[sekai] i'll keep tossing rocks at your window
i’ll keep tossing rocks at your window
jongin/girl!sehun; pg; ~3500w
(highschool!au) jongin and sehun are going to prom. together. shit goes down.
“jongin.” sehun calls out to the boy (more like log, she thinks bitterly. a fucking log who’s impossible to wake up once his head hits the pillow) currently snoring away on her couch. “jongin,” she snaps when she gets no response, progressively getting more and more curt as her calls go unanswered.
“wake up, you piece of shit,” she yells as she thumps his butt with one of the cushions, causing him to stir with a disgruntled grunt as he rolls over and turns to face her.
“what,” he murmurs, yawning as she rolls her eyes at him and maybe sehun’s heart softens a little, seeing him with his eyes cloudy with sleep and hair all fluffy from his nap. a vulnerable sleepy jongin is always pretty adorable, no matter how many times he scowls every time she calls him cute.
“maybe if you weren’t so hard to wake up, i wouldn’t have to resort to physical means!” she retorts, holding the cushion in front of her as self-defence so jongin won’t try any dirty tricks like jabbing her in the sides where she’s especially ticklish. (damn him and his knowing all of her little quirks.)
“you wouldn’t wake me up if you didn’t want something,” jongin mumbles, the irritation in his eyes fading to confusion as he looks at her. “now what did you want?”
sehun almost flinches at how well he can read her because holy shit, how did he know. her thoughts must’ve shown on her face, though, because jongin merely rolls his eyes back at her and snipes, “we’ve known each other ten years, of course i know you. now, seriously, what did you want, you interrupted one of the best dreams i’ve had in ages --”
“i don’t have a date to prom,” sehun blurts in the middle of jongin’s ranting and holds her breath, waiting watching to see how he’ll react --
“oh.” jongin shrugs nonchalantly. “well neither do i. so? what’s the big deal?”
“the big deal,” sehun forces out through gritted teeth, barely resisting the urge to punch jongin in the head, “is that i don’t want to turn up dateless because all my friends are already dating, and we made a deal to go together if both of us were pathetic enough to be dateless. remember?” she puts special emphasis on the last word all while glaring daggers at him, willing her thoughts to penetrate that especially thick skull of jongin’s and preferably knock some sense into him while they’re at it.
“oh, that, yeah,” jongin yawns as he flops back against the cushions on the couch. so soft, so comfortable, so good for sleeping on. he thinks he’ll curl right back up on them as soon as sehun gets out of his face. “count me in for prom night, then.”
sehun tries to suppress the relieved grin that blossoms on her face, but can’t. jongin just makes her so ridiculously frustrated and happy at the same time, the conflicting feelings not exactly unpleasant but still confusing. oh sehun thinks emotions are confusing and she’ll throw them into the han river the first chance she gets, and it’s all jongin’s fault for making her feel that way. hence, she takes revenge by whacking jongin’s ass one more time before she stands up and leaves the room, leaving him alone on the couch wailing about how his butt hurts because ‘oh sehun, you look like a skinny little thing, how do you even hit this hard.’
//
as prom inches closer and closer steadily, sehun’s impending doom slowly starts looming (in her opinion) and jongin just continues eating and sleeping like the pig of a teenage boy he is. typical.
after school one day, when both of them are holed up in her bedroom (they alternate homes. on odd weeks it’s jongin’s house and on even weeks it’s sehun’s because then it’s fair , according to jongin) attempting to burrow through the sky-high pile of worksheets and assignments piled on top of sehun’s desk, sehun suddenly slams her intensely heavy, 500-page math textbook down onto the floor, effectively creating a ‘thump’ that would rouse the dead, scaring jongin from his geography homework and causing him to scratch a jagged black line of ink across the pristine white page.
“jesus christ, sehun, what is wrong with you --”
“i don’t have a dress for prom,” sehun stress-screeches while running a hand through her long black hair in desperation, sucking in a deep breath before continuing. “neither do i have shoes, or makeup, and i’ll be the ugliest girl there, you don’t understand, kim jongin --”
“calm down, jeez,” jongin interrupts hastily with his hands out in front of him as if to protect himself before it becomes a full-blown rant. he’s had to deal with a crying sehun before, and trust him when he says that that had not been pretty. at all. recovery had involved copious amounts of ben and jerry’s ice cream (he’s still cursing oh sehun’s elitist ice cream ass to this very day) and a crying girl on his shoulder for five hours, him awkwardly patting her hair as they went through two whole boxes of tissues. “how could you be ugly, have you even seen yourself? and i’ll help you with the shopping, okay?”
