Work Text:
THE ULTIMATE LOVE GUIDE, as told by SEUNGKWAN BOO and AERI UCHINAGA
Step 0: Do NOT get Freudian
Wonwoo’s in the middle of weighing the pros and cons of buying the Spirit Blossom skin that’s coming out next month when Minjeong barges into his bedroom without even knocking first. Wonwoo turns to her, an eyebrow raised in expectation.
“Seulgi asked me to tell you that your chauffeur is here,” she informs him, leaning on the doorframe. Immediately after she says it, the sound of frantic honking starts leaking through his (closed) window. Minjeong sighs, widening her eyes to emphasize her point.
Wonwoo checks the time on the bottom right of the desktop screen and oh, yeah, Soonyoung will be pissed if they aren’t inside his car in five minutes. “Aren’t you coming with us?” he asks, shutting his computer off and checking his phone. There are, predictably, fifteen missed calls from Soonyoung.
“Unfortunately,” Minjeong sighs.
“Then he’s your chauffeur too,” he points out.
“Whatever. I wish Jimin had a car so she could pick me up,” she sighs again, wistfully this time. Wonwoo hates being confronted with the reality of his sister’s successful love life. Then, Minjeong asks, “Are you going out like that?”, looking him up and down and clicking her teeth.
“What’s wrong with it?” Wonwoo asks back defensively. Isn’t jeans-on-jeans, like, trending right now? He even paired it up with a graphic t-shirt. Soonyoung had given him his approval earlier, through multiple texts each containing single thumbs-up emoji each.
“If you don’t know, I’m not the one who’s going to break it to you,” Minjeong shakes her head in mock disappointment. Her hair moves around her face as she does it, and Wonwoo briefly considers comparing her to the ‘little lad’ guy from Tik-Tok before deciding to be the bigger person. “Anyway, you should hurry up. I don’t want Soonyoung to start–” as if to punctuate her words, the honking starts again.
“Coming, coming.” He stands up from his chair and stretches his back before fixing his hair in the mirror and rushing out of the bedroom.
He runs down the stairs two steps at a time, Minjeong on his heels. His socked feet slide on the polished wooden floor when he skips the last couple steps, and Minjeong giggles behind him. Fucker. His sister and Jeonghan are nestled together on the couch when they get to the living room, watching what appears to be a documentary on… the wildlife of Antarctica?
They pause the TV and look over when Wonwoo and Minjeong rush behind the couch toward the entryway. “Ohhh, Wonungie is very fashionable today,” Jeonghan teases, waggling her eyebrows. “Minjeongie is pretty as well, of course~”
“You shouldn’t lie to him,” Minjeong replies sweetly. Wonwoo steps on her left foot. She retaliates by pinching his forearm, and sits down to put her shoes on before he can do something else. Wonwoo rolls his eyes before grabbing his shoes from the rack and doing the same. He can hear Jeonghan’s fondly exasperated sigh.
“You two have money, right?” Seulgi asks. Wonwoo twists backwards to look at her as he nods. She smiles, eyes squeezing shut. “Okay. Have fun, then. And be safe!”
“We will, don’t worry,” Wonwoo replies. He finishes lacing his shoes and stands up, unlocking the door. Soonyoung’s car is parked in front of their house, in all its banged up glory. “Bye! Have fun with the penguins!”
“Don’t come home too late!” Seulgi adds before Minjeong shuts the door. She is, of course, saying that only to fulfill her legal obligations as their oldest sister. She is very aware that the two of them have a very limited disposition for social outings.
He waits for Minjeong to slip her keys into her bag before they walk to Soonyoung’s car. Because he is feeling particularly generous, he lets Minjeong take the front seat. “Hello, Wonwoo,” Junhui’s voice greets him as he slips into the backseat. It’s dark in the back, and the white of Junhui’s teeth glint as he smiles. Wonwoo shudders. “Hello, Minjeong.”
“Hi Jun,” Minjeong replies without looking back. She’s probably already on her phone.
“What took you so long?” Soonyoung asks, craning his neck to the side to look at Wonwoo. “Now we’re gonna be stuck in traffic for sooooo long,” he whines. Junhui clicks his teeth in support of Soonyoung’s show of disappointment toward Wonwoo.
“If you keep complaining, we’re going to take even longer to get there,” Wonwoo says. “And if we get a noise complaint because of you and your honking you’re dealing with it, seriously.”
Soonyoung huffs before mumbling a sheepish ‘sorry, sorry,’ and starting the car. The characteristic whirr of the engine fills the car, accompanied by the predictable tune of Justin Bieber’s Yummy, to Wonwoo’s great demise. He leans his head on the window and resigns himself to at least one hour of listening to Soonyoung’s terrible taste in music, Junhui’s looming presence by his side.
📻📻📻
Minjeong parts ways with them right at the fair’s entrance, mumbling something about meeting Yizhuo by the ferris wheel. Wonwoo gives her a twenty dollar bill before she goes and she doesn’t even thank him. Soonyoung waits until she’s lost in the crowd before snaking his arm around Wonwoo’s and pulling him inside, Junhui trailing behind. It’s hard to dodge people when you’re being dragged by your best friend, so Wonwoo keeps apologizing to strangers for bumping into them.
It’s a Monday night and Wonwoo would really rather be at home right now, playing ranked matches and scrolling uselessly on Twitter, instead of at a bustling fair celebrating whatever stupid occasion today is, but alas, he’d let Soonyoung wheedle him into coming, for whatever reason (said reason has a full name and address and is the reason he’d spent one hour going through his closet and asking for Soonyoung’s advice).
“Wonwoo, do you want a corn dog?” Soonyoung asks. Wonwoo shrugs and Soonyoung must take that as a yes because he joins the line of a food stall, presumably the one selling corn dogs—the sign’s too far away for Wonwoo to make it out, even with his glasses on. “Baby, do you want one too?” Soonyoung asks when it’s their turn. Junhui shakes his head, and Soonyoung pinches his cheek before asking the vendor for just two, then, thank you very much.
Corn dogs in hands, they wander around aimlessly for a while, until Soonyoung squeals excitedly, raising his free hand to wave furiously to someone. Wonwoo follows his line of sight and his heart jumps in his throat when he makes eye contact with Chan Lee, standing next to his friends behind an attraction named ‘Krazy Maze’. Chan waves back, a dazzling smile on his face, and Wonwoo almost raises his hand back before he realizes Chan is probably directing that at Soonyoung.
“Be normal,” Soonyoung whispers into his ear before pulling him again. Wonwoo stumbles forward with the force of it, and he doesn’t even have the time to pull himself together before they’re in front of Chan. “Hey guys! Having fun?” Soonyoung beams at them, untangling his hand from Wonwoo’s to pull Chan into a hug.
Up close, Wonwoo can properly make out all of their faces. Chan’s accompanied by Minjeong’s girlfriend, Jimin, Seungkwan Boo and Aeri Uchinaga. Jimin smiles at Wonwoo when she sees him, then frowns when she sees Minjeong isn’t with them.
Chan laughs at something Soonyoung says, then turns towards Wonwoo, smile still on his face. “Hi, Wonwoo!”
Wonwoo gulps, brain overdriven by vague thoughts of ‘you have to say hi back’ and ‘he looks so pretty oh-my-god-what-do-i-do’. Soonyoung kicks him on the shin. “Hi. Hello. Good night,” Wonwoo stammers out. He’s so bad at this.
Chan keeps looking at him, as if expecting Wonwoo to say something else. After a couple seconds of nothing, he turns back to Soonyoung, saying something about an upcoming performance, and Wonwoo tunes that out in favor of mentally kicking himself over his inability to say a simple good night. When he looks up, Seungkwan and Aeri are whispering something, and Jimin’s typing something on her phone. She’s probably texting Minjeong. God, both of Wonwoo’s sisters are in happy committed relationships and he can’t even look at the guy he likes.
“Do you remember when I had to do that, Wonwoo?” Soonyoung’s voice brings him out of his reverie. He blinks, looking at Soonyoung, who’s got his eyebrows raised expectantly. He has no idea what they’re even talking about.
“Sorry, what?”
Soonyoung sighs. “The performance for DANC 420L, that one you watched last year, remember?” He says slowly, like he’s waiting for Wonwoo to catch up. Wonwoo’s not exactly sure of what he should be catching up on, though.
“Yes, I remember,” he settles for answering.
“Chan here is taking that class this year,” Soonyoung goes on, stepping back so Wonwoo’s in Chan’s direct line of sight.
Chan laughs again, the sound of it echoing in Wonwoo’s ears even with all the noise from the crowd. “I’m so nervous about it,” he says, “I have performed my own choreographies before, obviously, but the crowd’s gonna be so big this time! And a lot of scouts are gonna be there, and that’s not even mentioning my teachers! It’s so nerve wracking.”
“I was telling Chan that he doesn’t have any reason to be nervous about it, right? ‘Cause he’s such a good dancer,” says Soonyoung. He widens his eyes, “Isn’t he?”
Oh. Soonyoung’s trying to bring him into the conversation, easing him into actually speaking to Chan. “Ah, yes. You’re such a good dancer, Chan, seriously. You could, like, work for Beyoncé, probably, you know.”
“Thanks,” Chan tells him with a chuckle. Wonwoo rubs his neck self-consciously, and he can just about feel his ears heating up.
Soonyoung nudges him with the tip of his sneakers. When Wonwoo looks at him, he mouths ‘keep going’. “And if you get too nervous on the day of the performance,” Wonwoo starts carefully, “I read somewhere that imagining everyone in the audience naked helps with that, because you’re under the spotlight but they’re not wearing anything. But it might be weird because your parents will probably be in the audience, right? And you wouldn’t want to see your mom naked, haha,” he finishes lamely, and as he says it he already wishes he never opened his goddamn mouth.
“Ah. Right,” Chan says, his smile awkward around the edges. A silence Wonwoo’s never experienced the likes of before settles between them, so heavy that even the sounds of the crowd feel muted. Seungkwan is staring at him with something akin to horror in his eyes, and even Soonyoung isn’t saying anything.
Wonwoo feels the distinct need to pretend he’s an ostrich and bury his head in the ground forever. He’s going to shove it in so deep Seulgi and Jeonghan will need to call Mingyu over from Massachusetts to hoist him out of his hole of shame.
After what feels like hours of mortifying silence, Jimin clears her throat. “Ah, Wonwoo, do you know where Minjeong is?”
“She’s at the ferris wheel with Ningning.” Wonwoo doesn’t even look up from his shoes as he says it.
“Let’s go find her, maybe we’ll run into Hansol and Yeonjun on the way,” Jimin says to her friends. She’s dealing very graciously with this, probably because of Minjeong. God, Wonwoo hopes she doesn’t tell Minjeong about this.
He keeps staring at his shoes until he hears the stilted goodbyes exchanged, and when he’s certain they’re gone, he starts walking in the other direction. It’s so over.
“Wonwoo, where the fuck are you going?!” Soonyoung exclaims, hurrying after him.
“I’m going to throw myself into the sea and drown,” Wonwoo informs him. That’s really all that is left for him now.
Soonyoung catches up to him and grabs his wrist, tugging him in the direction they came from. “Oh, please, let’s just grab a milkshake.”
📻📻📻
Soonyoung slurps his milkshake loudly, eyeing Wonwoo consideringly, like he’s torn between saying whatever’s on his mind or not. He ends up settling on the positive answer, because he pushes his cup away from him before clearing his throat. “See, I told you you’ll never get a boyfriend if you keep being weird like that.”
“Then what the fuck is that,” Wonwoo grumbles, gesturing to behind Soonyoung where Junhui is standing a couple feet away from them, hidden in the shadows of the ice cream stall. He’s staring very intently at the back of Soonyoung’s neck. Wonwoo seriously doesn’t understand what’s up with him. If he’s weird, then Junhui probably escaped from an asylum.
Soonyoung turns his head around, and upon seeing Junhui, just sighs fondly and taps the seat next to him. Junhui is there in an instant, sitting promptly beside Soonyoung and nuzzling his head into his shoulder. “Say whatever you want about Junnie, but he has a cute boyfriend and all you are to Chan is a stalker at most,” Soonyoung says, petting Junhui’s hair.
“Why do you keep insisting I stalk him, you’re so annoying,” Wonwoo huffs. He’s been taking all of his frustration out on his straw, and it’s so mangled by now he can’t even drink from it anymore.
“It’s your own fault for staring at him like you’re freaking Joe Goldberg or something.”
“I don’t stare at him like that!”
“Sure you don’t.”
Wonwoo lets his head fall onto the tabletop, glasses digging uncomfortably into his skin where his nose bridge is smushed onto the scratched surface. “I just don’t know how to approach him,” he laments. The warmth of his breath fogs the lenses of his glasses, which is a general representation of how he’s feeling right now.
“Wonu, the only way out is through. If you want to go out with him, you have to, y’know, actually ask him out. There’s really no other option,” Soonyoung sagely tells him.
📻📻📻
Soonyoung’s words still echo in Wonwoo’s mind two days later, while he’s dying of boredom at work.
Three times a week, for six hours a day, Wonwoo stays at the reception of the dance studio his sister works at. Seulgi’s been an instructor there since she moved to LA, and in Wonwoo's second year of college, he asked her to get him a part-time job at the studio as well. He had to insist on it for months, Seulgi reluctant to put any kind of weight on his shoulders, but they needed the money, so here they are now, three years later.
It’s not a hard job, and it’s not bad either. Wonwoo doesn’t even really have to talk to that many people, which had been his biggest concern about it all. Most of the time, he just stays behind the counter, working on the studio’s logistics spreadsheets and filing away forms. Occasionally, he also has to help the instructors (most of the time, Seulgi) with tech issues. Of course, he does have to give information and welcome in new potential students and parents and all that, but he mostly just directs them to the admin office and that’s that. So it’s not that hard on him, and he’s already grown used to these types of social interactions over the time.
Wednesday evening shifts are the worst, though. There aren’t many classes, so the studio’s mostly empty, and he spends half of his shift working on the spreadsheets and solving whatever admin problems they throw at him and the other half staring at the ceiling. It’s so fucking boring. Minjeong used to come pester him, but now she’s in college and caught up in all the freshman frenzy so she doesn’t have the time to stop by anymore. Wonwoo can’t believe he’s thinking it, but he does miss exchanging insults with his sister. Ugh.
He stretches his back and hears something pop. Maybe Jeonghan’s right—he should do some physical work. Maybe sitting in a chair all day long is bad for his spine. God, he’s so bored he’s entertaining the possibility of going to the gym. Maybe if he builds some muscle, Chan will look at him. The thought makes him sigh wistfully. Then he decides to open Twitter to see if Chan has ever tweeted anything about liking muscular men. Who knows?
When he opens Chan’s profile, the most recent post is a retweet from ‘The Ultimate Love Guide’, the love advice radio show run by Seungkwan Boo and Aeri Uchinaga, reminding everyone that they’ll be on air in five minutes. Something clicks in Wonwoo’s mind. He knows he needs to do something about his entire pathetic pining situation, but he doesn’t exactly know what to do. He could listen to the show, and maybe absorb some advice? It’s not like he’s doing anything right now. He finished all his work half an hour ago.
He checks his surroundings, making sure there’s no one around, before shoving his earbuds in and clicking on the link to today’s program. It hasn’t started yet, and some Taylor Swift song he doesn’t know rings in his ears. He scrolls through his timeline until the show starts, and even has the time to fight with his Minjeong under one of Soonyoung’s weird tweets about Junhui (this time, a picture of an altar-like conception Soonyoung found under his bed) before Aeri Uchinaga’s voice cuts through the music.
AERI: Hello to all the lovesick fools, this is Miss Aeri Uchinaga.
SEUNGKWAN: And this is Mister Seungkwan Boo, and you’re listening to The Ultimate Love Guide, on University Radio!
AERI: As usual, we’re going to start off by reading one of the requests for advice you guys sent to our account.
SEUNGKWAN: This one seems to be in dire need of any help, like, for real. My jaw dropped when I read it.
AERI: Don’t be mean! Do you want to do the honors or should I?
SEUNGKWAN: I’ll do it, this poor soul. Okay, here it goes: I, 22 male, am in love with both of my best friends, also 22 male. It’s reciprocal, and they are also in love with each other. So it should be fine, right? Except it isn’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just can’t bring myself to tell them the truth. They’ve both confessed to me, and I just said I didn’t feel the same way. I actively decided to lie to them and break their hearts. The truth is, I’m scared. I’m scared of being vulnerable and opening my heart to love and everything that comes with it. It makes me feel uncomfortable, I don’t even know why. But, after I rejected both of them, they apparently got a lot closer, and last week they told me they started dating. I felt so bad when they told me, like I wanted to throw up. I’m still in love with both of them, and now I regret lying about it, but it’s not fair to them to tell them the truth now. But I feel so bad. What should I do? Please help me.
AERI: Wow. That was… a ride.
Wonwoo couldn’t agree more. His mouth actually dropped open while Seungkwan was reading all that. If these two can solve problems like this, maybe they really are as good as everyone on campus says.
SEUNGKWAN: It surely was. Now you all understand why I said this poor soul needs help. I think Mr. Other Woman should be his codename, what you say?
AERI: Yeah, I actually think there’s no other option. Sorry, bud, but damn. I think this is a very delicate situation, right?
SEUNGKWAN: Completely. Very complicated for the three of you. Whatever you do, I think you need to proceed very carefully. Now, that is to say, I do think you should do something.
AERI: I agree. You said it isn’t fair to your friends to tell them the truth now that they’re together, but I also don’t think it’s a good idea to keep suffering in silence. That can lead to resentment, and then your friendship will be ruined.
SEUNGKWAN: Yes. And here’s what I’m thinking: you said the two of them liked you, and each other. So, the three of you have been loving each other for quite some time. Before they started dating, they already had those feelings for one another, while also loving you. I don’t think the latter went away.
AERI: I agree. I think there’s a very real possibility that they are still in love with you. So you shouldn’t lose all your hope. However…
SEUNGKWAN: You were an asshole to them. Like, textbook asshole. We understand you were scared, love is a very scary thing. But you hurt them, and that wasn’t fair. You made mistakes, but you sound like you regret it, which is why we are even encouraging you to be honest with them now.
AERI: Exactly. You don’t have to suffer forever because you did a shitty thing, but you do need to apologize. I think the best course of action now is honesty. You should tell them how you feel, and why you lied to them in the first place, and, of course, apologize for hurting them.
SEUNGKWAN: From there, you’ll see where it goes. But don’t keep it all bottled up. Be honest, and apologize, and after that, listen to your heart. Don’t let your fears hold you back.
AERI: And you also need to be ready for the possibility of them being hurt and needing time. But I believe honesty is the best way.
SEUNGKWAN: What Aeri said. If you end up needing more advice, you can DM us again and we’ll talk, privately.
AERI: We hope everything goes well! Now, we’ll take a brief song break, and come back with more of your requests.
SEUNGKWAN: Our DMs are always open! This is Cinnamon Girl by Lana del Rey.
Well. They actually had good advice? It’s not like Wonwoo was expecting them to be incompetent, but their reputation does make sense now. A little inkling of an idea starts taking shape inside his mind. Seungkwan and Aeri are close friends with Chan. And they give love advice sort of professionally. Wonwoo happens to be a) in love with Chan and b) in desperate need of specific love advice. This does seem awfully a lot like a situation where he could kill two rabbits with one stone.
His thumb hovers over the DM button on the show’s account. Should he?
📻📻📻
Seven hours later, in the darkness of his bedroom, he does. He logs into the account he uses to talk about LOL, goes to Love Guide’s account, and takes a deep breath before pasting the text he’d spent the past couple hours agonizing over: “I (21M) have been in love with someone (20M) for the past three years. We both go to USC, and my best friend is also friends with him, so we end up hanging out together sometimes. We’re not exactly close, but he’s always really nice and lovely to me whenever we meet. I am a rising senior, so this year is my last chance to finally ask him out. I have never dated anyone, so I am at a complete loss of what to do. I am really desperate. What should I do?”
The Reddit formatting was easy enough to follow. Not like Wonwoo hasn’t spent some time endlessly scrolling through AITA posts when bored. The tricky part was writing his dilemma in a way that didn’t immediately flag him as… Well, him. He’s pretty confident he did okay. Nothing too specific, and Seungkwan and Aeri don’t even know him well enough to be caught up in the small details.
He’s got this. He’ll receive stellar advice from Chan’s best friends, stop being a fucking weirdo loser, and win Chan’s heart over. Fucking Yeonjun won’t stand a chance.
Wonwoo is so smart sometimes. This was such a good idea.
Step 1: Talk to him! Take action!
Wonwoo’s big Final Game Project is kicking his ass. He knew this was coming when he signed up for the stupid “interdisciplinary program”, but who could tell he actually can’t graduate on the power of special interests alone. Most of his colleagues already have some sort of idea of what they’re going to do, but his mind is… preoccupied with other thoughts, so to speak. Jeonghan’s been trying to help him think of something, going so far as to research and play a shitton of games, but he doesn’t exactly know how to tell his sister’s wife that the reason he can’t get his head out of his ass for this is because he spends approximately his entire day thinking about Chan Lee.
Like, high school senior him used to be proud about the fact he wasn't boy crazy like Mingyu. Now, he’s even worse. It was already bad in the past couple years, but ever since he sent that damned DM to that damned radio show, it’s all he can think about. It’s been a week, and if Seungkwan and Aeri don’t read his message on this Friday’s program, he might actually walk over to Soonyoung’s house and offer himself as a fresh virgin for one of the rituals Junhui probably does on full moon nights. Maybe that will work.
He lets out a groan, pressing his fingers against his eyes. The human brain wasn’t made for this shit. His brain wasn’t made for this shit. A little seed was planted in his mind and now he probably won’t be able to do anything until he has a game plan for how to tackle the entire Chan Lee Conundrum. Really, did Soonyoung have to tell him to do something? Did he really have to listen to the stupid radio show? Now he’s obsessed.
It’s the end, it really is. A meteor should crash onto Los Angeles. The entire world, even.
When Minjeong yells over his door telling him dinner’s ready, he’s still feeling a little like summoning the apocalypse.
“What’s with the long face?” Seulgi asks when he sits on the table. She places his plate in front of him, raising an eyebrow.
“What long face? I’m fine,” he answers, reaching for his chopsticks.
“Is it about the game thing? I’m reading over your ideas and you’ve got some good ones, honey,” Jeonghan says, reaching over the table to pat him on the shoulder.
Minjeong snickers beside him. “I don’t think he’s frustrated over school, Hani… It’s probably about how much of a loser he’s being these days.”
Wonwoo glares at her. “You’re not funny. You have Willy Wonka hair.”
“And a hot girlfriend who told me all about what you did last week.”
“What did Wonwoo do last week?” Seulgi chimes curiously, passing Minjeong’s dinner bowl to her.
“Well, you see—”
“Nothing!” Wonwoo interrupts her, shooting daggers with his eyes. The last thing he needs is Seulgi and Jeonghan knowing about the whole fair fiasco. Of course Jimin would tell Minjeong. Sometimes, he really curses the fact that his sister is dating Chan’s best friend. It’s awful. “Minjeong’s just an annoying brat, that’s all.”
“And you’re an asshole,” she retorts, poking his cheek with her chopsticks.
Seulgi sighs before Wonwoo can answer. “You two are like two cats hissing at each other. It’s hilarious.”
“And very cute,” Jeonghan adds. “It’s like we have three cats.”
Almost like on cue, Humbert meows from the top of his castle. Minjeong coos, calling him over with the promise of some of the chicken inside her bowl. The cat goes, of course, fixing Wonwoo a look of disgust on the way. He is absolutely not like the demon cat, but he can see the resemblance with Minjeong. He doesn’t comment on it, though, because that’s a discussion that’s been had many times. No one ever believes him when he tells them the cat hates him.
The conversation thankfully diverges to safer topics after that, and he successfully escapes the mortifying ordeal of even more people being privy to his failures in life. And family time does end up taking his mind off of the weird apocalyptic insane spiral he’d been leaning towards, so it’s actually a win all around.
📻📻📻
Four p.m. on Friday, Wonwoo discreetly slips one earbud in and opens the link available on Love Guide’s account. The reception’s not that full right now and he’s working on the financial spreadsheet for the recital, so he can get away with listening to something. Not that anyone’s really checking.
He catches the tail end of Seungkwan’s introduction once the app finally finishes loading. The studio’s stupid shitty wifi connection is such a pain in his ass.
AERI: To start today off, we’ll read a very… Intriguing, to say the least, message.
SEUNGKWAN: Aeri will do the honors this time.
AERI: Here it goes: I, 22 male, and my boyfriend, also 22 male, have been together for a couple years. We work together, since before we started dating, and that’s always been alright for us. However, recently we are facing a problem I never fathomed we would have. Last year, a new person, 20 male, joined our team. The three of us got close extremely fast, and our dynamic settled rather easily. This year, I started to realize… some feelings, on my part, directed towards this friend of ours. I felt really guilty about it, and I couldn’t even look at my boyfriend without wanting to throw up. But then he also started acting weird towards me and our coworker, and now this weird atmosphere has settled between us. I don’t know what to do! Did the two of them find out how I feel? Am I a monster for liking two people? I love my boyfriend very much. I don’t know what to do!!!
SEUNGKWAN: Mr. Threesome, respectfully, have you ever heard about the highs and lows of polyamory?
This message distinctly reminds Wonwoo of Mingyu, who is always whining to him about ‘Seokmin’ and ‘Minghao’ and texting him details of their activities at various parties every weekend without fail. One would think you’d do more studying at Harvard. Does Mingyu know about the highs and lows of polyamory? It would certainly benefit him, that’s for sure.
Wonwoo listens absently to the next forty or so minutes of the show, occasionally paying attention whenever a song piques his interest or they read a particularly interesting dilemma. He’s starting to lose all hope they’ll ever even read his own words. They seem to lean towards the juicy stuff, obviously, and his issues are not that interesting. They probably didn’t even read his text. He’ll actually have to resort to Junhui’s creepy stuff. It’s the end, it really, really is.
He’s starting to consider just blocking everyone on Twitter and staying holed up in his room playing LOL and watching Star Wars until he withers when Seungkwan’s next words catch his hearing.
SEUNGKWAN: To close things off, we have a… well, more normal read.
AERI: We realized that part of our listeners are probably not regularly facing complicated dilemmas, so we’ll read a very simple one someone sent us, in hopes it helps both them and anyone who’s listening and might need just some good old advice.
SEUNGKWAN: This is it: I, 21 male, have been in love with someone, 20 male, for the past three years. We both go to USC, and my best friend is also friends with him, so we end up hanging out together sometimes. We’re not exactly close, but he’s always really nice and lovely to me whenever we meet. I am a rising senior, so this year is my last chance to finally ask him out. I have never dated anyone, so I am at a complete loss of what to do. I am really desperate. What should I do?
Wonwoo has to fight the urge to whoop in the middle of a room occupied by doting parents. Not really a recommended action in his place of work. He flaps his hands under the table. Finally. The universe and the love gods and Seungkwan and Aeri heard his desperate prayers and will now help him with his plight. No rituals needed. His stomach twists as he waits for them to start dissecting his words and telling him a recommended course of action.
AERI: Aw, that’s sweet.
SEUNGKWAN: What exactly?
AERI: That he’s been in love for so long! And so consistently! I think it’s very cute.
SEUNGKWAN: The fact that you think pining is sweet is why you are single and I have been in a committed relationship for four years.
AERI: Hi Hansol! Also I am single by choice! I like having fun! But this is not about me.
SEUNGKWAN: You’re right. So, Mr. Pining, it seems like your biggest issue is that you haven’t really taken action until now. Staring will get you nowhere.
AERI: Like. Yeah… From what you said, it seems like the two of you have actually never talked that much? By yourselves, without being prompted by your friend?
SEUNGKWAN: And you also mentioned that he’s receptive towards you, so you have an opening, actually! You two know each other, like each other’s company to some degree…
AERI: Talk to him! I think that’s the main advice here. Mr. Pining, buddy, you gotta put big boy pants on and talk to your boy! Find shared interests and stuff, to build future conversations.
SEUNGKWAN: Taking the first step is hard, I know, so here’s a tip. Don’t just go after him and say ‘hi’. If you see him in the dining hall, start by talking about the food, then classes, and let it progress towards your respective interests and lives. But start with a topic adequate to your setting and the… general vibes, I guess. You gotta build your relationship with him, you know?
AERI: Exactly. Since it’s Friday, when you see him on Monday you can ask him about his weekend and things like that. Use the small talk just to get started, though, don’t get stuck on it! As I said, find shared interests and stuff. You got this, my guy!
SEUNGKWAN: After this first step, everything will get easier, trust me. My dear Hansol can attest to that. I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Pining.
AERI: And with this gold ol’ dose of college pining, we bring today’s program to an end. Good luck to Mr. Pining, everyone we supposedly helped today, and all our listeners.
SEUNGKWAN: We’ll be back on Monday, 4 pm. This has been…
SEUNGKWAN/AERI: The Ultimate Love Guide!
Okay. Wonwoo looks down at his notebook, where he’d been scribbling it all down to remember later. He’s going to need a minute to take all of it in, and work on a game plan. But he knows what to do now. How to start, at least. A proper course of action to follow. No more Joe Goldberg allegations from Soonyoung! If he manages to properly talk to Chan, he’ll send an anonymous gift basket to Seungkwan and Aeri. Hell, even to Seungkwan’s boyfriend.
📻📻📻
On Saturday evening, when Soonyoung and Junhui stop by for dinner, Wonwoo puts his carefully crafted plan in motion. While everyone is preoccupied with pampering Junhui and pinching his cheeks (he seriously doesn’t understand why his entire family is seemingly blind about the fact that he’s some sort of demon from hell), Wonwoo pulls Soonyoung upstairs and into his room.
“So,” he says, closing the door. “I might need your help with something.”
“How can I possibly be of service, my dear Wonwoo?” Soonyoung asks from where he’s already thrown himself onto Wonwoo’s bed, his sock clad toes wiggling in the air.
Wonwoo plops down next to Soonyoung. “I might have some… inquiries, if you will.”
“Ohhh, is this about my baby boy Chan?”
