along and promptly got a rash. But it makes so much sense: you do whatever you want during practice, tutor me afterwards, and then you and Seung can eyefuck over ramen or something. My coach hops off my dick, you hop on Seung’s—”

“STOP!” A girl drops her receipt not too far away, startled by your outburst. “Stop right there. I get it. Stop.”

“It’s a good plan.” He slings the paper ball towards the nearest trash can. It drops into the hole without so much as a brush against the rim. “You know it is.”

You’re loath to admit that you do. “When did you even come up with all this?”

He flicks a thumb in the direction of your anthropology class.

“No fucking wonder you’re failing.”

“What is this, mock trial?”

The owner of this voice is the third man you’ve seen today donning that navy windbreaker, white long-sleeve combo. He has a face that reminds you of your neighbor’s cat from back home, sleek and sharp and only slightly sinister. There’s a dash of humor in his expression as he approaches your table like he’s enjoying the company of a court jester.

“Slamming tables like fuckin’ tariff lawyers,” the cat-man hums, lifting a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “I could see it from all the way inside.”

“Captain!” Hyunjin crows, dabbing him up without missing a beat. They really do that like breathing. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Really? I thought you’d be avoiding me like the rest of our homunculus team.”

“I would never.”

“You did. Yesterday. When you saw me and started running in the opposite direction.” He pauses for emphasis. “As fast as possible.”

“Well, that was yesterday. Today is a new day.” Hyunjin tosses you a proud glance. “And today, I bring you a new team manager.”

You stiffen. “I haven’t—”

“Is that so!” When the stranger smiles at you, you feel the same satisfaction you did every time the cat let you scratch her on the chin. “Music to my ears. What’s your name, cutie?”

You catch Hyunjin’s eye across the table; he nods enthusiastically as if saying go on, then. You briefly picture yourself strangling him with his own athletic tape. You then picture yourself hopping on Seungmin’s—

Rigidly, you throw a hand out to the cat-man, your face aflame.

“Y/N,” you grumble. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

He shakes on it heartily. “Likewise. I’m Minho. Welcome to the team.”

“Yes, welcome to the team,” Hyunjin parrots, looking positively jolly. You gnash your teeth together so hard your jaw throbs.

He’s lucky that his proposal holds so much water. He’s lucky that you don’t plan to strangle him until after you try that eyefucking thing.

You do kick him under the table, though.

The team has five weeks to prepare for the Korean University League, the biggest college-level volleyball tournament in the country. You have five days to learn how the hell athletic tape works. You can’t tell which is the bigger endeavor.

“I’m going to cause him irreversible skeletal damage,” you tell Changbin.

The team’s libero is twice as kind as he is talented, a full-time sweetheart working part-time at the university’s sports medicine clinic. Only your first week on the job and you’ve already decided he’s the only person on Earth you would permit to usher you through the gym at 6:45 A.M., a roll of athletic tape pressed to your back like a pistol.

“You will not,” Changbin answers. “One, because this won’t involve his skeleton, and two, because I wouldn’t ask you to help if it did.”

“You’ve misunderstood me,” you return as the two of you stop in front of an examination room. “I want to cause him irreversible skeletal damage.”

“Oh.” He opens the door with a frown. “Oh dear.”

Inside, Hyunjin is sitting cross-legged on top of a taping table, fitted in a loose gray tee and athletic shorts. He watches in pessimistic silence as you enter the room and beeline straight towards the shelf on the right. You slip a thick binder into your hands and bury your nose inside it without so much as a greeting.

“I am going to get maimed,” Hyunjin tells Changbin.

“Have some faith, both of you,” Changbin replies sternly. You find the pages you’re looking for and begin poring over them like you’re cramming for an exam. “You’ll be fine, Jinnie. Y/N studied.”

“Studied?” He repeats. “For this?”

“I’m pretty sure Quizlets were made.”

“Three, to be exact," you interject, sticking out your hand. “Now tape me.”

Hyunjin mouths the words tape me in baffled silence. The latter obliges your request with a smile. “See? What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, actually, is a lot. Especially after Changbin gets called away to help stretch out a teammate named Felix who allegedly “sprained his ass,” leaving Hyunjin to you and your binder.

You detect no smoky rose in the air around him today, just the subtle smells of cedar and cypress—laundry detergent or shampoo, maybe. Figures he doesn’t wear that insufferable cologne to practice.

“Go easy on me, yeah?”

While Hyunjin’s tone is teasing, yours is downright somber.

“I can’t promise anything.”

With that, you turn your palms face-up in a silent request for his hand.

A few strands of hair fall into your face as you lean in for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve seen his fingers untaped; they’re pretty, long and slender and surprisingly manicured, but also battered in their delicacy, the veins running over the back of his hand and forearm prominent, his bottom knuckles discolored from the healing bruises they bear. His hard work is palpable upon the smooth skin as evidently as if tattooed.

Hyunjin says your name in close proximity. You respond with an absent hum.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No. Maybe a little.” You let his hand fall free and go to rummage for supplies. “Fine, yes. Very.”

“But you made Quizlets. You’re prepared for anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” You realize only after spotting the gentle smile on his face that he’s making fun of you. “I hate you.”

“Actually,” he hums, “I think you care about me, love. That’s why you’re nervous.”

“Nonsense—I care about disappointing Changbin. That’s it.”

“And me. And hopping on Seungmin’s dick. All these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

You try to tackle him. Hyunjin catches your hands a few inches away from his face, fingers closing around your wrists with obnoxious agility.

“Have you lost your mind?” You whisper-shout, your face on fire. “Don’t bring that up here. I’ll maim you for real.”

The laugh that explodes out of him throws his entire body backwards, turns his eyes to crescent moons and his mouth into a little rectangle. You hate that you don’t hate when that happens.

“My bad, my bad. It slipped out. I won’t—”

One incremental shift of Hyunjin’s body later, you find that you’re precariously, alarmingly close to one another.

So much so that you notice the mole beneath his left eye for the first time, that you're nearly cross-eyed looking at it. That the tip of your nose actually brushes against his before you pull away with a quiet intake of breath. 

Things are awkward between you often, you’ve realized recently. You’re both professional yappers, always quick to digress, quick to find a new topic to bicker about before the awkwardness marinates. But hours later you’ll look back on the interaction and still remember how the air shifted: like a layer of dust had been blown away and something untouched and unknown was discovered just underneath.

Since you’ve met him, Hyunjin has spent more time on your nerves than on your mind. You’re not exactly losing sleep over such a circumstantial acquaintance; you know that his presence in your life will end the way it began, naturally and anticlimactically and inside the ANTH 111 lecture hall. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed when your heart and stomach launch into an elaborate gymnastics routine in the wake of something he says or does, just as they’re doing now.

Hyunjin glances into your right eye a moment, then your left. The mole just below his left eye disappears when he smiles, the expression soft, saccharine, and sincere. How anyone casually looks the way he does is beyond your abilities of comprehension.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Your face continues to burn, now perhaps for different reasons. “What for?”

He lets go of your wrist, sweeps the lock of hair that keeps getting in your eyes behind the cuff of your ear.

“Caring about me.”

Then he flicks your forehead. You recoil with a quiet ow.

“Now stop stalling and tape me, dumbass.”

“Okay,” you mutter, rubbing the injury tenderly. “No need to get violent.”

It turns out the arduous taping procedure described in the instruction manual is for serious hand injuries. Hyunjin splints his fingers together for support, not rehabilitation, so it takes all of five minutes for him to talk you through his process. You finish taping both of his hands with nineteen minutes to spare. So maybe the Quizlets were overkill.

As you’re walking him down to practice, you take his hand and lift it to eye level, scanning your craftsmanship dubiously. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s perfect.” He swivels the hand around and grabs onto your entire face, the sensation by now eerily familiar. “Want another taste?”

You shove him down the stairs that remain. Unfortunately, there are only two. “You are truly grotesque.”

The gym has come to life since you arrived earlier this morning, now illuminated by shining ceiling lights in addition to the sun spilling through high, narrow windows. Most of the team has yet to step onto the court, still stretching or jogging along the sidelines: Minho and Coach Bang are talking strategy on the bench, the coach taking notes on a handheld whiteboard every now and then; Changbin is leaning over a recumbent Felix below the scoreboard, presumably trying to fix his ass.

The only one already with a ball in hand is Seungmin, setting to himself by the net. Once, twice, thrice straight up in the air, and then he glances in your direction and sends the fourth towards the left side of the court in a buoyant arc.

You only glean bits and pieces of the next few seconds. Hyunjin is at your side one moment, making a break for the net the next. His arms draw backwards in perfect synchrony. Feet hit the floor with laserlike intent. His entire body unravels like a fraying chrysalis as he rises to meet the ball, pounds it over the net and into the ground at an angle so clean that the sound of its landing resounds within your ribcage. It rebounds over the railing of the second floor and barely misses the doorway of the examination room you just emerged from.

Hyunjin drops lightly back onto his feet, following the ball’s tumultuous trajectory with proud eyes. A leftover breeze tosses a strand of hair over the bridge of your nose, and time starts moving again.

“Oi, this isn’t your backyard! Go pick that up!” Their coach booms, though his words lack their usual bitterness after what he just witnessed his ace hitter do.

Hyunjin swivels towards Seungmin first. “Crazy bitch. What the fuck was that?”

“Lower and faster. Further from the net too,” Seungmin returns. “How’d it feel?”

The grin on Hyunjin’s face reminds you of a wildfire, untamed and all-consuming and frightening in its fervor. “Like we just won everything.”

He tousles your hair as he jogs past you and back up the stairs to fetch the volleyball. Seungmin waves at you with one hand and palms another ball into his other. His face is warm and bare, his slim build flattered by his volleyball gear. You’ve witnessed few people so nice to look at and even fewer things as elegant as his setting form. But you are still thinking about Hyunjin—and you can’t move.

It is debilitating, watching somebody do the very thing they were destined for.

A little less than a week later, Hyunjin is approaching hour three of spewing hot garbage into a Word document when he decides to give up and call you. 

“Hello?” He immediately starts laughing. “Where the fuck are you?”

You poke the top of your head into the shot of your ceiling, gesturing to your headband. “My face is preoccupied at the moment.”

“Oh, you have to show me. Please.”

You flip your phone up for no more than half a second. A camera shutter goes off, followed by a shriek so loud that it peaks your mic.

“Motherfucker!”

He basically sprints to his camera roll. His prize: you with your face slathered in cleanser, hair pinned back by a Miffy headband, looking like the abominable snowman if he liked cute merchandise.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I’ll treasure this forever.”

“You’ll be punished, Hwang.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You brandish your middle finger at him in response. He props his phone up against his computer screen with a chuckle. 

“Aaanyways, I have a thesis statement to run by you.”

The first thing you did as Hyunjin’s tutor was help draft an email to Professor Kim, begging her to let him resubmit the two essays he royally botched. She replied with a lengthy quotation from her syllabus, specifically the section that talked about (and prohibited) resubmissions, but ended up making an exception for Hyunjin on account of the “truly piteous timbre” of his email. You fell out of your chair laughing when he read you her response.

“You should’ve opened with that,” you grumble.

“I tried! Someone distracted me.”

“Read it before I change my mind.”

You spend a few minutes at most on the thesis itself, advising him to avoid passive voice, answer the prompt, establish a refutable argument, the works. Then he asks you a question about the research topic itself, allusions to the afterlife in Ancient Egyptian artwork, and the tutoring session takes a turn into what feels like a podcast episode.

You talk about the God of Death, Anubis, and his connections to the underworld; the elaborate, lavish funerary rituals intended to ensure the souls of the dead traveled safely; the vibrant murals that flanked their final resting spots as pictorial requests for divine protection. And you talk about them all with such confidence, such eloquence, that it’s as if you’re leading him through a history museum rather than talking to your phone as you do your skincare. He could listen to you for hours. He does, actually.

Around 1 A.M., Hyunjin stops typing mid-sentence when you come into frame for the first time, collapsing into your bed with a sigh of relief. Your eyes are soft and sleepy as they blink at your screen, strands of damp hair clinging to your cheeks. He feels his heart physically shift inside his ribcage when your mouth stretches into a yawn. It is the same sensation as the time you shot him a smile over your shoulder and he couldn’t move for ten minutes.

With that, his attention span has run its course.

“Baby,” he interrupts gently. “Let’s stop here, okay? You seem tired.”

You open your mouth as if to protest, only to yawn again.

“I suppose I am,” you concede. “Will you keep working tonight?”

“I think so. I hit my stride.”

“Text me if you have questions, then. I’ll respond when I wake up.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Your lips curve into the smallest of smiles. It copies onto Hyunjin’s face incurably quickly. 

“I had my doubts about this tutoring thing, you know,” you murmur.

“Why is that?”

“Well, you told me this class was the closest thing to daily naptime you’d experienced since preschool.”

“It really is.”

“You also told me you would rather slam your tongue in a car door than read more than three sentences in one sitting.”

“I really would.”

“And you once referred to academia as ‘Virgin Village.’”

“Didn’t you come up with that?”

“No, hello? I live in that village.”

He grins. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, don’t threaten me with a good—”

“What I’m trying to say,” you cut in, “is that I didn’t think you would take this seriously, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

Hyunjin leans back. “Well, turns out I might give a fuck about anthropology after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

You pretend to punch him through the screen. It’s so cute that he forgets to think before he opens his mouth next.

“But I do give a fuck about you.”

There’s nothing crazy about the statement. You’re friends, sort of. You manage his team. It would be strange if he didn’t. But the seconds that follow are terrible, a silent prophecy of something disastrous, like a cloud of rubble before an avalanche, the standstill during a star’s final breath. And Hyunjin’s heartbeat is hounding against his ears like a performance of traditional taiko.

He says good night in a haste. The call ends. He stares at the wall of his bedroom in a muddled haze for who knows how long.

Then he opens his texts.

Hyunjin: We have team bonding tomorrow btw Hyunjin: Don’t forget Y/N: i forgot. Y/N: pick me up at 6:45? Hyunjin: 🫡

He picks you up at 7:53.

You approach his car with your fists balled and your eyebrows knitted together like a mean old curmudgeon and he’s walking too close to your lawn.

“His fault,” Hyunjin says before you start yelling.

Minho simpers at you through his open window. “Hey, you! So glad you could join us!”

You fix the man with a judgmental glare as you slide into the backseat. “Aren’t you the captain? Why are you this late?”

“Whoa, okay. I would’ve scheduled this for earlier if I knew right now was honesty hour.”

“You did schedule it for earlier,” you say. “You scheduled it for way earlier.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me, Minho.”

“I can too. Tell ‘em, Hwang.”

“I want nothing to do with this.”

When you step through the doors of the arcade, you’re met with a surge of sensory input that you haven’t experienced in years. The air hangs thick with the smells of greasy concessions; everywhere you look are flashing screens and neon signs, stuffed animals and fading posters; clamoring against your ears are the sounds of games being won or lost, of balls being pocketed or launched, and of a horde of fully grown men spectating a match of Dance Dance Revolution so passionately (and loudly) that they’ve scared everyone away from that side of the room. You recognize the current competitors as Changbin and Jeongin.

“I’ll go pay,” Hyunjin says. “How much time do we want?”

“Infinity,” Minho answers. Hyunjin doesn’t move. “Two hours.”

He flashes him a thumbs-up. “And you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“No you’re not,” the two men answer in perfect unison.

You glance between them warily. “I don’t mind watching, seriously. I don’t even know how most of these games work—”

“There’s Tetris,” Hyunjin cuts in.

You purchase an hour.

One would imagine the point of the evening is to break the SNU men’s volleyball team, not to bond them. You’ve never seen so many strained blood vessels in your life. Nor have you heard of half the insults they spew at each other as the night goes on. Felix has to pay a fee for lodging an air hockey puck in the side of the MarioKart machine. Changbin loses at skee-ball and has to down an XL slushie like it’s a shot. It’s a scary amount of boyishness expressed in scary ways.

But they’re happy. You’ve picked up on it when they’re on the court, noticed the raw elation they emanate just from playing together. Yet, their closeness has never been more evident to you than tonight. The men are either laughing or making someone else laugh, arms draped over each other at all times, equally happy to celebrate victories as they’re eager to punish losses. It dawns on you at some point that you’re glad to be here with them, grateful to be a part of something so special—especially because there’s Tetris.

“Have you ever considered going pro?” Hyunjin asks over your shoulder.

You waited until most of the team was distracted to slink off to your beloved machine. Hyunjin tagged along, undoubtedly with the intention of making fun of you, only to be rendered speechless by your mastery. He’s been watching in a state of stupor, forearms propped against the back of your chair.

You don’t respond for a while, too focused on a precarious patch to even blink, let alone partake in conversation.

“I already did,” you finally answer.

“Sorry, what? You played professional Tetris?”

“In middle school. Then I got bored and switched to backgammon.” You pause. “Then I got bored again and switched to chess.”

“How do you look like this with these hobbies?”

Your run ends a few minutes later with a somber sound effect. You turn around in your seat with an anguished groan. “I think I’m washed.”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “You just set a new record by three hundred thousand points.”

“It’s a small pond,” you say, and an idea occurs to you. “Do you wanna try?”

“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.”

“Well, you look—”

His eyes move between your shoes and your face, and then his voice is an inaudible mutter as he sinks into your seat. You think you hear something along the lines of unfair.

“What was that?”

“Ugly. I said you look ugly.” He cracks his knuckles. “Now let’s break some fuckin' blocks.” 

When Hyunjin learns that the pieces can be rotated (so six or seven attempts later), a man walks into the arcade. 

He has hair the color of dark chocolate, the face of a fairy prince—and he’s with someone. The two of them appear arm in arm, laughing at something he said. He looks at this person the way astronomers do to the sky.

Something shatters inside you like old porcelain.

Your hands loosen around the back of Hyunjin’s chair. You can’t watch. You can’t think. You can only feel a void of disappointment rip open, stretch over you like an elongating shadow.

“Seung!” That’s Jisung, you think. “You made it!”

“Yo, sorry we’re late.” That’s Seungmin. That is undoubtedly Seungmin. “Dinner took longer than I thought.”

“Min, are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” You don’t know who this voice belongs to and you’re not sure you want to. “I feel like I’m intruding—”

“Hwang,” you say suddenly. “I have to go.”

He turns around, confused. An unattended block falls into a terrible spot on the screen behind him. ”Already?”

“I forgot I had an important call to make.” You turn away, training your eyes on the patterned carpet. “Sorry. I’ll see you on Monday.”

You have touched Hyunjin’s hands many times. He’s asked you to tape his fingers every day since the first; he likes the way you cut off his circulation, says it helps him hit harder. But you never hold his hand so much as you examine it, the act stiff and unfeeling, cordoned within the professional pretense of athletic treatment. 

Now, Hyunjin catches your hand like a gardener repotting their favorite flower: delicately, careful of leaving its roots intact and petals untouched, but firmly, securely, so the flower continues to stand tall even when it’s been extracted from the soil, not even a speck of dirt slipping through the cracks between their fingers. That is the image you conjure when he slips his between yours, his metal rings cold where his fingertips are warm.

He says your name. There is a pinch of pain in the word, and you know that he knows.

“Do you want to be alone?”

You have never been asked such a thing—you have never asked to be asked such a thing—but, for some reason, the question brings tears to your eyes. 

“Yes, please,” you whisper, and you pull your hand away.

When you stalk past him, you hear Jisung notice you, call out to you, a note of worry in his question. You also count three pairs of eyes on your back: one concerned, the next confused, and the last you are wholly incapable of meeting. 

Unknown to you is the fourth pair fixed upon the top of the Tetris machine, where you’ve left your phone.

You emerge into the parking lot. The frigid air stills your mind for a fraction of a second, the last moment of mental quietude you will allow yourself that night.

Hyunjin’s right; the team manager doesn’t have to do much.

Coach Bang allows you to come to whichever practices and games you feel like, during which you might at most lug around a ballbag or fill someone’s waterbottle before holing up somewhere to do your own thing. But you like the people you work for too much to do so little for them, so you attend everything  your schedule allows. 

Last week, you could be found helping Minho put down the volleyball nets, your laughter echoing throughout the spacious gym as he complained to you about his biochemistry professor’s distinct “cabbage scent.” Or running to grab materials for Changbin as he treated his teammates’ injuries like you were assisting an orthodontist giving someone a root canal. The dinner invitations you extended to Seungmin were always turned down, but his teammates were more than happy to assist you and Hyunjin in your quest to establish the best kimbap joint in the area once and for all. You even had a heart-to-heart with Coach Bang during one of the team’s water breaks, in which you managed to get half a smile out of the guy; Hyunjin was convinced that was his way of asking you to elope. You’d spent more time in the gymnasium in those ten days than you had in the last ten years.

Then came the arcade.

Five days have come and gone. You haven’t attended practice since, but you still see Hyunjin every morning at anthropology. The two of you sit in uncharacteristic silence for most of the lectures. You’ve taken the best notes of your life. He doesn’t mention the previous weekend; he doesn’t mention much of anything. 

In person, that is.

That Friday afternoon, you’re reading on the terrace of the library when you receive a text. It’s from Hyunjin, a two-minute voice note. You hesitate for a moment, stick a pencil into the gutter of your textbook to save your place, and slip your earbuds in. You listen to it.

Then you listen to it again.

And again as you wrap up your study session and go home. Again as you cook yourself dinner and load the dishwasher. Again as you shrug on a jacket and pocket your keys, setting off on the familiar trek to the gym.

As for what you plan to do there on a Friday night, long after the team has finished practice, you haven’t the slightest clue. You continue to move regardless, fueled by the feeling that there is where you need to be.

Coach Bang is leaving the building just as you’re approaching it. He halts in his footsteps and raises his eyebrows when he notices you. The man has always been difficult to read, but his face is exceptionally opaque now. Maybe it’s the shadowy landscape; more likely it’s the uneasiness that began to mount within you once you noticed the lights in the gym were still on.

“It’s been a while,” he greets.

“Coach,” you return, lowering your head. “I want to apologize for—”

“Save it,” he says, not unkindly. “There’s nothing to apologize for, alright? The team is lucky to have you.”

You manage a grateful smile. “I’ll be back starting next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He starts to walk away, stops himself, and glances into the illuminated building. “I would give him some space, by the way.”

Your uneasiness morphs into anxiety as you watch his broad back retreat into the shadows. You remain outside the gym for a few minutes more, accompanied by the distant melodies of cricket chorales and the muffled squeaking of shoes against laminated hardwood, the harsh sounds of flesh meeting leather.

Briskly, you walk home, rummage around, and return to the gym ten minutes later with your textbook tucked beneath your arm. This time, you unlock and enter the building without a moment of hesitation. 

Hyunjin is positioned multiple yards behind the service line, rotating a volleyball in his hands. A high toss, two resounding steps, and a collision like the crack of a whip. The previous ball has barely landed in the furthest corner of the court when he’s picking up the next, retreating to the same spot to do it all again. His tank top is the color of charcoal over his sweaty skin, his hair auburn where it’s plastered to his neck. He’s alone.

