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baobaojng · 4 years

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when icarus falls (jung jaehyun) - act two (final)

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

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

themes: angst, fluff, (super tiny tiny tiny implied smut)

reminders: YOU HAVE TO READ THE HALF TIME INTERVAL BEFORE YOU PROCEED TO THIS PART!!

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

note: AAAAA here we finally are! thank you so much for the kind words and the support y’all gave during the entire process of this fic, i’m so grateful! hope to see you guys read my fics in the future! from here, this has been ‘when icarus falls,’ thank you.

wordcount: 15,375

Chittaphon and Doyoung did not ask any questions when you asked them to drive you home, but since you spilt your own feelings to them - they already knew that something bad happened between you and Jaehyun. You were silently holding sobs in the backseat, not even wanting to make any semblance of a sniffle, but it caused more pain to your windpipe that felt like it was swelling. When they reached your apartment an hour and a half later you immediately got out the car, wanting to vomit on the sidewalk. Although you knew that what had happened with Jaehyun punched the sobriety back into your senses, your body seemed to protest otherwise.

“I’m so fucked.” You managed to say in between breaths, your mouth tasted like acid. You hated yourself for ever drinking and for ever setting foot in that place, your two friends worried behind you - Chittaphon having to pull your hair back. And then you cried in full volume, like putting yourself on mute pented up even more of your emotions. They didn’t know how to respond, but you couldn’t blame them for that. There was always an assumption that they would never really understand you even if you told them how you felt, and they really wouldn’t. In fact, at this point, not a soul could understand what you felt for Jung Jaehyun.

They don’t walk you inside your apartment; you assured them that despite your puffed up face and the strained feeling of your throat that you could make it to bed safely. It did not feel like the right time to be coddled by your friends. You just wanted to be alone.

Buzzing sounds were coming from your phone, and Jaehyun’s contact photo was flashing across the screen. Your eyes squinted at the light, but it hurt more knowing that he was trying.

Jaehyunnie: let’s talk (3:04am)

Even in text, it seems, you’ve rubbed off of each other; he even typed the way you did already.

Jaehyunnie: please (3:05am)

Jaehyunnie: just answer me, please (3:05am)

Jaehyunnie: y/n please (3:06am)

Tears dripped out of your eyes continuously, it was going to be hard trying to fall asleep.

Jung Jaehyun’s number was officially blocked on your phone. For hours you tried convincing yourself that this seriously wasn’t chickening out - this was more about you knowing that there wasn’t going to be good conversation about what had happened, plus your ego would not want to be compromised by immediately jumping at his request of talking. Your emotions needed to mature a little bit more, and until when you didn’t know. Space was needed and even more so the time for you to really think things over. For once you did not allow yourself to point fingers at the alcohol or the circumstances of that night; it was meant to happen then anyway. The world was cruel in so many different senses that it reminded you that you couldn’t uphold the friendship you established with Jaehyun. It had to end the same way it started: where your world crashed down around the idea of your feelings for him.

When Monday rolled around, it took a lot of guts deciding whether or not you were going to end up going to your Literature class, but you painfully forced Chittaphon to vacate his seat next to Jaehyun and sit next to you - afraid that you would have no form of protection if Jaehyun were to try and approach you in class.

“You’re about to drill a hole through the floor with your foot if you keep on thumping it up and down like that.” Chittaphon commented, all while you didn’t notice how nervous your body was reacting.

“Drill a hole through my head, won’t you? I seriously don’t want to be here.” You agonized in your seat, covered in about three layers of clothing in an effort to make yourself believe that it would be a good disguise against Jaehyun. Maybe, just maybe, he would flat out forget you existed if he could not see you in the mounds of sweaters you tried to concoct this morning. It was some delusion wanting for him to not notice you and for you to run away from this with no feelings at all.

Chittaphon seemed a little sad for you, the downwards slope his lips were going to was enough of a sign anyway. “Cheer up, won’t you? If he did the wrong thing at the wrong time and you know you were wronged somehow, shouldn’t he be the one to suffer like this? It’s really Jaehyun’s loss, not your’s.”

The comment was a little too soon to make, especially when Brianna Chang wrapped herself around Jung Jaehyun’s arm like jewelry as they walked in Literature at the same time. She sat down where Chittaphon normally sat, and Jaehyun didn’t seem like he even noticed that his friend wasn’t sitting there. She did not even take this class, but to be fair it wasn’t even twenty minutes till the class started.

Suddenly you regretted the layers of clothing you wore; they felt like a boiling prison chamber.

When Brianna Chang (very loudly) laughed at something Jaehyun had said and placed her hand on his forearm, it sent an echoing pang into your chest. So this is what it felt like looking at him from afar, lest you forget where you were before the two of you had become close. This is how it felt like seeing him not care about everybody else because he could hang out with whomever he wanted despite the dirty looks thrown his way. Quite literally, this is how it felt like taking the backseat. And when Brianna Chang left five minutes before the professor’s arrival, Jaehyun walking her to the door, his eyes searched for yours. Only a split second of surrender occurred until you stripped yourself away from his gaze; you weren’t playing this game.

Jaehyun looked like he didn’t care anyway, and it hurt more to know that he just looked at you and walked back to his seat. You expected him to carry on his efforts at trying to talk to you, but you should have known that he wasn’t one to prolong things.

This was foul two, the first he committed that night on the beach.

Maybe you were just that disposable.

You finally decided to answer Chitapphon who looked just as puzzled as how you felt. Unfortunate how he was debunked so quickly. “You were saying?”

Dinner became an issue you thought you would never think about. It seemed that you’ve grown so used to having Jaehyun ask you to dinner everyday, him waiting for you by the tree you claimed in the quad. Now it was just straight walks back to your apartment alone, not realizing you needed the evening sustenance until your stomach started growling while you were trying your best to distract yourself with all the reading requirements you were digesting in advance. Maybe it was metaphorical for how you were trying to avoid Jaehyun, you could only go in for so long before realizing how much you needed him now. The harder you tried to avoid him physically, everything else would remind you that you couldn’t forget him or dodge the idea of him. It was diabolical how you were so used to this routine before you became friends with Jaehyun, only for it to be hijacked now because you built most of your time around him.

A video call request from Lisa chimed in, you suddenly had to dig through the multiple pages of books that buried your phone. Right, there was a mixer she was trying to invite you to but you declined. You answered her call anyway.

“Hey.” You spoke to the pixelated mess on your phone the audio already chiming in, mashed up sounds of music and other people.

“Y/N! Are you sure you aren’t free tonight?” She said, the lighting over on her side a little bit weird, but the signal came in better and you could see her clearly.

You switched your camera to show her your table, “yeah I’m sure, I have to write about Persephone tonight.”

“Oh, I thought Jaehyun would be keeping you preoccupied.” You loved your friend but you did not have half the heart to admit to her what happened, you knew she’d find a way to try to get you to talk to him and you were not yet capable of doing that.

“Nope, just me.” You reminded her, switching back to front camera.

“Yeah actually never mind,” Lisa said, this confusing you. She quickly switched her camera this time and zoomed in to someone. “Jaehyun’s right here partying too!” She remarked, and now you could make out the figure she was trying to capture on camera.

It was Brianna, her perfectly colored hair indicating it was her, and Jaehyun dancing on each other among a small crowd.

Suddenly, you did not want to eat. You had no appetite at all.

Foul three.

It was quite odd for Johnny Seo and Mark Lee to ask you to hang out with them after class. Not that they were difficult to be around, they were actually really fun guys - except you never really got super close with them. They were probably the closest ones to Jaehyun if you were to make estimates.

“I made a class outline for you so you wouldn’t pass up on getting some chow with us at the very last minute.” Johnny handed you a neatly written reviewer; he probably took some of the same units during his pre-law.

“And I’m here too so you probably can’t resist me and my fun charms.” Mark announced.

You could very easily try and pretend to match their energy, but you would be lying if you did and that on its own wasn’t fair. It was half true that you would pass up on hanging out with them (also because Johnny was one of the key people during the beach party), but only because they reminded you so much of Jaehyun— too much of him to rub off on every single thing and make your mind go back to him.

So you just smile and take the outlined paper and nod along, silently telling them that you were down to go wherever they wanted to.

