i’m going to be honest—i’m having a little trouble with planning/writing part III at the moment, so i’m hoping that doing the commentary for part II will spark something and make it easier lol.

so yes, my commentary on maybe one day (i’ll change my mind), aka part II of my i want you, color me blue series is here! after posting the commentary for part I, i did a post on how i personally choose to characterize jaywon in my fics, which you can access here if you’re interested. i was asked to do another one on jungwon in particular, but i’ll just be including an analysis of him in my commentary for part III instead!

some background on my writing process for part II—it was difficult. writing itself wasn’t hard, but having to write jay in this series so far has been so difficult. i see jay as someone who just has so much love to offer indiscriminately. and the way he chooses to love is so big and so generous and he’s ready to offer up everything—jay is selfless in that way i think. to write about him getting him sucked dry of it and not even caring or even realizing was so difficult.

however! writing about him slowly understanding what jungwon put him through, and what he put himself through was also so cathartic and hopefully it was for you too while you were reading it!

 

Yang Jungwon isn’t very tall but his aura could fill an entire room. That room is in the fortress that is Park Jongseong’s heart and he won’t ever let him go. He won’t ever tell anyone about it either.

 

this seemed to be a crowd favorite and i’m glad. okay, i say crowd favorite, but only like less than a handful of people commented about this in some way but still. originally, i actually wrote that entire intro part for a haikyuu atsuhina fic i’d been working on back in the day. but i never ended up using it and decided to repurpose it for this fic!

the last little paragraph is probably the best part of that section. i think it really encompasses how jongseong loves jungwon and the overall effect jungwon has on jay. i like the idea of jungwon and jay’s love for him is all-consuming and overwhelming, and if we look at it a little negatively, suffocating. and jay thinks he kept his love for jungwon locked away, but obviously anyone could see it even if he didn’t tell anyone. that’s the irony i think.

 

Then he watches Sunghoon walk in, watches him make a face at all the food containers and the unwashed dishes, watches as he walks over to his bed and comes to a stop right in front of Jongseong’s face.

Jongseong examines the rips in the knees of Sunghoon’s jeans for a moment before the sight is ripped from him as Sunghoon crouches down. He’s eye to eye with him now.

The pair stare at each other.

Sunghoon’s dark eyebrows furrow as he looks Jongseong over.

“Dude, you smell.”

Jongseong blinks at him, unable to muster the energy to speak. He hasn’t used his voice in three days, he’s not even sure he’d be audible if he tried.

“Just because Jungwon abandoned you, it does not mean you stop showering.”

Jongseong flinches.

Sunghoon shoots him a wry smile. “Too soon?”

 

sunghoon is the best character in this whole thing. his patience is unparalleled and his unwillingness to let jay believe that jungwon hadn’t done anything wrong is so. clenches fist. everyone needs a sunghoon in their lives. personally, i base my characterization on the fact that he’s a sagittarius lol. sagittarius are known to be quite blunt and i think that lends itself to sunghoon’s style of expressing his care for jay. also just the fact that jay hadn’t been answering phone calls or texts for upwards of a week is just a huge cause for some concern, so i do not blame sunghoon for barging into jay’s place.

in my head, the image of sunghoon making his way into jay’s place and looking at the state he’s in and the state of his apartment is just so. like, imagine being worried out of your mind about your best friend and barging into their place because they haven’t been responsive to any of your attempts at contact and you just see them like that. it’s heartbreaking. to me at least!

 

Sunghoon softens a little, takes Jongseong’s hand. His grip is firm, but his fingers are rough, not soft like Jungwon’s. It feels wrong to have anyone else’s hands in his. He hates himself for thinking this.

“Listen, I know it’s hard. And I know you’re hurting. But do this one thing for yourself. You’ll feel a little better, I promise.”

Sunghoon waits patiently, his hand still in Jongseong’s.

 

jayhoon are not touchy friends in my opinion. like you have best friends sunwon who are very touchy, hold hands, etc. but i see jayhoon as the kind of best friends that can barely bring themselves to hug on special occasions. their love for each other is no different though!

the idea of sunghoon taking it upon himself to establish skin contact as a means of comfort for jay in a time like this is heartwarming, in my opinion! i remember in i-land when jake was having a particularly low moment and was sprawled on the couch, sunghoon came and sat next to him and kind of like. pressed his head against jake’s and sat there and kept him company while he wallowed. in a way that’s exactly what jake needed, and sunghoon picked up on that. he is that kind of friend.

 

“Are we really doing this again?” Sunghoon sounds tired, like all the patience has left him for a moment.

“Doing what.”

“The thing where you don’t come to shit and let all your friends down.” Sunghoon sounds casual again, unconcerned, like he’s talking about the weather.

 

like i said, sunghoon is all about tough love! // personally i enjoy sunghoon’s method of making jabs at jay in this manner. i think it is a very effective way to let people know of their grievances in a 0.65% joking manner. a /hj if you will. i won’t paste the snippet in, but in the next few paragraphs, sunghoon mentions that jungwon isn’t invited to dinner and jay gets upset about that, thinking their friend group was going to drop him or something.

i think my favorite friend group dynamic is an overly involved one, where everyone is in everyone else’s business and doing ridiculous shit like keeping two friends separated and coordinating hangouts in a way where they would never crossover and meet. these friend groups are always so fiercely protective of each other and it’s wonderful, i think!

and i think it’s sweet of jay to not want his friends to pick sides and abandon jungwon, even if that’s not what they were actually doing. (although i think they would be perfectly valid for picking sides if they had decided to do that.)

 

“God, why can’t you just mind your fucking business. This has nothing to do with you,” Jongseong spits, shaking his head. He scoffs, unable to believe Sunghoon would say something so ridiculous, so outlandish.

“Jungwon’s breakup had nothing to do with you, yet there you were, inserting yourself and making yourself the shoulder to cry on. You made yourself the rebound and got yourself hurt,” Sunghoon says, his voice even. He’s always been good at that, keeping calm even in the most tense situations and it makes Jongseong feel like he’s a child losing a fight with their parents

(...)

“Why can’t you just be here for me?” And distantly, the moment feels familiar and he thinks back, realizing with a jolt that this conversation almost entirely mirrors the one he had with Jungwon back when he and Woojin had first broken up.

(...)

“Why don’t you unpack why you need me to be here for you in the first place? Does this feel like a break up?” Sunghoon speaks carefully, slowly, like he’s mincing his words.

 

i decided to lump these bits together! in my commentary for part I, i talked about how jay was essentially going through what jungwon had gone through with his ex. i carried that over into this installment, and jay is now going through what jungwon did post-breakup—including this conversation. sunghoon talking him through the fact jungwon mistreated him and jay refusing to see it is basically deja vu.

in some ways, a friend-breakup is worse than a romantic breakup. in this case, there had been so much emotional dependency between jaywon that it was essentially a romantic relationship and a friendship wrapped into one. the pain is very similar, if not worse. sunghoon asking jay whether this felt like a breakup was his way of nudging jay into thinking deeper about what had transpired between him and jungwon.

 

“I’m only going to say this once, and then you’re not allowed to ask again,” Heeseung says, glancing at Sunghoon, who looks resigned. “Jungwon is fine. He’s been coming to practices, he’s been doing his homework, he’s been eating. He has trouble sleeping, but overall, he’s fine.”

Jongseong thinks there’s an unspoken “without you.”

 

heeseung is also employing the tough love method, obviously. like i said, this friend group is overly involved in each other’s lives and the idea that they won’t even let him ask about jungwon after this one time is kind of funny to me, which is why i included it. but i know the last line doesn’t make it very teehee funny.

 

Yang Jungwon is an all-consuming natural disaster destroying everything in its path, swallowing up weakness and stomaching vulnerability and Park Jongseong is just a crazed stormchaser.

There’s beauty in putting oneself in harm’s way. Something about the thrill of the danger, the split second where you realize that this could be the end, when you’re looking out at the terrible beauty of a storm and deciding that it’s all worth it.

But there’s also the moment where the elements are tearing at you and pulling you in, cruel, coaxing fingers tugging and pushing at you the very same, their grip around your throat, choking you. You have to choose to fight it or give in.

There’s no question which Jongseong chooses.

 

if you’ve read my other fics, you’ll know i’m not a very flowery writer! i’m not really one to employ metaphors or symbolic imagery in my writing. overall my style tends to lean simplistic, and it’s mostly because i like to let the characters do the talking—literally, because my fics are very dialogue heavy. but this time around, i wanted to try something a little different and include some extended metaphor interludes in between every few scenes to go hand in hand with what is happening in the narrative, and to illustrate where jay’s head is at. hopefully, i did okay lol!

i chose to use storms/natural disasters/etc. as my metaphor subject because that’s how i see jaywon in this series: all-consuming and disastrous. i liked the idea of jungwon being the disaster itself, and jay being a stormchaser. i’m not sure if anyone has seen stormchaser documentaries or anything, but these people are a little bananas-crazy. i mean, you have to be if you’re going to be driving around following a tornado that is literally tearing shit apart and killing people lmfao!

not to say jay is crazy or anything! he’s just. very much immersed in jungwon and his codependency with him. the bit about “choosing to fight or give in,” and jay obviously choosing to give in basically encompasses the jaywon dynamic.

 

They’re talking quietly, probably thinking Jongseong can’t hear him, and the mention of his name sends something ugly and wretched crawling all over his skin. Heat travels up his neck and he can feel the way his fingers clench his mug harder than necessary. He tosses his spoon into the sink, except it goes in harder than he intended. It clatters loudly, violently, drawing the attention of the other two.

 

i think the anger stage of a breakup is the hardest part. it’s all-consuming and it occupies your mind constantly. the littlest things that remind you of them anger you, just hearing their name could trigger a bout of rage. what i find interesting is the next section, where sunghoon makes jay talk about it.