Is Wonwoo that obvious? “Am I that obvious?” He echoes out loud.
“Like, a little,” Soonyoung shrugs, shoulders bumping into Wonwoo. “But I also just know you. Why else would you drag me into your room away from the prying eyes of your family and my dear Junnie for a secret meeting?”
“I hate you.”
“Love you too.”
“Okay. So I was, uhm, wondering… If you could maybe tell me a little about what Chan likes? Like what he likes doing in his free time, and what TV shows he enjoys, I don’t know… Just stuff. That I can talk to him about.”
“Stuff that doesn’t involve his naked mother, I assume?” Soonyoung asks to be a little shit. Wonwoo kicks him in the shin with all his strength. Will he ever live that down? Probably not. It’s a wonder Jeonghan still doesn’t know. “Sorry, sorry. Does this mean you’ll finally stop with the stalker stare?”
“Yeah…” Wonwoo mumbles. “I have decided to follow your advice.” He will absolutely not mention his little experience with Love Guide to Soonyoung. That will be his secret to keep, because it’s honestly a little embarrassing. And it’s supposed to be anonymous, so he’s really just following the rules. “Of, uhm, asking him out. But I need to talk to him first.”
“I’m proud of you, Wonungie,” Soonyoung tells him earnestly. Wonwoo knows he means it, and it makes his heart clench a little. This is hard for him. But he’s going to do it. “So, let me give you a little crash course on ‘talking with Chan Lee’ and then we’ll go back downstairs before Junnie gets into a fight with Humbert.”
Wonwoo shudders just thinking about it. It would not be the first, nor the second, nor the third time Junhui and the cat have fought.
Soonyoung, surprisingly, ends up actually being helpful. Wonwoo learns that, when he’s not rehearsing or at school, Chan actually spends a great amount of time binge watching an enormous number of TV shows, the most recent one being Doctor Who (is it possible to watch all million seasons of that one in two days? Wonwoo knows jackshit about it except for the fact that David Tennant was in it). His favorite book is ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and he enjoys a couple shitty reality shows.
Maybe it’s a little bit ridiculous that Wonwoo’s been pining after Chan for three years and didn’t know his favorite colour is blue, but he’s got the social skills of a plank, so is he really to blame? Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t know anything about Chan. He knows he’s kind, that his eyes carry the warmth of a thousand suns, that when he dances, the whole world stops. That he shines as bright as a star during the night, and that it’s impossible to take your eyes off of him once you’re caught in his orbit. Wonwoo heard him laugh once three years ago and he was caught, hook, line and sinker. He wants to get closer to him, of course he does. Wants to know all the tiny details about him.
Hopefully, with the direct help of Soonyoung and the indirect but very appreciated help of Seungkwan and Aeri, Wonwoo will be able to speak more than two words to Chan without accidentally committing a crime against social conventions, and then he and Chan will get closer and he’ll watch fifteen seasons of Supernatural for him and they’ll have matching profile pictures on Genshin and it will all be great.
Later, after Soonyoung and Junhui leave, Wonwoo asks Jeonghan to watch Pride and Prejudice with him (no way in hell he’ll be able to read the entire book by Monday). If she’s at all puzzled by his sudden interest in period dramas, she doesn’t say anything, and just makes some popcorn for the two of them. She does, however, spend the entire 2 hours and 7 minutes of runtime poking him in the ribs and saying Mr. Darcy is just like him, but that is the lesser of two evils (a nosy Jeonghan means a nosy Seulgi which means a nosy Minjeong and the end of Wonwoo’s peace). Besides, he can see the resemblance.
His heart skips a beat. If that’s what gets Chan going, then that’s excellent news for him. Maybe he’ll win him over with his Darcy-esque charms. Does that make Chan Elizabeth Bennet? He did bewitch Wonwoo body and soul, so like, yeah.
First step of the plan is going great. It will work out, Wonwoo can feel it in his bones.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo is absolutely capable of talking to Chan Lee without making a fool of himself. Of course he is. He can do this. He can talk to him like a normal person, one-on-one, and build a lasting relationship. He will do such thing. Right now, as a matter of fact.
He left the lab early because he still doesn’t even have a prototype for his shitty stupid game project, so he wanders aimlessly around campus for a while before working up the nerve to… follow through with his plan. Of talking. With Chan. By himself. Here’s what he’s gonna do: he knows where Chan’s nine a.m. lecture is (Soonyoung told him, he is not a stalker), and he also knows it’s probably nearing its end. So, he’ll just redirect his wandering to that building, and maybe linger in the corridor, and when Chan gets out of class, they’ll ‘accidentally’ stumble upon each other and strike up conversation. It’s a great plan. Super cool and efficient. Since he’s been planning for this conversation for three days, he’s confident he won’t blurt anything stupid out. He’s prepared, because this time he knows he’s going to see Chan, so he won’t have to scramble for something to say on demand.
Wonwoo keeps repeating that inside his head like a mantra on his way to Chan’s building, lest he ends up spiraling and imagining an entire alternate universe where he fucks it up so badly it creates a rip through space-time and he ends up in AU jail and then his sisters will never see him again and Junhui will probably be his jailer. Anyway. He will not think about that.
He ascends two flights of stairs and walks down a mostly empty hallway before stopping in front of what he really hopes is Chan’s classroom. He stares blankly at the closed door for a couple minutes before he remembers he’s supposed to be here by accident, so he can’t really just be standing like a ghost behind the door when it opens. Maybe he should lean on the wall and pretend to read a book? But then maybe he’ll look like a loser, so he could drop the book and just look cool? That’s a thing in the movies.
Wonwoo’s still torn between grabbing his copy of The Brothers Karamazov or crossing his arms in front of his chest when the classroom door opens and a flurry of students shuffle out. He has maybe five seconds before Chan gets out as well, so he just says fuck it and crosses his arms and legs and looks to the side, pretending to be deep in thought about whatever it is normal people who are not anxiously waiting by their crush’s pseudo-doorstep think about.
It feels like at least a couple thousand years pass by before the sweetest voice in the world rings in his ears. “Oh, Wonwoo! Hey! What are you doing here?”
Wonwoo takes a huge deep calming breath before turning his head to the other side, coming face-to-face with Chan. He looks absolutely lovely, his silky brown strands of hair slightly messy and drowning in a huge white sweater. Chan looks expectantly at him, eyes wide and shiny. He’s got this. “Oh, hello, Chan,” he says in what he really hopes is a calm tone. “I was just wandering around. My class ended early,” he lies, because he’s not about to tell the love of his life that he’s being incompetent in his most important class of the year.
“Ugh, I wish my lecture ended early,” Chan sighs. Then, he leans forward, a conspiratory look in his face. “My professor is a total asshole. I regret picking this elective every single day,” he whispers, impossibly close to Wonwoo’s left ear. Wonwoo isn’t even sure if his heart is still beating at this point. Chan’s breath is hot on his skin.
Wonwoo swallows dry, momentarily speechless. How is he supposed to say anything to Chan while he’s this close to him?! “Uh,” he says. Fuck. Pull yourself together, you absolute loser. He tries to remember what Aeri and Seungkwan had said, any of their tips on carrying a conversation. They mentioned something about weekends, didn’t they? “Uhm. How was your weekend?”
If Chan is at all fazed by his sudden change of subject, he doesn’t show it all. “It was good! I went to IKEA with Yeonjun because our room was in desperate need of a lot of stuff, and then Jimin helped us assemble it all. That took up the majority of the weekend, though,” he frowns, something akin to a pout forming. Wonwoo is consumed by the desire to kiss him. He swallows dry. “What about yours?”
This is it. This is his chance to put his insider info to use. “Nothing much,” he shrugs. “Soonyoung and his demon boyfriend stopped by for dinner on Saturday, and then I watched Pride and Prejudice with Jeonghan,” he says, aiming for effortless casualness. Then he adds, “that’s my sister’s wife. We all live together.”
“That’s cool! I wish I still lived with my brother,” Chan sighs wistfully. Then his face lights up, as if he’s just now registering the rest of Wonwoo’s words. “Oh, I love Pride and Prejudice! The book, the miniseries, the movie, all of it! Have you ever read it?”
“Chan Lee!!!” A loud, somewhat familiar, voice cuts Wonwoo just as he opens his mouth to answer. He and Chan both look to the side and are met with the honestly terrifying image of Seungkwan Boo stalking down the hallway towards them. “I need to talk to you right now.”
“Did something happen?” Chan asks worriedly once Seungkwan is close enough to them.
“It’s private,” Seungkwan sniffs. Then he looks at Wonwoo, as if he’s just now registering his presence. “Oh, hello. Wonwoo, right? I’m stealing Chan, sorry,” he says, grabbing Chan’s wrist and turning around without saying anything else.
Chan looks at him apologetically. “I’ll see you later!” He exclaims before he’s dragged away by Seungkwan and his impending doom.
Wonwoo waits until the two of them go down the stairs before turning around and banging his head against the wall. He’s going to throw himself into the sea for real this time. The space-time rift would have been a better option than this failure of a conversation. They didn’t even speak for more than a couple minutes. It’s so fucking over.
📻📻📻
Since Wonwoo is nothing but persistent and obsessive, he tries again on Tuesday. He spends the majority of his day on campus, what with his morning and afternoon classes, so there’s a little bit more wiggle room in regards to meeting Chan. He has three hours of freedom between lunch and his next class, and that’s when he’s going to act.
It would be a little weird if he showed up at Chan’s classroom two days in a row, so he decides he’ll settle down at Grains and Beans, the campus café that is frequented by both his friends (read, Soonyoung) and Chan’s own clique. Sometimes, when he and Soonyoung are killing time in their regular table by the window, Chan stops by to talk to Soonyoung about something, so the place has also been privy to a few of his and Chan’s admittedly scarce interactions.
He goes straight to the counter when he walks in, and orders his regular of black coffee and whatever interesting pastry they have. Today, it’s an apple croissant. Hanbin Sung hands him his order with a blinding smile on his face, and Wonwoo finds himself returning it. That boy is really too kind. He takes his little tray to his usual table and settles down. He’ll just sit there, drink his coffee and eat his croissant, and if Chan happens to drop by as he usually does after class, then that is simply a coincidence. Wonwoo is also regularly here on Tuesdays, okay?
He nibbles on the croissant with one hand while mindlessly scrolling through Twitter with the other. Nothing too interesting there — Minjeong is being a loser and talking about Genshin Impact fanfiction, Seulgi posted a video of her dancing, Soonyoung retweeted something obscene. Just the usual stuff. Wonwoo sighs as he sips his coffee. He briefly considers texting Mingyu, because he’s bored and they haven’t directly talked in a couple weeks, but then he remembers that their last conversation had involved a one and a half hour monologue about Mingyu’s paramours and decides against it.
Just as Wonwoo is about to resign himself to reading fanfiction despite having just called Minjeong a loser over it, the doorbell rings. He looks up, hopeful, and his breath catches in his chest when he sees Chan walking in. His head is framed by the sunlight, almost like a halo. Chan looks in his direction, raising a hand in greeting, and walks over. Wonwoo’s heart feels like it's doing somersaults inside his chest.
“Hey!” Chan exclaims once he’s within earshot. “Is this seat taken?”
Oh my god, is this actually happening? Is this a thing that is really happening in Wonwoo’s life right now? “N-no,” he stutters out.
“Cool.” Chan sits down across from him, a smile on his face. Wonwoo doesn’t understand how someone can be this easy-going and chill. He’s close to having a heart attack. “Is that good?” He asks, pointing to the croissant.
“Yeah. Would you, uhm, like to try?”
“Thank you, but there’s no need,” Chan giggles. “I’ll just ask Aeri to get me one!” He pulls his phone out of the little purse he carries everywhere and types something very fast. Wonwoo feels like he’s missing a part of the puzzle here. Why would Aeri buy him a croissant? He just nods.
A silence settles between them. It’s not exactly uncomfortable, but Wonwoo is desperate to say anything at all. That’s what he should do, right? Talk to him. He’s not good at small talk. He’s terrible, awful, at it, and he doesn’t really want to let his mouth run free, in fear of another Fair Incident. He searches his mind for anything said at Love Guide that might be useful here, since that’s as close to a guide on social interactions as he’s going to get. “I have not read the book.”
“What?”
“You asked me yesterday if I had read the Pride and Prejudice book. I have not.”
“Ohh,” Chan exclaims, lips forming an adorable little circle as he says it. “You should! Soonyoung told me you like reading, is that right?”
Has Soonyoung been talking about him to Chan? Wonwoo doesn’t know if he should thank him or throttle him. Maybe both. “I do.”
“Watcha like to read, then?”
“Uhm. I like a couple classics, some Dostoevsky. But I mostly read manga,” he mumbles, a little self-conscious.
“I know Crime and Punishment, but I think the only manga I’m familiar with is Naruto, ‘cause my little brother likes it. You know that one?”
“Ah, yeah, but it’s not one of my favorites,” Wonwoo answers. He doesn’t really want Chan to associate him with his baby brother inside his head. Not his goal here at all. “I like One Piece.”
“What’s that one about?”
“Well, there’s this guy named Luffy—”
Wonwoo’s about five minutes into his spiel when he realizes what he’s doing. Why on earth is he infodumping about One Piece to his longtime crush in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon? He stops talking abruptly, absolutely mortified. This is why he’s never had an actual conversation with Chan in three years. “Sorry.”
Chan looks at him questioningly. “Why did you stop?” He sounds genuinely curious, but maybe he’s just too polite. “What happens to the gay sword dude?”
Wonwoo swallows dry. He’s a little out of his depth here. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to keep talking and explaining or if Chan is just being nice. He feels like a fish out of the sea. Chan’s looking at him, and Wonwoo doesn’t know what to do. He’s saved from having to do anything when a tray is dropped onto his (their?) table.
He looks up and meets Aeri Uchinaga. Oh, so that’s what Chan meant she would buy him one. Did she come in with him? Has she been by the counter this entire time? Aeri looks him up and down. “Ah, so you’re Minjeong’s brother, huh?”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? “Uh, yeah?”
Aeri doesn’t say anything else, just plops down on the seat next to Chan and slides him his drink and apple croissant. Chan thanks her, his ever present smile gracing his face, and they presumably return to their previous conversation, from before they split up. Wonwoo feels a little silly right now. Of course Chan wouldn’t have chosen to sit with him by himself. Of course he was just waiting for one of his friends.
It’s fine. It’s completely and utterly fine. They don’t exclude him from the conversation, they’re both too nice for that, but Wonwoo has never felt more out of his depth. He’s almost thankful when it’s time for his class and he has to go, mumbling goodbyes and running out of the café with the speed his family’s cat employs when he’s running toward the smell of chicken.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo’s mutinous mood carries over to the following day. Seulgi notices, of course she does, and takes him out for dinner after work. She drives them to the same Korean place they’ve been going to for years, and tells him to pick whatever he wants, her treat.
He chooses what he always does, kimchi-jjigae and diet Coke, and Seulgi orders bibimbap and green tea for herself. She looks expectantly at him after the auntie has gone away with their orders. “Do you want to talk about what’s got you in such a bad mood?”
“I’m not in a bad mood,” Wonwoo starts, defensively. But that is obviously a lie. He’s been scowling for an entire day, got into five fights on Twitter over various subjects, played LOL until three a.m. and then spent his break at work listening to that stupid radio show with their stupid love advices and talking shit on Twitter again. Seulgi raises an eyebrow. “Ugh. I’m just… frustrated, I guess.”
“Did something happen?”
“I can’t talk to people. That’s what happened.”
Seulgi frowns. “That’s not true. You talk to me, and to our family, and to your friends.”
Wonwoo resists the urge to point out that he has exactly two friends, three if he counts Soonyoung’s demon/vampire/fugitive boyfriend. But that would be petty, and his sister is being kind to him, so he doesn’t. “But it’s still hard. And it’s harder with, um, new people, I guess.” Seulgi widens her eyes, gesturing him to go on. “I can’t do small talk. And I can only talk about my interests. How will I ever get closer to new people this way?”
Seulgi hums, thinking it over. Wonwoo likes that about her. She always takes the time to consider things before saying them. She’s very considerate. “I think that’s just your way of talking. I know it’s even harder for you, but a lot of people are terrible at small talk. If the person you’re trying to get closer to is worth it, then they’ll take you as you are. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” he answers. It does, of course it does. “But it’s still frustrating. Because it’s not… something I can better at, I guess.”
“I don’t think you need to get better,” Seulgi says. She reaches over and squeezes his hand over the table. “It must be pretty frustrating, and I know you’ve struggled a lot with this before. But I like talking to you. Who even likes small talk? I’d rather hear you talk about what makes you happy, and I know that everyone who loves you does as well. You’re so bright, my Wonungie.”
Wonwoo feels heat creeping up his face. Ugh. His sister and her stupid kind words and her stupid warm and big heart and the stupid way she’s always been able to make him feel better. He loves her so much. “Whatever,” he mumbles, embarrassed. Seulgi just laughs at him. He clears his throat. “Aren’t you going to ask who I’m attempting to talk to?”
“I am not as nosy as Hani,” says Seulgi. “If you wanted to say it, you would have.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t really want to tell his big sister about his pathetic three year long pining or how he’s now attempting to act on it with the help of a college radio show. There’s just some things you don’t tell your parental figures. And that’s that.
The auntie comes back with their food, and amidst bites of rice and spoonfuls of stew, they talk about every possible thing under the sun. Seulgi tells him about her ideas for the wedding (the big party she and Jeonghan have been saving up for years, since they couldn’t do it when they got legally married), how the classes she teaches have been going, that she and Jeonghan are going out with Yizhuo’s mom on the weekend. In turn, Wonwoo fills her up on other aspects of his life that aren’t Chan Lee — how his classes are going, what games he’s been playing, the Star Wars marathon he’s attending on Friday with Soonyoung and Minjeong.
By the time they’re done, Wonwoo feels lighter than he has in weeks. Seulgi smiles at him like she knows it, and wraps an arm around his shoulders as they walk back to the car. When they get home, she kisses him on the forehead before going upstairs, and Wonwoo lingers in the living room. He lies down on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.
He’ll try to talk to Chan again this week, and if it still doesn’t work out, he’ll have to find another method. But he’s not giving up on winning him over! Seulgi’s words echo in his ears, and he bites down on his lower lip. Maybe his… aloofness can be a charm. It certainly worked for Mr. Darcy (he’s really caught up in the whole Pride and Prejudice thing, so help him god).
📻📻📻
Wonwoo briefly considers taking the cat out for a walk on campus and coincidently walking past Chan’s frat house, but he decides that going after Chan or appearing in places he might be again would maybe come off as too stalker-adjacent, so he’ll just go with the flow. If he happens to see him, he’ll strike up a conversation, and that will be it.
He and Soonyoung always have lunch together at the dining hall on Fridays, so he goes after him once his class is over. He’s probably still rehearsing, so Wonwoo goes straight to Kaufman. It’s a familiar path, one he’s been taking for the past four years, and he lets his mind wander as he walks. Should he go in cosplay for the marathon today? But the Darth Vader costume is not really appropriate for sitting down for hours… But maybe if he went as Jedi Anakin? He’s still weighing the pros and cons when he stops by the door of the dance studio, and knocks twice just to let Soonyoung know he’s there.
He hears shuffling inside and footsteps walking towards the door, and he’s preparing himself to make fun of Soonyoung’s ruffled hair and sweaty face when the door swings open and his eyes meet Chan Lee in all his sweaty and messy glory. He looks insanely pretty like this, his cheeks red and eyes shiny. His face breaks into a grin when he sees Wonwoo. “Heeey, Wonwoo! Are you here for Soonyoung?”
Wonwoo nods. Despite all his careful preparation in the past couple days, he seems to have lost his words yet again. Why is it that his instincts upon seeing Chan are either to blurt out the strangest things known to mankind or clam up like an oyster?
“I think he’s still going to take a while,” Chan says apologetically. It’s not even his fault that Soonyoung is an insane workaholic. Wonwoo wants to eat him whole. Jesus. “Do you wanna come inside or are you waiting out here?”
“I would rather drop dead than stay inside a studio drowning in the smell of Soonyoung’s sweat,” Wonwoo blurts out before he can think better about it.
Chan’s responding laugh surprises him. It really is the best sound in the whole world. “I know what you mean. I’ll wait here with you, then, if that’s alright?”
If that’s alright? Wonwoo’s been acting like a weirdo all week long trying to be alone with Chan and now the man himself is offering the opportunity to him on a silver platter? “Of course that’s okay,” he rushes to say, cheeks heating.
Chan just smiles at him and closes the door to the studio, leaning back on it. “Soonyoung tells me you two are going to a movie marathon today. What are you watching?”
“Star Wars.”
“The lightsaber one?” Chan imitates the sound of a lightsaber after he says it, swinging his arms like he’s holding a weapon.
“Yeah,” Wonwoo scratches his neck. “It has a lot of hot people in it as well. Especially the prequels. Lots of, uhm, material.”
“Material for what?” Chan asks, sounding genuinely curious.
“Uhm. You know.” What is going on. Why the hell is Wonwoo indirectly telling Chan about his childhood fantasies involving Anakin and Padmé. Maybe going with the flow wasn’t such a good idea. He gets too nervous. “Nevermind,” he says, cheeks flushing red.
Chan just giggles. It’s an upgrade from when he ran to the other side of a fair after Wonwoo said something dumb. “Okay. What have you been up to lately, then? I haven’t seen you in a couple days.”
“Thinking about you,” is Wonwoo’s immediate answer. Chan’s eyes widen, and Wonwoo rushes to fix the situation again. “I mean, I started reading that book, and you recommended it to me, so obviously I thought about you, not anything inappropriate, of course not, it has nothing to do with the Star Wars thing—”
“Hold up just a second, I’m sorry,” Chan interrupts him, frowning at his phone, which Wonwoo now realizes is buzzing nonstop. Chan slides his thumb across the screen and brings it to his ears. “Sup? What? Wait, wait, slow down, tell me exactly what’s wrong. You did what? Oh my fucking god, throw water at it! Cover it with something! I don't know! Okay, okay, I’m coming. What is wrong with you? You’re insane!”
Wonwoo really doesn’t understand what’s going on. He opens his mouth, but Chan is already walking down the hallway very fast, looking back as he shouts. “I gotta go! Stupid fucking Yeonjun was filming a TikTok with candles and then he stumbled and now our room is probably on fire. I’m sorry! I’ll catch up with you some other time!” And just like that, he’s gone.
Wonwoo is, once again, torn between believing the honest to god ridiculous story Chan just spit out and feeling the urge to crawl into a hole and die because he was so weird Chan just ran away again. Either way, the universe is very clearly sending him a message: he will not win this boy’s heart with his tongue, that’s for sure. Even if he wasn’t so bad at this whole thing, it seems there’s always something or someone stopping any meaningful conversation from happening.
Fine. He’ll just have to find another way. And have a minor breakdown about his entire failed initial plan as well, but that’s reserved for the privacy of his bedroom with his sad playlist.
Step 2: Down a Sex on the Beach and go for it!
Wonwoo’s allegedly minor breakdown turns into a weekend of moping inside his bedroom, binge watching an entire One Piece arc in complete darkness. He totally gets that guy from Plato’s cave who killed the other guy who told them about the real world. All there is outside is desolation and embarrassment and Daniel Yeonjun Choi probably making out with the love of Wonwoo’s life, because Wonwoo can’t talk to Chan without feeling the distinct need to be locked away like Junhui should be. In these trying times, he’s starting to consider that being roommates with him in an asylum wouldn’t even be that bad. Soonyoung could visit them both at the same time, at least.
Come Monday, he’s forced out of his bedroom by a very persistent Soonyoung, who was probably tipped off by Jeonghan, and shoved into his god-forsaken car, where Junhui is already waiting for him with his creepy smile. The sight of him just makes Wonwoo sigh. He wishes his love life was as easy as Soonyoung’s, who got himself a boyfriend after running over said boyfriend in an empty road, but the universe very clearly has favorites and Wonwoo Jeon’s name is nowhere on that list.
Soonyoung buys them breakfast on their way to campus, and Wonwoo momentarily exits his moping mode to appreciate Soonyoung practically crossing the city just to pick him up, but then he throws Junhui a flying kiss before he gives him his coffee and Wonwoo forgets all about gratefulness. Junhui can’t even drink that shit because he’s, like, a vampire, but Soonyoung buys it for him either way because they are a happy couple. Wonwoo sniffs, resting his forehead against the cool glass of the window and staring longingly outside. If only he had the chance, he too would buy Chan breakfast every day.
“Okay, your Bella Swan cosplay is getting ridiculous,” Soonyoung says, turning to him. “Why are you moping like this? Jeonghan told me you stayed locked up in your bedroom all weekend and you didn’t get out even when she tried bribing you with family videogame night.”
“Ughhh,” Wonwoo groans. “Everyone in this family is so nosy.”
“She’s just worried ‘bout you,” says Soonyoung. “Also, we’ll be stuck in this exact spot for like, twenty minutes at least, and if you don’t keep the conversation going, I’ll just turn on my Biebs playlist. Your choice.”
Wonwoo eyes the long line of cars ahead of them. Fucking Los Angeles, man. He groans again. “It’s so pathetic. You don’t even wanna know.”
“It’s okay. Our friendship survived the Seventh Grade Incident, nothing will ever scare me away,” Soonyoung pats his thigh consolingly as he says it.
Wonwoo resigns himself to telling his best friend and his demon pet all about his humiliation, because what else is there to do at this point? “So, you know how I have, um, decided to try asking Chan out.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“I tried talking to him all of last week and it was a show of horrors, Soonyoung, you have no idea. First Seungkwan interrupted us, then I infodumped about One Piece and Aeri was also there and I felt like I was intruding, and then I said weird shit again and he got a call from Yeonjun and ran away and then they probably laughed at me and then like, made out, and they’ll strike up a romance that will end up in them getting married right after school and they’ll be young and rich and successful and travel the world, meanwhile I’ll never graduate because I can’t focus on my stupid game project and I will be kicked out of college and then I’ll have to live with my pseudo moms forever and hide in the basement because I am so ashamed of all my failures in life and that will eventually devolve into a villain arc and I will become a serial killer because I fumbled a bad bitch.”
There’s deadly silence in the car after he’s done. Wonwoo scratches his neck. Soonyoung just stares at him for a while before whistling. “Whoa. I don’t even know what to say.”
“I will die alone and you will have to be in charge of the funeral.”
“Hey!” Soonyoung slaps his arm. “You’re not a quitter! Didn’t I tell you that the only way out is through? Don’t give up after, what, three failed attempts?!”
Wonwoo pouts. “How will I win him over if I can’t even talk to him without sounding insane?”
“Well, maybe you just need a different approach. But you sure as hell won’t achieve anything if you stay locked up in your room whining about it! If you are so concerned about Yeonjun beating you to it, then you gotta do something, my man.”
“Ugh. I don’t like it when you play Yoda.”
“You don’t like it when I’m right,” Soonyoung corrects him. “And you know I am! So pull yourself together and work on another plan, cause no friend of mine is a quitter, Wonwoo Jeon,” he says with an air of finality. Then he turns on Justin Bieber, even though he’d said Wonwoo could choose between talking or musical torture, and he takes that as his sign to reflect and ‘pull himself together’.
He risks a glance at the backseat, and Junhui offers him a slightly less creepy than usual smile when their eyes meet. Wonwoo is going to take that as encouragement, because he really needs as much of that as he can get right now.
📻📻📻
Gameplan: cry in Love Guide’s DMs again and beg for their help once more. Wonwoo’s not exactly sure how they will be able to help him with his specific problem of putting his foot in his mouth everytime he speaks, but if they do, then he’s pretty sure Seungkwan and Aeri’s career will take off and they’ll have a huge talk show where Wonwoo will feature as a success story from their early days. He spends the entirety of his lecture crafting his message, forgoing his higher education once again, and he sends it as soon as he deems it decent enough.
Seulgi wraps him in a hug when he gets to the studio in the early afternoon and tells him she’s happy he seems to be doing better and that Jeonghan will bake him cookies when they get home. Wonwoo feels his cheeks redden, and okay. Maybe he overreacted a little, and worried his family and friends over nothing. This is not the end of the world and it’s still salvageable (even if he hid behind a tree when he stumbled upon Chan on his way to the dining hall earlier, but that was just because he was still a little on edge).
Work is surprisingly fine, and he listens to today’s Love Guide episode, even though he knows they won’t read his text this soon (if they read it at all), because it’s becoming a little bit of a habit. It’s an entertaining show — Seungkwan and Aeri have a gift for engaging with an audience — and it’s nice to know that he’s not the only one struggling in the love department. Sometimes, such ridiculous stories are read that he feels kind of better about his situation. At least he didn’t repeatedly cheat on his boyfriend with his best friend, who was also involved with someone, and then ditched his boyfriend for said best friend and his situationship. That one was wild.
When he gets home, Jeonghan offers him the promised cookies with a warm smile on her face, and he and Minjeong play Genshin together before going to sleep, so the day ends on a much better note than it began. Wonwoo’s hopes for the future have drastically improved. It can only go uphill from here, that’s for sure.
Considering his previous experience, Wonwoo is not expecting his message to be read that quickly, but when he tunes into Love Guide on Friday, it doesn’t take long for his words to be parrotted at him.
AERI: If you’ve been listening to us for a while, you might know what’s about to come. Today’s episode’s gonna be a little different.
SEUNGKWAN: That’s right folks, we’re having the much enjoyed follow-up special! Aeri, for those who are unfamiliar, will you introduce this segment?
AERI: Of course, Mr. Boo. That means that, for today, we’ll be exclusively reading and advising follow-up messages from previous transmissions. If you got any guesses on who might be returning today, tweet them under #BooRiLoveGuide, as always!
SEUNGKWAN: Oh, you guys are fast. SpideyMeg says: Hoping to hear from Mr. Other Woman again, very curious to see how that went.
AERI: Well, you might want to keep listening, I’ll tell you that. Oooh, MattsMovingCastle says: Any chance Mr. Pining had any follow-ups? God knows us mere mortals need some good BooRi advice as well…
SEUNGKWAN: Aren’t you in luck, MattsMovingCastle? Our beloved Mr. Pining is indeed returning today, and we’re kicking the special off with this special guy. I really hope you’re one of our listeners today!
