A small self esteem boost to those of you who need it ;)

/this is gonna be hella cliche tho, just so you kno *cri/

/also feat a spoopy sungpil for those of you who like that (if not, you can skip to the italics portion, though it's quite short on its own, sorry)/

"I'll Try"
Day6

***

"I'm not good enough for you."

"You can always move on without me, easily."

"How could a guy like you ever fall for me?"

"Why is it so hard for you to understand that I love you?"

All phrases that wanted to jump out of Wonpil's mouth every time Sungjin helped him pick up his books after the people in his grade dropped them to the floor. But none of the words ever came out. Probably because they didn't even make sense.

"Wonpil... I'm so sorry about them. They have no right to act like that!"

Sungjin had been Wonpil's friend for the longest time. He'd taught the boy to ride a bike, he'd been there to bandage up the cuts on his knees when he fell on the pavement while rollerblading, he'd helped him with flash cards and homework... It was honestly easier for Wonpil to list what Sungjin hadn't done for him than to list the things he had. He hadn't seen him for a while because he was busy, he hadn't played music with him since the beginning of the year, he hadn't realized that Wonpil wanted to be together with him romantically. And now, he hadn't been there to prevent Wonpil from being teased and shoved around. But that was honestly the least of the younger boy's worries.

"I've spoken to the principal and everything... But he refuses to help! And because of those stupid student council meetings I can't even come to protect you on time!! I should just quit." This next part was muttered, but Wonpil still managed to hear it.

"N-no, Sungjin hyung! I can mana-"

"No." Sungjin stood firm, gripping Wonpil's fingers with his own by sliding his hands to the back of the textbooks from where he had been holding them out to the younger boy. "If I can't do anything to help the school even as student council president, I better quit. That way I can actually help somebody... most importantly YOU."

Wonpil furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean, most importantly m--"

The boy was cut off by an inhuman screech followed by heavy running steps escalating toward him. He let out a yelp as somebody whipped him around and hid behind his frame. Unsuccessfully at that. "Hyung, Wonpil hyung!! Save me!! Jaehyung hyung can't take a joke!"

Sungjin sighed and chuckled. He looked past the two boys, seeing a fuming Jae running in their direction. "Has this innocent boy scared you, secretary hyung?"

Jae tried to push past Wonpil, on top of whose shoulder the cute boy with earrings had rested his chin. "He fucking stole my chicken, is what he did!!"

Sungjin tsked at him, walking around Wonpil to pull the blonde away from the other boys, and smacked the back of his head. "How many times do I have to tell you, Jaehyung? No cursing in school!!"

"But he took my chicken, man!"

Jae reverted back to English when he said the last word, causing the boy cowering behind Wonpil to imitate it with a terrible accent and a confused face. Then the boy ah-d and lifted his hands to wave them around in innocence. "I just gave it to Younghyun hyung for safekeeping! Don't worry, he didn't eat it!!" The kid then replaced his hands and continued to grip Wonpil's shoulders in fear.

"That flippin... Imma get him so bad," Jae muttered, already stomping in the direction of the student council room. As he had spoken in English, the other three boys had only stared in confusion as he walked away.

"So," Sungjin said, turning back to Wonpil, "How's that adopted brother of yours? Still troublesome, I see." He teasingly glanced over at the boy with the earrings, who was pouting at him.

"Yah, Sungjin hyung! Don't tease me like that! I didn't do anything wrong!!"

Wonpil just chuckled at the two of them as Sungjin crossed his arms and "Mhm"-ed sarcastically. "Well, I have to go to class," he told them, beginning to walk away. 

His adopted brother waved at him cutely, slinking away himself in an attempt to get away from Sungjin without the other noticing him. Dowoon succeeded, as Sungjin was too busy chasing after Wonpil to notice his absence. "Wait!"

Wonpil turned back, seeing Sungjin's hand reach for his sleeve, tugging it so Wonpil wouldn't take any more steps away from him. "What is it, hyung?" he asked politely, stopping in his tracks.

"You were going to ask why your safety is important to me." Sungjin tugged at Wonpil's sleeve a few more times, clearly embarrassed. He looked down at his shoes, the words stuck in his throat, then cleared it and spoke once more. "Meet me at our place after school if you still want to find out." Then he quickly shuffled away, leaving Wonpil awestruck and curious. The poor boy's heart was pounding so hard that his cheeks were flushed a deep red and his heart was doing flips, and he was forced to draw his textbooks close to his chest and try to cover his tinted face with his bangs as he rushed off to class. Unlike his usual stream of self-deprecating thoughts, only one thing was on his mind:

What is so important about me to Sungjin hyung?

