#iwrew

[jasonbehrs]

i wanna read every word, chapter 2

by airauralintensity (aka me, jasonbehrs!)

“Have you ever fallen in love with someone you’ve never met?” “Uh, do you mean like we’ve-been-doing-long-distance-slash-online-dating or like I’ve-been-crushing-on-the-cute-barista-at-the-library-cafe?” “Ummm, more like I’ve-read-their-poems-and-sure-they’re-very-talented-but-their-handwriting-alone-makes-me-smile.” “… That’s oddly specific.”

fandom: kpop, super junior characters: eunhyuk, ryeowook; guest appearances by the rest of sj-m and yesung ship: eunwook genre: romantic comedy themes: alternate endings, strangers to lovers, handwriting, identity reveal setting: college chapter: 2/4 word count: 5.2k

read it below or on ffnet, aff, wattpad

A/N (6.6.2021): Welcome to the next installment folks! Some clarifying things:

- This is the first of two alternate endings to the story, which answers the question, 'What if Ryeowook finds out first?'

- I got some interesting reviews/PMs about the last chapter? Eunhyuk isn't pining after Yesung or anything, and I didn't mean to indicate that would be an aspect of the story. If you were looking forward to it, I'll be disappointing you today haha. Feel free to let me know how much you hate me in a review ;)

