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“Just go for it! If it goes horribly, you can blame being drunk and pretend it never happened at all!”
You looked back at your friend, grinning lazily at you from the couch she was perched on. She was a lot more extraverted than you in general, but with alcohol in her system? She was capable of anything.
You? You, you maybe not so much.
With another glance over at the man messing around with the sound system spreading music throughout the house, you saw he was deep in concentration. One hand typed on the laptop keyboard while the other held a red solo cup you assumed held some type of alcohol. His hair was falling in his face as he gazed at the screen, and he wore a shirt tucked into jeans. He looked good in those jeans.
You flushed at the thought of going over to talk to him, but your friends seemed determined to encourage you to go for it. They had been on a long spiel about how you weren’t ever going to date anyone if you only waited around for others to make a move. You could make the first move! You just feared making a fool of yourself in front of someone you would see two days a week for the rest of the semester.
Johnny Suh sat three rows behind you in your Monday-Wednesday English lecture, and he probably had to be the most attractive man you have ever seen in your life.
Okay, that was most likely an exaggeration, but he was a beautiful man. Tall, dark hair, and a good sense of style was the perfect combination for attraction to bloom. You felt giddy just thinking about him.
Too bad you didn’t really know anything about him other than the fact that he sat in the same seat every single week.
He looked different in this atmosphere though. He seemed more relaxed, and since he was messing around with the music system like he knew exactly what he was doing even with a little alcohol in his system, you assumed he belonged to this frat and lived in this house. You had once seen him walk into class with a fraternity symbol across his sweatshirt, but you were never good at remembering what all those Greek symbols meant.
While he looked more relaxed, seeing Johnny in a non-academic setting was also extremely intimidating. You were only a few drinks in, mildly tipsy at best, but the alcohol made you warm, and even the idea of not being sober gave you a little confidence. Maybe you could do this.
You could walk over there and make conversation. Get to know him. You could maybe even ask him out for coffee or lunch before class one day. Like your friend said, if things go south, you could always blame the alcoholic atmosphere of a Saturday night frat party.
“Okay,” you said, as you watched your friends raise their eyebrows at you, “I’ll go do it. Maybe get me a drink just in case it doesn’t go well.”
Your two friends cheered as you turned around to walk through the small crowd to Johnny. Moving around made you realize you were a little more drunk than you had thought while sitting down, but you were determined at this point. The alcohol would hopefully make you a little loose, break you out of your shell a little bit.
Johnny took a drink from his red cup as he surveyed the upcoming queued songs for the next hour. Once you were only a few steps away from him, you slowed down as your nerves kicked into high gear. There was a pang of anxiety that shot through your chest at the thought of actually talking to him. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
You were three seconds from turning around when his gaze found yours. You must have looked like a deer in headlights in the dimly illuminated air of the frat house, but getting noticed gave you a little spike of determination.
“Hey,” you spoke up as you stepped a little closer, “Johnny, right?”
Not the best start, but at least it was something.
“Yeah…” he replied, giving you a slightly suspicious look. It made you realize he probably had no clue who the fuck you were. There were over a hundred people in your class, and it was actually extremely likely that he had never noticed you before.
The alcohol running warm in your veins kept you going though. “I’m Y/N. We’re in the same English class.”
You offered up a small smile, hoping you don’t seem weird as you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear nervously. His eyes changed a little and you could tell that he at least recognized the academic correlation.
“Oh, hi.”
It was clear that he was still sort of lost on why you were talking to him. You knew you needed to play it off to lessen the damage and actually attempt to make a conversation out of this interaction. He was just so nice-looking, it made you sort of just want to stare at him in admiration for the rest of the night.
“Um, sorry I came up to you, I don’t normally do this,” you explained to him, “I’ve just seen you around, and I’m a few drinks in, and my friends told me to stop waiting for shitty dudes to approach me— I should go up to them; it's a whole thing.”
You knew you had a tendency to ramble sometimes, but at least you were talking— at least something was happening. You reminded yourself that talking about something, anything, was better than just being silent.
The only issue was, rambling was not the best way to communicate.
“Are you calling me a shitty dude?” he asked, giving you a raised brow.
The panic settled in, and you knew your eyes grew wide from how he was looking at you right now. It only lasted a moment before his face broke out into a lighthearted grin.
“I’m just joking around,” he stated, tucking his hands into his jeans, “So what’s this ‘whole thing’ about the shitty guys anyways?”