*

meanwhile, jaehyung was standing in front of the student council room, panting. the room was all the way across the school from where he had been chasing after dowoon, and he really did not appreciate having to run back and forth. he just wanted his chicken, dammit! if it was cold... he swore he would have brian's head.

as soon as he could stand straight without feeling dizzy, the tall boy slammed open the door to the classroom, stomping in and calling out a threat to the historian: "brian!!!! if you don't give me back my chicken right now, i swear i will get you kicked out of this school!"

jae looked about him, not seeing anybody in the room. damn. had dowoon tricked him?

the blonde began to take steps forward, moving between the desks to waddle to the front of the room."wah!!!!" he suddenly screamed as he unexpectedly tripped over something. his eyes immediately squeezed shut and his arms flailed, trying to catch onto something to ground him. but it was no use; he was already falling.

he waited for the impact of a desk against his side, but it never came. instead, he fell back into somebody's warm embrace. his eyes slowly opened one at a time, blinking in a confused way. he heard a whisper near his ear, the soft voice sending shivers down his neck. "yah, jae. you've gotta be more careful." then, a piece of chicken was levitating before his nose, held by rough fingers that could only belong to one person. "here. i warmed it up for you."

"th-thank you, brian." jae carefully took a bite into the chicken, still all wrapped up in younghyun's arms. the chicken was indeed steamy -- hotter even than when he first brought it into school that morning. after taking a few more bites and chewing them thoroughly, jae turned his head to look up at younghyun. "why'd you have to get dowoon to steal it from me though? you could have just asked me to give it to you..." jae pouted and turned a bit to look at the historian from the corner of his eye. then he went back to chewing at the chicken brian was holding out for him.

"but what's the fun in that?" younghyun chuckled and placed a sweet smooch on jae's neck. "class is gonna start soon... we better go."

"but you just warmed up my chicken for me... it'll get cold again if i don't eat it now!" jae said with his mouth full of chicken, turning around in younghyun's arms to face him and standing up to his full height so he could look down at the younger.

"ysh. you're so gross, jae." younghyun reached into his pocket, pulling out a napkin to dab at the corner of the blonde's lip, where a piece of chicken skin had gotten stuck while the boy was eating. jae whined like a child, trying to escape younghyun's grip. "stand still. i'm almost done. then we can finish eating the chicken and go to class." jae stopped struggling and excitedly nodded. brian chuckled as he rubbed at jae's mouth yet again, telling the secretary, "you're such a child, jae."

"that's why you're taking care of me," jae retorted. and the two then continued eating the leftover chicken, younghyun holding out the pieces for jae to bite, then taking bites out of them himself.

*

Wonpil was standing on the bridge overlooking the river, making sure that he leaned against the railing in a way that kept him out of the path of the cars that were passing by on the road. He had only been standing there a short while, about 2 minutes or so. He knew that he would be earlier than Sungjin, as the older boy had a council meeting after school. But when he saw his friend approaching him not 5 minutes later, Wonpil nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd expected to see Sungjin in 30 minutes, not five! His skin was prickling with nerves and he whipped his head back to look at the river once more, subconsciously muttering under his breath.

You're so stupid, Wonpil.

How could I not have said hi?

Why am I so dang rude?!

Why is my hair not alligned?

Why are my hands shaking so much? It's so gross!

Why am I so stupid??

Stupid

stupid

stu--

"Wonpil!" He was shaken out of his thoughts, and his head whipped around again in surprise.

Why am I surprised? I knew he was there the whole time!!! Stupid, stupid!

"Wonpil," Sungjin said more gently this time, approaching the scared-looking boy with caution. Then he looked at the brunette more closely and dropped his hesitation, springing to his side in worry. "Why didn't you wear a jacket? It's so cold; you're going to get sick!"

"I- I won't get sick," Wonpil argued. He turned red when Sungjin walked over to him, enveloping him in a back hug and wrapping the sides of the oversized jacket he was wearing around Wonpil's thin frame. "R-really, Sungjin. You don't have to..."

The older boy only held on tighter. "I'm not doing this out of obligation: I want to do it. Now shush and listen to my explanation. You've been waiting to hear it all day, haven't you?"

Wonpil gave him a curt nod that was filled to the brim with embarrassment. He was too shy to say anything aloud, and he was too preoccupied with the fast beating of his heart to notice that Sungjin himself was having trouble keeping his heartbeat under control.

"Okay. Then I'll begin." Sungjin shifted his legs a bit so he was standing more comfortably. He brought Wonpil even further into his chest, his arms wrapping around the boy's chest and his chin resting on the brunette's shoulder. He closed his eyes and took a breath in, then released it. And soon enough he was whispering into Wonpil's ear, his warm breath sending tingles down the brunette's neck. "I want to protect you because I care for you."

"Mhm."

"No, really." Sungjin stroked Wonpil's rib a bit before hugging him close again. "Not only have I known you for a long time, I've seen you grow into somebody so very beautiful. I don't know how you managed to do it, but you've gotten more and more handsome every day, more kind, more gentle, more intelligent, more sensitive... I want to protect you from the people who want to hurt you, who want to take away all the beauty I see every time I look at you. You're gorgeous inside and out, and I still can't get my mind wrapped around why you can't seem to notice this!"

