#wonwoo x reader fluff
genre: flomf + a smudge of angst
pairing: jeon wonwoo x reader
series:Song Fic Series! - Run to You
word count: 3.8k
summary: childhood friends should never be separated
author’s notes: are posted separately!! take a look if you’re feeling bored LOL
Jeon Wonwoo watched the scenery outside of the train window as the machine made its way to Changwon. The sun had set a good hour ago, and he was completely aware that his actions were stupid and insanely spontaneous. Wonwoo unconsciously clenches the box of letters in his cold hands, his thoughts consisted of you, his leg jumping anxiously as he waited for the train to reach its destination.
You and Wonwoo lived in nearby neighborhoods since primary school in Changwon, his hometown. The two of you got along as quiet children; you understood each other. Your worlds were filled with wonder and imagination. Your precious innocence and childhood memories revolved around each other. The two of you didn’t see a problem with spending so much time together; even as the two of you entered high school, you found time for each other despite having different schedules. The two of you always tried your hardest to find time to walk home together. It didn’t matter that the other kids would poke and prod at you to start dating or tease you for spending so much time together; you were a pair and were precious to each other.
As the end of senior year of high school neared, thoughts on colleges and universities to apply were common. Wonwoo wanted to get out of the town and see the city, he craved the excitement that his hometown lacked, but you wanted to stay in Changwon because of its familiarity and the fear of becoming homesick. And when Wonwoo finally broke the news that he had been accepted to Seoul National University, you didn’t know how to react.
Your best friend made it to a great school, and you should be happy for him, but it was your best friend who would be separated from you after 18 years of staying side by side.
The two of you sat in silence after Wonwoo spoke, the slight squeaking of the rusting swing set the two of you sat on being the only audible noise. The swing set resided in a park you and Wonwoo frequented since you were young, it being the halfway point between your neighborhoods. Going here would be your sacred spot for years in your friendship; the most complicated talks would take place here, this being one of them. As your mind filled with clashing thoughts, some of your hidden feelings for the boy were pushing you to beg him to stay. Wonwoo waited for you to process the information he suddenly pushed onto you. He shifted his eyes to you to see how you were coping; he knew it was going to be hard for the both of you to be so far from each other; Seoul being on the other side of South Korea, from Changwon. It scared him to be away from his family, but he wanted to seize the moment, but he wanted to know if you would be alright with his absence.
Wonwoo silently intertwined his cold fingers with yours, a habit that the two of you unconsciously did when in need of comfort; or whenever his hands lacked warmth. Your hands were still so small and warm in his, something that he found comical since you were kids. But now, as growing young adults, the both of you knew that fate was bound to tear the two of you apart sooner or later. With lacklustre enthusiasm, you looked at Wonwoo with glassy eyes and a painful smile, giving a soft squeeze to give him more warmth.
“I’m happy for you.”
Jeon Wonwoo is no idiot. He knew that his departure to Seoul would significantly affect the both of you. The day of his departure finally arrived. He said goodbyes to family, and the two of you found yourself sitting side by side at the train platform, waiting for his train. The wait was silent for the most part, you had cried to yourself the night leading up to this day, and you were not expecting to fight your tears again today as you sat with him for the last time in a while. Without looking at him, you quietly reached for his hand and warmed it in yours. Wonwoo allowed your actions and silently watched you, a growing pit of sadness built inside him as your grip on his hand tightened with the whistle of the approaching train. It was time for him to leave.
The two of you stood up and looked at each other one last time. Your tears were flowing out now, causing Wonwoo to chuckle at you (even as you softly hit his chest) and wiped them away. You pulled him into a tight hug, the two of you pouring out your feelings into it, your tears staining his jacket and your hands clutching the fabric. The two of you gripped onto each other for the last time until the train’s doors opened. His hands slid down to your hand one last time as the two of you gave one last squeeze. And as his fingers slipped away from your warmth, he felt his heart clench at the sight of you standing alone on the platform crying. With a heavy heart and an unfamiliar feeling in his heart, Wonwoo boarded the train to Seoul with his luggage in hand.
~
It had only been a few days since Wonwoo left his hometown when he received a letter from you. You had mailed it in a decorated envelope that came in a hefty pack that you had bought from the stationary store near your school. Wonwoo recognized the envelope design and chuckled to himself, remembering how excited you got when he bought it for you. However, when he called you about the letter, you refused to speak about it and told him if he wanted to say anything, he would have to write back.
