Yoona enjoys the smell of books—musky pages, fresh binding, the crisp cleanness of new ones and the comfortable edges of old ones. She considers herself lucky that she has a part-time job she actually likes doing, unlike some of her other friends who are stuck packing groceries to pay their tuition. After working at the counter for two hours, she takes a break by walking along the familiar aisles, fingers tracing the titles.

 

She feels her fingers brush another person’s hand, to which she jolts back in embarrassment. “Sorry,” she whispers, her other hand unconsciously adjusting the bold-rimmed glasses upon her nose. She’s kind of afraid to look into his eyes, but when he bends down to peer at her more closely, she feels a knot forming in .

 

“It’s fine,” he says. He laughs when he notices her eyeing the nametag around his neck. “Yeah, my name is Changmin. I’m a grad student here and I was helping to lead the new student orientation, so…” He gestures at his nametag again and shrugs, smiling. His gums are showing, and she finds that unbelievably charming.

 

“What’s your name?” he asks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Im Jinah,” she replies, her manicured nails tapping lightly on the restaurant table. It’s been a while since she’s been back in Korea, but she doesn’t remember the restaurant waiters ever being as particularly attractive as the one standing before her today.

 

 

His eyes are shining, accented by the light crinkles on the edges. Light brown hair swept to the side, slim stature, calm demeanor, slight accent but surprisingly fluent enough. She picks up the menu, her gaze scanning all the options.

 

At the end of the night, after some small talk and a bit too much flirting, she slips a napkin with her phone number in his vest pocket.

 

Luhan walks her to the restaurant entrance. “Thanks for coming!”

 

He then lowers his voice. “I’ll call you,” he grins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“For the hundredth time, I don’t need you calling to check up on me 24/7!”

 

“Sheesh, Soojung,” Myungsoo rolls his eyes. “Calm down. At least be thankful you have a best friend who will back you up in case something horrible happens.”

 

She puts down the curling iron to glare at him. “And you really think Chansik is the type of person to pull such moves?”

 

He doesn’t say anything and simply shrugs. He’s in her room, watching in fascination as she curls her hair into slight waves and puts random crap on her face. The air chokes of hair spray. Myungsoo coughs. “Never thought I would see the day you would really go all-out on make-up like this. I feel so proud sending you off on your first date. You sure are growing up,” he teases, remembering the good old days of matching jean overalls and baseball caps.

 

She looks like she’s 200% done with him. “First of all, I’m not going all-out on make-up – I’m totally going for the natural look while still looking pretty.” She flutters her eyelashes a few times, catching him off-guard and he clenches his jaw because this is his best friend he’s looking at and he’s not supposed to feel this way (pretty sure his ears are red now).

 

“Is it working?” she giggles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Of course not,” Jiyong groans, gazing despondently at the laptop before him.

 

“It was such a good song, too,” Chaerin mumbles. “Such a shame the program crashed before we could save the track.”

 

He nods glumly, not saying anything.

 

“I told you to save it!” she hits him on the shoulder.

 

“But you went to the bathroom and then I forgot!”

 

“Well, that’s your fault then,” she shrugs. Jiyong struggles not to notice the way her lips are slightly parted in frustration and instead focuses on the wooden floor of their shared studio, in which they write and produce songs together. They’re underground rappers still trying to make their big break but Jiyong thinks he’s kind of satisfied just sitting in the same room as Chaerin on a daily basis.

 

In her songs, she calls herself “the baddest female” but in his heart, all he remembers are shared secrets over coffee, kisses tasting like strawberry sorbet, and hand-holding on the way to school. Those days are long gone now, and he counts himself as blessed that their relationship hadn’t had a complete fall-out and that they still maintain their close friendship.

 

“What are you staring at the ground for,” she demands, hands on her hips.

 

He can’t help himself anymore.

 

He kisses her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She pushes him away, eyeliner smudged and mascara running down her cheeks. “Stop, please,” she chokes out through her tears.

 

 

“Sooyeon,” he murmurs softly. He knows that she is insecure about her career, not knowing if she’s good enough for the modeling business, whether she’s tall enough or pretty enough or interesting enough. It shows in her smile, in the yearning in her eyes whenever the producer gives a coveted project to a co-worker, the way she sets her jaw in determination at the start of each photo shoot.

 

“You’re beautiful, amazing, fun, quirky, and talented,” he repeats as a mantra, not quite sure when he turned into such a softy but then again he’s not quite sure when he began to have that desire to take her under his wing in the first place.