(jongin misses the way sehun starts at the unexpected compliment, her eyes widening as she stares at him and tries to process the fact that her best friend just called her pretty and that no, it wasn’t an april fool’s joke. jongin also misses the little smile that blossoms after, the way the corners of her lips quirk upward in a tiny smile so unlike her usual smirk it makes her look terribly young and innocent.)
they spend the rest of the afternoon online shopping, jongin griping all the while about how this is such a ‘girly activity, shouldn’t baekhyun be helping you with this’, but he takes it all back when sehun’s face positively lights up upon finding a beautiful dress in differing shades of blue. the top’s a delicate shade of alice blue but the skirt a darker shade of columbia blue, and both hues meet in the middle to blend into each other. jongin can’t help but think about how much this dress represents sehun; all of her brashness and unexpected sensitivity merging into one person, her stonefaced exterior hiding her soft heart so well he thinks it’s a pity that not many people know that about her.
at the end of the day, sehun walks jongin to the door and sends him off with an almost shy “thanks for helping me out today, you shithead,” and jongin just smiles cheekily and replies with an “it’s just me, relax. i don’t get why you’re so freaked about it when it’s just me.”
he’s expecting a reply, but this time sehun just keeps quiet and jongin wonders all the way home.
//
prom night draws closer and closer and before sehun knows it, it’s d-day. she’d spent the entire day at school worrying and fretting over the night to come, but jongin had snuck a rose into her locker in the morning before first period and the note attached to it had made her smile.
hi
this is a really really cliched thing to do but i think i’m obliged to as your ‘date’ for the dance so here you are oh sehun here’s your stupid rose and some obnoxious heart shapes to go along with it <3 <3
p.s. don’t fret too much later. you’ll look pretty. just as you always do.
jongin
and even if the note isn’t your typical romantic confession, it still makes sehun smile anyway because this is them, this is jongin-and-sehun, this isn’t jongin putting on some chivalrous gentlemanly facade sehun could strip away in five seconds flat. they both know they don’t need to bother with pretenses and manners around each other simply because they’re so familiar, it’d be insane to pretend any way else. and so sehun simply smiles, tucks the rose into her backpack and heads on her way to class.
flash back to present day, where sehun is sitting in her bedroom all ready, zipped up into her dress, makeup nicely applied and accentuating her features. the skirt swishes around her legs and she’s reminded of that day back in her bedroom where jongin helped her pick out the dress, and she snorts. she supposes she’ll be the first girl whose date ever helped her pick out her prom dress, but it’s okay. that’s jongin’s job, after all, as her best friend.
she ignores the twinge her heart gives at the word ‘friend’, opting instead to sit down on the edge of the bed and wait for jongin to arrive, swinging her legs as she unconsciously darts glances out of the window overlooking the front porch.
//
taking a deep breath, jongin presses the doorbell of sehun’s house. it’s ridiculous, because he’s been over so many times and he should be able to just walk in without any notice, but something feels different tonight. tonight, he feels like it’s something proper, something formal, something he should try his best to carry out to perfection because after all, he knows how long sehun has wanted this, wanted to feel like a princess in her dress and strappy heels, wanted to feel beautiful because that’s what every girl wants at some point in her life, he supposes.
shaking his head and smiling slightly, he presses the doorbell and waits for sehun to open the door.
//
“holy shit the bell --”
“sehun, do you want me to get the door?”
“no, it’s okay mom, i’ll get it myself,” sehun chokes as she rushes down the stairs, skirt flying out at the sides as she takes the steps two by two and her mother laughs at her dishevelled daughter.
“jongin’s taking you to the dance, isn’t he?”
“yeah,” sehun mutters, trying to play it cool as she hurriedly smooths down her ruffled hair before opening the door. “it’s just jongin.”
