nakchi
in
unniesanta
Checkmarks (Junho/Sooyoung) for ladadadi
Title: Checkmarks
Recipient: ladadadi
Pairing: Junho/Sooyoung
Rating: Pg
Summary: Sooyoung met Junho the day she moved into the dorms. College AU.
A/N: For ladadadi for unniesanta I hope you like this! If you don’t let me know and I’ll write you something else.
The first time they met, Sooyoung was carrying her mini-fridge up three flights of stairs. Her mom hadn’t wanted to strain her back and her Dad had disappeared to find his tool kit to raise her bed. The weight wasn't the issue really, but it was awkward trying to wrap her arms around the metal box and lift it when the corner was digging painfully into her side with every step, jabbing into her spleen.
She was just starting to climb the last flight of stairs when a boy entered the stairway. He had short hair and tiny eyes and looked like he could have been Bi Rain's clone. He was wearing a black beanie with headphones over his ears, a hoodie with some sort of textile design and skinny jeans. He raised an eyebrow at her and removed his headphones.
"Need a hand?" He asked, putting his foot in front of the door to stop it.
She struggled up the rest of the steps as he waited for her answer and maneuvered through the open door.
"No, I'm almost there," she croaked, voice feeble even to her own ears.
Sooyoung guessed it was because the side of the fridge was banging against her throat. She was going to walk away from this moving experience with so many bruises that she'd look like she had gotten mugged, but at least her room was going to be nice and that was a plus.
"Okay then," he shrugged and continued down the stairs. She managed to make it the rest of the way without breaking it, to find that her dad had finished raising her bed off the floor. She scooted the fridge under it and then collapsed on the mattress.
"Why didn't you just wait for me?" He tutted, showing no remorse as he returned the tools to the kit and snapped it shut.
She massaged her arms and just shrugged, to tired to answer.
Later that night, she met her roommates, Yoona and Yuri, who knew each other from high school and were sharing a bunk. They bonded by decorating the room: pink carpet on the floor, stars on the walls, joined by posters of various rock bands and a few actors.
"If only asbestos wasn't an issue," Yoona sighed, holding a bag of glow-in-the-dark stars and shooting longing looks at the ceiling. Yoona was the youngest of the three, with long, perfect hair and a sweet smile that could turn wicked at a moment's notice. She was a theater major, first year.
Yuri was a sporty girl with a body worth envying. She currently had no major but was in her second year. She liked to wear her long hair in a ponytail and had a smile that made Sooyoung want to smile right along, as well as an amazing sense of humor. It didn't really take long for the three of them to become friends.
The house meeting went rather well. The Resident Advisor told them about everything they could do and couldn't do, like run up and down the halls or drink, or have people of the opposite gender in the rooms after dark. Sooyoung was sure that all of them would be broken before the end of the month, but she kept it to herself.
Taeyeon, the RA, decided that everyone should make introductions to break the ice. She listened sort of half-heartedly, losing interest before too long. Most students seemed to either be going for nursing or were undeclared.
She didn't realize that the boy who'd helped her earlier was in her house until he spoke up. Perhaps it was because she still felt like she owed him, but she ended up paying attention when he smiled-the way his eyes nearly disappearing between his cheeks and his lips turned upward in an awkward smile.
"Hi, my name is Lee Junho. I'm a third year with a major in music."
She continued watching him even after they'd moved on. She liked the way his eyelashes curled out from under his eyelids, how he watched everyone with a vacant expression until a small smirk appeared on his face whenever someone tripped over their words.
She didn't notice that it was her turn until their eyes met, and then she looked away with embarrassment--her heart fluttering oddly in her chest. She liked the glint of light brown that flickered in his eyes and made her feel warm.
"My name is Choi Sooyoung. I'm a second year Japanese major with an entertainment minor." She fidgeted under their gaze, cheeks burning. She examined her cartoon-endorsed socks until the next person started to talk and she released a sigh of relief.
Later, after they'd been released from the meeting and were walking back, she discovered that Lee Junho's room was right across from hers. While their housemates struggled with the keys, their eyes met. Junho grinned at her, a bit shy, and moved into the room when his housemate claimed victory.
(It took all three of them jerking and yanking on the key to get their own door open.)
