Requested by: tynicakes

Pairing: Seokju (DK x Yuju)

Author: Pollux

Started: 06/26/17

Finished: 07/04/17

Request:

Pairing: Seokju (DK x Yuju)

Author: Pollux

Genre: fluff, romance, school life

Plot: When Yuju gets her first ever Prince Charming on a white horse, Seokmin just wants his best friend back. But what if it isn't just jealousy fueling his mission to save a certain princess who's stolen his heart? 

Notes:

I'm not the most familiar with Yuju's character but I did a bit of general researching so I hope this captures both of their cute and dorky personalities. :) I hope you like it~

~Pollux

I’ll Be Yours

“You got a what?” Seokmin stared at his best friend of twelve years. Surely he was hearing things wrong; there was no way she had a—

“Boyfriend,” Yuju smiled up at him, twirling a strand of long, chestnut brown hair in between two fingers with a light blush painting her cheeks. She was wearing a dress that day—he noticed—one that he hadn’t seen before with lovely lace flowers and fluttering sleeves. “My first boyfriend.”

Frozen, Seokmin blinked as her tinkling voice echoed in the back of his mind. Boyfriend…

Unfortunately, Seokmin had never contemplated the possibility of this ever happening for as long as he lived and would live, nor had he ever a reason to do so. He supposed that everyone did grow up at some point and Yuju had indeed grown up to be a pretty girl, but to him, she was just Yuju and it was just them against the rest of the world, and he had thought that would never change. So understandably, he had no clue what to say lest his words came out wrong. Boyfriend…

Yuju just stood there, beaming. “Well, aren’t you going to ask me who it is?”

“Ah, yes,” Seokmin cleared his throat and slowly stretched his face into a smile. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

She laughed.

“It’s a secret.”

Said secret invaded Seokmin’s thoughts as the school day began, with a single word dominating his mind: who? Perhaps it was the nice guy with large round glasses that had held the door open for her as they walked to their second classes of the day, or maybe the disruptive but supposedly good-looking delinquent who sat next to her in her fourth class that she tutored at the library every Friday. Or was it someone she had met over the summer or on a rare weekend outing without him?

He shook his head violently. He didn’t want to think about that.

As he tried to pry his attention back to the teacher scribbling on the board, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. It was Yuju, smirking at him as if she could see the questions in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Her eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that reminded Seokmin of candy and apple crisps eaten on the rooftop under blue skies.

He hadn’t even realized he was staring until she giggled and waved a hand in front of his face—to which he attempted to roll his eyes and turned back around with a huff. Weirdly enough, in his hand was clutched tightly the crumpled remains of the classwork.

They didn’t have any other classes together but at least he would see her at lunch, Seokmin thought, resolving to shake the weird feeling he’d had all morning and go back to laughing and joking with their small group of friends. He felt the smile teasing his lips already as he walked down the hallway, each step quicker than the one before.

However, when he approached the circle of weird hair colors and off-key singing, Yuju was nowhere to be found. Nervously, he sat down besides Soonyoung, a good friend from middle school. Surely, she was just a tad bit late.

“So,” Seokmin slid into the conversation. “How’s everyone doing?”

“We’re seniors!” Jun yelled.

Minghao rolled his eyes and sighed.

“I just wanna graduate already,” Jihoon muttered from the side with his signature huff.

“It’s literally the first day of school!” exclaimed Soonyoung in mock horror and then burst into laughter at the unchanging expression on the other’s face that seemed to say, “I don’t give a what day it is.” “Besides,” he drawled, “you love us too much to leave.”

As the whole circle fell into loud giggles at the way Jihoon simply raised an eyebrow in response, Soonyoung took that for a “Fine” instead of a “Just wait” because he proceeded to coo at the shorter boy. Seokmin grinned and shifted in his seat. None of the girls were around at all—not Yerin, Sowon, Eunha, or Umji and definitely not Yuju. As if noticing his confusion, Soonyoung turned back to Seokmin.