“are you sure,” her mother retorts primly. “seems to me you haven’t thought of him as just jongin in a long time.”
sehun flushes, startled by her mother’s perception, but there’s no time to will away the blush blooming on her cheeks anymore and she’s forced to open the door so that jongin won’t be kept waiting for too long and she’s not even sure why she minds because in the past she’d leave him on the doorstep for half an hour at a stretch and cackle madly at him while he whined for her to let him in.
growing up does funny things to you, sehun muses. especially things like falling in like (because this isn’t love, isn’t the heart-stopping brain-numbing tidal wave of emotion that she supposes could come if they were given enough time) with your best friend.
//
the door opens, and jongin’s jaw drops in shock. sehun tonight is gorgeous, her long black hair curled into waves cresting over her bare shoulder, her pale skin complimenting the hues of her dress nicely and jongin wonders when the two of them grew up. he wonders when they stopped playing streetcar racing on his xbox and graduated to falling off the deep end of his heart, wonders when he stopped wanting to push her into the pool all the time and began wanting to hold her hand instead.
(it’s been a long time, if he were honest with himself. it’s not an epiphanous moment when he realises he likes her, could maybe even love her; it’s just built up so much over the years it’s become this unconscious feeling lingering in his chest whenever he so much as looks at her. but hey, if he were to get his heart broken by any girl, he supposes it would be best if it were sehun.)
“shall we go?” sehun asks, looking anywhere except for him, her eyes shy and downcast, and jongin nearly laughs because oh sehun is never bashful when she’s with him, never. yet the sehun here is almost like a new person, so strange and foreign, but it’s not bad. it’s almost good, in a way.
he swallows hard, nods, and takes her hand before they leave. sehun’s hand is smooth and his fingers fit through the gaps between hers perfectly, jongin almost rues it when he breaks their grip to open the door of his car for her. almost.
//
“you guys are adorable,” baekhyun coos the moment she catches sight of them and jongin groans. baekhyun’s only the sixth person of the night to mistake them for a couple, no big deal. meanwhile, sehun’s face contorts into a remarkable scowl before she shoves her friend off her.
“get lost, baekhyun, where’s chanyeol? that dumb ass is practically attached to you nowadays, i’m surprised to see you without him,” sehun snipes, the snark evident in her voice and jongin darts an uneasy glance only to see baekhyun laughing.
“you don’t seem to mind much, though,” baekhyun smirks, her eyes twinkling with something mischievous as she glances at him and oh no, jongin can see it coming. “looks like you found someone else to replace us with?”
“shut up, baek,” sehun mutters uncomfortably as jongin makes uncomfortable flappy motions with his arms to signal his unspeakable distress. “this is jongin. he’s my best friend.”
“so?” chanyeol appears out of nowhere, his loud voice booming out at them as baekhyun gives a squeal of delight and reattaches herself to him. jongin almost wants to hold up a hand and screech for both of them to stop being so ridiculously affectionate with each other in public because it hurts his eyes, but restrains himself for the good of everyone.
“best friends can date, can’t they?” chanyeol says, eyes wide as baekhyun nods in agreement.
jongin expects sehun to merely scowl in reply and perhaps flip the both of them off, so needless to say he’s surprised to see that she’s actually blushing and attempting to frown, but the angry look clashes with her blush and doesn’t make her look very threatening at all. what’s more, the hard curve of her lip is trembling and she’s darting uneasy glances at jongin, and that uncertainty makes his heart hurt because all of a sudden she looks so insecure and upset, the exact way she shouldn’t be looking on a special night like this. so he shrugs nonchalantly, pretending not to care as he draws sehun to him with an arm and replies, “why not?”
(and even as sehun hits him on the arm and yelps at him about baekhyun and chanyeol misunderstanding that they’re a couple now, jongin’s happy because at least she’s laughing as she does it, at least she looks happier and really, that’s all jongin wants to see.)
//
sehun doesn’t expect huang zitao to come up to her and ask for her number, right in front of jongin at that. he’s in her math class and he’s all quiet and mysterious, many girls swooning over his good looks and deadly smirk but sehun’s never been one of those who go for the general trend, anyway. she’s only ever regarded as a classmate, a casual acquaintance, maybe, and yet here he is, smiling at her and leaning in close as if they’ve known each other all their lives.
“hey sehun,” zitao smiles at her, so suave, and besides her sehun can feel jongin stiffen. he’s handsome tonight in his white tux, so dapper and charming, but sehun thinks jongin looks better in his worn black tuxedo handed down from his father. while the attention is not exactly unwelcome, sehun’s here with jongin and that is enough, that is all that matters.