 

“You can love Jungwon and still be angry at him. It’s okay, I promise. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

(...)

“You keep talking about how he treated me, but what does that mean? He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You don’t actually believe that,” Sunghoon asks, looking stricken. “Please tell me you don’t actually believe that.”

“He’s my best friend. Of course I’d be there for him. He never asked anything of me. I just decided on my own. I’d do the same for you,” Jongseong says, brows furrowed.

“No, see that’s the thing. No, you wouldn’t,” Sunghoon says, and when Jongseong looks like he’s going to protest, he interrupts. “You’re not in love with me. You wouldn’t do the same for me.”

“I didn’t do what I did because I was—-”

“Let’s not lie to ourselves here, Jongseong. Because I know, and you know, you would not cuddle with me if Jaeyun broke up with me,” Sunghoon laughs wryly. “If Jaeyun broke up with me, you’d be giving me ways to get over him. You would not let me use you as an emotional rebound.” Sunghoon's voice gets soft, and Jongseong has to lean in closer to hear him. “And I’d never let you do that for me. Especially if I knew you were in love with me.”

 

there is a lot to unpack here! i think something that a lot of people who have been mistreated have in common is the inability to admit that they’re angry. obvious this whole situation was toxic and unhealthy. i talked at length about that in the commentary for part I. but i think since jay still loves him, it’s important for him to admit that, and admit that he’s also angry.

but the fact that he thinks jungwon did nothing wrong…damn. yeah, i wrote it, but damn. sunghoon feeling alarmed that jay thinks this is so relatable. jungwon really did a mf number on jay!

now for the next part. let’s make something clear—jay would never do what he did for sunghoon. best friends, or not. briefly in part I, we saw how jay was pre-jaywon codependency. he was stubborn, hard headed, fiercely protective, while still being rational. when jungwon was done with him, he was still all these things (minus the rationality, lol) but for all the wrong reasons.

in the beginning, jay was trying to get jungwon to see how he’d been mistreated by his ex, probably would have started offering solutions and ways to get over his ex if it hadn’t been for the fact that jay became how jungwon got over his ex, lol.

sunghoon knows this version of jay, and knows he would never have fallen into this codependency with him if jakehoon ever broke up. it’s because of one simple fact—jay is not in love with sunghoon. like i said, rationality is out the window, so he doesn’t recognize the difference. in his mind, he’d be there for sunghoon through a break up too. at this point in the fic, jay still doesn’t realize how toxic his dynamic with jungwon was.

 

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Sunghoon breathes, sounding more panicked than angry, but there’s definitely traces of both in his voice.

All at once, everything around him feels muffled.

(...)

But there’s something about him, something about that terrible beauty that reminds him of the disaster he’d left in his wake, the way he’d swept Jongseong up and dropped him without any warning.

(...)

But there’s something about Jongseong and Jungwon’s friendship that never changes—even in a crowded room, they’ll always be able to find each other. This time is no different.

 

see, being overly involved in your friends’ lives and keeping them separated is bound to fail at some point! i think something everyone can relate to is having tunnel vision for someone. regardless of that person and what they’ve done to you, sometimes you go somewhere and they’re there and they are all you can see. this is what is happening here, obviously. it’s been established that jay is angry at jungwon, even if he hasn’t admitted it.

the second snippet i pulled is a nod at the interludes so far, referring to the disaster that is jungwon and his destruction of jay.

the last bit i pulled is apparently mai’s (woovrses on twt) favorite part. it’s always interesting to hear people’s favorite lines from your work because it’s never what you expect. i think this line also encompasses the jaywon dynamic. there’s a line in part I that is similar in subject. it goes: “Jungwon sounds ragged, his voice is barely loud enough to be heard over the TV static, but Jongseong has always been able to pick Jungwon’s voice out in a cacophony.” the point i’m trying to make is basically this: jaywon are always able to find their way to each other.

 

He thinks about Jungwon, thinks about how otherworldly Jungwon looked to him. There was so much going on around him and yet he was the only person Jongseong could see. Everything else was in technicolor, everything else was blurred, slowed motion and he thinks his brain was moving eons slower than everything else around him.

Jungwon’s lips had parted and his eyes widened, yet Jongseong couldn’t read him.

Yang Jungwon is his best friend but for the first time he thinks about it, he wonders if he ever really knew him at all.

Park Jongseong has been told to never start a sentence with ‘because,’ but how else is he supposed to come up with an excuse for Jungwon?

Because what kind of best friend would hurt him like that?

 

this interlude is partially inspired by the end of season 2, episode 1 of euphoria. they’re at the new year’s party, rue and jules have just finished talking by the fire. jules is walking away, rue goes after her. all she can see is jules, everything else around them moves slowly, everything is blurred. i liked how this visually represented rue’s fixation and addiction (?) to jules. if you need a visual of what this looked like in the episode, here is a clip.

the last two sentences were directly inspired by a passage i read in on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong. the explanation for this is kind of fake deep and pretentious but! the word ‘because’ is usually associated for reasoning right, the word indicates that an explanation is to follow. but if we look at it from a negative pov, it can also be a word that indicates an excuse is to follow. which is why i said “how else is he supposed to come up with an excuse for jungwon.” i’m not completely satisfied with my execution of that but it’s fine lmfao.

 

“I know I shouldn’t be calling…And I knew you weren’t going to answer but a part of me hoped—never mind, it doesn’t matter what I’d hoped…Anyways, I wasn’t going to contact you first after all of this but I just—I don’t know. When I saw you the other night, it hit me how much I miss you…And then I saw the way you looked at me and I don’t know. I don’t know. It was valid—I’d look at me the same way, but it hurt, coming from you. I know it’s so unfair of me to be doing this. The radio silence and then suddenly calling you, unprompted, without even asking if it’s okay. I know Heeseung-hyung must have told you I’m doing fine but…But I don’t think I’ll ever really be fine without you. I know I messed up, I know I used you and your feelings to make myself feel better and I know I took you for granted and I know even though I was the one who walked away, I can’t just come back whenever I want even if I want to. If you never want to see me again, I can understand, but I don’t think I could accept it…We’ve gone through too much of this life together for me to not fight for us. For you. I love you. And I know it’s unfair. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

 

let’s unpack this voicemail lol! i feel like people who have hurt us and are aware of it are always making contact when they shouldn’t be. why can’t these mfs leave us alone! anyways. ahem. jungwon is a villain for the sake of this series, ok, so let me be mad for a sec.

this bitch calls jay, unprompted, to say that he misses him? boohoo i’m sad about the way you looked at me even though i literally used you and drained your life force out of you and you’re valid for being mad boohoo. and then he says “i don’t think i’ll ever really be fine without you.” oh my god. oh my god if this happened irl and i knew jungwon i’d literally throttle him. and then he says he loves jay. god. closes my eyes. ok i’m calm.

in a way, this voicemail is the first time we’re getting a real look at jungwon’s side to all of this. i know there was a brief section of part I that was jungwon’s pov, but this gives us a bit more of his thoughts at this point in the narrative.

 

Sunghoon is silent for a long time, and it takes Jongseong mustering up his courage in order to look up, look him in the face. To his surprise, the other boy has tears in his eyes, furious.

“Do you know how hard it’s been to watch you lose yourself like that? Do you know how hard it was not being able to do anything about it? Sunghoon laughs angrily, wiping at his eyes with a napkin from the dispenser on the table. “You were a ghost of yourself, Jongseong. You were everything you’d ever hated and you couldn’t even see it.”

 

sunghoon: tired. sunghoon: a victim of this weird jungwon-and-his-ex-and-jay cycle and a repeat of the same events.

 

“What are you sorry for? You didn’t leave me and then randomly decide to call me and confess your love for me nearly half a year later.” Jongseong can’t help the bitter laughter that keeps coming to him. He puts his face in his hands, laughs again. “Holy fuck, I think I’m losing it. God, I’m laughing, but I’m so fucking mad. Because I still fucking love him. So what does that make me? A fucking idiot. Nothing has changed.”

(...)

“I feel like one.” Jongseong snorts. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do with the fucking voicemail. Is he expecting a call back? Do I go talk to him and tell him he’s a fucking idiot if he thinks he can just call me like that and think everything is okay?”

“I mean. He said he understands if you never want to see him again. Is that what you want?” Sunghoon speaks carefully, like he’s mincing his words.

Jongseong knows immediately that he does not want that, but he still hesitates to say it out loud. What kind of dumbass still wants to be with the person who hurt them the most? Him, apparently.

 

did someone say character development? ok no one said it i said it lol. i think the fact jay can acknowledge this and allow himself to feel angry is a lot of improvement. the anger isn’t just directed at himself anymore, it’s directed at jungwon and i think that’s loads healthier than his mindset before!

i think it’s also healthy for him to recognize that while he is extremely angry at jungwon, he knows he still loves jungwon.

 

“That doesn’t seem like a very healthy relationship,” Sunoo says reproachfully, raising his eyebrows. “It’s giving Nate and Maddy from Euphoria.”

“No one knows that reference,” Sunghoon snaps, and Sunoo rolls his eyes.

“Actually,” Jongseong says sheepishly, raising a hand, “I do.”

“You’re fucking gay,” Sunghoon deadpans.

 

two-ish references to euphoria in my fic? absolutely. and the part where jay says he’s watching for fez and dominic fike? me projecting.

 

Riki is talented in all styles of dance and is also insane, so he’s in nearly every performance throughout the night. He’s the department’s favorite little prodigy, their pride and joy.

 

me projecting my adoration for one mr. riki nishimura, my favorite little prodigy? more likely than you think!

 

“Hyung, I think you severely underestimate the weight of your presence in people’s lives. I started missing you the second I walked away.”

