Chapter Text
“You thought…you thought that joke I pulled…actually meant…I liked you?”
Mi-ae was trapped. And it was her own damn fault.
After all, she was the one who’d kissed him. She was the one who’d wanted a photo and rushed over to his side of the group. She was the one who’d dragged him to the gym by his shirt.
She was the one who’d darted into the supply closet when the other kids came in. It wasn’t like she and Cheol had been doing anything they had to hide. They were just standing there.
And she was the one babbling nonsense while his face got stonier and stonier.
He looked furious. He looked furious because he thought she might like him.
A sigh. He was sighing at her.
Would it really be such a burden if she did? It wasn’t like they would have to date if she had a one-sided crush on him. Which she DIDN’T.
It wasn’t like Song-i and Jinseop had a particularly bad or tense relationship, even though everyone knew about Song-i's crush. Why couldn’t Cheol just…be like that? Hypothetically.
Because she did NOT like him like that.
“…so what if I did?” the words spilled out. Her face was going hot; she’d blushed a lot today, but this was the first time her cheeks were heating with anger.
“What?”
“So what if I did!” Mi-ae clenched her fists and looked up at his face. At his stupid, oblivious, handsome face.
“What are you—”
“Would it really be so bad if I did?” Mi-demanded. Her eyes tingled, like she might start to cry, but she felt so far from crying. “Why can’t I like you? Would it be wrong of me?! Would it be so embarrassing?!” She poked his chest. He tried to grab her and she snatched her arm away. He wouldn’t catch her. Not this time.
“Are you embarrassed because I’m smaller than your little sister?” Mi-ae felt the words come pouring out, borne on a tide of a thousand tiny frustrations. The memory of his eyes looking at her over those stupid homemade shoe inserts. That jerk with the mole insulting her just because she was standing next to Cheol.
“I’m small but I’m not a child! I keep telling you, we’re the same age! I…”
Seonyeong, so tall and slim and pretty, sneering at her as her friends pointedly said she looked so good next to Cheol, so much better than Mi-ae. “I know I’m not tall like Seonyeong! I know I’m not—I know I don’t look good next to you! But even if everyone else says it, you’re supposed to…you should…why don’t you…” Mi-ae’s words tasted bitter on her tongue. Just this morning she’d gone into a convenience store on the way to school and the cashier had asked her which elementary school she went to. The memory was making her go all hot and cold at once.
Why couldn’t she like him? Why couldn’t she just be next to him? Why couldn’t they leave her alone? Why couldn’t Cheol just understand—
“Who says that?”
“What?” Mi-ae startled.
“Who said that? Who was it?” Cheol pushed off of the door. Mi-ae could practically see smoke and wings unfurling behind him. “Who said you look bad next to me? Was it Shim Changhyeon? The guy with the mole on his face?” He was gearing up to go full Lucifer-mode
“What? No!” Ugghh, Mi-ae shouldn’t have brought it up! She knew how he gets, and besides, none of that hurt so much as Cheol’s attitude through this whole thing. He was the problem!
“Tell me!” he said. “What did he say to you?”
“N-Nothing! That’s not important! Anyways, you’re the one that’s so mad at the thought that I might like you!” There, getting them back on topic.
“What did he say?” he demanded. “What did he say to you?”
Oh my god.
The emotional battering started catching up to her. Mi-ae felt it, like a giant wave in a movie, cresting, surging.
“He didn’t say anything! He didn’t have to!” Mi-ae stomped her foot with sheer frustration and overwhelm. She was shaking. “They don’t have to! Because you—you—you—you jeeeerk!”
The wave crashed down. The hot tears and the lashing hurt Mi-ae had been repressing burst out of her. She squeezed her eyes shut against the burning tears and sobbed, unable to take it any more. She was strong, she was determined, she never backed down. But she was hurting.
Mi-ae saw Cheol feebly reaching out to her through the dim haze of her tears. “H-hey—” She pushed his hand away. This was his fault.
No it wasn’t. But she couldn’t do this right now, couldn’t take his half-hearted comfort when what she’d said had been true .
“Mi-ae, stop crying! Please, why are you—”
“What? What d-don’t you uh-uh-understand!” Ugh, he was so dumb and so precious, and she liked him so much , and it hurt , it hurt . “What is wrong with you, Kim Cheol? Y-y-you chased me through the wh-whole school like that because you were mad that I might like you? Is it that t-terrible?”
“No, I didn’t–that’s not why—!”
