Archive of Our Own ^beta

And the coolness of your smile is

stirringofbirds between my arms;but

i should rather than anything

have(almost when hugeness will shut

quietly)almost,

your kiss

— e. e cummings, ‘i have found what you are like’.

---

In the dappled sunlight that softly penetrates the blurry glass windows, in the musty autumn smell of old yellowing books, in the quiet hum of turning pages and typed academic papers, Hoseok realises he loves it here.

It’s just a library, really. Nothing too special, all things considered. But Hoseok takes it in like the lull of a crisp Sunday morning, full of endless rejuvenating possibilities. Hoseok has always been an optimistic soul, has always immersed himself into new situations and new surroundings with complete abandon. And this isn’t anything different. He busies himself exploring the aisles that read ‘Modern History’ in faded golden lettering - it’s part and parcel of this new job, but also infinitely exciting. He likes this, exploring new things, finding new ways and reasons to learn and to teach.

He has a class to teach right after this, and wonders whether he should pick something up from one of the shelves, just to add a little extra to the lecture. He bypasses the American and Russian History sections, moves towards South East Asia, hunching his shoulders a little to inspect a volume on the Meiji era. It’s a good book, just what he would need to entice a bunch of rowdy freshmen into paying attention to what he’s saying, and he starts combing through it.

He barely makes it past the table of contents when a stream of animated (and oddly creative) swearing interrupts the stillness of the air.

Hoseok startles. The library isn’t too crowded at so early an hour (it’s part of the reason why he chose this particular time to do his exploring), and the prospect of another human presence - one that is disgruntled enough to swear so vehemently - admittedly makes him curious. He takes a few steps back and tries to trace the source of the noise.

But he only has to make it past the third shelf on his right when he sees her.

She looks tiny among the large stacks of books that surround her, her brown pencil skirt hiking up just a little as she bounces on her feet, trying to reach for the top shelf. Her long black hair is tied back in a ponytail, and her shirt spills along her neck just the slightest bit to expose an attractive set of collarbones.

She’s so pretty , jumping up and down with flailing arms to aim for a thick hardbound book that continues to evade her grasp, still swearing under her breath and muttering complaints about how students never put the books back in the right sections and how she hates reshelving them. Hoseok is so endeared by the sight, he can’t help but pause and stare in unmitigated awe.

But as her fifth consecutive attempt to reach the top shelf falls flat, Hoseok’s inner gentleman kicks in.

“Let me get that for you,” he says as he inches closer, winding his way past the stacks beside her. “Here,” he has to briefly elevate himself on his toes, but he still succeeds in grabbing the somewhat dusty hardbound book from the shelf, and promptly hands it to her. “That should do it.”

She immediately freezes, posture so preternaturally still it almost worries Hoseok. All she does for a whole minute is gape at the book in her hand like it has personally wronged her, like it might somehow come to life and swallow her whole. But in the flash of a minute the shock dissolves into annoyance, and she turns to face him with a fierceness that gives him whiplash.

Her eyes - a gorgeous shade of dark-brown - are now narrowed into slits, and her soft thin lips are defiantly pursed. But she’s so much prettier up close, Hoseok has trouble concentrating on anything else.

(Get a grip, Hoseok)

“I could have done that on my own, thank you very much,” she says, curt and full of chagrin, and Hoseok is taken aback by the disdain she suddenly radiates.

He’s not sure what he’s done to warrant this. Wasn’t it normal to fetch a book for someone? Didn’t that count as good manners? Or had she somehow noticed his internal breakdown over her gorgeousness and decided she found it uncomfortable?

Fuck.

“I was just trying to help!” he reassures hastily, nearly cringing at how pathetic it sounds. Way to go, Hoseok.

“I didn’t mean to overstep,” he adds with a flustered wave.

She snorts, somehow looking more hostile than she did before but still so, so pretty (get a fucking grip) . Hoseok is caught somewhere between confusion and desire, feeling sorely inept to deal with the situation at hand - which is a rare occurrence, considering how much of a stellar conversationalist he usually is.

“Whatever,” she says, turning all her attention back to the book in her hand. She flips through the first few pages, lets out another muttered curse, and bends down to tuck it into the shelf below. When she realises Hoseok is still staring, all wide-eyed and confused, she scowls at him again.

“Are you just going to stand there like an idiot or do you need anything from me?”

“No, I just -”

“You look too old to be a student.” she observes bluntly, cutting off his train of thought. Her brows furrow with what looks like a mix of suspicion and wariness. “Are you staff? Or are you one of those hipster PhD scholars who start their degrees late and call it ‘soul-searching’?”

Hoseok goes beet red, thrown for a loop. “I’m not old!” he argues weakly, “I’m only 27!”

She simply rolls her eyes and moves on to perusing another book.

“But you’re right about the first part,” he continues, his mouth running away from him before he can stop. He doesn’t know why he's suddenly possessed by this need to capture her attention, to establish to her that he’s cool and serious and very much not a soul-searching hipster. Even though all she’s done so far is be biazarrely rude to him, he wants - with an earnestness that surprises himself - to gain her approval.

“I’m new. Assistant Professor, History department.” he adds after a pause, trying to sound more put-together, “I just got my tenure.”

Unfortunately, that piece of information seems to have the complete opposite effect. Not only does she look distinctly not impressed, but stiffens once again (though the change in posture is nearly imperceptible this time).  Her eyes lose a bit of their sharpness, and the way she adjusts her skirt betrays a hesitation that wasn’t there before. Hoseok is both puzzled and intrigued.

She examines him for an agonising minute, her now-guarded gaze sweeping over every little detail of Hoseok’s outward appearance like assessing a potential threat. But then she slowly turns back to the shelves. Hoseok itches to know what she concluded from her assessment, but of course, she’s far from forthcoming with her observations.

“Congrats on the new job then,” she says instead - tone utterly bereft of any feeling - before proceeding to ignore him completely.

---

“Heard the new guy is quite cute,” Taehyung says as he settles into the chair opposite Yoonji.

“Stupid, more like,” Yoonji scoffs between spoonfuls of bibimbap.

Taehyung raises a curious eyebrow, “So you’ve met him?”

The off-campus cafe Yoonji and Taehyung frequent during their lunch hour - the one where Taehyung’s boyfriend Jungkook works four shifts a week - is more crowded than usual. The din of muffled conversation and clattering cutlery around them helps Yoonji stall, helps her ponder the most suitable way to answer her best friend’s question without giving away too much of her brief encounter with said new guy.

Hoseok (as she’d later found out was his name) had been too baffling. Almost infuriating, in the way he’d come in with that awful heart-shaped smile and an assumption that he was in any way being nice.

“He dropped by the library the other day,” she eventually deadpans. “You had the afternoon shift, so I was the only one working the stacks.”

Taehyung lets out an exaggerated gasp, “I can't believe you didn't tell me earlier! I missed my chance to check him out!”

“Didn't miss out on much,” she grunts, “He was bloody annoying.”

Yoonji fights to keep any lingering emotion out of her voice. Taehyung doesn’t need to know that Hoseok’s so-called niceness had kept Yoonji up for two whole nights. Taehyung doesn't need to know how genuinely shocked Yoonji had been that day by his unexpected burst of kindness, how wary she’d been of his intentions, how badly she’d tried to mask it all behind her usual veneer of sarcasm and hostility.

But when it comes to Yoonji, Taehyung doesn't miss much. He has this uncanny ability to always gauge what she’s thinking. It's terribly inconvenient.

“Is that so?” he replies with a knowing smile, “That's not what half the faculty seems to think. Everyone is quite charmed by this Jung Hoseok.”

Of course . It’s always the charming ones, isn’t it?

“What an asshole,” Yoonji mutters under her breath.

It makes Taehyung chuckle. “Woah, what did he do to you that’s got your knickers in such a twist?”

It seems like such an innocent question, and perhaps it would be, if Yoonji were anyone else. It would be, if Yoonji weren’t possibly the most hated person on campus (second only to that one political science major who keeps vandalising the dean’s office with communist graffiti).

Truth is, people do a lot of things to Yoonji. Some openly - like keying her car with an angry word, like specifically destroying the library books she issues, like attaching offensive epithets to her name only to spit them at her wherever she goes - and some not so openly, like denying her access to the ladies’ room, like denying her a promotion two semesters in a row without any explanation (despite her hard work), like constantly glaring at her like she might be evil incarnate.

Yoonji has made her peace with it for most part. When it comes from predictable, familiar sources, Yoonji can channel all her unflinching roughness and antagonistic energy into ignoring them. She can pretend to not care, can flash them a middle finger and walk away. But it stings when someone new comes along, entices her into wanting to trust them, and turns out like everyone else. She has learnt not to want to trust, especially not new faculty members who waltz in thinking they can be nice to her totally out of the blue, unprovoked and unasked for.

“He tried to help me fetch a book from a shelf,” Yoonji replies irritably.

Taehyung (mercifully) does not react, only fixes her with this tender, sympathetic gaze that always makes her feel awfully self-conscious. “How absolutely horrible of him,” he says, teasing, but without bite or judgement.

“He probably doesn't know about me yet,” Yoonji says quietly, suddenly a lot more serious. She briefly checks their surroundings to make sure no one else is listening, and is relieved when she sees only Jungkook looking their way - but he’s too occupied behind the counter, frantically making five cups of coffee at the same time (it really is an unnaturally busy day) to pay as much attention to Yoonji and Taehyung.

“I mean, he could have guessed from my voice,” Yoonji keeps her eyes downcast, staring blankly at her bowl of food, “But he didn't seem to react any differently when I spoke. I bet he doesn’t know. I bet the staff gossip hasn’t reached him.”

The easy banter in Taehyung’s demeanour softens. There’s that sympathetic look again, the one that makes her feel far too exposed. “Noona,” he breathes out, “You know what Namjoon hyung would say, right?”

“No,” Yoonji tries to sound nonchalant and dismissive, but her voice shakes just a little.

“He’d say that maybe, just maybe , letting someone help you once in a while isn’t such a bad thing.”

Yoonji lets out a sigh, but it’s bitter and a tiny bit morose. She still can’t meet Taehyung’s gaze, but can feel him squeezing her left hand, his fingers stroking it in calming circles. Sometimes, being friends with Taehyung is both comforting and terrible.

“Namjoon is a smug know-it-all.” She retorts after a few minutes, stuffing another helping of bibimbap into her mouth. “I never take his advice seriously.”

They both know it’s a blatant lie, but Taehyung smiles anyway.

---

True to her statement, Yoonji determinedly ignores Namjoon’s (and by extension, Taehyung’s) advice, and proceeds to hate Jung Hoseok with an indomitable passion.

The guy bounces into the library almost every alternate day, wearing a cheerfulness on his sleeve that never fails to disgust Yoonji. It’s almost like he actually enjoys his time in this place, the fucking moron. He’s probably one of those popular professors, the type students can’t help but fawn over because of how approachable or friendly or cool he is. She’s already heard the other librarians gossip and titter about him, sighing with dreamy eyes about his “dashing good looks”, his “brilliant command over his discipline”, and of course, his extreme “niceness”.

Jung Hoseok seems to be universally revered as the nicest guy on the planet. It makes Yoonji want to gag.

“You’re Yoonji, right?” He walks up to her two days after their initial encounter, shuffling awkwardly on his feet. “About the other day, I-”

“Whatever.” she cuts him off, not wanting to go down that path. “Just tell me if you need anything and go.”

Hoseok blinks at her, all befuddled and spluttery, but (frustratingly) does not take her advice. “I, uh, I was just wondering whether you and me could grab a coffee-”

“I meant,” she interrupts him before he finishes that potentially nightmarish sentence, “tell me if you need help with anything library-related. Can’t help you with anything else, sorry. Not in my job description.”

Yoonji continues to glower at him, hoping it’s enough to scare him away. It isn’t.

He stands there staring at her like a kicked puppy, and Yoonji goes back to focusing a little too hard on logging numbers into her computer screen, willing her ears not to heat up at the sight. She has to physically restrain herself from not feeling like a terrible person for being so mean to Hoseok. It’s self-preservation, she keeps reminding herself.

Hoseok opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it back again. He repeats this multiple times until he finally takes the hint from how pointedly Yoonji is ignoring him, and walks away.

He comes back the next day though, the infuriating moron.

But fortunately for Yoonji, he stops trying to make small talk, even if that doesn’t keep him from approaching her at every spare interval.

Hoseok asks Yoonji the most obvious of questions - inquires after forms that are easily available on the library’s website, asks her the whereabouts of books that are literally two feet away from him, piles her with countless silly doubts about academic journals and research materials and about which section of the library contains what. After more than two weeks of enduring this, Yoonji feels the increasing need to dump scalding hot coffee (preferably the same coffee he’d offered her) straight down his meticulously starched shirt.

Either Hoseok’s intelligence has been vastly overstated by both the student and staff population and he has zero clue how to navigate the Dewey Decimal System (or to use google); or , he’s doing this on purpose, always seeking Yoonji out and baiting her until she fucking combusts.

She hates him. She hates him so much.

---

The thing with Yoonji’s friends, she reflects disparagingly, is that they’re all absurdly perceptive when it comes to her.

While Taehyung can pretty much read her like an open book ( but how? they’ve only known each other three years! ) Namjoon can sense every little nervous tic, every tiny shift in her body language. It’s extremely frustrating.

When Yoonji walks in nearly thirty minutes late into the bar, hurriedly shrugs off her coat, and settles into their usual stall, Namjoon eyes her with an odd mix of concern and curiosity. “Everything alright?” he asks, in that overtly calm voice of his. One that betrays a wisdom far beyond his years.

Yoonji shrugs in faux nonchalance. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

He’s quiet for minute, possibly picking out which words to use and which to avoid (Namjoon has an annoying habit of doing this, of always coming up with the rightest, most appropriate thing to say). “For one,” he says, tone perfectly measured. “It’s a Friday, and you get off work early on Fridays, yet you’re late. For another, you seem to be frowning more than usual.”

Damn Namjoon and his damned unimpeachable logic.

Yoonji has no choice but to sigh loudly and slump further into the dirty leather couch. There’s something about Namjoon that never lets her keep her guard up for too long. “It’s that bloody Jung Hoseok,” she groans, “He’s ruining my life.”

Namjoon doesn’t say anything, merely raises an eyebrow and beckons her to continue. And so Yoonji does.

“So I’m about to close up the library, right,” she rants, “and I’m so relieved that I get to leave that hellhole early and come get drunk with you, but right then , who else but Jung fucking Hoseok comes along and tells me he has to return a book. I tell him to come back on Monday, but no, no!   He insists on returning it today and only today, because by Monday, he’ll have to pay a late fee! And that cheap-ass loser refuses to pay even 500 won for a library book which he’s returning at the very last minute, where the delay is entirely his fault! So guess what? He makes me reopen the library, log the book back in and then...he tries to make conversation?  He tries to ask me what my plans for the weekend are when I’ve specifically told him I won’t entertain personal questions- wait, why the fuck are you laughing?”

Namjoon is pretty much doubled up over their table, glass of vodka completely forgotten as his body shakes with hysterical laughter. Yoonji glares at him with the force of a thousand suns.

“Oh my god Yoonji,” he breathes out when he finally comes to, “Have you considered the possibility that he might like you? ”

Yoonji’s face heats up with a mixture of embarrassment and mild horror, her brain nearly coming to a halt. “What,” she counters.

Namjoon gives her a brief look of trepidation, like he thinks she’s being deliberately obtuse. “You say that he always comes to the library during your shifts right? And he always tries to talk to you? Maybe he likes you..in a non-platonic-”

“Stop it.” It comes out strained, discordant. “You don’t know anything!  And stop laughing, this is not fucking funny!”

But Namjoon, the usually calm and collected, wise and philosophical Namjoon, chooses to forgo all his composure, ignores Yoonji’s somewhat pained expression and does the exact opposite. He falls back into maniacal laughter.

“Oh, Yoonji,” he says again, eyes heavy with the buzz of alcohol and amusement, “You have a potential suitor, it’s so cute.”

---

Like.

The word grates on Yoonji, makes her insides churn. It’s a strange euphemism, an uncomfortable in-between space that’s always so difficult to navigate.

Yoonji doesn’t like people (at least not in that sense), and people don’t like Yoonji.

She tried it a couple of times before she started living and presenting as Yoonji on an everyday basis - back in college, when she hid her growing hair under large beanies and was always on edge, far too anxious about anyone finding out about her. Then, she was pretending to be a gay man, was trying to experiment and explore what it’s like to have someone kiss her and touch her in her most intimate places. Perhaps it was the wrongness of the time, or the wrongness of her partners, or her heightened awareness of the wrongness of her body; sooner or later, things always went south. None of them stuck around. None of them really understood.

She tried it later too, after she graduated college and finally stepped into the real world. After she finally convinced herself to begin transitioning, burning all the ‘masculine’ hoodies and beanies in her closet; after she (somewhat) stopped giving a fuck. But there was still that overwhelming sense of wrongness. An acute awareness of how she was never good enough.

It was different with Namjoon though.

During her first week as a librarian, she’d seen him a few times around campus, reading a book or two about Marxist Theory or Feminist Metaphysics. She’d heard about him too - the Philosophy professor with a reputation for engaging with radically progressive ideas. A bit of a rebel, but also a bit of a loner.

Perhaps, that’s what had intrigued her. She was a bit of a loner too, and also a bit of a rebel; busy internally raging against a world which refused to see her the way she wanted it to.

They spoke for the first time only on the day he found her crying in the men’s room (she’d been too worn-out to walk the three whole blocks to the only genderneutral bathroom close to campus), a rare moment of weakness that had torn her up with furious humiliation.  She was so scared he would be repulsed by her presence, that he would wrinkle his nose and turn away just like everyone else did. But instead, he stood there looking at her with deep concern - taking in her slushie-drenched shirt, her dishevelled appearance, her panicked breaths - and offered her his jacket and a warm smile.