Jongseong resists the urge to scoff because it feels so cliche—and it makes his anger spark a little. “And I think you’re severely downplaying what you did to me. You can’t just say you miss me and then think everything is going to be okay.”

“I don’t think everything is going to be okay just because I said I missed you,” Jungwon says carefully, and he’s staring down at the table. “And I did say I’d understand if you didn’t want me in your life anymore. This isn’t me defending myself, this is me stating a fact.”

 

yikes! i feel like the whole “i started missing you the second i walked away” is so. like on one hand it’s kind of heartwrenching, but at the same time it makes you want to roll your eyes—jay suffered this much and you’re just going to say that? it’s kind of fucked, which is why i had jay respond the way he did. he’s like no, you don’t get to say this.

but i think part of having a healthy discussion about anything is the back and forth, letting each other speak fully and not interrupting or brushing off what each person is saying. so in this case, the last bit where he says “this isn’t me defending myself, this is me stating a fact.” i think this is a valid thing to say, because what he said was a fact. we can hear it (read it) for ourselves in the voicemail that jungwon left him. he’s not twisting his own words or gaslighting jay, just reminding him of what was said.

 

“When I said just now that I’m better, I meant that. But I don’t think I’ll ever be good without you,” Jungwon says softly, looking away

“You know how unfair that is, right?” Jongseong says quietly, and he feels as if all his energy has been drained. “You walked away. You walked away.”

“I know.” Jungwon closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. When he opens them, Jungwon looks as self-assured as Jongseong has ever seen him. It reminds him of the Jungwon from before his ex-boyfriend came into his life. Part of him feels comforted. “And I know it must hurt to think it took me losing you to come to all these realizations, but I wish you’d understand that I had to learn to be alone. I needed to learn not to rely on Woojin for that twisted validation I was used to. I needed to learn not to rely on you and your unconditional love that you offered up without expecting anything back. I needed to make myself able to give it back. I had to walk away. For me, and for you. And I’m sorry I hurt you in the process.”

 

i think it’s important to acknowledge both sides here. we need to remember when it comes down to it, jungwon walked away for jay’s sake. it was for himself as well, but i think it was the first thing he did for jay in the midst of that toxic codependency. i’d say it was necessary. i think walking away was the best thing jungwon could have done at that point, considering each of their mentalities.

jungwon said he needed to learn to be alone. he went straight from being in a romantic relationship to whatever it was he had with jay. he didn’t learn to be alone and process his feelings and recover properly. he was dependent on his ex before, and he was dependent on jay after. he needed to learn not to rely on jay. i think these were good realizations for him to have, especially with all that he put jay through.

i think jungwon also needed time away from jay so he could stop using jay as an emotional rebound. he said at the end of part I that he didn’t know what he felt for jay, and it was important that he figure it out away from him. for this, i took some inspiration from mindheist’s love will always be a lesson (let’s get out of its way). in the last half of the fic, taehyung divorces his wife and goes on a trip away from jungkook, because he needed time to figure out if jungkook was a rebound. in response, jungkook says, “i just wish you’d realize i’d take anything from you, rebound or not.”

just so you people know, mindheist shaped me as a writer and this line alone changed the way i saw love and the way i write it. i’m going to stop talking about mindheist because it’s going to get embarrassing.

 

“When you said you loved me—” He stops.

“I meant it,” Jungwon says, and his cheeks flush that pretty petal pink that Jongseong has always loved.

“As a friend?”

“As whatever you’ll have me as.”

cinematic parallels, see?

 

“Did you figure out that you didn’t love me after all? Like I said?” Jungwon’s voice is soft again, and despite him looking relatively neutral, the way his voice breaks at the end of the last word tells Jongseong that he’s feeling a lot worse about what Jongseong had said than he’s letting on.

“I’m figuring out that I can’t seem to be as angry at you as I want to be,” Jongseong says, laughing wryly as he runs a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I could never stop loving you, no matter how much I wanted to. Because it’s you—I could never hate you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good thing,” Jungwon says, and his brows are furrowed, a frown pulling the corners of his pretty lips downwards. “I don’t think that’s healthy, hyung. We can’t do that again—”

“Jungwon-ie,” Jongseong says, and his voice is so soft, he surprises himself. Jungwon has to lean forward to hear him clearly. “I think me being in love with you is always going to be a problem. But if this just means you win a couple of fights and I get to hold your hand afterwards, then maybe it’s something we should be okay with.”

 

honestly. this, and the previous part were my favorite parts! the first bit jungwon says is in reference to the ending of part I, where he said in the time apart, jay may figure out that he doesn’t love jungwon after all. genuinely, i don’t think jay could ever hate jungwon. irl or in fic. it’s just how his love for jungwon works imo!

also character development again: jungwon being alarmed at what jay says and not wanting a repeat of what had happened between them before. but it’s what jay says after that that is my absolute favorite. the idea that jay being in love with jungwon will always be a problem, regardless of the outcome. the bit where he says, “but if this just means you win a couple of fights and i get to hold your hand afterwards, then maybe it’s something we should be okay with” makes me so. clenches fist. /pos. lol.

 

The first time Yang Jungwon truly realizes he’s in love with Park Jongseong, he thinks he might have stopped breathing.

 

i wanted to have this come full circle, hence the final interlude-type ending! honestly the last line is corny, it really is lmfao.

anyways! as always, if you’ve read this far, i appreciate you! i’m always grateful to those of you who humor me and read my silly little rambles. part III hopefully will be coming soon<3 everyone pray that i inspiration strikes me soon pls lol. until then, stay safe and healthy.

hello! the director’s cut and commentary for my hardest fic to write is here

everything you coulda wanted was by far my most emotionally laborious thing i’ve written.

this fic is part I of III of my i want you, color me blue series, and the dreamwidth post for part II will be up eventually! i am currently working on part III.

some background—i started writing this fic in 2015 for bts. yes, i have been hoarding it for this long and it’s because it was so emotionally taxing for me to write. i was never able to finish writing this and have been reshuffling it from fandom to fandom in hopes that one day my pairing-of-the-moment would be the one to break me out of this rut i was in. this fic has gone through about four or five remixes—x1, nct, victon, haikyuu!, jujutsu kaisen. none of them stuck, none of my token pairings for any of these fandoms were the ones for this story until now.

i’ve talked about this before, but the reason jaywon draws me in so much is the contrast between their emotional vulnerability, the difference in how they approach love and its displays.

the way i write jungwon is based off the idea that he is a lot more emotionally closed off despite his sunny personality, and it’s that sunshine that distracts people from realizing how closed off he is, if that makes sense. i think jungwon is one of those people in your life who you realize you don’t actually know as well as you thought you did, and it’s almost a shock. jay, on the other hand, is sometimes so openly emotional, you can see everything he’s feeling in his face and his body language and he doesn’t even try to hide it.

i remember jay said in some interview that he'd be more likely to give someone solutions to their problems rather than comfort them, so he's very much the logical and rational type! in this case, jungwon needed the emotional support and was not open to the "solutions" side of jay. we know jay is very emotional underneath all that rationality (see: him writing sappy gay ass letters on iland when he thought he'd be eliminated). so with that emotional support that he provided comes his own emotional attachment to jungwon and well. we saw how that played out!

there’s also this element: even in real life, jay does whatever jungwon tells him to. literally anything. i’ve always wanted to explore how this could manifest in a toxic way, and that is how this fic was born! their dynamic is the perfect set up for the narrative of this fic to be honest!

this entire fic is based off my personal experiences. pov i was jay :] and unfortunately, i did not have a sunghoon to smack me in the face with reality

just a forewarning, this post will be a little heavier, a little darker considering the themes we deal with in this fic (emotional manipulation/gaslighting, codependency, etc.)! so please click away if at any point it gets too much for you—your comfort and safety is the most important thing.

anyways! sorry for the rambly intro, let’s get started hehe.

 

“Can I try something, hyung?”

“What?” Jongseong swallows thickly over the lump in his throat, around his frozen breath.

“Please.”

“Okay.”

Jongseong closes his eyes.

 

the intro scene where i bring in the kiss from further in the fic was meant to hook the reader’s attention. it’s a long fic, and on top of being long, it has all those scary tags that probably have scared away a few people from reading—i need to convince the ones who did click to stay, so i threw you guys a bone

if you stayed and read through the whole thing, i’d like to hold your hands…thank you so much. we’ll move on from this because i’ll talk about it again once it comes up later in the fic!

 

Jongseong always feels the most at ease when he’s fixing something.

 

i think this is a line that is pretty overlooked in that i don’t think anyone has commented on it and i just wanted to talk about it briefly. in my other fics, i know i like to utilize gift giving and words of affirmation as jay’s love languages, but i think acts of service is a big one for him too. we see it all the time in enha’s contents, whether it’s the times when he takes over cooking when he sees a member struggling and it wasn’t his punishment in the first place, or, and my brain always comes back to this, when he poked the straw through the plastic seal of niki’s cup for him.

 

“I just don’t understand why you’re getting so angry,” Woojin laughs, like it’s funny, like Jungwon genuinely being upset about something is amusing. “And in front of everyone? You want to embarrass us? You want to embarrass me, is that it?”

(…)

“No, no, don't put that on me. You’re the one getting worked up and upset over it. You look crazy, crying in front of all your friends. Calm down,” Woojin says, maintaining the facade that he’s the sane one, he’s the normal one. “You’re getting all crazy over a non-issue.”

 

clenches fist. it was so hard for me to write these flashbacks where jungwon’s ex was gaslighting him and humiliating him. it made me sick. it gave me a lot of flashbacks to my own experience being in jay’s shoes and having to watch someone i loved get treated this way and not being able to do anything about it. that’s a different kind of pain.