In your letter, you spoke about how life was doing in your hometown and about how it felt different without him there. You talked about his family and how you were preparing for the upcoming year at Changwon National University. You stated your purpose of the letter, explaining that although it is cliché, you claimed a warmth that one could feel when receiving a handwritten letter from someone close to you. Wonwoo let out a chuckle, humored to see your familiar behavior even when written out.
Wonwoo wrote back to you the same day and happily mailed it at the post office near his dorm. And without knowing it, he would excitedly wait for your next letter to arrive and would internally scream whenever a decorated envelope would sit in his mailbox. As the year progressed, the pile of letters from you grew. Wonwoo kept them in a small box on his desk and would read them over whenever he missed you or home. Polaroids from back home that you sent to him in each letter were taped onto his wall; a certain polaroid of you smiling with a lollipop stuck in your hair was hidden in his phone case. He found comfort in having your photo back there; he had a piece of you with him all the time, plus it was his favorite out of all the pictures of you.
His Uni friends were aware of your presence and how important you were to him. Wonwoo’s roommate, Seungcheol, would tease him often about you because the speckled man would close himself from the world until he finished the letter. Seungcheol didn’t mind, though; he found it cute how whipped Wonwoo was for the girl in the letters. Plus, you had sent Wonwoo’s roommate a lollipop in compensation for having to deal with him, so Seungcheol thought nicely of you. The rest of the 11 men Wonwoo befriended would poke and prod him about “his girl back home.” Which he would deny despite his quickening heart rate when speaking to you on the phone or through letters.
As school got increasingly difficult and the work began to pile up for the both of you, the letters stopped for a while after a mutual understanding that your lives were getting busy. Wonwoo had sent the last letter, which meant that he had to wait for you to send a response to continue the chain. Throughout the break, Wonwoo would continue to deny any claim that prompted him to miss the letters from you. He always had his phone to contact you whenever he wanted to. Despite him waving off his friends’ comments, there was a large part of him that longed to see another one of your decorated envelopes sitting inside his mailbox. There was something heartwarming about receiving letters because it took time to make and deliver. Letters took time out of your day, and he could tell that you wrote in detail, fearful of missing a detail that would have to wait for the following letter.
Now, Jeon Wonwoo is not an idiot. He always took into mind what his friends thought about him and would reflect on his day to find ways to improve himself. One particular day was filled with his friends’ teasing had brought Wonwoo to question if he held secret feelings for you that he was unaware about. His thoughts were brought back to when the two of you were still children, racing each other to school or just simply playing in the park that the two of you would frequently return to even as you grew older. Wonwoo even remembered attending the annual cherry blossom festival with you multiple times, your families attending every so often. However, it was you who would push him to attend. One particular festival, however, he remembered holding your hand while walking under the falling cherry blossoms. As if he were put into a trance, he watched you in awe as you pulled him through the hallway of falling petals. Wonwoo furiously shook his head in embarrassment while laying down in his bed that night.
He only saw you as some childhood friend… right?
Wonwoo shivered and tightly wrapped himself in his blanket; his hands were freezing. He tossed around on his bed to rid his thoughts of you for the rest of the night. Unbeknownst to him, his longing thoughts of you would continue on for the rest of the week. He would space out so often that his friends would call him out for it, noticing an unusual difference in school performance and behavior. One of his friends, Minghao, even noticed that he would be holding his phone to rub the back of his case, to which he texted Wonwoo with concern afterwards. Wonwoo couldn’t understand why he was acting like this either. Everything that he looked at reminded him of you; even his side of the dorm had remnants of you. From the stickers you secretly super-glued onto his laptop to the blanket you gave him that was sitting on his bed. He was sick of it.
“Maybe I’m just homesick,” he would try telling himself.
It wasn’t until he saw a particular decorated envelope sitting in his mailbox that he felt his heart rate rise at a spectacular rate as he giddily sped into the dorm room. Seungcheol was sleeping on his bed when he entered, his light snores filling up the silence in the room.
Wonwoo dropped the rest of the mail on the coffee table and jumped onto his bed, ripping open the envelope to see what you had to offer this time. To his surprise, there were no polaroids but instead, a small cherry blossom petal encased in tape. Confused, Wonwoo took out the letter to read why you had changed the usual trinket.