And Yoonji, reeling from what had definitely been a semi hate crime (those sophomores had been so cruel, laughing at her in complete derision, splashing her with an onslaught of cold red liquid), had accepted his kindness. It was the only time she had allowed herself to trust a complete stranger, and the only time she hadn’t been disappointed.

The crush she harboured on Namjoon ever since had bordered on irrational. In retrospect, it hadn’t been as much a crush as it was a desperate attempt to cling on to the only shred of empathy she’d found in an otherwise joyless environment. Namjoon was indescribably understanding - more so than anyone she’d met before - and with him, Yoonji didn’t feel like she had to keep up the pretense of her rough exterior. She could vent to him for hours, could bare her deepest secrets, and he would listen. He would always listen, nod along, say the right things.

(She later finds that the only exceptions to his sage sense of understanding are her Hoseok-related woes. When it comes to Hoseok, Namjoon continues to laugh at Yoonji’s misery like a smug asshole.)

On a lonely, frustrating winter evening at the fag-end of Yoonji’s first year of working at the university library, Namjoon had dragged her to the Philosophy department’s annual christmas party. She’d agreed to come only under the pretext of free alcohol, but then Namjoon  had gone on to introduce her to the room - without any prior warning whatsoever - as his “date”, and she’d regretted everything .

She was completely stumped, palms clammy with embarrassment, mind racing a mile a minute; not knowing at all what to make of the situation. Namjoon was behaving just like he always did, leaning in close to Yoonji to whisper an anecdote, making snarky, disillusioned observations about the capitalist exploitation of festive occasions, and Yoonji was just so confused. She’d never felt as unsure of her worth as she did then.

When Namjoon had brought her a third glass of wine and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, Yoonji finally decided enough was enough. She was tired of the withering, apprehensive looks being sent her way, was furious at Namjoon’s audacity in bringing her here, in pretending that they could ever be perceived to be together without any dire consequences whatsoever. Namjoon was just so oblivious to the connotations of Yoonji being with him like this, it had made her so so angry.

“What are we doing here Joon-ah?” she’d ultimately spat out, breathless and worked up, “What do you want the two of us to be?”

To his credit, Namjoon hadn’t required any further explanation to realise what she was implying. He understood, like always, what her real question was. Like always, he read her like an open book.

His face had crumbled with guilt.

“I’m so sorry, Yoonji,” was all he had said, pulling her into an embrace so tender, Yoonji felt like she could cry any minute.  “I’m sorry I’ve been so stupid. I should’ve known.”

And she understood what he was implying too. He was letting her down as gently as he possibly could, was trying to spare her feelings like the abominably kind soul that he was.

Yoonji did cry later, in the confines of her bare-bones apartment, but surprisingly, it had felt like a release. A massive weight seemed to have lifted off her chest, the enormous burden of the “like” no longer choking her, no longer controlling her actions.

----

Ever since that day, Yoonji firmly decides to forgo every semblance of liking, and every connotation it brings with it. Liking someone is complex and horrible, liking someone is confusing and limiting. Most importantly, though, liking someone is infinitely frightening; and Yoonji already has enough things in her life to be frightened of without adding one more.

She’ll stay as far away from liking as possible, thank you very much, even if it comes in the form of a far-too-cheery History professor who can’t seem to stop finding excuses to talk to her.

----

When Yoonji left home at 18, cutting off all ties with her conservative, bigoted family, she was alone for a long long time.

Struggling through one minimum wage job after the other, she put herself through college through both sheer force of will and an unflinching passion to assimilate all the knowledge she could. To her relief, her university had waived her tuition to allow for her lack of finances (only because she was top of her class), but that’s about the only bit of kindness she received in those years.

They say that when you’re at the very margins of society, when you’ve been abandoned by everyone and everything, you have to find your own support systems.  She was alone then, in those first few years of leaving home and fending for herself. But now, things are different. Now she is finally Yoonji, and has people who actually see her as Yoonji. Now she has Namjoon, an annoyingly steadfast presence she is routinely thankful for. She has Taehyung, bright and comforting, like sunshine after a stormy day. She has Jungkook, quiet but omniscient, always there to give her hand a gentle squeeze when she needs it.

She tries to hold on to this ragtag found family with a vicious devotion, and doesn't ever want to let them go. Every time they ask something of her, she is too weak to deny them.

Which is how she finds herself at a tiny downtown bar on Saturday night, bang in the middle of yet another open mic Taehyung enthusiastically insists on performing at, with his reluctant boyfriend in lieu for backing vocals and an equally reluctant Yoonji for the piano accompaniment.

“Do I really need to do this?” Jungkook grumbles, “Can’t you just sing a solo with Yoonji noona?”

Taehyung giggles and plants a sloppy kiss on said grumbling boyfriend’s nose, “Don’t be nervous, silly! You know I can’t sing this without you! We’ll be great, I promise.” Jungkook lets out a whine, but goes pliant under Taehyung’s tender gaze.

Yoonji nearly grimaces at their disgusting display of affection.

Okay, Yoonji doesn’t really find the display disgusting. But she’ll admit it out loud only under the influence of too much alcohol or in the confines of Taehyung’s bedroom, pressing her face close into her best friend’s chest as he runs a callous finger through her hair.

Sometimes, in moments of complete vulnerability, Yoonji wishes she could have what Taehyung and Jungkook do.

They met in college, two polar opposites (Taehyung as loud and outgoing as Jungkook shy and reserved) brought together by their love for music. In Taehyung’s excitable recollection of events, the two of them apparently discovered each other’s vocal talent at their local gay bar on karaoke night. Two people from opposite ends of the social spectrum floundering on to stage, ending up singing a duet through which they would eventually fall in love - it was like a scene out of High School Musical.

Ever since, singing with each other became a bit of a tradition for Taehyung and Jungkook. In the six years they’ve been together, they’ve established a familiar pattern. Taehyung would drag Jungkook to every other open mic or karaoke night twice a month, and Jungkook, after some initial complaining, would comply. Then, they would go on to sing heartfelt duets, eyes barely travelling away from each other.

(They’re so ridiculously in love, Yoonji simultaneously hates it and adores it.)

Yoonji became an addition to their little act only three years ago, when she not only befriended Taehyung, but accidentally let slip that she can play the piano. Taehyung was both completely enthralled and ruthlessly determined, and despite Yoonji’s numerous protests, didn’t rest until he had successfully roped her into performing with them. Soon enough, the performances had become regular, the duet smoothly transitioning into a three-person-act. Yoonji could resist her dongsaengs’ charms for only so long.

Like Jungkook, Yoonji pretends to complain about having to do this every few weeks. Also like Jungkook, she secretly loves going up on stage with them. She loves how Taehyung’s entire being lights up when he sings, loves seeing the usually reticent Jungkook step out of his shell and pour himself into the music with complete dedication.

The best thing about being part of Taehyung and Jungkook’s orbit is that she almost never feels like the third wheel. Sure, she often jokingly disparages how sappy they are even after six whole years of dating, and sure, she sometimes feels like she’s stepping on an intimate moment or two, but both Taehyung and Jungkook accept her into their midst with so much genuine warmth and affection, sometimes it scares Yoonji. She’s scared she’ll mess up eventually, will lose their regard as quickly as she had gained it.

But for now, she holds on to what she can get, basks in it for as long as she can.

“Will you two stop being cute and focus!” Yoonji retorts with feigned frustration, “Our turn is next!”

Taehyung simply flashes her a grin from across the tiny round table they’re currently occupying (right towards the very back, on Yoonji’s nervous insistence), and teases, “Aww, noona, do you need a kiss too? It’ll help you relax!”

“Shut up,” Yoonji bites out, but can’t keep the smile off her face regardless. Jungkook smiles too, and there it is again, Taehyung’s irresistible aura, enveloping them with so much mirth and easy charm that neither of them have the energy to feel self-conscious. Taehyung is just this person, this incandescent being spreading happiness wherever he goes.

But before Yoonji can enjoy this mirth any further, their names are called out, and Taehyung bounces up, all-but-dragging his grumpy boyfriend and best friend onto the makeshift stage.

Yoonji settles before the piano while Taehyung and Jungkook take their respective positions in front of their mics. As the lights dim and the applause peters out, she begins to play.

----

Yoonji was first introduced to the piano as a form of punishment. She was a rebellious kid, always talking back to adults and teachers, always refusing to conform. Her father’s idea of enforcing discipline and taming her teenage anger had been to insist she learn an instrument.

Yoonji had resented it at first, of course. She’d willed herself to hate every lesson, to hate the very sight of the large black instrument. She hated what it symbolised and hated giving in to it. But once she began playing - truly playing - it had filled her with an unprecedented sense of purpose. Yoonji had been so lost as a teenager, constantly struggling with the wealth of emotions bubbling up inside her, and the piano - it became a surprising form of catharsis, a mode of expression that she’d always been looking for but had never found before.

It’s the only thing from her childhood she still clings to. After she graduated college and landed her first full-time job at a call centre, the first thing she’d invested in was a second-hand piano. It was rusty, slightly out-of-tune, and it barely fit in her ratty apartment, but it was hers . She’s had it ever since, playing it every night after she comes home from her long, terrible hours at work.

Even now, as her fingers glide over the keys with barely rehearsed ease and Taehyung’s soothing baritone belts out the opening bars of a Busker Busker song, something unspools in Yoonji’s chest, making her feel unbearably lighter.

Jungkook’s voice soon joins Taehyung’s, a tad higher in pitch but just as smooth and refreshing. Yoonji is constantly fascinated by how well their voices go together, at how easily they are always synchronised. It’s something that can only come from years of learning your way around each other, of knowing every nook and cranny of each other’s existence.

Not for the first time since she’s met Taehyung and Jungkook, Yoonji wonders what it could be like to have something like that of her own, and then promptly dismisses the fantasy as completely unrealistic.

She focuses, instead, on pouring every latent emotion into the music. The song is all about walking hand in hand with your lover as the cherry blossoms fall, about pounding heartbeats and nervous declarations of feelings. It’s kind of ridiculously apt for Taehyung and Jungkook (who are cheesy, far-too-romantic losers) but it makes Yoonji’s stomach flutter too.

Have you considered the possibility that he might like you?

Namjoon’s words worm their way around her brain, as they constantly have in the two weeks since he’s uttered them. In the two weeks since Hoseok has continued to smile at Yoonji like she’s something fascinating, despite her various attempts at ignoring his overtures.

And she has .

She has considered the possibility - in fact, that’s all she’s able to do when she looks at Hoseok these days - and the outcome is never not catastrophic.

Her gaze flits to Taehyung and Jungkook, eyes fixed on each other like nothing else matters. Their lives aren’t easy either. Taehyung is the only other openly queer employee on campus (it’s why she took a fondness to him in the first place), and faces his own share of targeted malice. He too is denied promotions, is shouted slurs at, is shoved in corridors. And Jungkook - who’s so talented, generous, intelligent; who deserves so much in life - hasn’t been able to hold down a single steady job in the three years since he graduated college, all because he’s HIV-positive.

And yet, they have each other. They like each other, love each other, keep each other sane when times get hard.

But Hoseok - Hoseok doesn’t fucking understand, and he never will. Even if Hoseok likes her like that, he can never end up being to her what Jungkook is to Taehyung.

Hoseok has zero clue about the entire avalanche of complications that come with liking Yoonji. And Yoonji doesn't want to wait long enough to witness his reaction when he does find out.

Her fingers continue to move along the keys, hitting every note and every melody effortlessly until the the song transitions into its final hook. By the time Taehyung croons the concluding lines and Jungkook harmonises with it to perfection, Yoonji is nearly out of breath. The last key is pressed with a little too much weight, too much meaning, and the resultant applause is deafening. Taehyung and Jungkook pull Yoonji out from behind the piano to stand facing the audience, who continue to hoot and whistle. She offers the crowd a wry smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

Thinking about Hoseok has made her uncomfortable again, and she hates that he does this to her every single time.

“Can we get drunk now?” she mutters gruffly into Taehyung's ear once the applause dies down. He lets out a squeal of approval and trudges them back to their table, wasting no time in ordering them shots.

“See, that wasn't so bad, was it, Jungkookie?” Taehyung says as he leans into the other boy once they’re all settled.

“I guess,” Jungkook smiles bashfully and rests his head on his boyfriend’s shoulders. He then turns to Yoonji. “You were amazing though, noona.”

She responds with a noncommittal shrug, hoping to avert attention away from her, but Taehyung, flush with glow of a performance well delivered, catches on where Jungkook leaves off. He’s not ready to let the topic slide so easily, never missing a moment to pile Yoonji with praise.

“Oh my god, yes!” Taehyung preens, “You were like, on another level! There was just so much emotion in the way you played today. My mind was absolutely blown!”

“Tae…” Yoonji blushes, still unaccustomed to being complimented quite so openly, “I wasn’t that great.”

“Don't be so humble, Yoonji noona,” Jungkook intervenes again. “I think this was my favourite among everything you’ve played for us.”

Yoonji feels oddly ganged up against - but in a good way (the best way). As is the norm, it has a calming effect on her. The normalcy of Taehyung's post-singing haze and Jungkook’s subtle adoration (directed both towards his boyfriend and towards Yoonji), coupled with the gentle buzz of tequila, feels like home, and pushes all Hoseok-sized worries to the back of her brain.

Soon enough, she’s laughing along with them, teasing Jungkook about his feigned unwillingness to sing and subsequent success on stage, plying Taehyung with carefree jibes.

But as luck would have it, her comfort is short-lived. In the midst of all the banter, she loses track of the other open mic performances. She’s so busy chugging her shots and being amused at the antics of her two friends that she almost misses it, almost misses him .

But like the gust of a sudden, unexpected storm, she is cruelly brought back to reality when the name she dreads the most is suddenly uttered out loud.

“Jung Hoseok, ladies and gentlemen!” The emcee announces, and sure enough, the man himself appears, looking uncharacteristically apprehensive. His hair is scruffier than usual, falling all over his forehead, and he’s dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket that flatters his compact frame. He looks good, Yoonji belatedly realises, and has absolutely no idea how to deal with such a revelation.

She’s too shocked to move even a single muscle, staring blankly in the direction of where Hoseok hesitantly adjusts his mic on stage, clears his throat, and begins introducing himself.

She vaguely registers Taehyung and Jungkook’s curious exchange of glances beside her, but really, all she can care about right now is Jung Hoseok, who’s performing at the same fucking open mic as her .

What the fuck.

“Hi I’m Hoseok,” he’s saying, “And, uh, this is my first time performing a poem.”

A poem?  Jung Hoseok writes poetry?

“This one's about...feeling lonely in a new city,” he continues, “and...wanting to make a friend.”

If Yoonji was shocked before, now she is completely and thoroughly shaken to the core.

Hoseok’s voice is both subtle and dramatic, doling out the words with a lilting smoothness that astounds her. He talks about the uncertainties involved in navigating new spaces; about meeting people and being liked by them, but never really forming lasting connections. He talks about missing Gwangju, and about how beautiful Seoul is in the autumn, how he feels both a part of it, and outside it.

Most importantly though, he talks about a woman with dark hair and piercing eyes, how she’s rough around the edges but brimming with intelligence and passion.

It’s her. He’s talking about her. Hoseok doesn't have to spell it out for it to be evident in every single line he utters.

His voice goes so reverent when he describes her, when he compares her to a storm that hides a million secrets, when he spills a vague anecdote about her frequent impatience with him. No one has ever talked about Yoonji like this. No one has ever written a poem about her, much less recite it with such sincerity and fondness.

Suddenly, the room seems to close in on her. Everything is wobbly and upside-down.

Taehyung and Jungkook are looking at her, eyes wide with concern. But they know better than to say anything. When she eventually gets up, mumbles a “I need some air”, and walks out of the bar, their only parting comment is, “Take care, yah?”

She can't promise them that she will.

----

There she is again, crawling her way into Hoseok’s line of sight like an unseen explosion ready to either illuminate or obliterate his entire universe.

This time, it's different. This time, she’s hunched over a piano - which, by the way, holy fucking shit - playing it with an intensity that takes every bit of his breath away.

When Hoseok had blundered into open mic night, chugged a beer or two for liquid courage, and had decided to verbally vomit the contents of his increasingly expanding poetry notebook, the last thing he’d expected was to find Min Yoonji , the very subject of said poetry. But that’s unmistakably her - dark hair falling loosely along the length of her shoulders, eyes brimming with something he hasn't seen before.

It’s so utterly bizarre to see her outside of her austere librarian persona. To be fair, she still looks considerably austere like this - lips pulled together in concentration and fingers moving determinedly over keys - but she’s so much more human, so much more alive. She’s wearing a simple black dress, but god , she’s still so attractive, so inexplicably alluring in the way she holds herself.

She doesn't see him though. Not when she smiles awkwardly at the applauding audience and walks over to a table with co-librarian Kim Taehyung and another man Hoseok vaguely recognises from the off-campus cafe he sometimes gets his coffee from. Not when she drinks and laughs along with them. And especially not when Hoseok plods onto the stage and begins to dole out his amateurly composed verse.

Actually, he’s not sure about the last part. It's difficult to discern the particulars of his audience from in between the blinding stage lights, so he can't technically make out whether or not she’s actually looking at him. But he assumes she isn’t. After all, Yoonji rarely sees Hoseok, at least not in the way he wants her to.

His performance is surprisingly well-received - either he’s not as terrible as he imagined, or the bar’s patrons are too drunk and enthusiastic to notice he’s terrible. He bows shakily and gets off the podium, eyes immediately beginning to scan the room for a certain belligerent librarian the moment he’s free from the glare of the stage lights.

He sees Taehyung, and the man from the cafe, who’s currently nuzzling the former’s neck, but Yoonji isn’t anywhere to be found.

He briefly considers walking up to them to ask after her, but decides against it. Hoseok already appears too eager, too silly in his failed attempts at impressing Yoonji. She clearly has no intention of befriending him (hell, she won't even talk to him properly) and perhaps, he should give up by now. He’s dangerously close to appearing creepy anyway.