She couldn’t stop crying. “Yeah, I kn-know someone prettier than me confessed to you already and you dumped her! Maybe it’s happened before, more than once!” He was tall and handsome, and sure, people found him intimidating, but if they could get over that, why wouldn’t he get confessions? But had he chased them through the entire school like the damn terminator? “B-but do you know how humiliating—? Do you know how it feel—”
Mi-ae’s eyes were scrunched shut from sobbing, so Cheol’s hands grabbing her by the face came as a giant shock. She startled in wordless, thoughtless surprise, enough to cut through the crying and shock her into silence.
“Listen to me! Mi-ae, I’m not mad that you like me! I’m mad that you kissed me and ran away!”
Mi-ae felt like her eyes were practically bugging out of her face. Her cheeks were squished, her face was wet, and Cheol was looking at her with this intense attention that made the hair on the back of her arms stand up.
“Why are you worried about what other people are saying? Aren’t you Hwang Mi-ae?” She scrunched her eyes shut as he gave her a very gentle little shake. His thumbs traced her cheeks and under her eyes, wiping the tears away. It felt nice. “Since when did you care about stuff like that?”
Mi-ae sniffled, opening her eyes again as Cheol kept gently stroking her cheeks.
“And since when have you cared whether I’m angry or not? That’s never stopped you from charging on ahead before. Up until now, haven’t you done everything that you want? Then keep doing that, what’s the problem?”
Mi-ae looked up at him in awe. His eyes were practically shimmering. His expression was intense, but affectionate. More direct than she could ever remember it being.
You can—” he cleared his throat. A red flush was spreading across his cheeks, to his ears “You can kiss me, if you want.”
!!!!!!
What? What???
“Just–just don’t run away afterwards! Don’t run off and hide behind that guy like I’m going to hit you or something!”
Mi-ae hiccoughed out of sheer surprise. She could kiss him? He was looking her square in the eye and telling her she could kiss him again? Did he–did he want her to kiss him again?
“Anyway, I–I don’t mind whatever you do, as long as you don’t run off and avoid me! As long as it’s you, then everything is fine! It’s good! I like everything about you!”
He likes…everything? Everything. It was funny, Mi-ae hadn’t realized how big and thick the shell around her heart she built was until Cheol shattered it with a few words.
Everything .
Mi-ae wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t want to waste her time and energy on the people who tried to bully her. And it wasn’t like she was some beaten-down victim. It was like Cheol said, she was Hwang Mi-ae , and when she got hit she punched back.
But here was this…this beautiful boy. This precious, precious boy who’d come to her neighborhood just like she’d wished he could, who’d stood up for her, who’d gone to bat for her in a million tiny ways. And he liked everything about her. Everything she did.
As she stared up at him she felt an exhilarating rush not unlike the one that had punched through her when he’d saved her (and Honggyu and Johan) from those bullies.
He’d been so freaking cool, he’d punched the machine so hard it broke, and he’d been so big and strong and right on time her worries had scattered like those high schoolers.
And here he was again, doing just the right thing at just the right time. Her black knight.
“Everything?” she whispered, her heart going thump thump thump thump in her chest.
“Yes!”
“I can like you?” she felt dizzy.
“Yes!”
Wait. Everything. He liked everything she did. So did that mean…? He liked…?
[Thump]
“…I can kiss you?” The closet was dim, darker than it had been at night yesterday on the street. There was no moonlight, no streetlight halo. But the atmosphere was there. The gravity she’d felt was there, pulling, tugging.
“Yes!” Cheol’s voice cracked a bit, and the intense expression on his face gained a hint of self-consciousness.
Mi-ae’s hands caught his wrists before he could even think about letting her go.
“…Then I can kiss you right now?” she breathed. Her heart was going this fast.
He nodded.
Yes! Yes!
Mi-ae pushed onto her toes. One of her hands drifted to his chest, to feel if his heartbeat matched hers. Her eyes started to flutter closed.
Wait, he wasn’t getting any closer.
“…Cheol-ah?”
“Yeah?” His voice was low, soft. Maybe a bit breathless.
“…You have to lean down.”
A beat. Oh, now he was getting closer, and pressing a warm palm to her back, and gently tipping her face. Mi-ae’s eyes shut on instinct right before impact, right before the fluttering rush coursing through her crescendoed at the brush of his lips on hers.
Kissing Cheol was warm.
There wasn’t another way to describe it. He let off warmth like a furnace, and when she was this close to his big body the heat just radiated off of him. Given how her hair and clothes and skin were soaked through, it felt so nice.
He was all big, gentle hands, long arms, long legs. A broad chest she could burrow into, solid against her palm. Soft, reverent touches.
Everything.
Hot lips. Like, really hot. Like being chilled in the winter and coming home, curling under an electric blanket, and sipping on some steaming tea until her bones were warm through.