(i took some inspiration from taylor swift’s “all too well” short film.)

the reasoning behind the M rating revolves around the toxic unhealthy behavior that we see modeled by jaywon and jungwon’s ex. i don’t want to portray all of this and have it be misconstrued as being the way things should be in relationships, because it’s not. and i know a lot of people are usually able to identify that for themselves, but i do want to emphasize that no matter who you identify with in this fic, whether it’s jay or jungwon, it should not be that way. you should not be treated this way ever, no matter how much you love the other person, or how much they supposedly love you. you deserve better!

 

Early morning sunlight has slotted itself through Jungwon’s dorm-issued blinds and draws streaks of gold against the sheets, the lines disjointed and scattered, sending patterns tumbling across the rumpled fabric.

 

this tiny little morning scene is kind of a nod to my old works to be honest! if you didn’t know, i was a writer in the x1 ficdom before they disbanded and i’d say my specialty was morning fluff fics lol. i just love how intimate and soft that kind of setting is and it usually involves like. super soft and whispered conversations and love writing from one person’s pov and describing how the sunlight looks on the other person and. clenches fist. i love it.

 

Jongseong is just relieved that Jungwon hadn’t actually left him alone on purpose. But his apology just seems. Out of place. And so does that strange kind of disappointment he felt just moments ago.

He’s only ever felt that on mornings where he had gotten a little too attached to the memories of the night before, the only evidence of them having happened at all was his rumpled hair and the bruises on his skin—and that was definitely not what this situation had been.

 

personally, i feel like this is the moment where lines get a little blurred here. i’m not even sure i can explain it so just bear with me lol. i think the best thing i can do is reference the fact jay compared the feelings to waking up after a night with a hookup. this is the first time he’s ever felt anything similar to that disappointment after a night of sleeping over at jungwon’s. i think it has to do with the fact jungwon had a boyfriend and there was a clear boundary in that way. now, without the boyfriend being an entity in jungwon’s life, it lets those non-platonic feelings start to add some irrationality to jay’s mindset.

hopefully this makes sense lol. i’ll try to come back and elaborate some more if i think of anything.

 

This is not the kind of I love you that Jongseong wants to hear, but he’ll take it. He’ll take anything Jungwon will give him and he knows he’s pathetic for it.

 

i think a lot of people have this tragic tendency to settle for less than they deserve. this isn’t the first time jay's had this thought. the whole theme for this fic is the idea of “settling because it’s better than nothing at all” and that is beyond unhealthy. for a lot of my life i had this kind of mindset and it takes a lot to unlearn it! we are all deserving of the very best, and if someone isn’t giving you what you deserve, there is always someone else out there who will give you that and more.

in the case of jay, he loves jungwon so much that he really is telling himself that he’s fine with the way things are and that it’s enough for him, and we all know that isn’t true.

 

“He was not abusive.” Now it’s Jungwon’s turn for his voice to sharpen. This argument isn’t new. This is an argument they’ve had several times in the past, and each time, Jongseong has backed down because he could’t risk ruining their friendship. He was not going to let Woojin be successful in being the reason why Jungwon pushes all his friends away. Their other friends may have an easier time letting go, but Jongseong would never allow himself to lose Jungwon that easily.

 

when someone is this set in their reliance on their partner, it really is so hard to convince them they were being mistreated. and a lot of times the action of trying to show them what’s wrong pushes them away, or they push you away. jay was dead set on not losing jungwon despite the things working against them.

 

“Jungwon.” Jongseong can barely keep the tremble of anger out of his voice.

“What?”

“I love you.”

“Well, of course you do. But it’s—” Jungwon lets out a huff of bitter laughter. “It’s different.”

Is it really, though?

Jongseong wants to scream. He wants to scream so bad because Jungwon doesn’t even know, he doesn’t even realize.

“He doesn’t love me anymore, so who will?”

Me. Me. I will. I have. I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.

Instead, Jongseong says, his voice whisper-quiet, “You are not difficult to love.”

 

nothing is quite as painful as watching jay essentially confess but have it be brushed off and if you’ve read my other fics before, there it is: my recurring “you are not difficult to love” usage!

prepare yourself for some oversharing: i talked to my therapist about my repeated usage of this line in my fics. (yes, i talk to my therapist about fic writing.) she essentially said that i seem to have this idea that i am difficult to love, and to give myself the reassurance that this isn’t true, i project this line onto my characters and have them say it to each other. blegh. harsh reality. i love words of affirmation and will use this line until i die!

 

“Can you just. Talk. Tell me something good. Anything good. Please.”

 

this line is straight from my own experience the person who said this to me has had such a profound effect on me that i still remember the exact wording of a lot of the things they said to me even 6 years later! crazy! i hope this part was heart wrenching—the idea that you are so sad that hearing something good, anything good would help is just. so sad.

 

“Jongseong, we need to talk.”

He stands there, frozen solid with his hand halfway to his ear, single airpod between his fingers. “Uh,” Jongseong says, real intelligent-like. “About what?”

“About how you keep dropping and canceling on our plans,” Sunghoon says, raising his eyebrows and slipping his hands into his pockets.

(...)

“Jungwon was having a hard night,” Jongseong says, choosing to ignore the jab. “He needed me.”

“He’s always going to have hard nights, and he’s always going to need you at this point, man,” Sunghoon says, but this time his voice is a little kinder, like he’s trying to be understanding, but for some reason that just sparks for irritation to flare up over Jongseong’s skin.

(...)

“We both know it’s a lot more than you just being his best friend and being there for him,” Sunghoon says, and he moves his head so he can catch Jongseong’s gaze and force him to look him in the eye. “We’re all his best friends, dude. But we’re not at his beck and call every single time he gets down. He’s chosen you for that and he’s going to wear you down.”

“Do not talk about him like that,” Jongseong grits out. “Don’t make it sound like he’s just using me.”

“Isn’t he though?” Sunghoon smiles sadly. “Isn’t that exactly what he’s doing?”

 

sunghoon brings up a very good point here—jungwon is always going to have hard nights. it’s not just a matter of being there for him, not anymore. this whole scene is really difficult. i got a comment that said even as a reader you kind of almost don’t notice how jay is getting sucked into jungwon and this conversation with sunghoon is the first reality check.

my intention when writing this fic was to essentially suck You in and make you feel almost as if you, the reader, Are jay and you don’t Really realize how it’s gotten until sunghoon confronts jay. i wanted to make this conversation sort of that wake-up call that separates you from jay. i don’t know if i achieved that, but either way, i’m pretty satisfied by the responses i’ve gotten to this scene!

i think there is something so tragic about the way jay can’t even see what is happening, or is refusing to see because he is so blinded by how he feels about jungwon. i think it’s the same with a lot of relationships, whether platonic or romantic—your friends and family could tell you they don’t like someone in your life, but you’re not going to take what they say seriously at first, or you might not even see it all.

and sunghoon brings up another good point—they are all jungwon’s best friends, yet he has chosen jay to be the one who shoulders all of his relationship grieving. i’m not sure if anyone interpreted it this way, but this is also a moment where sunghoon implies jungwon knows jay is in love with him. it goes hand in hand with the part where jay says “don’t make it sound like he’s just using me.” there’s also the part where sunghoon tells jay that doing all of this isn’t going to make jungwon fall in love with him, and jay says he doesn’t need to. this physically hurt me when i was writing it…felt my mf heart seize up…i hated it so much and i hated jungwon for a second for turning him into this.

 

Jongseong wishes it was all real so badly he wishes himself sick. Lovesick and pathetic and all he can do is take whatever it is that Jungwon will spare him and he’lll take it gratefully, like a sad dog scrabbling for scraps.

Whenever he wakes up in the morning, the grip of his dreamworld still around his throat, he can pretend that Jungwon is his. For a second, for mere moments, he can pretend that he has the universe in his arms and the stars at his fingertips, because Jungwon is everything.

But then that dream is whisked away when the morning chill creeps in, seeps into his bones and deep in his chest and Jungwon pulls away as he stirs in his sleep. Jungwon will sit up in bed, stretch his arms above him, move his head from side to side and his shoulders will slump. He’ll let out a slow breath, punctuated with all the sadness he still feels and look down and over at his hyung, his best friend that he will never love, and he’ll smile.

He’ll smile that smile that makes him want to tear his heart out of his chest and offer it up even as he’s bleeding out and dying, dying for Jungwon and not even caring, not when he can use his final breaths to offer up something that Jungwon can never return.

 

this sounded artistic in my head! liked the idea of doing a short interlude where i let the reader into jay’s spiraling mindset for a second. of course we are already getting all this from jay’s pov, but i thought directly addressing the sad, sick dream jay has of all this faux-intimacy and faux-domesticity being real and wanting it so badly he makes himself sick. and yet! he does not see anything wrong with it. he calls himself a sad dog and yet! and yet!

the last little paragraph is the one i’m particularly satisfied about mostly because i think it probably sums up the entirety of what jaywon’s relationship is in this fic. he uses “his final breaths to offer up something Jungwon can never return” …the tragedy of it all.

 

Jongseong would be lying if he said he isn’t tempted, but shakes his head. “I think tonight might be a night where I actually might sleep,” he said, “I’m exhausted.”

(...)

Jongseong rolls his eyes. “Jungwon-ie, it’s fine. I wouldn’t be here unless I really wanted to be. Trust me. It’s fine. I promise.”

Jungwon drags his bottom lip between his teeth and Jongseong tries not to stare at it, looking determinedly into his eyes. “If you’re sure,” he says quietly, smiling again.

