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The whole truth

Pairing: Juyeon x reader Genre: fluff, best friends to lovers, college au, love alarm au Word count: 14.7k Warnings: swearing, violence, mention of blood A/N: written for the love and pop collab hosted by @sunzwoo which is based on kdramas!! not similar to the drama in any way so dw about spoilers or anything like that haha

The love alarm claims that true feelings cannot be hidden, and ever since downloading the app, you've anticipated the day it would reveal someone's feelings for you. But perhaps the truth has always been there—you just never looked.

True feelings are something that cannot be hidden—well, not for long anyway. Whether they creep into your smiles or create sparkles in your eyes, or whether his face pops into your mind each time you walk by the cafe he once mentioned, these feelings will eventually bleed into your every action if unaddressed.

Luckily for you, that's where the new love alarm app comes in.

Love Alarm. It's the newest and hottest app on the market from the moment it was released, and the only app to reveal the truth behind people's feelings.

Juyeon closes the tab, letting the catchy jingle of the ad end abruptly with a roll of his eyes. His lips are pulled into a frown and there's a tension in his body that wasn't there before, screaming annoyance. It doesn't take much for you to know exactly what your best friend is thinking.

You want to laugh at just how bothered he is by the app, but it puzzles you, for he's usually so relaxed and easygoing that even the way you constantly push his buttons wouldn't get a rise out of him. Now, however, the love alarm app somehow does that without even trying.

"You still can't believe people are buying into that, right?" A teasing lilt laces your voice.

"It's stupid," Juyeon glances at you up and down warily, as if he knows what you're thinking too. "Don't tell me you got it—"

"I downloaded it." Without missing a beat, you pull it up on your phone and shove it in front of his face. There's nothing interesting on the screen—only an empty circle glowing, awaiting for a heart to show up—but he lets out an irritated huff anyway. Your grin grows wider. "It's just for fun," you say, pulling it back when he waves you off. "Wouldn't it be so exciting to have the person you like ring your alarm?"

"What's the point of that? Why do you need an app to tell you something you should already know?"

"Well," you frown, his words making you pause, "if you put it like that, then maybe you're right. But it's kind of like... couple rings. You know, like a tangible symbol of your love or something. A sign that your love is requited."

Perhaps it's a feeble excuse but it doesn't take away your excitement; the app is merely meant to indicate one's true feelings towards another, and if anyone has a secret crush on you right now, surely this would be the solution to finding them so you wouldn't be single for life. All you have to do is be within ten meters of them, and your love alarm would ring. It's no surprise that the app is so popular when it's this easy to use—couples are using it to strengthen their relationships, and singles are hoping to find love with this simple ringing sound.

Besides, this would help you deal with the budding feelings you've kept hidden for the past month. With the app, it would be much easier to confess to your crush—you'd no longer have to drop a hint when you ask him to hang out, nor would you need to beg the barista to draw hearts on the lattes you buy for him. All that's needed is the ringing of his alarm and he'd know everything.

"But why do you need to use the alarm to confess to him?" Juyeon nudges you impatiently. "Why not tell him directly?" He blinks at you, awaiting an answer like he's interested in your love life all of a sudden. It's surprising as he's never shown any interest over the many years you've known each other, though you figure he's just trying to leech off some free entertainment this time.

Life gets boring when you don't have a crush, and his life is probably very boring if he's never had one from birth until now.

"It's much easier this way than actually talking to him. Trust me, I'd rather not have to awkwardly stutter through my confession just to have him awkwardly try to soften the blow of a rejection." You shake your head to get rid of that image. "Like, just have the alarm ring—or not ring—and get it over with."

"I guess," Juyeon shrugs, turning back to his laptop where he carefully mutes all of the love alarm ads this time before they can play.

He doesn't say anything after that, so you go back to texting your crush. You have to put in extra effort in planning your meet up with him since it'll be the day your love alarm finally rings.

When the day arrives, Juyeon gives you cautious glances and sends you more texts than he's probably sent in his life. His concern is excessive, albeit endearing, but what baffles you is why he would be so bothered by the love alarm, which you're sure is the root of his worry. You can't see the harm in it when it should be for fun, for some lighthearted laughs that take you back to the time of first crushes in middle school; definitely not what Juyeon is making it out to be.

The only downside you can think of is the gradual loss of confidence that comes with having your alarm stay silent for so long. You try not to let it bother you too much though, because that will change very soon when Sangyeon rings your alarm. It's easy to picture—the moment you step into his range, you'll be able to hear two alarms ringing simultaneously, and you'll pull out your phone to see the small heart floating around on your screen.

Today would be the day your crush on Sangyeon is finally revealed.

Lee Sangyeon, the senior with the dimpled smiles bright enough to rival the sun. The moment you'd stumbled upon his desk at the tutoring center, there was an undeniable connection—from the fun banter to his unique humour as he tried to make you laugh, to the way his eyes seemed to smile when he did. You'd nearly forgotten what a chore this linear algebra class was supposed to be. And with all the meet ups outside of the tutoring and between the lines of your casual texts, you were sure he became something more than just the hot senior you looked up to.

Initially, you hadn’t planned on acknowledging these feelings. It would be a risky and awkward thing to do when there are still a couple of months left until finals and you'd probably be seeing him for more tutoring sessions, but the existence of the love alarm changes things. It makes you want to test the waters and see if he feels the same, especially when there's little to no harm—confessions and rejections alike would be reduced down to a simple ring, or lack thereof, of an alarm.

You spot him easily despite being much too early to your meet up. He's sitting at a table outside the campus cafe, faced away from you as he seemingly focuses on something inside it. People watching, perhaps, as he awaits your arrival. Two drinks rest on the table and the sight makes your heart speed up a little, knowing that one is probably for you. But before you can call out his name or go surprise him, you realize exactly what—or rather, who—he is looking at.

A girl walks out of the cafe and it's obvious the way his gaze follows her and the way she lights up at the sight of him. What's more obvious is that the big smile on Sangyeon's face, the same smile that you'd seen so many times before, is now directed right at her.

And sure, you can tell yourself that it's nothing. That all of this is a coincidence, and that it's only happening because he hasn't spotted you. You're early, after all.

But there's no way you can deny what happens next, for when the girl takes another step forward, the ping of a phone sounds: the ringing of a love alarm. You can't mistake the sound for anything else when it's in ads and in classrooms and everywhere around you, and when the second ring of a love alarm cuts through the air, it's definitely no mistake. The sound is distinct just like the glow of the heart on the screen when the girl pulls out her phone. Just like the glow on Sangyeon's face when he pulls out his, too.

You freeze because many things soon become clear.

It might've meant something when he remembered your coffee order, but it looks like he knows hers too. The smile on her face grows when he hands her the drink, voice carried over in the wind as he says, "I got you your favourite." The light pat on the head that you thought was something only for you now ruffles her hair, disarranging it from where it sat neatly before. And the bright smile with the dimple in full view that hadn't been for anyone else rests on his face now, no longer directed at you but at her. The same person whose love alarm he rang.

It's clear you'd been looking for things that weren't there this entire time. The tutoring sessions were just that: tutoring sessions. Nothing more, nothing less. He may have brought you coffee on more than one occasion, but that was just an act of kindness. Taking you out for dinner after your midterm grades came back was simply a celebration, not a date, and remembering all the little details that you told him was only a sign of his amazing memory. None of that meant anything, and now with the love alarm, it's painfully obvious—while Sangyeon may have made you feel special, it's really just his personality.

There's definitely no mistake when you stumble forward, landing right in the range of Sangyeon's love alarm. Your app is silent the moment you enter, and it stays silent when he turns to leave with the girl, hand in hand.

You pull out your phone and send him a quick text with the first excuse you can think of for cancelling today's meet up.

A few hours later, you're in the safety of your bed with your head buried under several pillows when the door quietly creaks open.

You don't need to look up to know it's Juyeon, no doubt coming over to see how you're doing. Not that you really told him anything—you simply said that things didn't work out, without a name nor a mention of what happened at all. But even with just that information, your best friend understood.