You were flooded with relief that he was only kidding around, and also that you might actually have a chance at a conversation, no matter how strange it was.
“Oh, well I haven’t really dated anyone for that long, and it's because I always date the dudes that approach me, and I’m never attracted to any of them. So it never goes anywhere,” you explained in what was most likely too much detail. “My one friend saw this TikTok that was like, you need to go up to people you like if you want to be with someone you’re actually attracted to.”
“So… you’re attracted to me?” Johnny replied.
You felt yourself tense at his words, finding yourself flustered under his gaze that had suddenly become a bit more intense than you had remembered it being a few minutes ago. You felt like you could melt under his stare, and you knew your mouth was probably open in bewilderment. You coughed lightly to clear your throat, moving your gaze to somewhere on the wall behind him to avoid his eyes for a moment.
“Uhh, yeah, I, uh, have a classroom crush on you,” you stated, trying to keep your voice steady. Maybe if you faked your way to confidence, he wouldn’t notice the way you felt like your heart might explode from your chest with how wildly it was beating.
Johnny leaned back against the wall you both had been standing near, letting a lazy smile come over his face. “And what’s a classroom crush?”
You rolled your eyes, knowing he was enjoying himself but humoring him anyways, “You know. When you think someone’s cute in your class but you don’t really know anything about them because all you see is them in class.”
At the mention of class, you recalled the fact that after this encounter you would have to walk into class on Monday and see this man in front of you. The idea filled you with embarrassment. You had been slowly digging your own grave, and you were suddenly letting your eyes wander, thinking of a way to just get out of this without embarrassing yourself more.
Johnny made a noise of understanding, drawing your attention back to him, “Oh yeah, I get that.”
“You do?”
“Yeah,” he grinned at you, “I actually have a classroom crush, too.”
“Oh?”
Oh.
“Mhm,” he nodded as he rubbed his hand over his chin for a brief moment, “There’s this girl in my Monday-Wednesday lecture. She sits a few rows in front of me, but she occasionally turns around a little bit and sometimes I catch her staring at me. She’s so cute when she looks away all embarrassed about it.”
Your eyes went wide as you realized, fuck, oh fuck, that’s you, fuck, he noticed you .
“Oh yeah?” you gulped out. You looked down at his drink, “Can I have some of that?”
He offered the cup to you, letting out a mention that it was strong, but you took a big drink anyways, relishing in the way the alcohol burned going down. You looked back up to see him with a small, little smile on his face directed at you, as he watched you with an amused gleam in his eye.
You swore his smile could melt your insides entirely. “So,” he began, “What happens with a classroom crush, typically?”
The liquid courage from the alcohol had your mouth talking before your brain could really keep up with it.
“I usually just daydream and make up scenarios in my head during class to waste time, and then it kinda fizzles out after a while, usually when the semester is over.”
How were you acting so calm when you felt like you should be freaking the fuck out on the inside. Have you really been saying all of these things out loud? Your words came to an abrupt halt as you stared up at the man just a bit away from you.
“Have you ever thought about asking the person out?” Johnny asked, his words coming out with a little teasing in his tone.
You smiled weakly at him, “I guess that’s what I was trying to do with this whole conversation, but I’m just very bad at this.”
Johnny let out a little laugh. “I think you’re doing great. We are talking after all, aren’t we?”
You were grateful that he seemed to not be rejecting you, but you were curious as to what was going on in his head.
“I’m being so dumb right now,” you laughed it off, “I can at least partially blame the alcohol, but I’m just new to this. Hopefully it makes your night a little more interesting.”
“Yeah, you are interesting.” he paused for a seemingly dramatic effect, leaning in closer to you, “I like it.”
He smiled as he glanced from you to the laptop next to him. You had forgotten about the laptop, and the music, and even the party and people around you. You felt lost in the conversation that was happening between the two of you.
He crouched on the floor to look better at the laptop that was set up on the low table, and he motioned for you to join him. All that was on the screen was the music queue, but you leaned in a little too close to get a better look at the words on the screen.
Getting so close to the screen also meant being nearer to Johnny, and when you looked over at him, your faces were closer than you had thought they were. Being so close, you could smell his cologne. The new scent registered in your brain, and it made you realize just how much you had learned about Johnny in the past few minutes.