 

someone pointed out how jongseong was exhausted and he still came to pick jungwon up after work, and jungwon let him. i didn’t write this in, but i’m sure a lot of you came to this conclusion yourself: jungwon invited him out for the purpose of not being alone. we already know jay spends every waking moment with jungwon, and despite jay saying that night might be the night he actually sleeps, jungwon doesn’t insist on jay going home like a good friend would. he lets jay accompany him anyway. i think this is a little testament to jungwon’s selfishness at this point, a little example of how jungwon is using jay and not caring about the consequences or the effect on jay.

at this point i would like to make a disclaimer: i love jungwon. he is my favorite son my most wonderful boy. in fact, i’d choose him over jay in a heartbeat. but! but! i love villainizing him for the purpose of making jay suffer. there is just something so delicious about exploiting the real-life jaywon dynamic: jay does quite literally anything jungwon tells him to, so why not explore this in fic

 

“You’re so nice to me,” Jungwon says quietly, taking the packs and slipping them into his padded jacket.

“Am I not supposed to be?” Jongseong asks, looking over and finding the boy looking at him like he’s a puzzle that he can’t quite figure out.

 

uh, to be honest, no you’re not. I’M SORRY. jay is just so. pathetic in this fic and what’s tragic is he partially does it to himself. it’s like a car wreck—you can’t fucking look away! one smile and some eye sparkles from jungwon and jay is on his knees and ready to do his bidding. which. valid. valid valid valid. it’s like jungwon knows jay shouldn’t be this nice to him, shouldn’t be going out of his way for him. interesting! (me saying this like i didn’t write the damn thing.)

 

“Have you ever thought of forming a pact with anyone?”

“What kind of pact?”

“Pact makes it sound so ominous. It’s more of a deal? Like, say if you and Heeseung-hyung weren’t married by forty, you guys would just marry each other.”

Jongseong snorts. “Literally, why would I want to marry Heeseung-hyung.”

“That’s why you’d marry me.”

(...)

“I could totally see myself marrying you,” Jungwon says thoughtfully, and Jongseong feels like someone has their hand around his windpipe and is crushing it slowly, savoring it. He feels lightheaded.

“Yeah?”

“Just imagine, we could even bring people home if we wanted and it wouldn’t even matter, because we’d both just get it. It’s more of a marriage of convenience anyway, isn’t it? So neither of us are lonely.”

 

ah yes. one of the more emotionally scarring real conversations that i have transcribed word for word from memory into this fic! i feel like a lot of people have talked about a marriage pact with a friend or two before. and if not, then i hope you don’t ever have it in this pathetic way. i think the idea of jungwon wanting to marry jay in any capacity is enough to give him this really sad, pitiful spark of hope that it could happen one day for them. even if it is just a marriage of convenience in the end.

i think jay’s first mistake was to entertain this conversation in the first place. i know when it happened to me, it was over a phone call at 3 in the morning…things feel a lot more intimate in the dark and on the phone late at night. i almost mirrored that exact experience too, but i felt it’d be more impactful in person. i wanted to describe jay trying not to collapse on the spot.

the fact that jungwon brings up bringing people home…i’m not in the business of ever writing anything sexual about him because he’s my son, but i had to make the implication for Impact. because that is mega fucked up to bring up as part of a marriage pact. and i’d know because the person i had one with said it too i’m sorry for trauma dumping i am simply trying to show you where these pitiful, tragic ideas are coming from

 

As they sit around a table with their friends, enjoying the company, Jungwon keeps their fingers intertwined, his grasp on Jongseong’s hand unyielding. He doesn’t eat much either, no matter how many times Jongseong leans in and whispers in his ear, insisting that he take at least another bite. One more bite. What about one more? Another.

(...)

As they walk out, Jongseong can feel Sunghoon’s stare on his back, feels the itch of discomfort. He chances a look back, sees the pity in the lines of Sunghoon’s face and faces forward again—he doesn’t think he can handle facing what this looks like, what all of this looks like from Sunghoon’s perspective, having known just how strong Jungwon’s hold is on him. He’ll do anything the boy wants, but that doesn’t mean he wants to look into it deeper, see it mirrored back at him, not when the surface level of whatever this is has been a dream and more. Not when he’s already accepted how pitiful he is.

Belatedly, Jongseong realizes Jungwon didn’t follow through on his promise to Heeseung. It’s not a surprise.

 

man. that first paragraph i pulled. maybe it’s just me but! i love the intimacy of their fingers being intertwined the whole time, like they’re each other’s anchors or lifelines. they’re also codependent but i think we all knew that. but i think what gets me is the bit where jay is trying to get jungwon to eat. yeah, i wrote this but if you’re not getting all mushy from something you wrote, then are you even doing it right?

obviously it’s very predictable that jay would have them leave as soon as jungwon asks, because anything for jungwon blah blah blah. but the fact that he looks back at sunghoon and can feel the shame and humiliation is very indicative that he is aware now of how bad he has it for jungwon, how down bad he is, as the kids these days are calling it.

also i don’t really know how to explain it but i threw in that last line just for the tiniest bit of jungwon characterization—essentially what i was trying to do was tell you jungwon is not the most reliable in this state, which i’m sure you already knew, but jay is acknowledging it? i don’t know at this point i am just saying words

 

“And none of the others were keeping an eye on you?” Jongseong can’t hide the fact that he’s steadily getting irritated at the thought. “Swear to god, I’m going to have a serious talk with Sunoo about looking out for his actual friends instead of running off and talking to strangers. I should have just come with you, honestly—”

“No one takes care of me like you do,” Jungwon says, shrugging, as if he didn’t just squeeze Jongseong’s heart in his own hand, crushed it to bits.

 

the whole “No one takes care of me like you do” makes me sick actually! the fact jay has to take care of him at all and is breaking his back doing anything jungwon wants and then to have him say this so casually like it’s no big deal…god. no one takes care of jungwon like jay does and the fact of the matter is, it’s because he’s in love with jungwon and that is literally it! and jungwon knows it!

i think the whole trope of the love interest being unaware is pretty commonly used, but for this i thought no! jungwon not only knows! he utilizes it.

 

Jongseong looks so tired. It’s the first thing he notices, the dark purple-blue of the circles under his eyes are a dead giveaway. The dullness of his eyes is upsetting, the lack of sparkle. He turns on the faucet and splashes his face with cold water, watches the way it drips off of his dull skin.

He had lied to Jungwon when he said that him being tired wasn’t his fault. But it’s less because of what the boy does, and more because of the boy himself.

It’s hard to sleep properly when he spends so much time thinking about Jungwon. Worrying about him, hiring for him, loving him as much as he does. It consumes his every waking thought and creeps into his dreams.

 

genuinely. this part made me really sad to write because i had to describe the physical effects this whole codependent jaywon situation had on jay. and he knows it has to do with jungwon? worrying about the kid even in his sleep? this is too much. too much i say! and yet i continued to write it.

 

“Hyung,” Jungwon whispers, and Jongseong is distracted, fixated on the way the younger boy’s eyelashes brush his cheek when he blinks. He swears their lips brush when Jungwon speaks. Jongseong feels dazed, like he’s in a dream.

“Jungwon,” he murmurs, and his breath gets caught in his throat. “What are you doing?”

“I–” Jungwon pauses abruptly and closes his eyes for a second, and Jongseong studies the way the moonlight that streams through the windows illuminates his skin. Jungwon’s eyes flutter open again and there’s something like determination burning in them.

It occurs to Jongseong for the first time that Jungwon might be sober.

“Can I try something, hyung?”

“What?” Jongseong swallows thickly over the lump in his throat, around his frozen breath.

“Please.”

“Okay.”

He closes his eyes again, just for a moment.

Jungwon’s gaze flicks down one last time before he’s leaning in and pressing his lips against Jongseong’s with featherlight pressure, soft and hesitant, before pressing harder.

Jongseong can’t help himself when Jungwon parts his lips, slotting their mouths together and kissing him back with a fervor that is almost unbearable. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything remotely close to this before. He can feel Jungwon's lips slowing against his, the kiss becoming impossibly softer until it stops completely.

It feels like he’s just surfaced from the depths of a bottomless, icy lake. He feels like gasping for breath, floundering.

Jongseong opens his eyes to find Jungwon fast asleep, lips still parted against his.

 

there it is. The Kiss. i absolutely had to tease it in the beginning of the fic i needed to motivate people to actually get this part. there is something so heartbreaking about this whole thing. like jungwon is “drunk” right, but we find out later that he isn’t, which makes this so. clenches fist.

jay gets what he wants but at what cost?

and the fact that the kiss was like. intense? what the fuck was that. what the fuck was that! i’m sorry i really have nothing to say for myself because i genuinely threw this in there for the shock factor and just. to give jungwon an excuse to ghost. i will discuss this more when i get to the later part of the fic!

 

Jungwon wakes up the next morning and leaves Jongseong in bed, alone.

He changes back into his clothes from last night and leaves the ones Jongseong lent him folded neatly in a pile on his side of the bed. He doesn’t leave a note.

He can feel the guilt grappling at him, clawing up his throat and rendering it ragged as he grabs his phone and walks as quietly as he can towards the door. He walks out, and he doesn’t look back.

 

jungwon is literally so fucked for this lol. i’d been villainizing jungwon throughout this whole fic, but it wasn’t really until this part where it’s from his pov that you can see just how aware he is of his own actions. he chooses to leave jay alone. doesn’t leave a note to tell him where he’s gone or if he’s okay. takes his stuff and leaves jay’s things behind. he doesn’t even look back when he’s walking away.

i felt so bad for jay because imagine finally getting to kiss the person you’re in love with and then having them leave you. that is just so sad.

the following scene where jay texts jungwon to check in…the fact jungwon considers not even replying…fucked. obviously jungwon does end up answering, but then he doesn’t answer any follow up texts or phone calls. and the fact jay decides to give him space and also communicates to jungwon that he’s giving him space…jay is so good. he’s so good he deserves so much better. and this?