Your letter this time described your most precious memories together, from just sitting on the swings of your childhood park near your houses and eating whatever snack you had to chew on, to the fond memories that the two of you had shared from the cherry blossom festivals that you would drag Wonwoo to. In the letter, you told him that the sealed flower petal was from one of the festivals that the two of you had attended. It went on to apologize for the long wait for the letter and that it wouldn’t happen again. There was a small space of hesitation in the letter. The letter abruptly closed after the apology and written in a small font was an instruction to call you before reading the letter.
There was something important that you wanted to discuss with him, you wrote.
Wonwoo felt nervous; he gently closed the letter and grabbed his phone. He glanced at his snoring roommate before getting up and leaving the dorm room, the taped flower petal in his hand. Wonwoo made his way up to the rooftop, a quieter place to have a phone call with you and he wouldn’t disturb Seungcheol, before clicking on your contact, every ring making his stomach sink deeper.
“Hello?”
Wonwoo unconsciously smiled before greeting you back; he had forgotten how pleasant your voice sounded. The two of you caught up for a while before asking why he had called. Wonwoo hesitated and began to fiddle with the petal in his pocket. He proceeded to tell you that he received your most recent letter and your direction to call him. Wonwoo let out a small laugh while telling you how unique the taped petal was, bringing it out of his pocket to observe it. There was a moment of silence on your end, the feeling of dread returning to Wonwoo’s stomach. You made an unintelligible noise before groaning out that there was something important that you needed to tell him. Wonwoo’s grip on the petal tightened.
“I’ve loved you for a long time now.”
~
Seungcheol could tell something was wrong. When he got ready to leave the dorm to his job, Wonwoo quietly slinked into their shared unit and laid face flat on his bed. Seungcheol called out to him and asked if he was okay only to receive a muffled groan in response. He didn’t want to leave his roommate like this, but his boss would kill him if he were late again. With a heavy sigh, Seungcheol left the dorm, shouting to Wonwoo to eat something before he gets home.
As soon as the door closed, Wonwoo turned his head to get air and pulled out the petal from his pocket. Your words were still ringing in his ear and the way you abruptly hung up after telling him that the feelings didn’t have to be mutual. His thoughts were in turmoil, did he like you that way?
Wonwoo’s hands felt cold again, he pulled his sleeves over them.
For the next few days Wonwoo was even more out of his normal self and his friends were completely aware of it. They were weary on approaching him about it though, Wonwoo wasn’t the type to speak about his feelings to them. They could tell that he would be thinking about it too, his cheeks would turn the slightest bit of pink whenever he would space out, a mumbled “she likes me” escaping him once. He couldn’t not think about you, you were everywhere to him. It was similar to when he missed your letters but enhanced because of your confession. Wonwoo would space out more often than usual, enough for the boys to actually become annoyed at him. When his studies were being affected by this though, Seungcheol decided to step in and talk to him once and for all.
It had been five days since your call and there was a small yet growing pile of missing assignments from Wonwoo’s classes. Seungcheol opened the door to the dorm and found Wonwoo quickly shoving the box of letters behind him. Seungcheol raised his eyebrows at Wonwoo and shifted his eyes to look at the taped petal on his roommate’s bed, which Wonwoo immediately covered with his hand. Seungcheol let out a tired sigh and took a seat on his own bed across Wonwoo’s, giving him a serious look.
“You and I both know that you like her,” he started, Wonwoo couldn’t look at his older roommate. “I don’t know when you’re going to accept it but we both know that this,” Seungcheol motioned towards the scattered papers on Wonwoo’s desk, “won’t end unless you finally make up your mind.”
Seungcheol stood up from his bed, “Don’t think I don’t see you rereading her letters or that I didn’t see you hide her photo behind your phone,” Wonwoo froze, “you’ve got it bad man, everyone sees it except you.” Seungcheol then left the dorm, mentioning something about joining him and Jeonghan once he gets himself together.
Wonwoo continued to think about his feelings for you through the night, his roommate’s smack of reality helped him concentrate a bit better. It was Sunday, and Wonwoo was trying to complete his missing assignments from before. Wonwoo groaned in frustration and slammed his pencil down onto the unfinished calculus homework. He shifted his eyes to his phone, his heart beating a bit faster when the thought of him calling you crossed his mind. Wonwoo peeled his phone case off and cradled the small polaroid of you in his hand, his thumb rubbing over your face in the photograph and smiling as he saw the stuck lollipop in your hair. Wonwoo then reached for taped petal sitting on his bare phone; he had been hiding it there with your photograph to keep it safe. Wonwoo felt his face warm, your words ringing in his ear once more as his heart raced.