Goosebumps erupted all over Mi-ae’s arms and shoulders, and she fought a shiver as the thrill ran through her. She’d thought she’d known what kissing him would be like—she’d done it twice before now for goodness’ sake—but she had been wrong. She hadn’t expected this—how lovely being cradled like this felt, how thrilling and new trying to match the movement of his lips would be. How her perceptions would be scattered over a dozen tiny points, mostly on her mouth, but also absorbing the way his wet hair brushed against her skin, the tangle of his broad fingers at the nape of her neck.
God, she liked this. She liked him . She liked everything about him.
Everything .
Blindly she traced the shape of his scar, feeling the slight bump under her thumb. Her lungs burned a bit as she tried to prolong the kiss and figure out how to breathe through her nose and kiss at the same time so she wouldn’t have to come up for air.
It didn’t work. She pulled back with a very slight gasp, feeling as though her body was filled up with warm, sparkling cider.
Cheol was looking at her with those velvet-dark eyes. She let herself breathe a bit, feeling like she was falling into him, flushed and tingling. “Cheol-ah?” she whispered, not sure what she was asking. Maybe she just wanted to hear the soft tone in his voice again.
Everything .
She’d kissed him three times now. And she wanted three more, and then three more—until she lost count. Until she was completely silly with it. And he said she could.
She blinked dreamily up at him, considering pulling him down and starting again. Then she realized he was turning a shade of red she’d never seen on him before.
“I…um…”
A grin started to tug at the corners of Mi-ae’s mouth, unbidden.
Then she face-planted into the center of his chest, his hand pressing her there. Well, she had been thinking about kissing him, but not on the sternum. He hugged her to him, gentle, but with tension writ large in every line of his body.
Thump thump thump thump
Was that her heartbeat? No…no, it was his .
“I…um…I mean—”
Everything .
Mi-ae turned her head, squishing her cheek against the heartbeat she felt there. She was only a short distance runner, but she felt right then like she could sprint from there to the countryside and back if she had to. She nuzzled into him and hugged him back, having to do something to relieve the energy that was coursing through her.
“What are you doing ??” Cheol got all squirmy in her arms. God, he was such a kid. And they said she was bad.
“You like me~.” Everything . “You like me—”
“N-no, I—”
Mi-ae wasn’t letting him wriggle out of this one, shyness or no. No take-backs. She looked up at him, unable to suppress the grin that split her face. “No? You don’t? Are you sure?”
“I—it was—” Cheol’s face disappeared behind his hands. Oh god, it was going to be so fun to tease him.
Mi-ae let him steam for a moment, then gently leaned back into him, pressing her face to his heartbeat. “I like you too.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I like you Cheol-ah. Everything about you. From the beginning.”
She resisted the urge to kiss where his heartbeat pulsed (if she didn’t reign in the kiss-monster impulse threatening to take over she was never beating the pervert allegations).
A weight settled on her head. Cheol was stroking her hair. Another weird thing about her he seemed to like. “I…I like you too, Hwang Mi-ae.”
Mi-ae sighed out a contented breath. This was so nice, being held and cherished and accepted like this. Thank you, airplanes. Thank you, mountain spirit.
Because that’s what she’d wished for at the mountain shine in the countryside, right? That Cheol would like her back. And he did. Everything about her.
“We should…um…we should probably see if we can head back.” Cheol murmured.
Ugh, they probably should , but Mi-ae didn’t want to break this little perfect bubble of affectionate stillness they were in.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly. And because she couldn’t resist, she squeezed him around the waist once more, feeling soft muscle and sinew against her arms.
She pulled back. Cheol was peeking through the open door, checking if the coast was clear. Mi-ae didn’t hear any sounds from the students who’d rushed in there earlier. She regarded the angle of his eyebrows, the slight furrow between them she knew he made unconsciously.
“…So, does this mean we’re dat—” she started.
“Shhhh!” Cheol clapped a big, warm hand over her mouth. She resisted the urge to lick his palm—again, she didn’t feel like getting any pervert allegations today, not after all that.
Mi-ae smiled against his hand, looking up at him.
“…” Mi-ae definitely had him on the ropes.
“Hmm?” Cheol snatched his hand away as she hummed the inquisitive noise against his fingers.
“Um—” Mi-ae could practically see him squirming. He shut his eyes and looked down in that way he had when he was overwhelmed. He looked like he could shoot steam from his ears. “…yeah, sure. We’re dating.”
After all that Mi-ae wasn’t really in doubt of his answer, but it still hit her like a freight train. I win!
“Yay!” Mi-ae couldn’t resist a twirl, the energy inside her bubbling up again. She could punch through a wall she was so pumped.
She grabbed his arm again, suddenly wanting to feel how solid he was against her. How real this moment was.
