⤷ in which we see some
moments between the
couple !

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( one ). ice skating !

"YOU'RE SUCH A GREAT BOYFRIEND, you know?" Jieun says sarcastically, hands extended in front of her as she attempted to steady herself on the ice. She had just stepped onto the ice rink and was trying to find her balance before she began skating around.

"Why, thank you, babe! I like to think the same as well," Sunghoon replied enthusiastically, quite literally skating circles around her throughout the spacious sink as she struggled to catch up.

Said boyfriend had decided on bringing Jieun to a practically empty and unused skating rink he usually comes to, and though they've gone ice skating together before, it had been a while since she had done it, hence why she was currently struggling and had only taken a couple of steps since stepping into the rink.

On the other hand, Sunghoon had immediately rushed out onto the rink right after putting on his skates, leaving her behind.

"Yeah, you're definitely getting boyfriend of the year," Jieun mumbled, letting out a small squeal as she began to wobble on the ice.

Coming up from behind her, Sunghoon grabbed a hold of her forearms to steady her, gently pulling her towards him so that their chests were pushed up against each other, "I thought you knew how to skate already, babe?" He asked cheekily, tilting his head to the side as he studied her distressed expression.

Jieun ignored the warmth she felt in her cheeks from both the nickname and the nonexistent space in between them, rolling her eyes instead at his teasing tone and giving his shoulder a shove, "Not everyone is an ice skating protégé like you, smart ass," She huffed.

The dark-haired boy only stifled a laugh, not bothered by her nicknames in the slightest, "And you're definitely getting girlfriend of the year," He said, letting go of her arms and slowly beginning to skate away with his front still facing her.

"Sunghoon—!" Jieun shouted, reaching out for him as she began to wobble again. After putting her arms out to steady herself and gaining her balance again, she let out a sigh, "Help me," She muttered.

Sunghoon stopped in his tracks, tilting his head again as thought he was waiting for something else, a smirk plastered on his face.

Letting out another huff, she crossed her arms over her chest, "Please?" She asked, looking at him with pleading eyes.

He chuckled, mumbling a 'cute' at her before skating back to her, grabbing her hands and beginning to guide her through the ice rink.

"You're such a softie, you know that, right?" Sunghoon asks as he begins to pick up the pace.

"Not so fast!" Jieun shouts, tightening her hold on his wrists as he dragged them along the rink.

    "You have to learn so you can keep up with me!" He says, smiling down at her as he twirled them around the rink, his hands moving down from her arms to her waist.

     "Sunghoon, stop fucking with me!" She yelps, lifting one hand to land a slap on his shoulder.

    He giggled—literally giggled— as his heart clenched at how she was holding on to him for dead life despite threatening him, "Okay, okay, I'll slow down," He does as he says, slowing down his pace but skating away from Jieun the slightest bit so that he can maneuver their position so that she was facing the same way he was, only holding one of her hands as they skated at the same pace now.

      After a while, they both come to a halt, Sunghoon sliding around so that he smoothly came to face in front of her, making her bump right into his chest with an 'oof,' "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

   Jieun lifts her head from where she had bumped into him, glaring up at him, "I'd like to see you play volleyball after this. I'll kick your ass,"

   The black-haired boy laughs, pulling her even closer to him by her arms and connecting their lips for a deep, but warm kiss. Jieun practically melts into his embrace, and after a couple of seconds, he pulls away, "You can kick my ass any day, babe,"

( two ).           bracelets !

   FOR THE FIRST TIME IN a long while, Sunghoon and Jieun were finally able to sneak out together in what had seemed like a literal eternity. Besides the face-times, they hadn't been able to see each other or meet with one another face to face due to one's schedules always finishing later than the other or the other not being able to sneak out.

Despite them finally getting better at making up excuses and lies to go see each other, the fact that they were still a private couple due to how terrifying the idea of announcing their relationship to the public sucked, to say the least. Even after being together for a year and mastering late night phone calls and secret texts, the longing to be able to go out together without the fear of getting caught was still there.