Juyeon crosses the room and sits down beside you, making the bed dip slightly under his weight. He doesn't say anything, giving you space to open up about what's bothering you on your own, but there is a very intentional crinkling of a bag that breaks the silence.

It's bait. The bubble tea and takeout that he places on your table are an invitation for you to stop moping and to open up about what happened. Judging by the colour of the drink, it's your favourite too. Who needs Sangyeon to bring you your favourite drinks when you have a best friend who can do that?

"Are you okay?" he finally asks, eyeing you as you stab the drink with the straw a little too aggressively. "What happened?"

You make him wait until you all but inhale your drink. "Ugh, this is so embarrassing. I saw him by the cafe today, and there was a girl with him."

"And?"

"I saw them ring each other's love alarms, okay?" You sigh, not wanting to tell him about it but finding no way around it. Getting rejected was bad enough; you don't need him to tell you that he was right to be worried about this.

Although Juyeon doesn't react right away, you can see the gears turning in his mind and you know what he must be thinking—that it's the love alarm that's making you feel this way, and that none of this would've happened if it hadn't been for the app. That this incident only proves it does more harm than good. And while that may be true to some degree, the app still did its job and revealed the truth.

On the other hand, not all has been lost because Sangyeon still has no idea about your feelings. With the love alarm, you were able to find out how he feels about you without giving away how you feel about him. It's exactly like what you told Juyeon—the app not only made confessing easy, but it made rejection easy as well.

"Maybe I'm just unlovable," you mutter, grabbing a pillow to hide your face from him. "I've had this alarm since it came out and it hasn't even rung a single time. Maybe it's defective. Maybe I'm defective."

Juyeon pries the pillow out of your hands, and there's a firmness in his gaze right before he looks away. "Y/N, you're not unlovable. Maybe the people that like you just aren't dumb enough to download the app."

"Ugh, shush. I swear you have something against the app, like a personal agenda or whatever."

"I'm only trying to say that just because there's an app to tell you who you like doesn't mean you should treat all this like a game," he scoffs. "Those people who go around trying to collect as many hearts as possible? They're treating those hearts like—like Pokémon or something, not like the feelings of real, living people."

"So? What does that even mean?"

"The love alarm doesn't have to mean anything. You should look beyond that and see what people are doing. What they're trying to tell you through their actions."

"I thought that's what I did with Sangyeon," you roll your eyes, still feeling bitter. "And it turned out to be entirely wrong."

He doesn't have anything to say in return, opting to shrug and then pass you your drink like that would distract you from the situation. You don't feel like you've won this debate at all, if you could even call it that.

"So Sangyeon didn't ring your love alarm."

You immediately shoot him a glare. "Do you really have to bring it up again? Are you trying to rub it in? Are you happy about that—"

"Well," Juyeon says calmly, not showing any sign of having heard your outburst, "did you ring his?"

Of course, you open your mouth to say, the words resting at the tip of your tongue. But then everything stops. The room stills and you can't seem to remember anything other than the startling realization that sits at the pit of your stomach. All you can hear is the echo of his words replaying in your mind: did you ring his?

It's something you hadn't thought about until this very moment. You were so focused on how Sangyeon didn't ring your alarm and how he likes someone else, that you entirely missed this part.

Because he may not have rung your alarm, but you hadn't rung his either.

The question constantly circles your mind for the next while. Sangyeon was your crush and you'd been so sure that if you could ring anyone's love alarm, it would be his. You thought you'd liked him enough—as much as anyone should like a crush—but what happened that weekend has you questioning everything you thought you knew.

Because if it isn't him, like you'd always believed, then who could it be? What does it take to have your heart show up on someone else's love alarm app?

Soon enough, you're able to forget about it though. Juyeon acts as an effective distraction when he's nicer to you than usual, as if worrying about how you'd fare with your rejection. He drags you out of your room, claiming he's craving bubble tea when it seems like just an excuse to check up on you—not that you'd ever turn down a free drink. He asks you to accompany him at the library as he studies, though you're familiar enough with his schedule to know there are no upcoming midterms for the next couple of weeks. And when takeout gets delivered to your door, you don't need to look at the note to know who it's from.

You decide he doesn't need to know that this Sangyeon thing isn't such a big deal. Sangyeon wasn't a huge part of your life, and with the rejection feeling more embarrassing than painful, you start questioning your feelings for him. It's probable that you never truly liked him, and what you experienced was something your mind conjured out of boredom. Life is boring without a crush, after all.

"You okay?" As soon as you open your door, Juyeon eyes you up and down like he's judging the evidence of late nights written under your eyes. There's a hint of a smile on his lips, and without another word, he turns and leads the way out of your building to head to class.

The two of you don't make it very far before getting interrupted.

"Hey, Juyeon," a tentative voice floats over. Off to the side, there's a familiar girl that comes into view—a freshman if you remember correctly—staring at Juyeon with hope filled eyes.

You know exactly what's to come: she'll be asking him out, he'll freeze and try to figure out how to reject her, and then he'll ultimately give in when he doesn't figure it out. After that, he'll spend all week lamenting to you about the date and regretting his decisions.

"I wanted to talk to you," the girl continues, not sparing you a single glance as her eyes seem to drink in Juyeon in his entirety. "Oh um, is your love alarm not on?"

It used to be funny watching him struggle to answer, but you find it hard to remember how that feels when a surge of annoyance washes over you. It has you looping your arm around his, tugging him closer until the two of you are pressed together, side by side. "Juyeon doesn't have a love alarm, and he's not available," you say, putting on an exaggerated pout and not pausing to care about how it feels all too fake on your face. "Nor is he interested. Sorry."

She's shocked, to say the least. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out, and at Juyeon's nod confirming your words, the poor girl leaves, quick strides soon making her disappear from your view. You shouldn't be taking it out on her, but the satisfaction that follows has you justifying it was all to help Juyeon break out of his endless cycle of being unable to reject people. Because that's what friends do, right? It's your job to help your best friend in any way possible, and that's precisely what you did.

Juyeon turns to you with a sparkle in his eyes, pleasantly surprised with a hint of a smile on his lips. "Thanks, I think."

"It makes you uncomfortable when people do that but why don't you ever tell them off?" you ask, thinking back to all the times you said he's too nice for his own good.

He has always hated it—the love and attention he's showered with from strangers who don't know him, and who don't bother trying to know him beyond the picture they've painted in their own minds. Juyeon doesn’t like the expectations, and he especially dislikes the disappointment and the disinterest that follow once he's found to be different from those expectations.

Perhaps that's why he is so guarded. It's hard to tell who else he is close to when he doesn't open up to anyone but you.

"Hmm," Juyeon hums as he thinks. "I feel bad. Everyone deserves a chance."

"Yeah, but they're not giving you a chance. The real you—not whatever they think of you."

He shrugs a little, expression softening as he meets your eyes. "That's why I have you."

Then he starts walking again, tugging you along by the arm you chained with his.

But the whole trek across campus, you’re thinking about what he said. His words, along with everything else he's done for you lately, are gradually making you realize that this is something you never had with Sangyeon. Looking back, it's like you hardly knew the senior at all. He may have made you feel special and let you open up to him, but he gave away almost nothing about himself in return—forget about vulnerability, you don't think he even told you about his thoughts on the latest Marvel movie. It's clear you never got to know him in the way you know Juyeon.

"Um, I have to," Juyeon gestures awkwardly after coming to a stop outside his classroom, "get to class now." His eyes then trail down to where you're still clinging onto his arm tightly.

"Right, sorry." You quickly let go, stepping back to give him some space. "Have a nice class. Don't get too wrapped up in those proofs."

He nods, a sparkle appearing in his eyes. "Hope you survive Hyunjae annoying you."

The moment you walk into your lecture hall, the boy in question is clambering over the rows of seats to get to you. He slides into the seat to your left, while you very obviously ignore him, and then leans across the armrest until his face is very obviously in your way.

You sigh, finally turning a little. "Yes?"