AERI: This is what our not-so-bad-boy wrote this time: Hello. I asked for advice a couple weeks ago regarding the person I like. You both advised me to try and talk more to him, get closer, build a stronger relationship, etcetera. I tried following your advice, but… I am very bad at social interactions and I feel like every single time I open my mouth a disaster happens. I just get so nervous it makes me say the most insane things ever. Is there any way to get rid of this nervousness? Or, like, make social interactions any easier? I either can’t talk because I get too anxious or I talk too much because I get too anxious! I really don’t know what to do at this point. Am I doomed forever? Please help me, Seungkwan Boo and Aeri Uchinaga, you’re my only hope.
SEUNGKWAN: You poor thing. Talking to people can indeed be very stressful, especially when it’s someone you hold in high regard. When I was a freshman, I remember I couldn’t even talk to this senior of mine without sweating like crazy. So, just so you know, you are absolutely not alone in this!
AERI: Also, luckily, we’ve got just the thing for you. Ever heard of alcohol? And frat parties? Parties in general, really. They just… take the edge off, sort of. It’s a laid back social gathering, no one is really that interested in having huge convos, and it just brings people together, I guess.
SEUNGKWAN: That’s a good one, actually. We are absolutely not advertising unhealthy drinking practices, but a couple shots do ease the nerves. God knows it’s helped me a lot of times. And at parties, well, everyone’s kinda focused on going bonkers. So you can grab a drink, mingle, and find loverboy… The whole partying thing creates this very specific atmosphere that really eases all types of social interactions.
AERI: Not just for romance! I’ve made a lot of great friends at parties too! And met people in other ways, of course, but that’s not the point. What we’re trying to say is: if a regular setting creates too much anxiety for you, maybe a situation where everything is already relaxed and focused on fun by default might make things easier!
SEUNGKWAN: Exactly. So find a mutual party or friend outing or something like that, have a couple drinks, and shoot your shot again, Mr. Pining! But also wait until you’re both sober to do anything else.
AERI: Yeah!!! Wishing you all the best, my guy. Now, we’ll take a break with Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, and come back with a much awaited follow-up.
Well. When Wonwoo asked the universe for a cure for social awkwardness and nerves, he was sort of expecting for a miracle and not exactly booze and parties as an answer, but he should have seen it coming. Those two are very famously known for stripping away all of that. I can do that, he muses. Like, yeah, he’s never actually been to a party before and his experiences with alcohol involve the single glass of wine he drinks at Christmas every year, but sure. He can do this! And he will!
📻📻📻
Unfortunately, finding a party is easier said than done. Like, Wonwoo knows for a fact that they are a regular occurrence on campus, that almost every Friday is graced by the presence of at least one event, but he also doesn’t know which ones Chan goes to or if and when they’re happening either. The whole ‘having no actual social life’ thing kind of affects his going out opportunities, apparently. He didn’t even know basketball was that big of a thing at school until he went down a Twitter rabbithole of USC parties… Soonyoung is the one who goes to these things, but right now he’s busy actually focusing on his academic career, so he’s not the party animal he usually is. Soonyoung, who also happens to be his best friend and only direct link to Chan Lee’s possible partying whereabouts.
This is terrible. Completely, utterly, awful. How will Wonwoo suavely approach Chan on a dance floor with low lighting and dance with him the entire night if the party where it’s all supposed to happen is inexistent? The only consolation he has in all of this is the fact that Chan doesn’t seem to be entirely freaked out by him. He smiled and waved at Wonwoo when they saw each other the other day, and he even said hi to him when he had to talk to Soonyoung and they were together. So his chances are still existent. He just needs the opportunity to make his move again, because there’s no way in hell he’s subjecting himself to the humiliation of casually approaching Chan in broad daylight again. His stomach hurts just thinking about it.
At this point, he’s starting to seriously consider getting Jeonghan and Seulgi out of the house for a weekend and throwing a party himself. And like, he would do it, if he knew how to throw a party at all, or had enough people in his social circle to fill more than an inch of his living room. Even if he somehow managed to drag Mingyu and his “friends” over from Boston, the total quota of people in attendance would still be a mere seven. Doesn’t really seem like the kind of party Chan would be drawn to.
Wonwoo sighs wistfully for what is probably the thirtieth time today, shoving his face deeper into his pillow. Mingyu doesn’t seem to have any difficulties going out with his merry band of lovers and partaking in debauchery every day. He’s getting ready to muffle another frustrated scream into his pillow when his bedroom door bangs open, and he looks up to see Minjeong striding inside without asking, as she’s wont to do.
She gives Wonwoo a once-over before rolling her eyes. “Yo, loser.”
“What do you want,” he whines, making sure to pour as much annoyance as he can into it.
“Yizhuo is throwing a Halloween party for her birthday next week and Seulgi told me to ask her to invite you, because she and Jeonghan think you’re a loser who has no friends and never leaves his nasty bedroom.”
“They would never say that!” Wonwoo accuses.
“But that’s what they’re thinking,” Minjeong retorts. She’s so annoying sometimes. “Will you go or what? I have to send Ningningie the confirmation for the list.”
Wonwoo is not particularly interested in attending his younger sister’s best friend’s birthday party that he’s been pity invited to. This is so not what he was asking for. “No,” he huffs.
“Well, Chan Lee is coming, you know. Pretty much everyone in the world will, you know how Yizhuo is.”
“I will not fall for your cheap manipulation tactics.”
Minjeong raises her eyebrows. “Why in the world would I lie about that? I don’t even want your sorry ass to go. I’d much rather enjoy a brotherless night with my hot girlfriend and friends.”
She turns around. “Wait,” Wonwoo extends a hand in Minjeong’s direction, signaling for her to stay put. “Say no more. I’ll go.”
“Weirdo,” Minjeong scrunches her face before leaving his room, not even bothering to close the door.
Whatever. Wonwoo’s got bigger issues now, like deciding which of his Darth Vader costumes he’ll use, frantically texting the traitor Soonyoung inquiring whether he knew about this and will be going, and then attending a one week crash course of how to go to a party like a normal person. He’s busy.
📻📻📻
First order of business is, of course, calling his not so local party expert.
“Wonwoo! Hi!! You haven’t called me in ages,” Mingyu whines as soon as he picks up the phone. Wonwoo can almost see his pout from here. “How are you?!”
“I am well,” Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “And you? How are your paramours and your lesbian friend?”
“What are you talking about?” Mingyu sounds confused. Wonwoo wishes he was here so he could whack him. “What lesbian?”
“The one that’s always in your photos. I have always wondered why you only post one of your guys in your feed, actually. Do you like him more than the other?”
“What?! I post with both of them all the time. Are your glasses okay?”
It’s Wonwoo’s turn to be confused. Mingyu only ever posts pictures of him, a pretty nosed guy, and his lesbian friend. Maybe he’s feeling pressured to pick one of the guys? “You don’t have to choose between them, you know! Have you ever heard about the highs and lows of polyamory?”
“I have?” Mingyu still sounds confused. Wonwoo decides to end the topic before he actually gets a question mark above his head. Perhaps Mingyu’s still not quite ready to face his feelings.
“Just forget about it,” he sighs. “I need your help with something, actually.”
“Sure,” Mingyu sounds relieved by the change of topic. Wonwoo mentally pats himself on the back. “What’s up?”
“I will be attending a Halloween party this week. And you’re a party expert, because that’s apparently all you do at Harvard. So I need you to tell me how to act during one and also how to approach someone at a party,” Wonwoo tells him. He flops down on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
“What’s the magic word?”
“Go fuck yourself. Please?”
“Who are you trying to win over? Is it that Chan guy? You don’t even tell me anything anymore! Why are you going to a party all of a sudden? You don’t even drink.”
“I tell you things! But you’re also very busy and I don’t want to bother you because you have a life!”
“Wonwoo,” Mingyu sighs. “You are my friend! You are part of my life as well! I’m always talking about you to Minghao and Seokmin.”
“And to your other friend?”
“Uh, sure,” he says. “Now, please tell me exactly what is going on and I’ll give you the party crash course. But I gotta be informed first! And I wanna know about your life! How’s your family? And Soonyoung and his weird boyfriend?”
Wonwoo sighs, smiles at nothing, and resigns himself to a three hour long phone call. He really should have seen this coming. He wouldn’t have Mingyu any other way, though. He ends up telling him about Chan and his failed initial approach and Soonyoung’s refusal to meddle too much because he’s friends with both of them, about Ningning’s party and his plans for that, and so much more. Mingyu listens, tells him about his own life, and then gives him a step by step guide to approaching parties for the first time, with clear guidelines just the way he knows Wonwoo needs. When they hang up, it’s nearing midnight and Wonwoo feels lighter than he has in weeks.
📻
By the time the day of Ningning’s party arrives, Wonwoo’s split between feeling confident and hopeful and terrified and on the verge of throwing up. He really should have gone to at least one of the parties Mingyu invited him to during their senior year of high school.
Soonyoung comes by two hours before the party’s set to start so they can get ready together, which is an immense relief. Minjeong’s already off to Yizhuo’s house, to help set everything up, and Seulgi and Jeonghan have gone out on a date, so it’s only Wonwoo, Soonyoung and Jun in the house. And the cat, of course.
They get ready in Wonwoo’s room, doors open and one of Soonyoung’s terrible playlists blasting through the sound box.
“I’m still not sure,” Wonwoo says, shifting his weight. “Do you think Sith Anakin or Darth Vader would be better?” He raises both costumes, showing them off to Soonyoung.
Soonyoung stops applying his eyeliner to appraise them critically. “Hmmmmm, it depends on what vibe you want.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, do you wanna be sexy with the scar and messy hair,” he says gesturing to the Anakin Costume, “or sexy in an imposing way?”
Wonwoo stops to consider. Imposing should be better, right? Maybe it can inspire some confidence in him, like Seulgi says happens when she has a cool costume for a stage performance. He puts the Anakin costume back in the back of the closet and carefully places the Darth Vader one on his bed, next to Soonyoung and Junhui’s own costumes.
“What are you two even going as again?” He asks, eyeing the patchwork dress Soonyoung’s going to use.
“Jack and Sally, I’ve told you!” Soonyoung exclaims, unlocking his phone and shoving the character pictures in Wonwoo’s face. He can really see the resemblance between Junhui and the Jack fellow. Jun chooses this moment to reenter the room, and Wonwoo shudders when he sees the stitched smile drawn on his face. “Awww, Junie, you look so cute!” Soonyoung says, becoming him over and pinching his cheeks.
Wonwoo rolls his eyes. Whatever Soonyoung says, honestly.
He sets about getting ready, allowing Soonyoung to apply a bit of eyeshadow on him and slipping into his costume. It’s not a long process, but by the time he’s finished applying his cologne and fixing his hair in the mirror, it’s already dark outside.
He and Junhui sit side by side on his bed, waiting for Soonyoung to finish up. Junhui’s hair is gelled back, and Wonwoo can admit, with certain reluctance, that he looks good. Of course he would look good in the ghost/monster/thing costume.
“How do I look?” Soonyoung waltzes into the room, twirling in his dress. He’s dyed his hair red for this, and even with all the stitches drawn around his body, he makes for a really nice picture. Wonwoo shoots him a thumbs up. Junhui stands up and presses a kiss to Soonyoung’s forehead, presumably in agreement. Weirdos.
“Should we go, then?” Wonwoo asks, checking the time. The party started thirty minutes ago. Mingyu had said it was better to arrive a little late, but not being on time makes his stomach churn.
“Yeah!” Soonyoung exclaims. Then he runs towards his backpack and pulls out a flask. “Wait. We gotta take a sip before going. To take the edge off, y’know?”
“What’s in there?” Wonwoo eyes the little silver flask warily.
“Uhhh, I think it’s Fireball? I stole it from Jihoon, so I’m not really sure,” Soonyoungs shrugs, uncorking the lid and downing what’s probably half the content inside. “Whew. Yeah, it’s Fireball,” he says, offering the flask to Wonwoo.
Wonwoo reaches for it, and spends a couple seconds mentally preparing himself before tentatively taking a sip. His face contorts as soon as the taste meets his taste buds, burning as the liquid goes down, and it takes all his effort to not spit it out. “This is terrible. I want to die.”
“Noooo! The fun hasn’t even started yet!” says Soonyoung, offering him Junhui’s full glass of juice from earlier. Wonwoo thankfully drenches the cup while Jun gives Soonyoung his stolen flask again, without drinking. “Okay! Now we can go!”
Wonwoo takes a deep breath and gives himself one final mental pep talk before following the two of them downstairs. He orders an Uber while Soonyoung slips into the highest heeled boots Wonwoo’s ever seen in his life. Yizhuo’s house is not too far from his, so it takes them twenty minutes to get there.
When he gets out of the car, Wonwoo can already hear the music and see the flashing lights from outside. There are a few people outside, sitting on the grass smoking or walking towards the door, but none that Wonwoo recognizes.
“Okay. You good?” Soonyoung asks, placing both his hands on Wonwoo’s shoulders. He nods, even though his stomach is starting to hurt a little from nervousness. “If you feel bad or want to leave, just tell me, okay? We’ll go back to your house and play whatever game you want. And if we end up splitting and you need anything at all, just call me.”
“Okay,” Wonwoo nods again, with more conviction this time. “Thank you,” he mumbles.
“I’m always here for you, dummy,” Soonyoung tells him, and then grabs his hand and pulls him and Junhui to the front door. He pushes it open without a care, and Wonwoo is immediately assaulted by the thrum of the bass and the loud chatter of people everywhere. He takes a deep breath before stepping inside, holding onto Soonyoung’s hand like a lifeline.
There are people everywhere Wonwoo turns his eyes to, and well, Minjeong had said the entire world would come. This is Yizhuo Ning’s party, after all. Soonyoung leads them through the people in the foyer, striding forward like he’s been here a million times before. Wonwoo, who has actually been here a couple times, just follows him blindly.
It takes him until they’re at the door to realize Soonyoung’s taking them to the kitchen. It’s blessedly a little emptier here, and Wonwoo breathes a little easier as they walk to the counter.
“You guys came!” Ningning materializes in front of them just as Wonwoo lets go of Soonyoung’s hand. She’s dressed in a yellow tracksuit, bangs carefully styled to look perfectly messy. Wonwoo recognizes it as Kill Bill, and hums in approval. He likes that movie. “Hi, Wonwoo! Thank you for the gift, Minjeong gave it to me earlier,” she says warmly, squeezing him into a hug. She hugs Soonyoung and Junhui as well, all smiles and laughter. “Have fun! Thank you for coming. Wonwoo, I already told Minjeong, but if you guys need a breather, my room’s door is open!” She blows them a kiss before grabbing a bottle from the cooler on the counter and leaving just as she came — like a hurricane.
Wonwoo likes Yizhuo. She became Minjeong’s friend when they moved here, and stayed with her throughout all the mess that their teenage years had been, a steady presence by her side. She’s a good friend for his little sister, and might as well be part of their family at this point (My other two children, Seulgi calls her and Soonyoung).
“Wonu, what do you wanna drink?” Soonyoung nudges him with the tip of one boot. He’s behind the counter, inspecting all the options enthusiastically. “You don’t have to drink alcohol. I can make you a fun drink without it!”
Wonwoo’s tempted to accept, but he remembers very well why he’s even here. A little alcohol in his bloodstream, the laid back atmosphere of a party, and a certain future with the absolute love of his life. A bad taste is a small price to pay for that. “Uh. Something sweet? With alcohol.”
Soonyoung whistles. “Coming right up, mister.” He starts grabbing bottles and pouring things in a solo cup. It takes him a couple minutes to hand Wonwoo his concoction, pink and bubbly and smelling like strawberries.
He eyes it with a small amount of fear (because culinary Soonyoung is never a good Soonyoung) before taking a sip. It’s sweet alright, and the taste of strawberry and mint overpowers the bitterness of the vodka, leaving only a small aftertaste. “It’s good,” Wonwoo says, surprised.
Soonyoung beams. “I’m a master barista. Tell me if you want another one later!”
Wonwoo hums, taking another sip. Soonyoung mixes himself a drink, probably a lot stronger than Wonwoo’s own, which is why he vehemently refuses the offered sip. If Soonyoung enjoys that Fireball stuff, Wonwoo will stray far away from all his drink options.
“We can walk around for a while to meet people, go dance, or find a spot to stay. What do you guys wanna do?”
Junhui just shrugs, resting his chin on top of Soonyoung’s head. “We can walk around?” Wonwoo suggests. He would usually choose the holing up in a corner option, but today is about taking risks. He takes another sip from his drink.
“Alright!” Soonyoung beams, lacing their arms. They take one step out of the kitchen when Wonwoo stops dead in his tracks.
There, just down the corridor, is Chan, in all his glory. His body is enveloped in a leather jumpsuit, tight all around, accentuating the curve of his hips and the muscles on his arms, where the leather extends forming until the tip of his fingers, almost like built-in gloves. He’s got a black mask over his eyes and cat ears on. Oh God. Wonwoo swallows dry, feeling all the blood in his body rush downwards.
He turns around and makes a beeline to the far corner of the kitchen, resting his head against the wall. He can feel Soonyoung and Junhui following.
“What?” Soonyoung asks, sounding entirely lost. Wonwoo cannot turn around.
“I can’t look at him,” Wonwoo desperately says.
“Who?”
“Chan.”
“He’s here? C’mon, Wonwoo, I thought we were past that.”
“No, not in the socially awkward way,” Wonwoo sighs, shaking his head. “In the ‘I think I just popped a boner and my cape doesn’t hide my crotch way’,” he whispers, mortified. He hopes Soonyoung can’t hear it over the loud music.
“What the fuck,” he hears Soonyoung mutter. There’s a pause, and he hears the clicking of Soonyoung’s heels stalking away from him and then rushing back. “Just saw him. Yeah, you’re fucked, my dude.”
“I wish he was the one getting fucked instead…” Wonwoo mutters, bringing his cup to his lips and swallowing down two mouthfuls.
“Gross,” says Soonyoung, and Wonwoo can almost see the way his nose must be twisting in disgust. Is Wonwoo really to blame, when the love of his life is just outside the room dressed as Catwoman?
They stay in silence, presumably waiting until Wonwoo has calmed down. He waits until he’s more or less certain he’s got the situation down there handled, taking sips here and there, before turning around. His head is a little floaty now.
Soonyoung just laughs when their eyes meet, patting him on the shoulder. “You good now?”
“Yeah.”
“I need to pee. Will you be okay waiting here until I get back? Then we can go outside and you can prepare yourself for interacting with Chan.”
Wonwoo nods and tells Soonyoung he’ll be right here waiting for him. Soonyoung shoots him a thumbs up and drags Junhui with him in search of a toilet. God, Wonwoo hopes they don’t use the opportunity to do anything nasty.
He rests his back on the wall, drinking from his cup again. The cocktail’s almost finished, and he should probably slow down, but it’s good and he’s also feeling less and less nervous the more he drinks it. Maybe that’s what his psychiatrists should have prescribed to him, he muses. He’s still lost in thought when Chan enters the kitchen, and Wonwoo holds his breath when he sees him again.
Now, under brighter lighting, he can see the way the jumpsuit hugs Chan’s tights, accentuates the muscle there. He swallows dry. Then he swallows actual liquid from his cocktail, finishing it up. He should talk to him. The opportunity practically presented itself to him like a gift.
He kicks himself off the wall, a little dizzy when he loses the support. He’s walking toward the counter when Chan spots him, smiling delightedly. His hair is gelled back, so dark it looks like he dyed in black. “Oh, Wonwoo!”
Wonwoo waves, walking a little faster until he’s standing in front of Chan. He’s still taller than him, even though Chan is in heels just like Soonyoung. “Hey,” he says, aiming for a casual tone of voice. He thinks of conversation topics, anything he can say that might sound flirty. “I really like your costume, haha.”
Chan brightens up. “Thanks! Wanna see the back?” He asks, winking. Before Wonwoo can answer, he turns around, showing it — there’s a tale attached above his ass, and Wonwoo swallows down a coughing fit when his eyes zero in on that. “What are you dressed up as?” Chan leans in, touching Wonwoo’s chest piece.
Oh god, I’m going to die right here and now, he thinks. He starts to say he’s Darth Vader when an idea forms in his mind. Chan probably doesn’t even care about who he’s impersonating. Wonwoo can use the opportunity to, well, take his chance. “I could be Batman, if you want,” he spits out before he loses the nerve.
“What?” Chan asks. He’s still smiling, but there’s a furrow between his brows. “Sorry, I didn’t hear,” he laughs, “the music’s loud!”
Wonwoo opens his mouth and closes it. Why do these things happen to him? He swallows. “Ah. I said that, um, I could be your Batman if you wanted,” he says again, and he can just about feel his ears becoming red.
“Oh,” Chan says. He bites his lips, widening his eyes a bit. They stay staring at each other, and Wonwoo feels more mortified by the seconds. Just as Chan’s lips work around the beginning of a word, someone else enters the kitchen.
“Chan, what’s taking you so long?” Yeonjun Choi asks, striding into the room in all his perfect-Batman-costume glory. This cannot possibly be happening. Chan looks from Yeonjun to Wonwoo, a half-hearted smile on his face. “Oh, hey, man!” Yeonjun leans in and slaps Wonwoo on the back.
Of course they are wearing matching costumes. Jesus Christ, what if they are couples costumes? Wonwoo wants to sink into the ground. He wants to tell Yeonjun his hair is too bleach fried. He’s evidently not buzzed enough. “Hi, Yeonjun. I’ll, um, go find my sister, haha. Bye.”
He scurries off the kitchen before either of them can say anything else. He needs another drink. He needs to find Soonyoung and wail about his misfortunes in his lap, but he can’t find his phone. The hallway is full of people, and Wonwoo dodges them as he rushes far away from Chan and Yeonjun and their costumes.
He’s going to look for Soonyoung, he decides once he’s back in the foyer. His first order of business is checking the downstairs bathroom, but there’s a long line in front of the door and Soonyoung’s nowhere to be seen there. He passes by a guy who’s offering a bottle to everyone, apparently, and decides to say fuck it and drink it. He doesn’t even know what it is, but it burns going down his throat, and he immediately feels even warmer all over, the buzzing in his head growing stronger.
Wonwoo puts his hand on the wall to guide him further, following the sound of the music. He finds himself in what appears to be the dance room (floor?), a shiny mirrorball hanging from the ceiling and an agglomeration of people under it. There’s a DJ in the far back. Maybe Soonyoung’s dancing? Wonwoo walks around the room, eyeing the crowd.
He spots Aeri, donning a tight red dress and purple gloves, and Seungkwan — dressed as something Wonwoo can’ identify — and has to fight down the urge to walk over to them and say Hi, I’m Mr. Pining, can you please help me win your friend over? I’m going insane. Then he sees his sister and Jimin tangled up in a corner and has to exit the room before he throws up. Soonyoung isn’t even here, apparently.
He should look upstairs, because he’s absolutely not going back to the kitchen. What if he walks in there and Chan and Yeonjun are kissing? Soonyoung would tell him if he knew Chan was in a relationship, he knows that, but maybe it’s a new development. That thought makes him want to lie down in the middle of the street. Instead, he grabs a cup abandoned by the staircase and sips from it as he slowly goes up.
A distant part of him is saying that maybe he shouldn’t drink anything else and just focus on finding Soonyoung, but he can’t find it in himself to listen to it. His head feels weightless as he reaches the top of the stairs. He checks Ningning’s room first, but that’s empty. He tries checking the bathroom, but the door’s locked, and he won’t go into her parents’ room, obviously.
He hears laughter coming from one of the guest rooms and goes there. He twists the doorknob, a sweet and herby smell hitting him as soon as he opens the door.
“Heeeey,” Joshua Hong greets him, lazily waving his free hand. He has what appears to be a cigarette on his other one. He’s resting his head on Johnny Suh’s shoulder. “Come in, man.”
“But close the door!” Johnny exclaims.
Wonwoo does as he’s told, dutifully closing the door and stepping into the room. The people in here are either sitting in a circle on the floor or draped on top of the beed, giggling. Soonyoung is not here. Wonwoo doesn’t actually recognize anyone, apart from those two and Hansol Chwe.
He’s not close to any of them, but everyone knows Johnny and Joshua on campus. They have a reputation. And Hansol is Seungkwan’s boyfriend, so of course Wonwoo knows who he is. He’s dressed in a Spiderman suit, so Seungkwan was probably Mary Jane, Wonwoo notes.
“Want a hit?” Hansol asks, extending the cigarette to Wonwoo. His eyes are a little red.
“Oh, I’ve never smoked before,” Wonwoo says, eyeing the thing warily.
“You just gotta suck it in then exhale,” Hansol demonstrates, bringing it to his lips and holding his breath before blowing the smoke out. “But it’s cool if you just wanna stay here, dude. Don’t sweat it.”
Wonwoo decides he’s going to try. It’s a night of new experiences, after all! He sits down next to Hansol and takes the cigarette. It’s weirdly shaped, but it’s not like Wonwoo’s an expert on the art of cigars even when he’s sober. He brings it to his lips and breathes in. It’s surprisingly sweet, but it’s so hot he immediately starts feeling like he’s suffocating or something, coughing the smoke out, eyes watering. This is terrible. It feels absolutely terrible.
Hansol slaps him on the back. “There, there. That’s normal, don’t worry,” he says, offering Wonwoo his cup. He takes it, desperate to get rid of the burning sensation. “You can try again if you want.”
I’m already here, Wonwoo muses. He tries again, and this time he manages to not cough as soon as he breathes in. What would Chan think, if he saw him smoking? Wonwoo doesn’t even know what he’s smoking, but he bets he looks cool doing it. Maybe Chan likes bad boys who party. Wonwoo can learn how to smoke if that will help him.
“Cool, man,” Joshua says, reaching over for the cigarette. Is it a cigarette, though? It really doesn’t look like one. “If you ever wanna try it again, just hit me up. I have the best weed on campus.”
Wonwoo’s eyes widen. This is marijuana? He’s doing drugs? He coughs again, this time around nothing. He knows he should be panicking more about it, but his brain is so fuzzy now it’s hard to summon that level of despair. He’ll just never tell Soonyoung about it ever. Oh, right. He needs to find Soonyoung.
“I have to go,” he informs the room at large. He stands up slowly, head spinning, and waves before going to the door. “Thank you.”
“Have fun!” Johnny tells him before he closes the door, dissolving into giggles.
Wonwoo stands in the middle of the dark hallway, unsure of where to go now. He should check the kitchen. He goes down the stairs again, hand gripping the handrail, and walks straight there when he gets downstairs. The light inside is too bright when he walks in, making him wince.
“Wonwoo! Where were you?” Soonyoung’s voice is loud in his ears. He turns around and comes face to face with his friend, whose lipstick is a little smudged. “I looked everywhere for you!”
“I was looking for you,” Wonwoo pouts. “You disappeared and I told Chan I could be his Batman but he already had a Batman!” He feels like crying, and he doesn’t even know why.
Soonyoung sniffs. “Why do you smell like weed?” He narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Were you in the weed room? Did you smoke?”
“Just a little,” Wonwoo tells him, pinching his fingers together to demonstrate. “I didn’t even know it was weed!”
“Sweet Jesus,” says Soonyoung. He’s not looking too steady on his feet either. Junhui is looming behind him, a hand on his waist. He’s like a creepy guardian angel with him, honestly. Wonwoo’s still going to prove he’s a vampire one day. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Wonwoo shrugs. He feels fine. Great, even. Everything seems so easy right now. He could probably stalk up to Chan and propose to him. They can just forget about the Batman fiasco. What even was that? “Do you think Chan likes bad boys?”
“I don’t know,” Soonyoung answers. “Don’t stray away from me again, m’kay? Let’s just stick together.”
“Fine, dad,” Wonwoo rolls his eyes. Then he takes Soonyoung’s hand in his and looks into his eyes. “I love you. Thank you for being my best friend since we were babies. I’m so glad you came here for college.”
Soonyoung’s bottom lip wobbles. “I love you too, oh my god. You’ll always be my best friend! I’ll be the best man at your wedding with Channie, and you’ll be mine when I marry Junnie.”
Wonwoo gasps. “Do you think I’m gonna marry Chan? What about Yeonjun?”
“You’ll soooo marry Chan,” Soonyoung says very seriously. “I can already hear the bells. Have you talked to him tonight?”
“I did,” Wonwoo sighs. “I should talk to him again. Can you make me another drink?”
“Aren’t you too drunk already?” Soonyoung narrows his eyes.
“Just one more, please. To take the edge away, you know?” Wonwoo asks, jutting his bottom lip out. That used to work when they were children. He really feels like he needs this drink to be able to talk to Chan. Like liquid courage or something.
“Just this one!” Soonyoung acquiesces, wobbling over to the counter. He ends up making a drink for himself as well, and they toast before drinking from their cups. This time, Wonwoo can barely feel the taste. His head feels so weird right now. “Let’s go dance!”
Wonwoo lets Soonyoung drag him through the sea of people and he gives a thumbs up to the guy with the bottle in the hallway before they get to the dance room. Wonwoo doesn’t particularly feel like dancing, even now, but he goes with Soonyoung and Junhui to the dance floor. He just stands beside them as Soonyoung wraps his arms around Junhui’s neck and starts dancing with him; well, on him is more accurate, since Jun is also just standing there.
He probably doesn’t know any dances from this century, poor thing. Wonwoo takes the opportunity to look around them, taking in the crowd once more. Minjeong doesn’t seem to be here anymore, thankfully. His eyes flit between the people before he finds Chan, just a couple feet away from them. Wonwoo sucks in a breath.
Chan looks… stunning. He’s between Aeri and Seungkwan, throwing his head back with laughter as he sways his hips. Wonwoo’s mouth goes dry. The lights catch on his eyes and make them shine. He can’t take his eyes off of him. He wants to dance with him, puts his hands on his waist, who even cares that Wonwoo has two left feet? He could dance, if it was with Chan. He’s sure of it.
Things get so blurry after that. Wonwoo doesn’t even see time pass.