 

The days of radio silence afterwards is almost deafening, and a part of Jungwon is disappointed, and he knows he’s fucked up for it. He knows he’s been fucked up but he isn’t willing to think on it further.

 

he’s disappointed jay isn’t chasing after him like some overly attached stray dog? FUCKED. jungwon knows what he’s doing and it’s infuriating.

 

“I know you’re not stupid, Jungwon,” Sunghoon says finally, and he’s looking straight ahead.

Jungwon kind of feels like he’s been smacked in the face. He hadn’t known what to expect, and he’s still not sure where he’s going with this.

“Because it’s either you’re stupid, or you’re being fucked up and exploitive on purpose,” Sunghoon continues, and he lets out a huff of humorless laughter, a scoff more than anything.

(...)

“We are all tired of watching you destroy yourself,” Sunghoon says quietly. “We get it, you’ve gone through an emotionally traumatic experience but that doesn’t give you the green light to destroy Jongseong too. I won’t let you.”

(...)

“You’ve taken advantage of his kindness and his generosity, and you’ve taken advantage of the fact that he’s in love with you.”

(...)

“You need to stay away from him and figure all of this out, because I can’t stand seeing him become a shell of himself and stretching himself thin like this. Not for you. Not if you’re going to treat him like this,” Sunghoon says, and he’s looking right over Jungwon’s head, like he can’t even stand to look at him.

 

i’ve said it so many times in my replies to comments i’ve received on this fic and i’ll say it again: sunghoon is easily the best character in this series. we don’t see a whole lot of him here, but once i do the dreamwidth post for part II, i’ll talk about sunghoon in depth!

i think sunghoon plays the most vital role in this whole series. he is the voice of reason, he is the friend that we all needed in situations that required a wake-up call. i think what was important to me to include was the idea that sunghoon wasn’t going to let jungwon destroy his best friend. he’d been watching it happen from afar for too long and he couldn’t let it continue.

but you know what’s interesting? this whole fic narrative has been a cycle. jungwon lost himself to woojin, jay lost himself to jungwon. sunghoon is here trying to pick up jay’s pieces like jay had been for jungwon but it’s different! and we also see that in part II so i won’t go into much detail.

the point is: jay is reenacting the dynamics of jungwon’s relationship with his ex. the codependency, the tunnel vision, the toxicity. he’s become everything he ever hated. something about jungwon being jay’s downfall is just so. shivers. wonderful. i tried my best to make the relationships mirror each other, even if the dynamics are tweaked a bit! hopefully you noticed that, and if not, then that’s something i need to improve on

 

“I just,” Jungwon begins, and Jongseong watches as he sets the mug down on the table to rest his hands on his knees, gathering the fabric of his pants between his fingers. “I just wanted to see how it’d feel.”

Jongseong stills, breath caught in his throat. “What do you mean?”

“I was lonely, and I was sad, and you were there, so I just—” Jungwon doesn’t finish, can’t seem to bring himself to complete the thought. He just looks away.

 

he was lonely and sad and jay was there. now isn’t that the truth. man it feels even worse hearing him say it, huh? oh jungwon you horrible, wonderful broken boy. he just wanted to see how it’d feel. god. why did i do that why would i hurt jay like this? i do not know. i do not have an answer. actually, i do. i need something like this for jungwon to choose to be his last straw.

 

“And what if I didn't feel the same way? What if I kept this up and never loved you back?”

“Then that’s okay.” Jongseong hates how much he means this, hates that he genuinely is okay with it, because he’s had to since they were younger and he had the realization of his feelings for the younger boy.

“No, it fucking isn’t. Are you hearing yourself? What happened to you?” Jungwon sounds so angry, he sounds so outraged and Jongseong can’t even blame him, because he’s been wondering the exact same thing for the past few months. How had he allowed himself to become this way? Jongseong swallows, looks over at the tv unseeingly.

“You did,” Jongseong says softly. He turns to look at Jungwon again. “You happened.”

 

i’m ill. i can’t believe i did this to jay i really can’t. i really let jungwon destroy him and whittle him down to a fraction of who he was and i don’t really regret it at all. it is so heart wrenching to think jay would be okay with jungwon not loving him back. like it’s enough for them to be friends and for him to love jungwon from afar. like he’s accepted that as his fate, he’s accepted that is what their relationship is going to be, and he’s told himself that it’s enough.

speaking generally, this kind of trope has always been my favorite because i love pain and suffering! i’m about to bring up mindheist, aka my favorite fic writer of all timelove will always be a lesson (let’s get out of its way). this fic is no longer available because they deleted all their works from that pseud, but it remains my favorite fic of all time. i think this fic was what ingrained this trope into my silly little peanut brain. the idea of settling for less than you deserve. it is my absolute favorite and i’ve been dying to write a fic with it and i’ve only now done it, a good 6 years later. it still blows my mind.

the fact that jungwon can see now how jongseong has changed and can see how he’s ragged and beaten down and still asks what happened…and the fact jay says jungwon happened to him. it’s just so. clenches fist.

 

“Did it ever occur to you that I could be happy to take whatever you’d give me? It’s enough.” Jongseong hates that he sounds like he’s begging, but the desperation sinking deep in his belly is enough to overcome the humiliation that burns over his skin. And if he thinks about it enough, it’s almost the same burning, sparking sensation that he feels when Jungwon’s fingers brush his. “Having you like this is enough.”

“And you don’t see a problem with that?” Jungwon sounds ragged, his voice is barely loud enough to be heard over the TV static, but Jongseong has always been able to pick Jungwon’s voice out in a cacophony. “You don’t think there’s something fucked up about how I could barely give you the time of day and you’re still chasing me like some sad dog? Now it’s my turn to beg you, hyung. Please let me go.”

 

i wrote these two paragraphs before i had any of the rest of the fic written. i wrote this before i even started Planning and Outlining the fic. if you know me and my writing process, before i draft a single word, i meticulously outline every line of dialogue, every single scene. but for this one, i had these two paragraphs first and it really shaped how this fic ended up.

i wanted jungwon to be cruel one last time, like an attempt at giving jay a wake up call himself. but we know that right after this, jungwon tells jay that he’s walking away. i think this is the first respectable thing jungwon has done. sure, it’s most because sunghoon cornered him and told him to stay the fuck away from jay, but still. baby steps!

and we’ve come to the end—

i just want to thank anyone who’s read this fic and is also reading this post. i know the subject matter of this fic was heavy, with the angst and all the emotions and toxicity, so it means a lot to me that anyone would take a chance on my silly little therapy-session-fic. personally if i was looking for fics to read and i saw the tags that this one had, i’d keep right on scrolling, so thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this fic.

like i mentioned in the intro, it’s taken me a good 6 years to pull myself together and write this fic. my foremost priority when writing is humanizing all of my characters. it’s important to me to showcase real emotions and genuine reactions in order to make these characters feel genuine, like real people.i know a lot of the comments i’ve gotten have said that they can see themselves in jay a lot and i just want to let you guys know that you deserve better, and i’m sending you love and positive energy to help you get through your own situations

once again, thank you for taking the time to read not only the fic, but this rambly dreamwidth post as well—it means the world to me!

my first dreamwidth post has arrived! this is going to be a commentary on my most recent jaywon fic, don’t wanna fall. i thought it’d be nice to do a post on this fic because it means so much to me. i’m relatively new to enhatwt and enha fic, but definitely no stranger to rpf, let alone fic writing in general. before writing for enha, i’d been going through a pretty severe time period of writer’s block, and it wasn’t until i posted my first fic for enha that i realized that writing for them gave me an unreal amount of serotonin lol.

this fic is probably the longest one i’ve written in the past year or so, and i wrote it without any bumps in the road or obstacles, and i received more love for it than i ever anticipated, and it means so much to me. generally, i wrote this fic for myself! if you don’t find any food you like, then you need to make it for yourself, right?

in this post, i will be pasting specific lines or passages and providing commentary on my thought process behind writing them, or just to give a fun anecdote about what inspired it. i can’t promise that my commentary will be as relatively coherent as this introduction section is, but i hope it’s interesting and entertaining to whoever may be reading this

no more intro rambling, i promise!

to begin,

 

It’s not a well-rounded university experience if you don't completely ignore your homework and procrastinate until the very last second. There is something barbaric about the way professors toss out assignments and deadlines without any warning, aside from the syllabus that Jungwon definitely reads so thoroughly that doesn’t have to check it every time he breathes. 11:59 PM deadlines can eat Jungwon’s a—

 

i know this is literally the first paragraph, but i just wanted to talk about how i always struggle to decide how i want to start any fic ever…the intro is so important, it makes or breaks the fic and it needs to be good enough to keep a reader from clicking away, especially since this fic is 18k long! i’m pretty picky myself, and if i find something i don’t like this early in the work, i click away, so i had to write with myself and other people like me in mind.

in the end, i thought i’d set the scene with the fact that jungwon is your average university student who procrastinates and doesn’t do his work until it comes back to bite him in the ass and would rather lie down and scroll through tiktok! jungwon simply does not want to do anything!

 

Sunghoon had cut the whole line to stand next to Jungwon. There were minimal grumblings because the guy is untouchable and gorgeous and how is anyone going to get mad at a face like that?

 

there was a comment that i received recently that pointed out how interesting it was that sunghoon was the social go-between for the two friend groups. i won’t lie—i Do Not Know why i chose this pairing to be that bridge. i’ve only been stanning enha since around may 2021, so i just write dynamics based on what i know and have seen in their content from either now or on i-land. but i saw a post somewhere yesterday saying that jungwon and sunghoon are closer friends than we think, so maybe i knew it without knowing it and i am simply a genius!