Now, their idea of a fun time was to go to an Ikea to have food and look at furniture. You didn’t expect it from two goofballs who seemed to probably have zero knowledge on home care, but they proved you wrong.

There was no real idea when they asked you to hang out with them; you originally thought that when they walked up to you, they’d immediately allude to wanting to know about why you and Jaehyun weren’t hanging out as much and why you didn’t go to their practice for the past two sessions. Chittaphon and Doyoung had promised that they wouldn’t tell any other soul about the incident at the beach, and of course anything related to the feelings your harbored for their team captain. Instead they just went up to you out of the blue and told you they wanted to go out.

It would have been way too optimistic for you to expect that they wouldn’t brush on the topic either.

“So,” Mark said with a mouthful of meatballs, “why don’t we see you around much?” He asks cautiously.

“What do you mean? We see each other in school all the time though.” You try to be passive about it, because you very much know what he is hinting at.

“Why don’t we see you around much with Jaehyun then.” Johnny clarifies, and you nod once as you put away the drink you were holding.

The expression on your face is blank, and you realize now that you’ve mastered using it to really avoid how you felt inside. “You two really have no clue, do you?”

A ‘pft’ sound escapes Johnny’s lips, “of course we know something, but it would only be fair if we asked you. Especially when Jaehyun’s been whoring around trying to fool himself into believing he likes what he’s doing.”

“Let’s all just let him be. Besides, I’m sure there’s a reason for what he’s doing and maybe we think he’s unhappy because we don’t like his choices. If we all regard him the way we really do, then we should respect him and whatever he does, right? I’m respecting him by keeping my distance.” You shrug, maybe you had to leave it alone; you had no fighting chance.

“Don’t you think it’s worth trying getting through to him though?” Mark asked you with hopeful eyes.

Your nose crunched into different creases, “see, I blew him off way too many times for that to be possible. I don’t think he’ll want me to talk to him anymore either.” No, you wanted to talk to him for sure. You were just so scared of being confronted with the truth: you crossed lines that should not have been crossed. “Besides, it’s enough that I’ve liked him for as long as I have. And way too much that I was the one that messed it all up too, I should leave it alone.”

“If you say so, then I won’t force it. You’re your own boss.” Johnny respectfully said in defeat.

Walking around looking for blankets, the three of you caught up on how you all were. Your mind could not pin together how they had some sort of idea of what happened - maybe Doyoung and Chittaphon did snitch on you or worse, Jaehyun could have told them something. In that case, you wouldn’t know what he had said or what he had conjured up.

It should not have surprised you when you saw Jaehyun with Brianna, him whispering something a little too close into her ear. He was holding a basketful of home items. ‘Wow,’ you thought, they were going domestic now.

You were caught stuck in your tracks upon seeing it, and thankfully Johnny was behind you so you were able to lean on someone and not fall from losing your balance.

“Out of all the damn days he could have gone to go out and out of all the damn places.” Johnny huffed under his breath, but instead you tried to set him back into a calm mood by tapping at his shoulders with your palms.

“It’s alright Johnny.” You assured as Mark kind of just stood there to awkwardly assess the situation at hand.

“I don’t think it is.” Mark spoke and you noticed that Jaehyun had spotted the three of you. It felt like the first time you ever laid eyes on him, but the great feeling didn’t last long— certainly not lasting as long enough as you would have liked.

“Hey.” Johnny stepped out to pretend to be glad to see his friend, you noticed Jaehyun trying to make his way closer to all of you with Brianne just trailing behind him.

With the basket of duvets the three of you had selected earlier, you tapped at Mark to signal him to follow you away from this running into each other incident.

Had Jung Jaehyun the nerve to ruin Ikea for you, fucking Ikea.

Foul fucking four.

Jaehyun made you sick, he was some ritual that you embedded deeper in than the dermis of your skin - every single thing reminded you of him, even if they weren’t memories you shared together. It seemed that every single thing that had attached nostalgia to it had a little bit of Jaehyun. That’s why you decided that you were willing to forego your common routine in order to avoid even the slightest idea of him. He was like salt that degraded the metal away from you; it hurt even hearing the syllables of his name.

Doyoung usually accompanied you to your trips to the common lounge in school, as you insisted that you felt uncomfortable with the idea of being alone in public in some way. He happily agreed to being your study buddy, wanting to catch up on learning from you because apparently it was easier.

There had to be some way for you to simply avoid and adjust: the measures being taken to the extreme when you figured out that maybe now you took a better liking at Mediterranean food because you never ate any with Jaehyun, you did not take walks by the same route going back to your apartment— hell, you didn’t even want to hang around your living space because everything that used to be so organized was all messed up the way Jaehyun had left them. It felt like you were evacuating the storm that he was, and it was devastating.

For a while you were able to successfully carry out this goal by snubbing him in any sense that you could. Except, you had to admit that it left a pit open in your stomach each time you saw his back during Literature. Sometimes you could tell you were shaking from the wrist to your fingertips just because he made you wary.

Your success did not last long, like any other attempt at trying to avoid him.

He committed foul five when he entered the common lounge with Brianna, seeming to hold matching paper cups of coffee - distracting you from your productivity.

Jung Jaehyun never used to step foot here in all the years you’ve liked him, and even now he was getting in the way of your routine.

Four grown men had to convince you that the only way for you to get over whatever it was you were feeling was to flat out face it and try your best not to care. ‘Try your best,’ still did imply that you did. It implied that Jung Jaehyun still had some effect on you. Although you were still trying to convince Johnny, Mark, Doyoung and Chittaphon that you were fine with ‘leaving it alone,’ they could see right through you.

“You’re beating yourself up about him.” Chittaphon warned when the four of them practically barged into your apartment one afternoon. It was an argument you couldn’t win and a situation you couldn’t convince them out of. Thankfully you were surrounded by sensitive fucks who could really feel how terrible this was affecting you— you expected them to be more indifferent, to just not want to put up with your constant passive-aggressive answers and just agree even if they knew you weren’t truly speaking what you felt.

The real reason why they came over was to tease you with an ‘open invitation’ to having a friendly group dinner, with beers if your mood allowed, because they felt like you needed a little bit more fun and to stop being so paranoid all the damn time. There was a catch though: you’d have to sit through their basketball practice. On that note, you were about to jump out of your own skin in order to tell them ‘no,’ and that you did not want to even set foot in the basketball gym. Johnny thought way ahead though, telling you that Jaehyun has been negligent with practice these days and that he wouldn’t be there.

What Johnny didn’t tell you in full detail though, was he most likely wouldn’t be there.

So that meant while you were sitting by the bleachers- eyes roaming around at the spacious gym, wondering how you could sit here before almost all the time and not feel bored out of your mind, your friends were a little panicky about Jaehyun’s possible arrival. The place smelt like it used to, if humidity had a smell in this sense it definitely would be sweaty - mixed with all the different sprays each of the guys had. They were pretty surprised you showed up too, Yukhei and Donghyuck genuinely pestering you with tight hugs as they were convinced you passed away. Good for you, they had no idea at all about the context.

It felt like you were revisiting a dream: a little unreal, and a little melancholy. Never expecting you’d find yourself here.

Even the time you spent apart from Jaehyun felt longer than the time you spent almost everyday with him. Sadness could do that.

Foul six was even worse, when Jaehyun came in with Brianna again - smiling like he always did when he was with her. Your mind trying to recall if he ever smiled at you as much, or if he smiled at you as brightly.

He looked at you for three seconds, you could count with how slow your heart beat. But when he did see you, he lost his smile and he looked away.

Needless to say, you requested so many beers when your four friends took you to dinner— Johnny footing most of the bill.

It was a Monday when it happened, you were walking out of class alone (this time you were the one to want to try and savor the feeling of familiarizing yourself with yourself again, after what had happened in the gym and after another terrible hangover - you figured that maybe it was yourself that you were missing.) You thought that maybe it was time to breathe deeper and try different things out, although it still hurt you that Jaehyun seemed to be doing much much better at recovering than you did.

Well, who’s to say there was anything to recover from, right?

“This is one of the last requirements you’ll ever submit in this class. No, it isn’t in usual analytic format— rather, I want all of you to write up how you feel like you can related to Icarus in the myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Deadline is in two weeks.” You professor had announced right before you were dismissed, you simply took a note in your phone about it and waited for everybody else to exit so you could steer clear of walking with groups of friends that would obviously make you feel uncomfortable.

