chapter 19
the psychology of good students“Do Kyungsoo!” Jooyoung shouts from the other end of the corridor. The large group of people at the other side turn around simultaneously but she is unfazed as she marches up to the man she has been looking for.
He is a stupid dude who made her walk all around campus to find him, and didn’t even pick up her calls today nor reply her messages.
Kyungsoo himself, in the middle of all the people, looks slightly alarmed, like a deer caught in headlights, but he gets over his shock soon enough and begins to slump his shoulders just as she storms right in front of him.
“Where are you supposed to be right now?” She asks, her hands on her hips. She knows Kyungsoo knows exactly where he’s supposed to be. It’s just that he’s purposely avoiding it. His friends are politely (or not) listening, obviously interested in whatever that’s unfolding. One or two seem like they are deciding whether or not to intervene, but then Jooyoung places a firm hand on Kyungsoo’s wrist and he can’t escape anyway. He’s coming with her to do up his presentation, and there’s no running away.
He slumps his shoulders even more, his mouth turning into a sad droop. “I don’t want to do it. It’s unnecessary.”
She is exasperated. “What do you mean unnecessary? You’ve not even gotten your slides prepared for the presentation and it’s in a few days!”
“But we’ve been practising every day,” he laments. It is true that every evening since he first told her about the Symposium, Jooyoung’s been dragging Kyungsoo to her room to practice, but frankly, it’s for his good, not hers, so why is he the one behaving like this now?
“That’s because the presentation is at the Symposium,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Of course you have to practise, even when you’re a genius. Stop being an idiot sandwich.”
Kyungsoo casts an unwilling glance at one of his friends nearer to him, and the guy seems to take it as a plea for help, so he steps forward and puts on a mega-watt grin.
“Hi,” he says cheerily, waving at an unamused Jooyoung. “Actually we were just about to go for a barbecue dinner, and Kyungsoo has agreed to it already, and we’re paying for him, so...”
Kyungsoo nods his head vigorously at this, much to the amusement of some of his friends behind. Jooyoung deeply exhales.
“Can you shift your plans to another day? He’ll come with you next time. Now he needs go with me to practise.”
The boy keeps looking at her earnestly. “You can come if you like — the barbecue place is really good. We can all be friends. Hi, I’m Mingyu.”
Jooyoung stares at his outstretched hand for a moment, feeling a little awkward, but then she takes it in his firmly and shakes it. “I’m Jooyoung,” she says obligatorily, before letting go of his hand swiftly and tightening her grip on Kyungsoo’s wrist.
“Nice meeting you all,” she says, then turns to Kyungsoo, who looks somewhat stuck in his position.
“Come on,” she urges now, dragging him away from his group of friends. “I’ll buy you meat after the Symposium. Now you gotta practise.”
"Just the two of us?"
"Yeah, yeah. Come on." Jooyoung walks away from his group of friends.
He follows.
After the intense practising session in which now even Jooyoung can memorise Kyungsoo’s script, he flops down on her bed, claiming he’s tired. She slaps him on the and gets him to move aside, and she lies down on the bed beside him. Their hips are touching and it is more than easy to get their legs tangled anytime one of them fidgets.
“Get off, it’s too squeezy,” she complains, laying on her back.
Kyungsoo doesn’t move. Instead he turns his head towards her. She feels his warmth breath in steady exhalations on her cheek and tries not to let herself get too affected.
“What are you wearing to the Symposium?” He asks.
“If this is a ploy to make me get up and try clothes, I’m not falling for it.”
Kyungsoo laughs, and it echoes in her ear. “No, I’m serious here. I borrowed a suit and formal clothing from my friends already. Are you going to borrow yours from, I don’t know, Krystal?”
This gets her up. She props herself up on her hands and stares down at Kyungsoo. “Are you crazy? Why would I borrow clothes from her?” Jooyoung leaps off the bed, losing this mental battle, and he moves such that he’s back in the centre.
Then she heads straight for her cupboard and pulls a couple of her formal dresses out. They’re all hanging in a corner, so they’re relatively easy to find. One was worn when she graduated high school and her school hosted a prom. One was a gift from her mother. One was bought because of peer pressure back in high school (yes, she was stupid). One was... she can’t remember, but she’s never worn it before.
