Taecyeon stumbled on them in the alley a little while later, sober enough to not make a big deal about catching the two of them together in front of Jieun (he would most definitely do it later), but tipsy enough to slur over his words when he told Wooyoung that it was time for them to go.

“I’m going to text you,” Wooyoung promised Jieun when he pulled her back inside so he could leave with s. “So just…I’m going to text you.”

Jieun only nodded wordlessly and Wooyoung hated to leave her. But he kept his promise and texted her when he and the rest of 2PM arrived at their dorm. It wasn’t about what they’d talked about earlier, but something mundane about Junsu’s stinky socks. She didn’t reply, but unlike before, Wooyoung wasn’t going to give up.

For weeks after that, texting Jieun became a regular occurrence. And it was always little things like what he’d eaten for breakfast or how he overheard Chansung on the phone with a girl. She didn’t write back at first, but Wooyoung kept writing until she did. And then he didn’t worry as much about her when their text message conversations became an everyday thing. She told him equally as mundane things like about a pair of heels her cordi unnie had gotten her or how she was thinking about dyeing her hair, but was too afraid to do something drastic.

The mundane eventually gave away to deeper things like newly written song lyrics from her and him admitting that he missed and thought about their former leader a lot. She told him how she didn’t really want to go to college. Like ever. But her mom still didn’t know and would be devastated if she found out. And he told her about how his parents fought all the time and that his dad was drinking a lot more than he ever had before.

One day, Wooyoung got a copy of The Canterbury Tales in the mail addressed from some person called “Kim. P” and it took him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that it was from Jieun, who was in the UK for some fashion thing. And Wooyoung wondered why she’d sent it to him in the first place, considering it was written in some sort of odd old timey English, but he appreciated it anyway.

When 2PM’s tour hit Singapore, they went shopping in a rare bout of down time and Wooyoung found a weird tote bag with a cat on it (he almost had to fight Taecyeon to the death for it), which he sent, along with a magnet with a baby chick on it. Junsu was the first to find the pictures online when she was photographed carrying the bag and all of 2PM looked at Wooyoung, who blushed and ignored their questions and comments (“Now we know who he’s texting all the time,” Junho had said with a laugh).

The weeks had stretched into months and each of them had things to do. He had the tour and Loen finally let Jieun do her comeback and Wooyoung hunted for videos of her interviews and performances online. And yeah, the skirts were definitely shorter, but the music was good and she didn’t look so miserable anymore.

***

In December, two months since they’d seen each other in person, Wooyoung got a text from her in the middle of a photo shoot. He checked it while Nichkhun’s individual photos were being taken and he nearly laughed out loud when he read her message.

“I miss your stupid face.”

After looking around to make sure no one was watching him, Wooyoung snapped a quick picture of himself and sent it to her along with “I showed you mine, so your turn.”

He didn’t realize how that sounded until he after he’d sent it off, but she complied and sent him a picture back of herself grinning and barefaced and perfect. And something in Wooyoung’s chest swelled so large, he thought he was going to pass out. When he didn’t, he quickly saved the picture and shut his phone off.

***

Christmas neared and Jieun sent him a video of her singing ‘Santa Baby’ acapella. Her actual face wasn’t in the video and all he could see were her feet bouncing and he could hear enough laughter in her voice to know that she was smiling when she was singing. Singing for him.

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that until he spotted a music note charm in a store during one of their tour stops. Part of him hoped she wouldn’t read too much into it or make a big deal over the fact that he had bought her jewelry. He hadn’t bought jewelry for any woman before, not even his own mother, so it kind of was a big deal.

Wooyoung worried about it for days after he sent it off and he only had Nichkhun to complain about it to, since Khunnie was the only one that he trusted enough not to about buying Jieun jewelry. Nichkhun only smiled and promised that there wasn’t anything to worry about. And when a silver guitar pick pendant arrived in the mail a week and a half after he’d sent Jieun the music note, Nichkhun’s smile got even bigger and Wooyoung was left wondering if all of this meant that Jieun was unofficially his girlfriend.