Waking up to the feel of Jieun sleeping in his arms, Wooyoung didn’t even think about getting up and disturbing the moment. It was calm and peaceful, such a contrast to the noise and hardened words that had woke him up before.

His lips crooked into a small smile when he registered Jieun’s light snores from where she slept soundly, her head resting right over his heart. He also belatedly realized that the hand he had on her waist was touching soft, bare skin from where her t-shirt had ridden up.

Heat flooded Wooyoung’s face as he moved the offending hand down to her hip. Rolling his eyes up to the ceiling, he was suddenly extremely aware of the position they were in. Of their legs tangled together. Of how warm her skin felt through the cotton of the pajama shorts she was wearing. Of the press of her s against his ribcage.

Wooyoung let out a shaky breath and wondered if should move now, feeling guilty about direction his mind had headed in. It probably would have been for the best anyway, seeing as how they were in his parents’ home and his mother could have walked in at any moment. And it would be embarrassing as all hell to try to explain that it wasn’t what it looked like (because clearly he’d had succeeded in that department before).

But when Jieun started stirring in her sleep, Wooyoung immediately closed his eyes, not wanting to face the inevitable awkwardness of the morning after.

Not that they had done anything other than sleep. But it was the first time they’d ever spent a night together in the same bed and Wooyoung was willing to bet money that it would be weird between them. Especially since they had yet to breach this sort of intimacy in their relationship. Even when they kissed and things got heavy, it was always on a couch and hands never strayed underneath clothes.

But Wooyoung’s fingers had been itching for a while now and idea of more seemed to always be on his mind these days.

He thought about the face she’d made the day before over his comment about their restraint. Before, he had almost been sure that he wasn’t the only one interested in taking things a step further in their relationship. But now, he wasn’t so positive. She’d always responded well and he never pushed, treading lightly to prevent pressuring her and making her uncomfortable. But there was something about the look on her face when he mentioned restraint that was still bothering Wooyoung.

Maybe she wasn’t as ready as he was? Maybe he’d made it up to try to justify things when his thoughts lost their innocence. When he started wondering what it would be like to really touch her. And how she would taste. And what it would be like to have her touch him. How it would feel for her to let him inside.

Not opening his eyes, Wooyoung bit down hard on his bottom lip, trying to get a hold of himself. He started counting backwards from ten, but he didn’t even get to 6 before Jieun shifted again and he could hear her yawning as she sat up in the bed.

Wooyoung waited, hoping that she would get up and go to the bathroom or something, because he hadn’t exactly calmed all the way down. And she would probably know something was off and it would be so embarrassing to try to explain why he was blushing and acting weird.

The worry building up in Wooyoung’s mind was abruptly cut off when he felt Jieun pinch his nose together and he let out a surprised yelp.

“I knew you weren’t asleep,” Jieun said, laughing.

Holding his nose, Wooyoung opened his eyes to glare at Jieun, who was looking far too pleased with herself. Bed head and all. “You couldn’t just say ‘good morning’ like a normal person?” he whined.

“You were the one doing a bad job of pretending to be asleep,” Jieun countered with a smile.

Wooyoung raised an eyebrow at her, before he slowly smirked. It was Jieun’s turn to yelp when he reached for her and pulled her back down on the bed and into his arms.

“Oh, honey. Oh, baby,” Wooyoung sang off key, petting Jieun’s hair.

Letting out a laugh, Jieun wiggled in his arms until he loosened his grip a little and she tucked her head under his chin. “I don’t think Jin Young Oppa would appreciate that,” she said, grinning.

Wooyoung smiled and leaned down so he could kiss the top of her head. A comfortable silence fell between them for a moment and he was glad that things weren’t awkward like he thought they would be.

“Oppa?” Jieun started suddenly.

“Hmmm?”

“Why were you pretending?”

And just like that, all the comfortableness was out of the room. Wooyoung gaped at the ceiling, wondering how he was even going to begin to explain himself. “I…I didn’t want to wake you?”

Jieun shifted so she was looking up at him and Wooyoung, unnerved by her stare, averted his eyes. He could feel his face growing hot again and he cleared his throat, hoping she wouldn’t push the issue.

Luckily, Jieun just hummed and went quiet again.

Until.

“What did you mean yesterday? When you said that we’re the picture of restraint?”

Wooyoung silently cursed to himself and wondered why she was asking about this all of a sudden. He was sure it was too early in the morning to be having this sort of conversation. And not to mention, they were in his parent’s house. As much as he had wanted to have this talk with Jieun, he wasn’t sure that it was appropriate right then.

“Uh…we…I really didn’t mean anything by it,” Wooyoung stammered, only to stop when Jieun cut her eyes at him. He pouted and looked up towards the ceiling with a wince. “It’s just…we’ve been together for over a year now. And we’re comfortable with each other, right?”