You had clearly been the one talking more, but you were kind of proud of yourself for even getting this far. You had never really talked to one of your classroom crushes outside of class, not even for group presentations, and being in Johnny’s presence just made you like him even more.
“Do you wanna keep making my night interesting?” he asked, drawing you out of your thoughts.
“Oh!” His words bring out your flustered state again, and you jump back and stand up from where you both had been crouching on the floor. “Um, I’m not really comfy doing anything like that tonight--”
“No!” he interrupted, standing up as well while rubbing the back of his neck, “I didn’t mean it like that…. Just, do you want to keep hanging out? I think the guys set up beer pong outside so you could come watch with me?”
As you saw Johnny sputtering a bit from the mix-up, you felt yourself calm down knowing that he was also capable of being thrown off his rhythm. His words ignited butterflies in your stomach.
“Yeah, sure!”
“Do you, uh, want to go talk to your friends real quick?” he gestured over to your friends across the room, and you looked over to see them trying hard to seem like they weren’t watching the entire encounter, even though they clearly were. You flushed with wide eyes, embarrassed that they were being so obvious.
“Um, yeah,” you tried to laugh it off, “I’ll meet you in the kitchen?”
He gave you a reassuring smile, “Sure.”
You walked over to your friends, who were all grinning at you like idiots and letting out a few victory cheers. Despite your embarrassment, you couldn’t help but feel happy seeing how goofy and supportive your friends were being. They attacked you with an array of questions.
“Tell us everything!”
“Does he seem interested?”
“Did you ask him out?”
“I keep making a fool of myself,” you replied, “But he doesn’t seem put off by it— I think he might think I’m cute.”
“Yes you are!” one of your friends said, “And he’s so hot!!”
She pinched your cheeks and you ducked away, rolling your eyes at their drunken antics. You bid them goodbye and slipped through the party to find the kitchen.
Johnny stood over by the fridge, sipping from a beer can and smiled when his eyes met yours. He offered you a drink, and you accepted a seltzer from the fridge. He gestured toward the back deck, leading you through the back door with his hand on the small of your back. The light touch didn’t go unnoticed, leaving your cheeks warm despite the cold air.
The two of you stood near the railing to watch a few guys play pong. You sipped your seltzer, aware of Johnny’s arm brushing yours as he greeted others hanging around the game.
Johnny was completely at ease here, leaning against the railing with his arm almost around you, his hand brushing your waist. It almost felt like this was a normal occurrence for the both of you. In the back of your mind, you wondered if he did this often. You watched the game and the people around you silently for a while, basking in the world of Johnny and his friends that you somehow got wrapped up in, even just for a moment.
You were pulled out of your thoughts when Johnny slid his arm up to the small of your back. His hand was big and warm even through the fabric of your shirt.
He ducked down closer to your ear, “Hey, you okay?”
His eyes peered into yours, a look of genuine interest crossing his face. You smiled back at him.
“Yeah, I just haven’t been to a party in a while,” you replied, hoping your nerves can be explained away. He didn’t need to know how affected you were by his casual touches.
“Nothing a drink can’t fix,” he said, clinking your cans together with a silly grin on his face. It seemed he knew you were nervous, as he experimented with his touch and kept you close without being overbearing. His casual nature made you even more relaxed.
You went back to watching the increasingly intense game of beer pong, but it was hard to concentrate when you could feel Johnny’s fingers playing with the hem of your shirt. You snuck a look up at him, and while he wasn’t looking down at you, his mouth perked into a smile like he knew you were watching.
The game started to come to a close, with the crowd of people getting bigger and more rowdy. You turned your attention back to the game, watching as one of the guys sank the last cup, leading to an up-roar of cheers on the deck. You couldn’t help but cheer alongside everyone, raising your drink before taking a big sip.
Unfortunately for you, one of the more inebriated partygoers fell backwards into you, causing your drink to spill all over the front of your shirt. The guy didn’t even seem to notice you break his fall, standing up and running back into the crowd, leaving you with a big stain across your chest.
Johnny grasped your forearms, making sure you were upright and okay, his eyes scanning over you to make sure you weren’t hurt.
“Hey, come on, I’ll get you cleaned up,” he says, tucking his arm around your shoulders to guide you through the crowd.
The party is still going strong inside the house, with loud music and dim lights illuminating the swirl of bodies you walk through. Johnny leads you upstairs, which is a lot quieter, despite a few people roaming in and out of rooms. He takes you into the bathroom, gesturing for you to hop on the counter.