She throws them all onto the bed (making Kyungsoo have to cover his face and dodge the dresses) and points. “Which?” She asks Kyungsoo. He moves his head up to look, but only slightly, then he lowers it back onto the pillow again.
“The black one,” he decides nonchalantly. Jooyoung holds it over herself to make sure she can still fit, and when she confirms she does, she tosses the rest back into her cupboard.
“Okay,” she says. The black dress is hung on the handle of her cupboard door and that’s that.
She goes to tidy some things on her table. Kyungsoo shifts such that he is lying on his side, then watches her as she packs. “That’s it? You chose your dress just like this?”
She turns around, puzzled. “Uh, what else do you want me to do?”
He shrugs, then places his hands underneath his head to act as extra pillows. “I don’t know. Try it on to see if you look good? Do all that girl stuff and see which makeup matches the dress and all?”
She narrows her eyes at him and throws a wad of paper on his face. “Not all girls do stuff like this. Stop generalising.”
“Sorry,” he says, puckering his lips. “But in all truth I thought you were going to retort me by saying –“
“It’s unnecessary?” She predicts, and smiles when she sees his a small grin slide onto his face as well.
“Yeah. That.” Kyungsoo stares at her for a while, and the room is silent. Then he shuffles over to the side of the bed and lays his arm out where her pillow is. “Come here,” he says, patting the bed.
“Now you want me beside you. Are you going to sleep now?” She says breezily, although inside of there is a tornado brewing. Jokes and brush-aways are always the best defence mechanisms.
“Yeah. We should both. I’m tired, and you’re tired, so why not?”
So Jooyoung does, sliding under the covers, feeling his pulse beat through his arm (it makes for a good pillow). Kyungsoo brings the covers over the both of them, and then closes his eyes, like it is the most normal thing to do. He has tilted his face to the side such that his nose is so near her face, she can feel his every breath. She keeps convincing herself that it is real, and Kyungsoo isn’t drunk this time. Neither is he asleep when this is happening.
And she swears, nothing can feel better than this. It is heaven, right there in her small dorm room.
___________________________________________________
One day before the Symposium, Kyungsoo drops a bag in front of Jooyoung when she sits down at the cafeteria with her lunch. It is from Innisfree and she is suspicious, though aware, of what’s inside.
“49,000won,” he merely says, reaching his hand out. “But I’ll pay half, since you are putting it on for the Symposium anyway.”
Jooyoung tosses his wallet to him. Then she peeks inside the bag, and true enough, it is loaded with makeup products she is sure was either on sale, or sold cheaply already. Kyungsoo peels her wallet open carefully, withdrawing a 10,000won note from it.
“I thought you said you were going to take half,” she said, still occupied with her bag. She takes the products out one by one: there’s foundation, mascara, lipstick and eyeshadow. And out of the lot, she’s only ever used lipstick.
A few days before, she’d casually mentioned she didn’t have any makeup to wear to the Symposium. It was really just a remark — she didn’t mean to wear makeup since this was the case. But she didn’t know Kyungsoo heard it, let alone expect him to make a trip all the way down to Innisfree to get her makeup.
“I feel bad about making you pay the half,” he says, scrunching the 10,000won note up and stuffing it in his khaki pocket. “So just take it as a gift from me. I know that’s what other people do.”
“Wow, the Scrooge knows how to give gifts now?” She jokes, then slides her wallet back to him, but he holds the wallet in place to refuse it. “Just take the money. Anyway, these are for my use.”
Kyungsoo pushes the wallet away. He sighs, looking up at Jooyoung suddenly with so much intensity it makes her stop moving.
“Let me buy a gift for you for once, dumbo,” he says softly, gently. She wants to insist, but finds herself being able to do nothing but obediently nod and take her wallet back.
The rest of the lunch is spent with Jooyoung’s phone propped up against a cup of tea, the both of them watching makeup tutorials which she is pretty certain she’ll never be able to replicate. But it’s okay. It’s a start. Kyungsoo keeps scrunching his face up when he’s watching, as if trying to scrutinising contents of the tutorial. After a while they both decide they give up.