He finishes his drink, and he can’t stop giggling at everything. His head is so light. He goes outside with Soonyoung and they lie down on the grass, staring up at the sky and inventing constellations. They briefly meet Minjeong and she bullies him before disappearing with her girlfriend and Yizhuo. There’s even cake, surprisingly, and the six slices Wonwoo eats don’t really sit well in his stomach.
The three of them are outside again, sharing a bottle of wine, when Wonwoo’s stomach does a weird twist. He stands up and dusts his cape, telling Soonyoung he’ll just go to the bathroom real quick. Soonyoung, head resting on Junhui’s lap, only gives him a thumbs up. Wonwoo stumbles inside and to the bathroom, groaning when he sees the line. He’ll try upstairs. He is in the middle of the staircase when he takes note of the mask on one of the steps.
It’s a Batman mask. Yeonjun’s Batman mask. Wonwoo reaches down for it, very carefully so he doesn’t end up tumbling down the steps. With the mask in his grip, he stares at it. A very good idea starts taking shape inside his brain.
He gives up on the bathroom thing, even though he’s feeling queasy, and walks down the stairs, fiddling with the mask. He manages to snap it on after a couple tries, fingers clumsier than usual. Once it’s secure, he takes a deep breath before going to the dance floor. He almost immediately spots Chan alone in a corner, slowly moving his head to the rhythm of the song.
He approaches him slowly, and clears his throat when he’s standing in front of him. Chan turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. “Hello,” Wonwoo says. “It is I, Yeonjun. Your Batman. Would you like to dance with me?”
Chan barks out a laugh. “Wonwoo? Are you okay?”
“I’m not Wonwoo,” he insists. A wave of nausea washes over him when he shakes his head too hard. “I’m your Batman, can’t you see?” He even points at the mask for added effect.
“Um,” Chan says. “How drunk are you? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine! Pinky promise! Do you wanna dance?” Wonwoo asks again, leaning forward. “I understand if you don’t want to dance with me. You should dance with that guy Wonwoo. He’s friends with that friend of yours, did you know?” He says casually, almost shrugging.
Chan laughs again, eyes widening. “Oh dear,” he says. “Can you tell me where Soonyoung is?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Wonwoo shakes his head. The mask is starting to feel a little stuffy, like he can’t breathe right. His stomach churns. “But if you see him, you should totally ask him about his friend with the glasses, haha.”
“Okay, okay,” Chan agrees. He pats Wonwoo on the arm. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
He starts to walk towards the exit, and Wonwoo tries rushing after him, but the sudden movement really is too much. He feels the nausea rushing up his throat and he can’t do anything to stop the gag that follows it.
He doesn’t really remember anything after that.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo wakes up to a throbbing in his temple, so intense he can barely open his eyes before immediately closing them again. His throat feels terribly scratchy.
He tries opening his eyes again, pressing his fingers between them. He’s on his bed, under the covers, with his pajamas on. A couple rays of sunlight stream through the curtains. He’s terribly confused. When did he even get home? The last thing he remembers is finding the mask on the staircase. Everything is too fuzzy after that when he tries searching his mind.
He looks for his phone on the bedside table, finding it beside a bottle of water and some aspirin. Wonwoo takes the medicine and drains the entire bottle before grabbing the phone, squinting at the screen. There are so many notifications, most of them from Soonyoung.
He goes straight to his chat with him, not bothering to read the texts before typing. Soonyoung answers immediately.
Soonyoungie
1:17 PM
Hi
What in the world happened
Did you bring me home?
I don’t remember it
Morning
U don’t remember anything?
No like last thing I know I was going to the bathroom
Oh
Yeah u might wanna sit down if ur not already…
😓
U should never drink again btw
So…
Wonwoo is never, ever, going to so much as look at any kind of alcohol again.
Step 3: Become Franz Kafka Reincarnate!
November brings with it a freezing cold bucket of water being dropped on top of Wonwoo’s head. Metaphorically, of course. Though Minjeong did tell him he’d been shoved under a cold shower after Ningning’s party. The biggest blessing in all of it is that he doesn’t remember the worst parts, so he can’t replay them over and over in his head like a broken cassette. And even though under regular circumstances, Wonwoo would have been spending his every waking (and dreaming) moment tormenting himself over everything he can remember from the party fiasco, he’s currently so busy he doesn’t even have the time to do so.
Despite the accusations Soonyoung has been throwing his way, Wonwoo is not avoiding Chan at all. Of course, he absolutely would be guilty of just that if it was up to him, but his absence from social interactions for the past weeks is not voluntary. As it turns out, barely doing any schoolwork in the first two months of your final year of college is not a power move.
He needs to have a playable level of his stupid game project done by December. All of his classmates are well in on it, as his professor had kindly pointed out to him when he still had nothing to show last week. Thus, Wonwoo’s been doing so much coding in the last days his dreams are starting to look like the Matrix. And that’s not even counting his other classes and assignments. And his actual job. He really should’ve just dropped out on freshman year like he’d almost done.
So, he is not avoiding Chan. He’s just a busy college student who also works part-time. But he sure as hell isn’t complaining that he hasn’t seen him in three weeks, of course, even though his heart aches with longing. Maybe if they don’t see each other for enough time, Chan will forget all about the fact that Wonwoo threw up on his shoes. Wishful thinking has never hurt anyone ever. Probably.
A Discord notification pops up on his screen. Wonwoo sighs wistfully as he, once again, has to tell his friends that he won’t be available for any matches in the foreseeable future because his obsessive brain sucked him into oblivion months ago and now he’s drowning in a tsunami of schoolwork. Stupid fucking degree and stupid fucking obligations and stupid fucking Wonwoo, actually. How is it possible that he’s failing in absolutely all areas of his life?
He stretches his hands far behind his back, listening to cracking of his joints, and readies himself for another endless day of being chained to his desk. Chan is probably at the pier, now, drinking boba under the sunlight with Yeonjun or some other guy, and this is how Wonwoo’s spending his weekend. It couldn’t be more pitiful. Maybe this is what he deserves for being a crazy drunk.
There’s a knock on his bedroom door. It’s not Minjeong, since it doesn’t immediately bang open, so Wonwoo croaks out his permission to come inside. His throat is so dry. Maybe he should drink some water and deviate from his energy drink regime. Jeonghan pokes her head inside before easing the door open. She’s wearing one of the pretty sundresses she saves for special occasions. “Wonungie, do you have any plans for the day?”
“Working on my project until my fingers start cramping,” he informs her, throwing his head back for added dramatic effect. She rolls her eyes, gently closing the door behind her.
“I’m doing something special today,” she says in a conspiratorial tone. “I would like you to tag along, if you can afford to pry your greasy fingers away from the computer.”
“What are you doing?”
Jeonghan comes closer, leaning her hip against the side of Wonwoo’s desk. “Oh, you know,” she almost whispers, “just going wedding dress shopping.”
Wonwoo widens his eyes. He didn’t know she and Seulgi were already in that stage of planning. Do they even have a venue yet? “Shouldn’t you bring, y’know, my sister with you?”
“Wonwoo!” Jeonghan gasps, affronted. “She can’t see what I’m wearing until we’re at the altar! Don’t you know the importance of the first look?”
“I didn’t think you guys cared about that. It’s very traditional.”
“It is,” Jeonghan agrees, a small smile on her lips. “But it’s something I’d like to keep. When I was a kid, I always thought it was romantic, and special. I thought I would be on the other side of the altar, of course, but I wondered what it would be like to be the bride. Now, I am the bride. I didn’t think I would ever get to have that moment, but it’s mine now and I want to keep it.”
It’s an unusual bout of candor from her, with none of her regular playfulness and teasing present. In these rare and precious moments in which Jeonghan bares her heart, Wonwoo understands why his oldest sister trusted her with him and Minjeong. He’ll never forget Jeonghan’s hand carding through his hair when he was seventeen and melting down in the kitchen of Seulgi’s tiny apartment after having his entire life upended. He wonders if this is what having a mother should feel like.
Wonwoo clears his throat. “I understand. And you would like my opinion on the dress? Why not Minjeong?”
“Because I love you and you won’t lie to me to be nice,” says Jeonghan, rolling her eyes at him. “But don’t worry, Minjeongie will not be left out of the wedding fun. Gigi will bring her with whenever she decides to go suit tailoring.”
“You’re not telling each other when you’re going either?”
“No!” Jeonghan exclaims, delighted. “It’s like we’re doing secret missions! I told her I was going to take you to buy some action figures because you’ve been stinking up the house with your sad vibes! Isn’t it a wonderful cover?”
Wonwoo sighs, saving his work and turning his computer off. His family’s favorite pastime is making fun of him — even the cat seems to be laughing at his expense whenever they cross their eyes. Jeonghan claps her hands and tells him he has five minutes to shower and she’ll be waiting in the car. He knows she’s absolutely not joking, so he takes the fastest shower of his life, grabs the least stinky shirt he can find in his room and bolts down the stairs.
He’s inside the car with five seconds to spare. Jeonghan pats his shoulder before starting the engine.
Wedding dress shopping is more or less what Wonwoo expected. Jeonghan has appointments in two different stores. He doesn’t really like the first one they go to — it’s very fancy and all the dresses are extravagant to a T, even the supposedly simpler ones.
Jeonghan tells him that Seungcheol insisted on paying for her dress and this is his recommended store, and it all starts making sense to Wonwoo. He likes Seungcheol — though he thoroughly exaggerates the Uncle Act whenever they meet — but his Silicon Valley nepo-baby ways are very severe. It’s like having mentally stable Bruce Wayne as your oldest sister’s wife/mother figure’s best friend. He visibly cringes at the thought; anything Batman related has been having that effect on him lately.
Anyway. Jeonghan makes a face at every dress she tries on, and after two hours, they walk out of the store empty-handed. “I think we’re gonna like the next one more,” she says once they’re back in the car. “God bless Cheol, but he’s so tacky, honestly. I’m not marrying into British royalty!”
They do like the next store more. It renovates vintage dresses, and it’s cozy and inviting inside, with none of the blinding lights the last one had. It’s nice. The attendant lady directs Wonwoo to a plush red chair and offers him a glass of water while Jeonghan’s inside the dressing room. Even the songs playing are from the past century — they’re really committed to the aesthetic.
Jeonghan goes through five dresses before they find the one. She steps out into the lounge and Wonwoo sucks in a breath when he sees her. The dress is satin, he thinks, with lace and pretty flowy sleeves. She’s got her hair up in some complicated style he didn’t even know was possible with short hair, a pearl necklace shining on her neck.
“You look beautiful,” Wonwoo says. His sister will lose her breath when she sees Jeonghan on their special day.
“You think so?” Jeonghan asks, but her giddiness is so evident Wonwoo knows she already knows the answer. “Do you think your sister will like it?”
“I think she’ll have a nosebleed when she sees you from the altar.”
“That only happens in anime, Wonu,” Jeonghan snorts, but her eyes are shining. Wonwoo suddenly feels the weight of being here with her, the privilege of being trusted with this. They’re a family. It makes him feel warm inside, his throat tight. He sniffs discreetly.
The seamstress marks the adjustments needed on the dress, Jeonghan flashes Seungcheol’s black card at payment, and they walk out into the street just as the sun is starting to set. Jeonghan’s smile appears to be glued onto her face, and instead of going back to where the car is parked, she pulls him into the geek store across the street and bullies him into letting her buy him a figurine, because well, I told your sister I would give you one, and I’ll look like a bad mom if I don’t, Wonungie, do you want her to accuse me of that?
So when they get home, Wonwoo has a brand new Luffy figurine. Jeonghan immediately goes into the kitchen to bake some brownies, singing happily in baby voice and pressing a kiss to the top of Seulgi’s head when she passes by her. This was a good day.
Hell, Wonwoo might have to actually call Seungcheol uncle the next time he sees him.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo’s standing in an altar, dressed in a three-piece green suit with daisies in the breast pocket. Soonyoung and Minjeong stand next to him, dressed in what appears to be Inazuman outerwear.
Music starts playing and Chan Lee enters the chapel, which is where they are, Wonwoo now realizes, donning a puffy white dress that looks straight out of a fairytale. He’s wearing a straw hat, and holding a red bouquet of flowers in one hand. His other arm is intertwined with Yeonjun’s, and they walk slowly towards the altar. When they get there, Chan untangles his arm from Yeonjun’s, shoving him away, and stands in front of Wonwoo.
Seungkwan Boo and Aeri Uchinaga stand behind them, right in the middle, and they ask them if they’re ready. Chan nods, as does Wonwoo, and they open up Jujutsu Kaisen’s volume zero and start reading from it like the bible. Wonwoo can’t really understand what’s being said, but Chan says his vows, and then he himself says his own, even though they’re unintelligible to him.
Junhui, dressed like Count Dracula and with blood smeared on his chin, walks down the aisle holding a tray with two rings. Wonwoo slides one onto Chan’s finger, and Chan does the same with the other.
“You may now kiss the bride,” Seungkwan and Aeri say in unison.
Chan closes his eyes, and Wonwoo leans in, impossibly so, eyes cast towards Chan’s shiny and plump lips, getting closer by the second—
Wonwoo wakes up with a sinking feeling on his stomach. He keeps his eyes closed, trying to be dragged back into the confines of his dream, to no avail. He groans, shoving his face into his pillow. It felt so real. He was so close!
All of his dreams in the past week have been more or less like this, insanely diverse wedding scenarios involving him and Chan. Last night, they were made of legos and Wonwoo’s own kid self was playing out their wedding. This was the only one in which they had gotten so close to kissing, though. Only for his stupid bladder to wake him up.
His alarm hasn’t even ringed yet. Is the universe conspiring against his joy? Are there evil forces at play against his relationship with Chan?
He’s going to start screaming.
📻📻📻
By some twist of fate, Wonwoo manages to have a decent enough skeleton of his project ready before Thanksgiving, which means he will be able to exit his self-imposed captivity before his initial calculations. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not, especially when Soonyoung materializes inside his bedroom on the Tuesday before the holiday, blabbering about Trojan pride and socializing and god knows what. Why is it that everyone is always barging into his room these days?
Wonwoo ignores Soonyoung until he’s done playing his welcome back to the world of the living celebratory match on LOL. He would play another one, had promised his friends so, but Soonyoung keeps poking his shoulder and he’s absolutely sure that if he doesn’t give him any attention soon, Soonyoung will start biting. He makes (empty) promises of playing again later and shrugs his headset off. Then he finally turns his unimpressed gaze to Soonyoung. “What do you want, you insufferable man?”
“You’re going out with me!” Soonyoung gleefully tells him. Now that Wonwoo’s finally looking at him, he sees that Soonyoung is dressed in full red and gold regalia, with some matching glitter on his eyes to add to the combo.
“Am I, now?” Wonwoo aims for nonchalance, but there’s a pit of dread forming in his stomach. This can only be going in one direction.
“You are!” Soonyoung exclaims, with the sort of inflection that tells Wonwoo there is no fighting this. “We’re going to the game tonight! You have thirty minutes to get ready, by the way.”
“Well, you see, I can’t actually go, because—”
“Nuh, uh, Wonwoo! I know for a fact that you finished aaaall your stuff yesterday! So you can’t play busy anymore,” says Soonyoung, leaning forward and booping Wonwoo’s nose like he’s fucking Humbert or something. “I’ll be waiting downstairs! Please wear something nice and red, but no Luffy shirts, do you hear me, Wonwoo?”
Wonwoo just sighs. First day of freedom in decades and he’s already being dragged into something. He briefly considers just locking his bedroom door and refusing to step out of the house, but A) he’s scared he’ll develop scurvy if he keeps the current rhythm going and B) Soonyoung would probably crawl in through the window. Better to just get it on with.
When he goes downstairs after his allotted thirty minutes, Soonyoung is deep in conversation with his sisters, petting the cat’s head. “You cleaned up nicely,” he tells Wonwoo when he clears his throat to announce his rival.
“You think so?” Wonwoo asks bashfully. He dug the nice dress shirt Minjeong gave him for his birthday last year from the deep end of his dresser, because that’s about the only red thing he owns that’s not merch for something.
“Totally, dude.”
“He’s being kind,” Minjeong chimes in. Wonwoo just ignores her.
“Well, we’ll be going, then,” Soonyoung announces to the room at large, standing up and dusting inexistent particles off his heart patterned trousers. “Goodbye, aunties, Minjeong, Wonwoo will sleep over at my place!”
“I will?”
“Ugh, Soonyoung, don’t call me auntie, I’m only twenty-six!” Seulgi complains. “But you boys have fun!”
Wonwoo lets himself be dragged outside and into Soonyoung’s car, which seems to be an extremely recurring scenario in his life, and it’s only now that he registers the very glaring absence of one Junhui Wen. “Where’s Count Dracula?” He asks, narrowing his eyes. That’s suspicious.
“Junnie is busy tonight,” Soonyoung sighs, and one would think he’s a grieving widow instead of a twenty-one year old gay man. “He locked himself in his secret room earlier today, murmuring something about a full blood moon. I think it’s so cute when he gets so invested in something!”
What exactly is cute about living with an eldritch creature in human skin is still a mystery to Wonwoo, but it’s not like anyone ever listens to him when he points these things out. He’ll just leave it be, like he did when no one in his family believed him when he told them he saw the cat bowing to Junhui with his own two eyes.
Anyway. Soonyoung, by some miracle, does not submit him to Justin Bieber this time, instead going the more traditional route with some good old Shinee. Still not Wonwoo’s first choice, but anything is better than Bieber. Even with the music playing, Soonyoung keeps talking nonstop the entire way to campus, and Wonwoo is glad to listen to him. Not that he’ll ever utter these words, but he kinda missed Soonyoung.
It takes them nearly one hour and a half to get there, because hoping for good traffic on the eve of a major holiday really is too much. “Who are we even playing against?” Wonwoo asks once they’re walking towards the field, surrounded by a swarm of people dressed in the school colors. It occurs to him that this is the first time ever he’s attended a game in his nearly four years of college. He really is kind of a hermit. “Actually, what sport are they even playing?”
“It’s football and we’re playing UCLA,” Soonyoung shudders.
“I don’t know what that means at all, I hope you know that.”
“The only thing you need to know is that we have to crush those fuckers,” says Soonyoung. His hand is clammy around Wonwoo’s, either with nerves or excitement, as he leads him along the way.
“Why did you even drag me here?”
“Because I miss going out with my best friend! It’s been a while, we haven’t done anything since the party—”
“Please don’t ever mention the party to me again,” Wonwoo hisses. He’s probably developed some sort of PTSD in regards to it, because he feels like throwing up again just thinking about throwing up back then. It’s like there’s a news anchor inside his head telling him: Attention, if you’re receiving this, you did something extremely cringe in front of the person you like, locals are dying from second-hand embarrassment, please refrain from ever doing that again.
“Okay, jeez,” Soonyoung rolls his eyes. The golden glitter he applied to his lids shines under the bright as fuck streetlights. “We should grab something to eat before going to the bleachers! What do you want?”
“I don’t know what they offer,” Wonwoo shrugs. “You know what I like, you can choose.”
These things really are events. It’s so full one would think there’s an olympic game or something happening, but it’s just intercollegiate sports. The line for the food truck Soonyoung drags them to is gigantic, but nachos are a good choice, so he doesn’t really mind. Like twenty-five minutes later, when they have both nachos and cups of Coke in hands, they go to the bleachers, squeezing past the crowd until Soonyoung finds what he deems as acceptable seats.
What the little fucker didn’t say is that his acceptable seats are right beside Chan Lee’s friends. Wonwoo nearly stops dead in his tracks when he sees Aeri, Seungkwan and Hansol chatting enthusiastically on Soonyoung’s left side. He widens his eyes and tries to turn around, but Soonyoung sees it coming and pulls him down. “Nunu, it is time you stop running away, they are normal people, and so is Channie,” he whispers, before tapping Seungkwan on the shoulder. “Sup, guys, sorry we’re late! Ran into some traffic.”
I missed you my ass. Wonwoo would say he can’t believe Soonyoung manufactured a ploy like this, but he absolutely should have seen it coming. Fucking fucker. Wonwoo hopes Junhui eats him in his sleep. Couldn’t he have just mentioned they would be meeting up with these guys? At least he followed Soonyoung’s instructions and dressed nicely.
“Yo, Hosh,” Hansol leans across Seungkwan to fist bump Soonyoung. “Sup, Wonwoo?,” he pats Wonwoo’s thigh, smiling without a care in the world. Wonwoo bets he’s high as fuck right now.
“Hi,” Wonwoo forces out with a little wave. He feels his ears burning and takes a sip of his Coke about it. Seungkwan and Aeri greet him back, amicable smiles on their faces, but all Wonwoo can think about when he looks at them is the fact that they don’t even know they gave him love advice about their best friend. God, he hasn’t listened to Love Guide in so long.
“Is Channie already down there?”
“Yep,” says Aeri, making grabby hands for Soonyoung’s nachos. She’s covered in glitter just like him, hair up in pigtails, and bright red lipstick on her lips. “The three of them are super excited, it’s cute,” she adds after she’s done chewing. Her gaze briefly meets Wonwoo’s, and there’s a twinkle of mischief in her eyes he doesn’t quite understand. Where is Chan, actually? It’s weird that he’s not here with his friends. God, what if he’s making out with someone under the bleachers?
Just as he opens his mouth to discreetly ask Soonyoung what on earth they’re talking about, a loud trumpet-like sound echoes through the stadium, and Soonyoung points to the field. Wonwoo’s not familiar with the proceedings of a game, but he’s seen enough movies to know that there are a couple performances before the actual thing. Is this the cheerleader part? There are cheerleaders before these things, right?
His questions are answered almost immediately, because a group of people run into the field, stopping right in front of where Wonwoo is seated. Oh, they’re cheerleaders alright, with the uniform and all. Soonyoung and Chan’s friends are screaming like insane people, and Wonwoo can’t fathom why. He squeezes his tries, searching for whatever the hell it is, and almost wishes his glasses stopped working when he finally catches on to what is making them go crazy.
Oh, he is absolutely going to kill himself in front of Soonyoung and forever alter the trajectory of his life, because what the actual fucking fuck, is that Chan Lee in a fucking skirt? Since when is he a cheerleader? Since when do male cheerleaders wear the skirt uniform?! If Wonwoo were a lesser man, his dick would already be hitting his forehead right now.
He turns to Soonyoung, wide-eyed and mouth dropped open. Soonyoung cackles, leaning to whisper-shout. “Aren’t you glad you came, silly?”
“Since when is he a cheerleader?!” Wonwoo asks, scandalized.
Seungkwan probably overhears his pseudo-scream, because he whips his head towards him. “Since last month! He, Yeonjun and Jiji joined the Spirit Leaders a while back!”
Wonwoo hadn’t even noticed those other two, but when he looks back, sure thing, Yeonjun and Jimin are right beside Chan, waving at the crowd. Fucking Yeonjun is also in a skirt, but, to Wonwoo, he has the sex appeal of a chicken. He briefly wonders why Minjeong isn’t here to see her girlfriend’s cheerleading debut, but the cacophony of sounds around them is enough to answer that.
Wonwoo hasn’t seen Chan in almost a full month. All of his dreams and fantasies about marrying him come rushing into his mind when he sees his well toned bare legs, the way the top he’s wearing shows off his pecs. There’s something about Chan in skin-tight outfits that makes Wonwoo start thinking sort of like an alpha from one of those BLs he caught Minjeong reading once. He needs to wife him up so badly.
He mostly needs to pull himself together and stop acting like a hormonal teenaged Mingyu Kim, though. Unfortunately, it’s extremely hard to do so when Chan is wearing that fucking skirt. “Why is he wearing that uniform,” he desperately whispers into Soonyoung’s ear.
“Oh, he and Yeonjun convinced the coach to ‘break gender norms’ or something like that, I don’t know how they did it, but isn’t it cool?” Soonyoung excitedly tells him. “I think next game they’ll all wear the shorts version.”
Wonwoo feels a sudden spike of his levels of interest in attending such events. Then all rational thought leaves his mind when the cheerleaders start performing their routine, and god, that really isn’t good for his heart. Not at all. All Wonwoo can think of are Chan’s thighs and the way the muscle pops out in them when he squats and how strong his arms must be to carry those girls and the smiles he keeps throwing at the audience like he’s a popstar or something.
Wonwoo knows Chan is a good performer, has seen him dance on a stage a couple times, but this is. Wonwoo doesn’t really have the words for what this is. He only knows that his throat keeps getting drier and drier and he chokes down a whimper when Chan turns around and he gets a full view of how the skirt looks in the back. Maybe he is a perverted old man.
There’s just something about Chan in the spotlight that really does Wonwoo in.
(Nevermind the fact that, for him, Chan is always under the spotlight.)
Wonwoo gains absolutely zero football knowledge tonight, because he spends the entirety of the actual game daydreaming about taking Chan home, still in that cheerleader uniform, cooking him dinner, peppering his face with kisses, and then, like, getting him pregnant or something. He’s starting to consider just DMing him on Instagram with a string of “please just let me hit, please, please, please”.
Soonyoung keeps throwing him side glances that say he knows exactly what Wonwoo is thinking about and isn’t impressed. He actually has to shake Wonwoo when the game’s over, because not even the roaring of the crowd had been able to tear him off his thoughts.
“Oh, is it over? Who won?” He asks, blinking the… sacrilegious thoughts away.
Soonyoung stretched his arms very wide, eyebrows raised. Wonwoo looks around and oh, their side of the bleachers is going absolutely bonkers. Trojans win, it appears. Good for them. Maybe it’s because Chan’s cheerleading skills had been so good they inspired every single player on the team. That’s what would have happened to Wonwoo if he was an athlete.
“We’re going to meet up with those three,” Soonyoung informs him, and this time Wonwoo can read the implied pull yourself together, don’t blurt out that you want to impregnate him or that you would let him step on you or that you killed thirty lions with your bare hands and deserve his hand in marriage. At least he got a head up this time, which is apparently a lot to ask for.
This is the first time Wonwoo’s going to talk to Chan since the party incident. He can only hope Chan has already forgotten about it, or that his kind heart has enough warmth in it to let this one go. He’s being very brave right now, not immediately running away, and that’s probably because of the wave of endorphins his brain released upon seeing the whole cheerleading thing.
Like, maybe with the power of horniness and eternal devotion on his side, Wonwoo can get the guy. That would be awesome.
Wonwoo carefully follows Soonyoung and Chan’s friends down the bleachers, working on some breathing exercises and repeating positive affirmations inside his head. You’ve got this, you can talk to him, he doesn’t even remember the mask thing, just don’t say anything about his mom, pretend you’re Zoro talking to Luffy, smile and wave if things get weird, you are so normal. His internal voices are kind of working overtime tonight.
By the time they work through the crowd and reach the designated meeting spot, Wonwoo’s feeling a little confident in his ability to see this through. Maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder, and Chan spent so long without seeing him… He knows for a fact that being in Chan’s presence after days of exile felt like feeling the sun on his skin again.
“Guys!” There’s a high-pitched squeak, and then Chan pops up in his field of vision, running excitedly towards them. He’s still wearing that damned uniform, skin glistening with sweat in a way it shouldn’t when it’s almost winter, and he looks like a vision of the gods themselves.
Aeri pulls him into a hug as soon as he’s within arm’s reach, squealing excitedly. “You were so good! How are you this good after only a month! I’m so proud, oh my god!” They jump around before Aeri releases him and turns to look at Yeonjun, coyishly twirling one of her pigtails. “You too, Mr. Choi. I’ll be sure to send Ningning the video I recorded.”
Yeonjun winks at her, cheeks heating up. Is Wonwoo missing something here again? He feels like he is. At least Yeonjun’s too busy with Aeri and now Seungkwan to wrap himself around Chan. Speaking of Chan, he’s gesturing wildly while talking to Soonyoung and Jimin, very clearly deeply engaged in whatever the topic of conversation is. Wonwoo bets it’s about a move they pulled off.
“That was so cool, seriously, you guys should add it to your showcase performance, I think it would rock,” Soonyoung is saying, and yeah, of course it’s about that. Wonwoo’s happy to stand silently beside Hansol—who appears to be in another dimension—and just stare at Chan as he laughs with his friends. He really has the prettiest laugh in the whole world. Wonwoo kind of wants to die about it.
Then Chan suddenly fixes his gaze on him, mirth still in his eyes, and Wonwoo has to blink at least five times so his face isn’t stuck on the Joe Goldberg stare when Chan walks over to him. “Long time no see, Wonwoo,” says Chan, in that beautiful and honeyed cadence of his. Wonwoo hasn’t heard it in so long. “I didn’t know you were coming!”
“Um, yeah, Soonyoung kidnapped me from my house and brought me here,” Wonwoo tells him in what he hopes is a totally chill tone of voice. So far so good. Chan is still smiling.
“Ohhh,” Chan hums agreeably. He shifts his weight to one side, and Wonwoo can’t help the way his eyes cast downwards, towards his hips, his legs. He’s really caught up on the legs. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Ah, well, I didn’t pay that much attention to the game,” Wonwoo scratches his neck.
“Nah, who cares about football! What did you think about the performance?” Chan asks, blinking twice at Wonwoo. His eyelashes are so big.
“It was. Um. Very good,” Wonwoo says slowly, trying to carefully feel his words out before they’re uttered out loud. “You were great. I didn’t know you joined the team.”
Chan’s eyes crinkle when he laughs, leaning closer to Wonwoo. He catches a faint whiff of his perfume—he still smells like strawberries even after all that exercise. “Ah, I joined recently! But I’ve wanted to since I was a freshman, it’s nice!” He tells Wonwoo, tilting his head to the right. “Did you like the uniforms?”
Oh lord, this is absolutely not a safe topic of conversation. The sirens are already going off inside his head. What can he even say? Yes, I will dream about marrying you while you wear that? And then I’ll dream about taking that little skirt off and getting you— “Pregnant.”
Yep, and here’s the news anchor again: You’ve just embarrassed yourself in front of the guy you like again, locals are begging you to get a grip. Wonwoo just immediately clamps his mouth shut, jaw locked so tight he might need to go to the dentist after this.
Chan widens his eyes, furrowing his brows like he’s not sure he heard it right. “What? Who’s pregnant?”