You only catch sight of Hyunjin’s face when you descend the stairs. His expression is crystalline, hardened with concentration and fortified by courage, but fragile all at once, rendered delicate by fatigue and fear, spilling from his every seam and splintering off his person like a broken vase. You recognize it as clearly as if you were looking at a picture of yourself from the worst years of your life.

“I was told to give you space,” you call out, and Hyunjin drops the volleyball he’s holding.

His lips fall apart. Nothing comes out of them. The only sounds to follow are your footsteps as you make your way towards the bleachers, a vertical wall of plastic now that they’ve been retracted for the night. You fold your legs into a criss-cross as you take a seat at their base.

“Is this enough space?”

More silence. You gesture to the volleyball nervously.

“Don’t make me go further, please. I’m not ready to die.”

Finally, this earns you a smile. It’s not much, but it loosens the nervous coils in your heart, permits your lungs to contract once more, and it remains on his face as he swipes the ball back into his hands. You open your textbook.

The rest of the night elapses in turning pages and soaring volleyballs. You don’t care for minutes or hours; you give him all the time in the world, as he did you.

The only time you glance at the clock on the wall is around midnight, when Hyunjin hobbles to the middle of the court and collapses. You’re worried at first. Then he rolls onto his back and releases a guttural groan into his hands, and your held breath comes out a laugh. You set down your book and stand up.

There’s a lake of perspiration forming around him. You pay it no mind and flop onto the floor, your eyes instantly narrowing beneath the fluorescent lights. 

“How do you see under these things?”

“I don’t,” he returns. “I complained about it to Coach once.”

“And?”

“He made them brighter.”

“Sounds about right.”

He spends the next few minutes catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in your peripheral vision. You sift through your mind for phrases of consolation or gestures of support and come up empty. You wish you had Hyunjin’s way with words.

But you think about the way his smile reached his eyes as he thanked you for caring about him, the tenderness with which he caught your hand at the arcade, the I give a fuck about you he blurted before ending the study call. You think about the voice note. It’s not that Hyunjin has a way with words; it’s that he’s brave enough to break the silences that you can’t, like he perceives your anxiety for the aftermath, shouldering the responsibility so you won’t have to.

This cannot be his burden alone.

You inhale. “What’s on your mind?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer right away. You give up on squinting and close your eyes; the lights are still bright enough to dance around the murky darkness.

“I don’t think I know how to put it into words.”

You nearly laugh; you know how that feels. “Don’t think, just talk. I’m here.”

The same advice you gave yourself seems to work on him as well.

“Do you remember Ishikawa Yuki?”

“Your role model?”

“He’s currently playing for a club team in Italy called Allianz Milano.” He blows out a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to their coach, Roberto Piazza, for the last six months.”

The gears in your head creak in their effort to process the implications of these words. “Holy shit, Hwang.”

“He emailed again, this morning. Said he was coming to the tournament later this month, he’s excited to see me play in person, whatever. And it hit me, finally, that this is all real. Like, this is actually happening to me. I spent all of today freaking out and asked Coach to let me stay back after practice. Usually, it wears out my brain if I tire my body, but it only half-worked today. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. I still can’t.

“I am who I am because of that man, and now…I have a shot at playing with him. I keep asking myself why I’m not—not happier. I should be bouncing off the fucking walls, no? If I told my past self that this would be happening to him one day, he would—”

You open your eyes, confused by the sudden silence.

Hyunjin is sitting up next to you, staring intensely into the bleachers. You first notice the tip of his tongue prodding into his cheek, then his shuddering breath. He lifts a hand to his face, pressing against his eyes.

You stop thinking after that.

You sit up with him. When you settle your fingers around his wrist, he allows you to pull his hand back to his side. But he turns away as if trying to hide from you; he squeezes his eyes shut as if that would obstruct your view of his pain.

You reach to cradle his face, bringing him back to you. The cuff of your sleeves wipe at the saltwater on his cheeks, push the hair off his forehead with gentle sweeps. The two of you are close, close enough that your lips would meet the space between his eyes if you so much as lost your balance. His gaze traverses to your face, but you resolve not to meet it. You know you will traipse into uncharted territory the moment you do.

“Don’t fight it.” You trace over the hill of his cheek. “Healing becomes easier if you let yourself hurt. Trust me, Hyunjin.”

His first name should feel foreign on your tongue, yet you suspect the syllables have accompanied you all your life.

“You don’t have to continue if you can’t.”

“S’okay.” Hyunjin lifts your hand away from his face, presses a kiss to the base of your palm. “I want to.”

You feel yourself stumble ungracefully into the uncharted territory from before. Does he do the same?

“I used to play volleyball on this expanse of cracked blacktop, behind my primary school. It was pretty brutal on my feet—I blew through so many different pairs of sneakers my mom almost made me quit.” He smiles at the memory. “But every time I came close to quitting, I’d go home and rewatch the same USA vs. Poland match from the 2008 Summer Olympics I asked my dad to record, and I’d promise myself it would be me on some other kid’s screen someday.

“That kid would tell everyone who’d listen about how cool I am. That I’m a secret superhero. That I’m living proof humans can fly if they really, really try—just like I talked about the volleyball players I grew up watching on my TV.

“The other day, Coach told me that hope would consume me. I thought it was just some senile drivel at the time, but..I think I get what he means now. I would do anything and everything to make that kid proud—even if it meant losing myself.” He lowers his head, auburn strands falling into his eyes. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

Amidst the ensuing pause, a storm approaches. It does not come in the form of rain or snow, sleet or hail, no; it is a gathering of words unsaid and emotions unacknowledged, all emerging from the deepest chambers of your heart in synchrony. The same entities you used to scapegoat for all the times things were awkward between you and Hyunjin when you were the culprit all along. You and your blind cowardice.

The storm tears open the seam of your lips. You do not resist; it’s long overdue.

“Every time Changbin sees you, he turns into a smitten schoolgirl,” you say. “He is physically unable to contain how endearing he finds you. He told me so himself.”

Hyunjin looks at you with widened eyes. You think you can see your own reflection in them, and you are the spitting image of a lighter dropped into gasoline, unstoppable in your vehemence.

“Jeongin comes to you for advice before anyone else,” you continue, “even for things related to school—which I still find hard to believe, I’m not gonna lie. But you have his best interests in mind, and it shows in everything you do for him. Of course your opinion matters more than anything in the world.

“I know you think he can’t stand you, but you are the reason Coach Bang loves this job, why he loves this sport. It’s written all over his face every time he calls you something mean, every time he makes you run another lap, every time he looks at you. You’re like a son to him. Everyone sees it but you.”

“Then there’s me.” You pause to catch your breath. “When I think about what my life used to be, I remember a lot of things. I remember loneliness. Insecurity. I remember my books and my backgammon boards and the way I taught myself to disappear inside them so the world would never find me. I remember avoiding mirrors like a vampire because I didn’t like seeing my own reflection. I remember feeling like I had to put on someone else’s personality every time I left the house because nobody would want to know me for me. All I ever wanted was a place where I could be myself, love myself, without consequence. I have yet to find that place.

“But I found a person. Someone who wouldn’t know time and place if they kicked his dick into his body. Someone who thinks instant ramen is high in nutritional value because it comes with dried vegetables. Someone who sweats the same amount of rain the Sahara Desert receives yearly—your body is not normal, by the way.”

Hyunjin giggles; it is soft and short, a small, tearful huff into the quiet air that makes you feel like you’re flying.

“Don’t get me wrong,” you say. “Your sense of humor sucks and your taste in coffee is so boring and you are the one with no media literacy, not Professor Kim. But I love spending time with you. I love who I am when I’m around you. And none of that has to do with volleyball.”

The next time you blink, you discover that he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes. How long has that been going on?

“There’s so much about you to be proud of, Hyunjin.” You give him a watery smile. “That kid will be spoiled for choice.”

When Hyunjin pulls you into his arms, you fall into each other like going to bed after a long day. Your face burrows into the crook of his neck in your embarrassment; he is laughing and crying at the same time when he mumbles something into your shoulder: “I knew you cared about me.”

You are so happy for the comedic relief you could sob. It helps that you already are.

“How the fuck are you still sweaty?” You choke out, and you think you like his cologne after all.

Six days later, Hyunjin opens the door of his apartment.

A fun-sized flurry of black and white barrages into the hallway outside and almost runs headfirst into the figure waiting there. You fall to your knees like you’ve just been gravely wounded, emitting an ear-piercing wail to match. All it takes is a few good head scratches for Kkami to stop yipping bloody murder and start whining for attention instead. 

Upon minute five of watching you and his dog cuddle in the hallway directly outside his home, Hyunjin sighs.

“Can you come inside, please? My RA will think I’m doing some freaky shit again.”

You side-eye him as you walk into his apartment, Kkami perched happily in your arms. “What, exactly, does freaky shit entail?”

He smirks as the door falls shut. “You want me to tell you or show you?”

You turn to Kkami, disgusted. “Your owner’s a bit of a pervert, my dear.”

Kkami licks you on the chin. Hyunjin’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Traitor.”

Naturally, Hyunjin’s parents chose the eve of his final anthropology exam—and the week before the tournament that will determine the trajectory of his career—to ask him to look after Kkami for a few days. He nearly canceled their plane tickets himself, but his impromptu roommate is currently ransacking your face with kisses on his couch, and he thinks your laugh complements his studio better than any decoration. 

“Do you want anything to drink?” He calls from the kitchen area.

You meander over, Kkami (still) perched happily in your arms. “What do you have?” 

“Alcohol.” He opens his fridge far enough so you can peer over his shoulder. “Americanos.”

He stops speaking.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Wait—and apple juice.”

“You are about to be a professional athlete.”

“What the Italians don’t know won’t hurt them. You want apple juice, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

“Maybe. Can you open it for me? My hands are full.”

Hyunjin does so with far less reluctance than he feigns. You thank him jubilantly, popping the straw into your mouth.

“Let’s get this over with.”

At 10:32 P.M., all is calm. You are sitting on the floor, your back against the side of his mattress. Hyunjin is where the universe intended: curled up in bed, both him and his laptop lying on their sides. You have studied eight out of ten units in only two and a half hours, and the night is still young. Kkami is but a fluffy, sleepy Oreo by your waist.

At 10:33 P.M., the Oreo begins to retch.

You startle a foot into the air. Hyunjin is out of bed and on his feet in the blink of an eye, the very image of a dog dad on duty. He grabs three different things off the kitchen counter with one hand and scoops up the long-haired chihuahua with the other, and then he’s kicking open the door.

Seungmin appears out of thin air carrying two heaping bags of groceries. Hyunjin nearly knocks him and a month’s worth of fresh produce down four flights of stairs.

“Hyun—Kkami?” Seungmin swivels. “Yo, what the fuck is—”

Hyunjin is already out the door.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin squats off to the side, pouring fresh water into a portable dog bowl. A little ways away, Kkami is throwing up ebulliently; a set of footsteps approaches.

“What is this thing?” Seungmin squats down next to Hyunjin, picking up the piece of patterned fabric lying on the grass. 

“Kkami gets sad after throwing up,” he sighs. “His blanket makes him feel better.”

Seungmin watches the chihuahua for a few moments, a soft flinch crimping his features. “He ate too fast again?”

Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Nobody’s gonna take his food from him.”

Seungmin laughs. “I didn’t even know he was on campus.”

“I picked him up last night. My parents are traveling for work—they say hi, by the way.”

“I say hi back. I miss your mom’s cooking.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “She would love to cook for you again—she’s always saying you’re too skinny.”

“She really is.”

A beat passes; it is then that Hyunjin has an epiphany.

Seungmin was the one who put a volleyball in his hands for the first time. Back then, Hyunjin was the lesser troublemaker between the two of them—a concept that neither of them can wrap their heads around to this day. Seungmin suggested they use the clotheslines in Hyunjin’s backyard as a makeshift net, despite Hyunjin’s dissuading; half of Hyunjin’s father’s wardrobe caught on fire, Seungmin had a black eye for a week, and nobody knows what happened to that volleyball. The two of them have been attached at the hip ever since.

It is a crazy thing, having your best friend as a teammate; a singular flick of the wrist or a point of his shoe and Seungmin will know exactly Hyunjin wants the ball down to the net’s fraying fibers; Hyunjin will be exactly where Seungmin needs him down to the flecks of paint on the volleyball court. Hyunjin has always been Seungmin’s hitter—Seungmin, always Hyunjin’s setter. Nothing will ever change between them so long as that remains the case.

At least, that’s what Hyunjin used to think.

Learning that Seungmin was in a relationship was as much a wake-up call for Hyunjin as it was for you. At first, he was just fucking pissed; how could Seungmin be so stupid as to turn down someone like you, especially when Hyunjin had shot his mouth off about his wingman services? More importantly, how long had his best friend of eighteen years been in love, and why was he the last to know? 

Only now, as they wait for his nine-year-old chihuahua to finish barfing, does Hyunjin realize that he can’t remember the last time he and Seungmin talked. Not “talked” as in a brief exchange inside the locker room or the lecture hall, about a new approach he wants to try or what Seungmin got on number four or if he wants a ride to practice—“talked” as in talked, about Hyunjin, about Seungmin, about the eighteen years they shared, about all the years yet to come.

Hyunjin sees his setter every day; he stopped looking for his friend a long time ago. 

“Yeonwoo, right?”

He senses surprise in Seungmin without having to look at him. But he also senses a smile, a subtle show that Seungmin recognizes what he’s trying to do—and forgives him.

“Yeonwoo,” Seungmin affirms. “We’re in the same songwriting intensive this semester.”

“Also a singer?”

He shakes his head. “Piano player. Performed at the Carnegie Hall in the United States at, like, seven years old. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so talented.”

“Wow, that’s—hi, old man. You done?”

Kkami walks over with his head hung low and tail between his legs, and Hyunjin hurries to drape the pup in his favorite blanket, pulling the bowl of water in front of him in tandem. Seungmin runs a hand over the top of Kkami’s head as he hydrates.

“You’ve suffered,” he tells him solemnly, and Hyunjin snorts.

“As I was saying—that’s crazy to hear, coming from the most talented person I know. You guys looked so good together.”

“Thanks. It’s weird. I’m happy.”

“You deserve it. You really do, Kim.” They exchange smiles, and Hyunjin gives Seungmin a playful nudge. “When are you introducing us?”

“The arcade wasn’t enough?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Whenever you want, then.”

“Dinner with my mom, dinner with Yeonwoo,” Hyunjin recounts. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Bet.”

They shake on it. If Hyunjin wasn’t already reassured by Seungmin’s smile, he knows by his clasp around his hand that they’ll be okay.

“What about you?” Seungmin asks. “Are you together yet?”

Hyunjin knew this was coming. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Seungmin strings his hands together, letting them dangle in the space between his knees. “Someone you have questions for that you’re too scared to ask. Someone who’s lived in your mind since the day you met. There’s someone like that, isn’t there?”

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek. 

Ever since that night on the gym floor, Hyunjin’s been having these dreams. By the time his alarm goes off in the morning, every detail of the dream has eluded him, leaving behind only a ghost of emotion, akin to the breeze that grazes your face moments after walking past another person.

But then he’ll get out of bed, and walk to that café on the east side of campus, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There, he’ll order a vanilla latte with extra sweetener, then turn around to see you standing five feet away, holding an Americano and trying not to laugh. And he’ll just know, with everything in him, that you are where his head goes when he’s not keeping watch.

He still addresses you by the pet names you hate. He still finds any excuse to be close to you; he still pesters you like a child with a crush. But now, he calls you his baby like one wishes on a star; his eyes drift to your lips every time you’re within two feet of each other; he makes fun of your likes and dislikes only because he’s happy to know about them at all. Ever since that night on the gym floor.

It’s impossible for nothing and everything to change at once. Two people teetering on the precipice of something cannot withstand a gust of wind so powerful. He’s already hanging off the ledge, losing his grip; where are you?

Next to him, Seungmin lets out a soft laugh. “There is.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to say.

“It might’ve been me, at some point,” he hums, returning his hand to scratch the back of Kkami’s ears. “But it has always been you, Hyun.”

Four floors above them and inside Hyunjin’s place, you are pacing between his fridge and his bed, nervously awaiting his and Kkami’s return.

Something catches your eye, wide and flat and hung on the wall by his bathroom door. You approach it curiously, your lips pulling into a fond smile the moment you realize all that’s in front of you.

Many of the photographs are of Hyunjin: him in his preteens, dead asleep in bed while dressed head to toe in volleyball gear, braces visible because his mouth is open; an action shot taken at what must’ve been a U21 match, the South Korean flag stitched into the shoulder of his jersey; him with half a birthday cake in front of him and the rest smeared all over his face. There are headlines, too: Underdog team earns district’s first high school volleyball state title; Hwang Hyunjin proves himself worthy of “ace spiker” label at South Korea V. Croatia U19 match; Coach Bang “Christopher” Chan leads Seoul National University to second consecutive KUL championship. There’s one—Who is Hwang Hyunjin? Meet the twenty-year-old instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution—beside which he’s written the singular word “mouthful.” You laugh; you agree.

But pinned to the corkboard is also a photograph of Minho, surrounded by stray cats in the alleyway outside a K-BBQ restaurant; his parents cradling Kkami in an apple costume; his high school volleyball team silhouetted against a pretty sunset. Him and Seungmin as kids, covered in grime and scrapes but beaming nonetheless; him and Seungmin at age nineteen, stadium lights on their backs, unadulterated elation on their faces as they charge towards each other, beaming still. Changbin piggybacking Felix through the hallways of the gym, neither of them wearing a shirt; Jisung offering Coach Bang a beer while the latter looks direly unamused (you make a mental note to ask about that one later); what looks like a Rock Lee cosplayer grimacing in the middle of your anthropology classroom.

You rush forward as if decreed by gravitational force. Not too far away is another picture of you, in which you boast a Miffy headband and a face full of foaming cleanser. Then another, your eyes narrowed like that of a sniper taking aim as you’re playing Tetris; you with so many volleyballs piled into your arms that you can’t see your own face; your cheeks squished by a bandaged hand after you lost a bet about pandas (they can swim); you clutching your stomach on the library floor, brought to hysterical tears by Professor Kim’s email. You, you, you.

You bring your pointer finger to this last image, tracing it over the curve of your own cheek. You see a dimple on your face you didn’t know you had. You realize it only comes out for him.

It has always been him.

The front door opens. A man with telephone poles for legs and a long-haired chihuahua in his arms appears behind it. You sense in him that something has changed since you last saw each other. The two of you lock eyes. 

It’s not awkward this time.

Multiple yards behind the service line, Hyunjin is rotating a volleyball in his hands. It feels solid and sentient, an extension of himself held in cotton-clad fingers. He knows how this story will end.

He moves his eyes to his best friend’s back. Four fingers flash back at him twice, signaling a high lob set to the left, the very play they’ve practiced tirelessly for the last five weeks. The breath Hyunjin blows out of his cheeks seems to crystallize in the air, almost solid in all its exhilaration. 

He bends low and throws high. His arms drop behind his body like a spread of feathered wings; his feet fall into place below him like a meteor shower, two consecutive strikes against the earth that fissure its mantle. The lights overhead are bright. His palm pulls taut when it slams into leather. He knows how this story will end.

The volleyball tears towards the ground. It trembles as if scared by all that it holds: the guarantee of a flawless denouement, the catalyst of a radiant future. Hyunjin’s heart is beating hard enough to crack his ribs when he lands back on the ground, when the volleyball lands in the furthest corner of the court. He’s not scared at all.

He balls his fingers into fists.

“JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, BACK TO BACK ON AN ACE—”

An arm seizes Hyunjin’s neck; another drags him onto the floor. His head thuds onto the hardwood with a sound he hears over the whole world detonating. His vision fills with the faces of the people he cares for most, some covered in tears and others rivaling the ceiling with their blinding smiles. He can’t feel most of his body; his sweat drips into his mouth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

“—DEFENDING THEIR TITLE FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR—”

His eyes find Seungmin’s among the fray. Their hands clap together with such force that Hyunjin cusses at the impact. Seungmin’s gaze burns into his with a ferocity that Hyunjin plans to take to his grave. His setter. His best friend.

He says something inaudible, but Hyunjin reads the words off his lips, and his eyes fill with tears: we win everything.

“—YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY!”

Hyunjin’s post-game interview is a lawless affair. He is allowed at most half an answer before a new teammate is barreling over with an animalistic screech or a new friend is screaming congratulations from out of frame.

The reporter is visibly agitated by her final question, unpursing her lips to ask: “Is there anyone you’d like to thank?”

Hyunjin exhales. “You want the short answer or the long—”

Changbin seizes him by the head. Hyunjin bursts into a peal of high-pitched laughter as the libero litters kisses all over his face, nearly crumpling to the floor in his attempt to escape.

“Love you,” he yells before hurrying off. 

“Love you too, Bin.”

Hyunjin turns a sheepish smile to the reporter.

“The short answer,” she deadpans.

He starts counting off his fingers. He thanks his family—his first and last teammates, his eternal anchors. His other family, his actual teammates, the best boys he’s ever known. His coach, who will let him call him Chris someday. His best friend and setter, Kim Seungmin, who set a clothesline on fire once and changed his life forever.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the locker rooms. There’s a navy blue SNU banner draped over your shoulders, two overflowing duffel bags in your hands. Jisung and Jeongin run over to take them from you, and the smile you give them is wide and flushed, a remnant of the elation you shared from afar. The three of you start walking out of the gym.

Hyunjin thanks you.

You didn’t ask for the position, he tells the reporter, but some idiot roped you into it, and they’re all so grateful that you decided to stick around. You know the team better than they know themselves—it’s hard to believe you’ve been with them for five weeks instead of five years.

What are you like? What aren’t you like, is the better question. You’re caring, smart, strong; you see so much goodness in the people around you, all while unaware that it is your warmth that brings it out of them. Flowers only bloom in the sun’s doting radius, and so did he.

You have the sort of soul that incurs the scorn of the stars. They are the only ones to deserve you, they'd argue; you’re wasting your potential among humans when you belong to the sky, and they’d be right.

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek, suddenly annoyed.

“Why the fuck am I still talking to you?” 

“Pardon?” The reporter returns, but Hyunjin is already vaulting over the bleachers, making a mad dash for the exit. She gives her cameraman an affronted glare. He shrugs.

He explodes onto the concrete, looking around in a frantic haze. He finds the blue banner heading toward the team bus and flanked by his teammates with ease.

He calls out to you.

You glance backwards. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the area’s busy thrum. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram again, but he’s used to this feeling by now. Jeongin and Jisung make themselves scarce.

