“Jisoo?” 

She woke up to someone lightly shaking her shoulder. It was early, and the light filtering in through her window blinds was gray and colorless. Jisoo’s eyes opened slowly and found Jinyoung’s face in front of hers. He had somehow climbed over and was kneeling on the ground by her bed.

“I am literally the worst,” he whispered, laughing gently. 

The events of last night came flooding back to her as she came to. Jisoo pouted sleepily.

“You fell asleep,” she said groggily, pulling the covers closer to her chest. Jinyoung’s hand rested on her shoulder and he was rubbing soothing circles against her arm. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I underestimated how tired I was.”

Jisoo stretched in bed and sighed. “It’s okay, I guess,” she said, still feeling a light haze of drowsiness. Jinyoung touched her face gently, tracing one of her eyebrows with his finger. 

“I have to go now,” he whispered. Jisoo opened her eyes.

“You have to?” Jisoo asked. “It’s Sunday.”

“I have the morning shift at the convalescent home,” Jinyoung said. “It starts at dawn, and I need to get home and shower. Technically, I’m already late.”

Better late than never, Jisoo thought, smiling gently at the memory. She rolled over in bed and buried her face in her pillow, groaning. Jinyoung laughed and leaned his forehead against her shoulder. 

“I have to go,” he said as Jisoo rolled back over to look at him, pouting.

“So what you’re telling me is,” Jisoo said. “Not only are you going to ruin my plans for last night, but you’re going to ruin my morning cuddle plans, too?”

Jinyoung smirked. “We can do it again another time,” he whispered, moving a lock of hair out of her face. “I won’t fall asleep, but maybe you should try to be ready before I come over.”

“It takes a lot of work to look this good,” Jisoo said, closing her eyes against the light from the window. 

“It’s still early,” Jinyoung whispered. “You should sleep in a little more. And try to actually leave your room today. Even if you are writing, you should stretch your legs and eat and… see sunlight.”

Jisoo nuzzled her pillow as she nodded. “Mhmm, yup.”

He wasn’t convinced that she was actually going to take his advice, but he supposed that Jisoo, being Jisoo, was going to do things her own way no matter what. Stubborn girl. She laid there with her eyes closed, breathing deep and staying so still that Jinyoung though she really had drifted back to sleep. But when he moved to stand up, her voice broke the silence. 

“Jinyoung, I like you.”

He froze and then looked back at Jisoo, whose whispered declaration had caught him off guard. Her eyes were still closed and she hadn’t moved and it was as if she’d never spoken. But then Jisoo opened her eyes slowly, wanting to see how he’d react, and she found him looking tenderly at her. 

It was clear that he had feelings for her that went beyond the platonic. He respected her and admired her determination and he wanted to see her take the future by storm and grow as a person and achieve her dreams. And she had made it clear that she wanted those things for him, too. He thought she was funny and spirited and beautiful and he was intensely attracted to her.

In the months that followed their reunion after their teacher’s death and after putting their old rivalry to rest, Jisoo had become one of Jinyoung’s best friends. Which only confirmed what he had secretly believed for years: that they were meant to be friends even long before. Jinyoung wondered what their relationship might be like today if they hadn’t misunderstood each other in middle school and if they hadn’t fought each other so fiercely in high school. He wondered where they might be today if they’d had those ten years to fall in love.

Because god knew that they weren’t quite there yet.

They had a lot of catching up and making up to do for those years they wasted hating each other. The past couple of weeks they’d spent together felt like a whirlwind of years of pent-up feelings rushing at them all at once, confusing and overwhelming them. Yet he had confidence—hope—that they would get there someday if they stayed together.

Jinyoung looked down at Jisoo, taking in her tired eyes and her messy hair, remembered the sound of her groggy voice in the stillness of the morning, remembered the warmth of her body from last night. Then he bent down, kissed the corner of and whispered into it:

“I more-than-like you.”

Jisoo felt her whole body go soft at the sound of his words. She felt so giddy all of a sudden that she had to turn around and pretend to be sleepy again so that he couldn’t see her smiling like an idiot into her pillow. Jinyoung, amused, rose to his feet and bid her goodbye again. He was just about to walk out the door when something caught his eye, however.

The notebook from last night. Jisoo had put it back on her desk. Jinyoung turned and saw that Jisoo was still turned away. Feeling mischievous, he plucked the notebook from her desk and then departed from her bedroom as quiet as a ghost.