Wonwoo cringes internally, biting his cheeks hard. He needs to find a way out of this. There has to be some salvation. A light at the end of the tunnel. He nods slowly, swallowing his saliva before tentatively working his jaw open. He’ll just say whatever comes to mind, honestly. “Um. I mean, my sister’s pregnant, the older one, not Minjeong,” and sweet Jesus what is he even saying. Soonyoung, apparently tuning in to his Wonwoo Sixth Sense, turns to them with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, Seulgi’s pregnant. Which is why I was gone for so long, because I was helping her. And her wife. They are also getting married. Like, they already are, but they’re having the big party now. And the skirts reminded me of that, because—”
📻📻📻
Wonwoo does a lot of reflecting over Thanksgiving break. His main takeaway is this: under no circumstances is he allowed to ever open his mouth near Chan again. That’s just not going to work. Now, that doesn’t mean he’ll just give up on his very established goal of winning Chan’s heart over. He’ll just have to go for a different approach.
He’s had his little sabbatical, with enough time to pull himself together, but the clock is ticking, and he doesn’t have all the time in the world. December’s already starting and he graduates in May. It’s like there’s a deadline looming over his head. So, evidently, he needs help. Again.
It’s time to beg for professional help once more. The studio’s still on recess, so he has all his afternoons free. On the first Friday of December, he dutifully clicks on Love Guide’s Twitter profile and the link they share before every program. He needs to familiarize himself with the show again before sending anything to their DMs. What if they’re not taking follow-ups anymore? That would surely sour his plans.
AERI: Happy December to all the lovesick fools! I’m Miss Aeri Uchinaga.
SEUNGKWAN: And I’m Mister Seungkwan Boo, and you’re listening to the Ultimate Love Guide.
AERI: We’re very happy to be back after our Thanksgiving break. Did everyone have fun?
SEUNGKWAN: I know you sure did. Aeri has a hickey the size of Jupiter on her neck, you guys.
AERI: Like you’re one to talk!
SEUNGKWAN: This is me rolling my eyes. I want everyone to know I’m rolling my eyes at you.
AERI: I really hate you sometimes. Maybe I’ll start doing Love Guide with Ningning.
SEUNGKWAN: Oh, I wasn’t aware we were changing audiences.
AERI: Seungkwan! Oh my god! Let’s just get back to the script. Not that we have a script, we’re very organic, don’t worry.
SEUNGKWAN: I don’t think anyone thinks we say scripted things. That would be so boring. Anyway! It seems the holidays air is making everyone incredibly desperate. Our DMs have ever been this full.
AERI: Well, everyone wants to take someone back home for Christmas.
That’s true. Wonwoo can’t help but imagine how it would be if he could bring Chan over for Christmas eve. The thought of Chan interacting with his family is enough to send him into cardiac arrest, and he has to muffle a scream into his pillow, kicking his feet like a schoolgirl.
SEUNGKWAN: Which is why we are here to help. I don’t want to hear about any of my listeners being sad and single! We have a reputation to uphold. Do not fret, everyone.
AERI: I’ll just start reading our first message of the night, otherwise we’ll never get anything done. Ow! Don’t fucking kick me. Oops, sorry, we can’t swear.
SEUNGKWAN: Jesus Christ, just get on with it.
AERI: Ugh. Oh, this is a cute one! Here it goes: I, 20 male, am probably very in love with my younger brother’s best friend, 20 female. I know, it’s terrible. The really summarized version of it is that she was going through a rough patch so she came to stay at my family home in the countryside. We didn’t know each other very well, but we’re both trans and bonded over that, and it slowly developed into… whatever it is that we have right now. We spend every day together, and we do all sorts of romantic things. It’s the best relationship I have ever had, and it’s not even an actual relationship yet. The thing is: my brother is coming home for Christmas, and I don’t know exactly how to present the situation to him, or how to act at all, really. Do I tell him? Do we keep it under wraps? I have no idea.
SEUNGKWAN: Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the best friend’s brother situation from the brother’s point of view. That’s rough, buddy.
AERI: Did you just quote Zuko? Is Hansol making you watch it?
SEUNGKWAN: Yes. Now back to Mr. Victorious. I don’t think it’s that complicated, actually! Your brother seems like a very caring person, seeing as he helped his friend during her rough patch.
AERI: Yeah, actually! Honestly, my guy, I think you should first of all talk to your lady and sort things out between you two, so you’re on the same page and all that. Dialogue is always the best place to start.
SEUNGKWAN: Yep. And after you’ve done that, then you can work out how to tell your little bro, because I do think you should. You’ve got nothing to hide! You two are clearly good for one another, so I don’t see why your brother would be mad at all.
AERI: I don’t mean to speculate, but he’ll probably just be happy for the two of you. As for the conversation itself, just tell him what you told us, u’know? That you’re happy, she’s happy, and all that.
SEUNGKWAN: I know it might seem annoying when we’re always telling you guys to communicate, but that’s really the only way forward. I hope the three of you have a good time together, Mr. Victorious.
AERI: For the song break, of course we’re having ‘Best Friend’s Brother’.
Good to know the show is still the same. It’s even slightly comforting to listen to it again, the now familiar cadences of Aeri and Seungkwan’s voices feeling like old friends. Maybe that’s why Mingyu had a podcast phase, although in his case, he was listening to finance bros. But it’s the same principle, Wonwoo supposes.
He scrolls through his Twitter timeline as the song plays, trying to work out how exactly he’s going to phrase his plight this time. Hey, I tried drinking and the only thing that did was make me throw up? I apparently am unable to let loose? I told him my sister is pregnant because I accidentally blurted out that I wanted to impregnate him? Wonwoo doesn’t think anything along those lines will be very good, but there’s also not much else he can say, because that is, in fact, the situation. But then, maybe if he sounds pitiful enough, they’ll see it as entertaining and decide to read it, so that’s another angle to play.
Is Wonwoo going to make a fool of himself and air the biggest embarrassment of his life so far just so he can illegally get that insider info on how to conquer Chan’s heart?
Duh. Of course he is.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo expected Love Guide to take a break during exams week, but apparently the “love grind never stops”, in Aeri’s words. He can empathize, because he’s back at the studio’s reception, but at least he’s getting paid for it. He doesn’t think Seungkwan and Aeri get any remuneration out of their show. But it’s not like he’s complaining, because their lack of a break does mean more opportunities for his words to be read.
Winter break is just around the corner. Wonwoo needs to make a move now. It’s very urgent. He waits anxiously for the clock on the wall to hit four o’clock, earbuds already shoved in and the link opened. A song by SNSD that Wonwoo vaguely recognizes is playing. He really hopes no lost parents wander in right now. It’s a blessing that almost none of the kids are coming these days — no one wants to come to dance classes right before the big recess.
He waits with bated breath for the regular greetings and casual talk that precedes the reading of the first message. He really tried to make the text as pathetic and ridiculous as he could, and he desperately needs it to pay off.
SEUNGKWAN: Oh! I didn’t realize we picked this one for today, Aeri. Did you slip it into the selected messages?
AERI: I mean, is it sneaking if I own the show?
SEUNGKWAN: You co-own the show, you mean. But, oh, yeah, I can see why you did it. Damn.
AERI: I just felt like the guy really needs some help. And that's what we like to do!
SEUNGKWAN: Yeah, yeah. So, straying a little away from our ‘follow-ups at the end of the month’ policy, we have a returning guest today. Any guesses as to who it is?
AERI: Damn, none of you guys are getting it right. Midterms brain, much? Oh, wait, I think I just saw someone getting it right. KevinMoonDay says: lol I think it’s wishful thinking but maybe Mr. Pining? I don’t know, man, I like the normies.
SEUNGKWAN: Ding, ding, ding! You would be correct, Mr. KevinMoonDay. The notable Mr. Pining is returning to us right this instant.
AERI: You’re going to see just why I slipped him in right now. Mr. Pining, man, wow.
Well, the willingly humiliating himself thing worked! At least this is anonymous. It’s the only reason why he’s brave enough to do it.
SEUNGKWAN: I’ll just read it: “Hi, Mr. Pining here. I am not sure if this will be read, but I hope it is. I’m in desperate need of help. I fucked up so badly. I followed your advice and tried the whole partying thing, but it was a shitshow. I am not exaggerating. I don’t have a high alcohol tolerance, so I got really drunk really fast, and I accidentally smoked some weed as well. I was so out of my mind that I pretended I was the roommate of the guy I like, tried to convince him to dance with me, and ended up throwing up on his shoes. Then I didn’t see him for one month, but we saw each other at the game, and he didn’t act weird with me. But then I fucked it up again… I got nervous, as I always do, and ended up blurting the word pregnant—because I was thinking about how hot he was—and when he asked what I meant, I panicked and said my sister is pregnant. She is not. So, yeah, I really don’t know what to do right now. I think I am just incapable of talking to him at all. How can I win him over if every conversation we have is like a trainwreck? I don’t want to give up, because I truly like him so much… But I don’t know what to do”. And then he added a sad emoji.
AERI: Yikes. I think you are so brave, my guy.
SEUNGKWAN: And in desperate need of help, Aeri was so right. What do you mean you attempted identity theft and threw up on him…
AERI: Although I will concede, smoking pot for the first time is a ride, so it’s not entirely on you.
SEUNGKWAN: But the pregnancy thing… You’re starting to become one of our wild cases, Mr. Pining. Right up there with Mrs. Other Woman, dare I say.
AERI: But don’t worry! We’re gonna help you. I think it’s sweet how determined you are to see this through, you must really like your guy. That’s why I wanted to read your thing today!
SEUNGKWAN: So. I think the approach here has to change a little. Maybe less talking? Though I don’t know how you can woo a person without talking.
AERI: Well…
SEUNGKWAN: Oh my god, shut your perverted mind up! This guy can’t even talk without throwing up, he is not getting his dick wet right now. Or pussy. No offense, Mr. Pining.
AERI: I didn’t even say anything! Jeez. But yeah, non-traditional approaches. Hmmm…
SEUNGKWAN: Maybe you could talk to him online? Like answer his tweets and stuff like that. My boyfriend used to like my Letterboxd reviews before we got together.
AERI: A little web flirting is good, actually. Been doing some myself, and it’s nice. But I don’t think it can be just that.
SEUNGKWAN: Please stop subtly mentioning your depraved love life. He could just go full on eighteen hundreds and write love letters, at this point.
AERI: Wait! That’s not actually a bad idea?
SEUNGKWAN: I was joking.
AERI: No, but hear me out. I thought it was sooooo cute when people would do those locker notes during high school. And who doesn’t think letters are romantic? I would love to receive some love mail.
SEUNGKWAN: But wouldn’t you be weirded out if you just randomly started getting them?
AERI: But it’s not random! Mr. Pining’s been running after his guy for the last couple months, very clearly making moves. I think it will be very romcom-ish!
SEUNGKWAN: Hm… Well, letters have historically been used by the most avid romantics. There’s Kafka, Woolf…
AERI: Someone’s been paying attention to all their classes. Ow, Mr. Boo just fucking stomped me!
SEUNGKWAN: Anyway. I suppose, Mr. Pining, if you go the painfully yearning, my heart aches for you way, it might work out. Since you’re so deeply in love, I don’t think that will be a problem for you, right?
AERI: Yay! And with letters you can think things through, and really say what you mean. Great way to form connections, I think.
SEUNGKWAN: Yeah, it’s a good bridge to use. Wishing you the best of luck, Mr. P. Wait, that sounded wrong. Mr. Pining.
AERI: Good luck, Mr. Penis! Next song is Bags by Clairo.
SEUNGKWAN: You’re terrible.
Wonwoo makes a mental note to stop by a stationary store on the way home. Guess he is going full on Kafka, then. It’s a good thing he’s read Letters to Milena.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo has not written many letters in his life. There were the usual ones for Santa when he was younger, but that didn’t take long to stop. Then, when his mom moved back to Korea and he went to live with Seulgi, he tried sending her a few. She never answered, so he gave up after a couple months. So not a stellar record with letters.
But this is different. Wonwoo feels… hopeful about it. It was good advice. It’s not direct communication, so he literally can’t blurt anything freakish out, and he has time to really think every word out. Aeri was such a genius with this one. She might have just saved his love life, actually.
He has a brand new set of pretty writing paper and a couple stickers. The clerk at the store helped him carefully choose them, and even gave him a few tips on how to make the letters look pretty. His handwriting sucks completely, so he can’t hand write them unless he wants Chan to spend an entire day trying to decipher his chicken scratch.
He was becoming a little desperate about that, because typing it out wouldn’t really be romantic—it needs to be handmade—when a memory from his childhood came to the forefront of his mind: him and Seulgi, five and ten, sprawled on the living room of their house, cutting up tiny letters from magazines and newspapers to make a birthday card for baby Minjeong. They had carefully glued the letters onto the card, forming words with them because Wonwoo still didn’t know how to write and Seulgi didn’t want to write the whole thing by herself.
Which is how he found himself in his current predicament, cutting up hundreds of tiny letters out of every magazine he found in the house, gleefully ignoring the midterm he has tomorrow. Who cares about that when faced with love? This is clearly more important. He has a decent chunk of the alphabet by now, probably enough to write at least two letters.
It’s nice doing this for Chan. Turning what he feels about him into something real. Wonwoo’s never been much of a gift giving type of person, but he would do anything for Chan. He really hopes that with this, Chan finally sees how much he cares about him. Maybe he should cut his heart out and deliver it with some of the letters. It would surely be a statement.
Though he still doesn’t know what his first letter should be. Maybe some good luck wishes for exam week? With, perhaps, a couple mentions of how entirely enchanting Chan had been as a cheerleader? That sounds good, actually. Wonwoo reaches for one of the writing papers and the glue stick, testing out the sentences in his head.
It takes him nearly three hours to finish it, painstakingly gluing each word together, but it’s all worth it in the end. He’s actually really satisfied with this letter. Wonwoo really hopes Chan likes it as well.
DEAR CHAN,
I HOPE THIS LETTER FINDS YOU WELL. IT MIGHT SEEM WEIRD FOR ME TO WRITE THIS SUDDENLY, BUT IT IS WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS. I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO STOP THINKING ABOUT YOU SINCE I SAW YOU AT THE GAME BEFORE THANKSGIVING, WEARING THAT LITTLE SKIRT AND FLEXING YOUR THIGHS FOR THE WHOLE AUDIENCE TO SEE. YOUR WAIST AS WELL… I HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT TO BE THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.
OF COURSE, I WAS NOT ONLY BEWITCHED BY YOUR BODY—I AM NOT A PERVERT. YOUR TALENT ALSO AMAZES ME EVERY SINGLE DAY. I THINK YOU SHINE THE BRIGHTEST OUT OF EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. EVERY SMILE THAT GRACES YOUR FACE IS A BLESSING TO HUMANITY AS A WHOLE.
I WISH YOU THE BEST OF LUCK DURING YOUR ROMANCE PHILOLOGY EXAM TODAY, NOT THAT YOU NEED IT. I’LL BE WAITING OUT TO SEE YOUR BEAUTIFUL SMILE AFTER YOU SUCCEED!
I KNOW I AM QUITE SHY AND NOT GOOD AT TALKING, WHICH IS WHY I RESORTED TO THIS, BUT I HOPE IT IS ABLE TO SHOW HOW MUCH I CARE ABOUT YOU, SINCE I CAN’T DO IT IN PERSON.
LOTS OF LOVE.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo successfully slides the letter inside Chan’s backpack while he’s rehearsing with Soonyoung in the morning before his exam. Hopefully, he reads it before and feels energized by it! Wonwoo is surely making up for all the chaos he’s caused.
He’s joyous the rest of the day, and not even his midterm manages to sour his mood. Oh, to be young and in love. He waits for Soonyoung to be done with whatever exam he’s doing at the café, slowly sipping from his boba and playing Genshin on his phone.
“Ughhh,” Soonyoung plops onto the chair in front of him with all the gratefulness of a wet dog. “I’m so glad we’re seniors.”
Wonwoo huffs out a laugh. He’s sort of counting on Soonyoung to give him any updates on whether Chan saw the letter or not, because he cannot keep his mouth shut for the life of him and, since this involves Wonwoo, he would surely comment on it. “It is a blessing, truly.”
Soonyoung does not make a single mention of the letter in the entire time they stay at the café, and Wonwoo tries to not feel too disappointed by it. Maybe Chan just didn’t tell Soonyoung. Maybe he didn’t see it in his backpack. There are a lot of possibilities here. Maybe Chan is even feeling… shy, over Wonwoo’s so bold advance.
Oh god.
Either way, he waits until Friday to write another letter, because sending them two days in a row would be a bit much, he can admit. The last thing he wants to do is come off as overbearing. So he waits until after dinner to lock himself into his room and set about gluing words on paper again. Maybe he should also change the contents of the letter? A poem would be lovely, he decides. How hard can it be?
DEAR CHAN,
I HOPE THIS LETTER FINDS YOU WELL. I’M UNSURE IF YOU RECEIVED MY LAST ONE—I DESPERATELY HOPE SO. IT WAS IN YOUR BACKPACK, IN CASE YOU DIDN’T. I WRITE THIS ONE WITH THE UTMOST AFFECTION.
THIS TIME, I HAVE DECIDED TO WRITE YOU A POEM. I FIND IT TO BE ONE OF THE MOST TENDER EXPRESSIONS OF CARE. I HOPE IT GIVES YOU STRENGTH TO FINISH OFF ALL YOUR EXAMS.
HERE IT GOES:
ROSES ARE RED
VIOLETS ARE BLUE
EVERY TIME I SEE YOUR FACE
IT REMINDS ME OF YOU
WISHING YOU, AGAIN, ALL THE BEST.
His supply of cut out letters is dwindling, so he doesn’t get to write as much as he wants this time. But surely this is enough? It might not be an award winning poem, of course, but it was written with a lot of love. Wonwoo is trying to channel a lord from the 1800s who’s deeply in love. Sort of like Mr. Darcy’s final monologue, actually.
This time, Wonwoo’s obviously not going to shove the letter into Chan’s backpack. There isn’t even a way for him to do that, because it’s a weekend. So what he does is: he wakes up extra early on Saturday morning, doesn’t even laze around in bed before getting up, and sets about finding the cat.
Humbert is, predictably, sitting promptly on top of the castle thing he got for Christmas last year, and Wonwoo swears he eyes with suspicion as soon as he sees Wonwoo approaching. “Good morning, cat,” he says, “do you want to go for a walk?”
Humbert doesn’t say anything, of course, but he doesn’t try to maim Wonwoo when he shoves the ridiculous cat slippers on his paws, nor when he slides him into the harness thingy. Wonwoo checks his bag one last time, making sure the letter is safe and sound inside it, before grabbing Humbert and going to the garage. The cat meows when they get inside the car. “I will walk you, stupid cat, but we need to go there first. Now behave or I’ll call Junhui.”
The threat seems to work, because Humbert stays put on the passenger seat the entire way to campus. It’s so early in the morning there’s almost no traffic, and they get there in no more than half an hour. Wonwoo doesn’t actually get in, because that’s not where they’re actually going, but he parks close enough to campus for a little plausible deniability in case it is needed.
“Okay, Humbert, remember to behave, hm?” Wonwoo says as he gets out of the car with the cat, carefully placing him on the sidewalk. Humbert just stretches and stares at him. “Okay, then.” He grabs the leash and starts walking.
While Wonwoo doesn’t really like the concept of outdoors cats, Humbert didn’t really give them a choice. It was either going for a walk with him or him running away through the air vents and coming back two days later with a dead bird between his fangs. Weird fucking cat. Wonwoo's only ever gone out with him once, and that had ended up with both of them nearly dying. So he was sort of banned from walking the cat, not that anyone ever outright said that.
But this is going fine. Humbert sets their pace, gleefully strutting ahead of him and meowing when Wonwoo slows down. He occasionally attempts to climb a tree to eat a bird or something, but Wonwoo doesn’t let him. What if he ends up stuck and he has to call the firefighters and then he misses the chance to put his letter into Chan’s mailbox? That would be awful. The cat’s not going to ruin his love life, thank you very much.
It takes them approximately twenty minutes of walking before they turn on the street where the Greek row is. Wonwoo’s only ever been here once, when he had to come pick Soonyoung up from a party two years ago. He still remembers that night vividly.
(Wonwoo parks his car in front of the obvious option — the house with the loud music and a bunch of people in the front yard. He takes a deep breath before unbuckling his seat belt and getting out of the car, wincing minutely when the blaring sounds of partying fully reach his ears.
Thankfully, as soon as he steps on the lawn, two figures stumble in his direction. Wonwoo can’t actually make out who they are because he’s nearly blind even with his glasses on, but his vision is not actually necessary when one of them slurs, “Wonuuuuuuu, you came!”
Soonyoung is leaning almost his entire weight on Chan Lee, who has his arm carefully wrapped around Soonyoung’s waist. How strong he must be, to be able to carry Soonyoung like this. They stop in front of Wonwoo, Soonyoung’s head drooping onto Chan’s shoulder. “Thanks for coming,” Chan says, raising his voice to be heard on top of all the cacophony. “I’d let him stay here, of course, but I think this thing won’t end until the morning.”
“It’s no problem,” Wonwoo answers. This is not his first rodeo — he’s picked a drunk Soonyoung or a drunk Mingyu up from parties before. Mingyu because his parents would kill him if they had known their oldest child was going crazy at parties the year before college and Soonyoung because that’s just who they’ve always been for each other. “Do you need help getting him into the car?”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Chan shakes his head, scrunching up his nose. “I’ll put him in the back, that alright?”
Wonwoo nods, reaching over to open the door. Chan delicately maneuvers Soonyoung into the backseat, strapping the seatbelt over him once he’s settled. Soonyoung appears to be asleep, head lolling to the side and eyes closed. He’s so stupid.
“Thanks again,” Chan smiles at him once he’s closed the door. “Sorry for bothering you, I know it’s late. I would have called his boyfriend but I didn’t see his contact number anywhere on Soonyoung’s phone.”
“Junhui doesn’t have a telephone,” Wonwoo informs Chan. “And, um, it’s no bother.”
Chan’s eyes crinkle when he smiles again, leaning forward to clamp a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder. He smells like fresh strawberries, and his lips shine with what’s probably chapstick. It hits Wonwoo that he’s practically alone with Chan. He gulps down. “You’re a good friend Wonwoo,” Chan tells him seriously. “Soonyoung speaks very highly of you.”
“Ah, he does?” Wonwoo tries not to blush. Chan is so close to him. He can smell the alcohol in his breath. “He speaks well of you too.”
Chan runs a hand through his bleached hair as he laughs, delighted. “That’s good. Well, I’ll go back inside. Unless you need anything else?”
I need you to go out with me, Wonwoo thinks. I need to kiss you stupid. I’ve been thinking about you since Soonyoung introduced you to me last year. “Have fun,” is what comes out of his lips.
“Thank you! Get home well,” Chan says. He squeezes Wonwoo’s shoulder and winks at him. Wonwoo gets inside the car before he can do something embarrassing, like pop a boner because the guy he’s into touched his shoulder and winked at him.
It’s probably going to happen anyway, but Chan doesn’t need to see it. Soonyoung snores in the back. The ride back to his house is a long one.)
Wonwoo stops in front of the Delta Kappa Omega house. It looks the same under daylight, except it’s tidy and blissfully quiet now. “Okay, Humbert, we’re gonna stop for a while, okay?” Wonwoo says to him. He swears the cat shoots him daggers in return. He carefully opens his bag and takes out the envelope, making sure it’s smooth before he tentatively steps forward. The deep blue mailbox stands ominously in front of him.
He takes a deep breath before grabbing the handle and opening the door. There’s only one other envelope inside. Wonwoo delicately places his own next to it, immediately closing the door after. It’s done. Chan will definitely see this one, there’s no way. Wonwoo exhales, gives himself three seconds to freak out, and turns around.
Humbert must have been growing impatient, because he practically runs in front of him. Wonwoo has taken three steps in the direction he came from when he stops dead in his tracks, again. Chan Lee is walking right towards him, not even five meters away. He hasn’t seen Wonwoo yet, distractedly fiddling with something, but it’s a matter of time. Oh, god. What should he do? Should he book it? Turn around? Lie down and pretend he’s dead?
The cat meows loudly. Chan’s head shoots up, and his eyes immediately meet Wonwoo’s. Fuck him. Wonwoo hesitantly waves at him. Maybe that’s good enough. He’s still not moving. Chan picks up a jog until he’s right in front of him. He’s carrying a paper bag, apparently still in his pajamas if the checkered pants are anything to go by.
“Wonwoo?” Chan asks, tilting his head to the side. “What are you doing here? I thought you lived near Sherman Oaks?”
“I’m… walking the cat,” says Wonwoo, raising the hand that’s holding the leash. Humbert meows again. Chan looks delighted at this, crouching down to pet Humbert, who just lets him. It makes sense that Chan would be able to charm even this demon of a cat. He is like a Korean-American Snow White. He probably sings to the birds. “He wanted a change of scenery,” Wonwoo adds.
Chan hums, still gently petting the cat, who’s now full on lying on his back while Chan rubs his belly. Wonwoo’s never even done that. “He’s so cute,” Chan coos.
Wonwoo has intense personal beef with Humbert, but he probably shouldn’t air that out. He’s been managing to keep the conversation safe so far. “Totally,” he agrees, even though it pains him to say it.
Chan gives Humbert one final belly rub before standing up, dusting his pants. He opens his mouth to say something before his gaze travels behind Wonwoo, eyebrows raising in surprise. “Oh, did Junnie come as well?”
What the fuck? Wonwoo twists his head, and, sure enough, Junhui’s head is poking from behind a tree right behind them. He doesn’t even say anything, just keeps watching. When did he even get here? “Um, yeah,” Wonwoo agrees, because he’s not sure of what else he could say to that. Besides, it even adds to his cover. Just a dude walking his cat with his best friend’s boyfriend who’s hovering behind them like a ghost. That’s totally normal. “Humbert loves Junhui.”
Humbert unknowingly backs him up by standing up and running to where Junhui is, lowering his head when he’s in front of the tree. At least it’s close, so Wonwoo didn’t fall on his ass with the stupid cat’s movement. “That’s so sweet!” Chan exclaims, smiling widely. He blinks twice—which seems to be a pattern with him these days, are his eyes okay?—and crosses his arms behind his back. “You’re such a good person, Wonwoo.”
Wonwoo needs to get out of here before he ruins this perfectly fine and normal interaction. His letter can do all the heavy lifting. That’s why he wrote it. “Haha, thank you. I’m afraid we must go. We’re meeting Soonyoung for brunch,” he says, beckoning Junhui over. He surprisingly obeys, Humbert tailing behind him. “Have a good day, Chan. I hope it is full of surprises,” he finishes, because it can’t hurt to create some expectation for something good.
“Thank you!” Chan giggles. “You too! Bye, then.”
Wonwoo waits until Chan has walked past him to start power walking away from here, pulling the cat and consequently Junhui along. It’s fine. He did almost get caught, but he didn’t actually. He even had a totally okay talk with Chan—maybe he should start bringing Humbert to school.
Junhui follows them to the car, so Wonwoo will have to drop him off at Soonyoung’s, he guesses. He doesn’t really want to be stuck inside anywhere with this guy, but he’s pretty sure Junhui would somehow manage to follow the car if he kicked him off. Best to just work with him, even if Wonwoo is still fucking creeped out at his sudden appearance.
Maybe Soonyoung should put him on a leash, Wonwoo muses as the engine purrs to life.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo spends the final days of midterm week on the brink of throwing up about every single time of the day. He’s more nervous about his situation with Chan than he could ever be about anything school related. Soonyoung always drags him to one of the practice rooms or the café after they’re done with exams for the day, and most of the time, Chan is also there. Wonwoo waits, with bated breath, to see if Chan says anything to him. Hey, Wonwoo, I read your letters, would you like to do something during the break?
It doesn’t come. Wonwoo actually doesn’t know if he should feel relieved or not by it. Chan makes no mention of the letters, positive or negative. Maybe he’s waiting until after winter break, the hopeful part of Wonwoo’s brain tells him. That makes sense. Still, it’s a bummer to know that the year will turn and Wonwoo still hasn’t actually done anything substantial about Chan. He hopes that, at least, the new year brings him courage and the capacity to interact with a hot guy without thinking with his dick or not thinking at all.
He’ll keep writing the letters, though. He has so much to say, now that he has the space to do it. And he wants Chan to know how much he cares about him, even if he doesn’t say anything about it. He hopes the letters manage to make Chan’s days better the way a single smile from him does that for Wonwoo. It would be nice. His hands already hurt with how much paper cutting and gluing he has in front of him, but it’s for a good cause. The best one, actually.
He’ll continue to use the Humbert cover to drop the letters at Chan’s mailbox, but he’ll make sure to go even earlier so he doesn’t risk running into anyone again. And he’ll also make sure fucking Jun doesn’t follow him, thank you very much.
📻📻📻
DEAR CHAN,
I HOPE THIS LETTER FINDS YOU WELL. FORGIVE ME IF THE BEGINNING OF THESE IS STARTING TO SOUND REPETITIVE; I AM A CREATURE OF HABIT.
WINTER RECESS IS FINALLY HERE! I HOPE YOU’RE ABLE TO REST AND ENJOY YOURSELF DURING THIS TIME, YOU DESERVE IT. YOU WORK SO HARD, YOU DESERVE IT MORE THAN ANYONE IN THE WORLD. ALTHOUGH… I’LL MISS SEEING YOU AROUND CAMPUS.
THE MERE SIGHT OF YOU IS ENOUGH TO VITALIZE ME FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK. YOU ARE QUITE LIKE THE SUN, IN THAT REGARD. I WONDER, SOMETIMES, IF KISSING YOUR LIPS WOULD BE ENOUGH TO FEED ME FOR ETERNITY. IT CERTAINLY FEELS SO. YOU ARE THE MOST DELICIOUS AND ENTICING THING IN THE WORLD. I WOULD KISS YOUR FEET, IF I COULD.
I HOPE THAT DOESN’T OFFEND YOU.
WITH THE MOST ARDENT OF LOVES.