-x-
The next day, Sooyoung got her books and then took a jog around campus, wearing short running shorts and a t-shirt, playing some upbeat songs on her iPod. It was a warm, August day, even for as late in the year as it was. Not only did she finally learn her way around school, including the obscure language department all the way across campus, where her Japanese language class was to take place. By the time she made it back to the dorm, her short hair was sticking to her forehead and she felt the dire need for a bath and a huge meal.
In the dorms, Yoona was playing a game on the TV and Yuri was nowhere to be seen. "Did you guys eat yet?" She asked, wrapping her headphone wire around her iPod.
"Not yet," Yoona answered, cursing as she was shot at.
"Wanna eat after I shower?" She asked, pulling out new clothes and her bathing things while Yoona gave her a positive answer and then retreated down the hall to the bathrooms.
The showers weren’t too bad, though the hot water fluctuated between steaming hot and lukewarm every few minutes. She pulled on an old t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and took just enough time to make sure her hair wasn’t flying all over the place before she decided to heed her stomachs demands for food.
"Hey," Junho waved at her coming out of his room while she was about to enter hers.
"Hey," she grinned at him. "You going to eat?"
He nodded and pointed to one of his roommates, who was anxiously jumping up and down on the balls of his feet. "Chansung’s like a bottomless pit or something," he rolled his eyes.
Sooyoung laughed and patted her own stomach. "Me too," her stomach rumbled in agreement. Their eyes met in and Junho laughed, scratching the back of his neck.
"Wanna join us?" He asked, awkward smile in place.
"Sure," Sooyoung said, "let me round up my roommates."
Twenty minutes later found her sitting across from Junho and beside Yoona, who was chatting across from Chansung, who nodded when she paused but whose attention was focused on his food. She mixed her potatoes and her corn absently as she listened to Yoona chattering.
"So you’re a Japanese major?" Junho asked after a while of watching her weird corn and potatoes mixture.
"And you’re a music major," she nodded, rattling off the information.
Junho looks delighted that she remembered, but his smile faded a bit when she lifted her corn and potato concoction to her mouth and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. "Gross," he winced, faking a shudder.
Her eyebrows rose over her hairline. "Says you. You’re only eating pizza."
"But it’s steak and mushroom pizza!" He declared, victoriously taking a huge bite.
She wrinkled her nose at him, replying by taking a doubly huge bite of potatoes and corn and making all sorts of extravagantly pleased noises. Junho made a noise that sounded suspiciously like pizza lodging itself in his throat.
It didn’t take too long for them to become friends after that-and any and all nervousness she’d previously had was soon diminished. The morning classes started, she made him get up and play a quick game of soccer with him-though it was more a game of "try-to-block-Junho" by the end. She partially succeeded until he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, beaming with laughter. That night, heads full of sawdust from various syllabi, they met up in the TV room for some late night TV watching. Yuri and Junho’s other roommate Jinwoon were manning the remote, switching it back and forth before some chick-flick and a cheesy action drama.
Chansung was curled up on one of the chairs, and every time Jinwoon laughed with Yuri he would good-naturedly flick popcorn at him. Yoona kept alternating between imitating the cheap acting and running her toes up Yuri’s spine. Sooyoung took a seat next to Junho on the other loveseat.
"How’re classes going for you?" He asked, fiddling with his sock.
Sooyoung laughed, "oh you know, those Syllabi are really hard."
His cheeks colored and he turned his attention to Jinwoon, who now had a pile of popcorn around him from Chansung’s aim. "Ladies man," he muttered as the freshman chatted to Yuri and Yoona. "I think he’s got the numbers of half the ladies in the house already."
Sooyoung shrugged, "isn’t he gay?"
Junho didn’t reply right away so she glanced up, laughing at his startled expression. She threw a piece of lint at him. "Come on, it’s obvious."
From his expression of shock, it clearly wasn’t to everyone. She rolled her eyes and hit him in the shoulder.
"Oww, what?" He yelped, holding his shoulder in pain.
"Don’t be such a baby," she complained, pulling the couch pillow into her lap and hugging it. She turned her attention to the television until he poked her with his foot.
"What about me?" He asked, whispering in a conspiratorial tone. "Am I gay?"
Sooyoung leaned forward, pretending to examine him as though he were a patient. She took in the slight flush of his cheeks, and let her eyes linger on the way his bangs were slightly disheveled. He swallowed nervously, his teasing smile making his eyes disappear.
