“Did you need something?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow in the girl’s general direction. She was hugging her arms around herself, massive cardigan hiding any shape she might have had, enormous glasses hiding half her face.

The girl remained silent for a moment, a moment too long.

He sighed and turned away.

“W-wait!” she said, grabbing his arm.

He automatically jerked away from her. “Don’t touch me,” he sneered. “Did you need something or not, girl?”

“I have a name,” she replied quietly, arms hugging herself again.

He scoffed. “Well I don’t know it.”

“We’ve been in the same class since middle school,” the girl said.

He rolled his eyes. “Is this a history lesson or something? If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, buzz off.”

The girl hung her head. “No. No, I don’t have anything to say.” And she shuffled off in the direction she’d come from.

Sanghyun takes a long drag off his cigarette, exhaling smoke into the freezing night air.

Jenny. The girl’s name was Jenny.

It’s been four years and still he remembers her name.

The sliding glass door behind him opens, shedding light onto the otherwise dark balcony. “Baby?” Hannah asks, sounding a little worried. “Is everything okay? You’ve been out here for ages.”

“I’ll come inside in a minute,” he answers, not bothering to look at her. He takes another long drag off his cigarette. “I’m just going to finish smoking.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t,” she says, the same she always does when she catches him with a cigarette.

He sighs and ignores her comment. “Go inside, Hannah. I’ll be in in a bit.”

She hesitates a moment longer, then sighs and goes back inside, pulling the door shut behind her. Sanghyun is left in peace and quiet once more.

Hannah is, in every sense of the word, gorgeous. Creamy skin, long legs, and an impressive rack are just a few of her many charms. She’s also funny and intelligent, wildly popular and successful. Sanghyun should be happy to have her as his girlfriend. He knows there hundreds of guys just on campus that want her for themselves. He should be perfectly content with Hannah.

Only he’s really not. He looks at Hannah but he sees Jenny. Jenny Hamilton. Jenny, with her unkempt hair and her too-big glasses and her complete lack of anything resembling a fashion sense. Shapeless, voiceless Jenny who, despite being in his homeroom class for five years straight, never spoke to him until their graduation day.

Jenny, who was his first love.

He sighs again and stubs out the remainder of his cigarette, flicking the into the overflowing ashtray on the table. Shivering, he pushes open the door and goes inside.

He’s met with Hannah, who has changed from her pajamas into something cute and is heading for the front door with her keys. “Where are you going?” he asks, not really caring. He’s got Jenny on his mind and Hannah may as well be a billion miles away.

“Amy called,” Hannah says simply. “I’m going out.”

“Whatever,” he mumbles, and he heads towards his bedroom at the back of the apartment.

Hannah hesitates at the door. “I’m just going to stay at my place tonight, okay?”

He waves his hand to indicate that he heard her, but he doesn’t turn around. Hannah sighs and lets herself out of the apartment. Sanghyun knows she’s probably going to one of the seedy little bars dotting the outskirts of campus, presumably to get -faced and hit on the idiot frat boys that like to frequent such joints, but he doesn’t particularly care. A little bit of alone time is welcome.

He throws himself down on his unmade bed and frowns up at the ceiling. He doesn’t know why he’s been thinking about her so much these past few days. He can’t seem to get her off his mind, and it’s driving him crazy.

Sanghyun launches himself up off the bed and goes to the closet. He takes down a cardboard box that’s hiding on the top shelf, opening it up almost eagerly. Inside are his old middle and high school yearbooks. He’d kept them because he’s something of a pack rat and can never really get rid of things, but right now he’s grateful for that.

He finds what he’s looking for immediately. It’s near the top of the pile. His senior yearbook.

He wipes the dust off the cover with his sleeve and then opens it up. The front few pages are filled with the signatures of his classmates, friends wishing him a good life and promising to hang out during the summer vacation before starting university. Doodles and hearts and phone numbers scribbled into margins.

But he flips past all these, into the section of the yearbook that has all the seniors’ pictures. He goes right to the H’s and his eyes find Jenny automatically.