He takes a towel from the linen closet, gently dabbing at the stain on your collarbone. His other hand rests on the counter next to you, before resting lightly on your hip to hold you steady.
You don’t think you’ve let out a single breath since he began, watching his face knot into a look of concentration. You wonder if he can hear your heart about to beat out of your chest. Other than the faint pounding of distant music and the buzz of the overhead light, there isn’t a sound to be heard.
His face is so close, you could count his eyelashes if you wanted to. A few strands of hair fall across his eyes and you find yourself wondering what those locks would feel like under your fingers. His hair looks soft.
You get caught up noticing how much he towers over you, distracted by your own thoughts as you gaze at him. You’re brought out of your reverie when his eyes catch yours, a smile appearing across his features. He tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear, causing goosebumps to flutter up your spine.
Johnny steps back and clears his throat, as if remembering himself. He looks down at his handiwork, his mouth quirking at the still-visible stain.
“I don’t think that stain’s coming out,” he says, “Hang on.”
He exits the bathroom for a moment, leaving you alone. You take a deep breath. This whole situation makes you feel like all the oxygen has been sucked out of your lungs.
He reappears less than two minutes later, holding a slate gray shirt that clearly belongs to himself.
“You can put this on if you want,” he says, holding the material out to you.
You don’t notice the bashful look on his face at the gesture, as you immediately start taking off your shirt to put on the replacement. You do however catch a glimpse at the way Johnny respectfully tries to look anywhere but your torso until you have his shirt on.
You smile sheepishly once the fabric touches your skin. The shirt is way too big, with the sleeves coming down almost to your elbows. It smells faintly of him, and you look up to see him staring at you intently. You watched as his eyes traveled down the length of you before coming back up and settling on your lips.
“Is everything okay?” you ask, breaking through the silence that had settled over the both of you.
Johnny clears his throat, “Oh, yeah,” he says, scratching the back of his neck, “You just, uh, look really good in my shirt…”
You can tell that your face is warm, but his confession emboldens you to take a small step toward him, gazing up at his face through your eyelashes. He meets you in the middle, placing his hands gently on your waist as he leans down and brings his lips to meet yours.
You gasp into the kiss, letting every emotion wash over you. His hands are warm as they wrap around you, bringing you close. You rest your hands on his shoulders, letting them wander over the expanse of his chest.
He deepens the kiss, and your hands drift up into his hair. You almost moan at how soft it is. Johnny must know you’re holding back, moving his mouth to kiss down your neck as his hands wander under your shirt to caress your torso. You moan when he starts sucking on the tender skin beneath your ear.
He groans when he hears you let out the sound, lifting you up and setting you on the counter in a rush. He steps between your legs, as your lips meet again, his mouth swallowing your sounds as you try to get closer by wrapping your legs around him.
His hands are close to fondling with your bra under his shirt you’re wearing, and you can feel the bulge in his pants as you let yourself grind against him.
“Johnny…” you mumble between kisses, clinging to him like he’s your lifeline. The mumble of his name spurs him on.
You break apart eventually, breathing heavily as you gaze at his swollen lips. You can’t even imagine what you must look like at the moment.
Johnny slowly removes himself from you and steps back to adjust his jeans with a sheepish look on his face. When he looks back up at you, it’s with a smile.
“We should probably stop here,” he suggests, remembering how you mentioned not wanting to go too far tonight. “At least for now .”
You nod, your heart beating fast at the implication of seeing more of him in the future. He combs his fingers through your hair a bit to help make you more presentable, before reaching for your hand.
The two of you head back downstairs, into the chaos of the party, and you find your friends dancing in the living room. They wave and let out some wolf whistles when they see you walking down the stairs hand-in-hand.
You look back at Johnny, and he grins at your friends’ silly behavior, watching as they call you over.
“It’s cool, I’m gonna go check the music queue,” he says, squeezing your hand one last time before letting go, “I’ll see you in class, yeah?”
You return his smile, “Yeah.”
“And maybe at the next party, too?” he asks with a hopeful tone.
You nod before planting a quick kiss on his lips, leaving him speechless as you turn and slip into the crowd.
When you reach your friends, you glance back to find Johnny back to the corner where you had first approached him. It almost felt like the last hour was a hazy dream, but when he looked up, his eyes found yours immediately, lingering with a small smile on his face.
Not a dream, at all.