📻📻📻
DEAR CHAN,
I HOPE THIS LETTER FINDS YOU WELL.
I WON’T BE ABLE TO SEND THIS TO YOU TOMORROW, SO MERRY CHRISTMAS. I WOULD BUY YOU A GIFT, IF I COULD, BUT PERHAPS THAT WOULD BE TOO MUCH NOW. BUT REST ASSURED, IF WE WERE TOGETHER, ALL OF MY FUNDS WOULD BE DIRECTED TOWARDS YOU. YOU SHOULD BE PAMPERED AND TENDED TO LIKE A WIFE. WOULD YOU LIKE THAT?
A WHILE AGO, I KEPT HAVING DREAMS ABOUT MARRYING YOU, AND YOU WORE THE MOST STUNNING DRESSES. IT WAS A SIGHT TO BEHOLD, ONE I WISHED TO SEE IN REAL LIFE. DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT MARRIAGE? I DIDN’T THINK I WOULD, BUT I ACTUALLY DO. WITH YOU, OF COURSE. I THINK IF I DON’T WIN YOUR HEART, I’LL ACTUALLY JUST LOCK MYSELF IN MY SISTER’S BASEMENT FOREVER. YOU ARE THE ONLY MAN EVER.
THE LUFFY TO MY ZORO, THE PADMÉ TO MY ANAKIN, THE LIZZIE TO MY DARCY, THE ROSE TO MY NINTH.
ONCE AGAIN, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
📻📻📻
MY MOST BELOVED CHAN,
THE NEW YEAR IS APPROACHING. I AM AS EXCITED AS I AM REGRETFUL. ON ONE HAND, I HOPE THIS CHANGE OF LEAVES GRANTS ME THE COURAGE I DIDN’T HAVE THIS YEAR. ON THE OTHER, I DEEPLY REGRET NOT BEING BRAVE ENOUGH TO MAKE AN ACTUAL MOVE THIS YEAR…
BUT DON’T WORRY. IN THE COMING YEAR, WE’LL SPEND A LOT OF TIME TOGETHER. I’LL MAKE SURE OF IT! I AM COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS UNTIL THE RECESS ENDS AND I CAN SEE YOU AGAIN… IT WILL SURELY BE THE BEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE!
I ALSO CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT THE FIRST GAME OF THE YEAR. THE PROSPECT OF SEEING YOU IN A MINISKIRT AGAIN MAKES MY HEART POUND. DO YOU KNOW HOW BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE? YOU HAVE THE SORT OF BEAUTY PEOPLE WOULD GO TO WAR FOR IN THE PAST, ACTUALLY. SORT OF LIKE CHAN OF TROY, IF YOU WILL, HAHA. I WOULD SURELY KILL ANYONE WHO TOOK YOU AWAY FROM ME. ♡
I HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT NYE.
WITH THE UTMOST CARE AND ADMIRATION.
📻📻📻
The doorbell rings at exactly eight p.m. on the last day of the year. Everyone else is in the kitchen, from where he was banned after he’d burned his attempt at cookies to a crisp last week, so Wonwoo’s on door duty for the three guests they have coming over. “Good night, Wonwoo,” Jimin cheerfully greets him when he opens the door.
“Sup, Wonwoo,” Yizhuo says from behind her. Wonwoo is still vaguely embarrassed everytime he sees her because of her party, but he’s trying to be cool about it.
“Um. Hi. Come in,” says Wonwoo, gesturing inside. The cold is already intense, so the two of them also hang their coats by the door after putting their shoes in the rack. Jimin runs a hand through her hair and fixes her shirt before turning to Wonwoo.
“Where’s Minjeongie?” She asks.
“In the kitchen,” Yizhuo answers for him, grabbing Jimin’s hand and pulling her alongside as she breezes past Wonwoo. Jeonghan’s joyful “Ningningie~” echoes through the house not long after. The doorbell rings again just as Wonwoo’s going back to his spot on the couch, and he doesn’t even have to look through the peephole to know it’s Soonyoung and his demon pet.
“Wonwoo!” Soonyoung throws his arms around Wonwoo as soon as he opens the door. “I haven’t seen you in forever! I missed you!”
“You saw me three days ago,” Wonwoo points out. Soonyoung squeezes him harder. Wonwoo should have known better than to argue, really. Soonyoung works on an entirely different frequency than the rest of the world.
After a good couple minutes of hugging, Soonyoung finally lets him go and strolls inside, also going straight to the kitchen. It’s just him and Junhui lingering in the doorway, an unreadable silence between them as Jun steps out of his sneakers and places them into the rack. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Wonwoo as he does it.
Humbert chooses this moment to stride into the living room, meowing loudly. Both him and Junhui whip their heads towards the cat. When it sees Junhui, the cat stops meowing immediately, and immediately lowers into what can only be read as a bow. Wonwoo takes that as his cue to follow everyone to the kitchen. He’s had enough of the weird thing those two have going on—he still hasn’t let go of the fact that Jun was there that day.
Everyone is huddled around the counter when he walks into the kitchen, Minjeong with her arms wrapped around Jimin as they giggle over something. Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “Hi,” he says, hopping up on the stool next to Soonyoung.
“Didn’t Junnie come?” Jeonghan asks, checking something in the oven.
“He’s in the living room plotting world domination with the cat,” Wonwoo informs her.
“He’s so cute,” Soonyoung sighs dreamily. Wonwoo seriously wonders what’s wrong with everyone in his family when they all echo the sentiment.
It doesn’t take long for dinner to be ready, and Seulgi ushers everyone towards the dining room. She had spent the afternoon decorating it, taping white balloons and shiny silver stars to the walls. It’s pretty. Jeonghan brings the dishes to the table, a mixture of everyone’s tastes: japchae, jeon, galbi-jjim and, of course, tteokguk, even though it isn’t the Lunar New Year.
It’s the first time Minjeong’s girlfriend spends any special occasion with their family, but Jeonghan makes it easy for her to fit in. She has that gift, to make people feel welcomed. “So, Jiminie,” she says, handing her a plate filled with a bit of everything. “It’s been so long since I last saw you. How have you been? Were your exams okay?”
“Thank you. They went well, I think. But the break from all the math was definitely welcome,” Jimin answers, taking a sip of her tea. “And I’ve been doing good! A little stressed with something that’s going on with one of my friends, but beyond that, everything’s fine.”
“Oh, is it the Chan thing?” Soonyoung chimes in from beside Wonwoo. What Chan thing? Did something happen to him? Wonwoo frowns.
“Yeah.”
“Oh no, what happened to him?” Seulgi worriedly asks, even though she doesn’t even know who they are talking about. “Is he alright?”
“Nothing happened,” Jimin says, returning her chopsticks to her plate. “But he’s been getting some weird things. We think he has a stalker. It’s harmless so far, but we’re worried either way.”
Chan has a stalker? But Wonwoo’s been going to his frat house once a week to drop some letters and he never saw anyone around. The guy must be good at hiding. His heart clenches in worry and he considers going there with a baseball bat right now to kick that guy’s ass for even thinking about hurting Chan in any way. “That’s terrible,” he says. “He should contact campus security, right?”
Soonyoung pats his tight. “Yeah, we’ll probably do that once classes return. But it’s alright for now, he’s spending New Year’s with his parents back home.”
“That’s good, then,” Jeonghan says.
“Yeah! But anyway, how are you guys? Minjeong tells me the wedding preparations are really starting, that’s so exciting!”
The rest of dinner talk mainly revolves around the wedding. Seulgi enthusiastically tells everyone about the venue she and Jeonghan are visiting next week, the pretty one she’d shown Wonwoo a while ago that has a field of flowers in it. He hopes they manage to secure it. Jeonghan manages to convince Seulgi to allow everyone a single glass of champagne for the night (Wonwoo vehemently denies it when offered), and they all settle in the living room to keep talking until the turn of the year comes.
Wonwoo puts Star Wars on eventually, and to his surprise he and Jimin spend the entire runtime talking about their favorite characters and scenes. He didn’t know she was a fan. All in all, it’s a nice way to spend the night.
A couple minutes before midnight, Jeonghan loudly announces that they should all gather around the picnic table out front. There’s a birthday cake there, of course, and Minjeong rolls her eyes when she sees it. Seulgi maneuvers her until she’s right behind it, at the center of the table, with Wonwoo on one side and Jimin on the other.
Time seems to fly and then Jeonghan opens a countdown on her phone, and they all look anxiously at it. “Five, four, three, two—”
Wonwoo closes his eyes. I want to be brave this year. I want my family to achieve everything they dream of. And I want Chan to be happy too. He comes back to earth to the sound of everyone screaming and hugging Minjeong and Jeonghan lighting the nineteen candles for Minjeong to blow.
“Happy birthday, pest,” Wonwoo whispers in his sister’s ear, bringing her in for a hug.
“Happy new year, loser,” Minjeong retorts, but she squeezes him back tenfold.
📻📻📻
DEAREST CHAN,
I KNOW YOU WON’T READ THIS NOW, AS YOU’RE AWAY, BUT I HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT NYE. I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU THAT NIGHT, WISHED FOR YOU TO BE HAPPY. I HOPE THIS YEAR IS EVERYTHING YOU HOPE IT WILL BE. AS I SAID, I WISH YOU ONLY THE BEST.
THIS YEAR IS THE YEAR OF THE RABBIT, AND IT MADE ME THINK OF YOU. WE COULD BE LOVELY BUNNIES TOGETHER, WITH A LOT OF BABY BUNNIES RUNNING AROUND OUR HOUSE, DON’T YOU THINK? RABBITS ARE KNOWN FOR THEIR FERTILITY, AND I KNOW YOU DON’T HAVE THE NECESSARY APPAREL, BUT I THINK YOU WOULD LOOK GREAT PREGNANT. PLEASE DON’T TAKE THIS THE WRONG WAY! I AM ONLY ADMIRING YOUR BEAUTIFUL HIPS. IN A COMPLETELY RESPECTFUL WAY, OF COURSE.
I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR TIME AT YOUR PARENT’S HOUSE, AND THAT YOUR RETURN TO CLASSES IS SMOOTH. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU DRINKING BOBA AT GRAINS AND BEANS.
LOTS OF LOVE.
📻📻📻
Classes come back on a Tuesday. Following their tradition, Soonyoung picks him up early and drives them to campus, so they can grab breakfast at Grains and Beans before their lectures start. It’s his time to pay, so Wonwoo seats primly at their regular table as he waits for Soonyoung to order.
It’s early enough that it doesn’t take long, and soon Soonyoung places his croissant and coffee in front of him. “Do you wanna go to the movies this weekend?” Soonyoung asks, munching on his own pastry. Wonwoo can’t identify what it is, but there’s a lot of syrup on top of it.
“What movie?”
“Hmmm, I really wanna watch that horror one, y’know—”
“Oh, you’re here, thank god,” Chan Lee’s voice interrupts them out of nowhere. The two of them look up at him, and Wonwoo’s heart clenches inside his chest. He looks so pretty, his cheeks red like all the blood in his body is there. “Look at this, jeez.”
Chan shoves a vaguely familiar piece of paper into a confused Soonyoung’s hands. Soonyoung’s eyebrows furrow as he reads whatever it is that’s on it. “Is this new?”
“Yeah,” Chan sighs, plopping down on the chair next to Wonwoo. His scent inebriates him, that sweet and fresh strawberry smell that never leaves him. “Read it as well, Wonwoo. I’ll seriously go to campus security, I think. I mean, the biggest problem is that I don’t know who it is—”
Soonyoung hands him the paper, and Wonwoo stares dumbfounded at it for a moment. The cut out letters he’d painstakingly glued together stare right back at him. Why would Chan go to campus security about the sweet letter Wonwoo wrote him? He reads through his every word until the end, trying to make sense of it, and his breath stops in his chest when he reads the very final line. There’s… there’s no signature.
Wonwoo’s stomach sinks to the ground.
There’s no fucking signature. Did I forget to fucking sign the fucking letters, Wonwoo thinks, feeling slightly hysterical when he thinks back to every single one of them and cannot for the life of him find any memories of him putting the letters W-O-N-W-O-O at the end of any letter. This cannot possibly be happening. “I feel ill,” slips out of his lips in a whisper. He’s going to throw up. A couple of Chan’s words catch on his hearing, words like stalker and mystery. The pieces of the puzzle start fitting themselves and Wonwoo feels the very intense urge to claw his eyes out.
Oh my god, is he Chan’s stalker? Did… did Chan read those letters, Wonwoo’s letters, all of them with no signature, no identification of the remetent, and think a creep was stalking him? Is he the fucking guy he mentally said he was gonna beat up with a baseball bat? Wonwoo is really going to puke his guts out. He wants to become one with the floor of this coffee shop. While he thought he was being courteous, Chan thought it was…
“We’ll go with you to administration, right, Wonu?” Soonyoung says soothingly, already standing up.
“Sure,” Wonwoo manages to wheeze out. No one can ever know he’s the one who wrote this shit. Not now that they think a stalker did it. Wonwoo’s going to fucking kill himself, that’s what he’s going to do. He can’t believe he fucking Joe Goldberged this. He can’t believe he managed to fuck up writing sweet love letters.
(AERI: No, speaking of this—
SEUNGKWAN: Don’t say the Chan thing, for Christ’s sake.
AERI: I will say the Chan thing. Our friend Chan had a stalker! It wasn’t, like, a creepy stalker, but still…
SEUNGKWAN: No, it was absolutely creepy, the person wrote him letters saying they would kill anyone who tried taking Chan from him.
AERI: Ugh. Forgive me for always trying to see the good in things!
SEUNGKWAN: Well, everyone, you heard it. If you want to win Aeri over, write her creepy letters. I know two people who would appreciate the adv—
AERI: Seungkwan! Shut up!)
Step 4: Time to Peacock!
Wonwoo would much rather be spending his Saturday afternoon watching Doctor Who and sulking inside his bedroom; instead, he’s on the way to the Palisades, stuck between Soonyoung and Minjeong in the backseat of Jeonghan’s car, because Seungcheol is back from his spontaneous six-month long trip around the world and had naturally made a fuss about “getting the family back together”—despite the fact that he is not part of the family. Wonwoo’s honestly surprised Yizhuo isn’t coming as well, but Minjeong had told them she was busy, with the sort of intonation that suggested something juicy was going on. Not that it’s any of his business.
Anyway, family barbecue with his sisters and Jeonghan and Soonyoung and Seungcheol it is. At least Wonwoo remembered to bring his Switch this time. He busies himself with it the entire ride, with Soonyoung and Seulgi’s chatter as background noise. Minjeong is, of course, fiddling with her own device. They end up playing Stardew Valley together until Jeonghan pulls over in front of the Choi estate.
Seungcheol is, predictably, waiting for them by the double gates. His hair is shorter than it was six months ago, and he’s—also predictably—got sunglasses perched on his nose. Once Jeonghan’s safely parked inside, she doesn’t waste any time in jumping out of the car and starting to tease Seungcheol about his hair. Wonwoo turns his Switch off and cracks his neck before following everyone out of the car.
Seungcheol shushes Jeonghan and turns to him, a big smile on his face. Oh no. “Wonwoo! You’ve grown!” He wraps his arms around Wonwoo’s shoulders, bringing him into a bear hug. He could double as a weighted blanket, honestly.
“I haven’t grown an inch since I was eighteen,” Wonwoo manages to squeeze out. Seungcheol just ruffles his hair before moving onto Minjeong, thankfully. He’s so fucking dramatic about this uncle thing you would think he’s fifty something instead of in his late twenties. And he’s not even Jeonghan’s brother, just her best friend. Not having younger siblings is probably what did this to him. Seulgi’s own best friend, Yerim, has a fuckton of younger sisters and would probably rip his head out if he ever called her Aunt.
Soonyoung will probably also insist on his kids calling him Uncle, Wonwoo thinks. The thought of kids makes him think of Chan and that makes him feel like he’s a deflating balloon. A sad, stupid, and drowning in its own misery balloon.
Emotional greetings exchanged, Wonwoo drags himself after his family as they go around the house and down the first two levels of the backyard until stopping by the pool, where the smell of grilled meat welcomes them, a tall woman Wonwoo’s never seen before manning the grill. Seungcheol goes to her immediately, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
Jeonghan raises her eyebrows at Seulgi before addressing Seungcheol and the woman. “And who might this lovely lady be?”
“I’m Gyuri,” the woman—Gyuri—introduces herself, a huge smile on her face. It’s a very pretty smile, Wonwoo will give her that. She cleans her hands on a towel and pulls each of them into a quick hug, double kisses and all.
It’s fucking cold out (who organizes a barbecue in the middle of winter, seriously), so Seungcheol and Jeonghan grab a lot of blankets from the guest house and hand one to everyone, so they can stay bundled up in the chairs while catching up — in Wonwoo and Minjeong’s case, farming primogems on Genshin so Minjeong can C6 Hu Tao.
Wonwoo absorbs bits and pieces of the conversation while fighting hilichurls on his phone. Gyuri is from Toronto and she was visiting her grandparents in Seoul when she and Seungcheol stumbled upon each other in one of the nightclubs in Hongdae three months ago, exchanged numbers, spent two whole weeks going out, and got so into one another that Seungcheol extended his stay in South Korea for the remainder of Gyuri’s own trip. Then, because they are apparently living in a romcom, he convinced her to go to Europe with him and now, a couple months later, she’s going to stay here in LA with him for a while.
Must be good to fall in love with a millionaire, probably. At least they’re both happy. At least Seungcheol has fucking game and doesn’t fumble amazing people. Must be really good. I’m sensing a little bit of negativity here, the voice in his head that sounds a lot like Seulgi says.
“Wonwoo, will you help me bring the cutlery and plates out?” Seungcheol’s voice brings him out of his reverie.
“Um, okay,” Wonwoo says, wiggling out of his blanket burrito. Seungcheol claps his shoulder and shoves him a little in the direction of the main house. Guess they’re bringing the really fancy stuff, then. They trek up in comfortable silence, the sound of laughter slowly fading in the background.
Seungcheol’s digging around the cabinets while Wonwoo rests his back on one of the stone counters when he clears his throat. “So. How are you doing?”
“Fine?” Wonwoo answers, a little confused.
Seungcheol pauses his digging and turns to him, an eyebrow raised. “My sources tell me that you’ve been acting like a moody teenager and that they’re very worried about you.”
Wonwoo groans. This is an intervention? God forbid a man sulks a little, damn. “I’m not acting like a moody teenager, shut up.” Seungcheol just keeps staring at him, both eyebrows raised now. “What?!” Wonwoo demands, a little defensively.
Seungcheol sighs. “Look, is someone giving you a hard time? There’s no need to be embarrassed. I’ll beat them up if you want, you know I will,” he says very earnestly, like he’s actually really looking forward to defending Wonwoo’s sullen honor.
“If you want to fight the person who’s been giving me a hard time you’d have to fight me,” Wonwoo says. It’s his time to sigh. Did Jeonghan and Seulgi really have to sic Seungcheol Choi on him? It’s not like he’s doing that badly. Like, yeah, he’s been spending all his free time under his blankets watching Doctor Who because it reminds him of Chan, but he’s heartbroken, okay? Living with his own failure is hard!
“Don’t talk about yourself that way,” Seungcheol admonishes him. “Do you wanna stop sulking and tell me what’s going on?”
“I’d rather not.” Wonwoo receives a glare in response to this.
“Is it boy problems? Is that why you don’t want to talk about it?” Seungcheol asks, raising an eyebrow. Wonwoo remains surreptitiously quiet, suddenly very interested in his overgrown cuticles. “Wonwoo! Come on, you can tell me about that!”
“Why would I tell you about my love life?” Wonwoo retorts. “You sound like one of the ahjummas from the dramas Seulgi likes to watch.”
“Well, because I happen to have a lot of experience on the field.” Oh, Wonwoo’s sure about that. Seungcheol’s had at least five boyfriends or girlfriends in the five years Wonwoo has known him. “I can give you advice if you need it. Think about it as… what’s the name of that green guy again?”
Wonwoo furrows his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”
“The green guy from the movie you always force us to watch,” Seungcheol says, scrunching his nose. “He talks weird.”
“You mean Yoda?”
“That’s the one!” Seungcheol exclaims. “Think of me as your Yoda.”
Ugh. Wonwoo would perhaps be more resistant to this if he still had his pride, but all of that went down the drain sometime in the past few months. The last dregs of it were definitely sucked down after the letters. Does he really have anything more to lose? “Ugh.” He echoes out loud.
“Take your time.”
“There’s this boy,” Wonwoo starts, not looking at Seungcheol. “And I’ve liked him for quite some time. I graduate this year, so this is my last chance of winning him over. And I’ve been… trying to, um, make some moves, you might say, I guess. But. It’s not really working. It’s actually going quite badly. I’m starting to think I should just give up at this point.”
“Hey, no!” Seungcheol brings one hand to Wonwoo’s back, tentatively rubbing circles on it. “What do you mean, it’s going badly?”
“It’s just. I end up embarrassing myself every single time I try doing something. I got so hammered that I pretended I was his friend and then threw up on his shoes. It’s that bad, Seungcheol,” Wonwoo finally turns to look at him, eyes wide with despair. “And that’s not even the worst thing that’s happened. Literally how can I win him over if I can’t fucking do anything?”
“Well,” Seungcheol starts. Pauses. Thinks for a while before continuing, “did you pay attention when Gyuri was telling the girls how we met?”
“I heard bits and pieces.”
Seungcheol huffs out a laugh. “I’m not sure what you got and what you didn’t, so I’ll give you a summarized version. We were at this club in Hongdae, and saw each other across the dance floor. Bit of eye action and all that, but I didn’t really make a move,” his voice takes on a fond note as he says it, and Wonwoo can see the tugs of a smile on his lips. “She actually approached me. Came over, started the conversation, and such. She was also the one who said we should exchange numbers and she texted first.”
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with this information.”
“If you’d let me finish,” Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Maybe, Wonu, it’s time to let your guy take action. Make yourself available, show him that you are interested, but let him make a move.”
Wonwoo stops to consider. If it’s a certified method by Seungcheol… “But how will he know that I’m interested?”
“Well, haven’t you been working on it?”
“Um. Yeah, I suppose.”
“So there’s your answer,” says Seungcheol, like he’s just given Wonwoo the key to all the secrets of the universe, nevermind the fact that Wonwoo’s still a little lost. Did Seungcheol miss the part with the throwing up and shameful actions and all that? “Aren’t you going to thank your dear uncle?”
“You are not my uncle,” Wonwoo grumbles under his breath. But maybe he can give Seungcheol this, just this once. “Thank you, Uncle Seungcheol.”
“Now call me samchon.”
“You don’t even speak Korean! Neither do I!”
“That’s no way to speak to your uncle, Wonwoo. I should have recorded it—”
📻📻📻
Wonwoo’s not going to do anything based on Seungcheol’s word alone, even if he did win over the heart of an amazing woman, so of course he’s going to run the… advice through secondary sources. That should have been the primary ones anyway. Good thing it’s the end of the month already.
Somehow, he has no doubts at all that Aeri and Seungkwan will read his message. Some might call it optimism, but Wonwoo calls it pattern recognition. They’ve been reading every single thing he’s sent, building a back-and-forth, and this follow-up in specific is coming right after his last message had been snuck in by Aeri — they’ll evidently read whatever he sends next, for continuity’s sake.
Thus, he tunes in to the program on the last Monday of January with no nerves at all in his body aside from the ones that have taken permanent residence in his mind from the moment he first opened his eyes.
SEUNGKWAN: —which is why you two should honestly just fuck at this point, Miss Triple Axel. It’s like I always say: what’s a sports rivalry if not sexual tension?
AERI: You’ve literally never said that ever.
SEUNGKWAN: Yes I have? I told that guy Mr. Haikyuu the same thing.
AERI: Why are you always telling people to just fuck it out, then?
SEUNGKWAN: Do you think I’m wrong? Is there anything else you want to say to Miss Triple Axel here?
AERI: I never said you were wrong. Miss Axel, you and your rival should really just engage in lesbian activity. I would have maybe said something different if this was your first time here, but with this new information… Listen to Mr. Boo in this.
SEUNGKWAN: Thank you! I hope you get the girl and that National’s gold, Miss Triple Axel. Now, will Miss Uchinaga do us the favor of reading the next one?
AERI: Of course. It’s time for our popular Mr. Pining.
SEUNGKWAN: Aw, bummer to see our last advice didn’t work. Maybe we should just retire.
AERI: Are you going to let me read the thing or not?
SEUNGKWAN: Cunt. Go ahead, please.
AERI: Mr. Pining here. I’m heartbroken to say that the love letters did not work. I don’t think I channeled Kafka well enough… It was, to say the least, disastrous. I won’t go into detail, but know that. I’ve been completely desolated, to the point that my sister and her wife staged an intervention: they made their best friend talk to me. Let’s call him SC. So, I explained the entire situation to SC, and he ended up giving me some advice. He said that his girlfriend approached him first, and that maybe I should let my guy do the same thing. Like, back off from doing things and just… let him make a move, I guess. I’m not sure how that would work. Do you two think that’s a good idea? Thank you in advance.
SEUNGKWAN: Mr. Pining, you’ve been getting advice from other people? I’m offended.
AERI: Yeah, what are we to you?!
SEUNGKWAN: Sorry that the letters didn’t work, though. We actually thought they might.
AERI: At least the guy Mr. Pining likes got cute love letters and not stalker ones like Chan.
SEUNGKWAN: He’ll literally kill you if you keep bringing it up, Aeri. But anyway, it’s good to see Mr. Pining hasn’t given up on young love even with all the adversities.
AERI: You could be a romcom protagonist, Mr. Pining! Maybe you should write a script. Now, about your pseudo uncle’s advice… I can see where he’s coming from.
SEUNGKWAN: Me too. Male peacocks perform ritualistic dances to attract the female ones, fanning their tails and showing off their feathers. Then the females choose who they want to mate with.
AERI: Are you saying Mr. Pining should be a peacock?
SEUNGKWAN: Well, yes. Actually doing things hasn’t been working, so maybe it’s time to… make himself attractive from a distance and let his loverboy come to him. Like, let the guy approach him by impressing him. It’s an intricate courtship ritual. I thought you would see the appeal in it.
AERI: What? Why?
SEUNGKWAN: Because you’re always posting thirst traps on TikTok to get the attention of those two you’re hookin—
AERI: Okay! Got it! Yep, I got it, Mr. Boo. You make an excellent point. Mr. Pining, how do you feel about posting thirst traps? Do you have abs?
SEUNGKWAN: Don’t do that, please. But I remember you mentioning your best friend was also friends with your guy. Maybe you can ask him to put in a good word, and all that.
AERI: Ohhh, yeah, that might work And if it fails you can always start posting naked pics.
SEUNGKWAN: We will take a brief break with Levitating by Dua Lipa before Miss Uchinaga convinces everyone to start an OnlyFans.
Wonwoo’s not going to post nude pics online, but he can ask Soonyoung to put in a good word. He doesn’t have a lot of… attractive qualities, so to speak — he’s not an athlete or a supermodel, and he spends his free time playing LOL and watching the same movies over and over again and reblogging yaoi fanart on Tumblr. Not exactly a stellar package, but perhaps with Soonyoung’s help, Chan can look past that and into the good aspects of his personality. Wonwoo can do that, stay quiet and let Chan come to him. He can be a good, pretty peacock. Of course he can.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo hesitantly knocks on Soonyoung’s apartment door, a heavy gift basket in hands. It’s not like Soonyoung would ever say no to his request, but it can’t hurt to tame the beast a little.
“Hello, Wonwoo,” Junhui opens the door. His hair is entirely slicked back, for some reason, and he’s wearing some weird black robes. Wonwoo sighs.
“Hello, Junhui,” he answers and offers the gift basket. “Um, this for you. Is Soonyoung home?”
Junhui takes the basket, eyeing it curiously. Wonwoo wasn’t sure what’s an appropriate gift for his best friend’s vampire/eldritch creature boyfriend, so he just played it safe — herbs and candles and other supplies he’s seen in the weird pics Soonyoung posts of Junhui’s “cute activities”.
Wonwoo stands still in the middle of the living room as Junhui rushes into one of the bedrooms, basket still in hand. He hears the faint outline of a conversation before the door opens again and Soonyoung steps out, looking like he’s just woken up, even though it’s nearly eight p.m. “Sup, Wonu,” he rubs his shoulder on the way to the kitchen. “Junnie showed me what you gave him! I’m so glad you two are getting along.”
“Yeaaah,” Wonwoo forces a smile. “We walk Humbert together sometimes.”
“Oh, he showed me pictures!” Soonyoung tells him, delighted. That’s weird. Wonwoo’s never taken any pictures with Junhui ever. He didn’t even know Junhui had a phone. Anyway. He’s not here for any of that, he reminds himself.
“Cool. So, I have something to ask you.”
“Oh?” Soonyoung stops digging around the fridge to look at him. He’s holding a huge jar of kimchi that’s nearly empty.
“So, you know I like Chan.”
“Yes, obviously.”
“And you know I decided to try asking him out, and you even gave me a pep talk about it after my first attempts went badly?”
“Also yes.”
“So. It hasn’t been working at all. I always end up fucking things up, no matter what approach I take. There was the party thing, and you know how that went, and then—” Absolutely not, Wonwoo will never tell anyone ever about the letters-stalker thing. Nope. Secret to the grave. “Nevermind, just a lot of me fumbling the bag terribly. You know.”
Soonyoung nods, a look of pain on his face. “Yep.”
“I talked to Seungcheol about it, because he kinda forced me to since Seulgi and Jeonghan can’t keep their mouths shut, and he had some… advice. He basically said I should impress Chan and let him approach me now, since my advances have been shit. Not in those words, but.”
“Like he wants you to be a peacock?”
Why does everyone keep using the peacock analogy? Is that an established thing, a new slang that Wonwoo isn’t aware of? “I— Yeah, that’s it, actually. What do you think?”
Soonyoung stops to consider. “Channie’s kinda slow on these things, to be honest, so I’m not sure? He probably didn’t even notice you were actively trying to get in his pants this whole time.”
“Don’t be crude!”