But is he?

He’s never overstepped a boundary (not after that first encounter, at least), has never pushed into her private space. He’s tried not to ask personal questions - barring a couple of times when he’s accidentally slipped into small talk - and hasn’t really done much of anything other than hover around the edges of the library and sometimes (a lot of times) ask her questions about books and other related things.

Besides, she always ignores him with a single-minded focus, so it's not like his behaviour affects her, right?

Or does it?

It's not the first time he feels tortured by the thought.

He doesn’t even know why he keeps pining after her despite her repeatedly making it clear she isn’t interested. And really, it’s not like he’s trying to pursue something romantic (even if he won’t exactly be averse to that outcome); all he really wants is a conversation. Just one little moment of genuineness. One small glimpse beyond the hardened facade of her constant foul temper.

Perhaps, Hoseok’s problem is that he’s painfully optimistic. He’s kept hoping, despite all the signs being already there. He’s kept wanting to get to know her, even though she vehemently refuses to let him in. Her absence now - right after (or perhaps during) his performance - makes it heartbreakingly evident. Not that he actually wanted her to listen to all the embarrassing confessions he’d just revealed through his poetry, but maybe he did. Maybe, this was the only way he could have communicated it all without Yoonji refusing to let him finish his sentences.

But this, too, she has rejected. It’s the final nail in the proverbial coffin, and Hoseok isn’t stupid enough to be blind to it.

There’s an unnatural chill in the air when Hoseok steps outside, heart sunk to the very depths of his stomach. He cradles his jacket closer and begins walking to the parking lot, trying desperately to keep the tears out of his eyes. He’s an idiot, he’s such a massive idiot.

But he’s also so devastatingly lonely.

Hoseok has always oozed this natural charm, this natural ability to make people like him within an instant. But it has almost always been so superficial, merely a facade. Ironic, isn’t it, how the universally-adored Jung Hoseok doesn’t even have a single close friend?

Yoonji was so different, though. She never did impress easily, and Hoseok, despite his initial puzzlement, had almost come to admire that about her. She was stern and wonderfully unpredictable, but it wasn’t just that. There was something about her that made him gravitate towards her without explanation - perhaps a shared loneliness, a shared sense of wanting more from the world. Perhaps, even, a shared yearning for companionship.

But Yoonji is a pipe-dream he has to force himself to abandon. After all, you can’t make someone like you against their will. Something's got to give.

He wipes the hint of moisture in his eye with his jacket sleeve, and fishes out his car keys. The parking lot is relatively empty (it’s late, after all), and Hoseok is glad for the silence. This is one of those rare moments when he actually wants to be alone, wants to wallow in self-pity for a little longer before he goes home and gets drunk all by himself. He knows he’s being oversentimental about something that never existed in the first place, but he feels entitled to this sentimentality, at least within the privacy of this one night.

He presses the button to unlock his dark red honda civic and is just about to make his way to it, when a familiar stream of animated swearing screeches him to a halt.

It feels oddly like deja vu - the quiet stillness of the moment being disrupted by none other than Min Yoonji’s creative bevy of swearing, and Hoseok, as stunned and intrigued as ever.

But everything is different now.

Back then, in their very first encounter, Hoseok had gone looking for something he had absolutely not been equipped for. He’d followed his gut (and his burgeoning curiosity) and had in the process not only made a complete fool of himself, but antagonised Yoonji in a way that he still regrets. This time, he does know what to expect. He knows that there’s more rejection lying on the other end of the abrasively muttered litany of insults. He knows the cold, hard glare that awaits him, anticipates the stiff, unrelenting body language.

And he should walk away. He really should. His car is right here, the air is still chilly, he is still as willing to go back home as he was barely ten minutes earlier. And yet.

And yet.

“Fuck  it,” he murmurs, before turning around to follow the voice. Hoseok never did have any ounce of self-preservation (or in this case, self-respect) anyway.

It’s dark, and all Hoseok has to go upon are the faint sounds of a key turning in the ignition and the subsequent aborted attempts to start an engine. And the swearing, of course the swearing. After a frantic circle of the entire lot, he finally finds a familiar black hyundai parked at the very edge of the line. Min Yoonji sits in the driver’ seat, shoulders hunched and brows furrowed as she desperately curses at the steering wheel. For a minute, all Hoseok does is stands and stares, heartbeat far too loud in his ears for him to formulate his next set of actions.

She spots him before he can do anything, though. Her hands still over the ignition and her gaze turns away as quickly as it settles on Hoseok. She seems to be panting, her shoulders moving up and down, uncoordinated and unrhythmic, and Hoseok thinks that this is it, this is his cue to leave before she can come over and berate him some more.

What had he even been thinking? That he’d be her knight in shining armour? Like that has ever worked out in his favour.

He turns around again, but this time to finally go back to his car and drive as far away from Min Yoonji as is possible. He’s the one cursing under his breath now, cursing himself for being so weak and so utterly fucking fallible when faced with a certain dark-haired librarian. He’s pushed his luck enough.

“Hoseok.”

It’s uttered so quietly that he almost wouldn’t have heard if it weren’t for the general desertedness of the parking lot. There’s the sound of a car door being opened and then shut, followed by the unsteady tapping of heels against concrete,  drawing closer and closer until Hoseok is forced to halt in his tracks yet again.

“Hoseok,” she repeats, and though her voice sounds less unsure, it has an uneasy edge to it. He shuts his eyes briefly, sucking in a breath to gather all his residual strength. After what seems like an endless minute, he turns to face her, slowly but surely.

“I’m sorry, Yoonji.” he says with a sigh. “I didn’t want to bother you, I’m just going to leave-”

“You wrote those poems about me, right?”

And now Hoseok is left dumbstruck. Of every possible reaction from her, that’s the last one he was expecting.

“You heard….my poems?”

She looks a little impatient at that, and furrows her brows in the way she often does around him. “Were they about me or were they not, Hoseok?”

“I...” Hoseok feels a little like an overlarge goldfish, mouth opening and shutting without a single sound coming out from it. “Yeah,” he says, ultimately resorting to honesty, “They were.”

For a brief millisecond, Yoonji’s eyes widen, like she’s the unprepared one, which is so mind-bogglingly rare for Hoseok to witness that he feels like he’s momentarily descended into an alternate reality. Yoonji is always so certain of herself, so ready to unleash her next biting retort. But right now, she looks….vulnerable. Fragile, almost.

But it’s fleeting. She soon snaps back to her usual cold and seemingly unfeeling self, except, there is an unidentifiable emotion simmering within her that worries Hoseok. She looks both ready to spit fire and to crumble into pieces.

“You have no right. No fucking right.” Her voice quivers, and Hoseok isn’t sure whether it’s out of the rage or the hurt. He’s never felt this guilty before, has never regretted the sum total of all his actions in the past few months to the point of wanting to erase himself entirely. He sees it now, how much he’s affected Yoonji, and god, he fucking hates it. It was never supposed to be like this.

He can no longer control his tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You’re absolutely correct, I had no right.” And it spills now, all the feelings he was planning to drown in alcohol and try to get over, all of them tumbling together as sobs stutter out of his chest like every last blood vessel exploding. “I’m sorry Yoonji. I’m so sorry. I’m a horrible person.”

Yoonji looks weirdly stunned, perhaps caught off-guard by the crying. Fuck, Hoseok is so utterly pathetic . He’s crying in front of his crush. Honest-to-god weeping his eyes out because he crossed a line with his stupid courtship rituals and now she hates him more than she already did. Can this night get any worse?

“I...that’s not what I…” Yoonji fumbles, extending a hand and then withdrawing it back again. “Hoseok, please stop crying.”

Her tone is actually quite gentle, completely opposed to the usual unamused demeanour she takes on around him. Maybe she’s taking pity on him. Maybe he looks too much of a fucking idiot to her and she’s just trying to awkwardly comfort him so he stops embarrassing himself further.

Somehow, that particular thought makes him cry some more.

“Hoseok?” Yoonji looks worried now, her brows are furrowed again but not out of anger. “Hoseok, oh god, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay, Yoonji,” he says with a sniff, willing the tears to subside. They don’t, not really, but at least the intensity of the crying lessens, “I understand. I should’ve taken a hint and backed off ages ago-”

“Hoseok, that’s not-”

“...I’m a horrible person. God, I really am, aren’t I? I was so desperate for...I don’t even know what-”

“Hoseok-”

“...I deserve to be miserable, I really do”

“Goddamnit Jung Hoseok, would you shut up for a second and listen to me?” Yoonji nearly screams, “You writing romantic poetry about me, or whatever the fuck that was back there, is out of line not because I think you're a 'horrible person who deserves to be miserable’ but because....because you don’t know me.”

Hoseok pauses at that, wrinkling his own brows in confusion as another sniffle threatens to spill out of him. “What do you mean, I don’t know you? Yoonji I know how smart and amazing you are-”

“I mean,” she interjects with a deep sigh. She looks a little skittish all of a sudden, fiddling with the hem of her dress like she does when she’s extremely unsure about something (yes, Hoseok has observed her enough to have noticed her nervous tics). “That you don’t know everything about me.” She swallows then, adam’s apple bobbing in the process, and pauses for a minute longer than necessary, “You don't know that I’m trans.”

----

And there it is.

Yoonji’s truth, stripped bare, uttered out loud in the empty parking lot behind a run-down bar, thrown directly in the face of a naive, crying history professor.

This is the exact thing Yoonji wanted to avoid. She hates dramatic coming outs with a visceral passion - it makes a spectacle of something that’s essential to her daily existence, something that should be stated as normally as remarking upon the weather or asking someone what time it is. Instead, the words are solemn and heavy, and they come out with a desperation and hesitance that she absolutely loathes. But what choice has Hoseok left her with?

He’s written about her like she’s...like she’s even worthy of being immortalised in verse, and he has no fucking right. He has no fucking right to think those things about her without knowing the whole truth. He has no right to make her feel this way, to make her want to like him, when she knows what the inevitable outcome will be.

And now, he finally has the whole truth. It's out there, for him to process and poke at. The words hang in mid air, suspended between them with suffocating ominosity. Yoonji braces herself for the worst, for some kind of knee-jerk reaction, or perhaps, a more polite show of repulsion (which is what she’s met with more often). What she doesn’t expect, though, is for Hoseok to let out a dry, derisive bark of laughter - which is really quite unsettling, considering the man was sobbing his eyes out barely a minute ago.

“Oh my god.” He breathes, “I finally get it.”

“What do you mean?” Yoonji’s heart beats wildly in her chest.

“That’s why you can’t stand me.” His red-rimmed eyes pierce into her, making her more nervous than she already is, “You think...I’m a transphobe. You think that me finding out about you being trans is going to change how I feel about you.”

“I-” Yoonji swallows hard, but doesn’t know how to complete the thought. She can only blink, her brain nearly short-circuiting from how accurately Hoseok has pinned her down. She tries to form words, but nothing emerges from her mouth. Her heart keeps beating at the speed of light and the edge of her dress has a permanent crease from how viciously she’s manhandling it.

“How do you feel about me?” she mutters, after what seems like an eternity. Strange, how she latches on to this out of everything else.

This just makes Hoseok break into humourless, derisive laughter yet again, and Yoonji winces, hating the way he sounds. “Really, Yoonji?” he replies with a snort, and with it, his entire demeanour changes. His face is still red from all the crying but his eyes are shuttered, devoid of emotions. He looks hard, but broken; so brittle, that he’s almost unrecognisable from the Hoseok she’s used to, the one with the naturally sunny disposition. It's all wrong.

Yoonji doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to put things back to the way they were, even if she isn't quite sure she wants things to go back to the way they were.

“Do I really have to say it and humiliate myself further?” Hoseok continues, “I’ve been fucking smitten with you from the minute I saw you, and you being trans never has and never will have anything to do with it. I like you for you , but I guess I’ve gone about showing it in the absolute wrong way. You know what’s funny though?” He lets out another empty, hollow laugh. “After tonight, I was gonna give up and try to move on from you. And I guess...this is enough of an indication that I should follow through on that and leave you alone.”

He’s heaving, pausing to catch his breath, and all Yoonji can do is stare at him, numb and frozen, unable to form a single sentence, unable to properly wrap her head around everything he just said. Her knees tremble and she feels a shudder run down her spine, but her body doesn't even feel like hers anymore. She’s paralysed under the weight of Hoseok’s confession. She needs an entire century to process this.

“Hoseok,” she lets out weakly.

“I’m glad you came out to me, Yoonji, I really am, because I know that's not an easy thing for you to do,” he continues, “And I'm not trying to make this about myself, but I just…” He lets out a deep, weary sigh, “I just wish…you trusted me a little more. Enough to at least not jump to conclusions about me without giving me a chance.”

There’s a few moments of awkward silence, during which, perhaps, he waits for Yoonji to respond. But she can’t. She can’t even think anymore. Everything around her seems too far away, too out of her reach. She just wants to go home and cry.

Somewhere behind them, a car honks, and a sharp gust of chilly air knocks them out of their mutual daze. Hoseok gives her a long, loaded look, and finally, with a resigned huff turns around and begins to retreat.

She watches him leave, rooted to the spot like a tether that's been planted by someone else.

---

He doesn’t come back to the library.

Well technically, he does, but never during Yoonji’s shifts. Hoseok’s absence is almost too conspicuous, although no one but Yoonji is as bothered by it.

The only way she gets to know of his visits is through Taehyung - who’s been working extra hours covering double shifts to save up for his and Jungkook’s new apartment. The two of them have finally found a place big enough to accomodate not just them but also their adopted puppy, and that, coupled with the added expense of Jungkook's new medication means that they're scrambling for funds, both putting in lots of overtime at their respective jobs. For the past few days, Taehyung’s often been the only one around in the ungodly hours during which Hoseok skittishly creeps into the library, collects or returns a book, and hurries away without a word.

He’s expressed his concern over Hoseok's strange behaviour to Yoonji multiple times, hoping for a possible explanation, but Yoonji still hasn't figured out how to give him one. In fact, she hasn't told any of them - not Taehyung, not Jungkook, not even Namjoon - about what happened the other night. She doesn’t know where to start, doesn’t know how to adequately put into words the effect Hoseok's desperate, heartbroken confession has had on her.

Yoonji's trying to deal with this the best she can, by which she means she’s avoiding the issue (and avoiding Jung Hoseok) entirely.

And since Hoseok's avoiding her in return, the feat is surprisingly easy to achieve. Ironic, really, how there was once a time when the scruffy-haired History professor seemed to be everywhere, nearly impossible to shake off. And now he's like a ghost, constantly evading Yoonji like he never existed in the first place.

The few times she spots him around campus - near the cafeteria, along the third floor corridor, below the giant cherry blossom tree at the edge of the football field - he's surrounded by either students or colleagues, always deep in conversation about something seemingly very serious. Yoonji observes him from afar each time, but only long enough for it to not appear desperate or creepy.

One time though, he does catch her staring.

She's at Jungkook's cafe, wedged in between an animated Taehyung and Namjoon at their usual table, both of whom are locked in some kind of heated debate over the legitimacy of political power structures. On a good day, Yoonji would have joined in, would have rebutted Namjoon's overtly radical arguments with her more pragmatic ones, but right now, she doesn't have the energy. She's content to sip her cup of black coffee, lost in thought, while Namjoon and Taehyung continue to bicker good-naturedly and Jungkook sends them fond looks from behind the cash register. She's so zoned out that she doesn't notice Hoseok's there too, sluggishly walking up to the counter to place his order. By the time the sound of his familiar slightly-nasal voice draws her attention, it’s too late. She can’t take her eyes off him.

She doesn't want to stare, she really doesn't. But she can't help it. He looks so...unlike himself. His shoulders are hunched, his five-o-clock shadow is evident, and the smile he flashes Jungkook as he pays for his cafe latte doesn't quite reach his eyes. Namjoon and Taehyung abruptly grow quiet. They follow her line of vision and then share a brief look of consternation. They don’t say anything, but Taehyung wordlessly tangles his fingers around Yoonji's, rubbing along it in smooth circles like he often does when he senses her distress. The mellowness of the touch helps, if only a little.

But Yoonji's dignity is far from saved. She is too slow to look away before Hoseok's coffee finally arrives and he turns around to face the table directly behind him, which, unfortunately, is Yoonji’s. He blinks in surprise as his eyes meet hers, and fuck , this is a disaster. She’s not ready to face him yet.

For a moment, all they do is stare at each other, pulses racing and palms sweating. Yoonji feels mildly nauseous, Taehyung’s fingers the only thing keeping her grounded.  But the spell is broken sooner than expected; Namjoon begins to say something about the sordid state of present-day democracy and Jungkook begins to jokingly berate Yoonji from behind the cash register for letting her coffee grow cold. Soon enough, the door to the cafe is opening with a whoosh and Jung Hoseok is scurrying outside at breakneck pace, coffee hugged close to his chest and shoulders somehow more hunched than before.

After that, Hoseok avoids the cafe too, leaving Jungkook to bemoan the loss of a loyal customer. Yoonji ignores him, as studiously as she ignores anyone who tries to bring up Hoseok’s name in conversation.

She immerses herself in her work, channelling all pent-up conflicting emotions into categorising library books and rearranging five whole shelves under the ‘Gothic Literature’ section. There’s another prospective promotion coming up at the end of the semester, and if Yoonji gets it, she could pretty much make it to head librarian. She has four years of experience under her belt, and not to mention, an impeccable performance record. If anyone deserves this, it’s her.