You were just about to walk out of Literature when you stopped in your tracks to notice that Chittaphon and Johnny were cornering Jaehyun outside the lecture hall. Morally, if you had any in tact for the sake of yourself, you would have gone and ducked your head down and brisk walked the hell away from there. Though, right now, you did not even have the guts to walk past them. So you decided to stand where you were behind the big doors and hide. Yes, eavesdropping was a terrible idea but you couldn’t help but wonder why the two were cornering the team captain; they very clearly discussed their dismay towards his insensitivities toward you and his negligence towards the team lately, but they knew much better than to ask for some confrontation. Besides, you’ve never seen them hold serious faces like that. Not ever.

“Jaehyun,” Johnny said deeply, he wasn’t speaking in the manner of a team member or a classmate, but more as a friend, “what the hell’s going on with you?”

You don’t see Jaehyun shrug, but you can hear the dismay in Chittaphon’s whine when there is no vocal noise that expressed Jaehyun’s answer.

“You said you were willing to talk to us! Can you at least give us a little more than that? You’ve been shrugging and giving one worded answers these days and it’s really getting on everyone’s nerves.” Johnny demanded.

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong at all.” Then there it is. Jung Jaehyun finally speaks, but you think that as you hear his voice - you’ve missed this voice so much - that it does not sound like him. Technically, it does, but it does not feel the way he really speaks. Jung Jaehyun used to speak in a way that even the way his voice vibrated at the bottom of his tongue, you could feel every pronounced expression that he was trying to put out. This Jung Jaehyun sounded flat, dense, as if his words were thrown around in a void. It felt cold.

“Seriously? You’re going to keep acting this way? Isn’t anything important to you right now?” Johnny raised his voice, you could tell the answers he was getting frustrated him.

“What? I can’t go around and have some time for myself now? Is that not unfair Johnny?” To no avail it seemed, it was even more challenging that Jung Jaehyun kept his monotone voice.

“I’m not saying that it’s wrong for you to take some time off but this isn’t you Jaehyun. Bigger games are around the corner! And what? You’ve been disregarding Y/N’s existence like she didn’t even mean anything to you? It’s fucking bullshit.” The tallest exhausted, and you couldn’t help but feel cramped up in a tight spot when he mentioned you.

“What do you want me to say? That she matters? I think I’ve done more than make it clear at this point, Johnny. If she doesn’t want me to matter, I’m done. She doesn’t matter.” Fuck, that hurt.

With hot tears dripping on your cheeks, you walk out of where you were standing. To this, Johnny’s eyes go wide and Chittaphon tries to reach out and console you. But Jaehyun’s face is something else; it crumbles and it falters down to the realization that you had heard everything.

It feels like you are retracing your steps on the beach when you walk away.

“Y/N! Wait!” Like how he sounded before, it was ringing. How his voice claimed the ceiling of the hall. He was chasing after you this time, and he was getting closer faster.

You have guts this time, even if you know you look like hell. Turning around you face him, “I don’t matter, right?”

His brows furrow in distress. “It isn’t like that.” Oh, but to you it was.

“I know what I heard,” you exhale a deep breath, “just leave me alone Jung Jaehyun.” You shrug him off, but he grasps onto your forearm.

“Can you just please listen to me for once and not run away?” There’s a lump on your throat you can’t swallow, but you stand where you are and you nod slowly. It hurts that you want to hear him out.

“What else is left to say?” You try to exhale deeply, even through ragged breaths you were taking in.

Jaehyun drops all his things on the floor, despite the deep loud sound of them falling, there is no commotion made. Only now warm lights of the campus are turned on because it is late, it is quiet, and your knees are about to clump in together to freak you out. But he breaks you even more when he pulls out some stapled sheets out of what he was attempting to rummage along his items. At first you don’t recognize the thing he is holding; it looks worn out with many creases and dog ears at the sides and you wonder what is it in his hands— but then you recognize the detail in spacing: it was your paper. Somehow it made sense now why it had gone missing right before you were to show it to Doyoung, and how Jung Jaehyun couldn’t get off your hair.

“I’ve always had this,” he tries to explain even with all the layers of hesitation, “except I never got around to explain it to you.”

You are caught in a trap, and you cannot respond. Only with silence and your teeth pressing against each other in anticipating agony.

“These words have kept me drawn to you. I think I’ve gone out of my way so many times to make these words come to life. And those months being friends with you I just can’t help but feel like I haven’t completed what I was supposed to. I just can’t explain why, but I don’t regret reacting how I did on that beach.” Jung Jaehyun is still unimaginably confident as he tells you this.

But you tear up even more, “that’s where you’re wrong.” The voice in your throat croaks and falters.

“How can you say that?” He asks as if he is hurt, which is a very big leap from how he had sounded when he talked to Johnny. You take a very deep breath.

“Because I’m not a fucking charity case, Jung Jaehyun. What you feel isn’t real if that’s all that’s kept you with me for these past few months. You just confuse your pity for an entirely different thing, but you should know that I never needed you help.” You cannot look him in the eye as you look for anything else to distract you: the floor, your heartbeat, the edges of your worn out Converse. “It just sucks that I know I’ll love you even if you think of me that way.” It feels like your throat was choking up on its own, suddenly you wished you were swallowing the words you had uttered.

Jung Jaehyun doesn’t answer you, and he looks like he cannot, not when his eyes were wide as they were - and the rest of his expressions just glitch onto you.

Then you walk away with salty tears fitting themselves into the crevices of your lips as you try your best not to let him or Johnny or Chittaphon to run after you. There was already enough running.

Perhaps you expected way too much of Jung Jaehyun to have the tiniest hope to even believe that he would get out of his way to try harder to talk to you, because he was doing the exact opposite of that. It seemed he had traded you in, in exchange for the life he had before the two of you were friends. Although it was a little odd to see him divulge back into a lifestyle he swore he hated, it never dawned to you how much it suited him. Jung Jaehyun was in his natural state of a dream around everybody else, and you were burying yourself even deeper in all the aged terrible literature that would piss you off just because you wanted to distract yourself. Who were you kidding? It had only been two days, and to be honest to yourself - you weren’t really holding up great because your choice of strategy did anything but distract you; it only reminded you that you were forcing yourself to be distracted by him.

You’ve lost any avenue of focus, so you decided it would be fair to end up just not attending your classes anymore. It wasn’t like you were dropping out of class, you had a few weeks left into the semester and you could pass a lot of your requirements over e-mail - it was easier to just decide not to go and wait until Jung Jaehyun graduated.

“I heard she’s dropping out of her units.” One of the girls from the table said, Jung Jaehyun only now arriving to Brianna Chang’s lunch invitation, overhearing this. He sat next to Brianna, who was replying sadly to one of her friend’s new gossip.

“What a shame, she’s really intelligent too.” She commented, and Jung Jaehyun had to raise a brow.

“Who are we talking about?” He asks.

“Aren’t you close with her?” Brianna asks him, and he feigns any knowledge of the sort. “Y/N?” She asks again and he couldn’t believe his ears.

He pretends he doesn’t really understand the situation, “she’s dropping out?” Trying to suppress his own worry, he just keeps quiet.

For as long as Jung Jaehyun remembers, he’s always noticed you. Even before you got close to the mutual friends you two had shared, he always noticed how intelligent you were for ranking up at the top of your classes and how you never seemed interested in what a traditional college student would. Instead of taking yourself the entire way by drinking your nights out like a majority of people he knew did, you always seemed to keep things under a minimum and just go with the flow. What was even more interesting was how you were still able to say ‘yes’ to your friends’ invitations as well as study your brains out, and always attend his basketball games. To Jung Jaehyun, it sure was intriguing. He made sure he read all the paper work you submitted in class whenever you gave the teachers your permission to post them for reference sake (he heard a rumor that you were just that good to be used for reference) - and it never failed to make him even more curious. Even if he had all the chances in the world to try and introduce himself to you and get to know you because you were always around Doyoung and Chittaphon, he never wanted to force anything out of it.