"Y/N, don't you want to hear about what I found out?" Hyunjae's wide eyes stare at you excitedly, unblinking. He doesn't bother moving away either—perhaps last year you would've pushed him away, but strangely enough, you've gotten used to his lack of boundaries. Without waiting for your answer, he continues. "I know the reason why you couldn't ring that hot senior's love alarm."

"What? Wait how did you know—"

"I have my sources, Y/N," he waves you off dismissively. "Anyway, do you want to hear about it or not?"

"I don't, actually."

A smirk starts to spread. "Okay, I'll tell you because I'm a great friend. The reason why you couldn’t ring his alarm is because you never actually liked him."

"What on earth are you talking about?" You stare him down even at the risk of going cross-eyed with how close his face is hovering.

His words don't deter you because that's pretty much what you had been thinking too: you never truly liked Sangyeon. If you didn't manage to ring his alarm, then this must be the only logical conclusion. He was available, and you enjoyed the excitement of digging into his every word and gesture so much that you ended up believing you had feelings for him. But it wasn't real.

"Fine, maybe I didn't really like him," you mutter, turning away from Hyunjae to flip open your notebook for class. "So?"

"You thought you liked him, but you never did..." He leaves his sentence off at an intentional cliff-hanger, and then goes to cover your notebook with a hand so you'd have no choice but to turn back to him. "Because you're actually in love with someone else."

"Yeah? And who might that be?"

The smirk widens. "Juyeon."

There's no way you're hearing correctly.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"Shut up, stupid." You push his hand off your notebook and turn to smack him instead. "Would you stop shipping your friends? That's creepy."

"Y/N, seriously. Think about it—you basically know everything about him, right?"

"We're close friends. Wouldn't it be strange if we didn't know everything about each other?"

Hyunjae heaves a sigh and ultimately sits down properly in his seat. "Okay, if you don't believe me, fine. I know someone who might be able to ring your alarm."

"What?"

"Weren't you complaining that no one rang your alarm? Well, I know someone who might be able to change that. You know Kim Younghoon, right?" He waves a hand to get your attention again. "Tall, handsome, looks like he could be a model? I think he said you were in the same tutorial as him in first year." At your lack of response, he rolls his eyes impatiently and slouches in his seat. "Just come with me after class and we'll see if he actually rings your love alarm."

Soon, the class starts, and you want to thank the professor for making Hyunjae finally shut up.

Three whiteboards of math formulas later, Hyunjae's tugging you down the steps of the lecture hall insistently. You try to use Juyeon as an excuse to get out of whatever he has planned, but it backfires—Hyunjae stops by Juyeon's classroom next door and goes to drag him along too. The poor boy is still finishing up the last of his notes, squinting at the tiny writing on the board when Hyunjae starts packing up his stuff for him. All for the purpose of proving to you that your love alarm isn't defective, it seems.

While heading towards wherever Younghoon says he is, you manage to sneak a glance at Juyeon, hoping to share a secret laugh about Hyunjae's obnoxious antics or exchange a knowing look. But Juyeon doesn't glance your way. He's been strangely quiet since Hyunjae explained what's going on and he merely shrugged when you mouthed an apology. Now his head is bent, gaze fixed on the ground in front of him, lips set into a line.

There's a small crowd in front of the arts building Hyunjae leads you to. At a glance, none of the faces are familiar and you're about to tell him to stop with this prank until the crowd opens up a little. A guy—tall and model-like just as he had described—steps away from the circle as he laughs, throwing his head back. You immediately know who he is.

The sight of him takes you back to the two long days spent working on the tutorial project at the library in your freshman year. You remember the exact shape of his smile, having spent all too many of those forty-eight hours staring at it—at some point he seemed to be glowing under the sun streaming through the windows, although your sleepless brain could've easily hallucinated the image.

Younghoon is busy talking to his friends and doesn't seem to notice the three of you approaching, and briefly, you wonder if it's best to keep it that way. So you decide to stop right outside of Younghoon’s ten-meter radius. Hyunjae shoots you a questioning look, but you can’t possibly explain your hesitation to him when you don’t understand it yourself. Shouldn't this be what you want after all you've complained about your silent love alarm? Yet there's a twisting in your gut making you think all of this is wrong: using the alarm, relying on it to bring you that special someone. Letting it tell you who you should love.

You brush it off, thinking it's just Juyeon's influence. It would be difficult to not absorb his ideas when he's constantly telling you his stance.

But before you can make a move, there's a hand pushing you. It's a light shove yet it catches you off guard and makes you stumble slightly before you regain your balance. And before you can even spit out a string of insults at Hyunjae, who you're sure is the culprit, you notice you're right within the range of Younghoon's love alarm.

Something rings.

The ringing of your alarm catches Younghoon's attention, and his gaze snaps up towards the source of the sound. Then, eyes are on you—his and everyone else's in that group. Juyeon is watching you too but unlike Younghoon's hopeful eyes or his friends' teasing grins, the expression Juyeon wears is entirely unreadable. His face is neutral, yet you can tell there are plenty of thoughts swimming right behind those guarded eyes, which you make a note of to ask him about later.

You slowly pull out your phone and there, on the screen, is a small, pink heart. It seems to pulse where it rests just above the small line of words 'someone likes you!', and its image is so foreign that you have to exit the app and reopen it to check if it's real. And when the app opens again, it's still there. Floating and glowing at the edges.

Unless anyone else in that friend group has a crush on you—which would be even less believable when they're all unfamiliar faces—then it means that Younghoon is the one ringing your love alarm. Hyunjae wasn't lying about this.

There's a smile on your face after seeing the way his friends nudge him teasingly, and then you realize that the hesitation you had a moment ago was for nothing. Surely the love alarm can't be as bad as Juyeon makes it out to be if you're so happy after seeing this tiny heart appear on your screen. Surely it can't be bad when Younghoon shyly smiles at you and gives a little wave.

It can't be bad at all when you can feel your heart race the slightest at what's to come.

The date with Younghoon goes well—even better than expected. You don't know why you agreed to it, for you feared it would be awkward, but the excitement of the love alarm seemed to cast a spell on the two of you. It makes him smile and you laugh, and it makes the lights in the restaurant blur together as they twinkle enchantingly.

However, what pulls you back to reality is the part of you that can't stop thinking about what Hyunjae said. The idea of having feelings for Juyeon is absurd—you know it is. He's your best friend and has been for the majority of your life, and besides, you've seen him in less-than-optimal conditions and hadn't felt a thing. Shirtless? Been there, done that. Pantless? Not something you'd like to admit, but yes, there was that too. Crying his eyes out after watching a documentary about cheetahs? Surely no one who claims to like him would ever want to witness that.

So it's strange to you why this idea would stick around in your head, all throughout your date with Younghoon and all night afterwards, and even through the following days after that. It's as if Hyunjae planted an idea that you couldn't unhear or unlearn no matter what, like opening a pandora's box.

But that's the other thing—as ridiculous as the idea is, you're not completely sure it's something you want to unhear. It intrigues you, for one, and while the thought is strange, it's not entirely repulsive. It rather sparks a sort of curiosity, and you find yourself wondering what everyone else sees in him, what draws them in so much that half of campus is asking for him to download the love alarm. What he would be like as a boyfriend, how it might feel to be in his arms, and not in the purely platonic way that you've known since grade school. If it would be awkward and strange, or something else entirely—though what that something else may be, you don't want to unpack just yet. How it would feel to have his large hands holding you, to have the warmth of his body against yours and his lips—

"Y/N? Are you even listening?"

"What?" You give a sharp shake of your head to snap out of your daze, then turn to Juyeon with a smile. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"You didn't finish telling me about your date with Younghoon."

Shit, your mind is truly in the gutter if your thoughts had just swung from telling about your date to thinking about your best friend in... not such a friendly way. This is all Hyunjae's fault. "Um, right. Well, it's just that you were never interested in," you struggle to find the words, gesturing vaguely in front of you, "any of this, so I thought that maybe you don't really want to hear about it."

You end up telling him the rest of the story anyway but leave out all the important details.

That's only the first time it happens.