Also, today would have been my grandmother's 102nd birthday, so I'm dedicating this chapter to her since she always loved seeing me write. Love you, Nanay!

~~~

He and Hyukjae haven't hung out alone before, but he's sure this won't be awkward. Their only real link may have just been Yesung, but Hyukjae successfully ingrained himself into their entire friend group in the short weeks since they first met. Besides, even if Hyukjae weren't so willing to help him with his twisted scavenger hunt for love, Ryeowook thinks he'd like to hang out with him some time anyway. He's grown to like Hyukjae, really.

At least, that's what he tells himself when he turns the corner and sees Hyukjae sitting alone on a bench in the quad with his legs crossed, a laptop over one knee and an open notebook on the other, waiting for him to arrive.

Ryeowook takes a breath to steel his nerves then heads over to plop himself right next to the other. He doesn't say anything and takes out his own work instead. They don't have to start with the crush thing.

"Ah, my favourite person under 5'2". How do you do?" Hyukjae snarks without pausing his typing.

In response, Ryeowook uses a single finger to tip Hyukjae's notebook onto the ground without remorse.

"Ya!" Hyukjae picks up his notebook and slaps Ryeowook with it.

On the downswing, Ryeowook freezes.

"Oh shit, did I hit you that hard? Sorry, I didn't mean to," Hyukjae hurriedly apologises, but that's not it at all.

Ryeowook had caught a glimpse of the notes hurriedly scrawled across the open book. He would recognise that handwriting anywhere.

"Why don't we get started then," Hyukjae offers uneasily, eyeing how Ryeowook's stance hadn't relaxed yet. "Um, did you bring a copy of one of the notes like we discussed?"

Of course he did. Ryeowook was so excited to be one step closer to identifying the person behind the song lyrics that took up as much space in his brain as his Food Sciences lecture notes, he had brought the whole ass scrapbook with him, eager to show off his favourites to a new and willing audience.

But now, Ryeowook is panicking. He found the object of his affections much sooner than for which he was ready; and said object is sitting right next to him, staring at him expectantly and eager to help.

Not letting himself think it through, Ryeowook rummages through his bag looking for viable scraps of paper. There is no way he is going to hand Hyukjae's own work to him, so he makes do with what he's got.

He bypasses the lyric samples he actually prepared for today's meeting and found ones of his own making which he had intended to recycle weeks ago but never got around to. He silently thanks himself for this terrible habit as he frantically smooths out the small squares of paper before handing them to Hyukjae.

The other raises his eyebrows as he reads through the papers. "Damn, I was hoping that maybe one of these things had even a little similarity to an assignment we've heard so far, but no dice."

Ryeowook nods, affecting understanding disappointment even as he privately rejoices.

"Do you mind if I keep these? I can, like, surreptitiously check people's notebooks during group assignments," he offers with a laugh. "Pearl blue sticky notes can't be that common in a class of 50, right?''

Ryeowook smiles, wide and fake. "Fingers crossed!"

~Even though we're making awkward conversation, it's clear that we're happy to be together.~

Thus proceeds their search for Poem Person. (The gender-neutral nickname Mi had come up with stuck even after Hyukjae revealed those were not actually poems being left behind. Alliterative nicknames are just so catchy.)

"Okay, what if we tie a balloon to your chair and hope Poem Person likes balloons enough to take it with them around campus?" "No way, they won't take it." "How could you possibly be so sure?"

Sometimes, it's Hyukjae coming up with ridiculous plots.

"Trust me. They curl their lowercase L's." "I'm gonna let this go, but I want you to know that makes zero sense."

Plots which Ryeowook foils with equally ridiculous reasoning.

"''We might have never known each other, but we crossed faraway paths and came together. We crossed the distance of a stranger that's farther away than space.' Huh, not bad." "You think so?"

Sometimes, it's Hyukjae asking to read more of the scraps that Ryeowook collects, partially so Hyukjae can make fun of him, but mostly so that he has more clues.

"Yeah. I mean, it doesn't help me at all, but your man's got a way with words. I wonder why he doesn't submit any of the stuff you've shown me for class. It's worth critiquing."

An ask which forces Ryeowook to wrack his brain for passable imitations of song-lyrics-that-could-be-mistakenly-construed-as-poems and to get used to writing with his nondominant hand.

"Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass." "Really? You're passing on Park Hyungsik?"

Today, neither of them are feeling very motivated, so Hyukjae pulls up the Facebook profiles of his classmates and let Ryeowook play smash or pass because "it's fun to hear strangers' opinions on people you know."

"Oh, absolutely. Does that guy look like he cares where he dots his i's and j's? Hard pass," Ryeowook maintains.

Hyukjae shakes his head in amazement as he pulls back his phone. "You'll meet him one day, and you'll regret this moment; mark my words. Hyungsik is universally loved. Honestly, I'm not convinced yet Poem Person isn't him. He fits basically all of your criteria."

Ryeowook has to actively smother a knowing smirk. "What a shame."

He didn't come clean to Hyukjae in the quad that day because he panicked. Ryeowook was not mentally ready to meet the object of his affections so soon, much more confess, so he acted on impulse to buy himself some time.

Once he had it, he got curious.

It's no secret that Ryeowook had built up an idea of what Poem Person is like. The lyrics provided some insight, of course; but most of his intuition came from the handwriting itself. From what he could see, Poem Person was supposed to be intensely passionate, excitingly impulsive, and almost sickeningly romantic.

"Okay, how about this guy?" Hyukjae asks as he passes his phone over again.

Ryeowook takes one look at the screen and snorts. "Very funny. Pass."

The app is opened to a photo of Hyukjae himself posed unnaturally on a couch wearing a forward-facing snapback perched atop his head and an awkward half-smile, and Ryeowook refuses to look at it any longer before he does something he'll regret, like coo affectionately.

"Pass!?" Hyukjae repeats with mock-incredulity. "Don't you think he looks charming and witty and oh-so-loveable?"

Ryeowook indeed had a lot of thoughts about what Poem Person would look like, and 'charming,' 'witty,' and 'oh-so-loveable' have indeed flitted through his mind. Actually, Ryeowook finds that Hyukjae and Poem Person aren't altogether dissimilar.

Hyukjae is passionate about his craft, to be sure, but it doesn't occupy every one of his waking moments like Ryeowook expected. He is as much of a romantic as the next person is, but really Hyukjae is poetic, a distinction Ryeowook learns and appreciates very early on. Hyukjae is a little too thoughtful to be so impulsive, but his quick wit and ability to do/say/become whatever a situation calls for more than fulfill the quota for chaos that underlay Ryeowook's original supposition.

So yes, Ryeowook is withholding the truth so that he can slot the person he made up in his head into the person Hyukjae is, but it's been worth it.

"He looks like a brat and like his feet smell." "YAH! My shoes don't breathe!" "Get better shoes, then." "Give me the money, then." "Get a job, then." "That's not fair! Helping you find Poem Person is basically my part-time job!" "Consider it more of an unpaid internship."

Before Hyukjae takes his turn to volley back, his phone rings in his hand.

"Ah, as much fun as this was, I gotta go. I have a mini-showcase coming up, and I've been slacking on rehearsals." He shakes his phone towards Ryeowook, and the latter could see an alarm screen that reads "get your dumb ass to the gulliver center!"

Ryeowook's heart beats a noticeable thump thump all of a sudden. "Can I come with?"

"S-sure," Hyukjae says, shocked by the offer. "But why?"

That's a great question. For now, he says, "Because your internship is getting in the way of your studies, and I feel bad," but later, he'll know it's because he didn't want his time with Hyukjae to end so soon.

A grateful grin spreads across Hyukjae's face, and Ryeowook will add that onto his list of reasons later as well. "An audience is always welcome."

In no time, Hyukjae is in a practise room in the athletic center stretching his limbs every which way while Ryeowook watches as intently as possible while feigning interest in literally anything else in the room.

The bass-heavy noise music that Hyukjae puts on startles his attention back onto the dancer, and Ryeowook can no longer hide how blatantly he stares.

Hyukjae moves through the choreography so fluidly it almost looks lazy. He goes from jagged angles and harsh lines to sinewy curves and rolling waves to strong stomps and high jumps with no hesitation. He plays with the rhythm of the music, and he makes full use of the space available to him. Ryeowook is barely processing one impressive move when Hyukjae executes another one; and before he knows it, the performance is over.

"So," Hyukjae pants, "what'd ya think?"

"It's…" Jaw-dropping. Powerful. Hot. "… impressive," Ryeowook says at last.

Hyukjae smiles tightly. "Thanks. It actually needs a bit of work for the showcase, but I don't think the routine is all too shabby."

Ryeowook watches as Hyukjae watches himself through the mirror, redoing parts of the choreography over and over again at different tempos just to fine-tune his movements, and he can't help but feel like Hyukjae needed more from him.

"Um, I wonder if maybe it's lacking emotion?"

All movement halts. "What?"

Ryeowook didn't mean to say that; but now that it's out, he finds himself needing to continue. "You move well, um, obviously," he gestures awkwardly to Hyukjae's person, fighting a blush. "It looks physically difficult, sure, but what is it that you're trying to say? Like, I'm guessing you chose that song, too, right? So, why?"

Hyukjae stands in the middle of the room, arms limp by his side, and staring at Ryeowook with an unnervingly blank look on his face. Ryeowook hastily backpedals, "But hey, what do I know? I'm sure your professors will watch you and see all the nuances I can't with my untrained peon eyes. I was just… talking to talk, I guess."

"No, but I think you have a point," Hyukjae interjects.

Ryeowook perks up. "I do?"

"Yeah, like… I was so focused on trying to show what I can do with something only I could do, but that means basically nothing when any one of my classmates could learn my routine with only a week of practise. The only way I would be able to stand out is from whatever I put into it, but you made me realise I didn't put anything into it." He plops on the floor, eyebrows furrowed in consternation.

Ryeowook shakes his head adamantly. "No, no! There's clearly something there! You just need to, like, bring it out more. You have that whole idea—that this is something only you can do. You can take that, morph your routine into a testament to your need to prove yourself. Start with some trepidation, throw some desperation in the middle, and end with triumph. Honestly, I think I saw a little bit of that in your performance already. Maybe it was an accident, but now, just… do it on purpose."

"'Do it on purpose,'" Hyukjae repeats to himself. His head is down, so Ryeowook can't immediately tell what he thinks of the idea. He's ready to apologise again, even offer to go home so that Hyukjae can concentrate better, but then Hyukjae raises his head. "Alright, let me give that a try."

His eyes are filled with will and determination. Ryeowook, of all people, put those there.

He sits back and watches Hyukjae rehearse his routine over and over again, getting better and more evocative each time.

The Hyukjae before him is not a Hyukjae Ryeowook would have been able to guess based on his handwriting and lyrics alone.

Ryeowook knows basically nothing about dancing; but over the past few weeks, he's really come to know Hyukjae. He's noticed how the other is prone to express himself through movement, like when he accentuates his stories with body language and physical reenactments. It belies a comfort and confidence with his body and what it can do with which Ryeowook could never empathise. It's a subtle thing, but impactful nevertheless.

He smothers it down because he doesn't want to give Hyukjae the wrong idea, but he wants to laugh.

Only he could fall for a dancer's words first before anything else, and only he could fall for the same person twice.

~Where should I start? When should I say it? Darling, our seconds, our minutes together were beautiful.~

"Ryeowook, why haven't you asked to see my handwriting yet?"

"What?"

They had commandeered a study room in the library, but honestly neither of them are making a lot of headway in their respective assignments. Ryeowook didn't want anything to do with Organic Chemistry, but this conversation is making him reconsider his previous stance.

"Isn't that what you're into? Trying to infer people's personalities based on their handwriting?"

"I'm not into it. It just happened."

"Okay, sure, but aren't you, like, good at it now? Read mine! Tell me what it says about me."

Ryeowook, desperate to squash this idea immediately, blurts out. "It… It won't work!"

"Why not?" Hyukjae pouts.

Ryeowook scrambles. "Because I know you already. Yeah. I'll see and interpret things in a way that confirms what I already know."

Hyukjae eyebrows furrow in what Ryeowook can presume is consternation. "Sorry," he offers feebly.

Some more time passes, and Ryeowook makes mild progress on his O-Chem work, before Hyukjae speaks up again. "So if you can't do me, can you do my friend?" he asks with an excited tone that makes Ryeowook wary.

"I do not want to do your friend." You, however…

"NO! I mean: can you interpret my friend's handwriting? Here. He left it at my place last time we studied together."

Hyukjae's smirk radiates smug self-satisfaction, and with one look at the paper, Ryeowook understands why. He actively controls every muscle in his body to prevent the facepalm that's threatening to break loose.

He has to give Hyukjae props, though. If Ryeowook weren't already so intimately acquainted with the handwriting on the page before him, the other's ploy could have worked.

Regardless, he still finds himself in the position he was trying to avoid in the first place.

All the best lies are based in truth, right? "So I can tell your friend has a very high-stress major. The handwriting is cramped and small, like he can't waste a single stroke or else he'll miss something he needs to write down. Ah, see how he doesn't fully cross his t's and dot his i's? He thinks he'll be able to read his own handwriting later. He probably has decent memory or just has a lot of faith in himself."

Hyukjae nods with an impressed frown. "Huh, not bad."