During the first time your Literature professor called in for a meeting regarding the trip to Greece, he was a little bit intimidated to find out you had signed up— but it shouldn’t have surprised him because of course you would sign up, he did not have to know you well to know that he would probably find you where there was a trace of learning and extra credit or some challenge at such. He could tell how uncomfortable you were sitting next to him though, rummaging your papers all too quickly to pass in an assignment to be the first one to leave, causing you to not notice a couple of documents fly off of your compilation.

Jung Jaehyun was kind enough to pick them up to give back to you just to be, well, kind. But when he looked up to hand them back to you, you were simply gone from the room. For days he tried his best to give your papers back, and he never dared reading them. Each time he did try giving your papers back you always misread the situation, assuming he was nearing you because you were always with your mutual friends (he thought it would be easier to talk to you this way because he wouldn’t know how he could muster any courage up if he went up to you alone) and you would leave. Jung Jaehyun swore millions and millions of times in his head that no matter how long it would take to bring back your personal belongings, he would not read them. Not a single word. He did not triumph from this promise, curiosity taking over the best of him, and he ended up reading these papers. The letterhead was written for one of your classes, in perfect format he might add. Jung Jaehyun read each word as if he were digesting them, bit by bit in each space and in each phrase - he found it curious: how the almost always uptight seeming person he had always seen around school felt the way that they did. If his mind were to tell him that maybe you wrote out of compliance, he wouldn’t believe it either; it was all too perfect and all too feeling for him to say you wrote out of the sheer need to.

The most striking thing was, it made him feel lonely— or, lonelier, if that were possible. Maybe you perfectly resonated the same feelings onto him through words, and it was apparent to him that he was a bit more frustrated at the thought that he did not know how to change your mind, he did not know how to be close to you.

It was definitely out of his hands when Chittaphon arranged a night out to drink after they had won that game when Brianna Chang confessed to him in front of everybody. He recalled how he saw you in the bleachers when he was switched out during a time out called by the other team’s coach, and how he didn’t care for the ‘major’ confession he received after they had won; he was too busy wondering why you disappeared along with the crowd, because he kind of knew that you would typically stay behind a little longer not to jam yourself in with the crowd. He had thought it would mess him up for the rest of the night which made him want to drink to forget about the girl he barely knew anyway, but to his surprise you were sitting there by the haphazardly arranged set of tables just put together - and he knew that after he accompanied his friends to order by the bar counter that it was definitely his chance to sit next to you.

It was another thing to text you the next morning, him trying his best not to write the most awkward greeting - considering that he did bring you home the night before. But he thought he’d never have any other chance to get to talk to you and try to be one of your friends too, and so he just did what he could even if it meant that he would plow through his own embarrassment.

The boy kind of proved that he had balls of steel when he asked you to have dinner, having a strong feeling you would turn him down because you probably would be busy. But then you had agreed to him anyway - to him it was just an invitation to dinner, but when Doyoung was there with you and asked what the two of you were up to, Jung Jaehyun thought that maybe it wasn’t ‘just dinner’ especially since his heart was beating faster than he would have liked.

You won him over without even knowing when the two of you talked over dinner, and even more so when the two of you had walked to your apartment just so he could take a look into your work. Jung Jaehyun realized that at the very least he was interested in you, but he was sure he harbored a little bit of feelings. From there everything had just blown into proportion.

He couldn’t imagine what it would be like without grabbing dinner with you, having you sit in the bleachers doing your paperwork but also surprisingly giving him constructive advice on the sport (this was honestly just the icing on the cake), dragging you out when you least expected to - or just seeing the smile on your face whenever you’d exit your dazed expression.

Jung Jaehyun never thought he could ever easily open up to anyone as much as he could to you, it was like spreading out a velvet map over a creaseless table - all his edges seemed to fall perfectly out of his lips and into your own words. He could listen to you recite your poetry all day. He only wanted to see your face after every single practice and every single draining game. He wanted to clasp his hands around your wrist just to catch you off guard, but also only because he had no other excuse to touch you. He knew he loved you since the first time he asked you to eat Chinese food with him for dinner, and he knew he would love you even more when you were so willing to show him your collection of literature. Jung Jaehyun knew he never loved anyone the way he loved you.

Something had scared him though, the idea that he did not want to risk romance with you. To Jung Jaehyun, he always received too special treatment from females - often receiving confessions, making it easier for him to know if someone did like him or not. So in his eyes, you seemed to treat him in no more difference than the rest of your friends. Many times had he longed to bring up the possibility of something else between the two of you, but he did not want to ruin what was already there. Maybe if he didn’t risk it, the routine he built around you would stay and he wouldn’t have to deal with the idea of ever losing you. Even if it was against his own heart, he decided to try and feel something else for someone else. That’s why he had chased after Brianna.

Imagine his surprise when you had told him that you loved him, Jung Jaehyun felt like he threw up his own heart and tried swallowing it down. When he kissed you, he wanted you to kiss him back and he wanted you to keep telling him that you loved him because he so desperately wanted to tell you that he loved you too.

But you ran away, because he knew that things weren’t in the right order for you to continue. He had just told you that he was pursuing Brianna, and here he was kissing you only because you told him that you loved him.

Guilt ate away at Jung Jaehyun for the next few days. Deciding it was only ever fair now for anyone in the situation, he called anything off with Brianna before things got to serious and before he could regret anything. He waited for you to walk through the doors of the lecture hall for Advanced Literature, but you never came in. He heard people talking about your absence in annoyance, knowing that to them it only mattered that they were talking about somebody else for the sake of gossip. If you were around anyway they wouldn’t bat an eyelash at you, and here they were talking about all the different possibilities as to why the school’s academic ace wasn’t attending classes anymore. To Jung Jaehyun, he was willing to listen to hearsay if only to feed his mind and to try and reassure himself that you were probably doing fine. At least he had hoped so.

“I heard she’s transferring to a different university to take her masters in advance,” the girls behind him were talking about you, “I mean, she’s always been offered many scholarships from a lot of the good arts schools. It isn’t far from happening.” Wrong, he thought. You always swore you would get your diploma and attend your own graduation to feel the payoff of all your hard work. It wasn’t the most likely case.

“I heard she’s going somewhere for extra credit?” Another suggested, and obviously Jaehyun knew this wasn’t true either; you had every extra curricular and extra credit related thing listed down for the semester - and you never mentioned anything.

“I heard she hasn’t been going to classes because something upset her. My dad works at the hospital, and apparently she went into one of the therapy clinics in their wing. She didn’t look so good either.”

Now, this scared Jaehyun, as it was the only real possibility in his head.

He waited for class to be over to be able to talk to Chittaphon, his friend treating him with a little bit more caution since the last time you had a confrontation with Jaehyun.

“Why isn’t she coming to class anymore?” Jaehyun felt like he started breathing after holding in his breath, deciding to get straight to the point already.

To his dismay, Chittaphon could only shrug. “She hasn’t been talking to any of us, we haven’t had contact with her since— well, yeah, you should know.” This seemed even harder for him now, only realizing how difficult he made this entire situation when he could have just grown the balls to tell you that he loved you even before you did.

“Oh.” Was the only thing Jaehyun could say, staring down as he fiddled with his thumbs. He was guilty guilty guilty.

“Jaehyun, I love this reform you’re putting yourself on, but allow her to be lost. Maybe she needs it, in her own selfish way.”

Jung Jaehyun realizes over the course of the next few days that he misses you, and that nothing has really changed that. He thought that he had already known how it felt like to be so painfully in love with somebody, having been in a long term relationship that everybody had pinned for ever since he started off in college. He had remembered dating Kristen Sy mainly because it only made sense to everybody else for them to be together. There was love there, definitely. But the difference it made with loving you meant that he did not have to love somebody just because it felt like they were perfectly made to be cut out for them. In a way, because you were so different from Jaehyun, it made you perfect. Now his mind was kept wondering about all the different possibilities and all the chances he had with you and what could have happened if only he knew how to speak up and to realize much sooner that he loved you too.

He’s been in the middle of wracking up a storm in his head trying to write the paper on Icarus, noticing that (even though that’s exactly the writing assignment) he isn’t any different at all from the character.

Jung Jaehyun, always caught up in his own world where he is always praised an loved by everybody else, but he is left in these moments of vulnerability because he loves you.