“hey,” she answers softly, squeezing jongin’s arm. “what’s up?”
“you look really beautiful tonight,” zitao smirks, leaning close to her and towering over her with his superior height. “i’d like to take you out sometime, get to know you better and things like that?”
//
jongin fully expects sehun to say yes, because come on this is the huang zitao that all the girls are positively in love with. he doesn’t know why he’s so upset about the possibility of sehun-and-zitao happening when he and sehun aren’t even together, but the sudden surge of possessiveness has his insides clenching and so it seems only natural that he lets an arm creep around her waist, pulling her closer to him, and jongin sees zitao’s eyes narrow as his gaze focuses on both of them.
jongin fully expects sehun to shrug off his arm and turn to zitao and start giving him her number immediately. oh well, can’t say he didn’t try. what jongin doesn’t expect, however, is for sehun to laugh and turn zitao down with a gentle ‘sorry, maybe next time’ before leading him off to the dance floor to join in yet another electronic dance number.
sehun is really pretty, jongin realises as he watches the way she’s twirling and jumpingeven in her heels. it’s endearing, her laugh the happiest it’s been all week and jongin understands because to her, this night is perfect, infinite, and nothing can go wrong. underneath the strobe lights and amongst the sounds of ke$ha’s newest hit, sehun smiles so bright it hurts but jongin doesn’t mind at all, no, not really.
//
at the end of the dance, jongin takes sehun home in his old beat-up car so different from everyone else’s cabs or sleek limousines, but sehun merely laughs at him and says that she doesn’t mind. they drive home while blasting their favorite hiphop album on the radio and singing along, sehun terribly off-key while jongin’s slow on the rap parts but sehun doesn’t mind. when they reach her house, jongin walks over to open her door for her and sehun’s heart almost bursts thinking about how he’d do this for his future girlfriend, take her out on dates and treat her like a lady and love her with all his heart.
hopping out of the car, she lets jongin walk her up to her doorstep before looking up at him shyly and saying, “that was fun. thank you, jongin.” no extra words are needed to express her gratitude, because she knows that jongin knows and perhaps that is more than enough.
“no problem,” jongin smiles, his sweet goofy smile that sehun loves more than anything. the one that only appears when he’s truly sincere about things. you pick up these little things about people, see, after you’ve known them for so long.
//
“i’d like to go out some time, though,” jongin continues and sehun frowns.
“you know you don’t need an invitation to come over, jongin,” she replies finally, perplexion written in every line of her face and jongin sighs. trust oh sehun to make things hard for him, seriously.
“no, i mean. go out, go out. you know, take you out? on a date?” he stammers uncertainly and damn it, he’s never been so unsure of himself since he was in middle school. goddamn oh sehun.
“i mean, it’s not because you looked so pretty tonight, i’m not that shallow. i was just thinking that maybe we could work. i’ve thought about it for a long time,” he continues hastily, because sehun’s expression’s closed off and he can’t tell what she’s thinking. “because people were always saying that we could, right, and i think that we should try?”
still no response. he gets scared when that happens.
//
“oh.” sehun breaths as the implications of jongin’s words come crashing down upon her, all her hopes and what-ifs culminating.
//
jongin waits for her answer. it feels as if the whole world is holding its breath, but lets it out in a collective sigh as sehun reaches up and kisses him on the cheek briefly before pulling away.
“i’d like that,” she smiles at him once again and jongin’s heart constricts a little in his chest.
//
and so they go out. and so they try. sometimes jongin takes sehun out on proper dates to the cinema or the park or whatever romantic location they can think of, but mostly they just watch disney movies on sehun’s couch and sing along to mulan trying to defeat the huns and cuddle a lot. jongin finds out that he especially likes it when sehun curls up to him, fitting right into the crook of his neck and shoulder, and sehun likes it when she lies on jongin’s tummy as he strums on his guitar and sings. jongin finds out he likes it when sehun ransacks his closet and borrows his clothes because they’re oversized on her but sehun likes it because she says it makes her feel like she belongs to him. they like all the minuscule things about each other, things that most people wouldn’t notice about anyone else, but jongin likes it that way.
he thinks sehun does, too.
fin.