It would be so, so easy to stop there, but Ryeowook can't. He loves Hyukjae's handwriting too much. "And look here," he points excitedly to a cross-out near the center of the page. "He could cross out his mistakes with a single line or a little squiggle, but he completely blocks it out instead. It suggests he has more confidence with the obvious; but really, I think he needs the reminder. Like, 'Yeah, I made a mistake. I'll move on, but I won't let myself forget. That way I don't do it again.'"

A moment later, Ryeowook realises with a jolt that he had been holding and smiling at the scrap paper a little too tenderly. He whips his head up in embarrassment, an explanation-slash-apology at the tip of his tongue, but Hyukjae doesn't seem to notice.

In fact, Hyukjae has been silent the whole time. Ryeowook chuckles awkwardly. "Am I right?"

"Huh?" Hyukjae intones as he's brought out of his reverie. Ryeowook thinks he sees something in his eyes when their gazes meet, but Hyukjae blinks and it's gone. "I'm sorry, what did you ask me?"

"I was wondering if I was right. About your 'friend,'" Ryeowook reminds, air quotes clear in his tone.

Hyukjae shuffles uncomfortably in his seat. "I think you're more right than even he's ready to admit," he says with a hand at the back of his neck and a sardonic quirk of his lips.

The sight causes an unexplainable swell of affection within Ryeowook, and he turns away. "He can take his time," he assures, eyes trained on his textbook even though he can't read a damn thing.

Hyukjae nods his thanks and turns back to his homework, but Ryeowook doesn't feel right letting it end here.

"Hey, wanna give my handwriting a try?"

~You always lift your head to look up at me. I want to take my big hands and cup your small cheeks.~

Next time they're meant to hang out, it's the weekend; and Hyukjae texts him to meet him at Bomnal.

"Both of us were here just two days ago, and we have to be here again in two days. Don't we spend enough time in Bomnal as it is?" Ryeowook complains as soon as he enters the atrium of the academic building.

"Think of it like a field trip. Come on, Wook," Hyukjae says as he leads them to the second floor lecture hall.

"Pretty sure field trips are meant to take us out of the classroom, but sure, whatever," Ryeowook grumbles as he follows along.

He's testy. He knows it, but he can't help it.

This is the first time both of them will be in Bomnal 235 at once. It feels like a turning point, like he's going to learn something today whether he wants to or not. He wonders if Hyukjae feels the same sense of impending that he does, or maybe it's just worse for him because he's in love.

As soon as they open the doors, the automatic lights flick on and douse the room with a very awake yellow.

"So… where do you normally sit?" Hyukjae asks as he motions to the empty seats before them.

Ryeowook freezes. Now that it's upon him, he can definitively identify this as the thing he was anxious about.

What if he tells the truth, Hyukjae realises Poem Person is him, and he feels awkward about it? Their comfortable but still-very-new friendship would evaporate on the spot, and Ryeowook won't have him in any capacity, much more a romantic one.

So, in another impeccable display of judgement, he decides to lie again.

"Oh, you know… I change it up," he mildly comments as he moves to somewhere near the middle of the first row. He sits down and gives an unassuming grin to his friend, who makes a face. "You're one of those people? Haven't you heard of the same seats code of conduct? You fed me some crap about curling L's when really it's your fault the balloon trick wouldn't have worked," Hyukjae jokes in that way where he's completely serious but is phrasing it with humour.

Ryeowook feels a genuine, fond grin spread across his face before he can help it, and he quickly ducks his head. "Why are we here, again?" he asks instead of dwelling on the validating comfort of being known.

"Why not?" Hyukjae asks as he moves to sit down. "This is the place it all began, right? Might as well."

Ryeowook, for his part, only stares.

Hyukjae went up to a seat in the rear right quadrant of the lecture hall. Ryeowok's own, real seat is directly in front of where the other is sitting. That can't be a coincidence.

"Um, I'm guessing that's where you sit?" he asks as casually as possible.

"Huh? Oh! Haha, yeah. It's funny, I didn't even think of sitting anywhere else. My feet just automatically guided me here."

"So funny," Ryeowook squeaks out.

"Yeah, my friend in the class actually used to sit with me, but it became very apparent very quickly that we would never get anything done if we did, so he moved down there." Hyukjae points with his foot to Ryeowook's seat, and Ryeowook's breath hitches in his throat. "Sometimes when I'm bored, I just can't help but throw stuff onto his desk just to annoy him." Hyukjae mimes a free throw shot towards the desk and smiles.

Well, if there were any doubt before in Ryeowook's mind that Hyukjae was Poem Person, it has summarily been erased.

Ryeowook hums but says nothing else, letting a companionable silence stretch between them as he acknowledges the warmth that settles into his chest when he confirms with himself that yes, he is glad that Hyukjae is Poem Person.

"Why are you helping me?" he asks, curious and without judgement. The abrupt question startles the other out of whatever reverie he had settled into during their respite, but Hyukjae bounces back quickly, as he always does.

"You know, I had to figure that answer out myself," Hyukjae answers with a laugh. He leans back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, staring out at the empty lecture hall. "I told you I would at first because it was obvious that I was the only one in a position to actually help. It wasn't even an option in my mind that I wouldn't… But even after my sense of obligation ran out, I wanted to keep going.

"You're cool, Ryeowook. You're fun to be around, you're sassy, you're down to try anything once. You're totally comfortable being yourself, and your 'self' is crazy. Like, who else trusts in their gut enough that this person you're chasing after is worth the effort? Who else would go to the lengths to which you're willing to go just to meet him? Honestly, I think that's pretty awesome. I don't know if I could have that same confidence you do."

He tilts his head towards Ryeowook then and gives a close-lipped, self-convinced smile. "If anyone's gonna find love based on a few scraps of paper and a dream, it's gonna be you."

Ryeowook nods mutely. He hopes the distance between them is enough to disguise the blush on his cheeks.

Hyukjae faces forward again. "If I think about it, I guess I'm being selfish, too. I want to believe a love like that is possible; and if I help you find him, I'll get to see it happen for myself… I really hope this guy is worth it, Ryeowook. I think it would break my heart as much as yours if he weren't."

He is, though. He's so worth it. "Me too."

~Longing is a beautiful pain I thought I could endure.~

Ryeowook walks out of the campus mail room, and life couldn't get better.

He just picked up a care package his mom sent him; he got a 94 on his last Nutrition Essentials quiz; and Hyukjae loves the new low-fat, protein-enhanced strawberry scones recipe he tried out yesterday.

Speaking of whom, he thinks this whole Poem Person plot is going to wrap up soon. The last time they must have actually worked on a strategy to find out who Poem Person was, like, two weeks ago at least; and Ryeowook's glad he can stop pretending he has any interest anymore.

Their friendship has wholly evolved beyond the point of needing a project to work on in order to spend time with each other anyway. Why pine after a fictitious man when he has a whole Hyukjae right there, who buys him coffee lattes simply because he's Hyukjae's dongsaeng and who helps him study for his quizzes even when Hyukjae himself is stressed.

Ryeowook tells himself that with some more time, the whole mystery will just fade into an inside joke between the two of them, a white whale they can reminisce about when they're sipping soju and reminiscing… preferably cuddled on a couch and with his head on Hyukaje's shoulder.

However, his friend group did not get the memo.

"So, uh. What happened to Poem Person?" Henry asks one weekend while everyone is at Ryeo-Mi's apartment.

"Shut up!" Kyuhyun admonishes with a slap to the back of Henry's head. "Ryeowook hasn't annoyed us with that in weeks. Aren't you grateful?!"

"I actually am very curious about what happened there. Weren't you and Hyukjae supposed to find him together?" Yesung asks.

"The gen—" "Maybe I'm manifesting, Mi! Ever think of that?"

Ryeowook cuts in before Mi's feelings get even more hurt. "Yeah, we were, but honestly I've kinda given up on the whole thing."

He expects some shock, but he couldn't have predicted who would be the most affected. "You're just gonna give up on finding love!?" Mi despairs.

"Actually, the potential for a romantic relationship was never confirmed," Henry quips. Yesung gives Henry a high-five.

"It was just a little crush," Ryeowook defends. "I've moved past it, as I was bound to do eventually." He says this last part to Kyuhyun, who he knows was the most annoyed with his actions back then.

"'Eventually' doesn't end in time for finals week, Wook," Kyuhyun retorts.

"Well, now you never have to worry about it, Hyun."

"Is love dead?" Mi desponds aloud, but no one pays him any mind.

Ryeowook pats his roommate's shoulders in a half-hearted attempt at consolation. If Mi turns out to be the only casualty in this whole ordeal, Ryeowook will count this as a win.

What he doesn't count on is the fact that Hyukjae would invariably hear about it.

"Is it true?" Hyukjae corners him after Ryeowook picks up his order from the on-campus cafe.

"You know, I don't think so. I think she's just Henry's accompanist for rehearsals," Ryeowook responds genuinely, certain that the latest gossip about Henry's potentially secret girlfriend is what Hyukjae must have been referring to.

"What? No!" Hyukjae stops in confusion but stomps after Ryeowook once he gets his bearings back. "No, I heard that you gave up on finding him, that you gave up a while ago. Is it true?"

Ryeowook hesitates to sit down at the open table he found, and Hyukjae's entire posture seizes in betrayal. "Alright, got it," Hyukjae says with an edge to his tone. "Do me a favour, yeah? Never talk to me ever again."

"Wait!" Ryeowook calls once Hyukjae turns on his heel and storms off. "Hyukjae, wait!" He pays no mind to the fact that he's abandoning his belongings as he chases Hyukjae outside. "I get that you're angry, but don't you think this is a little much?"

He reaches out for Hyukjae's upper arm, but the other immediately shrugs it off. Ryeowook flinches and retreats slightly. Despite the other's obvious fury, Hyukjae is stopped in place and seems willing to actually talk to him, and Ryeowook holds onto that hope instead.

"No, actually," Hyukjae sneers. "I think this is the perfect amount of much when you find out your best friend has been wasting your time for who knows how long!"

Of all the things Hyukjae could have said in that moment, Ryeowook didn't expect that reaction at all. It stings more than he expects, cuts through his defensiveness; and despite his position in the situation, he can't help but need comfort. "What do you mean?" he asks in a confused, desperate voice.

"What do I mean?" Hyukjae repeats exasperatedly. "Ryeowook, we spent weeks together trying to figure out how to get you your dream guy! We never even got anywhere, and, and… And it's all because of you! You shot down basically every one of my ideas practically from the beginning, even after I told you how much it would personally mean to me. That is, like, the textbook definition of a waste of time!"

"You weren't having fun?"

"What?" Hyukjae demands incredulously.

"All that time we spent together," Ryeowook clarifies as he steadfastly meets Hyukjae's angry gaze. "You didn't have fun?"

Hyukjae is silent, and his body posture screams obstinate defiance, but his eyes remain trained on Ryeowook.

"You didn't come to look forward to spending time with me? You didn't spend your free time thinking of ways to make me laugh?"

Hyukjae rolls his eyes. "So what? What does any of that mean when you were just stringing me along? You… you weren't even using me!?" he exclaims, voice rising in a hysterical question. "That was literally the whole basis of our friendship, and you couldn't even do that? Like, what could you have possibly gained from lying to my face like that for all this time?"

Ryeowook gives a watery smile at the non-answer and looks down at his fingers fidgeting together. "I did, too," he says in a voice so quiet it was like he intended to keep that to himself.

It's silent for a long time after that admission. Hyukjae's lividness has dissipated, and he is only left with a disappointment so painful he doesn't want to dwell on it any further. He moves to leave Ryeowook alone outside of the cafe, but Ryeowook's voice stops him.

"W-What did you say?" Hyukjae asks with apprehension.

Ryeowook ignores the tears falling from his eyes as he repeats himself. "I'm in a rush to catch you, but you're in a hurry to leave. Should I just surrender? Now we're like an old and worn notebook filled with scribbles."

Hyukjae simply stares, and Ryeowook takes that as his cue to keep going. "Take your beautiful smile with you. Don't leave it here. You saw me with tears in my eyes."

By heart,

"I was a selfish man, but my life is divided into before and after I knew you."

Ryeowook recites lyric,

"When I first saw you, it felt like a miracle."

after lyric,

"I'm thinking of you more today. I wonder how tomorrow morning will be. Will I miss you more than I do today?"

after lyric;

"I'm honest because I don't know lies before love."

and before he knows it,

"I'd place my feelings on the thawing snow. I'd hang my wish on a disappearing star, but only if you ask me to."

Hyukjae is within arm's reach.

"It's me?" Hyukjae whispers into the scant centimetres between them. "It's really me?" he asks again when Ryeowook had simply nodded.

Ryeowook can't even help it when he recites, "Even when you ask me again, for me, it's only you." with a breathy laugh as he shyly looks away.

Hyukjae moves to gently hold Ryeowook's hand. "And you're okay with that?"

Ryeowook wants to laugh and melt and cry and run away, but instead he settles for an earnest nod and a hesitant smile. "Are you?"

Hyukjae answers him with a kiss, and it feels like a dazzling melody.

~Together, we can make all our unfulfilled dreams come true.~

#super junior #super junior fanfiction #eunwook #eunhyuk #ryeowook #jaso* #iwrew

[jasonbehrs]

i wanna read every word, chapter 3 + epilogue

by airauralintensity (aka me, jasonbehrs!)

“Have you ever fallen in love with someone you’ve never met?” “Uh, do you mean like we’ve-been-doing-long-distance-slash-online-dating or like I’ve-been-crushing-on-the-cute-barista-at-the-library-cafe?” “Ummm, more like I’ve-read-their-poems-and-sure-they’re-very-talented-but-their-handwriting-alone-makes-me-smile.” “… That’s oddly specific.”

fandom: kpop, super junior characters: eunhyuk, ryeowook; guest appearances by the rest of sj-m and yesung ship: eunwook genre: romantic comedy themes: alternate endings, strangers to lovers, handwriting, identity reveal setting: college chapter: 3+4/4 word count: 5.8k

read it below or on ffnet, aff, wattpad