 

Her sobs are subsiding now, and he brushes away some of her blonde locks of hair from her damp face. Her big eyes stare back at him and she smiles a little bit. “Thank you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re welcome,” Taemin replies, a smug look of satisfaction on his face when he sees her eyes light up at the sight of the many street vendors in front of them.

 

Jinri finds the courage to hook her arm in his as they walk along the busy street, bodies pressed tightly together in the swarm of people. She can feel some heat rising up in her cheeks and for once she’s thankful that Taemin has a short attention span and is easily distracted.

 

is watering (food is, after all, the way to her heart, she has to admit – Taemin knows her all too well), and later when he feeds her some dukbokki and vice versa, she realizes that this is the most comfortable and content she’s been in a while, just strolling down a street with her crush of four years and finally it seems like they’re getting somewhere.

 

She feels his hand slip through hers and she can’t contain the grin on her lips. He turns toward her in a sort of innocent bliss, a dreamy look on his face (save for the bit of kimchi on his chin).

 

“Your smile is pretty,” he remarks.

 

 

 

 

 

“Oh,” Soojung laughs shyly, clearing . She’s not particularly good at receiving compliments. She thinks back to 10 minutes before when she and Chansik were sitting together in a dark movie theater, popcorn already long gone and his arm awkwardly on the back of her seat. She’s not quite sure if that was even real life—it’s something that would only happen in her dreams.

 

But apparently it wasn’t, since they are now sitting down for some boba milk tea before having him drop her off at home. She gets the taro milk tea and he opts for mango, and when she lets him have a sip of hers to see what it tastes like, all she can think of is the fact that they indirectly kissed and that she should surely be hit by a truck for thinking such embarrassing, immature thoughts.

 

He walks her home shortly after, hot breath in the cool night air. “Tonight was fun,” he says out of the blue. She looks at him and his features take on more of an ethereal glow underneath the streetlight in front of her house, and her heart skips a beat.

 

“Yeah, it was really great,” she tells him.

 

“See you tomorrow, yeah?” he winks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“No, I don’t want to see your face at all tomorrow, or ever again, for that matter!”

 

Kyuhyun inwardly groans. Not this again, he chastises himself because somehow he always manages to forget their anniversaries (then again, who in the world even celebrates a 34-month anniversary? Sooyoung, apparently—he would never guess that she would be a stickler for this kind of stuff, but she’s his girlfriend, after all).

 

He goes against her wishes and shows up at her doorstep the next day with fried chicken, three boxes of chocolates, and an enormous bouquet of roses. He almost has trouble ringing her doorbell with all the stuff that he’s carrying.

 

The door swings open, as well as her jaw when she sees the sight before her. Namely, the boxes of chocolate, he assumes. “H-hey,” he stutters. Oh, what a great start, he thinks sarcastically.

 

She waits for him to continue, brushing her long chestnut hair out of her eyes. “Listen, Soo,” he begins again. “I’m so extremely sorry for all my wrongdoings, and I know that we fight a lot, but…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“…I truly do love you. I love the way you laugh with your mouth wide open, the way you dance like your life depends on it, the way you sing with such passion and beauty that my heart flips somersaults because of how amazing you are. And mostly, I love you just for being you. And I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have ever met you and to even have the privilege of loving and dating you for the past few years. Kwon BoA, will you marry me?”

 

He gets down on one knee, pulling a diamond ring out of pocket. She gasps, tears of joy shining in her eyes, her heart flipping somersaults of its own. Jung Yunho, she thinks in her heart. You always have a way with words, don’t you?

 

It takes her a while to come to her senses, and she notices his hand trembling as he continues to hold the ring before her. Her heart swells. “Yes,” she manages to utter, not able to withhold her tears when she feels him slipping the ring onto her finger.

 

She hugs him for what feels like an eternity, feeling safe in his strong arms and still in shock. “Can I have this dance?” he murmurs, lips tickling her ear.

 

And so they dance, moving along to the rhythm of their hearts, beating together in unison. He wipes her wet cheeks with his thumb and they laugh. They have each other, and all seems right in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

---

a/n: hope you all liked it! if you didn't notice, the fic kind of moves in stages -- from first meetings to unrequited/friend-zoned love to best friends/former lovers to flirting/first dates, to committed relationships with the occasional arguments to the final marriage proposal (which had to be yunboa, of course). it is named 'film reel' because in my mind it's like a movie, kind of disjointed and capturing little snapshots and snippets of these various pairings. this is a repost from theangstcircle@lj