Chapter Text
It’s bright out and you squint against the sun as you cross the quad. You didn’t sleep much the night before; behind on assignments, anxious about...everything. You run your hand through your hair and adjust the strap of your backpack on your shoulder, picking up the pace as you near the food court. You’re already late for your study session with Penny.
“Hey!” You don’t register the voice until it says your name. Twice. You whirl around to find the source and nearly duck for cover when you see who it is.
Laundry Fairy Jeon Jeongguk. But not...in the laundromat.
He’s standing at a shaded table to one side of the food court with the same group of guys that had come in the other night. All seven of them are staring at you, Jeongguk like he’s never been more excited to see someone in his life.
You consider hiding. You are very unprepared to see him out and about. You knew, of course, that he went to this school, but you didn’t have the mental capacity to always be on the lookout for him, so you ignored that fact. You couldn’t ignore it now that he was standing three yards from you and waving.
He gets up from the table and jogs over. He’s even more stunning in the light of day, the sun making his hair and skin glow, his smile electric.
Once he’s in front of you, your heart rate slows. When he’s standing directly in front of you, you can pretend you’re still in the laundromat, in your safe space. You can pretend that six of his friends aren’t watching from a table far off and that Penny isn’t waiting for you inside. When he stands this close you can focus on the warm, happy feeling you get when he’s near, on the memories you’d created those last few nights you’d seen him. When he’s standing this close, it’s just you two.
“Hey,” he says again, beaming at you.
“Uh, hi,” you smile sheepishly, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.
“On your way to class?”
“Oh,” you shake your head, “No, just left actually, I’m done for the day.”
“Really?” His eyes are shining down at you and your heart does some sort of floppy thing in your chest, “Going to do some laundry?” he jokes.
You laugh, awkwardly you think, but he doesn’t seem to notice, “Maybe.”
“Hey, who’s this?”
Your intimate little bubble pops as a boy with brown hair and tan skin walks up to you both. Jeongguk opens his mouth to say something, and a boy with bright orange hair peeks his head out from behind him and squints at you, too.
“ Hyungs ,” Jeongguk whines, seeing your face flush at the sudden attention.
“Oh!” the one with the orange hair exclaims, standing up straight, “You’re the Laundry Fairy!” He grabs ahold of your wrists and drags you over to the table, pointing at you while the others turn from whatever they were doing to stare, “The Laundry Fairy!” he says again.
“ Hyung !” Jeongguk hisses, following close behind you both.
The repetition of that nickname, so familiar to you, slices through your embarrassment. You spin to find Jeongguk, your eyes widening at him, “The what?”
He opens his mouth to say something but one of the others interrupts him. “I thought she would be smaller,” one of them says, “Y’know, like a fairy?” He laughs loudly at this own joke, only a couple of the others laughing along with him.
Jeongguk sighs, embarrassment painted on his face like a mask. In a monotone voice, Jeongguk introduces you to them, “These are my hyungs.” He doesn’t seem too happy about it at the moment. You learn that Jimin was the one who pulled you over here, and Taehyung was the one who had interrupted you before. Jin had made the lame joke. Yoongi was the one with mint hair, and Namjoon the (newly) pink hair, and Hobi the one with the long face.
Despite your embarrassment and their constant messing around, you could tell they really cared about Jeongguk. You watch them all for a moment, laughing softly at their jokes, feeling welcomed and less awkward by the second, when your phone buzzes in your pocket. A text from Penny.
When you look up, Jeongguk’s eyes are already on you. He’s stopped paying attention to the arm wrestling contest he’s entered with Jin (who, even with Jeongguk distracted, can’t manage to bring his arm down). You frown apologetically and say, “I’m late for a study session.”
“Oh,” Jeongguk says, bringing his hand down to win the arm wrestling match easily and standing up. He looks disappointed.
You tuck your hair behind your ear, dawdling because you don’t want to go. With your pulse racing, you look up at him and say, “Want to walk me inside?”
“Yes,” he grins, his eyes shining like stars in the galaxy of his face. He doesn’t look away from you when he adds, “I’ll be right back,” but the boys seem to understand that he’s talking to them.
You duck your head to hide your face, to hide the pleased smile now gracing your features. You. Are. Smitten.
“Who are you studying with?” Jeongguk wonders as you step away from his friends and into the throng of students rushing from place to place.
“My best friend,” you say, “Penny. We have a biology test next week.”
“Biology? I thought you were studying classics?” He holds the door open so that you can step through it, a rush of cold air conditioning hitting your face.
You’re surprised at his memory and when you look up at him he’s serious. You’re once again taken by how genuinely he seems to care. You nod, “I am. But this class fulfills my second required science credit.”
“Oh,” Jeongguk nods, thinking for a moment before asking, “Do you like it?”
You shrug, adjusting the strap of your bag and letting your eyes drift over the crowd of students to try and spot the dark mess of Penny’s hair. “Yeah. I find it interesting.” You make a slight turn as you spot her, sitting hunched over her phone at a table with a plate of fries already waiting, “That’s her.”
“Oh,” Jeongguk says, suddenly nervous as you get closer to the table, “I, um…”
You stop in your tracks to look at him, raising your eyebrows and tilting your head. He runs a hand through his hair and watches the ground. “What is it?”
“I just thought that maybe,” he takes a deep breath, “y’know, instead of accidentally running into each other at the laundromat, we could…”
You smile because you’ve figured out where this is heading and your heart is beating so fast it might burst. “ Purposefully run into each other there?” you grin.
Jeongguk looks up at you with just a hint of a smile, a splash of relief in his expression, “Maybe,” he chuckles, “Or a movie...or something. I just...I like you.”
You’re not sure how that statement can make you feel both nervous and calm at the time, but it does. Your hands are shaky and sweaty, but the matter-of-factness with which he says it puts you at ease. It makes you look him straight in the eye and say it back. “I like you.”
The smile he gives you is like the sun. All teeth and a scrunched up nose, crinkled eyes. Utter happiness if you’d ever seen it. It makes your chest feel light and your mind a bit woozy. It makes you want to hold his hand and trace patterns onto his skin and kiss him until you’re delirious.
Instead, you exchange numbers. And he kisses your cheek before running out of the cafeteria in complete bliss. You don’t even make it to the table with Penny before he’s sent you a text, something about how he actually does need to do laundry and does that count as a first date? And the word date makes you feel fluttery and ecstatic, like there’s electricity at the ends of your fingertips.
You tell him that of course it counts as a first date, as long as you both get dinner and he plays some music for you. And then, despite yourself, you save him in your phone as: Laundry Fairy Jeon Jeongguk . With a heart, of course.