Description: enemies to lovers!jae

Warning: slight (very slight) swearing

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School.

It’s one of the things you have a love-hate relationship with.

You love coming back to once again immerse yourself in the subjects you enjoy studying for but at the same time, you hate having to back amongst the crowd of raucous boys – and you’d thought that college-aged boys would be more mature than that. You could go on and rant for days about how much you couldn’t stand all the rowdy people in school but there was just one thing that would beat all of that – Park Jaehyung.

Boy was a plague that should be avoided at all costs.

He would always have some trick up his sleeves, each one more drastic than the last one. It baffled you how he managed to get away with all his jokes and you were beginning to think that he possessed some sort of magic that would allow everyone around him (including the teachers) to forget his antics.

 

You’d always been the prim and proper one, the kind that never stepped a toe out of line. As all your friends called you, The Perfect student Y/N: always on time for handing up your assignments and being where you should be.

Naturally, for people that do not fit within these neat rows, you tended to avoid them. Not because you looked down upon them, but simply because you knew that you wouldn’t click well with them. Therefore, it can be said that you didn’t go out to find trouble, trouble found you instead.

-

“What’s on your lunch menu today, Y/N?”

“I’m going to go with some Japanese food, been craving that stuff for days now.”

It was a normal queue experience; save for a few pricks that always cut the queue. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at the sight – why can’t these people just queue up like everyone else? But alas, in life, there are bound to be pricks around so you just let it slide.

“What’s with that long face?”

“Queue-cutters is why.”

Your friend Rachel merely gave you a small smile, twirling her fork in the air a little before saying, “Just let it slide.”

“I would, but when you only have a 30 minute break and these people take up 10 minutes of your time, surely you would be bothered.”

She suddenly stopped twirling her fork in mid-air before focusing on something behind you.

Or to be more accurate: someone.

“Hey Y/N?”

On instinct, you reacted to your name and the next sensation you were aware of was someone’s lips on yours.

And that certain someone was Park Jaehyung.

In the beginning there was the sensation of your brain going numb from the shock and all you’re aware of is the feeling of his lips on yours – they feel soft? Like really soft; think marshmallow soft. But once your brain got past that stage and alarm bells went off in your head, you were harshly pushing him off and acting on instinct.

 

A sharp crack resonated through the entire canteen and you only realised what you had done when you felt the stinging pain on your palm.

 

Half of you were angry at him for pulling that prank on you, but the better half of you was feeling guilty for hurting him.

 

Before you could work out an appropriate response to the scene that both of you had caused, Rachel was dragging you away from the cafeteria and for the rest of the day, when you caught your reflection in the mirror, you found yourself involuntarily remembering the feeling of his lips against yours.

-

It didn’t help that you had many shared lessons with Jae (reason why you knew he was so infamous in the first place)

Seeing him gave you terrible flashbacks of That Day and the snickers from the rest of your classmates weren’t helping very much. In a bid to reduce your chances of being the target for his next prank, you chose a seat right at the back of the classroom, which was far enough from him, in your opinion.

But it seems that fate loves to deal you a ty card so within the next 15 minutes, you found yourself face to face with him, your official designated partner for the year end History project.

Just as you were lost in your own thoughts (cursing and swearing at your terrible luck), you saw a hand waving in your peripheral vision followed by a snap of the fingers that brought you out from your trance.

“Huh?”

“A penny for your thoughts?” Jae asked with a quirk of his eyebrows. He then stretched out his arms along the length of your desk before propping himself up with his elbows as his cheeks rested on his knuckles. He then used the fingers on his free hand to drum lightly against your desk and for the first time, you notice the thin black band on his middle finger.

You leaned back in your chair, backing out of your own personal space now that he has taken over that space. You frowned a little, baffled at his behaviour.

How is he so…calm? After that prank that he pulled and the fiasco that he caused, how is he so calm around me?

But seeing as to how he didn’t seem fazed at all, you decided that you would not be the one to make things awkward, and opted to put that incident behind you.

“Nothing. Let’s get started.”

“Sure.”

The next hour went by uneventfully as both of you decided on your thesis and you thought that, maybe, just maybe, that you could possibly work with him.

 

Well, you thought wrong.

-

Jae was an absolute PAIN to work with.

Nothing about the project went to plan – all thanks to him. His research always came late and he was never on time for your discussions. You were seething inside – but – enough time had been wasted.

It was in these moments that you decided to put your intelligence to good use – so – cost-benefit analysis right? You decided that the cost of wasting time reprimanding him was less than the benefits of making headway for the project so you simply settled for rolling your eyes at him before getting started on the project. After a couple of such incidents, you were now used to him running off mid-way during your discussions, leaving you to burn the midnight oil just to get through your thesis bit by bit.

 

Day of submission was finally approaching and with your knowledge of Jae performing for the upcoming school festival, you knew he wouldn’t have time left to meet you so you merely left him a text, asking him to get the last few paragraphs out over the weekend at his own time. You got an “ok” emoji back from Jae a couple of hours later and you left it as that. But when you checked back on the document the morning before submission, you nearly spit out your coffee all over your pristine white laptop.

 

The document was blank, entirely BLANK. Submission was in 10 hours’ time and the document was…BLANK? Fury surged through your veins and right at the moment, the devil called.

 

“YAH Park Jaehyung!”

“Y/N it’s 8am in the morning, why are you screaming into my ear?”

“You’re unbelievable. You have the audacity to ask me WHY I’m screaming at you at 8am in the morning? Tell me Jae, what do you think I’m screaming at you for?”

“Eh…that’s because the document is still blank?”