“Are you looking for Yuju?” The other boys giggled, as if they knew something he didn’t. Seokmin frowned and nodded. “SinB said that she’s on a date right now, so the rest of the girls are following her.”

“What!” Seokmin felt his eyebrows rise dramatically. She hadn’t told him that…

“Yep!” Mingyu slapped an arm around Seokmin’s shoulders and leaned in with a smirk. “I heard it was some really cool dude in college who has a sports car.”

Seokmin almost fainted. “College?” He repeated slowly.

Soonyoung nodded along enthusiastically. “With a car!”

And for the rest of that week, Seokmin saw his best friend only one more time when she had arrived in their shared class before him and sat there at her desk typing away on her phone with little taps of her painted nails. Not wanting to disturb her but also really wanting to check who she was texting, Seokmin could only groan and bury his head in his arms. For the first time, she didn’t seem to notice.

All he heard was continuous tapping and a few quiet giggles that escaped from behind him and laughed in his ears for the rest of the class.

“Why are you so busy?” He whined when she picked up on the fifth ring of their usual Friday night calls.

“Dokyeom,” She singsonged, the old nickname endearing to hear again, “I’m always busy.” And it was true, she was on the honor roll, played on two sports teams, was an officer in three clubs, and so much more.

Seokmin pouted. “You know what I mean,” he whined again.

There was the tinkle of laughter on the other side of the line. “What if I don’t?” She teased. Suddenly, Seokmin was reminded of how she smiled, with rare flashes of her pearly whites shyly peeking out from soft pink lips as her eyes turned into sparkling crescents.

“But you do,” he whined. “You’re even more busy now.” It was like she didn’t have time for him anymore—but he wasn’t going to admit that; it was childish.

“Awww, is Dokyeom jealous?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Seokmin sighed, frustration seeping into his voice. “It’s like this guy just shows up, and then I don’t see you around anymore.” He paused unhappily. “I don’t even know who he is.”

He could hear her humming in amusement. “Okay, okay,” she giggled and he was reminded of how wind chimes sang along with birds in the morning breeze of spring. “How about we hang out next week, like bring back our Mourning Monday coffees or something?”

“That’s finals tradition,” Seokmin pointed out, but he felt a small smile growing. “How about brunch on Tuesdays?” He pursed his lips. “Something like Together Tuesdays?”

“That’s so cheesy,” she laughed, voice softer than before. His breath caught. “I like it.”

And so when Monday rolled around, Seokmin wasn’t too surprised to see her missing at their usual lunch table again—all the other girls were gone too. But even the thought of seeing her the next day didn’t entirely erase the churning feeling in his gut.

“What’s wrong?” Someone whispered in his ear. Originally lost in thought, Seokmin jerked his head up abruptly, catching the side of Soonyoung’s chin.

“Nothing!” Seokmin exclaimed with a bit too much positivity. His cheeks hurt from how wide he stretched his smile.

Soonyoung fixed him with a long, hard stare and poked Seokmin in the cheek. “Seriously, what’s wrong?” His voice was soft and Seokmin could hear the genuine concern coloring it but truthfully, nothing should be wrong. Yuju just got her first boyfriend and he, as her best friend since kindergarten, should be excited for her. He liked to think that maybe he would be able to be that one friend who would listen to her relationship secrets and threaten to kill her boyfriend if he ever hurt her. And that wasn’t so wrong. So why did it feel so wrong?

Soonyoung stared at him expectantly and when nothing came out of his open mouth, the older boy sighed. “It’s Yuju, isn’t it?”

Seokmin nodded mutely. For some reason, it was always her.

“You really like her, don’t you?”

Seokmin’s eyes snapped wide open. “What?”

Perhaps there was something akin to pity in his friend’s eyes. “You like her. Yuju.” He didn’t even stop when Seokmin tried to form the beginnings of an incoherent protest. “As in like like. As in how much I like SinB.”

Seokmin gaped.

“You what?”

