- about you ╭ park gunwook

10 - affection

naeun came home holding the flowers in her hand. immediately her mother knew, they were from no other than park gunwook. "don't kill them, naeun. these are special, gunwook gave them to you." her mother caressed her hair softly. tulips have always been naeun's favourite.

"you like gunwook, more than you thought. right?" her mom pressed her for an answer, naeun couldn't completely dodge the question.

"well. i guess i do. but it's too awkward to date since our past wasn't the best." naeun was soft-spoken when gunwook was the subject. she stared at the flowers.

there is no reason required to be able to gift flowers. this was gunwook's way of telling her he liked her. he hoped she'd understand his intentions, but he knew it wasn't enough. to be precise, nothing could display his feelings towards her - he liked her so much.

no amount of words will fill the capacity of love he has for her. no amount of gestures will accurately measure his affection. he's in a place where he questions himself. he used to barate her, and their whole childhood spent together consisted of taunting each other back and forth.

it didn't make sense, the sudden change of thought. all the nights he spent staying up thinking about her- it finally clicked in his head. it was not sudden newfound respect. all along, he did like her. he was too embarrassed to admit so. instead, he used insults to mask his feelings, a method of erasure for his affection.

gunwook walks back home. so many thoughts rushing through his mind he didn't know where to start or what to start processing. in the end, he's always ending up with naeun lurking in his mind. inevitably.

although their rough past was long-lasting, they've come to a similar dilemma. they both had crushes on each other, but yet scared of confessing.

it was silly. they're both so oblivious, both hearts laid out on their sleeves for each other, and they couldn't read the room.

gunwook arrives home, packing for their schools' rep field trip. he thought it was best to enlighten himself at the last minute on the schools offerings. gunwook remembers, naeun had given him her own yearbook since he enrolled to the school late.

flipping the pages open from the book, he sees naeun on the front and center page. unsurprisingly, she was loved by everyone.

she was always so pretty, and it sucks that he only admitted it to himself now. gunwook kicks himself for not admiring her earlier. how could he be so childish?

what drew his attention from naeun, was a boy posing beside her. they seemed close, staring into each others eyes, as the unknown boy had his arm around her shoulder. under their photo had a message written on there with sharpie pen.

"kang naeun, don't forget about me.

- your beloved lee jeonghyeon."

gunwook was confused. naeun had never mentioned him once, and he's never been seen with her this school year. considering his message, gunwook's best possible guess was that he moved away.

he felt uneasy and the tiniest bit jealous. the heart drawn on the message, the 'your beloved'. it made gunwook overthink. did they have a fling? or was it just staged for other purposes?

it didn't help the fact that lee jeonghyeon was extremely handsome. the mere thought of naeun liking someone else made gunwook sigh. he hasn't always treated her the best, whether it was as kids till just a few months back. all the hard times he gave her started to worry him.

the instant regret was burdening him. gunwook didn't want her to slip away. he was knowledgeable and rational. it was best for him to brush it off until naeun herself would address anything.

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a/n ₍ ᐢ..ᐢ ₎

shorter chapter than usual !!! idek where to stir this story but i'll come up with something in the meantime 💭