click
Click
jonghyun (cn blue) x seohyun | 2295 words
for bollywoodrecord
"Sometimes when you meet someone, there's a click. I don't believe in love at first sight but I believe in that click."
- Ann Aguirre | Blue Diablo
“I believe in the click.”
He wakes up, and he opens his eyes to see his bass guitar right in front of his eyes. And there’s a string hopelessly broken, ends flaring up, looking vicious. Jonghyun sighs as he pulls himself up, staring at the string, broken, and wonders who the hell was responsible. It takes him a few more seconds to assess his surroundings - he is on his own mattress, on the floor of the studio apartment the band can barely afford. But damn, there is trash everywhere, and Jonghyun suspects the reason why he now has a headache and the light is too damn bright, and he smells alcohol is because Yonghwa held another crazy party after one of their gigs, and this is around the time all the guys are going to start regretting this decision.
Minhyuk is passed out on the couch, still. Jonghyun can’t see Yonghwa or Jungshin. He assumes one of them is slumped over the kitchen bench (probably Jungshin) and Yonghwa is outside in the car because that’s where he always takes the random stranger to make out with.
Jonghyun stands up and sways, leaning on a chair that he's lucky to have lying around - and starts toward the door, hands searching his pockets for his wallet at the same time. He knows he should probably clean up first before going out, but he doesn’t really want to ideal with god knows what could’ve happened in there last night anytime soon either.
He walks into the music shop, and there’s this brown-haired girl at the counter, who’s definitely new. Jonghyun is sure of this, because he’s a regular here, and he’s definitely, never seen her before.
“Morning,” she smiles at him.
Her skin is really smooth, Jonghyun casually observes. She has a nice voice too, and gentle eyes. Her name tag reads ‘Seohyun’.
“Are you buying that?”
“Yeah, sorry, I am.”
She laughs and scans the barcode, “long night?”
“Something like that.”
Click.
Yonghwa gives him so much shit for liking this girl. Jonghyun thinks that this is totally unwarranted, because Yonghwa makes so many stupid decisions with groupies, and it’s just not fair to poke fun at him for having a crush on the nice new girl at the music store. It’s just not.
So Jonghyun really commits and plucks up the courage to make this work. He buys her coffee for the first time, after striking up a conversation with her in the music store the second time he goes in that week. She drinks coffee black, which Jonghyun secretly can’t stand, but he likes that about her too. He likes how she camps out in the store with him on her lunch break very occasionally, and she’s probably eating something healthy. Eventually, Jonghyun plucks up the courage to ask her out to dinner. It’s very conventional, very safe. He doesn’t want this to mess up. Seohyun is a nice girl, he’s convinced.
So he asks her when she finishes her shift on a Thursday evening, when the sun is only just beginning to drop behind skyscrapers, and everything is golden. She’s wearing red nail polish, and her hair is in a messy bun, because today was the day a large shipment of stock came in. Jonghyun tries to keep it casual, but he really wants her to say yes to dinner.
She says yes.
Minhyuk punches him in the shoulder - in a friendly way - and Jonghyun really appreciates it. It feels good, for something like this to go right for once. There’s a silent understanding that Jonghyun hasn’t had a great many relationships, and of them, clearly none of them were shining successes.
He thinks Seohyun is different. For sure. There’s something about her. Like how she cups her chin in her hands, with her elbows on the table, listening to him ramble about god knows what. Jonghyun likes how she does her hair - but that’s just one of the surface things. There’s something about her eyes, they’re very earnest, and direct, unfaltering. He likes how steady they are. He likes the things she says too. She’s like every second person on the street. She worries about what she may not succeed in, but she wants to amount to something pretty badly too.
“I like people who strive for something.”
Jonghyun makes a bad joke about his struggling band.
She laughs, and tells him that it’s a bad joke. “I really admire you for what you’re doing though.”
He really takes that to heart.
They’re rehearsing, and Yonghwa is an asshole over ramen. He just is. It starts off fine, just friends bantering, checking up on how things are going.
“I hope it works out.”
It’s nice when Yonghwa isn’t being mean-spirited about these things.
Sometimes he commandeers the car (Jungshin gets antsy about this, and says petrol is expensive, and something about their insurance), and picks Seohyun up from college. It’s the little things that count, and Jonghyun is reminded of that when Seohyun’s face lights up, and she ducks between other students milling around. She always, always leans over to kiss him on the cheek - and the first time this happened Jonghyun almost rear-ended the car parked in front of him as he pulled out of his parking spot.
Seohyun yelped, and dissolved into laughter, before telling Jonghyun to be careful.
Sometimes he plays the band’s CDs in the stereo, and there are a few songs that Seohyun really likes. She taps her foot along with it, sometimes she hums.
“Sing for me,” Jonghyun jokes.
He doesn’t really expect her to deliver, but it’s a wonderful surprise. When he’s over at her place, he asks her to sing to him again, and she rolls her eyes and calls him needy and greedy. Jonghyun shrugs, kind of shameless, because he can’t see anything wrong with wanting more of a good thing.
Sometimes she takes longer to respond in conversations. Jonghyun notices this early on, and he asks if she’s alright, what’s wrong? Is there something he can do? She starts wearing mufflers, and she slumps into it, letting the wool cover her mouth in the autumn. She says she alright, and later when she calls him, she worries about what’s going to happen at the end of the semester, and what if she doesn’t get this internship she’s applied for.
She starts to ask about him - how does he feel about everything in this life?
Jonghyun mentions this first recent development to Jungshin once, but he’s not really listening to when Jungshin responds. It flies over his head, becomes part of the background. Instead, he’s working out his answer to her question, and he’s wondering if something’s changing in their relationship.
Seohyun quits the music store and starts working at a department store. She says it’s better pay. Jonghyun just nods.