You’re beautiful. God, you’re fucking beautiful. That was the first thought to enter his mind when he spilled an iced Americano on your lap all those months ago and you looked at him like he hailed from another planet. And it is the first thought to enter his mind now, when he runs up to you and cradles your face in his hands, his touch infinitely, impossibly gentle, and you look at him like he’s everything that has ever existed, everything that ever will. 

Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes—if he didn’t have something far better to do.

“Tell me now if you don’t want me to do this,” he whispers.

A stupid smile crosses the face of the smartest person he knows. “My lips are sealed.”

Hyunjin kisses you. He kisses you until the banner around your shoulders is wrinkled under his touch, until your hands are tangled in his hair and aching his scalp, until the breaths you take are breaths you share, passed between your mouths like a puff of smoke before they’re colliding again.

He kisses you until he’s crying, again, until he’s no longer tasting your lips but your grin, and he kisses you only harder when those scornful stars start to dance before him, for you are his, not theirs, and he’s really won everything, now.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Six months later, Hyunjin sees Coach Bang standing a few yards away with a grim air about him. He stops in his footsteps and glances at his captain, confused.

“I know nothing,” Seungmin says, walking away. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, cap.” Hyunjin swears he’s had this exact exchange before.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace still reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. But there are two picture frames on his desk now: one of his family in front of the Sydney Opera House, the other of a band of boys clad in navy blue, draped over one another in exhausted bliss. The latter lends the room a much-needed sense of vitality. Too bad it still houses a rusty cyborg.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “Read.”

From: Nicola Daldello «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Re: Allianz Milano V. Pallavolo Perugia practice game Christopher, Allow me to apologize for my delayed response as I shared your request with Chairman Piazza. It is my great pleasure to inform you that we would love for Mr. Hwang Hyunjin to participate in our practice game versus Pallavolo Perugia. The match is scheduled for Monday, October 7th, 5-7 P.M. CET in the Giurati Sports Centre in Milan. Mr. Hwang will be playing for Allianz Milano as an outside hitter alongside Mr. Matey Kaziyski, Mr. Osniel Mergarejo, and Mr. Ishikawa Yuki. Please let me know of your availability to call regarding Mr. Hwang’s travel logistics. His transportation and lodging costs will be paid for by the club. I’m looking forward to speaking with you and welcoming Mr. Hwang to Italy once and for all. Yours, Nicola Daldello Assistant Coach, Allianz Milano

“I told you, some opportunities just present themselves,” Bang says, turning his monitor back around. “As for next steps, I need a holistic calendar view of your entire month of October, including social ev—Hwang, is that foam coming out of your mo—NOT ON MY CARPET! HWANG!”

In a park about a ten minute walk away, a small crowd of elderly people are scattered across a few stone tables, hunched over the fading chess boards painted into the granite surfaces. Mrs. Choi whisks away Mrs. Baek’s king with a triumphant yelp.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That opening is unbeatable!” She swivels towards you, shaking a fist threateningly. “You! Get over here. Your reign is over.”

You are sitting cross-legged in the shade of a broad magnolia tree, clearing out your storage. You tried to take a picture of a particularly rotund pigeon to send to Hyunjin earlier and couldn’t even do that. It was then you decided you couldn't live like this anymore.

“As excited as I am to beat you again, Mrs. Choi, I need ten more minutes,” you call back. 

She presents you with an unpleasant hand gesture. You turn your attention back to your phone, grinning. Two new notifications sit at the top of your lock screen.

Hyunjin: Omw now. Sorry had to talk to Chris Hyunjin: Same park? Y/N: yes Hyunjin: Who’s the opp today Y/N: mrs. choi Hyunjin: Not that bitch again Y/N: ?

He’ll be here in eight minutes.

You return to the task at hand. You’ve already cleared out your apps, your documents, and videos; all that’s left is the audio files. You conduct a quick mental review. Surely you’ll live without your downloaded music and accidental voice memos.

Instead of hitting the “delete” button, you extract a pair of tangled earphones from your jacket pocket.

You go back to your texts with Hyunjin, open the shared attachments tab, and scroll for a long time before you find the voice note he sent you seven months ago.

He finds you a sobbing mess.

“Hey, hey, whoa.” He’s on his knees in an instant, gathering your hands into his, a world of concern in the brown of his eyes. Your earbuds fall out and clatter onto the cement below. “Baby, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you say in a flustered haste. “Yes, I’m okay. I don’t—I don’t really know what’s happening.”

“Did that hag do this to you?” He asks this question so seriously. “I’ll beat up a senior citizen, I don’t give a fuck—”

“No!” You let out an ugly laugh through your tears. “No, no. Leave Mrs. Choi alone.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Eventually, your vision clears enough for you to look at the man kneeling in front of you. His roots grow out longer every day, his hair by now nearly equal parts gold and black. A spot of sunlight infiltrates the magnolia leaves and lands on his left eye, turning it the hue of melted bronze.

Your fingers drift to the sides of his beautiful face as you lean in close; he smells like a combination of smoky rose and tropical coastlines.

“I’ll tell you later,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his hairline. 

He is dissatisfied with this, hooking a pointer finger beneath your chin, guiding your face back to his. He laves the saltwater from your lips, your tongue, and then you’re smiling again, barely able to remember why you cried in the first place.

You rest your foreheads together. “Have I told you that you look like a bumblebee these days?”

He smiles. “Does that make you my flower, then?”

“Because you’re irresistably drawn to me?”

“No, because I wanna put my pollen in—”

You shove him away. “You are grotesque.”

He returns in a flash. “You love me.”

You kiss him again. And again. And one more time for good measure, during which you mumble I do against his lips, and then you remember something.

“Why did Coach hold you back, by the way?” You pull away, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Are you in trouble again?”

“No, no. The opposite, actually.”

Your brow furrows. “The opposite? What—”

“In this lifetime, please,” Mrs. Choi hollers from the chess tables. You roll your eyes. Hyunjin smiles helplessly.

“Duty calls, my love.”

“Tell me your thing later too?”

“Of course.”

You dust yourself off and stand up, making your way to the battleground. But not before you whisper to Hyunjin, “now watch me beat up a senior citizen.”

He laughs with his whole body, his eyes the shape of crescent moons, his mouth a little rectangle.

“Hypocrite.”

Hyunjin: [1 Audio Message]

This is my seventh take and I’m not recording an eighth. What you get is what you get. I don’t care anymore.

I understand if you don’t wanna talk about what happened at the arcade. I wouldn’t, either. I just wanted to say that you don’t have to do this tutoring thing anymore. I won’t be able to fulfill my end of our deal, so…yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve already done so much for us. For me.

As for team manager, you’ll have to talk to Minho and Coach Bang if you wanna quit. Doesn’t sound like a fun conversation, I know—but if that’s what you decide, I’ll have your back. They don’t scare me. Well, they do. Sometimes.

You’ve been…distant, this week. I’ve known peace and quiet for the first time since we met, and I fucking hate it. I realized I couldn’t care less if you’re my tutor or my team manager or whatever—I just don’t want you to be a stranger. Maybe that’s selfish of me to say, but I’m tired of pretending the idea of losing you doesn’t terrify me. It does. It truly fucking does.

I’m gonna end this here, because I almost just stopped recording on accident and I would’ve committed first degree murder if I had to do this all over again. Sorry that this got so long, and…I’m sorry about everything. You deserve better.

Come back to me whenever you’re ready, okay? I’ll be waiting.

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© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · liked this work? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support ♡

summer strike — hwang hyunjin.

trope. strangers to lovers. found family. comfort fic. heavily inspired by the kdrama

synopsis. having had enough of your life in the big city, you head to a small town where you meet a local librarian who feels a lot like love

word count. 23k words

warnings. drinking alcohol, curse words, mentions of loneliness

note. it’s out it’s out! this kdrama might be my favorite and means a lot to me so i just had to write something inspired by it. it’s basically the written form but condensed with a few changes so credits to the kdrama. i’d rly appreciate any feedback :)

one.

It happened without warning.

As you stand behind the glass doors of the building you work at, rain splits before your eyes. Drip by drip, and then a downpour. You suppose you should’ve checked the Weathers app before deciding to work overtime tonight.

You ponder over waiting it out, but there is no place to go but the train station before it takes its last trip. It’s urgent to get back to your empty apartment where it isn’t rainy and it isn’t windy and the world isn’t ending. So, you run towards the only direction you know in this city, even as rain pours over the streets.

Your soles feel heavy by the time you arrive, but you don’t allow yourself the moment to rest as you swerve through the crowds of people to get to the train doors before it closes. You wish to see a time when silence ghosts the usually busy station, but you don’t have the time. You never do. Always rushing. Always tired.

The watch on your wrist reads 8:21, and it’ll only be a few minutes before a wave of office workers litter the narrow space of the train. When they finally do, the first thing you discern is their terrible body odor—dried up sweat with a tinge of alcohol. It no longer surprises you, so used to the fuckery that is your life.

Instead, you plug in your earphones to drown out their voices, listening to the kind of music that drags you back to a childhood memory. It sounds like popsicles, like wind blowing through your hair as you’re being pushed from the swing, like running on concrete barefooted, like the laughter of someone you love.

Now, you live in a city of strangers.

On the next stop, an old woman walks in. No one makes a move to give up their seat—too tired, too selfish, looking anywhere but the old woman. You think of how small humanity really is as you get up and gesture for her to take your seat instead. She has gone through too many years of her life to stand stuck between the terrible stench of office workers.

She holds a sweet smile as she thanks you. You don’t remember the last time someone smiled at you like that. Silver linings.

When you finally make it home, it’s nearly 9pm. This is what working 9-6 is like in the city. You live off your co-workers taking advantage of your work ethic, your boss’s bad breath yelling into your ear, and never coming home on time.

This has happened yesterday. It will happen again tomorrow.

It’s always the same. The same routine, over and over without progress. You feel like you’ve messed up somewhere. You used to have ambitions, but now you’re just a fragment of the person you used to be. The city was supposed to lead somewhere. It was supposed to be promising. But, the same tired eyes walk down the same path everyday in a dead end.

You don’t know where you went wrong.

You lay in your bed, still soaking wet, with a painful cry waiting to erupt from your throat. You hate that there’s no longer time to create happiness. It’s too late, and minutes from now, you will be asleep.

You stare at the ceiling, as you do every night before you fall asleep, and the only sounds that accompany you are the loud honks of the cars outside and your stomach grumbling. No one calls you to dinner. No one holds you to keep you warm.

It’s so lonely here.

The feeling of a hug is something you don’t see yourself remembering so you press your back further against your bed to mimic the feeling of an embrace. It doesn’t feel right, but it’s the closest thing you can get after the mistake you made of thinking you were made for the city.

Though, as you keep staring at the ceiling, you start to feel sick. You don’t think you can handle this rotting anymore. You refuse to believe this fate is by design, not when you feel like this. With tears you didn’t even notice dried up on your cheeks, you make a decision. There is nothing else you can do here, and this will be your last night in the city. So, you do something you have not done in years, you pull your backpack that’s been collecting dust and throw in as much clothes as you can.

You feel you’ve been cruel to yourself for allowing this to happen for years. The next day, you don’t wake up at the usual time. You spend the night in, and you quit your job once they call. They don’t deserve you there.

As for your belongings, you decided to only keep what could fit in your backpack. Cleaning up the house, you realized that you bought a lot of things; mugs you bought on a whim just because they were pretty, dishes that you only used once to host a house welcoming party, clothes you forgot even existed. The selection process was much more difficult than any job interview. Useless items got sold as soon as you posted them online.

You let go of your apartment and jump on the first train out, leaving behind the bustles and the buildings of the city. Seoul is too much for an unemployed person like you.

The sound of the train pollutes your ears as you step in, the voice of the intercom telling passengers to let people out first before walking into the train. And as the train moves away, you watch the city grow smaller and smaller. You don’t bother looking back.

The little town you're heading to is unfamiliar, but the path before is even more so.

There’s a heartbeat.

two.

Nobody ever visits.

In the city, you learned early on that it was a dog eat dog world. Your kindness can only go so far until it becomes the perfect tool to take advantage of you. They liked to call it survival of the fittest, the Darwinian evolutionary theory. It’s something that’s taught early in high school, often forgotten the year after, yet it’s a theory you continue to use long after everyone else has moved on to other things in life. You’d always found it interesting how it flawlessly captured Seoul’s mechanism of natural selection—the one most adaptable to change is the one that survives.

Nobody knocks on your door to greet you there. Nobody wishes you well. For as long as you can remember, you’d always had to fight, always aboard a ship on rough waters that you’d almost forgotten how a quiet shore sounds like.

You suppose this is why there was no warning when a knock sounds on your door. You hadn’t expected anyone at your door.

The morning was spent carving out a new life for yourself in Angok, running away from the sounds of the city and exploring the place you’d soon call home. There aren’t many establishments here, most of them run by families who have been here far longer than you ever have. You take note of the small convenience store just where you live in case you were feeling too lazy to run to the farmer’s market just by the town center. Small things first, afraid to hear the bustle of buildings follow their way to where you are.

By 2 in the afternoon, you had retreated back to the small apartment you’d rented out. Outside, the wind was getting stronger, making the waves collide harshly with the shore. You think you’d have stayed out longer if the gust of wind hadn’t flapped your clothes around violently. Two in the afternoon, with nothing left to do, when the door knocks.

Knock, knock.

Your heart rate speeds up at the sound. Could the city have followed you all the way here?

With heavy feet, you fight against the voice in your head to greet whoever is at your door. By best case, they’d probably mistaken your quaint apartment for someone else’s.

You twist the doorknob carefully, door creaking when it opens and you’re met with the sight of someone with the most peaceful face and the most perfect set of teeth. His eyes are welcoming as he waves at you in greeting, hair messily swept back with a few strands falling on his forehead almost as if they were designed to be.

“Hi!” You squeak out, eyes nervously wandering back and forth between the man and what you could only assume was his parked truck just by the front of your apartment. “I think you have the wrong apartment.”

“Oh! My apologies. Is this not where (Name) lives?” Your heartbeat picks up its pace again, and your hand around the doorknob starts to feel a little clammy for the fear of his intentions.

“It is actually. Um, how do you know my name?” You try to mask the fear in your tone, but the man easily picks up on it. And if it wasn’t for the situation, you think you would’ve laughed when he comically takes long strides to back up a little bit. He looks silly with his widened eyes and parted lips.

“I’m sorry, that must’ve sounded really creepy. I’m Chan! I live just around here, and my mom just rented you this house? The previous owner ran away with all the furniture, so I brought some so it doesn’t feel so empty.”

Chan flashes you a bright smile, angling himself a little so his truck is in full view.

It solicits a sigh of relief out of you, gripping hand on the doorknob dropping as you feel a little safer. You’d been ready to shut the door. Almost defensive. Almost letting his words fall into mumbles.

“I apologize again. I didn’t mean to scare you.” His tone is soft, genuine even as he scratches the back of his head and bows a little. It’s a strange sight the man with the kind smile. Strange that it only occurs to you now how long you’d gone without seeing a smile so soft in a long time. After all your years in the city, you had almost forgotten the sight of genuineness being directed at you.

“It’s alright. I’m just… a little…” The words fall on your mouth. Frankly speaking, you don’t know how to explain your own behavior. Nervous? Afraid? Defensive? You don’t really know. You feel like a stranger in your own body.

Chan is quick to dismiss it when it seems that you don’t have the intention to finish your sentence. There is no pressure to come up with an excuse here. “Come in. The wind must’ve been harsh on you.”

Pulling the door back a little wider, you invite Chan into your empty apartment, and after asking you twice if it was okay, he finally obliges. As he makes his way inside, he takes the furniture he had brought with him—back and forth, and back and forth from the truck until everything was inside.

He doesn’t even let you lift a finger.

“Sit anywhere.” You make your way to your kitchen to grab him a glass of water, emptying the bottle you had just bought down to its last few drops. You try to take as long as you can in the kitchen in nerve of the small talk that was bound to happen when meeting strangers. Though, your walls start to look at you reproachfully, and you realize you’d been gone far too long to be called disrespectful.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” You hand him the glass, sitting adjacent to him. He simply shakes his head, thanking you instead as he takes the glass from you with both his hands, careful not to touch you in case it makes you uncomfortable.

“I hope this is enough.” Chan motions over towards the pieces of furniture he had brought with him—a couch, a few chairs, and a table for now. “I have some more, but it didn’t really fit in my truck.”

You allow yourself to smile at him, though your eyes fail to meet his for more than five seconds. You don’t know what to say, and something akin to an itch starts to eat at your brain the way a caterpillar does with leaves, one bite then another, pressuring you to say something to satiate the silence.

Chan saves your brain from being chewed away.

“I hope you don’t have a hard time settling in.” He finishes the water you’d offered him before he continues, “I live just 2 apartments away if you need anything. I’ll see you around?”

You nod your head, following him out of the door, and you can only hope you hadn’t scared him away already. You manage to meet his eyes one last time as you move to shut the door, polite smile on your face as he turns back one last time.

“Ah, before I forget… I noticed you had a lot of books with you. There’s a library just a few blocks away in case you were interested.”

“Oh. Thank you. I’ll be sure to check it out.” With one last bow, you gingerly close the door behind you as he finally drives off.

Chan. He feels comfortable despite only knowing him for a few minutes, almost like a caring older brother you never had. You hope to know him more.

As you turn back around, you look at your apartment a little more closely this time, inspecting how the pieces of furniture look, decorating what once was an empty space. It looks more like a home now. You should’ve thanked the man more, you fear you didn’t say it enough.

You brush the thought off and spend the rest of the day cleaning.

three.

It takes you almost a week to go to the library Chan had suggested.

You had promised yourself to finish the book you brought with you first, before committing to new stories and new horizons. Though, it proved difficult as you have always been the type to take more than you can bargain for—purchasing books after books only to leave them behind on a dusty shelf.

But, new places call for new habits, and you vowed to leave that inclination behind.

When you step outside, a wispy curtain of clouds cover the skies. It’s a lovely weather to be outside in, with the summer breeze floating about. Not too cold. Not too sticky.

The air in the city has always been tangled with some form of pollution. Dirty and suffocating. It’s nice to have a change in pace. Being kind to nature, you find, has you reaping the benefits of basking in its beauty. They don’t litter her land with buildings here.

On the way to the public library, you pass by the market where a multitude of people line up, selling more than you can name—fruits and vegetables, homegrown plants, fish, textiles of clothing, brooms, almost everything.

The old and young gather alike, children running around to help their parents, office workers taking a break from their job to buy street food from the vendors. It’s colorful and vibrant, almost fiesta-like that only the people of Angok can radiate.

“(Name)?” A familiar voice has you ripping your eyes from an array of freshly baked cookies, turning towards the origin of the sound to find Chan waving at you.

“Chan, hi!” You reply shyly, yet a little less reserved than when you had first met him.

He looks the way he did a few days ago when he showed up on your door, though more sweaty as he puts down the final box of fruits they had loaded up on his truck. He’s dressed in a loose tank top, you assume to be more efficient in his job, and the beads of sweat glistening on his forehead are more visible the closer he gets to where you’re standing.

Chan definitely stands out with his height, and the way he smiles so easily.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, hands wiping at the side of the shorts he’s wearing.

“I’m actually going to the library… the one you talked about. Though, I’m not quite sure I’m headed the right way?” You try to mask your embarrassment with a short laugh, and his eyes brighten at the way you had taken his suggestion.

His stature lights up in the same manner, clasping both his hands together and replying, “Ah, if you can wait a minute, I can walk you there. I have to deliver a box of oranges there, anyway.”

“Really? I’d really appreciate that actually. Thank you.” You smile politely, and he gestures for you to follow him back to his truck where a man is waiting for him.

The stranger is carrying way more than he should be, about to jokingly boast about his strength to Chan when he takes an abrupt step. An earthquake rumbles in the way a box falls from his shoulders, hitting the pavement and bursting open—almost in slow motion as apples and oranges roll out.

“Shit!” He exclaims with his whole chest, and he immediately bows in apology at the elders around him who look disapprovingly at his choice of language.

“Ah, Jisung.” Chan mumbles, jogging forward to grab the fallen fruits that are still rolling on the pavement. A few onlookers help, much to the embarrassed boy’s dismay, and you quickly bend down to grab at the ones nearest to you.

“Sorry.” His tone is abashed, loading fruits back in the box and setting it aside. Chan simply pats him on the back in fondness.

“Wait, who’s this?” It’s only now he notices you, standing behind Chan with a few fruits in your arms which you hand to him. “Wait, wait, wait. I know, wait give a second.” He continues.

You can hear a faint chuckle from Chan.

“You’re (Name)! Right? You recently moved here?” The sheepish grin on his face is quickly replaced with a look of interest tangled with excitement, forgetting about his ordeal with the fruits in favor of greeting you.

You wonder if news travels as fast as his expression changes in this little town.

“Woah, easy Ji. You’re gonna scare her.” Jisung takes a step back, suddenly aware of how much personal space he’s taking away from you.

“I’m Jisung, Chan’s super handsome and cool friend.” His enthusiasm makes up for his clumsiness, waving at you before suddenly grabbing a plastic container from a big blue cellophane sitting by the side of the box he had dropped. “Here, my mom’s taking up an interest in baking lately. She’s not very good, but please have it as a welcoming gift from me.”

You take the container from his hands, bowing in thanks before meeting his crinkled eyes. Does this boy ever stop smiling?

“Thank you, really. I’d introduce myself but, it seems… you already know my name.”

His unwavering kindness takes you by surprise, just like everyone else in this village. And you’re about to thank him again when he excuses himself to help who you assume to be his mother, who is grumpily carrying a new batch of her baked concoctions.

“So, the library?” And then it’s Chan’s smile again. This time, he has with him a small box of the oranges he told you he’d deliver. You snap out of your far-away look to follow him through the streets.

It’s a short walk, brisker than you thought, and Chan sets the box down on a wooden table just outside of the public library where a young man waits for him—impatience clear on his face.

“Finally. Took you long enough, old man.” The boy opens the box, grabbing an orange from the pile and inspecting it before letting out a satisfied hum when it seems to have met his criterion.

“What do you even need all these oranges for, anyway?” Chan inquires, looking down at the crouched figure of the boy.

“Oranges have vitamin C, which plays a major role in preventing age-related mental decline.” He states matter-of-factly, standing up from his previous position. “Something you can’t relate to, obviously.”

The older boy doesn’t take anything to heart. Instead, you find the same fondness on his face, the one he wore when Jisung had dropped that box earlier.

“Well, I’ll get going then. Will you be okay here?” Chan looks back at you, a huge question mark of an expression decorating his features to ask if it was alright for him to get back now and leave you there.

The younger boy is long gone now, having retreated back into the library with his oranges.

“Oh, yes, yes, of course, sorry. Thank you again.” You smile, and he continues to wave goodbye until he’s no more than a distant figure.

The building is three stories tall, and you have to walk a flight of stairs to get to the library on the second floor. But it’s quiet, and you liked the change of pace from the vibrancy outside to the sudden tranquility inside.