She leaned forward until she could feel his breath on her cheeks. "Hmm," she poked him in the stomach as quick as lighting. "Absolutely!" She giggled and shoved the pillow into his chest and got off of the couch.
"I’m going to go take a shower," she announced, picking up a piece of popcorn from the ground and throwing it at Chansung, who gave a bark of a laugh when it bounced off his nose and fell in between the chair cushions.
"Night," five voices chimed behind her, as she shut the door to their merrymaking. She ran a hand through her hair and touched her cheek, where she could still feel the gentle ghost of Junho’s breath. She hid her face in her hands and broke her first rule of the house-no running in the halls.
-x-
She realized that she had a problem when she caught herself listening for Junho’s laugh from the room across from theirs. Both rooms seemed to like keeping their rooms open, and often they had visitors when they weren’t doing homework. Every now and then she’d catch a wayward laugh come their way. She found Junho’s laugh was one that started quiet and turned loud, where Chansung’s she could tell by the loud bark of surprise that started his laughing fits. Jinwoon’s were loud and usually ended in a crash as he fell over.
As the semester went on, Sooyoung found herself gaining an odd awareness for Junho’s existence. She knew when he would leave for classes or when he’d be leaving for class. She knew that he often left five minutes before she left at noon for her Tuesday lit class. She could tell he liked to listen to hip-hop because his music was always loud enough in his headphones to be heard clearly.
If he were about to go do something he didn’t want to do, he’d sigh and drag his feet across the floor. It wasn’t like she was trying to be a stalker-she tried to block it out by listening to music or leaving earlier. But she found herself glancing at the clock at the gym and ticking off what he’d probably be doing at the time, whether he was going to eat or about to go out with friends.
It didn’t take her long to decide that she had an addiction. She started hanging out with some other friends that she either met from class or through Yuri and Yoona, or tried to stay out of the dorm more often.
But whenever she went to movies, she’d think of him. She’ wonder what his arm would feel like around her shoulders when they were cold, wonder if he was the type to go buy her a drink if she were thirsty, even if theater drinks were the most expensive in the universe. She wondered if they’d have the same taste in movies. Did he like action and comedy? Or was he secretly a mushy guy?
Sometimes she’d be leaving and he’d be by the door, either microwaving popcorn or some other thing. Their eyes would meet and she’d freeze on the threshold. Her heart would suddenly flutter in her chest like a birds wings.
He’d smile and pull a can out of the mini-fridge their microwave sat on top of. "Going out?"
"Just with some friends," she’d say, adjusting her purse strap. She’d lock her door with her palms slick with sweat, and she’d practically run down the hallway to get away from the thundering pulse in her ears and the rosy blush on her cheeks. Nothing worked to get her away from her newfound feelings-not even the promise of midterms looming. It was becoming an issue, and she didn’t want to neglect herself anymore.
One night she was hanging out in the laundry room, sitting on the table with her Japanese books and note cards piled around her. It was disserted for the most part, the only other person kept coming in and out was Jo Kwon, who was taking up at least two of the five washers in the room.
The door opened for the umpteenth time, and she assumed it was just Jo Kwon so she didn’t bother looking up until the person stopped in front of her. When she did look, it was to Junho looking at her book upside down.
"Sookee de-soo," he pronounced, making her wince and shove her away. He laughed and plopped his laundry bag on the table next to her. "What does that mean?"
"It means 'you’re stupid,'" she said bluntly. He puffed his cheeks out at her and opened the only free washer to dump clothes inside.
She watched him while his back was turned, the way his shoulders contracted when his arms moved in short, jerky movements. He must have trained in dance or something with the way he carried himself with a sort of quiet power. Maybe his focus was dance? She’d never asked before.
Licking her lips, she felt a bubble of daring build up. "わたしはすきですよ。" She said aloud. I like you. She drew her gaze back to her books when he turned around. She hoped her face wasn’t as red as it felt, and she refused to look up again until he put a hand on her book.
She hadn’t realized his face was so close when she glanced up, and she nearly fell backwards off the table. He caught her with a warm hand and pulled her back up. His hand was soft against her skin, and when their eyes met, she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a brown so intense in her life.
"You’ve been avoiding me," he muttered, eyes betraying the hurt that his faint smile tried to hide.
Sooyoung’s breath in her throat, she wasn’t sure if she could do anything-or if she even wanted to, really, until he lifted the hand he still had in her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against it. She was delighted to learn that his lips were as soft as they looked.