Wonpil still stayed silent, so Sungjin continued to ramble.

"You're my best friend, and I never want to lose you. You're so far up on my friend scale that I kind of... see you as somebody even closer than a friend, closer than a brother, closer than the closest person I could ever think of. I want to stay by your side forever... I never want to let you go!" His grip around Wonpil's body tightened and his cheek brushed the younger boy's neck. "Please... promise me you'll be by my side forever, Wonpil. Let me never let you go!"

Wonpil did not breath out a sound. He could barely control his emotions, and tears soon rolled down his cheeks, wetting Sungjin's hands. The older boy took notice of this and carefully turned Wonpil around to face him, holding the younger boy's face in his warm hands. "Won- Wonpil? Did I... Did I say too much? Was that too much for you?! Oh no, I'm so sorry!" He frantically began to brush the tears away from the brunette's eyes with his thumbs, gently, oh so gently. And Wonpil couldn't help but let out a short laugh. "Hey, what's this about?" Sungjin confusedly asked. "What's so funny?"

Wonpil gulped away his hiccups and sniffled. "I- It's just that... I think I may have understood you wrong. I'm so stupid, I'm overthinking everything again..." You're never going to like me the way I like y--

"Silly... You're so heckin silly." Sungjin lifted Wonpil's face up a bit so the younger boy would look him in the eye. "I just called you beautiful, gorgeous even. I asked you to never leave my side. I asked you to never let me let you go. You're too intelligent... it makes you think about stuff so much that you think you're dense. But you're not. You just lack some self esteem. You need to love yourself more. And I want to stay by your side and help you get where you need to be. So, what I've been trying to gather the courage to say for years is..." Sungjin leaned close to Wonpil's ear to hide his burning cheeks from the younger. "Will you give me the pleasure of going out with me? As my boyfriend?"

Wonpil could not believe his ears. "M-Me? You must be asking the wrong person, Sungjin-hyu--"

"Clearly not," Sungjin breathed out. "I love you and only you. And I don't need an answer now... just, please don't hate me."

Wonpil felt his hyung snuggle into his shoulder and he sensed Sungjin pull him closer. He sighed out and wrapped his own arms around the black-haired boy's waist, closing his eyes. "I could never hate you. I'm just afraid you don't love me the way I love you."

Sungjin wasn't going to lie: at that moment, he'd had enough and was about ready to groan out in frustration. So he acted solely on impulse and pulled his head back to rest it on Wonpil's forehead, startling the poor boy. He leaned his head to the side a bit so his lips were practically aligned in the formation of a kiss and looked down at the brunette's lips before looking into his eyes. "Now listen here, Wonpil. I love you, and there's nothing more to that. I just asked you out, I asked you to be my boyfriend. If that's not enough proof for you, shall I..." He looked back down at Wonpil's lips, licking his own in apprehension and biting his bottom lip to hold himself back from just leaning forward an extra centimeter and connecting it to the brunette's. "Shall I perhaps... show you in an even more obvious way?"

Wonpil had been progressively growing redder and redder with each passing second, and now he just buried his face in Sungjin's chest, whispering out a broken, "No, that won't be necessary..." and hugging the black-haired boy tighter.

Sungjin lovingly patted his head. "Awh. I was looking forward to it, actually. Maybe later, then. Wanna go out on friday?"

"Don't you have student council?" Wonpil murmured, still buried in Sungjin's chest. The vibrations from the brunette's cute voice made his heart flutter. The black-haired boy giggled in a slightly rebellious way. "What's so funny?"

"Well... Jaehyung is president now! Can you believe? And we finally have a vice president: Younghyun! Unexpected, right? And Dowoon is historian!"

Wonpil hummed, still seemingly unconvinced, though Sungjin couldn't really tell because the younger boy's face was still nestled in his chest... "But didn't you like being president?"

"Nope. Not one bit." Sungjin patted Wonpil's head again, still reveling in the feeling of being this close to the boy. "I missed you too damn much."

"Glad I'm good for something."

And as he cuddled the brunette closer, Sungjin radiantly smiled, knowing that he had managed to lift up Wonpil's self-esteem at least a little bit and that he had definitely convinced him to become his boyfriend in that moment.

***

a/n: sorry about this... it's surprisingly long, wth?! but I wanna ask a quick question... should I make a new book for sungpil or make this a sungpil/jaehyungparkian book or just not make a sungpil book (bc it's not like i have much time on my hands anyway)??? please help me out, idk wut to dooooo

but anyway, hope you guys have an absolutely spectacular day!! :D stay strong and love yourself!!! (hehehe, love myself, love yourself)

*hero*