“…You’re so childish…” Cheol said, sounding only a little peevish.
“Yeah, but you like me~” Mi-ae squished her cheek against his arm. “You’re my boyfri— ”
He covered her mouth with his hand again. Tee-hee .
He was checking again whether the coast was clear. Come on, it’s not like anyone had teleported in since the last time he checked. Still, Mi-ae let him slip his arm out of her hold.
“Okay, come on. And we shouldn’t…not at school…” Cheol scratched the back of his head.
Ugh, fine . It’s not like she wanted the rest of the class gawking at their relationship. Well, not any more than they already did.
“Okay.” But… “Can I hold your hand at the academy, then? That should be alright, right?” Oh Honggyu would just blow his top off. And for some reason Mi-ae got the feeling that Jung-Wook would be pleased. And she was sure Yonghui would congratulate her. That is, if she ever came back to the academy.
“What? No!” Cheol sounded mortified. “What is with you? You can’t just do that stuff in front of people!”
How unfair was it that he called her immature?
“It’s holding hands .”
“Oh, like that’s all you’d do! You kissed me in the middle of the street—”
That wasn’t fighting fair!
“That wasn’t my fault!” Mi-ae flushed scarlet and batted him on the arm. “If you didn’t want to get kissed, you shouldn’t have taken your shirt off and leaned into me and touched my lips and stuff! It wasn’t my fault! It was irresistible, like, like gravity!”
“Oh? I thought it was just a joke . I thought you were playing around . But I was just irresistible , huh?” How could someone piss her off and make her want to kiss him again at the same time?
“ It was irresistible, it was! Like, the whole atmosphere…with the moonlight and your…eyes…” His marvelous, marvelous eyes. Even her parents liked them. “It was the mood !”
“Uh-huh.” Cheol glanced away. She couldn’t quite see his expression from her angle, but his cheek bunched, like he was doing one of his little smirks. “…it looks like it’s stopped raining,” he said, easing open the glass door. “We should head back.”
“Okay.”
The sticky, wet heat hit them both as they emerged into the parking lot. Mi-ae walked beside him, weaving around puddles as the sun started dappling the pavement. A smug little grin painted itself across her face.
She was the first of her friends to kiss a boy, and get a boyfriend. And he wasn’t just some boy, he was Cheol! Her Cheol, who “tons” of girls were interested in according to that headband girl whose name Mi-ae couldn’t be bothered to remember. Heh.
Of course, she wasn’t interested in him because he was popular. She’d liked him way before that. Didn’t hurt her pride that he was, though.
He was her Cheol, who liked everything about her.
She glanced down at his hand and resisted the urge to grab it and swing it between them.
Mi-ae jumped over a puddle. Hmm. Before…all this, really her only frame of reference for romance were the comics she and her friends rented. It’s not like she had any older girlfriends or a college-age sister like Cheol did. She tipped her head and pondered how faithful a representation the comics had been.
Well…she supposed they didn’t do a bad job showing the…flutteriness of it all. With the flowers and sparkles and such.
But they were missing the tactile dimension of the whole thing. Nothing really captured how nice it had felt to be held, or the reassuring solidity of being hugged to his chest. Or the contrast between the touch of warm skin and cold water drops. Or how damn soft his lips were.
Everything .
Mi-ae felt like she was melting as the memory, a goofy grin plastered over her face. She lifted her hand to her mouth, touching her lips. Did hers feel as soft as his? Was she misremembering?
She got the sudden, irrepressible urge to check her memory.
“Cheol-ah, lean down.”
“What? Why?” Cheol did, his face innocent, his sharp eyes betraying only curiosity.
“Because I want to kiss you again!” He’d leaned down far enough to be in her striking range, if she pulled him the last couple inches. Mi-ae rose on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.
Yep, just as soft as she had remembered. Softer, even.
Cheol had that adorable bewildered look on his face, his eyebrows crinkling. God, his eyes were so pretty.
“It was the mood again~” she lied, flushing and feeling a giggle bubble up. She felt the slight bump of his scar under her thumb. It was so cute. He was so cute. “…And because I like you,” she murmured, the intensity of his dark eyes suddenly making her feel a bit shy.
And if he didn’t stop looking at her like that she was going to kiss him again . Why was this guy so attractive? How??
Every impure thought Mi-ae had rushed out her ears as she heard another voice.
“Ah.”
No. It couldn’t be.
She spun, hiding her hands behind her back on instinct.
It waaaaas!
Seo Jisu, that weirdo , was staring directly at them. “…Seriously, what did you do to Lucifer??” He yawned.
Mi-ae stood stock-still, a deer caught in the headlights.
If Jisu said anything about this, she was really going to murder him this time.