The rational part of her brain - which has seen the myriad ups and downs of being the only trans employee on campus - knows that her chances are slim, but the other, more dominant part of her brain which is desperate to cling on to literally any kind of distraction, keeps aiming for the unrealistic goal. She puts in extra hours, often keeping Taehyung company during his overtime shifts (she’s definitely not trying to catch Hoseok in the middle of one of his clandestine library visits, despite what a curious Taehyung seems to constantly suspect), and she even volunteers for staff-related extracurriculars like library-organised readings and book donation drives. Considering how unsocial Yoonji has a reputation of being, the rest of her coworkers are quite surprised by her sudden investment in library activities, but neither of them openly contest her. In fact, her boss even gives her an appreciative smile or two, complimenting her on “effort”.

(There’s no sign of Hoseok. Yoonji doesn’t want to be affected by it, but she is.)

“You know,” Namjoon says, leaning against the edge of a shelf Yoonji is currently rearranging, “You have to confront your feelings at some point.”

Namjoon hangs out in the library often these days, probably because Yoonji is barely seen outside the place. She’s even begun to skip out on her customary lunches at the cafe with Taehyung, preferring to instead eat shoddy instant ramen at her desk. If her friends are concerned about her odd behaviour, they don’t openly say anything. They only offer her quiet company, support, and the occasional suspicious or mildly impatient look that suggests, ‘we love you, but you’ve got to get your shit together.’

It’s the first time any of them has brought up Hoseok so openly in conversation after the cafe incident, and of course Namjoon’s the only one brave enough (or rather, no-nonsense enough) to do it.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replies, eyes fixated on the books she’s currently removing from one of the racks. She tries her best to keep her tone as equinamous as possible, but judging from the way Namjoon is disappointedly shaking his head, she fails. Namjoon isn’t so easily placated, after all.

“You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

“Excuse me?” she looks up at him now, only to level him with a pointed glare.

“Whatever happened between you and Hoseok, you’ve got to sort it out, Yoonji.” his voice loses it’s edge, grows more serious, “I know you like him. So just talk to him...”

“You don’t know anything, Namjoon-ah.” She swiftly turns her attention back to the shelf, shutting her eyes momentarily to drown the recognisably bitter taste in her mouth that’s been there ever since the night at the parking lot. “Stay out of it.”

---

Yoonji hates winter.

It brings back too many memories of being 18, clinically depressed, and homeless; of sleeping on uncomfortable mattresses at homeless shelters, or more often than not, sleeping on the cold hard ground of an abandoned alleyway, with only torn, musty jackets for protection which were never enough to warm her numb arms. That entire first year of university, she couldn’t afford any kind of accomodation, what with her parents refusing to even acknowledge her presence, much less send her any money. She spent the year shuffling from street to street, shelter to shelter; sometimes sleeping in an empty corner of campus on terribly cold days, or sneaking into the locker rooms for the brief indulgence of a hot shower.

Things are different now. Yoonji has a considerably cosy apartment with an equally cosy bed, a  car with a functioning heater, and more than a few wool coats to keep her warm. But there’s still a sense of morbid dread associated with the season she can’t really shake off. With winter, comes the sensation of desperate, crushing loneliness, every single year.

Contrary to Yoonji’s desolate mood, the university seems a little too wrapped up in festive cheer. The amount of ornaments and lights and makeshift christmas trees that turn up around campus makes Yoonji dizzy, and that, coupled with the general euphoria surrounding the end of the last set of semester exams and submissions means that the student parties are extra rowdy, and staff meetings are extra laid back. Yoonji grits her teeth through it all, not at all willing to participate in any kind of holiday-based ‘fun’. She plans to spend all her time during her relatively short winter break catching up on the sleep she’s missed, and tinkering around with a few half-done compositions on her piano. All in all, she plans to avoid all human interaction and sulk in complete solitude.

But with the end of the semester nigh, there’s that niggling worry surrounding the upcoming promotion. She should resign herself to it, should keep her hopes as low as possible, but this time she’s gone and gotten herself far too involved in what the outcome might be. For once, she’s not as well-prepared for disappointment.

It’s the last day before winter break, and the Winter Carnival is in full swing.

It occurs every year as a charity fundraiser of sorts, the faculty and other miscellaneous university staff coming together to set up tiny stalls and booths in the massive football field on the eastern edge of campus. It’s meant to stand in for a christmas celebration, while also raising money for starving children and the like. Needless to say, Yoonji finds it awful, and avoids it like the plague every damn year.

But this year, she’s not lucky enough to escape.

She stands manning a small and somewhat cramped booth, a line of multicoloured balloons behind her raring to be popped. The large table in front of her is adorned with plushies of various shapes and sizes, the so-called reward for successfully popping aforementioned balloons, but to Yoonji, they all look like they’re taunting her and deriving extreme joy out of her misery.

It's all Namjoon's fault.

He was the one who had signed up in the first place - god only knew why - but had backed out last minute because of, get this , a fucking date. Now, Yoonji isn't one to begrudge her friends their respective romantic lives, but when it leads to her being reluctantly roped into volunteering for the goddamned Winter Carnival because said friend had to go out with some dude he met on a dating app and needed someone to cover for him as a result, then she'll begrudge it however much she bloody wants. She wouldn't have agreed if it weren't for Namjoon's abominable puppy dog eyes and incessant whining over how much he likes this guy (Taehyung wasn't available to fill in either, he and Jungkook are off to Daegu for the holidays), but she did. And now she's stuck in the worst predicament imaginable for someone who actively despises ninety percent of the campus’ population. The only silver lining, perhaps, is the fact that if this thing went well, it could possibly better her chances of getting that promotion.

To her relief, the booth hasn't attracted too many takers so far, which means she hasn’t had to expend much energy on social interaction, and wants to keep it that way.

She hums nervously under her breath as she checks her watch for the millionth time that evening, counting down the minutes until this thing winds down and her torture ends.

"I'm sorry I'm late - oh"

It's as if the universe is having a field day messing with Yoonji. It’s as if some unseen higher power has decided that Yoonji doesn’t have enough to despair over (which, by the way, she does ), and keeps throwing her curveball after curveball.

In a flurry of hushed movements so quick Yoonji barely has time to register it, Jung Hoseok has suddenly appeared.  He looks a little ruffled and out of breath from having sprinted across the football field, but handsome nevertheless in his long brown coat and form-fitting trousers.

Fuck.

Yoonji blinks in confusion, immediately at odds with this unexpected development.

"What are you doing here?" she intends for the question to be stern and nonchalant, but it just comes out winded and a tiny bit breathless.

"I could ask you the same thing," he replies. He looks similarly unsettled, if a bit withdrawn. "I thought I was supposed to managing this booth with Professor Kim."

Kim Fucking Namjoon.

He knew exactly what he was doing when he was flashing Yoonji those puppydog eyes and convincing her to take part in this madness. She’ll have to remember to kick his ass later.

But for now, she doesn't let any of her discomfort show, determined to look as guiless as possible around Hoseok, even though her heart is now beating a rapid rhythm in her chest, "I'm filling in for Namjoon," she replies, "He had to be somewhere else today."

Hoseok pauses for a minute, gaze unreadable as it rakes through Yoonji. Eventually, he just lets out a resigned half-shrug and walks over to stand behind the table full of plushies with her. He makes it a point to only stare straight ahead, never for once sparing Yoonji a glance.

The silence is awkward.

Yoonji pretends she isn't deeply unnerved by Hoseok. She pretends that his dark, musky scent, his quiet breathing, his attractively mussed hair that continues to fall over his eyes, aren’t all collectively driving her to the edge. Part of her wants to grab him by the collar and shake him until she can get him to stop occupying her thoughts, and another part of her wants to run away and hide under a million blankets and pretend he doesn't even exist. But instead, Yoonji continues to stand still, forcing herself to fix her attention at the gathering crowd around the carnival area instead of stealing surreptitious looks at the history professor next to her.

Fortunately, a distraction soon arrives.

Two young giggling girls - possibly freshmen - bound over excitedly to their booth. They're holding hands, and every bit of their body language, from the way they're leaning into each other and frequently staring at each other with the physical embodiment of heart eyes, screams that they're a couple. But Yoonji doesn't want to jump to conclusions.

"Professor Jung!" the one with shorter hair squawks, "Fancy seeing you here!"

Of course they recognise Hoseok, Mr Popular Professor Guy. They’re probably even his students.

Yoonji looks over at him to notice that his entire demeanour changes at the sight of them. He's suddenly much more relaxed, with a blinding smile curving up his lips. "Hey, Momo! Hey, Mina!" he exclaims, "Aren’t you two going home for Christmas?"

“Well,” the other one says - who Yoonji assumes is Mina. “Momo here is leaving for Kyoto tomorrow, but I’ll be stuck in Seoul for break, sadly.”

“Ah,” Hoseok replies, looking almost a little indulgent, “You have a comrade in me then. I’m stuck in Seoul too.”

Yoonji has seen Hoseok interact with students before, but never this closely. It's almost a little fascinating how the two young freshmen seem to hang on to his every word, even if he's not really saying anything groundbreaking. The admiration they have for him is startlingly evident, and Yoonji wonders, with a brief pang, what that might be like. She's never had the pleasure to be so unquestioningly adored.

Yoonji also wonders, whether Hoseok has noticed their intertwined hands, and the way the two freshmen almost cling to each other. Even if they weren't strictly in a relationship, is Hoseok comfortable witnessing that level of intimacy between the two girls?

It definitely seems like it. He’s too busy trading jokes and anecdotes with the girls, making them laugh by putting on a big show of pretending to be strict with their semester scores. Either he really hasn't noticed their closeness, or he's completely used to it. Considering the revelations he'd offered in the parking lot, Yoonji is beginning to think it's the latter.

"Do you two want to try out the balloon game?" Yoonji weakly attempts to insert herself into the conversation, mustering up a small smile.

All three heads turn towards Yoonji, regarding her with a degree of surprise, as if they'd almost forgotten she was still standing there. But then Mina lets out an excited squeal and nods enthusiastically.

"I'm going to win you a plushie, watch me!" she tells Momo matter-of-factly and then grabs a dart, aiming it at the very centre balloon. Hoseok looks amused, and Yoonji can't help but be endeared either. The two girls are surprisingly cute, enough to thaw her infamously cold heart.

Mina's first few attempts fail, much to the delight of both Momo and Hoseok. They laugh and tease, playfully jibing at each other and egging her on, while Mina pouts and looks mock-offended. Yoonji briefly entertains the thought that this Carnival thing isn't so bad after all, if it means the two girls can enjoy it to this extent.

After a couple more failed attempts, and more giggling and heart eyes on Momo's part, Hoseok winks at the couple exaggeratedly and whispers, "Don't tell the dean, but I'm gonna help you cheat a little." And with that, he casually pushes the board of balloon targets closer to the two girls, allowing Mina to finally hit her mark. The two girls scream in unrestrained joy and hug each other, the sight warming Yoonji so much, she nearly melts. Goddamnit, since when did she get so easily swayed by just a bunch of young girls being happy and (supposedly) in love?

With another smile (a much wider one this time), Yoonji hands Momo her plushie, and throws in a keychain for extra measure. "Here you go," she says, tenderly. For the tiniest of moments, her eyes land on Hoseok. He’s looking at her with the same degree of awe he often used to, way back before things between them went to shit. She expects him to turn away now that she’s caught him staring, or at least, expects his smile to fade. But  it doesn't. He keeps staring at her with open, unabashed admiration, and Yoonji feels a weakness in her knees that wasn't there before.

Right then, Momo clears her throat, snapping both their attention back to the two girls. "You know," Momo says, throwing Yoonji a strangely mischievous sort of look that she can't really decipher. "I'd like a turn too."

As if on cue, Hoseok leans away from Yoonji and joins back in with Mina and Momo’s bantering. Mina challenges Momo that she'd hardly be able to crack it in as many tries as her, But Momo is not one to back down so easily. She aims the dart with such unflinching concentration, it seems to Yoonji like she's in the middle of a serious competitive sport. With surprising precision, Momo lands the bullseye on her very first try, promptly nabbing the largest plushie - a huge pink unicorn.

Both Hoseok and Mina cheer loudly, although the latter spends the first couple of seconds complaining about her record being so brutally beaten. Yoonji smiles at them again, heart full with warmth, and reaches for the aforementioned unicorn plushie that is Momo's reward.

"No," Momo says, and Yoonji looks up, thoroughly confused. "That's for you."

"What? I don't understand-"

"It's yours," Momo says, "I want you to keep it."

That can't be right, can it? Yoonji barely knows these girls, definitely not enough for them to gift her plushies that clearly belong to them. "But why?" she asks, feeling a little stupid.

"Because we want to give it to you," Mina says it this time. Both of them suddenly look very serious, laughter melting away into something Yoonji can't put a finger on. They swap a fleeting look that’s followed by a nod, as if they’ve reached a consensus after debating something potentially significant. Momo clears her throat and steps forward, placing a gentle hand on top of Yoonji’s. "Because...you looked like you could use it."

And there it is. The fucking pity .

Free charity for the poor sad trans girl.

Yoonji really should've seen this coming. She should've known all of this, the laughter and the jokes and the two girls who seemed so kind and perfect (and maybe they are, but just not in the way Yoonji hopes for them to be), was too good to be true. All this warmth came at a price.

Yoonji jerks her hand away from Momo and stares at the ground, her right hand back to nervously fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. "That's awfully nice of you," Yoonji says, tone clipped and mechanical, "But I can't accept it. You've won it fair and square."

Hoseok's smile has disappeared. Instead, he's now looking between Yoonji and the girls uneasily, probably trying to find a way to diffuse the sudden tension in the atmosphere. She tries to ignore how ironic it is for Hoseok to want to diffuse awkwardness when every run-in she’s had with him in the past couple of months have been nothing short of painfully, fatally awkward, and lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. She’s had enough awkwardness and heartache for one night.

"If you'll excuse me, ladies, I'll have to take your leave," she says, jaw hard and posture even harder, "Hope you enjoy the rest of your evening."

The last thing Yoonji sees before she swiftly turns around and stumbles away from the booth is Hoseok's face, wracked with guilt that shouldn't be his. Not this time, at least.

----

She doesn’t get far.

The ground is uneven and coated with a layer of early frost, and her kitten heels keep getting stuck in clumps of soil, hindering her pace. Which is why, perhaps, Hoseok catches up with her so easily.

“Wait! Yoonji, where are you going?”

“I don’t know!” she yells, continuing to stride away to the best of her ability without looking back.

“Yoonji,” But she’s too slow for him. Within a millisecond, he’s intercepted her path and has appeared right in front of her, “They meant well, you know-”

And she’s had it . She’s had it up to fucking here .

“I’m tired, Hoseok.” she sounds nearly hysterical, “I’m tired of your damned high horse. I get it, you’re a nice guy - heck, you’re probably the best fucking guy to ever walk the earth, and what’s more, you’re even a great ally. I get that I’m the one who made the wrong assumption about you all this time and I’m doing the same thing right now with your students, but have you, for one moment , stopped to consider why I’m so bloody wary of all your good intentions?”

“Yoonji-” Hoseok looks pained and deeply uncomfortable.

“No, you will listen . It’s my turn to speak now,” she gasps for air. She wants to hold on to the anger and rightfully earned indignation, wants to have an outburst just as volatile as the one Hoseok had the other night. She wants to scream herself hoarse and cry until all the confusing fucking feelings bleeds out of her system. But she can’t. She can’t bring herself to anymore.

She truly, completely, is tired. She's tired of being so furious at him, at herself, at the world at large. She’s tired of rethinking and reconsidering and re-evaluating every little thing she knows about Hoseok, and every last thing he’d said that night.

She slumps, suddenly deflating, suddenly losing all the sharpness in her voice. She no longer has any energy to fight him.

“Do you want coffee?”

“What?” Hoseok seems confused, and truth be told, Yoonji is too. She didn't know where the offer had come from, just knew that she can no longer have this conversation here, and definitely not like this. And besides, she can use some caffeine in her system.

“You’d asked me once, back when you first started coming to the library” she continues with a sigh, “Does the offer still stand? Do you want to grab that cup of coffee now?”

Hoseok seems to go through a whole gamut of emotions - from shifty brows to astonished eyes to a blank sort of scrutiny. “Yeah”, he replies eventually, “Yeah. It stands.”

---

The cafe is relatively empty, considering half its regular clientele are either at the Carnival or already on vacation. Yoonji’s a little glad that Jungkook’s on vacation too, and isn’t around to throw curious and mildly protective looks at her from behind the register. If she’s going to have this conversation, she needs to have it on her own terms.

For the first twenty minutes, they quietly sip their respective cups of coffee. Hoseok orders a peppermint latte with extra sprinkles, while Yoonji her usual bitter-dark caramel macchiato. It’s an unconventional choice, but it keeps the nerves at bay, helps undo the knot in her stomach.

“When I got this job, I was so excited,” she finally begins with a sigh, “Before this, I’d only worked at call centres or cafes, at minimum wage or often below it. This was my first respectable job after I began transitioning, and I was...so foolishly optimistic.”

Moisture wells up at the edge of her left eye, but she tries to blink it away. “On my first day, I wore my best skirt, spent hours in the morning trying to get my hair right. I was so desperate to impress.”

She spares a cursory glance at Hoseok, who looks like he’s almost holding his breath, ready for the inevitable sad ending to the story. One of his hands is curled into a tight fist.

“For the first few days, I thought everything was going fine. Everyone was polite - or rather, pretended to be polite. It was only later that I found out there was a betting pool doing the rounds of the faculty, on how long I’ll last.” It was Namjoon who had told her about it, apologising profusely even though he’d had no part in it. It was the rudest awakening. “There were rumours about me too, really ugly ones, calling me names and speculating things about my private life that were off-limits and totally uncalled for. And it just...kept getting worse from then on.”

Hoseok lets the held breath go. He looks at her so gingerly, with a surprising depth of sadness in his eyes. There’s no pity in him - but she shouldn’t have expected there to be any in the first place. As infuriating as Hoseok still is, Yoonji is coming to find that his kindness and sense of empathy has never not been genuine. He does understand the very core of her - the things that make her who she is - even if he sometimes fails to understand the technicalities of her lived reality.