~~~

He and Ryeowook haven't hung out alone before, but he's sure this won't be awkward. Their only real link may have just been Yesung, but Hyukjae likes to think he successfully ingrained himself into that entire friend group in time. He tells himself that he and Ryeowook would have had a solo hangout at some point. Ryeowook's crush situation just expedited it.

They had agreed to meet at the quad but didn't specify anything beyond that, so Hyukjae chooses a bench with high visibility so that Ryeowook could find him easily. He crosses his legs and balances a laptop over one knee and a notebook over the other, figuring he could get some work in while waiting.

Not long after, the other plops himself right next to him and pulls out his own work without even saying hi.

Hyukjae keeps his face down as he smiles to himself. So Ryeowook's feeling just as apprehensive about this as he is.

Something about that realisation makes him brave enough to break the ice. "Ah, my favourite person under 5'2". How do you do?" he snarks without pausing his typing.

In response, Ryeowook uses a single finger to tip Hyukjae's notebook onto the ground without remorse.

"Okay, I deserved that," Hyukjae admits with a chuckle as he bends to pick the notebook off the ground and put it away. "So… did you bring one of the love notes?" he asks once it's apparent they didn't really have anything else yet to talk about aside from that.

"Of course!" Ryeowook rummages through his bag and pulls out what Hyukjae can only presume is the poem scrapbook he's heard the others talk about.

"Um, is there a problem?" Hyukjae asks as he eyes how Ryeowook holds the book to his chest with both hands, making no move to hand it over.

After a long moment, Ryeowook looks at him with hard eyes and a blush on his cheek. "You have to promise me you'll be careful with it. Like, if you want to look at one more closely, then tell me, and I'll take it out for you. Actually, you'll have to clean your hands first, too; I'm worried about oils. I'm pretty sure I have wet cloths somewhere in this bag…"

Hyukjae has heard the others call the scrapbook "a little extra." He privately agrees, but seeing the way Ryeowook is so protective over the thing makes him think perhaps Ryeowook himself is, in fact, a lot of extra.

He wisely leaves those thoughts unvoiced and instead motions for Ryeowook to hurry up. The other hesitantly hands over the book, and Hyukjae makes a big show of settling it calmly on his lap.

It would have been funnier if Ryeowook hadn't legitimately sighed with relief at his action.

Hyukjae lets it go; and with more interest than he expected from himself, he opens to the first page.

"Where did you get these?!" he yelps before he could help it.

"What? Why are you yelling? What!?"

Hyukjae can only distantly hear the other, however, as he is far more preoccupied with the absolute whiplash of recognising his own handwriting in the scrapbook. Page after page is filled with his rejected songwriting assignments, now forever immortalised thanks to Ryeowook's tender care.

Ryeowook flicks him in the forehead, and he struggles to collect himself. "Um, I mean. Um. Wow! This looks like an impressive collection," he stutters out awkwardly. "And, uh, actually! I don't think you ever told me the whole story?" he blabbers, knowing full well he actually has heard the whole story but needing to redirect Ryeowook's attention towards anything other than him right now.

So he sits there and lets Ryeowook gush over Poem Person, identifying that he is slightly uncomfortable with the knowledge that said person is actually him.

Sassy, doting, health-nut Ryeowook is wistfully waxing poetic over him, over his words, over his handwriting (a concept so baffling he actually has to stifle a chuckle in real life lest he hint to Ryeowook he is not actually paying attention).

He nods absentmindedly and offers encouraging smiles at what he hopes at the right places, but his mind is more concerned with figuring out: What the fuck is he gonna do?

~I think I must be broken somewhere. Since when did I start not welcoming even myself?~

The answer, apparently, is string Ryeowook along.

Ryeowook may have initially been hesitant about getting Hyukjae's help; but now that he has it, he has bolstered his efforts to track down and meet Poem Person. Hyukjae is astounded at his forward and creative ideas, stuff like signing up to audit the class one day or even straight up coveringthe chair in chalk so that he could easily spot the person walking around campus.

"Honestly, I need a sidekick, someone to help me pull these things off," Ryeowook explains one day while they're brainstorming over lunch.

Well, Ryeowook's brainstorming.

"I'm also kinda hoping you'll be close enough to the student to act like a wingman when we finally do meet. First impressions are everything, you know."

Hyukjae, for his part, is busy trying to maintain his poker face.

He didn't come clean to Ryeowook in the quad that day because he didn't want the awkwardness. Hyukjae was not mentally ready to hear that his brand new friend had been harbouring a crush on and had been engaging in borderline-stalker behaviour over little ol' him, and he suspects Ryeowook wouldn't have taken the news very well in the moment either.

Now though, he's just trying to maintain the status quo.

It's no secret that Ryeowook had built up an idea of what Poem Person is like in his head. What's the harm in letting him have a little crush on a figment of his imagination?

So yes, he continues to plot with Ryeowook, he continues to bother Donghae by tossing scrap assignments at him in class, he continues the whole ruse.

The harm, as Hyukjae is quick to discover, is that he grossly miscalculated the effect the lie would have on him.

It starts with a text.

Are we still on for tomorrow at 2?

yep. the student union still good?

Yep, see ya there

"Who are you texting?" Siwon asks as he plops beside Hyukjae on their apartment couch, his attention mostly trained on his own phone.

"Huh? Oh, just Ryeowook. I told you about him; I'm helping him meet this guy he has a crush on."

Siwon raises an eyebrow but doesn't look up from his phone. "Oh? You were smiling at that phone like someone agreed to go on a date with you."

Hyukjae stiffens. "I was not."

That makes Siwon look up. Hyukjae valiantly meets his gaze, but he breaks eye contact just a moment later.

"... Right."

Curiously, fear follows shortly after.

Hyukjae doesn't even notice it at first. It was too subtle compared to the overwhelming confidence he gets from being around Ryeowook. With the way the other talks about him, to him, without knowing it's him… it's a heady feeling. (Case in point: The day before a modern dance midterm, Ryeowook texted him a photo of a recent Hyukjae original along with a copious amount of heart-eye emojis, and Hyukjae felt so energised that his professor pulled him to the side after his performance and concernedly asked him point-blank if he had started taking steroids.)

Ryeowook doesn't just see the best in him. He guesses at Hyukjae's flaws and turns them into superpowers. He paints an image of Hyukjae in colours that he wasn't even aware existed. It's an instant ego boost.

It isn't long, however, until Hyukjae stops hearing musings and starts hearing expectations. Ryeowook believes in a vibrant, exciting, romantic persona; someone smart and adventurous who can enable him to be as silly as he has the potential to be.

Since when was Hyukjae any of those things?

He isn't afraid of Ryeowook's wrath when the jig is eventually up, no. Wrath he could handle; wrath he deserves. Instead, he is afraid of the disappointment, the unimpressed "Oh." that Ryeowook couldn't help but let slip once he processes the truth. Hyukjae wouldn't be able to handle seeing the light in Ryeowook's eyes—the light that used to be reserved for him even if the other didn't know it—dim.

And finally comes realisation.

"Don't you think you're being a little unfair?" Hyukjae asks him one evening. They got to-go meals from the dining hall and moved as far west as they could without leaving the campus entirely. The sun is due to set any minute now, and they wanted the best seats possible.

"What do you mean?" Ryeowook asks with furrowed brows still trained on the skyline.

"You've spent so much time thinking about this guy, analysing his mood and habits and whatever. You'll meet him for the first time, but it won't really be the first time for you, you know? You'll know all this stuff about him already whereas you're a complete stranger to him. That's gotta be, like, a power imbalance or something, right? That's not fair to either of you. You've mentioned before that you don't necessarily want to date Poem Person, but that's not even a good basis for being friends with him."

Ryeowook glances at him from the corner of his eye and smirks. "If Mi were here, he'd have a lot to say right now."

Hyukjae chuckles as he lets the other change the subject. "He'd actually have only one thing to say, and I don't want to hear it."

Ryeowook hums but doesn't say anything else, attention still mostly on the sun's slow descent to the horizon. Hyukjae would have liked an answer, but he gets it. He just sprung all that on the other without any preamble, and Ryeowook probably needs time to think. Hyukjae isn't entirely sure what he wanted to hear anyway.

Ryeowook doesn't speak again until the sky finally begins to bleed red, a threatening promise for the end of the day. "You have a point, of course. I'll constantly be comparing the person he is to the person I made him out to be, even when I don't mean to, but… Something tells me that won't matter as much in the long run." He chuckles, low and with disbelief. "I couldn't tell you why; but I feel like even if I told him the whole story, even if the first things I ever say to him are the questionable antics I've engaged in just to meet him, he wouldn't run away."

And he would be right, of course. Look at where Hyukjae is now.

"You're thinking too highly of him," Hyukjae says. He means it as a way to distract from the mortifying ordeal of being known, but it comes out bitter without his permission.

Ryeowook smirks. "Is that what this is about? Are you jealous? Ooooh, are you lonely?" he teases. "Don't worry, I pay back my debts. Just tell me as soon as someone catches your attention. I can't promise forever, but I can promise a first date, for sure." He winks.

There is a long moment between when the sky finally turns black and when the streetlights flicker to life, one conveniently spotlighting the pair with its glow. It mocks Hyukjae with its inevitability.

~This night blesses the day we meet. The moon is open in the sky, and the stars smile.~

"Hyung, I'm bored."