It provides a safe barrier for when you want to be alone with your thoughts, something you never had in the city.

The inside of the library is cold, but the sun reflects through the panels of the windows just right so that it isn’t freezing. It’s as inviting as it is outside, and you’d go as far as saying the friendliness of the library was similar to that of Chan’s warm welcome for you. It isn’t the biggest room, and its run-down nature was particularly striking, but it isn’t something you mind. The cheap furniture and the slight discoloration of wood gave the place a character of its own—like this library has stood for generations and has protected centuries worth of knowledge from the books it holds.

It reminds you of a scene from Avatar the Last Airbender, when they find a lost library with all the knowledge in the world. And the boy with the obsession for oranges can be Wan Shi Tong, the giant owl spirit who’s tasked with collecting information and protecting the Spirit Library.

The door sounds and the floor beneath you creaks as you walk through the room. Though, it isn’t loud enough to catch the attention of the boy you had seen earlier, or as you liked to call him, Wan Shi Tong. He simply calls out an obligatory “welcome”, before going back to the book he’s reading.

The closer you got to the shelves, the more it smelt of books. It’s a nice addition to the ambiance, the scent of pages roaming around and escaping past the ventilation.

You go through the bookshelves, hand moving along their spines. So many books and every single one you wanted to read, even those in foreign languages.

You like this place, you decide. It’s filled with a quiet that allows breathing space, not simply an absence of noise, but a comforting stillness that isn’t easy to replicate. You might come here more often, make it part of a new routine you’re crafting for yourself.

Back in Seoul, you woke up at 6am like clockwork. You shower, eat when you can, go to work, overtime, and go home. Repeat. It’s to the point of exhaustion that the first time you slept in felt like your body was catching up on all the rest it’s been denied, and now it’s being given a space to breathe.

Reaching the end of the shelves, you’re subjected to the sight of broad shoulders and long black hair, standing still as the figure moves to return some books into their slots. They must work here. Should you inquire about how to make a library card? They already seem way friendlier than Wan Shi Tong.

“Excuse me miss?” They give no sign of having heard you. “Miss?”

When he turns around, you’re thinking of all possible ways to move out at this very instant. The boy, whom you had mistaken for a woman, looks at you with slightly widened eyes as if not having expected you to have spoken to him. While that isn’t reason enough to warrant your sudden thoughts of running away, his beauty surely is.

He’s hypnotizing, a beauty that Aphrodite must’ve blessed upon him, the kind that leaves a lasting impression. You’ll meet him once and never forget about him. His hair falls perfectly just above his shoulders, and a mole sits on his face like it was always designed to be there.

You’re embarrassed—if calling him miss wasn’t enough, you’re unsure if the staring did anything to help. Without another glance, you bow and mutter a quick apology before turning to walk away from where he’s stood.

“I’m sorry.” You say, for extra measure even when your back’s already turned from him.

Wan Shi Tong it is.

“Hello.” You speak quietly, and the boy once again looks up from his book. He looks like he’s studying for something.

“How can I help you?” He doesn’t have that false customer service voice, the one that’s overused and far from genuine. Instead, he speaks to you with a sort of passive tone—but it’s not too much that it sounds condescending.

“How do I make a library card here?”

He puts down his pen. “You need an address in Angok for that.”

“Ah, I do have one.” You smile, a little shy, yet relieved that your sudden intrusion of their village hasn’t spread to the entirety of the population yet.

“Did you move here?” He inquires, to which you nod your head in response. “Hm, alright. Hyunjin will help you make one. I’m Seungmin, by the way.”

“(Name).” You introduce yourself back, thanking him for his help as you turn around to only be greeted by Aphrodite’s son, though, you suppose you now know him as Hyunjin.

You can do this.

Hyunjin quickly makes his way behind the desk on the seat next to Seungmin’s so he can hand you a piece of paper you assume you have to fill out for the library card. Though, he still doesn’t say a word. He only points at the parts you need to fill in before going back to another one of his tasks behind the computer screen.

It’s hard not to look at him, and you’d lie if you said you didn’t feel anything when he looked back at you. Though, the feeling is overpowered by the embarrassment of possibly causing him any form of discomfort. You don’t want it to eat away at you until you’re avoiding the library.

You don’t want to avoid the library.

“By the way…” You start suddenly, keeping your voice down. “I’m sorry again for… earlier.”

Silence greets you, as he panics to grab the tiny camera for your library card. “And thank you for helping me right now.”

You seem to only be digging deeper and deeper into your own grave when he still doesn’t respond to you, simply stares as he bows his head slightly to acknowledge you. And it seems that awkwardness spreads like a virus when Seungmin’s head peeks from his book to witness the funny exchange before him. He looks like he’s trying his best to not laugh at whatever the hell is happening.

Then a shutter sounds as you’re filling up your paperwork, unaware he’d already taken your picture. You can only let out a nervous laugh to try and mask the silence that suddenly feels a little suffocating under the prying eyes of Seungmin.

“Here you go.” You hand over the piece of paper, and Hyunjin gives you a printed out library card in return. “Thank you.”

You suppose you can come back the next day to actually start reading. Meeting four new people and embarrassing yourself on top of everything is a little taxing, and you know the weather outside and the pretty cherry blossom trees will help put your mind away enough that you’ll feel better by tomorrow.

The bell rings as you leave, just as it did when you entered and you find yourself smiling at the breeze and the possibility of new friendships.

You told yourself to live a life you won’t regret.

You can do it.

There is excitement when you think of what will happen from now on. Time is all you have now.

As you walk outside, you map out where Chan had led you earlier to make it back to your rented home. If you were gonna come to the library on most days, you might as well have the path memorized until you can guide yourself there blindfolded.

You feel something fluffy just by your legs before you see it, eyes too focused ahead to only now realize you’re being followed by a long-haired Chihuahua. A chuckle escapes your mouth as you bend down to greet the dog. “Hello there, who are you?”

A bark follows, but not a threatening one.

“Come here.” He follows, little paws jumping up to rest on your bent knees with a wagging tail. Almost immediately, you coo at the sight, supplying him with all the head rubs he could possibly ask for.

“Where did you come from, hm? Why are you all alone?” The pitch of your voice is definitely higher, speaking to the dog with a tone similar to one you’d use when talking to a baby. “So cute.”

“I’ll get going now, okay? Go back home too!”

Four padded steps continue to follow you, and the culprit is exactly who you think it is.

“You can’t follow me around. You have to stay here!” Phony scolding, to try and get the dog to stop following you. You don’t want their owner to worry.

“Hey, stop following!” You laugh, starting to jog away from the chihuahua, but he refuses to listen. Instead, he starts running to keep up with you. “Stop it!”

Turns out, it’s hard to convince a dog to stop following you. Especially when he’s made his way into your own home, walking with you for the entirety of your path. The little dog doesn’t have a tag, no owner to contact, and it’s nearing night that you don’t feel safe letting him sleep outside in the inky dark. So, you invite the dog inside who walks around like he owns the place.

You sigh, though never one of indignation, as you sit down on the couch Chan had lended you, and the chihuahua quickly follows to lay himself on your lap. Curled up. Safe.

“What should I call you? Hm? You’re pretty stubborn.” You look down at the dog who’s looking back at you as if having understood anything that you’re saying. “Berry? No?”

It takes you a couple more tries before deciding on Kkami—when the chihuahua’s tail starts wagging aggressively and he attempts to lick your face at the mention.

“Okay, Kkami then. You like that? Hm?”

Your night routine doesn’t change much, there’s just an addition of a curled up Kkami sleeping beside you on your bed. But, you find that you don’t mind it one bit. It’s less lonely like this, and it’s nice to have some company.

four.

You return to the library’s stillness the next day after finishing up some chores—the laundry, the cleaning, everything. Washing your clothes was something unfamiliar to you, as you’d always just sent them to the laundry services near the place you stayed at. There was never time to do them yourself.

It’s a totally new experience when all you have is time now. You keep burning the food you make, but eat it the same. And hanging up your wet clothes outside took forever, but you manage. You just have to remind yourself there’s a book waiting for you in the public library.

The walk to the library is easier now, but the commotion you’d caused yesterday still echoes in your head. It engraves itself even as you make it to the door, hand hovering over the handle. But, there’s no point in delaying. You’ll be here most days so it’s best not to avoid anyone. So, without another thought, you open the door and step into the quiet of the library.

The bell rings as it always does.

“Welcome,” is what Seungmin says, just as he did yesterday. You greet him back, smiling politely as you make your way to the shelves. The room is almost empty. There’s only one other person in the library, a book with black hair on his own table, and he seems to be in his own world.

Hyunjin is also seated at a table, books and paper plastered on the wooden surface as he repairs torn pages. An uninterrupted routine he’s probably grown accustomed to.

“Hello.” You decide to greet the boy as you pass by the table he’s occupying. His hair is swept back today, and it looked like it smelt good.

His eyes light up when he sees you.

“You’re hello again.” He tilts his body so he can look at you, bowing a little. Though, his words come out croaked, and you’re unsure if you heard him right.

“Sorry?” Hyunjin doesn’t repeat himself. Instead, his face grimaces at how he had failed to utter the phrase he had practiced—hello, you’re here again.

But it isn’t his choice of words that surprises you, it’s that he spoke to you at all. His tone is soft, and completely unexpected after the silence you had received the day before. It’s the first words he ever tells you, and you find yourself smiling at the small progress.

A voice in your head tells you that you want to know him more.

So, after a few days of fleeting eye contact and small smiles from afar, you decide to come back to the library.

The afternoon air outside is beautiful, as it always has been when you walk outside, and there’s a mental checklist you go through in your head. Forgetting is so easy, so you try not to.

Buying Kkami dog food was first on the list of things you have to do on your way home from the library. The little chihuahua doesn’t seem to mind being left behind. In fact, Kkami loved his little space on the couch. Though, you still promise to be back as soon as possible, wanting to walk him outside while the sun is still up.

Hyunjin is seated at the same table as he did when he first talked to you, books and pages neatly plastered again when you walk into the library.

Today, you’ll try your second attempt at talking to him.

“Do you… repair all the books yourself?” You ask, looking down at the multitude of pages he’s tending to and the stack of books waiting to be repaired in a trolley parked at the side of his table.

“Yes.” He smiles upon answering, and it’s one that radiates pride in the work he does.

Your lips quaver slightly, trying to find words to say to him. You wonder if it’d be okay with him if you wanted to help out. The work looks interesting, and a little soothing. Would that make him uncomfortable?

Fiddling with the ends of your shirt, you stab your hesitance straight in the chest. “Can I try too?”

His mouth falls agape, and then he’s nodding his head, gesturing for you to take the seat adjacent to him. Hyunjin grabs an extra spatula, passing it to you before smiling shyly down at the books and pages.

“You take the spatula, and spread the glue evenly.” Hyunjin looks up at you before grabbing a page and his own spatula so you can mimic his gestures. “Then, you place the page at its original location.”

He closes up the book he’s working on, patting down at the spine so the glue sticks well. “That’s it.”

“Oh.” You look at his work with fascination, smiling as he sets the book aside. “You’re kind of like a doctor. It’s like you’re applying medicine to the books.”

He grins at your words, eyes averting from your eye contact as he shyly grins. You know he has pure love for what he does, and it warms your heart. It’s a sentiment you wish you had for your job back then.

“I think…” You fix your gaze to your hands that are propped on the table, intertwining your fingers together. “I’m in love.”

Hyunjin’s inability to look you in the eyes seems to falter the moment you speak. His mouth falls back into an ‘o’, and the tip of his ears are awfully red.

“Wait, sorry. What I mean is… I think I’m in love with the process of fixing up old things.” With slightly widened eyes, you gesture at the book he had just fixed cartoonishly, chewing on your lips a little embarrassedly.

The boy in front of you nods, fingers pausing over his task; you turn to look at him, and you’re relieved to see his smile returning.

“I see.” He chuckles, grabbing onto the pages that still need to be glued and grouping them together, tapping them lightly on the table so they align.

“Let me help you.” You reach out to the remaining pages, and Hyunjin looks at you with an expression you don’t quite recognize, but you know has no ill-intent. He always looks this way. Always natural, never forced.

As you quietly work on the task, Hyunjin can’t stop himself from looking at you from time to time. He thinks it’s to monitor your work, but does that excuse the way he stares at the small smile tugging on your lips?

“Has anyone told you how you resemble Aphrodite?”

“Me?” He asks, eyes darting you and the book he’s working on. You grin at him, nodding your head.

“Yes. Goddess of Beauty in Greek Mythology. You know her, right?”

“I do.” He smiles back easily, willing the blush that’s obviously creeping on his cheeks away.

“When I first met you, that character came to mind.” You mumble as you stare at the page in your hands, furrowing your eyebrows as you try to match it to its proper book. You pause, catching yourself before you can misplace the page, and Hyunjin looks up at the sudden silence.

“Which one was this again?” Sheepish. You think you’ve embarrassed yourself more times than not in this library.

You don’t notice Hyunjin leaving his seat, sauntering over to where you’re seated so he can peer at the page and at the books in front of you. “May I?”

His tone is kind, and it didn’t seem as if he were upset that you didn’t know where to put the page. On the contrary, he made you feel as if it was okay that you didn’t know. Quick to reassure.

“I don’t memorize all of these either. I only remember the names and places in the books, and I like drawing to keep an image of them in my head too.” He’s arranging the pages now, putting the corresponding paper atop the book they belong to. “Why don’t you try this one?” The way he says it is so full of expectation, leaning down to hand you a page and you can only smile up at him.

“I’ll give it a try.” You sputter out for words to say, taking the page from him gratefully.

Seungmin watches from a distance, lifting an eyebrow in curiosity as he observes his usually quiet friend speak more words than usual. Though, the observation makes his heartstrings contract.

It goes on like this for a while, silence engulfing the pair of you as you work to repair the books together. Hyunjin showed no signs of you being a bother to him, even reaching out to help most of the time—appreciative of your time. No sound follows, just the beating of your hearts and the rustling of paper.

Until a loud bang rumbles in the sky, interrupting the four of you in the room (even the freckled boy at the corner table who is at the library again today).

Your reaction is instantaneous, jumping back in surprise at the sudden interruption of silence, but a smile replaces the initial shock when you see the gentle pitter patter of rain from the windows.

Hyunjin slips himself out of his seat, rushing to close them so the books don’t get wet as Seungmin goes to help, all while you stare at the drizzle.

You’re reminded of the last day you stepped foot in the city.

“Oh!” You suddenly exclaim when the sound of the rain increases in volume. The burst of rain as the sky splits open reminds you of your laundry and how the initial heat they absorbed must’ve been washed off by the rain.

“I have to go.” You quickly excuse yourself from the boy who has just returned from closing the windows, smiling for the last time before rushing down the stairs to start heading home. Though, you falter in your step. You don’t have an umbrella with you. Should you just make a run for it? You think the jacket you’re wearing can help at least a little bit.

You sigh, about to step into the rain when a hand reaches for your shoulder. Warm and gentle, almost feather-like even. You spin around, only to be met with Hyunjin’s goddess-like features.

“Hyunjin?”

He clears his throat, pulling out his umbrella before handing it to you. “Use this. You’ll get sick.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I can just use my jacket!” Hyunjin doesn’t seem to budge at your rejection, simply smiling as he places the umbrella in your grasp.

“I think an umbrella will do a better job than your jacket.” You laugh a little, not knowing he was capable of teasing. It was cute. He was cute.

“Thank you! I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.” You don’t know why your heart is thumping so fast at the small gesture, but you reason it’s because you’re worried about your laundry. Though, a voice in your head is telling you that’s not quite the answer.

He disappears back into the library, and you shield yourself with his umbrella as you sprint back home to tend to your now wet clothes. The rain smelt acidic as you put away your clothes, setting them aside as the sun seems still so far away in the distance. You’ll hang them back outside when the heat returns.

“Did the thunder scare you?” You pick up Kkami in your arms, cradling him as you try to shield him away from the sudden loudness of thunder and lightning. “I’m sorry I couldn’t walk you out in the sun today.”

The rain is louder in your house, and it’s only when your own stomach grumbles do you remember you were supposed to buy Kkami dog food on your way back home.

Forgetting is so easy.

“I’ll go buy you some food, okay? You must be starving.” You rub the back of his ears, setting him down on the couch before grabbing the umbrella Hyunjin had lent you once again. Though, thankfully, the downpour stops just as quickly as it had started. You’re already inside the family-run convenience store near you when the sky clears out and the sun starts to peek behind the clouds again.

“What can I get you?” You turn to find a shorter man emerge from the back of the store, warm smile etched on his face as he pads his way to where you’re standing.

“I hope the rain wasn’t too hard on you.” He continues. His tone is kind as he waits for you to reply.

“Ah, it was okay.” Though initially caught off guard at the sudden presence, you return the smile gently. “I was wondering if you had any dog food?”

“We do!” He heads to a corner, and the way he grabs the bag of dog food punctuates his arms that you can only now see how big they are. His jawline is sharp too, noticing it the moment he turns that his side profile is visible to you.

He leans down to scoop up the bag in his arms, before heading back to you. “You’re the one who recently moved here, right?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” You hand him your payment before taking the bag in your arms, hugging it so the weight isn’t as heavy.

“Chan mentioned. I’m Changbin.” Changbin takes your payment, returning to you the change. “I hope we can be good friends.”

“(Name). It’s nice to meet you. I’ll… get going now!” You motion at the dog food in your hands, to tell him you still had a pup to feed at home before waving goodbye as you hurry back to your house.

There’s almost no rain now, the only sign that it had even drizzled was the acidic smell, the puddles that had formed on the concrete overtime, and the gentle trickle of water from one leaf onto the next.

Kkami is waiting for you at home. No one used to wait for you before.

five.

You come back to the library the next day, just like you said you would. This time, Kkami walks with you to make up for not being able to take him out under the sun yesterday. Though, you don’t expect the handwritten “temporarily closed” sign to be the first thing that greets you as you head for the door.

You place Hyunjin’s umbrella just by the handle, almost in an awkward manner as you continue to peer at the piece of paper taped on the door.

“They both went to Seoul for Seungmin’s test.” A voice behind you averts your attention to the same freckled boy from yesterday.

“Ohh…” You respond, nodding your head in understanding as you walk over to where he’s seated just outside the public library. “I was just gonna return Hyunjin’s umbrella.”

Felix seems surprised, but it only triggers his smile to grow wider than it already is.

“I’m Felix.” You blink slowly, shaking his hand when he stretches it out for you to take. When your hand meets his, he pulls you down to sit next to him. “And who’s this little boy?”

“This is Kkami.”

Felix is a nice guy, pulling Kkami up to cradle him in his arms. The first thing that catches your attention is his freckles—like constellations in the night, littering his face like stars do the sky. You love the stars, though, you don’t see much of them in the city because of the polluted air and the abundance of lights from the buildings that line up.

The boy resembles the very comfort you find in the cluster of stars, a calming quality in him as he smiles down at your dog.

But, just as much as he resembles the stars, he smiles like the sun. Perhaps it's the way his eyes form crescents and the way his lips curve that trigger the sight of the sun. But he’s blinding in the most calming way possible.

“Do you have somewhere else you need to be?” He asks, shots of espresso in the way he speaks. Deep and reverberating. How fitting the way his voice wakes you up like the sun.

“I think I’m just gonna walk Kkami around.”

“Do you mind if I walk with you a bit?” Felix puts your dog down, tilting his head to look at you that radiates so much friendliness. “I don’t really know what to do with the library closed.”

He offers like he’s already your friend.

You knew it was an exaggeration to call him a friend right away, but for you it was just that. Especially when he walks by your side, laughing and talking to you as if he’d known you forever.

“You know, it’s nice to hear Hyunjin talk more.” His lips curl into a lovely smile as he continues to accompany you and Kkami in your walk.

“What do you mean?” You ask, eyes trailing down to Kkami who’s padding ahead of the two of you.

“He doesn’t do too well with strangers, doesn’t even talk a lot with me. I think he’s only ever truly warmed up to Seungmin, so it’s nice to just hear him more.”

You blink in surprise at his words before lifting your hand to where it was staring at Kkami in favor of looking at Felix instead.

“Oh.” You don’t know what to say or how to respond to the sudden revelation he’s laying down on you, and he throws his head back in laughter at your speechlessness.

“Don’t worry, I just felt the need to tell you. You don’t have to say anything.”

It goes on like this more—Felix initiating conversation and talking about almost everything until he has to go home. You end your walk with an exchange of numbers and a promise of ice cream the next time you come to the library together.

When you get home, it’s already 6pm. Kkami falls asleep almost right away, and you’re left to do the little chores you have left for the day. You wonder what you’ll have for dinner.

You’re in the middle of preparing a meal when your phone buzzes where you left it.

Ring, ring.

Your brother never calls anymore. So when you receive a call, you weren’t expecting to find his caller ID on the screen. You thought it was gonna be Felix who forgot to tell you something.

“Hello?” You’re the one who speaks first.

You're a ball of nerves wondering why he’s calling you right now.

“Hey (Name). Are you doing okay?”

“Hey, is something wrong?”

“Hm? Can’t an older brother call his sister to check on her?” There’s a scuffle in the background of his end.

“You never call.” You say quietly, picking at the ends of your shirt as you stare at nothing in particular.

“Oh, hah. Well, the thing is… can you lend us some money? You can sell the ring mom gave you. Itt’s just… our son, all his friends are studying abroad every vacation, but he never went.”

Your brother sounds shameless in his request, as if your mother hadn’t given him everything when she passed. All you have left of her are pictures in your head and the ring she had gifted you. You’ve never worn it, but you kept her going-away present. It’s the only thing you have left of her, and it hurts that your brother even thought of selling it just so his son could go on a trip abroad.

This ring meant something to you. Something more than a trip to him.

“Is this your wife’s idea? Does she want me to sell the ring mom gave me?”

“That’s not it.” He sighs exasperatedly, and you know he’s running a hand down his face at how this conversation is going. “Don’t you feel bad that your nephew is losing confidence because he’s never been abroad before?”

“Hey…” A lump forms in your throat, the familiar hands of pain wrapping around your neck to strangle you into tears. “Do you even… know how I’m living right now?”

Your voice cracks, choking on your own words to know that your brother only calls when he needs something. He doesn’t care. He never has. A sob is brewing in your throat.

“I do! But…” He’s getting defensive now, voice raising so he can try to get his non-existent point across. “My family is short on money right now.”

Family. The word is unfamiliar. It left you the moment your mother passed, replacing itself with loneliness. With emptiness. The unfamiliarity makes your face scrunch in the way it does before a hideous sob leaves your mouth, but you will yourself to get yourself together. Just for another minute, while you’re still on the call with him.

“Am I not family?” You mumble almost incoherently.