He did love you after all.
Something inside Wonwoo snapped. He got up quickly and took a look at the window, the sun was about to set. Wonwoo hurriedly shoved your photo and the petal into his pocket, grabbed his phone and wallet, and hastily toppled his books standing on top of your box of letters. With that in hand, he ran to the train station, purchased a ticket, and hopped on a train going straight to Changwon station.
Jeon Wonwoo watched the scenery outside of the train window as the machine made its way to Changwon. The sun had set a good hour ago, the lampposts outside illuminating the dark land beyond. Wonwoo unconsciously clenches the box of letters in his cold hands, his thoughts consisted of you, his leg jumping anxiously as he waited for the train to reach its destination. It was a two-hour trip by bullet train, he didn’t care that he spent so much money on a ticket, Wonwoo needed to see you.
He sent a quick text to Seungcheol that he was alive and was going somewhere for the night and turned off his ringer, he knew he was going to receive a horrible scolding for this once he got back but he focused more on the task in hand. Wonwoo clenched his cold fingers to get the warmth that he lacked, and carefully took out your photo and the petal he had carelessly shoved inside his pocket. The laminated petal was doing well, and your photo was crumpled now from his running, his fingers smoothing out the creases on the photograph before rubbing his thumb on your printed face.
The train’s chime woke Wonwoo up, the doors of the train slowly opening. Wonwoo shook himself awake and grabbed his belongings before making his way out. He was immediately hit with nostalgia as soon as he stepped out of the train.
The station looked the same as it always did. Wonwoo’s heart clenching at the sight of the seats the two of you sat on the day of his departure. He looked at his phone to check the time only to be met with a black screen; his phone had died.
As panic started to settle inside Wonwoo, he had a running start out of the station to your house, the street lampposts lighting his way through the familiar streets from your childhood. Memories floated around him, each and every spot in this town had a memory of you in it. From the races to school in the mornings, to buying you those envelopes you loved at the stationary store near your houses, and eating snacks at the park late at night, Wonwoo found himself standing in front of your house holding your box of letters in his arm.
Your room’s light was on and he felt his heart soar. He was here. He continuously knocked on the door, his heartbeat growing faster and faster as he heard your footsteps grow louder.
And there you were. Clad in a stolen shirt of his from high school, shorts, and a pair of fuzzy socks, you were as beautiful as he had left you.
You jumped into his arms, him dropping the box of letters to catch you and latch his arms around you. You disregarded all your feelings and tears you released for the past few days, all the anger and stress were being relieved being in his arms, you buried your face into his shoulder as he lifted you off the ground. Your best friend was home.
“I love you.”
Your eyes widened, tears resurfacing once more. Did you hear that right? Wonwoo held you close to him as he whispered in your ear.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to realize.”
You leaned back to see his reddened face illuminated by the street lampposts and let out a happy laugh as tears ran down your face.
“You came all this way just to tell me that?”
You giggled out as he softly kissed your forehead, a soft blush rising up your neck.
“No matter the distance, I’ll always run to you if it means I can tell you that I love you.”
A bright smile appeared on your face before burying it in his chest and interlocking fingers with his.
And suddenly, Wonwoo’s hands didn’t feel cold anymore.
~
Turns out, that petal you sent to him was from the festival that you realized that you were in love with your best friend. Wonwoo teased you, laying on your bed that Monday morning. You explained that if he didn’t hold the same feelings as you did then you would rather let go of the petal than to hold onto it.
Wonwoo looked at you with sincere eyes, interlacing his cold hands with yours to get you to look at him. He sat up and pulled you up with him, him placing a soft kiss on your lips as you got up. The two of you smiled at each other, sharing another kiss.
His and your box of letters sitting next to each other on your desk, Wonwoo never felt warmer with you here.
~
Then I can find you, who cares if it’s a bit far?
I’ll follow the line that connects us two
When you said you engraved my name in your heart
Remember why my eyes grew so big
Right now, you and I, we both need the same thing
But I don’t have it so let’s meet again later
Please be well until I get there
I’m going to run to you