With Juyeon clinging onto you during all of your free time—he continues using the excuse that he's worried about you after the rejection, and you, for whatever reason, don't bother to tell him otherwise—these thoughts only continue to fester. They accumulate little by little until every cell in your body is filled with this overwhelming curiosity. And while Hyunjae may eye you with a cocky smirk that says he was totally right about the situation, you're too fixated on solving this mystery to care.

The next time, it's the staring. Mindless staring, you tell yourself, which isn't weird because people are drawn to faces, and maybe Juyeon is simply a face occupying your field of view. But then you're tracing over his features with your gaze, slowly travelling along the shape of his dark eyes, the bridge of his nose, the smooth lines of his jaw all the way down to his chin.

You knew what he looked like, of course. Over ten years of friendship has taught you how to pick out his hands in a group picture of twenty pairs of them making finger hearts in front of a campfire, and how to recognize the back of his head rows ahead of you in class. But it's a lot like looking in the mirror—the more you stare at this familiar face you see every day, the less familiar it looks. Have his lips always curved up slightly at the corners? And has the mole always been just above his right eye? You don't recall ever noticing it.

"What?" he asks and there’s no sign of annoyance in his voice, but rather amusement.

"Hmm?"

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asks a little softer.

Then he shifts and leans across the desk as if purposely letting you stare. Up close, the mole is more apparent, and he has more than just the one above his eye—there's one at the side of his face, and one more on his neck below that.

"What are you doing, Y/N?"

"W-what? Oh, um," you jerk out of your reverie, moving your chair back until there’s some space between the two of you. "I never noticed how many moles you have."

"Oh," his lips automatically turn into a frown, "yeah, I have a few."

He gradually turns away, sitting back down in his seat beside you but the frown persists. For some reason he looks almost disappointed, and you can only assume that it's because there should've been a better revelation than the fact that he has moles. Moles are boring and certainly not worth having moved closer until he was mere centimeters from you.

"I'm just kidding," you nudge him, trying to save the situation. "I was looking for your secret."

Juyeon does turn at the bait, face unreadable. "What secret?"

"You know the one I'm talking about."

For a second, it does seem like he's falling for the trap. There's a shadow of guilt that flickers over his face, and you almost think he really is hiding something. That there has to be some secret he's keeping, even if you aren't trying to dig—you meant for this to be a joke.

But whatever it was disappears as quickly as it arrived. Juyeon raises an eyebrow instead, lips curving into a playful grin. "Well? Did you find it?"

"Yup," you nod, "I found it but don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."

"Ah, really?" The smile is still there, though it turns a little softer, and perhaps more serious. "I really hope it is."

The idea of Juyeon's secret soon gets erased from your mind, but the thoughts of being in love with him continue to stick around. Every drink Juyeon buys you now becomes a reminder of how well he knows you, every study session becomes a note of how much you enjoy his company. His every touch, whether it's slinging an arm around your shoulder or grasping onto your hand, becomes a chance to overthink and second guess yourself.

"I'm going to live in your room from now on," you announce, crashing onto his bed right after your only shared class. "Look at you, getting your own bathroom. Ugh, you would never understand the pains of having to share one with other people."

"I told you we should've rented a place together," Juyeon shrugs. "But if you don't mind being pressed against the wall when you sleep, then sure." As if for emphasis, he throws himself onto the bed beside you. He's correct that there really isn't much space on the small single bed, for half of his body lands on you, nearly crushing you with his long limbs.

"I don't think you know how heavy you are," you shove him lightly and then move out of the way so that he ends up beside you.

It's nice. Closing your eyes takes you back to old sleepovers you had as a kid, where you used to sneak out of your sleeping bag and into Juyeon's bed. The two of you lying side by side, talking about anything and everything until the brink of dawn. It reminds you that it's been a while since you revisited any childhood memories as if they were a photo album that you look through every so often.

"Remember the time we had a fake wedding in like, second grade?" you ask, trying to recall the scenes of what happened, play by play.

"How could I forget? Your shoes were so sparkly, and you had all this lipstick smeared on."

"And there were those silly vows we made up."

He laughs and you join him, and for a second everything is okay. It's fine. You're transported back to a time when there was no second guessing and no questioning, but only the happiness that came with two kids being silly together.

"Who would've thought we'd still be so close after all these years? You know me so well that it's scary sometimes."

"Because I could use that to blackmail you? Oh please, I'm not Hyunjae," he chuckles, and you know you should be finding it funny too but can't bring yourself to laugh.

"No, because... if you ever leave one day, you'd be taking all of that with you." You turn to look at him. "Juyeon, you'd be taking the last fifteen years of my life."

A frown crosses over his features. "Why would you say that? I'm not going anywhere."

"But how can you be sure of that? Anything can happen. Maybe you'd get bored of being my friend."

"I'm sure it would never happen." He turns to face you too, shifting a little closer until you're looking directly in his eyes. "Because if it does, you'd be taking a lot more than just fifteen years of memories from me."

"Yeah?" you whisper. "Like what?"

Juyeon hesitates for a brief moment before he reaches over to caress your cheek as if it answers the question he sees in your eyes. "Everything, Y/N. You'd be taking everything. My heart, soul, everything that I am."

You're frozen as the gravity of his words sinks somewhere deep inside you, because you completely understand. Those fifteen years of friendship are what shaped you, what made you who you are today, and without them, you may as well be a shell of a person. Without Sangyeon, you'd be someone getting over a small crush, and without Hyunjae, you'd be lonely without any close friends in your major.

But without Juyeon, you're not sure you'd be anything at all.

Now, under the weight of his gaze, any chance of a response completely disappears when there are no words that can express just how much he means to you. You can only give in to the fear of losing him and to the intense wave of affection engulfing you, telling you to inch forward and close the tiny distance between you until there's nothing left. Until your lips are meeting his and the tangible connection can reassure you that he's real, that this is real, and that he's here and everything will be fine.

It's tentative at first. You have half the mind to hold back despite the want that suddenly aches through your body, now knowing that it has mistaken itself as curiosity this entire time. Wanting to kiss him, to have his body pressed against yours, to know what it's like watching his eyes darken and hearing him fall apart. To know him in a way that even his best friend doesn't.

A moment later, you're about to pull back but what you don't expect is for him to drag you closer until your limbs are intertwined together, the sheets are tangled under you, and you're feeling the thud of his heart pattering restlessly under your hands.

You break away first.

"Oh, um—sorry," comes tumbling out of your mouth while attempting to put some distance between the two of you. "Sorry, sorry. I just—I wasn't thinking. Well, no, I was. I was thinking about it but didn't realize I was actually doing it, and—"

"Y/N, relax." He brings his hands up from your waist to caress your face. "It's fine. I wouldn't have kissed you back if I didn't want it."

"You—kissed me back?"

Juyeon nods. "Yeah." And in his dark eyes sparkling with the reflection of the lights, you find something that looks a lot like the mirror reflection of yourself.

You don't stop it from happening when he goes to initiate the second kiss, nor when it leads to a third, and you don't want to stop even when it's much more than you need to draw an answer from.

It takes a while to get your senses back, and the weight of what you did doesn't hit you until much later when you're lying in your own bed, staring at the ceiling.

You kissed your best friend. Not just once either—it was enough times that it couldn't have been an accident. Enough times to find out your truth and for him to practically admit his through soft lips ghosting across your skin. Whatever this was, was fully intentional.

The way the two of you completely avoid the topic the next day makes it seem like a mistake, though. If you didn't know better, it's almost like nothing happened when life continues in the same light and casual manner as it always has. As if the entire event appears to be sealed and locked away in the depths of your memories.

But the truth cannot stay hidden for long, and it's not hard to spot the way it seeps between the bars of its cage.

There's the slight crack in Juyeon's voice when he greets you, the initial hesitation in his steps before walking towards you after class. There's the way you try to make things sound casual, though it comes out so overly casual that it clearly sounds forced—he doesn't call you out on it, and for some reason that makes it even worse.