You don’t think you can handle talking to him any longer, not when he treats you like a bank account he can solicit money from anytime. Not when the first call you receive from him in years is that of asking you to sell your mother’s ring, not even to ask if you were alright, how you were doing.

The strangers in Angok treat you far better than your own brother.

You hang up before he can say anything else.

He has already caused you unbearable pain, and the reminder of how alone you’ve been. You want the pain to go away, you’ve worked too hard only to let it come back in full force. And there is only one way you know that can take it all away, even just temporarily.

It’s how you find yourself at Minho’s small restaurant, two bottles of Soju empty, and a disoriented haze of the place around you.

Minho doesn’t make it a habit to stick his nose in anyone’s business, but when your wobbly legs attempt to grab a third bottle of Soju, he’s hurrying by your table to stop you. “I’ve just made up a non-existent rule that you can only have two bottles.”

He takes it away from you, and you immediately pout when he does, a whine brewing in your throat. You try to imitate the way Puss in Boots looks, when he widens his eyes to get what he wants, but to Minho—you just look absolutely ridiculous.

“I’ve never heard of that rule before.” You mumble dejectedly, staring at the Soju bottle that Minho’s whisking away and putting back.

“It exists now because you’re piss drunk, and I don’t know how you’ll be getting home.” He says, tone softer than it was when you had first walked in ordering your first bottle, as if not wanting to startle you.

“I’m not drunk!” You blink rapidly, abruptly getting up to which Minho sits you back down so you don’t topple over your own clumsy feet. He mumbles something about getting you water.

“Everything just looks funny right now.” Your words come out in a slur as you look at your surroundings with a curious eye. “But I’m not drunk.”

When he returns, you have your head rested on the table, cheek mushed against the surface as your eyes droop a little in sleepiness. Though, there’s an addition of someone new in his shop. Hyunjin looks at you confused, before he fixes his gaze on Minho as if asking him why you were moping around at one of his tables.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t even know who this is.” Minho says in mock surrender, though, it doesn’t take long before his features mimic that of a Cheshire Cat. “You’ll take her home safely, right?”

Minho quickly ushers the pair of you out, waking you up and pushing you in the direction of Hyunjin who holds out his arms in case your feet decide not to cooperate with you. He needs to close his shop.

“Are you okay?” His arms are still hovering around you, not quite touching you, but prepared to if you ever fall forward.

“Hyunjin? How did you come to find me from so far away?” Your eyebrows furrow together as you stare at the boy beside you, as if there was no way he was real and with you right now.

“I’ll walk you home, okay?”

“I’m a bit drunk. I’m a little bit drunk right now.” You mumble, head still hazy as your eyes blink blearily, feeling the need to inform him. Your legs feel extra wobbly.

“Right. Are you okay?” He pulls you back to his side when you stumble a little too far away, soft tone never changing. He looks at your puffy eyes in curiosity, frowning as he thinks of all the possibilities as to why you had been crying.

“Goodness.” You exclaim in your half-conscious state when you almost trip on something, immediately reaching to what’s nearest to you—Hyunjin’s arm.

“Hyunjinnieee…” You start to sway where you’re walking, clearing your throat as Hyunjin is left predicting what your next move is going to be (on top of wondering why your eyes are red and stingy).

Though, he most definitely doesn’t expect you to start singing.

“Why do you appear before my eyes whenever I’m drunk?” It’s loud, uncharacteristic of the you he’s met, and your arms are flailing around as if to act like a conductor in your own orchestra of sounds.

“You’re going home now, okay?” Your smile is loopy as you nod at his words, continuing to sing the same one line over and over again while skipping in your step.

Hyunjin is attentive to where you’re walking, scooping up a potted plant and setting it aside when you’re about to walk into it. “Careful.”

You tell him all sorts of stories as you head home—how you fell in love with the library, how you never thought you’d own a dog, how you’re glad you’re far away from the city.

He listens. To every single one of your stories, all while making sure you get home safely. He looks both sides before crossing the street, hand outstretched to an incoming car to slow it down as you carelessly walk across without so much as a glance.

“Hyunjin.” You suddenly stop in your tracks.

“Hm?” Hyunjin ushers you to keep moving, hand hovering on the small of your back as you start giggling in your dazed state.

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”

“Okay.”

“Is it okay if I ask right now?”

“Sure.” He replies, arms dropping back to his sides.

“Do you think you can like me? I don’t think anyone likes me.”

A silence settles between the two of you right after you get the question out. Hyunjin pauses in his actions, staring at you as you keep marching forward to where you live.

He allows himself to ponder over your sudden question. He couldn’t quite explain how he felt about you, but he knows it’s good. He has surprised himself time and time again for willingly continuing conversation with a stranger, but Seungmin has stressed it was good for him.

You emit a type of radiance, one of comfort. Maybe it was the way you smile at him, so softly when people look at him strangely for not being able to speak to them right away. He has only spoken to you once, but he knows he wants to talk to you more.

He wants to get to know you more.

He gives you a fond smile as he catches up with you once more. Hyunjin doesn’t know the connotation behind your question, and he doesn’t know what premise his answer falls under either.

Still, he says, “I already do.”

“Oh, we’re here!” You yell out and immediately quiet down when you realize everyone around you must be asleep right now. “Sorry.” Now in a whisper as you look around sheepishly.

“Can you get in safely?” He questions, worry still eminent in the way he speaks, even as you nod your head to answer his question.

“Don’t worry about me. Bye bye!” When you slip into your home, you immediately fall face first on your mattress and fall asleep. Drinking can be so draining when the world around you spins.

You don’t think about the splitting headache waiting for you the next day.

six.

You're fucked.

This much is clear as you finally finish vomiting in your toilet, images from the night before flashing in your mind— the giggling, the stumbling, and poor Hyunjin. You can still hear his voice in your head, telling you to get in safely. You can still feel the way his hand hovered over your back to make sure you don’t fall over.

Well, shit. This is way beyond anything you’ve ever done, moving up to the number one spot of the list you liked to label ‘embarrassment’. Calling Hyunjin miss and forgetting which pages go to which book moves down a spot at the sudden entry of your drunk ass.

“Kkami, what do I do?” You groan, head falling back against the wall of your bathroom as you stare at the ceiling. Will a letter of apology suffice for the way he had to take you home last night despite his exhaustion of driving to the city?

“This is so embarrassing.” Kkami consoles you by curling up by your side, paw resting on your thigh before his whole head drops to lay atop your leg.

Hyunjin is so pretty too. He’s enchanting in the way he speaks, and the way his eyes sparkle naturally when he does the things he loves. He’s unstinting with his kindness too, never losing patience even as you took a long time to repair the books you had offered to help with. You don’t even know if you helped much, but he never made a move to stop you even as time passed and you were making little progress.

It’s easy to fall into your embarrassment, which is how you find yourself with a notebook in hand, thinking of how the hell you were going to apologize to him. You don’t think you have it in you to go up to him face-to-face and have to recall the events of the night.

You might as well write something.

“About what happened last night…” You look at your notebook with critical eyes, immediately scratching it out to think of a better way to start your note.

“I’m sorry, Hyunjin. I don’t know how to say this.”

The second candidate is just as bad as the first one.

With your chin on the palm of your hands, you rack your brain for every possible way to say sorry. It’s not like apologizing was anything new to you, it’s even become a habit in your work life for the past few years. Always doing something wrong. Always apologizing. Even if it was never your fault to begin with. Though, this time, you want it to be genuine. You don’t want to imitate the phony way you’ve said sorry before.

Your eyes are glazed as you stare at the piece of paper.

Hyunjin has a routine fixed, so you make it a point to reach the library at noon when he’s busy pushing a trolley full of books to return them to where they belong on the bookshelves. He only hears the bell ring when you walk into the library, like you always do.

Peering over the shelves, he finds himself smiling to himself when you wander inside the library. He peels his gaze away for a few seconds to return a few books to their spots, though, apparently that’s also the time it takes for him to hear the bell ringing again, to indicate that you had left just as quickly as you had walked in.

Tilting his head, Hyunjin backs away from his work to check his desk where a small note sits.

“I’m sorry…” with a small drawing underneath.

It looks like the work of a child, but Hyunjin could tell instantly that it was a portrait of you and him from the night before. It prompts a smile on his face, eyes flicking from the note to the door. He keeps the piece of paper in his drawer to think about later.

Hyunjin has never had the courage to strike while the iron was hot, but he finds himself walking out the public library in hopes of catching you before you’ve left.

He finds you seated on the bench outside, eyes trained on the screen of your phone with your legs outstretched.

“Excuse me.”

You almost drop your phone when you hear him, immediately standing up to greet him. He looks good, as he always does. His complexion shines even prettier under the sun. The natural lighting highlights his hair in that it looks more dark brown than black. And his smile. It’s a little less shy now, and more open.

“Thank you for the note… and the drawing.”

He sounds like an angel too. You’ve always found his voice pretty, in a different way from Felix’s deep ocean voice. His was gentle, soft, and way nicer than you remember it being.

You try to think of the right words to say, sputtering over whether you should bring back what had happened last night or simply accept his thanks.

Taking a deep breath, you nod your head. “You’re welcome.”

Hyunjin has his hands clasped together in front of him as you speak, rocking himself back and forth on the heel and soles of his feet.

“You must’ve come in safely, then.” You laugh a little at what he says, and it only makes his smile brighter.

“Yeah. I’m sorry again.” It makes you cringe when you think of your behavior, but Hyunjin doesn’t seem to mind at all when he puts his hand up as a motion for you to stop apologizing.

“Not at all. I’m just glad to know you’re okay.”

The statement has your cheeks warming up, staring at him and the bag of ice cream you had initially brought for you and Felix. He had texted you earlier saying he couldn’t make it, and promised that he’d be the one to buy the ice cream next time.

Ice cream can be a good peace offering.

Grabbing the bag, you lift it up and smile coyly at the boy. “Do you want some ice cream?”

Hyunjin’s eyes form into crescents at your offer, lips curling up into an easy smile as he makes his way to sit adjacent to you. It feels nice like this, sitting outside in the breeze with only the two of you as you hand him the ice cream flavor of his liking, the tree just behind you doing a great job at shielding you enough that the sun’s heat isn’t too hot, but is still there.

“You know, I prefer cone ice creams over popsicles.” You mention suddenly, looking down at your cone and peering at the popsicle he had chosen for himself. He hums at the information, eyes softening when you ask him the same thing, like his opinions matter to you. Like you want to get to know him too. “What about you?”

“I’m not a big…” He catches himself before he can continue. Hyunjin isn’t the biggest fan of ice cream, but he finds himself unable to reject your offer. It’s an opportunity to sit in this moment with you.

He’d eat ice cream over and over again if it meant being able to stay in this moment.

“Well, ice cream does taste good, but the apple flavor…” He finds that he has a hard time answering your question, pausing to ponder over his words. It has you giggling. He looks cute thinking his options over.

“You don’t have to answer me.”

“But this one is good.” He lifts the popsicle in his hand, taking a bite out of it to show that he was being truthful with his words.

You laugh this time.

“You know, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing when I first got here. But, I found myself falling in love with the library.” Hyunjin looks at you when you speak, unlike his previous inability to maintain eye contact with you.

“You’ve actually told me that already.”

You tilt your head in confusion. “I have? When?”

“Back then.” He’s gesturing something with his hands, and you continue to stare at him to try and decipher what he was acting out. Though, it’s pretty quick to figure out once he pretends to drink out of a shot glass, and your eyes widen at the realization of when he was referring to.

“Back then?” You repeat, and he chuckles at the way you roll your head back in embarrassment.

He hums in confirmation.

“What else did I say? When I… you know…” You trail off, looking at him for answers, but not quite wanting to repeat the words. He takes the hint well.

He laughs, before shaking his head. “It wasn’t so much talking, but rather singing.”

“I sang?” You stare at him dumbfounded as you try and recall what exactly happened. “I actually sang?” You laugh out loud this time, and you fail to notice the way his entire face lights up at the sound.

“What did I sing?” You look shocked and confused, yet there’s a smile of amusement on your features when Hyunjin actually starts singing the melody you had the night before.

“Why…” He clears his throat. “Why do you appear before my eyes whenever I’m drunk?”

“Wait, stop! Oh my god. Please stop.” You reach forward, resting a hand on the table and leaning forward to get him to stop singing.

“Can you please forget about that entire night?” You bring your hands together almost begging, and he can only laugh in amusement at the way you’re reacting.

“I don’t really think about it that often—“

“You even sang the song!” You interrupt.

“That’s because you asked.” He lifts a hand to scratch at the nape of his neck, bashfully smiling.

“This is so embarrassing.” You hang your head, a wince of an apology soliciting itself from your throat as you swing your feet back and forth to physically cringe at yourself.

Seungmin arrives at that very moment, his own complaints spilling out and drowning yours out. He pauses when he finds Hyunjin outside with you, squinting his eyes suspiciously before letting it go in favor of complaining once again.

“They’re so annoying! They think they’re so high and mighty.” He drops at the seat next to Hyunjin, and you offer him the only ice cream you have left in your bag. You have no idea what he’s talking about, but it seems Hyunjin knows all about it.

“They won’t do it?” Hyunjin asks, and Seungmin all but sighs as he starts peeling the wrapper off the ice cream.

“I mean, I guess it’s not easy to come down here to listen to old people talk.” Seungmin takes an annoyed bite, throwing his head back. “They might make me write the article, too. And I have to do it tomorrow. Can’t someone else do it?”

An idea forms in his head.

Hyunjin looks at you gingerly, and Seungmin visibly perks up when he follows the boy’s line of sight. You clear your throat, suddenly breaking eye contact and looking anywhere but the two boys.

“Will you please do it?” He grins wickedly, whole body tilted to face you as he reaches out to grab your attention.

“Well, you see…” You mumble. “I only proofread when I was working at a publishing company.” You point out sheepishly between each bite at your ice cream, doing your best to not look at Seungmin.

“The fact that you proofread means you’re familiar with writing.”

"Still…” You trail off with your words, not knowing how to defend yourself any further when Seungmin is clasping his hands and begging you to help them do the work. “I’m just not very confident.”

“(Name).” Hyunjin calls, and you look at him in hopes that he has a plan in mind to save you from Seungmin’s request.

“Why do you appear before my eyes…”

Your mouth drops at his words.

“What did you say?” Seungmin questions, and you look back at the boy to subtly shake your head, as if trying to get him to stop. Instead, he smiles a little mischievously.

“Whenever I’m…” You wince, immediately putting a hand up to stop him. Fortunately for Hyunjin, you’ve been begging him to forget about the night before, so you feel as though you owe him something.

With your head hung lightly and a look of defeat on your face, you finally agree to Seungmin’s request.

seven.

When you arrive, Hyunjin is already waiting for you with a camera slung around his neck. He looks so pretty with his hair falling messily over his shoulder. He’s wearing a white shirt and some jeans, though, what catches your eye the most is the huge knitted sweater he’s wearing.

“Hello, good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon.”

You fail to notice his own reaction, too busy admiring his beauty to realize he’s doing the same. Opposite you, Hyunjin’s jaw-dropping reaction to what you’re wearing is staring at your face with a small smile playing on his lips. He’s fiddling with his camera now, eyes traveling from the clip you’re wearing on your hair to the cherry lip balm you’d applied just before leaving.

What colors was he using painting you in his head? Pastel hues with a tinge of vibrancy.

“Shall we go then?” Suddenly, he can’t look at you, eyes trained just behind you as he asks.

“Okay.”

It doesn’t feel like a far walk with Hyunjin next to you. In fact, it barely takes 15 minutes before you reach the house of the person you’re supposed to be interviewing.

The outside of her home is beautiful, and an older woman you don’t recognize greets you and helps you both inside. Her home is surrounded by a wide expanse of grass, the view of the sea beautiful from a distance. The house itself is built with wood, and the row of vegetable plants lining up behind the low-standing table outside provides a breath of fresh air.

“Good afternoon. We’re here for an interview.” You inform politely, and she nods her head as if finally remembering why she’s letting two strangers into her home.

“Sit down, sit down.” Her tone is welcoming as she urges you to sit down, allowing Hyunjin to set up the camera on the camera stand he brought with him. Never imposing as she asks if you need anything else.

“You’re dressed so nicely.” You smile, the full view of her garden behind her accentuating her features. You’re sure she was quite the heartbreaker when she was younger.

“Just relax, and imagine you’re having a chat with your daughter.”

The interview goes smoothly. You ask her of things big and small—her age, her family, her history with Angok, anything you can think of. Seungmin didn’t give you any specifics to ask, just that you would write about her life. In this way, you’d be getting to know her.

She speaks of her children and grandchildren with so much love, that it almost makes you envious that you don’t have a grandmother figure to lean on. You’re all you really have left.

When you look over at Hyunjin, he gives you a toothless grin, as if to assure you you’re doing a great job. It lasts around an hour, and you’re just about ready to go home when she stops you and Hyunjin from fixing up.

“Oh, goodness.” She doesn’t need to ask for Hyunjin to hurry his way to her, grabbing the huge platter of food she grabbed from inside her house, settling it where you had sat earlier.

“I had no idea it was time for food. You guys must be hungry. Come on, let’s eat.”

“Thank you for the food.” You both say, and she only smiles as she admires the young couple in front of her.

The food is cooked with care, having just the right amount of seasoning. There’s a variety of vegetables which you assume to have been freshly picked from the garden she has. Hyunjin seems to mirror your thoughts, immediately praising her for the food.

“The food is delicious.”

“Really?” She finds pleasure in the way you’re enjoying your food. Perhaps, she was trying to catch a glimpse of her children in the two of you.

“Are you two married?” You and Hyunjin pause from eating, staring at each other before looking back at the older woman.

“No, we’re not.” You answer for him, laughing a little at the accusation she had just made. “We’re not married.”

“Oh, too bad. You guys would make a great couple if you were to marry.” She says light-heartedly, staring directly at the boy who’s refusing to make any eye contact at the sudden topic change. Hyunjin nearly chokes on the lettuce he’s eating, coughing a little as he mutters a string of apologies. She only smiles knowingly, offering up some water to the poor boy.

He swallows down his food, putting on a cordial smile directed at the old woman.

The rest of the time plays out without any more questions as to what the relationship is between the two of you, which Hyunjin is more than grateful for. He’s afraid of tripping over his own feet when you’re mentioned as his girlfriend one more time, as if choking on his food wasn’t enough already.

At some point, while you’d been talking, the sun had started to set which prompts the older woman to send in a flurry of farewells as she ushers the pair of you to get home safely.

Looking at you now, while the orange hues of the sun falls on your face, Hyunjin concludes that he feels something for you, evident in the way his heart starts beating a little faster and his palms start to sweat when you’re around. The awkward atmosphere between the two of you is long gone, and he finds himself hearing the gentle undertone of your voice in his head before he falls asleep.

He’s even more floored after today, after having seen first hand how you treat people with so much kindness—even Seungmin, who’s the number one enemy on everyone’s list in this small village. He admires the way you smile at strangers, and your eloquence in conversations even with the little words you say.

It’s only been a while of knowing you, yet he finds himself thinking about you all the time. From the first day you met that muggy afternoon, to how you helped him with repairing the books, even that drunken night where you had sang for him, and the morning after when you shared ice cream with him. He finds himself repeating these moments with you over and over in his head, like sifted sand, until they’re properly engraved in his mind.

“You know… all I really did today was listen to her stories, but my heart feels at ease because of it.”

Hyunjin looks at you as you walk side by side each other, the sunset’s glow falling on everything around you.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

When the wind blows, leaves from the trees lined up near you float around you. From time to time, you’d hear the crunch of crushed leaves as you step on them. All the while, Hyunjin is walking close to you, watching you and listening to you.

“Thank you for working with me on this.” Hyunjin suddenly says, words softer than expected as he locks eyes with you. He wants you to know he’s genuine in his gratitude.

“I hope you’ll like my writing once you get to read it.” You smile nervously, keeping eye contact with him, and you don’t know how pivotal this moment is for the boy. How your kindness is pulling him deeper and deeper into you, everything about you—your sweet smile and your bright eyes.

“I will.”

Talking to you feels easy and natural.

“You will?” A small smile creeps onto your face at his response, and he nods his head in confirmation.

Silence passes.

“I hope we can keep working on this together.” Hyunjin surprises himself with how straightforward he can be with you, with how easy it is to tell you he wants to keep spending time with you.

“If you buy me dinner tomorrow, I’ll think about it.”

The whole world stops in this pocket of time. While everyone goes about their evening, Hyunjin is stuck on your words. Your eyes glisten with a certain type of glow no one can replicate, and he thinks he’ll always remember your face right now, smiling fondly at him, lit by the setting sun.

“Okay. Dinner tomorrow.”

Heat continuously rises to his face the more you look at him, but Hyunjin supposes he can blame it on the sun for now.

eight.

It is exactly 6:36 in the evening when you meet Hyunjin at the library to grab dinner with him.

When the bell rings, he can’t help the smile on his face when he realizes it’s you that’s walking into the library. He never used to smile this much before. But it can’t be helped, not when it’s you.

“Hello.” He’s the one who speaks first.

“Hi.” You reply, mimicking the smile on his face. His eyes are glossy when you meet them.

“Shall we go to dinner?” He lets out a small breath, hovering just in front of you.

Hyunjin looks like a bundle of nerves. You don’t know that, in his head, this feels akin to a first date. One he hasn’t gone on in a long time. So, on the outside, he’s perfectly composed, eyes dropping on the wooden ground. On the inside, however, he’s sweating and twisting and turning and screaming that he’s about to have dinner with you.

“What? Are you buying dinner?” Seungmin’s nosy ears perks up at the mention of dinner, immediately moving from his place behind the desk to join the two of you. “I was just starting to get hungry. Come on, let’s go.”

While Hyunjin wants to be upset at the sudden third wheeling of Kim Seungmin, he finds that he isn’t.

As funny as it sounds, he’s kind of grateful for the sudden interruption. He’s too afraid that if you were to have dinner together, alone, and his fried brain was convincing him it was a first date—his feelings would become too real. He knows he likes you, but he doesn’t want to act on it too soon. He doesn’t want to scare you off, doesn’t want to scare himself off.

Hyunjin has way too much of a feeble heart, that even walking beside you right now, with your hands slightly brushing against the other, he can already hear his heart beating in his ears.

He has always thought of himself as patient, so he doesn’t understand why there’s a growing irritation at the back of his head for the inability to hold your hand in his. It’s even more confusing as he knows he’s never been the type to crave for skinship, never eager for physical touch. So, what’s changed?

“Yah, Lee Minho!” Seungmin’s voice is loud as he walks into the restaurant, though, a much younger boy greets him.

“Innie, where’s Minho?” Jeongin gestures at the kitchen, immediately setting off to find the older boy at the request of Seungmin.

You hide behind Hyunjin the moment Minho appears from the kitchen. You’re sure the memories from that night are still fresh in his mind, and he’d been the first to witness your drunken, hazy state. When he sees you, his lips tug into a lazy smirk, but he chooses not to say anything.