The edge of his pinky touches Yoonji’s thumb, but he makes no further move to prolong or extend the contact. Yoonji belatedly realises that he’s trying to give her space, and the revelation helps her breathe just a tad bit easier.

“I don’t want to tell you that everything’s bleak and that my life is terribly tragic, because it’s not. I still have a decent-paying job, a house, a car, and a bunch of friends who love me for who I am. But it’s not easy being out, and it’s not easy for me to trust just anyone who tries to be nice to me or gives me things for free, or worse, tries to flirt with me, because I’ve dealt with rejection too many times, Hoseok.”

This time, she can’t stop a tear from rolling down her cheek. Hoseok leans forward, waits for some kind of silent confirmation and when Yoonji nods, he moves to cover her entire right palm in his. His touch fills her with an unexpected sense of relief.

“I know I’ve been horrible to you...” she forces herself to continue, because she will get everything off her chest tonight even if it’s the most difficult thing she’s done, “And I know why you got so upset the other day, but you have to understand, Hoseok. You have to understand where I’m coming from. You have to see why I’m so quick to withdraw from people instead of letting them in.”

She dabs at the edge of her eye with her sleeve, but Hoseok promptly fishes out a handkerchief and offers it to her. She takes it. It smells fresh and fruity, and she feels like holding on to the scent a little longer.

“I’ve been an insensitive asshole, haven’t I?” Hoseok says quietly, gaze still intent on Yoonji and glistening with unshed tears, “A selfish asshole, who didn’t even try to look at it from your point of view.”

That makes Yoonji crack a wry smile. “I wouldn’t state it quite so dramatically, but kinda, yeah.”

“No, I really have been selfish.” he says, seeming frustrated at himself, “I had no fucking idea. I had no idea they treated you...like that. That they still treat you like that. God, I’ve heard people say mean stuff in the teacher’s lounge but this...I’m so fucking appalled. You’re just so…” he trails off for a while, seemingly weighing his next words, “You’re incredible, Yoonji, you really are. And I can’t believe people don’t see it-”

“It’s okay, Hoseok,” she softly interjects. Against her better judgement, she almost finds his little tirade kind of sweet. Now that she is no longer actively wary of his opinion of her, Yoonji unexpectedly endeared by how steadfastly he believes in the good in her. She gets that very rarely.

“I’m truly, genuinely sorry, Yoonji,” he says, looking so goddamned sincere that she no longer has the heart to not trust him. “I’ve...been thinking about everything, been trying to educate myself. Even before what you told me tonight, I’d realised how badly I screwed up the other day, how I made it all about my hurt feelings even though I didn’t want to. I should’ve apologised earlier, but I was too much of a wimp. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Yoonji feels oddly lighter, stirred by his sincerity. The fact that he’d...given this so much importance, had cared enough to consider her side of things and had even gone on to educate himself, it makes her see him in an all new light. Well, to be fair, she’s been seeing him in a new light for a while now. But this only solidifies it.

“It’s okay,” she replies, “It’s really okay.” It comes out small but meaningful, holding the promise of a better future.

Hoseok breaks into a smile. Not quite as wide, but still very much him in the way it resembles the comfort of a bright summer day. He really is quite beautiful, and Yoonji can finally entertain the thought without resenting it.

“Can we start over?” he asks, a bit shy. He’s still smiling, and his palm is still firmly placed on Yoonji’s, but he still seems to be uncertain of her answer, scared that she’ll say no. Maybe he’s too used to her rejecting his advances. Maybe, she should do something to change that.

“You know,” she replies, with the first genuinely wide and gummy smile she’s aimed at Hoseok. “The Carnival’s still on, and I’ve never actually been on a ferris wheel. Want to try it out with me?”

His answering grin is nothing short of resplendent.

----

Hoseok wasn’t lying when he said he was stuck in Seoul for Winter Break. His parents were on some kind of post-retirement wish-fulfillment trip to Europe, and his sister was too busy entertaining her in-laws for Christmas. Therefore, all plans of visiting Gwangju for the holidays had been put on hold.

Initially, all he’d planned to do during the weeklong Winter Break was to write sad poetry and mope around in general. But, due to a truly remarkable twist of fate, the moping had been abandoned. Because the subject of said mopery, one feisty and intelligent and wonderful Min Yoonji, had finally forgiven him for being a total moron, and suggested they hang out, just the two of them.

And hang out, they did.

That first night at the ferris wheel had been electric. He'd never seen Yoonji smile quite like that - all open and gummy and a little bit giddy - and had been struck anew by how breathtakingly beautiful she was. After their somewhat intense conversation at the cafe, Hoseok was afraid that the mood would dip, that despite Yoonji's generous offer to go back to the Carnival and enjoy a ride on the ferris wheel, there would still remain some lingering awkwardness or fumbling around each other.

But it seemed as if Yoonji was trying extra hard to make sure none of that happened. She'd kept up a steady stream of conversation on the way back to campus, talking about the mundanest of things, from how she preferred her coffee to how she was excited about the new consignment of linguistics textbooks the library had just ordered, and Hoseok had basked in every minute of it. If all of the hurt and confusion and regret he’d felt in the last few months had culminated into this - this unexpected blossoming of something akin to a friendship - then perhaps, it had been worth it.

When they were finally up on the ferris wheel, moving in fast but steady circles, Yoonji had clung to his arm as she screamed out of sheer joy and wonder. Her hair had come loose from her ponytail and had splattered all across her face, her lips had been slick from where she’d been licking them in nervous excitement, and her delighted wheezing once they got off the ride had echoed all across the Carnival field. Hoseok had wanted to kiss her right there and then. But he knew this wasn’t the time. For now, he was content to simply take her in, to enjoy her presence as it enveloped him with a sense of belonging he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

The hanging out becomes a regular fixture. Yoonji’s friends are all away during Winter break - Jungkook and Taehyung are in Daegu, and Namjoon’s in Ilsan to see his parents - and all through the week, she keeps inviting him for lunch, for coffee, and a few opportune times, to her apartment.

Yoonji’s apartment is small, but overwhelmingly lived-in. There’s a living room in which sits an old and somewhat rusty piano, a tiny kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. She doesn’t seem to own too many things, but what she does have, seems extremely dear to her. The piano, for example, looks thoroughly dilapidated, but glistens with the love and care Yoonji lavishes on it. It’s decorated with a small string of fairy lights, and its keys nearly glow with how often they are polished and maintained. Her bed is covered in an excessive amount of blankets (she says that she gets cold easily), but has only a few cushions - one in the shape of a kitten and another in the shape of kumamon. They, too have the same “old, but well-maintained” quality, and, going by how often she hugs them to her chest while doing things as casual as simply lounging around the house, seem to be a source of comfort. Hoseok wonders what the specific history behind each thing is.

Yoonji is opening up to him slowly, only revealing snippets of her life story in bits and pieces, but so far, what Hoseok knows is that these things she has now, these are important. These are things she has worked her ass off to acquire and to protect, and she loves them with a fierce intensity.

Hoseok likes that about her, how fiercely she loves. To the world, she seems like this harsh, uncaring soul, but on the inside, Yoonji has so much softness to give. It reflects in the way she talks about her friends with a sense of quiet awe and gratitude, in the delicate passion with which she regards her music and her favourite books. Hoseok is incredibly grateful to now be one of the things on the receiving end of Yoonji’s softness, even if it’s taken him a few missteps to get here.

Hoseok tells her more about himself than he has to literally anyone apart from his family. He talks about how he’s always wanted to teach, to make some kind of difference through it and help young people. He talks about how he battled depression during his postgraduate years, and how no one took it seriously because he was known for being a generally happy and carefree person. He talks about how he began writing poetry as a teenager, but stuck to it even as an adult because on some days, it’s the only outlet he has. And, on Christmas Eve, when they’re sprawled together on Yoonji’s surprisingly spacious living room couch with half-drunk bottles of soju in hand, he finds the courage to talk about his disastrous past dating life.

Yoonji, who was giggling at one of his bad puns barely seconds ago grows abruptly very serious as he brings up one of his terrible exes, talking about how she’d broken up with him over text. It’s meant to be yet another funny anecdote shared in drunken amusement, but Yoonji doesn’t laugh.

“You’ve only dated...girls?” she asks, voice so low it’s nearly a whisper. When Hoseok cranes his neck to take a proper glance at her, he sees her look hesitant and jittery, fingers tangling and untangling the fabric of her sweatpants. He realises that this is a loaded question, that despite how blasé she pretends to sound, a lot rests on his response.

“Yeah,” he says, “I mean, I’m sometimes bicurious, but I’ve only been romantically interested in women.”

“Oh.” She grows very quiet then, her eyes still locked on the crushed fabric of her sweatpants. She takes a longer gulp of soju and breathes a little heavily.

Hoseok struggles to come up with something to say, overthinking every last word he mentally formulates. He senses the fragility of the moment - it’s as precarious as a thread, easily fractured by a single wrong choice. He doesn’t want to be the one to  mess it up this time.

“I-” he begins, at the same time Yoonji blurts without warning, “You said you liked me.”

Yoonji really doesn’t mince words, does she?

He sits up, back ramrod straight, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Yoonji, who has now looked up from her sweatpants to stare at Hoseok with a mixture of apprehension and defiance. Yet again, the fear of ruining the moment crawls up his spine. “I, um-”

“At the parking lot. You said you liked me.” She looks almost impatient now, but there’s this manic quality to it. It’s almost like she’s as scared of messing things up as Hoseok is. “You said you were smitten the moment you saw me.”

Hoseok swallows hard and blinks back at her, confounded and tongue-tied. Ever since they’d made up at the Carnival, Yoonji hasn’t brought up what he’d confessed at the parking lot. Hoseok is still ashamed over his outburst that day, acutely aware of everything he’d said and done wrong and almost desperately determined to not repeat the same mistakes. In fact, he’d hoped Yoonji would forget about it entirely and give him a chance to start afresh, to build a relationship bereft of all past baggage and misgivings. But now that she’s thrown his own words back at him like this, trying her best to appear unruffled but betraying her self-consciousness in how jumpy and near-hysterical she seems, Hoseok feels something resembling hope steadily grow in his chest. It finally dawns on him what she’s really asking, and the answer is startlingly simple.

In the months before, he’d been inordinately preoccupied with feeling sorry for himself, basking in self-imposed agony and despair over the fact that Yoonji might never actually like him back. He only wanted to be noticed, to be validated in one way or another. It is only now that he realises that Yoonji craves that validation too.

“I meant it, Yoonji,” Hoseok scoots closer to where she is (she thankfully doesn’t protest), and takes her soju-free hand in his, “Yes, I like girls, and yes, I liked you - no, I’ve been liking you - from that very first day.” It’s kind of unnerving to openly declare his feelings all over again to Yoonji, but he knows he has to do it. Hell, he wants to do it. He wants to tell her how highly he thinks of her, how deeply he admires and respects her.  He wants to assuage all her self-doubt, wants to call her beautiful and pristine until she truly believes he means it without any ulterior motive. He wants to lay his feelings bare - as embarrassing as it may seem - if only it helps Yoonji feel good. “You are so gorgeous and smart and amazing, how can I not like you, Yoonji?”

She looks a little stunned by his words, although they shouldn’t have come as a surprise - after all, Hoseok has been pathetically obvious since day one. But he does feel a tingling burst of joy over her dumbstruck expression, the curve of her shy, sheepish smile that she ducks her head to hide.

Hoseok lifts her chin up with a gentle pull of his thumb, smiles back at her with the fondest, most lovestruck gaze known to man, and then kisses her hand. Heat floods her face, colouring her cheeks in the most beautiful blush he’s ever seen.

“Okay,” she replies eventually, after she’s stared at Hoseok in silent awe for at least fifteen whole minutes. Then she promptly changes the topic of conversation to something else, snapping back to normal as if that entire exchange hadn’t occurred at all.

But she doesn’t let go of Hoseok’s hand the rest of the evening, not even when they move from the couch to the bedroom to watch a silly 90s anime on Yoonji’s second-hand laptop. Not even when Hoseok finally lets out a yawn a few hours later and tells her he should head home. Not even when Yoonji walks him to the door but keeps stalling him, keeps pouting in a way that diminishes his every intention to leave.

When Hoseok finally does go home that night, feeling more sanguine and settled than he has in the past three months, his phone beeps to notify him of a text:

lets hang out again tomorrow? soju’s on me - m. yoonji

Hoseok punches the air triumphantly like a silly schoolboy who’s crush just agreed to let him take her to prom, but he feels like he’s earned it. He feels dangerously close to believing that Yoonji might finally be warming up to him.

----

“So you’re telling me,” Taehyung says, eyes narrowed behind his prescription reading glasses, “That you spent every single day of Winter Break going on dates with Hoseok-sshi?”

“They weren’t dates!” Yoonji blushes furiously, then quickly scans the rest of the library to make sure no one’s around to witness the sight of her blushing her fucking cheeks off at the mere mention of Jung Hoseok. “We were just...hanging out.”

Taehyung snorts. Loudly. “Okay, let me get this straight. You went on ferris wheel rides,” he counts them off his finger like reciting a checklist, “You brought him over to your apartment - which you hardly do with anyone, by the way -  you went to noraebangs, and you watched the sunset together at the banks of the Han river.”

(The sunset had been Yoonji’s favourite outing of all. Hoseok’s hair had nearly sparkled under the orange sky, and he’d looked so genuinely content as he intertwined his fingers with hers, she’d almost forgotten for a minute that she hated winter.)

“I hate to break it to you, noona,” Taehyung continues, “Those are definitely dates. Unmistakably so.”

Fuck , she thinks, as she recalls the feeling of Hoseok’s hand in hers. The way he had wrapped his scarf around her neck to keep her warm. The way she had curled up at night with the same scarf, inhaling Hoseok’s distinctly fruity, musky scent until it lulled her to sleep.

Fuck.

Taehyung’s right. Every time Yoonji has “hung out” with Hoseok in the past few days, it’s eerily resembled what might constitute a date.

She’s not sure she minds.

---

University resumes in full-swing, and Yoonji is plunged into the vague misery of her regular rigmarole - work, work and more work. But there’s an added layer of apprehension this time, all revolving around Hoseok. Perhaps it’s a stupid cliche, but she worries whether what they shared over break was only temporary. She worries, like the so-called ugly duckling nerd heroine in a cheesy American romcom, whether the handsome popular jock she’s interested in will refuse to acknowledge her presence once they’re back on campus and thrust into their regular social circles.

Even though Hoseok has openly admitted his feelings for her, it’s so much easier to believe him within the sanctity of her living room couch, where there’s no outside world to worry about. But this is the outside world, and here they occupy distinctly different positions in the social hierarchy. Here, Yoonji is all but persona non grata, and Hoseok is the university’s much-loved golden boy. Their realities are very very different.

But none of that seems to matter to Hoseok. He surprises her - which shouldn’t really come as a surprise considering everything they’ve been through,  but it does all the same.

On their first day back, he greets her near her usual parking space, replete with signature heart-shaped smile and a styrofoam coffee cup. “What are you doing here?” She asks, a tad shocked but still prickly with anticipation. He doesn’t say anything in reply, simply shrugs and hands her the cup. Yoonji smells the telltale hints of dark caramel macchiato, and with a jolt, realises that he remembered her coffee order.

It turns into a routine. Hoseok, bringing her coffee every morning, never failing to walk her to the library even when his first lecture of the day falls on the opposite end of campus. It seems pretty innocuous on the surface, just two acquaintances starting their day in each other’s company. But it means a lot more to Yoonji, and, she suspects, to Hoseok too.

Some days, he holds her hand, doing it so casually it doesn't seem like a big deal anymore (it is, it always is to Yoonji). But on some days, she’s the one brave enough to initiate contact, revelling in how it almost always makes Hoseok flush a pretty shade of pink.

In the evenings, after her shifts are over and Hoseok’s classes and office hours are complete, he meets her at the library again and walks her back to her car. Sometimes, Yoonji drives the both of them back to her apartment (Taehyung still points out how often she has Hoseok over, how seldom she’s extended that privilege to anyone other than her friends), and they occupy their usual places on her living room couch, talking for hours. Yoonji likes listening to him - his voice has a rich, mellow quality she hasn’t paid attention to before, but now that she does, is difficult to ignore. It makes her go all tingly and mushy, pulling her into a leisurely bubble of calm while simultaneously throwing all her emotions into disarray.

Yoonji regrets ever doubting his intelligence, because the rumours are all true. Hoseok is astoundingly brilliant and well-read, so knowledgeable about so many topics that he never runs out of interesting things to say. Yoonji is consistently amazed at how easy it is to talk to him, how deeply engaging each conversation is. She regrets having missed out on this - this familiarity, this depth, this extreme sense of security she now derives from him - all the while she was busy doubting his intentions.

Some evenings, she plays him the piano. The half-composed tune she’s been working on is close to being finished, and she tests out its kinks and nuances on Hoseok’s surprisingly intuitive ears. He gives her constructive feedback at times, but mostly, he just looks at her with eyes full of wonder and showers her with undeserved praise.

Yoonji isn’t used to being treated this way, with acute attentiveness and care and quiet but all-encompassing affection. Hoseok looks profoundly fascinated by every small thing she says or does, and calls her 'pretty’ or ‘cute’ with a frequency that makes her dizzy. In fact, he doesn't hold back at all when it comes to compliments, and every time she feels her insides go woozy just because he’s said something as innocuous as the fact that he admires her extensive knowledge of historical archiving, she understands why people find it difficult to resist Hoseok’s charm. He really knows how to make someone feel heard and respected, to make them feel like their existence on this earth is something special.

Yoonji has never felt special.

In fact, she’s always been quite the opposite, told from a very young age that she’s ‘different’, and not in a quirky or palatable way. She was ‘different’ in the dirtiest connotation of the euphemism and her father despised the very sight of her, all frail and petite and skinny, nothing like the ‘manly man’ he wanted her to be.