If this tension were with anyone else, you would've easily cracked a joke and laughed it off. But the fact that Juyeon is your best friend and you kissed him isn't something you can resolve so easily. It has you thinking nonstop: what if that kiss has ruined everything? And although he kissed you back, what if he was just caught up in the moment? What if he has second thoughts and now finds it gross? There are so many variables and each one seems to lead to an outcome even worse than the previous.

"Hyunjae," you whisper to get his attention when he doesn't look up. "What are you doing?"

He doesn't appear to hear you, but he might as well be asleep—there's a baseball cap pulled low so that it blocks a good chunk of his face, and he's leaning against the wall beside his seat at the end of the row. You give him a little nudge that seems to do the trick.

"Hmm? Oh, hey, Y/N." He quickly adjusts the hat and sits up a little straighter, and in that one moment, you can see his entire demeanour change. Where he had a blank expression before is now occupied by his signature smirk, appearing instantly like he's intentionally plastering it on. "So, are you going to stare at me for the entire lecture or are you going to spill what's on your mind?"

"Um... my friend has been asking me for love advice," you start, maintaining nonchalance in your voice. "How do you tell if you're in love with someone or not?"

"Your friend? Really, Y/N?" Hyunjae deadpans. "You're asking for a friend?"

You nod and hope for the best despite how it gets you a scoff and the raise of a brow. He doesn't believe you but hey, what's wrong with asking for a friend?

"Right. Well, that's easy," he shrugs. "Just use the love alarm—download it for him or something. It'd be the easiest way to figure it out." At your silence, he chuckles. "What, did you think you'd have to go around kissing people to find out if you're in love with them?"

Oh.

You don't say anything. You can't when your entire body feels like it’s just been dunked in cold water. Yes, that's exactly what it is—the chills of mortification threatening to pull you right into the ground.

"What, you never thought of using that?"

You’re never going to speak again.

Slowly but surely, the confusion on Hyunjae's face melts away and turns into shock, followed by realization, and his eyes become larger than you've ever seen them before. "No way," he gasps loudly. A few heads turn from the nearby rows. "No fucking way. Tell me that's not what happened. There is no way you actually kissed—"

In one movement, you hurriedly cover his mouth before he can get the attention of the rest of the class too.

"Shut up." You only pull your hand when he seems to have calmed down. "I'm never telling you anything ever again."

To your surprise, he doesn't laugh about it or start making fun of you. On his face isn't his signature cocky smirk but rather a softer smile, closer to a look of genuine happiness. "See? I told you there was something there. Well, was it good? Did you get your answer from it?"

"Honestly? I have no idea," you mutter. "Trust me, I wouldn't be here asking you if I knew."

"I think you do know the answer. You're just asking me because you're scared to admit it."

The professor walks in before you can ask Hyunjae what he means, so you're left with that line haunting you for the rest of the lecture. And while you try to pay attention and scribble down everything on the board, there's a weight in your stomach—something you'd been dismissing as being nervous to meet Juyeon later—that seems to grow.

You hate that Hyunjae is right. How have you not thought of using the love alarm? You wouldn't need to go around kissing people if you just downloaded the app on Juyeon's phone to solve this mystery once and for all. The best part is he wouldn't even have to know—if you could get your hands on his phone, then downloading the app, confirming your suspicions, and deleting it could all be done without his knowledge. If only you'd thought of this before the kiss, then things wouldn't have to be so awkward between you and Juyeon now.

With a quiet thanks to Hyunjae at the end of class, you quickly slip out of the room and make your way to Juyeon's dorm.

A study session and dinner are what he promised, but you know it's another attempt to keep things the same and to pretend nothing has changed. Which is fine; you're good at avoiding things. What isn't fine is the fear that you'll ruin what the two of you have. That this kiss has already ruined it, and it's inevitable regardless of how long you keep avoiding the topic.

And so, the studying gets done. Your time together is mostly spent in silence when neither of you have much to say, and you try to keep your eyes glued to your laptop screen so they don't start wandering over to him. That definitely would not do you any favours.

It's hours later, after you finish watching your module and the sun has long set, when an opportunity comes your way.

Juyeon gets up from his chair, stretching his limbs out and nearly hitting you with his long arms. He gives you an apologetic smile before heading out the door to grab your food order and doesn't bother to take anything with him.

Including his phone.

If you were going to get any opportunity to find out the truth, now would be the time.

While you know it might be a slight invasion of privacy, it's not like you're going through his phone. You'd simply be downloading an app—what can be the harm of it? What's so bad about the love alarm anyway? Besides, you have to do this. You can't stand the tension that's been lingering between you ever since that day, and having to pretend that it's not there, that none of it happened, is killing you. You have to solve this mystery once and for all. You have to know.

And now, his phone is right there. It would be so easy to unlock it with the passcode you know and then download it for him.

So that's what you do. You take his phone and keep an eye on the door as the download progresses slowly, tapping your fingers impatiently on the screen as if that would make it go faster. The app opens just as slowly, showing the initial set up bar moving towards completion at the bottom of the home page.

Then you squeeze your eyes shut right as the app opens to the usual circle on the screen—this would be the moment of truth that you've been searching for.

This scene is familiar after running it through your head repeatedly over the past while, and you know what would happen. When you open your eyes, the screen will be blank, empty, with no sign of a heart in sight because you obviously aren't in love with your best friend. All of this will have been just a manifestation of overthinking Hyunjae's suggestion.

Except that's not quite what happens. Before you can finish visualizing the series of events, the abrupt ringing of an alarm interrupts and forces your eyes open. And there, on the screen, isn't the empty circle that you so vividly imagined—there's a small heart, exactly like the one that showed up when Younghoon rang your love alarm. In other words, it's real. It's the truth.

The heart is there, bright and solid and showing no signs that it's a hallucination of your mind or a figment of your imagination. It's real. But it's so miniscule that you find it hard to believe it's capable of changing everything. The presence of that tiny heart means you rang Juyeon's love alarm and you're in love with your best friend and—

Another alarm rings.

It's definitely not Juyeon's. His phone is already in front of you, unlocked and open to the love alarm app. Perhaps it could be a neighbour's alarm, though it's slightly too loud to have been coming through the walls.

Which leaves only one option, really. You carefully take your phone out of your pocket, holding it by the corner like you can't bear touching it, and then set it down in front of you beside Juyeon's phone. Sucking in a deep breath, you give it a tap and unlock it.

And sure enough, it's there. The two screens look identical side by side when the matching heart is on your screen, pulsing within the circle of your ten-meter radius.

But how is that possible? It must be a glitch—perhaps this stemmed from the fact that you downloaded the app for him. Maybe it somehow synced to your own heart because of that, or maybe it's not accurate because Juyeon isn't next to his phone to calibrate it or whatever. You don't know how the app works but surely, this has to be a mistake? Contemplating the idea of being in love with him was only a recent development, and now the love alarm is not only telling you that you are indeed in love with him, but that—

He's in love with you, too.

This is bigger than anything you thought you'd possibly discover.

The door squeaks. "Guess what? They even gave us free garlic bread because of the delay." Another squeak as Juyeon closes it behind him. He sets down the bag of takeout on his desk and rummages through it for a while, facing away from where you sat on the floor by his bed.

There's probably enough time for you to close the apps, delete his, and return his phone to its previous spot, but you can't bring yourself to do it. You're stuck in a world where the hearts in front of you are the only things that move.

"Y/N?" he asks when you don't respond. "What—"

Time stops entirely when you catch the series of expressions flickering across Juyeon's face. There's confusion, clearly a given with the scene in front of him, naturally followed by shock, where his jaw goes slack, and his widened eyes bounce back and forth between the two phones. Though if you thought it'd stop there, it doesn't, for the shock soon morphs into something unreadable. Something you don't want to read because of the implications that seem to be hanging onto this one moment, as if everything would change after this.

No, everything has already changed the moment the alarms rang.

"What did you do?" Juyeon asks, and his voice is flat, cold. A complete change from how it sounded mere seconds ago. "What is this?"

