late bloomer | hwang hyunjin

late bloomer

Hwang Hyunjin was five years old when his best friend Jisung lost his first tooth. He remembers how Jisung had yanked the barely-wobbly tooth out of his swollen gums, pinching the white pebble between his chubby little-kid fingers, yelping with pain as it ripped out much more painfully than he had anticipated. With red dripping down his chapped lower lip, Jisung had waved the tooth in Hyunjin's face, pride evident on his chubby cheeks. He then proceeded to chase around the other kids in class with the bloody denticle, making them all scream with horror as he spit blood at them—Hyunjin didn't mind being left out at that part.

His other best friend Felix got his first girlfriend when they were thirteen. It was by no means a serious relationship; the only thing they really did was make out between classes and feed each other at lunch, something Jisung always gagged at overdramatically, but Hyunjin didn't miss the way Felix would sigh lovingly when she kissed him goodbye and skipped off to class, even if he denied it. He really liked her, and as Hyunjin stared out the window in algebra later that day, he wondered when it would be his turn to experience something first.

Turns out, university wasn't his time either. He'd stumbled through his teenage years trying to copy Felix and Jisung, unsuccessfully so, and they'd both made it off to successful universities, Jisung in Seoul and Felix thousands of miles away somewhere in Australia. Even as Hyunjin spent all his free time studying, trying his best to up his CSAT scores, he still somehow found the time to envy Jisung and Felix, who were out experiencing new things every day. Romance, travel, food, art, culture—Hyunjin envied it all.

After all these years, he still hadn't managed to be the first at anything.

His parents didn't have much to worry about, though. Although it took two more years, Hyunjin made it into a decent university, one that focused on the arts, and he was happy there, finally able to breathe, away from Jisung and Felix—it wasn't their fault that Hyunjin was insecure, but whenever he hung out with them he couldn't help but feel strangled by their experience, their knowledge. He knew they were on a different level than he was, and his insecurities only stuck out more when he was with them.

He used this time to do his best in school. He got good grades, great even. His art skills improved—he could finally draw fingernails without them looking like soggy almonds, and he made friends other than the two he'd known since he was fresh out of the womb. But as winter passed by once again, he watched his new friends walk off with their significant others, hand in hand, and he was left alone at the restaurant they'd met up at, no girlfriend waiting for him at home, no boyfriend to come pick him up. He shoved his hands, cold, as there was no one there to hold them, deep into the pockets of his coat. It wasn't even snowing out any more—in fact, he could see little green buds starting to sprout on the lower branches of the young trees planted along the university streets, and the humble beginnings of crocuses and daffodils sprawled amongst the dirt. "Hey! I think you dropped this!" a cheerful voice broke Hyunjin out of his depressing thoughts, and he looked up, surprised, into your bright eyes as you waved his brown and white plaid scarf at him. It was his, and he took it wordlessly, starstruck by your beauty. He recognized you, of course. You were often out and about on campus, active in college life, handing out flyers or helping out with fundraisers, and Hyunjin would be lying if he said you didn't catch his eye every time. He felt electricity shoot through his fingers as yours brushed against them, and suddenly he felt positively sick, he felt hot and cold and clammy but dry at the same time, tongue unable to form words as his lips parted, but no sound came out. "I... I..." he stuttered foolishly, and all you did was give him a shy little smile then walk back into the restaurant. All Hyunjin saw was the way you clasped your hands behind your back sweetly, bowing to the people exiting the building as you entered, hair bouncing cutely as you straightened back up and disappeared from his view. He stood there like an idiot, eyes rounded in adoration, until he finally came to his senses and cursed himself for being a creep, climbing into the first cab that stopped by and thinking about it the entire way home.