Jieun nodded and kept watching him carefully.

“So it’s…we…” Wooyoung blew out a breath of frustration. “The reason I was pretending to be asleep is because we’ve never done anything like this before.” He gestured vaguely. “I didn’t want it to be awkward when you woke up, because I know we haven’t…crossed that line yet. “

“And that’s what you meant yesterday? About the restraint. Because…we haven’t…”

“And we don’t have to!” Wooyoung rushed to explain. “I don’t want you to think that I’m unhappy or going to pressure you to do something. We can…the pace we’re going is fine…if that’s what you want.” He snuck a glance down at her and saw that she was blushing.

Before, when Wooyoung had imagined this conversation, it went a lot smoother in his head.

“You’d want to?” Jieun asked in a quiet voice after a few beats of silence. “You’d want to do that with me? I mean, I know I’m not…and there’s plenty of other girls…”

Wooyoung sat up in the bed suddenly and turned to look at Jieun, who was leaning back on her elbow, a confused look on her face. “Jieun-ah,” he started tightly. “Do you think I’m a liar?”

“What? Of course I don’t—”

“Do you not trust me then?”

“I do trust—”

“If you trusted me, then we wouldn’t keep having this same issue over and over again. Why don’t you believe that you’re the most beautiful girl in the world to me? That I don’t want anybody else, because no one else compares. Yes, there are pretty girls all over the world, but they aren’t you.”

Jieun looked away and dropped her elbow, falling back onto the bed with watery eyes. She closed them before any tears could fall and tilted her head away from him.

Reaching over, Wooyoung carefully ran his thumb under one of her eyes, before he leaned down to press tender kisses on each eyelid. “Jieun-ah,” he started again, this time gentler than before. “I love you; you’re it for me, jagi. Don’t you get that? I want everything with you. The rings, the house, the babies. Everything. When I tell you that you’re beautiful and amazing, it’s because it’s true.”

Jieun slowly opened her eyes to look at him and Wooyoung smiled down at her.

“I love your nose, no matter how much you hate it,” he said, leaning down to kiss it. “I love your hands.” He reached for one and laced their fingers together like they had done so many times before. “I love your laugh and your jokes and how much you love music. I love that you still blush around me. I just love you.”

Wooyoung looked at Jieun’s eyes, silently pleading her to believe him. He had never been so sincere about anything in his life and he wanted her to know that and to stop doubting him; to stop doubting the strength of their relationship.

“Jieun-ah, please,” he pressed when she remained silent. “What do you need me to say for you to believe me? For you to trust me?”

She shook her head at him and squeezed his hand that was still holding on tightly to hers. “You don’t need to do anything; you’re perfect. I just wish I could be that for you.”

“You are that for me…”

“How could I be that for you, when you’re the one that always goes out of you way for me? Even before you became my boyfriend, you were always the one to meet me more than half way. That Hallyu show…we hadn’t talked in months and you still came up to me at that party and you were still sweet to me.” Jieun gave Wooyoung a small, sad smile. “Even when I was being defensive after you brought me outside to talk, you still stayed. And after that, you kept trying. Even when I wasn’t responding to your text messages, you still kept trying. How could I not fall in love with you? You were the one that was constant in my life then and you still are.”

Jieun moved so she could sit up and Wooyoung moved too, settling down next to her as he kept their hands together.

Letting out a small sigh, Jieun hedged on. “I just…it feels like I don’t do nearly as much for you as you do for me. And I know it’s frustrating for you to keep pouring your heart out to me and have me clam up and look doubtful. But I want you to know it’s not that I don’t believe that you love me, because I know you do. It’s just I don’t always feel like I’m so deserving of it.”

“You do deserve it, Jieun,” Wooyoung said quickly, his eyebrows knitted together in a small frown. “You love me back. You’re faithful to me. You’ve let your fans and the rest of the world know how you feel about me, because your last album played like a love letter personally addressed to Jang Wooyoung. I don’t need you to do anything else, jagi.” The frown fell away as he smiled gently at her. “I’m not a grand gestures sort of guy, Jieunie. I don’t need you to do anything to prove how much you ‘deserve’ me. You deserve good things in all aspects of your life, Jieunie. You work hard and you’re good to your fans and your friends. And you’re especially good to me. I mean, look at all the effort you put into this trip.”

Jieun’s lips curved slightly into a tiny smile.

“It’s okay to enjoy your life, jagi,” Wooyoung continued, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “It’s okay to have your moment on stage and listen to all those people screaming for you and just taking it in, because it’s for you. And it’s especially okay to enjoy being with me without worrying that I need you to be anything more than you already are. You make me happy, Jieunie.”

“Even if we haven’t…crossed that line yet?” Jieun asked, bravely looking Wooyoung in the eyes.