"I—I don't know," you answer honestly. "Juyeon, it's not true, right? They glitched, didn't they? Tell me it's not true; you don't like me like that."

You thought that would be what he wants to hear, that he would agree with you and sweep this under the carpet. But his mouth is set in a hard line.

"Is that why you've been acting so... so strange lately? The things that happened the other day—were you acting like you had feelings for me just because of some app?" He looks like he has more to say but stops.

"No, of course not. I was... um.” You don’t know how to fill in the blanks when you don't understand the situation yourself, so you resort to holding up his phone to show him instead. "Look, I rang your love alarm."

"And is that supposed to make me happy? Just because a heart appeared on my screen, I'm supposed to take that to mean something?"

"Juyeon, it means that I—"

"Y/N, you should know by now that those things don't mean anything to me. An app can't tell you who you love." Juyeon lets out a soft sigh, tugging at his hair as he runs his hands through it. "But it's not just about the app, it's everything you've done and how you've acted since downloading it. If you wanted to know how I feel about you, you could've just said something; you didn't have to snoop around with this stupid app."

The thoughts in your mind instantly disappear because what did he just say? There's no way you're hearing things correctly; heck, you don't think you've heard anything correctly since hearing the ringing of the two alarms. But one look at Juyeon's exasperated expression tells you that it's all true—what the love alarm has revealed and what he's saying. All of it is true.

"I wasn't going to ruin our friendship by telling you, but Y/N, I really thought I wasn't the only one who felt this way. What happened that day—I thought it was a sign that you felt the same." He lets out a scoff. "But to think it was all because you wanted to see if you could ring my love alarm after it didn't work on Sangyeon's."

There is nothing you can say to that because he's not wrong. Realization gradually dawns upon you, and it becomes obvious—in your little bouts of experimentation, you'd completely disregarded how he might be feeling and how he might interpret it. But now that his true feelings are no longer hidden from you, it's clear that he would recognize your actions as an act, as playing with him and toying with his emotions for the sake of seeing whether it’s possible to ring his love alarm.

It means that the kiss the other day would be no more than a performance for the love alarm to deem acceptable, and there is nothing you can say right now to prove otherwise.

"I—I should go," you mumble, leaving his phone on the table before packing your stuff into your bag. You can feel his eyes on you, the weight of his judgment like nothing you've felt before.

Later on, you're watching as the heart on your screen disappears when you step into the elevator, leaving you all alone with your thoughts.

Avoiding him for the next while is all too easy when he’s avoiding you too.

Being unable to ring Sangyeon's love alarm had a simple explanation—you never liked him as much as you thought you did, and the lack of pain from your rejection is certainly proof of that. But seeing the matching hearts on both your love alarm and Juyeon's isn't something so easily explained. There is no way that he could have feelings for you, just as you couldn't possibly have feelings for him.

You want to call it a glitch or an issue with the syncing of the app since technology isn't perfect, and maybe mistakes really are possible. But even in the depths of your denial, you can't deny what you heard from Juyeon himself, especially when it all adds up. Was this the reason he has never been in a relationship or ever mentioned being remotely interested in anyone? Was this why he's tried to avoid the people wanting to ask him out and why he claims to not need anyone but you?

Even more so, you can no longer deny the truths that sit deep in your heart, locked away. Perhaps what Hyunjae said was right: it's not that you don't know the answer, it's that you're afraid of it.

The following week comes around and there is dread weighing down your steps. You're sure Hyunjae would ask about what happened, but you can’t conjure up a story that doesn't make you sound like a villain—you downloaded the app onto Juyeon's phone, and in doing so, discovered more than you could handle. Oh and Juyeon caught you in the act and basically said you ruined everything. If Juyeon has told him anything already, you're sure he'd be Team Juyeon.

Even you would be Team Juyeon at this point.

Strangely enough, the class is quiet and Hyunjae doesn't look up when you walk in. You sit just a couple of rows in front of him, but he doesn't climb over the seats to get to you, nor does he try to get your attention. It automatically makes your heart sink a little, seeing that your prediction was right—Juyeon must've told him about what happened, and now maybe he's avoiding you too because he's Team Juyeon.

You stop by his row right after class ends. "Hyunjae, did Juyeon tell—"

"Hey, Y/N," he only meets your eyes briefly before tugging down his beanie and fiddling with the hood resting over that. "Sorry, I have to run. I'll catch up with you tomorrow, yeah?"

He's walking around you before you could get another word in, taking the steps two at a time and leaving the lecture hall without another glance back.

It happens the next few times as well. Hyunjae remains quiet and doesn't bother talking to you as if he can't bear looking at you. There is definitely no way you can get information about your best friend out of him like that, though you think there might be more to the story than he’s letting on. Fatigue is written on his face and on his body where he slouches in his seat, seemingly making himself as small as possible, and one day, he doesn't show up in class at all.

While the behaviour is strange for him, those thoughts are easily forgotten when your mind is still replaying the Juyeon scene as if it hadn't already spent weeks doing that. You replay the kiss, this time no longer focusing on how his lips felt between yours but rather everything he said right before that. How losing you meant losing everything, how this friendship means much more than solely fifteen years of shared memories.

It's ironic how this very thing is happening now. So much for promising to never leave.

You'd like to think that such a friendship would be able to withstand a misunderstanding, but this is something bigger than your friendship altogether. These feelings for each other, whether requited or not, are what's making your friendship teeter off the edge of a cliff, where one wrong step could really cause everything to come crashing down.

If there's one thing Juyeon was right about though, it's that you really were trying to use the love alarm to tell you who you have feelings for. Up until this point, everything you'd done was all based on an outside factor, whether that was letting Hyunjae plant the idea in your mind or using the love alarm to tell you the truth. But being on the brink of losing your best friend has allowed you to see that although the love alarm does reveal the truth, it is only able to scratch the surface of it. It may tell you who you like, but it can't tell you how well you know them, how many years of memories you've made with them, or why your heart feels like it’s being ripped apart without them. It's up to you to find your own truth.

"That’s disgusting," a voice says, immediately grabbing your attention. "You thought it was a good idea to ring my love alarm? Is that what you really thought?"

They're tucked away in the corner of the science building, a little off to the right of the path that would take you back to your dorm. A slender guy holds an object in his hand—perhaps a phone, judging by the way it glints in the sun—and a slightly taller guy is against the wall in front of him.

"I can't believe you had the audacity to do that. And to try to confess with it? It's almost funny how you think that this would change things. Who do you think you are?"

The guy being cornered against the wall is clearly taller and broader. You have no doubt that he'd be capable of overpowering his assailant, and yet, he has no notion of doing so. Instead, he cowers, slouching and dropping his head to protect himself as he stays still and takes whatever the smaller man has to give. Punch after punch.

But it's the smaller man's comments that especially surprise you. You never thought that the love alarm could do any harm, and from your personal experience, it hasn't done any. That's why you never understood why Juyeon was so against it. Yet hearing the venom in this man's voice at the thought of the taller man ringing his alarm, seeing the hatred in the way his fists connect with the taller man's body, it soon becomes apparent just what the love alarm has caused.

Suddenly, the idea of the love alarm being harmful doesn't seem so farfetched anymore. Juyeon's mindset doesn't seem so unbelievable anymore.

"Do I need to tell you this again? Stay away from me. You're nothing to me." A loud laugh seems to echo from the walls of the building. "I'd rather have the world end than be liked by you."

And then you freeze because the person now sporting a bleeding lip and quickly swelling eye is no other than Lee Hyunjae.

There is only a brief second of hesitation before you're running towards them. Pure adrenaline courses through your veins and erases any trace of fear for your own safety, as well as any structure of a plan. They're all thrown to the wind as you step in and grab the arm of the aggressor, holding him back as much as you could so Hyunjae wouldn't have to take another hit.

"What the fuck," he mutters, glancing back at you with furrowed brows and a tightened jaw. "Who the fuck are you? What do you think you're doing?"