 

Sometimes there are just those people that you don't even know who give off some...vibes. Neither good nor bad, yet there’s usually something about them that makes you a little wary. Park Jongseong is one of those people for Jungwon. Maybe it’s the way that he’s gorgeous, not in the untouchable, undeniable way that Sunghoon is, but in a way that feels intimidating and almost cocky. Or it could be the way that he is always surrounded by people and is the constant center of attention. Or maybe it’s the way that he doesn’t seem to have a relationship that lasts longer than a few months and the rumors that he talks to multiple people at once.

 

here, we kind of have the whole premise for this fic. i liked the idea that jay looks like he would be in a frat or some kind of asian-american org when he’s in university (just a reminder that this fic takes place in southern california at an unspecified university, but i picture it to be uci). i decided to play around with my socal asian!jay headcanon and that is how this fic’s main storyline came to be for the most part! i think mark lee and jay are pretty much the only idols that i headcanon as being southern californian just because of their vibes and personalities, and it’s truly messing with my head i am simply delusional

a lot of my fics are written with my experience as a young asian-american adult living in southern california in mind—growing up here has given me some very specific experiences that i don’t usually see portrayed in any kind of mainstream media, so it has always been a goal of mine to use my rpf fics as a way to do that and give myself and any others that stumble upon my work a feeling that our experiences are being represented somehow, even if it’s in a fanfiction lol!

 

“What is this, an enemies to lovers fanfiction?” Riki scoffs.

 

i love to make my fics self-reflexive so i always like to throw in a line or two like this in all my works just because it’s fun to acknowledge rpf and its occasional discussion in everyday life

 

“Oh. Then which org is he in? Pineapples?” Jungwon genuinely thought Jongseong was in Lambdas, and it didn’t help that Jongseong fit the type.

“None.” Sunoo says this and tilts his head to the side, an incredulous smile starting to form on his face.

 

a couple of people who have left comments on this fic have noticed that this is kind of the first instance of jungwon’s expectations of who jay is like as a person getting disapproved…like jay is Not in a frat so that’s just one less reason for you to not like him hehe. also i like to use these two orgs because they’re two of the most common that “kevin nguyens” are part of and i’ve known guys from these orgs and. lol. no comment!

 

Jungwon thinks back to the time that the boy had chugged half a bottle of the stuff on an empty stomach and then promptly spent the rest of the night with his head over a toilet in the Pineapples house. Of course that meant Jungwon was sitting on the bathroom floor beside him while Sunoo was taking selfies in the mirror. It’s mostly a fond memory.

 

i did not make this bit up—this is actually an experience i had with some of my best friends (at the time) during our first year of university lol! in this scenario, i was jungwon, my friends were riki and sunoo respectively sdjfsdjf. and like i said, it’s mostly a fond memory…i say mostly because my best friend to this day is the one who had her head over the toilet…the selfie taker…not so much :]

 

When they reach the house and head towards the door, they see Theo standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame on his phone and looking bored, red Solo cup in his other hand. The lighting from his phone and the dim light above the door illuminate the lightest parts of his platinum hair and highlight the rainbow streaks.

 

this theo cameo was For Me. p1h is one of my main groups that i stan and i can’t write a fic without a cameo! i like the idea that theo would be a frat boy that does not care about lineage or rules as much and would only let his littles leave door duty to go to the bathroom if he was in a good mood. just a funny concept and my attempt at like. micro-characterization. micro- because i tried to fit in as much info about what he is like as a character in such a small passage of text—around 3ish paragraphs and like 4 lines of dialogue.

 

“Sorry, I’m just playing around. Seriously, I’m sorry,” Jongseong says, and he at least looks like he means it. Jungwon relaxes the slightest bit.

 

this bit is important in a couple different ways—on the first read through of this fic, i think it adds some realness to jay, especially since he was kind of flirty in the beginning of their interaction and continues to be throughout the rest. once you’ve read through this fic entirely, you can kind of see that the way jay bumped into jungwon/encountered jungwon this first time could have been intentional! you can interpret it that way, or you could see it as incidental, it really doesn’t change too much either way. (personally, i like to think that this encounter was on purpose on jay’s part.)

 

“Don’t you think I’d be such a good salesman?” Jongseong asks suddenly and Jungwon furrows his brows.

 

jay is a dork and i genuinely believe that he would ask something random shit like this mid-conversation as a business major because he’s unsocialized like that and doesn’t fully realize how much everyone hates business majors! however. i’d be a capitalism stan for jay

 

“Oh wait,” Jongseong says, tilting his head to the side. “You’re Sunghoon’s friend, right? Yang Jungwon?”

 

jay pretending he didn’t have a fatass crush on jungwon before they’d even spoken before…gay…one gay mf…i feel like jay would definitely pretends he hasn’t already been pining over someone before they’ve even actually met and i stand by it.

“I’m Park Jongseong. Some people call me Jay,” the older boy says, offering him a small smile. Jungwon wants to stomp his foot. Just another reminder that the pretty boy has a pretty name.

 

“Like Jay Park.”

“Yeah.”

“The racist one?” Jungwon is mostly messing with him at this point.

“Definitely not like the racist one.”

 

every day i lament the fact that the man i have a parasocial relationship with shares his name with a racist but what can i do but make jokes about it in my silly little fanfiction? but have yall thought about the fact that both their names are jay park and they’re both from seattle…because this information haunts me it keeps me up at night why did it have to be like this…

 

“Damn, is there a lot of that going around too? You get asked out a lot, don’t you?” Jongseong is smiling, and Jungwon can’t help but notice how pretty he looks, even in the harsh, almost fluorescent kitchen lighting.

 

i know i made a joke about jay being unsocialized but actually i think he’d be a real smooth mf if he learned how to use his honesty and earnestness just right…jay has all this confidence and charisma and he describes himself as being honest, and i think that makes for a really good flirt!

obviously, if you’ve read the fic, you would know that i make it a point to say like. oh, jay is so pretty, he’s so popular he dates a lot of people, has a lot of friends, does social things etc. etc. but i don’t really show how jungwon fits into all of this. in my head, i think jungwon is also pretty popular with love interests, he just rarely actually gives anyone the time of day, hence his commitment issues and his freak outs about having feelings for jay. i used this moment to kind of acknowledge that and have jay be innately aware that jungwon is Wanted.

 

Jongseong smiles at him, soft, gentle, and Jungwon feels like the ground has fallen out from under his feet. “It’s okay to say no. We can forget this whole conversation if you want, just say the word. I’ll just refill my cup and walk away.”

Jungwon swallows over the lump in his throat and clears it a little, avoiding eye contact. “I just. Was not prepared for you to ask me out,” he admits, and the nervous laugh that comes out takes him by surprise.

(...)

“You’re cute and you’re kind of giving me a hard time. I’d be stupid not to ask you out,” Jongseong says, laughing.

 

this is a moment that i wanted to include so i could expand on jay’s characterization (and jungwon’s). i think underneath all that charm and flirtation, i wanted to emphasize to jungwon that jay isn’t just that, he’s genuinely a good guy, and he’s not going to pressure you into anything. and i also thought a moment of honesty from jungwon is something that was needed after him giving jay a hard time. so it goes both ways! jungwon is trying not to be one of jay’s statistics (for lack of a better term) but at the same time, something has changed about his perception of jay.

and that last bit of dialogue…i already mentioned this before but! a combination of charm and honesty always gets me…this would get me.

 

Many of the pictures seem to be at raves and different music festivals, and there’s several of Jongseong with some people at Arena Ktown.

 

i had to include this—i had to. if you’re a southern californian asian, specifically from the LA and OC area, you know that everyone and their mother has been to arena ktown. i wouldn’t associate with anyone that has gone there, and definitely not anyone who goes there regularly! there’s just a stereotype about the demographic of that night club and i couldn’t Not include it for speculations about jay and his reputation’s sake. and of course, jay would be a raver, or if not a raver, goes there for the social aspect since all his friends would be that type! he definitely would’ve been at rolling loud this weekend. no doubt about it.

i’m sorry i’m talking about these things like you should know about them, as if they’re not just very specific things that asian-americans in southern california and the bay area experience lol.

 

JW: who said u could give ur stupid friends my number

SH: I’m just a good wingman ;)

 

i feel like i should have made it clear that jay didn’t have jungwon’s number before even meeting him. my thinking is that jay had asked sunghoon for jungwon’s number after it had been a few days since the party and jungwon hadn’t texted him. i promise jay isn’t a creep lmfao! i think i’ll go and fix that once this is up and posted!

once again, i do Not know why sunghoon and jungwon are the bridge between the two friend groups. i feel like i might have had a reason back when i was still in the planning stages of the fic, but i’ve completely forgotten!

 

J: I’m going to be honest and say I’ve been thinking about you since that night

 

that honesty again. i think we all know that jay is very open with his emotions and always has been, ever since we saw him on i-land. the boy wrote letters to his friends because he thought he was going to get eliminated! wtf! the running theme in all of my fics is how genuine and honest and earnest he is. those are the three words i would use to describe jay if someone asked me. this is such a simple text message, yet i think the fact that he isn’t playing it cool and being like oh yeah that guy i met at a party hasn’t texted me but who gives a fuck, just tells so much about him you know? like he was a little sad jungwon hadn’t texted him and he let jungwon know that.

and i think when a person has commitment issues, a lot of the problem lies in the fact that they don’t know if the other person is as In as they are, or as in as they Could be, if that makes sense? but from the get go jay is giving jungwon that reassurance, even if he doesn’t realize that it’s what jungwon needs (or secretly wants).

 

J: No seriously though idk what you’ve heard but I am not out here saying shit I don’t mean to people

 

this is so important!!! so important!!! jay does not say anything he does not mean. and i think there’s something sad about him knowing what people are saying about him, yet here he is being this genuine guy that hasn’t pressured jungwon into anything and even encouraged jungwon to reject him lol.