It is the championship game of the season, the last game they’ll ever be playing for college basketball, when Jung Jaehyun tries his best to get his mind off of you for just one second. Big scouts are there to watch the game, and he can’t fuck it up for himself or for any of the other boys.

He couldn’t say that during the time outs that he didn’t look for you in the crowds of people, because he did. Trying to imagine that you were somewhere there with Lisa and Chittaphon and actually watching the game. Although he could not locate you, and it was very difficult trying to control his sadness. In his mind he pictured your face, and how intently you would watch the game as if you knew how to play it in the flesh, and how you would clasp your hands together each time you would slightly panic at the possibility of a foul or a missed hoop.

His imagination was not enough, that was for sure, but the idea of you cheering him on and telling him you were happy kept him going. Remembering how you were so genuinely happy for him when he would tell you about how excited he was about being scouted by one of the largest Leagues there was, he couldn’t help but smile his way through the quarters of the game.

Except Jung Jaehyun never prepared for the times when he would remember your face through all the different memories you had shared, even at the final twelve seconds on the shot clock when he was running to their basket— shooting a three pointer with a sure win score, he could remember the way you walked away. And the look on your face when you had cried and told him that he did not understand what he felt.

He stared off of a blank distance his eyes not locked down on anything specific, as the rest of the boys cheered and some got off the bench - Jung Jaehyun’s last time playing for college basketball. Though, the pieces couldn’t fit - even as Johnny Seo smacked him in the arm out of the pure pride he had felt for his captain, and when everybody handed him the championship trophy and carried him from each limb to raise him up as the most valuable player, it simply did not feel complete without you there. Even when their coach told them that SM League would be scheduling an official dinner for him and his team to talk business.

They were all roughly packing up at the locker room now, everyone tired. Through the dreadful noise of Yukhei’s screeching, he placed his items carefully in his duffel bag; realizing now that he was going to have to eventually totally empty up his locker. The metal only felt as cold as how he’d like.

“Jaehyun hyung,” Mark snapped him back into reality, “somebody left this for you a while ago.” His eyes travelled down to see Mark holding a plastic bag, and so he nodded in confused curiosity as he accepted it anyway. It was food? Maybe?

Written in an oddly familiar puppy designed sticky note were the words ‘congratulations, i knew you could do it.’ He couldn’t mistake it for anything else, it had to be your perfectly curved handwriting. Inside there were cans of convenience store beer and a single-sized pizza, reminding him of the times you two used to park by the bay and talk about life in the cold of the hood of his car. You watched his game. More than ever it hit him that he missed you.

Growing up and getting into all school levels, meeting new people and keeping old ones, Jung Jaehyun knew that he just wasn’t the type to really gravitate toward pain. He grew up an only child, with his parents’ undivided attention given towards him and his future - and although he did not make all the friends he wanted, he made really good ones and never had a hard time letting any of them go when time dictated. He learned that every time he used to scrape his knees, it wouldn’t make it feel any better if he cried about it— like every time he failed to make the perfect shot he expected to make in the first place, he never dared to cry.

But with you all he wanted to do was get rid of all the pain - the stupid sensation he felt all over his chest that he could not explain. It was all so alien to him, how you could matter so much to the point where he had to realize now over and over again how stupid he was.

Throughout all the stages in his life he knew that life came easy to him, and he was some how gifted with the charms of reeling other people in, and never having to worry for his impressions onto others. But when he met you, he was always nervous and afraid of saying the wrong thing. When he became your friend he was always thinking about how you must have thought that he was a big distraction and that you had better ways to spend your time. And in those short moments where he could not grasp the events in his own life, he knew he loved you and that’s what mattered anyway.

Jaehyun was writing his paper on Icarus, trying not to divide his attention into anything else. For days he hasn’t seen you in class and his mind wondered what it would have been like if the two of you were fine, and if he had told you earlier on that he loved you too. So now maybe he understood the text a little bit better, maybe he needed to take more chances like Icarus did - even if he knew the repercussions of his actions. And maybe if he did crash and fall, then fail like Icarus, it meant that he took a chance with you anyway.

There was no telling now that he’d broken your heart and his own if he were going to drown in some sea of regret or burn into the sun, but what mattered was that he knew something now that he couldn’t comprehend back then.

He was not afraid of loving you. Not anymore.

His heart was racing, as were his feet and the surprisingly heavy luggage he was dragging around as he and Chittaphon were tailing the Literature professor around the airport in order for them to be admitted to their respective gate. He had his passport lodged between the confines of his lips, trying to keep the thing from touching too much saliva. But then in between his fingers he tried to balance his identification card and his phone, and everyone else wasn’t of help because their hands were all pretty stuffed too. Apparently their flight wasn’t until two hours but since this was a school related thing, they felt the need to panic about being late or potentially getting lost around the airport.

They were going to Thessaloniki now, and there was still no word about your presence - not even your professor mentioning any such detail about an appearance from you on the trip. Jung Jaehyun wouldn’t dare lie and say that he was really bummed that you really weren’t showing up, guilt eating him alive, he hoped over the course of your friendship that the trip to Greece would be a fun thing to enjoy between the two of you. But now, part of him sort of expected a no show from you; no one has heard from you in two weeks, and how was he even able to hope that you were going to show up.

After checking in at the gate, Jaehyun and Chittaphon decided to get some food - as it was about 2 in the morning and they haven’t eaten anything. And there was a twenty our flight in total, the next time they were going to be on land was going to be the layover in Istanbul. Leaving the professor behind to look after all of their things as she claimed an entire bench to the three of them, they set off in a quest to look for some coffee.

“I’ll have two large Americanos please.” Chittaphon told the barista behind the counter.

Jaehyun raised a brow, there was so much caffeine in question, “two? Are you trying to wake yourself up or are you trying to get yourself killed? It’s that, or wasn’t I in charge of buying miss Kim’s coffee?” He asked his friend.

To which Chittaphon responded with a chuckle, “what? It’s not like I’m going to go all berserk on the plane ride after I drink this much coffee.”

“Oh but you’ll have to give me a hard time when you literally get pissy.” Jaehyun joked.

“Who says I’m even sitting next to you, Jae? I’d much rather sit next to miss Kim and tell her how extremely grateful I am to her for allowing me to go on this trip.” His friend jabbed at him.

“Well, whatever suits you Chittaphon.” Jaehyun looks at the barista who was ready to take his order. “Two Americanos and a small box of bagels please.”

As they walked back slowly to find the benches where they set up, talking about how in just a three weeks they were going to graduate, Jaehyun noticed that somebody was talking to their professor. Although, he doesn’t remember seeing anyone they knew when they settled in the gate, so he decided that maybe he mistook a stranger for miss Kim.

“Jae? Where are you going?” Chittaphon asked, three steps behind him as Jaehyun was close to stirring away toward another direction. “Miss Kim is right there.” In Jaehyun’s confused plight, he did realize that he wasn’t seeing incorrectly, and that he was really seeing their professor talking to somebody. But he could only see her back. Miss Kim noticed that the two of them have arrived back and she waved over to beckon them in.

And then the stranger ran a hand through her hair slowly, and a little nervously if his assumption was right by the way her fingers twitched. The thing that gave it all away was that ring around the index finger, one he was accustomed with, something he always saw you wearing.

It couldn’t be.

The stranger turned around, and it was a face he missed a lot. This was no stranger, it was you - little bit more tired looking, and your hair cut shorter. In a way, you did look a little strange; he held a lot of memories in your hands when he took them, scents associated with how he smelt your hair, and each reflection of himself in those doe like eyes. Now your hands were a little bit more frail, and your hair framed your face in a way of change, and your eyes were set in no shock compared to the way his held so much - they were empty. But this was you.

It was, it really was.

Chittaphon was going to have a difficult time trying to explain himself, especially since he and miss Kim knew you were arriving and coming with them to Greece. Also, how he bought you that extra coffee in advance. But most importantly, how he knew the strict seating arrangements of the plane in advance as well. Jaehyun wasn’t going to deal with his piss because you were designated seat mates.