"You’re doing it wrong," she suppressed a smile. "You’re supposed to bend down to the hand, not bring the hand up to..." she drifted off as he pushed her books aside and climbed on top of her, putting a hand over her mouth.
"I’m going to pretend I care, for like, one second." He paused, dropping her hand so he could twist his fingers into the fabric of her shirt. "Time’s up," he said, breath tingling against her skin. He pressed a surprisingly hesitant kiss to her lips, like he was going to give her time to pull away if she wanted.
She looped her arms around his neck and drew him closer, pressing her body against his. "I have fifteen minutes before my-" He didn’t let her finish, taking her lips into a much more proper kiss this time. She wondered if this was going to become a habit, but then she wasn’t wondering much at all, after that.
-x-
The end of the semester brought many things. It made a rule breaker out of Sooyoung and an item out of Chansung and Jinwoon. When Junho knocked on her door in the middle of the night with a haunted look in his eyes and a pillow in his arms, she could barely hold her laughter long enough to invite him in and shut the door.
And as she lay in her bed with his arms around her waist, and he pressed his warm lips against the base of her neck and shoulders, she found that she was all right with that. Life was more exciting outside the law, anyway.
After a while, the only sounds in the room was that of four student’s breathing, until Sooyoung broke into an uproar of giggles that made her wake up the entire room. Yoona threw a stuffed animal at her and hit her in the head without even waking up and Yuri sat up so suddenly that she hit her head on the ceiling.
"What is it?" Junho hissed, trying to make her shut up. Yuri’s curses filled the background.
"You’re definitely not gay," she managed to say around her laughter, and Junho jabbed her in the side with his finger.
"I’d hope not!" He grunted when she kicked him the shin. She finally settled down, hugging Yoona’s stuffed pig to her chest and tracing imaginary lines on Junho’s skin.
-x-
( "Is someone in here?" Yuri asked, pain filling her voice.
"It’s a ghost," Junho said.
"What!" Yoona shouted and chucked another stuffed animal, hitting Junho in the face.
"Your aim is remarkable," he complimented, using Sooyoung’s pillow to shield himself from a flying monkey. Beside him, Sooyoung huffed and hid herself against Junho’s chest. )
Recipient: ladadadi
Pairing: Junho/Sooyoung
Rating: Pg
Summary: Sooyoung met Junho the day she moved into the dorms. College AU.
A/N: For ladadadi for unniesanta I hope you like this! If you don’t let me know and I’ll write you something else.
The first time they met, Sooyoung was carrying her mini-fridge up three flights of stairs. Her mom hadn’t wanted to strain her back and her Dad had disappeared to find his tool kit to raise her bed. The weight wasn't the issue really, but it was awkward trying to wrap her arms around the metal box and lift it when the corner was digging painfully into her side with every step, jabbing into her spleen.
She was just starting to climb the last flight of stairs when a boy entered the stairway. He had short hair and tiny eyes and looked like he could have been Bi Rain's clone. He was wearing a black beanie with headphones over his ears, a hoodie with some sort of textile design and skinny jeans. He raised an eyebrow at her and removed his headphones.
"Need a hand?" He asked, putting his foot in front of the door to stop it.
She struggled up the rest of the steps as he waited for her answer and maneuvered through the open door.
"No, I'm almost there," she croaked, voice feeble even to her own ears.
Sooyoung guessed it was because the side of the fridge was banging against her throat. She was going to walk away from this moving experience with so many bruises that she'd look like she had gotten mugged, but at least her room was going to be nice and that was a plus.
"Okay then," he shrugged and continued down the stairs. She managed to make it the rest of the way without breaking it, to find that her dad had finished raising her bed off the floor. She scooted the fridge under it and then collapsed on the mattress.
"Why didn't you just wait for me?" He tutted, showing no remorse as he returned the tools to the kit and snapped it shut.
She massaged her arms and just shrugged, to tired to answer.
Later that night, she met her roommates, Yoona and Yuri, who knew each other from high school and were sharing a bunk. They bonded by decorating the room: pink carpet on the floor, stars on the walls, joined by posters of various rock bands and a few actors.
"If only asbestos wasn't an issue," Yoona sighed, holding a bag of glow-in-the-dark stars and shooting longing looks at the ceiling. Yoona was the youngest of the three, with long, perfect hair and a sweet smile that could turn wicked at a moment's notice. She was a theater major, first year.
