Back when Yunho was just a first-year and newly admitted into the hapkido team, there was a weekend sports intensive during the winter break that was ostensibly an opportunity to demonstrate and refine skills but was basically an excuse for the school's athletes to have a sports day by themselves.

Some of the other first-year boys had the idea to bond by going around and naming the girl in their grade they thought was cutest. Yunho had said Boa. She was a safe answer—indeed, he was one of three people who named her that night—but she wasn't a random one. Of course, it helped that she was pretty (and only got prettier as she grew taller and lost her baby fat), but he picked her because he thought that her calm nature and infamous declination to pursue dance full-time for the sake of her degree would fit really well with his obsessive-compulsive politeness and predilection for awkwardness with regard to anything that isn't studying and hapkido.

Everyone had agreed the two of them would make a great match, and that was it. Yunho had quietly accepted 'crushing on Boa' as part of his lore.

It's for this reason that he named her again when the Kims questioned him a few weeks ago about his intentions for practise dating Jaejoong. It didn't even cross his mind to admit something like, "I couldn't say no, and now it's kind of fun."

But it should have. Then Jaejoong wouldn't think he was interested in Boa, and he wouldn't act out of the kindness of his heart to accelerate Yunho's perceived endgame, because—as it turns out—he kind of hates dating Boa.

It goes like this:

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1) Boa takes it upon herself to make him lunches sometimes. Some of his past girlfriends have done it too before, but those who did were shy about it. They handed the lunchbox to him with both hands and a bow, and they didn't stick around (at lunch or in the relationship) to see whether he enjoyed them. Boa, however, asks for a spot at the hapkido table whenever she does.

The first time, the hapkido team subjected her to trial by fire, jibing the couple in a well-meaning yet prodding manner to identify her boundaries. Yunho didn't even get to rotely defend Boa's honour before she responded for herself, elegantly shutting them down without taking any offense and somehow inviting them to do it again.

Suffice it to say, his friends love her immediately, in no small part due to their eagerness to witness a Jung Yunho relationship up close and in real life. This acceptance even includes a running gag about desiring Boa's meals.

"Did you bring any for us, Boa?" "Sorry, there's only enough for Yunho today~"

"Yo, let me get a bite of that, Jungie." "No way, get your own!"

The group always erupts in laughter, an easy acceptance of her presence both at the table and in Yunho's life. He plays along and joins in so that he doesn't ruin the mood, but honestly his heart isn't in it. Boa's meals are just okay.

He tells Jaejoong about this and asks if one day he should give in and let them have some—

sure, i'm sure boa would forgive you eventually

—which is helpful but disheartening.

He keeps up the ruse, but the meals become less and less appealing each time.

.

2) Boa tells him that the drama club is fundraising for the spring musical with a capsule toy machine as he walks her to class one day. "Most of the capsules are empty, but some of them are supposed to contain vouchers for a prize: free popcorn, a free drink, even free tickets. The machine is right by the main entrance; we should stop by after school."

Yunho looks over at her. "Are you, perhaps, into gambling?"

She laughs brightly, and he wills his heart to be affected by the sound. If only it would skip a beat, or beat twice as fast, or anything. "Not particularly. I'm just trying to support the drama club since I helped choreograph the spring musical."

The only thing stopping him from completely halting the flow of traffic in his shock is the student body's unspoken rule expressly prohibiting such a thing. "Oh." Jaejoong never mentioned he worked with Boa.

Later, they meet up at the capsule toy machine as discussed, and they admire that it's exactly like the ones at the mall. When Boa puts in the requisite two thousand won, she receives a yellow capsule with a paper inside that reads, 'Unfortunately you didn't win, but thanks for playing!'

When Yunho puts in the requisite two thousand won, he receives a red capsule that contains the coveted voucher for two free tickets.

"Wow, Yunho! I think there was only one free ticket voucher. Red must be your lucky colour."

He barks out in laughter; he can't help it. The concept of a lucky colour would forever be tied to the sight of wiggling eyebrows highlighted by a setting sun, and it's just too funny of a memory.

Boa couldn't have known—he himself didn't realise until this moment—so he means to apologise and maybe even explain… But when he recovers enough to open his eyes, he sees hers, quietly happy and trained on him. He is struck at once with the understanding that she thinks she is the root cause of his joy, and he sobers immediately.

She thinks he collects himself quickly from embarrassment for laughing so loudly, and he lets her believe that too.

.

3) Boa compares hapkido to dancing.

(She wakes up early this morning to catch some of the team's practise, and even his hardass coach who makes them put their cell phones on silent to minimise distraction doesn't mind her attendance. The entire team loves her.)