“Thank you for your response, I see you still at least have half a brain left to give me the correct answer.”

“Look, I’m sorry, band practise ended late last night because we had some loose ends to tie up. But thing is I’m calling you now…”

“You’re calling me because?”

“I need help with the thesis. I’m at the Coffee Time, could you come down to help me out…?”

Getting no response from your end of the line, Jae decided to use the magic word.

“Please?”

You took a deep breath as you closed your eyes to do a quick analysis in your brain.

You do not help him and the cost is that you get a bad grade for History – you might even fail. You help him and in that manner tacitly condone his deplorable behaviour.

As much as you hated yourself for it, you knew the decision was a clear one.

“I’ll be there in 30 minutes. But you sir, better get something out in the meantime because I will give you hell later when I see you.”

“Gotcha sweetheart, thanks.” You heard him make a vague kissy noise before the line went dead. You positively gagged before hauling yourself to the bathroom to make yourself look presentable.

You found him in the corner 30 minutes later sipping on black coffee with 3 other empty cups around him.

“What are you running on – pure caffeine?”

“Unfortunately so for the next 10 hours, I’ll crash properly once we hand up this assignment.”

Right at that moment a cup of green tea latte was placed in front of you and you couldn’t even mutter out a thank you before the waiter disappeared behind the counter again. Then the afterthought hit you: you hadn’t even ordered anything yet so what was this?

“Jae, did you order this?”

“Honey, you’re asking the obvious.”

“Just checking…how’d you know I usually get this though?”

“That’s, like, the only thing you get whenever I have to meet you here.”

“Didn’t think you’d have noticed…”

“I notice everything. I just don’t necessarily comment on it.”

In response, you raised an eyebrow before taking a sip of the familiar sweet drink.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Ok but I really need help with this thesis, could you come over here and look at this real quick?”

Shifting your body over to sit beside him, you focused your eyes on where he was pointing at on the screen and you did a quick scan of the paragraph he just wrote.

"I think you can explain further on what motivated the Soviet Union to end the Cold War. There are more reasons than just these."

"Like?"

You'd then spent the next 15 minutes explaining it to him before he finally got what you were saying. As he nodded in understanding, you were about to scoot away so that he had space to type but soon you were trapped within his arms.

Instead of asking you to move, Jae simply moved his long arms over your body before letting it settle by your side. So there you sat for the next 10 minutes, trapped between his chest and his right arm, as he typed out the paragraph. As much as you wanted to critique as he wrote the paragraph, the close proximity of your bodies was too distracting for you. Those 10 minutes also gave you sufficient time to realise how your small frame fitted nicely between the crevices of his body; he didn't even seem awkward typing with your whole body stuffed between his. You made a mistake of glancing to your left and you caught a glimpse of his milky white collarbones, realising your height difference just by sitting down.

I'm probably only around the height of his shoulder.

"Done. Help me check?"

You merely nodded, and you finally could breathe again after he kept his arms back to himself.

"This seems fine."

"Woohoo yes baby."

"Yea just keep typing. I'll move back."

"No just sit here. It's more efficient if I type and you check at the same time."

Tugging you down by your wrists, you found yourself wedged between Jae and his arm once again and the cycle repeated itself for the next 5 hours until he finally got the last word out.

"And...we're...done! Alas!"

Jae then raised his arms above his body in a stretch before allowing himself to sink against the comfortable plush seat. You'd let him catch a few moments of rest as you scanned through the document one last time. As much as you hated his lax attitude throughout the process, he was able to produce quality work in the end and you suppose you can't really argue with that.

"Oi Jae." You slapped his biceps as you tried to shake him awake.

"Hm?"

"We need to get this printed and in his letter tray within the next 2 hours."

"So?"

"So let's get this stuff printed!"

"Alright relax. We can get it done here."

"What, in the cafe?"

"Yea. Gimme a moment."

Taking the thumb drive from your hands, Jae disappeared behind the counter into the kitchen and reappeared a few moments later, as promised.

"Done. Let's just wait here for the next few minutes."

"How'd you even..."

"That, darling, is called connections."

"Ok I get that but we need to establish something: you need to stop addressing me with all these terms of endearment. I have a name that you can use, you know?"

"But that's so boring!"

"Excuse me; are you insulting my given name?" You peered down at Jae's figure that was now sprawled out all over the couch, narrowing your eyes at him as you placed your arms on your hips.

Jae, unfazed as always, merely cracked an eye open to look at you before shutting them again.

"No, that isn't what I meant. I think you have a great name Y/N, I sincerely do. It's just that everyone calls you that and I wanna do something different, ya know?"

"And, what for?"

"Well, just because I am original."

You were in the middle of formulating your thoughts when a stack of papers landed beside you.

"Jae-hyung, your papers."

"Oh thanks Wonpil."

You cracked a small smile at the red-haired boy and he gave you a nice eye smile back before disappearing behind the counter again.

"Let's hand this in and call it a day."

-

When both of you finally placed the document in your lecturer tray, it felt like an entire weight had been lifted off your shoulders.

Walking along the largely empty hallways, Jae brought up the idea of dinner and you were bickering with him about suitable dinner options when you froze as your grip on Jae's shirt tightened.

 

Coming straight in your direction was your worst nightmare. It felt like death was coming - you could almost feel the icy cold fingers of death wrap around your throat. Why now - after all your effort to forget him?

 

Your cheating ex was currently walking towards you and by his side was the girl that he cheated on you with. It felt like getting shoot. Twice. It took you a year to forget the humiliation, to be able to walk down the school hallways comfortably without feeling like ev