"What are you doing? Beating someone up just for ringing your love alarm? What, like you're so important?" On a complete whim, you let go of the guy's arm but grab the phone out of his other hand instead. A blank circle remains on the screen, no longer holding the hope and potential that you'd looked forward to, but rather, it mocks. It mocks Hyunjae now and it mocked you before, and it blatantly states that no one loves you. That maybe it'll always remain blank, that a heart will never show up, and that there has to be something wrong with you because no one loves you—and what worth would you have if you're not to be loved romantically by others?

All the more reason to get rid of it. You exit the app, then tap the screen impatiently until it's deleted entirely.

"There," you shove the phone in front of the aggressor's face, showing him what you've done. He frowns at you but glances down at his own phone to check, and naturally, the heart that was once on his screen is now gone. "Happy now? He's not going to ring your love alarm anymore so fuck off and mind your own business."

With one last glare at you, he only scoffs before walking off, leaving you alone to comfort your friend.

"Hyunjae, what—you never mentioned anything about this. I—I had no idea this was happening. Why didn't you say anything? How long has this been going on?"

"It's fine," Hyunjae mutters, not meeting your eyes. Pain flashes across his face when he goes to sit against the wall. "I wasn't going to bother you with this."

"No, it’s not a bother," you say as you sit down next to him, yet the bitter taste of guilt rests right at the back of your tongue.

You know exactly why he hasn't told you, and it's that you probably wouldn't have listened.

During your shared lectures, you'd thought that he was simply avoiding you because he found out about your situation with Juyeon. You thought his odd behaviour was a reaction to you, that this entire thing was about you because he always seemed to be all up in your business, never letting you notice he didn't share anything about himself. He's never shared his problems with you, nor his feelings or thoughts, and to you, he was just someone to keep you entertained throughout your time in the major you share with him. It makes you sick to think about it now, but the truth is that you never truly saw him as his own person.

Just how many people have you upset without realizing it? You have to make things right somehow, and it has to start here and now.

"Hyunjae... look, I know I haven't been a great friend—well, okay, I know I've been pretty shitty to you this whole time, and I'm really sorry for that. But I do care. You don't deserve this, any of this."

"Just—forget about it, Y/N. It's fine. It's..." he pauses, sucking in a breath, "embarrassing."

"Hey, no, don't say that. It's not embarrassing to not be loved back. Painful, yes, but not something to be ashamed of. You weren't put on this world just to become someone else's object of desire, okay?"

"Yeah?" He finally looks up at you, albeit warily. "Then why did you delete my love alarm?"

You heave a sigh. "Hyunjae, if there's anything I learned this past while, it's that the love alarm doesn't mean anything. We love someone not because we have an app to tell us we love them; we simply do. We learn everything about them, we know their favourite bubble tea order, we know where they might go when they're sad or what their comfort movies are."

He says nothing but doesn't stop you when you go to wipe away the blood on his lips with a tissue, watching you carefully like he's thinking over what you said.

"So whether you have the love alarm or not, it doesn't change anything about who you love or the relationships you put effort into. It can be fun to have, but we shouldn't use it to influence our actions. Just because you rang someone's alarm doesn't mean you're in love with them because anyone can ring a love alarm. But not everyone will take the time or make the effort to get to know somebody and grow to love them for who they are."

The words that tumble out of your mouth start to slowly paint a picture. You can see the way Juyeon would reluctantly reject those who asked him out, how the love alarm would only bombard him with unsolicited confessions through endless ringing. It shows you that while it's nice having people like the idea of you, it's meaningless compared to the love that stems from fully knowing and understanding someone.

"Yeah," Hyunjae nods, "you're right. I never thought of it like that before."

"So please, don't use the love alarm anymore. It doesn't matter, Hyunjae. It's not worth it and I don't want you getting hurt."

A small smile creeps onto his lips before faltering as he winces at the pain. "Okay. But only if you promise to buy me bubble tea for the rest of the term."

And there, the Hyunjae that you're used to appears again. He makes a move to stand so you reach out a hand to help him up, and then place his arm over your shoulders so he can lean against you for support.

"Fine, whatever you want," you roll your eyes. "Let's get you home, yeah?"

"Thanks, Y/N."

"Wait, there's just one thing I have to do." Pulling out your phone, you go to where the love alarm app is and delete it without a second glance. This wouldn't fix everything, but it would definitely be the first step to getting there. "Okay, let's go."

Despite having to support the weight of his body as the two of you walk to his place, you feel a lot lighter than you’ve felt in days.

Hyunjae's apartment is on the opposite side of campus from where you and Juyeon live, though not too far away. It's spacious and personalized and looks more like a home than your little dorm room. Everything from the posters he has hanging on the walls to the rug on the floor give you more of a glimpse into his personality than he's ever revealed to you since meeting in first year.

"Thank goodness he's not back," Hyunjae mutters, kicking off his shoes.

"You have a roommate?"

"Younghoon."

"Wait, you live with Younghoon?" You nearly drop him on the spot. "Hey—why did you even need to ask me about the date then? I bet he told you all about it."

A teasing smile appears. "He might've."

You scoff, shaking off his comment before setting him down on the couch. Then it becomes a challenge of rummaging through his cabinets to find anything you could use on his wounds. A bag of frozen peas for his bruises, some wipes and bandages for where skin broke, and then you're sitting down beside him to patch him up.

"The thing you said earlier..." Hyunjae starts, the hesitation apparent in his voice.

"Yeah? What about it?"

"You asked me before about how to tell if you're in love with someone." His eyes briefly meet yours before dropping to the bandage in your hands. "Well, you don't need a love alarm or anyone else to tell you that."

"What do you mean?"

"Y/N," Hyunjae suddenly puts his hands on your arms, stopping you, then shakes you a little like he's revealing a big secret. "You really love him. I have never heard you talk about anyone like that before."

"Who said it was about Juyeon?" you mutter, unable to come up with a better response when you can't possibly refute it. "Okay, I might know his bubble tea order and—and his favourite study spot at the library, or that he has a mole on his palm, but that doesn't mean I'm in love with him."

Silence. He blinks at you but otherwise continues to stare wordlessly.

You narrow your eyes at him. "What?"

"Who said anything about Juyeon?" Hyunjae's signature smirk is back and in full swing. "I said you love him. Didn't drop any names there, Y/N."

"You literally suck. I hate you—" Unfortunately, a knock at the door interrupts the rest of your string of insults. "Um, should I go get the door?"

"Oh, I think it might be the package I'm expecting."

What's at the door is in fact not the package Hyunjae was expecting. Juyeon stands there, mirroring your surprised expression.

He recovers from the shock first with a cough. "Um, I came to see if Hyunjae is okay. If it's not a good time, I... I can stop by another time."

Without another word, Juyeon turns to leave. You automatically close the door and sit back down where you were a moment ago, still trapped in your daze. It's strange seeing him in a different context from the only one you've known, but the strangest part is how your heart does many things—for one, it speeds up in a way that isn't just from your shock of seeing him.

"Juyeon knows where you live? I didn't know you guys were that close."

"He's been here a few times," Hyunjae shrugs but stops you when you go to pick up another bandage. "You should go after him. Thank you for all this, but I can do the rest myself, Y/N. Really."

"No, I can't just leave you like this. I don't want you to be alone."

He lets out a soft sigh and lifts your jaw a little until you're looking right at him. "I'll text Younghoon, okay? He's probably already on his way back from class. Now go after him; I think you guys have some things to discuss."

So with one last worried look at Hyunjae, who's waving you off insistently, you go after Juyeon.

He's gone by the time you make it out of the building. Just how fast would he have been walking to completely disappear even though you took the stairs two at a time to try to beat the elevator?

At this point, you could head back to Hyunjae's, however, spotting Younghoon approaching with a wave soon squashes the thought. He says a quick hello and leaves it at that, and you know better than to be there to witness him freak out when he learns what happened to his roommate.

Your other option would be to stop by Juyeon's place, but a gut feeling tells you that's not where he would be.

The gut feeling turns out to be right when you see him on the steps of your dorm. He's on his phone, completely unaware of your presence as you approach, and that nearly makes you waver. While it's no longer a matter of being unsure about how you feel or about what you want, you do fear what might happen from this point onwards—you can't assume that he'll be willing to forgive you just because the two of you have been friends for so long.