You would have thought that you knew better than to decide to catch up from your apartment, missing two weeks of attending actual lectures - you relied on your professors’ emails. There was some unspoken advantage of acing all of your classes, and being known to be a little more advanced for your age. None of them seemed to second guess your request of asking for all the compliance work you had to accomplish because you had to explain that you had to take a short leave of absence due to ‘medical reasons,’ which was a blatant lie by the way; it was just something you thought was easy to fake since you found your way around to ask for a certificate of an old illness you had when you were younger - that now somehow resurfaced out of thin air. Nevertheless, you put your mind into work and said fuck it.

It was one of the stupidly relieving things you’ve done. It seemed, each time you got your mind off of understanding lessons yourself, your mind always drifted back to Jung Jaehyun - and the answer to avoiding those thoughts were always related to just sleeping it off. The cycle was sluggish, tiring, a terribly perfect way for you to try to grasp the idea of rest.

Until one day after stressfully running your hands through your hair millions and millions of times as the stray pieces disturbed your focus at the pages you were highlighting, you guessed that it was a terrific idea to cut your hair. Surprise, it felt like it freed much needed space somewhere you couldn’t quite pinpoint.

A couple of days on this hiatus you found yourself in, and a ton of coffee consumed later, you were palpitating beyond comfortability. Frustratingly, the facilities got it all wrong when you were trying to explain what you felt one of the men listening by the reception was the father of a girl you had some classes with (you remembered that face from her graduation last year, before she was now taking up her masters), and you were transferred to the therapy unit to make sure they tried all sides of trying to assess your situation. Funnily enough, it took a certified psychiatrist to figure out that you were drinking way too much caffeine.

Then a few days later, you knew that it was the final (final, final) basketball championship game for the collegiate level. Although you were gravely sleep deprived with less tense muscles clinging onto your nerves, you figured that you had a heart somewhere still hidden away tucked beneath Jung Jaehyun’s sweaty strands of hair. You argued with yourself that you should have stayed away, because you knew that it was inevitable for them to win. But you were not going to pass up the final time you were going to see the legendary basketball team you watched all the damn time since you were a freshman, and you weren’t going to throw all of Jung Jaehyun away. Maybe now you were calmer, hiding behind scarier, more intimidating looking people in the bleachers - clumsily balancing the pizza and beer you bought between your fidgeting fingers each time the other team would make a clean steal at the ball. It still hurt somewhere to see him. Jung Jaehyun looked tired on court, and it was the first time you witnessed him looking so disheveled in the place you’d usually find him to be shining. But when the crowd went ballistic when the margin was far off and he took a final shot just for the sake of it, you stormed out to leave your little gift behind. It all just felt happy in your head; you were happy for him, you were very much sure that he would be playing for the big leagues.

Even though you had this whole debacle on how you were secretly catching up with your classes, of course your participation in the trip to Thessaloniki wasn’t out of the picture. Part of you was awfully assuming that you wouldn’t see Jung Jaehyun on the trip because maybe he had half the mind to give it up because you were going as well. But then again from the absence you took, to which you did not respond to any of your friends at all about their worried queries, you thought that maybe it would be a lot more logical for him to go on the trip assuming that you were gone from university. So you asked for a special consideration from your professor, miss Kim, if she would still count you in as part of the trip - to which she answered with ‘as long as you are able to pass, and as long as you are able to commit to going.’

That, if it weren’t for your deep and utter need to be able to hold on to your love for writing, you had to commit to. Sure it was quite difficult to put a little bit of yourself aside in order to really catch up, but unfortunately that was the only path you could take.

Nothing could ever mentally prepare you for this trip. Not even the two weeks you took of intensive studying by yourself, or that time you learned French for a semester and was put on the spot for it by touring a French transferee around your campus. It wasn’t like you did not know that you were going to likely suffer through his presence; it was hard enough as it is to basically put yourself into isolation - and now he’s one of the first people you were going to see.

You had assumed over text with Chittaphon and miss Kim that your rather late arrival was absolutely fine, since they gave off the vibe that only the two of them were patiently out to wait for you at the gate. So when Chittaphon asked you if you wanted a cup of coffee during the wait, you immediately said yes - as you thought that you looked like such a monstrosity, the caffeine boost was very much appreciated. Except, when you arrived to have a brief catching up with only your professor who was surrounded by a sea of luggage, you felt oddly alarmed.

Alarms did sound off in your head when you turned around to notice Chittaphon and Jung Jaehyun holding excessive amounts of coffee, a very bland look dawned by the boy mentioned in the latter. It was as if he was wiped off of all emotion in one whole sweep of just spotting you, and it hurt to see him that way. It hurt to just see him at all.

How did you even get here a few hours later? Basically melting into your seat next to Jung Jaehyun, you felt like you were slowly going to disappear into a little pile of goo. The feeling in the air was terribly odd, especially when you were trying keep your composure - and you weren’t sure whether the feeling was angry or sad. And you wished your body was capable of turning itself into goo; it could save you the immense torture of the awkward tension that filled the air. Because he was there, he was real, he was sitting right next to you. All your eyes could do was try and distract your brain by looking at all the little cracks between the airplane seats in front of you, not minding that it looked like you were staring at the same cartoon projection of your destination from the small television screen from behind the seats. Chittaphon had betrayed you: admitting earlier that he was responsible for booking these tickets last minute because he took on this responsibility. Apparently you and Jaehyun were meant to sit at least ten rows away from miss Kim and Chittaphon, next to each other, with you seated by the window seat. This was a set up, and clearly it wasn’t working.

The hours between the flight it took for you to get to the layover in Istanbul was mildly uneventful. You weren’t able to really sleep it all off because the coffee kicked in at the wrong time, and it seemed the same way for Jaehyun. Who only took to wearing his AirPods, not sparing you a single glance at all. The way you retaliated was through watching a movie that was available in the files on the little television, not giving in to having to ask him if you could pass and pee in the lavatory - or just so you wouldn’t resort to breaking the ice because it was awfully silent between the two of you to the point where your throat felt tender. When you two got out your chairs to get your luggage in the compartment above the seats, it was basically the same thing. Just beelines to get the hell out of there.

You could see the hopeful look on Chittaphon’s face as he and miss Kim were waiting for the two of you to exit the plane. It was the kind of look that expected you and Jung Jaehyun to be chummy, or to at least have spoken over things and have an air of comfort between the two of you. But the three feet distance between the two of you was pretty explanatory, and your Thai friend had nothing to expect.

“We’re grabbing some breakfast here on the ground before our next flight,” your professor checked her wrist watch, “which is in about four hours? So we have a lot of time to wait and to eat.” She said, oblivious to the drama between her students.

When the four of you left the gate of the plane, Jung Jaehyun quickly grabbed your carry-on bag, which left you a with imaginary question marks planted all over your face. If you had any guts to even say anything, maybe you would ask him what the hell was he playing at, but the thing is - you really, seriously had no guts at all to spare and even try to face him at the moment. So you could not contest the action.

Even when all of you found a restaurant to eat at around the airport, it was odd sight to see having Jung Jaehyun carry only his and your orders back to the table - considering that he and Chittaphon were carrying the orders, and Chittaphon was the person to buy you coffee before your flight to Istanbul. Your hands brushed against against that of Jaehyun’s when he handed you your drink, the the surge of electricity left you even more puzzled.

But when Jung Jaehyun asked you if you were okay as you walked to your next boarding flight the few hours later, you decided you couldn’t do this. You could not understand why you did not feel like you wanted to rip his head off, and instead it even hurt you some place in the chest that you did not know could feel that way. You did not feel angry, and it scared you the most how seeing him could change everything so quickly for you.

“Y/N.” He drawled out, he sounded tired trying to come up with reason.

You didn’t have it in you to answer him, so you rushed on over to sit next to your professor instead - with Chittaphon seeing the look on your face. You were horrified, and you weren’t ready to face Jung Jaehyun.

Needless to say, you were sniffling in your plane seat for the first hour until you fell asleep and tried to keep the tears away.

When you arrive in Thessaloniki in Greece, your brain tries to wrack up all the million different beautiful details of the city. You could go on and on to describe the sight that lay before you, but at the moment you simply could not. It was a place that birthed so many different links to human life, and the many things you have read over the years.

You wished you could say that you could smoothly sail through the beauty of the place without having any bothersome thought in your heart because of the boy you were with on this trip, but you could not say that.

