Say You Like Me

Jeno/You

University!AU

--

I wish my heart was always on her mind

She’s on mine like all day all the time

--

Jeno tapped his pen on his physics book impatiently, staring at the clock on the wall of the library. He’d hidden himself in the corner of library, knowing no one would look for him there. The student he was supposed to tutor would be showing up in the next couple of minutes, and he prayed it wasn’t another girl just trying to spend alone time with him to flirt. He was tired of wasting his time, but he genuinely enjoyed helping people.

He heard soft footsteps behind him and turned around in his chair to see you, walking slowly between the rows of books, looking left and right as you passed each aisle.

The only reason he agreed to tutor you was because when he was looking through the list of students that requested help in physics, Jaemin happened to be looking over his shoulder in curiosity.

“Oh, I know her. She’s really sweet, and she actually needs help in physics. I’ve never seen someone so distraught over formulas before.” Jaemin hadn’t steered him wrong before (he actually had, many times, but Jeno didn’t like to think about it), so he sent you a message through the school’s messaging system, introducing himself and asking about your schedule so the both of you could have a convenient time to meet.

When you saw him, you waved, shy smile on your face. Jeno stood up and greeted you, reaching out to shake your hand. His handshake was firm, and you could feel the callouses on the palm of his hand from playing baseball.

“Thank you so much for helping me. I really appreciate it,” you said as you sat down across from him, setting your backpack down on the table.

“Don’t thank me yet. Thank me after you pass this class.” He smiled a familiar smile at you as you pulled out your notebooks. “Alright… let’s start from the beginning…”

--

Lee Jeno was the captain of the university baseball team, meaning he was one of the most popular students enrolled in said university. His best friends, Jaemin, Mark, and Hyuck were also on the team. They all played on the same little league teams when they were younger, and they couldn’t be separated.

Baseball was Jeno’s dream, and it looked like it was becoming a reality for him. And even still, he wanted to do well in school and get his degree, just in case of unforeseeable circumstances that might happen in the future.

He was always surrounded by people, and he was nice to mostly everyone.

But of course, you already knew that. You went to high school with Jeno, Mark, and Donghyuck. Jaemin was there for your freshman year before he transferred schools due to his family moving for his father’s job.

And while you were friends with Hyuck (he hated hearing his full name for some odd reason), you didn’t really hang out with their crowd at school. They were smart, popular, handsome.

You felt you were so painfully boring. Your grades were average, you didn’t think you were that pretty, and you didn’t have too many friends. You could draw. It was something you were good at, but it wasn’t something you wanted to pursue as a career.

Hyuck would hang with you after school, if he didn’t have baseball practice. Mark would say hi to you every now and then. Hyuck introduced you to Jeno once, and you remember very clearly the way he smiled at you and said hello.

You remembered the moment you fell in love with him, watching him hit a home run to win the state championships for your high school. You went to every home baseball game to support Hyuck and to watch Jeno play.

You could tell he loved the game with his whole being, and that passion made you fall.

It wasn’t until the summer before you started university that you found your own thing to love just as much: photography. Your parents got you a DSLR with a fancy zoom lens as a graduation gift. You spent a week reading up on how to take pictures correctly and after a little trial and error in your room, you decided to venture out and take pictures of the outside world.

The local town newspaper held a photography contest, and you won it that summer, with a picture of a little boy jumping off the swings at its height, shouting with laughter.

Since then, you set up a small portfolio site under the pseudonym “Ghostie,” where you posted all of the pictures you took. You even took some time to set up a Tumblr for your photography, and had to give yourself a crash course in how to use it.

You spent the allowance you’d been saving up for years on different lenses and a small polaroid camera. Your parents joked about you becoming a professional and shooting photos for National Geographic or Time Magazine, making you muse over it.

You were afraid, of course, that maybe you weren’t cut out for it. A lot of people knew how to take good photographs, and you had to prove to potential employers that you were just as good as they were, and better.

You remember your hand shaking as you stared at the paperwork to declare your major. That shaky “X” next to the words “Bachelor of Arts in Photography” was a photo moment. In fact, you sent that photo in as part of your portfolio to get into the program and heard back almost immediately.

And now, here you were, struggling with a non-science major physics class you’d been putting off as long as you could, and Jeno probably thought you were an idiot. The boy you’d admired from far away was suddenly right in front of you, looking right at you for the first time in your life.

“… so here, you just use this formula…”

You squinted at the numbers Jeno was scribbling on the notebook next to your homework and slowly worked out the numbers.

“Yeah! That’s it. Good job.”

“I’m confused, though. The picture says underneath “in the absence of friction.” Am I supposed to do something with that or…?”

Jeno shook his head. “In higher level physics, and maybe at the end of the second half of this class, but you’re a non-science major, right?”

You nodded.

“Then you won’t have to worry about it. Just be glad we’ve got some friction here in the real world, or everyone would be an ice skater.”

You snorted as Jeno struck a delicate pose, and the tips of his ears turned pink as he rubbed the back of his neck and apologized.

“Sorry. My jokes are kinda lame.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I thought it was funny.”

Jeno looked up at the clock and sighed, sitting back in his chair. “This week’s session is over. If you need anymore help before our meeting next week, you can always message me over the student board.” This was his routine line to avoid giving out his phone number. Usually, the girls always pouted and asked for his number just in case they couldn’t reach him.

“Sure. I know you’re pretty busy with practice since baseball season is about to start, so I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Thanks, Jeno.” You packed your bags and smiled at him before leaving first.

Jeno sat in the silence for a moment, staring up at the clock. He was going to be late to practice if he didn’t leave soon.

“Huh…”

--

“Heard you were tutoring someone new,” Mark said in between stretches.

Jeno look at him as he switched legs and shrugged. “Yeah. She seems nice. Really confused, but nice. She didn’t flirt with me at all. Or ask me for my number.”

“What a shocker,” Hyuck said in complete deadpan. “Imagine a girl that doesn’t want Jeno’s number. What kind of world do we live in?” He yelped as Jeno reached over to shove him, nearly knocking him over in his stretch.

“You don’t need to talk to stretch.”

“Gotta work out these jaw muscles to talk about you on the field.”

--

You were the last one in the classroom of your photography class. Your professor had asked you to stay behind so he could talk to you for a moment.

“You wanted to talk to me professor?”

He leaned onto his desk and took his glasses off. “I really enjoyed that last set of pictures you took. You really took them on campus?”

You laughed and nodded. “I had to get creative with the angling and the light. I tried 35mm film first, but I wasn’t getting the depth I wanted, so I had to bring out the big guns.”

After the photos were cleared, you put some of them on your portfolio site and posted some edited pictures to your social media. You asked your professor not to say anything about your identity on the internet, and he promised mum was the word.

In fact, he was the one who recommended you get a tutor in the first place, since tutoring services were free, when you lamented about your physics class. Hyuck could help you with chemistry, but physics was a nightmare.

“Any plans for your next set?”

You shrugged. “I might go visit the baseball team.”

--

The outside world ceased to exist to Jeno when he was on the field. The diamond was his life.

“Who’s that?” Jaemin looked up and pointed at a lone person in the bleachers, hat on and a camera obscuring their face.

Coach Minho followed his gaze. “Oh yeah! I forgot. Someone from the photography class is here to take pictures today. Don’t mind them, it’s a one-day thing. I’d also like to remind all of you that you signed the media waver upon joining this team so try not to make us look bad.”

“Get my good side!” Hyuck yelled, and they gave him a thumbs up from the stands.

“Get back to practice!”

--