"Okay."

"Entertain me."

"In a minute, I'm reading something for class."

"What's it about?"

"The cultural impact of Black youth on the interfaces of music and body expression in early 1970s New York City."

He appreciates Ryeowook's offer to swing by and keep him company while he studies in one of the many lounges strewn about academic campus, but he'd appreciate it a lot more if Ryeowook would actually let him study.

Ryeowook blinks. "I understood all of those words individually."

Hyukjae drags a hand down his tired face. "I'm basically in the same boat, so please? I'll do whatever you wanna do as long as I can make it to the third page of this article today. I really need to participate in tomorrow's seminar or else I'll have to take a make-up quiz."

"Fiiine," Ryeowook whines, but he thankfully starts scrolling through his phone in silence.

After a few minutes of quality reading, Hyukjae hears Ryeowook rummaging around, so he languidly raises his eyes to see how the other is choosing to preoccupy himself.

He shoots up out of his seat, barely taking the time to set his laptop down properly in his haste. "What are you doing with that!"

Ryeowook looks up from where he is crouched besides Hyukjae's open bookbag, holding a notebook in his hand. "Oh, did you need this?"

"For what? No. What?" Hyukjae spouts in rapid fire, thrown-off by how Ryeowook responded to his question with one of his own.

Ryeowook's eyes light up. "Excellent! I thought you needed this for your homework," he comments as he lets himself fall backwards onto his butt. "I was just gonna read your handwriting while I waited. I can't believe I never thought to check yours out before. I've basically gone through everyone else's in the friend group."

Hyukjae could kick himself for letting such a good excuse slip right out of his hands, but the room seems to have gone in slow motion as Ryeowook proceeds to open up the notebook to a random page. Like a man possessed, Hyukjae dives straight for Ryeowook's lap, successfully knocking the notebook out of the other's grasp in the process.

…

"Hi," he says over his shoulder when the silence has gone on for too long. Ryeowook raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

Hyukjae chuckles awkwardly while he manoeuvers himself out of Ryeowook's lap with as much grace as a baby deer on ice. He quickly snatches up his notebook while Ryeowook is still prone and simply observing his movements, and then he doesn't know what to do next.

Ryeowook takes over from here, standing up calmly and striding right into Hyukjae's personal space. Despite having several centimetres on the other, Hyukjae cannot help but feel small under the other's assessing gaze. "There is clearly something in that notebook you don't want me to see."

Hyukjae eyes the room, trying to calculate his odds. "Yes," he hesitantly confirms.

Ryeowook narrows his eyes. "Is it about me?" he asks with an edge to his voice.

"No." The half-truth comes out much quicker, thankfully.

Ryeowook purses his lips then nods. He takes two steps back, and Hyukjae almost does something silly like reach for his waist to keep him nearby. "Alright, here's what's going to happen. I'm going to let you finish your homework without intruding on your privacy. In return, you'll buy me boba and bring me a notebook I can read the next time we meet."

Hyukjae sighs with relief and readily agrees to those terms.

A few days later, he confidently hands over Siwon's old notebook from their shared Psych 101 class and a medium taro boba.

Ryeowook opens up to the first page then laughs in Hyukjae's face, high and bright. "This is your notebook?" he manages to ask through his cackles. "No wonder you didn't want me seeing it. You must have known I was going to make fun of you."

"Why? Why?" Hyukjae demands, affronted. It may not have been his handwriting, but still.

"It's like your handwriting is Jekyll, and you're Hyde. I look at this, and I don't see you at all."

Hyukjae looks over Ryeowook's shoulder to see what he's working with, and he can't help but agree. Siwon's handwriting is neat, consistent, and in perfect lines straight across the page. Rich kids and their calligraphy classes, dammit.

Nevertheless, he tries to salvage the situation. "Come on, you know I'm a neat person."

Ryeowook snorts, but he nods his head in agreement. "That may be true; but if someone had to write a list of things about you, 'neat' wouldn't even make it in the top 50."

"Can you think of 50 things about me?" Hyukjae teases as he slinks back around to Ryeowook's front, effortlessly plucking the notebook out of the other's hands in the process.

Ryeowook crosses his newly freed arms in front of his chest and smirks. "Yep. 1 would be that you're a brat, and 50 would be that your feet smell."

"Yah! My shoes don't breathe!" Hyukjae whines. "I want 50 nice things," he continues above Ryeowook's snickers.

"Oof, that'll be tough. How about just 5, and you get to pick what movie we watch next?" Ryeowook haggles.

Hyukjae rolls his eyes but agrees. He'll take what he can get.

"1: You're not half-bad at impressions. 2: You like strawberry and chocolate, but only as separate flavours," Ryeowook starts, counting off on his fingers as he goes. "3: You're great at charades. 4: Everybody likes you because 5: you know exactly what to be, do, or say when the situation calls for it. You're not just flexible as a dancer, but as a person, and it's the best thing about you."

Hyukjae doesn't fight the toothy grin that stretches wide across his face. "You think so?"

Ryeowook nods very seriously, but there is an undeniable glimmer in his eyes. "Absolutely. With a lack of other suitable candidates, it's your best quality by default."

~I don't know why you keep staying with me. I lack so much for you, and I'm sorry about that.~

It would be easier to stop being in love with Ryeowook if the other didn't actually seem to value his company and insights.

There are days when they've hung out and talked about anything and everything but the song lyrics, when Ryeowook will bake Hyukjae strawberry scones and give him meaningful feedback on his choreography. They're both witty but in different ways, so they're always cracking up; and in those moments, he can't help but imagine he's already told the truth, that Ryeowook has already accepted him, and that this is what they could look like together.

But then he looks into Ryeowook's eyes and the warmth he sees there burns at a different temperature than the warmth he feels, and Hyukjae is painfully reminded that is not the case.

He can only take so much.

Despite knowing in his gut that it's the absolute wrong call to make, Hyukjae retreats. Stuck between yearning for Ryeowook yet fearing facing him and being frustrated with himself for equivocating on what to do, it's easier to just not do anything at all. He cancels more, begs off group hangouts, throws himself into his dance rehearsals. He even attempts going to the gym once just to keep his mind occupied and off of the problem.

Honestly, life could get better.

As he presses 'ignore' on the nth call he's received from Ryeowook that week, he offhandedly notices that blowing the other off feels way worse than lying in the first place. Let's see him spin that into a positive.

Hyukjae's doing great on his passive, brooding agenda until a few weeks later when he accidentally looks up from where he was perusing just as Henry enters the music library. By virtue of the youngest's classical performance degree, the two of them share the most colleagues and classes of any pair in the group.

He is honestly lucky it took so long.

He offers a stiff nod in acknowledgement and hopes that that's that, but Henry wanders over to his aisle with too much nonchalance to have not been intentional.

He doesn't leave Hyukjae in suspense for too long. "Ryeowook-hyung won't stop baking, you know."

"Huh?" Hyukjae asks dumbly, thrown completely off-guard from the unexpected comment.

"Seriously, he won't stop. You could get drunk off the stench of vanilla extract permanently in the air of the apartment."

Hyukjae realises with regret that he's never had a good opportunity to hang with the group at Ryeowook and Mi's apartment. "Oh. That's good, I guess."

"It would be better if we were allowed to eat any of it," Henry says, flicking through the records in front of him. Hyukjae almost believes it's a fake, idle action, but sometimes Henry nods and writes something down on his phone after inspecting an album.

"Yeah, it would be," Hyukjae offers at last for lack of anything better to say. Despite the stilted and tense atmosphere, he feels compelled to continue the conversation.

Henry nods again, but Hyukjae could tell that's for him. "I think he's saving it for someone that he expects to come by, but who else would come aside from any of us, you know?"

It is unclear if Henry includes Hyukjae in that 'us,' but Hyukjae doesn't dwell on it. Something much more pressing is on his mind. "What kind of stuff is he baking?" he asks, very afraid of the answer.

"He's been experimenting. Caramel chip cookies, cinnamon-lemon cupcakes, strawberry scones… But you know him. It's all low-fat, protein-enhanced flour shit; pretty sure he'd get kicked out of the nutrition program if it weren't," Henry says with a chuckle, but Hyukjae can't bring himself to laugh along.

Those all sound perfectly delicious, and something worse than vanity tells him that that's on purpose. The thought fills Hyukjae with so much more guilt that tears press against his eyes.

"Um, t-thanks, but I gotta—I gotta go," he stutters out through unmoving lips. What it is he's thanking Henry for, he has no clue; but he's far more preoccupied with exiting stage left from this scene as soon as humanly possible. "It was good to see you again," he adds as a reflex, already two steps further down but still facing Henry.

Henry raises his head from the jewel cases just as Hyukjae reaches the end of the aisle, and the slight smile he gives is so loaded with patronisation, pity, and perception that Hyukjae turns on his heel and runs.

~Longing is a beautiful pain I thought I could endure.~

After a whole class of not paying attention to a single minute—instead, wondering if maybe he should just get out with it, all of it: the deception, his feelings—Hyukjae leaves to find Ryeowook waiting right outside the door for him to exit.

"You don't normally get up this early," he comments in surprise, walking up to the other before he could help himself.

Ryeowook shrugs. "Well, I needed to talk to you, and I realised I didn't know enough about you. I don't know where you live, where you normally like to hang out; all I knew for sure is that you had class in this room at this time, so… Anyway, can we talk?"

Hyukjae's immediate instinct is to come up with an excuse, any excuse—he spent a whole class thinking about what he would do next time he faced Ryeowook but still hadn't settled on an answer—but Ryeowook reads his hesitation for what it is and makes the decision for him.