One summer, when she was only sixteen, he took a cane to her knuckles so hard he nearly broke her wristbone. She doesn’t even remember why he did it - perhaps a stray bad grade at school or a lost football match or a complaint from one of her many scary-looking tutors - but the severity and disaffection with which he had executed the blow had made her offense seem humongous, comparable to the most abhorrent crime. Perhaps it was her very existence that was abhorrent, not just her crime.

That was the first time she’d felt a debilitating sense of despair, as she slowly but thoroughly wrestled with the realisation that she would never be safe here, in this too-big house with dark corridors and hulking portraits of her ancestors. It was the first time she’d felt like killing herself, only to chicken out later, flushing the unused razor down the toilet.

On certain terrible days, days when she can’t even look at herself in the mirror without feeling like the same abhorrent, despicable waste of space she felt like as a sixteen-year-old, her father’s words still ring in her ears. She remembers her father’s face, contorted with rage and affront when she finally confronted him. She was eighteen then, saying the words out loud for the very first time ( “I’m a girl, stop asking me to be someone else!” ), appearing defiant and rebellious, but scared shitless.

He had betrayed little to no remorse when he dumped all her stuff down the stairs right to the doorstep. “ Get out of my bloody house .” He’d said with a final sneer, “ You disgust me .”

(On some days, Yoonji disgusts herself too.)

Even after everything, after struggling through extreme poverty and homelessness and fear and dysphoria and mustering up the courage to begin transitioning, after six whole years of being on hormones and being who she wants to be (at least on the outside), she knows she’s not special. She sees the planes of her body, which are now curvier and less angular, she sees the gentle swell of her breasts, which are still modest, but much more defined than before, she sees the dark silky strands of her hair which now fall just beneath her shoulders; and she tries. She tries to feel confident as she struts past a bunch of catcallers on the curb near her apartment. She tries to feel beautiful as she cautiously buys herself a new dress or a new piece of lacy underwear. She tries so hard to feel special, but more often than not, fails.

But when she’s  around Hoseok, letting him regale her with silly  stories about his childhood or some equally silly anecdote about his day, she feels it. Something deep in the recesses of her chest unburdens, something in the tightness of her spine disassembles. It’s remarkably easy to lose herself in the shine of his eyes and the tilt of his lips and the excited hand gestures with which he explains an academic concept or exaggerates his reaction to a joke. He’s sweet, and funny, and so incorrigibly charming, and Yoonji….Yoonji doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.

She keeps thinking back to her stupid infatuation with Namjoon, how it was born of all the wrong reasons. She wonders if it’s the same with Hoseok, whether she’s more attached to the kind of validation he gives her rather than him as a person. But no, there’s a difference.

Even on that very first day she’d seen Hoseok, friendly and helpful and thoroughly stumped by her hostility, she’d known there was something about him. At first she thought it was his annoying persistence, his refusal to look at her with anything less than open reverence. Something about him always got under her skin, always lead to the quickening of her pulse, always summoned excess air into her lungs. He has always been different, and she’s known that for a while now. She’s tried too hard to deny it, but now the evidence is so massive and daunting and just alarmingly, unflinchingly there , she can’t ignore it.

Jung Hoseok is the sun, illuminating the world with his mere existence. He’s someone you can’t help but fall for, with legions of young students ready to do his bidding at the drop of a hat. But due to some odd circumstance, some inexplicable twist of fate, he decided to choose Yoonji. He chose Yoonji with such a determined sense of devotion that nothing in the world - not even Yoonji herself - could deter him.

As much as she loves that validation, as much as she’s scared of it running out, as much as she’s scared of  becoming too dependent on it, it’s not the only thing about Hoseok that makes her heart skip a beat.

It’s who he is as a person, uninhibited in the way he lives and loves, unafraid to take the largest leaps when it comes to making someone’s day better. Yoonji has never felt this way, has never felt her entire body throb in excitement around another person. He’s different; always was, always will be.

(Some days, Hoseok makes her disgust at herself shrink, even if by the tiniest margin).

---

It feels exhilarating, being accepted into Yoonji's inner life like this, to be able to slowly peel back the layers and glance into the depths of her beautiful, complex, magnificent soul. She smiles more these days, gums on full display, and holds his hand more readily. They're hurtling towards something big, Hoseok and Yoonji, towards a formidably unknown state of being, something they can't name and aren't really ready to name. But they are inching closer and closer to it - Hoseok can tell by how Yoonji seeks out his company voluntarily, inviting him over more and more often for drinks or impromptu piano recitals in her living room.

A few times, they have lunch together at the off-campus cafe he learns is her favourite, not only because it serves its bibimbap just the way Yoonji likes it, but also because of Jungkook, the server-cum-cashier who is one of her closest friends. Though Yoonji is yet to officially introduce Hoseok to her friends, he’s slowly picking up on her relationship with each one of them. He's run into Taehyung before, back when he was too afraid to cross paths with Yoonji to visit the library during regular hours. Even then, when he was too fidgety and distracted to even properly notice Taehyung, much less make conversation, he could tell that the younger man was regarding him with great scrutiny, like he was trying too hard to figure out what Hoseok had done wrong.

These days, Taehyung scrutinises him in a very different way. He smirks at him sometimes, sometimes even winks, but whenever he's with Yoonji, Hoseok gets the sense that Taehyung is keeping an eye on him. No, keeping an eye on them . It's a little intimidating, to be honest, and Hoseok constantly feels like there’s this invisible test he has to pass. But he wants to, because he knows how important these people are to Yoonji.

Jungkook, in comparison, has been much easier to warm up to. He always greets Hoseok with a genuinely inviting smile every time he visits the cafe - regardless of whether or not he's with Yoonji - and writes encouraging messages on his coffee cup. Jungkook doesn't talk much, but Hoseok gets the general sense that the man likes him, and that brings Hoseok one step closer to winning over the rest of Yoonji’s friends.

But Namjoon is a difficult nut to crack. Hoseok knows the philosophy professor cursorily from cross-departmental staff meetings and faculty mixers and that one interdisciplinary medieval philosophy module he co-taught with him last semester, but Namjoon has always been abominably difficult to read. He's not...stoic, per se, but has this neutral all-knowing look on his face that tells you he's noticing everything about you, and is probably forming his own judgements about it. Hoseok can only hope that the judgements Namjoon forms about him works in his favour. 

It's a Friday evening, and Hoseok is late for his customary post-lecture trudge to the library to collect Yoonji. A student had stopped to ask him for advice, and he’d gotten a little carried away with the conversation, delaying his usual schedule by nearly an hour. Hoseok sprints along the corridor, worried that he’s kept Yoonji waiting - it is, after all, the day when her shift ends early - but is interrupted by the persistent beeping of his phone.

having drinks with tae & co. join us? - m. yoonji

The message is soon followed by another, providing the map location to a bar not too far away which Hoseok vaguely recognises. He has to take a minute to just stop and grin like a lovesick fool - at the fact that Yoonji's at a bar drinking with people who truly care about her and she thought of inviting him , of all people; at the fact that she still signs off every text message with her full name despite Hoseok having her number pretty much memorised by heart. Yoonji is so cute .

But the lovesick grin fades into mild panic once the realisation hits. She’s drinking with her friends - her fiercely protective, kind of intimidating friends - who now Hoseok will drink with too, and will need to quite desperately impress. Holy shit.

He rushes to his car at record speed and hastily rearranges his hair in the rearview mirror, sending up a silent note of thanks to the powers-that-be for his work clothes being decent enough - a crisp light blue shirt and navy tie, along with his favourite pair of dark trousers. At least he doesn’t look like a complete mess.

He reaches the bar in twenty more minutes (he doesn’t at all drive like his life depends on it), and after a final straightening of his tie, enters to find the bar not too crowded (considering it’s a Friday), enveloped in the quiet hum of a live band playing jazz music in the background. He has to scan the room for only a couple of seconds before he spots Yoonji mid-laughter, probably reacting to a joke Taehyung or Namjoon have just cracked. Yet again, he's struck by how beautiful she is, but he should be used to that by now, he’s rendered awestruck by Yoonji every minute of every day. What's currently more pressing are the three individuals seated around her at the small table, all of whom mean more to Yoonji than Hoseok can ever fathom. He clears his throat, runs another finger through his hair, and eventually musters up the courage to walk up to their table and pull up the empty chair beside Yoonji.

"Hi guys," he says, brandishing his best blinding smile, "What are we drinking tonight?"

The conversation immediately stalls, and three identical pairs of curious eyes turn directly to Hoseok. Yoonji’s previous laughter is replaced by a sudden shyness and she averts her eyes to focus on a random spot on her lap. Hoseok can bet she’s fidgeting with the hem of her skirt under the table.

Hoseok holds his smile, and tries his best to face all three sets of curious looks without letting his own nervousness show.

Thankfully, Jungkook is the first one to break the ice. "So far we're only having beer," he says, the edge of his lips curving into a lopsided smile. Maybe he has acquiesced. "But noona’s really fond of soju, so we're probably gonna end up ordering that next."

And now that is familiar territory. Yoonji and soju, two things he cherishes beyond belief, two things he loves to see in coherence with each other. Yoonji is at her most most carefree, most casual self when she’s had a bit of soju in her system, and Hoseok loves it. He savours that side of her, all loose and gratified and unfettered.

Yoonji lets out a mildly embarrassed grunt, and Hoseok chuckles, nervousness falling away. He looks directly at Yoonji when he replies, "It's a soju for me too, then."

Her blush is positively radiant. Even though she huffs out a whispered "ugh", she pulls her lips together like she's trying to hold back a smile. Hoseok's heart thumps maniacally in his chest.

While he gestures to a server and orders a round of soju for the entire table ("it's on me, don't worry!"), Taehyung and Namjoon share an undecipherable glance. They clear their throats in unison once the server departs from their table, looking like they really want to say something but don't know where to begin. Yoonji momentarily looks up from her skirt to level warning glares at them, but the two of them are clearly immune to her wrath because the very next thing Taehyung is saying, leaning forward with a mysterious gleam in his eye, is, "So, Hoseok-sshi, you seem like an okay guy." He sees Yoonji grimace at the them again, mouthing an unspoken “ no! ” that Taehyung blissfully ignores, "Tell us, what are your intentions towards our sweet little Yoonji noona?"

"Kim Taehyung!" Yoonji chastises before Hoseok can even process the question, let alone answer it. If she was blushing a delicate pink earlier, now she's completely scarlet, more fidgety and panicked than ever. It's cute - or rather, it would be cute if Hoseok wasn't panicking a little himself.

Three pairs of eyes again close in on Hoseok - Jungkook too, the traitor - and he knows he has to get this right. He has to get this right not only for himself, but the adorably flustered librarian beside him, who's currently staring down her friends like they have committed a cardinal sin.

"It's okay, Yoonji," he says, placing a calming hand on Yoonji's thigh - at which Namjoon’s pupils widen. "I don't mind."

Perhaps it is the sight of Yoonji, squirming in her seat because of her best friend’s silly interrogation of Hoseok, or perhaps it is the depth of affection that swells in his heart just by thinking about this woman; but he finds his courage. "My intentions, Taehyung, are to show her how utterly magnificent I think she is, every single day. To be with her, however she’ll have me."

None of this is news, especially not to Yoonji, who’s already heard him declare his feelings in a million different ways, through small words or smaller gestures. But this is the first time he’s said it out loud to someone who’s not Yoonji, that too, people who have known and adored Yoonji longer than he has. It feels more tangible, like his declaration is finally set into stone.

A hush falls over the table again, but this time all Hoseok can concentrate on is Yoonji. Her chest is rising and falling from her deep breaths and she’s staring at him with an intensity he feels to his very toes. There is something in the air between them, something substantial yet fragile that he doesn’t want to disturb. He barely registers the fact that all three of them, Jungkook, Namjoon and Taehyung, are now wearing matching grins, still a little inquisitive but far more open and kind. He only barely registers when Namjoon pats him on the back with a, “I’ve always liked you, you know?” and when Taehyung and Jungkook gently rib Yoonji with excessive oohs and aahs and an “aww noona, you blush so cutely” (with which Hoseok is inclined to agree).

Hoseok only has eyes for Yoonji; the glorious gummy smile taking over her face, transforming her features into something delicate and blithe. So pure and sweet. He starts rubbing smooth circles into where his hand rests on her thigh at the very exact moment Taehyung exclaims loudly at the now empty stage - which the previous band has just vacated - and blabbers something on the lines of “Let’s sing them our song!” Without much preamble, Taehyung and Jungkook stumble out of their seats and head over to occupy their mics, and after rapidly discussing something with what seems like the bar’s owner, they begin doing what they do best. They sing.

It’s a slow romantic ballad, and Hoseok is again a little impressed (like he had been on the night of the Open Mic) by how rich and evocative Taehyung and Jungkook’s vocals are. Namjoon hums along quietly for the first few seconds of the song, but then with a knowing smirk at Yoonji, mutters something about having to make a phone call and promptly disappears.

Yoonji and Hoseok are left alone at the table, eyes still locked on each other, Hoseok’s hand still tracing patterns on Yoonji’s thigh. Taehyung’s deep vibrato weaves through their comfortable silence, and that feeling - of something in the air between them, something charged with emotion - is more prominent than ever.

“Do you dance, Hoseok?” her voice is a near-whisper. He can only nod, completely bewitched. “Will you dance with me?”

Her gummy smile is coy but confident, and Hoseok is already at its mercy. As  if he can ever say no to Min Yoonji.

---

The dance floor is mostly deserted, with mere sprinklings of couples lightly swaying against each other. Yoonji nuzzles closer into Hoseok, trying to ignore the heady, enthralling feeling of his hand on her waist and his breath mingling with hers. But it’s impossible, when Hoseok’s presence is so all-consuming, so completely addicting.

Taehyung and Jungkook have moved on to a different, much slower ballad, and Hoseok and Yoonji’s dancing grows more stilted, hardly remaining within the realm of dancing. Her body is flush against his and they occasionally move their feet, but neither of them care that it’s all uncoordinated. They’re too busy in each other, in this moment which is finally culminating into something beautiful and significant.

“I think you’re magnificent too,” she murmurs as their noses bump, “It took me a while to admit it to myself, but you’re...you’re like...”

She trails off, unsure of how to continue. No words seems apt enough to match up to what she’s feeling, to match the profoundness of this moment. Jungkook’s lilting voice is enveloping her, and Hoseok’s dark, mesmerising eyes are staring down at her like she’s his be-all and end-all, like she’s the reason the world spins.

This is it , she realises, this is how it begins.

“I’m going to kiss you now, okay?” she says, searching his face for sign of approval like he had once done, before he took her hand for the first time. She hopes against hope that he’ll give this to her, that he feels a similar need swirling in his gut. But Jung Hoseok never disappoints, does he? He nods - all dazed and winded - and she wastes no more time.

She leans in, brushing  her lips along his gently, almost painstakingly chaste at first. But Taehyung and Jungkook's song is reaching a crescendo, stoking a fire in her that she’s repressed for so long. She can’t stop her emotions from completely taking over, fingers finding purchase in the fall of Hoseok’s hair. She deepens the kiss, delighting in how her teeth snag on his bottom lip, immersing herself in how his gorgeous tongue wanders the planes of her mouth.

She has kissed and been kissed before, but never quite like this. Never with the sense of abandon that propels her into this man so very deeply she doesn’t know what to do with herself, doesn’t feel her body or the millions of worries niggling at the back of her brain. She only feels him, only drowns in him.

When they part for air, Hoseok looks both awestruck and thoroughly debauched. His lips are swollen-red and his pupils are blown and his hair is all chaotic from where Yoonji has desperately clung to it, and yes, this , Yoonji thinks. I can have this, I am brave enough to have this.

This is how it begins.

----

In a way, nothing changes. Hoseok still greets her with a cup of coffee every morning, still walks her to the library, still eats lunch with her, and then in the evenings, comes over to her apartment and watches her play the piano or talk for hours.

But in other ways, the ways that truly matter, everything changes.

They kiss now. A lot . They kiss when they greet each other in the mornings, sometimes in the backseat of her car, sometimes in an empty corner of the library Yoonji cheekily drags Hoseok into. They kiss in the evenings, on her living room couch in the middle of discussing some stupidly nerdy academic concept, in her bed, under the watchful gaze of her kumamon cushion, in Hoseok’s bed, on the days he’s the one inviting her over (his apartment is big but unexpectedly minimalist, the only things standing out in it his surprisingly comfy bed and his not-so-surprisingly well-stocked bookshelf). 

They hold hands too, more often than they used to. On campus, outside it,  when they’re huddled close watching anime on Yoonji’s laptop, under the table when they’re out for Friday night drinks with her friends - who, by the way, have accepted Hoseok into their fold with alarming seamlessness, as if all Hoseok ever needed to do to win them over was to declare his undying devotion for Yoonji.

So far, they're content to just have this, this sense of togetherness enveloping them, figuring out the nitty gritties of each other's existence, beginning to bare their souls to each other in both primitive and poignant ways. Yoonji is learning to let herself unravel, to give herself completely to someone like Hoseok, who accepts each one of her whims and quirks and sees her like she’s always wanted to be seen. She's learning to be brave, to drown out the persistent, echoing " you disgust me " her father's voice reiterates in her head. She's learning to be kinder to herself.

Hoseok touches her like a benediction, like she's the most treasured thing he has ever touched. He is gentle and affectionate and is always giving her the agency to stop whenever she wants to, which Yoonji has never had before. Yoonji has never had a partner who not only perceives her as unquestionably feminine but something more, something desirable and beautiful.