Yuri was a sporty girl with a body worth envying. She currently had no major but was in her second year. She liked to wear her long hair in a ponytail and had a smile that made Sooyoung want to smile right along, as well as an amazing sense of humor. It didn't really take long for the three of them to become friends.
The house meeting went rather well. The Resident Advisor told them about everything they could do and couldn't do, like run up and down the halls or drink, or have people of the opposite gender in the rooms after dark. Sooyoung was sure that all of them would be broken before the end of the month, but she kept it to herself.
Taeyeon, the RA, decided that everyone should make introductions to break the ice. She listened sort of half-heartedly, losing interest before too long. Most students seemed to either be going for nursing or were undeclared.
She didn't realize that the boy who'd helped her earlier was in her house until he spoke up. Perhaps it was because she still felt like she owed him, but she ended up paying attention when he smiled-the way his eyes nearly disappearing between his cheeks and his lips turned upward in an awkward smile.
"Hi, my name is Lee Junho. I'm a third year with a major in music."
She continued watching him even after they'd moved on. She liked the way his eyelashes curled out from under his eyelids, how he watched everyone with a vacant expression until a small smirk appeared on his face whenever someone tripped over their words.
She didn't notice that it was her turn until their eyes met, and then she looked away with embarrassment--her heart fluttering oddly in her chest. She liked the glint of light brown that flickered in his eyes and made her feel warm.
"My name is Choi Sooyoung. I'm a second year Japanese major with an entertainment minor." She fidgeted under their gaze, cheeks burning. She examined her cartoon-endorsed socks until the next person started to talk and she released a sigh of relief.
Later, after they'd been released from the meeting and were walking back, she discovered that Lee Junho's room was right across from hers. While their housemates struggled with the keys, their eyes met. Junho grinned at her, a bit shy, and moved into the room when his housemate claimed victory.
(It took all three of them jerking and yanking on the key to get their own door open.)
-x-
The next day, Sooyoung got her books and then took a jog around campus, wearing short running shorts and a t-shirt, playing some upbeat songs on her iPod. It was a warm, August day, even for as late in the year as it was. Not only did she finally learn her way around school, including the obscure language department all the way across campus, where her Japanese language class was to take place. By the time she made it back to the dorm, her short hair was sticking to her forehead and she felt the dire need for a bath and a huge meal.
In the dorms, Yoona was playing a game on the TV and Yuri was nowhere to be seen. "Did you guys eat yet?" She asked, wrapping her headphone wire around her iPod.
"Not yet," Yoona answered, cursing as she was shot at.
"Wanna eat after I shower?" She asked, pulling out new clothes and her bathing things while Yoona gave her a positive answer and then retreated down the hall to the bathrooms.
The showers weren’t too bad, though the hot water fluctuated between steaming hot and lukewarm every few minutes. She pulled on an old t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and took just enough time to make sure her hair wasn’t flying all over the place before she decided to heed her stomachs demands for food.
"Hey," Junho waved at her coming out of his room while she was about to enter hers.
"Hey," she grinned at him. "You going to eat?"
He nodded and pointed to one of his roommates, who was anxiously jumping up and down on the balls of his feet. "Chansung’s like a bottomless pit or something," he rolled his eyes.
Sooyoung laughed and patted her own stomach. "Me too," her stomach rumbled in agreement. Their eyes met in and Junho laughed, scratching the back of his neck.
"Wanna join us?" He asked, awkward smile in place.
"Sure," Sooyoung said, "let me round up my roommates."
Twenty minutes later found her sitting across from Junho and beside Yoona, who was chatting across from Chansung, who nodded when she paused but whose attention was focused on his food. She mixed her potatoes and her corn absently as she listened to Yoona chattering.
"So you’re a Japanese major?" Junho asked after a while of watching her weird corn and potatoes mixture.
"And you’re a music major," she nodded, rattling off the information.
Junho looks delighted that she remembered, but his smile faded a bit when she lifted her corn and potato concoction to her mouth and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. "Gross," he winced, faking a shudder.
Her eyebrows rose over her hairline. "Says you. You’re only eating pizza."
"But it’s steak and mushroom pizza!" He declared, victoriously taking a huge bite.