She’s pretty easy to pick out. Never photogenic, it was one of her worst pictures. Her short hair, which Sanghyun distinctly remembers was a dark brown, is disheveled in the picture, one side sticking up at all different angles. Her glasses are slightly crooked, one side a bit higher than the other. She’s not smiling or even looking at the camera. Her bangs are hanging into her face, hiding her eyes.

Sanghyun runs his finger over the picture. Someone – one of his idiotic high school friends, no doubt – had written the word ‘geek’ over her picture and, at some point not long afterwards, Sanghyun had painstakingly tried to remove the word. He hadn’t succeeded completely, but it’s less noticeable now.

He remembers exactly how he felt when Jenny called out to him that day after their high school graduation. He’d been sweating, heart pounding. His nerves had been on fire. And he’d turned around and there she’d stood, wearing a frumpy white dress with a string of fake pearls and a pair of shoes that looked like something Sanghyun’s grandmother would wear. And he’d wanted to say, ‘Yes, Jenny? What can I help you with?” But instead pure filth and degradation had come out of his mouth.

It’s funny, he thinks to himself, that back then he was so embarrassed by what his friends would think and say if they knew he had a crush on the nerdiest, most awkward girl in their entire school. Despite his intense feelings for her, he had been so embarrassed by the crush. Too embarrassed to ever do or say anything about it. And now he was embarrassed because he hadn’t said anything. Not only had he not said anything, but he had treated Jenny as badly as his friends did.

He’d pretended not to know her name. He’d degraded her and belittled her. And now he hates himself for it.

He knows why he’s been thinking about Jenny so much lately. It hits him so suddenly that it’s like he’s known it all along.

It’s all because of that girl. That girl who sits in the front row of his Communications class, surrounded by all her friends and admirers. He’s not sure exactly why this girl reminds him so much of Jenny Hamilton. They’re nothing alike. Where Jenny had been shy and introverted, this girl in his class is always the life of the party. Where Jenny had been shapeless and gray, this girl is vibrant and curvaceous, with more than enough confidence.

Sanghyun sighs and closes the yearbook.

Hannah breaks up with him a few days later. Sanghyun can’t really say he’s surprised by this. He’s been apathetic about their relationship for months now and, honestly, he’s surprised Hannah hung in there as long as she did. He simply hands her the box he’d packed up of the things she’d left in his apartment and she’s gone.

He doesn’t really miss her.

“Am I boring you, Sanghyun?” Mr. Smith demands a few days later. Sanghyun is in his communications class and, rather than paying attention to the coma-inducing lecture, he’s sketching Jenny’s face in the margins of his note.

“Not at all, Mr. Smith,” Sanghyun replied monotonously, not looking up from his sketches.

His teacher seems less than amused by this lackluster response. “Why don’t you come sit up front?” he suggests wryly. “I’d like to keep a better eye on you. David isn’t here today, so why don’t you take his seat.”

Sanghyun sighs and gathers his things, moving to the seat up in the front row. It just so happens that David – jock and frat boy extraordinaire – sits right next to the girl who, for some inexplicable reason, reminds him of Jenny Hamilton.

The girl smiles at him shyly as he slips into the indicated seat. She’s got incredibly bright blue eyes and honey blonde hair that’s tied back elegantly at the nape of her neck. “Hi,” she whispers.

“Hey,” Sanghyun mutters distractedly.

“My name’s Jenny,” she introduces herself.

At the sound of that well-known name, Sanghyun jerks his head up. He looks at the girl almost suspiciously. It’s a little strange that this girl should share a name with the person she reminds him so much of. But they’re completely different, this Jenny and his Jenny.

“Sanghyun,” he replies.

The girl gives him another shy smile and returns her attention to Mr. Smith’s lecture. Sanghyun, however, can’t control his racing mind.

He thinks about this girl, this new Jenny, nonstop until the next week, when his Tuesday communications class meets. He manages to get there early enough to sit in the seat that David normally uses.