It was embarrassing, how he woke up extra early the next morning to comb his blonde hair, agonizing over his dark roots beginning to grow out, switching between four different outfits, all of which looked pretty much the same to everyone else, just because he knew you'd be in his first class of the day. He got there early, tapping the end of his pencil to his full lips as people filed into the room, pretending to not notice the way his heart skipped a beat as you entered the room, waving to the professor kindly before perking up as you spotted him, sliding into the seat next to his. "Hey! Your name is Hyunjin, right?" you asked sweetly, setting your backpack down and rifling through it. You pulled out the most adorably patterned pencil case, and Hyunjin hated the way he almost choked out loud when he saw it. Was this how it felt? Having a crush? He used to make fun of Jisung and Felix all the time when they liked someone, but now he understood, oh, he understood.

"Yeah," he said breathlessly, a little too airswept, "and you're (Y/N), right?"

"Yeah!" you exclaimed happily, "you know me?"

"Of course, you're all around campus. It'd be impossible to not notice you," he chuckled, and you blushed a little, making Hyunjin's throat dry up.

"Sick of me already?" you murmured as the professor began talking, turning the pages of your neat notes to a fresh page, scribbling down the date and topic.

"Never," he responded, before mirroring your actions and taking notes—something he usually didn't do.

Maybe it was too good to be true. In Hyunjin's slightly over-dramatic, over-emotional mind, it was, and he should have seen it coming. The more he got to know you, the harder he fell for you. You both shared so many common interests, you genuinely liked him and wanted to hang out with him, it seemed, and you never rejected his flirty actions—although, now that he thought about it some more, maybe you passed it off as friendliness. It wasn't like he'd ever tried to kiss you, all he ever did was push you playfully, compliment you sometimes... everything a friend did. And now, it was so easy to see, Hyunjin knew it was all his fault for not making a real move while he could.
It was agonizing hanging out with you now, since he was the topic of all your conversations now. "Today Minho wore the most darling baby blue shirt," you'd gushed, and that day Hyunjin had torn his closet apart looking for the one baby blue shirt he owned. Then you'd sighed dreamily while talking about his pretty his dark hair was, and Hyunjin momentarily brought a hand up to his fried blonde locks, wondering if it was time he stopped bleaching them, but then you showed him photos of Minho's cats, and that was when Hyunjin realized it. It didn't matter if he wore baby blue every day of the week, or if he cut his hair and dyed it back to black, because he would never be Minho. It was him you wanted, not Hyunjin. With bile rising in his throat, Hyunjin had excused himself, ignoring the way his stomach lurched when you said it was fine, you were supposed to meet up with Minho for dinner anyways, and walked off, grief apparent on his face. Anyone who took a brief glance at Hyunjin's face would know that he was heartbroken, the mixture of shock, shame, embarrassment, and anger etched onto his handsome features, but he didn't stop long enough for anyone to see.

He ended up outside the same restaurant that you'd first talked to him, handed him his ratty old scarf and then fluffed your hair so prettily. It was barely spring at the time, he remembered. Now it was almost summer, heartachingly so. He still hardly knew you, he supposed, it was only a few months since you went from an attractive nobody to the most beautiful being he'd ever come across, and he wondered how people coped with unrequited love that lasted for years. It had been a matter of three mere months and his heart felt like it was being ripped apart by rabid wolves. "The first heartbreak is always the worst," Felix mused over the phone, as Hyunjin sat on the curb, an embarrassing amount of tears dripping down his sweaty cheeks, "it's gonna fucking suck, for a while at least. But you'll get over it."

Hyunjin hung up. He looked up at the sky, clear and blue, the epitome of summer. Spring was over, and so was his obsession with you. As he walked home, he looked down at the ground, recognizing the crocuses from a few months ago, a few still not completely bloomed, petals still furled tightly around each other. He momentarily compared himself to the little crocus, remembering some stupid quote from a kids' movie, the exact title escaping his mind at that second.

The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of them all.

He let himself smile—a small one, but a smile nonetheless, and he walked away. From the flower, from the shackles of societal expectations, and from you.