"Actually, we're going to talk whether you want to or not! Starting with: why have you been avoiding the group, avoiding me!" he yells. Hyukjae winces from Ryeowook's harsh words and high tone but can't bring himself to say or do anything more to stop the tirade. He's in no position to ask for leniency.

"I turned it over and over in my head, and I realised: I didn't even do anything! Are you mad at me because I didn't take enough time to get to know you? Are you tired of helping me? Why are you—you should have used your words and said something—whatever it was that was bothering you!—instead of just ignoring me like that!"

Hyukjae only notices that Ryeowook's volume and impassioned speech is attracting attention from other students and faculty in the hallway because he's avoiding the other's gaze, but he knows Ryeowook would be embarrassed about it later.

He hurriedly ushers them back inside Bomnal 235 despite Ryeowook's protests. The other angrily shrugs off Hyukjae's touch as soon as possible and stomps to the rear right quadrant of the room to sit, crossing his arms and legs in one fluid movement and pouting cutely.

Well, Hyukjae would think it was cute if he noticed it. His attention is instead captured by Ryeowook's choice of seating. If Ryeowook practiced the same seats code of conduct, then…

Without really thinking about it, he moves up and slides into his own seat, exactly behind Ryeowook's. He can tell the other is surprised he doesn't sit next to him, but Hyukjae focuses instead on the half-baked plan that formed in the time it took to ascend the stairs.

Ryeowook is petulantly turned towards the front, sure that he's said his piece already and waiting for Hyukjae to talk. Instead, he feels something light and crunchy hit the back of his head. "Yah!" he yelps, turning to glare at the offender, who is steadfastly scrawling something down on his notebook.

"You're doing it again. You're ignoring me instead of talking to me. If you're just gonna sit there and do homework, I'm gonna lea—YAH!" He's cut off by another bunched up piece of paper hurtling right for him, which he angrily swats away in mid-air. "What are you doing!?" he demands, but Hyukjae just throws another wad of paper at his desk instead, his aim perfectly allowing the paper to land right next to where Ryeowook's notebook would have been if he were in class... almost like he's done it dozens of times before.

Ryeowook frowns and picks up the most recent paper and smooths it open before gasping.

He would recognise this handwriting anywhere.

Unfolding my only crumpled wish You and I are in it

He quickly lifts his eyes back to Hyukjae, who refuses to meet his gaze even as he throws another wad of paper at Ryeowook's desk. Ryeowook picks up the first one that bounced off the back of his head and scrambles to find the second one which he had swatted away.

In this very short moment I'm just following my feelings

With trembling fingers, he finally opens the first one, which reads, "Didn't you say you'd recognise my handwriting anywhere?"

He looked up with cloudy eyes to see his desk slowly being overrun with scraps of paper and Hyukjae continuing to write on. Ryeowook slowly walks up to the paper pile and begins opening them one by one.

I'm sorry it turned out this way.

On each paper is a single sentence,

Honestly, I thought you were a lot of extra.

a confession, sometimes, or a timeline.

The sun set, that streetlight flicked on, and I knew it for sure.

As he reads the pages in no certain order,

You thought so highly of me, I was flattered and burdened all at once.

he literally pieces together Hyukjae's story,

What else was I supposed to do except throw them on his desk and annoy him?

from when he first realised the truth

It was so embarrassing to see all my rejected song lyrics immortalised forever by your hands.

to why he had avoided the other.

I didn't mean to hurt you, but I didn't want you to hurt me either.

As he continues reading, Ryeowook couldn't help but feel there is something missing, something that ties the whole narrative together. Alas, even after he finishes all the pieces on his desk, he couldn't figure out what.

Far past the point of anger and instead seeking to simply, finally understand, he looks to Hyukjae, who finally meets his gaze.

Without Hyukjae's constant scratching at his notebook paper, the classroom is loudly silent. He underhand tosses one final wad of paper to Ryeowook, and Ryeowook reads the intention in the action and catches it easily. He opens it up to read a final set of lyrics.

I still can't say the words Those words that make my voice run dry I love you more than anyone else

Ryeowook couldn't breathe. "You love me?" he asks with trembling lips, voice no louder than a whisper but reaching Hyukjae all the same.

Hyukjae slouches into his seat, hands outstretched and anxiously tapping his pen on the table. He keeps his head turned to the side when he nods. "I couldn't help it."

"And you lied to me."

"I'm sorry."

"Were you ever gonna tell me?'"

Hyukjae snaps into an upright position. "I wanted to!" He looks Ryeowook in the eye, trying to express as much sincerity as possible. "By god, I wanted to. But the way you talked about Poem Person… That's the guy you deserve. He wouldn't have led you on for weeks because he's a coward," he spits out.

"But he did."

"But he shouldn't have."

"But he's telling me now."

"But he wasted your time!"

"Why are you talking about yourself like that; he's you!"

"You didn't know that until five minutes ago!"

Ryeowook takes a moment, and Hyukjae forces himself to match the lowered state of tension that results. "It's not so hard to believe, now that I know the truth," the other says after a beat.

Hyukjae doesn't know how to respond to that, so he doesn't. Ryeowook rolls his eyes. "You've heard me go on and on about your impulsiveness and emotional depth and whatever." He gestures to the pile of papers in front of him. "That's what this all seems like to me."

"I can't possibly have been what you expected, what you were hoping for," Hyukjae argues, trying to force the situation into a boiling point. He just laid himself bare in front of the person he's in love with, and none of his worst-case scenarios have come to fruition yet.

"I was hoping to meet the person with the lazy H's and the perpetually rose-coloured glasses, that's it," Ryeowook maintains calmly, but Hyukjae doesn't feel calm at all. He just keeps tapping, and Ryeowook sighs. "What I expected doesn't even matter. I knew there was a real person behind those notes, someone who came with all the complexities being a person entails. All my daydreams were just that; and even if every single one of them were wrong, and for some reason I couldn't handle that disappointment, that's on me. How I reacted to finally meeting you was not your responsibility."

"Are you?"

"What?"

Here it comes. "Are you disappointed?"

"Hyukjae."

The soft tone of Ryeowook's voice makes his heart clench, and Hyukjae shuts his eyes in self-preservation.

His anxiously tapping hand is stopped later by an equally soft touch, and he looks up in shock.

He hesitates to recognise the warmth he finds in Ryeowook's kind, earnest eyes. It's different from what he's seen before, but he doesn't want to categorise it any further than that. Has he imagined this temperature so much that it doesn't look out of place?

Ryeowook can see the moment Hyukjae focuses on him again, and he brings his other hand to squeeze both of Hyukjae's in turn.

"How could I be?" he asks, and he means it.

~I'll hold your two hands and confess, I pinky promise. Thank you for coming to me.~

EPILOGUE

Mi hums to himself as he turns the key to the lock of his apartment front door, arms laden with grocery bags…

��� Which he allows to drop to the floor in shock as soon as he catches sight of the couple making out on the couch.

Ryeowook and Hyukjae break apart at the noise, heavily panting and cheeks flushed. Neither of them stop staring at him, and he cannot stop staring back.

Mi has so many thoughts running through his head, like Since when has that been a thing? and I can never sit on that couch again, but the one that comes out is, "What about Poem Person?"

If possible, Ryeowook and Hyukjae's cheeks flush even further, and Mi's incredulity slowly makes way for glee as he expects their response.

The caught pair turn to each other, communicating hurriedly through eye contact and muscle twitches alone before facing Mi again.

"Um, well, long story short…" Ryeowook begins.

"It was me," Hyukjae finishes.

Mi can't help it as he begins crying real, happy tears.

The gender has finally been confirmed.

~This happiness I noticed can be our starting point.~

~~~

A/N (6.14.2021): Wow, hasn't this been a ride! Eternal thanks everyone for reading and commenting; thanks Dorcas for your support; and thanks Amy for being my sanity check.  If you hadn't already noticed, SJ lyrics were abound in the fic, whether in section breaks, narration, or dialogue! Were you able to recognise all of the songs? :D

Also, now that you've read the whole story, I'd love to know: Did you notice that neither Eunhyuk nor Ryeowook ever feel guilt for their brands of dishonesty? As written, do the chapters progress in such a way that it is sensible—maybe even natural—despite the lack of it?

If you did notice, did that impact your reading experience at all? If you didn't, does knowing now change anything? And ultimately, in a story whose crux is deception, is guilt necessary for redemption?

Share your thoughts in a review, comment, PM, DM, whatever!

#super junior #super junior fanfiction #ryeowook #eunwook #eunhyuk #jaso* #iwrew

[jasonbehrs]

i wanna read every word

by airauralintensity (aka me, jasonbehrs!)

“Have you ever fallen in love with someone you’ve never met?” “Uh, do you mean like we’ve-been-doing-long-distance-slash-online-dating or like I’ve-been-crushing-on-the-cute-barista-at-the-library-cafe?” “Ummm, more like I’ve-read-their-poems-and-sure-they’re-very-talented-but-their-handwriting-alone-makes-me-smile.” “... That’s oddly specific.”

fandom: kpop, super junior characters: eunhyuk, ryeowook; guest appearances by the rest of sj-m and yesung ship: eunwook genre: romantic comedy themes: alternate endings, strangers to lovers, handwriting, identity reveal setting: college chapter: 1/4 word count: 3.7k

read it below or on ffnet, aff, wattpad

chapter 1: the beginning

A/N (5.31.2021): Back with another Super Junior fanfic! Rom-coms aren't really my thing, so this was such a challenge yet so fun to write. I was inspired by Ryeowook's One and Only music video, the fact that he hand-wrote letters to ELF every single month he was enlisted, the fact that he keeps every letter he’s ever been given even after antis used it as a means of sending him targeted hate. 🥺 He clearly cherishes handwritten things, and he just seems like the kind of person that would find meaning in people's handwriting. Thus this fic was born!

Rating for mild language and suggestive instances. Title comes from You Wrote the Book on Love by the Backstreet Boys. Cover art by me. If you recognise anything, that means I don't own it. This story will have two alternate endings. Updates on Sundays. Many thanks to Amy for being my beta!