One night, they are at Hoseok's apartment and Hoseok has cooked them dinner - bulgogi bibimbap, her favourite - and they're curled up on the sofa, having only just cleared their plates and emptied their twin glasses of soju, and Yoonji feels peculiarly touched by the domesticity of the moment, by how utterly, effortlessly natural it is to be like this, drowned in Hoseok's presence, his laughter, his dorky and wonderful rambling, his unconstrained adulation. There's that familiar press of his palm against her thigh, light but persuasive, there's a near-ethereal sheen in his eyes from how animatedly he’s talking about the politics of early twentieth century Japan, and there are those lips, those gloriously curvy lips she can't keep out of her mind, even when they aren't on her. She's so absorbed by him, by every inch of him, by the feeling he instigates in her, by the things he makes her dream of.

She wants this, she wants it so badly, and she feels brave again. He constantly makes her braver, it’s becoming a running theme in her life.

"Hoseok-ah," she murmurs, crawling in closer to his side of the sofa, folding herself up so she sits cross-legged, facing him directly. Her skirt bunches up a little, and from the way his rambling pauses abruptly and his breath hitches by a smidgeon, she can tell that he notices. She likes that. She likes the effect she has on him, if only because he has the same effect on her. "We're....together right?"

"What do you mean?" he replies, nose scrunching in mild confusion.

"I mean," she swallows hard. However brave she may be, she's still nervous. "We're....a thing? A couple? A..." God, why can't she even think the word without a raging blush? "You’re...my boyfriend?"

She's so pathetic, again like the ugly duckling in a cheesy American movie desperately asking the hero to validate their relationship. She keeps her eyes downcast, although she doesn't scoot away, reluctant to let go of her proximity with Hoseok. "Yoonji," he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice despite not being able to see it.

"Yoonji." One of his hands trail along the expanse of her hair, and the other travels up from her thigh to cup her face, pulling it upwards. "If you want me to be your boyfriend, then that’s exactly what I will be. Heck, I’ve wanted to be your boyfriend since day one. "

"Oh," she exhales. She knows this, he's said this multiple times, but she is struck by it every time he says it quite so explicitly. The fact that he desired her before he even knew her, that he found her beautiful then, and does so now, it fills her with a staggering surge of emotion.

"Good," she replies, because she doesn't know what else to say. "In that case, we can..." She wants , she wants so badly, but she doesn't know how to ask for it. She doesn't know what the consequences are, what the connotations are. She doesn't even know whether her deepest, darkest fears - of Hoseok repeating the same words her father had spat out at her - will come alive if she asks for this, if she chooses to bare herself in this manner.

"Can we...?" she continues, still struggling, but Hoseok, perfect, sweet Hoseok , accommodates for her lapses. He leans in to place a chaste kiss at the edge of her lips, "Yoonji-yah, you know you can ask me for anything, right? I'm ready to give you the whole world."

And fuck, how is one supposed to reply to that? Something that poetic and brilliant and just so intrinsically Hoseok that it doesn’t even feel overly sappy. She likes him so much . So much, her heart is ready to burst.

“I just want you,” she whimpers, aware that it’s a corny response, something out of a cheap romance novel. But this is a brand of corny Hoseok has made her into, and she doesn’t find it in herself to complain, “I want you, in every way.”

----

Hoseok has only heard of love in fables; in long, epic poetry and exaggerated myths about lovers erecting monuments or sacrificing lives for each other. He’s never quite believed that the feeling could be quite so intense and dramatic, that it can influence one to give away every last piece of one's existence for another. That is, until Yoonji.

Until he saw Yoonji the first time in the library, until he slowly scaled the walls she built around her heart and conquered them one by one.

Until she, sitting cross-legged on his sofa, tells him she wants him like he’s wanted her for so long, he’s lost track of the specifics of its ins and outs.

He kisses her with his entire being, with the entire weight of his passion for this earth-shatteringly phenomenal woman. In all their previous instances of intimacy, he has given Yoonji all the power, has let her initiate the kisses and touches for fear of crossing a line - he wants her so much it’s an incessant, throbbing ache; he’s scared of unleashing it in its complete extent at the risk of freaking her out. But right then, in the serendipitous juncture where Yoonji hands him the reins and lets him worship her on his terms, without any inhibitions whatsoever,  that's when it all clicks into place. It’s when he realises what love is, and why its a regular subject of epic poetry.

His love for Yoonji has been a steadily growing bubble in his heart, expanding with each encounter, with each little fact he uncovered about her, but it reaches its climax when he finally sees her like this, unbelievably gorgeous in the moans escaping her mouth, in the shudders she lets out when his wandering fingers explore the curves of her body.

“Can I take your top off?”, he asks, heart stuttering away in his chest, breath coming in mere gasps. His right hand is still cupping her face, and his left is hovering at her waist, inching to touch more of  her exquisite skin. He's already half-hard, his control slipping with every passing second.

When she lets out a jerky nod, kiss-bitten lips parted, eyes dark with lust, there is no going back. Hoseok realises that this is what he wants to do for the rest of his life, to worship Yoonji, to slowly peel away the layers (both in terms of the clothing she currently wears and the emotional layers she surrounds herself with), and to extol every facet of her.

After that day, that moment in which he kisses the underside of her breast and slips a careful, probing finger under her pretty lace panties, Hoseok irreversibly belongs to Yoonji. There’s no going back.

They're still learning to map each other's bodies, still learning to figure out how to pursue their own pleasure without letting personal insecurities come in the way, and with each new revelation, with each new orgasm, they find themselves inextricably entangled.

With time, Yoonji gets more touchy, more free with physical shows of affection. She has this habit of clinging to him, to always seek some kind of physical touch, a tangible reminder that Hoseok is still there. It's not often sexually charged - sometimes it's just her intertwining her pinky with his, curling her toes around Hoseok's under the table as they quietly sit and have their lunch, but he sees how important it is to her. He understands her need for physical comfort, a reassurance that he's always going to be around.

To be fair, he has a similar need to be reassured that Yoonji isn't going anywhere either, that she does actually like him and willingly wants to kiss him and be with him, both romantically and sexually. He's braced himself for rejection so long, his relationship with Yoonji still feels quite surreal.

But it is, just that. A relationship. Something good and pure and growing more and more important with each passing day. They're learning to love themselves, as much as they love each other.

They haven't explicitly said the words out loud, but he knows. It's apparent in the small details, things that go unacknowledged but are indisputably meaningful. It feels more real than any emotion Hoseok has experienced, and to see the same reflected in Yoonji’s eyes gives him hope. It gives him hope for a future where he’s not simply perceived as the guy who’s perpetually happy and cheerful, but is genuinely happy and cheerful.

----

Things never turn out like this for Yoonji. Never this smooth, this content, this consistent.

She’s in so deep with Hoseok, it’s starting to scare her. She’s braver, of course, much much braver than she used to be, always giving herself the chance to put herself first, before letting her father’s echoing words colour her notions of herself. But it's not easy allaying the fears that have accumulated in every nerve ending of your body for years and years.

She is brave enough to let herself fall for Hoseok, but will her bravery hold when things inevitably fall apart?

“You shouldn’t worry yourself, noona,” Taehyung tells her, “Hoseok hyung is a good egg.”

And she knows that, she does . But still…

“That’s the problem, Taetae. He’s too good for me.”

Taehyung looks unimpressed, like he always does when Yoonji says something more self-deprecating than usual. “You know I’m not going to allow you to sell yourself short.” With a soft touch to her palm, he adds, “Forget about the outside world for just a few seconds, yeah? Let yourself have this.”

If only forgetting about the outside world were that easy.

Yoonji and Hoseok don’t really do much to hide their relationship when they’re at work. If Hoseok’s persistent hanging-out with Yoonji after the Winter Carnival wasn’t already obvious, it definitely is now , when they can’t seem to let go of each other. Yoonji realises they should be more discreet - there are, after all, rules about inter-staff dating - but she can’t help but selfishly seek out Hoseok’s presence at all times, to draw strength from it. In a space where she’s never felt accepted, where she’s always had to carefully watch her back even after her years of service, Hoseok is a welcome safe haven. Just being around him makes her less antsy, less privy to the disapproving stares around her.

But disapproving stares, there are. And it’s fine when they’re directed at her, that’s inevitable; normal, even. But now they’re directed at Hoseok too, and she feels incredibly guilty.

There’s a sharp drop in the amount of students who flock to Hoseok’s post-lecture office hours (though a surprising chunk of the student body are still loyal), and there are underhanded comments from his colleagues, who begin to give him a very evident cold shoulder.

Where Hoseok used to be a source of unabashed awe, he is now an object of ridicule, and the similar kind of polite disdain that often comes Yoonji’s way.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into his neck, one time when they’re wrapped around each other in Hoseok’s bed, exhausted from the night’s activities, “I’m so sorry Hoseok.”

Hoseok sighs, then kisses the top of her head. “You know it doesn’t bother me, Yoonji.”

“But it should,” she whines, curling closer into his warmth.

“It doesn’t, Yoonji-yah,” he murmurs, his breath ghosting the top of her shut eyelids. “It really doesn’t as long as I have you.”

Yoonji lets the words wash over her, coating her in an underserved sense of security. She lets herself believe them, though a recognisably nagging voice at the back of her brain continues to remind her the outside world is still as unforgiving, still as unreasonable.

Perhaps, Hoseok  will feel this way for only so long, until he realises that being with her is possibly going to irreversibly damage his career and reputation to the point where there’s no coming back. Until he realises that Yoonji is not really worth the effort.

But for now, she’s here with him, holding on to him with all she’s got. For now, she’ll let herself have this.

----

The coming week finds Yoonji seated opposite seven very intimidating middle-aged men in an equally intimidating room, for an interview meant to determine the ultimate status of her promotion.

When Yoonji is first told to come in to "answer a few questions, all part of protocol" she begins doubting her chances, already beginning to let go of the foolish optimism that’s been fuelling her for the past few months. She knows the implications of this utterly uncomfortable exercise. Her employers have been going through her files, performing background checks, possibly preparing to ask her deeply invasive questions about her past she absolutely does not want to answer. The last thing Yoonji wants to do is go through this ordeal, but she has no choice.

At the moment, she has to cooperate. At the moment, she has to plaster an insincere smile and sit ramrod straight in her chair, facing seven very judgmental stares. She's beyond nervous - pretty much shitting-her-pants kind of nervous - but she's determined to let none of it show. If she has to go down, she'll go down with a fight.

They look her up and down, and Yoonji is mildly terrified that there's something on her face, that her shirt isn't buttoned right or there's a coffee stain on her skirt because she rushed too much this morning. But she remains as still as ever, unwilling to show any weakness.

One of them clears their throat and begins, "So, Min Yoonji-sshi, as you know, you're one of the candidates we are considering for the post of head librarian, and for formality's sake, we just have a few...clarifications before we proceed with the selection process. "

"Okay," she replies with a terse nod, fake smile still intact. "Ask away."

A few of them trade tentative glances and there's a shuffling of papers as they exchange some notes, until the one seated right in the middle - who Yoonji’s pretty sure is one of the trustees - adjusts his thick-rimmed glasses, and says, "So, you and Professor Jung, how long have you been in a sexual relationship?"

What the fuck?

"E-excuse me?" Yoonji sputters, body and mind going into utter shock. What the fuck. What the actual, everloving fuck.

"We're asking," repeats the interviewer, almost looking a little impatient, "How long have you and Professor Jung been in a sexual relationship?"

Yoonji has never felt so exposed, so effectively humiliated. Her body is still in a state of shock, and her knees wobble, threatening to give way. "What does Hoseok have to do with anything?" she somehow manages, but it comes out weak and shaky.

"Oh, he does, Min-sshi," another interviewer interjects cockily, clearly picking up on how this is a weak spot for her. "Professor Jung, as you know, is well-favoured by the administration, has quite a sway over it too, considering how...persuasive he can be. We just want to make sure that your association with him isn't going to give you an unfair advantage."

Everything grounds to a halt. Yoonji just sits there, feeling the ugliness of the words slowly trickle into her stomach, filling her insides with dark, unruly smog. “ You disgust me .” Her father’s persistent voice dredges up in her brain, haunts her like an omnipresent demon until she feels it swallow the entire room, swallow what still remains of her soul. Here she is again, reduced to a speck, stripped off her very humanity just because she dared to be herself, just because she dared to reach for a possibility of happiness in the form of the one person she’s ever had genuine feelings for.

“So you’re implying,” her breaths are frantic, laboured. Her heart is simmering with rage and hurt and  confusion and she has to grit her teeth to stop the tears from overwhelming her, “That I’m sleeping with Hoseok just to get the promotion?”

The interviewers do have the decency to look a little contrite, though none of them betray an ounce of remorse. In fact, one of them lets out a sardonic chuckle which they try to mask by reaching for their glass of water.

Yoonji feels disgusted. She feels disgusting .

“It’s a legitimate concern,” the middle one says again, “We have to cover all our bases before  we reach a decision. You know, make sure the process is unbiased…”

He’s rambling on about due process and protocol and customary checks and HR related concerns but Yoonji can no longer force herself to listen. She’s reeling with the weight of this betrayal, with the weight of the self-loathing she experiences at not being prepared for such a betrayal.

What the fuck was she thinking? This system that has constantly failed her, that has repeatedly reduced her to just her appearance or her gender, would finally turn around and see her for her merit? Was she really expecting them to change overnight and to finally respect her as an individual - an intelligent, capable individual who’s so overqualified for her job she’s always the smartest person in the room?

She’s been so astoundingly stupid.

She can’t do this. Not anymore. Not like this.

“With all due respect, gentlemen,” she says, abruptly getting out of her chair and gathering up her things. “I think I’m done here.”

Before they can register their vocal protests, she slams the door behind her with a ring of finality. As she swiftly walks away, fingers clutching the hem of her skirt, she makes up her mind about something she should have a long long time ago.

---

"You're gonna tire yourself out, babe," a somewhat skittish Jungkook says to Taehyung, who has so far been furiously pacing the length of Yoonji's apartment, looking, for all intents and purposes, like he has been gruesomely wronged. "Maybe we should all just deal with this calmly-"

"I can't remain calm, Kookie!" Taehyung replies with a frustrated huff, "Not when noona's upset!"

The noona in question lets out a groan from where she's curled up in bed hugging her kumamon cushion, comforter securely wrapped around her shoulders, "I told you Tae, I'm not upset..."

"See!" Jungkook says, "Yoonji noona's fine! She just needs some alone time-"

Taehyung silences his boyfriend mid-sentence with a steely look before focusing all his attention back to Yoonji, still suitably agitated but also full of concern. "I know you, noona, and you're not fine." He says, temporarily abandoning his pacing to sit down beside her on the bed, "I heard what happened. There was...talk."

The last part of his sentence is uttered with uncharacteristic tenderness, causing Yoonji to bury her face into her cushion with a groan. Taehyung places a comforting finger over her palm, but (as always) does nothing to invade her space. He gives her the time to process her thoughts, the agency to push him away if she so pleased. He really is such a blessing.

She lets out another frustrated groan and finally sits up, discarding both cushion and comforter for now. "I don't know what you heard, Taehyungie," she says, "It isn't as bad as you think."

Yoonji looks over at Jungkook - he's sitting cross-legged on the carpet barely a few paces from the bed - and sends him a silent plea to help her keep Taehyung's righteous indignation at bay. She appreciates how her best friend gets so protective of her, but she also hates it when she’s the reason he's all riled up like this. She hates putting someone as pure and loving as Taehyung through any kind of distress.

Jungkook is quick to pick up on Yoonji's signal and gets up to join them both on Yoonji's bed. "Tae, its okay, " he says, placing a hand on the small of his boyfriend's back, "Noona's okay."

"I want to hear it from her," Tae says, as stubborn as ever. "I want her to tell me the interview didn't go badly, that the panel didn't treat her like shit. And she can't lie, because I can always tell when she’s lying."

Yoonji sighs again. There's no winning here, not when Taehyung is like this, so utterly committed to making sure that she's not hurting. She exchanges a brief look with Jungkook, but the latter simply shrugs in resignation. They both know Taehyung won't be appeased by anything less than the truth.

They’re interrupted then by a series of noises, the faint buzz of familiar voices making conversation and restless footsteps. There’s the unmistakable click of a key turning in the lock, and in the space of the next few seconds, two very concerned professors appear at the doorway of Yoonji’s bedroom.

“We came as soon as we heard,” Hoseok says, panting a little ( just how far has the ‘talk’ really spread? ), while Namjoon wastes no time bounding over to the bed and settling into the only space remaining unoccupied by his other three friends.

“You gave Hoseok hyung a key?” Taehyung stage whispers with a smirk, his previous state of exasperation momentarily giving way to some good-natured teasing. Yoonji and Hoseok both blush at the same time, while Jungkook whispers a “Not now, babe.”

“Yoonji,” Namjoon puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder, undistracted by any and all key-related revelations. “You know what happened during the interview was wrong, yeah? You could file an official complaint. I could even talk to a lawyer-”

“ No , Joonie.” Yoonji says, much sharper now. As kind and wonderful as her friends are, they can’t always be cleaning up after her messes. “And the same goes for you, Taehyungie. Just no , okay? Please.”

Taehyung starts to say something, but Jungkook’s insistent touch (still on the small of his back) stops him from forming the sentence. “You’re all really sweet, but this is something I have to handle on my own.”

Her eyes settle on Hoseok, who’s still standing in the doorway, tentative and unhinged; a lost, disconsolate look on his face. She can almost tell what he’s thinking - blaming himself for all this, questioning whether or not Yoonji wants him anymore, not after their relationship has damaged her chances of this promotion she’s wanted for so long. She has, after all pushed him away for reasons far more minor than this in the past.

It’s so silly, god , it’s so fucking silly. Only a few days ago, Yoonji was the one doubting whether Hoseok would still like her, despite the consequences their relationship is having on his career and his popularity, and look at them now - look at how pathetic they are, caught up in how the outside world fractures their perspectives of each other, making them fixate upon things that aren’t true, that shouldn’t even matter when all they really need is each other.

It’s so obvious then.

She loves him.