+ i am so sorry about this this was disgusting my apologies i should stop
+ i never thought i would write girl!exo but here i am i don't know what to feel about this lbr
jongin/girl!sehun; pg; ~3500w
(highschool!au) jongin and sehun are going to prom. together. shit goes down.
“jongin.” sehun calls out to the boy (more like log, she thinks bitterly. a fucking log who’s impossible to wake up once his head hits the pillow) currently snoring away on her couch. “jongin,” she snaps when she gets no response, progressively getting more and more curt as her calls go unanswered.
“wake up, you piece of shit,” she yells as she thumps his butt with one of the cushions, causing him to stir with a disgruntled grunt as he rolls over and turns to face her.
“what,” he murmurs, yawning as she rolls her eyes at him and maybe sehun’s heart softens a little, seeing him with his eyes cloudy with sleep and hair all fluffy from his nap. a vulnerable sleepy jongin is always pretty adorable, no matter how many times he scowls every time she calls him cute.
“maybe if you weren’t so hard to wake up, i wouldn’t have to resort to physical means!” she retorts, holding the cushion in front of her as self-defence so jongin won’t try any dirty tricks like jabbing her in the sides where she’s especially ticklish. (damn him and his knowing all of her little quirks.)
“you wouldn’t wake me up if you didn’t want something,” jongin mumbles, the irritation in his eyes fading to confusion as he looks at her. “now what did you want?”
sehun almost flinches at how well he can read her because holy shit, how did he know. her thoughts must’ve shown on her face, though, because jongin merely rolls his eyes back at her and snipes, “we’ve known each other ten years, of course i know you. now, seriously, what did you want, you interrupted one of the best dreams i’ve had in ages --”
“i don’t have a date to prom,” sehun blurts in the middle of jongin’s ranting and holds her breath, waiting watching to see how he’ll react --
“oh.” jongin shrugs nonchalantly. “well neither do i. so? what’s the big deal?”
“the big deal,” sehun forces out through gritted teeth, barely resisting the urge to punch jongin in the head, “is that i don’t want to turn up dateless because all my friends are already dating, and we made a deal to go together if both of us were pathetic enough to be dateless. remember?” she puts special emphasis on the last word all while glaring daggers at him, willing her thoughts to penetrate that especially thick skull of jongin’s and preferably knock some sense into him while they’re at it.
“oh, that, yeah,” jongin yawns as he flops back against the cushions on the couch. so soft, so comfortable, so good for sleeping on. he thinks he’ll curl right back up on them as soon as sehun gets out of his face. “count me in for prom night, then.”
sehun tries to suppress the relieved grin that blossoms on her face, but can’t. jongin just makes her so ridiculously frustrated and happy at the same time, the conflicting feelings not exactly unpleasant but still confusing. oh sehun thinks emotions are confusing and she’ll throw them into the han river the first chance she gets, and it’s all jongin’s fault for making her feel that way. hence, she takes revenge by whacking jongin’s ass one more time before she stands up and leaves the room, leaving him alone on the couch wailing about how his butt hurts because ‘oh sehun, you look like a skinny little thing, how do you even hit this hard.’
//
as prom inches closer and closer steadily, sehun’s impending doom slowly starts looming (in her opinion) and jongin just continues eating and sleeping like the pig of a teenage boy he is. typical.
after school one day, when both of them are holed up in her bedroom (they alternate homes. on odd weeks it’s jongin’s house and on even weeks it’s sehun’s because then it’s fair , according to jongin) attempting to burrow through the sky-high pile of worksheets and assignments piled on top of sehun’s desk, sehun suddenly slams her intensely heavy, 500-page math textbook down onto the floor, effectively creating a ‘thump’ that would rouse the dead, scaring jongin from his geography homework and causing him to scratch a jagged black line of ink across the pristine white page.
“jesus christ, sehun, what is wrong with you --”
“i don’t have a dress for prom,” sehun stress-screeches while running a hand through her long black hair in desperation, sucking in a deep breath before continuing. “neither do i have shoes, or makeup, and i’ll be the ugliest girl there, you don’t understand, kim jongin --”
“calm down, jeez,” jongin interrupts hastily with his hands out in front of him as if to protect himself before it becomes a full-blown rant. he’s had to deal with a crying sehun before, and trust him when he says that that had not been pretty. at all. recovery had involved copious amounts of ben and jerry’s ice cream (he’s still cursing oh sehun’s elitist ice cream ass to this very day) and a crying girl on his shoulder for five hours, him awkwardly patting her hair as they went through two whole boxes of tissues. “how could you be ugly, have you even seen yourself? and i’ll help you with the shopping, okay?”