So when both of their schedules had finally aligned, they immediately took the opportunity to go on a late night walk and see each other face to face for the first time in months (well, a month and a half, to be exact).

They sat on a park bench looking out into the city, the fluorescent, neon lights from buildings and signs reflecting on their faces. Face masks discarded next to them, they munched on some food that they had sneakily bought from some street vendors, sitting in content silence after catching up on their walk towards the spot Jieun had picked out, far away from the company building.

Sunghoon looked over his shoulder as he munched on his food, taking in the view of his girlfriend as the lights danced against her face. She was mindlessly sipping on her drink, looking out into the skyline; he was sure that her mind was racing 100 miles per minute despite looking so peaceful. Reaching over, he lifted his hand, brushing some of her hair behind her ear.

Jieun leans into the touch, blinking slowly as her gaze remains in front of her. Sunghoon could tell that her mind was on something as she was practically zoned out, and he was sure that she was wishing things were different within their relationship.

Sunghoon drops his hand to his lap, "I got you something," He says, making Jieun's head whip towards his direction.

"Me?" She asks, eyes wide with intrigue and confusion.

"Well, for the both of us," He corrects. He reaches for something in his pocket, fishing out two small little transparent bags that were cinched shut by two little strings. He opens them both up, revealing two metal chain bracelets, both of them with a half heart pendant dangling from each one of them. He sets one down on the bench before reaching for Jieun's arm, gently pulling it towards him so that he could unclasp the bracelet and slide it onto her arm.

   She watched intently, not knowing what to say or do as he closed the bracelet around her wrist. He then moves on to his own bracelet, sliding it onto his wrist and easily closing it. She watches as Sunghoon brings his arm close to hers, and just as she thought that her heart couldn't swell with love anymore, she hears a click as the hearts click together through a magnet.

    "We can wear this bracelet whenever we can't see each other so that we still have something to remember each other by, and when we do meet..." He gently wiggles his wrist to show off the bracelet, "The hearts will connect," He says, lifting his head to look at her. His cheeks turn pink when he finds her gaze flickering back and forth from the bracelets to him, eyes wide as she stares. Sunghoon's smile drops a little bit, "It's okay if you don't like it, I know people will probably start to speculate if we have matching bracelets with hearts on them, so—"

"No!" Jieun shouts, quickly cutting him off, "I love it!" She looks down at her own bracelet, twirling it around so that she could fiddle with the pendant, "I really really love it, Hoon," She looks up at him with a warm smile before reaching forward and pressing a kiss to his cheek, then one on his lips.

Sunghoon kisses her back before she pulls away, smirking cockily the way he always does after she compliments him, "I knew you would," He says, though his cheeks are flushed pink.

    Normally Jieun would roll her eyes and give him a shove on the shoulder, but her heart was too full with love that she only kept staring down at the bracelet, fiddling with the pendant in her fingers. Three words were heavy on her mouth, but she hesitated on saying anything else, instead choosing on leaning forward and planting another kiss on her boyfriend's lips, her hand coming to rest on his thigh right by where his own hand was at, the pendant unknowingly connecting.

( three ). jealous, jealous !

   TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST, Sunghoon is a jealous guy. He wasn't a toxic jealous, though—of course not. He trusted his girlfriend with all his heart. But he was more of a possessive type of jealous, really. Throughout their 'talking stage,' Sunghoon had learned that her cold exterior was only something she had put up around her when she was younger in order to protect herself, and he didn't mind her attitude or dry humor because he was completely and utterly whipped. Though neither one of them had said 'i love you' yet, he considered Jieun to be his as much as he was hers.