"There are different techniques to hapkido, right? 'Hard' and 'soft' counters?" she philosophises as she waits for him to pack up his gym bag. "That's like hip hop and ballet, don't you think? You use your body differently for either; but the more you understand both, the better your movements are overall."

Yunho completely agrees, but he's more surprised than impressed. "How did you get so much insight into hapkido from one practise?"

She giggles. "Both of my brothers learned when they were in middle school. They weren't as serious about it as you were; but between the two of them, I learned the basics."

He falters mid-movement as he hefts the bag over his shoulder, then he guiltily looks over to see if she notices. Luckily, she happens to be saying goodbye to some fellow straggling hapkido team members.

He wasn't even aware Boa had siblings.

"Brothers, huh? Are you the noona?" For some reason, it is a chore to ask such a simple question, and he realises something.

"I'm the maknae, actually!"

He doesn't know anything substantial about her—not her family, not her friends, not what she does whenever she isn't around him—and he isn't curious enough to find out.

.

4) Boa kisses him. A lot. Crasser mouths may even call what they do 'tongue ing'. It's sadly the most enjoyable part of dating her thus far, but even the thought of that makes Yunho hate their relationship even more.

The fact that he only likes the physical benefits of dating Boa makes him feel sleazy in a way that deeply contradicts the kind of person he believes himself to be. He has never been interested in treating his girlfriends like they were merely warm bodies.

(Admittedly, never has he turned down requests for more intimate encounters either. He has boundaries—clothes need to remain on—but some of his more adventurous exes certainly found ways around them. The interactions as a whole were always physically enjoyable if not entirely satisfying, and he presumed he would become more interested once he got over the mental barrier of not wanting to have .)

Fortunately, Boa doesn't seem to be in any hurry where their physical relationship is concerned. She is satisfied with pecks on the lips after he drops her off at home or stolen kisses in classrooms after the dance team is finished practising.

During one such afternoon dalliance, when he pulls away from her, her eyes flutter open to reveal a warmth he recognises from his string of past relationships: desire. The kind that holds promise and proposition and permission. The kind that if he were a different person, he would be excited to explore.

Unfortunately, the best he can give her is repeated movements from before he pulled away, and she leans back into his embrace just as satisfied as ever.

.

What the past few weeks have shown him is that he was right: he and Boa are a great match. She is a perfect girlfriend and perfect for him in equal measure. He doesn't hate dating Boa because of Boa.

He hates dating Boa because of himself.

Jaejoong blames his guidance counsellor for everything.

She was all like, "What do you want to do in college, Jaejoong?" and "You should focus a little more on your grades, Jaejoong," and "Extracurricular activities are nice, but they're like side-dishes for your application, Jaejoong." Well, she needs to go back to guidance counsellor school or something because her words made him less interested in applying himself scholastically. His studies don't come naturally to him; and in reaction to her nagging, he couldn't help but be more drawn to things that he can do as opposed to things he can't.

This mindset is what led him to purposefully collide with the trajectory of Jung Yunho's life. He was someone who needed to be saved from himself even if he did not know it, and Jaejoong knew he knew how to save him.

Then he had to go and fall for Yunho. Then he had to go and dismantle their relationship before it could dismantle him. Then he was dismantled anyway.

It hurt less to let himself get led on than to watch from the sidelines as Yunho and Boa slowly fell in love.

She makes him laugh, she brings him lunches, the hapkido team loves her. When they're walking together in between classes, he can tell by her upturned face and smiling eyes that she's genuinely interested in him: who he is and what he does and why he does them. He knows that kind of behaviour would really help Yunho get over his discomfort in maintaining conversations. It was never that Yunho couldn't talk to girls, it was just that Yunho hadn't met the right girl.

The entire school seems to think so, too.

"Of course it would be Kwon Boa!" becomes a popular phrase the week the couple goes public, to which Sooyoung loudly grouses, "Doesn't this school have better things to talk about than two random second-years dating?" whenever it's uttered within earshot of the two of them.

After they hatched the plot to push Yunho and Boa together, Sooyoung becomes incredibly protective over Jaejoong. When Yunho tries to find him at school, she drags Jaejoong away. When Yunho texts him, she plucks the phone out of Jaejoong's hand and responds on his behalf. (When she's not there, Jaejoong usually waits a little bit before responding, sorry, was on the phone with soo, regardless of whether that is true.)

One day, he will be capable of expressing to her the full extent of his gratitude, but taking her out to cute bakeries every once in a while suffices for now.

The bids for his attention peter out naturally, enough that Sooyoung eventually lets down her guard. In many ways, everything becomes almost like how it was before. The only difference is the pangs of loneliness that he would never tell Sooyoung about. They happen too frequently—when he studies, when he orders Lotteria, when any song from High School Musical gets stuck in his head—and pass just as quickly to be worthy of her attention.