~~~

Henry cancels their lunch plans at the last minute, which is just fine by him. Ryeowook is in no position to turn down an impromptu opportunity to study, not with a quiz tomorrow for which he is woefully underprepared. He just grabs a to-go wrap from the dining hall and heads for his next class's building. If he recalled correctly, the room that held his noon lecture should be empty right now.

He's right. He happily climbs up to the rear right quadrant of the lecture hall, beelining for what he considers his seat. He is, after all, a devout practitioner of the same seats code of conduct.

He pushes aside the loosely crumpled up piece of paper right on the desk, probably left there by the previous student, and lets himself get lost in his notes from two Evolution of Diet lectures ago.

It isn't until someone takes their seat a few chairs down from him that Ryeowook realised just how much time passed by. He checks his watch then eyes the crumbled pieces of paper around his notebook, casualties from previous attempts to create a study guide. The professor is due to start the class at any minute, so he hurriedly stuffs the paper into his backpack for later recycling.

Unfortunately, Ryeowook does that a lot.

Later, he finds himself sat by his apartment's recycling bin, opening up the backlog of miscellaneous papers one by one to ensure there's nothing he needs from them before throwing them out. They're just the standard class handouts, old notes, whatever.

That is, until he unfolds a page to be greeted with words that are not his own in handwriting that is definitely not his.

I'm thinking of you more today I wonder how tomorrow morning will be Will I miss you more than I do today?

Um, what?!

Ryeowook frantically looks through the remaining pieces of paper in his bag, trying to find anything else like it, but he comes up with nothing.

His mind goes into overdrive, trying to think of a logical explanation for why such a romantic note is in his bookbag, but his traitorously hopeless mind keeps coming back to one conclusion: he has a secret admirer.

"What'cha got there?" his flatmate, Mi, asks when he comes out of his room to find Ryeowook intensely staring at a wrinkled piece of paper while sitting on his haunches by the recycling bin.

Ryeowook falls back on his butt in surprise. "N-Nothing!"

Mi, the pleasant-to-a-fault person he is, gives a winsome smile despite the obvious lie—"If you say so."—before continuing to the kitchen to make a snack.

Ryeowook hastily stuffs the note into his pocket and zips up his backpack. He'll resume this ritual next time his bag is stuffed to the brim. For now, he has other things to focus on. His study guide for tomorrow's quiz is still only half-finished, after all.

Unfortunately, the allure of a secret admirer only lasts for two more days.

When he shows up for his next noon lecture, he sees another crumpled up note by his seat, and he distantly remembers how he found one just like it the last time he had this class. In a valiant attempt to listen to his professor, he manages to ignore it for all of seven minutes before he couldn't fight his curiosity anymore.

It is with bittersweet disappointment that he recognises the handwriting before him.

Take your beautiful smile with you Don't leave it here You saw me with tears in my eyes

The words written on the page thoroughly crush the idea that the poem he memorised before was intended for him—what kind of secret admirer writes a break-up poem for the person they admire to find?—but he lets it go as quickly as the idea originally came to him.

Without the thrill of secrecy overpowering his judgement, Ryeowook has only fondness. Whoever this person is, their work is good, and they've got endearing handwriting to boot.

He feels a little bit shady when he slips the paper into his binder so that he can unite it with its distant cousin back home, but he firmly squashes that feeling down. Whoever left this behind won't be missing it.

When he does it again five days later, and again the next time after that, and keeps doing it every time he sees the tell-tale crumpled paper on his desk, he just accepts that he has suspicious tendencies and maybe a crush.

~If I ain't got you, my kiss is just needless extravagance.~

When Yesung finally arrives at the cafeteria, he's bickering with someone Ryeowook has never met. He watches curiously as the pair approaches where he is sitting. Yesung looks really annoyed, but the new person has a gummy smile painted wide across his face.

"Can you leave now? I'm meeting up with my friends for lunch." Yesung gestures impatiently towards Ryeowook, but the newcomer seats himself. "Cool, what are we having?"

"Who are you?" Ryeowook asks plainly and without formality, having no problem helping his hyung get rid of someone that's clearly bothering him.

The stranger merely offers a charming grin and a friendly hand in response. "Nice to meet you, my name is Hyukjae. Frankly, I'm a rap genius," he introduces with absolutely no shame.

Yesung facepalms.

Ryeowook laughs in his face, high and bright, thoroughly unimpressed with the newcomer's boldness. Hyukjae smoothly retracts his hand, but the grin doesn't waver.

Neither does his determination to stay.

"Who's the new guy," Kyuhyun asks without interest as he seats himself at the table with his food. Mi and Henry are not far behind.

"A nuisance," Yesung complains as he rubs his fingers into his temples.

"Oooohh! We have a new friend?" Mi asks excitedly.

"I'm guessing Yesung brought him?" Henry asks as he bites into his food.

"He followed me like a stray, and now he's at this table begging for scraps."

"Hey, I resent that analogy," Hyukjae speaks up for the first time since the whole friend group gathered. "I thought our friendship was a little more symbiotic than that. You're the whale, and I'm the little fish that's suctioned onto you for dear life."

"I gain nothing from this friendship," Yesung maintains.

"Did you know those fish don't hang on by their mouths but by a separate suction cup organ on their stomachs?" Henry says to the blank, weirded-out, or surprised faces of his friends. "Like, you think it would be their mouths, but no it's a whole other special thing."

"Oh, so that's what you're doing when you're too busy to text back?" Ryeowook snarks. "Watching marine biology documentaries?"

Henry shrugs. "It's just something I know."

"Speaking of, how do you guys know each other?" Mi directs the conversation back to Hyukjae and Yesung.

"He TA'ed for my Vocal Performance class last year—ah, I'm a dance major, but I'm gonna declare a performing arts minor," Hyukjae adds as an aside, "Anyway, he was the only one who held office hours when I was free, so we saw a lot of each other back then. We've been best friends ever since." Hyukjae ends with an arm slung around Yesung's shoulder and a cheesy grin.

"I thought I'm your best friend," Kyuhyun whines.

Yesung shrugs Hyukjae's arm off. "We crossed paths on my way here, then he just invited himself along after I told him I had plans. We're barely friends," he clarifies with a glare at Hyukjae. The other pouts exaggeratedly, and Yesung rolls his eyes before turning his glare onto Kyuhyun. "And if anyone at this table would be my best friend, it would be Wookie."

"If I had a best friend at this table, it would also be Wookie," Henry adds just to annoy Kyuhyun.

"I guess you're the person to know, huh?" Hyukjae directs to Ryeowook with a grin. "Good thing I'm already on his good side," he comments offhandedly as he takes a sip of his drink.

Ryeowook snorts. "Since when were you on my good side?"

"I made him laugh earlier before you guys all got here," Hyukjae explains to the rest of the table. Mi gives him an encouraging thumbs up.

"I was laughing at you."

"The ego perceives no difference," Hyukjae assures.

Ryeowook stares at him incredulously, but he can feel the amused smile that pulls at his lips without his command. Hyukjae shoots him finger guns in response, and Ryeowook just shakes his head and takes a bite of his food.

"So now that we've established a hierarchy, what are y'all's names?" Hyukjae asks brightly.

~Out of the plain people who will be forgotten in a matter of seconds, I know you're different.~

Between Mi's hospitality mode that he can't ever seem to shut off and Ryeowook's nutrition courses that totally upped his cooking game, their apartment is the de facto hangout spot for their friend circle.

Just because they're together doesn't mean they're doing the same thing, however, another de facto manifestation of their friendship. They're all eating the meal that Ryeowook prepared for dinner, but Yesung, Mi, and Henry are watching a movie (well, Henry's on his phone, but he's on the couch with them and sometimes glances up, which is basically the same thing) while Kyuhyun and Ryeowook are doing homework at the kitchen table.

At least, Kyuhyun is. "What are you even working on?" he asks after observing Ryeowook 'work' for the past few minutes.

Ryeowook hastily shuts his notebook shut. "Nothing!"

"It's probably not nothing," Henry remarks without looking up from his phone.

"It's probably related to why he was reading homework next to the recycling bin last week," Mi offers in a vastly misguided attempt to be helpful.

"What does that even mean," Yesung deadpans.

Ryeowook is too busy trying to fend off Kyuhyun's annoyingly persistent hands from getting access to his notebook to respond to the conversation at the other end of the apartment. "Why are you so long!" he wails.

Mi sighs and gets up from the couch, easily swiping the notebook from Ryeowook's grip but refusing to hand it to Kyuhyun.

"But Ryeowook-hyung is keeping secrets!" Kyuhyun complains.

"Ryeowook is allowed to keep secrets," Mi explains like an underpaid teacher.

"Not in this friend group, he isn't." Yesung paused the movie when Mi got up from the couch, and now he's figuratively and physically siding with Kyuhyun.

Finding the antics of his friends more interesting than whatever was on his phone, Henry gets up to join them. "Might as well tell us now," he says to Ryeowook while leaning an elbow on the older's shoulder which Ryeowook promptly shrugs off.