She wrinkled her nose at him, replying by taking a doubly huge bite of potatoes and corn and making all sorts of extravagantly pleased noises. Junho made a noise that sounded suspiciously like pizza lodging itself in his throat.
It didn’t take too long for them to become friends after that-and any and all nervousness she’d previously had was soon diminished. The morning classes started, she made him get up and play a quick game of soccer with him-though it was more a game of "try-to-block-Junho" by the end. She partially succeeded until he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, beaming with laughter. That night, heads full of sawdust from various syllabi, they met up in the TV room for some late night TV watching. Yuri and Junho’s other roommate Jinwoon were manning the remote, switching it back and forth before some chick-flick and a cheesy action drama.
Chansung was curled up on one of the chairs, and every time Jinwoon laughed with Yuri he would good-naturedly flick popcorn at him. Yoona kept alternating between imitating the cheap acting and running her toes up Yuri’s spine. Sooyoung took a seat next to Junho on the other loveseat.
"How’re classes going for you?" He asked, fiddling with his sock.
Sooyoung laughed, "oh you know, those Syllabi are really hard."
His cheeks colored and he turned his attention to Jinwoon, who now had a pile of popcorn around him from Chansung’s aim. "Ladies man," he muttered as the freshman chatted to Yuri and Yoona. "I think he’s got the numbers of half the ladies in the house already."
Sooyoung shrugged, "isn’t he gay?"
Junho didn’t reply right away so she glanced up, laughing at his startled expression. She threw a piece of lint at him. "Come on, it’s obvious."
From his expression of shock, it clearly wasn’t to everyone. She rolled her eyes and hit him in the shoulder.
"Oww, what?" He yelped, holding his shoulder in pain.
"Don’t be such a baby," she complained, pulling the couch pillow into her lap and hugging it. She turned her attention to the television until he poked her with his foot.
"What about me?" He asked, whispering in a conspiratorial tone. "Am I gay?"
Sooyoung leaned forward, pretending to examine him as though he were a patient. She took in the slight flush of his cheeks, and let her eyes linger on the way his bangs were slightly disheveled. He swallowed nervously, his teasing smile making his eyes disappear.
She leaned forward until she could feel his breath on her cheeks. "Hmm," she poked him in the stomach as quick as lighting. "Absolutely!" She giggled and shoved the pillow into his chest and got off of the couch.
"I’m going to go take a shower," she announced, picking up a piece of popcorn from the ground and throwing it at Chansung, who gave a bark of a laugh when it bounced off his nose and fell in between the chair cushions.
"Night," five voices chimed behind her, as she shut the door to their merrymaking. She ran a hand through her hair and touched her cheek, where she could still feel the gentle ghost of Junho’s breath. She hid her face in her hands and broke her first rule of the house-no running in the halls.
-x-
She realized that she had a problem when she caught herself listening for Junho’s laugh from the room across from theirs. Both rooms seemed to like keeping their rooms open, and often they had visitors when they weren’t doing homework. Every now and then she’d catch a wayward laugh come their way. She found Junho’s laugh was one that started quiet and turned loud, where Chansung’s she could tell by the loud bark of surprise that started his laughing fits. Jinwoon’s were loud and usually ended in a crash as he fell over.
As the semester went on, Sooyoung found herself gaining an odd awareness for Junho’s existence. She knew when he would leave for classes or when he’d be leaving for class. She knew that he often left five minutes before she left at noon for her Tuesday lit class. She could tell he liked to listen to hip-hop because his music was always loud enough in his headphones to be heard clearly.
If he were about to go do something he didn’t want to do, he’d sigh and drag his feet across the floor. It wasn’t like she was trying to be a stalker-she tried to block it out by listening to music or leaving earlier. But she found herself glancing at the clock at the gym and ticking off what he’d probably be doing at the time, whether he was going to eat or about to go out with friends.
It didn’t take her long to decide that she had an addiction. She started hanging out with some other friends that she either met from class or through Yuri and Yoona, or tried to stay out of the dorm more often.
But whenever she went to movies, she’d think of him. She’ wonder what his arm would feel like around her shoulders when they were cold, wonder if he was the type to go buy her a drink if she were thirsty, even if theater drinks were the most expensive in the universe. She wondered if they’d have the same taste in movies. Did he like action and comedy? Or was he secretly a mushy guy?
Sometimes she’d be leaving and he’d be by the door, either microwaving popcorn or some other thing. Their eyes would meet and she’d freeze on the threshold. Her heart would suddenly flutter in her chest like a birds wings.