It’s smooth sailing again. Jungshin asks how they’re going a few weeks down the track. And upon hearing Jonghyun’s answer, Jungshin smiles, and pats him on the back. “Ups and downs like this are normal. You guys are going pretty steady it seems. It’s good.”
Jonghyun nods to this, and gets caught up with moving all their gear to the recording studio a friend of Yonghwa’s set them up with. He calls Seohyun about it from inside the recording booth, while all the other guys are off admiring other parts of it or fiddling with whatever else, and he gushes, and he gestures with his hands, and he’s all “I wish you were here to see this, I’m so excited.” She says she’d love to see it, she’s excited for him too. She wants everything to work out for them.
“Hopefully you’ll be able to stop working shoddy waiter jobs eventually,” she contemplates over her textbooks (Jonghyun can tell, because he can hear turning pages and the sound of a pen being clicked in the background).
Things are good.
And all of a sudden, things start escalating.
It’s quite frightening, how it happens. First little steps, but then all at once. A company wants their album - and then it becomes clockwork. Chain of events. One thing leads to another. Jonghyun feels really weird, this idea of a photoshoot, and it feels strange to be standing in front of softboxes (it's so warm, too warm, and his hair has never had this much volume). He tells Seohyun this, lying down, looking at the ceiling. She tells him to stay calm, just go with it. This is a good thing.
“Hey Seo.”
“What’s up?”
“The guys are heading out to lunch, do you want to tag along?”
Jonghyun hears rushing wind crackle through the phone. He assumes it’s traffic on the road Seohyun’s on. “Oh man - I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you, I’ve got an interview soon.” There’s another rush of static, and Jonghyun assumes this is Seohyun sighing this time. “Sorry - I’ll have to make it next time?”
He silently tells himself off for feeling disappointed. “It’s alright, good luck yeah? I want things to go well for you.”
“Thank you for understanding, I really appreciate it.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Jonghyun imagines her smiling while she says that.
Jonghyun is halfway through a new song when he gets a call from Seohyun later in the evening, and her voice is brimming with excitement that Jonghyun’s never really heard from her before. It’s a good thing, he feels as thrilled as she does. It seems that this is the turning point - for both of them, when good things are happening in life. Hard work pays off. Seohyun’s been repeating that a lot, for years, Jonghyun knows, and it’s incredible to see that actually happen.
The band finds a more reasonable place to live, it’s closer to their label headquarters, but it’s also less floor space. Seohyun meets everyone on moving day, with coffee and several tubs of salad as well as one full of curry. Jonghyun hugs her, and he’s all sweaty and Seohyun tells him off for it. She flicks his cheek, but kisses him too. Minhyuk groans and says something about getting a room. Seohyun gets the grand tour, and at the end, when she’s slipping into her flats, she pulls Jonghyun closer and suggests he stay over at her place sometimes. One roommate is better than four, she points out.
Jonghyun doesn’t actually put this into practice much, as it turns out, but when he does come over for dinner or just to nap in Seohyun’s lap while she reads files the firm sends over, it’s really calming. It seems as though nothing could really go wrong, and these days are sealed in a golden glow.
The band gets shipped around the country to play gigs here and there, and it’s a short trip, and it’s all good fun. Everybody still lives very frugally, but Jonghyun finally quits his job at the restaurant, and takes up writing postcards to Seohyun on the tour bus while all the other guys are sleeping. He gets back before the last postcard makes it to Seohyun, but she loves it all the same.
When he gets back, Jonghyun finds himself lying on Seohyun’s bed sheets - they are maroon now, watching her send emails and pace the room making calls and leaving voicemails.
She ends up sitting next to him on the bed, holding his hand. Apologising.
“Sorry, I think it’ll be better if you head home. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
He’s disappointed. But there’s always tomorrow, he thinks. It’ll be alright.
When tomorrow comes, Jonghyun comes back from a magazine interview with a message from Seohyun saying she’s pulling overtime at the company. Jonghyun is acutely aware of the walk from the train station to her apartment. He calls her when she’s supposed to get off from work, but she doesn’t respond immediately. He gets ahold of her when she’s on the train, and he asks if he’d like her to pick her up from the station. It’s late. It’s dark.
“I’ll be alright, rest up okay? I can make it home fine.”
When Jonghyun can't reach her fifteen minutes later, he starts panicking. The guys tell him it’s probably nothing, her battery died. Jungshin tosses the car keys over anyway though. “Try catch her at the station.” They all understand what if.
He can’t see her anywhere close to the station. He parks close to the station and starts walking. Tracing her usual path home.
He gets to the top of her street when his phone rings, and it’s Seohyun.
“Jonghyun-“
“Where are you? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, oh gosh, I’m so sorry - my phone batteries just died on the train and all I could do was rush home - I am so sorry, oh my goodness -“
“It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re safe. That’s what matters.”
He makes his way to her apartment anyway, talking to her all the way, before he asks her to let her in. He hears her laugh and tell him off for going to all this trouble to make sure she made it home. And he just says it’s okay, and that he loves her so much. He’s never going to take her for granted. She points out that she made it fine in the end - she lives in a really safe district. Jonghyun imagines her crouched by a powerpoint, phone charging as she speaks to him, it’s kind of funny, and adorable.
The front door swings open, and Seohyun’s leaning against the doorway.
Jonghyun says he’s cold, can he come inside.
She lets him in.
Can he stay over? It’s late.
She smiles, and she closes the door behind them.
Click.
NOTE: I have never actually written this ship before. And I admit I actually wanted to be terribly angsty with this and have it end badly for Jonghyun. But I am currently a believer in happy endings, and I hope this is likeable.
I fear not writing for so long (and writing the bulk of this at 12AM - 01:49AM) has crippled my ability to write well. So please like this.