Jooyoung promises to look for Jina (not Krystal) if she really can’t put the makeup on properly. Kyungsoo says he’ll ask one of his female friends to help as well, come the worst case.
She props her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her palms. “Why did you choose me to by your plus-one for the Symposium out of all your female friends?” She asks, mostly in anticipation.
He continues chewing on his food. “No reason.”
“There must be one.”
“Because you were the first female friend I saw when I received the news?” He says in all seriousness, his head tilting to the side. Jooyoung stares flatly at him, then hurls the rice grain that had dropped off her plate onto him. She misses. It sticks itself to the table.
“Of course,” she says sardonically, still giving him the stink eye. “Why did I expect more?”
“What were you expecting?” He raises his eyebrows, smiling at her. “Something like ‘because you were the only person I thought of when I heard the news’?”
Jooyoung nods her head decisively. “Yes. You gotta learn how to flatter me, man. I have a feeling we’re going to be stuck together for a long time.”
“So you want to hear me say something more touching?” He confirms, looking more amused than ever.
“Touching and true,” she says, pointing a finger upwards to make her point.
And then Kyungsoo’s hand slides across the table and grabs hers, gently folding her pointed finger in and curling it inside the crevice of his. It makes her hitch her breath and automatically look into his eyes.
“Because you were the only person I thought of when I heard the news,” he repeats, in a soft voice which comes out so low it sends a shiver down her spine. “And who else would I even want to ask?”
Jina couldn’t leave her residency on the day of the Symposium itself, so Kyungsoo had to end up calling one of his friends to help Jooyoung with her makeup. She had initially insisted she could handle it herself, but after looking more like a tacky cartoon character more than an actual person after doing her makeup (thrice), she gave up.
So now a Visual Arts major whose name is Yura is in her bedroom, carefully drawing Jooyoung’s brows for her using an eyebrow pencil from the entire carton of her own makeup she had brought over — which means basically Jooyoung’s Innisfree makeup is wasted. It is a little awkward, but Yura’s so nice to come and help out that Jooyoung just feels relief that Kyungsoo has a large social circle like his.
“What Symposium is this again?” Yura asks, her face right in front of hers. Jooyoung stares unintentionally into her eyes, but they don’t make eye contact since Yura’s concentrated on her eyebrows anyway. Her eyes are really big, and really pretty, the type people can stare into and get lost in.
“Symposium for Research in Psychology,” Jooyoung answers, and apparently her eyebrow has twitched, because Yura stops in the middle of drawing. She blinks her big eyes.
“Try not to move,” she reminds, and Jooyoung shuts up. Then she’s back to her concentrated look as she asks again, “Is it prestigious?”
“Extremely,” Jooyoung says, trying to keep her face as still as possible. Yura finishes up drawing her eyebrows and turns around, rummaging in the carton before her hand emerges with an eyeliner.
Then she waves it in front of Jooyoung, her large eyes staring right into hers this time. “You can’t move at all when I put this on for you, okay?” She asks, as if she’s asking a child. Jooyoung meekly nods because she’s the noob at this anyway.
Then Yura smiles encouragingly as she starts with the eyeliner. It kinda tickles but Jooyoung tells herself she can’t fidget, not even a little. But soon her eyes start to water and it’s painful.
“Can I blink?” She asks, feeling her eyes hurt, and Yura bursts into laughter. Jooyoung is half-puzzled but takes the opportunity to blink her fill, since she’s stopped drawing anyway.
“What in the world, you’re so cute,” Yura comments, moving the eyeliner away. Jooyoung has to mentally tell herself not to scrunch her face up because ‘cute’? No, thank you.
“No wonder Kyungsoo likes you,” Yura continues, leaning back in to finish up her eye makeup. Jooyoung doesn’t know what she unconsciously did to her facial expression, but she knows it must be something strange, because Yura surreptitiously bites back her laughter once again. This time, Jooyoung knows she’s blushing out of embarrassment.
She’s had that inkling quite some time ago, honestly, that what Kyungsoo feels towards her is more than just platonic affection. Jooyoung’s not dense. She’s just been avoiding the elephant in the room since she’s quite satisfied with how their friendship (or, relationship) is progressing.