She’s known  that for a while, of course, probably since the day she first kissed him - no, even before that - but it’s always felt too heavy, too big and scary a thing to reconcile herself with completely. But now that she admits it, that she spells it out without hesitation, it’s as clear as day. As innate as breathing.

As is the norm with everything associated with Hoseok, it’s miraculously easy to give in to this feeling, to at last be able to ignore the worries and insecurities that the outside world has taught her to internalise.

Of course, the insecurities are not as quickly discarded, but she feels she’s one step closer to conquering them. Because of Hoseok, because of Taehyung and Namjoon and Jungkook and her ragtag found family, she’s closer to feeling disgusted by herself far less frequently.

“I’m quitting the job,” Yoonji announces to the room, with a certainty that surprises her own self. She can hear Taehyung, Namjoon, and even Jungkook, let out a collective gasp, but all she’s really concentrating on is Hoseok. His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and for a while he just stares at her, saying nothing. Taehyung and Namjoon, on the other hand, descend into chaos, rapidly rattling off question after question to Yoonji while Jungkook tries to his best to stall them to no avail.

“You’re…” Hoseok says after a beat, a little hoarse, “You’re sure you want to do this?”

Taehyung and Namjoon go eerily quiet at that, staring back and forth between the two of them. Jungkook just looks relieved they are no longer actively bombarding Yoonji with their verbal onslaught, the poor thing.

Yoonji smiles again, wider and gummier, more confident. She gets up from the bed and walks over to him, taking his hand into hers.

“You know what I was thinking while walking out of that room?” She absently runs her free hand through his hair, “I’ve given four years of my life to this institution, I’ve worked my ass off, haven’t complained when they treated me like dirt. I kept hoping a day would come when they’d appreciate my hard work, when they’d see me , not just what what they assume me to be. But I was wrong.”

Hoseok’s grip on her hand tightens and she squeezes it in return, trying to reassure him that it really is okay. She’s okay, and she will be okay.

“I can’t keep toiling away at something that won’t give me my due, that won’t trust my skills enough to see me beyond who I am or who I…” she pauses for a breath, aware what she’s going to say next is important. Difficult, but important. “Or who I love.”

The room goes unnaturally quiet and the hitch in Hoseok’s breathing is clearly audible.  He looks mystified, but there’s a mad glint in his eye she hasn’t seen before, that makes a shiver of electricity run down her spine. Before she knows it, before she can form another word, Hoseok’s lips are on her and he’s kissing her with an intensity he reserves only for their most private moments. It’s thrilling and wonderful and she finds herself smiling against the kiss, utterly ecstatic at the visceral physical reaction she keeps inciting in Hoseok. She can never get enough of it, of his beautiful mouth trailing the expanses of her own.

“Ew, get a room!” Taehyung exclaims, throwing the kumamon cushion at them while Namjoon and Jungkook giggle like amatuer schoolchildren.

They part reluctantly, but Hoseok breaks into that familiar fond, special half-smile that’s meant only for Yoonji, the one smile she adores the most. “I love you too, Yoonji-yah,” he whispers into her ear. “So much.”

“Okay, ew again.” Taehyung says, ignoring the vicious eyeroll Yoonji sends his way. She remains wrapped around Hoseok, regardless of her best friend’s protests. “Can we get back to the important part - the part where you literally said you’re gonna quit your job.”

“I have to, Tae,” she sighs, her Hoseok-induced smile faltering just by a little, “I hate to leave you behind but I have to.”

There’s another pause, during which Taehyung and Jungkook look at each other - one of those unspoken couple exchanges they often have where it seems as they’re communicating some deep, enlightening secret mere mortals like Yoonji can barely be privy to. There’s a change in their postures, like they too are making an important decision, and Yoonji is both perplexed and mildly curious.

“You’re not leaving me behind,” Taehyung replies, suddenly back to looking very determined again, “If you quit, I quit.”

“Don’t be absurd, Taehyungie,” she says, “What are you even going to do after you quit?”

“Like you have everything planned out,” he scoffs, and goddamnit , he’s got her there.

“Well I deserve to take a break for a while,” she says confidently, trying to pretend she didn’t just come up with that on the spot. She clearly doesn’t fool Hoseok, who looks like he’s trying to suppress a laugh.

Taehyung snorts too, though Jungkook tries to chide him again (and fails miserablly). “Well unlike your non-existent backup plan, we actually have a concrete one.”

Hoseok does laugh now, and Yoonji throws him a quick glare. “Explain,” she says, turning back to Taehyung.

“Actually, noona,” Jungkook cuts in, “Tae and I have been saving up to, uh, buy ourselves a bar. Where we could host a lot of open mics and have a safe space for the community.”

“Wait what?” Namjoon says, at the same time Yoonji accuses, “I thought you were working extra hours for your new apartment!”

“The apartment’s cheap actually,” Taehyung says with a sheepish shrug, “All the overtime was to actually save up for the bar. I’ve been planning to quit for ages, noona. I was only sticking around to look out for you.”

Yoonji is rendered speechless, struck, yet again by how deeply she is cared for by everyone in this room. There was a time when she used to believe she wasn’t deserving of love, wasn’t even capable of giving love, but here she is, surrounded by a man whose love for her is so wholly unconditional, by three stupidly lovable best friends who would sacrifice everything to make sure she’s happy and protected. How did she get so lucky?

Her father’s voice is still there at the back of her brain, still reiterating ugly, unpleasant words. But it grows fainter with every passing minute. With time, she thinks, it might disappear altogether.

She presses a kiss to Hoseok’s cheek and then drags him back to the bed, forming a veritable cuddle pile with all five of them. “C’mere,” She says as she pulls them all together, as tight and close as she can, “Come hug me, you big idiots.”

---

It’s startlingly simple to execute her decision, to give in her three week’s notice and get through her final days with as little sympathy for the institution as possible. Her bosses look almost a little relieved, like they’re glad to be finally rid of the grumpy trans girl who neither of them knew what to do with. The feeling’s mutual, because Yoonji is glad to be rid of them too.

On her last day of work, she wraps up early. Hoseok’s still not finished with his classes by then, so she waits for him in the parking lot, cup of coffee in hand. Looking around campus for the final time, she feels considerably unburdened, like she no longer has anything weighing her down. She can finally breathe without worrying about the odd looks or the dirty slurs or her belongings being vandalised. It feels so good to finally be able to escape.

She still hasn’t really figured out what she’s going to do next, but there’s something oddly liberating about that as well. For the first time in her life, she doesn’t have to run after things, doesn’t feel the need to constantly be productive. She can just be , and she’ll have people who will support her through thick and thin.

She’s lived modestly in the past few years, has enough from her librarian’s salary saved to last her for at least a year. And besides, if she ever runs out of funds, she could always wrangle Taehyung and Jungkook to hire her at their swanky new bar (which they’ve already begun working on).

“Min-shhi!” a faintly familiar set of feminine voices interrupt her thoughts, “Min Yoonji-sshi!”

She looks over to find Momo and Mina striding up to her hastily, nearly panting because of how quickly they are walking. Though her last encounter with the two freshmen hadn’t been the most favourable, Yoonji has long since let go of her uncomfortable feelings for them. They’re only 18 after all, still kids, who didn’t know any better. They were just being nice that day, and she’d be too cruel if she still held that against them.

So she greets them with a smile, “Hello, girls. What can I do for you today?”

“We’re so glad we caught you in time,” Momo says inbetween huffed breaths, “We heard it’s your last day so we had to see you.”

“Because this is our last chance to apologise,” Mina continues, “You know, for what happened at the Carnival-”

“Oh, that’s totally okay,” she cuts in. Yoonji hadn’t really expected an apology, but it’s sweet of them, either way. However, she doesn’t want to embarrass the girls. They’re good people - she can tell from whatever little they’ve interacted - and they don’t deserve to feel guilty over something like this. “Please, it’s all water under the bridge. Done and dusted.”

Momo bites her lip, “We should’ve come to you sooner, we know. Professor Jung explained to us what we did wrong a while back, but we were scared we upset you too much.”

Trust Hoseok to be the one to explain things, to always go out of his way to stick up for her.

If this were two semesters ago - when she had first met him - she would vehemently be against Hoseok arguing her case in her behalf, especially when she was not around. She would have hated to be indebted to him like that. But not anymore. Now she knows why he does it, now she knows why he’s always wanted to help her, right from the very beginning. It comes from a place of genuine compassion, and though Yoonji is always a little taken aback by it, she’s touched all the same.

“It’s okay,” Yoonji says again, “ Really . I’m over it, yeah? Don’t worry about it at all.”

But they both still look a little bashful, nervously glancing at each other and then looking at Yoonji, resembling deer caught in the headlights.

Wow, is she really that scary?

“I’m not mad at either of you, Momo and Mina.” She sighs, “ Please . You can relax.”

“It’s just,” Mina says, still looking nervous though a little less so after Yoonji’s words, “Professor Jung also kinda told us that….you play the piano?”

Now that’s different. She’s not sure where this line of questioning is going, but she’s intrigued all the same. “Your Professor Jung seems to be doing an awful lot of talking about me,” she says, “You sure he’s paying enough attention to his teaching?”

She means it lightly (to be honest, she loves that Hoseok talks about her often; it’s sappy, but impossibly endearing), but Mina and Momo both look comically alarmed, and Yoonji can’t help but giggle.

“It’s okay, I was just joking!” she hastily reassures them again, “And to answer your question, yes, I do play the piano. Professor Jung is very correct.”

“Actually, uh” Mina continues, still looking a bit frazzled, “Momo and I, along with a few more friends, we’re thinking of starting a band. And we thought...since you knew how to compose songs on the piano…”

“Would you teach us?” Momo completes the sentence for her. “We’ll even pay you for the lessons!”

Yoonji is floored. Of all things, this is the last she’d ever expected the two freshmen to ask, and it makes her think.

It makes her think back to her childhood, to her own disastrous piano lessons. The piano had been a tool of oppression, meant to stifle her voice, but instead she had reclaimed it, she had made it her voice. And to pass that on to a new generation, to a bunch of enthusiastic young girls who wanted to find their voices through it too - now that, that’s a worthy backup plan, isn’t it? She’s almost miffed at herself for not thinking of it earlier.

She beams at the two girls, broad and gummy, “I would love to.”

The world shifts on its axis, slots itself into place. This is right, it feels right.

---

One Year Later

“The corner table’s asking for their bloody marys to have extra pepper, and the lesbian couple in table number three are too busy sucking face for me to take their order.” Jimin, Jungkook’s tiny but rather snarky cousin prattles from the other end of the counter.

It’s opening night at Magic Shop , Taehyung and Jungkook’s appropriately cheesily-named bar, and Yoonji has been roped in to play bartender, while Jimin has kindly volunteered to be the server for the night. The place is surprisingly packed - all thanks to Taehyung’s excellent PR and marketing skills - and though she’s a little overwhelmed, Yoonji is enjoying herself.

The bar itself isn’t too big, but in the aftermath of Taehyung’s eye for aesthetics and Jungkook’s organisational skills, it’s quite a sight to behold. Rich hardwood decor infused with an old-world charm, a stage set up in the centre, and cushy little round tables scattered all across. There’s a generous smattering of pride flags on the pillars and walls, and behind the counter - right behind where Yoonji is currently shuffling through a cabinet full of liquor trying to find the correct brand of vodka - is a corkboard full of polaroids featuring Taehyung, Jungkook, Namjoon and herself, taken in various different occasions over the past five years.

(Her favourite among the lot is the one of Hoseok holding up Yoonji bridal style, both of them red-faced with giggles, taken when a severely drunk Hoseok had volunteered to physically carry Yoonji all the way home. They look ridiculously happy in the picture, happier than Yoonji had ever imagined she’d be.)

All in all, what the place lacks in size, it makes up for with heart. It’s cosy and welcoming and (at the risk of it sounding like a cliche) magical, and Yoonji already loves it to bits. She’s hoping that if she manages to impress Jungkook with her skills tonight, he’ll hire her full-time.

“Ah!” she exclaims when she finally finds the vodka she was looking for and promptly begins mixing the cocktail,  “Okay, so an extra peppery bloody mary’s coming right up.”

“As for the face-sucking? Uh, just let them be I guess,” she shrugs, “They’ll want a drink eventually.”

Jimin smirks at her, “You’re getting the hang of this.”

“What can I say,” she says, throwing him a conspiratorial wink, “I’m a fast learner.”

Jimin lets out a squeaky chuckle, eyes adorably crinkling into half-moons. With a finger-salute, he walks away with the tray of drinks Yoonji has just made.

“Jimin hyung's not bothering you?” says Jungkook, appearing from the backroom with a washcloth perched on his left shoulder. He looks a little unkempt, but there’s a...settled kind of vibe about him that Yoonji has seen in him very rarely. Jungkook is usually so meek, often appearing severely uncomfortable in his skin when he’s in public (something Yoonji can intensely relate to), it’s nice to see him like this, completely in his element. Busy, but still relaxed in this way she can’t really describe. She’s so proud of him. Of both him and Taehyung. “I know I said I’d be bartending with you too, but there’s just a lot of logistics to get in order, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about me at all, Jungkookie,” she grins at him, “Jimin’s great. This gig is great. This place is great.”

Jungkook looks pleased, flashing her his beautiful bunny-smile, “I’m really glad, noona. We’ve worked hard for this.”

He looks over at Taehyung - who’s currently busy greeting all the patrons and making sure everyone’s comfortable and taken care of - and Yoonji follows his line of vision. It’s just so staggeringly nice seeing them like this - they’ve come so far, and...Yoonji too. She feels like they’ve all grown exponentially in the past couple of years, and it makes her a little sentimental.

Namjoon’s in the front table with his boyfriend Seokjin - yes, the very same guy he’d been on a date with the night of the Carnival, and the very same guy he’s been seeing for over a year and half now - and they catch Yoonji and Jungkook’s eye to send them a wave. Both she and Jungkook wave back.

“Where’s Hoseok hyung?”  Jungkook says after a few minutes, pulling up a bottle of whisky from one of the shelves to mix the next slew of drink orders. “He is coming right?”

“Yeah, he is!” she reassures, “He’s a little late because his sister was visiting over the weekend and he had to go drop her off to the airport.”

“Wait, so you met the sister-in-law at last?” he looks at her cheekily. She blushes.

“She’s not my sister- in-law !” she blabbers shyly like she always does when her friends needle her about anything related to Hoseok, “But..yeah, I met her. She’s really cool. Just like Hoseok.”

“Awww!” Jungkook coos, but is soon intercepted by a “Gguk! I need you over here for a minute!” in Taehyung’s familiar baritone.

“Ah, duty calls!” he chuckles, "But tell us everything about the sister-in-law later, yeah?"

"She's not my-" but Jungkook walks with a mischievous laugh before she can finish the sentence, leaving Yoonji alone to tend to the drinks. As great as they are, her friends have got to stop teasing her about Hoseok. 

She works quietly for a while, mixing drinks and learning her way around the extensive liquor cabinet as Jimin takes tray after tray off her hands. She even establishes a rhythm to improve her pace, having truly unexpected levels of fun trying to improvise and juggle multiple things at once. She’s never worked in an environment like this - so completely freewheeling in every sense of the word - letting her do her own thing without fearing the repercussions of anything going wrong, or fearing anyone could be rude to her out of the blue.

Over the last year, she’s had more time to herself than ever, more time to flit between and experiment with jobs. Momo and her friends were only the beginning, after which word of her piano skills suspiciously spread across the university (which she feels Hoseok might have a hand in, but she still hasn’t been able to find evidence), as well as in universities nearby. By now, word-of-mouth has circulated so thoroughly, she gets requests for piano lessons across various demographics; college students, school students, even fully grown adults. She gives herself the freedom to pick and choose - she’s still not hard-pressed for money, and can afford to be selective - and it’s good. She’s doing surprisingly good.

It all felt like a dream at first, and she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, kept fearing something would go wrong. It wasn’t like things were going off entirely without a hitch - there’s still her fair share of catcalls, strange looks thrown in her direction at the grocery store or on the subway, the difficulty of finding the right public toilet, the occasional bouts of self-loathing - but for the most part, things remain good. And she reminds herself to relish in it, to soak up the pleasures of each moment without worrying about either the past or the future.

The music finally starts playing, and Yoonji looks over to the stage to spot her favourite group of nine sophomores, her old piano students - Momo and Mina making finger-hearts at her from their midst. She flashes them a tiny finger-heart of her own, and immerses herself into the song they’re performing, a sweet but catchy number about the vagaries of young love. They’re quite amazing, a band where each person’s talent meshes really well with the other’s, and it’s nothing short of a milestone that they’ve achieved such harmony and synchronisation in just the space of a year. She really hopes they’ll sing professionally one day.

She’s so engrossed in the performance she doesn’t notice the presence of a certain brightly-smiling History professor - who Jungkook has allowed to enter through the backroom on special request, and who sneaks up on Yoonji and taps her shoulder. She’s so startled by the touch she jumps nearly five feet into the air, and the bottle of whisky she’s holding falters from her grip, ready to crash to the floor. But Hoseok catches it before it falls at record speed, his reflexes quicker than Yoonji’s. He straightens it and places it carefully on the wooden counter.

“Here,” he says, heart-shaped smile warming Yoonji’s heart, “That should do it.”

Yoonji gummy-smiles at him in return, tone teasing but ridiculously fond, “I could have done that on my own, thank you very much.”

“Well, I was just trying to help,” he says, amused, but just as fond. “I didn’t mean to overstep.”

They burst out into happy, glorious laughter at that, leaning into each other as their eyes glitter with the mirth of their shared inside joke. Their first ever encounter, where the same conversation had played out very differently, seems so far away right now. They've come full circle.

“Missed you,” he murmurs, curving a hand around her waist.

She rolls her eyes, “You saw me three hours ago.”

“Still missed you.” he says, kissing the dip of her collarbone.

Yeah, this , Yoonji thinks, as she tangles her fingers into his hair, messing around with its soft edges. This is it. This is how it begins.