   Sunghoon knows that Jieun had become friends with all of his members, especially with Jake and Jay right after their debut, only a month or so after. They had become quite close right away, even before the two boys had realized that Sunghoon had developed a crush on Jieun. Every time TXT and Enhypen were in the same room, it was probable that the three of them would be seen huddled together, laughing or joking about something.

   And even though Sunghoon knew that his relationship with Jieun was still a private one, it still irked him how he couldn't just sidle up next to her and act the way he always does when with her, completely enamored. But he knew that his friends didn't have like Jieun in that way; she was more of an older sister for them as both Jake and Jay were the same age as Sunghoon (plus it made him feel a whole lot better knowing that he was the only one that didn't have to call her by the 'noona' honorific while they did).

    So, here they were, all four of them sitting on the living room couch of the Enhypen dorm room, and even the couch was quite spacious, like, quite literally reaching from one side of the wall to another, they were all plastered together, practically shoulder to shoulder as they watched TV.

    At first, it was completely fine. Their relationship consisted of mostly bickering— almost portraying a true sibling relationship where the two youngest brothers constantly bothered and ganged up on the older sister. It started off with Jay subconsciously bringing a leg up to the couch, knocking into Jieun's lap, to which she immediately pushed it away from her and going off about personal space, "You're barely giving me any arm space and now you want to take my leg space, too?!" She shouted, landing a slap on his knee.

    Jay let out a yelp, but fired back, "You're literally the smallest one out of all of us here, you're fine!" He said, stretching out both legs and laying them on top of Jieun's lap.

    She let out a squeal, trying to push them off of her before Jake chimed in and did the same, scooting closer to Jay so his legs would also be sitting on top of the older girl's lap, "What is wrong with you two?!" Jieun yelled, shoving them away. Her success at getting both pairs of legs off of her lap only lasted for a couple of seconds before Jake let out an evil laugh and shoved his foot into her side, a mixture of a laugh and scream erupting from Jieun's mouth.

    She grabbed onto the nearest pillow, trying to wack either one of them with it in order for them to stop, but as she leaned back to try and escape the way Jake's feet were ramming into her side and Jay's legs still on her lap, Sunghoon was practically being pushed off of the couch.

    Letting out a sigh, he stood up before he could even fall from the piece of furniture, yanking the pillow from his girlfriend's hands before whacking both Jake and Jay with it, making both of them let out yelps of surprise. He threw the pillow onto the floor after they removed their legs from Jieun's lap, huffing as he bent down and threw the girl over his shoulder.

  "Sunghoon—!" She yells in shock, slapping at his back, "Put me down! What are you doing?!"

   Sunghoon ignores her, walking towards his room and stepping inside, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him. Thankfully, the three youngest members that he shared a room with weren't home, taking it as his opportunity to gently drop her on his bed, the girl landing on his mattress with a huff, looking up at him with bewildered eyes.

    "What the hell?" She says, but once again, he settles on simply climbing in the bed, pulling his blanket over both their bodies and wrapping his arms around her waist. She stills, not knowing what the hell just happened as he pulls her close to him. Jieun blinks, "Were you jealous?" She asks, trying to look at him as best as she could with his hands wrapped around her.

   "Shut up," He says, pulling the blanket even further up and burying his face into the crook of her neck.

( four ). i love you !

    ONCE AGAIN, SUNGHOON AND JIEUN had gotten another moment of peace after a long while (though this time it was a bit more different, it was still a moment of peace regardless). Jieun and her members had gotten a whole weekend off from schedules, meaning that they had a whole 3 days to just relax and not worry about practice or anything like that.

    While her members had taken the chance to go and see their families and stay at their perspective homes, Jieun had stayed back in the dorms as her dad and older sister were both out from Suwon on business trips and weren't coming home until a week later. Though she was bummed she couldn't see her family after not seeing them for months, it had all been made up for when Sunghoon proposed the idea of going over to the dorms and sleeping over to 'keep her company' while she was alone.