But today, hearing this from someone else, someone who’s been hanging out with Kyungsoo and knows him well too, makes her feel especially tingly. And maybe it’s just the mood of the Symposium, her dolling up, him in his own room putting on his suit, that makes her feel a strong resolution to progress whatever’s going on.
She in a deep breath and holds it there.
Screw everything. She’s going to confess after the Symposium.
There’s no point holding it in anymore, and besides, since when has Jooyoung been the sort of person to let things swell up in her like a balloon, only for it to pop unexpectedly when it grows far too big? Once the balloon enters and she feels the rubber choking it, she needs to let it out.
Jooyoung can hardly sit still as Yura finishes up her makeup, but she doesn’t comment on her moving anymore. When she’s finally done, Yura holds her by her shoulder and scrutinises her face, carefully checking every corner. Jooyoung feels weird that there’re... products on her face, and strangely self-conscious about the whole makeup thing, but when Yura’s eyes crinkle into a smile she relaxes slightly.
“You should put on makeup more often,” Yura tells her, but Jooyoung shakes her head. Her priority is still comfort over other things like beauty, and makeup definitely does not fit the criteria for what she deems a comfy outfit. Besides, for someone as lazy as her, she would rather not wake up earlier to put on makeup. Sleep is too big a blessing to give up, especially on nights where she procrastinates and only goes to sleep a while before dawn.
Yura helps Jooyoung make final adjustments to her outfit, before patting her on the back lightly, slipping her purse between her fingers.
“Gorgeous,” she says, smiling at Jooyoung encouragingly. “Now go get him.”
Apparently Jooyoung has no time to stress out about confessing because when she called Kyungsoo after Yura had left, he hadn’t even started to dress up. So now (after shouting at him over the phone) she is making an emergency trip down to his room to chide him even more and help him with his outfit.
She knocks on his door three times, before barging in, and then doing a double take, stumbling backward involuntarily. Kyungsoo is pulling down his undershirt, swivelling to face his back towards him.
The dumb guy didn’t even lock the door when he‘s dressing up — anyone could walk in like this! Luckily he had an inner shirt on already, or Jooyoung would have lost her sanity in that moment. But his torso looked nice. It looked hard as brick and she is already losing her sanity replaying that split second over and over in her brain.
“You’re here,” he says, slipping on his button down next. But then upon looking at her he pauses, his hands frozen into place. He swallows, and she feels a weird tension rise in the room, so she clears .
“I almost burnt my eyes seeing you unclothed,” she says, but obviously she’s not feeling that way. Kyungsoo doesn’t need to know that, though.
He seems to break out of his sudden reverie and goes back to buttoning his shirt, his finger fumbling to put the button through the hole. His hands lose grip of the button and he hastily grabs hold of it again, slipping it into the hole messily. He takes one more glance up at Jooyoung, then lowers his head again.
“You look really nice,” he mumbles, almost inaudibly.
She can’t help but smile. It makes her heart beat. “What did you say, Do Kyungsoo?” She asks, just for the sake of it. She goes closer to him but he just turns away, shyness evident in his posture. He continues buttoning his shirt and his hands are still shaky.
“I said, my choice of clothing and makeup were good ones,” he states a little more loudly. He’s so cleverly twisted his words that it makes Jooyoung laugh.
“For your information, Yura was the one who provided me with makeup in the end. She said your makeup taste and the tones didn’t match my outfit,” she says, then leans on his desk, propping herself up on it so that she’s sitting on its edge. She finds his presentation script flipped open in the middle of the desk, scribbled with annotations, and smiles proudly. So he did practise, even without her nagging him to.
What a good boy.
Jooyoung watches Kyungsoo slip on his tie, then his blazer suit. It fits him surprisingly well, especially since he had loaned it from a friend, and she can’t help but swoon internally over how good black suits look on him. Amazingly good.
She hops off the table, then goes to him, placing two hands on his shoulders. She likes feeling the burn of her hand seething through the material — it is almost as if she’s touching his bare shoulder. It makes him stand straight when she pats him hard. “You ready?” She asks, feeling a little like his manager.
“Of course. I am always ready,” he replies, tilting his neck from side to side to loosen any tight muscles. She playfully presses his shoulders in a massage but they’re stiff and it amuses her.