(jongin misses the way sehun starts at the unexpected compliment, her eyes widening as she stares at him and tries to process the fact that her best friend just called her pretty and that no, it wasn’t an april fool’s joke. jongin also misses the little smile that blossoms after, the way the corners of her lips quirk upward in a tiny smile so unlike her usual smirk it makes her look terribly young and innocent.)
they spend the rest of the afternoon online shopping, jongin griping all the while about how this is such a ‘girly activity, shouldn’t baekhyun be helping you with this’, but he takes it all back when sehun’s face positively lights up upon finding a beautiful dress in differing shades of blue. the top’s a delicate shade of alice blue but the skirt a darker shade of columbia blue, and both hues meet in the middle to blend into each other. jongin can’t help but think about how much this dress represents sehun; all of her brashness and unexpected sensitivity merging into one person, her stonefaced exterior hiding her soft heart so well he thinks it’s a pity that not many people know that about her.
at the end of the day, sehun walks jongin to the door and sends him off with an almost shy “thanks for helping me out today, you shithead,” and jongin just smiles cheekily and replies with an “it’s just me, relax. i don’t get why you’re so freaked about it when it’s just me.”
he’s expecting a reply, but this time sehun just keeps quiet and jongin wonders all the way home.
//
prom night draws closer and closer and before sehun knows it, it’s d-day. she’d spent the entire day at school worrying and fretting over the night to come, but jongin had snuck a rose into her locker in the morning before first period and the note attached to it had made her smile.
hi
this is a really really cliched thing to do but i think i’m obliged to as your ‘date’ for the dance so here you are oh sehun here’s your stupid rose and some obnoxious heart shapes to go along with it <3 <3
p.s. don’t fret too much later. you’ll look pretty. just as you always do.
jongin
and even if the note isn’t your typical romantic confession, it still makes sehun smile anyway because this is them, this is jongin-and-sehun, this isn’t jongin putting on some chivalrous gentlemanly facade sehun could strip away in five seconds flat. they both know they don’t need to bother with pretenses and manners around each other simply because they’re so familiar, it’d be insane to pretend any way else. and so sehun simply smiles, tucks the rose into her backpack and heads on her way to class.
flash back to present day, where sehun is sitting in her bedroom all ready, zipped up into her dress, makeup nicely applied and accentuating her features. the skirt swishes around her legs and she’s reminded of that day back in her bedroom where jongin helped her pick out the dress, and she snorts. she supposes she’ll be the first girl whose date ever helped her pick out her prom dress, but it’s okay. that’s jongin’s job, after all, as her best friend.
she ignores the twinge her heart gives at the word ‘friend’, opting instead to sit down on the edge of the bed and wait for jongin to arrive, swinging her legs as she unconsciously darts glances out of the window overlooking the front porch.
//
taking a deep breath, jongin presses the doorbell of sehun’s house. it’s ridiculous, because he’s been over so many times and he should be able to just walk in without any notice, but something feels different tonight. tonight, he feels like it’s something proper, something formal, something he should try his best to carry out to perfection because after all, he knows how long sehun has wanted this, wanted to feel like a princess in her dress and strappy heels, wanted to feel beautiful because that’s what every girl wants at some point in her life, he supposes.
shaking his head and smiling slightly, he presses the doorbell and waits for sehun to open the door.
//
“holy shit the bell --”
“sehun, do you want me to get the door?”
“no, it’s okay mom, i’ll get it myself,” sehun chokes as she rushes down the stairs, skirt flying out at the sides as she takes the steps two by two and her mother laughs at her dishevelled daughter.
“jongin’s taking you to the dance, isn’t he?”
“yeah,” sehun mutters, trying to play it cool as she hurriedly smooths down her ruffled hair before opening the door. “it’s just jongin.”