He’d smile and pull a can out of the mini-fridge their microwave sat on top of. "Going out?"
"Just with some friends," she’d say, adjusting her purse strap. She’d lock her door with her palms slick with sweat, and she’d practically run down the hallway to get away from the thundering pulse in her ears and the rosy blush on her cheeks. Nothing worked to get her away from her newfound feelings-not even the promise of midterms looming. It was becoming an issue, and she didn’t want to neglect herself anymore.
One night she was hanging out in the laundry room, sitting on the table with her Japanese books and note cards piled around her. It was disserted for the most part, the only other person kept coming in and out was Jo Kwon, who was taking up at least two of the five washers in the room.
The door opened for the umpteenth time, and she assumed it was just Jo Kwon so she didn’t bother looking up until the person stopped in front of her. When she did look, it was to Junho looking at her book upside down.
"Sookee de-soo," he pronounced, making her wince and shove her away. He laughed and plopped his laundry bag on the table next to her. "What does that mean?"
"It means 'you’re stupid,'" she said bluntly. He puffed his cheeks out at her and opened the only free washer to dump clothes inside.
She watched him while his back was turned, the way his shoulders contracted when his arms moved in short, jerky movements. He must have trained in dance or something with the way he carried himself with a sort of quiet power. Maybe his focus was dance? She’d never asked before.
Licking her lips, she felt a bubble of daring build up. "わたしはすきですよ。" She said aloud. I like you. She drew her gaze back to her books when he turned around. She hoped her face wasn’t as red as it felt, and she refused to look up again until he put a hand on her book.
She hadn’t realized his face was so close when she glanced up, and she nearly fell backwards off the table. He caught her with a warm hand and pulled her back up. His hand was soft against her skin, and when their eyes met, she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a brown so intense in her life.
"You’ve been avoiding me," he muttered, eyes betraying the hurt that his faint smile tried to hide.
Sooyoung’s breath in her throat, she wasn’t sure if she could do anything-or if she even wanted to, really, until he lifted the hand he still had in her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against it. She was delighted to learn that his lips were as soft as they looked.
"You’re doing it wrong," she suppressed a smile. "You’re supposed to bend down to the hand, not bring the hand up to..." she drifted off as he pushed her books aside and climbed on top of her, putting a hand over her mouth.
"I’m going to pretend I care, for like, one second." He paused, dropping her hand so he could twist his fingers into the fabric of her shirt. "Time’s up," he said, breath tingling against her skin. He pressed a surprisingly hesitant kiss to her lips, like he was going to give her time to pull away if she wanted.
She looped her arms around his neck and drew him closer, pressing her body against his. "I have fifteen minutes before my-" He didn’t let her finish, taking her lips into a much more proper kiss this time. She wondered if this was going to become a habit, but then she wasn’t wondering much at all, after that.
-x-
The end of the semester brought many things. It made a rule breaker out of Sooyoung and an item out of Chansung and Jinwoon. When Junho knocked on her door in the middle of the night with a haunted look in his eyes and a pillow in his arms, she could barely hold her laughter long enough to invite him in and shut the door.
And as she lay in her bed with his arms around her waist, and he pressed his warm lips against the base of her neck and shoulders, she found that she was all right with that. Life was more exciting outside the law, anyway.
After a while, the only sounds in the room was that of four student’s breathing, until Sooyoung broke into an uproar of giggles that made her wake up the entire room. Yoona threw a stuffed animal at her and hit her in the head without even waking up and Yuri sat up so suddenly that she hit her head on the ceiling.
"What is it?" Junho hissed, trying to make her shut up. Yuri’s curses filled the background.
"You’re definitely not gay," she managed to say around her laughter, and Junho jabbed her in the side with his finger.
"I’d hope not!" He grunted when she kicked him the shin. She finally settled down, hugging Yoona’s stuffed pig to her chest and tracing imaginary lines on Junho’s skin.
-x-
( "Is someone in here?" Yuri asked, pain filling her voice.
"It’s a ghost," Junho said.
"What!" Yoona shouted and chucked another stuffed animal, hitting Junho in the face.
"Your aim is remarkable," he complimented, using Sooyoung’s pillow to shield himself from a flying monkey. Beside him, Sooyoung huffed and hid herself against Junho’s chest. )