“Your shoulders are so tense, Mr. Ever-Ready.”
Kyungsoo shrugs them, rolling them back and forth in order to loosen the tension, but she can’t feel the difference. And he still said he was ready, the dumbo. He could’ve just said he’s nervous, not like she’d judge him for it anyway.
Her hands still on his shoulders, she stares right at him. “Hey, Do Kyungsoo,” she says seriously, looking into his blinking eyes. “You are going to do great, okay? Don’t worry about it at all.”
“I’m not worried,” he insists, shaking his head. But Jooyoung squeezes his tense shoulders again, raising her eyebrows, and he knows what she’s referring to. But he looks especially indignant, which is rather cute.
“It’s my shoulder pads!” He shouts. The tips of his ears turn slightly red as he covers the both of his shoulders with his palms, Jooyoung having let go of them after squeezing him.
It is her turn to shrug. She loves it when the tables turn and she’s the nonchalant one, because it is a good reminder of who she wants to be. No more stressed Han Jooyoung.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Ever-Ready.”
Kyungsoo stretches his shoulders, swinging his arms back and forth. He’s mouthing his script and Jooyoung’s extremely proud of him for caring, for once. When he decides his shoulders are loose enough he looks back at her again, and bends slightly, the crown of his head at her eye level.
“Help me do my hair,” he requests. Her eyes follow as he points to a comb and a small tub of hair gel on his table. And as if he knows she’s going to laugh at him again for owning a product like this and never using it, he quickly explains, “Jongin lent it to me. My friend.”
Jooyoung grins as she reaches over for the tub, then twists it open cautiously. She randomly dollops a finger-full of gel onto his hair. “You don’t even have that much hair,” she laughs.
“Short hair, no matter how short, is still hair,” he says as Jooyoung starts to comb out the gel, using her fingers to shape his hair. “Quoted from Kim Jongin. I tend to believe him.”
She is silent for a while as she plays with his really short hair (so soft) and brushes the gel out. “I’m just warning you, I’m not very good at this kind of stuff. You should’ve asked Yura to stay a little longer and help you with your hair and stuff as well.”
“Unnecessary.”
Jooyoung chuckles incredulously. “So you mean what I’m doing now is necessary?”
He seems to think for a while. “Yes?”
She rolls her eyes, still smiling. “You’re ridiculous.”
Before the Symposium starts and everyone is just hovering around the banquet hall, Jooyoung is dragged alongside Kyungsoo as he starts his friend-making journey. In a span of around fifteen minutes, three people have come to talk to him, and he’s gone to talk to two. Now he’s talking to a guy whose hair is extremely nice. She doesn’t catch his name when he introduces himself, but it doesn’t matter much to her anyway.
“I’m Do Kyungsoo,” he says, returning his handshake. The guy goes for Jooyoung next, his hand stretched out at her. She smiles and grabs it tightly.
“His plus-one,” she jokes, shaking his hand. The guy laughs good-naturedly, but Kyungsoo doesn’t seem to find her all that funny. Instead he nudges her discreetly using his hand giving her that look. She is confused.
“What,” she mouths.
Kyungsoo doesn’t give her an answer. Instead he directs his next sentence to the guy. “She’s Han Jooyoung,” he proclaims. “Not just my plus-one. She’s the top Psychology major in our university.”
She is puzzled, then stares up at him, studying his stoic expression with furrowed eyebrows. “No, Kyungsoo’s the top.”
“No, we both are,” Kyungsoo says with a tone of finality, so Jooyoung doesn’t add on. The guy just laughs again as if he is amused by their banter.
“Kyungsoo’s the proud kind of boyfriend,” he observes, and Kyungsoo chuckles. Jooyoung merely turns red. Boyfriend. Confession. Tonight. Big freak-out.
“Nah,” he says, swatting his hand. “Jooyoung’s just too good to have her recognised under my name and my identity. I don’t want people just to see her as ‘my date’. She’s more than just that, you know?”
The guy and Kyungsoo continue conversation for a while, and she zones out, not because of her stress over the confession, but because she’s too busy basking in the absolute indulgence of Kyungsoo’s introduction of her. He’s so sweet, goodness. And so thoughtful. And so respectful.