He tries comforting himself with the reminder that Boa is perfect for Yunho, and he didn't even need dating lessons for that to be true. Jaejoong means so little in the grand scheme of things that they would have found a way to each other anyway. In spite of his interference, in spite of his feelings.

It never works, but he repeats it to himself every time.

To her immense credit, Boa does not sound frustrated when she asks him, "What's on your mind?"

Yunho sighs. He just lost his fourth match in a row to her at a video game he suggested they play; at this point, they both know he's not just letting her win in a cute, boyfriend-y kind of way.

He looks over at her, sitting criss-cross on his bed and slightly slouched, and wonders how she can feel more comfortable in his own room than he can. How does he tell her that video games aren't the only things he's been losing lately? That actually he suggested a video game in the first place just to preempt any attempts at physical intimacy, a deep aversion of his even now that they've been dating for almost a month? That he misses Jaejoong so bad that he sometimes calls Jaejoong's phone using *23 just to hear his voicemail?

"It's complicated," he gets out eventually. He would love to claim nothing is wrong, but that would be an insult to her admittedly high emotional intelligence.

Boa puts down her controller and shuffles to face him directly. "Try me."

Yunho is ready to tell her not to worry about it, but then he tries to imagine literally anyone else sitting in her spot and fails.

He has a good amount of friends from class, but those relationships aren't developed enough for him to feel comfortable having sensitive conversations with them. He's definitely the closest to his hapkido teammates, but they're not really emotional support friends to each other. His sister is too young to truly empathise with him, and his parents are simply out of the question. In any other scenario, Yunho would have Jaejoong; but he is clearly not an option right now.

There is not a single person in his life he feels comfortable sharing his mangled and heavy concerns with (a pathetic circumstance that he will examine later), but Boa is his best candidate for a watered down version.

"Jaejoong and I haven't spoken in a while. I'm kind of worried about it."

She straightens in attention. "Kim Jaejoong? In the drama club? I didn't know you knew him… Though, that makes sense, since you, um, knew Sooyoung."

He sends her a grateful smile for her word choice. There is an unspoken question there, and luckily he has already thought this one through. The best way to explain why and how Jaejoong could mean so much to him is if—"He's my best friend."

"Aw," Boa says with a cute frown and sparkly eyes. "It would be fun to meet hi—" She cuts herself off with a gasp. "That's it!"

"Huh?"

"If you haven't spoken in a while, that means he doesn't know you and I started dating, right?"

Before Yunho could even begin to comprehend the extent to which she is incorrect about that, Boa continues, "You could invite him to hang out under the auspices of getting to meet me, and then at some point I can just… wander away?" She shrugs a little and waves her hand. "I'll figure that part out, but that could be your chance to have a conversation with him! That new ice cream place opened at the mall; it's the perfect set-up."

He stares at Boa's excited smile with wonder. She has absolutely zero stake in his personal problems and yet, without knowing anything substantial at all, she came up with a plan to help him overcome the issue. Not only is this incredibly thoughtful of her, but the plan is clever and actionable to boot. Frankly, it would work perfectly if not for the glaring issue that it's never happening.

Just because they know each other already doesn't mean he can let them meet! In this context, specifically, it would be weird. It would be like introducing his current girlfriend to his ex—oh.

Oh.

Yunho jumps to his feet, unable to sit still now that he needs to think. He needs to think alone, but he doesn't know how to ask Boa to leave politely, so his brain tells him they just both need to go.

He rambles as he gathers his and Boa's things and ushers her out the door. "That sounds like a great idea honestly let me think about it but oh my god I'm so sorry I just remembered I have to uh run an errand for my mom yeah and it really needs to be done right now do you mind taking a cab home I'll pay for it later just let me know the amount okay BYE."

He starts his motorbike and revs out of the driveway, unheeding of Boa's confused shouts and ignoring the way his heart is telling him very specifically which turns to make. He can't go there now.

Not yet, at least.

A/N (4.24.2023): Two more chapters and an epiloge, folks!

In South Korea, if you dial *23 before the number on a call, it disables Caller ID on that call so that the other person cannot preview your name/contact before answering. The communications commissions of most countries regulate something like this, and it's independent of carrier! Look up 'hide my phone number [country]' to find the block code that works for you. (Only valid for phone calls, not text messages.)

This will not be relevant but the other people on the hapkido team are Junsu, Siwon, Hangeng, and Hyoyeon. Hangeng graduates this year, and Amber and Henry join next year. They're the kind of friends you call when you want to use a flash mob to ask your significant other to prom, not the kind that attends a funeral for your beloved, recently-deceased pet. They're not afraid of hard work or vulnerability, but they just don't really do emotions when they're together. They all love each other, though!