Out in the hall, the apartment was quiet. It was still quite early. Last night, he did remember hearing the door open and Lisa and Rose return home from a night of partying in the dead of night. He was still in the throes of sleep then and had chosen to ignore them.

Jinyoung made his way over to the front door as quietly as he could. He didn’t want to wake anyone, and it would be awkward if he ran into any of Jisoo’s roommates. He’d spent the night in her bedroom, after all, so he knew exactly what they would assume and he wanted to save Jisoo the trouble if he could. 

He was just in the middle of putting his shoes back on, however, when the front door opened and in walked Jennie. 

She was startled to see Jinyoung standing there, with a wrinkled sweater, a flushed face, and messy bedhead. He had the same exact look of shock on his face that was on hers.

Jennie was clutching her heels in one hand and had her card key in the other. Her makeup was a little smeared, and her bedhead was just as bad as his, but the most impressive that was that she was wearing an oversized shirt that Jinyoung knew belonged to Jackson. Jennie cocked a brow at Jinyoung as he nervously bid her a good morning and then slipped past her. Jennie watched him walk away, endlessly amused as she wondered just what Park Jinyoung was doing at their apartment last night.

Once Jinyoung was back in his own room, he showered and changed into a fresh outfit. Then he joined the rest of the caregiving staff downstairs to prepare the residents’ breakfast. The work wasn’t particularly hard. Because he’d arrived late, the only work that was really left to be done was to clear tables and help wash dishes. Afterward, he helped move some of the wheelchair-bound residents to the sitting area, and then he was asked to go through the rooms and help make up beds. 

Tedious work, but they were tasks that Jinyoung was able to carry out without much mental demand, leaving his mind free to think about other things. He did a quick run-through of his to-do list, which included things like returning a library book that was already overdue a month, checking in with the school registrar to make sure his application for his degree had gone through, contacting Cheonbyul University informing them of his decision and then calling his mother to let her know the good news.

When his shift was over, he went back up to his room and leaned against the door, sighing.

It felt good knowing where he would be next year, felt good to have another bit of his path cleared up for him. Jinyoung smiled, thinking about where his life had been just a few months ago.

A few months ago, he was living on Jackson’s couch, shamelessly crying his eyes out over a girlfriend who cheated on him with one of his best friends, and had not one damned clue where he was headed next year. 

Now, he had a spot at one of the most prestigious schools of medicine in the country and another chance at love. He felt sick with happiness at the thought. 

He wished he had decided to just blow off his shift and stay with Jisoo that morning, fulfilling her “cuddle plans.” When he checked the time on his phone, it was already past noon, making it too late to go over now and slip back into the bed with her without her roommates noticing. Besides, he thought, she’d have work to do.

Which reminded him that he had swiped her top secret notebook.

Jinyoung went over to where he had dropped the notebook onto his bed. It was thin and cheap and obviously new, but Jisoo must have handled it so much and written so much in it in the last few days that it was starting to look old. The pages were crinkling from the all the ink pressed in. Curious, he sat on his bed, opened it to the first page and started reading.

Then a few slips of folded paper slid out from between the pages. Jinyoung picked them up, straightened them out, and started reading them, too. It was a short story written just recently by Sandra Park. Dara, he thought.

He looked between the words on Dara’s draft and the inked words on the page, and he started to notice something strange.

Jisoo stared blankly at Julie’s email, asking her to come into her office for a quick discussion on Wednesday when Dara stormed out of her office and leaned over Jisoo’s desk, fuming.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jisoo gasped and killed her computer’s screen. Holy , she thought. Jisoo’s eyes looked at her dead screen and then down at the magazine mock-ups that were still on her desk and then at the box of old Embrace issues under her desk. Dara’s stare was hard and cold.

“I said, what do you think you’re doing?” Dara said.

Oh my god, Jisoo thought. How did she find out? Jisoo’s throat stiffened and fear made her seize up. How did she find out?

“Dara,” Jisoo said, hyperventilating. “I… I am so sorry… please just let me—”

“Were you the one who booked Chiaroscuro for catering at the big meeting?” Dara’s eyes narrowed at Jisoo, but the junior staffer was confused.

“What?” Jisoo said.

Dara slammed down a piece of paper that Jisoo recognized as the memo she had sent out to all the relevant members of staff. She pointed at the last sentence on the page, informing everyone that catering would be provided by Chiaroscuro, the classy catering company that Jisoo found online.

“You booked Chiaroscuro?” Dara said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Jisoo