She can’t help but smile at ground, and when the guy leaves, she nudges Kyungsoo shyly.
“What was that?” She mumbles, her words coming out soft. She hopes it comes out the cute kind of shy, but she’s never been good at this sort of things (mainly because she hasn’t even found the need to use them before) so she doesn’t hope for much.
He shrugs, then holds out his hand — which Jooyoung takes, naturally — to drag her to the pre-dinner refreshments area. “What else? True stuff,” he says, and takes a plate and begins to pile it with mini eclairs, sushi and the like. She knows he’s going to lapse into a random topic again, because he always does that when he’s flustered internally, even by a little. He’s so stress-adverse the gods can’t save him.
She’s right. “I love free food. Free good food. Best part of the Symposium,” he comments, stuffing an eclair into his mouth. He then pierces his fork through a mini croissant (one of Jooyoung’s favourites, and he knows it) and feeds it to her.
When she eats it she doesn’t look at the fork. She stares right into Kyungsoo’s eyes, not noticing how her breath hitches when his eyes crinkle into a small smile after she’s taken a bite. She wants to pocket those eyes. Keep them for herself. Take them out when necessary, stare into them, savour them forever.
This man. Confession. Tonight. Must do it.
Kyungsoo is a charming man. Not like Jooyoung didn’t know it before, but still.
He is one of the last presenters to present at the Symposium, so they’ve all finished their dinner and Jooyoung has smacked him thrice for one, getting food on his white shirt; two, accepting alcohol unknowingly (which equals to Goodbye, Rational Kyungsoo in a matter of seconds, so that’s a big no); three, being passive-aggressive to some guy sitting a few tables away just because he’d talked about Jooyoung’s grades in slight contempt.
Although the last one was sweet, she really couldn’t have him seething internally before his big presentation.
And now he’s up there, on stage, with his hands animatedly gesturing, his stage presence amazing. Jooyoung mouths the presentation along with him, but soon she’s lost track of what she’s saying too, because Do Kyungsoo is so natural, so charismatic she wonders what she did in her past life to end up as his date today. Out of his thousands of female friends, it is her who got chosen.
As for the reason why, she really doesn’t know. But for today she just wants to let her heart beat as she watches a small, but burly, man give the most mesmerising academic presentation she’s watched in her life. She’s so proud of him. It’s more than proud. It’s a feeling that makes her heart surge, that wants to make her run up to him and hug him until he’s out of breath and she’s out of strength.
Kyungsoo briefly makes eye contact with her during his presentation. His voice hitches for a millisecond, but she catches him.
She also catches the tiny upward curve of his mouth form, and decides his smile is the best in the world.
It’s adrenaline that propels her to drag Kyungsoo out of the banquet hall and into a hidden nook on the first floor of the hotel. They’re sandwiched between a toilet and a lift lobby for cargo, and it’s not exactly the best place to confess, but it’ll do. The exquisite marble around them traps their breath into the small space, and soon it is too tough for her to breathe normally.
Kyungsoo is staring at her with eyes she cannot decipher. It’s serious, yet soft; it’s intimidating, yet gentle; it’s puzzled, yet steady.
“Y-Your eyes look a serial killer mixed with a bunny mixed with Prof Park mixed with a baby,” she breathes, feeling her heart go into frenzy only now. She’s planned it out in her head just now, but now everything’s stuck in and her courage isn’t sufficient to blurt it all out. She suddenly can’t even remember what she wanted to say.
“Never mind my eyes,” Kyungsoo says, but not intimidatingly. He takes a step forward, and Jooyoung doesn’t know she’s leaned back unintentionally until she feels the touch of cold marble sizzling on the back of her arm. “You said you have something you wanted to say to me?”
She nods. “I do have something to say.”
“Just say it, then.”
Jooyoung sharply inhales and it creates a weird, echoey sound in the nook. Her heart thumps and it is so quiet she doesn’t know if he can hear it. Kyungsoo smiles, but it is different from his usual amused smiles directed at her. This one’s gentler, softer.
“If not, can I say what I want to say first?” He asks gently, brushing his fingers along her forearm and resting his palm there, sending a whir of electricity through her. His eyes change and now it’s full on intense. She nods.