He looks around to his friends looking at him with various levels of interest and expectation, and he sighs in defeat. "Have you ever fallen in love with someone you've never met?"

"Uh, do you mean like we've-been-doing-long-distance-slash-online-dating or like I've-been-crushing-on-the-cute-barista-at-the-library-cafe?" Henry clarifies.

"Ummm, more like I've-read-their-poems-and-sure-they're-very-talented-but-their-handwriting-alone-makes-me-smile."

"... That's oddly specific," Kyuhyun breaks the silence.

Ryeowook flounders for a second, debating with himself if he's ready to go this far, then decides screw it and hurries into his room and back out to his friends with a book. "See for yourself," he says as he lays the book on the table.

"They just kept appearing, so I kept reading them, then I started saving them, and now I'm, sorta, crushing on whoever this person is," he narrates as the others flip through what turns out to be a scrapbook—a literal scrapbook for the scraps of paper he finds, with dates and a little passage next to each paper entry of his first impressions of the work.

"The words themselves can be so romantic or witty or silly, but there's just something about the handwriting," he effuses. "I look at the way the words slant and how the letters bleed into each other, and… I don't know. It makes me feel like I know this person, whoever they are."

"I don't know which is more pathetic: the fact that you managed to fall in love with handwriting or the fact that you're interpreting actual Korean out of this chicken scratch."

Mi ignores Henry's comment. "And this notebook is…?" He holds up the book he had pilfered from Ryeowook. The latter looks up, to the side, to the TV, anywhere to avoid looking at his friends when he confesses, "My attempts at answering them back through poetry."

Yesung snorts. "What do you know about poetry?"

"Nothing," Ryeowook pouts as he stomps, "which is why I would like my notebook back, please, before meaner eyes than yours look through it." He directs the last half of his thought to Mi, who nods understandingly and returns the book to him. Ryeowook clutches the book to his chest protectively.

"What if the writer turned out to be a guy?" Henry asks when he looks up from perusing the scrapbook. Ryeowook shrugs his shoulders sheepishly. "That wouldn't necessarily be a problem." Henry raises his eyebrows in interest. "Noted."

"What if the writer turned out to have a significant other already?" Mi points out. Ryeowook twists his mouth in a moue as he thinks. "That would suck," he says at last, "but I could at the very least tell him his work is good. If the scraps are his throwaways like I suspect they are, then what would the stuff he was actually proud of look like, you know? And if we meet, maybe we might even become friends."

"So what I'm hearing is that you're hoping it's a guy," Kyuhyun observes as he reaches for the communal bowl of shrimp congee that Ryeowook cooked for dinner, having lost interest in the whole ordeal once Ryeowook willingly offered them information.

In retaliation, Ryeowook stomps over and swipes it away before carefully pouring the last of it in Henry's bowl, steadfastly ignoring Kyuhyun's protests and the blush on his own cheeks.

~You'll be able to befriend scary things after all. I'll show off how I can blow away the loneliness.~

Ryeowook's literally minding his own business in the student union when Yesung and Hyukjae stroll up to his table. "Stored any more love notes, Wookie?" Yesung asks apropos of nothing when he sits himself down.

"Hit a B5 yet, Yesung?" Ryeowook fires back. Yesung moves to hit him, but Ryeowook's too fast and Yesung loves him too much.

"What's this about love notes?"

Ryeowook glares at Yesung, who snickers and leaves him to fend for himself. "They're not love notes," he eventually explains to Hyukjae. "They're poems, mostly about love and most likely aimed at a different person."

"And then he projects and makes believe the person is him," Yesung pipes up.

"Why did you wake up today and decide that it's my turn to get bullied?"

Hyukjae lays a hand on Ryeowook's shoulder and sends him a conspiratorial wink when the other looks his way. "Nothing wrong with being a romantic. What's the point of art if you don't draw from it what you can?"

Ryeowook considers him. "I like that. I'm stealing that."

"For what, your 'poetry'?" Yesung snorts, but the others ignore him. For his part, Hyukjae just frowns and sighs. "I'm glad someone at this school thinks I'm creative. My prof completely slammed my latest free prose assignment."

Ryeowook exaggeratedly pouts. "Poor baby."

Hyukjae looks at him, betrayed. "I thought, out of everyone at this table, you'd be the one to show me some sympathy."

"Blame Yesung. He put me in a bad mood, and misery loves company."

~Those disgusted eyes at this scale are not enough to enrage me. As long as there is silence, you will fight amongst yourselves.~

To the surprise of no one, Kyuhyun is the one to figure out a plan first.

"If Ryeowook's class is at noon, and there's no class immediately before his, it's gotta be the 8am class, right? So to find Poem Person, we just have to figure out what class meets in…" He looks to Ryeowook. "Bomnal 235," Ryeowook supplies. "Bomnal 235 on Mondays and Thursdays at 8am, and then—"

"Songwriting?" a new voice says.

"Don't you have other friends?!" complains Yesung as Hyukjae settles into their booth at the pizza parlour.

"He doesn't mean it. We like having you around," Mi assures Hyukjae as he passes him a menu.

"Speak for yourself," Yesung grumbles.

"Can we get back on track here?" Ryeowook cuts above the chatter. "Kyuhyun was about to solve the greatest mystery of my young adult life!"

"And what does the junior songwriting class have to do with that?" Hyukjae interjects.

"What do you mean?" Henry asks.

"Uh, you guys were talking about Bomnal 235 on Mondays and Thursdays at 8am? That's the junior songwriting class."

Ryeowook sits up straighter in his seat. Those aren't poems he's been finding. They're song lyrics.

"Okay so step 1 is down, what's step 2?" Henry asks Kyuhyun.

"Step 2 for what?"

"To stop Ryeowook from pining pathetically after someone he doesn't know," Yesung says.

"I know plenty about him!" Ryeowook defends.

"The gender is actually not confirmed," Mi offers to Hyukjae as an aside.

"And notice how Ryeowook doesn't dispute the 'pathetically pining' part," Kyuhyun adds on.

"Oh my god, stop talking," Ryeowook cuts in. "Let me explain," he offers to Hyukjae.

"Please."

"It's not even that big of a deal. I just have a bit of a crush on someone in the class."

"Because of the love notes," Hyukjae recalls from the conversation several days ago.

"They're poems!" Ryeowook defends on instinct. He stops and reconsiders. "Well, based on what you said, they're probably song lyrics, but yes."

Hyukjae nods. "So Step 2 was going to be…" He looks to Kyuhyun.

"Well, we'd probably have to procure a roster somehow, then we'd spend the rest of the semester staging elaborate situations to get Ryeowook to interact with these people, and hopefully Ryeowook would hate all of them enough to give up on this useless pining and give us back our hang-out times to talk about real things like my gaming tournament at the end of the month."

Henry howls with laughter, and Ryeowook gawks. "That was your plan?!" Kyuhyun puts his arms out in a what-do-you-want-from-me gesture.

"I think I have a better one," Hyukjae pipes up.

"You have a plan?" Yesung asks, a strong note of skepticism in his voice.

Hyukjae slowly meets the eyes of everyone at the table, letting the tension build just a little bit, then drops the bomb. "I'm in that class. I probably know whoever leaves you the notes."

He loves the quick and scattered intakes of breath, but the slowly growing hope on Ryeowook's face is what makes him smile. He makes a come-on gesture with his hands. "Tell me what you know."

The others groan or roll their eyes, having heard some or all of the upcoming discussion over the past few weeks. Even Mi has to politely direct his attention to his phone to avoid letting his tiredness show on his face.

Ryeowook ignores them all. "He's very detail-oriented, but he's usually focused on the next thing to work on or whatever's lingering in the future. He's so friendly—he feels all of his emotions intensely, really—and he's ruled by that more than he probably wants to be. He can be impulsive at times, but his heart is always in the right place." He ends with his chin in his palm and a sigh.

Hyukjae allows himself a moment to fully take in Ryeowook's passionate yet ultimately meaningless description. "Um, that's great, but… don't you know his name? Or appearance? Something a little more tangible for me to work with."

"The gender is still unconfirmed," Mi reminds him.

"I would recognise—" Ryewook cuts his eyes at Mi, who shrugs, "their handwriting anywhere, but something tells me that'll be as unhelpful as anything else I've said tonight."

"'I know plenty about him,'" Yesung mocks as he plays with his pizza.

Hyukjae whistles low and shakes his head. "That makes my job a little harder," he admits.

"You don't have a job," Ryeowook hurries to assure. "You don't have to help me."

"Aish, let him help you," Kyuhyun gripes. "The sooner you meet this guy, the faster you can get over him."

"The gender—" "If you say, 'The gender is unconfirmed' one more time, I'm gonna make your gender unconfirmed."

Mi blinks then just smiles at Henry, who throws himself back into his chair in exasperation.

Hyukjae slowly turns his attention away from the pair and back to Ryeowook. "I'll find a way to help, no problem," he confirms with a smile.

It's not the brightest Ryeowook has seen from the other, but it's genuine and directed at him. For now, he returns the smile with a slight blush on his cheeks and immediately prompts Kyuhyun to talk about his impending tournament.

Later, when he'll think of Hyukjae, the sight of him framed by the unflattering pizzeria decor and selflessly agreeing to a favour will be the image his brain supplies for reference.

~Sometimes what cannot be seen gives birth to unspoken understanding.~

#super junior #super junior fanfiction #eunwook #eunhyuk #ryeowook #jaso* #iwrew