“We went to interview that old lady yesterday.” Hyunjin feels the need to inform Seungmin who’s smiling, pleased with his ability to coerce you into helping them out.

Everyone finally settles down into their seats, Hyunjin cooking the meat silently as conversation starts. Jeongin joins you not long after, asking if it was alright. Your food sizzles behind the chatter around your table.

“What interview?” Jeongin asks.

“A writer didn’t show up, so (Name) did the interview instead.” Seungmin informs the table, and Jeongin nods in pretense of understanding the situation.

“How did you know how to do that? Where did you work in Seoul?” Minho’s the one to ask this time as he refills your meat, setting down a plate of raw pork just by Hyunjin’s arm.

“She worked at a publishing company.” Seungmin says with a mouth full of food.

“I see. Then you must’ve had a lot of boyfriends.”

You tilt your head at Jeongin’s sudden proposition, like he’s trying to fit two completely different puzzle pieces. There’s absolutely no correlation between working at a publishing company and having multiple boyfriends. It seems Seungmin is wondering the same thing, cogs turning in his brain at Jeongin’s stupid question.

“How are those two related?” He deadpans.

“I’ve always found well-read girls charming and attractive.” Jeongin simply shrugs, shoving down another piece of cut-up meat in his mouth before chewing. “So, do you have a boyfriend?”

You fail to notice the way Hyunjin suddenly leans closer to the table, suddenly finding interest in the topic when he had been absent for most of the conversation.

“Oh, I used to have one. But we broke up.” You laugh a little nervously, quietly thanking Hyunjin who sets a few cooked pieces of pork on your plate so you don’t run out while eating.

“Why? How long did it last?”

Jeongin and Seungmin seem to have a lot of questions, and you can see Hyunjin sending them a side eye from your peripheral vision at their rather invasive question.

“Quite a long—“

Hyunjin concludes he doesn’t need to know anything about your ex-boyfriend. He smoothly interrupts the conversation by stuffing food in Seungmin’s mouth. “This is about to burn, you should eat it.”

He glares at the boy viciously, but even the scowl on Seungmin’s face couldn't crack Hyunjin’s persistence in cutting the conversation short. He doesn’t know if it's jealousy, never having felt it before, but he knows he doesn’t want the image of you kissing another boy imprinted in his mind.

Thankfully, Jeongin moves on to another topic, speaking about how he’s in the last year of college and how much he hates it. All the while, you and Hyunjin share small smiles from across the table.

You both let Jeongin and Seungmin carry the conversation. You were never good at keeping the flow of one going anyways. So, instead, you play the listening role. The one you’ve always been good at.

Throughout dinner, Hyunjin does little things for you. He refills your empty glass of water, he puts meat on your plate so you don’t run out, and he constantly checks up on you—to see whether you were overwhelmed with the loudness of the two boys.

He does so by looking at you with an endearing smile, light dimples on his cheeks as he chuckles when you smile back at him. It’s a quiet conversation between the two of you, even if it’s just communication between smiles. Hyunjin is like a breath of fresh air from the crackling volume surrounding you.

He offers to walk you home after the four of you finish up with dinner, telling you that he couldn’t allow himself to simply let you walk alone in the dark. You respond with the crinkling of your eyes and a soft ‘thank you’.

Being with Hyunjin, alone, is quite possibly the purest form of comfort you will ever know. He’s tender and gentle and attentive, like he knows what it’s like to have the peace you value being breached constantly. Though, lately, you find that the quiet you crave for isn’t necessarily complete silence. It’s the comfortable and uninterrupted calm you feel when you’re with Hyunjin—whether at the library or walking home together from dinner. When he’s with you, warmth always makes an appearance.

There is no demand to make conversation.

You let your gaze veer off to the sea and how the waves crash along the shore. There's a breeze softly wafting through your hair, and you smile at just being able to view the ocean anytime you want. A pleasure you’ve always been denied off back in the city.

As your simple house comes into view, your shoulders fall at knowing he would have to leave now. You stop in your tracks, biting at your lips, and Hyunjin waits for you to say something. Never demanding. Always patient.

“Do you wanna meet my dog?”

His mouth opens in response, before a toothless smile forms in his features. “I’d like that.”

Kkami’s wiggling body with his wagging tail is the first to greet you when you open the door. You crouch down, arms open so he can jump onto you just the way he likes. “I’m back. I’m sorry to keep you waiting all this time.”

“Come in, come in.” You urge Hyunjin to get in, resuming your standing position so you can close the door behind him. “You can keep your shoes on if you’d like.”

He refuses, immediately taking them off before crouching down to greet the long-haired Chihuahua. They get along right away, Kkami constantly tapping his paw on Hyunjin’s knees to get his attention.

“I’ll get you something to drink.” You disappear into the kitchen, grabbing him a glass of water before hurriedly returning.

His hand brushes against yours when he reaches to take the glass from you, and you hate how fumbly the simple gesture gets you. It makes you feel like you’re back in high school, helplessly crushing on the boy who’s way out of your league.

“I think he likes you more than me now.” You crouch back down, looking at the way Kkami nudges his head on the side of Hyunjin’s thigh.

“I think he’s just a friendly dog.” He reassures you, though, he can’t help but feel a little pride that your dog immediately warms up to him. He’s always wanted a dog too.

When Kkami starts to give his attention back to you, Hyunjin calls him back. “Come here. There’s food here, can’t you see?”

His false bribery has you laughing.

“Now you’re just lying to my dog.”

He’s unfazed, continuing to lie to your poor dog about the invisible food he has in hand. “I have food for you, come here.”

“Wow, my dog left me and chose you because of your fake food.” You pout when Kkami successfully sits himself on Hyunjin’s lap, barking in glee when the boy rubs the back of his ears.

He sets the empty glass on a table nearby, careful not to drop it with Kkami still on him, gaze falling on the ring around your finger when you take it so it’s safe in your kitchen sink.

“Your ring is really pretty.” His compliment is genuine, and you can’t help but smile as you look down at the metal band your mother had given you, the one you started wearing since your brother called.

“My mom gave it to me. It has the number 220 engraved on it, apparently for bravery.”

“Suits you very well then.”

“I was really afraid when I first moved here, you know. I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I’d fallen into defeat.”

You recall your uncertainty when you had left everything you’d ever known in the city, following the heartbeat in the town of Angok.

“Men are not created with defeat in mind. We may fall at times, but we’re never defeated.”

“That’s a good line.”

“I stole it from a book.” He says sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Wanna know something cool?”

You nodded your head, sitting with your legs crossed on the floor in front of him.

“Your ring has the number 220, right? Well, back in college, I used to play sports. My jersey number was 284.” You don’t know where he’s going with this, but you listen anyway.

“They’re both amicable numbers. The sum of factors of 220 is 284, and the sum of the facts of 284 is 220.” He says with a smile, hands smoothing down your chihuahua’s fur. “These numbers are linked together by some fate, like your ring and my jersey.”

Hyunjin is a quiet surprise, sputtering about amicable numbers and mathematics to you. It’s almost endearing, how he had found something between the two of you and connected it to something he knows.

Your ring and his jersey. Amicable numbers.

There is so much to Hyunjin, so much you still don’t know and want to learn.

“That is pretty cool.” You think back about it in your head, how rare these numbers are, and how they found themselves to the both of you. Maybe knowing Hyunjin has always been written in the stars, and maybe you’ll know him in every lifetime after this one.

At the same time, Hyunjin is grinning to himself. He’d always thought love was far off, but it looks like it’s been in front of him this whole time, smiling back at him. He knows what he’s feeling, this overwhelming warmth, and he knows it’s real now more than ever.

In this moment, there is nothing else but you, him and Kkami and the knowledge that he’s falling in love with you. Right here, right now, all he sees are your eyes and your smile and the way your hands are brushing as you lean down to scratch Kkami’s ears.

Hyunjin feels like his heart is about to burst, and he has to clear his throat and put Kkami down in some poor excuse of needing to get home. He has to before he does something he might regret. The tides of the waves are pulling at him to make a move on you, and he’s afraid he might never make it to shore at the sheer overwhelmingness of his feelings for you. Could it be possible that you made a move instead?

“I think I have to get going now.” He whispers, and you nod your head, moving to stand up when he does. “Thanks for coming to meet Kkami. You should say goodbye to Hyunjin. Say thank you for visiting! Goodbye!”

You move Kkami’s paw to imitate waving.

“Goodbye!” His smile is wide as he bends down to wave back at your dog, taking small steps backwards until he’s by your door.

“I’ll write up a story about the lady we interviewed and send it to you.” You mention, fumbling with the knob to open it for him.

“Sure.” When you don’t make a move to say anything else, he turns his back to start walking away.

“By the way…” Hyunjin immediately turns back around, both hopeful and hesitant at what you have to say to him. His eyes hold yours, waiting for you to continue. “Are you free—“

“Good evening!” Chan’s booming voice interrupts what you were able to say. “Sorry it took me so long. I’m here to help you with the water leakage?”

You’d almost forgotten. You had called Chan earlier this morning to ask if he could help you fix up the issue with your sink.

“No, it’s okay. Hi, good evening.”

“Weren’t you about to say something?” He asks, and you suddenly feel too shy to ask if he wanted to hangout with you soon. The Little Mermaid live action was coming out soon, and you’d been excited to check it out. You thought, maybe it would be fun to watch it with him.

“Ah, it’s nothing.” An unidentifiable emotion flickers in Hyunjin’s features when you suddenly double back on what you were supposed to say—of dejection? You can’t say for sure, especially when a small smile returns to his face and he’s waving goodbye at you one last time.

“Chan, come in.” In your head, you’re still bruising yourself over cowardly backing down from asking Hyunjin to eat dinner with you tomorrow, hopefully with just you two this time.

Your water leakage problem doesn’t take too many steps, but it does need a few tools that only Chan has. When he finishes, you tell him to sit down a little, finding something to offer him for fixing up what had been broken under your sink.

“What’s going on between you and Hyunjin?” It catches you off guard, the unfiltered way he suddenly asks the question with obvious teasing dripping down his tone.

“Nothing.” You say too quickly, shaking your head.

“I was kidding. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Aren’t you gonna pry?” You’re not used to anyone not prying. Back in the city, you barely could keep anything a secret. Always forced. Always fidgety with the way they ask you questions, only to use that information against you later.

“No. As long as you’re happy, and both of you don’t get yourself hurt.”

His considerateness is breathtaking, and it almost has you tearing up the way he treats you better than your own brother. Chan doesn’t need to hug you for you to feel safe, he just has to smile and look at you with his eyes round of warmth.

He feels familiar, like… family. You think this is what family should feel like.

“Thank you, Chan.” You breathe, and he breathes with you. He reminds you he’s only one call away, and your heart feels like it’s being stripped until it’s bare.

This is family. Chan is family.

And Hyunjin quite possibly is love.

nine.

The epiphany you had posed to yourself the night before proved to be almost as difficult as the one you had when you had left the city. Inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it scared you less. Uncertainties often make you feel vulnerable, and what is love but a thread of uncertainties waiting to be untangled?

You can’t focus in your little rented space, the four corners tend to look smaller and smaller when you’ve trapped yourself long enough in your head. It’s terrifying, to feel the walls closing in on you. So, you might as well take Kkami out on a walk where you aren’t encased in liminal space.

The breeze outside is the kind that takes all the weight off your chest, leaving you to start anew in your train of thoughts. When you try to find the beginning of when you had started to see Hyunjin differently, you lose the thread and find yourself empty-handed. No one has told you how difficult it is to tend to the knotted spool of love.

Was it in his kindness which he showed in the smallest ways, barely noticeable but there when you look close enough? He doesn’t smile in large amplified ways, but the way he looks at you with intention leaves such an impact.

Everything he does—on purpose and by choice and intentionally. From the way he constantly checks on you, and the umbrella he had offered, and the patience that never seems to run thin. He smiles and talks to you by choice, and he gets to know your dog intentionally. You’re enamored with the entirety of Hyunjin, with the way he’s passionate about his job, and the gentle way in which he helps those around him whether that’s driving Seungmin to Seoul or treating Jeongin to dinner. He’s beautiful as he listens, as he shows that he will always listen.

It’s a lot to handle, and it’s a huge epiphany to admit to yourself, so you walk without destination. Nature and the beauties of Angok, you find, can take your mind off of anything. Just like that day you had escaped the city.

There are birds singing from the trees, accompanying the wind with their tunes as they whistle. The breeze carries it everywhere, the sound of their whistling, the crashing of the waves bathing the seashore. Had you really existed in a time before you’d known the salt of the ocean breeze and the sun shining the entire village with a glow?

Everything is beautiful here. There’s nothing that isn’t with the flurry of color bursting in the town of Angok, with the gentle chatter of generations of people who live there, with Hyunjin’s back walking a little ahead of you.

“Hyunjin?”

Maybe you don’t really care about the multitude of ways you can unravel the knotted spool. Maybe the only thing that matters is this moment with him, and every other moment with him.

He turns around immediately at the recognition of your voice, lifting a hand up to wave at you before greeting Kkami. You shoot him a smile, speeding up a little to catch up with him as he stands planted on his spot. Kkami runs faster than you do, already barking by Hyunjin’s feet and jumping up to get the boy’s attention.

There is no overthinking in the way he smiles back at you so easily. No thread to think about.

“Hi.” His gaze never falters from yours, even as noises stir around from a distance.

“Hello. I was just walking Kkami.”

“If we’re going the same way, why don’t we walk together?” He offers.

“Okay.”

A heartbeat passes.

“By the way, what are you doing out here? You know… instead of being in the library.” You ask inquisitively, not used to seeing him outside so early in the day.

“Seungmin’s been a bit anxious over the next part of his exams, so I went to buy him some food. It always calms him down.”

It’s only then you realize the bag of food he’s holding, and the sight only melts your heart further.

“You’re a really good friend.”

“I just do good upon others as I wish the same for myself.” How lovely, how he wants to make the world so painfully beautiful that people want to live in it.

“Well, the world isn't as cold and gloomy because of you.” You smile, and Hyunjin can’t help the way his words jumble up in his mouth at the kindness you utter. He’s wordless, all tangled in longing and flustered-ness.

You make him feel like he can hold sunlight in his hands.

“I’ll be going this way now.” A point in the opposite, and Hyunjin can only frown in disappointment of your time cut short.

“Take care.” He says, standing his ground as he watches you and Kkami start to walk away from him.

Static is zipping through the air, louder than ever. Hyunjin’s fiddling with the straps of his pants, contemplating and contemplating and contemplating—

“(Name)!” The sound of your name on Hyunjin’s lips makes your head instantly turn back.

“Yes?”

Hyunjin’s fumbling with everything he’s ever known, eyes falling to his own hands before back to yours.

“By any chance, are you going to have dinner—“ Hyunjin pauses. No, that doesn’t sound right. “I mean, are you busy tonight?”

“I’m not.”

A knowing smile on both your faces.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“I’d like that a lot.”

The thread is long gone.

ten.

Hyunjin has a profound ability of surprising you every time. He’s almost unpredictable in his kindness—showing up when you’re drunk, refilling your plate with meat, and now handing you a bag of dog toys for Kkami.

“I thought he might like this.”

“Oh, thank you.” You take the bag gratefully, smiling at the selection of chew toys inside before looking back up at the boy. “I haven’t gotten him anything nice, so thank you, really.”

“I also have this for you.” He brings out more shyly this time—a necklace beaded in shells. You look down at it, the necklace. No one’s given you anything in a long time. “You always have this look on your face when you look at the beach. So, it just… reminded me of you.”

You lift it up carefully, almost feather-like as you stare at the simple necklace.

“Hyunjin.” The way he’s looking at you is so powerful, yet so vulnerable at the same time, eyes tinging in hope that you’d like the little present he had gotten you. It’s a look you can feel inside. “Thank you.”

He helps you wear it when you attempt to wrap it around your neck yourself. Wordless, you don’t have to say anything as he gently closes it to encase it around your neck.

“Do you like it?” There it is again. That vulnerability.

“I love it.” You smile, hand lifting to fiddle with the necklace. “I’m never taking it off.”

Hyunjin’s eyes soften, features glowing under the streetlights as you finally resume your walk to where you’ll be eating dinner together.

He had called himself out multiple times as he was pondering over whether to buy it for you or not the moment he sees it, telling himself he was too obvious with the way he feels for you, and yet the thought of the sincerity in your face when you receive it overpowers the voice in his head. He finds himself getting it for you. He was always gonna get it for you the moment he saw the necklace.

“Then, do you want some chicken and beer?” Hyunjin asks as you reach a crossroad, multiple intersections splitting the road into separate parts of the village.

“Chicken and beer?”

“Mhm. Last night, I was actually gonna ask if you wanted chicken and beef before Seungmin tagged along.”

“Oh?” You smile at the thought. “That sounds good actually. Wait, let me search a place up.”

You barely even unlock your phone when Hyunjin starts speaking again.

“Well, if we go that way,” he motions to the first intersection. “There’s a really old place that sells amazing fried chicken. And there’s a place down that way where the interior is nice and spacious, but the chicken doesn’t taste as good.”

“And down that way,” he continues, pointing towards the other intersection. “There’s a place with outdoor tables known for its refreshing beer.”

“You’ve really done your research.” You grin, fiddling with the phone in your hands as you look at Hyunjin who has his shyly behind his back after he has finished speaking.

“Yeah.” He exhales, smile still on his face. “Just in case.

Just in case he got enough courage to ask you out is the continuation of his sentence, though he chooses to omit it for now.

“I…” You ponder, recounting the options in your head before forming a number 3 with your fingers. “Choose number three. Beer tends to vary more in taste than chicken.”

“I see.” He nods his head, taking your words in as he thinks about the numerous times fried chicken had tasted the same to him. “Well then, let’s go that way?”

A silver of the moon shines on the two of you as you settle down the table, arriving 10 minutes after you had pondered over your choices at the intersection. The night breeze is pleasant, blowing in between the two of you until your stomachs are full from the food.

“This is so refreshing.” You praise after having taken a chug out of your beer, leaning your head back to savor the taste longer. “Whoever thought of eating chicken and beer together is a genius.”

He listens, hanging on to every single word you say as he takes a bite out of his own piece. The sight has him wondering if you were free tomorrow too.

Similarly, you’re thinking if you should try to invite him to watch Little Mermaid with you again.

“Are you also busy tomorrow?” His sudden question has your cheeks heating up despite the cold of the breeze and the beer.

“Why? Do you wanna see a movie?” It comes out fast, blurted, speeding from your mouth.

“A movie?”

Oh, shit. You didn’t even realize how you’d suddenly sprung up the topic on him without so much as an introduction.

“What I meant was… there’s just this movie I really wanted to see, and I think it’s out in theaters already.” You laugh a little at your own slip up, hoping to have clarified it better.

The sound makes Hyunjin’s smile widen.

“I see.” He takes a sip out of his own beer.

It’s silent for a while. A second blending into a minute, until you decide you can’t take it any longer.”

“Do you want to come with—“

“Should we watch—“

You make eye contact the moment you speak over one another, and it’s enough to trigger the laughter that’s bubbling in your throats at the sheer coincidence of asking each other out at the same time.

“Only if it’s okay with you.” He says once the pair of you stop giggling, tone significantly softer..

Always putting your comfort at the top priority.

“I’d actually really like that.”

It’s all smiles as you pay for your meal, and you don’t quite notice the slow pace in which the two of you are walking home, as if never wanting the moment to end. As if the great sense of contentment is too much to let go of right away.

Your footsteps fall in with Hyunjin’s, and your smiles never leave your faces on the rest of your way home.

eleven.

Hyunjin spends two days in Seoul to accompany Seungmin as he finishes up the final stages of his Civil Licensure exam.

The first day away from the library is spent just at home, cleaning and finishing up on chores you’ve been meaning to do—putting away your clothes after doing laundry, feeding Kkami, sweeping the floors, and even dusting some shelves because of the abundance of free time. It’s therapeutic, the way you’re able to hold your own time and decide what you want to do for the day. In the afternoon, you walk your chihuahua outside, exploring more of Angok than you could’ve dreamed. It’s a beautiful village, and you find you don’t mind the lengthy walk. If it means you get to be with nature leisurely, you don’t have anything to complain about.

There’s so much time for happiness here, unlike the dark of your room in the city.

When you pass by the library the next day to continue mapping out Angok, you’re surprised to see the hunched over figure of Felix by the benches. You wonder what he’s doing here.

“Felix?” You speak cautiously, tentative even as you walk to his side.

The closer you get, the more you hear his sniffles. An alarm sounds in your head, and you immediately reach a hand over to rub his back as gently as possible. “What’s wrong?”

The words he mumbles are unclear, incoherent as they come out jumbled and stuttered. When he finally lifts his head up, the sight physically hurts you. Who could dare hurt the sun?

You move some of his hair out of his face, sitting down next to him. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Instead of answering, he lunges forward, jumping in your arms to seek comfort in your hug. It catches you by surprise, not because you’re uncomfortable, but because it’s only now you realize how long you’ve gone without a hug. You didn’t grow up from an affectionate family, and your time in the city knew of no comfort. This feels far better than pressing your back against your bed.

Snapping from the initial shock, you wrap your arms around him and pull him closer which only seems to let him release a louder sob. It seems he really needed this.

“I just don’t want to disappoint anyone.” His words are deep and choked, head still buried on your shoulder as he soaks up the shirt you’re wearing.

“You could never disappoint anyone.” You run a hand through his hair, the other hand running smooth circles on his back.

You don’t know how long you hold him like this, but after a while, his tears finally subside and he moves to pull away from the embrace. “I’m sorry about your shirt.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” Reaching out, you swipe away the tears on his wet cheeks, smiling softly. You’re relieved when you see him return the gesture. It seems he doesn’t want to talk about what happened, but you find that it’s okay. He likes that you just listen without demanding him to tell you everything.

“Wanna go eat something at Minho’s? My treat.” You whisper, afraid to startle the poor boy, and his eyes seem to brighten at the suggestion.

“Would that really be okay?”

“Of course. Come on.” You walk with him to Minho’s little restaurant, making small conversation about anything he wants to talk about. If it means he’ll forget about whatever hurt him, you appease any topic that spills from his mouth.

“Ah, good afternoon (Name), Felix.” Minho waves when you enter his space, and you wave back at the boy.

He finally knows your name.

The ten minutes it takes to wait for the food is apparently the same time it takes for Jisung and Chan to stumble into the restaurant and greet the two of you loudly. They drop at where you’re seated, adjacent from you and Felix as they ask you questions of how you’re doing and what you two were up to.

You’re keen to stay as Felix’s emotional support, looking at him first before answering the two boys. It seems he feels way better now, in the presence of people he considers home.