“are you sure,” her mother retorts primly. “seems to me you haven’t thought of him as just jongin in a long time.”
sehun flushes, startled by her mother’s perception, but there’s no time to will away the blush blooming on her cheeks anymore and she’s forced to open the door so that jongin won’t be kept waiting for too long and she’s not even sure why she minds because in the past she’d leave him on the doorstep for half an hour at a stretch and cackle madly at him while he whined for her to let him in.
growing up does funny things to you, sehun muses. especially things like falling in like (because this isn’t love, isn’t the heart-stopping brain-numbing tidal wave of emotion that she supposes could come if they were given enough time) with your best friend.
//
the door opens, and jongin’s jaw drops in shock. sehun tonight is gorgeous, her long black hair curled into waves cresting over her bare shoulder, her pale skin complimenting the hues of her dress nicely and jongin wonders when the two of them grew up. he wonders when they stopped playing streetcar racing on his xbox and graduated to falling off the deep end of his heart, wonders when he stopped wanting to push her into the pool all the time and began wanting to hold her hand instead.
(it’s been a long time, if he were honest with himself. it’s not an epiphanous moment when he realises he likes her, could maybe even love her; it’s just built up so much over the years it’s become this unconscious feeling lingering in his chest whenever he so much as looks at her. but hey, if he were to get his heart broken by any girl, he supposes it would be best if it were sehun.)
“shall we go?” sehun asks, looking anywhere except for him, her eyes shy and downcast, and jongin nearly laughs because oh sehun is never bashful when she’s with him, never. yet the sehun here is almost like a new person, so strange and foreign, but it’s not bad. it’s almost good, in a way.
he swallows hard, nods, and takes her hand before they leave. sehun’s hand is smooth and his fingers fit through the gaps between hers perfectly, jongin almost rues it when he breaks their grip to open the door of his car for her. almost.
//
“you guys are adorable,” baekhyun coos the moment she catches sight of them and jongin groans. baekhyun’s only the sixth person of the night to mistake them for a couple, no big deal. meanwhile, sehun’s face contorts into a remarkable scowl before she shoves her friend off her.
“get lost, baekhyun, where’s chanyeol? that dumb ass is practically attached to you nowadays, i’m surprised to see you without him,” sehun snipes, the snark evident in her voice and jongin darts an uneasy glance only to see baekhyun laughing.
“you don’t seem to mind much, though,” baekhyun smirks, her eyes twinkling with something mischievous as she glances at him and oh no, jongin can see it coming. “looks like you found someone else to replace us with?”
“shut up, baek,” sehun mutters uncomfortably as jongin makes uncomfortable flappy motions with his arms to signal his unspeakable distress. “this is jongin. he’s my best friend.”
“so?” chanyeol appears out of nowhere, his loud voice booming out at them as baekhyun gives a squeal of delight and reattaches herself to him. jongin almost wants to hold up a hand and screech for both of them to stop being so ridiculously affectionate with each other in public because it hurts his eyes, but restrains himself for the good of everyone.
“best friends can date, can’t they?” chanyeol says, eyes wide as baekhyun nods in agreement.
jongin expects sehun to merely scowl in reply and perhaps flip the both of them off, so needless to say he’s surprised to see that she’s actually blushing and attempting to frown, but the angry look clashes with her blush and doesn’t make her look very threatening at all. what’s more, the hard curve of her lip is trembling and she’s darting uneasy glances at jongin, and that uncertainty makes his heart hurt because all of a sudden she looks so insecure and upset, the exact way she shouldn’t be looking on a special night like this. so he shrugs nonchalantly, pretending not to care as he draws sehun to him with an arm and replies, “why not?”
(and even as sehun hits him on the arm and yelps at him about baekhyun and chanyeol misunderstanding that they’re a couple now, jongin’s happy because at least she’s laughing as she does it, at least she looks happier and really, that’s all jongin wants to see.)
//
sehun doesn’t expect huang zitao to come up to her and ask for her number, right in front of jongin at that. he’s in her math class and he’s all quiet and mysterious, many girls swooning over his good looks and deadly smirk but sehun’s never been one of those who go for the general trend, anyway. she’s only ever regarded as a classmate, a casual acquaintance, maybe, and yet here he is, smiling at her and leaning in close as if they’ve known each other all their lives.
“hey sehun,” zitao smiles at her, so suave, and besides her sehun can feel jongin stiffen. he’s handsome tonight in his white tux, so dapper and charming, but sehun thinks jongin looks better in his worn black tuxedo handed down from his father. while the attention is not exactly unwelcome, sehun’s here with jongin and that is enough, that is all that matters.