The new Jenny walks in not long after. She hesitates when she sees that Sanghyun is sitting beside her chair, but then she takes her seat like this is perfectly normal. Sanghyun feels a strange warmth as she turns that shy smile on him.

“You’re sitting in my seat,” an annoyed voice breaks into that warmth that’s enveloping Sanghyun.

“We don’t have assigned seats,” Sanghyun replies brusquely. “Sit somewhere else.”

David’s hands clench into fists and he looks like he might try to start a fight over the seating arrangement when Jenny cuts in smoothly. “I asked Sanghyun to sit here,” she lies. “He promised to help me with some homework from another class. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”

When she puts it like that, David has no choice but to go find another seat at the back of the class.

“Thanks for that,” Sanghyun chuckles.

Jenny gives him a reproving smile. “You should be careful,” she whispers. “That guy was gonna beat you to a pulp!”

“I could’ve taken him,” Sanghyun jokes.

And the new Jenny laughs. And what a laugh she has. It’s beautiful and airy and happy and Sanghyun knows immediately that he wants to hear it again.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asks.

Jenny looks taken aback by this sudden change in topic. She quickly shakes her head. “Ah, I’m no good for you. You shouldn’t ask me out.”

“I didn’t ask if you were good for me. I asked if you had a boyfriend,” Sanghyun presses.

She blushes and again shakes her head. “N-no, I don’t. But, really, you shouldn’t ask me out or anything.”

“You remind me of someone I used to know,” Sanghyun says thoughtfully, examining her every feature. “And I don’t really know why, because you don’t look anything like her. You do have the same name, though.”

“O-oh?” she stammers, blushing cutely. “Well, Jennifer is a pretty common name, after all. I know about a dozen other Jennifers myself.”

“This Jenny wasn’t very pretty,” Sanghyun admits. “But I really liked her. In fact, I’d say that she was my first love. My only love, really. But I treated her terribly. The only time she ever spoke to me, I pretended not to know her name.”

The new Jenny stares at him. “Why would you do that?” she demands. “Why would you do something so hurtful?”

Sanghyun shrugs. “I was a coward,” he admits. “I was terrified of my friends finding out. It’s such a stupid thing, but I was just a kid. I didn’t know any better. So I said such nasty things to her when all I wanted to do was tell her how much I liked her, how much I wished I could see her smile. You know, I was in the same class as her for five years and I never saw her smile. Not even once. It’s one of my biggest regrets.”

“What would you say to her if you saw her again?” Jenny asks curiously.

“Even though I know that it wouldn’t do any good, I would apologize,” Sanghyun says without hesitation. “I know that no words could make what I did alright, could mend the hurt and pain that I caused, but it would be a place to start. I’d tell her how I thought about her every day. How I wrote so many love notes that I ended up tearing into pieces without giving them to her. How I followed her one day after school and saw her buy a particular candy bar, so after that I would buy them for her and put them in her locker every single Friday.”

“That was you?” Jenny demands in surprise.

Sanghyun hangs his head. “Yeah. Pathetic I know. I was such a loser. I didn’t-” He stops suddenly. “Wait, what did you say?”

Jenny – the new Jenny or the old Jenny; who was to say who was who anymore – is blushing as she looks down at her hands. “I-I thought someone was doing it to be mean. I never ate any of the candy bars because I thought there was something nasty in them that would make me sick. I threw them all away.”

Sanghyun wants to laugh and cry all at the same time.

But then she says, “Buy me another?”

And of course Sanghyun will. 

For: KeyShawol

Prompt: In high school, Jenny and Thunder liked each other but neither knew. Thunder was attracted to her even though she was considered ugly, but he hid his feelings out of embarrassment. 

I am in love with this one. I'm not even a Thunder fan (not even really an MBLAQ fan to be perfectly honest) but I absolutely love this oneshot. 

Thanks for requesting it!! 

PS. I have no fanart for this chapter bc OC obviously lol