“Look what I have.” Jisung brings out another tupperware from his bag, opening it up to reveal some cupcakes his mom had probably baked again. He excitedly takes one for each of you, babbling about how he can’t finish it all himself or else he’ll suffer from high blood pressure. “I’m glad I bumped into you guys. My mom’s been going crazy with the baking.”

“Felix likes baking too, right?” You turn to the boy next to you, and he nods his head as he recalls the conversation you had earlier on the way here.

“I’ve been trying to make some brownies.” He’s proud as he speaks, hands moving animatedly as he explains to them the process. The three of you listen carefully, immediately demanding him to bake some for you guys to which Felix says he will in his free time.

“Jeongin’s on his way.” Chan nudges Jisung who suddenly stands from his seat. He grabs a cupcake from the container, and you think he’s about to give it to the younger boy when suddenly, the icing crashes on the unsuspecting Jeongin’s nose.

“Are you nuts, Jisung?!” He exclaims, peeling the cupcake away from his icing-stained face.

“That’s what you get for rejecting my kisses.” Jisung smirks mischievously, though it’s quickly wiped off when Jeongin swiftly grabs a chunk of the icing and slaps it on the older boy’s cheek.

Minho’s voice is booming as he says, “Hey, don’t get the floors dirty!”, though there seems to be a hint of fondness on his features as he watches everything unfold before him.

“Oh my god.” With a hand covering your mouth, you can’t help the giggles from spewing it as Felix snorts from beside you.

“Come here, let’s wipe it off.” You get up from your seat, guiding Jeongin to the seat next to yours as you grab a pack of tissues from your bag, moving to wipe the smeared icing from his nose, cheeks, and eyes.

“What about me?” Jisung pouts, and Chan all but laughs as he pulls the boy down to start doing the same thing.

“Are you guys okay?” Felix’s voice is way steadier now, more than it was earlier, and it even holds laughter in it. Your heartbeat calms down at knowing he must feel better. At least this moment can take away what pained him, even for a few hours.

“You have a death wish, Han Jisung.”

“Not the government name.”

Though, Jisung only laughs at the threats spilling from Jeongin’s lips, proud of his work.

When Minho brings the food, Jisung successfully pulls him down to eat with all of you. It’s polarizing how you used to hate meal times, used to hate thinking about what to eat, or the fact that you’d be eating alone. Now, with laughter roaring from your table, you find yourself excited.

People are calling out for you to eat.

You spend hours there, listening to their stories. Before you know it, night dawns upon you, and Felix offers to walk you home.

“(Name)?”

“Hm?” You turn your head to look at Felix who’s already looking at you with a smile on his face.

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything, though.” You laugh, and Felix shakes his head as he maintains unwavering eye contact.

“Thanks to you, I feel happier now.” There’s a toothless grin on his face, though, it’s threatening to grow even wider by the second.

He genuinely looks happy.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Felix’s words stay stuck in your mind even as you lay down to sleep. For a brief moment, you were able to make him happier. You don’t think you’ve ever felt more accomplished than this very moment. There are no words to describe how beautiful the feeling is of being the cause of someone’s smile.

The rest of the night is spent thinking, and it’s only when your phone buzzes is it interrupted.

hyunjin (10:48pm): hi, are you asleep? i hope i’m not bothering you

yn (10:49pm): hello! not asleep yet :) you’re not bothering me at all

hyunjin (10:51pm): seungmin’s exams ran longer than i thought

yn (10:51pm): tell him i said hi !!

hyunjin (10:52pm): is texting a bother? do your wrists hurt when you type?

yn (10:52pm): just a little

He calls you suddenly, and it’s enough for your heart to jump straight out of your chest. Pressing the phone to your ear, you finally speak. “Hello?”

“I hope your wrists don’t hurt anymore.” You can hear the mumble of cars honking in the background, but his words tune them out.

“I guess this will do.”

Hyunjin pauses for a moment, allowing himself the moment to soak up the warmth of your voice and how two days is far too long to be away from your sweet voice.

“It’s nice to hear your voice.”

You swallow hard, shutting your eyes as you bring the phone away a little to let out a suppressed scream. You feel like a schoolgirl, kicking your feet and giggling over his words.

Calming yourself down, you reply, “But, don’t you have to sleep now?”

“Hmm, not yet.“

“Well, what do you wanna talk about?”

“Everything. I wanna know everything about you.” He breathes from his end of the line, running a hand through his hair.

You can hear the sincerity from his voice even if you can’t see him.

“Oh.” You murmur. There’s a blush playing on your cheeks. How is he able to make you feel everything all at once?

The conversation lasts almost 2 hours, until he has to let you go so you can sleep before the clock strikes one in the morning. He feels slightly terrible for keeping you up, but he’s selfish in that it doesn’t bother him that much. Hyunjin missed you, missed the lull of your voice, and he’s happy to have heard it before going to sleep.

“I’ll see you tomorrow? For the movie?”

“Okay. See you.”

You can almost see him, open-mouthed smiles as he speaks. It’s always so evident in his voice when he does.

“Goodnight.”

“Sleep well.”

Hyunjin drifts off to sleep, and it’s the best one he’s had since yesterday.

twelve.

You tug at the dress you’re wearing as you wait outside the theater building. It’s a simple sleeveless white dress that goes down just above your knees, yet you’re still a little nervous whether you’re underdressed or overdressed. Your hair is down as it always is, a little messed up from the wind, and you had worn lip gloss after Kkami had barked once when you’d asked him.

It’s a simple theater for a simple date. You’re not even sure if you could call it a date, yet you were both ecstatic to finally watch the movie and to watch it with Hyunjin.

Smoothening down the creases of your dress that aren’t even there, you finally catch sight of Hyunjin from afar. He looks so handsome with his white sweater and denim pants, hair tucked behind his ears as he wears a pretty-boy-but-is-unaware smile.

Aphrodite’s son.

He’s waving at you, cheeks flushed in a warmth you fail to see as you try to suppress your own grin.

His knee-jerking reaction to you is open-mouthed staring, eyes moving from your eyes to your lips to your hair to your dress all in the span of a second.

Hyunjin isn’t as relaxed as he thought he was. He had prepared himself to see you again after two days, prepared to watch a movie with you and possibly brush hands as you reach for the popcorn, though he wasn’t quite prepared for the white dress you’re wearing. His brain short circuits, and he’s malfunctioning.

“Shall we head inside?”

He’s not able to respond right away. You’re pretty, and he’s nervous, and you’re pretty, and his palms are sweating, and you’re pretty, and words are failing him, and you’re pretty, and you’re shifting your weight back and forth, and you’re so pretty.

“(Name).” Hyunjin’s finally able to say. “You look beautiful."

You look up at him and he looks away. You can only blush in response as you thank him, fiddling with the necklace you’re wearing.

“I’m wearing this by the way.” If Hyunjin thought he couldn’t smile even more, he was wrong, especially peering down at the necklace he had gifted you. The one you’re wearing.

It was nearly seven o'clock when you finished watching the movie. You’re still excited over seeing one of your favorite Disney princess’s on the big screen, but you’re starting to feel a little tired.

The crowded bus was too much for the both of you, so you decide to walk back together. Thirty minutes might sound like a long walk, but Hyunjin begs to differ if it meant being separated from you at the end of it.

Thirty minutes is way too short to walk with you.

“The movie was fun.” He breaks the silence, and you nod your head in agreement with a huge smile on your face. You can still picture Ariel in your head, yet what stuck out most to you was the panicked way Hyunjin had been when he first walked in before completely relaxing when he was seated next to you.

“Hyunjin.”

“Yes?”

“You seemed like you’ve never been to a theater before.”

“It is my first time.” He looks down at his feet, a small grin tugging on his lips at how he’ll forever be able to hold the memory of watching a movie for the first time in theaters.

Especially when it was with you.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“That’s amazing.” It comes out as a whisper, genuinely shocked that Hyunjin hadn’t bothered coming into theaters at all. There’s so much to him, and you want to learn them all.

“Why don’t we kill some time by playing 21 questions?”

“Okay.” He replies a little too quickly for his liking. He can’t hide his eagerness at getting to know you and everything about you. Like that phone call last night.

“Okay.” You repeat, smiling while nodding your head as you think of a question to ask. “Hmm, what’s your favorite fruit?”

“Apples are my favorite.”

“Wow, you answered so quickly.” A quiet chuckle escapes his lips at the realization. Though, you should’ve made the connection when he had mentioned apples back when you had offered him some ice cream.

“Mine are strawberries!” You point excitedly at the black crochet bag you always carry with you, a big strawberry in the middle.

“Strawberries.” He keeps in mind, looking back at you as you keep talking, asking him one question after the other.

You are so lovely, Hyunjin thinks. The sort of person puts a smile on everyone’s face when you walk into the room. The way you quietly speak and the humble way in which you treat everyone has Hyunjin thinking that you must be unaware of how much of an impact you actually have on the people around you.

Seungmin is thankful for you, admiring your hard work. Hyunjin has caught him rereading the article you had written multiple times, praise leaving his lips when he thinks no one can hear.

Chan sees you as a little sister, so fond of you in such a short amount of time. He thinks he’d do anything to keep that smile on your face.

Felix thinks of flowers when he sees you.

“Oh, the moon looks so pretty tonight.” You suddenly mention, staring wondrously at the bright moon and the way the stars litter the sky.

“Do you wanna sit down for a moment?”

“Can we?” The excitement in your voice is hard to miss as Hyunjin guides you over to sit on a block situated at the side of the street. It’s the perfect spot, offering you a view of the sea and the pretty night sky.

You close your eyes to listen to the waves crashing clearer, to feel the breeze better, to smell the salty scent of the sea.

Your thoughts drift everywhere; to your escape from the city to the first time you met Hyunjin and the way he hadn’t spoken a single word to you. It’s always been at the back of your head, but you never so much as spared it any time to resurface. Though, now was probably the perfect time to ask him about it.

“Can I ask one more question?”

“Of course.”

“When we first met, why did you not talk to me?”

Hyunjin thinks back at the time, almost letting out a small laugh in embarrassment when he remembers the way he had greeted you with nothing but silence. It was only a matter of time before you’d ask him.

“Actually…” He looks down at his hands, carefully folded on his lap. “I have trouble talking to strangers.”

“Does that mean you feel comfortable around me now?” Oh, his stomach doesn’t feel so great at the way you’re looking at him right now. He has never felt such violent butterflies in his stomach.

“Yeah.” Blink and you miss it, the way his eyes flicker to your lips before frisking them away to stare at the moon instead.

You stretch your legs out, swaying them back and forth as you lull your head back to stare at the vastness of the sky. The waves and your subtle breathing are the only sounds that accompany the stillness with Hyunjin.

How long had that same peace transferred from the library to the boy seated beside you?

This moment feels nice, though, it seems to only be a catalyst at making you realize how real your feelings are. Hyunjin really is starting to feel like love.

He looks at you as you’re too busy staring at the little things nature had sent to keep you two company.

“When I’m with you, it’s nice that I don’t have to talk so much.” You say suddenly.

His eyes never once leave you as you speak, and it only has his heart beating faster when he realizes that the look in your eyes is something so similar to the way he looks at you. It’s the same one he gives you when you don’t notice him looking at you. The stripped back and bare softness he shows even when he doesn’t try to.

“It’s the opposite for me.” He speaks with a smile that he doesn’t even notice has grown brighter and brighter. “When I’m with you, I tend to talk more.”

Lovestruck is the only word to describe the way his words slip out of his mouth, and no level of words can possibly describe the softness in his eyes.

“Ever since I was young, talking to someone… always felt like a burden to me. It’s never felt that way with you.”

The way you’re looking at him only encourages him to speak more—your naturally dusted cheeks, gentleness swimming in your eyes, and the wind blowing through your hair. How can you sit there and be so unaware of how beautiful you are?

“This is a little selfish of me but…” Midway through his sentence, he breathes out a little. As if to help him in saying what’s burning on the tip of his tongue. “I hope you don’t leave.”

You lean forward to hear him better.

“When you first came to the library to make a membership card, when we spent the afternoon repairing books, when I took you home when you were completely wasted… when we had ice cream together on the library bench, when we went to interview the old lady together, and when you let me meet Kkami the night we had dinner together…”

What was happiness before he knew what your smile looked like and what your voice sounds like? Hyunjin’s voice gradually softens with each memory he recounts.

“I was happy. I’m truly happy that you came to Angok.”

There's a stifling silence on the other end, as you process his words.

You never stood a chance. You were gone the moment you had set eyes on him, when you had accidentally caused a small commotion in Angok’s public library. You had signed over your heart the second he had uttered his first words to you—“you’re hello again.”

His eyes flicker from yours down to your lips, and there’s a hitch in your breath as you breathe in. It feels as though your heart could explode at any moment.

Hyunjin reaches out to brush a hand against your cheek, tentative as he draws himself closer to you. His hand is warm against the night breeze, and you find yourself leaning against him unconsciously.

“So I really hope you don’t leave.” He whispers, and you breathe at the overwhelming sincerity.

His eyes drop back down to your lips, face hovering over yours. Almost hesitant. It’s like he’s waiting for you to make a move, waiting for you to show you won’t leave. You push your lips in his, and he’s still for a second, as if unable to believe you’re kissing him at this very moment.

When he’s finally able to recover, he keeps a hand cupped on your cheek while the other travels around your waist. He holds you against him tightly, but his lips couldn’t be any more gentle as they move against yours. It’s soft, unmoving even. Your heart flutters when his lips chase after yours after you pull away for a second to catch your breath, and you’re kissing again.

Again and again and again until all you can think about is him. You had always been afraid of seeing the city in his eyes and feeling it in his lips, but you never did.

His eyes struggle to stay open when you push your foreheads together, finally breaking away from the kiss. There’s a small smile on his mouth, the one he always wears with you, and the look of fondness in his eyes.

“I’m not gonna leave.”

A shooting star spears through the dark. You both wish to stay like this forever.

thirteen.

A few days after your silent confession, Seungmin passes the Civil Licensure exam.

The boy had apparently been trying to hide his success from Hyunjin, yet was unsuccessful when he forgot he had given Hyunjin the log-in credentials to the site when he thought he’d be too nervous to view it himself.

So, you and Hyunjin plan a surprise celebration.

If Seungmin hadn’t been so caught up in trying to hide the secret you had already known about, maybe he would’ve noticed the way Hyunjin disappears from the library sometimes only to reappear, and the way you’ve been on your phone way more often than you normally are.

Getting Seungmin to the rooftop of Chan’s home was easier than you had expected. For someone who asks a lot of questions, Seungmin had simply stared at Hyunjin suspiciously when he had suddenly expressed the urge to watch the night’s constellations at Chan’s roof. Yet, feeling like he owed the boy for driving and staying with him in Seoul, he complies.

The surprise had taken a while to plan, yet everyone was willing to help after hearing the news. Everyone sits on the roof to wait, antsy when they hear Seungmin’s blabbermouth complain about accompanying Seungmin as he gets on the stairs. You all see Hyunjin first, who’s subtly pointing at his back to signal that Seungmin was coming in hot.

When he finally emerges from the steps, all of you jump in a chorus of “Surprise!”

There’s a small tarpaulin with Seungmin’s name and a congratulations tied between two makeshift posts, and the boy hides his face in embarrassment when he spots a poorly photoshopped picture of him on the side of the printed paper.

“It’s nice to celebrate this good news with everyone.” Hyunjin says, and while Seungmin’s continuing to blabber about in mock irritation, all of you know he’s grateful by the way he looks at how the rooftop is decorated in awe. Fairy lights are hung around like additional stars, and everyone has bright smiles on their faces as they all go in to wish the boy their individual congratulations.

“Congratulations on making it to Seoul!” Chan’s voice is booming as he hugs the boy. While Seungmin naturally recoils from any form of skinship, he finds himself returning most of the hugs given to him.

“Make sure you eat a lot.” Minho smiles as he looks proudly at the food he had brought, all set on the table as he prepares to cook some beef to serve as all of you eat.

“Thank you for the food!”

“Is it good?” Minho’s grilling meat on the side, continuing to prepare food as everyone around him eats satisfyingly. Sometimes, Jeongin would get up from his seat to feed Minho a piece to make sure he was eating too.

“It’s so juicy.” Changbin exclaims in pure ecstasy, and Chan can only laugh at his exaggerated response. “Your beef always tastes good, Minho.”

Jeongin’s walking around with a platter of cooked beef to serve for everyone, like he does at Minho’s restaurant. Lovely chatter echoes from the roof, laughter prominent as Jisung is on fire with his jokes. All the while, Seungmin is roasting the poor boy.

“This is the good stuff. Look at the marbling on this meat.” Minho boasts as he sets down the final platter on the table, taking a seat next to Jisung as he finally starts digging in. “Jeongin, come and eat.”

“This is so good.” Your mouth drops after you swallow the piece of beef you had grabbed. Minho just laughs fondly at the praise as he keeps eating.

As your eyes travel around everyone on the table, you can’t help but think of something your mom used to tell you — a home isn't always the house we live in. it's also in the people we choose to surround ourselves with.

Home is the gleeful playing of instruments from Jisung and Changbin, it’s baked in an oven and served fresh as brownies from Felix, it’s grateful smiles from Seungmin, it’s Chan trampled with fondness, it’s the grilled beef Minho is cooking, it’s Kkami barking in happiness as Jeongin plays with him, it’s the hand holding yours and the gentle smile on Hyunjin’s lips as he urges you to eat more.

“Oh, before I forget. I have something for you.” Said boy brings you back to reality, and he pulls out a magazine in his hand, smiling widely as he looks down at it then at you expectantly.

“What is it?” You take it from him, flipping through the pages.

“Youth of Angok. It was released yesterday.”

“No way!” You look for the article you wrote, skimming through the pages before smiling at the photo of the old lady you had taken. “Wait, hold on. Don’t tell me you read it already.”

“No, I haven’t read it yet.” Hyunjin has a fair share of tells when he lies. One of them is in the way he can’t look at you, like the way he’s avoiding your eyes right now. “It was great by the way. You write so well.”

You laugh, giggles blending with Jisung’s music. “Thank you.”

Changbin’s booming voice interrupts all the ongoing conversations, abruptly getting up as he grabs a box he had hidden to the side. “I have a surprise now that we’re all full. Sponsored by Seo’s convenience store, you’re welcome.”

He hands each one of you with sparklers, and it’s absolutely beautiful when he lights them up and pushes everyone to get up and dance to Jisung’s guitar accompaniment as the fireworks glow from everyone’s hold. Like everyone is capable of holding fire in their hands.

Music from your childhood plays in your head, the same one you never thought you’d hear again as Hyunjin tugs on your hand to pull you to where everyone is dancing, a sparkler on the hand that isn’t intertwined together.

“This is so pretty!” Felix exclaims, waving it around as the lights spring out of the stick in his hand. Jeongin’s carrying Kkami now, dancing with him in his arms.

“I’ve never done this before.” Felix looks to you with so much happiness radiating off of him, dancing around as he stares at his sparkler fireworks.

“Me neither.” You reply with the same excitement, looking to see Hyunjin already looking at you with a smile on his face. Pure, unadulterated happiness.

You thought about what happiness is.

You’ve looked it up in a dictionary once—it is a state of being pleased, fulfilled, and content in life. You think that definition is too long.

Happiness. The state of being sufficient.

Happiness. This moment right now.

Hyunjin’s arm snakes around you, pulling you closer to him as the wind flows between all of you, whisking your hair and ruffling your clothes up as happy singing falls in your ears.

“Hi.” He whispers, caressing your waist. It makes goosebumps erupt, and you know what he’s about to do as he presses a short kiss on your lips.

Sometimes, there doesn’t have to be thunderstorms. There’s no need for the sticky swarm of office workers, or the silence of dinners. You don’t have to think of the city. Sometimes, love is tucked away in a little town you least expect to find it. Sometimes, there is time to make happiness. And sometimes, family can be regained.

Your life is sufficient.

You’ll live this life.

🌧️ 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍-𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒 ( stray kids )

❛ On a rainy evening, a deepening connection unfolds between you and Hyunjin as you explore your newfound intimacy in the cozy sanctuary of your studio apartment. Amidst clumsy yet heartfelt moments, your bond blossoms into a magical dance of tenderness and desire, celebrated under the gentle rhythm of the falling rain.

𝐡𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐣𝐢𝐧 + female reader ೯ ( 𝐨𝐧𝐞-𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 )

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4.5k 𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞: 18 mins

꒰ 💌 ꒱ ミ This piece was requested a little bit ago by my lovely 🌪️ Anon! I genuinely loved working on this purely for the awkwardness between Y/N and Hyunjin. I just feel like this is something that is not talked about enough, especially within the writing community. It's completely normal to be a bit clumsy and/or awkward the first time you have sex with someone — it doesn't mean that you or your partner is a virgin or is bad at it! Everyone's tastes when it comes to this is different so it might take a second to figure your partner out! And that's totally okay! Alright, anyway, requests are currently open! I hope you guys enjoy, reblogs and feedback are much appreciated! ── ( 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 )

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: MDNI, established relationship, it's first time Hyunjin fingers you, neither of you are virgins, it's awkward and a little clumsy at the beginning, very fluffy, please let me know if I missed anything!

( 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 ) ( 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 & 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 ) ( 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 )

꒰ 🫙 ꒱ ミ Tip Jar!

It had been a Saturday to remember, one that etched itself into the tapestry of your memories, marked by the presence of Hyunjin. His charismatic charm had woven itself through your days for the past month, casting a spell of enchantment that lingered in the air. Though the span of time you had spent together might appear fleeting in the grand scheme of things, it felt as if you had experienced an entire lifetime’s worth of moments within those precious weeks.

Each shared glance carried the weight of a thousand unspoken words, creating a silent dialogue that only the two of you understood. Every burst of laughter echoed like a melody, resonating with joy and warmth that filled the spaces between you. The conversations you shared, whether deep and contemplative or light and whimsical, wove a rich tapestry of connection that seemed to transcend the mere passage of days.

It was as though time itself had bent and stretched to accommodate the depth of your interactions. The moments you spent together, whether walking hand in hand through sun-dappled streets or sharing quiet, emotionally intimate evenings under a canopy of stars, left you with the impression that you had journeyed through countless experiences together in just a short while. The intensity of your bond created a sense of timelessness, making each day feel like a chapter in a beautifully unfolding story.

The day dawned under the crisp, invigorating light of morning, painting the world in hues of possibility. Hyunjin stood eagerly by your front door, his eyes sparkling with anticipation and a smile that promised adventure. The air was charged with the excitement of a day uncharted, a journey waiting to unfold as you both boarded the train bound for the newly opened museum.

As the train carried you toward your destination, a sense of exhilaration grew, mingling with the rhythmic clatter of the tracks. The cityscape blurred past, a fleeting backdrop to the conversation and laughter that filled the space between you. Upon arrival, the museum revealed itself as a grand sanctuary of artistry and history, its towering facade inviting you into a world where time seemed to stand still.