“hey,” she answers softly, squeezing jongin’s arm. “what’s up?”
“you look really beautiful tonight,” zitao smirks, leaning close to her and towering over her with his superior height. “i’d like to take you out sometime, get to know you better and things like that?”
//
jongin fully expects sehun to say yes, because come on this is the huang zitao that all the girls are positively in love with. he doesn’t know why he’s so upset about the possibility of sehun-and-zitao happening when he and sehun aren’t even together, but the sudden surge of possessiveness has his insides clenching and so it seems only natural that he lets an arm creep around her waist, pulling her closer to him, and jongin sees zitao’s eyes narrow as his gaze focuses on both of them.
jongin fully expects sehun to shrug off his arm and turn to zitao and start giving him her number immediately. oh well, can’t say he didn’t try. what jongin doesn’t expect, however, is for sehun to laugh and turn zitao down with a gentle ‘sorry, maybe next time’ before leading him off to the dance floor to join in yet another electronic dance number.
sehun is really pretty, jongin realises as he watches the way she’s twirling and jumpingeven in her heels. it’s endearing, her laugh the happiest it’s been all week and jongin understands because to her, this night is perfect, infinite, and nothing can go wrong. underneath the strobe lights and amongst the sounds of ke$ha’s newest hit, sehun smiles so bright it hurts but jongin doesn’t mind at all, no, not really.
//
at the end of the dance, jongin takes sehun home in his old beat-up car so different from everyone else’s cabs or sleek limousines, but sehun merely laughs at him and says that she doesn’t mind. they drive home while blasting their favorite hiphop album on the radio and singing along, sehun terribly off-key while jongin’s slow on the rap parts but sehun doesn’t mind. when they reach her house, jongin walks over to open her door for her and sehun’s heart almost bursts thinking about how he’d do this for his future girlfriend, take her out on dates and treat her like a lady and love her with all his heart.
hopping out of the car, she lets jongin walk her up to her doorstep before looking up at him shyly and saying, “that was fun. thank you, jongin.” no extra words are needed to express her gratitude, because she knows that jongin knows and perhaps that is more than enough.
“no problem,” jongin smiles, his sweet goofy smile that sehun loves more than anything. the one that only appears when he’s truly sincere about things. you pick up these little things about people, see, after you’ve known them for so long.
//
“i’d like to go out some time, though,” jongin continues and sehun frowns.
“you know you don’t need an invitation to come over, jongin,” she replies finally, perplexion written in every line of her face and jongin sighs. trust oh sehun to make things hard for him, seriously.
“no, i mean. go out, go out. you know, take you out? on a date?” he stammers uncertainly and damn it, he’s never been so unsure of himself since he was in middle school. goddamn oh sehun.
“i mean, it’s not because you looked so pretty tonight, i’m not that shallow. i was just thinking that maybe we could work. i’ve thought about it for a long time,” he continues hastily, because sehun’s expression’s closed off and he can’t tell what she’s thinking. “because people were always saying that we could, right, and i think that we should try?”
still no response. he gets scared when that happens.
//
“oh.” sehun breaths as the implications of jongin’s words come crashing down upon her, all her hopes and what-ifs culminating.
//
jongin waits for her answer. it feels as if the whole world is holding its breath, but lets it out in a collective sigh as sehun reaches up and kisses him on the cheek briefly before pulling away.
“i’d like that,” she smiles at him once again and jongin’s heart constricts a little in his chest.
//
and so they go out. and so they try. sometimes jongin takes sehun out on proper dates to the cinema or the park or whatever romantic location they can think of, but mostly they just watch disney movies on sehun’s couch and sing along to mulan trying to defeat the huns and cuddle a lot. jongin finds out that he especially likes it when sehun curls up to him, fitting right into the crook of his neck and shoulder, and sehun likes it when she lies on jongin’s tummy as he strums on his guitar and sings. jongin finds out he likes it when sehun ransacks his closet and borrows his clothes because they’re oversized on her but sehun likes it because she says it makes her feel like she belongs to him. they like all the minuscule things about each other, things that most people wouldn’t notice about anyone else, but jongin likes it that way.
he thinks sehun does, too.
fin.
+ i am so sorry about this this was disgusting my apologies i should stop
+ i never thought i would write girl!exo but here i am i don't know what to feel about this lbr