It was interesting to think that you’ve liked him for the longest time, and at some point you realized you were the closest friends - the countless times you would text, share the lamest jokes, watch him play in court and worry about basketball after, share meals, take pictures. He was like your poetry collection: you know it for many things and then you realize that all the tears and smudges meant something deeper. Like how he imbedded himself into your skin, and now it’s way different than what it all was.

After a long day of venturing out on the city alone, since you were given the privilege of time, you found yourself walking through the Promenade of the city - where the bay marries the platforms of concrete, stone, and wood. Even in the cold evening air you painfully wonder what went wrong, and how it all got here.

You knew you loved him still, for sure. It was going to take mountains and seas to change that. You could smell the air of the sea, could feel how your feet tried to balance off every uneven step. It reminded you of loving Jaehyun and being his friend, it just all made sense.

Reaching the White Tower of Thessaloniki, you decide that since it doesn’t close for two hours you could spare some time checking out the museum within the monument. It was built in the fifteenth century during the Byzantine fortification, the structure still standing tall on the waterfront of the city. No doubt it’s been tweaked a bit of times throughout all the years, the lights installed inside screamed anything but natural. But you led yourself through the maze of screen heads to be able to try and find your way to get on the top of the tower in hopes to view the sea in a different way.

You reach the top of the tower, only the lights below you truly light up the night. And once again, farther away from comfort, you are alone.

“Can I stand here?” A voice threatens you out of your melancholy, and you were drawn back to that night at the bar - when Chittaphon and Lisa basically abandoned you at the end of the makeshift long table. It seems that Jung Jaehyun asks you these kinds of questions as if you have property rights over all basic human commodities of chairs and floors, and now bricks and concrete. Even his politeness bothers you.

“Sure.” Is the same answer you pose. And he stands three feet away from you, like he has so far during the duration of this trip.

After a few moments of silence, he speaks. “It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?”

You nod, but it’s not like he is looking at you - because you are trying your best not to look at him. “Thessaloniki is, yes.” But he doesn’t respond to you, and you weren’t expecting a response from him either. Small talk worked that way, and it was hard to maneuver yourself into this ‘conversation.’

“No, not this place.” He says, gently. Before you could even respond, you quickly take a glance at him to try and confirm through his expression what he means to say.

And Jung Jaehyun is looking right at you.

“Jaehyun, I—“ You try and reason out that you aren’t ready to face him like this, not when your heart is shattered into a million pieces. And especially not when you don’t care that your heart is broken because he is right there.

“Remember when I told you about getting scouted by that big league for basketball?” He manages to misdirect you just when you were about to step away, so you end up staying in your tracks. “I was so fucking happy holding you then and there when we were looking over the bay on top of my car, and I realized just how scared I was about the future but you made me feel like it’s an absolutely normal thing to feel scared of the unknown. And maybe I wasn’t so scared after all. The view kind of reminds me of that, but we’re standing so far apart, and I can understand why.”

You don’t know what to say, except to keep the bunch in your throat bundled up in nervousness - how you cannot pinpoint what he is trying to lead to. But you find yourself tearing up at his words, and it is salty when your tears find their way to fit into the crevices of your lips.

“Conversely, I think what makes me more scared is that the only reason why I feel like things will go fine is because I believe you. I always really have, and maybe I’ve been too caught up in trying to preserve our friendship to the point where I simply never wanted to tell you that I’m absolutely stupidly in love with you. You aren’t some charity case of some social sciences paper that fell of the file and landed to my hands. It was a lucky thing that allowed me to get to you, and to realize that my admiration must have meant that I’ve liked you for the longest time. I love you because you complete me, and not because I’m trying to complete you. You’re the three-point shoot that makes me win the game by a landslide, Y/N. Now the only thing I know that really fucking scares the shit out of me is losing you and knowing that I hurt you because I tried falling in love with someone else. It’s you.” Jung Jaehyun explains, then pauses. “You can tell me I was stupid for kissing you on the beach like that, I just thought you meant that you loved me and I didn’t know how long for. You can even tell me to fuck off and never talk to you again, and we can try to be civil and enjoy Thessaloniki for as much as we can fake comfortability. I just want to say I love you for as much as I can before I make you run away from me again, because it sucks to know all too well that I love you and that I hurt you. I’m just, I’m sorry.”

You do not speak for as long as you please, because you are trying to absorb what Jung Jaehyun told you.

“Jung Jaehyun, you’re such a fucking bitch.” Are the last seven words you say until you come closer to him and kiss him as hard as you can. He doesn’t expect this at all, obviously - by the way you could feel his face lift in surprise, and the short lag time it takes for him to kiss you back. It’s as if it’s only the two of you there, and you feel yourself unfold in his touch - like the pain drains away from you slowly.

Then, you think, was it so quaintly beautiful to kiss Jung Jaehyun in a historical landmark. Even more beautiful (and kind of confusing) when you forgive him right away; you have been just as stupid as he has.

“So, you’ve been at home all this time, huh?” He asks, as the two of you awkwardly find your way back to the city’s promenade to buy yourselves some time before heading back to the hotel, the distance between you not so far away - but enough for you to feel the cool of the air.

“Yes, I have.” You answer sheepishly, he has you caught guilty of your preference of a flight mechanism.

You turn to face him and redirect the topic back to him, “congrats on your game, by the way. You really nailed that last shot.”

Jaehyun smiles, “you really went on over and watched?”

“I mean, I had to sit somewhere I knew you wouldn’t see so that it wouldn’t be awkward if you did.”

“Well you know what? It was more awkward when Mark gave me the food you got.”

It is your turn to laugh, “I wouldn’t say much about that. All the other boys caught me and I had to make the delivery a little discrete, it was up to them to assign somebody to give the food to you, Mark was just a little unlucky.”

“I’m only a little disappointed,” he pouts, “I really thought you’d be there to hug me first and to tell me I did a great job after my last collegiate game. I should have told you earlier how I felt; this was all really dumb.”

“In my defense, you know I couldn’t just go up to you and hug you after what happened.”

He smiles sadly, “yeah, I know.”

“Jaehyun, it’s really okay. I mean I did say ‘I love you’ first, so it’s on me.” You try to reassure him, but he tries to compete.

“I loved you first though.” It comes out of his mouth with no tone of doubt.

“No, wrong again.” You hold up a loose hand.

“I loved you ever since we had dinner together for the first time, I think it was really there. I know I’m right.” He justifies, but you raise your voice in comparison.

“I loved you first.” You throw the argument back at him.

“No, I believe I loved you first.” He tries to say, and before a loop of argumentation could even happen you start to babble.

“Jaehyun, I’ve loved you since I saw you smile at Johnny from the back row when we became classmates in English for the first time - I don’t see how you can top that. Besides, you just said that you weren’t sure how long I’ve loved you for.”

He looks confused for a moment, and he doesn’t respond. He takes both his palms and clasps at your arms to stop you from walking and to keep you in place.

“Say that again.” He demands

“I have loved you since freshman year? Is that what you wanted me to say, or?” You try not to sound like you don’t understand why he needs to hear this again. But what you don’t know is, as he holds you a little bit tighter, he never knew you’ve loved him for that long - assuming that when you told him you loved him on the beach shore, you meant only recently.

He looks at you in a way you cannot explain, but he kisses you so deeply. And when he pulls away his eyes are filled with question, “I’m so stupid, god.” He says to himself, but you laugh it off instead. “You’re always a step ahead of me, huh?”

Johnny and Doyoung wake you up for a video call request the next morning, you wake up at the annoying notification sound. Neither miss Kim nor Chittaphon encountered you and Jaehyun together last night as you two took a bus back to the hotel after walking through the promenade, so there was no logical reason in your mind that could link back to why these two out of all people were calling you.

But you answer the video call anyway.

“What?” As the pixelated video connects you ask in a grumbled voice.

“Is Jaehyun not with you?” Doyoung says choppily.

“Huh? Why would Jaehyun be with me?” You are confused, as you’re only really waking up alone in your hotel bed.

“Am I not getting transmissions right, or haven’t the two of you made up or something?” Johnny asks this time.

“And when did you hear that?” You pretend you do not understand.

“Dude, I seriously asked Jaehyun to go and talk to you last night because he was planning on doing it anyway but he was chickening out. He texted me a smile emoji at like three in the morning and I thought that it meant that things were fine, but it must have been a sarcastic smile.” He explains.

