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8. Kim Jaehwan | Modern Fairy Tale

https://prettywordsyouleft.tumblr.com/

Summary: You had been best friends with Jaehwan forever and somehow grown feelings for him. Would bad timing and miscommunication ruin your chances of a happily ever after?

Characters: Kim Jaehwan x reader

Genre: angst, fluff, university au, friends to lovers

Word count: 3716

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You had no idea when it had happened.

There was no clear cut signal that alerted you to the change within your friendship with Jaehwan, and you wish there had been one, just so you could prepare your heart and mind for enduring this unexpected crush.

You had grown up together, from bickering neighbours as children, through the turbulent ride of your teenage years, to now being young adults; every thing had been done with Jaehwan at your side.

He was the reason you smiled from his infectious laughter, the person who helped you dry your tears, your study buddy, your boredom buster, the one who knew all your secrets and fails in life, and had been the first to congratulate you on all your successes. He was more than a friend, and now, he was someone you realised you had feelings for.

It was disorientating to have your understanding of his place in your world turned upside down.

At first you decided to ignore it. He was after all, three years younger than you, and so whilst you were finishing up with university, he was just beginning. Soon your life would hold further expectations, none in which his world was ready for. With this solution in place you attempted to continue on, paying no mind to the fluttering in your stomach when Jaehwan greeted you on campus. But this was easier said than done. Even in university, you spent a lot of time together, studying in the library or grabbing dinner when your schedules permitted it, and because you both had the same large group of friends, you crossed paths at events frequently, even if you didn't know the other would be there. Soon it became impossible to think about anything but grabbing his warm hand within your own and leaning into his side like you used to when things were platonic. Unlike back then, there would be more emotion involved and it was becoming dangerous, a couple of times you had almost slipped up and told him how you felt.

Your solution had been temporary, like a bandaid over a gaping wound, and the more you left the bandaid there, the more you knew it was going to hurt when it came off.

So your next phase was to avoid him. If you didn't see Jaehwan, then you could deny the feelings steadily growing for him. Initially this solved a lot of your issues. You felt like you could breathe more easily on campus, knowing Jaehwan's schedule well enough to alter your own so you wouldn't cross paths each day. You also began declining your friend Seongwoo's offers to join him, Minhyun and Daniel on Friday nights, knowing Jaehwan would generally join them. But soon it began to impact your psyche, you were stressed, trying to maintain your grades as well as your stealth tactics on campus was exhausting. Not to mention when you actually messed up the timing and saw your best friend, it was far more heart crushing than you expected it to be. You'd be a lost cause for a couple of days after. And to make things worse, your classmate and good friend Sungwoon who you had been spending more time with became difficult to be around, he now had a girlfriend and all he did was gush about how great dating was.

So you were alone, and miserable, aching for Jaehwan more than ever.

The only step left was to tell him. You spent a considerable amount of time trying to decipher how to confess to him in a way that wouldn't hinder your friendship. The longer you mulled, the more apparent it became that there was three ways it could go. One, he miraculously had feelings he's never mentioned before either, and it ended happily ever after. But since you weren't a princess, or gone through hell and lost your family and was now being courted a Prince Charming, you knew that was unlikely to be the case. Next was the awkward stage where he would laugh it off and tell you it wasn't going to affect your friendship, but at the same time you both drifted apart due to the tension of your unreciprocated feelings. And three, well you didn't want to believe you could lose Jaehwan for good, and the idea of even considering this as an option sent you into despair.