“You are beautiful tonight, Han Jooyoung.”
Her heart explodes into bursts of flowers. She unfreezes enough to chuckle, masking her inner insane euphoria. She isn’t used to receiving compliments like this. What should she do now?
“Only today?” She jokes, because a ‘thank you’ would be too formal and she doesn’t know how to react otherwise.
He doesn’t laugh, although a smile plays on his face. “No, not just only today,” he says, his eyes switching again to his gentle ones, slightly droopy, very adorable. “Every single day. You’re so beautiful, Han Jooyoung. You don’t even know. You’re the most beautiful even in your faculty tee and sweatpants. You’re the most beautiful even when your hair is in a messy low twist at 3am. You’re the most beautiful every time, every where.”
Her bottom lip trembles, and from the way his eyes dart down there for a second she knows he’s seen it. She’s about to cry. Her heart is beating so fast it’s making her giddy. His eyes look concerned for a moment, like he’s worried he’s said the wrong thing, but when a small smile of ultimate happiness lands itself onto Jooyoung’s face he relaxes. Her vision is slightly blurry because of the touched tears that are teetering at the bottom of her eyes, threatening to fall out any moment.
Kyungsoo smiles at her, and slowly drags his hand down her arm to hers. He spreads his fingers open, and Jooyoung, in reflex, mold her fingers around his. The warmth she’s feeling now coursing through her veins is enough to provide for the entirety of Antarctica. He squeezes her hand, then slowly brings it up to his left chest. Kyungsoo untangles her fingers from his, making her hand lie flat there.
She’s startled by how fast Kyungsoo’s heart is beating. It’s hurtling through the layers of his suit.
“This,” he begins in a whisper. “Is what happens every time I see you across the corridor. Or in the convenience store. Or studying at your desk. Or right beside me like this.”
He leans in such that if he moves one more inch, their noses would be touching. Jooyoung swears, about his heart going into overdrive? It happens to her so much too. So much. But she doesn’t get a chance to tell him because he’s stood up straight again, and his tender eyes lock her into a complete disability to function. Her hand falls from his heart but he catches it, tightly holding it in his.
“Before the Symposium started, you told me that I should be more legit if I was asking you out,” he drawls, his every word inching towards a destination Jooyoung can see in a blur picture behind her happy tears. She’s aching to reach it; he’s dragging it out.
Then he slides his free hand up her jaw, cradling it in his palm. “I wasn’t asking you out then,” he clarifies, his eyes still and unblinking. “I’m asking you out now.”
She’s reached the destination. But it still stuns her. Her tears finally fall and it’s clear, it’s a picturesque scene of colours and peace and happiness and love. Kyungsoo smiles, using his thumb to gently wipe her tears.
“Han Jooyoung,” he says slightly breathily. “Will you be my girlfriend?”
All she can register is his tender eyes, his warm presence. And it fills her with so much emotion, especially when they’re just a few centimetres away from her. Her eyes drop down to his thick, pink lips, and she stares back up again.
His eyes, eventually, are the ones which make her lean in.
She would’ve thought he would’ve leaned in too, or at least stayed there and let her kiss him, but instead Kyungsoo pulls away slightly, his hands now on her shoulders, holding her at an arms length again. She must’ve pouted, or made some other stupidly sad expression, because he chuckles.
“I planned my first kiss for someone I want to spend my entire life with,” he explains, almost factually, and her heart falls. Oh.
But then he lets go of her shoulders and cradles her back with both hands instead, pulling her in. His lips touch hers, and it immediately feels so right her heart swells. She brings her hands around his neck and tugs him impossibly closer, feeling his heart thump against her body. The kiss is passionate, fiery, like something they’ve both been waiting for for a long time.
Jooyoung feels the curl of his lips against . It’s her favourite smile in the world, pressed against her lips.
She can’t ask for anything more.
a/n: what a long journey and what a long chapter gosh but we are finally here :""")
I OWED SO MANY OF YOU REPLIES i’m so sorry!! just replied to everyone i hadn’t replied to aaa but i hope everyone’s having a great 2019 so far! i think it’ll take a while before my next story because of circumstances.... but i promise i’ll be back :”)
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