Stepping inside, you were enveloped by the cool, hushed atmosphere of the museum, a place where every corner promised discovery. The labyrinthine halls stretched out before you, each exhibit unfolding like a new chapter in your shared journey. Vibrant paintings, intricate sculptures, and ancient artifacts beckoned you closer, igniting lively discussions and thoughtful reflections. With every step, you meandered through galleries side by side, your connection deepening as you shared insights and marvels.

The experience felt timeless, an effortless immersion into a realm of creativity and wonder. You lost yourselves in the stories etched into each piece, the artistry that transcended the mundane and spoke directly to your souls. The hours slipped by unnoticed, each moment adding a brushstroke to the canvas of your day, painting a picture of shared exploration and discovery. In that museum, amidst the echoes of history and the whispers of creativity, you found not only a deeper understanding of the world but also of each other.

After immersing yourselves in the museum's artistic treasures, you both boarded the train once more, the thrill of the day still crackling in the air between you. The rhythmic clatter of the tracks beneath you seemed to echo the excitement of the adventure that awaited. Your destination was your favorite restaurant, a cherished haven where comfort and familiarity wove seamlessly into the fabric of its ambiance.

Upon arrival, the restaurant greeted you with its warm, inviting glow. Soft light spilled from hanging fixtures, casting a gentle radiance over the rustic wooden tables and cushioned chairs. The scent of savory dishes wafted through the air, mingling with the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee and baked bread. As you settled into your seats, the meal became more than just sustenance; it transformed into a canvas for laughter and playful banter.

Each dish that arrived at your table seemed to serve as a catalyst for shared stories and inside jokes. The vibrant colors of the food mirrored the lively exchange between you, as conversations flowed effortlessly alongside bites of deliciously crafted dishes. The restaurant’s lively bustle provided a vibrant backdrop, its hum of chatter and clinking of cutlery blending into the symphony of your shared experience.

The meal, rich with flavor and affection, was more than a mere dining experience; it was an extension of the day's joy and companionship. With each course, you both found yourselves drawn closer, the savory dishes a tangible reflection of the deepening bond between you. As you enjoyed each bite, the connection you had forged earlier in the museum seemed to be solidified, the warmth of the food and the ambiance merging to create a perfect continuation of the day's adventures.

Adjacent to the restaurant stood a quaint psychic shop, its sign casting a gentle, ethereal glow that beckoned with an almost magnetic allure. The delicate, swirling script on the sign seemed to whisper promises of mysteries and hidden truths, igniting a spark of curiosity within both of you. Driven by a shared sense of adventure and intrigue, you decided to venture inside, stepping into a world that seemed to hold its breath in anticipation.

The interior of the shop was a treasure trove of curiosities. Dimly lit by the soft flicker of candlelight, the space was adorned with richly embroidered tapestries and shelves brimming with intriguing artifacts. The air was tinged with the heady fragrance of incense, mingling with the faint aroma of old parchment and aromatic herbs. In the center of this enigmatic realm sat the psychic, her presence as compelling as the surroundings.

Her gaze was shrouded in an enigmatic aura as she performed the reading, her eyes glimmering with an inscrutable wisdom. As she declared with a knowing smile that you and Hyunjin were soulmates, her words seemed to reverberate with an almost palpable magic. The statement hung in the air like a delicate thread, weaving itself into the fabric of your shared experience.

The psychic’s cryptic smile was met with a blend of surprise and shyness on your faces. A soft blush crept across both your cheeks, accentuating the nervous laughter that bubbled up between you. Each of you cast furtive glances away, caught between a fluttering sense of embarrassment and an exhilarating hint of delight. The moment felt like a secret dance, a playful intimacy that hung between you, adding a layer of enchantment to the day. The encounter at the psychic shop became a cherished memory, a touch of magic that lingered like a sweet aftertaste, enriching the tapestry of your shared adventure.

As the evening unfurled, you both returned to the serene sanctuary of your cozy studio apartment. The tranquility of the space embraced you like a warm hug, with the soft, rhythmic purring of your cat—curled contentedly on the nightstand—embodying the essence of home’s simple pleasures. The room was gently illuminated by the soft, golden glow of the lamp, casting a soothing radiance that seemed to enhance the peaceful ambiance.

In this haven of calm, you set about preparing warm tea for both of you. The aroma of the brewing tea leaves mingled with the subtle scent of the evening, creating an olfactory embrace that complemented the warmth of the space. As you poured the steaming liquid into delicate cups, the gentle clinking of porcelain was a soft, melodious counterpoint to the quietude surrounding you.

The conversation that followed was a tender and intimate exchange, your voices barely rising above hushed whispers as you both savored the serene atmosphere of the moment. Each word shared was like a caress, adding to the richness of your connection. Cradling your tea cups in your hands, you both reveled in a profound sense of contentment, the day’s adventures seamlessly blending into the gentle comfort of your shared refuge.

The evening unfolded as a quiet yet significant culmination of laughter, connection, and deepening bonds. The day’s escapades, full of vivid experiences and cherished moments, seemed to melt into the soft, welcoming embrace of your studio. This tranquil conclusion transformed the day into a cherished memory, a treasured chapter that would linger tenderly in your hearts.

As the night wore on, the rain began to fall in a steady, soothing rhythm, each droplet creating a symphony of tranquility against the windows. The gentle patter of the rain became a serene backdrop to the evening's unfolding events, wrapping your world in a cocoon of calm. Within the comforting familiarity of your bedroom, the atmosphere was imbued with a sense of warmth and intimacy.

You extended an invitation to Hyunjin, offering him a place beside you on the bed, a gesture that had become second nature over the short time you’ve been together. Yet tonight carried a different energy, a palpable shift that neither of you could ignore—evident in the way Hyunjin’s heavy eyes followed your every move. The ambiance was charged with an emerging affection, an electric undercurrent that seemed to hum softly in the space between you.

Each fleeting glance you shared was laden with unspoken emotions, eyes conveying what words could not. The subtle brush of skin against skin felt like sparks igniting a fire, each touch leaving a trail of warmth in its wake. Your quiet conversations, spoken in hushed tones, wove a delicate tapestry of words and sentiments, each one deepening the connection you felt.

In the stillness of your home, every moment seemed to heighten the sense of anticipation. The rain's gentle cadence matched the rhythm of your hearts, beating in sync as if to the same unspoken melody. The space between you felt charged, a magnetic pull drawing you closer to a deeper intimacy that was steadily approaching, its arrival inevitable and eagerly awaited.

The night continued to unfold in this gentle yet intense dance of emotions, the rain outside acting as a serenade to your evolving bond while you prepared your bed for the night. Each moment spent together was a testament to the growing affection that had blossomed between you, transforming the ordinary into something exquisitely profound. In that cozy sanctuary, under the spell of the night and the rain, you both felt the irresistible pull toward a connection that promised to be as enduring as the rhythmic rain itself.

The tension between you both thickened as you handed him a t-shirt he had intentionally left behind during a previous visit. The fabric of the shirt, worn soft and familiar, passed from your hands to his with a weight that seemed to carry unspoken significance. As soon as he grasped the shirt, a spark of unspoken urgency ignited between you. His lips met yours with a fervor that had been quietly simmering throughout the day, an electric connection that surged with the intensity of all the emotions you had harbored.

The kiss was a profound mingling of longing and desire, a tangible culmination of the feelings that had been building in the quiet spaces between you. It was as if the very essence of the day’s shared moments converged in this single, impassioned exchange. 

Even amidst this deep connection, an endearing awkwardness lingered in the air. As you both clumsily undressed each other, your movements were hesitant and unpracticed, yet brimming with sincerity. Nervous laughter bubbled up between you, a symphony of shared amusement that softened the intensity of the moment. Your hands fumbled gently, each touch a mix of tender care and uncoordinated eagerness, creating a dance of intimacy that was both innocent and heartfelt.

Your gaze remained locked on his dazed eyes, the unspoken emotions between you speaking volumes. Every brush of your fingers, every accidental graze, was charged with a sense of wonder and discovery. The garments fell away piece by piece, leaving you both in only your underwear, vulnerable and exposed yet completely at ease in each other's presence.

The path to the bed was a journey marked by stumbles and shared glances. Each step was a testament to the raw and unrefined nature of your intimacy, a beautiful reminder of the genuine connection you were forging. The nervous energy between you added a layer of charm to the moment, making each interaction feel even more precious.

As you finally reached the bed, the clumsy yet heartfelt nature of your movements only served to deepen the bond you were creating. The tender moments of hesitation and the bursts of laughter wove together, forming a tapestry of intimacy that was uniquely your own. In the gentle embrace of the night, surrounded by the quiet rhythm of your shared breaths, you both discovered a profound sense of closeness that transcended the physical, creating a memory that would linger long after the night had ended.

This clumsy yet heartfelt interaction only added to the night's charm, weaving an intricate tapestry of shared experience. Every hesitant touch, each nervous laugh, became a delicate thread, binding you closer together. As he settled between your legs, the intimacy of the moment deepened, turning every interaction into a genuine and endearing part of your growing bond.

A breathy moan escapes your lips as Hyunjin's kisses trace a delicate path along your jaw, each touch igniting a spark of electricity. When he reaches the sensitive spot just below your ear, a shiver runs through you, heightening your senses. This reaction seemed to bolster his confidence, and with gentle yet assertive hands, he guided you to lay back on the bed.

As you sink into the soft embrace of the mattress, his mouth works its magic, sending waves of pleasure rippling through your body. Each kiss, each caress is a jolt of pure electricity, making your heart race and your breath hitch. The intensity of his touch leaves you yearning for more, each moment an exquisite blend of anticipation and ecstasy.

Your arms instinctively wrap around his neck, pulling him closer, craving the warmth and intimacy of his presence. As he continues his descent, his mouth finds your hardened nipples, drawing a gasp from your lips. The sensation is overwhelming, a perfect symphony of pleasure that leaves you arching your back, pressing yourself against him.

In this intimate dance, every movement feels deliberate and profound, each touch a testament to the deep connection you share. The room around you fades into obscurity, leaving only the two of you in a world of your own creation, where time stands still and nothing exists except the intoxicating rhythm of your bodies entwined.

His kisses, like whispers of fire, trail across your skin, igniting every nerve ending with a burning desire. The magic of his mouth, the gentle yet insistent way he explores your body, leaves you trembling with need. Every breathy moan, every gasp of pleasure, becomes a part of this beautiful symphony, resonating in the quiet sanctuary of your shared space.

Your hands find the courage to wander, fingers trembling with anticipation as they begin their exploration. Every touch is an act of reverence, a slow and deliberate journey to memorize the curves and contours of his lean body. The warmth of his skin under your fingertips sends shivers down your spine, igniting a fire within you.

As your hands glide over his torso, you savor the feeling of his defined muscles, each movement a tactile symphony. Your fingertips dance over his chest, tracing the lines of his pecs before drifting down to his abs. The rhythmic rise and fall of his breath beneath your touch is mesmerizing, drawing you deeper into the intimate connection you share.

When your hands finally reach his abs, you slow your pace, allowing yourself to fully appreciate the sculpted firmness beneath your palms. The tension in his muscles, the way they contract and relax with each breath, is a testament to his strength and beauty. Your touch becomes more deliberate, a silent communication of desire and admiration.

As you move lower, your fingers find his hardened core, and a breathy groan escapes his lips. The sound is intoxicating, a blend of need and pleasure that fuels your own arousal. He pushes his hips into your hand eagerly, a wordless plea for more, and you can't help but chuckle lightly at his neediness. There's something incredibly endearing about the way he responds to your touch, a vulnerability that makes him even more irresistible.

His groan resonates in the quiet room, mingling with the rhythm of your shared breaths. The intensity of his reaction sends a thrill through you, a heady mix of power and tenderness. As your hand continues to caress him, you revel in the connection between you, the unspoken language of touch and desire that binds you together.

The moment stretches into eternity, every touch, every sound, deepening the bond you share. The intimacy of your exploration, the way your hands map the landscape of his body, becomes a testament to the growing love between you. In this private sanctuary, you find a profound sense of fulfillment, a beautiful merging of souls that transcends the physical and touches the very essence of your being.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been waiting for so long to have this moment with you,” Hyunjin murmurs, his voice a soft whisper against the backdrop of your shared breath. His words hang in the air, delicate and poignant, carrying the weight of anticipation and longing. You can see the depth of his emotions reflected in his eyes, a swirling sea of vulnerability and desire that makes your heart ache with a tender ache. The sincerity in his voice, the quiet urgency, speaks volumes about the unspoken yearning that has built up between you.

His words touched you deeply, a wave of emotion washing over you as you absorbed the sincerity in his voice. With a soft, reassuring smile, your hands left his already leaking length, the warmth of his arousal lingering on your fingertips. You reached up, fingers threading through his long, silken hair, feeling its softness and reveling in the intimacy of the gesture.

"Don’t ever apologize, Hyune," you whispered, your voice filled with affection and reassurance. "You’re being wonderful."

Your fingers continued their gentle journey through his hair, each stroke a tender caress that seemed to convey all the emotions you felt. His hair, smooth and luxurious, slipped through your fingers like strands of midnight silk, and you marveled at the way it framed his face, accentuating the depth of his eyes and the curve of his lips.

The two of you lingered in a realm of shared kisses, each one deepening the connection that pulsed between you. What began as gentle explorations quickly evolved into a deliciously messy entanglement of lips and tongues, leaving both of you breathless. Droplets of shared saliva glistened on your mouths, a testament to the fervor with which you embraced each other. Every time your needy cores met, grinding against the thin barrier of fabric that still separated you, a gasp escaped your lips, mingling with his in a symphony of desire.

The friction, though clothed, was a tantalizing prelude to the ecstasy that awaited, a mere glimpse of the pleasure that loomed on the horizon. Each grind, each press of your bodies, sent waves of adrenaline coursing through your veins at an intoxicating speed. It was an addictive rush, leaving you craving more—more of him, more of the sensations that set your skin aflame and made your heart race.

Time seemed to blur, the minutes stretching into an eternity of heated kisses and desperate touches. Your hands roamed freely, memorizing the contours of his body, tracing the lines of his muscles, and committing every inch of him to memory. The room was filled with the sounds of your shared passion—breathy moans, whispered names, and the rhythmic beat of two hearts caught in the throes of desire.

It wasn't long before the intensity of your need became almost unbearable. A soft, desperate whine escaped your lips, a sound that conveyed your longing and frustration. You could feel the slickness between your thighs, a testament to how thoroughly he had aroused you. Your body ached with a deep, insistent need, practically begging him for more.

"Please," you whispered, your voice a soft plea as your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. The word hung in the air, heavy with the weight of your desire, and you looked up at him with wide, imploring eyes.

Hyunjin's gaze darkened with a mixture of lust and affection, his breath hitching at the sight of you so vulnerable, so open. He leaned in, capturing your lips in another searing kiss, his hands moving to cup your face with a tenderness that made your heart swell. The kiss was both a promise and a reassurance, a silent vow that he would give you everything you craved.

As he pulled back slightly, his eyes locked onto yours, the intensity of his gaze sent shivers down your spine. "Anything for you," he murmured, his voice a husky whisper that resonated deep within your core.

With a slow, deliberate motion, his hands slid down your body, his touch igniting a trail of fire along your skin. The anticipation built with every second, your senses heightened to a fever pitch. Each brush of his fingers, each lingering touch, was a tantalizing prelude to the ecstasy that awaited. You arched into his touch, your body responding instinctively to the promise of pleasure.

His fingers danced tantalizingly close to your drenched core, skimming over the slick heat but avoiding the sensitive places where you needed him most. The tease was exquisite yet maddening, each near-touch sending shivers of both pleasure and frustration through your body. You could feel the dampness of sweat on your skin, mingling with the warmth of his body pressed against yours.

Mildly frustrated, a soft whimper escaped your lips as you reached down between your intertwined bodies. Your fingers wrapped around his wrist, guiding his hand to where you craved his touch. The movement was driven by a mix of urgency and desperation, a silent plea for him to end the sweet torture.

He chuckled lightly at your eagerness, the sound a blend of amusement and affection that reverberated through your chest. The gentle tease in his voice only heightened your desire, making you acutely aware of how much you wanted—needed—him. Despite his amusement, he didn't leave you waiting for long.

His thumb found your clit, the touch electric and precise, sending a jolt of pleasure through you. A gasp left your lips, the sensation intense and immediate. Without warning, his index finger slipped inside you, filling you completely. The sudden intrusion made you yelp in surprise, your body arching into his touch as a wave of heat surged through you.

He quickly glanced up, his eyes searching yours with a mixture of concern and passion. The thrusts into your core halted, yet he kept his fingers buried deep inside, the sensation still pulsing through you. "Are you okay?" he asked softly, his voice a husky whisper that mingled with the heavy breaths filling the room.

You licked your lips, a slow and deliberate motion, trying to gather your composure amidst the swirling intensity. Your chest rose and fell with each pant, the air thick with anticipation and desire. You nodded, the movement gentle but assured, your body trembling slightly as you held back the urge to grind into his hand. "Yes... just please go slow when you're down there," you whispered, your voice tinged with a blend of need and vulnerability.

His eyes softened at your words, a tender smile curling at the corners of his lips. The connection between you felt almost palpable, a silent understanding that spoke volumes. He nodded in response, his fingers beginning to move once more, but this time with a deliberate slowness that made every touch more intense.

Each movement was a study in restraint, his fingers exploring you with a gentleness that contrasted with the earlier urgency. The deliberate pace allowed you to savor every sensation, the pleasure building in slow, delicious waves. Your body responded instinctively, a soft moan escaping your lips as you felt him delve deeper.

He watched you closely, his gaze unwavering, the concern in his eyes gradually giving way to a renewed desire. The intimacy of the moment wrapped around you both, a cocoon of shared trust and passion. His other hand found its way to your hip, holding you steady as he continued his slow, measured rhythm.

The atmosphere in the room shifted, the earlier frenzy giving way to a tender, almost reverent exploration. Your breaths synchronize, each inhale and exhale a testament to the deep connection that had formed between you. His fingers curled inside you, finding that sweet spot that sent shivers down your spine, drawing out gasps and sighs of pleasure.

As he moved, his thumb brushed against your clit with a featherlight touch, sending sparks of electricity through your entire being. The slow pace allowed the pleasure to build gradually, each wave cresting higher than the last. Your hands reached out, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer as you lost yourself in the sensations.

He responded to your touch, his lips finding yours in a kiss that was both tender and intense. The world seemed to narrow down to the two of you, every sensation magnified in the cocoon of intimacy you had created. The taste of him, the feel of his fingers, the sound of your mingled breaths—it all wove together into a symphony of pleasure.

You could feel the tension building within you once more, a slow burn that promised an explosive release. The deliberate pace made every touch, every caress, more poignant, the anticipation heightening your arousal. Your body arched into his touch, a silent plea for more, for everything he could give.

His fingers moved with a steady, unerring rhythm, guiding you towards the edge with a skill that made your heart race. The slow, deliberate thrusts were interspersed with gentle caresses, the combination driving you to the brink of ecstasy. Your moans grew louder, the pleasure building to an almost unbearable intensity.

And then, with a final, deliberate thrust, the tension within you snapped. Pleasure crashed over you in a tidal wave, your body trembling as the orgasm tore through you. You cried out his name, the sound echoing in the small space, your vision blurring as the world dissolved into pure sensation.

He held you through it all, his fingers still moving gently, prolonging the waves of pleasure. The aftershocks rippled through you, leaving you breathless and sated. As the intensity faded, you clung to him, your body still humming with the remnants of ecstasy.

In the aftermath, the room was filled with a quiet, almost sacred, stillness. You looked up at him, your heart full of gratitude and love, knowing that this moment was one of many that you would cherish. The night was a tapestry of shared passion and deep connection, a journey that had only just begun.

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𖥻 sweet affection

♡┊ 𝐂𝐇𝐐𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄 ; Hwang Hyunjin

you know that your boyfriends job was not easy so you tried your best to look after him when he needs it. the exhaustion wasn’t hard to miss on your boyfriend’s face. the dark circles under his eyes and his slightly hunched over walk. his eyes where barely open as hyunjin closed the door behind him, throwing his keys in the bowl on the small table by the door. hyunjin let’s his bag fall on the floor as he quickly leaned down to take of his shoes.

hyunjin was quick to follow the delicious smell that was coming from the kitchen where he saw you standing by the stove, stirring something in the pot. your boyfriend slowly walks up behind you and slowly puts his arms around you and nuzzles his face in your neck, breathing in your comforting smell. you just smiled and linked one of your hands with his much bigger ones. “you hungry baby?” you asked him in a gentle tone.hyunjin only hums in confirmation not bothering to leave the comfort of your neck.

you took out a bowl and put some noodles inside. when hyunjin noticed the bowl you choose he quietly chuckled because it was one of the bowls you made on a pottery date a few months ago. while you had drawn stars and the moon he drew flowers all over his bowl. since then you have been using them, most of the time you used his flower bowl while he used yours with the stars.

after you put his bowl down and a glass of water hyunjin parts himself from your comfortable embrace to sit down and eat while you sat beside him a hand on his thigh drawing random forms. it made hyunjin relax, his significant smile on his pretty face and when you suddenly got up and pressed a peck on his cheek saying you will prepare him a warm bubble bath he couldn’t contain his happiness and put down the chopsticks to hold you in place as he softly yet passionately kisses your lips.

After hyunjin finished his food he put his utensils away he walks towards the bathroom where he could hear you walking around. when he entered the bathroom he saw you standing in front of the bathtub holding a purple blue bath bomb in your hand he smiled when he saw you dropping it in the tub with a bright smile on your pretty face “get in baby I will wash your hair” you said making him smile and nod obeying your command getting in the tub.

the bath bomb almost completely gone making the water look pretty purple and blue when you asked him to tip his head back so you can wash his hair he quickly does as asked knowing he will get a head massage from you. he lets out the prettiest groans when he feels you massaging in his shampoo. hyunjin relaxing completely in your care and closing his eyes. he almost didn’t notice you asking him if he could clean the himself while you got the bed ready. hyunjin just hums to relaxed to give you a proper answer.

after 15 minutes a sleepy but relaxed looking hyunjin exits the bathroom making his way over to the bed where you are waiting with a book in your hand for him to join you. hyunjin quickly gets in the bed pulling the covers over him and nuzzling his head on your chest humming when he feels you fingers card thru his slightly wet hair. “could you read to me baby? just until i fall asleep” hyunjin asked, voice much quieter than usual. hyunjin learned that he enjoyed your low voice when you read to him or talked to him bevor going to sleep. every time you did read to him he fell asleep quickly. you just nod an pick up your book again only for one of your hands to start running thru his soft hair again as your gentle voice flows through the bedroom making hyunjin fall asleep with a content smile on his plump lips and a gentle grip on you.

Boyfriend!SKZ Texts

Prompt: Calling them your husband

Hyung Line