“Wonwoo, you have literally told me in lengthy detail about how much you want to get him preggo,” Soonyoung deadpans.
“And?” Wonwoo retorts. “That’s not the point. I need your help, that’s what I wanted to ask.”
“I don’t know what I can do besides whispering into his ear like a little devil.” Wonwoo raises his eyebrows at him. “Oh, is that what you want me to do? You want me to meddle?”
“Not that much! I just, like, thought you could say good things about me to him, put me in the conversation, you know? Like, ‘oh, my best friend Wonwoo is so cool and intelligent and he’ll probably be a really rich software developer so anyone who marries him can be a trophy wife and work on their dreams without worrying about money and he’s also very kind actually and sort of pretty when he makes an effort’. Nothing much, really,” Wonwoo shrugs.
Soonyoung sighs. “You fascinate me. I’ll do it. But I can’t promise anything, okay? You can’t get all mopey again because it didn’t work! Channie’s kinda dumb sometimes, remember that.”
“You’re the best friend in the world,” Wonwoo tentatively wraps one arm around Soonyoung’s shoulder in a half hug.
Soonyoung bites his shoulder. “I also want a gift basket next time, by the way! But it’s cute that you tried to win me over through Junnie.” Oops. Wonwoo got caught red-handed, apparently. “Also DoorDash is on you tonight. Now let’s watch Extraordinary Attorney, come on.”
📻📻📻
In the first week of February, Soonyoung apparently pulls through. Wonwoo’s pretending to study in the library on a nice Tuesday afternoon, clicking on his keyboard once every five minutes, when a bag is dropped on top of the table. He looks up, curious, only to be met with the personification of the sun itself.
“Hey, Wonwoo,” Chan greets him, taking a seat on the chair across from him. “Do you have a couple minutes?”
“Um. Sure,” Wonwoo says, trying to make sure it’s not evident his heart is beating like a rabbit’s. He has absolutely zero idea where this is going, what it could be about. “Do you need anything?”
“Kinda. Okay, yes. But you have to promise not to laugh, okay?” Chan says, leaning in like he’s about to whisper a secret. Wonwoo doesn’t think he’d ever be able to laugh at Chan, honestly, especially now that Chan is talking to him of his own free will. He really doesn’t have to worry about that.
“I promise.”
Chan smiles, letting out a sigh like he’s relieved. “So, I have a gen ed course this semester. From the quantitative reasoning category,” he tells Wonwoo, wincing like he’s swallowed a really sour candy. “I’m kinda struggling with it though. Lots of… complicated stuff there.”
Wonwoo hums. “I can imagine,” he offers, even though he really can’t.
“I’m sure you can’t! You’re like, a math genius or something, from what Soonyoungie tells me,” Chan says. Wonwoo briefly worries that Chan has a mind reading ability, but if he did, then he would probably have a restraining order against him. “But actually that’s why I’m here.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah! So, you can totally say no, obviously, but I was wondering if… you would be willing to help me, maybe? Like some sort of tutor or something,” Chan proposes, sounding unsure about it. Like he’s scared Wonwoo’s going to say no and leave him hanging. “Soonyoung said you would be up for it, if I asked.”
Wonwoo is going to kiss Soonyoung on the mouth for this. He wasn’t exactly envisioning equations as his peacock exhibition strategy, but hey. He is good at math. Filled with calculust, even. “Of course,” he answers almost immediately. Chan doesn’t seem taken aback by his quick response, and instead beams at him. As if Wonwoo would ever tell him no.
“Thank you soooo much, Wonwoo.” Chan leans forward, squeezing one of Wonwoo’s hands. His skin is warm and soft.
“So, um, do you want to start now?”
“Oh, I was thinking maybe tomorrow or Thursday? I have rehearsals later today,” Chan sounds apologetic.
“That is fine. I work tomorrow, but I can do Thursday.”
“Great! I’ll text you so we can work out the details, then,” Chan says, pulling his phone out of his backpack. He unlocks it and hands it to Wonwoo. “Gimme your number, please.”
Wonwoo takes the phone, willing his hands to stay steady. He wonders if he’s dreaming as he types in the digits of his telephone number and hands the device back to Chan. “I’ll be waiting,” he says faintly.
“Thank you so much once again, Wonwoo, seriously,” Chan stands up and grabs his bag. He squeezes Wonwoo’s shoulder and gives him one last smile before walking away, and Wonwoo is left staring dumbfoundedly at his black laptop screen.
He obviously doesn’t do anything else for the rest of the day, just keeps stealing glances at his phone as if it’s going to bite him all of a sudden. Chan texts him in the middle of dinner. He almost chokes on his chicken noodle soup when the notification pops up.
Minjeong pats him on the back with more force than necessary. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Wonwoo wheezes out. He saves Chan’s contact before answering, and it’s still very hard to believe this is genuinely a thing that’s happening.
Chan ❤️☀️
7:05 PM
heyyyy wonwoo it’s chan!!
Hi! It’s Wonwoo
Obviously
Good night!
hahaha goodnightttt
hope you had a good day 🙂
I did.
And you?
same! but i’m soooo tired from rehearsal lol
anyways
does thursday @ 2pm work for u? it’s ok if not!!!
No, that is great, do not fret
Where?
i was thinking my place if thats ok?
Yes it’s okay
cool then 😄
see you then!!! tysm again
📻📻📻
Wonwoo skips college on Thursday and spends his morning trying on basically his entire closet in front of the mirror before settling for what Mingyu would probably call effortless chic — slacks, a turtleneck and he’ll use his fancy shoes. He needs to impress today, which is why he douses himself in cologne and even styles his hair back before leaving the house. Soonyoung says he looks very dashing when he sends him a selfie, even though Minjeong had called him Kendall Roy from Shein when he walked past her open bedroom door.
Wonwoo parks in front of the Delta Kappa Omega house with ten minutes to spare. It’s weird being here under the bright afternoon sun and without Humbert, he thinks absent-mindedly. He waits until the clock hits two to check himself in the rearview mirror one last time and get out of the car, walking hesitantly through the front yard until he’s standing in front of the mahogany door. Should he ring the doorbell or text Chan? But if he texts, there’s the chance Chan will take a while to see and he’ll be stuck looming in the front porch like a weirdo.
Wonwoo takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell. He waits a couple seconds before it swings open, a guy he’s never seen before behind it. “Sup.”
“Um. Hi,” Wonwoo says. He and the guy stare at each other in silence for a beat. “I’m here to see Chan?”
“Oh, you’re the guy,” the man says. Then he twists back and screams, “Yo, Chan! Your boytoy is here!” Wonwoo can feel his face turning bright red. “You can wait here, he’ll be down soon.” With that, Chan’s frat brother (is that what they’re called?) disappears into the house.
Wonwoo tentatively steps inside, dodging a packed coat hanger and closing the door behind him. The interior is not actually what he’d imagined it would be — it’s surprisingly tidy and well-kept. Maybe he did watch too many movies. He hovers awkwardly in the entryway, not sure if he should take his shoes off or not. He bites his cheek for a few seconds before the sound of steps running down the stairs catch his attention.
“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting,” Chan says when he comes to a stop in front of him. Wonwoo tightens his grip on the straps of his backpack — Chan’s torso is entirely bare; he’s wearing sweatpants and a black crop top that stops right above his waist. Wonwoo suddenly feels very hot, even though it’s still winter.
“Don’t worry,” he grits out. “Um. Should I take my shoes off?”
“Ah, not here,” Chan says, “the guys don’t really do that. Gross, right? But when we get to my bedroom, yes please. Let’s go?” He beckons Wonwoo closer and turns around. Wonwoo dutifully follows him deeper into the corridor and up the stairs, gripping his backpack so tightly his fingers must be white. He’d thought– he’d thought that they would study in the living room or something.
He should’ve figured out that that would be hard when you live with fifteen other men, but it just went over his head. God. Chan Lee in a crop top is guiding him to his bedroom to study mathematics. This had never been in any of his daydreams, honestly. Wonwoo shakes his head — it’s still an advance.
“You can put your shoes here,” Chan gestures to a little rack in front of his bedroom. It’s overflowing with shoes and Wonwoo doesn’t really know how his own will fit there, so he just carefully toes them off and slides them under the rack. Chan hands him a pair of baby blue slippers and waits for him to slide into them before twisting the doorknob. The little plaque with Chan and Yeonjun’s names that’s hung up in the center of the door knocks against the wood as it swings open. “I’ll just grab us some snacks, but you can make yourself comfortable”
Wonwoo gives himself a five second pep talk before going in. When the world doesn’t come down on him the second he crosses the threshold, he allows himself to curiously scan the room. It’s very organized in here as well, and it’s fairly easy to tell which side of the room is Yeonjun’s — the one with a very colorful and full clothing rack, a pretty and delicate vanity table with a phone stand and a ring light, a bedside table with a lot of candles on top that seems slightly charred.
Chan doesn’t have nearly as many trinkets strewn around, but his presence still makes itself known. There are Doctor Who and Michael Jackson posters above his bed and a couple books on top of his dresser — Wonwoo recognizes a Pride and Prejudice copy there. He spots a lot of polaroids taped to the wall above Chan’s desk, and upon closer inspection he sees they’re all of him and his friends. There’s a really cute one of him and Soonyoung backstage, another of him and all his friends on the beach. It reminds Wonwoo of the pictures of him with Soonyoung and Mingyu that he has on his bedside table.
“I’m back!” Wonwoo stops like a deer in the headlights, whipping his head towards Chan, who just leans around him to deposit the glasses of water and a bowl of little pretzels on his table before gesturing for Wonwoo to sit down. Then he goes to Yeonjun’s table and drags his chair over until it’s next to Wonwoo’s. It’s a tight fit, and they’re so close their elbows will knock whenever one of them moves. Like this, Wonwoo can smell Chan’s strawberry shampoo, feel the warmth emanating from his bare skin. “So, ready for some math?”
Wonwoo swallows around nothing. “Sure. Do you want to show me what’s giving you trouble?”
“Oh, yeah, that would be smart,” Chan giggles. He grabs one of the notebooks off to the side and flips through it until he finds what he’s looking for. He slides to Wonwoo, who looks down at a page with ‘Derivatives and Applications’ written on top in pretty calligraphy. Seeing Chan’s handwriting feels intimate, somehow.
“Oh, this is easy,” Wonwoo mumbles. He remembers it from high school and freshman year.
“For you, maybe, Mr. Einstein,” Chan scrunches his nose as if the mere notion of calculus being easy disgusts him. Wonwoo feels a smile tugging the corners of his lips up.
“I’m more of an Alan Turing, I think.” Oh, why the hell did he say that?!
Chan outright cackles. “Because you’re gay and study computer science?”
“Yeah?” Wonwoo answers, feeling the knot in his stomach untangle a little.
“You’re funny, Wonwoo.”
“Thanks,” he says, even if he didn’t mean it as a joke. This might be the first time ever that he’s blurted out something without thinking and it didn’t result in mortification. Maybe it’s because he’s in his element (talking about math)? Whatever blessing has descended upon him, he will surely not let go to waste. “So, um. Derivatives.”
“Show me away, Professor Jeon,” Chan teases. Wonwoo, terribly so, feels all his blood flow downwards at that. He really should start working on being less of a pervert. He drinks half of his glass of water before he feels ready enough to clear his throat and start talking about the sensitivity of change of a function's output with respect to its input.
Chan is a quick learner. He lets out little affirmative sounds whenever he understands what Wonwoo explains, and he pouts cutely when he can’t quite catch on to a concept. Then he asks Wonwoo about it, and keeps his brows furrowed until Wonwoo explains it in a way that makes sense to him, when he sighs with relief and says ooooooh. Wonwoo kind of wants to eat him whole.
This is being very hard on him — he has to talk about limits and continuity and differentiability while all his brain can think about is how much he wants to kiss Chan’s pout and smooth the furrow between his eyebrows and place his hand on his bare waist while he calls him professor. Yes, very taxing. But because he is very intent on not fucking this up and because he did spend high school hyperfixated on calculus after reading Yuukoku no Moriarty, he manages to pull it off.
He even thinks he’s, um, showing off his feathers nicely enough. Except in this case his feathers are his excellent math skills and his surprisingly good didactics. If Chan’s ‘wow, you make it sound so easy’ are anything to go by, he might even be a little impressed, not that Wonwoo’s getting his hopes up, of course.
He has Chan doing some of the exercises his actual professor gave him, after nearly two hours of explaining and demonstrating, when the bedroom door bangs open.
“Channie, you will not believe what just happened.” Both him and Chan look up to see Yeonjun strolling inside, holding two sealed cups of coffee and a paper bag. “Oh, hi Wonwoo. I forgot you would be here.”
Wonwoo feels his stomach drop, forcing out a laugh. He suddenly has a very distant memory of his drunk self pretending to be Yeonjun to approach Chan. “Hi.”
“How’s it going?” Yeonjun asks, handing Chan one of the cups. When he comes closer, Wonwoo can see a huge hickey on the base of his throat.
“Thanks, dear,” Chan says, blowing a kiss to Yeonjun. “Do you want some, Wonwoo?” He offers him the damned cup.
“Ah, no, thanks.” Chan shrugs and takes a sip. Wonwoo feels very out of place all of a sudden, even though he was invited to be here. It’s awkward. “Do you want to stop for today?”
“Oh, do you think we’re done?”
“We can be. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
Chan looks at him like he’s speaking an alien language. “But you’re not intruding on anything? You’ve helped me all afternoon!”
“So you need rest,” Wonwoo makes himself say. “We can arrange another date later? If you still need it.”
“I definitely need it,” Chan chuckles. “Thank you so much, truly. I’ll send you a Grains and Beans coupon.”
“There’s no need,” Wonwoo says softly. He stands up and gathers his things into his backpack before flinging it over his shoulders. “Um. I’ll see you later, then.”
“Don’t you want me to walk you downstairs?”
“It’s fine, don’t worry.”
Chan seems unsure, but he acquiesces. He does follow Wonwoo to the bedroom door, though, and keeps watching him as he slides into his fancy shoes again. “Get home safe, Professor Jeon,” he says with a grin. “Thank you again.”
Wonwoo’s halfway down the stairs when he hears hushed giggling and the sound of a door clicking close. He takes a deep breath before walking down the rest of the steps and out of the house, and waits until he’s back inside the car to bang his forehead against the steering wheel, thinking about hickeys and crop tops and roommates. He ends up hitting the fucking horn, of course he does, but he stays like this for a couple more seconds before raising his head and starting the car like nothing happened.
So, his Daniel Yeonjun Choi problem. It’s not like Wonwoo hates him. Of course not. Yeonjun has never done anything to Wonwoo, except wearing couple’s costumes with Chan—the love of his life—and walking with his arm around his waist and kissing his cheek and then maybe, perhaps, fucking him in the bedroom they share and potentially stealing him away from Wonwoo. It’s not stealing because you and Chan are not involved in any sort of way and he is his own person, the rational part of Wonwoo’s brain tells him. The other side, the one he tends to listen to the most, just growls incomprehensibly, which is a more accurate translation of how he feels whenever he thinks about it.
Being in love is so hard. Especially when you are, supposedly, competing with a guy who is effortlessly cool and already friends with the boy you like and, like, probably better than you in every possible way except in maybe academia.
Wonwoo will just have to beat Yeonjun in this dance. Show off his feathers better or whatever.
📻📻📻
“So it’s not differentiable at a point where its tangent is vertical, like the function given by this equation. Do you see it here on the graph?” Wonwoo taps the tip of his pen on the graphic Chan had drawn.
“Ooooh,” Chan hums, taking a closer look. “That makes sense, now. It really didn’t when my professor was explaining it, but maybe that’s because I wasn’t very interested then.”
“That’s good,” Wonwoo says. “Math is cool, when you get the hang of it.”
Chan giggles, leaning back on his chair. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”
Wonwoo feels like he’s sort of missing something here, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what, so he just smiles awkwardly. “Do you want to do some exercises?”
“Sure. Which ones?”
Wonwoo flips through Chan’s coursework until he finds a couple exercises that he deems decent enough and gives him twenty minutes to work on them. Chan obeys dutifully, biting the top of his pencil as he reads the instructions of the first one. Wonwoo hopes he can’t feel the weight of his stare.
They’re at Doheny, and the mild chatter around them fills Wonwoo’s ears as he watches Chan. This is their third ‘session’ and he can’t really give a diagnosis of the situation. On the bright side, he has surprisingly not said anything mortifying so far, and whatever he blurted out that was, well, weird has just been brushed off seamlessly by Chan. No more blurting obscenities or obscure references or anything that would have left him wanting to die (he did accidentally spend thirty minutes excitedly explaining a concept and its applications to Chan last week, but Chan has just faithfully listened to him with a smile on his face).
Chan is being kind and easygoing and an absolute joy to be around, like he always has been. He always brings Wonwoo boba—how he knows his exact order is still a mystery to him—and some pastries for them to snack on. Wonwoo doesn’t want to seem hopeful, but they might be walking towards something here. Possibly. It’s a huge advance when compared to: a) not being able to talk to Chan without saying something embarrassing, b) throwing up on him and c) accidentally becoming a stalker.
It’s progress, even if he’s reluctant to call it so. Partly because he’s scared of jinxing it and partly because he still doesn’t know what the whole Yeonjun thing is. Even if the Yeonjun thing is, like, something that potentially exists only in his head. He just has a hunch, okay?
Soonyoung would call him a paranoid territorial alpha wannabe, but Soonyoung is not here, so Wonwoo gives himself free rain to silently fume as he imagines terrible, awful, scenarios involving Chan and Yeonjun. His imagination can be very vivid at times.
“Oh, I finished them all!” Chan exclaims, excitedly shoving his paper sheet towards Wonwoo. He blinks down at it, trying to focus on the numbers and tear his mind away from its previous thoughts (him as Zoro fighting a Law-Yeonjun for Luffy-Chan’s hand in marriage).
“The first two are right,” he says after he’s analyzed all of them, “but you made a mistake on the third one.”
“Where?” Chan leans closer to him, resting his chin on Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo momentarily freezes, breath stuck in his throat.
“Um,” he says dumbly. He makes himself look down at the scribbled numbers and point his pen at where Chan had gotten the ‘x’ mixed up. “Here, do you see? You should have actually–”
As he begins explaining Chan’s mistake, he eases into his touch, even when Chan’s chin digs deeper into his skin when he lowers his head even more to follow Wonwoo’s ministrations. This is fine. This is absolutely, totally, fine.
“I see! I didn’t even remember that when I was doing it,” Chan chuckles, going back to sitting right. “You’re so good at this. I wish you were my actual teacher. You make me interested.”
Wonwoo blushes. “Thank you. I’m starting to think I should consider that career path.”
“What do you currently have in mind for that?”
“Oh, I want to be a game developer,” he tells Chan, fixing his glasses. “I, um, really like video games.”
“I don’t know much about video games,” Chan says. “You could teach me, don’t you think?”
Wonwoo’s eyes widen. “I– I didn’t know you were interested in that sort of thing.”
“Didn’t I just say you make me interested?” Chan raises one eyebrow at him, like he’s teasing.
“Oh,” Wonwoo says weakly. This, more than anything that has ever happened to him, feels like a fever dream. Chan Lee, love of his life, whom he has been pining endlessly after for three years, asking him to teach him how to play video games. “I mean, I can teach you to play if you want. Do you have a good PC? The games are a bit heavy to load.”
“Ah, not really,” Chan furrows his eyebrows.
Wonwoo stops to consider. He could, well, invite Chan to his house. It’s a dangerous possibility, of course, because everyone will probably be home and, well, they’re all a bunch of terrible nosy people. But this is the opportunity of a lifetime. “Um. If you want, we can have our next study session at my house. And then we can, ah, play after we're done.”
Chan’s entire face lights up. “That’s great! Are you sure it’s not a bother for me to come over, though? I wouldn’t want to intrude on your family, especially at this time.”
Wonwoo doesn’t know what he means. “Of course not. You are more than welcome.”
“It’s settled, then,” Chan says, giggling like they’re in on a secret. “I have an exam next Friday, do you think we can meet before then?”
It’s a Thursday. “On Saturday?”
Chan stops to think. “Yeah, I don’t have anything until the late afternoon then. Does the usual time work?”
“Totally,” Wonwoo rushes to agree.
“Cool!” Chan smiles at him, running a hand through his gorgeous, luscious hair.
Suck it, Yeonjun, Wonwoo viciously thinks in the privacy of his mind.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo is totally normal about this. He woke up at six AM, spent one hour pacing in circles in the living room and scared the cat with it, then warned his family to be normal when they were having breakfast, and now he’s hovering nervously by the door, even though no one other than him ever arrives exactly on time.
He can just about feel Minjeong’s raised eyebrows behind him, but he refuses to indulge her. It’s already bad enough that she has set camp in the living room just to be able to watch first hand the most nerve-wracking and also the best moment of Wonwoo’s life happen.
The sound of the doorbell nearly makes him jump out of his skin. He shakes his hands, shakes his head, checks his breath and dusts his shirt before reaching for the doorknob. It feels like a vision straight out of his loveliest dreams, Chan Lee in front of his house, in another one of his damned crop tops and low waisted jeans. Wonwoo is going to die.
“Hey,” Chan beams at him.
“Hi,” Wonwoo says. “Come on in, come on in,” he gestures for Chan to come inside, closing the door behind him. He grabs one of the guest slippers and offers it to him after he’s done shimmying out of his sneakers.
“Thanks,” Chan says, sliding into them. Wonwoo takes notice of a cute little package on his hands, baby pink and star patterned. “I got this for your sister. For the baby,” he says shyly.
Minjeong chokes behind them. “What baby?!”
Well. Wonwoo had actually forgotten about that. “Oh,” he starts, guiding Chan deeper into the living room. “Minjeong, it was a secret. She was pregnant. But she ended up losing the baby,” he says with a wince. What the fuck is he actually doing. “So you can’t mention it ever. Sorry I didn’t warn you,” he tells Chan apologetically. Minjeong is staring at him like he is insane and should be locked up in an asylum.
Chan looks horrified as he eyes the little package on his hands. “I had no idea,” he says faintly. “I’ll just, uhm,” he shoves it inside his backpack.
“It was still really sweet of you to buy something,” Wonwoo tries to reassure him. He really should have just kept his mouth shut that day, damn it. Now Seulgi has a whole baby that she doesn’t even know about and that can never be mentioned. “Let’s go upstairs. Seulgi and Jeonghan aren’t home yet.”
Chan properly greets Minjeong before following Wonwoo, who’s trying to calm himself about the reality of Chan Lee entering his bedroom. He really, really hopes he didn’t forget to hide all the embarrassing stuff. He’s already taken drinks and snacks upstairs, so he shuts the door after Chan gets in, waiting anxiously as he eyes his room.
“This is cool,” Chan says, touching one of the Luffy figurines Wonwoo has on display on his shelf. “Is this from that anime you told me about that time? I think you said one of them had a straw hat.”
“I didn’t realize you remembered that,” Wonwoo says. “But, um. Yeah. That’s Luffy.”
“Where’s the gay sword dude?” Chan asks.
Wonwoo snorts. “The green-haired one.”
Chan hums appreciatively as he picks up the Zoro figurine, turning it around in his hands. “Cool.” He turns around, picking up the Darth Vader helmet on top of Wonwoo’s dresser. “Oh, you were dressed as this guy at Ningning’s party.”
“Yeah,” Wonwoo agrees because he can’t really deny that. “I don’t have another chair,” he says apologetically, desperate to change the subject. “Do you mind if we sit on the floor?”
“Why not on the bed?” Chan raises an eyebrow, finally done with his appraisal of Wonwo’s room.
“Oh, I didn’t think you’d be comfortable, I mean–”
Chan laughs like that notion is ridiculous, plopping down onto Wonwoo’s black duvet. He’s really glad he didn’t forget to put the Childe body pillow away. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself before sitting down next to Chan. On his bed. This is actually, genuinely, crazy. If he told the Wonwoo from five months ago that this would be happening, his other self would probably deem him as crazy as Junhui.
He clears his throat. “Do you want to do revisions?”
“Hm? Oh, sure,” Chan agrees, reaching into his backpack. His crop top rises when he does and Wonwoo catches a full on view of his broad muscled back, tapering into a lean waist. He could probably wrap his hands around it. Wonwoo really wants to thank the mathematics gods that made this moment possible. “Will you give me more exercises, Professor Jeon?”
Wonwoo chokes. It’s completely different hearing Chan say that in his own bedroom and in here. “Sure,” he says weakly, even though what he really wants to do is like, engage in sexy roleplay for real. “Let’s start with number 25.”
Chan winks at him before picking up his pencil. Wonwoo swallows dry. Maybe… maybe Seungcheol and Aeri and Seungkwan were right. Maybe letting Chan approach him was the right decision, as it seems to have produced a more positive result in less than one month than all his other efforts combined. Hell, Chan is on his bed right now, right next to him. They’re building a connection or something. If Wonwoo had known from the beginning that all he needed to do was be smart and a good teacher, he would have never opened his mouth.
He dares hope. Surely it can’t backfire on him now. He can already see it: Chan acing his exam on Friday, shyly approaching Wonwoo and then passionately kissing him in thanks for helping him, then asking him out for boba. His heart does somersaults in his chest. It’s absolutely magical.
Chan finishes all the exercises with ease, and he gets none wrong. “You’re a fast learner,” Wonwoo tells him once he’s done reading through all his answers. “Your GPA will be safe and sound now, no reason to worry. You got them all right.”
“Really?!” Chan exclaims excitedly. Wonwoo nods, and then all of a sudden Chan is bringing him into a hug. Wonwoo tentatively wraps his arms around Chan’s bare waist, squeezing back lightly. He doesn’t dare breathe, afraid to break the spell. “Thank you, thank you, Wonwoo! You’re the best.”
Chan extricates himself from Wonwoo’s arms, still smiling. Wonwoo finds himself smiling back. “I don’t think you need any more exercises for today,” he says. “Do you want to, um, play?” He hesitantly asks.
“Yeah! What game are you gonna teach me? LOL?”
“Oh, you’re familiar?”
“I watched the Netflix show,” Chan says apologetically.
Wonwoo chuckles. “Hm, it’s my favorite, but it’s multiplayer. I think it might be a little hard for you right now.”
“Probably,” Chan agrees. “Are there easy ones?”
“Well, there’s Genshin.”
“Oh, that’s the one your sister likes, isn’t it? Jimin started playing it for her, I remember.”
“That’s the one.”
“Teach me how to play it, then,” Chan says, standing up and walking towards Wonwoo’s gaming setup.
Wonwoo makes Chan sit down on his chair and turns on the computer. He leans his hip against the desk as he starts explaining the game, going into the concepts of gacha and rolling and just the general storyline—he does get a little carried away when he starts explaining the story, but Chan seems interested and urges him to go on. He logs out of his account and creates one for Chan, who eyes the entire process curiously. He chooses Lumine, of course he does.
Wonwoo walks him through which keys to use and how to change abilities, and when Chan faces his first hilichurls, he doesn’t even die immediately the way Soonyoung had when he first played. It’s cute watching his concentrated face as he plays, listening to the dialogues and occasionally getting lost on the map.
“Wonwoo!” Chan shrieks in despair when the time to fight the dragon comes. “How do I do this? Help!!” He looks up, eyes wide. Wonwoo chuckles before leaning forward and slowly, so very slowly, placing his hand on top of Chan’s on the mouse, guiding him through the motions. It’s like a fun-house mirror reflection of their earlier hug, but this time it’s Wonwoo enveloping him.
They stay like that until Chan manages to defeat Dvalin and the next bit of dialogue starts. Chan leans back on the chair, puffing like he’s just performed a three minute dance routine. “I’m so bad at this,” he says.
“I don’t think you’re capable of being bad at anything ever,” Wonwoo blurts, distracted by the way Chan’s cheeks are slightly pink and his hair is in disarray. He wants to run his hand over it, smooth the rebel pieces into place.
“You’re a flatterer,” Chan tilts his head to the side, a slight smile on his lips. “But I like it when people flatter me. It’s one of my love languages.”
“Is the other one gifts?”
“Yeah!” Chan giggles, sounding delighted. Wonwoo’s hand is still on top of his. “Y’know, Wonwoo, I actually—”
A piercing ringtone shrills through the air, cutting Chan’s sentence in the middle. He stands up and runs to his bag, taking his phone out of the front pocket. “Hey? Oh, I didn’t realize it was already time. Don’t get your panties in a twist, I’ll be there. Byeeee!” He slides the phone into his back pocket and turns to Wonwoo, looking apologetic. “I gotta go.”
“Oh.”
“It’s already half past five, I didn’t even see time pass,” he says, pouting. “I have this thing with Yeonjun, remember I told you?”
Wonwoo does remember Chan saying he had a thing later in the afternoon; he’d just never mentioned it was with Yeonjun. Wonwoo stands dumbly by his desk, watching as Chan collects his things into his backpack and cracks his neck. “I’ll walk you down,” he says, opening his bedroom door. All of a sudden, he feels very nauseous.
Minjeong is still on the couch when they cross the living room, and Wonwoo can hear faint sounds of chatter from the kitchen that indicate that Seulgi and Jeonghan might have returned. Minjeong raises her eyebrows at him while Chan puts on his shoes again. “I had a great time,” Chan says, straightening up. “We should do this again.”
“Sure,” Wonwoo agrees. Chan leans in and hugs him again, going as far as to press a kiss to his cheek.
“Thank you so much for all your help, Wonwoo! You’re such a good friend.”
Because he is a very well-composed and put together individual, Wonwoo waits until he hears the engine of Chan’s car starting to scream.
Step 5: JUST DO IT!
Just talking to Chan? Failed. Approaching him at a social event? Failed. Writing love letters? Let’s not even get into that one. Presenting himself as a perfect suitor? Friendzoned and ditched for Daniel Yeonjun Choi. At this point, Wonwoo is beginning to suspect that this might be the universe telling him to just give up, it’s over, pack your bags and move into the basement.
He just doesn’t know what else he can do. He really fucking doesn’t. His hair will start to fall out at any second now and it’s all his fault.
SEUNGKWAN: Now, Mr. Pining. Before we resort to prematurely balding and locking ourselves in basements, there’s just this one simple thing you still haven’t done.