Soonyoung shook it off with a small laugh. “If you don’t want to lose her, go get her back.”

And finally, there he was, walking with her by his side to go get a quick brunch together at the cafe near the school’s eastern exit. They were both in reflective moods that day, perhaps by reminder of their many weird traditions and silly stories.

“Don’t you remember when we used to have playdates?” Yuju asked.

And of course he did. Seokmin remembered very clearly the attacks led on the evil warlocks of the backyard forest, all spearheaded by the warrior princess of the Choi Kingdom and her faithful knight of the Lee family swordsmen.

“And middle school?” She giggled. “The legendary dance battles of classroom 2B?”

But of course, how could he forget? Those were started by some sleepover dare and brought their two groups together, starting the annual tradition of dance-offs each May 26th.

“You were really my knight then,” she continued. After all, he had offered to dance on the girls’ side because they had less people and his horse dance had saved the day, making Soonyoung choke on the water he was drinking and ending the game in a tie. And thinking about it, that had felt so right.

And maybe that was why it felt so wrong hearing her say that—the thought that she had found herself a prince now.

Maybe it was the way he missed her smile, her laugh, and her hugs. Maybe it was the way he missed seeing her walk over, with a skip in her stride and long dark hair dancing in the wind. Maybe it was because he never wanted to share that with anyone else—but now he had to.

They fell silent, letting the roars of passing cars and ringing bells of bicycles fill up the air around them.

And suddenly, Soekmin understood why he’d felt the urge to open the door for her instead of someone else, why he’d mourned the lack of a driving permit, and why he hadn’t truly been smiling for the past week. Because for once, Soonyoung was right. He was in love with his best friend.

He glanced at her and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yuju, I—”

“Dokyeom, I—”

There was a pause, shared eye contact, and then they both burst out laughing.

“You go first,” said Seokmin.

“No, you first,” she giggled.

He grimaced and pulled on a smile. “Well, I was going to say that jealousy doesn’t look good on me and so I’ll uh, be like the supportive best friend in your relationship but I’ll still kill the dude if he makes you cry?”

He pouted when she bit her lip to keep from laughing. “I’m being sincere, don’t laugh at me,” he whined.

“Sorry,” she grinned, “but I don’t think you’d be able to kill anyone.” She stopped walking, turning to face him seriously. “Plus you won’t have to.”

Frowning, Seokmin stopped too. If Yuju was about to sprout some corny line about this new boyfriend being Prince Charming on a white horse—her one true love and soulmate, he was pretty sure he would lose his best friend forever.

“I broke up with him.”

It was flat and flippant the way she said it, as if recounting some commonplace shopping incident or dismissing a test score. Seokmin could only screech, “But it’s only been a week?!”

“It wasn’t fun,” she giggled, “He tried to take me to watch some gross rom-com when I wanted to watch Deadpool. And then he tried to take me to dinner at some fancy place and got upset when I wouldn’t dress up.” Then, she looked back up at him. “Plus, he didn’t like our Friday calls, so it was bye-bye for him.” Maybe she was expecting him to make another exclamation because she saved him the trouble by turning back to continue walking. “Besides, who needs a prince when I have my knight?”

With a million thoughts running through his head, Seokmin impulsively reached out and grabbed her wrist before she took another step. “Wait.” He felt his heart beating harder, drowning out the sounds of traffic.

She turned back to him with those wide eyes and a small smile dancing on her lips, and suddenly, he could only hear one thought echoing with each thump in his chest: Get her back. Tell her.

“I, uh—”

When he paused to search for the right words, she filled the air with a joke. “You want to play pretend? We can pretend it’s not a school day.”

He chuckled nervously and shook his head before taking her other hand in his own.

She nodded encouragingly for him to go on, an endearing smile growing as she waited patiently.

“What if I said I wanted to be more than just a knight?”

And she just blinked at him, as if she had been expecting it ever since they had met that day on the playground in kindergarten. “Of course. And what would that be?”

“Yours.”