     Of course, she didn't mind one bit. She had immediately said yes at the chance to not have an overprotective Yeonjun barging into her room every 5 minutes to see what they were doing or have her younger members try to steal her boyfriend so he could play video games with them. For the rest of the week, it would be just her and Sunghoon, all alone with no one to bother them or hear them.

    Sunghoon had arrived over 2 hours ago already, around 10pm after his schedules had finished and he had packed a bag full of clothes. The ramen Jieun had made for them to eat had gone cold after they became... distracted from Sunghoon urgently dragging them to the couch, plopping down on it first before pulling Jieun on top of his lap and crashing their lips together.

      They had stayed like that for at least a good half hour, with Sunghoon's hands roaming over her hips, butt, and even under her shirt as they made out. Once that session was over, they had moved to the kitchen to microwave their ramen and eat it, but it went cold, again, after Sunghoon had propped her on top of the kitchen counter and they resumed their make out session.

     After that was over, they had discarded their food completely before moving to Jieun's room to call it a night after their rather eventful evening. They were both tucked under her covers, the only light emerging from the lamp on her bedside table and illuminating her whole room. She laid on Sunghoon's chest, arm thrown over his chest as she mindlessly closed her eyes, basking in the warmth and peace of it all.

    Sunghoon's hands were raking through her hair, eyes flickering towards every part of her room as he hadn't been inside it for a long time. Everything about it screamed Jieun, every poster, every trinket, and every corner decorated with things that was just her. He noticed that her room was completely clean, though, clothes were folded into place along with her shoes, her desk completely neat and dust-free, everything neatly tucked away with the whole room smelling clean and fresh.

    He was aware of how, whenever she got stressed out and wanted to perfect things, she would ask the boys to mess up her room by discarding her clothes on the floor, misplacing her pillows and shoes and trinkets just so that she could focus on cleaning it instead of damaging her health by staying up late trying to work on a song or a dance.

    As subtly as he could, he spoke up and asked, "How have you been feeling?" He continued to run his fingers through her hair, trying not to come on too strong.

   He could feel her still for a second before she craned her head up to look at him, "I don't have any feelings," She said, giving him a deadpan look before burying her face into the crook of his neck.

    Sunghoon smiled softly, "Of course you don't, ice princess," He watched as she snuggled into him, and he could tell that she was trying to hide her face, "You know you don't always have to be so tough and funny," He said, twirling a strand of her hair around his finger, "It doesn't change your value or worth at all," He chose his next words carefully, building up the courage to say what he was going to say next, "I love you, okay?"

   Jieun's face immediately contorted at his words, the tears immediately pricking at her eyes and pouring out. In the blink of an eye, she rises from her spot on his chest and turns over to her other side so he wouldn't see her cry.

Sunghoon stood up from his spot as well, stilling as he saw her body tremble with her sobs. His hand came to her shoulder, rubbing the skin back and forth as she covered her eyes with her arm to hide the tears, "Jieun," He said softly, trying to pull her back to him.

She turned back around then, wanting to feel his arms wrap securely around her. She buried her face back into his neck, wetting his skin with her tears as she clung onto him for comfort. Sunghoon didn't say anything else, knowing she needed the comfort more than anything else. He wrapped his arms around her again, letting her cry wordlessly into his chest.

Minutes passed and her sobs had calmed down, turning into sniffles as her body had stopped trembling and instead was breathed heavily to try and catch her breath.

"I love you too," she said, barely above a whisper, craning her head up again to make sure he heard it, "You're definitely getting boyfriend of the year,"

A small, tired smile emerged on her face, immediately making Sunghoon smile as well before he planted a kiss on the top of her head.

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notes

when I tell y'all.... this chapter took FOREVER. I had so many ideas and this was going to be like 5-6 moments in total but i gave up halfway bc these were getting so long. but i decided on making this instead of actual chapters bc i've been struggling w getting motivation but finally managed on finishing it so I hope y'all enjoyed !!!!