AERI: And it might be the easiest of them all. Because we like a little plot, a little adventure, and because you seemed to be very, well, shy, for a lack of a better word, we haven’t brought it up so far. But we have reached the point where it’s the only option.
SEUNGKWAN: This might be the most important advice we have ever given out here on Love Guide, so all our listeners might want to listen carefully. If all the elaborate, intricate, love schemes have failed, then your best choice is to actually—
AERI: Just do it!
SEUNGKWAN: Hey! I was going to say it!
AERI: But I wanted to! Anywaaaays. Mr. Pining, you’re saying you don’t know what else to do, but have you actually done the simplest thing yet? NO!
SEUNGKWAN: And you might be wondering, ‘but Mr. Boo and Miss Uchinaga, what even is the simplest thing?’. I will tell you what it is, Mr. Pining. You haven’t actually asked him out!
AERI: Now, you’re probably thinking something along the lines of ‘but what about the friendzone? What about the bleach fried hair tiktoker? What about all my failed previous attempts?’. And I get it, I really do, but Mr. Pining, none of those were direct actions! They were meant to build the bridge, approach your guy and actually establish a relationship with him.
SEUNGKWAN: And you undoubtedly have that now! He wouldn’t have called you friend if not. However, those elaborate schemes were never the endgame, no. They were a means to an end. And this is the end: asking him out! For real!
AERI: And of course you’re scared, because there’s a lot you don’t know. Being upfront is scary! But you won’t actually know if your chances are really in the gutter or not unless you do it!
SEUNGKWAN: Because misunderstandings are so common… I mean, how many films have you watched in which a friendzone or a supposed boyfriend are actually misunderstandings? And the only way the main character finds it out is by, well, direct action.
AERI: So this is what we have to tell you, Mr. Pining. The only thing left for you to do now is put the big boy shoes on and ask your lovely prince out on a cute date!
SEUNGKWAN: Cute date ideas are arcades, aquariums, musicals, amusement parks and the pier. We’re in Los Angeles! Things to do in abundance!
AERI: We are rooting for you, Mr. Pining. Ask him out on a date, finally consummate the elaborate courting rituals of the past months, and be happy. And remember: love will always come eventually.
SEUNGKWAN: That brings us to the end of today’s program. We would like to remind everyone that we will not be airing during spring break, as Miss Uchinaga and I will be very occupied watching musicals in New York City. This has been…
AERI/SEUNGKWAN: The Ultimate Love Guide!
Wonwoo stares unblinkingly at his computer screen. The cursor stares right back at him, hovering above the studio’s January finances spreadsheet that he should be updating. The thought of… just plainly asking Chan out hadn’t occurred to him. It seems unthinkable that it could be that simple, after months of increasingly intricate schemes and years of pining, with more setbacks than he would have ever thought possible.
And above it all, there’s the fear that it might still go wrong: that Wonwoo has really lost his hercules beetle courtship battle against Yeonjun, that Chan sees him as nothing more than a friend, that he is just irrevocably a loser that will never ever find love (the thought that has plagued him since he was seven and in a doctor’s office).
But. And of course you’re scared, because there’s a lot you don’t know. Being upfront is scary! But you won’t actually know if your chances are really in the gutter or not unless you do it!, Aeri had said. Maybe Wonwoo can be brave one last time. And if it still backfires, then no one at all will be able to blame him if he decides on the basement or being a virgin blood sacrifice (he’s still torn up between his life ending options).
Before spring break, he will ask Chan Lee out. For better or for worse.
📻📻📻
Wonwoo hovers before Minjeong’s bedroom door, unsure of how to approach this situation. It’s, well, unusual. He doesn’t think he’s ever been in this position before, seeking her help. He wonders if he should knock or just barge in like she does—he’s more used to standing silently by her open door to annoy her.
Before he has to force himself to make a decision, the source of all his torment swings open. “I could hear you thinking through the wood,” Minjeong manages to sound both judgemental and not interested at all at the same time. “Do you need anything or did you just get lost?”
“Um,” Wonwoo starts. “Well.”
Minjeong rolls her eyes. “You look like a pathetic cat. Just come inside, loser.” She goes back inside and plops down on her bed, and Wonwoo just resigns himself to this moment of emotional intimacy that he started.
Minjeong’s bedroom is not that different from his—lots of nerd shit, a gaming setup, anime volumes on her bookshelf. The most glaring difference is, obviously, the lack of assorted Star Wars and literature related paraphernalia. That and the gigantic Scaramouche poster above her head. And the real life size Scaramouche cut-out in the corner by her closet. To each their own, he supposes.
Wonwoo hesitantly sits on the feet of Minjeong’s bed, crossing his legs. “So,” he starts again. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“I gathered as much.”
Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “Will you listen?”
“Of course,” she says it like he’s stupid. Maybe he is.
“How did you and Jimin, like, get together? I know the story, obviously,” he interrupts Minjeong before she retorts, “but I’m asking in the, um. Not knowing how to fucking read social interactions or how to act normal way, I guess? Haha.”
Minjeong’s eyes soften, like she’s finally understood why he’s here talking to her, his little sister, instead of Jeonghan or Seulgi or Mingyu. There are some things that only the two of them understand, the things they had shared while crying on bathroom floors and on the tiny bedroom they’d shared when they moved to LA. “Is this about Chan?”
“It’s not not about him,” Wonwoo deflects.
“Okay,” Minjeong accepts it easily, which is very unlike her. She must be feeling particularly touched by his torment. “Hmmmm. I liked Jimin all throughout high school, you know that. I saw her around the hallways and she was nice to me, but we didn’t really know each other at all. When she graduated, we still were mostly strangers.”
Wonwoo knows this part of the story. Everyone in the Jeon-Yoon household had been subjected to Minjeong’s pining during her four years of high school. He supposes he and she are very similar in that aspect as well.
“When the whole thing happened last summer, I was very unsure if she was just being nice in a let’s be friends way or if she meant anything more,” Minjeong continues. “I think it’s normal to be confused with these things, but of course it’s a bit harder for us. I was really anxious not knowing where we stood, I’m not cut out for the whole homoerotic tension thing, so I asked Ningningie and she told me to just be forward if that’s what I needed.”
“So what did you do?”
“The next time Jimin asked me out, I asked if it was a date. She said yes. Then I asked if all the other ones had been dates as well, and she said that if I wanted to, then yes. And then the rest you know.”
Wonwoo pauses to consider. “As simple as that?”
“Well, it wasn’t simple when it was happening,” Minjeong leans forward and flicks him on the forehead. “Do you want to give me details of what exactly is going on?”
“I don’t want to give you blackmail material.”
“Wonwoo, I grew up with you. I have blackmail material for a lifetime already. You really don’t need to worry about that.”
“I hate you,” Wonwoo whines, letting his head fall back to the wall. The Scaramouche poster hangs imperiously above him. “Ugh, whatever. I have liked Chan for years, of course. And since I’m a senior, I decided I should do something about it before I graduate and lose my chance forever. So I, um, started trying to get closer to him and win him over and stuff like that.”
“Oooooh, that’s what was happening.”
“What do you mean?” Wonwoo frowns, confused.
“Don’t mind me, keep going.”
“But–”
“Keep going.”
“Fine, Jesus. So, I’ve been working on that since September, and I have gotten to the conclusion that it’s finally time to ask him out for real,” Wonwoo lies a little, because he did not come to that conclusion by himself at all. “Get rid of the ambiguity and get answers for real and all that.”
“So you want tips on how to do that? Is that it?”
“Yeah,” he says, embarrassed.
“You’re so stupid,” Minjeong sighs. She scoots closer until their thighs are touching, then leans her head on his shoulder. “You should just do what I did. Next time you see him, ask him out and clarify it’s a date. That way you’ll get all the answers you need.”
“Can it really be that easy?”
“Of course. You overcomplicate things too much inside your stupid head,” Minjeong pats his chest consolingly.
“You called me stupid twice in a row.”
“If you don’t like it, maybe you should stop being stupid, have you thought about that?”
“I’ll tell Seulgi that you’re bullying me again.”
“That didn’t work when you were eight and it won’t work now,” she twists her head and bites down on his shoulder. Soonyoung really spends too much time with his family, damn. “But really. Just go for it, Wonwoo. He won’t bite your head off.”
“Thanks,” Wonwoo mumbles.
“You’re welcome, dummy,” she answers. “Do you wanna play Genshin with me and Jimin? We can farm artifacts for your Haitham.”
They end up playing together until 3 AM, because the next day is a Saturday and no one has anything to do. When Minjeong finally kicks him out so she can video chat Jimin until one of them falls asleep, Wonwoo squeezes her into a hug before fleeing the scene.
📻📻📻
Because this is him, none of Wonwoo’s plans work out. Of course, he does not run into Chan on campus in any of the days in which he’s wearing a nice outfit and looks like a decent human being; no, they see each other in person for the first time in a week in the dining hall, right after Wonwoo has gotten out of his terrible, awful, meeting with his professor about his final project.
He’s got deep eyebags and probably looks like he should be committed when Chan drops his tray on his table and slides onto the seat across from him. “Sup, Wonwoo. You good?”
Wonwoo has to get over the whiplash of seeing a blonde Chan in front of him before getting any words out of his mouth. “You– your hair,” he stutters pathetically.
“Yeah!” Chan laughs, almost bashfully. “You like it? Junnie helped me bleach it during the weekend.”
Wonwoo’s momentarily confused as to how and why Junhui helped Chan bleach his hair before remembering that he is probably talking about Yeonjun. What, was Yeonjun not happy with his own fried hair? He wanted to match? But Chan’s hair doesn’t seem fried at all—it’s still fluffy and shiny, and he even seems to have curled it a little today.
“I love it,” he says when he remembers Chan asked him about it. It’s the tamest thing he can say about it. All his other thoughts are in the line of Chan being the sun personified or a sun god or sunkissed and the most gorgeous boy to have ever walked the earth.
“That’s good,” Chan runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t send you a selfie cause I wanted you to see it in person.”
Wonwoo doesn’t know what he means by that, so he just laughs and takes another furious bite of his oatmeal. His internal voice is torn between repeating Yeonjun and Chan have matching hair or Chan is a sun god he is literally Luffy personified maybe I should dye my hair green when he remembers the words from Seungkwan and Aeri and Minjeong.
No use in guessing and overcomplicating and creating terrible scenarios inside his head. He needs to ask. He clears his throat, suddenly very dry despite the warm tea he’s drinking. “Chan,” he starts.
“Hm?” Chan looks up at him, curious. The warm glow of the afternoon reflects on his eyes and it’s really no good for Wonwoo’s already on edge nerves.
“Are you- Are you free this weekend? Saturday?”
Chan stops to consider. “Yep. Why?”
“I was thinking,” Wonwoo weighs his words carefully, “maybe we could go to the pier? Me and Soonyoung have been talking about going for a while, so I thought we could go before spring break?” Okay. He did it. It’s out into the world. No taking back.
“I would love to!” Chan exclaims, sounding delighted. “It’s been so long since I went, you would think I don’t even live in LA anymore.”
Wonwoo laughs, and this time it’s relieved and giddy and light. Not awkward at all. “Great! Should we meet at four PM? That way we can see the sunset.”
“Oh, that would be lovely,” Chan sighs. Then, before Wonwoo can clarify it’s a date, like Minjeong had instructed, he adds, “it’s a date!”
Wonwoo smiles at him, Chan smiles back, and it’s settled. They go back to their respective meals, and Wonwoo’s not even stressed about his final project anymore. He’s not stressed about anything at all. It feels impossible to, when he actually did it and asked Chan on a date and he said yes.
📻📻📻
Well, okay, maybe no stress at all was a bit of an exaggeration. Wonwoo’s going on a date with Chan Lee, of course he’s going to shit his pants about it. Saturday arrives sooner than later, of course, and Wonwoo’s been feeling queasy since he woke up.
See, the only person who knows about the date is Mingyu, because he is far away and therefore unable to jinx anything. Maybe that doesn’t really make sense, but it does to him. He didn’t tell Minjeong and he didn’t tell Soonyoung—and he’ll surely get an earful because of this later—but he’s just so scared that he’s actually dreaming all of this and that it will not come true that he can’t bear to utter the words until the actual thing has happened.
Thus, he calls Mingyu in the early morning to freak out. It’s not a very long call, because Mingyu is hungover and in naked in bed with another person (he quickly turns his video off), but he gives Wonwoo the reassurances he needs and makes him promise he’s going to wear the jeans that make his ass look like it’s actually there.
Wonwoo is so normal about going on a date with Chan Lee. It’s not like he’s been dreaming about this day since he met Chan three years ago, of course not. This is even more nerve-wracking than going to Chan’s house or having Chan come over and oh god what if Chan wears a crop top today. He’s so not doing okay. There’s still the very real possibility that he’s dreaming because how is it possible that something is working out for him, after all these months (years) of disaster?
Delusion or not, Wonwoo spends two hours getting ready and gets into the car at exactly 2:30 PM. Being early never hurt anyone. It takes him nearly forty minutes to get there, because Los Angeles traffic sure is being very Los Angeles traffic today, but he gets there with a lot of time to spare nonetheless.
He enjoys the aircon of his car for a while before deciding he should get inside just in case Chan arrives early as well, so he gives his own cheeks a couple good luck slaps—both to make sure he has some color in them and to shock himself into a functioning person—before stepping out of the car. The climate’s already warming up, so he opts for not bringing his jacket with him.
The last time he wore jeans on jeans on a pier while meeting Chan also didn’t go very well for him, so maybe this will bring him luck or whatever.
The pier is full, of course it is, and the sound of children running and people laughing grates on his ears. The smell of the sea is also not his favorite, and maybe he should have chosen a better location when he’s already so on edge, but he wasn’t thinking straight, alright? And it’s too late to cry over spilled milk.
Wonwoo finds an empty bench near the entrance, far away from the kid’s playground, and sets camp there until Chan shows up. He has nothing to do apart from people watching until then, so he alternates between doing that and staring nervously at the sea.
His phone rings a couple minutes past four.
Chan ❤️☀️
4:13 PM
heyyy im here!! sorry im late
traffic ☠️
Hi!
No problem :))
I’m at the first bench on the left side
I can meet you if it’s easier!
no need!!!
well find you
stay in place mr. jeon
Wonwoo smiles stupidly at his phone screen. He must look like a teenager in love to the passersby, not that he cares at all. Nothing will ruin his day today. Then he catches the ‘we’ on Chan’s text and his brain stops. It’s probably a typo, right? Who else can possibly be with him on his date? That would be counterproductive.
It’s just a typo.
“Wonwoo!” Chan’s voice echoes through the pier. Wonwoo looks up, searching for him, and there he is, running towards him, framed by the sun. His hair even looks like it’s being blown by the wind, despite the fact that there’s no wind at all. “Sorry to keep you waiting!”
“I told you, it’s no problem,” he says, getting up to greet Chan. Should he hug him or shake his hand or what? No one told him how to greet people when you’re on a date. Chan settles the matter for him, standing up on his tiptoes and wrapping his arms around his neck. He is, thankfully, not in a crop top today.
It’s in this moment, with Chan’s arms around him, that Wonwoo sees them. Aeri Uchinaga, Seungkwan Boo, Hansol Chwe, Daniel Yeonjun Choi and Jimin Yu, walking languidly in their direction. Not a typo, then. His brain actually stops working. What in the world is going on? Is this some sort of tradition, where friends bring their friend to his date? It doesn’t make any sense.
“Soonyoung told me he’ll arrive soon,” Chan says, stepping back. “I told him to meet us here.”
“What?” Wonwoo asks, because he really doesn’t understand what is happening. What will Soonyoung do here?
“Yeah, I texted him earlier to make sure he still remembered this was happening today, because you know how he tends to forget things,” Chan laughs like they’re sharing a joke. “He said you didn’t tell him! Did you forget to?”
“What?” Wonwoo repeats. The words coming out of Chan’s red shiny lips sound like Greek to him. “Why would I have told him?”
“Because you said him and you were coming and you invited me to come with you?” It’s Chan’s turn to sound confused. He furrows his brows, and even in this situation Wonwoo’s brain takes a moment to appreciate how cute he looks. “When I texted him he said I should also invite the guys so we had a big friend outing.”
“Oh,” Wonwoo lets out weakly. “He didn’t, um, he didn’t tell me.”
He’s starting to consider turning around and diving straight into the ocean. Hopefully there’s a shark under them right now that will eat him whole.
“Oh,” Chan echoes. “I thought he did. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you didn’t know!”
Wonwoo takes a very deep breath and tries to make sense of the situation. Somehow, Chan had understood that Wonwoo was going out with Soonyoung and had invited him along. And then, stupid Soonyoung, instead of saying that he had no idea of what Chan was talking about, just went along with it, because his dumb ass probably thought he’d forgotten about this. And then, to top it all off, he told Chan to invite his friends.
The ‘not telling anyone about the date to not jinx it’ thing is actually backfiring on him. Wonwoo is not sure how he managed to fuck this up, but of course he did. He should have known that things would never work out so smoothly for him. That’s actually impossible. He really should have known.
“It’s fine,” he forces the words out. “I’m sure we’ll have a great time.”
Chan lets out a relieved chuckle. “Yeah! We will!”
“Hi, Wonwoo!” Jimin cheerfully greets him when she and the rest of the group finally get to them. Wonwoo supposes he should be grateful his sister isn’t coming as well. That he knows of. Hell, maybe she’ll show up with Yizhuo and Seulgi and Jeonghan and even Seungcheol in tow. He wouldn’t be surprised.
He exchanges greeting with the others—and really, how ironic it is that Seungkwan and Aeri had advised him to ask Chan out on a date and now they’re unknowingly ruining his attempts at just that—and they stay in a slightly awkward silence until Soonyoung finally shows up, Junhui trailing behind him as always.
“Wonu!” Soonyoung kisses his cheek. “You forgot to tell me!”
“Sorry,” Wonwoo says, aiming for laidback. He’s not sure how it translates, because the inside of his head is currently looking like what the hell Junhui came from must be.
“So, do y’all wanna go to one of the rides or are we grabbing something to eat first?” Aeri asks, twirling the ends of her hair.
“Rides!” Soonyoung exclaims, already grabbing Wonwoo’s wrist and dragging him forward.
📻📻📻
They go to the Seaside Swing and Wonwoo sits right between Chan and Yeonjun. It’s a little awkward when Yeonjun grabs his hand in fear when the damned thing swings a little and he has to fight his instincts to bite his head off. Then Seungkwan and his boyfriend drag them to the Pacific Plunge, and it’s terrible because Soonyoung sits himself on Wonwoo’s side and then he has to watch as Chan screams into Yeonjun’s shoulder as they drop down. The drop doesn’t scare him at all, and he very much could have cooly comforted Chan during it, unlike Yeonjun, who screams in tandem.
To top the rides off, Yeonjun makes them go to the West Coaster and pulls Chan onto the seat next to him when it’s their turn. Wonwoo gets stuck with Junhui, and he silently seethes the entire ride, eyes shooting daggers to the back of Yeonjun’s neck even as the ocean sprays breeze by them. Not even the helixes manage to tear him away from his attempt to kill a man with his eyes.
They need a breather after the fucking pseudo rollercoaster, so Jimin suggests they grab something to drink. It’s… it’s not bad, being with them—they’re all funny and entertaining, and the mix of Seungkwan, Aeri and Soonyoung produces hysterical stories that leave everyone gasping for air. Wonwoo himself would be having fun if this was all under regular circumstances. As it is, he joins Junhui in his looming, staying in the shadows beside him and glaring at the group.
He glares extra harder at Yeonjun, even though he doesn’t seem to notice, too busy laughing with Chan and resting his chin on top of his head and holding his hand and kissing his cheek and. Wonwoo crushes his slushie between his hands.
This was supposed to be his date with Chan. Should have been so. Instead, he’s being forced to live through this. He really doesn’t know how much more he can take. Probably not much.
Definitely not much. It all comes to head not even thirty minutes later, when they’re in line for the ferris wheel. The sun is about to start setting and of course they want to see it from there. Wonwoo’s holding on to a small hope that he and Chan can sit next to each other, watch the sunset together, and then maybe. Chan resting his cheek on his shoulder, snuggling closer, radiating warmth. It would definitely save the afternoon.
Of course, all his hopes are cut short when the girl managing the thing closes the gondola after Aeri has gone in, leaving him, Junhui and Hansol still in line. And well. Wonwoo looks at Chan and Yeonjun sitting side by side, the beautiful sunset that’s already starting, and everything that he’s been swallowing all day threatens to spill. His eyes sting dangerously.
He turns around and stalks away from the confused manager and the even more confused Junhui and Hansol, bumping into the people waiting in the line and ignoring Soonyoung’s confused call of his name. He really can’t do this right now. He’s so fucking stupid. He should have known better, he should have been better, he should have just never tried to win Chan Lee over at all. He’s so clearly out of his league. What was he thinking?
Step 6 ABORT MISSION! ABORT MISSION!!!
He walks and walks and walks until he’s out of the entertainment area and on the sidelines, and then he walks some more until he’s on the back. Only then does he stop, resting his elbows on the railings and pressing his hands to his eyes, hard. He can feel the glowing lights of the ferris wheel behind him and wonders if they can see him from there. What they would think of this pathetic display if yes.
Wonwoo’s had a lot of bad days, but this will probably be on the podium. Bronze medal, maybe. It would maybe hurt less if it wasn’t his own fault. His own fault for being stupid and the biggest loser to have ever walked the earth.
He doesn’t know for how long he stays like this, applying all the pressure in the world to his temples and letting the cold ocean breeze wash over him. Long enough for him to stop feeling on the verge of a meltdown, at least. After a while, he hears the sound of footsteps approaching him, and he sighs. “I don’t want to talk, Soonyoung.”
“Wrong guy,” Chan says softly. Wonwoo straightens up and turns around. Sure thing, it’s Chan that came after him, in all his blonde glory. His white tank top shines under the colorful lights of the ferris wheel.
“Oh.”
“Are you okay?” Chan asks, impossibly gentle. He approaches Wonwoo like he’s some sort of wounded animal, slowly, until he’s also leaning on the railing. “You just stormed off.”
Wonwoo opens his mouth. Closes it. He doesn’t know what to say. He must still be kind of out of it, because a tiny voice inside his head says: tell him everything. Not being direct enough is what got you here. Just let it all out. Things can’t be worse than they already are. It’s not like he still has any chances.
And Wonwoo must be really crazy, because that tiny voice sounds like Confucius himself. Really, what else does he have to lose? Better let it all out now. That way he won’t have to live with his secrets by himself in the basement with only Humbert to keep him company.
“Chan,” he starts. Falters momentaneously, when Chan looks at him with an open expression, worry still tinged in his eyes. “I like you. I have liked you for so long. And I wanted to finally do something about it. But I don’t know how to do any of that, so I tried different strategies. First I tried talking to you, but that went terribly because I just blurted embarrassing things out. Then there was the party, because I was told alcohol makes you more laid back, but you went with Yeonjun and I tried to impersonate him to see if maybe that way you would look at me and then I threw up on you. And then–,” he pauses, takes a deep breath, “and then I wrote you love letters but I forgot to sign them and you thought you had a stalker. I’m your Joe Goldberg. Then I tried to impress you by teaching you math, but that didn’t work as well. And now, as a last resort, this was supposed to be a date, but I don’t know how to properly communicate so you thought it was a friend outing.”
When Wonwoo finishes, he’s heaving. The reality of what he just said dawns on him when he sees Chan’s open mouth, staring at him in shock or confusion or maybe horror.
“I’m sorry,” he says shamefully, “I never should have done any of that. I know now you’re in a relationship with Yeonjun. I shouldn’t have done anything. It’s all my fault, and here I am, telling you all about the problems–”
“What?!” Chan interrupts him, staring at him like he’s speaking in klingon. “I’m dating who?”
“Yeonjun?” Wonwoo says. Chan starts outright cackling at that. Wonwoo stares at him in confusion. “Hm. What.”
“Wonwoo,” Chan takes a deep breath. “I have never, ever, so much as looked at Yeonjun that way. Besides, he’s too busy canoodling with Aeri and Yizhuo Ning. Didn’t you know?”
“No,” Wonwoo whispers, mortified. This is. Well. He’s not really sure what to do now. “So you and him are not… Oh. I see.”
Chan chuckles some more before calming down and taking a deep breath. “Wonwoo,” he starts softly, “if you wanted to go out with me, you could have just said so from the beginning. You didn’t have to do any of those elaborate schemes.”
Wonwoo’s jaw drops open. Did– did he hear that right? “Um. What. But you didn’t even, like. What.”
Chan takes two steps forward, until he’s standing impossibly close to Wonwoo. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize this was a date,” he says, “that’s on me. But I would love to go out with you. I’ve been wanting to for so long.”
“What.” Wonwoo’s brain actually short-circuits. That can’t have possibly come out of Chan’s mouth. He has been wanting to go out with Wonwoo for so long? “But I– but we didn’t even really talk until last year and I info dumped about One Piece to you and I threw up on you and I made you think you had a stalker and I am so terrible at everything, I think about you when I read fanfiction, and you called me a friend–”
“Wonwoo,” Chan interrupts him, a light smile on his lips. “You’re cute. I’ve always thought you’re cute, and I thought you were even cuter when we started really talking. And didn’t I tell you my love languages are flattering me and gift giving? Those letters count as both. I was only bothered by them because I didn’t know who it was from. If I had known it was you, well…”
“Oh,” says Wonwoo dumbly. “I thought you would get a restraining order.”
“Nonsense! I think it was sweet now that I know it was you! And aren’t you supposed to be friends with the people you like?” Chan asks, blinking slowly. He steps even closer to Wonwoo, now so close he can feel his breath when he exhales. He smells like strawberries, always does. “Do you still want to go out with me?”
“Yes,” Wonwoo answers, because what else is he supposed to say? He feels like he’s been entranced by a siren, unable to tear his eyes off from Chan.
“Good,” Chan says. His tongue darts out and he licks his lips, biting them lightly. “Can I kiss you?”
Wonwoo panics. “I’ve never kissed anyone, unless you count the peck I gave Soonyoung when we were fifteen–”
“Wonwoo,” Chan repeats his name for what’s probably the thirtieth time this exchange, but he doesn’t sound exasperated. He sounds almost fond. “Can I kiss you?”
He takes a deep breath before nodding. Chan stands on the tip of his toes, tenderly holds Wonwoo’s face between his hands and pulls him down, clashing their lips together. Chan’s lips are slightly wet, terribly soft and warm against his. He tastes like strawberries and honey and all the things Wonwoo dreams of.
Chan takes things slow, deepening the kiss according to Wonwoo’s growing levels of enthusiasm. By the time their tongues finally slot in together, Wonwoo doesn’t even know why he was so nervous in the first place. It feels like he was born to do this: kiss Chan Lee until he’s drunk with it. He wants to do this all day.
“For the record,” Chan giggles into his mouth when they part for breath, “I wanted to suck your dick so bad when you were explaining One Piece and Calculus to me.”
MAY 2023
Despite all odds, Wonwoo did it. He finished his final game project on the last possible day, but he submitted it and he passed all his classes with flying colors. His professor had even, begrudgingly, given him almost full marks on his project, even though he did accuse it of being too similar to Zelda. Whatever.
Wonwoo passed all his classes and now he’s graduating, finally. He can’t believe that’s actually happening. This seemed so far away when he was a freshman, and impossibly so even further away from his reach last year. But here he is, dressed in red and gold under the warm sunlight, listening to speeches and congratulations.
It doesn’t feel real at all until the commencement ceremony is all wrapped up and he and Soonyoung meet up with everyone else. Jeonghan and Seulgi have suspiciously red eyes, and Wonwoo would tell them to save their tears for their upcoming wedding if he didn’t know that they probably feel like proud mothers. Minjeong gives him a hug and then tells him he did nothing more than what he had to, as expected.
There’s a whole round of hugs and congratulations for him and Soonyoung, and Wonwoo finds himself surprised when he doesn’t growl when Yeonjun hugs him. Maybe it’s because he, Aeri and Yizhuo have finally officialized whatever it is that they have.
Wonwoo even accepts the hug from Junhui, who’s suspiciously ice cold even though it’s almost summer. He’s also holding Humbert’s leash, and Wonwoo doesn’t even want to ask how and why the cat is here.
Seungcheol’s just finished ruffling his hair when he feels warm fingers poking his back. He doesn’t even have to turn to know who it is. Chan wraps his arms around his waist and whispers in his ear, “Congratulations, baby. Can’t believe my boyfriend is officially a computer scientist.”
Wonwoo blushes deep red. He’s still not used to Chan calling him that or Chan touching him or just. Chan in general. He twists inside Chan’s embrace and leans down to steal a quick kiss from him, because while he still blushes like a shy virgin, he is never letting an opportunity to kiss him go. “Thank you.”
“We should celebrate tonight,” Chan waggles his eyebrows at him when they separate. It’s really fortunate that the robes Wonwoo’s wearing cover his middle. His hormones are flaring like he’s going through a second puberty, except this time it was caused by actually having sex.
“Of course,” he coughs.
“You’re cute,” Chan pulls him down to kiss his cheek. “We should send Mingyu a pic saying congrats as well. I’m so sad he couldn’t come!”
Wonwoo easily complies, pulling his phone out from between the mess of fabric he’s wearing and opening his chat with Mingyu. He has about fifteen unread messages from him, all extensive and probably heartfelt congratulations about graduating. Wonwoo will answer them later, when he sends his own extensive congratulations to Mingyu. It is unfortunate that Mingyu’s ceremony is also happening today.
Mingyu
3:54 PM
▸ Photo
Channie wanted to say congrats :)
congratssssss gyuu!! - chan
4:01 PM
▸ Photo
hao and seok also say congrats!
love you!
Wonwoo squints his eyes to properly see the picture under the sunlight, and when he finally manages to identify the three people in it, an ages-old mystery is solved: Minghao is the lesbian from Mingyu’s feed. It all makes sense now.
For more success stories, please tune in to the Ultimate Love Guide, streaming Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on University Radio! Mr. Boo and Miss Uchinaga signing off.