"Juyeon?"

"Oh, you're back already?" He looks up from his phone and for once you can't read him—is he feeling awkward to have run into you while the two of you aren't on good terms right now? Or perhaps he's still upset at you for what happened with the love alarm?

Despite already knowing the answer, you still ask, "Were you waiting for me?"

He responds with a nod, and then you beckon him to follow you as you make your way to your room.

If you thought the tension would dissipate once you get there, you're completely wrong. In fact, it seems to only grow as the two of you are confined in your tiny room, and it doesn't help that you have to guide him to take a seat after he awkwardly lingers by the door.

"Yeah, um," you rack your mind for an explanation as you settle in the chair beside where he's perched at the edge of your bed, "Hyunjae was in trouble because someone had a problem with him ringing their love alarm. I was just trying to help him deal with his injuries."

Juyeon nods. "Yeah, I saw it happen."

"What?"

"I was passing by and was about to step in, but you got there and handled the situation. It was really brave of you, Y/N. Well, reckless but brave." He pauses for a while as his eyes flicker from yours to the floor a few times, as if uncertain about what he should say next. The tension in the air is so tangible that you're just about suffocating from it when he finally opens his mouth again. "And of course I wanted to check up on Hyunjae afterwards but... I actually came here first. To see if you were okay."

"Oh." Then you realize what he said and immediately feel the blood rush to your face. "Wait. If you were walking by, how much of that did you hear? The things I said to him."

"That's what you're worried about?" Juyeon scoffs, rolling his eyes even as an amused smile appears on his lips. "Y/N, does it matter whether I heard it or not?"

"I just—want to know if you know."

He frowns. "If I know what?"

"How I feel about you... being right this entire time," you say, diverting the subject away. "Because you were right about this whole love alarm thing. We shouldn't be using it to tell us who we like or don't like, and it's kind of stupid thinking that it can tell us something as important as our own feelings for the people around us. I just hate that I didn't realize it sooner."

Juyeon simply nods but doesn't make a move to ask you anything else. You can sense the hesitance in his demeanour again, from the way he avoids meeting your eyes to the way he fiddles with the cat plushie on your bed. "I'm sorry," he finally says.

"For what? I'm the one who installed the love alarm on your phone and messed everything up."

"For assuming the reasons for why you did what you did." Juyeon looks at you. "I was just freaking out over what you found because I thought it would ruin everything. But you don't have to acknowledge what I said—nothing has to change, Y/N. You can just pretend that I never said anything because it's not important compared to what we already have. I don't want it to ruin things between us."

"But what if I want to ruin things?"

Fear flashes through his eyes. "W-what?"

"That day I downloaded the love alarm on your phone—you have to know that I wasn't intentionally trying to ring your alarm or anything like that." You shake your head. "I would never hurt you like that, Ju. I was just... curious. I liked the things we did but I didn't know what that meant, and I wanted to use the love alarm to answer that for me. But it was pointless because I didn't need it to tell me something I already knew."

Unlike how you thought he might react, Juyeon closes his eyes as if bracing himself for a rejection. "And what is that?"

You take a deep breath, facing the fact that there is no way around an awkward confession this time, but you would rather take this any day than to fall into the trap of the love alarm again. This is your chance to make things right.

"I don't think you want to be a friend to me, just like how I don't want to be a friend to you. Juyeon, you said I'd be taking everything if I leave but I do want to take it all. I want to keep it so that you'd always be with me." You pause, observing the way he screws up his brows in confusion. "Okay, never mind. The TL;DR is that I do want you. As a friend, a best friend, but as more than that too."

Silence greets you, only filled with the hard hammering of your heart as you await a response that he doesn't give. You have to resist the urge to run. Who thought love alarms were a bad idea again?

"Only if you want that too, of course," you swallow nervously. "Because if not, forget I ever said anything, and we can just go back to being—"

Juyeon's eyes fly open. "I do want that. Y/N, you know me better than I know myself, but how did you not notice that this is all I've ever wanted?"

"Shut up. I'm dumb, okay? You should've just told me."

"I'm telling you now, Y/N. I've loved you for a long time," he pauses as he lets out a breath in relief and slouches, the tension easing out from his body. "But don't ask me how long because that's embarrassing."

You don't ask that, but you get the feeling that looking through old photo albums may reveal the answer. It'll be a thought to revisit another time, and you file it away in your head.

"There is one thing that I'm curious about though," Juyeon says deliberately, the playful smile on his lips telling you he's up to no good. "Where do I go when I'm sad?"

"Wait, you... you actually heard everything I said to Hyunjae? I can't believe you—Lee Juyeon, I hate you."

The smile only widens. "So where is this place you speak of? I didn't know I had one."

"It's here, dummy." You let out a long sigh, unable to help the way your gaze softens at his smile. "Whenever you're sad you always hide under my covers and end up hugging that cat plushie you won for me back in seventh grade, and—"

A bunch of things happen all at once. Juyeon shoots you a glare before setting the cat plushie in question back onto your bed, then he pulls you until you're seated right beside him. His hand gently cups your face as he leans in the slightest, though it isn't enough for anything to happen other than for you to immediately shut up. Which, judging by the twinkle in his eyes, is just what he intended.

He presses a soft kiss to your forehead and then one to your cheek, but beneath these lighthearted gestures you can see a fondness in his eyes, so prominent that you must've been blind to not have seen it before. How could you have missed it? You'd spent so much time staring at your love alarm in the hopes it'd find you someone who looks at you exactly like this, but you never bothered looking up to see that they were right here all along.

And when you glance down at your hand in his, fingers intertwined together, it becomes obvious that your lives and your fates are woven in a way that has you coming back to each other at the end of the day. You might not know where the future takes you, but you do know that no matter where it goes or what it holds, the two of you will always be right beside each other.

Two years later, the world still rings at every corner. You heard it at graduation, and now you continue to hear it on the streets, followed by laughter and shocked gasps, and at your new office, and in commercials between YouTube videos. The world rings and yet yours has never been more silent.

Soft piano music is playing in the background of the cafe when you arrive. There’s sunlight streaming through the large windows, and you immediately spot Hyunjae by the way it seems to bounce off his dyed hair. What surprises you is that he's not alone—there's a taller man sitting beside him, laughing as he leans back in his seat, hand over his mouth. Though he's familiar, it isn't until you're at their table that you recall who he is.

"Younghoon?"

"Oh hey, Y/N." The laugh turns into a warm smile. "It's good to see you again. I hope you don't mind—Hyunjae insisted that I join."

"Yeah, of course, it's good to see you too. Juyeon will be here soon; he's just running a little late, and..." You lose your train of thought when you notice their joined hands—Hyunjae's slender fingers threaded through Younghoon's, the metal of matching rings sparkling brightly in the sun. "Wait, hold up. You said you were dating someone for the past year, but Younghoon is who you meant?

Hyunjae nods shyly, and you can see the beginnings of a blush dusting his cheeks. "Like you said, the love alarm never meant anything. Some things you have to figure out on your own, and well, you were right about all of it."

He doesn't need to explain further for you to know exactly what he's referring to. Years ago, the two of you had thought that having Younghoon ring your alarm would mean everything, and that a simple heart popping up on your screen could change the trajectory of your lives. It's a silly thought now; seeing the affection written all over Hyunjae's face as Younghoon nudges him is enough for you to know that things have turned out for the best.

The love alarm may have been fun for a while, but the silence around you now isn't a bad thing. It has you looking at the smiles of your friends instead of glancing down to check your alarm, and it has you sure of yourself, confident despite the many people that come and go and step into the ten-meter range that you were once insecure about. It has you seeing the sparkle in Juyeon's eyes as he walks through the door of the cafe, the gentle curve of his lips, and the way his face lights up the moment he spots you.

The truth has always been there—you just never looked for it.

When Juyeon takes the final step and crosses into your range this time, the silence is something you've never been happier to hear.

---