He couldn’t help laughing a little and Wooyoung leaned over so he could kiss the blush already forming on Jieun’s cheek. “I already told you that we don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. I don’t have a problem waiting for however long you need me to.”

Jieun hummed quietly before looking down at their hands. She waited a beat before saying her next sentence. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

Wooyoung froze.

“I’ve never…you know that.” Jieun looked back up at Wooyoung, her pink blush growing several shades darker. “But the last few times we’ve been alone together, I’ve been having these feelings…and this is really embarrassing.” She shook her head and covered her flaming face with her hands.

Wooyoung reminded himself to breathe, because he really hadn’t been expecting the conversation to come back to this particular topic. He couldn’t help feeling a bit relieved that he hadn’t imagined Jieun actually wanting more too.

“I…” he started, before clearing his throat. “It doesn’t have to be embarrassing. You can talk to me about your…feelings.”

Jieun snorted in her hands, before looking over at Wooyoung with an incredulous look. “You make it sound like I’d be talking about the weather or something.”

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t feel like it’s a big deal, because it is,” Wooyoung started. “Neither of us has ever been intimate with anyone like that, so it’s definitely a big deal. But I just think…if we can’t get through a conversation about it, then we definitely shouldn’t be taking that step yet.”

Each of them grew quiet for a long couple of moments and Wooyoung watched as Jieun started nervously playing with her fingers. He figured that that must have been the end of that particular conversation for the moment when the silence continued stretching between them. And he had just opened his mouth to suggest that they go downstairs to see about breakfast, when Jieun spoke again.

“Yesterday…in cab.” She exhaled slowly, before bringing her eyes up to meet Wooyoung’s. “Yesterday in the cab, it just felt like…like I was drowning in you.”

Wooyoung’s brain promptly short circuited, because, oh my god, was Jieun really about to talk about this? Was she really telling him what he thought she was about to tell him?

“We both work so much,” Jieun continued carefully. “So it’s not like we’ve had a lot of time over the course of our relationship to spend time alone. Just the two of us. And when we have gotten alone time, we’ve never crossed any major lines. But the last handful of times…and yesterday in the cab, the air has been different. Don’t you think?”

Apparently Wooyoung’s ability to speak words had disappeared the moment Jieun mentioned what happened in the cab, because it took him a couple of tries to find his voice. “Ye-yeah. I noticed it too.”

“Your hands on me…on my cheeks and my throat…it seemed like every time you touched my skin, it burned. And I’ve never felt…anything like it. That feeling of too much and not enough at the same time.”

If Wooyoung thought Jieun had been blushing badly earlier, that flush had nothing on the deep red that colored her cheeks after that particular confession.

“Jieun-ah…”

“I can feel it buzzing underneath my skin when you touch me. And when you look at me sometimes, I can feel it in my stomach. I didn’t know what to do with it for the longest, because I knew you’d never push and I would never make the first move.” She laughed a little and looked Wooyoung in the eyes. “It feels like a magnetic pull between us whenever we’re alone. And I think that both of us have been holding back a lot these past couple of months. Especially you.”

Wooyoung shook his head. “This is about both of us. You know I wouldn’t…”

“I know that,” Jieun interrupted him. “I know you wouldn’t want to put any sort of pressure on me or rush me into something. And I want you to know that…me wanting to make love with you isn’t about me trying to reward you for being patient or anything like that. I want to make love with you because I love you and because I’m ready.”

The flush was still in her cheeks, but Jieun was looking at Wooyoung with so much conviction in her eyes, he was having a hard time trying to come up with a response to everything she’d just admitted to him. When he was quiet for too long, Jieun poked her lips out at him and gave him a nudge.

“Yah? You’re the one that said we should talk about it. And you’re not saying anything at all,” she said, playfully glaring at him. “Unless…” Jieun trailed off and looked confused all of a sudden. “Unless, you’re not sure you’re ready…”

That snapped Wooyoung out of it and he quickly shook his head again with an incredulous laugh. “It’s not that, jagi. I am ready. And you’re ready too. I just hadn’t been expecting us to have the conversation that quickly.”

“What conversation?” Jieun asked, poking her lips out again. “I did most of the talking. Even though it was your suggestion.”

Wooyoung couldn’t help smiling as he stared over at his girlfriend. “You want me to tell you about my feelings too? About how crazy you make me? How I think you’re the iest girl in the world?”

Pouting, Jieun nudged him. “Don’t tease.”

“Me? A tease?” Wooyoung started with a grin. “That’s the last thing you have to worry about me being. In case you haven’t noticed, Jieunie: I’m pretty easy when it comes to you.”

“Just me?” Jieun asked, playfully raising an eyebrow at him.

“Just you. Always you.”