 

JW: i hate surprises >:(

J: You’ll learn to like them with me

 

you ever become charmed by the way you’ve written a character in your silly little fanfiction? ever get the silly goofy butterflies? crazy.

 

“What if I don’t answer?” Jungwon teases, and he can hear Jongseong sigh dramatically.

“Damn, you just love giving me a hard time, huh?”

Jungwon finally lets himself laugh, and he can hear Jongseong chuckle softly on his own end.

“If you don’t answer, I’ll be sad,” Jongseong says simply, and Jungwon rolls his eyes. Stupid Jongseong.

“I guess I don’t want to make you sad…”

 

i don’t know, something about his whole conversation…i love how they play off each other. i loved writing their conversations. i'd just be smiling the whole time because something that is quintessentially jaywon is banter and teasing each other and!! they’re just so much fun!!! me getting butterflies like i wasn’t the one who wrote the damn thing…

 

“I did not expect to meet your parents so soon, but it’s fine,” Jongseong says, smiling. He laughs when Jungwon smacks his shoulder.

 

not to suck my own dick but i think i have written a really good maknae line friend group dynamic

 

As he’s backing out of the parking spot, he puts his hand on the back of Jungwon’s seat as he looks out the rear window. Jungwon is a little flustered at Jongseong’s sudden proximity and the way his jawline looks from this angle is mesmerizing.

 

just one (1) time. i would like to see this. just once and then i could die happy.

 

“What, you’re not going to try and make a move on me and physically guide me on how to use the knife?” Jungwon is joking, mostly, but he almost half expected for this to happen, since this is a date after all and it just seems like something that would occur.

“Are you joking, or are you just pretending you’re joking because you secretly want me to do it?” Jongseong’s smile looks way too knowing and amused and Jungwon’s cheeks burn.

 

jungwon isn’t slick we all know he wants jay’s arms around him

 

“You have pretty eyes too, has anyone told you that?”

“Bro.”

“Oh my god, did I just get bro-zoned after I told you that you have pretty eyes? Oh my god, how am I going to recover from this. Look, I’m crying,” Jongseong wails dramatically, but at a low volume so as to not attract any attention from the surrounding couples.

 

my top 3 favorite parts to write include this onion cutting scene. i just wanted to incorporate a bunch of different things and using this scene was the best way to employ all of it. everything from the bro-zone joke, joking about crying because of being bro-zoned, using all of this as a set up for some tender and soft touches and the smallest moment of intimacy when jungwon is wiping his tears away and calling him pretty…it all had a purpose my friends!

 

“I’d like to see you again,” Jungwon amends, and Jongseong smiles even bigger, so big that Jungwon wants to memorize the happiness etched into every feature.

 

i thought after all the back and forth and jungwon giving him a hard time, jay deserved to catch a little break

 

“No one touch me…He just hugged me and kissed the side of my head…I’m going to pass out,” Jungwon whispers, hand on the wall like he’s catching his breath. He’s nothing if not dramatic.

 

so valid, jungwon, so valid. i just wanted to show that jungwon is in fact affected by jay’s jayness like the rest of us…he is not immune.

 

“Jongseong.”

Jongaesong raises his eyebrows and Jungwon rolls his eyes.

“Jongseong-hyung.”

 

jay being annoying about honorifics…i don’t know it just felt Right.

 

“And you’re not just an opportunity,” Jungwon adds, shoving the other boy’s shoulder lightly.

“Oh. Well, when you put it like that…”

“If you want us to keep seeing each other, then you need to let me pay for stuff sometimes. I have a job, I can afford to pay for your boba or for dinner once in a while at least,” Jungwon grumbles.

Jongseong bats his eyelashes at Jungwon and puts a hand over his chest, all exaggerated and annoying. “Are you saying you’ll take care of me?”

 

this bit. my view on jay: he loves people and he does things for them and buys them things and never for a second does he ever expect anything back, he doesn’t do anything for the sake of reciprocation, he does it because he loves them. i like to think that jay would be extremely touched by the idea of jungwon wanted to take care of him sometimes, even if in this moment he’s joking and being flirty and dumb.

i think the premise of the whole jaywon dynamic is them taking care of each other in their own little ways, whether it’s big gestures or little ones that could easily be brushed off or looked over. i think that’s one of the things that draws me to jaywon as a ship.

 

“Stupid gorgeous?” Jongseong repeats, a big smile beginning to form on his face. The corners of his eyes are crinkling and he looks so pretty – Jungwon thinks it’s unfair.

 

don’t mind me, once again crying over jay’s smile. if you follow me on twitter, my whole thing is me pretending that i hate jay. my bio literally says that i am a jay anti lol

ok insanity cap is off, let’s move on, shall we!

 

Jongseong’s lips look glossy in the overhead lighting, and they look so soft and Jungwon finds it hard to keep his imagination away from the idea of what it’d be like to kiss him.

 

me just straight-up lying because jay’s lips have never once looked soft…that man needs some chapstick.

 

“See if you hadn’t been staring at my mouth, then you would’ve noticed that some girl walked straight into the glass door of the study room across the hall,” Jongseong says simply, says the beginning bit like it’s no big deal but Jungwon wants a hole open up beneath him so he can disappear and never have to face Jongseong ever again.

“Staring at your what.”

 

i feel like this scene in general was just jay having his turn at teasing jungwon, and deserve honestly! it’s his turn to fluster jungwon and embarrass him a little.

 

“That’s a good fucking question actually,” Jongseong says, nodding at the charger cords at the end of the table. “But looks don’t mean shit when you’re an idiot who forgot to charge their laptop when they have class.”

 

heeseung is a disaster human and i stand by that notion.

 

“Of course I want to. I’ve wanted to since you gave me a hard time back at the Lambdas party,” Jongseong says once he’s calmed down a bit and his eyes shining a little with mirth.

 

at this point in the fic, it’s time for me to admit something: this fic nearly did not have a happy ending. crazy right? up to this point there really wasn’t anything that would indicate that.

my plan was to have them get together, have jungwon get a taste of jay’s social life, meet all his friends, see how many people are clearly in love with jay. see the way people around him kind of clung onto him, did things that probably weren’t appropriate anymore now that jay has jungwon. i was going to have them together with no official boyfriend title, have them not even discuss being exclusive or anything, have jungwon talk to some of jay’s “former flings” at some parties, see how jay’s phone is literally always being blown up by people who want him.

and then i was going to have jungwon break things off with jay. yup. without even telling him why just, hey i don’t think this is going to work out and then no more jaywon.

and then of course, jay is going to come find him after a bit and ask why and then jungwon would bring up all these things and jay would be like there was only ever you or something and jungwon would bring up these former flings again the things they said about trying to hook up with him even while they were together and jay would get mad like why would you listen to them they’re former for a reason etc. etc. and jungwon would be like you’re exactly how people say you are and then i would’ve had jay retaliate say that he was only ever all in, and that jungwon’s commitment issues were the problem here etc.

anyways, the point is that this was going to get toxic and Not Good. but i decided pretty early on in the drafting process that i wanted this to be angst free as much as possible because i love jaywon too much to make them suffer like that.

(i say this, but my next fic is going to be angsty, toxic jaywon lol.)

 

“I kind of. I kind of had feelings for you before we met?” Jongseong says this haltingly, tips of his ears reddening, and it’s the first time tonight that Jungwon thinks he’s seen him embarrassed.

(...)

“Well, for me, it’s the same thing. You don’t need a reason for falling for someone, it just happens,” Jongseong says simply.

 

jay is definitely the type to fall in love at first sight. i mean he said that gay ass line at en-connect: companion and i haven’t stopped thinking about it. of course he’s perfect and loves people without reason, of course, what else was i expecting from park jongseong.

 

“That’s the thing, though – you don’t get to tell me what I deserve when I already know what I want. Who I want,” Jongseong says, smiling wryly.

 

jay the king of knowing exactly what he wants and going for it without any hesitation or fear, even if there are very clear obstacles. this is something about jay that i really admire. i always think about that time in i-land when he kept going for parts even after they were given away to others instead of him time after time.

 

“I know, and I know it must be scary for you and you might be thinking about how to get out of this whole thing right now. All I’m saying is that the ball is in your court, and it always has been, since the moment I gave you my number and gave you the option.”

 

i think this is something to note—jay has tried his best to do everything based off what was comfortable for jungwon. he has never pushed the boundaries, never crossed any lines. i like to think that jay at least had an awareness of how skittish jungwon is about relationships and feelings and commitment (i mean, it’s pretty easy to tell with how jungwon has been so far, i think). so everything has been up to him, and jay was just happy to receive whatever jungwon was comfortable with giving him.

 

“If your answer is yes, then that’s enough for me. We’ll work through this together. It’s okay,” Jongseong interrupts lightly.

 

jay being willing to go into this relationship knowing that he feels more than jungwon does at the moment is so jay, in my opinion. jay loves unapologetically and without holding back, but doing things at jungwon’s pace is what is important to him, and i think it was vital that he conveyed this to jungwon to reassure him again.

as for the outtake, i’m not going to paste in anything specific, but i really wanted to end off on something that was substantial enough to give you a taste of what they’re like together in a real relationship, while bringing it full circle by bringing up jungwon’s dislike of surprises and unblocking jay on instagram. honestly, i hate when fics have all this word count real estate dedicated to the getting-together and then we don’t actually see them together, which is why i always try to include outtakes to wrap up the fic with a nice bow on top.

closing

if you’ve made it this far, i would like to hold your hand and give you a smooch. hopefully this was interesting and gave you a look into my peanut brain and my thought process while writing this. i’d like to thank everyone who has commented on the fic because it really did mean so much to me—each time i receive a new one, it makes my day! until next time, mwah!