“So basically you’ve been tailing me through Jaehyun, and now you’re asking me about it? You have real balls, Seo.”

“Are you and Jaehyun okay or what?” Doyoung demands an answer.

You break character just to piss him off a bit. “Yeah we are, dumb ass.” Johnny sighs out of relief from the other line, at the same time you hear knocking on your hotel door and you lazily scramble to answer it. Once you do open the door Chittaphon decides to just barge in.

“Why—“ You don’t even bother continuing your question, instead you change what you were going to ask. “Am I missing something here, or are you all just inviting yourselves to be part of my morning?”

“I don’t know, Y/N. Aside from the fact that Jaehyun woke up way too early for it to be normal and I could hear him singing in the shower. We aren’t even sharing the same room! He’s staying right next to mine and his energy is annoying. What happened? Did you suddenly profess your love for each other or something.” Chittaphon rants out of frustration, but you can only really laugh at this.

“That is precisely what happened, yes.” You answer him, as your Thai friend notices you’re on call with somebody.

“Oh hey Johnny, Doyoung,” He greets as he unsuccessfully waves his hands in the air, “guess we really are the fundamental bridges to their union.” And Johnny is quick to agree on the other end of the line just by the looks of it.

“Don’t get too ahead of yourselves.” You roll your eyes. It doesn’t take long until the entire basketball team goes on to flood your inbox about how happy they are that everything is suddenly alright. You suppose this is a cute thing, how all of these guys have been delicately concerned with what has been going on. You kind of feel like they are the lost boys of Neverland, wanting Peter and Wendy to kiss and make up. This is something you miss. Much to your dismay during that morning, when Chittaphon finally gets back into a good mood after napping on your bed for thirty minutes - in which you’ve already prepared for the day - you haven’t seen Jaehyun yet.

When you go down to the hotel lobby though, there he is, with his hair a little bit damp but his face thrown into a smile once he lays his eyes on you.

“Good morning, sunshine.” He greets, and it even looks like the sunlight is in chorus with his smile. Unbelievable.

“You look way too happy for it to be comfortable.” You comment, but he pulls you into a hug.

“We’re okay now, right?” He asks, and you chuckle into his chest.

“Jung Jaehyun, if we weren’t okay I wouldn’t allow you to do this to me.”

He hums. “I just wanted to say that I love you,” you laugh at him again like it’s the silliest thing in the world to hear— but you are surprised to know that Jaehyun is serious, “I have to make up for the years we could have been in this position, and I could have said it sooner.”

And that’s what Jung Jaehyun does, in every single alleyway and every corner you walk in Thessaloniki. He reminds you that he loves you. When your fingers trace through beautiful words written on the walls of museums, and look through the art piled up in random streets - he tells you he loves you and how you write, and how you tend to overanalyze everything of art you see. He takes notes of this when he takes pictures of you when you are not looking, and you smile when you take unflattering photos of him in return. When he takes your hand, and realizes you are all there is. When he is inside you, and you see how his eyes glint with each time he says that it’s you.

It doesn’t scare you when you get home from Greece. When you have to finally face the music and go back to school, people gawking at the sight of Jung Jaehyun being so outwardly open about the two of you being a couple. It doesn’t scare you to wait for each other after class to go back to getting dinners, and this time spending more and more time with each other. When Jaehyun asks you to be his girlfriend that time when he shadily asks you to go into the court because he said he wanted you to watch him throw his last hoops before the two of you get out of school. It doesn’t scare you when the two of you graduate a while later, and he’s automatically placed into professional basketball, while you’re assigned to do field work for a publishing company that offers travels abroad to investigate history and to simply absorb the world. College turns out to be way faster than you thought; one day you’re crushing on this basketball champion from the bleachers, one day you become hopelessly inseparable, and the next he’s your boyfriend.

Just a few days ago you handed him perfectly straightened envelopes filled with letters you want him to read for each day the two of you would be separated. He was going to intensively train for a while to condition himself in one of their facilities a few states away, while you were off to Crete to take note of significant landmarks and events there. It seemed that you could never have enough of Greece.

“You aren’t coming with me this time.” You talk to him on the phone before you were to board your plane.

“Unfortunately,” he says with a little bit of sadness, “but I’ll see you sooner than you know it, okay?”

“I know, Jae. It isn’t like we’re going to die without each other, this is the fifth time we’re going to be apart for the year but we’re fine. We have to get used to the set up.” You kid, and you practically feel his deep laugh from the other line.

“Oh don’t jinx it, please!” Jaehyun exclaims. “I feel like my heart is going to burst into pieces not being able to hold you.”

“Again, you aren’t going to die Jaehyun, so you better take care of yourself while we’re apart.” You recall the first time he had to go into training and you had to stay behind, Taeyong called you multiple times to say that Jaehyun would refuse to eat because he wasn’t used to the sudden quiet (even though he was with the noisiest bunch in the planet.) He wouldn’t sleep well either, and stay up all night reading because he said it reminded him of you. It took a lot of convincing but eventually you got him to get back on track, which honestly meant threatening him. “If you don’t take care of yourself, I’m going to make sure to beat your ass in return, and you should know that I mean it.”

“Breakfast and dinner don’t taste the same without you.” He whines like a child.

“You’re such a child Jaehyun—“

“I love you.”

Even if he’s said it a million times, it still puts you at a loss of words sometimes.

“My uh, my flight’s boarding. Love you too.” You’re forced to end the call before he can say a goodbye, and although you tell him not to miss you so much - you cannot tell him that you probably miss him more, if not as much.

Crete’s sun is only a little forgiving when you arrive, it is not to hot - but hot enough to bring your face into a scowl. It’s a little bit more calming in Crete than it is in the city you’re from; the streets aren’t as crowded as you would have expected upon your arrival, and the air feels just fine. For a few seconds you think that it might be a little bit easier not to miss Jaehyun, but then you realize that every single little thing you see you automatically remember him - and you want to bring him here just so the two of you can spend more time with each other.

On your first three days in Crete, you try to familiarize yourself with the place. Opting to really try and take a feel at how things are here and how life is, you find yourself exploring places in a quest of getting out of this loneliness you feel. The sun has left your skin in a reddish tint, and the looseness of clothing you carry around just screams how you’re ready for adventure. Chittaphon sent you a link to a few places he heard of from other friends, and that’s how you decided to go around. Eventually, you find yourself in an odd library that offers the sight of artifacts and statues, this is after scouring around looking for some place to eat. You haven’t heard from Jaehyun for the past three days either but you text him a good morning and a good night message each day, you think that the reason why he hasn’t been responding or updating you is probably because he’s too busy training - and it’s happened a lot anyway. So you resort to being on your phone less and try not to think about how much you miss him.

That is, until your phone starts ringing.

“Hello?” You don’t have to look at caller ID twice to know it’s Jaehyun, but the other line is silent. “Jaehyun?” Still no answer, but you don’t have it in you to end the call because it’s him calling.

“You’re looking at the displays of Artemis.” He says after a while.

“Hm,” you look around, and you think he’s only joking but you do notice the display incased in glass, “stalker.”

“And you’re holding a red leather bound book?” Jaehyun continues on but sounds unsure.

A ‘tsk’ leaves your lips, and suddenly you’re on panic mode. “It’s getting a little bit creepy.” You comment and he laughs, but this time it sounds louder than it’s naturally supposed to. So when you turn around to wonder what the hell’s wrong with your phone, you see Jaehyun standing there with his phone pressed up against his ear. You jump on to hug him, and you can feel the vibrations of his laughter. This is the last thing you ever expected. But apparently Jaehyun had to lie about having training; he was given some time off after exceeding his expected performance for the season, and this would be a good way to surprise you.

“Hey.” He peeks over to the book you’re holding: the myth of Icarus and Daedalus.

For a while you wonder if he’s really here, and in a deeper sense - you wonder how he’s your’s and how you ever ended up here. “You’re here.” You say, out of breath.

“I am, with you.” He smiles the smile you love the most.

“I love you.” You bury yourself into his chest, you want to bask yourself in his presence. How he’s here.

“I love you.”

Jung Jaehyun could never say he regretted flying too close to the sun, if it meant falling for you.

fin.

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